“Then I’m not taking any chances.” He grabbed the mike again. “Attention. This is Master Security. We are triggering, repeat, triggering the over-ride to open all the cages in the building. Get those animals out to safety!”
His palm came down hard on the button that opened the remaining cages not yet unlocked from the communications center. Beyond the smoked glass windows, a rosy light was growing.
The supervisor kept his hand on the button longer than necessary, wondering in his confusion whether he had done the right thing—or unleashed some kind of holocaust.
FIFTEEN
In the sumptuously furnished office on the fifth floor, Dr. Chamberlain roused with a groan.
A single lamp on his desk lit the whiskey decanter and glass next to it. After the unnerving session in No Conditioning, the director of the center had retired to his private suite, poured himself three strong shots in a row, sprawled on his leather couch and closed his eyes.
Now a confusion of sounds had jerked him awake. He rubbed his eyes, identifying sirens and klaxons—the harbingers of real trouble at the Center.
Still less than sober, he staggered toward the office wall. He definitely smelled smoke . . .
Chamberlain began throwing switches under monitors set into the wall. One by one they lit, casting pale highlights on his strained face as he stared in absolute disbelief.
The below-ground communications center was a shambles; wreckage, fallen bodies everywhere.
Berserk apes poured through the corridors. One screen showed the apes dodging past doorways filled with flames.
But on other monitors he saw keepers and handlers actually urging apes from their cages. What was happening?
He turned up a couple of the audio controls, heard a dreadful din. Screaming. Gibbering. The crackle of fire. The crash of furniture. Monitor after monitor displayed unbelievable images.
A handler was trying to shackle the right wrist of a just-released orangutan. The ape suddenly raised his arm and brought the free end of the shackle whipping down to smash the handler’s face.
In the midst of blowing smoke, a keeper was desperately trying to subdue a chimp by injecting him with a hypodermic. The chimp twisted the keeper’s arm brutally. The hypodermic dropped into the chimp’s other hand. He rammed it needle-first into the keeper’s stomach.
On the first floor near the main lobby, a squad of security guards confronted a mob of apes that spilled from an elevator. One of the squad members dropped to his knee, aimed a tranquilizing gun at the nearest ape. He fired. The ape slumped. Other tranquilizing guns were leveled—but a chimpanzee sprang, seized the nearest squad member, and used him as a screen at the last second. The man took the deadening, dart in one arm sagging . . .
“Rebellion!” Chamberlain breathed. “Then in Christ’s name—” his glance flashed to monitors showing handlers still busy urging boisterous apes from their cages “—why are they letting out the rest?”
Chamberlain ran for the door. He recoiled at the smoke-filled hallway. The sirens and klaxons created almost unbearable noise. Covering his nose, he dashed for his personal elevator, concealed behind a plain, locked door at the end of the corridor. He did not know what was going on, but he intended to save himself at all costs; seek sanctuary via his limousine in the subbasement garage. Whatever the outcome of this inexplicable nightmare, he would be held responsible by Governor Breck. But he would face that lesser risk in preference to being incinerated.
He fumbled his key into the lock of the plain door. The key slipped, fell to the floor. With a moan, Dr. Chamberlain dropped to his knees. The smoke stung his eyes, he couldn’t find the key . . .!
While he was still scrambling for it, four gorillas appeared from the white billows, seized him and tore him to pieces.
The two-story command tower marked the farthest limit of the center’s grounds. From inside, the Perimeter Watch Commander stared at an almost incomprehensible sight.
The middle three or four floors of the central tower showed flames at every ruptured window. In the wash of sweeping searchlights automatically triggered by the alarm sirens, a mass of apes could be seen charging up the ramp from the underground reception area.
“Get through to the tower—Chamberlain—someone, goddam it!” the commander yelled.
Flipping switches on consoles nearby, his assistant cried back, “I’m trying. Nobody answers. Even Master Security seems to have been abandoned.”
Outside, on the tower’s railed balcony, three guards with tranquilizing rifles peered at the incredible spectacle. The commander kept issuing rapid orders. His assistant began summoning patrols from other points on the grounds.
Grabbing field glasses from a drawer, the commander ran outside.
Against the background of the mindless sirens and klaxons, a roar was rising in the night. It came from the seething mass of apes at ground level near the tower. Half-shackled apes. Burned apes. Bleeding apes—even some animals dragging handlers or keepers—human hostages! Gaping, the commander lowered the field glasses.
What looked to be virtually the entire ape population of the tower was breaking loose!
They milled at the head of the ramp from underground, waving shackles, bellowing, leaping up and down as the flashing searchlights swept back and forth. For a moment, the confusion continued. Then a segment of the ape mob broke away, its destination instantly apparent.
“My God, they’re heading this way!”
“They’re panicking, Commander,” said one of the men with a tranquilizing rifle.
The commander almost agreed—until he saw the tangle of apes rapidly becoming a ragged procession. Three and four abreast, they moved in the direction of the tower.
“Like hell they’re panicking,” the commander breathed. “They’re organized.”
He assumed his tower was the target of the marching apes. He ordered the guards to begin firing. As the searchlights scythed, the rifles went chuff. An ape dropped. Another. The rest kept coming.
The commander’s legs started to shake when he saw that the rebellious apes were not marching leaderless. In front of them, dodging the tranquilizing charges, was a large chimpanzee in a bloodstained green uniform. He walked upright, like a man.
Incredibly, the apes did not bother with the perimeter tower. They surged by it on both sides, the forefront of the column quickly gone into the darkness. From that darkness rose a savage, howling chorus of ape voices that blended into one vast bay of hate.
The shaken commander dashed back inside the tower.
“Send a priority alert! Those damn animals are heading for the city!”
Out in the darkness, the baying grew louder. The last of the long column of apes bypassed the tower, vanishing in pursuit of the one who led them.
Caesar led his band of gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans past the perimeter watch tower and on across the rolling parklands shrouded in darkness. The baying and gibbering of the animals excited him, as did the success of the escape.
Many apes had been left behind, of course—dead or injured, the luckless victims of battles with handlers, keepers, or guards who had realized, finally, what was happening; even though they didn’t know why it was happening. But thanks to a combination of swift action and human error, Caesar had managed to rally enough apes to form the nucleus of a small effective army, an army whose passage was announced by that incessant bloodthirsty howling.