Secrets Kill

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Doctor Celia Janus staggered down the half-lit corridor, carved into the volcanic stone of the remote island. She had sat for nearly two hours at one end of a long mahogany table, hardly touching the exquisite three-course meal that had been prepared for her. On the other hand, she had gulped down nearly a bottle and a half of the 'celebratory' Heidsieck champagne to steady her nerves. Gargoyles had watched balefully from the high vaulted ceiling of the subterranean dining room.

And at the far end of the table sat the brooding figure, half in shadow, of the Professor, the master of the benighted isle. Impassively, he had watched her through the dim light, watched her eat and drink, and with a parchment dry voice, utterly barren of emotion, had asked her question after question after question. Fear and alcohol, and perhaps some subtle psychotropin, had stolen answers from her, had coaxed the secrets out. She had tried to lie, to evade, to staunch the flow of answers, but he came back again and again with a slightly different wording. He had remembered perfectly all that she had told him and stored up inconsistencies in her telling with which to ambush her a few questions down the line.

So she had told it all, in the end, about the research of Bold Industries, about the failures and successes of Project Atlas and the others. And he had listened unmoved. She found herself wanting to impress her old mentor then. She had wanted, even in her nervous fear, for him to stop and wonder at her genius. All the recognition of her work since leaving Crucible that she got from him was a derisive snort as the coffee and mints were served.

Indignation was beyond her now. Her nerves had been stretched as taut as piano strings the last few hours and now, now that it was done, she could barely stand. Her throat was sore where her heart had been pounding in it. So she stumbled down the dim-lit hallways of the complex.

So far as she had been able to ascertain, she had the run of the labyrinthine guest quarters, although she was allowed neither out to the surface, nor deeper into the maze of the Crucible laboratories. Hah! She was a prisoner and she knew it. Moreover, the way back to her room completely eluded her. She was on the verge of collapsing into a fitful sleep in the middle of the corridor. No doubt she would awake back in the well-appointed guestroom she had been quartered in since her release from the sick bay.

It was then that she heard music, faint and echoing. Wondering, now, if sleep had already taken her as she had wandered the complex, she followed the sound almost helplessly, as though in a dream.

She came, eventually, to a double door, carved with an intricate medieval bestiary from real wood. It was from within the room beyond that the music issued. The doors were ajar and she put her eye up to the crack. The room beyond looked half-finished, roughly carved, unshaped, like a natural grotto. It was decked out with the most minimal of furniture, a few simple off-white cushions around a low glass-top table in a Japanese style. A futon lay towards the back of the room, covered with a black silken quilt, embroidered with images of water lilies. A print of Brueghel's 'Tower of Babel' hung on the wall.

A tea set, steam drifting upwards, had been set out on the Japanese table and, upon one of the cushions, sat a monkey, black-furred peppered with grey, strangely human with its flat face. Its cranium had been extended into an ovoid plastic dome, containing, Celia surmised, a CICI-linked computer of some description. It sipped its tea and squeezed its brown eyes closed in an extended blink. Its serpentine tail coiled into a question mark.

Now, thought Celia, I know that I am dreaming.

The music too had an ethereal quality, the voice of the female vocalist gentle over the folky melody. Now firmly convinced she was dreaming, she pushed through the doors and into the room. The monkey glanced up.

"Shhh!" she soothed, well used to dealing with such experiments, "I won't hurt you." She advanced slowly across the room. The monkey watched, blinking. It sipped its tea.

"Do you have a name?" she asked, as she made it to a cushion by the table, crouching down gingerly so she would not alarm the creature. She put out a hand to stroke it by way of reassurance.

"Please have some tea," the monkey said. Celia stopped mid-crouch. "It's Oolong."

The monkey poured out a cup of tea and slid it across the glass of the tabletop to her. She sat down on the cushion. She did not know what else to do. The monkey's eyes sparkled with amusement at her sheer bewilderment. "Welcome to Wonderland, Miss...?"

"Oh!" she stammered, "Doctor Celia Janus." She offered her hand again. The monkey shook it.

"I suppose I should have a name too," the monkey mused. "Call me G."

The monkey who had introduced himself as G sat quietly for a moment. He sipped his tea. Celia sipped hers cautiously. It had a subtle citrus fragrance. Now that she had come to terms with the sheer incongruence of her having a conversation with a monkey, her trepidation was beginning to reassert itself. Just because a monkey had the power of speech, after all, it did not mean that you could trust it. Quite the reverse actually.

"So, Celia (you don't mind me calling you Celia, do you?), what brings you to my little hermitage here?" G inquired, breezily.

Not wishing to show weakness to her host, Celia replied, "Celia is fine. I was walking back to my room after dinner and I heard the music. This isn't the sort of place that you usually hear music."

"No? My brother has quite a collection. This, though, is mine. It is Loreena McKennit's 'The Two Trees'. The lyrics, of course, are by William Butler Yeats. It is really quite old now. I first listened to it back in the 1990s."

It took a while to register quite what G had said.

"Your brother?" This seemed to be a more pressing question than that of the monkey's age.

"You have just come from dining with him."

Again, Celia was compelled by incredulity to audit her short-term memory.

The monkey carried on, "Oh! I see why you might not believe me. This is not my original body, you see. That one had a bad case of death. Anyway, existing as a disembodied intelligence, you lose track of the things that make you human. So I have this little avatar so I can enjoy things like music and Oolong tea. I am not quite ready to transcend the mortal realm completely. It is far too, hmmm, enjoyable."

"Oh!" said Doctor Janus.

The monkey might have smiled. It was hard to tell.

Celia felt the need to fill the ensuing quiet. She also needed to get something off her chest. "Your brother had me kidnapped, you know?"

"It was not his choice." G's voice was impassive.

"No? Really?" Celia tried to sound scathing.

The monkey laughed. "Such incredulity is not unsurprising from a Bold employee. Nonetheless, it is misplaced." He sipped his tea.

"What do you mean?" Celia was still trying to hold together an air of fierce indignation. She was, however, confronted with an opportunity, perhaps, to eke some answers out of the creature. Such an opportunity was not to be passed up, even if it meant sacrificing her moral outrage.

"No," said G, "let me ask you a question. I promise you that it is pertinent and will lead you to a greater understanding of your current situation. So try to answer me honestly or this conversation will profit neither of us. Are you amenable?"

Doctor Janus was sceptical. She scowled. The monkey poured out more tea for itself and gestured as to whether his guest would like her cup topped up. It was still near full so he replaced the teapot upon the table.

"If you do not wish, you do not have to answer. Still, it would be beneficial for you to consider the question, whether or not you tell me the answer. Why did you join Bold Industries?"

"The money," Celia snorted, almost automatically, as though the question was the height of foolishness.

"You lie to yourself. Crucible is not an impoverished employer and certainly ensures the comfort of its staff. Moreover, you are a scientist. Scientists are not motivated by money but by knowledge. Hmmm?"

"So why don't you tell me the answer to your question, if you are so sure of it?"

"Oh, but that would defeat the point of the exercise. I could tell you the secrets of the Earth and Sky here. But it is not the answers that are important. Let me ask another question. You can, of course, leave at any point. I will ensure that someone takes you back to your room. What did HR at Bold talk to you about when they first met you?"

"What? Why is that important?"

"Because they offered you something that you wanted." The old man behind the monkey's eyes looked at her intently.

"Just the usual patter. Bold Industries was going places, needed someone to head up the technical side of their bio-tech division, it was a great opportunity."

"So how many times had you heard that before?"

"Enough."

"So why did you listen that time? Why Bold?" G looked as though he had asked the Sphinx's Riddle, so serious and intent was he.