As the car sped along the roads out of Paignton, an anxious hush settled inside. Outside, the sun was dipping steadily, casting hedges in deepening shadow as they faded to rust. Leaf-strewn lanes blurred past the windows, dappled in the soft, slanting light of late afternoon.
Neither woman paid much attention to the autumn scenery. With evening approaching, shadows stretched around each bend, casting brief, lurking shapes across the road. The black macaque in the back seat seemed unfazed by the speed or the unfamiliar surroundings; its wiry fur exuded a faint musk that seeped through the artificial freshness of the car's air conditioning. Occasionally, it shifted, its sharp gaze fixed on Selina’s reflection in the mirror, as if sizing her up with unsettling precision - a spark of curiosity in its eyes.
Finally, Selina broke the silence, her voice soft, a little shaky. “What just happened?” she breathed, her voice trembling. Her brown eyes nervously checked the mirror. “I thought we were here to find some answers, not… not whatever that was.”
Rosa sat beside her, hands clasped tightly between her thighs. Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “It’s like a nightmare come to life,” she murmured, fiddling with the hem of her sweater. “Those cages... I could feel the fear. Like the walls themselves had soaked it in.”
Selina’s heart ached at Rosa’s words. “Instead of answers, it feels like we’ve opened a door to darkness, something we can’t control,” she admitted. “We're in way over our heads.”
Rosa nodded. “But we can’t just walk away from this. We need to understand what's happening, work out whether to report or expose them, whatever it takes. But we need some facts.”
Selina’s hands gripped the wheel a little too tightly, every few seconds, stealing a glance in the rearview mirror at Rowan, the crested macaque, who, each time, met her gaze with focused intensity.
“I can’t believe it all really happened,” Selina continued, voice rising with disbelief. “We’re actually running from men with guns.” Rowan gave a quiet, almost knowing huff, flashing his eyes meaningfully.
Selina shot the monkey a wary glance. “This is officially bizarre. First, it’s leading us through a maze of forbidden rooftops, and now it’s hitching a ride like it’s got somewhere to go.”
Rosa turned to look at the macaque, and a chill prickled down her spine as a flash of images filled her mind: the caged cebus monkey - its eyes locked onto hers; her phone gone haywire and its turning trajectory into the air. Fractured memories tumbled in: whirling scraps of blackness, the hooded black macaque from her dream, the hissing echo of “Ssssssseeeeeeuuuuuuussssss,” each fragment spiralling through her mind with a weight that was hard to shake.
She felt she ought to reply to Selina. “I… I don’t know. I feel like it knows something… more than…”
“More than we know,” Selina muttered. She indicated and swerved onto a more major A road, driving a little too fast and shaking her head. “Rosa, this is all way beyond our experience. What if it's not only cebus monkeys they're interfering with? What if it's the others like… him,” - she angled her head to Rowan, who tilted his head in response - “what else could they be hiding?”
Rosa’s mind reeled, thoughts competing for focus: glitching phone, circling drones, cryptic messages, the eerie hissing that morphed into that unmistakable word… cebus…see us, was that it? Were they trying to communicate? She picked up the red sign that Selina had dropped between the seats, staring at it as if it might pull everything into clarity. “MASS is into something they shouldn’t be. Artificial Simian Sentience - these words…”
“You’re right,” Selina agreed, her voice tense after all they'd experienced. “I felt that drone’s eye scanning me like I was just another lab subject. What else do they have in there, Rosa? Or who? If this really is Rowan, he was one of the original Paignton monkeys. And that QR code I scanned by the door led to stuff about ‘neuroinformatics’ and ‘dream-interface technology.’ What does that even mean?”
Rosa frowned. “Sounds like a bunch of tech buzzwords. What else did the site say? Didn't you say something about ‘immersive experiences’ and was it ‘Fourth Wall’... innovations, or something like that? Maybe they’re working on simulations. Messing with perception - maybe… Maybe that'd explain my phone.”
Selina shook her head. "It's all insane.”
They drove in silence for a moment, the weight of the day pressing down on them.
Then, Selina glanced over her shoulder again at the dark macaque. “And what do you think, huh? Leading us through your personal prison tour… what were you hoping to achieve?”
The macaque met her gaze steadily, then let out a single, low screech - sharp, pointed, almost indignant.
Rosa flinched, recalling again the silhouette of her broken phone arcing into the air, turning in slow motion like some miniature spaceship. “I think… it wants us to understand something. Maybe the other animals in that lab are important to him.”
Selina leaned forward slightly, heart racing as she accelerated to pass an articulated lorry. “Well, we’re in this now. And judging by the look on that monkey’s face, he’s not going anywhere until we figure it out. So… what are we going to do with him?”
Rosa exhaled slowly. She’d been mulling over the options. None seemed right. “The easiest choice would be to hand him over to the wildlife authorities,” she started reluctantly. “It’d keep him out of M.A.S.S.’s reach. They’d have a lot of questions though about how we ‘found’ a macaque, wouldn’t they?”
Selina grimaced. “And Rowan’s not exactly… typical. And if M.A.S.S. gets a whiff that he’s with the authorities, they’ll push for tests. He’d end up right back where we’re trying to get him away from.”
“True,” Rosa agreed, casting another glance back at the dark monkey. He was now inspecting the seatbelt, and with surprising dexterity, he reached over, pulled it across himself, and clicked it in place. Both women fell silent.
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Selina gave a short laugh of disbelief. “Alright, so he’s clearly not a typical monkey. What about… a sanctuary? There’s that one near Exmoor that takes in abandoned animals. They might have the facilities to keep him safe.”
Rosa considered it, nodding thoughtfully. “That’s a possibility. But even if we took him there, M.A.S.S. could track him down, they've seen him now. They know every sanctuary in the region. They’d be able to pull strings to get access to him. That would be awful since he's evaded them this long.”
They were both quiet again, the sound of the car’s engine the only noise. Outside, the shadows loomed larger, Rowan, meanwhile, listened, intent and unblinking
Selina spoke up. “What about Carl? He has that cottage off the beaten track. It has to be Rowan he was feeding back there. I mean, he’d at least understand the importance of keeping Rowan hidden from M.A.S.S.”
Rosa’s face clouded over at the mention of Carl. “Carl’s… not a great option,” Rosa said finally. “He might be well-meaning, but his home is actually within sight of M.A.S.S.. Surely, if our visit today sets off any search for ‘Ro’, they'll soon get to him.”
Selina frowned. “But Carl hates the place and knows animals. He could provide Rowan with a safe space. We can’t just abandon him.”
“Sure, he knows animals,” Rosa replied. “But if we take Rowan to him, he'll know we know about him and he might feel obligated to report the matter to cover his back.”
Selina merged the vehicle into the left lane, frustration bubbling up. “But he wouldn’t sell us out, would he? He and the zoo are totally innocent in all this. He cares about the animals. He was the one who pointed us to MASS.”
“Caring isn’t enough, we need someplace completely off the radar, someone who doesn’t have any ties to the zoo,” Rosa said firmly.
“Fair enough,” Selina replied, clearly at a loss, fingers tapping out her tension on the steering wheel. “But if we don’t hand him over to the authorities, and if Carl and the sanctuaries are out, then… what? We can’t exactly keep him at either of our places. Not safely, anyway.”
Rosa paused for a long moment. “Actually… I do have a spot,” she said slowly. “Down the valley, at the bottom of my garden, there’s an old shed. It’s tucked out of sight, way past the treeline. I used to keep Georgie there before I moved him into something better. It’s sturdy, and Rowan could stay there for a while until we figure out a long-term plan.”
Selina perked up, her expression both cautious and hopeful. “You think he’d be alright there?”
Rosa nodded, though doubt still lingered at the edges of her thoughts. “For a while, at least. It’s quiet, away from prying eyes. And if we keep him well hidden… maybe M.A.S.S. wouldn’t think to look there.”
The car’s headlights pierced the first hints of twilight as they veered off the main road, the soft hum of the engine now accompanied by the distant rustling of wind in the trees. The world outside was sinking toward darkness, the fading daylight turning the tors to silhouettes. Rowan’s amber eyes reflected the dim glow, watching the decent of the sun.
Then, something caught the monkey’s attention. Without hesitation, he tugged at the door handle, his eyes locked on the distant sky. Rosa followed his line of sight, and there, against the fading light of the Devon evening, was a swirl of skyborne motes, a vast murmuration of starlings - dark shapes soaring and darting, their wings cutting through the orange and purple sky above the moorlands, the rocky tors etched against the twilight.
Rowan’s urgency was unmistakable - he jerked the door handle, he needed to stop. He tugged again, his restlessness palpable, his gaze never leaving the birds.
Selina slowed the car, pulling it to the side of the road, the engine quieting to a hum. Before she could say anything, Rowan was out and onto the roof, swinging with an otherworldly grace that was almost too beautiful for a macaque. He stood as if he belonged there, a lone figure, bathed in the last of the day's gold, atop the car against the wild beauty of the landscape.
Rosa stepped out, enthralled by the scene. The starlings were a black river flowing through the evening, fluid and seamless, the wings of each edged by the last fire of the dying sun. They twisted and turned in three-dimensional shapes, rising and falling in perfect harmony, weaving into the sky, their collective rhythm shifting the air itself. It was as if the landscape - moors stretching to the horizon, ancient tors standing sentinel - was being painted with every movement, every pulse of the birds’ flight.
Rowan now sat on the roof, eyes wide with awe, his posture still and regal, as if the starlings had revealed some great secret only he could understand.
Rosa flinched then. The last time she’d seen such a murmuration, it had turned dark and foreboding, the chaotic flight shattering her window in a violent frenzy. The memory struck her like a sharp jolt, and she shuddered. But this... this was different. This murmuration was pure beauty - the birds weaving through the golden twilight, their shapes delicate and effortless, a living masterpiece in the fading light.
She couldn’t look away as they glided across the sky, the deepening colours of dusk bleeding into deep purples and brass, the first stars beginning to twinkle faintly above. For a moment, the world seemed to fall away, leaving only the birds, the moors, and the quiet of the night creeping in.
The autumn wind, sharp and chill, lifted Rowan’s bristly fur, his eyes narrowing as if he were trying to decipher the meaning of it all. He swivelled his head, following the starlings as they darted in wild zigzags through the sky, a living wave crashing against the invisible shore of the atmosphere.
Then, as if summoned by Rowan’s stillness, the murmuration shifted. The starlings veered in on him, their flight purposeful, intent. Rosa stepped back, breathless, as they encircled above him, whirling in a spiralling dance just above the roof of the car. They moved with astonishing synchrony, their bodies flicking and turning, the air rippling with the sound of countless wings, yet their dizzy proximity was not unsettling - it was serene, an awe-inspiring embrace. The air was filled with their graceful, liquid movement, a swirling vortex of dark shapes and flashing feathers, each bird an individual yet part of the whole.
Rowan was still, mesmerised, his body a part of the pattern, a calm sentinel amid the rush of life. The starlings span and circled closer and closer, the rush of air soft against his skin as they passed, his arms raising like a slow-motion conductor, charming their dance. Selina’s face was aglow with enraptured delight. The world felt suspended in this dance of birds, the comfort of patterns, the perfume of earth and sky. The starlings seemed somehow to know this macaque of shadow, communing with him in a living display before the waning light, finally swirling around him in a heaving, exquisite embrace then lifting and dissolving into the vastness of the sky.
Rosa exhaled slowly, her heart full and brimming with emotion. The murmuration, the evening itself, was simply perfect serenity. Rowan remained perched on the roof, still and regal as ever, eyes tracing the last of the birds’ flight. The night deepened, the sky now fully dark, but the beauty of the moment lingered in the cool air, the landscape quiet and still, as if holding its breath.
“Alright,” Selina said, awe overflowing in her voice. “Let’s do it. I don't know what just happened there, but we need to keep Ro safe.”
Rosa turned to face her, still floating on the euphoria of the moment, but feeling the gravity of their decisions like an anchor pulling at her chest. And she simply nodded.
As the drove away, the quiet of the night closed in, thick and dense after the airy shade of the starlings. The wind tugged at the trees, and clouds pulled across the rising moon as if to keep it concealed, as if the very world was holding its breath, waiting. They were crossing a threshold, one that neither of them - or none of them - could undo.
There was no going back now. They were in this together, even if the darkness of what they’d uncovered remained only half-understood.