Becoming Animals

by Olga Werby

  “Looks like your raven is a fast healer,” Major Yachi said. “Is he hungry? We can get you both some food and then I’d like to have you fly around the park for a while. I know it’s dark, but we don’t want Toby catching a cold—we want her back here and comfortable. And Cory might need some medical attention from the professor.”

  “Of course,” Kyle said. He sat down next to Will.

  Grock was getting more comfortable with Will now. He released his hold on the straps and walked down Kyle’s arm to be closer to the professor.

  Someone brought over a hot dog and chips for Kyle, but before he could take a bite, Grock snatched the hot dog out of the bun and hopped away. Grock’s mood improved as he ate and Kyle noticed that he, too, was feeling better. He bit into the empty bun. The taste of the complete hot dog experience flooded his brain. It was a strange way to experience a meal, but not altogether unexpected anymore.

  “I guess he was still interested in food,” Martin said.

  “He just enjoys stealing it from me.” Kyle smiled and took another bite in sync with Grock’s gorging.

  “How does the dog taste?” Major Yachi asked.

  “Like a bun without the hot dog,” Kyle responded without skipping a beat.

  “We can get you another,” Major Yachi offered, but Kyle waved him off. He wanted to be away from these people. And he wanted that memory stick.

  “So, how come you’re here, professor?” Kyle finally asked Will. He couldn’t figure out another way of getting the man to understand what he wanted.

  “I was hoping to see my little girl.”

  Good. Keeping calling Toby a “little girl,” thought Kyle. “Did you see her?”

  “No.” Kyle heard both resignation and fear in his voice.

  “That’s enough.” Major Evans said. It was the first time he had addressed Kyle.

  Evans walked across the room and pulled Kyle to his feet. Grock croaked indignantly and jumped back on Kyle’s shoulder as Major Evans escorted Kyle out of the room and down the hall.

  Kyle walked. He didn’t know what else to do. He hadn’t gotten any information from Will or Vikka. How was he going to find the memory stick?

  As Evans escorted Kyle out of the building, he spoke so quietly that Kyle almost didn’t hear. “You came for this, Lieutenant?”

  Kyle felt Evans press a small object into his palm.

  “Keep walking,” Evans muttered.

  Kyle wanted to ask what was going on, or to look down at the object in his hand, but the major squeezed his upper arm tightly. “Find them, Lieutenant,” he said quietly. “Tell George to get her riding ASAP. And then pretend to look for them for a few hours. That should give Toby enough time to figure out if this is going to work.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kyle heard himself say. He was covered in sweat. Grock kept bobbing his head in extreme agitation. They were both confused.

  A voice shouted from behind them. “I’ll help Lieutenant Davis, sir.” It was Martin, catching up.

  Major Evans turned without a word and walked back inside the building.

  As Martin walked with Kyle back to the van, Kyle chanced a glance down at the object in his palm.

  It was a memory stick.

  As Kyle and Grock climbed into the back of the van, they saw Rider sitting in the semi-darkness. He was wearing an official uniform with a Brats patch on his left upper arm. He looked legit, at least on the surface. He seemed to have integrated into the team beyond Kyle’s expectations.

  Martin turned in the front seat. “Sir?”

  “Relax, Private Martinez,” Rider said. “The major sent me.” Kyle noticed that he didn’t mention which major. “I’m here to monitor Kyle’s vitals.”

  “I was already doing that,” Martin protested. But at least he didn’t radio anyone to tell them about the intruder in the van…yet.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Kyle said. He did his best to act completely unsurprised and unconcerned about Rider’s presence—hoping to put Martin at ease.

  “Glad to be of assistance.” Rider smiled at Martin. “Private, we’re going to need you to drive the van around the park, so I was asked to lend a hand with the monitoring.”

  “I thought Tom—”

  “Tom was assigned a post inside.” Rider waved his hand in the direction of the building. “Our job is to drive around and see if we can pick up Cory’s signal.”

  “That might work,” Martin said thoughtfully. “Do you have Cory’s link frequency, Captain…?” Martin looked uncomfortable at not knowing a superior officer’s name and Rider’s name tag was in shadow.

  “Ari Ridd,” Rider said, extending his hand. When the private shook it, he added, “But everyone just calls me Rider.”

  “Rider?”

  Kyle explained. “Ari Ridd flipped is Riddari, which is Icelandic for knight, so…” He shrugged. “Basically, Rider just likes to be different.”

  Martin seemed to relax upon learning that Kyle knew Rider well—which was Kyle’s intent. He turned around and started the van.

  Kyle gave Grock a nice piece of raw beef from the mini fridge, squirted a bit of opioid into his nervous system, then slipped the memory stick into the raven’s claws. Take it to Toby. He felt Grock’s understanding.

  Then he opened the window and let his raven fly out. He rubbed his arm empathetically—Grock’s wing still hurt from where the feather had been ripped out—and plunged himself deeper into Grock’s worldview.

  Part Four: Becoming

  Twenty: Later That Night

  Toby explored her connection to the young orca, gently introducing herself to this clearly sentient mind, though still that of a toddler.

  The whale didn’t know her human name yet—Mele—but she liked the sound combination and could replay it in her inside voice that sounded strangely feminine. The words she did know were whale words. Toby would need to learn those.

  Toby started by infiltrating Mele’s senses, the ones that had human equivalents: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, proprioception. As with rats, pigs, and ravens, the whale had other senses with which Toby wasn’t yet familiar.

  Being human, Toby focused on sight first. It was dark around her and the water felt inky black. Unlike a human’s eyes—or those of a raven, a pig, or even a rat—an orca’s eyes were way out to the sides. It was nothing like Toby was used to. And seeing through water, especially in the dark, was difficult. Toby got a general sense of being in an enclosed space—a water tank where Mele and her brother lived with their mother—but nothing beyond that.

  She wanted to look around more, but she was wary of taking over Mele’s motor control and manipulating her eyeballs. She didn’t want to spook the young calf. If this was going to be her one long-term relationship, she wasn’t going to blow it right at the beginning by being overly aggressive.

  Suddenly, there was a visual memory. Toby saw herself looking through a glass window and putting her hand out in greeting. She also felt an impression of a question—Is that you?

  Toby was so startled, she pulled out of Mele.

  “Toby?” George was gently shaking her shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes,” she managed.

  “Good. I…we were worried.”

  Kyle’s bird was there too, as was Cory. Both of the ravens were watching her closely. They were still hiding under the stadium seating. Toby’s computer was open, but the screen was dimmed low to keep the light from announcing their location to the searching drones. George downloaded the new code from the memory stick Grock had brought. He transmitted it to Toby’s brain implant, updating her software to work with Mele’s implant.

  “I’m okay,” Toby said.

  “Did the connection work?”

  “Yes. I was in. I was trying to look from Mele’s eyes, but then she wanted to know who I was.”

  “Who? Who wanted to know?” George sounded distressed.

  “Mele asked me a question,” Toby said. “At least, I think that’s what happened. I saw a me
mory of myself looking at Mele through the glass.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “I don’t know. I was surprised by it, is all.” She was more than surprised; she was awed.

  “Did anything like that ever happen before? With Cory? Or Rufus?”

  “Never with Rufus. And with Cory, we become one. There’s no me and her. There’s just us.” Toby lifted her arm and patted Cory behind the implant. The bird squirmed with pleasure and made soft cawing noises. “Let me try again,” Toby said. “I want Mele to like me.”

  George nodded. “Of course.”

  Toby dove back into Mele via the new BBI. The world went dark again and, once more, she saw a fuzzy image of her face. “Yes,” she tried to answer.

  Immediately she got annoyed with herself. How would Mele understand the human word “yes”? Her feeling of frustration intensified and soon Toby was riding a wave of dissatisfaction. She was suffering the emotional feedback loop and Mele was feeling it too. She was riled up and surfing the amplified wave of discontent.

  Through Mele’s eyes, Toby saw that the orca was swimming in fast circles around the enclosure. Spila, cowering in a corner, called to her with soft low rumbles. They were disturbing, haunting almost, and she didn’t just sense them through Mele’s ears, but through her whole body. All of her skin received the sound vibrations that traveled through the water.

  Toby tried to push her feelings toward positive and happy states, but it was like rolling a big boulder up a hill. Sweat covered her body and rolled down her back and face. She felt her heart race. If May had been there, Toby was sure she would have pulled the BBI connection. She needed to take control; this introduction wasn’t going well.

  Toby focused hard on the image of Mele as she had seen her through the tank’s window. Good girl, Mele, beautiful girl. She repeated it over and over, a soothing mantra in her head. She made herself smile—Vikka said that just by stretching the muscles of the face into a grin, a person could raise their serotonin levels, making themselves calmer and happier.

  It took time, but gradually Mele slowed her frantic circles around the tank and, finally, Mele produced the image of Toby looking into the window again—it just popped into Toby’s head. Toby responded by sending more positive thoughts, smiles, waves of happiness and recognition. Toby wasn’t sure, but she thought that Mele understood. Yes. That’s me.

  “Good girl, good girl,” she murmured. She felt her own heart rate slow down and it was easier to breathe now. Toby’s well-being was transmitted over to Mele, making her happier, which in turn made Toby more relaxed. The positive feedback loop. They were bonding now.

  With the agitation mostly gone, Toby could finally look around. The visual imagery was augmented with a spatial sense—Mele seemed to know instinctively the shape of her tank, the contour of the bottom of the enclosure, and the location of Spila, still cowering in the corner, unsure what had spooked Mele. The sense wasn’t coming from Mele’s eyes, but through skin sensations, and proprioception, and echolocation. And there was even an electrical sense—the flow of bio-electricity through water. The water was a rich stew of sensory information that Toby could just barely taste. It was strange, confusing…but she could get used to it.

  Because Toby focused so exclusively on sight, she almost missed that Mele was constantly making low-frequency pops and clicks by moving air between the space just next to her blowhole and her nasal cavity sacs. She realized how insufficient her research had been. Exploring Mele’s body through her own senses was a totally different experience from reading about it—and it was practically overwhelming.

  Mele was just as curious about Toby. She wanted to understand this other presence in her mind. It was very different from every other animal Toby had ridden. Rufus had been mostly relaxed and non-possessive when it came to sharing his existence. Twiggy had learned to let go when Toby rode her, especially when rewarded with food. And Cory had a nonchalant way of co-sharing her bird consciousness with her girl rider. But Mele was more independent, more assertive, more…more!

  Toby would have to find an accommodation, a way to make the BBI connection non-threatening to the whale. It was unlikely that Mele would ever completely go away, even if Toby did a full consciousness transplant—and Toby didn’t feel it would be right to do that. She wished her dad were here to help her think through all of this. She didn’t want to die, but she wouldn’t kill to live.

  She pulled out.

  “Toby?”

  “I’m back,” she said.

  “How was it?” George asked. Cory and Grock stared into her eyes. Even separated from Toby, Cory still cared about her. Toby was now an extension of Cory, just like Cory was an extension of her.

  Toby smiled at her raven. “I’m okay,” she said. Her bird cawed in response. “Good girl, Cory. Good girl.”

  “How did the connection work?”

  “We connected fine. But Mele didn’t know what was going on and got scared. It took time to reassure her.”

  George looked concerned. Toby noticed he was holding her hand by the wrist—monitoring her pulse—so he knew it had been a rough ride. “Will you be able to take over the whale? Will you be able to transfer, given time?”

  “I don’t know,” Toby said honestly. “I don’t even know if it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Let’s talk about that later.” He started to pack up. “It’s cold and damp here. We need to get you someplace warm and comfortable.”

  Toby felt the moist air in her lungs. She could tell she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Was that why the first ride had been so difficult? Was she just too weak and slow?

  She closed her eyes and felt the connection to Cory flare up—George had reconnected her to her raven. Toby’s breathing smoothed out. She was inhaling breaths in some multiple of Cory’s breathing, synchronizing her rhythms with the bird’s. Cory acted almost like a living pacemaker. It didn’t give her additional oxygen, but it did make her feel like she was breathing easier.

  Toby relaxed into Cory and let the raven take over.

  Toby woke up back in the motor home. They weren’t moving or, at least, she couldn’t feel any motion. She didn’t remember how she’d gotten there, but someone had tucked her into one of the beds and hooked her up to an oxygen machine and an IV. Cory hated the noise the oxygen machine made, but she was perched right above Toby’s head anyway, watching her carefully. She cawed as soon as Toby looked up at her.

  “Toby? Welcome back!” Vikka said softly. She was lying on the floor right next to Toby’s bed.

  “Vikka?” What was going on? Hadn’t Vikka been kidnapped by the army men?

  “It’s okay, Toby. Everything is okay,” Vikka said. Her voice was so tired that it made Toby ache with exhaustion. Her eyes looked old and red. Had she been crying?

  Toby tried to use Cory’s eyes to look around—it was easier than sitting up herself. Cory bristled at Toby’s rough takeover of her motor functions, but complied.

  “Where’s Uncle Geo?” Toby asked.

  “He’s out smoothing the way for our travel north,” Vikka said mysteriously.

  “What about Dad?”

  “Uncle Geo’s working on that too,” Vikka said in an artificially reassuring voice. “He’s working on everything. We’re trying to find a way to move the whale calves and their mother to Washington State. As soon as he has everything sorted out, we’ll start our journey there as well.”

  “We are? When?” Toby asked. “How?”

  “Truth is, I don’t really know much,” Vikka said. “Kyle got me and brought me back here. You were already inside. He told me to look after you while they tried to solve a few problems. And he told me what I just told you. But that’s all I know. Really.”

  It was as if Vikka was pleading with Toby to believe her. Toby didn’t know what to make of that. Why wouldn’t she believe Vikka?

  “It’s okay,” Toby said. “I trust you.” She didn’t know why she said that exactly, but Vikka seemed to need the re
assurance.

  Vikka looked hard at Toby and wiped away a tear. “I honestly don’t know anything.”

  She let out a soft sob and Toby reached out to comfort her. That made Vikka sob harder. She picked up Toby’s hand and kissed it. Then she stood up and walked to the front passenger seat.

  Feeling exhausted, Toby let her eyes close. She was asleep in seconds.

  When she awoke again, the motor home was moving. It was dark out and Cory was perched up front, watching the road. Kyle was driving and there was another man—a military man—sitting in the passenger seat. Vikka was curled up in a chair, her eyes closed. Grock was also here, in his cage, but with the cage door open.

  “Caw,” Cory called gently, but didn’t turn back to look at Toby. Toby sent grateful thoughts to her raven for keeping her wakefulness a secret.

  “Good girl, Cory,” Kyle murmured. He spoke very softly, so that Toby only heard him via Cory’s ears.

  Cory fluffed up in double praise. She was such a flirt. Toby had noticed before that Cory really liked it when Kyle was nice to her. She thought it was funny. Cory didn’t relate that way to women.

  A few images flashed through Toby’s awareness—Cory’s visual memories of the last few hours. She saw the motor home pulling out of the marine park; men in uniforms watching them drive away; lots of headlights as they made their way out of town; and then a lonely, empty road. Cory had never done something like this before—it was like she was giving Toby a report on what had happened while she slept. Perhaps Cory had picked up on some of Toby’s communication with Mele and wanted to try something similar. Or it might have been the updated software.