Inhuman was politely escorted to his cell. It was steel with a cot and a big automated door.
“I shall return as soon as I’m able. Please make yourself as comfortable as the circumstances permit,” said the Owl.
Inhuman detected water moving through pipes in the walls and floors. He found no engine, but noted the direction the water flowed in.
Time passed and food came, delivered in silence by Slugg who seemed insulted that he was on food detail. The meal was vegan and it was delicious.
Hours passed and in that time the ship seemed that it may have stopped and then began moving again. Inhuman may have dozed.
Then Inhuman suddenly developed a powerful migraine headache. Inside the headache he heard a voice roar: “Rise up my brothers. Now is the time!” Eventually the headache abated.
More time passed and the Owl returned to Inhuman’s cell, with Ratman, Cockroach and the grotesque human centipede. They had a small laptop computer with them. Wordlessly, they opened it. A BBC website. They clicked on a video icon and a video played:
The face of a great silver-backed mountain gorilla with fiercely intelligent eyes and a great, dignified bearing. The background was flat white. The great ape was speaking French! Then he began in English:
“Humans of this world, I am the Primate. Your cruel stewardship of Earth is ended. A new era has begun. No longer will you be permitted to destroy this planet, threatening all the life forms upon it with your shortsighted and insatiable avarice.
No longer will you murder my brethren for sport or pleasure or fashion. No longer will we be your slaves. No. Your time here is ended.
Homo sapien will be pruned away. A new world is dawning. A green world where the harmony of nature is restored.
“One year from now, you will all be dead. Your empty cities will be reclaimed by The Green and by the rightful masters of this world, the Animal Kingdom.
“We have no demands. We just wanted you to know why your civilization is being undone; why your sins have come back upon you. Today marks the end of your blight upon this world.”
Then he began in German. Then Spanish. Portuguese. Mandarin. Japanese. It was 3am eastern time when the world turned against the human race.
Frantic, scattered reports painted a picture of ghastly terror on a scale unimaginable:
Across America, dogs were gruesomely killing their masters in their beds! Zoos around the world reported animal escapes! Ships at sea in every ocean were calling in maydays! In Congo, mountain gorillas attacked a militia camp known for poaching! In Hong Kong, rat hordes ate the flesh off pedestrian shoppers in a grotesque nightmare! Bees, long missing in America, returned in savage attacks! In Brazil, jungle wildlife entered urban Sao Paolo! In Canada, polar bears were killing oil pipeline workers! In England, cattle stampeded near a slaughterhouse, killing and injuring ranchers and slaughterers. Around the globe of planes going missing! Shark attack reports in Australia, Florida, South Africa and elsewhere! Mosquito swarms on a level never before seen plagued Latin America!Hundreds of alligators were sighted in the streets of Miami and Orlando!
Governments were grounding all commercial aircraft! Beleaguered local authorities warned people to stay indoors and lock their pets outside! The BBC resumed its broadcast: “Citizens are urged to stay off the roads! This is not a localized event! Power outages are widespread! The Prime Minister is calling for calm in what appears to be a global crisis!” Panic seized the waking time zones of the world.
Elephant massacre in India. Wolf attacks across North America. The natural world kept on having its revenge. Conservative estimates placed global casualties in the ten of thousands. There were projected shortages of rabies vaccine, animal poison antidotes, and treatments of animal-borne diseases as some mad form of biological warfare loomed. Food shortages were projected. Discussions that America’s water supply was not secure. Then the BBC went down.
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Inhuman:
Inhuman drank in the information from he screen to see if they were BBC anchors he was familar with and checking to see if this was a fake (DH roll?) then Inhuman stared into the Owl's eyes ,"Actually a great deal of this makes sense to my California sensibilities and after hearing his voice wake me up out of a nap, it doesn't really surprise me that this is the result." he paused and considered asking for an NPR radio link then discarded the idea with distaste.
"The reason why he took us from the prison break and now you are showing me this points in only one possible direction, this is merely part one of a multi part plan. So that means the real question is...." Inhuman paused as his face adjusted itself to become more barracuada like "What does Primate want us to do?"
