Risk Alleviator

by Camille Picott

  “Dammit, you trigger-happy idiot! I’ll see you fired if you kill my creature!”

  For just an instant, the soldier looks away. Riska lifts his tail. It happens just like he saw it in the moving picture. A white cloud ejects from his rear end, rising upward in a smoky plume. The sleeping gas is pungent, biting the inside of Riska’s nose with a sharp scent.

  It rolls across the soldier’s face. The man gags, falling against the counter. The gun goes off as he collapses to the ground. Dr. Nguyen curses and crashes into the cart as he tries to jump into the closet. Riska darts away.

  Just as he makes it past the unconscious soldier, the doors slide open. Two more men charge into the room, both with guns.

  Men with guns do bad things.

  Bunching his legs beneath him, Riska jumps. He hits the closest man in the chest and latches onto the jumpsuit. Opening his mouth, he hisses. Liquid sprays out, hitting the man in the face.

  The sound that comes out of the soldier is terrible, much worse than anything he heard on the screen. It’s part cry, part shriek, and all pain. Riska leaps free as the man falls. The soldier clutches at his face, screaming. He lands in front of the doors, blocking them as they try to close.

  Riska hits the floor, legs splaying. He sprints for the open door.

  “Don’t kill it!” Dr. Nguyen yells.

  A gun goes off, but Riska doesn’t look back. He leaps over the fallen soldier—who still shrieks and grabs at his face—and out into the bright passageway beyond. He moves as fast as he can, legs gaining strength as he runs. The man’s cries chase him down the hall.

  There’s a slight vibration in the floor. He feels it in the pads of his feet. More humans are coming. Their shouts build in his ears. They are close—closer—

  A pack of them rounds the nearest corner, their boots pounding on the white tiles. Riska beats his wings, desperately trying to lift off. The men, all in black jumpsuits, have their guns out. He registers AT-57s and OS-15s.

  “It’s a mini Aircat,” shouts one soldier.

  “Code Green,” says another. “Shoot it!”

  They are so close that Riska can smell them—their sweat, their determination, all of it stabbing the inside of his nose like sharp pins.

  They are bad men. All of them. It doesn’t matter what color they wear. Their weapons are bad, and so are they—and he is stuck in the middle of a bright passageway, with weak wings and nowhere to run.

  Riska plants his feet and hisses. He knows what to do. He is not going to let these bad men hurt him.

  The first man reaches him. Riska dodges to the side and lashes out. Claws extend from his foot, shining in the blinding light. He slashes it along the man’s ankle, a sharp skritch sounding as he scrapes bone. The man falls, blood pouring from his wound and coating the floor. Two other men, right on his heels, slip in the blood and go down. Riska jumps onto the nearest one and lifts his tail, letting loose another cloud of white gas. The three soldiers fall unconscious, their bodies slack. Another two men, also caught in the cloud, trip and fall. All five lie without moving.

  There are still more bad men. Riska launches himself toward the nearest one. His wings tremble, giving him just enough lift to land on a soldier’s head. He opens his mouth, shooting liquid down the man’s neck. The soldier drops, convulsing. Riska pushes off, gliding toward the next soldier.

  This one is female. There were some female soldiers in the moving pictures. They are just as bad as the men. Riska zooms straight into her face and hits her in the eyes with a blast of burning liquid.

  The woman’s mouth opens in a scream, but whatever noise she makes is lost in the hum of battle around him. It whines in his ears, all sounds melding into a single discordant melody. The woman stumbles back, pain etched in her movements. Riska hovers, struggling to stay airborne.

  Then a voice—a familiar voice—cuts through the din.

  “Riska!”

  Dr. Nguyen. Riska turns to face the dark-skinned man sprinting toward him. He readies himself. Dr. Nguyen might not have been in any of those moving pictures, but he is a bad man. He does bad things to Riska, even if he doesn’t carry weapons.

  With a hiss, Riska charges. His wings falter, and he zigzags wildly through the air.

  Dr. Nguyen is about ten feet away when he brandishes a V40 stun gun. Riska swerves, trying to dodge, but his wings aren’t fast enough. A bolt of electricity hits him in the chest. He yowls, struggling to reach the doctor.

  Dr. Nguyen fires a second time. Another bolt hits Riska, this time in the shoulder. His wings collapse and he plummets to the floor. He’s still hissing when he hits the ground, even though his legs and wings twitch uselessly.

  9: A Serious Defect

  Riska is put back into a cage and left alone in Dr. Nguyen’s lab. When the doctor returns sometime later with someone else, he pretends to be asleep. He listens as Dr. Nguyen talks. Riska wants to bristle at the sound of his voice, but he forces himself to remain still.

  “How can you call the Risk Alleviator project a complete failure?” Dr. Nguyen asks.

  “I have a soldier who has been permanently blinded,” says the new voice. It belongs to a woman. Her words are cold and hard-edged. “Another needs extensive foot surgery. Two more have faces that require reconstruction, and three have concussions. Do you know how much money today’s incident is going to cost my uncle? Tell me, Dr. Nguyen, just how is it that you see the Risk Alleviator project as a success?”

  “He learned from the instructional videos, Miss Winn. Don’t you see? My cognitive enhancer worked. He’s learning, evolving—”

  “He’s evolving into an uncontrollable killing machine. That is not a success.”

  “But he learned how to fight—”

  “He has not learned to tell friend from foe. That is a serious defect. He must be destroyed immediately.”

  Destroyed.

  Riska knows this word. Death. Kill. Destroy. They are all the same. They all mean he will be hurt. His body will be torn apart by bullets or knives or grenades.

  He opens one eye. Through the bars, he sees Dr. Nguyen. A hiss rises in his throat. He swallows it and remains still.

  The doctor is arguing with Miss Winn, his back to the cage. Riska tenses his wings, testing their strength. They feel strong, ready to fly. He flexes his feet, checking the readiness of his legs. The cramps from his time in the box have disappeared. He is strong. But how is he going to get out of the cage?

  A humming sound—accompanied by a steady psssht-psssht—draws his attention. He moves his head without meaning to and finds himself looking down at the strangest human he’s ever seen.

  She doesn’t move her legs like regular people. She sits in a silver chair that makes a soft hum as it rolls on big wheels.

  Her head is shaved bald. A metal contraption crisscrosses over her skull. The back of her head and neck are supported on a plastic cushion attached to the silver chair. Her eyes are hidden by a pair of goggles. A small tube runs into her nose. The tube is attached to a machine that makes the psssht-psssht noise. Her chest rises and falls with the rhythm of the machine. Another tube is inserted into her arm, a fluid bag attached to it.

  The air around her is sweet, but not in a good way. It’s the way food smells when it starts to rot.

  Is the woman sick? Hurt in some way? Riska knows what it’s like to have tubes forced into his body. He feels bad for the lady in the chair. She must be like him in some way.

  Her chair swivels to face his cage. He studies her bald head, slack face, and black goggles. The goggles are for Vex. He learned about Vex—Virtual Experience—during his time with Dr. Nguyen’s picture screen.

  There’s a soft cranking sound. A wide, flat screen rises up from a console on the woman’s chair. The screen stops level with Riska’s cage. On it is a picture of a female human with a bright smile and hard, dark eyes. Her brown hair falls in waves to her shoulders.

  Riska studies the face on the screen and compares it to the woman in the chai
r. The shape of the nose and chin is the same. Her eyes are still covered by the Vex goggles, but he imagines that if they weren’t there, her face would look very much like the woman on the screen. With hair.

  The picture blinks.

  “Hello, Riska,” says the face on the screen, smiling at him.

  Riska jumps, hitting his head on the top of the cage. The voice coming from the screen belongs to Miss Winn, the human who wants him destroyed.

  “Riska,” she says again.

  “Mrow?”

  The screen swivels toward Dr. Nguyen. The woman on the chair never moves, but Riska understands that she somehow speaks through the screen.

  “It appears he knows his name,” she says.

  “It’s the cognitive enhancers,” Dr. Nguyen says. “It told you, his intelligence is increasing.”

  “What you’re saying is that he’s dangerous and smart.”

  “He can be trained. Give me more time. Risk Alleviators have great potential. Just imagine communities and corporate buildings across the country protected by units of Riskas—”

  “You’ve done enough imagining for the day, Doctor. Keep the Risk Alleviator here in isolation—”

  “I beg you not to destroy him. Please. His potential—”

  “His potential will be kept in mind as we consider our options. You are dismissed for the evening.”

  The woman on the screen gives Riska one last look. Then the screen retracts, repositioning itself in the chair’s console. The chair turns and rolls away, disappearing through the double doors.

  10: Reassigned

  Sitting inside the cage, Riska stares at one paw. He flexes his foot. Pale yellow claws slide out.

  These are not his only claws. He stretches the paw. The yellow claws retract. A different set slides into view. These sparkle. They are long and thick. These are the claws that sliced through boot, tendon, and muscle. They scraped the bone of that soldier.

  Placing his foot against the cage bars, he drags the sparkling claws across the metal. They make an awful squealing sound. He flattens his ears and peers at the bars. Four deep gouges mar them.

  The end of his tail twitches. Stretching out both front paws, he continues to scratch.

  He will not sit around and wait to be destroyed.

  ***

  His claws cut and cut and cut. The cage bars are a mangle of silver. His feet are bloody. His forelegs ache.

  There isn’t enough strength in his feet to cut through metal. He slumps to the cage floor. How is he going to escape? He lolls on his side, exhausted. He is too tired to even clean the blood off his feet.

  A loud beep wakes him from a fitful dose. The double doors open and Miss Winn rolls into the room. She is followed by a man with thick black hair that sticks out in many directions. There are holes in his white jacket along the collar and shoulders. Riska recognizes him. He is the messy-haired man who argued with Dr. Nguyen many days ago.

  The two approach his cage. Riska edges back from the bars, growling. He leaves red paw prints on the floor of his cage.

  “What is this?” Miss Winn exclaims, her screen examining the inside of his cage.

  “Amazing,” says the wild-haired man, rubbing the mangled bars with his finger. “I think he’s trying to escape.”

  “Unacceptable. Do you think the project can be salvaged?”

  “Everything is salvageable. Look back at the Gavs. The first two generations were less than successful.”

  “Your optimism never ceases to amaze me.”

  “I assume that’s why you asked me to come here. It would be helpful if I could take a closer look at the Risk Alleviator. Perhaps run some analyses on his blood work.”

  “Very well,” says Miss Winn. “I’ll have the animal transferred to your lab. Run whatever tests you need. We’ll meet tomorrow morning with Dr. Nguyen to go over your results. If you can show me how you can take this project in a new direction, it will be reassigned to you.”

  Riska watches the humans leave, studying the wild-haired doctor. In his mind, he sees the man arguing with Dr. Nguyen. Could he be Dr. Nguyen’s enemy? At least the new man did not use the word destroy. Neither did Miss Winn. Riska will wait and see what this means.

  11: Dr. Hom

  A short time later, two soldiers transfer Riska’s cage to the lab of the new doctor. His lab has the same shape and colors as Dr. Nguyen’s, but that’s where the similarity ends. Every inch of counter space is covered. There are machines, tablets, books, stacks of paper, multiple computers, racks of jars, and many other things. There are no animals in the room, but pictures of them are on the walls. Some of the pictures have been torn up and taped together to form pictures of new animals. One of the pictures looks a lot like Riska—a big black-and-white striped cat, with black wings torn from another image and taped on either side.

  “Right here, gentlemen,” says the wild-haired man, gesturing to a place on the counter covered with boxes. The boxes are full of stuff and stacked haphazardly on top of each other.

  The soldiers stare at the boxes.

  “Um, sir?” one says. “Where exactly do you want the cage?”

  The doctor blinks at the boxes as if just noticing them. He grabs a stack of them, sets them on the floor, and pushes them up against a wall with his foot. He repeats this process three times, until at last a square of metal counter is revealed. The soldiers deposit Riska’s cage.

  “This thing took out our friend,” says one soldier. “I hope you’re using him for salvage.”

  “That’s classified, gentlemen. Thank you for your assistance. That will be all.” The doctor smiles pleasantly before turning his back on the soldiers.

  Riska, peering past the doctor, sees the soldiers scowl. He hisses at them, laying his ears back. They finger their guns as they back out of the room.

  “Well, buddy,” says the doctor. “It’s just you and me now. Let’s see about getting you cleaned up.”

  With that, he swipes his card over the cage lock. The door beeps and swings open. Bits of metal from the mangled bars patter to the floor.

  Riska blinks in surprise, backing up a few steps. The doctor leans against the opposite counter, head cocked to one side. He stares at Riska. Riska stares back. They remain like this for several minutes.

  Riska edges toward the open door, never taking his eyes off the doctor. The human smiles and stays where he is.

  “Come on out, buddy,” he says. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Riska bolts for the opening and jumps. He throws his wings open and cuts toward the ceiling, narrowly missing the doctor’s head. The human yelps in surprise, and Riska quickly puts distance between them. He stays close to the ceiling, circling the room.

  The human recovers from his surprise and grins up at Riska. “That a boy,” he says.

  This man is different from Dr. Nguyen. Riska remembers the few times Dr. Nguyen let him fly. The other doctor always made Riska wear a harness with a leash. Dr. Nguyen always kept one hand on the leash when Riska flew.

  He revels in the freedom of unrestrained flight. He scoops the air with his wings, going faster and faster. The room blurs around him.

  The sound of running water makes him slow. The human fills a dish. He pauses when he’s done, surveying the crowded countertops, then places the dish on top of a machine.

  “Water?” he says to Riska, motioning to the bowl.

  Riska is thirsty. How did the doctor know? He lands on the edge of the machine, keeping his wings open as he drinks. The scuff of a shoe sends him back up to the ceiling. He hisses at the human, who’d been walking toward him.

  “Easy,” the man says. He holds a damp towel in one hand. “Easy, buddy. I just want to take a look at your feet. You’re injured.”

  Riska spends several minutes circling the room, hissing. The doctor remains where he is, holding the towel and watching Riska. He talks the whole time.

  “It’s okay, buddy. I’m not going to hurt you,” he says. “I need to make sure there’
s nothing that needs stitches. It’s okay.”

  He keeps talking, saying the same things over and over. His face is smooth, his eyes kind. He’s not like Dr. Nguyen, even though he wears the same white jacket.

  Riska at last lands on a stack of papers. His wings remain outstretched, ready to lift off at the first sign of danger. His tail twitches as the human approaches.

  “It’s okay, buddy,” the man says. “It’s okay.” He stands before Riska, reaching out with the towel. Riska tenses, but the man’s hands are gentle as he lifts one bloody foot. Carefully, he wipes it clean.

  “You caused a lot of trouble with the soldiers.” The hand lifts his other paws, taking time to clean and study the wounds on each one. “I’m glad Miss Winn had a change of heart and asked me for help.”

  “Mrow,” Riska says, cocking his head at the man. He can’t say the word destroy. He can’t tell the nice doctor that Miss Winn wanted to destroy him. “Mrow,” he says again.

  “Dr. Nguyen really made a mess of things.”

  Riska hisses.

  The doctor blinks at him. “Dr. Nguyen.”

  He hisses again.

  A puzzled dent wrinkles the doctor’s brow. “Can you understand me?”

  “Mrow.”

  “Inconclusive,” he mutters to himself, frowning. “Riska, lift your foot if you can understand me.”

  Riska raises one paw into the air.

  Silence. The doctor stares, his mouth hanging open. Riska stares back.

  “Amazing,” the man breathes. “I’m going to ask you some questions. Raise your foot to answer yes, leave it down to answer no. Understand?” His eyes widen as Riska lifts a paw in response. “Were you trying to escape from your cage?”

  The foot rises.

  “I knew it!”

  Riska jumps at the man’s exclamation.

  “Sorry,” he says, his face softening. “When you attacked those soldiers, were you trying to get away from Dr. Nguyen? Is that why you broke out of his lab?”