by Olga Werby
Toby was sobbing now and she could tell that Vikka was on the verge of tears too.
“I’m sorry, Toby. The connection won’t work in there,” Vikka said. “The room is lined with lead; no radiation gets through.” She pulled the barrette off.
Toby felt like curling up in a fetal position and hugging herself to try to keep herself whole somehow. She felt so empty, like everything had spilled out of her.
“Give her a sedative,” someone said. Soon she felt fuzzy and slightly nauseated, but it could have been due to the severed connection. Before the elevator doors closed, she heard Cory calling loudly from her hospital room.
She didn’t remember anything after that.
“How’s she doing?” Toby heard through Cory’s ears.
The raven was sitting at the nurses’ station and their BBI connection had been reestablished. Cory was relaxed and entertaining herself by playing with shiny candy wrappers on the counter. There was a white sheet under her feet and the nurse had spread more material over the nurses’ station table. Toby figured they were worried about bird germs and poop. She didn’t blame them; she was worried about germs too. But Cory was very clean.
She used Cory’s eyes to look around. It was still dark outside. George was talking with a doctor down the hall, too far away and too softly for Cory to overhear. Vikka wasn’t around, which might mean she was in the room with Toby, but Toby didn’t want to open her drug-dulled eyes to look. It wasn’t important anyway. She was more interested in what Cory could learn for her.
Cory jumped and flew down the hall to land on George’s shoulder. The doctor with him startled backwards and stifled a scream. Silly. Cory was just a bird.
“Well hello, Cory,” George said. He gave her a look as if to see if Toby was there too, but he didn’t say anything. The doctor didn’t know of Toby’s connection with Cory and George wasn’t going to reveal it.
“Toby’s raven?” the doctor asked. Well obviously, Toby thought.
“Cory has been with Toby ever since she was a fledgling,” George said. “After Toby’s mother died…” He didn’t explain further, allowing the doctor to make his own conclusions. He looked appropriately sad and sympathetic.
“I heard she got very upset when they tried to separate them in radiology,” the doctor said. He was middle-aged, slightly balding, and spoke in a very nice baritone. Cory approved.
“The kid was nervous,” George said. “It’s not surprising.”
“No,” the doctor agreed. “Well—we’ll send you the complete work-up, but I’m afraid it’s not good news.”
George looked at Cory, then nodded to the doctor to continue.
“It’s all the usual stuff for now. Make her comfortable and keep her from getting sick,” he said. “She’ll be getting weaker as time goes on. She’s just not getting enough oxygen.”
I could have told them that. Toby was feeling defiant, angry even. What was the point of all these tests if they couldn’t do anything to help her?
“How long?” George asked. On his shoulder, Cory stilled. Toby held her breath.
“Six months. A year at most,” the doctor said. “It’s unfortunate that she’s not a good candidate for a lung transplant. She’s young and would have been given priority on the list…” There were cystic fibrosis patients out there who could live a longer, better life if given new lungs. But Toby had been told long ago that she wasn’t one of those patients. No, the consciousness transplant was her only hope. And she didn’t have much time to make that happen.
This wasn’t the time for vacillation. Orca it is, she thought to herself.
Seventeen: Next Day
“Wake up Toby.” Vikka shook the girl gently by the shoulder and Cory cawed in the pre-dawn light. It was too early even for her.
Toby looked around. She was in the motor home. For a moment, she was disoriented; then she remembered. They had left the hospital immediately after the doctor had given his prognosis—George said he wanted to be on the road. It was late and Toby had dozed off easily, but her sleep was fitful and several times she had woken in a cold sweat, gasping for air, terrified.
Toby realized suddenly that the motor home was stationary—and that the sound of gently rolling waves were filtering in from the outside. She sat up to look out of the window. It was still too dark to see much, but Toby did see water. Lots and lots of water. An ocean’s worth of restless water.
“Where are we?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse and she gave a little phlegmy cough to clear it up. When Vikka gave her a worried look, she quickly added, “I’m not sick. Just need a drink of water.”
Vikka bent down and pulled a bottle of water from their small fridge. Toby drank.
“Where are we?” she asked again. Her voice was much clearer this time. Toby could see pain in Vikka’s eyes. George must have told her the number. Toby felt sorry for her.
“Galveston,” Vikka said. “Uncle Geo went for a walk along the beach. You cried out again in your sleep, so I thought I’d wake you and show you the surprise.” Vikka smiled. It was a sad smile, but Toby smiled back.
“Can we go too?” she asked.
“That’s the idea. Uncle Geo said you always wanted to walk around on a beach and wade in the ocean. Well, we’re not at the ocean, but that’s not bad.” She pointed outside at the waves gently rolling over the white sand. “I’ll wear the backpack and carry your oxygen, and you can just walk out there.”
“As far as the tubes will let me,” Toby said. She adjusted the transparent plastic tubes attached to the cannula under her nose. “It’s great. Thank you, Vikka.”
As Toby reached for her hoodie, Vikka said, “It’s already warm out. Just come. Don’t even bother with shoes—we’re right next to the beach.”
But Toby pulled on a sweatshirt anyway; she didn’t want to take a chance of getting sick.
Vikka opened Cory’s cage door and the raven stepped out, spreading her wings and stretching. “Away you go,” Vikka said, pointing to the open door.
Cory didn’t need to be told twice. She flew out of the door and spiraled up into the early dawn sky.
Toby waded right at the edge of the water. Vikka trailed behind, giving her as much space as the plastic tubes allowed. Toby would have preferred to be alone, but she was used to being monitored all the time now.
The sand felt nice under her feet. And so did the gently rolling waves. The white foam splashed against her ankles, soaking her pant legs. The water reached for the bottom of her oversized sweatshirt, but it just didn’t have the momentum to get that high.
She looked at the expanse of water going all the way to the horizon as far as her eyes could see. Even from Cory’s eyes, with her sky-high perspective, it was all water with no far shore. Someday, Toby would be able to escape into that world. Away from everyone.
She pulled aside her oxygen to take a sniff of the salty wet air.
George found Vikka and Toby sitting on the sand, watching Cory play above the waves. The raven seemed to be having a good time…or was it Toby? Perhaps the distinction no longer matters. He sat next to them and passed out Egg McMuffins and orange juice, the only food he’d been able to find at this hour.
“Thank you,” Toby said. She pulled the slice of ham from the middle of her breakfast sandwich and tossed it to Cory. Cory grabbed it neatly out of the air and flew to the motor home’s roof to tear at the meat in private.
“Can you put the tastes together in your head?” George asked.
“You mean get the complete McMuffin experience?”
Vikka’s eyes widened. “You can do that?” Vikka said. Her mouth was full of her McMuffin and the question came out garbled.
“It’s not the same as tasting the whole thing together,” Toby answered noncommittally.
George knew she already felt like a freak; perhaps she didn’t want to encourage them to fantasize about all the ways in which she was no longer a simple human girl. It was hard not to.
“Well, we’ll get to
the marine park later today,” he said. “Unfortunately, you won’t be able to go out and mingle with the crowds—”
“I know. Don’t worry about me,” Toby said.
“But after the park closes,” George continued, “you’ll get a tour and meet Kona the killer whale and her two calves, Mele and Spila.”
“Do the names mean anything?” Vikka asked.
“Kona means ‘lady’ in Icelandic. Mele is a Hawaiian word for ‘song.’” He pronounced the word meh-leh. “And Spila means ‘play’ in Icelandic. School kids had a contest to name the baby orcas.”
“Nice,” Toby said wistfully. Or at least that was the emotion George attributed to her. Toby was getting increasingly hard to read.
“Those are great names,” Vikka said. Her enthusiasm sounded fake, though—as if she was trying to compensate for Toby’s mood.
“Your dad will meet us there,” George said. Toby looked at him with that deep, empty, raven stare. “He inserted a brain implant into Mele yesterday. You’ll be able to try and ride her when we get there.”
“Really?” Vikka said.
George hadn’t told her. He didn’t want to worry her. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to have to argue with her about all of the implications, the morality of the whole thing. He didn’t have the energy to argue with his niece anymore.
“Will my implant work?” Toby asked, rubbing the brain tech just under her hairline. It was always a bit itchy, slightly off, a heavy buzzing intrusion.
“I don’t know,” George answered honestly. “There’s been a code update, so we’ll just have to see.”
The code was tricky. Ben was the software expert, but he hadn’t been brought in on the whole consciousness transplant thing, so Will had done all the code modifications himself. But Will was a brilliant guy and he’d written the original software that underpinned the whole Brats project, so George was hopeful that he’d been able to make everything work.
“I guess we’ll find out tonight,” Toby said and that was the end of that.
George looked at this strange girl he had watched grow up and he really hoped he was doing the right thing. Then he shook his head; it was far too late for doubt. One way or another, Toby wasn’t going to stay a human girl for very long. This either worked or she would die; there was no getting around it.
He got up off the sand and walked back to the motor home, leaving Toby and Vikka behind him. As he walked, he felt he was putting physical distance between himself and what was going to be either the biggest success or the biggest failure of his life.
As they drove, Toby pretended to sleep, letting Cory keep an eye on everything for her. The tension in their little motor home felt like a heavy blanket. It was all around her, smothering her, and she found herself fighting to breathe. Perhaps there was something she could have said to diffuse the tension, but she was still too young and socially inexperienced to know what that could be. The adultness that she got from Cory and Twiggy and even from old Rufus was simply no help here.
When they arrived at the park, they went around back to the employee entrance to avoid the crowds. Toby felt a slight touch of regret for not being able to mingle with those people. She vaguely remembered going to a zoo with her mother, back when they still did stuff like that as a family. She couldn’t bring to mind any of the animals they saw that day, but she remembered vividly her mother’s hand as they walked around the park. It was a strange small memory, nothing fancy, just the feeling of holding three of her mother’s fingers in her whole hand.
Toby looked at her hands now. These fingers were probably the same size as her mother’s were then. Toby’s mother had been a small woman; cystic fibrosis tended to stunt growth.
They parked next to a row of office and maintenance buildings. Cory was put into her cage that was then covered with a towel. So much for spying.
“Ready to go?” Vikka asked, putting her hand on Toby’s shoulder.
“Sure.” Toby untangled herself from the compact pretzel position she had adopted in the passenger seat. Even if they didn’t know why, people instinctively tended to avoid disturbing someone rolled up in a protective posture.
“Your dad is waiting for us at the aquatic research lab,” George said. “You can meet Mele without connecting to her first, or you can start riding her right away. Will said it was your choice.”
“I want to see my dad first,” Toby said decisively, climbing out of the vehicle. Her dad would be the best at advising her—and she missed him.
What her dad didn’t understand was that both animals and people needed physical connection. He had never been one for coddling or showing physical affection and their interactions had grown cooler over the years, especially since Toby’s mother died. As much as Twiggy, Rufus, and even Cory responded to the tone of a human’s voice, they also wanted—needed—to be touched. Toby needed that too. She petted and scratched and cuddled with each of her animal rides. It was a bit strange, almost like self-snuggling, but it was what they all needed. Yet sometimes, she still needed a hug from her dad.
The lab was located in the back of a two-story building. It was a large, double-height room, designed to house a whale-sized water tank. The tank was connected by a narrow canal to an outside reservoir, but a divider blocked the canal like a door and the tank was empty at the moment. A giant hydraulic lift hovered over the tank—Toby imagined it was used to hoist the marine mammals in and out of the water—and an operating space sat off to one side with adjustable lights and equipment on arms suspended above a huge metal table.
The whole space smelled strongly of fish, chemicals, and something else that Toby couldn’t identify. Toby’s and Cory’s brains perceived and processed the odors differently. The resulting mash-up of sensory data gave a nuanced view of the lab’s emotional context: pain and happiness, loneliness and satisfaction, fear and fulfillment.
Toby’s dad was sleeping on a couch in an alcove next to the operating space. Toby walked over to him, careful not to make too much noise. She leaned in and looked at his face. He looked old and tired; the change in his appearance surprised her.
“Dad?” she said softly.
He made a gasping noise, like a half-snore, but didn’t wake up.
“Why don’t we go and visit the orca calves first?” George said in a whisper, silently appearing beside her. The man could be very stealthy when he wanted.
“Can we leave Cory someplace where she can keep an eye on my dad?”
“Sure. Do you want the wheelchair?”
“I’d rather walk.” Toby had spent too much time sitting in the van and she wanted to move. “Unless this stuff is too much for you to carry.”
George was wearing the backpack with the communications equipment required to keep Toby connected to Cory and he was rolling the portable oxygen tank with a little handcart. Toby knew the oxygen tank was heavy, even on wheels. She’d never had to lift the backpack with the communications gear herself—there were always people around her for that—but it couldn’t be light, either.
“I don’t mind,” George said. “Vikka can stay here with Cory and your dad, and we’ll go do a bit of exploring. It’ll be fun.”
Toby glanced at Vikka. She didn’t look happy at being left behind, but she put Cory’s cage on the floor, removed the towel, sat at a desk, and pulled out her computer. Her attitude broadcast that she had things to do.
Toby walked out of the lab, oxygen tubes trailing behind her, physically linking her to George. Through Cory’s eyes, she’d maintain a good view of Vikka and her dad, and would know when he woke up.
She took George’s huge hand in hers, holding only his three middle fingers. But it didn’t feel like holding her mother’s hand—and George seemed uncomfortable with the gesture. In Toby’s memory, her mom had always been happy to hold her hand.
Outside, crowds had gathered beyond a chain-link fence. Toby knew she would have to avoid crowds, as always, which meant she couldn’t watch any of the shows. George took her in the o
pposite direction, following the canal that led from the lab.
A gate led to several giant saltwater pools. The one closest to them held two killer whale calves and their mother. Toby looked down at them over the sides of the holding tank. She had read a news article about Mele and Spila when they were born. It was extremely rare for orcas to give birth to twins. When each newborn is over eight feet long and about three hundred pounds, bearing two of them is quite something. Now Toby looked at the calves in awe. They really were huge.
Mele was female and Spila was male. Toby could tell which was which by their size—the female was smaller. Female orcas also lived much longer, almost eighty years in the wild. Perhaps that’s why her dad chose Mele for the implant. Plus, Toby would be more comfortable in a female. Sure, she’d ridden Rufus, a male rat, but that was when Toby was little. Now that she was growing into a young woman, with the full complement of hormones that accompanied that transition, gender mattered. Of course, if there was no choice…
Spila swam over and came right up to them. He looked up at Toby and George with one eye. With his big white sharp teeth in his smiling face—in orcas, the teeth erupted between two and four months of age—he looked a bit scary.
“Can we walk over to Mele?” Toby asked.
“Sure.” George took her hand again, but instead of following the path around the whale enclosure, he took a turn and walked down a set of stairs that led below ground level. He opened a door and Toby gasped. The water tank had an underground window. She could see both calves through the thick glass.
