Chapter 17:
I get up feeling a lot better, but light seems to be bothering my eyes. I squint to keep the light at a bearable lever. I use the bathroom, and come down stairs. As I walk into the kitchen, Vivian notices. "Problem with your eyes? Daniel. Light hurts, I say. Come here Daniel and let me have a look". So, I go over, and look at grandma. She gets down and peers into my eyes. She lets out a laugh, and goes and shuts off one of the lights. "Better Daniel. Much better I agree. Mom and Dad ask what is it? Well Nick we're going to have to get sun glasses for Daniel, tell he gets use to strong light. His eye color has come in. What? No way". Now that the light is dimmer, I can open my eyes, and look at them. "Wow, that is so cool, mom say. Dad just says, that's my boy". I'm kind of puzzled, until I see my reflection on the stove door glass. I then run to the mirror in the bathroom. Why I have emerald green eyes just like dad, It's kind of cool. I had been so used to seeing blue, I just thought that was my color. I come back to the kitchen, and ask if this was normal. "Well, normally, eyes change color on kits at about two years of age, but not always, you are 22 months old, so it's normal". I'm relieved that it's not one more strange thing to add to my list.
"Supper was good grandma, thank you. Why your welcome Daniel. I think I'm going back to bed, still tired. You do that Daniel". I use the bathroom, and then head back to my room, and crawl into bed. I fall asleep almost immediately. I wake up about half way through the night. Use the bathroom, and head for the meadow.
Gab is waiting for me. "Oh, I see your eye color has come in, that color suits you. So, what will I be learning today? You will be learning the art of avoidance. Yes, the art of avoidance. It's not as lame as it sounds. The art of avoidance, is the art of fighting without seaming to fight, let me demonstrate, throw a punch at me". So, I throw a punch, he easily moves out of the way. "Again, faster". So, I throw punch after punch at him, I try to claw him as well, but he seems to just flow out of the way. After a while, I stop as I am tired. "See, look at you, your tired, and I have barely started to breath hard. This is what you need to learn. Your opponent wears themselves out and you still have lots of energy left. You can do this too, but it takes practice. Now I want you to go to the library and read books on isometrics. This is also part of avoidance. Isometrics is the art of pitting your muscles against the opposite muscles, thus strengthening both. You need this to flow like you watched me do. Oh, and bring everyone next time. Will do, Gab, till next time". I just flop down and fall asleep immediately.
"Sir, most of the test subjects have had a restless night, and when they awoke, their eye colors had come in. Is this normal for kits to have a restless night before they get eye color? Well Sir, it's never been studied before. How many still have to have their eye color come in? Three Sir. Which three? N, O, and Q, Sir. Was there any order to how the colors came in? No Sir, they just seemed to settle down at about the same time. So again, it could be a link thing. It could be Sir. Have we established this link? We're still getting hints, but no, we have not established a link. If it's an unconscious thing, try pain on one of them while they are sleeping, see if you get a response". (from the files found at the institute).
I'm feeling great this morning, I use the washroom, and bound down the stairs to the kitchen, "Morning grandma. Well aren't you full of energy this morning". I bound up into my chair, and am handed a glass of carrot juice. "Where's mom and dad this morning? Something came up and they had to go in, so it's just us today". I'm a bit disappointed, as it is Saturday, but I do have things to do. "So, Daniel, what would you like to do today? Park, I all but shout. Park it is". As it's an overcast day the light doesn't bother me to much. As we head off for the park, I notice the surveillance van down the street, but pay it no mind and we continue to the park. As I'm playing, I notice a small fox off to one side, I can feel his loneliness, anger, and hurt, and before I know it, I am walking over to him. "Hi. My names Daniel, what's yours?" He gets fearful, before he looks at me. He turns to see me holding out my hand, and I project peace and calm to him. (I may have over done it a bit) He shakes my hand, and says his name is William. "So, William, would you like to play with me?" He is still Leary of me and my offer, but does accept. We play for about an hour, when grandma says it's time to leave. "Thank you, William, I had a fun time. I did to, he reply's, do you live around here? I live just up the street 2700 block, I reply. Do you live around here William? No, he reply's", as he runs off. Strange I think to myself. "Who's your new friend Daniel? William, I reply. Does he live around here? He didn't say grandma. So, what would you like to do now? Library I reply hopefully".
As we head for the library, grandma stops at the dime store, and gets me a cheap pair of sunglasses. As I put them on, I realise how much I had been squinting, and the relief when I released the tension in my forehead, felt great. We also stop at the coffee shop for some drinks to go.
I look around the library and spot the watchers, there are two of them today. I signal to grandma we have watcher, and she does a slight nod of her head in acknowledgement. "So, Daniel, what would you like to look at today? Well grandma, my arm still doesn't feel right, so maybe we should look into some exercises I can do for it. Ok, she says", giving me a puzzled look, as the cast had come off several months back. We head over to the computers and type in a search. Just as I had hoped isometric exercises was one of the first few to come up. I clicked on that, and watched a 30 min video of someone doing a demonstration of this. "Wow, I exclaim, that looks like a kind of dance, just really slow. I want to learn that". So, we go to the book section and pick up a few to read. I sit down and read through a few of them, and get the gist of what they are saying, Vivian checks out a few more and we head home.
When we get home, I go and change into some loose-fitting cloths. I then head to the living room, the biggest space in the house, and grandma joins me. She is also wearing lose fitting cloths. "Grandma? Daniel, I have lots of free time, and I figured you could use a partner". So, we start with the first few diagrams from one of the books. We laugh and fall over quite a bit, as balance seems to be part of it. When we call it quits for the day, we are both tired and sweaty. "Who would have thought that just learning how to move could be so tiring, says Vivian? I agree as I head for the tub to soak. Ah. ah. ladies first in the tub". The race is on to see who can get to the tub first. (I won) But it didn't mater, we just shared, as the tub was made for medium to large sized mammals. As we lay there soaking our aches away, grandma asks, "why the sudden interest in exercise Daniel? It's part of my training, body, mind, spirt as one. Wow that's deep, says Vivian". As the water in the tub is more than enough to float, I just start to laugh. After a minute grandma gets the joke, "Gab was right, you do have a wicked sense of humor".
Mom and dad come back just before supper. "Oh good, your back in time for supper, says Vivian. Sorry mom we kind of wrecked the day. That's ok, you have no control over what criminals do. So, what did you and Daniel do today? Well, we had some fun at the park, and Daniel made a friend, we are now trying to learn some new exercises. New exercises? Yes, Daniel said his arm was still bothering him, so we went to the library and checked out some books on isometrics. So, how did the first day go? We had lots of fun, but it sure was tiring to learn how to move. Think you will stick with it? Who knows, it could be a passing fad".
After supper, we played "monopolize" again. This time dad lost, in a very dramatic fashion, I might add. Mom won and I came in second. We then settled for a bad movie night. If it was supposed to be scary, it failed miserably. Who could believe that a 10-foot-tall carrot would attack mammals? "Attack of the killer carrots" was definitely one of the worst movies I had ever seen. As a comedy it was that, we laughed quite a bit at some of the jokes and groaned at a lot more. Soon it was time for bed. I waited for grandma, and looked to my siblings, I did not find them all. The only one's I found were Rick, Ava, and Suzy, so I linked with them, and grandma, bringing us all to the meadow.
When we got to the meadow, all my littermates were there. Susan ran over to me and we hugged. Then I put her at arms length to look at her trying to spot the difference. "Wow Daniel, you have green eyes". I then look at Susan's eyes and notice her eyes, they were a brown with gold lines running through the brown. "Wow, your eyes make you look so serious". We then kiss, embrace, and meld our feelings, and just stand there. At this point grandma is being mob by everyone else. Susan and I eventually break a part, and go to grandma. Grandma at this point was exclaiming over the eye color of some of the others. Terry had eyes of forest green, darker than my emerald green. Cindy had the same color as Susan, Davies had emerald green eyes like me. Ava, Suzy, and Rick are jealous that they have no color yet. I tell them it's not unusual for color to come later, but I assure them it will be just as spectacular as the rest of us. "How did you guys get here? Well, Susan explained how she does it, so we just copied her".
"Welcome kits, says Gab, walking over to us, good to see you all. And good to see you to Vivian, everyone ready to learn? We all responded yes. Alright, then let us begin. All right everyone copy what I do, but in reverse, as you are looking at me. First is stance, Davis feet further apart, Daniel arms a little higher, tail down. Susan, ears up, chin up, good. You to Vivian, get in line please. But, no buts young lady, you are here to learn just like the rest. We all giggle at this. No giggling this is serious time, all of you". Vivian then joins us in the line. And teach us Gab would, twist, turn, bend over, for those of us with tails it was tail up, twist tail down, twist back, tail to the side, stand on one foot, all the while twisting and turning. We fell over quite a bit, but through it all, Gab, was a hard but fair task master. When he finally allowed us to rest, we all just flopped down where we were at.
Susan lets out a mighty scream, and vanishes. We react, but Gab stops us with a word. "STOP, don't move. The institute is running a test, don't react to what just happened to Susan, she is ok. What kind of test? They are trying to find out if you guys are linked. If you react, they will know you are linked. But what can we do? Nothing, no response is the correct response". I can feel the anger rising in me. Gab looks at me, "LOCK IT DOWN Daniel. There will be a time for anger, but that time is not now". The anger I was feeling, just flows out of me like water, and I feel empty and deflated, as I felt that I had just about given us away. Gab says, tomorrow we will be working on control of our emotions, time for sleep everyone, and we start to vanish one by one.
"Sir, it was an interesting day. How so? Well Subject "J" is now doing isometric exercises with his grandmother. How did he stumble on to that? He said his arm was still bothering him, and they did a search at the library, for exercises to strength arm muscles, and isometrics came up. Was this a random search? Yes Sir, he clicked on the icon and got excited watched a video of a mammal doing it, and decided that he would try it. Do you think he will stick with it? Who's to say Sir, he is a kit after all.
Right, how did the other test go? Well Sir, we did get an assistant to scratch subject "K" on her arm as she was sleeping, and the test subject woke up with a scream, and went for the throat of the lab assistant. Was this a normal response? No Sir, rabbits when startled or hurt, usually cower or run away. She went on the attack. The lab assistant swears that he was being attacked by a savage bunny. Savage? Yes Sir, savage, he says he felt like a dangerous predator was attacking him, and he swears that her eyes were slitted like a savage. Did any of the cameras capture this? The attack was captured on video, but even enhanced we don't see an eye change. Right, so did any of the other test subjects react to what happened? No, Sir, they just continued to sleep peacefully.
So, it's possible that the link is there, but they may be able to control it. Yes Sir, I feel that this may be a dead end. At this point in time I would agree with you, but keep an eye out for it, I'm just not sure we should stop looking for it. I think you can put them all back together again, it would be easier to teach them all in one room". (from the files found in the institute).