Becoming Animals

by Olga Werby

  Toby didn’t know what “one of those” meant, but if it let her use the library computers, she was happy.

  He led her up the staircase to the second floor. “Here,” he said, pointing to a table by the window with a computer terminal. “You can use this one.”

  “Thank you,” Toby said brightly. She was the only one in this section of the library and the table was safely nestled in an alcove behind several massive bookcases. She felt much better here, away from the emotionally unsettled room below. She settled into the chair next to the computer terminal that was beside a window. Outside, she could see students walking in the plaza.

  “Do you know how to log in?”

  “No.”

  The student smirked, swiped her card into the reader, and started to navigate screens at super speed, blocking Toby’s view of the monitor with his shoulder. Toby didn’t understand why he was trying to hide what he was doing, but she didn’t care as long as she got to do her research in privacy from the Brats team. She leaned back, letting the graduate student “drive” the library computer system.

  “Here,” he said, leaning back. “You should be able to find what you need from here.”

  “Thank you.”

  He turned to leave, but not before murmuring, “Another wunderkind with a full scholarship, I bet.”

  Toby didn’t understand what his problem was, but she didn’t care as long as she got what she came for.

  The student had left the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s web page up on the screen. Toby quickly navigated away—she had no interest in drugs. She was sure riding animals was far more stimulating than any mind-altering drug she could ever take. What could compete with perceiving the world through Ruffy’s senses? Or Twiggy’s? Or whatever other new animal Uncle Geo would introduce into the lab?

  She was sure more animals would be introduced into the Brats project soon. As cute and wonderful as piggies were, they were too limited. Their little hoofed feet couldn’t manipulate objects except by kicking at them—even rats’ paws were preferable. Pigs also weren’t very athletic, their eyesight was an issue—they didn’t see red or green—and they had a real problem with novelty. Toby often found herself fighting Twiggy’s innate fear of anything unfamiliar. The cog-boost helped and she could manipulate their brain chemistry to reduce that anxiety, but the pigs were very smart—much smarter than rats—and it sometimes felt like a battle of wills.

  So more animals were in her future, together with more addictive experiences.

  Ever since she’d bonded with Rufus, Toby had found herself craving the animal connection. But Twiggy had put her over the top. She needed Twiggy in a way that was, frankly, a little frightening. There was just something about being inside another being that was like a drug. She accepted her need…her craving for the experience. She was never giving this up. Never. Maybe she had been too quick to dismiss researching drug addiction; maybe that was the closest topic she’d find.

  She opened a private browser window. She figured her search history was safe here—unlike at the lab, where all her computer use was monitored—but it didn’t hurt to be careful. Then she considered where to start. The scientific journals would have the best information, but those articles were longer and more complicated, and she didn’t know how much time she had. At some point, somebody from the Brats project was bound to come looking for her. So she decided to start with a simple Google search on addiction. That would give her the general overview of the subject.

  “Addiction” was from the Latin word for enslavement. Toby didn’t like that take on the term, but she felt there was truth to it. She craved the connection. She got antsy when several days went by without experiments where she could ride. She had convinced her dad to let her plug into Rufus at will by arguing that it was for his benefit—that Rufus “needed” the connection. But the real need was her own.

  The problem had gotten worse over time. She dreamt frequently of riding, of interacting with the world via an animal’s brain and senses—being an animal. But the most disconcerting change was that recently, her thinking had begun to parallel that of Twiggy and Ruffy. It was mostly emotional stuff—like being uncomfortable in the big reading room but being reassured hiding here in this corner. Toby knew that was Twiggy and Rufus talking; she recognized that a prey animal doesn’t like to be in the middle of a large exposed space. But why did Toby feel that way when she wasn’t riding? Was that enslavement?

  Toby clicked on several of the search results. She read about various behavioral addictions: gambling, shopping, sex. One frightening thing she discovered was that the signs of such addictions could be seen as physical manifestations on neuro-imaging scans. Toby had scans done all the time. Could her dad’s team spot her addiction on her brain scans?

  But how could something like addiction—a craving—show up in a brain scan?

  She read on. In the brain, the pleasure activation had a very distinct profile—two neurotransmitters regulated the reward circuit. Dopamine drove the desire and serotonin controlled the inhibition and satiety. In addiction, dopamine’s levels went up and serotonin’s dropped down. That’s why addicts acted so out of character when they needed their fix. The nucleus accumbens, a small organ deep inside their brains next to the amygdala and the hippocampus, got flooded with dopamine. On the brain scans, this area lit up in addicts.

  What if everyone already knows I’m addicted to riding? Toby thought. What then?

  She kept googling the web for more, using the words “nucleus accumbens” as a search parameter. There was an article in the Journal of Neuroscience that said the nucleus accumbens was important to memory formation based on environmental stimuli. Both negative and positive emotional experiences caused dopamine levels to rise—that was the basis of operant conditioning, a learning technique they used at the Brats lab to strengthen desired animal behaviors with rewards and sometimes punish bad behaviors.

  Was there something she could do to keep signs of addiction from showing up on her brain scans? Lilly had said that Toby’s brain scans were quite unusual. Maybe she could confuse them somehow. Toby wondered if she could ever learn enough to confound a lab full of neuroscientists. Probably not.

  She continued her research. Stronger emotions, she learned, formed stronger memories. Dopamine could make some experiences very emotionally powerful, making an addict crave the experience by giving them constant reminders of how good it felt. Toby saw how this applied to her. The Brats team had used operant conditioning to motivate the animals and, since Toby was riding the animals, she got jolts of dopamine each time. Her brain had associated that jolt with the strong emotional experiences she shared with the animals.

  If you were trying to create addiction, you couldn’t design a better way to do it! Toby realized. She wondered how May and Kyle felt. Did they have cravings for the animal experiences? Were they addicted too?

  Toby felt scared. She sat back in the wooden library chair and stared into space. This was not what she’d hoped to find. She had wanted to find something she could use to quench her seemingly insatiable appetite for brain-to-brain interaction. Instead, she had found a neurological trap. She was helpless to stop her brain from being hijacked by addiction.

  It was only when she was riding that she could run without gasping for breath. Riding freed her from cystic fibrosis. But apparently, freedom from one disease came at the cost of suffering another.

  Vikka couldn’t believe it. “You’re spying on us!” How else could Kyle know that Toby had gone to the library?

  “Of course not,” Kyle said. “We’re just paying attention—watching out for you. And…there’s something going on with her.”

  “What?”

  “She just smells wrong, that’s all,” Kyle said. “Why do you think she’s in the library?”

  “I don’t know,” Vikka said. “We’re doing algebra at the moment—no research work.”

  “I don’t like not knowing why,” Kyle said.

  They walked
across the plaza toward the library. “Are you sure she’s here?” Vikka asked. “Toby is borderline agoraphobic. She hates crowds. One sneeze and she ends up in the hospital.”

  “She’s here,” Kyle said. “Go and surprise her.”

  “She’s going to know that we followed her,” Vikka said.

  “She’s a twelve-year-old kid and you’re a post-doc. You can’t come up with an explanation for why you might be in a library?”

  “Fine. So are you staying here?”

  “I’ll be around,” he said.

  “Of course you will.”

  Vikka inhaled deeply, shook off her annoyance at Kyle, and marched into the library.

  She found Toby on the second floor. “Toby? Is that you?” she said, pretending surprise—and feeling like a total fraud.

  Toby was sitting calmly behind a computer terminal, watching Vikka approach as if she had been expecting her. It was a bit unnerving. She smiled innocently. “Hi, Vikka.”

  “Doing research?” Vikka asked, returning the smile, fake for fake. She discreetly glanced at the monitor. A website on the quadratic equation was up on the screen.

  “Actually, I’m done,” Toby said. “You want to walk back together?” She didn’t inquire why Vikka just happened to be in the library too. Maybe she assumed Vikka went to the library all the time.

  “Sure, it’s almost time for dinner. I bet your dad wonders where you are.”

  “I told him I was going to the library.”

  “You did?” Vikka suddenly felt silly for how she’d acted with Kyle. Kyle hadn’t been spying after all; Will must have told him where Toby was. Kyle was just being a macho jerk, pretending to be mysterious.

  “I left you a message too,” Toby added pointedly.

  “Yes, I saw. But I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Oh, I thought you were looking for me,” Toby said. “You were walking with Kyle…”

  Toby didn’t finish, but Vikka felt herself blush. She wasn’t good at lying. “He walked me over,” she said. “Shall we?”

  Vikka pointed toward the exit. She hated Kyle for making her feel awkward with Toby. It was very unhelpful…even to his agenda. She’d talk with Uncle Geo later. Perhaps she’d mention that Kyle was a bit overzealous.

  They walked out into the sunshine together. It was beautiful outside; the California spring weather felt more like summer. Students were wandering in pairs and small groups, laughing and talking after a day of classes. Vikka thought with nostalgia of her own university days and then felt bad as she flashed on Toby’s future. The girl wasn’t likely to enjoy a college experience like that.

  Toby looked pensive, her brows drawn together. The girl was clearly not enjoying the sunshine or the happy freedom of the surrounding students.

  “What’s going on, Toby?” Vikka asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Toby shook her head and smiled broadly. But it was another fake smile—it never reached her eyes. “Nothing. I’m just tired, that’s all.” That was probably true; she was often worn out by the end of the day. Her body was just not very strong.

  Vikka decided to make it a pizza night. “Want to watch a movie tonight?” she asked. Toby couldn’t go to a movie theater, but they had a projector in the lab’s conference room and it was easy to set it up to stream a film from her phone.

  “Sure. That’ll be fun.”

  As they walked back together, Vikka spotted a drone circling the tree-lined walkway. She ignored it. What was the chance it had something to do with them?

  With Lilly’s help, Vikka moved the furniture around to turn the conference room into a movie theater, and she had three extra large pizzas delivered. That was way more than the team could eat, but leftover pizza was always appreciated. As for the movie, Vikka selected Babe: Pig in the City. She thought it was an inspired choice.

  May insisted that Twiggy and Bricks join them, to help the pigs with socialization. When she brought them in, the now-adolescent piggies ran around, aroused by the smell of fresh pizza.

  Rufus arrived on Toby’s shoulder. He was really old now, his fur gray and his body slightly arthritic. Vikka noticed that Toby had her BBI headset in her back pocket. She frowned. The idea was to watch a movie, not work or conduct experiments.

  Toby must have seen Vikka’s reaction, as she gave a guilty smile. “Ruffy needs to be connected,” she explained. “I was busy all day and didn’t get around to it yet.”

  Vikka didn’t challenge her. Connecting to Rufus was routine. He had been a hardworking lab rat and deserved a bit of consideration and comfort in his retirement. Actually, Vikka was glad that Toby hadn’t abandoned him when the adorable, smart, and charismatic piggies entered her life. It showed character, Vikka thought. Toby was a loyal and caring friend.

  “Should we eat first?” Will asked. “Or should we watch and eat?”

  “Watch and eat,” Ben said, setting himself up by the projector with a giant slice of pizza and a bottle of beer.

  “Remember, no one feeds the animals!” Lilly said. “They’ve had their dinner already. And if we have to put them away, we will,” she added sternly.

  The pigs viewed all food as their own private property—it was one of their problematic behaviors that the team was working on right now. No one was allowed to feed the animals from the table—no sharing lunch, no sneaking morsels of tasty goodness, no treats unless the animals earned it—and both animals were punished if they tried to steal food.

  Even worse was when they acted out by hitting and head-butting people while begging for food. All of the Brats team members had multiple contusions on their legs from fending off sneaky pig snack attacks. Lilly bruised more easily than the others and the piggies knew it. They would nose around her contusions even before they became visible. Toby said that, while riding Twiggy, she could smell the extra blood pooling under the skin. Bruises had a slightly metallic scent.

  Vikka looked over at Toby, who was now eating a slice of pizza while plugged in and riding Rufus. The split perception didn’t seem to be disorienting to her at all. It was remarkable.

  “Okay! Settle, people. Settle!” Ben called out. He had apparently appointed himself master of ceremonies. “Get your pizza and prepare to enjoy the inaugural Brats Thursday Pizza and Movie Night!”

  “We’re making this an official event?” Lilly said.

  “Absolutely,” said Will. “Thank Vikka for a wonderful idea. All work and no play—”

  “Makes piggies crazy?” Ben interrupted. He laughed.

  Vikka realized that it wasn’t just Toby who was exhausted. They all needed a little break; everyone was tense. Perhaps that’s why Kyle had overreacted. He was now smiling and calmly eating pizza—a completely different man from the one Vikka had experienced just two hours ago. Vikka grabbed a big slice of pizza and smiled at him.

  “Making a pig out of yourself, Vikka?” he joked and smiled back. He looked totally non-threatening now.

  She waved her pizza at him and took a big bite.

  Twiggy and Bricks were running around begging, but no one paid any attention to them. When Twiggy finally settled down on her blanket by Toby’s feet and sat there quietly for a few minutes, Toby gave her one chocolate-covered raisin as a reward. Ruffy got a small corner of her pizza: crust, sauce, cheese, and meat. Toby ate the rest of the slice. Vikka wondered how it must feel to process the taste of pizza as both a rat and a human at the same time. Remarkable!

  Toby chewed carefully. It was sometimes difficult to discern the actions of both her human teeth and Ruffy’s incisors, and she didn’t want to accidentally bite the inside of her mouth—human one or ratty one. She would feel the pain either way.

  Eating while riding Ruffy was a novel experience. She had tried it before, but on a much smaller scale—popcorn and crackers and such. The taste of popcorn from Ruffy’s senses mixed with the information her human taste buds were sending to her brain…it had been a unique experience. But eating pizza was even more immersive and she hadn’t eve
n started to watch the movie with both sets of eyes yet! That would be a real high…

  Toby stopped herself. She shouldn’t be using an addict’s language even in her thoughts. She was falling in way too deep. She scanned the room to check if anyone had noticed her acting strangely. Kyle was watching her. She pretended to cough, trying to hide any strange expressions on her face. She had once watched herself in the mirror while riding Ruffy and she knew her face looked strange—in a bad way.

  “Are you okay?” her dad asked her. Apparently he had been watching too.

  Toby nodded—Ruffy did too—and smiled. She was just fine.

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have any more pizza tonight. But Ruffy could still have some and she could enjoy it via his taste buds. She slipped him another cheesy bit. From the corner of her eye, she saw that Kyle was still watching her. She sat up straighter.

  Ben dimmed the lights and Vikka pressed play on her phone. The movie started and Toby pretended to focus on the film.

  A movie about a sentient pig was a fitting choice for their first movie night. This was a sequel to Babe that Toby had watched over and over as a kid. It was sweet and kind-hearted. “That’ll do, Pig, that’ll do,” her dad used to say when she washed herself in a bathtub, proving that she could do it all by herself. He would then wrap her in a huge pink fluffy towel and take her to her room to put her jammies on. Life was simpler then.

  On the whiteboard that was now doubling as a movie screen, Babe was interacting with some other animals. Toby smiled. Twiggy could have been a remarkable animal actress. Under Toby’s control, Twiggy would be able to do everything Babe did and without special effects—walk on cue, interact with actors and other animals, ride in cars without freaking out.

  The only thing Twiggy wouldn’t be able to do was talk. Pigs simply weren’t built for that; their anatomy didn’t allow for the complex tongue manipulations required to form words and their vocal cords were limited. But Toby thought perhaps she could use some specially designed keyboard to communicate while riding Twiggy. It would have to be built to accommodate her hooves or her snout. Her snout was very flexible.