by Bobby Akart
Tommy explained, “We consider birds an indicator species. Let’s also look at salmon. The EPA studies the health of salmon to make an overall assessment of the stability of the greater Pacific Rim, which has been affected by deforestation, creation of dams, and groundwater pollution.
“Amphibians are a good indicator species because they live in two environments—land and water. They have thin skin, enabling them to breathe through it, but it also makes them susceptible to absorbing toxic chemicals, radiation, and other diseases. You show me a bunch of chirping frogs, and I’ll tell you the ecosystem where they reside is healthy.”
“And what about the birds?” asked Kristi as she paused to watch the South American parrots race around the aviary.
“Well, if the bird population remains stable, like amphibians, we consider the ecosystem to be stable. However, drastic changes in their environment seem to impact their numbers quickly.”
“Large die-offs?” asked Kristi. Earlier, she and Tommy had scoured the internet for occurrences of flocks of birds suddenly falling from the sky. They both agreed that happened all too often under normal circumstances, but they were astonished to find the instances had quadrupled in the last year.
“Die-offs and population surges. You couple that with the extraordinary problem-solving abilities that the chimps displayed during their escape, plus the inordinate amount of animal-on-human attacks, and you’ve got the makings of an environmental disaster within the animal kingdom.”
Kristi sighed and then pulled her cell phone out of her lab coat pocket. She scrolled through the apps until she reached her photos and videos. “I need to show you something, but this has to be kept between us. Okay?”
Tommy laughed. “Maybe. If you’re about to show how you chopped that reporter who showed up at your house this morning into little pieces, I don’t need to see, nor do I care. If, however, you’d like to show me, you know—”
He never finished his sentence as Kristi gently slapped the side of his head with the phone. “You wish! No, this is serious. Watch.”
Kristi started the video. They stopped and stood off to the side of the trail to allow a maintenance vehicle to pass.
“It’s in fast motion,” he commented.
“Yes, give it some time.”
“Okay, it slowed down. Obviously, it’s Knight in his cage, periodically lifting his head and opening one eye. Wait, you just walked past the camera. Hey, that’s from yesterday. I brought you the newspaper article, and then we left. Why were you—? Whoa!”
Kristi paused the video. “Whoa is right. I have a Wyze wireless camera installed in my office to tape my interactions with Knight when I’m teaching him certain skills. I don’t usually turn it on, but I did after I locked him up yesterday. He seemed so agitated, and I wanted to keep an eye on him in light of what the other chimps managed to accomplish the other day.”
“If I remember, we thought he was sleeping after he apologized. Am I right?”
“Yes. In fact, you and I were talking about him during this. Did you notice how he kept lifting his head up slightly, and then his left eye quickly opened and closed?”
“He was eavesdropping.”
“Yes, he was. Okay, hit play again.”
Tommy took the phone and pressed play. He could see the interior of the room get brighter suddenly and then darker again.
“That’s when we opened the door to leave, letting in the natural sunlight,” said Kristi. “Now watch.”
Within seconds, Knight was up and pacing the cage. Then he sat next to the cage door and began to manipulate the door latch until he managed to open it from the inside.
Tommy paused the video again. “Whoa again! He was calculating, biding his time until we left. He was exhibiting acts of cunning and deception.”
Kristi nodded. She pointed at the phone again. “Hit play.”
Tommy did and watched as Knight exited the cage and began to wander around her office. He made his way to the door and turned the knob, allowing a small opening so he could peer outside. His head looked up and down, and then he gently closed the door. After another moment, he returned to his cage and reattached the latch.
“Kristi, this is incredible. He’s planning to escape. Just like the others. He’s studied your movements, processed his options, and determined that leaving during the daytime wasn’t safe. He was going to—wait. He was still there this morning.”
“Not for lack of trying, however,” she explained. “When I returned to the office alone yesterday afternoon, I played the video, but I turned my monitor so he couldn’t see what I was doing. I reached the same conclusion that you did. So when I left, I locked the double dead bolt so he couldn’t open the door. As soon as dusk set in, he exited his cage and tried to leave. He grew frustrated, threw one helluva temper tantrum, and then returned to his cage. I suspect he’ll try again tonight.”
“He was playing possum. How did he learn that?”
“It might be innate,” replied Kristi. “Think about a chimp’s DNA. They’ve been around leaf litter frogs, fire-bellied toads, and even hognose snakes that are native to Madagascar.”
Tommy nodded. “He draws deep into his inherited memory to trick us into thinking he’s sleeping.”
“Yes.”
“And he listens to our conversation. Not signing, mind you. But listening, and absorbing, and taking action as a result.”
“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “Then he grows angry at his inability to escape. Escape to where? This is the only home he’s ever known. Sure, some of the chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys came to us from the wild. Certainly, all of the gorillas were rescued from African jungles.”
“He wants to experience what they experienced—freedom. Trust me, Kristi, these chimps can communicate with one another in ways we may never be able to understand. He’s angry, and in the absence of some other external stimuli that has brought this out of him, I’m prepared to blame something within the environment. Maybe, just maybe, the change in the magnetic field has altered the brain waves of the primates.”
“It’s certainly advanced their cognitive abilities considerably,” surmised Kristi.
Tommy gestured for her to walk ahead as they entered the primate habitat to a welcoming committee of chimps sitting in perfect rows underneath the tree that held the tire swing. Their faces were emotionless. Their eyes were piercing. They looked like a jury prepared to render a guilty verdict.
“Maybe not necessarily for the better,” whispered Tommy, pointing to the jury of their new peers.
Chapter 55
Brookfield Zoo
Chicago, Illinois
“I am exhausted,” said Kristi as she and Tommy trudged up the slight hill that led to her office. “Did we really work right through lunch?”
“Indeed, we did,” he replied. He wiped the sweat off his brow by raising his arms and burying his face in his shoulders. He was carrying a file box full of records from the veterinarian’s laboratory. After the chimps were recovered, they all had to be retested for infectious diseases. She also ordered their blood pressure to be monitored to determine if they were suffering from ongoing generalized anxiety disorder.
“They got pissed when we ate one of their bananas,” added Kristi. “In the past, we’ve made a playful game out of it. Not today.”
When they reached the office door, Tommy dropped the file box outside the door with a loud thud. “I’ll sleep good tonight,” he quipped.
Kristi was breathing hard when she turned the key in the bolt lock to her office door. The bolt made a loud clicking sound, and she reached for the door handle when she suddenly stopped. Still holding the doorknob, she leaned into the doorjamb and pressed her ear to the door.
“A hissing sound,” she whispered. “Weird.” She shrugged and was about to turn the knob when Tommy stopped her by grabbing her wrist.
“Let me go first.”
“I’m sure it’s noth—”
He was forceful, insistent. “Krist
i, please.”
Tommy’s muscular arms tensed as he slowly opened the door. It was dark inside her office except for the ambient light that came in through the two small windows and the slightly ajar door. It was late in the afternoon and the entryway faced east, so the light was minimal.
Tommy pushed the door open slowly and then the hissing sound turned into an uproar. Knight was out of his cage and he was enraged.
He knuckle-walked toward the office door, hissing. Then he broke out into an animated dance, waving his arms over his head and screaming.
“Heeeaaagh, heeeaaagh, heeeaaagh. Woot-woot! Oo-oo-oo-oo. Heeeaaagh!”
His antics distracted Tommy, so he was slow to react when Knight leapt toward him. The crown of the chimpanzee’s head struck Tommy in the sternum, temporarily forcing air out of his lungs.
Tommy fell backward in a heap as Knight began to jump up and down on all fours.
“Knight! Stop it! In your cage, now!”
The chimp ignored her order. He pounced on Tommy’s chest and jumped up and down before doing a backward flip back into the room. Tommy was heaving, trying to process what happened as Kristi flipped on the lights and confronted Knight.
She signed to her chimp, Back in the cage. Now!
He was quick to respond, jutting his jaw out as he signed, No. No cage for Knight.
Kristi glanced around her office. It was destroyed. The computer had been thrown across the floor. The wall-mounted television monitor had been pulled down and was now dangling from its coaxial cable. Her desk drawers had been pulled out and the contents had been strewn about.
And the room stank. Knight had defecated everywhere and then proceeded to throw it against the ceiling, the walls, and anyplace else it might stick. It wasn’t unusual for chimps that have been removed from the wild and then kept in captivity to experience stress and agitation, causing them to react by throwing things, including their feces. However, Knight had never been a wild chimpanzee.
Until now.
Tommy recovered and stood next to Kristi as they studied Knight, who was standing on top of his cage with an air of defiance. “This is a disaster.”
“In more ways than one,” she whispered. “He attacked you. I can’t look the other way.”
“Kristi, maybe he thought I was an intruder. It was dark and I did open the door slowly like a burglar might.”
“Nice try. Tommy, he destroyed my office before we returned. He was loaded for bear, waiting for us to open that door. He wanted to take his anger out on someone, anyone, who came in here. Thank god you were with me.”
Kristi signed to Knight, Does your head hurt?
He slapped himself around the head, but he didn’t respond through sign language. Instead he let out a screeching, ear-piercing unearthly sound that hit Kristi’s ears.
EE-EEEE-EE! HOOT! EE-EEEEE!
Without warning, he crouched and leapt over Kristi’s head, his lanky arms and legs outstretched like a flying squirrel. His target was Tommy once again. Instinctively, Tommy adopted a boxer’s blocking stance. He bent over at the waist and covered his head with his forearms and his chest by tucking in his elbows.
Knight crashed into Tommy with his chest leading the way. He was attacking his adversary more like a gorilla than a chimp.
“Knight!” screamed Kristi as she spun to pivot.
Tommy landed hard on his back, but managed to curl into a ball to protect the most vulnerable parts of his body. He rolled to his side and braced for an onslaught of pounding fists and kicks. But they never materialized.
Knight bounded past Kristi’s bodyguard and never looked back. He bare-knuckled across the pavement, quickly crawled up a chain-link fence, and disappeared into a wooded area.
Kristi ran to Tommy’s side and dropped to her knees. Tears were flowing down her cheeks, both out of concern for Tommy and the loss of a friend—Knight.
“Are you okay?”
Tommy sat up and rested his arms on his knees. He rolled his neck on his shoulders. Then he let out a short laugh. “I played football once upon a time when I was in high school. I was a linebacker and used to take pride in knocking the holy crap out of running backs and quarterbacks. Let’s just say that payback’s a bitch.”
Kristi fell backwards against the open door and began to sob. The emotions of the last several days culminated to put her on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The ruckus drew the attention of other zoologists who worked in offices down the path. They shouted and began to jog up the sidewalk to see what the commotion was about.
“I have to tell them to alert the police and animal control,” she said to Tommy.
Tommy looked at the approaching members of the zoo’s staff. “No, not yet. Quick, get inside.”
He helped Kristi to her feet and got her inside the door. He closed it behind her and waited for the arrival of concerned colleagues. Kristi could hear his muffled explanation through the door. She leaned against the wall and wiped the tears off her cheeks.
“Is everything okay?”
“Where’s Kristi?”
“We thought we heard a chimp raise his voice.”
Tommy was being bombarded with questions, but he deflected them all. Eventually, after being satisfied, her colleagues left so he could reenter the office with the box of lab results. He locked the door and fell into one of her office chairs.
“Why did you protect him?” she asked.
Tommy reached out to her and she came to his side. He took her hand and smiled. “I did it to protect you. You and I both know that Knight should have been taken back to the primate habitat after what happened with the other chimps. After our observations here in the office, we certainly should have moved him into a more secure space. Kristi, I don’t want you to get fired.”
Kristi reached and touched the bright red welt on his right cheek. At some point during the tussle with Knight, Tommy got smacked pretty good.
“You really are a sweet guy.”
“Aw, shucks, ma’am.” Tommy tried to make a joke, but his blushing face revealed to Kristi how much he enjoyed the attention, and her touch.
She bent over and kissed him on the cheek.
“I’ll have to report that as sexual harassment,” he joked.
Kristi set her jaw and whacked him on the side of his head with her right hand. “There! Report that!”
Then she laughed. A good, hearty from deep-inside-the-soul kinda laugh that she hadn’t had since, well, before she got married.
It felt good.
Chapter 56
Isabella’s Loft
Paris, France
Isabella dismissed her research assistants and then debated with Chapman as to whether she should consult with her colleagues about what they’d learned. Chapman expressed his concerns about the timing of the geostorm. He needed to get back to the U.S. and, more precisely, the farm. She’d arranged for an Uber driver to pick them up at the university, and they were back inside her flat within an hour.
“I need to call my parents in Marigot,” said Isabella before she closed the door behind her. Marigot was the capital of Saint Martin, a French colony occupying the northern half of an island shared with the Netherlands. “We’ve had a place on the island to vacation until my parents retired there years ago. They sold their condominium and purchased a small house.”
“I need to call my parents as well, and probably my sister,” said Chapman. He dialed his father’s cell phone. He placed his phone between his shoulder and left ear while he gathered his things and crammed them into his suitcase, which they’d retrieved from his hotel room.
Isabella paced back and forth in her kitchen-dining area, speaking rapidly in French. Chapman was at the far end of the loft, leaving a lengthy voicemail for his dad.
While she continued to converse with her family in what appeared to be an argumentative manner, Chapman scrolled through his phone contacts list and attempted to connect with Kristi. She also didn’t answer, so he left her a similar, lengthy voicemail,
although the message was different from the one he left for his parents. He didn’t pussyfoot around with Kristi. The message was clear. Get home to the farm!
After getting Levi’s voicemail, he tried his home, thinking he’d surely catch Carly or even one of the kids. None of them answered.
“Doesn’t anybody answer their damn phone anymore!” he exclaimed in frustration, causing Isabella to pause her conversation with her parents. Chapman waved and shook his head to indicate it was nothing.
However, he immediately became concerned that something might have happened to the power grid in the Midwest. The zoo was about three hundred fifty miles from the farm, and if the solar flare arrived early, it might have struck Illinois and Indiana.
He opened his news app and scanned the headlines. Nothing was being reported on the geostorm, much less the reversal of the magnetic field or unusual weather and animal activity. It was like any other news day—consumed by politics and scandals.
“So frustrating!” Isabella lamented as she walked to the center of the loft to meet Chapman. “My parents think I am overreacting. They told me the government will issue the appropriate warnings. They invited me to come spend a few days on the island because I was clearly working too hard. Grrrr!”
Chapman laughed. Even when she was angry and frustrated, Isabella was the most adorable woman he’d ever met. He gave her a big hug and kissed her on the cheek. “They’ll be fine in St. Martin. I’ve been on the Dutch side, covering the devastation from Hurricane Irma ten years ago. I was impressed at how the two nations and their people came together to help one another. You don’t always find that after a natural disaster.”
“What about your family?” she asked.
“Nobody answered their phones.”
“Are they okay? Did the solar storm hit already?”
