Zenn Scarlett

by Christian Schoon

“Liam, we’ll need to examine him first, to see how bad the injuries are.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve fixed cats before… Otha… Otha has fixed cats.”

  Zenn flicked on the light in the ready room as they entered. She told Liam to put the cat on the smallest exam table, where the attached readout screen would register and record his weight, pulse-rate and body temp.

  Zeus came to as Liam set him down, green eyes going wide. He emitted a long, low moan. Liam winced at the sound. And then it struck her, the feeling sweeping through her, fiery sheets of pain climbing like flame up her back, her legs going weak, almost dropping her to the floor. A sense of abject fear then broke over her mind like a cresting wave, her vision grew faint, and the room around her was… gone. Instead, she now saw a baffling rush of images: bright lights, dim shadows, light again, coming rapid-fire, too fast to make any sense. Then the images slowed, cleared; she could see again. But she wasn’t seeing the ready room where she’d been a second ago. She was… in a dark space, there were big shapes around her. The underside of a vehicle above, fat truck wheels glimpsed beyond. The smell of oil and gas. She was in a garage, looking up from low on the ground. A sound roared in her ears, deafening, terrifying, she was pinned by a wheel, crushed. The pain surged up again, nearly making her black out with shock and fear. She was… seeing out of the cat’s eyes, Zeus’ eyes. Impossible… unmistakable… She was reliving the cat’s experience, reliving the memory of when he’d been injured.

  “Scarlett?” Liam’s voice cut through the pain and terror, pulled her back. She opened her eyes to see he held her by one elbow. “You alright?”

  She tried to breathe, steadying herself.

  So that’s what it feels like when you’ve been run over by a truck.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I’m alright.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes,” she turned back to the cat, away from the boy’s worried look. “It’s what I told you about. What happens between me and the animals. I just linked up.”

  “What? With Zeus?”

  “Yeah… but we can’t worry about that now. I’m… back. I’m fine now. He needs help.”

  She saw the bloodstain on the towel swaddling the cat had spread, pooling on the metal tabletop. She pulled her gaze away from the sight, but not before Liam noticed the blood.

  “Nine Hells,” he swore. “It’s worse. It’s getting worse, isn’t it? Where’s Otha? Is he coming?”

  “He’ll be here soon.”

  Zeus thrashed weakly, trying to escape from the towel, but unable to rise to his feet. Liam held him gently in place on the exam table. The animal cried out again, a pitiful gasp of a meow.

  “He’s hurting,” Liam said. “Can’t you do something?”

  “We should really wait for Otha.” Liam jerked his gaze up to her. “But I’ll take a look.”

  Zeus moaned again as Zenn gently folded back the towel. Her jaw went tight at the sight. Liam looked away. The cat’s entire rear quarter was badly mangled, a sickening pudding of flesh, blood and bone. She pushed up the cat’s lips; the gums were pale and growing paler from blood loss. Pupils fixed and dilated. Breathing shallow, fast. Another yowl.

  “It’s alright, boy,” Liam said, his voice going uncharacteristically quiet as he returned his gaze to the cat. “It’s alright, Zeus. We’ll get you fixed up. We’ll fix it. Can’t you… give him a shot?”

  Of course, she could give Zeus pain medication. But she wasn’t supposed to. She wasn’t qualified. Not yet.

  Otha will be mad.

  But she knew what to do, she should do it.

  He’ll be really mad. Too bad.

  “Hold him there,” she said. “Keep him as still as you can. I’ll give him something.”

  Zenn pulled the infusion tube up from its compartment on the exam table, found a suitable vein on Zeus’ front leg, placed the line over it and pressed it into place.

  “He’s shocky,” she said. “We need to get fluids into him, too, get him stabilized.”

  She dialed a knob on the table and started a slow push of electrolytes and quad-steroids through the line.

  “Good. Now, we’ll start some medicine for the pain.”

  She pulled open the drawer holding the pneuma-ject syringes, and trying hard not to fumble, found a vial of Amalan. She drew a dose up into the syringe.

  Zeus moaned, struggled. Liam held him, but looked away from the broken body, closing his eyes. Zenn placed the pneuma-ject on the matted fur covering the muscles at the cat’s shoulder, mentally double-checked the weight-to-dosage ratio, decided it was correct, and pressed the plunger.

  “This will help,” she said. “He’ll feel a lot better now.”

  Before she’d finished speaking, the drug worked its molecular spell, the animal’s stiffly arched neck relaxed, his breathing slowed and deepened, the fear and pain drained from his eyes, which narrowed as the big head drooped.

  “Nine Hells,” Liam swore quietly, stroked the half-conscious animal. “Thanks. For that.”

  “Liam, this is a bad injury, really bad.” She waited for him to look up.

  “But Otha…”

  “We can see what Otha says. But… I’m telling you it’s bad.”

  She’d seen towner cats brought to the clinic with similar injuries. It never turned out well. And this one was even worse than the others. Liam looked away from her, breathed hard for a second or two and looked back.

  “So,” she searched for something to say to distract the boy. “What’s Zeus’ story? Where’d you get him?”

  “He… my mom.” Liam put a strained smile on his face. “My mom gave him to me when he was just… just a little guy.” He cupped his hands. “About this big…”

  Zenn was sure Liam was on the verge of tears when the door to the room swung open. Otha strode over to the exam table, pulled back the towel and squinted down at the cat.

  “Vehicle?” he asked Zenn.

  “Truck. Out at Vic’s place.”

  “How long ago?” Otha turned to Liam.

  “An hour? Maybe more.”

  Otha gently lifted one blood-matted hind leg, probed at the animal’s belly, ran a hand across the spine. He touched a button on the exam table, and a small virt-screen appeared in the air, showing a 3-D image of the cat’s skeletal structure and major internal organs.

  “Liam, this is serious,” Otha said after a moment. He steadied his gaze at the boy. “Maybe too serious to repair.”

  “Yeah, Zenn said it was bad. But…” Liam gestured at the shelves of medicines and supplies lining the ready room walls, at the machines and devices surrounding them. “All this stuff? All this stuff and you can’t fix him?” Liam’s eyes blazed at Otha, pleading, accusing.

  “There are limits, Liam. These injuries are extensive.” He pointed to the images on the v-screen. “Shattered hip bones here, here and here. Fractured spinal vertebrae here and over here. Ruptured bladder, lacerated small intestine, severed arteries. This kidney is badly bruised.”

  “So, there’s no way to… nothing you can do for him?” Liam’s voice stuttered. He stared down at the cat. “There’s nothing?”

  “Otha,” Zenn said quietly, not quite sure it was a novice’s place to say anything, but unable to keep her thoughts to herself. “What about the Mag-Genis?”

  Her uncle cocked a bushy eyebrow at her.

  “What? What is it?” Liam said, looking from her to Otha. “Can it help Zeus?”

  “If it worked it might,” Otha said. “But Zenn knows as well as I do that that unit hasn’t been fully operational for month. Firmware’s out of date. Software’s gone buggy.”

  “But what is it? What does it do?” Liam said again.

  “It’s a bone and tissue generator,” Zenn said. “It uses a magnetic field to create a series of energy scaffolds inside an animal, then it manipulates cells to grow bones and organs and blood vessels around the scaffolds.”

  “But it’s broken?”

  “The software tha
t runs it is bad,” Otha said. “The process of building tissues, bones, is massively complex. Without the software, it’s basically useless.”

  “Actually, I talked to Hild about that, just last week,” Zenn told him. “I had an idea.”

  “Oh?” Her uncle raised both bushy eyebrows this time. “And?”

  “What if a person supplied the guidance input? You know, assisted the base structuring program with point-to-point coordinates?”

  “Well, I suppose…” He rubbed at his beard. “Theoretically, it might work.”

  “It might?” Liam said. “Then you have to do it.”

  “In theory, I said. But it isn’t practical. Overseeing the unit’s operations would mean hands-on monitoring and detailed adjustments every few minutes for… a long time, Zenn.”

  “Thirty-six hours,” she told him. “Hild helped me work it out.”

  “Oh she did?”

  “Well, we used a rikkaset’s physiology to model the process, but a rikkaset’s close enough to a cat to give me a time-frame, right?”

  “Sure, their internal organs and skeletal structure is close enough. That’s not the question,” Otha said. “The question is, can a human being stay continuously focused and alert for that stretch of time and still get the inputs right? I can’t see it working, Zenn.”

  “Otha,” Liam said. “Can’t she try? Can’t you let her at least try?”

  Otha chewed at his cheek, then pointed a finger at Zenn.

  “If you tried this… if, I said….you know Hild and I have the ultratheer litter to deliver, right? That’ll be two days running, maybe two and a-half. We won’t be able to help. You’d be on your own.”

  “I know. I can do it,” she said.

  “And once you start the tissue scaffolding, you understand you can’t stop and start over.” She nodded her head that she knew this. “If you miss a single artery splice, a single synapse calibration or bone density level, the matrix will dissolve and the animal will need to be put down. Immediately.”

  “I know, Otha. But it’s worth trying, isn’t it?”

  Liam fixed his gaze on Otha.

  “It might be,” Otha said. “But Liam, this is not a proven procedure. Right? The outcome is not certain. In fact, it could very likely be a bad outcome.”

  “Yes, yes I understand.” Liam stroked the cat’s head, then looked up at Zenn and Otha. “Thank you. Thank you for trying. Thank you for letting her try.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Twenty minutes later, Zenn had positioned the sedated Zeus in the sling-like cradle of straps and fluid-filled cushions that occupied the center of the Mag-Genis unit. The machine’s dozen articulated emitter arms were arrayed around the cat, making him look like a furry orange-and-white fly about to be wrapped up in the web of an approaching metal spider.

  Zenn was seated on a rolling stool in front of the unit. Three virt-screens floated in the air above her. Two displayed different angles and magnifications of the cat’s internal structures, the third screen showed a variety of system controls and progress bars. Within arm’s reach on two surgical instrument trays, she’d placed the Mag-Genis user’s manual and a stack of v-films detailing feline anatomy.

  After Otha had gone to join Hild at the ultratheer’s birthing pen, Liam said he would stay and help in any way he could. But there was little he could do. Zeus’ fate was solely in Zenn’s hands now.

  Her finger hovered over the machine’s primary system start-button.

  “Alright, this will start the process,” she told Liam, who peered over her shoulder. “Once I push this, there’s no going back. Ready?”

  “I’m ready if you are. And if Zeus is.”

  “Oh, we’ll assume he’s ready,” Zenn said, and she pushed the button.

  The spindly arms of the machine clattered to life, each one moving into its initial position. On the hovering v-screens, a series of colored areas lit up on the images of Zeus’ body.

  “What’s happening? What are those?” Liam asked, leaning in to see better.

  “That shows the parts of Zeus the machine is working on,” she said, pointing. “Like here, the red, blinking line is the main vein to the thigh muscles of his left leg. That’s what is being rebuilt. Now, I just have to direct the magnetic beam… down here…” She moved a slider on the control screen. “…like that. There.”

  “Oh. I get it. You have to tell it where to go.”

  “Right. At every juncture…” Zenn directed one of the emitter arms to move a few millimeters. “…I need to keep the process keyed in on the right area, in the right order, at the right time.”

  “Otha said you couldn’t stop once you started, though, right?”

  “The Mag-Genis has to harvest cells from Zeus’ body. It will use those cells to rebuild him,” she said. “To do that, it makes a sort of… liquidy soup out of his damaged internal organs and other tissues. Then it injects microscopic amounts of magnetite into the cells. So now, every cell has a little extra iron in it. That lets the machine use its magnetic fields to move the cells into place – that’s the energy scaffold. Zeus is on life-support while this happens, but if you stopped the rebuilding process, that soup of cells would disintegrate. We wouldn’t be able to get them back.”

  She poked a finger at the control screen. “Alright. We just started the rebuild of his left tibia – the bone between the knee and ankle.” Liam leaned in even closer, crowding her where she sat. She spoke without looking up at him. “You might as well find someplace comfortable, Liam. We’re going to be here for a while.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” he said. He sat down on the padded bench by the wall. “How long did you say it’ll take?”

  “About a day and a-half.”

  Liam whistled softly.

  “Yeah,” she said, moving another emitter arm to its next position. “You can say that again…”

  Six hours later, Zenn was stiff and aching from sitting, and she needed a break. Really needed a break.

  “Liam?”

  He hopped up from the bench.

  “What?” he said, coming over quickly. “Something wrong?”

  “No. We’re doing fine. But I’ve got to leave for just a second.” She nodded her head toward the bathroom door at the back of the room. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Oh. Sure.”

  “I need you to watch this little meter.” Liam came up behind her and she pointed to the control screen. “If this level goes into the red zone, slide this indicator to zero. See?”

  “Uh, yeah, I see. You sure… I can do this?”

  “This part’s easy. You can do it. Red zone, slider to zero. Yes?” Before he could disagree, she was out of the chair and trotting across the room.

  A minute later, she was back.

  “Did it hit red?”

  “No,” he told her, sounding relieved as he rose from the chair. “It moved a little, but that’s all.”

  “Great,” she said, sitting down again. “We’re right on schedule. And only,” she checked the countdown clock on the control screen. “…thirty-one hours forty minutes to go.”

  Ten hours after she’d started the operation, Hamish appeared in the doorway, asking if she needed anything.

  “You could feed Katie for me,” she told him, not looking away from the screens. “There’s kibble for her in the kitchen, in the small tub just inside the pantry door.”

  “I will see to it,” he said. “How is the rebuilding of the mammal-feline proceeding?”

  “Slow, but sure,” she said. “I’m doing the main neuron group that controls tail movement right now. Oh, that reminds me – Liam, you won’t mind if Zeus wakes up with a bobbed tail, will you?”

  “Bobbed?”

  “A shortened tail. We’ll save a good hour’s worth of work if we don’t redo the whole thing.”

  “Oh. No problem. He’s pretty laid back. I don’t think he’ll mind a new look.”

  At twelve hours, both of Zenn’s legs had fallen asleep. She tried to stand in
place as she manipulated the control screen, but it was too difficult to hold her hand steady to make the fine-control movements on the v-screen. She couldn’t afford a mistake, so she sat again. Liam was pacing around the room behind her, stopping occasionally to read the label on a bottle of medication or examine some piece of equipment.

  “Hm,” he said, reading a v-film he’d picked up from the counter. “Says here hooshrikes have one claw that’s like a hollow needle. I never knew that. They dangerous?”

  “No, not to humans,” Zenn said, shaking her head to clear it, struggling a little to stay on task. “The claw doesn’t inject venom. It’s for pheromones.”

  “And that would be… what?”

  “It’s a hormone. Like a mild drug. Moths use pheromones to attract mates. The female hooshrikes do the same sort of thing. But they inject it into the male. When they’re mating.”

  “So it’s… what?” Liam laughed. “An aphrodisiac?”

  “More like something that strengthens the bond between the pair.”

  “Sounds like chemical warfare to me.”

  “Well, it’s an amazing adaptation,” she said. A great yawn escaped from her as she inched an emitter arm into its next position. “Our hooshrike here at the clinic is a male. And he’s one handsome guy. If I were a female hooshrike, I’d definitely wanna get my claws into him.”

  “Remind me never to go on a date with you,” Liam said. She could hear the smirk in his voice, but his remark left a conspicuous silence in its wake.

  “And speaking of that,” he went on after a few moments. “You ever been? On a date?”

  It was a simple question. But Zenn felt heat rising to her face, which made her mad at herself, which made her face hotter.

  “No. My days are pretty full, you know?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Things to do, animals to mess with. I know. But…” he leaned against the wall in front of her, crossed his arms and watched her work. “Haven’t you ever wanted to go out? I mean, on your own? Only times I’ve seen you Arsia you’re with Otha or the Sister. That’s gotta cramp your style.”

  “My… style?”

  “You know. When it comes to meeting people. Like guys, for instance. Even in a small place like Arsia I bet there’s some guy… some guy you wondered about.”