(National Enquirer)
TALKING CHIMPANZEE REPORTED IN JAVA
(New York Times,subsequent correction printed)
POLYGLOT PRIMATES SIGHTED IN SUMATRA
(Los Angeles Times)
"And, finally, a group of tourists in Indonesia swear they were abused by an orangutan in the jungles of Borneo. According to the tourists, the ape swore at them in Dutch and French, which means it was probably a lot smarter than they were. But no recordings of the cursing chimp have turned up, leading us to conclude that if you believe this story, we have a job for you in the current administration. Plenty of talking apes there!"
(Countdown with Keith Olbermann,MSNBC News, no correction)
CHapter 005
Get this,"Charlie Huggins said, looking at the television in the kitchen of his house in San Diego. The sound was turned off, but he was reading the crawl beneath. "It says, 'Talking Ape Cited in Sumatra.'"
"You mean it got a speeding ticket?" his wife said, glancing at the screen. She was making breakfast.
"No," Huggins said. "They must mean the ape was 'sighted.' With an 's.'"
"The ape was sighted? Meaning the ape could see?" His wife was a high school English teacher. She liked these jokes.
"No, honey. The story says...some people in Sumatra encountered an ape in the jungle that talked."
"I thought apes can't talk," his wife said.
"Well, that's what the story says."
"So it has to be a lie."
"You think? Uh, now...Britney Spears is not getting divorced. I'm relieved. She may be pregnant again. From the pictures it looks like it. And Posh Spice wore a nice green dress to a gala. And Sting says he can have sex for eight hours without stopping."
"Scrambled or over easy?" his wife said.
"Tantric, apparently."
"I mean your eggs."
"Scrambled."
"Call the kids, will you?" she said. "Everything's almost ready."
"Okay." Charlie got up from the table and headed for the stairs. When he got to the living room, the phone rang. It was the lab.
In the laboratories of Radial Genomics Inc., in the eucalyptus groves of the University of California at San Diego, Henry Kendall drummed his fingers on the countertop while he waited for Charlie to pick up. The phone rang three times. Where the fuck was he? Finally, Charlie's voice: "Hello?"
"Charlie," Henry said. "Did you hear the news?"
"What news?"
"The ape in Sumatra, for Christ's sake."
"That has to be bullshit," Charlie said.
"Why?"
"Come on, Henry. You know it's bullshit."
"They said the ape spoke Dutch."
"It's bullshit."
"It might have been Uttenbroek's team," Kendall said.
"Nah. The ape was big, two or three years old."
"So? Uttenbroek could have done it a few years ago. His team's advanced enough. Besides, those guys from Utrecht are all liars."
Charlie Huggins sighed. "It's illegal in the Netherlands to do that research."
"Right. Which is why they would go to Sumatra to do it."
"Henry, the technology's much too difficult. We're years away from making a transgenic ape. You know that."
"I don't know that. You hear what Utrecht announced yesterday? They harvested bull stem cells and cultured them in mouse testicles. I would saythat is difficult. I would say that is fucking cutting edge."
"Especially for the bulls."
"I don't see anything funny here."
"Can't you imagine the poor mice, dragging around giant purple bulls' balls?"
"Still not laughing..."
"Henry," Charlie said. "Are you telling me you see one report on television about a talking ape, and you actually believe it?"
"I'm afraid I do."
"Henry." Charlie sounded exasperated. "It's television. This story's right up there with the two-headed snake. Pull yourself together."
"The two-headed snake was real."
"I have to get the kids to school. I'll talk to you later." And Charlie hung up.
Fucker. His wife always took the kids to school.
He's avoiding me.
Henry Kendall walked around the lab, stared out the window, paced some more. He took a deep breath. Of course he knew Charlie was right. It had to be a fake story.
But...what if it wasn't?
It was truethat Henry Kendall had a tendency to be high-strung; his hands sometimes shook when he spoke, especially when he was excited. And he was a bit of a klutz, always stumbling, banging into things at the lab. He had a nervous stomach. He was a worrier.
But what Henry couldn't tell Charlie was that the real reason he was worried now had to do with a conversation that had taken place a week ago. It seemed meaningless at the time.
Now it took on a more ominous quality.
Some ditsy secretary from the National Institutes of Health had called the lab and asked for Dr. Kendall. When he answered the phone, she said, "Are you Dr. Henry A. Kendall?"
"Yes..."
"Is it correct that you came to the NIH on a six-month sabbatical four years ago?"
"Yes, I did."
"Was that from May until October?"
"I think it was. What's this about?"
"And did you conduct part of your research at the primate facility in Maryland?"
"Yes."
"And is it correct that when you came to the NIH in May of that year, you underwent the usual testing for communicable diseases, because you were going to do primate research?"
"Yes," Henry said. They had done a battery of tests, everything from HIV to hepatitis to flu. They'd drawn a lot of blood. "May I ask what this is about?"