Continuing the story of Unidentified Patient #307. - Parce
I had thought I was prepared for the vision Dreamer was about to show me. Every time we had done this before, the memories played in front of my eyes as if I were the one originally there, a passive observer from inside someone else’s head. This was different.
Dreamer and I were in it. We both stood in a cold laboratory with corrugated steel walls and a bare concrete floor. A tiny rectangular window near the ceiling told me that this room was a basement. I looked at her and my lack of understanding showed on my face.
“I know,” she said. “It was like this when I first got this memory from Caper, too. That was the first time I’ve used this power since…”
“Since meeting Optera.” I shook my head. “Karkus gave gifts to Ponder and Mauler and me when we met him. He augmented my healing power. Maybe Optera gave you something else along with the lightning bolt thing.”
She directed my attention away from her. Caper was in the room with us. His back was toward us and he was looking at a metal shelf rack full of glass jars.
“This is impossible,” I said. “This is Caper’s memory, but we’re seeing it from outside of him? Optera definitely did something with your power.”
“Walk around,” she said. “Take a closer look.”
I did as she told me. I inspected the steel tables and countertops covered with test tubes and beakers. A burner sat under a fume hood in the back. Across from that, in a corner of the room, was a set of concrete steps and a metal door. I turned to check the other corner and—
“No way!” I ran across the lab as fast as I could. In the darkest part of the lab, at the corner adjacent to the door, sat a ram. I knew those horns anywhere. They were the horns that the monster Entomber now wore as a trophy. My father’s horns.
Trampler himself sat there, eyes on the door, looking like he was on guard. The first thing I noticed was that he was much younger than the old ram I knew. He sat straighter, not hunched, and he was fit. I saw contours of muscles under his coat, which was a lighter grey and had a healthy sheen to it. The second thing I noticed was that he wasn’t moving. He didn’t breathe, didn’t blink. Frozen.
“Are you doing this?” I asked. “Are you keeping this memory from moving forward?”
“Yes,” Dreamer said. “Look at the jars.”
I walked over to the shelf rack. Caper was completely still, just like my father. And he also looked decades younger. One of his feet was in midair, reaching for a glass jar. I looked at it more closely and my stomach turned over.
Caper’s younger self was reaching for a jar with a fetus in it, suspended in fluid. The whole shelf rack was packed with jars containing unborn creatures at various stages of development. Some were embryonic, but others had differentiated into birds or dogs or pigs. Or sheep.
I was horrified. But what was I going to do, stop this whole thing and storm over to University to demand an explanation? I swallowed the puke that threatened to come out and then I turned to Dreamer.
“Let it play out,” I said. Her eyes flickered and then the scene started to move. The fume hood behind us hummed. Ventilation ducts vibrated near the ceiling.
The younger Caper picked up the jar and peered at the label on the lid. “Let’s see what went wrong with this little fellow.”
He carried the jar across the room and set it down next to a huge microscope. Then he unscrewed the lid from the jar and pulled a pipette from a drawer.
There was a noise from the other side of the metal door. My father was on his feet in an instant. As he dived across the lab, I noticed that he did so on three legs. One of his hind legs was in a cast, bound up against the underside of his body. Now I knew when this was. This memory had to be towards the end of the Canine-Avian War.
I wanted Dreamer to stop the memory again because I was struck by confusion for a second. This room had electricity, which wasn’t supposed to be around until after the war. But the thought passed by me as my father did.
Trampler tackled Caper to the floor just as an explosion blew the door off its hinges. I ducked out of pure reflex before remembering that I was in no danger.
Smoke and dust poured in. Caper stood up and helped my father to his feet. They both stared at the stairway. Out of the cloud of smoke, two hulking warthogs came down the steps. They were followed by a little peccary who walked on two legs and wore a big smug grin on his face.
Caper took a step forward. “There’s nothing here of value to you, pigs. You had best be moving on.”
“Oh, I beg to differ,” the peccary said.
I gasped. I knew that voice from somewhere.
The peccary came down the stairs, making sure to stay between his two bodyguards. “This laboratory is a regular treasure trove. You see, our boss has learned what you’ve been doing down here, and he wants your research. We pigs are well on our way to winning this war. As you’ve just learned, our weapons are far superior. But taking control and keeping it are two different things. Having this cloning technology would make our situation a lot easier.”
Caper glanced at the jars and back to the pigs. “Who told you I’m cloning? That’s ridiculous.”
The peccary snickered. “Well, you could say a little bird told us.”
“That wouldn’t be a long-necked, bald-headed bird named Specter, would it?” Caper stumbled over his words in his fury.
The little pig clicked his tongue. “Can’t say. The important thing is, you’re going to cooperate with us. There are some very smart dogs and birds who have made peace with the inevitable and decided to help us along. And you’re regarded as the smartest of all, I hear. Those who have shown us loyalty are already learning how generous we can be. I’m glad to welcome you to the winning team, Caper.” The peccary reached out his trotter to shake.
Caper foot lashed out. His talons raked across the peccary’s face with no effect at all. The two warthogs lunged at the owl as the peccary started laughing. Then my father slipped past them all and drove forward with his horns.
The ram’s horns did what the owl’s talons couldn’t. The peccary’s smile went away real fast as he stared down at a horn sticking through his chest.
“I don’t…” he gasped. “I don’t understand…”
He fell on his back. My father pulled his horns out of the pig’s body and turned on the two warthogs. The pair of them had Caper on the ropes, but they didn’t do so well when it was two-on-two. My dad pulled Caper away from the dead warthogs and towards the door.
Caper broke free from him and started grabbing notes and lab equipment from the shelves. “I can’t let them have my research!”
Two more warthogs came running into the lab. Then two more. They were streaming in. Caper abandoned his research and followed my dad into the midst of them. Some of the warthogs attacked while others focused on picking up the peccary’s body.
The pair of them were surrounded and getting dragged down. They slashed and beat with horn and hoof and talon and beak, flinging warthog blood all over the walls as they cut their way up the steps and then out the door.
Dreamer and I were back at the café, staring at each other over the table. My heart was racing. She was studying my face, probably reading my thoughts.
I had to say it out loud to know I hadn’t just had a nightmare. “All those cloned warthogs and hounds and ospreys that came to kill me and my dad… they came from research the pigs stole from Caper. And my father knew about this all along.”
I paid our very small tab and then wandered off into the square. Dreamer caught up with me and leaned against me. The sensation of her warmth against my shoulder and chest should have been intoxicating, as it had been before. But I was still processing what she’d just shown me.
“I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that.” When I didn’t answer, she added, “He wanted you to know that he understands you better than he could let on at first.”
“Yeah.” I started walking toward the west gate. She took a few hesitant steps after me, like she wanted to go with me to the clinic then and there. “I’ll call you,” I said. “I just need some time to think.”
“Of course.” She stood there in the square and watched me walk away.
I didn’t talk to anyone but Swifter and my patients for a couple of days after that. On the third day, as I was closing up the clinic, I saw a yellow flicker over my head. Something had flown onto the upstairs balcony. I went up there and opened the sliding door.
Mrs. Flaxer the canary was sitting on the railing with an envelope in her beak. I waved to her and then took it. As usual, there was no writing on the back.
“It’s from the professor,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. “How are you?”
She gave me her sweet little smile. “Doing well. This place looks great.” Then she flew off. I sat down to read the letter by the fading sunlight.
Dear Healer,
I have been informed that Dreamer has told you what I could not. I owe you many apologies. First, for concealing the information from you all this time; and second, perhaps more important, for lacking the courage to tell you in the clinic when I had both the will and the opportunity. I am writing this letter to offer you what explanation I can.
Everything Dreamer showed you is true. Toward the end of the Canine-Avian War, before the pigs appeared, I told the birds in charge at the time that I would be more useful in a research position than on the battlefield. Initially I was interested in medical breakthroughs, something to help get injured birds back in the fight. Then, I began to wonder if we could be improving soldiers, rather than just healing them.
I wanted to understand the genomes of all the people of our world, to make better birds by giving them the best attributes of dogs and sheep. At least, that was the lie I told myself at the time. In truth, I arrogantly wanted to make sure no one could ever challenge the power of birds again. Your father was sympathetic to my stated cause—I did not tell him my true cause—and after Boxer injured him in combat, I took him on as a personal bodyguard. We had known of each other by reputation, but this was the start of our friendship.
When the pigs arrived and the tide of the war was turning against us, I grew desperate. Just like everyone else. Under my direction, birds began stealing and repurposing pig technology like gunpowder and electricity. With those tools in hand, I was able to push my research to lengths I could not have imagined before. I began trying to create an army of disposable foot soldiers to hold back the unstoppable onslaught.
Your father fought valiantly and killed many of those warthogs, but we were no match for them all. We fled my lab and left all my research behind. They stole everything. After they won the war, they began implementing my work almost immediately. They crafted the hounds, the warthogs, and the ospreys to be physically intimidating but stupid and easy to control.
The newest construction inside the Megatropolis, Chugg Cybernetics, haunts me every time I set foot outside. That monstrosity exists because of my work during the war. I am responsible for the creation of horrors like Durdge.
I told Dreamer of all this because of her concern for you. I operate University to protect sheep from the abuse of the Chugg Corporation out of a rebellious sense, as you know, but I also what to make up for what I’ve done in what little way I can.
I will never be able to undo the ghastly research I did for the war effort, nor can I take away what the pigs have been able to accomplish with it. That’s why, even though I am successful here at University, I will never stop doing what I can to protect sheep from the worst of what the Chugg Corporation can do. I explained this to Dreamer so that she would understand why I will never stop fighting… and why I think you will never stop either.
I hope to speak with you very soon.
In All Sincerity,
Professor Caper
I watched the sun dip down behind the western wall. Then I lit a match and set a corner of the letter on fire. Watching the paper curl up and blacken, I nodded. I couldn’t look at Caper the same way anymore, but I was still glad to know. It made some things make more sense.
The ashes of the letter skipped off the balcony in the evening breeze. With them went my resentment. I could hold Caper’s and Dreamer’s and my father’s choices against them all I wanted, but the pigs were the root cause of it all. Now, more than ever, I was determined to break their hold on my world. For my sake and everyone else’s. Not just to protect the people I cared about from being hurt by the pigs, but to protect them from having to become monsters themselves.