Chapter 7
"FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR! NOW!" a fourth cop demanded, training his gun on Lincoln and Lisa.
"Before you do something rash, Officer, I believe that there has been a rather severe misunderstanding," Lisa began, putting her hands behind her head and motioning for Lincoln to do likewise.
"Oh yeah? What kind of misunderstanding?" he asked as he placed both siblings in handcuffs.
"You have been told that my younger brother and I were doing something unethical to this particular patient, correct?" Lisa asked. The cop nodded. "Then you have been lied to. It was the medical team assigned to him after his injury in a horrendous car wreck that was being unethical and in direct violation of the Hippocratic Oath. He was being denied the care he needed to survive, so my brother and I saved his life." The cop looked intrigued.
"Well, what's that, then?" he asked, pointing to the IV bag of Lincoln's blood.
"An invention of mine that's been approved for limited human testing," Lisa lied. "It's a blend of chemicals that promotes rapid cell division, resulting in faster healing."
"If you don't believe us, check the security camera," Lincoln added.
"Your fellow officers are only unconscious because they were about to impede my progress in tending this man's wounds," Lisa finished.
After much consideration and reviving the fallen cops, a decision was reached to review the camera footage to confirm the truth of Lisa's words. Fortunately, the camera "malfunctioned" the entire time that Lisa was drawing Lincoln's blood, making the footage of that particular time increment extremely blurry no matter how much the control panel was fiddled with (in reality, Lisa was using her personalized high-tech wristwatch to jam the signal). With the proof in hand, the doctors were arrested on charges of making false accusations, medical negligence, and attempted manslaughter through said negligence. Lincoln and Lisa were allowed to go free with only a warning about assaulting officers in the future.
A few days later, the wheelchair-bound Arturo was making a speedy recovery and decided to reward Lincoln and Lisa with a Mexican-style barbecue. During the lawsuit against their coworkers, it was made clear that because he and Maria were both very popular with the patients, they were positively despised by the rest of the hospital staff. Therefore, Arturo and Maria both quit their jobs in order to escape the toxic work environment. The large sum of money they won in the lawsuit would hopefully keep the family afloat while they were job-hunting.
Lincoln still occasionally dropped by the Santiagos' house to fix broken appliances, but not as often as he used to because of his own job. Speaking of that job, he got his first paycheck from the Hunnicuts, and they paid him more than they said they would! Lincoln was gradually allowing himself to get comfortable with this new lifestyle, now that things were starting to look up for himself and the people around him. But sadly, fate had other plans...
...
Lincoln hummed a tune as he walked through the woods on his way home from work. Whistling was difficult for him because of his thin lips, so he had to resort to humming. He'd recently gotten some bad news in the form of Jesse Rosato getting bailed out of prison, but he didn't let that weigh him down. The school year had officially ended, and Summer Vacation was in full effect. Due to his somewhat reptilian physiology, he greatly enjoyed the warmer weather.
As he walked, he suddenly felt something sharp prick the back of his neck.
"Ow! What the heck?" he asked in confusion. He had pretty tough skin (in the literal sense) that was difficult to pierce, so he doubted that an insect had stung him. He reached behind his head, and his fingers came back holding a small, red-plumed dart. His eyes widened as a numbing sensation started to spread from where the dart hit him, and he started to run.
As he ran, another dart hit his left shoulder, and he quickly pulled it out. Then a third dart hit his right thigh, and a fourth hit his left elbow. With each impact, his body got number, and his eyelids began to grow heavy. He panted as he struggled against the effects of the sedative, trying to make it back to civilization before he collapsed. Ahead of him, someone stepped onto the trail, and Lincoln came to a halt before he could collide with the unknown person. He gasped in horror as he saw that it was Jordan's father, Rick Rosato. The older man smiled wickedly.
"Well, well, I've never seen a creature like this before," he said. "A rare specimen like you can't just go wandering around, oh, no. I think something so rare belongs...in the zoo!" Lincoln turned to run the other way, only to come face-to-face with three camouflaged men with guns. He grunted as ten more darts hit his body at close range; four in his stomach, three in his chest, two in his right arm, and one in the tip of his nose. He staggered for a few seconds before falling over, and he witnessed a net being draped over him as the world faded to black.
...
Lana Loud sniffled as she walked into the women's locker room at the Royal County Zoo, a thirty-minute drive from Royal Woods. She didn't want to do anything but keep searching for her younger brother, who had been missing for three days, but she needed this job if she wanted to help her parents pay her college tuition. Her supervisor walked in right as she was pulling up the zipper on her uniform, a light brown long-sleeved jumpsuit with the name of the zoo in dark green on the left breast.
"Oh, there you are, Lana! We could really use your help!" she said.
"With what, Ma'am?" Lana asked.
"We just got a new animal, and it's a feisty one! Since you're so good with the more dangerous animals, I was hoping you could help us calm it down," the supervisor explained.
"That depends. What kind of animal is it?"
"I have no idea. None of us have ever seen anything like it, and it was dropped off by an anonymous donor. It's so rough that we had to chain it to the ground for its own safety!" That immediately set off warning bells in Lana's mind, and as she followed her supervisor, she prayed that the new addition to the zoo wasn't what she thought it might be.
In the temporary enclosure away from the public that was only used for the most dangerous of the new arrivals, Lana's fellow employees were getting tossed around like rag dolls with shouts of fear and pain as heavy chains rattled in the background. As she stepped closer, Lana gasped, and her eyes welled with tears. The culprit was Lincoln, naked, manacled at the wrists and ankles, and acting totally deranged! Someone tried to creep up behind him with a cattle prod, but Lincoln swatted them away with a backhanded slap, sending them crashing against the bars of the enclosure. The employees retreated as Lincoln roared in triumph and pounded his chest with both fists before getting down on all fours like a gorilla.
Choking back her tears, Lana said, "I know what kind of animal this is. I need to do this alone."
"What?" her supervisor asked.
"Are you deaf? I said GET OUT! ALL OF YOU!" Lana screamed. The zoo employees all filed out of the enclosure and closed the door behind them, leaving Lana alone with Lincoln. She slowly walked toward him as he bared his teeth with a menacing hiss, and her tears welled up again. "Oh, Lincoln, who did this to you?" she whimpered. She jolted when he suddenly winked at her and inclined his head, beckoning her closer. She moved forward until they were almost nose-to-nose.
"I'm perfectly fine, Lana. It probably doesn't look like it, but I have everything under control," he whispered. "I just have to keep up the appearance of a feral beast until I find a good opportunity to escape. I'm nowhere near as mindless as they think I am, so I can pick these locks no problem." Lana was about to reply when her supervisor called out to her.
"Lana? Are you okay in there?"
"I'm fine, but I might need the whole day for this! He's even tougher than I thought!" Lana called back.
"Okay. Just remember to put it on your time sheet!"
"I will!" Lana turned back to Lincoln. "Now, what happened? Where have you been for the last three days?"
"I was walking home from work through the woods, when some goons hired by Rick Rosato shot me with a boatload of tranq darts," Lincoln began. "I woke up locked in a crate with no clothes, and I heard two people speaking..."
...
Lincoln slowly came to and found himself in a cramped, dimly lit space. Light filtered into the space through gaps between the rough wooden planks the space was made of, and trying to stretch out his aching limbs alerted Lincoln to the fact that he was naked. He started thrashing in a blind panic, tilting the crate from side to side.
"PIPE DOWN!" someone yelled in a masculine voice with a slight British accent, pounding his fist on the top of the crate. Lincoln stilled and listened as a conversation took place.
"Are you sure having something that strong in the zoo is safe?" a second, higher pitched male voice asked.
"My benefactor, who unfortunately was unable to attend this exchange and wishes to remain anonymous, has told me this specimen is quite harmless if properly restrained. However, you must exercise extreme caution around it. It has the ability to mimic human voices, so if it begs you to release it, don't listen to a word it says. Furthermore, it is extremely rare, and may very well be the last of its kind. It's humanoid enough that it may attempt to mate with one of your female employees, another reason to keep it restrained. Now, if you will procure the agreed-upon sum of money, I will gladly see myself off."
As the money changed hands, Lincoln quickly formulated a plan. He would play the part of what the zookeeper apparently thought he was until he found an opportune moment to make his escape. As two zoo employees pried open the crate, Lincoln feigned being exhausted and lethargic from the lingering effects of the tranquilizer, allowing the employees to drag him out into an enclosure and put him in manacles.
...
"...and that's how I ended up here. I knew you would show up eventually, so I've been biding my time until they asked for your help in getting me to settle down," Lincoln finished. He was startled when Lana suddenly threw her arms around him.
"I'm just glad you're safe, li'l bro," she said. Pulling away from him, she pulled a pen and notepad from the pockets of her uniform, jotted something down, then folded the note and slipped it under one of Lincoln's wrist manacles. "After you pick the locks, head for the main HQ. I just gave you the combination to a locker with spare clothes and emergency trench knives in it," she told him. "After that, head for the Santiagos' place. Mr. and Mrs. Santiago found new jobs in Great Lakes City, so I think you'd be safer stowing away in their moving van than staying in Royal Woods. I'll let everyone else know where you'll be going. Good luck, bro."
"Thanks, Lana. Now get outta here before people get suspicious!" Lana nodded and left.
Lincoln bided his time until nightfall, sloppily devouring the trays of raw hamburger pushed into his enclosure at regular intervals. When it was long past closing time and the zoo was deserted except for thee nightguards, he made his move. Inserting a single claw into the keyholes of the manacles, he wiggled his finger around until the locks snapped open. Grabbing the folded note with the locker combination, he picked the lock on the enclosure itself next. Staying in the blind spots of the security cameras, he made his way to the office building of the zoo. Using his claws as glass cutters, he cut a hole in the window just big enough that he could reach inside and unlock the door. His exceptional night vision allowed him to easily locate the locker Lana told him about and flawlessly enter the combination. He stole a pair of khaki cargo shorts, a nylon belt, and one of the trench knives. Thus clothed and armed, he escaped the zoo entirely and ran all the way back to Royal Woods, but not at top speed to conserve energy. His bare feet had very thick, leathery soles, so he was able to do this without hurting his feet.
True to Lana's word, there was a moving van parked in the Santiagos' driveway that was almost full. after slaughtering a trio of squirrels with the knife and eating them raw, Lincoln squeezed into a gap between several carboard boxes and fell asleep.