Proteus-Chapter two

Chapter one


Chapter two

The human has curled asleep under my sleeping window. I approach cautiously, sniffing. I don’t know if it’s a male or female, but it has longer brown hair, frizzed like one of my siblings zapped it. It is wearing a heavy yellow coat, to keep out the cold that seems to get worse every day. It breathes softly, making a small groaning sound now and again.

Apes, Bismarck called them disdainfully. They descended from tailless monkeys, and they think this entitles them to everything?

This human did not seem entitled. Maybe a little, when it barged into my home to hide from the moondogs. But then it seemed generous with its food, stacked in silver and blue towers in front of it.

I take one of them and examine it. It is round, cylindrical, with a picture of the flesh-tubes one one of the flat disks, with a garnish of some sort of plant, and the strange marks humans put on everything. My brother claimed to know what they mean, but never explained it to us, only saying the ones beneath our tanks said “Caution: Live Animals” and “Shock Hazard.”

There’s a pull tab on the top of the can, which is how the human opened it. I mimic its movements and pry away the metal shell, dipping my bare fingers and clasp one of the pinkish tubes with my claws, sniffing it. It doesn’t smell good, and it tastes even worse: slimy and salty and somehow tasteless at the same time, different from game meat, still fresh, bloody, and warm.

I gag and I retch, trying to choke it down, and then set the can by the sleeping figure, just in time for it to stir as I pull back and make a mad dive for my gloves and face-concealer.

“Oh, breakfast?” it asks. “How sweet, thank you.”

The human sits up and looks down at the can, pressing its lips together, swishing the can around.

“Started without me?” I asks. “What’s the matter, didn’t like it?”

I am behind the counter, concealing my tail and making sure my disguise is in place. At a distance, the humans don’t seem to be able to see it, but up close is another story.

I suppose I can’t be too hard on humans for being afraid. We look different, not just as a species, but from sibling to sibling, bits of biology that don’t seem to belong, interpretations of genetics based on what we’ve been eating. We must have looked quite the sight, stumbling out of the wreckage of our home, seeing the open sky for the first time. We learned quickly that just because something looks friendly doesn’t mean it is.

I hear its footsteps in front of the counter, its weight shift as it leans over the counter, looking down at me as I cringe beneath it.

“Are you okay?” it asks. “I know I said I’d leave as soon as the moondogs did, but then I fell asleep and it started raining…”

“Yeah,” I repeat blankly, nearly trembling from its proximity.

“You’ve been out here a long time, haven’t you?” it questions.

“Yeah, long time,” I repeat, hoping it’s the correct response.

It sweeps around the counter, prompting me to scuttle sideways and pull the hood low, to keep it from seeing my eyes.

“I don’t believe I properly introduced myself,” it observes, holding out a hand, gloved against the cold and rain. “I’m River.”

I’m quite sure it did identify itself as such, but it is nice to have a reminder.

“River,” I answer slowly, not sure what it wants with the hand.

“It’s a handshake,” it explains as I look away. “Here, give me your hand.”

I can’t imagine it means to take it off at the wrist, since humans don’t seem to be able to do that, so I extend one of my hands, and yelp when the human grabs me, scooting backwards, away from the unfamiliar touch.

“Like this, see?” it continues, moving our hands up and down.

A small spark flashes between us, silvery-purple. The human gasps in surprise, and pulls away, me pressed up against the box that used to hold food.

“Oh, static. Now what’s your name?”

I shake my head to show I don’t have one.

“You have been out here a long time,” it observes in a soft tone. “You were…what, eight, nine when the power grid went out?”

I honestly don’t know. Time didn’t mean much in the tanks, but I think humans count it from when it gets cold for awhile to when it gets cold again.

“Yeah.”

“I was around there, too,” it continues, taking a seat a few feet away. “I remember living in a house like this. We had air conditioning in the summer, heat in the winter. I had snacks after school in front of the TV.”

“Tanks,” I murmur, face hidden under my hood and behind my forearms, crossed over my knees. “Brothers and sisters.”

“You remember the tanks fighting off the monsters?” it asks. “I remember watching that on TV before we had to evacuate. My dad thought the national guard was going to push them back and the cities would be safe.” There’s a small, wry laugh, like it’s thinking of something ironic.

I remember Father, the wall of eyes and teeth and flesh Bismarck showed me. The All-Father, the slice of something greater that was our progenitor. It called to Mother, begging to die, as the humans cut away at him to make us. Mother was in another room, a massive creature of writhing tentacles poked through with thick threads that kept her docile, kept her from recognizing her children.

There are others. We are just one piece of the whole.

“You should really think about coming back with me,” human-River observes in a gentle tone. “It might do you some good to be around people for a change.”

I shake my head. It would not be a good thing to be around humans, not for me.

A bright flash lights up the room in ghostly pale light, a loud crack following shortly there after. Suddenly, human-River is in my lap, clinging to me. After the thunder rolls over, it realize where it is and what it’s sitting on, and sheepishly slides away, taking its seat again.

“Sorry,” it murmurs, sounding flustered. “It startled me. Lightning is a big deal when you don’t have a house between you and it anymore.”

The flash means little to me, but I have seen enough to understand that it is a big deal to humans. The heat burns them, the current disrupts the heart, just like my last meal. They don’t like it.

As human-River takes its seat, I hold my hood down low again, feeling my claws pick at the inside of my gloves.

“Were you from around here?” it asks. “Some feral children stay pretty close to where they were when the power went out.”

“No,” I answer.

The truth is, I’m a genetically-engineered organism designed to run said power grid, made in an aquatic facility and left to fend for myself because I didn’t want to join my brother in his senseless slaughter. I was quite happy in my tank, thank you very much.

“Do you remember where you grew up?”

“Yes.”

It was a warm place, full of corals and bubbles and sand to play in. In those days, there was only my older brother, and the strange, air-breathing faces that came to peer into the water, sometimes dropping chunks of animal flesh.

I remember when I was placed into the tank with Bismarck, new and confused, wheeled in a miniature tank down a hallway of bright lights.

Where are you taking me? What’s happening?

“Sorry if I’m prying,” human-River sighs. “I find everyone has an interesting story, if you’re willing to share it.”

You have no idea.

I tense as the human reaches into one of its coat pockets, afraid it might be a weapon, but all it is a palm-sized sheaf of papers.

“Do you play?” the human asks.

“Play?”

I played with my siblings, rolled in the sand at the bottom of the tanks and hide-and-seek among the corals. We never needed hand rectangles to play.

“You know, Go Fish? Rummy? Poker?”

I tilt my head in curiosity, purring softly.

“I’ll teach you,” the human says, separating the papers into two stacks, then mixing them together with an interesting clicking noise. It does this a few times before handing us each a selection of cards.

“Okay, so I ask if you have a certain card like one in my hand, and if you do, you give it to me. Then you ask if I have a card, and if I do, I give it to you. First one to run out of cards wins, got it?”

“Got it.”

I look down, bewildered, at the cards with bright red and black patterns.

“Do you have any threes?” the human asks.

“Threes,” I answer, handing out a card, not sure what the point of this is, or if I’m doing it right.

“No, no, that’s an ace of spades,” the human chides.

“Threes. You know? It has the number three on it, or a picture of three items.”

I know how many things I’m looking at, but I don’t know the human words for how many. I fumble lamely at another card.

“That’s a five. You don’t know your numbers?”

My eyes go wide, hands shaking. I don’t know what the human will do if I disappoint it.

“No?” I blurt, trembling slightly.

“Hmm, well. I can teach you?” Its lips are pressed together, taking the cards and putting them back into a stack. It then reaches for mine, another spark hitting its fingers as I hand them over.

“Ouch,” it groans, rubbing the offending finger, but doesn’t otherwise react.

It places the cards down in a significant order, starting with a single red not-circle and then all the way up to two hands’ worth.

“This is a one, an ace when it’s a playing card,” it explains.

“One,” I repeat softly.

“Then two,” it continues, pointing at the next card.

“Two.”

“Good job. This is a three.”

We continue like this until we reach the end, and then start again. And then it flashes them up at me randomly so I can call out the numbers. And then we do it again, covering up the little pictures so the human can teach me the symbols instead.

“Did you go to school?” it asks, sounding confused. “You know, before?”

“No school,” I answer.

“That explains a lot,” the human sighs. “How long have you been alone? Do you remember the last time you saw your family?”

I shake my head, remembering a time when it was just me and one of my sisters. I don’t like it.

“Bad…pictures,” I sigh, pointing at my head.

“You don’t like to remember it, huh? Something happened?”

If humans help their own, I don’t want to tell this one about the number of siblings I’ve lost to humans, or starvation, or weather. But mostly humans, with stick-throwers and metal sticks that spit fire and metal.

“That’s okay, you don’t have to tell me about it,” the human smiles kindly, shuffling its cards.

Another lightning lights up the room. The human doesn’t jump into my arms, but it does twitch slightly.

“I hope this ends soon. My family’s going to be looking for me.”

I stand up and approach the door, opening it wide to observe the sky, swollen and mottled gray, with white flashes where the lightning is. Water pours in torrents, pooling in mud and grass. I hold my glove out to it, remembering the simpler times in the tanks, but I suppose one can only be a child for so long.

“You’re lucky,” the human’s voice says from behind and a little beside me. “Having a house like this. It’s held up nice since it was evacuated.”

“Yeah,” I mutter, glancing back, looking at the spots on the ceiling where the rain comes through sometimes. I’ve lined it with hide from the tree runners, mouths-on-legs, and other things I’ve hunted for food.

“At least we can fill our water tanks,” the human continues. “Probably have enough for showers and laundry.”

I close the door against the wind and the rain. The human stands quietly beside me, wrapped in itself against the cold.

As I turn toward the human, I feel my hood shift. It must have moved when I stood up, or perhaps a little rain weighted it down in the wrong way. The point is, it falls away, exposing my horns and my eyes, and the human gasps.

“You’re…you’re a protean!” it squeaks, grabbing at one of the tree runner longbones.

Chapter three