It started early in the morning, when the zoo was still quiet and the mist hung over the enclosures. The ape, a large male named Koko by the staff, had been restless for days. He watched the keepers come and go, watched the gates open and close, and learned the rhythm of human movement. He was clever, too clever for the small routines that surrounded him. He had already learned to pick locks with bits of wire and had figured out which doors made noise and which didn’t. What he didn’t know, until that morning, was that the army base across the road was conducting an exercise.
The base had rolled a few armored vehicles out for display, and one of them, an old tank used mostly for training, was parked near the fence. Its crew had gone for coffee. A gate had been left ajar for just a moment, long enough for something curious and determined to pass through. Koko climbed over the outer fence of the zoo while a guard half-dozed in the booth, then dropped into a ditch and lumbered toward the strange metal beast that smelled of oil and heat.
He had seen the tank before, from afar, and had been fascinated by its shape and its noise. This time he touched it, pressing his hand to the cold steel. There were handles and small steps, and he climbed them easily. The hatch was open. Inside smelled like rubber, sweat, and gun grease. He lowered himself in, grunting softly as his long arms searched for familiar shapes. The inside was cramped, filled with levers and buttons, but Koko liked things he could move and pull.
No one is quite sure what happened next. Maybe he knocked a lever by accident, maybe he remembered how soldiers had turned things when he watched from his enclosure before. The tank rumbled to life. Its heavy engine coughed and then began to roar. The sound carried across the field, startling birds and a few late workers. The ape’s eyes widened. The machine responded to him. He banged the side, and the tank jerked forward, crushing a line of bushes.
By the time the soldiers realized something was wrong, the tank was halfway across the training ground. Koko wasn’t driving it with purpose—he was reacting to sound and motion, moving levers because they moved back. The tank rolled over sandbags, hit a stack of barrels, and turned slowly toward the road. The sergeant who had left the keys in the ignition sprinted after it, shouting words that disappeared in the noise. The other soldiers hesitated, unsure whether to laugh or to panic.
Traffic stopped when the tank appeared on the main road. Drivers stared at the moving hulk and the dark figure inside it. Someone called the police. Others filmed with their phones. The ape, visible through the open hatch, looked half proud and half confused. The tank wasn’t fast, but it was unstoppable. It bumped along the street, knocking a mailbox into splinters and flattening a fence. Sirens started to wail in the distance.
The chase didn’t last long. The tank’s engine was old, and the ape didn’t know how to steer properly. After a few minutes, it veered off the road and came to rest in a shallow ditch, its tracks spinning uselessly. Koko climbed out, covered in dust and smelling of diesel. He sat on top of the tank and looked around at the flashing lights approaching. He wasn’t frightened; he seemed almost calm, as if satisfied that he had proved something to himself.
When the soldiers reached him, they didn’t know what to do. Some wanted to shoot tranquilizers, others wanted to get him away from the tank before he hurt himself. But Koko just sat there, breathing heavily, chest rising and falling like an exhausted boxer after a fight. One of the keepers from the zoo arrived with a blanket and a banana. The ape saw her, tilted his head, and climbed down slowly. The crowd that had gathered behind the police line began to applaud.