Chapter 7
Galen paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. Virdon sat quietly at the table across from Ann, studying the stone floor. Exasperated, Galen turned to face his father, who sat calmly in his favorite chair. "Why didn't you tell us that Burke isn't in the main jail?"
"I didn't know. I have no idea where he's being kept. Only Urko and Zaius know."
Ann noticed the suspicious glare on her son's face. "It's not like you to doubt your father, Galen." The younger chimp turned and walked back to the fireplace, perching on the hearth. "If your father says he doesn't know, he doesn't know!" The disapproval in Ann's voice made Virdon wince in sympathy for his friend.
The human chewed thoughtfully on his lip for a moment before cautiously asking a question. "Does Urko have any other place that he keeps prisoners?"
"None that I know of," Yalu replied.
"But Urko knows." Alan's eyes widened as he turned to Galen for confirmation.
Galen had already jumped to his feet as he caught Alan's trail of thought. "And he keeps records!" A smile turned up the corners of his muzzle. "That's the place to look." The two friends turned toward the door, prepared to act on their latest idea.
Yalu's protest pulled them up short. "Son, I—" A deep breath, and he swallowed the idea he couldn't express. His eyes swiftly fled from his son's face. "You'll never get away with it."
"Still, we have to look in Urko's office."
As they hurried through the door, they heard Ann call to them, "Galen, Virdon, be careful." If Galen had turned, he would have seen the bright sheen of tears in his mother's eyes.
Pete lay in his bed, exhausted but unable to sleep. He lifted his head off the pillow just enough to glance at the clock on his nightstand. Three a.m. With an exasperated sigh, he let his face fall into the pillow, and tried to will himself to sleep.
After the confrontation at the pizza parlor, Rita and Pete had a long talk about everything that had transpired between him and Frank. His mother had been full of tears and self-recriminations for not recognizing sooner the abuse her son had received at the hands of her boyfriend. They had talked about the past, about the future, and exchanged vows never to keep any secrets from the other again. It was past midnight by the time Rita sent her clearly exhausted son to bed, thankful that the next day was Saturday. Pete had barely made it up to his room and stripped down to his boxers and t-shirt before falling onto the mattress in a boneless lump.
But sleep had not come easily. At some point, he must have dozed off, because his next awareness was of someone roughly pulling his arms behind his back. He tried to buck the weight from his back, but his assailant was too heavy. The only sound in the room was the staccato grunts of the struggle. Pete felt something being wound around his wrists, and from the ripping sound, he knew his hands were being bound with duct tape. His struggles increased when he sensed that whatever Frank had planned for him was going to be deadly serious.
He lifted his head to scream a warning to his mother, but before the sound escaped his throat, a piece of duct tape sealed his mouth. Pete's muffled screams continued as Frank lifted him from the bed and slung him over a shoulder, holding his bare legs in place with one arm. The big man descended the stairs with his burden and turned toward the kitchen. The door to the basement stood ajar, and a ghoulish light spilled out of the doorway onto the linoleum floor.
Frank's shoulder dug into Pete's already bruised ribs, leaving him gasping for breath when he was dumped on his back on the familiar cement floor. His eyes widened at the sight of Rita sitting a few feet away, her wrists bound behind her back, her mouth taped, her face a study in terror. Pete screamed against his makeshift gag, and lashed out with a foot at his captor. With preternatural calm, Frank plucked the offending limb from the air and began to dragged the struggling teen across the floor. He snatched a broom that leaned against the stairs, and began wrapping duct tape around the bare foot, securing it to the end of the broom handle. Once that foot was secured, Frank grabbed the other thrashing limb and secured it to the opposite end.
Pete continued to flop ineffectually as Frank returned his attention to Rita. His mother's ripped t-shirt had ridden up to expose her underwear. Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving dark trails of runny mascara. For the first time since Pete's ordeal began, he heard Frank speak.
"Now you and your brat are going to get what's coming to you, bitch."
When Wanda gave the order to pull Burke from the well, she knew she was finally making progress in the astronaut's reconditioning. Beneath dark bruises the human's skin was pale, and despite the chill that seeped from the rock walls, sweat glistening in a fine sheen on his face and torso. Once his feet cleared the edge of the chasm, Burke curled into a fetal position. As the gorilla guards worked loose the ropes binding his hands, Burke remained passive, his brown eyes wide but unfocused.
Waving the guards to step back, Wanda knelt next to Burke's trembling form. She wrinkled her nose at the odor, but forced herself to reach out and stroke the dark hair. At her touch, Pete scrabbled toward her, curling himself around her legs. The gorillas started forward, but Wanda held up a hand and they stayed back, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. She bent her head toward her captive, who whispered softly, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
Zaius lounged back against the bench and closed his eyes, relaxing as the steam filling the room worked its magic on his old and tired body. The warmth from the stone beneath him felt particularly delightful against his back and hips, which had begun to ache at the end of the day with the telltale signs of arthritis. 'I'm getting too old for this nonsense,' he thought with a wry smirk and shake of his furry head. He pulled the cotton sheet around his waist a little tighter, and let himself sink further against the stone, visualizing the strain of the day draining out of him like grain pouring from a sack that had been punctured.
His nirvana was shattered a moment later when the door was flung open, and Urko's shaggy form stomped into the sauna. "Ah, Urko, come in. Close the door, close the door," the orangutan admonished, sitting up with a start, "you're letting the steam out."
The gorilla's lips compressed in a sour expression, but he stopped, turned awkwardly, and pushed the door closed. He removed his bulky helmet and sat down at the end of the bench, as far from the raised bed of hot rocks in the center of the room as he could get. Zaius sighed with great force and pushed himself from the bench. He grabbed the dipper from the water bucket next to the rocks and poured a generous helping of liquid over the rocks. Steam bellowed in great clouds, replenishing what had escaped from the room with Urko's intrusion.
"I love the heat. It's the best thing for old bones," the older ape mused as he settled back on the bench.
Urko raised a cloth to wipe is sweat soaked face, and shifted uncomfortably in his heavy leather uniform. "I prefer exercise," he replied with an impatient tone. "You sent for me?"
Zaius' icy glare was lost on Urko. "We decided that you were to allow Wanda to perform the experiment in her own way—without interference." Although his tone was casual, anyone but Urko would have detected the menacing undercurrent of his words.
The gorilla was rapidly wilting in the heat, and was obviously anxious, for several reasons, to be done with Zaius and get back to his duties. "She's getting nowhere," he growled. "The prisoner is less responsive than he was at the beginning."
"I told you force does not work on these humans. In contradiction to my wishes—you attacked the prisoner!"
"I hate that human," Urko ground out between clenched teeth. His hand closed unconsciously into a fist, but remained at his side. "I told you before—this is a waste of time!"
"That is still to be proved!" Zaius asserted quickly. He breathed deeply and smoothed the hair on his chin with one hand. He knew that putting Urko on the defensive would only irk the insubordinate gorilla more. "In the meantime, Wanda is to proceed without further interruption."
"Yes, Zaius," Urko acquiesced grudgingly.
Zaius sat back and closed his eyes again. "Let us hope she succeeds." He reopened one eye to look meaningfully at his general. "But if not, you'll take over."
Urko nodded his agreement, glad that Zaius was finally seeing reason. "I'm going back to my office. I'll inform Dr. Malthus to make preparations for the brain operation." He stabbed a hairy finger in Zaius's direction. "That's how sure I am that Wanda will fail," he finished smugly.
The orangutan sighed again, and fervently hoped that Wanda did succeed so he wouldn't have to put up with Urko's gloating. "Suit yourself," he replied brusquely, and dismissed Urko with a wave of his hand.
The trip across the hub of Central City to Urko's headquarters took longer than Galen expected. With the streets being heavily patrolled by armed gorillas and few apes out after dark, an ape and human traveling together would definitely raise an alarm if they were seen. Galen glanced wistfully at Zaius's office and the Council chambers across the dusty street, and wondered briefly what his life would be like now if he had never had his "accident" with the truth.
The two fugitives carefully circled the building, then ducked beneath a window hidden from the street. Virdon raised his foot into Galen's laced fingers to get a boost through the window opening. As his head cleared the bottom of the opening, Virdon quickly surveyed the room to make sure it was unoccupied. He knew Urko could be in his office at any hour of the day or night, but hoped that the gorilla was otherwise engaged at the moment. He clamped down on that thought as he remembered what, or more precisely who, Urko might be otherwise engaged with.
He eased himself onto the floor below the window, careful that his landing didn't make any telltale noise that might have alerted the guards he knew Urko kept outside his office. Reaching through the window to grasp the furry hand of his companion, he helped haul Galen up into the window opening. The chimpanzee stepped onto Virdon's shoulders, then dropped to the floor, jarring a chair as he landed. Both figures froze, straining to hear if their entrance was detected. Once they were assured that the guards were not going to burst in, Virdon pulled the curtains over the window to prevent them from being seen by anyone passing by outside. Galen gave him a quizzical look that said, 'What now?'. The astronaut glanced around, taking in the massive stone desk that dominated the room. On the wall behind the desk was painted a map of the region as it was known to the apes of this time. The only recognizable feature that remained of what was once the west coast of North America was the Baja peninsula.
Alan moved toward the door to the hallway, shedding his vest as he moved. After blocking the gap at the bottom of the heavy wooden door, he turned toward a glass cabinet filled with papers. Galen fetched a large candle from a table and carried it to the desk. Using a piece of kindling from the banked brazier in the corner of the room, he lit a the candle and propped two books up around it to further shield the light from escaping the office and alerting anyone to their presence. Virdon deposited an armful of rolled parchment to the desk, just as the books around the candle began to topple. He grabbed the larger one before it could land heavily on the desk, while Galen snatched away the smaller one. They more carefully balanced the books against each other to block the light. Virdon gestured to Galen to look at the documents on the desk while he turned to return to the bookcase. Suddenly, as Galen moved around the desk, he tripped over the chair. The legs scraping over the stone floor seemed to echo like a gunshot in the quiet of the office. The guards in the hallway surely must have been alerted.
Virdon extinguished the candle and, while Galen grabbed the roles of parchment from the desk, sprinted silently to the door to retrieve his vest. A moment later when the door opened and two gorilla guards entered, the office appeared unoccupied and undisturbed. Under the desk, the human and the chimpanzee held their breaths. The guards made a cursory inspection of the room that, luckily for the fugitives, didn't include looking behind or under the desk. When they heard the door close again, the two friends cautiously emerged from their hiding place to resume their search. As Galen relit the candle and began examining the rolls of parchment on the desk, the blond human returned to the cabinet.
The astronaut eyed the stacks of parchment with dismay, but something deep inside told him that somewhere in this mound of paper was the clue that would reveal Pete's location. Mentally steeling himself for a long night, he pulled the first scroll from the shelf and began his search.
He was back on the spinning table. The only noises in the room were the grunts of the gorillas, punctuated by the slap of their hands on the table as they spun it with the enthusiasm of schoolchildren at the merry-go-round at recess. Sweat poured from their faces, stinging their eyes. Every now and then, one of them would steal a furtive, resentful glance at the female chimpanzee perched on a stool in the corner. Her entire concentration was focused on the book balanced in her lap, not even aware that she had raised one hand to her mouth and was biting at a fingernail. She had been encouraged by the human's response when he had been pulled from the old well. As the book had predicted, the hours of isolation and deprivation of the senses had further eroded Burke's grasp on the present. His pitiful whispered apologies obviously indicated that he was feeling remorse, and that was an emotion she could exploit.
Her hand traveled from her mouth to push at her glasses as she read a particularly interesting passage in the book. '...after this long period of centrifugal force, the prisoner has lost the feeling of the pull of gravity; also to some degree, his sense of identity has blurred along with the identity of others.' A devious new idea began to coalesce in Wanda's mind. '...at this point, someone, perhaps a woman who is compassionate and understanding and who may be confused by the prisoner with someone he has loved, can by skillful questioning in warm, affectionate tones, obtain information that could not be secured in any other fashion.'
'Yes,' she thought. 'a woman who is compassionate. The creature is repulsive, but I am a professional. I will make this work.' She had seen his reaction to the small comfort she provided after the well, and knew she was on the right track. His ugliness was an obstacle to overcome, but she'd had the gorillas redress the human in his clothes, and that made looking at his easier to tolerate.
Her resolve strengthened, she put down her book and ordered the gorillas, "Stop the turntable. Free the prisoner." The guards exchanged looks and hesitated for a moment, but had learned that questioning the chimp's orders would only bring them trouble. As the table slowed to a stop, they untied the ropes that bound Burke's limbs. The human didn't even move.
Wanda preened, running her fingers through the fur around her face, straightening her glasses. Of course, she wasn't sure what would appeal to the beast as an attractive female, but she would try her best. She set the book on the human's chest, along with her notebook, and waved her hand at the gorillas that gaped at her. "Guards. You may leave."
The lieutenant's jaw dropped even further at her order. Enough was enough, this female was out of her mind. "But Wanda, he's a dangerous human."
"I can handle him," she replied, her attention focused on the slack face of her prisoner. "Go!" The gorilla pressed his lips together in frustration, but motioned the other guards to the door and exited the room himself.
"You," he said to one of his subordinates, once the door was closed "wait here, and enter if you hear anything suspicious. I'm going to go find General Urko." Urko would have something to say about this outrageous behavior.
The world blurred and swirled around him, colors blending into a kaleidoscope of fractured images like pieces of a stained glass window that had been broken and left scattered on the ground. He felt a sense of urgency that he couldn't pinpoint; someone needed him to do something. He remembered crying, and anger, but the reasons for it all were slipping away.
In fact, he felt that if he could just sleep a little, everything would be right as rain. No need to get upset, no need to fight, or resist. Just go with the flow. He closed his eyes and was just starting to doze when his companion spoke.
"I have the feeling sometimes that we're strangers. There's so much about you I don't know..."
One corner of his mouth lifted in his patented Pete Burke smirk. Nora. He listened to the brook sloshing quietly a few yards away. The birds chirping in the background; it was a beautiful, warm spring day in the park. He was glad they had decided to make a day of it with a picnic, but after the big lunch and a hike along that same brook, he was tired. He just wanted a little nap. But Nora wanted to talk. He felt her fingers brush his face, but his eyes remained closed.
"And I always believe that people in love tell each other everything."
'Uh oh,' he thought, 'the L word.' He'd met Nora a month ago, a pretty blonde he had picked out of the crowd at a local club, and charmed with a few of his famous one-liners. They'd been going pretty strong ever since, but he not strong enough for the L-word. He sighed, which his companion was sure to mistake for contentment, but really signaled that it was time to start extricating himself from this relationship before it got too serious.
"Not everything," he replied, hoping to remain vague enough to avoid further use of the L-word. "You're quiet today."
Nora snuggled into the crook of his shoulder, her head resting next to the dark one. He brought the other hand out from behind his head to rest it on her waist. "Maybe I'm all talked out."
He chortled, turning his head to nuzzle her neck. "That'll never happen. You're a bubbling spring—inexhaustible."
She pushed against his chest, forcing him to look into her face. "Springs can run dry. Pete, all our conversations are a one-way street. You won't tell me anything about yourself."
Well, this was different. The girls he usually dated wanted to talk about themselves mostly. Once they found out he was an astronaut, they wanted to hear stories of adventure and excitement, but very few people had ever asked him to talk about himself. Shrugging, he tossed out a nonchalant, "What do you want to know?"
"Everything. Where you were born, went to school..."
"Pretty boring stuff," he quipped.
"Not to me." He felt her smile, and her voice dropped to a sultry tone, "And even the first time you fell in love."
He pushed himself up so that he was looming over her and stared deeply into her blue eyes. His own voice dropped to match her tone. "This is the first time."
She laughed and pushed him away again. His own smile flashed, his brows raised in mock indignation. "Hah—you're copping out again. I want to know," she poked her finger into his chest, tracing small patterns in the soft fabric of his turtleneck, "what's inside here. What you feel..." She leaned in closer to him, teasing once again. "I want to know about your friends..."
Pete looked again into her eyes as he slipped a hand behind her neck to pull her in even closer, determined to steer this conversation away from personal matters the only way he knew how, "They'll love you." Her eyes wavered from blue, darkening to brown as he watched, even as his lips parted slightly in anticipation of the kiss. In the moment of his hesitation, her entire pretty face and blonde hair melted into a dark face encircled by dark fur. An ape face.
'Wanda!' Pete's mind screamed as he pulled away in horror, covering his face with is arms to block out the hated visage. He curled his body away from her, pushing the book and notepad off of his chest, almost rolling off of the table in his attempt to get away from his tormentor. His stomach rolled and threatened to disgorge the small amounts of water they had allowed him to have.
Wanda pulled back, grabbing at her books as they fell to the table. Her glasses, which she had removed at the beginning of this futile exercise, clattered to the wooden surface as well. Her eyes narrowed in anger, and her fists clenched as if she would strike the prisoner herself. Instead, she grasped the edge of the table and tried to control her breathing. Her own revulsion at having almost... almost kissed the...the animal curled her lip. She stood still for a few moments to calm herself, her disgust with the human displayed openly on her face.
'Well, that's it then,' she decided, and reached back to rub away the soreness that had infected her tense neck muscles. 'You've sealed your own fate, human.'
"Guards!" she shouted, and gathered up her materials as two gorillas entered the room immediately. The Lieutenant followed a moment later.
"Lieutenant, is it night or day out?" The caves had no windows, and she had worked round the clock to try to produce results.
"The sun is about to rise, Wanda," he answered, mentally adding, ' and Urko will be here any moment.' He was surprised by her next words.
"Inform Chief of Security Urko that the prisoner now belongs to him," she announced, the words clipped and heavy with exhaustion. She then turned and stalked out of the room.
