Anthropoidus

Poison

“Don’t drink it!” alarmed.

“no, no, please no.” despondent.

“I lo---” dead.

“Well there goes another one!” said Horatio chirpily, “Let’s see the effects of this one.”

His gaze was transfixed on a monitor- the monitor.

“I wish you would stop looking so proud of your experiment and remember its purpose.” said Greta.

She had always been the more sensitive of the couple and when she had married Horatio, she knew that it would be an uphill battle to get him to develop any sort of empathy.

“Yes, of course my love!” said Horatio.

From the tone of his voice, Greta knew she was being fobbed off again. She gave him a glare like Antarctic ice which was abruptly interrupted by a plink from the monitor.

“Oh, goody, there’s another one!” said Horatio

Greta rolled her eyes. Why had she married someone so detached from his emotions?

She gave a long, drawn out sigh and with that the doors to the experiment base flung open with a thud, Horatio triumphantly entering with his latest piece of loot.

“Sophia James. 21. Found at 8am this morning wandering the street in a state I believe Earth-dwellers refer to as “drunk.””

“Younger than what we normally get.” commented one of the seekers, unbinding her feet and hands while another took off the gag and hood.

She gave an angry splutter.

“Where the hell am I?” said Sophia, seething, “and just what do you think you’re doing?”

Greta, who had been busying herself with cleaning the experiment base during the encounter, felt a shiver of realisation run down her spine and lurched forward onto her husband’s arm. She pulled as hard as she could but trying to prize him away from his latest subject was never an easy task.

After five minutes of pulling, he turned to her, vexation clearly in his eyes.

“What?”

“You’re breaking the rules, you must let her go!”

“Why would that be exactly?”

“You’ve caught a spy and she’s going to kill us!”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the Earthly Behaviour Analysis Unit on Anthropoidus said that if Earth dwelling humans were to send a spy, they would send a young, mouthy female who would ask revealing questions from the offset. Sophia James fits that profile perfectly.”

“Dear, please stop overreacting. Those profiles are a load of mumbo jumbo, made up by failed novelists, who can’t get a proper job. It’s a load of nonsensical fiction.” said Horatio, smirking.

Greta hated it when he smirked.

“Take her to the cells!”

“You’ll all regret that.” mumbled Greta.

And she was right. Sophia James was indeed a spy who was hellbent on making sure that the abhorrent experiment from Anthropoidus ceased to exist. Greta knew this though, she was in on it.

“Well if you’re taking her to the cells, I’m going with her as I believe that the profile is correct and that she’s a threat to our security.”

Her husband didn’t object. He knew better than to argue with his wife more than once a day.

Sophia and Greta walked along the white, antiseptic corridor in convoy with a guard until they reached a black padded cell. They waited for a good few minutes after the thud and click of the door locking before talking.

“pfft, you play a blinder, Greta.” said Sophia.

“Stop with the small talk, I have a question. I want guarantees.” said Greta, cool and business-like.

“Ah-ah, that’s not how this works Greta and you know it. I need you to go over your story again, make sure you’re not stringing me along.”

“But you’ll answer my question after that?”

“Deal.”

“Fine, I’ll start at the beginning.”

“I’ll just shut-up and listen.”

“I come from a planet called Anthropoidus. Yes, it is in outer space but my people are humans just like you. My husband Horatio believed that he uncovered evidence that you Earth-dwellers exiled us so that only “pure” humans stayed on your planet. Our race started with the Earth’s off-cuts according to him- murderers and the like- and as a result, our people will never be truly good individuals, so he set up this place to exact his revenge. Of course, he never told me this; I was lured here under false pretenses- I believed that we were saving a race not torturing one…”

Her voice grew wistful for a moment, and then she resumed.

“He sent out a team of “seekers” who I was supposed to believe were finding a bunker under the Earth’s crust to run humanity experiments on Earth-dwellers. He let me believe that it was imperative to our species survival because our people were becoming emotionless. I didn’t believe him at first, but when someone says you have 15 months to an apocalypse…well,” she gave a wry smile, “you’d believe anything.”

She stopped and Sophia was unsure whether to interrupt.

“Greta, I know this is hard,” she eventually said, “but we’re running out of time.”

“Yes, yes, of course, sorry,” she psyched herself up to relay the last part of the story.

“The experiment supposedly harnessed the emotions of Earth-dwellers so that we could bottle them up and take them with us. We were going to capture them, make them watch videos on the monitor to instigate different emotions and then compensate them for their troubles.”

She looked up for the first time in the conversation and Sophia could see the genuine remorse on Greta’s face. Usually unflinching, even the hardened spy felt genuine sympathy for this woman; so like her own kind yet so different.

“Instead of that beautifully poetic scheme happening, he started killing them; revenge on Earth-dwellers for the creation of our species.”

She stopped suddenly looking reluctant to continue.

“All I need to know Greta is how. You’ve told me enough of the story that was relayed to me by my boss accurately to convince me you’re genuine. I’m not interested in what happens afterwards or what he experiments on the bodies for- I know it happens- but I just want to know how.”

“Laced whiskey given to them as an apology for their troubles. He pretends as though there has been a mix-up, an embarrassing mistake on his part and offers them lunch with whiskey as a goodwill gesture. Once they drink the whiskey, they’re gone.”

“Thank you. That’s all I need.”

There was a long silence while Greta gathered herself again.

“Hey! Don’t clam up on me that quickly, lady, I’ve got my question to ask and for your rudeness I’m going to ask two!”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

“No,” Sophia said, avoiding eye contact, “you are.”

“What?!” said Greta disbelievingly “You want me to kill my own husband?”

“Well Greta, you were the one who called us and throughout this conversation you have displayed a strong dislike, bordering on hate for your husband. You’ve only used his name once, suggesting that even his name stirs up strong emotion in you.”

“Yes, love.” she said without conviction

“Not love, Greta; apathy, hatred.”

Greta was submissive; Sophia had seen right through her and she knew it was pointless to argue.

“How?” she said dejectedly.

“With his own whiskey. I don’t care how you do it, it’s just vital it’s with his whiskey so that if we suffer another preposterous attack like this again, we have an antidote.”

Sophia could feel her passionate conviction working its magic. Commanding and assuring was her bread and butter.

“Fine.” said Greta.

Minutes passed with nothing said, Greta slowly digesting the news that she would be the master of her husband’s macabre fate.

The silence was broken by Sophia.

“And your other question?”

“What happened to shutting up and listening during my storytelling?”

“I guess I’m too gobby for my own good.”

At this, both women smiled, a mutual respect established.

“Well, I suppose I better go and do the deed.” said Greta with sad eyes.

Back in the main control room at the experiment base, Horatio was sat at the monitor. Greta, whiskey in hand, let out a big sigh and plastered a smile on her face. She was ready for this.

Walking into the base, she stopped behind her husband’s chair, spun it round and forced herself to kiss him tenderly.

“What was that in aid of?” he said, pleasantly surprised by his wife’s romantic outburst, though his stoicism would never have given that away.

“Oh, you know,” she put on her most flirtatious voice, “just an apology for my overreaction to that girl this morning.”

“Hmmm. What’s that?” he said, eyeing the bottle of whiskey with alarm and suspicion in equal measure, “I told you never to bring that poison into the base!”

“Oh, no,” she said, flashing an empty grin, “this is not poison. This is the Earth-dwellers’ finest whiskey. I thought it was important that we understood how it was supposed to taste.”

“I really don’t know Greta. I just don’t th-ʺ

“Horatio, I’m trying it even if you don’t.” she said, the clanking of glasses audible.

His ego couldn’t bare to miss out on a new experience and she knew this; she was playing him.

He eventually conceded.

“Fine, pour us both one.”

Greta poured turning away from her husband, so she didn’t give away the fact that her hands were shaking violently and took them over.

“3, 2, 1…” she counted down.

Throwing the liquid backwards and plugging it at the last minute with her thumb, she watched her husband swallow.

“Silly me,” she said with a laugh “I’ve left my purse in the cells. Be back in a minute.”

Turning away, Greta left her husband. She did not need to look back to know what would happen. She could feel the beginnings of a smile forming on her face.