"The Benevolent Doctor"
15. Who Are We?
Sometime in New New York
Brittany never liked waking up in the morning, because usually it meant that she had to leave a good dream, and the waking world was never so extraordinary. But then with everything that had happened to her the day before still occupying her dreams, it had taken her a few seconds to put all her thoughts back in order and remember that this was no dream, that she had truly travelled in time and space… that was the good part. Then she remembered she had been captured by some weird doctor and, to her dismay, that part was also true.
At least she was warm, she thought as she woke, but she still felt strange. She'd had that headache the night before, she recalled it now, and for a while, she would not move, but then she heard something, someone waking up next to her, and she remembered she had not been alone.
"A…" she started to speak, but then her mouth felt strange, and it extinguished her voice for a moment. "Agnes?" What was wrong with her? "Alfred?"
"Brittany?" the cat girl's voice replied, or at least she thought it was the cat girl; her voice sounded a little different, too. "Al…" There was a sharp gasp overhead, and it drew her attention.
"Who are you?" Brittany asked, still too groggy to react very fast, or she might have pulled away from the stranger staring back at her. But she'd never looked away from her, and in the next moment, the strangest thing happened. The stranger spoke with Agnes' voice.
"It's me, Agnes Brannigan, don't you…" Then she paused, like something was working itself out in her head. She held out her arms before herself, and the sharp sort of cry that came out of the girl sitting in front of her was strange coming out of a human, until Brittany realized it was meant to come out of a cat. The human girl touched her face felt at the raven hair coming from her head, and her panic only increased. "Alfred?" her voice became louder, frantic, as she looked around the cell. "Alfred!"
"Not so loud!" Risha's voice came from the other side, but then she gasped, too, and the other prisoners were all looking into their cell.
"What's going on? Why do you look human?" Brittany asked her. The girl stared back at her.
"I don't know, why are you a cat?"
Now Brittany was the one to look at her arms, and she finally knew why she'd felt warm. She touched her face, her head. Gone was her long blond hair, replaced with the features of what was undoubtedly coming up feline. It was her teeth; that was why her mouth had felt strange. Her low strangled cry came out as a meow. "Am I… I'm still dreaming, right?"
"Afraid not," said the second man.
"This is remarkable," Erlin breathed, staring at the two girls. "Not even a thing out of place, a complete change, it's…"
"Where's my brother?" Agnes asked, more interested in that than anything else.
But before anyone could answer, they all stopped, dead silent, as they heard steps from overhead. Someone was coming, and somehow the steps must have been distinctive enough, because the other prisoners' faces changed: they knew who was coming.
"Don't panic, don't overreact," Arpen quickly counselled them.
A moment later, the door opened, and Dr. Everett Wallace Benedict walked in. His eyes gave a cursory sweep to his other subjects, but it was clear his primary interest on that day was what he would find in his most recently occupied cell. And when he saw them, the girl who had been human, now feline, and the girl who had been feline, now human, he looked as though he had just come upon a treasure trove. The closer he came to the bars, the girls reached for one another's hands, attempting to stay away from him.
"Fascinating…" his voice was slow, awed.
"Where's my brother?" Agnes managed to pull herself together enough to ask. The doctor ignored her, still staring at her and Brittany.
"You two will be my greatest scientific achievement to date. All my efforts, all these mistakes will have been for a reason."
When he had said the word 'mistakes,' even without looking away – as though he would dare to at this point – they knew he was referring to the other prisoners. Brittany remembered having heard it from the cats, how the doctor would run experiments, and people would volunteer, and how some of them came back out with some side effects, but nothing they couldn't handle. But then what about these people here? Were they too changed to let go? What did it mean for them?
"Stop it!" Agnes shouted at him. "Where is my brother?" she demanded, refusing to go unheard any longer. The doctor's face changed, only barely, and he took a step back.
"Monitoring of his response to the treatment showed he simply was not responding, and he would reject it. There was no point in carrying on, so we had to remove him."
"What does that mean?" Agnes asked, now sounding mildly afraid. The doctor was not paying attention to her. His people, the ones who would bring meals and injections were there, and he spoke to them in hushed tones. "Hey! I'm talking to you!" Agnes shouted louder. "Where's my brother?" But the doctor left, never answering, and after he was gone, in the silence, Agnes Brannigan began to cry. "He's dead, isn't he?" she mumbled, leaning to Brittany, who held her.
"Maybe not," she tried to reassure her. "Maybe he's just somewhere else," she tried to be optimistic. She looked to the other prisoners, but they didn't look very optimistic, more defeated. They believed the same thing Agnes did, that Alfred, poor Alfred, had died because of this treatment. Brittany said nothing more, but she held the human girl in her cat like arms.
TO BE CONTINUED (FRIDAY)