Benson rubbed his eyes and took a long swig from his coffee cup. He screwed up his face as he swallowed the liquid that had now gone cold. He needed to stay awake. He’d been watching the small TV monitor in his office for the past six hours, searching through the black and white images on all of the CCTV tapes he’d procured from the manager of the safari park. He’d watched visitors come and go, days merge into nights and back into days again, to the point where he’d not known which was which, and he had a huge pile of tapes still to view.
Benson pressed pause on the machine, yawned and stood up. “I need a break,” he muttered. He crossed the office floor, opened the door and walked down the corridor to the small kitchen at the rear of the police canteen. There he found a clean mug and made himself another fresh hot coffee. He held the mug of steaming liquid in his hands, sniffing the strong aroma as he walked back into his office. Benson kicked the door open as he entered.
The first thing he saw was a uniformed constable, wearing a loose police overcoat, who was leaning across the desk and looking at the screen on which a tape was now playing. The man was so engrossed in what he was doing, he clearly hadn’t heard Benson come in despite the noise from the door. The constable’s eyes moved away from the screen as he began rifling through the pile of tapes on Benson’s desk. It was obvious to Benson that the officer was searching for something specific, so he decided to stay silent and wait to see what the man found before confronting him about what he was doing in his office, interfering with potential evidence. Quietly placing his coffee mug on top of the nearby filing cabinet, Benson stood beneath the doorframe with his shoulder against the door to prevent it from slamming shut and watched the figure of the policeman as he carefully rummaged through the CCTV recordings.
Within five minutes, he was rewarded as the constable picked up a tape, scrutinised it carefully and then slipped it into the inside pocket of his police coat.
“Are you looking for something, Constable? Can I help you?” asked Benson, swiftly crossing the floor until he was right behind the intruder.
“No, it’s okay,” said the constable laconically as he turned around to face Benson, quickly adding “Sir” to his sentence as he recognised the superior officer who stood behind him.
“Good,” said Benson, calmly. “In that case, you can go.”
“Yes, Sir,” said the constable and moved towards the door. As he passed, Benson reached out a hand and opened the heavy police coat. With his other hand, he extracted the tape that was secreted there.
“You won’t be needing this,” said Benson. “Now tell me, why did you come in here and take it? And what were you going to do with it? Give it to someone perhaps?”
The constable stared blankly ahead of him and after repeating his questions a further three times, all of which elicited exactly the same muted response from the uniformed policeman, Benson sent the man on his way with a warning that he hadn’t heard the last of the matter.
He did wonder if he should detain the man to stop him reporting back to whoever had sent him on this task, but decided it would be futile. The man was clearly under some kind of hypnosis and thus not himself. Therefore he would be unlikely to reveal who had ordered him to steal that particular tape, even if the constable knew that himself – which Benson somehow doubted.
When the man had gone and he was alone again, Benson locked his door. He didn’t want anyone disturbing him now. He had a feeling that the tape he had taken from the constable’s pocket was the one that would give him the information he was after, otherwise why would the policeman have tried to steal it? He took the tape from its case and inserted it into the machine. Then he settled down and focused on the screen. Soon, he was engrossed in watching Bob Waterhouse and his family in their escapades with the monkeys and the lion.
After watching the tape, Benson rewound it several times, taking in every item and event on the screen as the simian group wreaked their havoc and ran away with their bounty. The next afternoon, he summoned Zoe and Professor Tompkins and treated them to a special viewing.
“I have to say I think that those things the monkeys took from the vehicles were a little bit beyond what they might usually take.” The professor’s voice carried a note of concern after the tape had run its full course.
“What do you mean?” asked Benson.
“Windscreen wipers, wheel hubs, aerials and even the odd roof rack that hasn’t been fastened down securely,” answered Tompkins. “There are numerous film clips and anecdotes from any number of people who have visited safari parks and lost bits of their vehicles to playful and curious monkeys, usually the things I’ve just listed. But what we can see here looks different. There seems to be more going on than just mischief-making and playfulness – taking radios, clocks and car batteries is unusual for monkeys. It’s very strange.”
“In what way?” asked Benson, his curiosity now fully aroused.
“Well,” began the professor, “firstly, if you observe the behaviour of the monkeys, you’ll see that it’s unnatural. Normally monkeys in this situation behave quite randomly, but in this instance the behaviour seems to be – for want of a better expression – organised and regimented. Almost as if someone, or something, is controlling and directing their movements. Notice, for instance, how they all swarm inside the car the instant the window is opened… and it wasn’t really open for long – less than thirty seconds I’d say.
“Now, in those circumstances, I’d say that one or two monkeys, three if you’re unlucky, would be aware enough… or bold enough, to get into a car full of humans through a small opening only available for such a short period of time.”
He took a breath and continued, “If you left the window open and stayed there silently for perhaps an hour or so, you’d probably find that some monkeys would venture warily inside, but only after weighing up all of the risks and being sure of their escape route. Then, a few more might follow after a while. This scene however shows a large number of monkeys not only going straight into the car the moment the window opens, without any concern for potential risk and danger from the human occupants, but once inside making a beeline for significant targets. The radio, the clock, and… they know exactly where to find the catch to open the bonnet and how to undo it. What’s more, once the bonnet is open, there is another group of monkeys seemingly on hand, and with sufficient knowledge and ability to disconnect the battery and make off with it. Looking at that, I’d have to say that everything they took was targeted. And I also have to say it’s impressive.”
“You said ‘firstly’,” Zoe piped up, as the professor paused.
“Yes I did,” said Tompkins. “So?”
“Well, ‘firstly’ implies there is something else to follow,” said Zoe, expectantly.
“There is,” said the professor, shaking his head in exasperation at what he saw as an unnecessary interruption. “Secondly, the main things that the monkeys stole that day were to do with energy. The radio and battery certainly – and if you add the aerial and all of the other bits of metal and cable that they took, you could, if you had someone with sufficient scientific knowledge and expertise, make a transmitter and receiver. So, let us assume that someone was controlling the monkeys and had that knowledge, or perhaps an even greater knowledge than anyone on this planet. It is quite feasible that they could then construct a machine that creates and emits a small and localised force field.
“Furthermore, if that person, or creature, had extensive knowledge of space travel and was familiar with the concept of time travel, either theoretically or practically, then with the simple addition and adjustment of a clock, he might conceivably be able to change the course of time within the area of that force field.”
Benson and Zoe were gobsmacked at what the professor had told them. They stared at each other in unblinking silence, then stared at him and back to each other again. It was Benson who eventually spoke.
“We need to get inside the monkey compound and have a look at what’s going on in that wooded area. That’s the spot all the monkeys headed for when they galloped off with their ill-gotten gains, and so did that big monkey I watched on the CCTV tapes from the park. The key to this thing has to be in there.” He thumped a fist into the palm of his other hand and then crashed it vigorously against his forehead. “But how are we going to get inside?”
No one answered his question, so Benson continued. “I suppose I could find a few men in the station who haven’t yet been hypnotised, and they could go and have a look, but that will alert Araz to the fact that we know what he’s up to and he may decide to speed things up. If he does that, we could lose him altogether… and the Earth too from what you say, Professor.
“The other problem with that plan is that we really need you to be there so you can analyse whatever is in that copse and give us your expert opinion – not only on its purpose, but hopefully how to stop it.”
“Couldn’t one of your men go in with a camcorder?” asked Zoe. “Then Professor Tompkins can view the footage and perhaps he can do his analysis from that?”
“It’s possible I guess,” stated Benson, “but we still have the problem of him being seen and thus alerting Araz.”
“I think I may have the answer,” said Tompkins, quietly. “We’ve got several robots fitted with cameras in our department at the university. They’re similar to the ones used by space stations when they send rockets to distant planets, and the robot camera is released so it can roam about on the surface and send pictures back to Earth. We use ours for mock-ups and simulations so we can test their durability, reliability, and photographic capacity and quality.”
“And would we be able to use one of those in the compound?” asked Benson, getting excited by the thought.
“Technically, yes,” replied the professor. “But they mostly work off Wi-Fi signals like computers and I’m not certain that they would work properly given the force field covering and how it has been effective in interfering locally with computers, TVs, and radios.”
“Electricity still works,” Zoe piped up. “Do you have anything that can be powered by electricity or perhaps by a battery? You could charge it up so it lasted long enough for it to do what we want, just like you would charge up your mobile phone.”
“Unfortunately not,” said Tompkins, shaking his head.
There was silence again as the trio swallowed the disappointment they all felt. It was broken by a sudden yell from the professor.
“Wait!” he said. He was now animated again as an idea struck him. “I’ve just thought of something that may be of use.”
He grabbed a piece of paper and a pen from Benson’s desk and began to draw and write furiously. Benson looked over his shoulder at the series of equations and figures Tompkins had written, none of which made any sense to him at all. The professor put down his pencil and looked up.
“I think we might be able to do it,” he announced triumphantly, pushing the paper full of figures across the desk so that Zoe and Benson could see it properly.
“I’m sorry, Professor,” said Benson, “but what’s written there might as well be written in Martian language, as it is an alien language to me. You’re going to have to explain it.”
“Same here,” said Zoe, wrinkling up her nose and pursing her lips.
“Don’t worry about those figures,” said the professor, smiling. “I’m afraid I get carried away sometimes and expect everyone to have the same understanding as me. The figures and drawings were just for my benefit so I could check out the feasibility of an idea I had just then. I’ll explain my thinking and then I’m sure you’ll get it.
“When we first started making these camera robots, we made lots of different prototypes so that we could cover as many eventualities as we could think of. One of the original templates was based on an electrically powered model with a battery back-up pack in the event of a power cut or other electrical failure. We never used it, but I’m sure it’s still in our vaults somewhere. Those figures I’ve just written were to enable me to work out if it would be possible to make a few adjustments so we can use it now.
“As a prototype, the original range of the robot’s electrical and battery power was quite limited, but with a little bit of tinkering and upgrading, I think I can increase the range sufficiently to allow us to get it into the copse and hopefully back out again. However, even then, I’m afraid someone would have to be fairly close by so that they could initially release the robot and then, when it has completed its task, pick it up and bring it safely back here… that’s if I can find the thing in our vaults in the first place.” The professor smiled again as he said this.
“Why do we need to collect it and bring it back here?” asked Benson. “Can’t it just transmit pictures directly to a monitor here? Then it doesn’t matter if its battery runs out or if it gets left in the compound.”
The professor shook his head. “The range is too large,” he said. “Remember the force field… The only reason we have that footage,” he nodded toward the monitor on Benson’s desk, “is because the CCTV cameras in the safari park beam directly into a central station where the rangers are based. This close proximity allows quality short-range picture transmission. We don’t have access to that.”
“No, I guess not,” agreed Benson, “and I wouldn’t want to use the safari park system either. We don’t know how many of the rangers are under hypnosis.”
He thought for a moment before adding, “I’ll try to sort out a way we can catch that robot of yours without getting seen. How long will it take you to upgrade, set up and sufficiently charge up the robot camera? We need to move as soon as possible on this. I’m thinking of a night time operation to lessen the chances of being seen. Has it got night vision?”
“I’ll get on with the upgrading straightaway and I reckon I could have it ready within two days with a bit of luck… and yes, it does have night vision,” said Tompkins.
“What if Araz is there at night?” asked Zoe. “He might be. We’ve seen him go into the park at night and he could be any shape he wants, so how would we know if he were there or not? That surely increases the risk of him seeing the robot and maybe intercepting it? Also, it means that if someone is close enough to pick it up, there must be a chance Araz will see them too? Look how he waylaid me when I followed him. He’s dangerous.”
“Good point,” said Benson.
“We could go during the daytime,” said the professor. “In fact, I can see some advantages in that.”
“Like what?” asked Benson, rather sceptically.
“For a start, we could take the car in just like any visitor to the park,” said Tompkins. “Then, if I’m in the car, I can let the robot out and programme it to come back to the car by maybe putting a transmitter in the boot or by holding one. If I put a microchip in the robot, it will log onto the transmitter and we will be able to control its return flight. This way the chances of anyone seeing us pick it up are reduced, and when we have got the robot with its pictures, we just drive out of the park like anyone else.”
“What about Araz?” asked Zoe. “What if he’s there? Or one of his controlled rangers sees what we are up to and contacts him?”
“I could send a police constable or plain-clothes officer, who isn’t under his control, to Araz’s office to see him under some legal pretext. That should occupy him long enough to make sure he doesn’t put in an appearance at the safari park, providing we get the timing right,” said Benson.
He then turned to the professor and asked, “Aren’t people driving around the park going to ask questions when they see an automated camera trundling across the grass or along the path? Far from reducing the chances of being seen, I’d have thought that would increase them.”
“Just you wait and see,” replied the professor, grinning widely. “Give me two days to work on the robot and then I’ll introduce you to it. I think you may be pleasantly surprised.”