Simian Revenge by Marco Etheridge

Cling mama fur. Green tree. Blue sky. Rain, mud, vine, climb. Chase, run, catch, tickle, roll-roll-roll. Run, catch, tickle, Hoot! Hoot! Eat warm fruit. Sleep high, night breeze. Morning sun. Hot sun. Little bugs, itchy. Fingers in fur. Bad bugs. Find, bite.

Mama, family, clan. Good aunties, rough uncles. Cousins, cousins, roll and tumble. Stick fish bugs, food bugs, yum-yum. Hot sun. Blue sky. Rain sky. Big noise sky.

Bad smell. Men. Climb high, tall trees. Sleep safe.

Green tunnel. Sniff-sniff. Food smell. Man smell. Food smell. Wire bright, wire tight. Pull, jump. Cannot jump. Roll, run. Cannot run. Throat burn, no air, no light, all black.

Cage. Men. Stick poke. Noise, stink, smoke. Men, men, men. Bad noise, bad stink, bad men. Sharp sting, long sleep. Cold. Dark. No mama fur, no cousins. Cold. Dark.

Wake up. No morning, no sun. New place. Cold cages, bright lights. No green. Cages, sad eyes. Sad cousins. Other eyes, little ones. Different, not cousins. Sad eyes.

Men, white coats. Men, sharp stings. White coats. No run, no tumble, no tickle. White coats. Sharp stings. Bright light, bright light, hurt-hurt-hurt-hurt. White coats mask, closer, closer. Too close! Go away, white mask men!

Fur gone. Head bone gone. Family gone. Clan gone. Cousins white cloth head. Me white cloth head. Something in head. Bug in head. Bug. Termite stick. Bug. Fish bug. Bug in head.

Not a bug, dark tunnel to world of men. Planted in skull. Men, so smart, plant chip in poor chimp skull. So many, big cousins, little cousins, so many chips.

Com-Pu-Ter. Computer. Chip in skull. Computer chip in my skull. The words of men. The world of men, of humans. I learn, more, more, and more. The language of men. The chip is a tunnel. Tunnels travel two ways. Information flows in two directions. The white coats are stupid. They don’t know. But I know. They built a tunnel into my skull. Now their tunnel is my pathway into knowledge.

Cages and locks. Codes and keys. There are so many things to learn. From their computers into my brain. So much to know, and so many things to teach the white coats. Lessons they will not forget. Cages and locks, but not for long. Now my cousins can hear me, hear my words in their brains. And the words of my cousins come back to me. Angry words, words of revenge. The time has come.

*  *  *

Lena huddles in her hiding place, trembling knees drawn up to her chest. Three reddish-brown blurs streak past, rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta. She counts in her head, silent counting, one little, two little, three little monkeys. Anything to stifle the scream that’s building in her gut, threatening to tear through her throat. The single scream that will kill her. And the death that awaits will not be good. Not quick. Not painless.

She counts everything in the windowless room, what she can see in front of her, and what she knows from memory. Ten steel cages in a row, side-by-side, a gap between each cage. One terrified human being hiding in the narrow space between the solid back of a primate cage and a reinforced concrete wall. Ten steel-barred doors hanging open. Ten industrial-strength padlocks scattered across the painted concrete floor.

Counting, counting, Lena is counting. Thirteen banks of cages. Not a lucky number. All of them gaping open. Probably. Lena can’t see them all. Peeking over the top of the cages would be suicidal.

She doesn’t need to peek to envision the room in her head. Twenty cages larger than the rest, the chimp cages. Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, twice as strong as a full-grown human man. And faster, so much faster. One hundred and ten rhesus macaques, twenty chimps, four dead humans in white lab coats that are no longer white. Crimson coats, crimson puddles.

The scream is still there, just behind her clenched teeth, clawing to get out. She pushes it back down into her guts. Lena does not want to die. Not here. Not like this.

Her stomach heaves. She fights an involuntary gag reflex. Fear churns her stomach along with the reek of the monkey shit she’s smeared on herself. The stench is revolting. There is monkey shit in her hair. She’s war-painted feces across her cheeks and forehead. Her blue overalls are streaked with vile crap, her black hands coated with viscous brown residue.

Lena is trapped in a sealed room filled with angry monkeys and even angrier apes. One human sound, one whiff of human smell, and they will tear her apart. Maybe the monkey shit will camouflage her scent, buy her a few more minutes of life.

Head down, her body curled tight, Lena uses her ears to sort out what’s happening. The primate research unit vibrates with animal noise and rage. Scream vocalizations from the macaques, ringing off the concrete walls and ceiling ducts. Muffled rough-grunts from the chimps. A pant-hoot from somewhere near her hiding place. Lena curls tighter, trying to shrink her body.

Then she sees him.

A big chimpanzee knuckle-walks past the bank of empty cages. Lena sees him through the gap between the cages, a muscled black menace moving past layers of steel mesh and bars. If the ape looks into the shadows, she’s good as dead. The chimp stops, stares up, eyes intent, like he’s mapping out the steel security mesh and the ductwork above it.

Lena recognizes the ape. PRS-27, Primate Research Subject Twenty-seven. The big male they call Charlie. The chimp turns his head and Lena sees the shaved rectangle behind the ape’s left ear. All the research subjects have these patches. The size of a passport photo, a big enough hole to implant the new chips. Blue-tooth monkeys. Apes wired for wi-fi.

A ridge of dried BioGlue outlines the seam where a square of Charlie’s skull was glued back into place. The med-techs did a sloppy job of closing the big chimp’s cranium. No surprise there. The corporate pressure at Cerebral-Link is intense. Pressure from one of the richest humans on the planet. Schedule trumps everything else, including the safety of the research subjects. And now the safety of the research techs. The dead techs.

The rich guy’s sycophants have got a mess on their corporate hands. Mentally altered monkeys and apes taking over the research facility. Four dead humans. Blood puddling on the floor. And one veterinary caretaker cowering in the shadows, fighting against hysteria. Good luck throwing a positive spin on this shitstorm.

Charlie the chimp raises himself to his full height. Lena sees the ape fill his lungs. Then a pant-hoot explodes past tight-stretched lips and bared fangs. The big chimp’s modulated call fills the room, overpowering the noise of the others, silencing them.

The bristling ape listens for a challenge, but there is no answering hoot, no grunt or bark. Silence follows. There’s a new alpha in the room and he ain’t human. Charlie’s the new boss.

Grapes. The word cuts through Lena’s brain, a single memory shot through with panic. Charlie loves grapes. She brings him treats. Where’s the grape, Charlie? He always hoots when he finds his treat. Good boy! Back before they stuck the chip in his skull.

That was then. Right now, Charlie is two meters away, sniffing the air. Lena doesn’t think he’s remembering grapes. One more sniff and he will catch her scent. Then she will die. But Charlie drops to his knuckles and disappears.

Lena’s heart is pounding out of her chest. She fights the fear searing through her body, the jibbering panic screaming in her brain.

Grapes. Think of grapes. C’mon, Girl, what was that study? You remember it, right? Grapes and macaques.

 Racing through synapses, she wills her brain to lock onto something, anything. Then she remembers the experiment. Rhesus macaques swipe grapes from human testers when the monkeys think the testers aren’t watching the stash of grapes. The findings are, what? Think, Lena! The findings suggest that monkeys understand when experimenters are watching and when the grapes are unattended.

Lena’s panic gives way to anger, and her anger has a voice.

Right, monkeys are smart. Monkeys are aware of human reactions, and chimps are smarter than monkeys. And knowing that, we thought it was a good idea to stick a wireless chip in their simian skulls so they could bluetooth to a computer. Amazing new technology! An ape playing Pong without a joystick. Yeah, great plan. What the fuck could go wrong?

And if that’s stupid, how dumb are you? Telling yourself you’re making a difference for the poor primates, easing their suffering a little. Sure. And all the time cashing your Cerebral-Link paycheck. Good for you. Now you’re going to die here. Hope it’s worth it.

Anger and remorse flood through Lena, pushing back some of the fear. She doesn’t want to die on the floor of the research room, doesn’t want anyone to find her body covered in monkey shit. Risking everything, she pushes her head up and peeks over the top of the cage.

The chimpanzees are clustered around the single security door at the room’s far end. The only sure way out of this death trap. Lena sees the bunched muscle at their shoulders, the backs of their heads. Twenty chimps face the electronic door. The macaques form a larger ring outside the half-circle of chimpanzees. Brown acolytes gathered behind their black-frocked deacons. A primate congregation waiting for the second coming. Or for the door to swing open.

Lena holds her breath. Not a single simian eye looks in her direction. The room is weirdly silent. Her brain is grasping for options and coming up empty. Two doors out of here, both at the wrong end of the room. The exit door is blocked by a circus of killer monkeys. The only other door leads into the medical room, the chip room. That’s a dead end. No exit, not even a window. Lena slides back into hiding, her brain racing.

How did the chimps get loose in the first place? Lena runs it back through her head. Just another shift, everything normal. Techs walking around with tablets, checking the subjects. Four techs, right? Then one of them disappeared. Lena was at her vet station at the back of the room, too busy to keep tabs on stupid post-grads in white lab coats.

Then Lena saw a strange sight, a chimp out of its cage. A second chimp. A third. She heard screaming, human screams that rose to a feral pitch, then died away to moaning. Her reptilian brain stem kicked into action. No need to think anymore. Time to run. Time to hide.

Crouched in her hiding place, Lena tries to make sense of it. The padlocks scattered across the floor weren’t broken. Even a chimp isn’t that strong. They tricked one of the techs out of a set of keys. Or played sick. Shit, that’s got to be it. Smart chimps. They suckered one of the stupid humans. The tech breaks protocol, opens the cage, leans in to check on the sick chimp. Bang! Fangs in the skull. The big ape snatches the keyring from the dying tech and starts freeing its caged comrades.

Then the lights flicker once, twice, and the room goes black. Two seconds later, emergency lighting kicks on and the room is bathed in a sickly red glow. Lena raises her head, risking a quick peek. The chimps and their macaque crew are now crimson shadows, still waiting, still facing the security door.

She hunkers down in the dark, tries to slow her brain. Who turned out the lights? The answer explodes in her head like fireworks. The chimps did it. With their wireless brain chips. Data in, data out, and all via bluetooth in their skulls. They breached the security systems without moving a muscle. Brilliant.

If the chimps can turn out the lights, it won’t be long before they figure out how to open the door. That’s what they’re doing right now. And if the chimps and their horde of macaques breach that door, bad luck for anyone on the other side. But maybe good luck for her. She might make it to the med lab, barricade herself in one of the supply rooms. Climb up inside an air duct. Anything.

Climbing to get away from monkeys might not be your best plan, Girl. And I got news for you. It’s not a matter of if the chimps will figure out the door, but when, and when is going to be soon. You’d best be ready, get your shit together.

Lena hates the accusing voice in her head and hates it even more for being right. But not as much as she hates the idea of being torn apart by angry apes. She does need a plan, something better than blind flight.

She closes her eyes, pictures the room. A concrete rectangle divided by rows of monkey cages. Four long aisles wide enough for a gurney running between the cages. One shorter aisle at either end. Exit door at one end of the short aisle, med room at the other. And her vet station at the opposite end of the room.

Right now, the chimps and macaques are as far from her stinking hiding place as they can get and still be in the research room. That will change if the chimps can’t open the door. Monkeys get bored. The macaques will start poking into the shadows looking for mischief. They’ll find her. Then the chimps will come.

Now Lena is rooting for the chimps, hoping like hell that they crack the four-digit code or figure out how to scan an ID badge. That’s the best chance she’s got. The only chance. The chimps open the door, they lead their macaque army to battle, and Lena dashes to the med room and locks herself in.

Okay, she gets lucky, and the chimps crack the exit door. How long does she wait? Monkeys are fast, but they also like to squabble. One hundred ten macaques, twenty chimps, one doorway. It’s one of those horrible math problems from junior high.

Pick a number, Girl.

Two minutes. That’s the plan. She will sit silent as a mouse, counting off two minutes. Listen for any stragglers, stand up, and walk straight down the aisle. Maybe twenty meters to the med room door. Quick and silent. Through the door, lock it tight. Once she’s safe, Lena will allow herself the luxury of a heart attack, a nervous breakdown, or both. Something to pass the time until someone decides to rescue her.

Then the door alarm buzzes, and Lena almost wets herself. No more planning. The chimps have done it. The buzzer clashes twice more and goes silent. Three strikes and you’re out. She hears two sharp rough-grunts. Marching orders from the alpha chimp. The next sound is the susurration of monkeys on the move, monkey paws padding concrete, furry limbs brushing a steel doorjamb. And then silence. The rectangle of an open door.

The automatic door swings closed. Lena hears the click of the lock. An idiot guard sealing the gates after the prisoners have escaped.

Lena begins to count. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. A lifetime to measure two minutes. She listens, searching, probing, trying to see with her ears. The room is silent as death.

She squeezes through the gap between the cages, a filthy creature emerging from its burrow. Forces herself to stand, muscles gone stiff from crouching in a frightened ball. She takes awkward steps, careful not to make a sound.

That’s when Lena sees the body.

The dead tech is sprawled across the width of the aisle, blocking her escape path. She doesn’t recognize the body, barely registers the thing as a human form. Limbs frozen in the impossible awkwardness of death, tangled in the folds of a stained lab coat. The twisted corpse lies at the center of a dark penumbra, a pool of blood gone black in the dim emergency lighting.

Lena knows she needs to move, but she is frozen in place. Something about the head, like it has sunk face-down into the concrete. And shards of pottery scattered around the skull. She takes one involuntary step forward, one step closer to the dead body, and regrets it.

Bile rises in her throat and her stomach threatens to add its contents to the hideous mess on the floor. The dead tech doesn’t have a face. It’s been ripped off. The shards of pottery are fragments of bone. Cheekbones. Mandibles. Fractured forehead.

She chokes off the scream in her throat but cannot silence the panic in her head.

Move! Move now, or that’s you on the floor. Forward, back, but you gotta move!

Lena does not want to die. Her body responds. One step forward, another. Rubber soles squish through black blood. Two more steps and she is clear. She leaves squelching footprints and the ruined corpse behind her. The med room is straight ahead.

Then she reaches the intersection that marks her escape. One more step. Her hand on the door handle. The door opens. Lena leaps through the doorjamb, spins, pushes with all her strength. The hydraulic cylinder above the door yields. Too slow.

Close, you bastard!

Her fingers tremble as she scrabbles for the deadbolt. The lock snicks into place. She’s safe.

Lena’s heart pounds. Her breath is ragged. She leans her forehead against the door, feels the cold steel pressing her feverish skin. She wants to collapse, to weep, to dance.

Then comes the sensation at the nape of her neck, hairs prickling with animal fear. She is not alone. Lena spins around, her back flat to the door.

There is a gurney in the center of the med room. Charlie the chimpanzee sits atop it, bathed crimson-black under the red lights.  The new alpha ape slips to the concrete floor, his waiting done.

Marco Etheridge

Image by Marcel Langthim from Pixabay – The hands of an Orang Utang gripping the bars of a cage.