Becoming Animals

by Olga Werby

  Grock dropped the tag, flew back up, and circled the area again. His flight looked more purposeful now.

  “Grock found a reference point,” Toby explained. “That’ll help him find the other items from the map.”

  It went faster from there. In the end, Grock managed to retrieve fifteen out of the fifty objects hidden by Kyle. That was more than what Toby thought she could have remembered. Grock also found the majority of the final set of items, the ones hidden by the other team. Overall, Toby thought Kyle and Grock had done really well, but the room didn’t seem impressed. Fools, she thought.

  Sixteen: 2 Days Later

  Vikka accompanied George and Toby on their trip—as did Cory. Toby wouldn’t leave without her raven; they were almost continuously connected now, even during sleep. Vikka had once tried to pull the cord, so to speak, but Toby had a full-blown anxiety attack and started to turn blue from hyperventilating. After that, Uncle Geo told Vikka to just let it go. What harm would it do a dying girl? Riding Cory was the only thing that made Toby feel better nowadays.

  George and Vikka took turns driving while Toby spent her time staring out of the window. It was over a thousand miles to their destination, but George made the decision to drive straight through—they didn’t want to stop at a motel and risk the possibility that Toby would be exposed to some virus.

  “Cory wants out,” Toby called from the back.

  Vikka, who was driving, motioned for her to be quiet. Uncle Geo was taking a nap on one of the convertible sofas. Vikka had noticed that Toby was having problems moderating her behavior, especially when it came to empathy. As Vikka saw things, it wasn’t that Toby didn’t understand that George needed rest; it was that her attention to his need for rest had lapsed.

  “Sorry,” Toby whispered. She got up and, trailing her ever-present oxygen tubes, came to sit next to Vikka in the passenger seat.

  “Buckle up,” Vikka reminded her. “There’s a rest stop up ahead. We’ll pause there and let Cory out.” Cory could keep up with them for about a hundred miles, so long as they didn’t exceed fifty miles an hour. “But when we get closer to civilization, I want Cory back inside.”

  They’d been driving through empty country—miles and miles of nothing but cacti and brush and lots of open sky. But Vikka worried that when they got closer to Houston, things would get more chaotic and she didn’t want to risk anything happening to the raven. It would make Toby sick and it would make Vikka’s life hell.

  Vikka parked at the next rest stop. Toby went back and got Cory’s cage, then opened the door. The hot air from outside hit Vikka like a tangible force. Toby recoiled from the open door as well—the Northern California girl was not used to temperature extremes.

  Toby didn’t step out onto the shimmering pavement; she just released Cory from the side door. The bird took off into the sky, catching a thermal off the hot expanse of parking lot concrete.

  Vikka decided to take the opportunity to stretch for a bit. She stepped into the back of the motor home and sat across from Toby in their little dining room. George continued to sleep in the back.

  “Did Cory get restless, or was it you who needed to stretch your wings?” Vikka asked casually.

  Her conversations with Toby had been getting more and more forced over the last year. Toby seemed to be turning inward into herself or perhaps outward via Cory. Either way, the talkative girl that Vikka had met so many years ago had become difficult to reach. Still, Vikka made the effort. Will was permanently absent and Uncle Geo didn’t seem to want to get that close to this older, sicker Toby. Perhaps he was steeling himself against the inevitable loss.

  Vikka shook her head. There was no point in thinking that way.

  “It was Cory,” Toby said.

  Vikka thought that was a lie, but she let it go. “So…why a whale?” she asked. Vikka had asked this before, but now that they were actually visiting potential options, she wanted to get a clearer idea about Toby’s desires.

  “It’s big. Powerful,” the girl said. “Cory is powerful, but they could get to her too easily.”

  “They?”

  “They.” She said the word as a curse and in a tone that implied that Vikka should know who they were—and that if Vikka didn’t know, there was no point in explaining.

  “I see,” Vikka said.

  “An ocean is a foreign environment to them. It would be hard to track me there.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. Toby didn’t just want to live within another animal’s skin; she wanted freedom too. Vikka couldn’t blame her. From early on, Toby’s world, and her choices within it, had been strictly limited and controlled. Toby was simply too talented, too unique, too valuable for them to let go.

  But even if all of this worked—a big if—Vikka didn’t think a marine environment would set the girl free. She’d be monitored even more closely. As a new human-whale mind hybrid, the military would be crazy to just let her swim away.

  But Vikka didn’t say any of that out loud. “Hungry?” she asked instead.

  “I’m fine.”

  Vikka stood up. “Well, I’m going to go out to the diner and get some coffee. Do you want anything?”

  “I’ll just stay here,” Toby said. She went back to the passenger seat, sat down, pulled her knees to her chin, and closed her eyes. She looked so young, so innocent. But Vikka knew that Toby was focusing her full attention on Cory’s perceptual field. She was riding her raven, taking in all of the world’s sights, sounds, smells, and feels through her bird’s senses.

  Vikka wrote a short note to Uncle Geo—she wasn’t sure Toby would tell him where she went if he woke up—then left Toby to her addiction.

  As soon as Vikka had left, Toby got Cory’s cage, settled it on the driver’s seat, and placed a big towel over it. She leaned onto it and wrapped her arms protectively around it. Back at her new room at the army base, she’d sometimes nap like this, placing her head on top of the cage. The smell of Cory helped her relax.

  High above her, Cory engaged in thrill-seeking aerial acrobatics. Cory knew how much Toby liked to ride the air currents and dive at high speeds, and she was showing off a bit after their long drive. But right now, Toby needed Cory to do something else. She needed her to spy.

  Cory flew onto the roof of the gas station, and Toby watched Vikka through the big windows as the woman walked around the rest stop’s tiny shopping mall.

  Toby knew she made Vikka nervous—Cory smelled stress wafting from her all the time now—and Toby wanted to find a way to make her relax. So when Vikka was away from her and let down her guard, Toby watched, hoping to catch some unexpressed desire or word that she could use later in her interactions with the woman. It had worked in the past and Toby wasn’t above performing a bit of emotional theater for Vikka’s benefit.

  When Vikka walked out of view, Toby had Cory fly up into some rafters out back, in an overhang above the garbage bins. Unfortunately, pigeons had a few nests up there. That wasn’t a surprise—wherever there were humans and human trash, there were pigeons—but Cory found those nests incredibly enticing. To a raven, these presented an easy meal.

  Toby considered fighting Cory for control. She would win in the end, but then Cory would mope for hours and refuse to eat. And Toby didn’t like Cory’s hunger pains; somehow they were worse than her own.

  After a moment of hesitation, Toby let Cory go. The raven flew straight to one of the nests and made quick work of the fledglings she found there. There was a time when Toby would have found this revolting, but Cory’s foraging no longer bothered her. She was quite familiar with the flavor of raw ground squirrels and other small birds.

  After her snack, Cory settled down and spied on Vikka from the back window. Vikka had reappeared at the counter of the diner, where she was eating a plate of fried eggs with bacon and drinking coffee. They sat like that for a while—Vikka in the diner, Cory up in the rafters digesting her meal and Toby leaning on Cory’s cage, half thinking human thoughts and half sensing the h
ere and now via Cory.

  Cory was the first to see him. Toby hadn’t even heard him slip out of the motor home, but there was George walking around the mini-mall and strolling to the back alley to stand almost exactly underneath Cory’s hiding place. Where he stood, he wouldn’t be visible to people from the inside—Vikka wouldn’t see him—but if he looked up, he was sure to spot Cory.

  Toby made Cory stay very still. What was Uncle Geo doing back there?

  George pulled out his cell phone and tapped the screen a few times. Is he sending a message? Then he waited.

  A few minutes later, he was joined by a man. The man didn’t wear a uniform, but Toby could tell he was military. All the men at the Brats base had a certain way of carrying themselves that was distinctly army-like. Plus, the new man almost saluted George—though he aborted the gesture halfway by scratching under his baseball cap.

  Ravens were good at recognizing human faces and Cory was especially good at it. Whereas Toby tended to forget a face almost immediately, Cory never did—and she assigned a threat score to each. She could also recognize a person by their gait. Everyone walked with a certain unique swagger that allowed the bird to identify them even from a great distance. But Cory didn’t recognize this new arrival.

  “Did anyone see you?” George asked.

  “I’m parked way in back and never came within visual of the motor home,” the man said.

  “Good.”

  “And you?”

  “Toby’s sleeping,” George said. “Vikka’s in there having breakfast.”

  “And the bird?”

  “In her cage, with Toby lying on top of her. They do that a lot.”

  Toby saw some of the tension leave the other man. Why was he worried about being seen with George?

  “Will’s secure at the park,” the man said. “The initial procedure is planned for nineteen hundred, after closing hours.”

  “Great,” George said.

  A single gray feather drifted down from the rafters. Toby looked down at her talons and saw a mess of feathers—the aftermath of her little snack. She willed the feathers not to scatter in the slight breeze that was swirling around the back alley.

  “We’re on track for the day after tomorrow,” George continued. “We’ll be in Houston late tonight.”

  “We have people in place already.”

  “Vikka will keep Cory from flying in the city, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Do you think the raven spotted my car?” the man asked. Cory detected a note of anxiety in the man’s otherwise professionally measured tone.

  “No,” George said, “I’d know if she had. The girl doesn’t suspect a thing. She would have confronted me; she’s not shy about such things.” He took a step closer, clearly making the other man uncomfortable, and said with menace, “And you be sure to keep it that way.”

  “We are very careful, sir,” the man said. “Please make sure to notify me if Cory is flying again.”

  Several more feathers drifted down; one even settled on the shoulder of the unfamiliar man. Toby’s fear zapped Cory like an electrical prod and it was all Toby could do to keep the raven from crying out. But Cory still flapped her wings, causing even more feathers to snow down on the two men. George brushed off the feathers and looked down at the ground.

  Cory’s neck feathers stood on end; she was ready to fight or fly out of there. But Toby made her sit still. Don’t look up. Don’t look up, she prayed.

  The man looked suddenly at the big garbage bins. Something was rattling around inside. He reached for the back of his pants—a weapon?

  George put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Just a rat,” he said.

  The man relaxed. He almost saluted again before walking back around the corner of the mini-mall.

  When the man was out of sight, George looked up. He looked Cory directly in the eye. Then, with a smile, he turned and left.

  Toby’s and Cory’s hearts felt like they wanted to break through their chests. Toby waited a bit, then had Cory fly back to the motor home. On the way, she spotted the strange man getting into a small silver car parked behind the restrooms.

  Toby opened the driver’s-side window for Cory, then flipped the towel off of Cory’s cage. The raven flew in, and Toby closed the cage, adjusted the towel to allow Cory to be seen from the outside, and put the window back up. She quickly sprawled back down over Cory’s cage and pretended to sleep.

  George and Vikka returned together. Vikka had brought some food and drink for Toby and placed it in a small fridge for later.

  “Toby?” She checked that Toby had her seat belt on, then gently moved the cage from underneath Toby and put it on the floor in the back. Cory let out a small cry.

  “I’ll drive,” George said. Toby heard him climb to the front. She turned over to face the passenger window, her eyes still closed, still pretending to sleep. The engine started up and then they were back on the freeway.

  “See anything interesting?” George asked quietly.

  Toby didn’t answer.

  They drove in silence for a long time. Vikka slept in the back; coffee apparently had no effect on her. Cory snoozed as well. Toby pretended to sleep in the passenger seat. But finally, she had to move; her legs were painfully uncomfortable.

  “Do you want to ask me anything?” George asked when she stirred. “You can ask me anything, you know.”

  Toby made sure to keep her body as far away from George as possible. She didn’t know what to think. Why was he hiding something from her? Or was he hiding something from Vikka? She had been strangely unhappy about the whole consciousness transplant project.

  “Are you going to try to stop me?” Toby asked in a scarcely audible voice, speaking into the crook of her elbow.

  “I’m trying to help you, Toby,” George said. His voice was calm and reassuring.

  “And my dad?”

  “He’s working as hard as he can. And as fast as he can.”

  “He’ll be there to meet us?”

  “No. But he’ll give you a way to try a whale on for size.”

  “Why didn’t he come with us?” Toby asked. Something was making her scared and she couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.

  “Because we need him to keep working on your project. And because if he’s caught with you, it will all stop.”

  It wasn’t a threat, the way he said it, but it felt like one to Toby. It made her want to cry.

  Inside her cage, Cory felt Toby’s distress and let out a soft caw.

  They arrived at the hospital just after midnight. Toby was really asleep by then, not just pretending, and she had to be shaken awake. A gurney took her up to a private patient room. Vikka walked along behind her, with Cory’s cage and a backpack full of BBI communications equipment. Toby remained plugged into Cory the whole time. George would join them after he parked their motor home.

  Toby was made to change into a hospital gown and was then hooked up to an IV drip—something about administering contrast material into her blood for the scans that would be performed later. The drug surging through her veins made her feel hot from the inside and she could taste metal in her mouth. Cory didn’t approve.

  “How do you feel?” Vikka asked. She had settled into an armchair by Toby’s hospital bed.

  Toby shrugged. “Fine, I guess.” She wondered if Vikka knew that Will had a prototype ready and was getting it ready for Toby to try. “How long do we stay here?”

  “Just long enough to get some tests done.” Vikka patted her arm reassuringly. “Don’t be nervous.”

  “I’m not. Not about this.” Toby gave Vikka an opening to ask the follow-up question, but the woman missed it.

  Cory was confined to her cage, but the towel was off so the raven could see, hear, and smell the world around her. Continuous riding smeared the boundaries of human and raven senses, blending it all together for a richer perceptual field than was possible from a human or raven alone. Toby particularly enjoyed the times when the combined
senses revealed something about the world that a single data stream could not. Unfortunately, Cory hated the hospital room. It smelled sick and perverted.

  Anxiously, the raven bobbed her head. Toby could feel a slight movement of her own head in sympathetic mirroring. If there were other people in the room besides Vikka, Toby would have tried harder to suppress her head jerking, but she didn’t feel the need to keep up a pretense for Vikka.

  “The tests are going to be done at night,” Vikka said, “to minimize contact with other patients. We wouldn’t want you to catch anything, right?” She gave Toby a weak smile.

  “So we can leave by morning?” Toby asked.

  “I hope so. There are some good doctors here. They would…”

  She didn’t finish; she seemed too upset to go on. Toby knew that everyone was waiting for an answer to the same question. How long did she have left? In this human body, she added to herself.

  Vikka got up and walked into the hall. She had too much nervous energy to just sit still and wait. Toby understood that. She was tired of waiting too. Her body was tired.

  She took a deep breath, experiencing it via Cory. Her own body wasn’t capable of deep breaths anymore.

  She heard footfalls outside and Vikka spoke to someone, but neither Cory nor Toby could hear what she said. Then people in masks came in and moved Toby back onto the gurney, and she was off.

  As they wheeled her to the elevators, Vikka caught up with them and started to pull off Toby’s BBI barrette. Toby screamed. The world was too confusing to be alone. She didn’t want to undergo the tests by herself.

  “Shh, Toby,” Vikka said. “We can’t take Cory into the room with all of the equipment. There’s radiation. It’s not safe for her in there. She’ll stay here with me. And you’ll come back as soon as you’re done.”

  “Just let me ride her during the test. Please? What does it matter?” Toby was terrified, crying, and fighting Vikka to keep the band on. The masked nurses and doctors stepped away. “You don’t need to bring Cory into the x-ray room with me,” Toby said. “She can stay with you. Just let me stay connected. You can talk to me through Cory while they do all the tests. Please, Vikka. I don’t want to be alone in there.”