Captured (Keiko's Story, Part 2)

Click here for Part 1

A constant beeping was the first sound that penetrated the fuzzy blanket wrapped around Keiko’s mind. Trying to wake up felt like digging through dirt. It was exhausting and took forever.

When she was finally able to open her eyes, she found herself in a brightly lit place, lying on her back. Keiko tried to sit up but restrains on her arms and legs held her in place. Her head was free but it felt like something was attached to it in several places. It itched.

”She’s awake!” Said a human voice outside of Keiko’s field of vision. ”And look at those brainwaves, she’s reacting to my voice. Do you think she understands?”

”I don’t know”, another voice answered. ”It could just be a stress reaction.”

”Sure, but the scans of her brain revealed an impressive cerebral cortex, it looks almost like the one of a human. It’s even more impressive than the one of the last chimpanzee we got.”

”Yes, but the last one was a failure. Don’t get your hopes up.”

One of the humans moved and Keiko could finally see them. The human had short fur on their head and some in their face.

”How are you feeling?” Face-hair asked. Keiko just stared. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t form human words, how was she supposed to answer? A high-pitched squeak escaped her throat and she felt her heart pumping in fear.

Face-hair sighed. ”Yes, you are probably scared. But we won’t hurt you, I promise. Do you want me to remove your restraints?”

Keiko didn’t understand every word Face-hair said, but she understood the meaning. Mimicking a human behavior, she had observed earlier, she moved her head up and down to signal that she agreed. Face-hair exposed his teeth, probably a friendly gesture between humans.

Then Face-hair started removing the things stuck to her head and then loosened the ropes that held Keiko down.

As soon as she was free, Keiko jumped from the table she was on and retreated into a corner. Now the other human, who was shorter and had long, light fur on their head. Keiko eyed them suspiciously.

In Light-hair’s hand there was a white leaf, similar to the one the human that had tried to communicate with Keiko had used. Keiko extended her hand, hoping the human would understand what she wanted and give her the leaf.

Light-hair did understand and gave Keiko the leaf, together with some sort of sharpened stick. Puzzled, Keiko inspected the stick. It was rather thin and the pointy end had a different color than the rest.

The realization hit Keiko and she carefully moved the tip of the stick across the white leaf. It created a straight line.

Delighted, Keiko flipped the leaf to have a clean place do draw. ”Home”, she thought, ”I want them to take me home.”

Finally, after several minutes of drawing, she handed the leaf over to Light-hair who took it and inspected it together with Face-hair. They seemed baffled.

”That is an almost perfect drawing of her cage”, Face-hair said. ”I didn’t expect her to be able to draw anything like this, not without training. She seems even smarter than we thought.”

”Maybe we finally found what we were looking for”, Light-hair added. ”She might be the proof that apes are catching up to us. We might soon have to deal with a whole new species of intelligent beings. We have to do more tests.”

Although Keiko didn’t know what “tests” were, she understood that she wouldn’t be going home any time soon. Scared, she wrapped her arms around her legs and closed her eyes, wishing that this would all soon be over.

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Sources:

Evolution of the brain and intelligence in primates
Cerebral cortex

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