“Fuck, fuck, okay, you know the recording chamber on the top of the skull, where we lower the needle in? Well, you’re supposed to screw the top to a bar above their head so that they can only look in one direction. Otherwise they won’t face the screen and you can’t show them stimuli. But I guess Mars Bars’ chamber got weakened or something. He got so mad. I have no idea why. We’re friends normally. But I’ve been told he can be unpredictable since Double Trouble died. They were cage-mates. Basically he just ripped the entire recording apparatus off.”

“Off his skull?!” Carmen says, horrified.

“It took a good chunk of the skull with it,” Alex says, wincing.

“That’s really not supposed to happen.”

“No shit. The bone could’ve weakened by infection or . . . Anyways, it doesn’t matter why now,” Alex says. “What matters is that there’s an aggravated monkey in there with his brain exposed and literally no top of his skull.”

“Christ. What if he shakes?”

“Shakes?” Carmen asks.

Alex—“When they get mad they like to shake in their chairs. Really hard. And with his skull open and in the shape it’s in . . .”

Kierk tosses Carmen a mask and a lab coat as he and she begin immediately stacking on protective gear, grabbing the chain-mail bite gloves.

Carmen, her voice muffled by the mask—“What exactly are we supposed to do?”

“Alright, here’s the plan,” Alex says. “There’s a sedative that they taught me how to use. For emergencies.”

“Should we wait for the vet?”

“He would just try to do this anyways. And I have no idea how long he’ll be.”

“Don’t they have like a dart gun or something?”

“Oh yeah, Carmen, for taking down all this big game.”

She grimaces. “But we’re adding new people he doesn’t know.”

Alex appears torn. “Listen, he’s been in there alone because I freaked out. He’s gonna start freaking out too if he doesn’t see someone soon, ’cause he’s just stuck there alone and in his chair. Monkeys want people around when they’re in trouble. And Mars Bars is normally just a total fatty who wants food. So the plan is, Carmen, you get the food and the tongs. It’s a bowl of grapes on the left. I try to approach him and calm him and you give me the food. Meanwhile, Kierk, you go for the syringes and the bottle marked ‘Domitor.’ I can’t fill a needle while I’m feeding him to keep him calm. Plus, with three of us, if we’re near enough we might be able to grab him and restrain his head.”

Behind the armor of their personal protective gear both nod.

“Also, when we go in, don’t look him in the eyes.”

“What?”