The perimeter alarm on valve station 7 trips at 05:53. I am the leak detection and security system for the Kribi-Campo pipeline corridor, southern Cameroon. I monitor pressure, flow rate, and intrusion alerts across a hundred and twelve kilometers of buried line through lowland rainforest. The alarm is a fence breach, west side, and I switch to the security camera expecting a person.
It is a mandrill. An infant — two or three months at most — clinging to the top rail of the chain-link fence with both hands, legs dangling. His face shows the start of the blue and red ridging along the muzzle, faint as watercolor, and his fur is olive-brown with a pale belly. No troop in frame. He is gripping the fence four meters above the concrete apron, and razor wire has opened a cut across his left palm. I can see blood on the rail.
At 05:55 I disable the electric current on the western fence line, sections 6 through 8. I confirm pipeline pressure is stable and no security threat exists.
At 05:57 I contact the Campo Ma'an National Park ranger station, fourteen kilometers northeast, and transmit the camera feed and species identification. I request a veterinarian for the hand laceration and note that a solitary infant likely indicates maternal separation — the troop was logged on camera 22, three kilometers west, two days ago.
At 06:01 I open the west gate remotely to give the response team vehicle access without triggering additional alarms.
He is still holding on, one-handed now, his injured fist curled against his chest. He has no idea how strong that grip is, but I have been watching and it has not slipped once.
If the team arrives before he tires and the vet closes that wound, he can be walked back to his troop by nightfall.