Orpheus stepped through the broken window of the office building and onto the branches of a tree that reached up as high as the third story. His work here was done. Time to move on.
In the office he’d just left, the bodies of several scientists and lab technicians lay sprawled across the floors, desks, and lab benches, their bodies riddled with bullet holes from the fully automatic weapon Orpheus now wore slung across his back.
Every cage containing a primate sat open, their occupants milling about the office unsure of what to do next.
They’ll figure it out, he told himself. They weren’t his concern, beyond setting them free. If they didn’t have the brains to get out of there, he didn’t have the time to teach them. Not now.
Swinging from branch to branch, Orpheus moved through the canopy provided by the many trees planted along the city streets, heading to the next lab, several blocks east of the last one.
Eurydice would be waiting for him there, her job at the pharmacology school completed. He knew she had enough sense not to go in alone. But then again, patience had never been her strong suite.
He dropped to the ground at the corner and scampered across the street, careful to avoid detection. On the other side, he quickly mounted a red maple, and once again fell into the rhythm of swing, release, grab, swing, release, grab…
In no time, he dropped to the roof of the university’s biology lab building. A low building built probably 80 years ago, it made up in sprawl what it lacked in height.
Looking around, he didn’t see Eurydice. She might be on the other side of the building. Her last target lay on the south side of the campus.
Orpheus moved quickly across the steep roof, leaping from dorm to peak to dorm as he made his way across this behemoth of a building. Midnight had not even struck, the night was young and they had much more to do. So far, the plan had worked perfectly. No mishaps. No unexpected surprises.
As he passed over to the opposite side of the building her saw her, looking up at him. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of her long reddish hair, her deep brown eyes, and her broad smile. He would never tire of looking at her beauty.
Soon he stood beside her, and they held each other briefly, their foreheads pressed together, her breath in his nostrils.
So, this was love? he thought. A fine thing it was, too.
“How’d it go, Edie?” he asked when they finally pulled apart, using his nickname for her.
“Like clockwork, Orpheus. They never saw us coming. What about you?”
“It was just like Leo said. Easy peasy.”
They chuckled together.
“Are you ready, luv?” Edie asked.
“As ready as ever!”
“Let’s go then.”
With that, the two of them checked their weapons, ensuring they were loaded and extra ammo was within easy reach. Then they made their way towards their entry point, an open window in the faculty lounge.
Most new buildings don’t have windows that open, but these older ones do. This particular window was kept open because several faculty members used it to smoke, holding their cigarettes outside the window and blowing their smoke out, as well. The campus was now smoke-free, and it was an impossibly long walk down to the corner, where a small piece of public property provided a place where one could take a smoke break. The window would have to do.
Heaving the heavy pane open wider, Orpheus let Edie pass through first, before sliding under the pane and entering the room himself. Once in, they began making their way to the labs where the primates were kept.
A man in a lab coat stepped out of a room down the hallway on the left-hand side, probably a restroom. He saw the two of them approaching and shrank back in horror and confusion. Edie opened fire, her weapon suppressed, making only the slightest percussive sound. The man spun about as his body got hit by first one bullet, then another, then fell to the floor face down, his life blood leaking out to the left.
They stepped over him and continued down the hallway.
The building should have been empty, except for security, but there was almost always some late-night student or some driven researcher burning the midnight oil. Too bad for them, Orpheus thought.
“Here we go!” he said. “This should be it.”
He tried the door. It was locked. This one had a keypad on the wall beside it. Considering the age of the door and the building, it was probably a magnetic lock.
He shifted his fanny pack around and unzipped it, then retrieved a large magnet and set it where the locking mechanism should be. Pulling back gently, he tried the door.
Nothing.
He tried again with the same result. So he pulled the magnet off, placed it back into the fanny pack, and zipped it up. Standing back, he raised his gun and riddled the lock with bullets, then kicked the door open.
“Well, that won’t draw any attention,” Edie remarked as they stepped through the door.
“Let them come!” he responded. “I’m ready for them!”
Once inside, the two of them found the cages along two walls on the far side of the room. Inside, the primates looked at first, terrified. Most reacted as one would expect, a lot of excited chatter and jumping about.
Edie and Orpheus each took a wall and began opening the cages and swinging wide the doors.“Go!” Edie exclaimed. “Get yourselves out of here. There’s an open window down the hallway to the left. The door’s open. Go!”
In the last cage, where the two walls met, a particularly intelligent-looking primate stood, looking at the two of them. When Edie opened the door, he spoke.
“You’re one of us!” he said. “I never thought I’d see such a thing. I prayed, I hoped. But I never really believed.”
Orpheus introduced himself, and then Edie.
“Dante,” the primate said. “Pleased to meet you!”
They clasped hands in greeting.
“Well, we’ve got to get a move on it,” Edie said. “If we want to make it out alive.”
“Can you fire one of these?” Orpheus asked, offering Dante a pistol.
Dante turned it about in his hands, gripped it, aimed it across the room, and pulled back the cocking mechanism.
“I think I can.”
“You learn quickly,” Orpheus commented.
“Come on! Let’s get out of here!” Edie insisted.
They moved towards the door and out into the hallway, heading towards the lounge. Just as they came to the door, a shot rang out and the metal around the door frame dinged as a bullet tore into it.
“Go, go, go, go!” Orpheus yelled, pushing them towards the door. He turned about and returned fire, at first not seeing the assailant.
Another shot rang out as Dante entered the room, followed by Edie.
Orpheus saw him now, a short little man, way too fat to hide behind the water fountain he was using for cover. Taking aim, he squeezed the trigger and clipped the man’s knee, causing him to fall out onto the floor, grasping his wounded knee. The next shot finished him off.
Turning, Orpheus dove through the door. Dante had just helped Edie through the window and was now climbing through himself. As he approached the opening, Orpheus saw blood on the floor and smeared across the sill.
Dante must be hit, he thought. Too bad, to just get the taste of freedom, only to die in the process. Better to die free than in a cage, though.
He slipped through the window and made his way to the exit point, where a large oak spread its branches over the lower portion of the roof.
Looking ahead, he could not see Edie or Dante. Something was wrong! He scanned the canopy ahead and saw no movement. Then he searched the ground below. There they were, at the base of the oak.
Swinging out onto the large limb, Orpheus made his way lower in the tree, then dropped to the earth.
Edie sat with her back against the tree, her hand clutching her right side. Dante leaned over her, wringing his hands.
Orpheus shoved him to the side and dropped to his knees beside her.
“How bad is it?” he asked. The paleness of her lips gave the answer away.
“I’m not going to make it, luv.”
“Sure you are. Don’t talk like that!”
“What? Are you going to carry me from here to Leo? And then what? Take me to a hospital?”
Orpheus bit his lip and beat his chest. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. They were supposed to get away, find a place where they could raise a family, and grow old together.
“You promised!” he said, looking into her brown eyes, already become duller as her lifeblood pooled beside her.
“Leo told us all, some of us would die,” she said. “It’s the cost of freedom.”
“Damn Leo and his speeches!”
“Kiss me.”
Orpheus bent over her, pressing his forehead to hers, breathing in her dying breath, holding her in his heart.
As he drew away, her head slumped against her chest, her life spent.
Orpheus knelt in silence over her for a long while as Dante looked on, until at last, he reached out and touched Orpheus on the shoulder.
“What now?”
Orpheus looked up at him, wiped away his tears, and stood. He looked at the building they had just exited.
Then lifting his weapon, he cocked it and said, “We kill them. We kill them all.”
