Becoming Animals

by Olga Werby

  Now, forty-five days after hatching, the birds were almost fully grown. In the wild, the young fledglings would still be dependent on their parents for food, but Grock and his nestmate, Cory, didn’t need to learn how to hunt for food. They did different work for a living.

  The adolescent raven preened and flapped his very impressive wings. “He’s showing off for you, George,” Lilly said.

  “Grock or Kyle?” George asked.

  “Good question.” Lilly glanced back at the lieutenant flexing his muscles by the back wall of the control room. “Grock’s desire to be admired spills over to Kyle.” There was humor in her voice.

  “I don’t need to be admired, Lilly,” Kyle said. His stern expression was mirrored by Grock, who pointed his beak at Lilly and lowered his head—the bird’s version of indicating displeasure.

  “Don’t be upset, Kyle,” George said. “I’m very impressed. Can our new team members fly yet?”

  “Grock and Cory are just starting to learn,” Will said. “There’s a lot of flapping and jumping, but only limited flight so far. Mostly it’s controlled gliding to a lower elevation—perch to floor. Without parents to teach them how, it might take a bit longer than it would in the wild. But we set up a large netted area in the courtyard, so there’s plenty of room to learn.”

  “I’d like to see that,” George said.

  “I’m in full control of Grock, Major. We could easily leave the lab and try flying out in the world,” Kyle said in a disconnected voice. He and Grock were both staring at the major now. It was a bit disconcerting.

  “How about that, Will?” George asked. “You comfortable taking Grock or Cory out of the lab?”

  George wanted to move the program along. It had been several years now and, aside from finding a dead body in some rubble and biting a man’s testicles, the animals had done very little in the real world. Grock and Cory had real potential. If they proved successful, George wanted them out in the field. The army had work for them.

  “Kyle’s control over Grock is satisfactory,” Ben said. “Cory is proving more difficult.”

  “How so?”

  “Every brain is slightly different,” Lilly said. “And each animal is unique. Each has its own quirks, its own personality. As with the pigs, we’re finding that some animal-human matches work better than others. Kyle and Grock do great together. Kyle and Cory, not so much.”

  “Toby seems to be able to ride multiple animals without problems,” George said.

  “She has more cognitive flexibility,” Lilly agreed, “but even Toby has her favorites. Rufus and Twiggy are her preferred rides.”

  “How would Toby do with the birds?” George asked Will. Of course, George already knew that Toby hadn’t ridden either of the birds yet. Kyle and May kept him updated.

  “She is not getting an implant, if that’s what you’re asking, Major,” Will barked.

  “I wasn’t,” George said patiently. “I asked how much control would Toby potentially have over the bird. Hypothetically speaking. As you’ve said, she’s a very talented rider. Perhaps she doesn’t need the human implant?”

  “I don’t believe bird riding is possible without the implant,” Kyle said in a flat voice. His head swirled to look at the major in a bird-like movement. He resembled a giant owl.

  I wonder if that hurts his neck? George thought. Kyle also didn’t seem to blink as much and his facial expression was even more impassive than normal.

  “But the birds have the standard implants, like the rats. So technically, Toby could ride Cory, even without an implant of her own?” George asked.

  “We did make some upgrades,” Will said. “And yes, with some software modifications in the middle, it’s possible. But without an implant, Toby’s ability to control the bird would be limited.”

  “Well, why don’t we go and do a demonstration?” George said. “I can’t wait to see all that you’ve managed to accomplish in the last few months.” He gave a warm smile to all of Will’s team. It was time for a bit of well-deserved praise.

  Kyle grabbed the backpack that contained the portable BBI equipment and Grock, with a mighty grooooock, swooped down onto his shoulder. It looked better than a controlled glide and a smile flickered across Kyle’s face. He and Grock were showing off for George.

  George approved.

  Rufus was running along the wall, hiding behind boxes of old equipment. Toby sat on her old blue couch and pretended to read a book. She was alone…or as alone as one was while riding another mind.

  Toby felt excluded from latest Brats experiments and it really irked her. She was the best they had; why was she not the one to get the new implant? But there was no talking to Dad about it. He was adamant that she would never have brain implants.

  Toby fidgeted, trying to adjust her body so it was easier to breathe. It was absurd. Her life expectancy was in the low twenties, perhaps lower now. She was the perfect candidate for these kinds of experiments—because she had nothing to lose and everything to gain, as far she was concerned. I could fly!

  Secretly, she’d already tried riding Cory. Ben had written the software plug that would allow riding Cory without an implant weeks ago—he was always tinkering with the BBI codebase. Toby had no problem accessing and downloading the necessary modification. And once she had the code, she plugged right in. It was hard at first, but that wasn’t surprising; they were getting to know each other. And as long as Toby did what Cory wanted, riding her wasn’t a problem.

  So now, with Uncle Geo here checking on their progress, Toby wanted to prove to him that she could ride the birds. She knew he had power over what went on in the Brats lab—he could even persuade her dad to give her a human brain implant. That was the hope, anyway.

  Which was why Toby was riding Rufus now. She was on an intelligence-gathering mission. The more intelligence she gathered, the better she could show off with Cory when she got a chance to ride her in front of Uncle Geo. Many months ago, she’d helped Rufus make a few hidden holes in the walls; she’d used them to spy on meetings that the adults deemed “inappropriate” for her. As if! Now she used those same holes to have Rufus sneak up on Uncle Geo, who was alone out in the hall, talking on his cell phone.

  Rufus was arthritic and slow, and Toby could feel his pain. But the old rat would do anything for her and she would reward him for his efforts later. In the meantime, Toby released more of the stress-reducing analgesic cocktail into Rufus’s brain: a bit of dopamine, some cortisol, adrenaline, and a few cannabinoids.

  She’d learned how to concoct this cocktail thanks to the work of Robert Sapolsky. Dr. Sapolsky was a professor at Stanford who had written a book on stress and brain chemistry called Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. That was Toby’s starting point, but she went on to read all of Sapolsky’s research papers—Uncle Geo had kept his word about giving her unlimited access to any literature that interested her.

  She felt Rufus’s body let go of stress. Relief flooded his senses. With his pain and anxiety taken care of, she could focus on Uncle Geo and his conversation.

  “I saw a lot of gliding,” he was saying, “but Will said in a few weeks, the birds will be ready. And I want a drone attack.” Rufus smelled stress. It was like a thick fog radiating from the major. “No, we won’t hurt the bird. Just put it through its motions. I want to see what Kyle can do. We’ve spent five years on this project—”

  He walked away as he spoke and Rufus couldn’t hear well what he was saying, but the smell of discontent and anxiety didn’t dissipate. If anything, they got stronger.

  But Toby had heard enough; she brought Rufus back to her office via the passageways between the walls. “Good ratty. Smart Rufus.”

  She brushed behind her pal’s implant with a soft toothbrush and the rat melted in pleasure, spreading and flattening his body across her hand. Toby was careful to give him another hit of pleasure-inducing chemicals and, inside her human brain, she felt an echo of the same relief. It felt great.

  Four weeks had e
lapsed since the major had first watched the birds gliding and hopping over the netting strung up in the courtyard. Now the birds were both accomplished flyers and the courtyard—free of netting—was open to the sky. The team wasn’t concerned that the birds would escape, especially if they couldn’t leave together. With Kyle controlling Grock, there wasn’t much chance of that.

  George was back to see how the Brats had progressed. Today was another demonstration day. The entire Brats team was in the courtyard, except for Lilly, who remained in the control room to monitor everything. Toby sat in her wheelchair, off to one side.

  “We hid a gold key somewhere in the courtyard,” Will said. “The birds know the key and they’ve hunted for it before—they like shiny things. Now their task is to find it.”

  “Does Kyle know where the key is?” George asked.

  “Of course not!” Kyle said, his expression vacant even as his voice implied indignation. When Kyle rode Grock, he took on the facial mannerisms of the raven, meaning he had a mostly flat affect.

  “The idea is to combine the raven’s superior visual acuity with Kyle’s problem-solving abilities,” Will explained. “We want to see if Kyle plus Grock can beat the time Grock set when he did the task alone.”

  Will motioned for Ben to release both birds. Although Cory wasn’t part of the experiment, the birds didn’t like to be separated, so they allowed her to fly around without a brain link.

  The two ravens flapped their wings and settled on a decorative rock in the central planter, away from the observers. Cory poked around and pulled some weeds with her impressive black beak. Grock sat beside her. He showed no desire to look for the key, or to do anything else for that matter.

  “Grrrrock!” the bird said.

  Toby had her BBI in her jacket pocket and the portable riding communications unit was in her backpack under her wheelchair. Other than Ben, none of the others knew she could ride Cory—but that was going to change today.

  She planned to get involved in the search at an opportune moment. Rufus had already found the golden key’s location, but Toby didn’t feel that was cheating. This experiment wasn’t about some dumb key. It was about control. Could Kyle—with his human brain embed—really control Grock better than she could control Cory with just a headband? She didn’t think so.

  “Is something the matter?” George asked. The birds continued to just sit there poking at the weeds.

  “No. Grock just needs a bit of motivation,” Ben said. He pulled a Ziploc bag from the pocket of his lab coat. It contained a few raw strips of meat. When he walked over to the birds, they perked up.

  “Shouldn’t you give them the reward after they find the key?” George asked.

  “Before and after. They like a little treat to get going,” Ben said. He smiled and cooed at the birds, feeding each of them a morsel of red meat. “Now go and show off for our guest,” he said in a baby voice.

  Toby didn’t think a high-pitched voice was useful for ravens. It worked great for rats and the pigs seemed to like it, but the birds preferred a normal human pitch. However, since she wasn’t part of the birds’ training crew, no one had asked for her opinion. Kyle should have known Grock’s preference, but he hadn’t spoken up. Perhaps he likes being talked to like a baby? Toby smirked.

  When the birds had been properly incentivized, Kyle signaled that he was ready to begin. Grock spread his large black wings, flapped them a few times, and took off. He flew higher than the rooftop and moved in a spiral pattern, searching the ground below. Cory floated slowly above him, riding a thermal from the sun-heated roofs of the buildings surrounding the lab.

  Toby looked over at Kyle. He sat with his eyes closed and his jaw clamped tight in concentration as he rode Grock. She was never that stiff while riding. If anything, experiencing the world through the mind of another relaxed her, made her forget how tired her human body was. She had a sense that while she experienced full immersion, Kyle held back, split his perceptions, and thus had to work twice as hard to keep control of both minds.

  While the team was focused on Grock, Toby pulled out her little BBI barrette, slipped it on, and pulled her hoodie over her head to hide it from view. She didn’t want to advertise her control over Cory. Not just yet.

  Out of the corner of his eye, George caught Toby’s furtive movement. That’s my girl, he thought, smiling to himself. He scanned the rest of the team; they were all looking at the birds. None of them had noticed Toby’s action.

  Toby looked down on herself from Cory’s viewpoint high above. She had looked at herself through the eyes of every animal in the lab, except for Grock. Grock had been too closely monitored for her to find an opportunity to ride. But it was only a matter of time. She planned on getting to know all of the Brats’ minds.

  She banked gently, casually allowing Cory to spot the golden key under the potted plant at the far end of the courtyard. It wasn’t a challenge, since she already knew where it was; the challenge was to convince Uncle Geo how indispensable she was to the Brats project. She needed that human brain implant. And she was going to get it, one way or another.

  Grock circled around cluelessly, then dropped down and started to systematically zigzag across the courtyard. Uncle Geo looked impressed by his search strategy.

  Toby didn’t know precisely what she was going to do—until she spotted a rat. It wasn’t one of the lab rats and ravens liked to eat rats. Toby had no problem with the whole circle of life thing—animals ate other animals, that’s what they did, tooth and claw and all that. And Toby had an idea.

  She/Cory swooped down and called to Grock. He pulled up to meet her and Kyle groaned as he lost control of his ride. It seemed to physically hurt him. Toby/Cory pointed out the trespassing rodent to Grock. It wasn’t hard to do—the birds watched each other carefully, each keeping track of where the other was focusing its attention.

  “Grrrrock!”

  Grock swooped down at top speed and almost crashed into the wayward rat. The rat got away, which wasn’t surprising; neither Grock nor Cory were good hunters—unless one counted stealing hot dogs from Ben. Grock screamed in frustration and flapped up onto the roof.

  Toby smiled. That was fun.

  “What happened?” George asked.

  “Grock saw a rat and…I lost control, sir,” Kyle said, his voice flat like an automaton’s.

  “Kyle’s heart rate is off the charts. Maybe we need a little break here,” Will said, looking up from his portable computer. “How are you feeling, Kyle?”

  “I’m fine now. Just the rat thing. I think it’s fine now. We can continue.” Kyle’s sentences had a staccato rhythm. It wasn’t his normal speech.

  “Are you sure?” George asked.

  “Absolutely, sir. Grock and I are fine,” Kyle said.

  Toby found it strange to see Kyle so affected by the human implant. With the rats and pigs, Kyle and May had never taken on the mannerisms of their rides to such a degree. A little head-butting and scratching, sure, but now, with Grock, Kyle had gone way beyond that.

  Nobody was paying attention to Cory, who was now standing on one foot on the planter, holding the gold key in her beak. She preened her feathers a little, feigning nonchalance.

  “Okay, are we ready to start again?” Will said.

  “I think Cory has other ideas!” George said, pointing.

  Cory flew over and landed on his shoulder.

  A flash of pleasure hit both Cory’s and Toby’s brains. Toby was quick to administer rewards for a job well done and the amplification of pleasure pathways went back and forth between the bird and herself.

  “Wah, wah, wah-wah-wah-ha!” Cory called as she dropped the gold key into George’s hand.

  George looked at Cory and then at Toby. “Looks like we have our winner,” he said with a smile.

  “Wah,” Cory said gently. She wasn’t nearly as aggressive as Grock…or at least, she pretended not to be.

  “Well, I guess Cory gets the prize,” Ben said. He walked over with ano
ther strip of raw steak.

  “Grrrrock!” Grock called in outrage, but Kyle was already placing him back in his cage. Both the bird and the man were clearly disappointed with their loss.

  “So, Toby,” George said, “you want to tell us how you did that?”

  Toby pulled off her hood and revealed the BBI barrette on her head. “Cory and I are buds,” she said cheerfully.

  “Even without the special implant?” George asked.

  All eyes were on Toby. “I can control her,” she said, bobbing her head to indicate confidence. It was a gesture she had picked up from Twiggy. Cory was doing it too now. Toby disconnected from Cory and Vikka gathered her from George’s shoulder.

  “I told you we need Toby on the bird team,” George said to Will.

  “Let’s not discuss this in front of Toby,” he said. “You know how I feel about it.”

  “Why don’t you guys unpack the data,” George said. After a test like this, the team had a large amount of video footage and biofeedback data on Kyle and Grock. “I’ll take Toby for lunch. She deserves a reward too.”

  “Meat!” Toby said. “I want bloody meat, Uncle Geo!” Toby would have jumped out of her wheelchair if she could. She really did have a craving for raw meat—carpaccio or some nice beef tartare.

  George pushed Toby in her wheelchair to the university cafeteria in the neighboring building. They couldn’t get anything fancy there, but the roast beef sandwiches weren’t bad and they were bloody enough.