by Yazz Ustaris
My eyes widened in surprise when Sam suddenly clapped both of his hands on my cheeks and forcibly turned my head so that I was facing him fully. “What’s wrong with you, Teagan?!” he demanded. “You’re being so quiet, and you’re never quiet. What’s the matter?”
Dammnit! I just sighed over the sound of Jamie’s explosive laughter while trying to shake my head free out of Sam’s grasp. Behind me, I heard Gideon snort with laughter as I just crossed my arms over my chest and sulked. Game over! I had convinced myself that I could keep up the act of impassivity for the rest of the night if I concentrated hard enough. Thanks to Sam, it hadn’t even lasted five minutes. Oh well. I congratulated myself on a good start.
The sergeant tried to mask his laughter with a cough, while inhaling and attempting to clear his throat all at the same time. What came out was a weird, snuffling rumble of a sound. Rolling my eyes again at him, I shook my head as I regarded Sam with admonishment. His expression of innocence was genuine as he just looked back at me with confusion.
Dr. Duffy took the opportunity to point out the obvious to the otherwise clueless Samuel. “Teagan is practicing masking her emotions, which is actually a very good idea considering how expressive her face is. Things are going to be different once you three relocate to the larger barracks, and all three of you need to practice maintaining neutral expressions. Not everyone is as trustworthy as you guys and you’ll have to learn on your own who you can and cannot trust.” Again with the cryptic statements!
Sam looked at me with apology in his eyes as he confessed, “I don’t like the Robot Teagan. I like being able to look at your face and seeing exactly what you’re thinking and feeling.”
Nurse Jamie added, “Sam sweetie, it’s only when you three are alone that you can be yourselves. These next few weeks that you take settling into the barracks, we just ask that you guard your thoughts and emotions until you can judge for yourself who you consider trustworthy. But just for the record, know that you can approach any of the other sergeants in confidence. They’re here to help you in any way they can. They’re actually pretty eager to meet you three. All of them are a wee bit jealous of Sergeant Ramsey since he’s in charge of your unit, and they all want the opportunity to work with you three too.”
Ignoring the smile of pride Sergeant Ramsey beamed our way, I was quick to interject, “I’m sure we’ll talk all about that later, but for now you guys have seriously strayed from the main topic of conversation.” I leveled a serious look on all three authority figures as I chastised, “Don’t think you can sidestep my question. What side effects were you guys referring to?” I had no qualms about demanding to have my questions answered. Recalling the defeated expression on Dr. Duffy’s face from earlier, I was starting to grow impatient for answers.
“We didn’t forget, we were just working our way up to that,” the sergeant grumbled peevishly at me. Studying the no-nonsense expression on my face, Sergeant Ramsey turned to Jamie and nodded at her. Jamie stood up from her seat and with a nervous exhalation of air, she looked at me, Sam, and Gideon directly in the eyes before slowing raising the hem of her scrub top. I leaned forward slightly as Jamie stood there with her shirt raised to just below her breasts. She just stood there as she continued to watch us expectantly. I felt my mouth drop open a little in shock as I took in the sight of five slight lines along each side of her waist. Whipping my head around to look at Gideon, I saw that his gaze was flitting back and forth between Jamie and the floor as a pink blush tinged his cheeks in embarrassment. I resisted the urge to laugh at his reaction. For God sakes, Jamie was decently covered! She was only flashing us her waist. Trembling with excitement, I stood up from the sofa and slowly approached Jamie. When I was a foot away, I reached a hesitant hand out to her left side and breathed, “May I?” A look of uncertainty passed over her face briefly before she nodded her head in assent.
I slowly eased to a crouch on the floor beside her and gently traced my fingers over the lines above her hip bones. Gills?! As I stroked them, they suddenly flared open for a split second before fluttering quickly closed again. I gasped and jerked my hand back as I felt Sam and Gideon lean over me to get a closer look at what had caught my attention. I heard their echoing gasps as they finally realized what Jamie was trying to show us.
“Holy Crap!!” Sam whispered from behind me. He didn’t sound disgusted though. There was wonderment in his voice, which probably matched the expression on my face as I gazed incredulously back at Jamie.
“What are you?” I queried, a soft smile shaping my lips.
I found it curious that Jamie seemed relieved with our reactions to her revelation. “I’m part Angel Shark. These gills allow me to stay under water for long periods of time. Not all test subjects will display the same traits, but most of us that have shark DNA will usually grow gills. They’re not always in the same place though. Dr. Duffy is an example of that.”
My head jerked in Doc Duffy’s direction as Jamie revealed that he had shark DNA as well. I felt that my eyes were probably bugging out of my head at the news, but I found it hard to retain my neutral façade. The information they were revealing to us was just too exciting for me not to react. I wasn’t sure which was more shocking… the fact that our bodies would physically develop animal characteristics, or the fact that the military staff seemed to be test subjects as well. I couldn’t dwell on it further at that moment, because Dr. Duffy stood up and jerked on the top of his white turtle neck. He revealed that he had five long gills on either side of his neck. Whoa! It suddenly made sense now why he always wore turtlenecks. I found it odd he wore them in the first place considering that we were in the middle of the desert. Granted, the buildings were all air conditioned, but I always wondered whether or not he was sweltering in his clothes as soon as he exited any of the buildings and walked outside.
“Wow!” Gideon and I exclaimed at the same time, as we both stood up to get a closer look. “Bull Shark” Doc Duffy informed us without us even having to ask. “We have to hide our physical anomalies from the others because the first time we mentioned animal DNAs to them, the majority of them were appalled. After we told them about physical changes made to the body after the injections, all bets were off. None of them wanted anything to do with the project. Consequently, we decided not to reveal to them the fact that we’re already altered.” I heard the sadness in his voice with his last sentence.
Sergeant Ramsey approached us as we all hovered around Jamie and Doc Duffy. “You guys were our last hope for the project because you three have a different mindset than the others did when they arrived. We’re hopin’ y’all will be a positive influence on at least half of the others so that we can continue on with the project. The alternative doesn’t bear considering in our opinions. But we won’t get into that right now.”
Whipping his army green t-shirt over his head to display his wide muscular chest and broad shoulders, my gaze diverted to his ribcage where I saw five gill slits decorated him on both sides. “Stingray” he informed us with a slight smile.
Unable to contain myself a minute longer, I clapped my hands together and danced from foot to foot as I exclaimed, “That is SOOOOO freakin’ awesome!! Oh my God! I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” I laughed excitedly as I pivoted around to judge what Sam and Gideon thought about the “anomalies”.
Gideon’s expression matched mine exactly and he did not seem appalled or repulsed in the slightest. His only comment was, “I wonder where my gills are going to show up.” Turning to Sam, I was surprised to see disappointment on his face. Propping my hands on my hips, I tilted my head to the side and asked, “What’s up with the frowny face? What’s on your mind Sam?”
Sam blew out a loud, dramatic sigh before explaining his concern. “You guys all have the DNA of sharks or stingrays, and I only have dolphin in me. Dolphins don’t have gills! Does this mean that even though I’ll be a better swimmer, I still have a possibility of drowning?” Relief flooded me that he, too, was on the same page as Gideon
and me and thought the animal traits were incredible and not revolting. However, Sam’s concern was legit and I turned to look at Sergeant Ramsey to see what his answer would be. I saw that Jamie and Doc Duffy were biting back laughter over the issue of what Sam was disappointed about. Then again, it could’ve been laughter of relief. It could really go either way, I surmised. Bottom line is that I could plainly see they were all relieved over our reactions and how accepting we were about what we could physically expect in the near future.
Clearing his throat, he cajoled in a soothing voice, “Sam, I guess you do still have the possibility of drowning however, I’d like to point out that it’s highly unlikely. Remember, you have the DNA of a tiger in you, and tigers are excellent swimmers. Also, with your dolphin DNA you’ll be able to hold your breath under water between seven to ten minutes. Maybe even longer.”
Slightly mollified, Sam shrugged as he conceded, “I guess that does sound cool.”
I reiterated with a wide smile, “It’s very cool Sam! I can’t wait to see what you can do in the water.” I was able to coax an answering grin out of Sam as he started day dreaming about aquatic adventures, judging from the distant expression that glazed his eyes. Hmmph! And everyone says that I’M easy to read.
Darting my eyes between the sergeant and the Doc, I demanded, “What else?” I became greedy for information over the possibilities of our pending transformations. The sergeant hunched down slightly so that he could look me straight in the eye before confiding, “We will all have the same eyes.”
Huh? I thought, as I studied his slate gray eyes. Mine were a dark brown in color. Jamie had light green eyes and the Docs eyes were a pale blue. Watching me closely for my reaction, Sergeant Ramsey went on to explain, “We decided that all the test subjects in the project would be injected with some type of feline DNA, because all the big cats are physically superb in the animal kingdom. They’re all graceful, elusive, and cunning. We’re training you to be soldiers, so it makes sense to want all of our soldiers to be strong and stealthy. It just won’t do to have clumsy soldiers runnin’ about. However with the feline DNA, for some reason we all inherit the “cat eyes” regardless of the other animal DNAs we may possess.”
Silently, we watched the sergeant, the Doc, and Jamie all sink to their knees in front of the coffee table as they each simultaneously reached into their pants pockets to withdraw what looked like contact lens cases. Wordlessly, they each proceeded to remove the contacts they seemed to be wearing before once again climbing to their feet.
“Ouch!” the sergeant muttered as he struggled with the last one before complaining, “I hate these damn things!” Once it was successfully out, he rose to join the other two and they all moved closer to us, blinking their eyes before holding still and letting us gaze our fill at their strange but beautiful eyes. There was no other way to explain it, they really did indeed have “cat eyes”. Even though they still possessed the same natural eye color, they no longer had “whites” to their eyeballs. Looking at Dr. Duffy’s blue eyes, I noticed that his entire eyeball was the same pale blue color, and that the pupils were golden and oval-shaped. Definitely not human-looking eyes. I blinked my own eyes rapidly a few times, just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. Three pairs of cat eyes calmly stared back.
Suddenly, I began to wonder if this was how Alice felt when she tumbled down the rabbit hole and discovered she was in Wonderland. Staring at the trio in front of me with their strange eyes, everything started feeling foreign and surreal. I started getting a muzzy feeling in my head and my vision started to cloud. Belatedly, I wondered if I was on the verge of passing out from the shock of it all. Shaking my head and reminding myself that I was not the fainting-type, I snapped out of my reverie and sank back onto the couch. My knees had grown shaky and I needed to sit for fear of collapsing. Sam and Gideon reclaimed their places on either side of me, and all three of us leaned forward to brace our arms on our knees as we continued to study the strangely beautiful cat eye anomaly.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but I didn’t know where to begin. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to ask the main questions that were in the forefront of my mind because it could definitely be construed as prying. But I was deathly curious about the trio in front of me and how they came to be involved in the project. It was very clear to me that they were test subjects. How did they get that way? What did this mean for us?
What happens now?
7
Even though I was very open-minded about the cat eye phenomenon, still the only two words that kept popping up in my head were strange and beautiful. I knew it probably came across as incredibly rude but for the life of me, I just could not tear my gaze away from their peculiar peepers. I did give myself credit though for being able to finally clamp my gaping mouth shut so that I no longer looked like a frozen guppy. Oh boy. Those eyes are definitely going to take some getting used to. I tried to envision myself looking at my reflection in the mirror with my own startling set of cat eyes. The thought was a little frightening, but at the same time exhilarating.
I was on the verge of cackling maniacally…my excitement was that great. However, I did not want to alarm my little minions. I fully wanted them to form their own opinions without my influence. I knew in my heart that for myself, I was totally on board with the program and it was full speed ahead for me. But of course, I completely respected Sam and Gideon’s wishes and opinions. If they weren’t interested in pursuing the program any further, then I had no choice but to respect their decisions, regardless of how painful it would be to leave them behind. The thought saddened me and I refused to contemplate the possibility of a future without Sam and Gideon in it.
Schooling my features so that my face was once again as blank as a piece of paper, I stood up from the couch and pivoted so that I was facing both Gideon and Sam. I noted that both of their jaws were slack from the shock of all that we had seen. Granted, we had been dealt a lot of blows tonight, but I needed to know how they felt about this latest development.
“So….what do you guys think about everything? What do you want to do?” I had spoken in hushed tones so they’d know how pivotal this moment was. I studied them intently, trying to gauge their feelings. Both of them looked up to me as the leader of our little group, but I really wanted them to be honest with me in how they truly felt about it all. As I had mentioned previously, they were both highly influenced by my thoughts and feelings. It would kill me if they both had regrets later on down the road. I did not want them to feel any type of peer pressure to advance in the program simply because it was what I wanted for us.
Gideon cleared his throat and darted a quick look at Sam before answering me. “Count me in. I want to continue with the project.”
Internally, I was doing my little victory dance in celebration of Gideon’s announcement, but I knew I couldn’t let him off the hook that easily. I needed to be sure.
“Why?” I demanded. At his blank look, I repeated, “Why do you want to participate in the project?”
I could tell that Gideon was taken aback by me questioning his decision, and I watched his face flush as he floundered for an answer that he thought would satisfy me. “I don’t know. I guess because it feels like we’re real-life characters in one of my comic books and we’re being given super powers to do good deeds and fight evil. I feel like we’re about to embark on an awesome adventure and I don’t want to be left out. I’m not freaked out by the physical changes. I actually think they’re pretty cool.”
I had to clench my teeth to prevent the grin from slipping out. That totally sounded like a Gideon-like response. I was content with his answer and turned my blank stare onto my beloved Sam to see what his answer would be. Cocking my eyebrows at him in query, I asked him the same question.
There was a brief moment of silence as he contemplated his answer. With a thoughtful expression on his face, he looked at me and replied, “I’m already used to people giving me funny looks because I was forced to
put up with it all the time at my high school. I agree with Gideon that the animal traits are awesome. I’m not concerned about that. What I’m worried about is us being separated. I want to continue in the program because the three of us aren’t just a team, we’re a family. Unlike what my own family did to me, I won’t ever abandon you two. We stick together, forever and always.” I sniffled as Sam’s heartfelt declaration brought tears to my eyes. He was such a sweetheart…I loved him to bits. I allowed an ecstatic smile to escape as I held my arms out to Sam, indicating I wanted a hug. He popped up from the couch like a jack in the box to accommodate me. Peeking at Gideon over Sam’s arm, I crooked my finger at him and ordered, “Get over here. Group hug.” We all laughed together as we danced around and hugged in a happy circle.
Finally, I turned around to address the other three who had silently watched the exchange between me, Sam, and Gideon. Beaming a beatific smile in their direction, I yelled, “We’re in! All the way baby!”
Jamie was crying her happy tears again as she gazed fondly at us, and Dr. Duffy was busy patting her back as he handed her a fresh Kleenex. Relief was evident on both their faces as they smiled back at me.
Sergeant Ramsey was standing with his arms crossed, and although he too was smiling, he leveled me with a serious expression as he ordered, “Your turn Teagan. Don’t think you’re exempt from that same question. Why do you want to take part in this project?”
I grinned at him before scoffing, “That’s such an easy question to answer, Sarge. You’ve mentioned in the past that for all intents and purposes, all three of us died. According to you, we even had funerals. In the beginning, I was ashamed that I had given up on my old life and quit so easily. Normally, I am not a quitter but due to past circumstances at the time of my “death” I just didn’t care anymore. Over the past six months I’ve made peace with myself and my actions that landed me here.”