I've been playing with this idea for a while and I had to write it out. Some of the later scenes are a little heavier, but there's nothing extremely graphic, mostly emotional. Animal traffickers can be dangerous and crafty professional criminals, and I wanted to play them as such.
"How's the tracking going with the gorillas, Chris?"
The crew had Chris on the big screen in the Tortuga, checking his progress on their latest mission for tracking a troop of the rare and endangered mountain gorillas. Martin had been out there several hours earlier with him, but had been called back by Aviva after she needed some testing done for the creature power disc she was working on.
A chance to become a gorilla? Martin was in. As much as he wanted to stay and observe them some more, he did lose the bet with Chris of who could find the gorillas first. And a finished creature power disc meant actually being with them in gorilla powers, so he couldn't complain about a few lost hours.
"I've only got five so far since Martin left," Chris said, holding up the remaining few tracking chips he had left. "I'm trying to get these ones tagged before nightfall, but for some reason I can't seem to find the rest of the gorillas. And I haven't even seen Fluff or his mom again to tag them, and their nest is empty!"
"That's strange," Martin frowned in thought. They had been out in the forest for several days now to observe them before tagging, and they had come across several of the gorillas. The rangers estimated the population of the troop in this section of the mountains to be about twenty, and so far they've only tracked thirteen. "Well the ones we've tagged so far are still on the radar, so that's good. Think it could be trouble?"
"With our usual villains? I haven't seen any signs of their ships," Chris said, looking up towards the sky. "Usually we would've heard them by now, but the forest has been quiet. Other than not finding the rest of the gorillas, nothing seems wrong." His voice had a hint of doubt in it, as if he was trying to convince himself.
"I haven't seen anything on radar, but I know Zach has cloaking technology on his ship," Koki reported. "And I'm showing Donita, Gourmand, and Paisley Paver are all in North America."
"We would already know if it was Zach stealing the gorillas," Jimmy added. "We would've heard him or seen the Zachbots by now."
"That's true, but still..." Martin exchanged a glance with the rest of the crew. This mission was big; they had been preparing for weeks to track this troop of endangered gorillas and send the research over to the national park they were currently working with. The small gorilla troop was supposed to have increased in population, so why did they seem to be suddenly disappearing?
But they couldn't have gone missing; they must have just not been able to find them all yet to tag them, right? The park was a heavily protected area, containing one of the most endangered species of animals on the planet. The crew themselves had to go through almost a month of processing in order to get access, so there was slim chance of anyone else being in the park other than them who could have caused them to go missing.
No, The gorillas were fine, and there was no sign of trouble in the area, Martin reassured himself. But he still had to be sure.
"Shouldn't be trouble, but we can scout out the area to make sure," Martin reasoned, deciding to stay on the cautious side just in case. "It could just be some of them wandered off to find some food or shelter."
"Koki and Jimmy can help me finish up the gorilla creature power disc. MK, maybe you should go back out there and help Chris," Aviva said. "If they've separated like you said, then we now have a wider area we need to search. It's gonna get dark in a few hours, and our goal was to have them all tagged by the end of the day."
"And I can still beat your tagging record dude!" Martin said with a smile, brightening up at the idea of getting back out there. "Where ya at so we can meet up?"
Chris rolled his eyes. "Yeah right, I'm four tags ahead of you now. I'm on the northern side of the park, following the silverback. I'll send you my coordinates."
"And I'll bring your creature power suit with me too," Martin said, stuffing the green vest and gloves into his bag. Chris grimaced as he watched it disappear.
"My creature power suit better come out as nice as it was before," Chris muttered.
"Yeah yeah, it will," Martin said, quickly putting his own vest and gloves on. "Aviva said the discs should be done in a couple hours too. Maybe gorilla creature powers can help us find these last few that need tagged!"
"Just remember we have a job to do, guys," Aviva said with a frown, her arms crossed. "We don't need a repeat of last time when you hung out with a bunch of reptiles after you got the creature power discs when we were supposed to study the ecosystem of the Sonoran Desert."
Martin gave the Hispanic a sheepish look as he let out a nervous laugh. That had been mostly his fault, although Chris didn't exactly help, either. "Don't worry, Aviva, I promise. Scouts honor," he said, holding up two fingers. "Find and finish tagging the rest of the gorillas first, then we can hang out with them in our creature power suits, got it." Martin turned back to face Chris on the video screen. "Ok bro, I'll be there soon, just don't tag any more without me."
The younger Kratt gave a wave before the video connection cut. While Martin knew in his mind the gorillas were most likely fine and just wanted some privacy, something in the back of his mind was telling him something wasn't quite right. Gorillas were very social creatures, and didn't just split up like that unless they had a good reason to.
Bidding goodbyes and promises to the crew he would check in with them this time, he grabbed his helmet and hopped on his buzz bike. The sooner he got to Chris' coordinates and made sure the troop of gorillas were safe, the better.
"What in the... Something's not right here..."
Martin stopped the buzz bike immediately when he saw the distinctive and careful set up of rope hidden amongst a cluster of trees, his expression darkening as he approached it to get a better look and realized exactly what it was. Two snare traps, simple in construction but just as deadly as any other. They were, unfortunately, more common than he liked to see in nature, and finding one in this area only angered him even more. Martin immediately took the traps down.
"This place is supposed to be protected, so how did someone get in to set these?"
Stowing the rope in his bag, he began to look around the area for more. While there were other creatures in the area, these traps were large, big enough to catch even the largest silverback. Martin pressed his lips together in worry as he thought about the missing gorillas and if they had been caught in other nearby traps, and the danger the remaining troop could be in. How many traps were even set? How long ago were these placed?
Several yards away was another trap, and Martin pulled that one down as well. They were strategically placed too well, hidden in spots that gorillas would take shelter in; someone had purposely set the traps specifically to catch these gorillas. If the elder Kratt had any doubts about them going missing before, his suspicions were now confirmed.
I gotta call Chris, he needs to know about this-
"Martin, come in!"
Koki's voice from his creature pod startled Martin, who was just about to grab it to make the call to Chris and hadn't even expected anyone to reach out to him. I only stopped for a second!
Fumbling with his creature pod in his pocket, he pulled it out to answer and was greeted with Koki's stressed face on screen. "I know, I know, I'm supposed to meet up with Chris and finish the tagging," Martin admitted, figuring it was better to confess now than to try and come up with an excuse. This was important, and he stopped for good reason. "But listen, I found-"
"You can check it out later," Koki said, cutting him off. "I just lost signal from Chris' creature pod."
Martin immediately stopped at Koki's words, his eyes going of him hoped Chris only accidentally broke his creature pod (he'd rather deal with an angry Aviva than the worst case scenario any day), but he knew in the back of his head that Chris was careful in taking care of his stuff, especially his gear, and he wouldn't just let it break like that. It was too coincidental now after what he found, and Martin started to get worried. This wasn't looking good at all.
"I tried to reach him but I couldn't even get the call to go through. I'm doing a reset on the monitors and GPS systems just in case, but so far it's not looking good," Koki continued. "And right after that we lost signal on tag number seven. Something funny's going on here, and I don't like it."
Tag seven. A curious young gorilla Martin had named Fizz who liked to play with his jacket zipper. Aw man, not him too!
Martin mentally hit himself over the head. Chris had mentioned not being able to find the remaining ones this morning, and then again just a little while ago. But all Martin had done was give some half thought explanation. Oh, how stupid could he be?
"I found a bunch of animal traps over here too. Snares," Martin said, holding up the ropes of the traps he had taken down. "Someone's doing this on purpose to trap these gorillas, I just know it. We have to stop them."
"Well whoever is doing it knows enough to take off or deactivate our tags. Aviva programmed them to be nearly undetectable," Koki said, her lips thin with worry. "Jimmy already sent out the flycam so we can keep an eye on you, just in case. If Chris did get caught up with these trappers, then it could be dangerous."
Martin's stomach twisted as he listened to Koki, now wishing he had made Chris go back to the Tortuga instead of making a stupid bet. Or even better, stayed with his brother and the gorillas. Then maybe all of this might not have even happened.
"I'm only a few miles away from the coordinates Chris gave me. I'll head over and go from there," Martin said, quickly looking around for any more traps before climbing back on the buzz bike. "Link up the shared connection for the creature pods in case Chris tries to call the Tortuga."
"You got it. We'll keep you monitored and posted if anything happens. And be careful out there, Martin. We don't know what we could be dealing with yet. Give us a call if something comes up, Jimmy's got the Tortuga on stand by if you need us."
After ending the call, Martin pushed the buzz bike to full speed and continued towards Chris' last coordinates.
First the gorillas, now Chris...
Chris frowned as he compared the map he created of the places they first met each gorilla so far to the radar coordinates of the tags Koki had sent him. Thirteen dots blinked fairly close together on his creature pod, but they weren't matching up with what was on his own map.
"Two days ago we counted seventeen," Chris said to himself, tracing a finger over the dot he placed where they originally met Fluff and his mom. "The rest of the troop has been following the silverback, so where could the other four go?"
Hoisting himself up several branches of a tree for a better look, Chris pulled out his binoculars and looked across the dense forest. The thirteen gorillas were spaced out across the forest floor, grooming each other and foraging for food, all typical gorilla behavior.
"All of them seem to be acting normal," he said, marking off each corresponding dot on the map with the ones he counted.
Martin said it could have been a few gorillas that were looking for food, but Chris felt unsure about the whole situation. A group of adults leaving to scout the area for the rest of the troop, he could understand, but baby Fluff was missing too, along with another juvenile. The young usually stayed closed to the troop, and there were no known predators in the area either, so something unusual had to be happening.
"Huh? Wait a second..." Adjusting the binoculars, Chris focused in on the lead silverback, who was pacing and looking around. "That's weird, he must think something's up too. But what's upsetting him?"
Could he be worried about the missing gorillas too? Chris wished Martin would hurry up and get here already. The elder was always better at being able to get close and 'join in with the herd' with the creatures, so to speak. If Martin was able to do that, then they could get a better understanding of where they were disappearing to and why.
"Hey there!"
Startled from the unexpected and unfamiliar voice calling from below, Chris scrambled to keep from accidentally dropping the binoculars. Looking down towards the source of the voice, he spotted a man he did not recognize in a park ranger uniform, waving at him. Chris dropped down from the tree and approached him.
"Hector Novak, I'm one of the ranger officers here at the park," the man started, holding out his hand as a greeting. His voice held a slight accent, different from the local one the other rangers had. "I've seen you around, but I don't believe we've officially met, mister...?"
"Chris Kratt, research biologist," he introduced, meeting the hand with his own for a shake. "We've been working on tagging this troop of mountain gorillas to better understand how they live."
"Yes, I heard the park was investing more effort into the gorilla population," Hector praised. "Thanks to your research, we'll be able to improve our conservation program. Right now these gorillas are one of the most critically endangered animals on the planet, and we hope to use this research to increase their numbers."
Chris almost winced at hearing that; now was as good a time as any to break the news.
"Mr. Novak, I've been mapping out these gorillas for the past few days, and I think some of them might have gone missing," Chris explained, handing over the two maps to the ranger. "Yesterday I counted seventeen, but today I can only find thirteen of them. I originally thought they've might've joined their own troop, but I don't think that's right."
Hector looked between the two maps, his expression unreadable. "So you're saying four are missing?" he asked as his finger traced over the dots Chris had colored differently. "Are these the ones?"
Looking over the map with him, Chris nodded. "Two juveniles, a mother, and an adult male just vanished overnight. I've looked everywhere, but I can't find them."
"Can you show me the rest of them?"
Chris turned to lead Hector to the gorilla troop when suddenly he felt something slip over his head and tighten against neck. The bag, or at least he assumed that's what it was, had a sickly sweet smell permeating from it that instantly made his head throb when he gasped in surprise.
"What the- let me go!"
Two pairs of strong hands grabbed him on each side as Chris began to fight against them, but they easily pinned his arms against his side and held him in place. Where's Martin? He should have been here by now. Chris continued to yell for his brother, for anyone, to hear him as did everything he could to fight back, although it was hard when he couldn't see anything.
"Stop fighting you little sh- Ow!"
Chris managed to cut off the man's words by kicking at the source of the noise, before who he assumed was Hector twisted his arm around and up behind his back, causing him to let out a yelp of pain. As soon as Chris was distracted, they wasted no time in tightly tying his wrists together.
I need to get away and call Martin and the Tortuga. I need to warn them! The smell was already making him feel lightheaded and weak. Chris held his breath, trying not to breathe in whatever the hood was soaked in as he continued with all of his strength to struggle to get away, but a swift knee to his stomach brought him to his knees as he reflexively gasped in pain.
One of the men pushed Chris to the ground, shoving his hand against his mouth and nose forcing him to breathe in the concentrated chemical in the cloth, while the other finished tying up his ankles, talking amongst themselves in a foreign language he couldn't understand. Chris continued to feebly fight them, but his strength was quickly sapped.
The last thing Chris felt before falling unconscious was being hoisted up and carried away.