by John Keeble
"Animal status means what?"
"The blessing of Father Dick and the Divine Consciousness is removed from the person by the priests in the Animalization Ritual. Their souls are thrown into the digital abyss. All their numan rights are revoked. They can be kept or killed as property – like a human animal. Sorry Jack. It's just the way we talk. The priests issue the Animalization Ritual certificate, which is necessary when using them for research."
"Exactly how do the priests take someone's soul? Does a soul exist? Can anyone measure it or see it?"
"I don't know, Jack. I'm a scientist not a theologian. I just hope there are souls so that I meet my wives and children again."
Oh, no. How insensitive can I be? "Aleksi, please forgive me!"
"It's okay, Jack. I know you care about what happened to them."
Jack acknowledges with a nod and reads on. The theoretical modelling leaves him struggling almost immediately but he is in no mood to have genetics, his specialty, explained. I'll get the gist now and go back on it later.
Finally, he reaches the key section.
Field Trial of NumanX Animal 'Jack'
Is this me? Is this what Alice wants me to see?
1. The 13th animalized numan4 test recorded an exceptional success. NumanX Jack remained stable when vast amounts of data were inserted into his DNA.
2. Galen used instincts data from the World Council Gene Bank. The numanX program showed this data contained far more than instincts. Stimulation from a drug represented to Jack as banya revealed detailed species memories.
3. While Jack was developed as a bank of species memories, the 12th animalized numan – Galen Rebuild7 – was used to test detailed personal memories.
4. Jack, fully programmed, was placed in Galen's Cambridge lab as a researcher before being moved to the Abbotsford wild lab under the cover of being a sacked human geneticist. Jack was conditioned to live a life commensurate with this. Commander Balen was assigned to control and monitor him.
Jack stops dead, his mind overloaded. He closes his eyes, and unconsciously clasps his hands together. Is she still controlling and monitoring me? Eventually, he reads on.
5. Galen manipulated Jack's interest in the extinction of human animals to test the extent of the memories. A covert operation with military security operatives encouraged Jack to obtain and ingest the "banya" drug, which was designed by Galen.
Jack is numb. The extinction visions were real! They were not banya trips – they were memories implanted into me by Galen. The mass killings, the torture in the shameful name of science, the horrors of our fellow living creatures as their species were wiped out, the death throes of humans... it all happened.
He cannot accept that his whole life is a lie and that Max is a carrier for a cassette of DNA. He cannot accept that Alice is... What is she? What am I?
*
It is nearly midday and the numan2 women and children are very hungry. They usually get a good pmeat meal from Aleksi every evening but since Alice's refusal to slaughter Jack, they will not go near the drone.
Sara has been the butt of their anger. They believed her when she said Alice would share. Instead of succulent human animal meat, they went to bed hungry.
A sullen fury burns in Sara too. Alice swore sisterhood but she betrayed us. She hears someone approaching and Max bursts into view. He bounds up to her. Xam, straining at the cord securing her to a tree, barks wildly. Seconds later, Alice strides into view with one of the troopers carrying a blaster.
"We have food for you at the drone, Sara," she says without a trace of sisterly affection.
Sara stares at her. I want to tell her to keep it but my sisters and the children are hungry. Xam has not eaten since yesterday.
"You were wrong to try to harm Jack," says Alice, her numan4 superiority offensive in Sara's ears. "Don't be fooled by his appearance. He is numan4 and he belongs to Professor Galen and the military."
"We will accept your food," says Sara, avoiding confrontation with her lying sister. We can take their food now. Sooner or later we will slaughter the human animal.
Without a word, Alice turns and walks towards the drone. Sara beckons the nearest women and two follow her.
"We have put medicine in the food to kill parasites in your stomachs," calls Alice over her shoulder.
Sara grunts an acknowledgment. She wants us to be grateful.
"We cannot put medicine in the pmeat to kill eye parasites that will blind you. Have any of your people suffered eye problems?"
"No."
"Irritation? Soreness?"
Sara wants nothing from Alice but she must protect them all. "You can give us eye medicine?"
"Yes. I can give you eye drops. They will protect you for one month and then we will need to do it again."
"What about Xam?"
Alice laughs. "Xam and Max had their eye drops several days ago. I treated my people this morning."
"When can you give us the drops?" asks Sara, speaking to Alice but seeing prime human meat-on-the-feet in the shade of the drone's wing. So incredibly juicy.
"I'll come to you after you've eaten," says Alice, smiling. "I'll administer the eye drops myself to make sure you are safe."
If she wants me to thank her, she will have a long wait.
*
Death is overrated as a final outcome. Galen can move his DNA, his essential self, to rebuild after rebuild. And, very soon, he will be able to add the certainty of remembering everything in each successive rebuild. Full emotional control will be possible.
Do I really want that kind of emotional control? Do I want to lose the satisfaction of giving my emotions their way? He pauses, statue still in his lab in the Andes, contemplating the satisfaction in forcing Balen to kill Jack and Max, and infecting her with rot death. She will never beg for mercy or help. Not Balen. But she will scream in agony. They all do when rot death reaches their guts and spine.
His upgrade path has no end. By numan10, I shall understand the universe and control time and space.
*
Chapter 35
Jack, his mind and emotions in turmoil, hardly notices Aleksi slip away to greet Alice and three numan2s approaching the drone.
His eyes keep returning to Alice's report. It's simple, apart from the technical details, and very believable. It makes sense of so much. What is Alice? My lover or my controller? What was her culpability in all the experiments and killings? What happens next to Max and me?
The numan2s carry off a pot of food. Sara calls Xam but Xam refuses to leave Max and Sara gives up. She throws Jack a last hungry look and leads her women, straining under the weight of the food, towards their refuge.
Aleksi and the trooper walk away, out of earshot, and Alice turns to Jack.
"Alone at last," he says, a feeble joke as Alice approaches.
"What did you think of my report?"
"Nice style, good spelling, perfect grammar."
"Jack! Stop hiding behind jokes. Tell me. What did you think of what I wrote?"
What do I think? How can I explain? "I am still taking it in, Alice. I believe it. I think it's true. But accepting it in my mind does not make it real – I don't feel it yet. I need more time."
"Jack, we don't have more time."
"And whose fault is that?" he flares, glad to have a reason to hit back. "You could have told me this at any time before now. And, anyway, why don't we have more time?"
He can see the pain on her face but, for once, he is not going to cave in and reassure her.
"We have urgent things to survive," she says. "Galen will not give up. He will send the military when the rot death virus dies out."
"He could," replies Jack, less aggressive, more thoughtful. "If you don't kill Max and me first."
"Jack!"
"Okay, okay, just joking. You want to know what I think about your report? Right. Every paragraph shatters a part of my life, a part of myself. I believe it all because you wrote it and it's so believable. But I can't acc
ept it yet. I no longer know if you are my lover or my controller. And I can't accept your role in murder and torture." So there, now I have said it.
"My role?" she says, shocked. "Galen murdered some rogue numan2s and numan4s, I suppose, but even they had been reduced to animals before the experiments began. All the rest were human animals and nonhuman animals. How can you call numane scientific animal procedures murder?"
"Hundreds were humans," he throws at her.
"Now you know that you are a numan person, I can say this to you: human animals and nonhuman animals are the same. I know human animals, in their minds and power, give themselves 'souls' and 'rights.' That's just a way to justify their exploitation of the planet – and we know how that has turned out."
"At least they didn't kill every living thing on the planet!" he says, too loudly, and looks to see if Aleksi and the trooper have heard them arguing.
"Rot death is an accident," says Alice, her voice conciliatory. "Humans kill deliberately. They are the most systematically destructive animals in the planet's history."
Jack wants to slap her with the numan record of pushing humans into extinction but he resists the temptation. I'm in the mood to fight because of the shock of her report. I'm not going to do it. His resolve disintegrates as his words escape like robotic bees from their hive. "Numans are killers too. Numan authorities knew that humans were being pushed into extinction and did nothing to stop it!"
"That's right! Humans were consuming too much, causing too much pollution, by eating nonhuman animals and wanting everything they could get. The numan authorities had to act. They had to stop the humans. We let numan2s swamp human habitats, we cut human food; we stopped good health care and reduced reproduction. Nothing was enough. Extinction was the only option – one animal-eating human consumes as much food and water as 30 plant-eaters."
Jack is shocked. "That's genocide!"
"Is it? Is it any different from how humans took the habitat and lives of orangutans? Or killed billions of marine animals for food? Humans pushed countless species into extinction!"
"What about numan2s?" says Jack. "They were everywhere. They must have been eating the planet bare. Were you going to kill them too?" He waits, his mind dancing around like a fighter preparing for an attack. "Were you going to kill them too?"
"Yes, eventually," Alice admits. "That was Galen's intention. The people who control our lives – the politicians and the military – wanted a final solution."
"And you helped with all this?"
"Not directly, Jack. Galen kept the political decisions secret. He thought I did not know but I read them in his files. I did what I could to stop it."
However bad I think a situation is, it's always worse. And she's had to live with it and pretend to me and everyone else that everything is okay.
"What now? For us?" he asks, a move into calmer waters.
But Alice is not so easily diverted. "No. Let's stay on the subject of the murderer who has given up her whole life for you and Max!"
"Alice, I'm—."
"You're always sorry! But it doesn't stop you being... being... being so horribly human animal in what you say to me."
"Let's think about—."
"No! What do you think my life has been like? Do you know Galen experimented on me without my knowledge? Do you know I was genetically locked to him and he forced me into doing whatever he wanted? Don't you understand how desperate I am? I've risked my life to escape him and live with you!"
What have I done to her? She has given me everything and I'm throwing it in her face. "Alice, I'm sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am."
He puts his arms around her, expecting them to be flung off, but she pushes her face against his and they stay like that. He can hear and feel her sobs and his own eyes are wet with sorrow, shame and fear of losing her.
Eventually, she pulls away. Aleksi and the trooper are busy studying every direction except towards them.
"Let's accept the past," he says as gently as he can. "Let's look to the future."
"Galen is our problem. He will capture or kill us if he can."
"What about our numan2s? We can't trust them after yesterday's threat against us."
"They will not be a problem after tomorrow. I have prepared enough DNA downgrade infusions to keep them under control until we decide what to do with them. They are expecting medicine to protect against eye parasites – I will administer it later."
Genetic handcuffs. I should object to the ethics of this but I don't. "Okay," he says. "What about Galen? The real Galen."
"We need to be free of him," she says. "While he thinks he controls me, he will keep trying to make me kill you and Max. When he realizes that he doesn't control me, he will try to capture or kill us."
"I have been trying to identify how he can track us, right down to our locations in the drone. I think he's in the security system."
"My conclusion, too. We need to disable it. Galen always sleeps from midnight to 4 am. We should try to disconnect him at 2 am his time... that's 10 am our time."
"How do you know that?"
"He said he's in the northern Andes. It's easy to calculate the time difference."
This evening will be 48 hours since her DNA infusion. She looks pretty good despite everything. "How are you feeling?" he asks.
"I've felt better," she admits. "But I'll be fine."
"You know that for certain?"
She smiles, a tired caricature of that mischievous look he can never resist. "The scientist knows. The patient isn't so sure."
*
Commander Father Lasaro, the Digipope and Father Dick's representative on Earth, storms into Galen's lab. Galen looks up from his bio-samples. He sighs. Another day, another complaint.
"What do you want now, Lucifer?" says Galen. That will provoke him.
"I have not come here to suffer your insults, Professor Galen," shouts Lasaro at his usual preaching volume. "I'm not the human animal devil."
Oh, Dick. The man is so stupid he is not worth goading. However... "But, Commander Father, I meant Lucifer in our own language. Are you not the 'morning star' that brings hope to us all?"
"I accept your apology."
"And yet, Lucifer was also the Bringer of Dawn who fell into evil... Remind me: which are you? The morning star or the would-be god fallen into evil? It is so hard for a poor scientist like me to tell which you are."
Commander Father Lasaro glares at Galen with an ungodly hatred on his plump, red countenance which, on other occasions, can look so benign.
"Professor Galen," he intones, the voice of authority here and hereafter.
"Lasaro, you fool. We've known each other all our adult lives. We were at college together before you failed science and took the easy Father Dick courses rather than go into the military. Why do you keep using ridiculous formality?"
"Because I have risen to the very top of my world. I am the Digipope, the keeper of every soul, including yours, which I can take from you if I choose."
"Keeper of souls? You couldn't keep the soles on your shoes without someone to glue them for you. Why are you here?"
The Digipope ignores Galen and inspects his laboratory. His gaze lingers on two carcases awaiting disposal.
"Who were they?" he inquires.
"None of your business. They are research animals allocated to me."
"They do not look like animals to me. They look like numan people. Produce your records for my inspection."
One day I'll get you on my dissection table and see if I can find a brain. "Not today. I'm too busy."
"You are using numan2 immigrants or workers for experiments and production. They have not been through the Animalization Ritual. They have not had their souls taken from them. What you are doing is murder."
"Lasaro, you halfwit, go and play your religious games elsewhere. I'm a scientist. I have dissected every living, moving creature you have ever seen. I have never found a soul. Maybe I could dissect the Digipope. I might find
a soul and a brain. Miracles can happen, you tell me."
"Professor Galen, your immortal soul is in jeopardy. You will burn in the flames of Father Dick's fury."
Does he believe this? Is he completely stupid? "And how, exactly, are your priests going to find and take my soul? Please, tell me. I am fascinated."
"Our rituals are not for nonbelievers like you!"
"Your rituals do nothing in this world or the next, you incompetent meddler."
"You will obey me, Professor Galen!"
Galen looks at him, thinking. So, we have finally reached the point of today's nonsense. I don't have time for this.
"Lasaro–."
"Commander Father Lasaro!"
"Whatever works for your delusions. Understand, every religion is based on previous religions. Yours is a Father Dick appropriation of human animal beliefs that they have souls—."
"Professor, you are quite ridiculous! Comparing Father Dick's teaching with human animal beliefs could get you disconnected. How can human animals have souls? Ridiculous."
"Yes, ridiculous. But they believe they have souls and that nonhuman animals do not. Do you know why, Your Eminence?
The Digipope rolls his eyes, struggling to find a way to put Galen down.
"It's so they can exploit and eat nonhuman animals without the discomfort of conscience," says Galen. "They define them as inferior. Does this sound like your Father Dick nonsense?"
The Digipope's redness deepens into scarlet and he shouts: "Professor, you will put all numan people through the Animalization Ritual. My office will organize and monitor it."
Message delivered, the Commander Father swings round and marches towards the door.
"Lucifer," calls Galen, "don't stumble on your pride. You can have the dead of the rot death epidemic. But the Military High Command needs my new population of live rebuilds to survive the new conditions. Who else will they have to dominate and shoot?"
Galen walks into his suite's office to check Balen's drone. Something is wrong with Balen. She is unstable and unpredictable.