by SA Payne
move toward the door close to lunch, he'd leave his crate to wait by the apartment door before it
was time to leave to go back to the lab after lunch. Even asleep, it seemed Rye had a perfect
sense of time.
"Ready to go home?" He asked and Rye climbed to his feet. He was too nervous to eat, torn between wanting to know and being frightened of the truth. Amanda and Will would be looking
for him at his rooms, so he'd go there and wait.
An hour passed, then two and Ichi was getting so nervous that Rye was picking up on it. The pet
wasn't quite hiding in his crate but he was sitting close to it, watching Ichi randomly scan
programs on the vid screen with wide, uncertain eyes. When the buzzer at his door rang, he
sprang to his feet and Rye darted into his crate.
"It's okay, Rye, it's just Amanda and Will." He hurried to let them in.
They looked serious and Ichi wasn't sure what that meant. "Sit down, Ichi." Will muttered.
"Where's Rye?" Amanda asked scanning but spotting the pet in his crate. "There you are."
Ichi sat back on his sofa and let Amanda settle on one side and Will on the other. "Well? I'm
knotted up in worry here, what did you find?"
Amanda reached over and took Ichi's hand. "He isn't a twisted pet, or a mistake." She started gently.
"Oh." He felt embarrassed, and grateful. He'd made a huge assumption and his friends were being kind about letting him down.
"Ichi, he's not a pet at all."
That made less sense. "What?"
Will leaned forward. "He's human."
"What?"
Amanda drew a slow breath. "The base of all pets is a human gene code, but because all of
them start from the same base code, they show up almost as twins of each other. The code is
then tweaked, hair, skin, eye color, special modifications, the like, but the base code is the same altered human. Rye's gene code is as human as yours or mine."
Ichi felt the blood pound in his ears and he was suddenly very glad he'd sat down. "He's human."
"Yes but stay with us. He's been adapted, not just once to be made into a pet but twice, maybe more than that but definitely twice. Another clue, the scans show massive amounts of healed
injuries. Some of them are very old, he's had dozens of fractures, some along the bones growth
lines while the bone was still growing." She spoke slowly.
"Meaning?"
Will shook his head. "Meaning some how he broke bones while still a child. Pet's don't have
childhoods, they're grown to whatever age is requested and than adapted."
"You said, he's been modified twice?" He glanced to the crate but Rye was still hiding inside.
"Well, we think the first was a series of modifications over the course of his childhood. His
muscle density is way out there, totally off norm. His metabolism is faster, his lungs can process
oxygen easier." Will started but Amanda broke in.
"It's his immune system, Ichi, it's amazing. He has the t and b cells of a young child, his body is in overdrive. We found stem cells in his system, Ichi, stem cells. They're coded with proteins I've never seen before. Will and I are virologists, we've been studying immune system responses for
years and neither of us have even read of something like this." The excitement tumbled out of
her.
"What does it mean?"
"She's trying to say that you could break Rye's arm and so long as the bone was set in place it would heal cleanly in half the time. I'm betting his immune system would eat the Bare Earth virus
for lunch."
Ichi glanced to Will. "Let's not make that bet."
He waved it off. "Point being, someone spent a tremendous amount of money changing Rye as a
child and yet during the same time frame he had a dozen or more broken bones? It doesn't make
sense."
"So, what? They modified a human and than modified him into being a pet?"
Amanda punched up some of the displays on her notebook and handed it to Ichi. "Something like
that, but his brain, here, this is the standard brain of a real pet. See the darker areas? They don't even light up on a pet, these are regions of thought, consciousness, awareness. They aren't even
properly formed. Now, this is Rye's scan."
The image Ichi was looking at grew larger, brighter and the images peeled away in layers. "It
looks normal."
"It's close but it's not normal. The base line is a perfectly healthy human brain but what grants us consciousness?"
"A soul?"
"Mythical nonsense."
"We disagree, I think it's mythical nonsense in conjunction with biology." Will teased.
"When we're deeply asleep, before we reach REM, our brain shuts down. The different sections
stop talking to each other and we loose all consciousness. Ichi, someone very skillfully severed a
vast amount of Rye's pathways, they shut down or severely strangled, his brain's ability to talk to itself." She enlarged regions and pointed out sections but it was all far from Ichi's study.
"So, they what? Damaged his brain and made him into a pet?"
"That would have been kind." Will whispered and leaned back.
"This is just theory." Amanda qualified, glancing to Will with a warning look to her eyes.
"Tell me." Ichi demanded and started to flip through brain scans, images of broken and long healed bones, body chemistry results and DNA tests too complicated for him to really
understand.
"Someone was very careful, see here..." She took over the notebook again and pulled up the brain images. "And here? We're guessing but they did this to cut off his memories, here, this
section, it prevents him from being able to form words but look, this? Ichi this is where we
comprehend language."
He studied it and frowned. "It looks normal."
"It is normal. They left it untouched."
"What she doesn't want to say is that someone very deliberately made it so Rye wouldn't
remember who he was and so he wouldn't be able to speak but left him with enough intact that
he's aware, conscious and able to understand. Our theory is that he's totally able to understand
every word said around him but he's been disconnected from the experience of the words." Will
sighed. "Like you can say to him ocean breeze and he'll know what the words mean but not what
it feels like, really feels like to stand and feel an ocean breeze. And even if he lived years
Oceanside, nothing will associate with the words. They'll be blank slates."
The truth settled on Ichi hard. "Oh, God, they left him locked inside his own head. Why? Why
would anyone do this?"
"The only person who might know that, is Rye and he's not talking."
"But, he was someone, right? Surely someone is missing him?"
"Ichi we ran his DNA twice in all the databases and it came up blank. Nothing, not a whisper of an identity." Will spoke softly, they'd had over an hour to process the sheer horror of what they'd found.
"That's why, sometimes, he seems so human, so like he understands." He thought he might be ill.
"Ichi, that crazy immune system of his?" Amanda glanced to Will but he nodded. "It's undoing all of this." She waved to the brain scans. "The other things, like the double terminated nerve endings and the denser muscle tissue, his body has those written in as what's normal for him but
this surgical adaptation of his brain is contrary to it. It's slowly undoing it."
"Oh, God, how long?"
"How long until it's healed?" She shrugged. "We don't know. We don't have a base line to go from, we didn't do these scans when he arrived."
"Guess?" He asked, demanded, needed to know.
"A couple more months, maybe a
year?" Will raised an eyebrow. "Some of our scans show healed tissue, the process of reversing this is almost half way finished. The original surgical
scars are at least a year old."
"You have to be able to do something for him, to help him?"
"What we can do would be like using an ax to chop berries. His body is doing such a fine,
delicate job of repair, we'd only be making things worse. Yes, we can repair the damage but the way his body is doing it, he'll eventually return to how he was before the surgical procedures
which may, if he's very, very lucky, may contain his memories."
"Oh God. This, this is barbaric."
"There's more." Will continued and he pulled up another set of images. "Our scans of soft tissue found no real scars, nothing marring his skin or muscles but that's a given once we saw his
immune system, but look here." The tone of the images changed, the colors skewed and lines
appeared. "We can see growth patterns. It lets us find old, healed wounds from the re-growth
directions. They use it to look for signs of abuse, anyway, we found a lot."
Ichi frowned and tried to understand what the image was showing him. It took a moment be he
understood it was a back, Rye's back, and lines crossed it. It took another moment for the
meaning to sink in. "These, these aren't whip marks, are they?"
"Whip marks or something similar." Amanda spoke gently. "Something tore up his back pretty badly. We found a lot of healed wounds."
"How recently? I mean..." He tried to process all they were telling him. "Can't they be from years? Maybe he was in some sort of accident, the broken bones the injuries?"
"This scan, can only pick up re-growth patterns on the skin and underlying soft tissue for maybe a year in the past. With Rye's immune system, it'd be safer to say maybe six months ago?"
Amanda was starting to worry about Ichi, the man was growing ashen and looked as shocked as
she'd felt when they'd started to piece the information together.
"Oh, God." He shook his head. "Is he, I mean, how intelligent is he?"
"Best guess would be that he's no less or more than any other human."
"And someone did this to him? Trapped him inside his own mind? Tortured him?" He was
shaking his head. "Who would do that?"
"Better question might be why?" Will added softly.
"No." Ichi shook his head. "The better question is what can we do to help him?"
Will grinned. "Told you he wouldn't freak out." He tossed to his wife.
"You're very clever."
"You thought I would freak out?"
"Well," Amanda started carefully. "I was worried your first thought would be about contacting PETS, letting them know."
"Oh." The idea hadn't occurred to him. "Should we?"
"No." She shook her head. "This isn't a mistake, Ichi, this couldn't have just happened. Someone very high up there knew and let it happen. They sent him out here to the middle of nowhere
because they figured you would never know. Don't tell them you know, no matter what. He's still
a pet, legally, he's property. If they think the secret's been blown they can claim he's faulty and
replace him, take him back, give you another maybe or maybe not but in any case, Rye would
be gone."
"I won't allow that to happen." Ichi knew it sounded melodramatic and silly but he meant it. "Now, what can we do to help him."
"We've ruled out surgical options. Besides, we'd have to take him back to Avalon, it's too
delicate of work for here. It doesn't matter, he's best left on his own anyway." Amanda rambled for a bit. "His brain is in the process of repairing and replacing a ton of neural pathways, we need to encourage them."
"Forgive my wife, sometimes she forgets that people actually listen to her when she's speaking."
"Hey!" She mock pouted at the scolding.
"What she's trying to say is that the brain is like our bodies, if we don't use it, we loose it and in this case we need to stimulate his healing brain to heal. If he doesn't try to speak, those
pathways may re-form in an underdeveloped way. So, the word of the day is therapy."
Ichi nodded. "Okay, just tell me what has to be done."
"First, you, we all, need to stop treating him like a pet. Now, Rye is yours, good or bad, he's your responsibility. Amanda and I will keep our mouths shut about this but everyone here is Avalon,
they can keep secrets. I wouldn't tell Harvick even but the rest of the crew? No worries there but
the choice is yours." Will tried to see Ichi's eyes and couldn't, the man was clutching to Amanda's notebook and had his eyes locked onto their tests.
"I can't, I mean, I can't..."
Amanda soothed a hand across Ichi's back. "You worry about Rye, we'll tell the rest of the crowd.
Okay?"
He nodded and felt punched in the gut. "Thanks."
"Now, Amanda and I differ here. She thinks no fuss should be made, that you should just start
treating Rye like you would a normal person. I think that will confuse the hell out of him. I think you need to sit him down and tell him you know he's aware in there, that the gig is up and he
needs to start trying to get better." Will glanced to the crate, unsure how much of this Rye was listening to.
"May I ask your reasons?" He needed that, the falling back on logic and reason when the world no longer felt as safe as it did.
Amanda drew a slow breath. "I think, if you make a fuss, it'll upset him but if you quietly just change things, he'll adapt. He obviously tries to please, that'll carry over here to."
"I think it's just the same, he's trying to please. Someone beat the shit out of him, that's a pretty good crash course on wanting to keep your owner happy. Fear of punishment, fear of pain, they
can shut a mind down, crush personalities. He needs to be encouraged to express himself and
know it's okay." Will countered.
Ichi shut the notebook off and handed it back to Amanda. The files on speech therapy and
behavior therapy he knew would all be waiting in his home system and his stomach churned too
much to read them now. "I don't know, I this is, this is just so much."
"Ichi," Amanda started gently. "You can't fall apart here. If this is a lot for you to accept, imagine how it's been for Rye."
He sat up and ran a hand across his hair. "I need to think about this a little. I, it's just, this is so much more than I'd feared, I..."
"It's okay, now you know why we took the afternoon. We wanted to double check everything and
stop feeling so ill over the results." Will grinned. "We'll go, get the other's together and let them know and go from there. Okay?"
Ichi nodded. "Thank you, both of you, for trusting me."
Amanda leaned over and put a kiss to the Ichi's temple. "No, dearest, thank you for trusting
yourself. If this had gone unnoticed, that would have been so much worse." She tossed a head to the door. "Come on, Will, buy a gal a drink would you?"
They left, with Will pausing in the doorway to turn and add. "Call any of us if you need anything."
And than Ichi was alone.
Only he wasn't alone, for as the minutes ticked away and the silence was crushing, Rye slowly
emerged from his crate. The pet, no, Ichi caught his own thoughts and corrected them, the man
slinked out and came to sit on the floor in front of the sofa as he always did. Grey eyes glanced
up to the worried look Ichi wore and the smallest of worry reflected on the normally empty face
before Rye dropped his eyes and face to the floor. It wasn't an issue of coldly clinical facts with the handsome man sitting so docilely in front of him.
When Ichi's stomach had settled, he reached out a hand and stroked it across the soft red hair.
As always, Rye arched into the touch a
nd tried to get him to repeat it. Lately, he had been but
not today.
"Rye?" He spoke softly and the head swung up to look at him again. "Come here, sit." He patted the coffee table and that earned him a frown. "It's okay." He patted the coffee table again and slowly Rye unfolded his legs and very carefully sat on the edge of the table.
The head instantly lowered, the eyes studied the floor. Ichi reached out and raised his chin. He
studied those eyes, so fluid and expressive but he couldn't swear there was intelligence behind
them. When he released the chin, Rye's head lowered again.
"I'm not sure how much of today you understood. Will and Amanda, they're good friends of mine
and they're medical doctors. I had them run some tests on you. I know that you're not really a
pet." He tried to speak gently.
Rye shifted unhappily on the table and his eyes darted up, worried, before dropping again.
"Will and Amanda know, soon, everyone here will know. These are good people. No one else
will. We aren't letting PETS know. No one is going to take you back, your home is here, you
belong here." He sighed. "God, I wish I knew how much you actually understood. They said
you're healing, that what they did to your head is getting better. We're going to try to help you as much as we can. No one is going to hurt you again, Rye, no one."
A spot on the fabric of Rye's kilt grew wet, and than another. It took Ichi a moment to understand that tears were slipping from Rye's eyes to drop from his bowed head to dampen the fabric. He
reached out and tried to raise the hidden face again, Rye was more resistant this time and the
chin he held trembled.
"Aw, hey, now, it's going to be okay." He tried to wipe at tears but Rye flinched a little and he stopped. "Guess this means you understand some of this huh?" He tried to smile.
Rye just pulled his face away and tried to curl up over his own knees to hide. Ichi understood, he
was private with his emotions too. He stood up. "I'm making some tea, would you like some?" He was three steps to the kitchen before Rye disappeared into his crate again. Knowledge alone
wasn't going to be enough, they were going to need a lot of time too.
The tea helped settle his nerves but Rye stayed hidden in the crate, even though Ichi poured tea