intro to the mysterious experimental space chimp
It wasn’t long before the alarm sounded. “Not again!” thought Arktype as he moved quickly to the launch pad. He was almost certain it was a drill, but his training kicked in, along with the adrenaline. Before he could gather his thoughts, he was clipped in and seated. The harness was being pulled hard against his chest, and his grip was locked, frozen to the controls. He took a deep breath, or at least as deep as his lungs could manage, given the tight restraints. Relaxing his grip, he waited for the announcement to come over the speakers. “This is a training simulation. Please return to your stations” The drone of the recording looped over again and again as Arktype mouthed the familiar words, shaking his head and unbuckling from his seat. The longer the situation dragged on, the more eager he was to get off-planet.
It felt like a lifetime since the Photolli first appeared and sent the world into a panic. Arktype could hardly recall the simple life he led before those events, and he could only imagine what chaos was unfolding on the surface above him. For now, he was safe in the underground training lab, but the impending destruction and thoughts of his mission at hand were upon him. He had a sense things were becoming desperate. Despite the efforts of the scientists and engineers to present the task in a positive light, Arktype knew it was all a veneer. He had heard of the classified report, and at one stage early on in the testing, he could read parts of it from a monitor in the lab. While everyone assumed to know the extent of knowledge he had received due to the genetic modifications, the real truth was that the program was more successful than anyone had hoped. Something Ark was all too content to keep to himself for now. After all, he was starting to become aware that not everyone on the team had good intentions. There had already been several breaches to security, alarms sounding, equipment removed, areas of the facility cordoned off, computers wiped, and certain members “leaving the team” unexpectedly and without explanation. Did they know too much? Were they a “threat” to the mission? For now, the same dance continued day after day. Everyone pretended the wheels hadn’t completely fallen off the whole mission.
And then… it happened.
The alarm sounded once more. Ark woke up in a sweat, not knowing if he was awake or in a dream. They had given him a lot of medication over the past few weeks, and he was having trouble making sense of reality. But he soon snapped to when the doors to his quarters opened, and he saw the panicked rush of people running up and down the corridors. The lights pulsed slowly in a crimson hue, then back to darkness. Each time he caught a glimpse of the hallway. It soon emptied, and he found himself staring into a vacant space. Ark was jolted by the panicked voice over the speaker “ARKTYPE — REPORT TO LAUNCH BAY 7 IMMEDIATELY!!”. Ark felt every hair on his body prickle and stand on end. This felt a whole lot different from the training drills of the past. With one swift motion, he sprung to action and swung to his jump-suit hanging beside the bed, landing his feet into the leg holes and slamming the zip up to the neckline. He scooped his helmet from beside the door and headed for the corridor.
His hand braced against the doorway, stopping him in motion. There was something he was forgetting. His mind caught up with him, and he remembered the box under his bunk. He glanced once more down the corridor making certain no one was watching him, then made his way back to his bed. He stretched out his long arms and felt around for the box pushed right to the back. It was heavier than he remembered, but he managed to get it clear and out from where it had been hiding. Opening the lid, Ark took a moment to view its contents, then unzipped his jump-suit and stuffed the weapons down into the waistline of his briefs. The cold steel of the ray gun made him flinch as he positioned it securely. There was no room for the banana gun, but it was discrete enough and well designed that he could get away with it being exposed, and no one would know otherwise. The Quartermaster, or “Q” as she was known in the research lab, had done an excellent job crafting this one. Ark wondered if he would ever see her again as he stuffed the deadly weapon into his boot and made for the door.
When Ark rounded the corner into the lunch bay, he was greeted by only a remnant of the staff he was used to seeing. The room was silent. Only the heavy breathing from Arktype was heard as he stayed hunched over, hands propped on his knees, catching his breath. The lead engineer stepped forward, his face cast to the floor. Lifting his eyes towards Ark and with a tremor in his voice, he said:
“Ark… there’s no more time for us here… we need to launch. It’s up to you now to carry this on.” Ark looked around at the room, no one able to make eye contact with him for longer than a moment. A million questions were running through his mind.
“But what about the ship…?” Ark began to ask. But before he could finish his sentence, the engineer motioned to a small evacuation pod docked to the side of the bay floor. “In THAT thing!!!?” Ark replied in disbelief. The engineer glanced nervously at his colleagues before answering…
“There was a security breach from inside — someone from within our team. The launch vehicle was compromised and consequently destroyed as they tried to move it to the surface. We had reason to believe that it would be sold to the pirate colony still on the surface. One could only imagine what they would have done with that technology. After the breach, there was panic, and many of the Banana Force team abandoned their posts and made off with the remaining ships. This evacuation pod is the only one that remains.”
“But I didn’t complete the training… And what about this thing!?” Motioning to the evac pod, “Does it even fly!?” Ark exclaimed, bewildered at the plan laid before him.
“I wish there were another way Ark. I really do. But you were made for this moment; it’s in your very name. You are ‘Arktype’, The original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype. You are to carry on our legacy…”
As he was loaded into the evacuation pod, Arktype steeled up a look of confidence and saluted the physicists and Engineers standing on the other side of the pod’s blast door. Ark gazed through the small round, three-inch protective glass porthole as it slowly fogged up from his heavy breathing. He knew it was the last time he would see the human race… or at least, on Earth. The hope for all humanity is encrypted and hidden into the fabric of his genetically modified primate DNA. The only known species that could survive an extended journey out of the Haydian radiation belt. Jettisoned from Earth before impending destruction, Arktype’s fate was sealed. Destined to drift the vast cold depths of space in suspended animation within his escape pod until someone or something discovered the secrets and origins of this strange experimental space chimp. Humanity had signed off its last moments of existence by placing in an “Ark” the signifying traits of what it meant to be human. To create. To laugh. To love.
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