{ "submission_id": "3680451", "keywords": [ { "keyword_id": "3343", "keyword_name": "action", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "4385" }, { "keyword_id": "17875", "keyword_name": "ape", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1898" }, { "keyword_id": "199", "keyword_name": "bear", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "50778" }, { "keyword_id": "360", "keyword_name": "bird", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "39145" }, { "keyword_id": "2421", "keyword_name": "bomb", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "653" }, { "keyword_id": "60", "keyword_name": "cat", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "218419" }, { "keyword_id": "57715", "keyword_name": "champions", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "67" }, { "keyword_id": "35617", "keyword_name": "chimpanzee", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "411" }, { "keyword_id": "5214", "keyword_name": "combat", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1280" }, { "keyword_id": "944", "keyword_name": "deer", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "31128" }, { "keyword_id": "5668", "keyword_name": "detective", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "656" }, { "keyword_id": "1455", "keyword_name": "doctor", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "2631" }, { "keyword_id": "33597", "keyword_name": "espionage", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "352" }, { "keyword_id": "3242", "keyword_name": "gang", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "629" }, { "keyword_id": "13082", "keyword_name": "genetic", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "68" }, { "keyword_id": "9765", "keyword_name": "gritty", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "33" }, { "keyword_id": "1818", "keyword_name": "gun", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "7910" }, { "keyword_id": "50596", "keyword_name": "imprisonment", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "229" }, { "keyword_id": "165", "keyword_name": "male", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1221870" }, { "keyword_id": "23760", "keyword_name": "moreau", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "61" }, { "keyword_id": "35282", "keyword_name": "primate", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "4416" }, { "keyword_id": "452", "keyword_name": "rat", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "24022" }, { "keyword_id": "909", "keyword_name": "romance", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "9212" }, { "keyword_id": "2591", "keyword_name": "science", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "2303" }, { "keyword_id": "6198", "keyword_name": "scientist", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1124" }, { "keyword_id": "27017", "keyword_name": "sewer", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "206" }, { "keyword_id": "31676", "keyword_name": "simian", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "440" }, { "keyword_id": "5653", "keyword_name": "spy", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1183" }, { "keyword_id": "945", "keyword_name": "stag", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1157" }, { "keyword_id": "2686", "keyword_name": "superhero", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "4318" }, { "keyword_id": "1655", "keyword_name": "torture", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "6149" }, { "keyword_id": "1336", "keyword_name": "transformation", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "45272" }, { "keyword_id": "838", "keyword_name": "truck", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "700" }, { "keyword_id": "1084", "keyword_name": "urban", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "647" }, { "keyword_id": "969", "keyword_name": "violence", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "4511" } ], "hidden": "f", "scraps": "f", "favorite": "f", "favorites_count": "0", "create_datetime": "2025-08-07 19:52:20.64702+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "07 Aug 2025 21:52 CEST", "last_file_update_datetime": "2025-08-07 18:46:05.549334+00", "last_file_update_datetime_usertime": "07 Aug 2025 20:46 CEST", "username": "snorgatch", "user_id": "1500125", "user_icon_file_name": "446488_snorgatch_snarf.png", "user_icon_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/large/446/446488_snorgatch_snarf.png", "user_icon_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/medium/446/446488_snorgatch_snarf.png", "user_icon_url_small": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/small/446/446488_snorgatch_snarf.png", "file_name": "5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.doc", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.doc", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.doc", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.doc", "thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.jpg", "thumb_huge_x": "225", "thumb_huge_y": "300", "thumb_large_x": "150", "thumb_large_y": "200", "thumb_medium_x": "90", "thumb_medium_y": "120", "files": [ { "file_id": "5670184", "file_name": "5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.doc", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.doc", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.doc", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.doc", "mimetype": "application/msword", "submission_id": "3680451", "user_id": "1500125", "submission_file_order": "0", "full_size_x": null, "full_size_y": null, "screen_size_x": null, "screen_size_y": null, "preview_size_x": null, "preview_size_y": null, "initial_file_md5": "a722d0152110b5f78e5e82e80aaf7c6e", "full_file_md5": "a722d0152110b5f78e5e82e80aaf7c6e", "large_file_md5": "", "small_file_md5": "", "thumbnail_md5": "cd7a9ad00ae323642d39afceee542120", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2025-08-07 18:46:05.549334+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "07 Aug 2025 20:46 CEST", "thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/5670/5670184_snorgatch_an_ape_for_all_seasons.jpg", "thumb_huge_x": "225", "thumb_huge_y": "300", "thumb_large_x": "150", "thumb_large_y": "200", "thumb_medium_x": "90", "thumb_medium_y": "120" } ], "pools": [], "description": "This is a story about a chimpanzee scientist I created for the MMORPG Champions Online. Adam is a manimal, a human/animal hybrid created by the mad geneticist Dr. Phillippe Moreau, great-grandson of the Dr. Moreau from H.G. Wells's novel, the Island of Dr. Moreau. Now earning a comfortable living working for a high-tech corporation, Adam finds himself called upon to find out why manimals are suddenly appearing in Millennium City.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "This is a story about a chimpanzee scientist I created for the MMORPG Champions Online. Adam is a manimal, a human/animal hybrid created by the mad geneticist Dr. Phillippe Moreau, great-grandson of the Dr. Moreau from H.G. Wells's novel, the Island of Dr. Moreau. Now earning a comfortable living working for a high-tech corporation, Adam finds himself called upon to find out why manimals are suddenly appearing in Millennium City.", "writing": "[center]An Ape for All Seasons[/center]\n\n[center]A story set in the universe of Champions Online[/center]\n\n\tHave you ever looked back after something bad happened to you, to a point just a little bit before, and reminisced? Maybe you thought to yourself, \"Man, everything was fine then. I was just going about my life like always, without a clue what was waiting up ahead. I sure wish I were back there now.\" Ever done that?\n\tThe point I'm wishing I were back at right now is when I woke up this morning. It was a completely ordinary morning, just like thousands of previous mornings. I awoke lying sprawled on my back in my warm, comfortable bed in my penthouse apartment in Millennium City, feeling relaxed and rested and ready to face a new day. I threw aside the covers and climbed down off the bed, walked into the bathroom, did my morning business, then got in the shower and turned on the hot water, groaning with pleasure as it soaked through my fur to my skin.\n\tBy the way, my name is Adam, and I'm a chimp. \n\tNot an ordinary chimp, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. I'm what's known as a manimal, created by the brilliant, visionary, and totally insane scientist Dr. Philippe Moreau. If that name sounds familiar to you, feel free to congratulate yourself on your literary erudition and give yourself a cookie. Yes, he was the great-grandson of [i]that[/i] Dr. Moreau, the one who—thanks to H. G. Wells—most people believed until recently was a fictional character. I suppose I should be glad he wasn't, because otherwise I wouldn't exist, or at least I wouldn't be the world's smartest chimp. Then again, I also wouldn't be wishing I were back in bed this morning. But I digress.\n\tAfter drying off from my shower (which is a job and a half when you're as hairy as me), drinking my morning coffee, and wolfing down a quick breakfast of Hero Os (the SUPER cereal), I got dressed (yes, I wear a suit and tie to work), went downstairs, got in my car, and drove off to my job. Look! My life is just as boring as yours!\n\tWell, maybe not quite. I work for Harmon Industries, in their Advanced Projects division. See, I'm not just the world's smartest chimp; I'm also smarter than about ninety-nine percent of all humans. At the moment I head up a design team working on a new kind of anti-graviton generator that will be smaller and more energy efficient than any existing model. Or so we hope. You might wonder how my team feels about taking orders from a chimp. I wonder about that myself sometimes. But it doesn't really matter. James Harmon IV didn't hire me for my looks. At least I hope he didn't. He hired me because I get results. If any members of my team aren't comfortable taking orders from a chimp, they can always ask for a transfer. So far, nobody has.\n\tJust as I entered the building, I got a call on my cell phone from my boss, who likes me to call him \"Jim.\" UNTIL—the United Nations Tribunal on International Law—had a situation that required my expertise. When I asked him what kind of situation, he said they hadn't told him, but he was sure it must be important, so he'd told them I'd be right over. Jim is nice like that. Sighing, I went back to my car.\n\tBy a happy coincidence that isn't, UNTIL's North American division offices just happen to be right here in Millennium City. I drove up to the entrance to their parking garage and flashed my ID to the guard, who did an admirable job of looking unfazed by the sight of a chimp driving a car. Then again, he worked for UNTIL, so maybe it wasn't such a big deal to him. UNTIL agents have to contend with a lot of weird stuff.\n\tI was met at the elevator by a tall, slim woman with long, dark-brown hair. She wore the blue-grey jumpsuit, black combat boots, and black beret of an UNTIL agent. I suppose she was attractive by human standards, but I only say that because she resembled other human females who are generally considered attractive. As you might imagine, I have different standards of beauty. She did shake my hand without hesitation, though.\n\t\"Hello, Adam,\" she said, speaking with a British accent. \"Welcome to UNTIL. I'm Dr. Cassandra Kelley.\"\n\tOkay, I admit it. I'm a sucker for British accents. I think they're sexy. I can't explain why.\n\t\"Hello, Dr. Kelley,\" I replied. \"What can I do for you?\"\n\t\"We were hoping you might be able to help us with a little problem we've encountered,\" she said as we rode up in the elevator.\n\t\"What sort of problem?\"\n\t\"A manimal problem.\"\n\tI raised an eyebrow. \"UNTIL is having a problem with manimals?\"\n\t\"The Millenium City police found one dead in Westside last night.\"\n\tI was shocked. \"What was a manimal doing in Westside?\"\n\t\"That's the problem. There aren't supposed to be any there. Apart from a handful of exceptions—like you—they're all on Monster Island.\"\n\t\"Maybe he was an escapee from ARGENT,\" I suggested.\n\tShe shook her head. \"I don't think so.\"\n\t\"Why not? They used to kidnap manimals all the time.\"\n\t\"Since ARGENT's base on Monster Island was destroyed, UNTIL has been monitoring their activities very closely. It is our opinion that they have stopped using manimals.\"\n\tI smirked. \"ARGENT is a multinational corporation with assets scattered across the globe. Just because you haven't found any manimals in any of their facilities that you know about—\"\n\t\"Also,\" she interrupted, \"all of ARGENT's manimals have tracking devices implanted in their bodies. This one doesn't.\"\n\tShe had me there.\n\tThe elevator door opened and she led me down a brightly-lit corridor. We passed several UNTIL agents, going about their duties, who tried really hard not to stare at me.\n\t\"What kind of doctor are you?\" I asked as we walked.\n\t\"I'm an MD, a graduate of King's College London School of Medicine.\"\n\tI was now officially impressed. \"What's your specialty?\"\n\t\"Biomedical research. I'm UNTIL's top expert on manimals.\"\n\t\"Are you now?\" I smiled. \"Lucky you happened to be in town.\"\n\t\"I was stationed at UNTIL headquarters in New York. I just arrived in Millennium City this morning.\"\n\t\"Caught the red-eye, did you?\"\n\tShe looked down at me. \"Why, does it show?\"\n\tI shook my head. \"You look perfect.\"\n\t\"Thank you, but considering that you're a chimpanzee, you'll forgive me if I hold your opinion somewhat suspect.\"\n\tI shrugged. \"Hold it any way you like.\"\n\tWe came to a door, which she opened for me. It led into a laboratory with a table upon which lay a body beneath a sheet. It didn't take a genius to see that it wasn't human. The wings and clawed feet were a bit of a giveaway.\n\tKelley drew back the sheet and I climbed up onto a stool to get a better look. It was a fairly typical bird manimal, with a head similar to a vulture's, its humanoid body covered with fine, oily, black feathers. There was a bullet hole in its abdomen.\n\t\"Do you know this manimal?\" she asked.\n\t\"Never seen him before,\" I replied. \"Did he have anything on him when he was found?\"\n\tShe shook her head. \"He was exactly as you see him now.\"\n\tI looked the body over. \"I don't see any scars or tattoos. Manimals typically have plenty of both.\"\n\t\"You don't,\" she pointed out.\n\t\"I was given special treatment. Moreau thought my intelligence would make me useful to him.\"\n\tNow it was her turn to smirk. \"Well, that certainly didn't work out for him, did it?\"\n\t\"Have you extracted the bullet?\" I asked.\n\t\"It passed through him. He was shot in the back. The hole in his belly is an exit wound. It appears to have been a nine-millimeter round. There are no powder burns on his feathers, indicating that he was shot from a fair distance away. He lived at least an hour before he bled to death.\"\n\t\"Enough time to have traveled some distance from where he was shot.\"\n\tShe nodded. \"Possibly as much as a mile.\"\n\tI rubbed my chin. The lack of scars and tattoos was bugging me. Moreau had been a good little Darwinist who frequently pitted his creations against each other in bloody gladiatorial games to cull the weak. Rare was the manimal who didn't bear the scars of such conflict. Those who survived had developed a primitive, tribal culture that included ritual tattooing. How had this bird escaped all that unscathed?\n\tI looked up at Kelley. \"Do you have a mass spec?\"\n\t\"There's one just behind you,\" she said, nodding at it with her head.\n\t\"Could you draw a sample of fatty tissue from his body? Preferably from somewhere in the central nervous system?\"\n\t\"Certainly,\" she said, readying a syringe. As Kelley extracted the sample from the corpse, I hopped off my stool and went over to the mass spectrometer.\n\t\"Need any help with that?\" she asked.\n\t\"Nah, I'll be fine. It's just like the one in my lab.\" I switched the machine on and let it warm up. After I'd adjusted its settings, Kelley came over and injected the sample.\n\t\"What are you looking for?\" she asked as we waited for the machine to conduct its analysis.\n\tI lectured to her in my best professorial tone. \"Monster Island—as I'm sure you're well aware—is home to a very active volcano: Andrithal. Volcanoes produce a lot of heavy metals. What's more, each volcano has its own unique signature, making it possible to trace their ejecta back to them. I happen to know that Andrithal's ash contains unusually high levels of molybdenum, which finds its way into every living thing on Monster Island. Once it becomes incorporated into fatty tissues—like the myelin coatings around nerves—it stays there for years.\"\n\t\"You're trying to show that he came from Monster Island?\" she asked. \"We already know that.\"\n\t\"I'm not so sure.\" The mass spectrometer hummed softly as it did its thing and began displaying the fruits of its labor on the screen before us. I heard Kelley gasp beside me. \n\t\"There's almost no molybdenum!\" she said.\n\tI nodded. \"In fact, all the heavy metals look normal. People who live near volcanoes almost always have elevated levels of lead, zinc and copper.\" I turned towards her. \"That bird's not from Monster Island.\"\n\t\"Where the hell else could it be from?\" she demanded.\n\t\"That's a good question.\" I gazed back at the corpse on the table. \"Where did you come from, stranger?\"\n\n\tAn hour later we were in a conference room, conversing with a hologram of Major Juan Martinez, UNTIL's director, from his office in New York. He listened to our findings, his dark, penetrating eyes staring at us from beneath his black beret, his transparent, grizzled face lined with concern.\n\t\"You're sure it's not from Monster Island?\" he asked.\n\t\"We tested three samples from his body,\" I replied. \"According to those, he's never been near a volcano in his life.\"\n\t\"Well, where else do manimals come from?\" asked Martinez.\n\t\"As far as we know, nowhere,\" said Kelley. \"And there's no ARGENT tracking device implanted, so that rules them out.\"\n\t\"Is it possible that it might have been off the island for a while, and that the tracking device was removed?\" asked Martinez.\n\t\"There's no evidence of any such removal, Director,\" said Kelley.\n\t\"Also, it would take several years for the heavy metals in his body to decline to normal background levels,\" I added, \"and that still wouldn't explain the lack of scars and tattoos. Almost all manimals have them.\"\n\tMartinez nodded. \"Doctor Kelley, you said it couldn't have traveled more than a mile from where it was shot?\"\n\t\"If that,\" said Kelley.\n\t\"Then it sounds like you have your search area,\" said Martinez. \"Put a team together and scour every building within a mile of where the bird was found. Bring in the MCPD if you have to.\"\n\t\"Understood, Director,\" said Kelley.\n\tMartinez turned his eyes to me. \"Adam, even though you're a civilian, I'd appreciate it if you'd accompany Dr. Kelley's team. Your unique insights regarding manimals could prove to be invaluable.\"\n\t\"UNTIL did their part helping out my people when we needed it, Director,\" I said. \"I'm happy to return the favor.\" I noted that Kelley didn't look too happy, though she tried not to show it.\n\tMartinez nodded. \"Keep me informed. Martinez out.\" His image flickered and vanished.\n\tKelley turned to me. \"Would you like me to requisition any equipment for you?\" she asked, keeping her voice formal and polite.\n\tI smiled at her. \"That won't be necessary. I can take care of myself.\"\n\t\"In that case, meet me in the parking garage in thirty minutes.\" She spun on her heels and left the room.\n\tI went down to the parking garage to my car, opened the trunk, and removed a suitcase. I felt like Superman as I pulled open my shirt, except that there was nothing underneath but my hairy chest. The parking garage was empty, which afforded me some privacy while I changed, but I don't suppose anyone would have been especially offended by the sight of a naked chimp anyway. Within a few minutes I'd traded my suit and tie for a red-and-white jumpsuit and a utility belt with a selection of gadgets I'd invented. I also took the opportunity to check in with my boss and give him an update on what I was doing, and then called my team and asked them how work was progressing on the anti-graviton generator. Everything was apparently running smoothly in my absence. I went to a vending machine and bought myself a candy bar while I waited for Kelley and her team to arrive.\n\tThey showed up at exactly the thirty minute mark. Besides Kelley, there were a slim, swarthy man with a mustache who looked to be in his late twenties, and a tough-looking middle-aged woman whose blond hair was streaked with gray. All three wore dull silver torso armor over their UNTIL uniforms, as well as pistols at their hips. The two newcomers both regarded me without expression. I suppose Kelley had already informed them what to expect.\n\t\"Adam, this is Lieutenant Bogdan Danielov of Bulgaria,\" said Kelley, indicating the man and pronouncing his rank \"leftenant\" the way upper-class Brits do, \"and Sergeant Yanick Courtemanche of France. Lt. Danielov possesses psi talents that have proven highly useful in the past, while Sgt. Courtemanche is one of our most experienced agents.\"\n\tI nodded to both of them. \"Pleased to meet you.\" They both nodded back.\n\t\"All right, let's get this show on the road,\" said Kelley. She led us to an ordinary-looking sedan, tossing Courtemanche the keys, which she caught without even looking. Danielov and I got in the back while Kelley rode shotgun, and out we drove into the streets of Millennium City, heading for Westside.\n\t\"Do you read minds, lieutenant?\" I asked Danielov.\n\t\"I can,\" he replied, with a soft Slavic accent, \"but it is not easy, and I only get surface thoughts. However, I can usually tell when people are lying.\"\n\t\"Makes him hell to play cards with,\" said Kelley.\n\tDanielov smiled. \"Perhaps you are simply a bad card player, Cassandra.\"\n\t\"Not bloody likely. Back in medical school they used to call me 'the Shark.'\"\n\t\"There is always a bigger fish.\" He looked at me. \"I have never worked with a manimal before. This should be interesting.\"\n\tI shrugged. \"I've never worked with a Bulgarian psychic before, so ditto.\"\n\t\"How long have you been living in the United States?\"\n\t\"Two years and change. UNTIL arranged for my immigration in return for my help in defeating Dr. Moreau.\"\n\t\"So you turned on your creator,\" said Danielov.\n\tI gave him a hard stare. \"Philippe Moreau was a madman and a sadist. The world is better off without him.\"\n\t \"I hear some manimals still revere him as a god.\"\n\t\"Megalomaniacs tend to encourage that sort of thing. As a Bulgar, you should know that all too well.\"\n\tDanielov frowned. \"Zhivkov brought Bulgaria into the modern world.\"\n\t\"And brutally suppressed all dissent for thirty-five years, not to mention expelling the ethnic Turks. Even the Soviets condemned that.\"\n\tHe shrugged. \"I was a child when he fell from power.\"\n\t\"So you've never experienced firsthand what it's like to live in an absolute dictatorship. I have. It's no fun.\"\n\t\"I understand your position among Moreau's manimals was . . . privileged?\"\n\tI nodded. \"I had it better than most, certainly, but I was still a slave. And I never asked for special treatment. In any case, my position just made it that much easier for me to help destroy him.\"\n\t\"I am curious, then: Why did you choose to leave? Surely your knowledge and intelligence would have been most helpful to your people in their struggle to build a new society.\"\n\t\"As you said, there are manimals who still worship Moreau. They consider me a traitor. Others view me as a collaborator who only betrayed him to save my own skin. I decided the best thing was to make a clean break with the past and start fresh someplace else.\"\n\tCourtemanche chuckled.\n\t\"Is something funny, sergeant?\" asked Kelley sharply.\n\tCourtemanche grinned at her. \"I was born in Algeria, Doctor. My parents were [i]pied-noir[/i], French colonials. After Algeria became independent, we fled to France to avoid reprisals from the nationalists. I can sympathize with Adam's situation.\"\n\tI decided I liked Sergeant Courtemanche. A lot.\n\tWe dove into one of the steep tunnels that leads from downtown to Westside and drove along the riverfront, where countless brightly colored cargo containers were stacked like a giant child's blocks, contrasting sharply with the somber rows of drab, dreary warehouses. As we continued on towards the outskirts of Westside, we began seeing mounds of rubble and the jagged shells of half-demolished buildings. It had been more than twenty years since the lunatic called Dr. Destroyer had wiped the city of Detroit off the map, and they still hadn't finished cleaning up the wreckage. Millennium City had been built upon the ruins of Detroit, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Even a nonhuman like me can appreciate what that says about the resilience of the human spirit.\n\tKelley directed Courtemanche to turn into an abandoned gas station and stop. We got out of the car, and Kelley led us across the cracked, weed-strewn asphalt. To our left the Detroit River made its sluggish way south towards Lake Erie, and an ore freighter plowed along it, sounding its deep, husky horn. Overhead, seagulls wheeled in lazy circles, shrieking plaintively.\n\tKelley stopped before a vaguely human-shaped chalk outline on the ground. \"This is where the bird was found.\"\n\t\"There's no blood trail,\" I observed.\n\tShe shook her head. \"No. The police dogs couldn't follow his scent, either.\"\n\t\"That suggests that he flew here.\"\n\tKelley raised an eyebrow. \"With that hole in him?\"\n\t\"Okay, not very far or very fast, but bird manimals can still fly even when they're badly wounded. I've seen them do it.\"\n\t\"How can we pick up the trail, then?\" asked Danielov.\n\t\"Even if he was flying,\" said Courtemanche, \"he still must have been dripping blood. We simply must find it.\"\n\t\"One moment,\" I said, taking out my cell phone and flipping it open. They all stood watching as I tapped the keys.\n\t\"What are you doing?\" asked Kelley.\n\t\"Narrowing down our search area,\" I replied, accessing the National Weather Service's website.\n\t\"How?\" asked Danielov.\n\t\"If you're a bird manimal who's been shot and you're trying to put as much distance as possible between yourself and whoever shot you, you're going to fly with the wind. And last night the wind was blowing from . . . that way.\" I pointed northwest.\n\t\"Fan out,\" said Kelley. \"See if you can find anything that looks like a bloodstain, no matter how small.\"\n\tOur group spread out to the northwest of the chalk outline, each of us scrutinizing the ground, searching for anything that might possibly be a bloodstain. After about ten minutes Courtemanche called out that she'd found something, and we all hurried over to her. She was standing over a small maroon blotch on the pavement, about the size of a quarter, a good hundred yards from the chalk outline. Kelley got down on all fours and sniffed at it.\n\t\"It's blood,\" she announced. She glanced up at Courtemanche. \"Good work, sergeant.\"\n\t\"Adam showed us where to look,\" said Courtemanche, smiling at me. I smiled back. Nice of someone to mention that.\n\tKelley stood up. \"Thank you, Adam. All right, now we have a direction. Let's see where it leads.\"\n\tWe walked through the waist-high grass of the empty lot, past the blackened shells of long-burned-out cars and other urban detritus, watched by the jagged eyes of abandoned buildings that were in the slow process of crumbling into dust, unaware that other, living eyes were watching us too.\n\tWe found three more bloodstains, which firmly established the direction from which the bird had been flying. As we made our way through the ruins, Danielov said softly, \"We are not alone.\"\n\tCourtemanche nodded. \"I hear them. There are a dozen, at least.\"\n\tI felt embarrassed that I hadn't noticed a thing. Then again, I'm a scientist, not a field agent.\n\tSix young men came out from behind the buildings to either side of us, blocking our path. They were all dressed in black and white garments, reminiscent of the droogs from the Stanley Kubrick film [i]A Clockwork Orange.[/i] Some wore bowler hats or top hats, and all of them had the spade playing card symbol somewhere on their ensembles. They were armed with knives, chains, baseball bats, and crowbars. I recognized them as members of the Black Aces, one of Westside's street gangs.\n\t\"'Allo, guvnors!\" said one, grinning widely as he affected a terrible Cockney accent. \"'Ave you gotten y'selves lost? This is a bad neighborhood, y'know.\"\n\t\"We are UNTIL agents on official business,\" said Kelley evenly. \"I advise you to depart at once.\"\n\tThe punk's eyes went wide when he heard Kelley's accent. \"Ooh, we've got one from the motherland! Rule Brittania!\" He saluted her, then crouched down to look at me. \"That's a nice pet monkey you've got, luvvy. Does it know any tricks?\"\n\t\"I'm an ape, you twit,\" I said. \"Monkeys have tails.\"\n\tThe punk stared at me, his mouth agape. \"It talks!\" he cried, dropping the fake accent. By now, a dozen more Black Aces had emerged from the buildings, surrounding us. Danielov looked nervous, while Courtemanche stood poised and ready to move at the first sign of trouble. As for me, I had surreptitiously placed my right hand on the metallic bracer around my left wrist.\n\t\"I'm warning you one last time—\" began Kelley.\n\t\"You,\" said the punk, having regained his composure and matching eyes with her, \"don't give the orders here, luvvy. We do. And we don't . . . like . . . foreigners.\"\n\tSeveral of the Aces had hefted chains and were swinging them above their heads in slow, whirring arcs. The UNTIL agents and I clustered together, back to back, as they closed in around us. The one who had spoken rushed at Kelley, who grabbed him and threw him to the ground with an impact so hard it forced the air out of his lungs in a loud [i]woosh.[/i] Another one stabbed at Courtemanche. She seized his arm and twisted it, making him cry out in pain and sending his knife clattering to the ground, and then followed it up with a right cross to his jaw that sent him to join his knife. Danielov jumped back as one of them tried to knock him into the bleachers with a baseball bat, and responded with a karate kick to the punk's chin that sent him reeling backwards into his buddies.\n\tA big bruiser with a chain was advancing towards me, grinning. I returned the grin. As he swung the chain at me, I raised my left arm, and a glowing disc of energy sprang to life before it and blocked the chain. My right hand shot out and grabbed the chain, and I pulled back on it hard, causing him to stumble towards me. Apparently, he was unaware that chimps have five times the upper body strength of a human. I socked him in the face and down he went.\n\tOur little rumble was going reasonably well, with fully half of the Aces laid out around us, when one of them stupidly decided to up the ante by pulling out a gun and aiming it at Kelley. As fast as I could, I drew my sonic stunner and shot him, dropping him to the ground. Immediately, all three UNTIL agents drew their pistols, holding them on the Aces.\n\t\"All right, let's everyone take a deep breath,\" said Kelley. There was a pregnant pause, during which it felt as if we were all standing on a frozen lake with the ice about to give way. \"Now then,\" she continued, \"why don't you boys collect your wounded and be on your way?\" The Aces looked at each other for a moment, and then began picking up the groaning or unconscious bodies of their companions and carrying them off.\n\tOnce they had gone, Kelley whirled on me. \"What did you think you were doing? UNTIL has strict rules about engaging civilians, and they do not include escalating hostilities by pulling guns on them!\"\n\tI held up a hand and started counting off points on my fingers. \"First, I am not an agent of UNTIL. Second, that Ace escalated the hostilities when he drew a gun on you, and by the way, you're welcome. And third, my gun is non-lethal.\"\n\t\"I am forced to agree with Adam,\" said Courtemanche. \"His actions were well within UNTIL's prescribed rules of engagement.\"\n\tKelley regarded the other woman for a moment. \"Well then, I suppose you'll have to mention that in your report, won't you, sergeant? Come on, let's continue.\" She turned and resumed walking in the direction the bird's blood was leading us. Courtemanche winked at me and followed her.\n\tOur search led us to the mouth of a storm sewer tunnel, about eight feet in diameter, that emptied into a concrete aqueduct. A small stream of brown water trickled from it.\n\t\"Lovely,\" said Kelley, wrinkling her nose. She took a small but powerful flashlight from her belt and played the beam around the inside of the tunnel. Then she turned to Danielov. \"Hear any thoughts?\"\n\tDanielov shook his head. \"If there is anyone in there, they are deeper inside.\"\n\t\"In that case, I guess it's time for a sewer crawl,\" said Kelley. She paused for a moment to call headquarters, reporting in and telling them what we were doing, and then began advancing into the tunnel, her boots splashing in the stream of effluent. The rest of us followed her into the darkness.\n\tThe sound of our footsteps echoed loudly in the tunnel as we walked along, leaving the sunlit world further and further behind. The air was chill and dank and reeked of decay. About a hundred yards in, we started hitting side tunnels. Kelley elected to go straight. I started having uncomfortable flashbacks to the warren of tunnels and caverns beneath Moreau's laboratory on Monster Island, remembering the horrors that dwelt within them. I wanted very much not to be here, but pride is a funny thing. Put a woman with a group of men, or a white guy with a group of black guys, or an architect with a group of construction workers, or any situation where someone is surrounded by people different from them, and they feel compelled to prove themselves. So yes, I felt I had to show these humans I was as good as they were, and don't tell me you'd have felt any differently if you'd been in my position, because you'd be lying, and you know it. Besides, I knew what they'd say to their friends back at UNTIL if I backed out. \"Never send a monkey to do a man's work,\" or something equally demeaning. No one would care that I wasn't an agent and hadn't been trained for this sort of thing; all that would matter would be my species. Screw that.\n\tAs we trekked along through a claustrophobic world of eternal night, Danielov suddenly stopped. We all paused, looking at him. Beneath his beret, his brow was knitted in concentration. \"Stray thoughts,\" he said. \"Frightened . . . curious.\"\n\t\"Not hostile?\" asked Courtemanche, her hand on her pistol.\n\tHe shook his head. \"Not yet.\"\n\t\"Which direction?\" asked Kelley.\n\tDanielov smiled. \"It does not work that way.\"\n\tThe question was answered for us by the sound of splashing up ahead. Courtemanche was off like a fox after a hare, leaving the rest of us staring dumbly after her for a moment before we started running as well. Over the echoes of our footsteps, we heard the sound of a scuffle in the darkness. A moment later, Kelley's light shone on two figures grappling in the water. One was Courtemanche. The other was a rat manimal.\n\tShe had him in a judo hold, which meant he wasn't going anywhere soon. He was about four feet tall, with brown fur and a skinny build, wearing only a tattered loincloth. He looked up at us, his black, beady eyes wide with fear. He squirmed as we approached, his nose twitching uncontrollably, as rat manimals' noses always do when they're scared, which is most of the time. Being the smallest and weakest of Moreau's creations, they take more than their share of shit from the others. Then his gaze fixed on me, and his bucktoothed mouth dropped open.\n\t\"It's all right,\" I told him gently. \"We're not going to hurt you.\"\n\t\"You can talk?\" he asked in a high, squeaky voice, clearly astonished. \n\tThe irony of a rat being surprised that a chimp could talk wasn't lost on me. \"Yes, I can talk. What's your name?\"\n\tThe rat hesitated a moment before answering. \"Andy Morgan.\"\n\tMy suspicions about the origins of the dead bird were confirmed. \"That's a very human-sounding name,\" I commented.\n\tHe swallowed. \"I used to be human.\" He looked around at all of us, his eyes pleading. \"Can you change me back?\"\n\tKelley crouched down to be eye to eye with him. \"I'm afraid not, Andy, but we can take you someplace safe and warm where you'll be cared for.\"\n\t\"I want to go home!\" Andy wailed.\n\tKelley's jaw tightened. Nice to see she had a heart after all. \"Where is that, Andy?\"\n\t\"34182 12 Mile Road,\" he said, whimpering.\n\t\"And how old are you?\"\n\t\"Sixteen.\"\n\t\"Do you know how long you've been this way?\"\n\tHe shook his head. \"I don't even know what month it is.\"\n\t\"It's August 21st,\" I told him.\n\tHe stared at me. \"I've been down here five months?\"\n\tKelley glanced up at Danielov. \"Is he telling the truth?\" The Bulgar nodded solemnly. She turned back to Andy. \"What happened to you, Andy? How did you end up like this?\"\n\tAndy sighed. \"I was walking home from a friend's house one night when someone jumped me. He put something over my face that made me pass out. When I woke up, I was down here, and I was a rat!\" His voice broke and he began sobbing pitifully, staining Courtemanche's sleeve with his tears. Her expression showed that she felt for the boy, though she didn't loosen her hold on him.\n\t\"Are there more like you in the sewers?\" asked Kelley.\n\tHe nodded. \"Dozens. There are rats, cats, birds, bears, and deer.\"\n\t\"Those are Moreau's standard manimal types,\" I said to Kelley, before I remembered that as UNTIL's top expert on manimals she no doubt already knew that.\n\tAndy started. \"Moreau?\"\n\t\"You recognize that name?\" Kelley asked quickly.\n\tAndy nodded. \"He talks about him all the time.\"\n\t\"Who does?\" I asked.\n\t\"Ratskellar.\"\n\tI felt my stomach contract. \"Son of a bitch!\"\n\t\"Who is that?\" asked Danielov.\n\tI glanced up at him. \"One of Moreau's lieutenants. A rat scientist, every bit as crazy as his creator.\"\n\tKelley nodded. \"He disappeared after Moreau's defeat. UNTIL thought—or hoped—that he'd been killed in the fighting, but his body was never found.\" She looked at me. \"I take it there was no love lost between you.\"\n\tI snorted. \"That's putting it lightly. I hated his guts and he hated mine.\"\n\t\"Well, we have what we came for,\" said Kelley. \"Ratskellar is clearly turning humans into manimals. We need to report back to UNTIL and bring in a military team to deal with this. Lieutenant, call headquarters.\"\n\tDanielov took his cell phone out, fiddled with it, then shook his head. \"I cannot get a signal. There must be too much rock in the way.\"\n\t\"All right, let's head back then,\" said Kelley. \"Andy, I'd like you to come with us. Let him go, sergeant.\"\n\tCourtemanche did so, and she and Andy stood up. The rat boy looked around at all of us. \"What's going to happen to me?\" he asked nervously.\n\t\"That is not for us to decide,\" said Kelley, \"but I promise you will not be harmed.\"\n\t\"I should hope not,\" I said. \"Regardless of what he looks like, he's an American citizen. He has rights.\"\n\t\"Thank you for reminding me of something I am well aware of, Adam,\" said Kelley dryly. \"Come on, let's go.\"\n\tThoughts buzzed through my brain as if someone had kicked open a nest of hornets inside my skull. Ratskellar was alive and turning people into manimals in Millennium City. Why? What did he hope to accomplish? And why here? He was crazy, but he wasn't stupid. He could have settled down anywhere. Why do it in the city with the planet's highest concentration of superheroes per capita? He might as well have been selling dope across the street from the DEA. Which meant that there was a reason he was here, something that made the risk worth taking. What was it? I started sifting through every lunatic idea I'd ever heard him mention, hoping to find a clue to what he was up to. Unfortunately, he'd had an awful lot of lunatic ideas. Did I mention he was crazy?\n\tMy mental sifting was brought to a halt, along with my body, by a sharp cry of pain from up ahead. It was Danielov. I ran up to see what was wrong, my feet splashing as I did so. The Bulgar was leaning against the inside of the tunnel, standing on one foot, while Kelley was crouched before him and trying to get his other boot off. Courtemanche and Andy stood watching, the former holding something in her hands. As I approached, she turned and showed it to me. It was a wooden plank with several nails driven through it. It must have been hidden beneath the water. I shivered as the sight of the thing brought back more memories. Punji traps were a manimal favorite back on Monster Island.\n\t\"It appears to have gone completely through the foot,\" Kelley said calmly as she broke out her medical kit. \"I'll sterilize and bandage the wound and give you something for the pain.\" Danielov simply nodded, his teeth clenched.\n\tI looked around as Kelley worked. We were at a four-way junction—the perfect spot for an ambush. Courtemanche had clearly realized this too, as she'd drawn her pistol and was aiming her flashlight down one of the cross tunnels. She silently motioned to me, indicating that I should cover the opposite tunnel. I obliged by switching on my belt light and drawing my stunner.\n\tThe attack came without warning. Ear-splitting sonic shrieks hit us from both sides, causing me to drop my stunner and clap my hands over my ears, which felt as if someone had just rammed a pair of knitting needles into them. I staggered and fell, my equilibrium shot. Unfortunately, I was all too familiar with this particular form of attack. It was employed by bird manimals, and it was just as devastating now as it had been back on Monster Island. I couldn't see, either, as the shriek had shattered my belt light. Blind and deaf, I felt a net envelop me, and then something pierced my shoulder. A tranq dart, I supposed. It was a day for reliving bad old memories. I felt my consciousness fade away, and the rest was silence.\n\n\tI awoke in my own past, a past I'd thought I'd left behind forever. I was in a stone-walled chamber lit by torches, surrounded by several dozen manimals. I was lying on my back, my wrists and ankles bound to a table by thick leather straps. My ears felt as if honey were dripping out of them. I felt sick, dazed, and woozy. I turned my head and saw the three UNTIL agents in like condition. The manimals were watching us, speaking among themselves in hushed tones. I saw that Andy was with them, his arm in the grip of a huge brown bear. The ratboy looked at me, his nose twitching in fear.\n\t\"Well, what do you know?\" came a familiar squeaky voice from behind me. \"There is a god!\"\n\tI turned my head to the speaker. \"Hi, Ratskellar. It's been a while.\"\n\t\"Two years,\" said the rat, coming towards me. He wore only a dirty lab coat over his white fur. His red eyes glared at me with undisguised hatred through his Coke-bottle glasses. \"Two years since you betrayed Father. He named you wrong, Adam. He should have called you Judas.\"\n\t\"Judas only got thirty pieces of silver,\" I replied. \"I got a job at Harmon Industries and a penthouse apartment in Millennium City. I'd say I made out better.\"\n\t\"For a while,\" said Ratskellar, sneering. \"But now it's time to pay the piper, Adam.\"\n\tI managed to smile. \"A rat telling me to pay the piper. Now that's funny.\" I was trying hard not to show how scared I was. Ratskellar was as much of a sadist as Moreau. Nothing would have pleased him more than to see me afraid.\n\t\"Ratskellar,\" said Kelley, raising her head and fixing him with her gaze, \"you must realize that by kidnapping UNTIL agents, you've simply drawn attention to yourself. My superiors know where we were going. When we don't report in, they'll send a full assault team in here after us. They could well be on their way already. Your only chance is to release us now and surrender.\" \n\tThe other manimals began muttering nervously to each other. \"Silence!\" Ratskellar screamed at them, shutting them up. Then he turned back to Kelley. \"Very soon, UNTIL is going to be in no position to help you . . . or anyone else in this city.\"\n\t\"Is this the part where you tell us your master plan, Rats?\" I asked. \"Why you decided to set up shop in superhero central instead of someplace nobody would notice, like outer Mongolia, or the Amazon, or Cleveland? Come on, you know you want to.\" I grinned at him.\n\t\"Actually,\" said Ratskellar, grinning back, \"what I'd like to do is give you a vasectomy with a blowtorch. But since you asked so nicely . . .\" He rubbed his nearly nonexistent chin for a moment. \"What is it they always say—show, don't tell?\" Ratskellar turned and went over to a counter where there were five spray bottles filled with some kind of milky fluid. He paused and looked back at us as if deciding something, then selected two of the bottles and walked back towards us. Stopping between the gurneys holding Danielov and Courtemanche, he raised a spray bottle in each hand and spritzed each of them once. Immediately they both began writhing and crying out in pain, straining against the straps that held them. As Kelley and I watched in horror, their bodies began reshaping themselves, fur sprouting from their skin, faces extending into muzzles, fingernails changing into claws. Within a few minutes they had both become manimals—Danielov a cat, Courtemanche a bear.\n\tRatskellar grinned at us. \"Lovely, isn't it? I finally perfected Father's gene-sculpting formula. No more messy surgery; no more DNA infusions. Quick and relatively painless. Of course, it took a lot of trial and error and a lot of failed attempts, but one can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.\" He gave a \"What-can-you-do?\" shrug.\n\t\"That's easy to say when you're not one of the eggs,\" I said through clenched teeth as I gazed at the two moaning manimals.\n\t\"You're going to loose this on the city!\" said Kelley, her face white as a sheet.\n\tRatskellar nodded, grinning. \"I have five gene bombs ready to go, one for each variant of the formula. They'll be taken to various locations I've chosen to give maximum coverage. When they detonate, Millennium City will become Manimal City. Think of it! A city of ten million manimals!\" He turned to the others. \"You'll be free to walk the streets again—return to your families—whatever you like! They won't be able to cage us or lock us away. There will simply be too many of us! And some will be former superheroes with powers!\" He fixed his magnified red eyes on me. \"Now, about that vasectomy . . .\"\n\tI squirmed as Ratskellar went to fetch a blowtorch. To say I was frightened would have been the understatement of the century. I was petrified. And while I wish I could be noble and selfless enough to say that was I only afraid for the people of Millennium City, the truth of the matter is that I was terrified of what he was going to do to me. I knew exactly what Ratskellar was capable of. I'd seen him do it before. He had enough medical knowledge to keep me alive for a long time before his tortures killed me.\n\tRatskellar came up to me and lit the torch, creating a flickering blue-white tongue of death with a sound like paper tearing. He moved it up between my legs, and I whimpered as I felt the heat of it. Yes, I whimpered, okay? A psychopathic rat was about to burn my privates off. I think I can be forgiven for being afraid. As I said, I'm a scientist, not some square-jawed action hero.\n\t\"You're about to suffer as few beings have ever suffered, Adam,\" Ratskellar said, leering at me. \"You're going to scream and beg for death, and I'm going to enjoy every second of it.\" He moved the flame closer to my groin. The heat from it was nearly unbearable, and it still hadn't even touched me yet. I hoped I would pass out quickly.\n\tThen something weird happened. Ratskellar moved the torch away from my groin and down towards my right foot. At first I thought the sick bastard intended to stretch my torture out even longer, but then I noticed that his face had gone strangely blank. I glanced over at the cat who had been Danielov. He was staring at Ratskellar, his brow furrowed in concentration. He was controlling him! But that shouldn't have been possible. Danielov was only a low-level telepath . . . unless the transformation had boosted his psi powers somehow. \n\tRatskellar started burning through the strap holding my right foot. I winced and gritted my teeth as the heat from the flame seared my leg, crisping the fur there. Well, it beat the alternative, anyway. In a few seconds my foot was free. \n\tI snatched the blowtorch away with my foot and quickly freed my left leg and both my arms. The whole time, Ratskellar just stood there staring at me blankly. Realizing that something was wrong, the other manimals started to advance, only to stop dead as the bear that had been Courtemanche filled the room with a deafening roar and tore free of her bonds, which had after all been designed to hold a human, not a bear. I jumped over to Kelley, who was the next closest to me, and undid her straps as Courtemanche plowed into the manimals. True, some of them were bears as well, but she was a trained combat specialist and they were just transformed civilians.\n\tUnfortunately, there were a lot of them. Courtemanche quickly went down, buried by sheer numbers. I looked over at Danielov, who was still strapped to his gurney and cut off from me and Kelley by manimals. The cat looked back at me, and I heard his voice in my head: \"Go!\" I swallowed, nodding. He was a brave man. I don't know if I could have done that. I grabbed Kelley's arm, and together we fled into the closest tunnel.\n\tWe ran as if the devil himself were on our tails, bullets zinging past us as the manimals fired down the tunnel. It wasn't all that wide, so even though they couldn't see us directly, just shooting at random still gave them a good chance of hitting something. I heard Kelley cry out as one struck her, and hoped her body armor would protect her. It was pitch dark in the tunnel, but we could see a light up ahead. No doubt the manimals had all the major chambers illuminated for their own convenience. Of course, that also meant we could be heading right into a bunch of them, but there weren't a whole lot of alternatives.\n\tThe tunnel opened into a large, empty, torchlit chamber that served as a junction between several major conduits, presenting us with the perfect opportunity to lose our pursuers.\n\tI picked an opening at random, then a second one, then a third. Pulling Kelley towards the third, we ducked inside. I took a small chemical glowstick from a pocket of my jumpsuit and lit it up so we wouldn't be running totally blind. We hit a series of intersections, and I tried my best to randomize which direction we went at each one, wanting to avoid creating a pattern. Then I spotted an opening about three feet in diameter in the side of our tunnel, and clambered into it. Kelley followed me, and we moved about a hundred feet down it—both of us on all fours—before we finally stopped, sitting there gasping for breath with hard concrete against our backs. I put the glowstick back in my pocket to avoid giving away our location.\n\t\"How did you get free?\" Kelley asked finally.\n\t\"You didn't see what happened?\"\n\t\"I was looking the other way. I didn't want to watch him torture you.\"\n\t\"Oh.\" I felt strangely flattered by that. \"Danielov compelled him to free me.\"\n\t\"What? He can't do that.\"\n\t\"He can now.\"\n\tShe fell silent. Then I heard her choke back a sob.\n\t\"I'm sorry,\" I said.\n\t\"They were both friends of mine,\" she said, her voice tight.\n\t\"They're not dead, you know.\"\n\t\"No, I don't, and neither do you! Right now Ratskellar could be doing to them what he was going to do to you!\"\n\t\"Ratskellar has bigger fish to fry.\" I winced at my unfortunate choice of words. A spot on my right leg still burned from where the flame had almost touched it.\n\t\"They helped us escape! In case you hadn't noticed, he's a tad vindictive!\"\n\t\"He had a personal score to settle with me. I betrayed his god.\"\n\t\"And now bloody Moreau is going to reach up out of his grave and turn ten million people into monsters!\"\n\t\"Is that how you see me?\" I asked, trying not to reveal how hurt I felt. \"As a monster?\"\n\t\"No offense, Adam, but you shouldn't exist.\"\n\t\"How could I possibly be offended by that?\" I asked, no longer bothering to hide my anger.\n\t\"What Moreau did was a crime against nature!\"\n\tI growled. \"Yes, because nature is so fucking wonderful! Nature makes diseases that decimate whole continents, and wasps that lay their eggs in hosts who are then devoured alive by the larvae, and babies who are born without brains. Nature is so cruel and heartless that people have tied themselves in philosophical knots trying to reconcile it with their notions of a caring, loving god.\"\n\t\"And you think humans can do better?\" she asked sarcastically. \"Humans like Moreau?\"\n\t\"Look, I hated Moreau and everything he stood for, but at least humans have the ability to care. Nature doesn't care; nature just does what it does.\"\n\tShe chuckled mirthlessly. \"This is rich. The chimp is defending humans and the human is attacking them.\"\n\t\"It's not as illogical as it sounds,\" I said. \"Without humans I wouldn't exist, at least not in my present form, and you belong to an international police force whose main job is to stop humans from killing each other. It's only natural that you'd develop a negative view of them, given what you see day after day. But the existence of UNTIL is a testament to the nobler side of human nature, the side that cares enough to help. They helped my people—not for gain or for glory, but because we were suffering under the rule of a madman. I'll always be grateful to them for that.\"\n\t\"You make us sound like saints,\" said Kelley. \"Let me tell you something, Adam. Monster Island was in many ways a unique situation. There are dozens of little tinpot dictators all over the world who torture and murder their own people every day, and UNTIL doesn't lift a finger to stop them because our charter doesn't allow us to conduct operations within the borders of a sovereign nation without that nation's consent. Monster Island is legally part of the Federated States of Micronesia. Moreau paid their government to leave him alone, so for years there was nothing we could do about him. It wasn't until we convinced the Micronesians that it would be in their own best interest to get rid of him that we were finally able to move in.\"\n\t\"Why?\" I asked, feeling a bit disillusioned. \"Why did you bother, if you didn't care what he was doing to us?\"\n\tShe sighed. \"Because we realized that Moreau was a threat to the peace and security of the world, a fact which at this point should be all too obvious. Human beings are ridiculously weak and helpless compared to the rest of the animal kingdom. Almost every other species is stronger, faster, or better armed than we are. Consider us. I'm a trained martial artist and you're a chimpanzee nerd, for lack of a less invidious term. Yet with your natural strength I'd be hard pressed to defeat you. The only thing we humans have going for us—the only thing that's allowed us to survive—is our monopoly on intelligence. If you take that away from us . . .\"\n\t\"Then all you have is immense military and technological superiority,\" I said dryly. \"Not to mention outnumbering us by about seven million to one. We're no threat to your dominance. You could wipe us out anytime you felt like it.\"\n\t\"That's how things stand now,\" she said. \"What about in the future?\"\n\t\"That depends on whether you treat us as friends and equals . . . or as monsters.\"\n\tShe was silent for a moment. \"My words were ill-chosen,\" she said at last. \"I apologize.\"\n\t\"Don't worry about it,\" I said. \"Let's focus on stopping Ratskellar.\"\n\t\"Unfortunately, I don't see how we can,\" she said bitterly. \"We don't have a map of the sewer system, and even if we did, we have no idea where his gene bombs are.\"\n\t\"I do,\" said a voice inside my head.\n\t\"Danielov?\" I asked out loud.\n\t\"Bogdan?\" asked Kelley. \"Are you all right?\"\n\t\"No, not really,\" he replied. \"I am still tied down, and Ratskellar has blindfolded me to keep me from controlling anyone else. And I'm a cat.\"\n\t\"I'm sorry about what he did to you,\" I said.\n\t\"These things happen. Let us try to make sure it does not happen to anyone else.\"\n\t\"You said you know where the gene bombs are?\" asked Kelley.\n\t\"Yes. Unfortunately, I do not know where [i]you[/i] are, which makes directing you to them somewhat difficult.\"\n\t\"These are the directions we followed when we fled from Ratskellar,\" I said, and began relaying them to him.\n\t\"Ah, I see now. You must go to a large chamber northwest of your present location. From there a manhole will give you access to the surface. The bombs are aboard a semi-trailer truck in a warehouse adjacent to the manhole.\"\n\tKelley checked her wrist compass. \"Got it. Can you tell us how to get there?\"\n\t\"No, I cannot. I do not know the layout of the sewers, only the general direction.\"\n\tI shrugged. \"It's better than nothing.\"\n\tKelley sighed. \"What do you have in the way of weapons, Adam?\"\n\t\"Nothing. They took my utility belt. All I've got is these.\" I took the glowstick back out. \"How about you?\"\n\t\"Nothing,\" said Kelley.\n\t\"What, don't your boots turn into bazookas or something?\"\n\t\"You've seen too many spy movies.\"\n\tWe looked at each other for a moment.\n\t\"We're going to die,\" I said.\n\t\"It's a distinct possibility,\" she replied, nodding. \n\t\"Well, let's give them a fight they'll remember.\"\n\t\"I intend to.\"\n\t\"Good luck and Godspeed, my friends,\" said Danielov. \"I wish I were going with you.\"\n\t\"Thanks for the help, lieutenant,\" I said. \n\tWe began heading northeast down the tunnel, hoping it would turn west at some point.\n\n\tAfter a long slog through a seemingly endless succession of dark, dank tunnels—and more than a few wrong turns that forced us to retrace our steps—we finally came upon the chamber that Danielov had mentioned. It was unoccupied; Ratskellar was apparently so confident we wouldn't be able to find it that he hadn't bothered to post any guards. A steel-rung ladder climbed one concrete wall to a manhole in the ceiling. I clambered up it—chimps being naturally good at that sort of thing—and lifted the heavy iron manhole cover a few inches, peering out at what lay above.\n\t\"What do you see?\" asked Kelley, clinging to the ladder just beneath me.\n\t\"It's an alley,\" I replied. \"There's a doorway in one side. The ends are blocked off by wooden fences.\"\n\t\"Any guards?\"\n\t\"Nope.\"\n\t\"Let's go, then.\"\n\tI pushed the cover aside and climbed up into the trash-strewn alley, then turned and offered Kelley my hand. She took it, and I pulled her up easily to join me. Several rats—normal ones—scampered about in the refuse around us.\n\t\"Thank you, Adam,\" she said. \"It's good to be out of that miserable sewer.\" Kelley walked over to the door. There was a small window in it, but it was covered with newspaper from the inside. She tried the knob, but it was locked. Taking a set of picks from a pocket of her jumpsuit, she knelt down and went to work on it. Within a few minutes we heard the lock click.\n\t\"Very impressive,\" I said.\n\t\"Standard UNTIL training,\" she replied. \"It's not unlike doing surgery, actually.\" She eased the door open a crack and peered inside.\n\t\"What do you see?\" I asked anxiously.\n\t\"A big articulated lorry, just as Danielov described, and a dozen or so manimals carrying automatic weapons.\"\n\t\"Is Ratskellar there?\"\n\t\"I don't see him.\"\n\t\"Could we get to the truck without being spotted?\"\n\t\"Not a chance.\" She glanced back at me. \"It might be best if we found a phone and called UNTIL.\"\n\t\"And take the chance that they'll leave before the cavalry arrives?\"\n\t\"Do you think that's likely?\"\n\tI noted the length of the shadows around us. \"Ratskellar is going to want to blow his gene bombs before everyone goes home for the day, so he can convert as many people as possible.\"\n\tShe nodded. \"Point taken.\" She looked back inside. \"If one of us creates a diversion, the other might be able to get to the lorry and drive the bloody thing out of there.\"\n\t\"Without the key?\" I asked.\n\t\"I can hotwire a car in under thirty seconds.\"\n\t\"Thirty seconds is a long time when people are shooting at you.\"\n\t\"Hence the need for a diversion.\"\n\tI sighed, seeing where this was going. \"Okay, fine. I'll tank for you. But I want a statue in my honor erected in Millennium Plaza—one that will put King Kong to shame.\"\n\tKelley smiled. \"I'll see what I can do.\"\n\tShe moved aside, and I took her place at the door, scoping out the interior. Several manimal guards holding Uzi submachine guns stood between us and the truck, the back of which was facing me, its tailgate open. That gave me an idea.\n\t\"What kind of explosive do you suppose is in the gene bombs?\" I asked.\n\tKelley furrowed her brow. \"Demolitions is Courtemanche's specialty, not mine. Considering that Ratskellar is going for dispersion rather than a fireball, I'd guess some low-velocity compound like TNT or ANFO.\"\n\t\"How do those react to bullets hitting them?\"\n\t\"Not too well. We don't want the bombs to blow, Adam. We'd be doing Ratskellar's dirty work for him.\"\n\t\"I'd imagine the manimals in the warehouse don't want them to blow, either.\"\n\t\"Do you imagine they're smart enough not to shoot?\"\n\t\"They used to be human. Most people have a natural aversion to shooting at high explosives.\"\n\t\"Then the trick will be reaching the lorry without getting killed in the process.\"\n\t\"Yeah.\" I looked back through the crack in the door. There was about sixty feet of floor between me and the truck, and not much in the way of cover. I estimated I could reach it in about two seconds, which is roughly the same time it takes to empty an Uzi's entire thirty-round clip. My Kevlar jumpsuit could stop bullets, but the impacts would still hurt like hell, and if the manimals got lucky and nailed me in a foot, a hand, or my head, that would be it. Still, there weren't a whole lot of other options open to me. I glanced back at Kelley. \"As soon as their attention is on me, head for the cab. I'll try to buy you as much time as I can.\"\n\tShe nodded. \"You're a brave manimal, Adam.\"\n\tI chuckled. I didn't feel brave. I felt absolutely terrified. This action movie hero bullshit was not for me. I grasped the doorknob, took a deep breath, then threw it open and charged through.\n\tThe one nearest to me—a stag—did a perfect double-take, then yelled: \"It's Adam! Kill him!\" He raised his Uzi and ripped off a spray of lead as I leaped. Fortunately, his aim was too low and all his bullets missed as I sailed over him, clearing his rack of antlers by inches. I may be more at home in a lab than a tree, but I can still be pretty agile when I have to be. Like now, for instance. Thank you, evolution.\n\tI hit the floor hands-first behind him and somersaulted, rolling to my feet and continuing on without stopping. Now they were all around me, but that actually worked to my advantage; they couldn't shoot at me without risking hitting each other. One cat apparently failed to realize this, however, as he let fly with a burst of bullets, and pain exploded in my side as one found its mark. Still, I fared better than the bear who had been standing to the other side of me, whose pelt sprouted several crimson blossoms. He collapsed in a heap as the cat yowled in anguish at what he'd just done. It would have been easier for me to feel sorry for them if they hadn't both been trying to kill me.\n\tI leaped onto the tailgate of the truck. Inside were five steel drums, each of which was wired with some kind of electronic timer. Also inside was Ratskellar. His red eyes went wide behind his thick glasses as his mouth fell open. \"Adam?\"\n\t\"Hi, Rats,\" I said, grinning. \"Can I bum a ride?\" This was perfect. Ratskellar was no match for me physically, and the other manimals wouldn't dare shoot into the truck with him inside. My grin faded as he whipped a pistol out of his lab coat and aimed it at me. I threw up my arms to shield my face as he fired. The bullet struck my right forearm, and I felt one of the bones there fracture. The pain was incredible, like hot needles being driven into my flesh. I howled and hurled myself at him, knocking him on his back. He squirmed desperately beneath me, his gun arm pinned between us. I tried to put him in a hold, but he was a wriggly little cuss and I now had only one working arm. He got away from me, and I ducked behind one of the drums as he fired. The bullet struck the floor where I'd been lying a moment before.\n\t\"You're going to blow us both up, Rats!\" I yelled.\n\t\"Fine with me!\" he cackled. \"Even with suboptimal dispersion, the formula will still do its job! I'd like to see the results, of course, but either way it will be a fitting monument to my genius!\" He fired again, hitting the drum I was hiding behind but missing me.\n\t\"You are totally bug-fuck insane, you know that, Rats?\"\n\tRatskellar giggled. \"Like father, like son!\" Another bullet punctured the drum. The fluid inside was dribbling out the holes and pooling on the floor at my feet. Fortunately I'm already a manimal, so it had no effect on me.\n\tAt that moment, the truck's engine growled to life, and a second later it jerked forward violently as Kelley floored it. Ratskellar lost his balance and disappeared as he fell off the back. I braced myself as the truck smashed into the warehouse door, tearing through it like tissue paper, leaving a trail of shredded aluminum in its wake. A couple more bullets zinged past me as Ratskellar fired at the escaping truck.\n\tAs we barreled through the streets of Westside, I went to the tailgate and climbed up onto the roof. Another advantage of being a chimp—a human with a broken arm would have had only one usable hand, but I still had three. I made my way across the top of the trailer and jumped down onto the roof of the cab, swinging inside through the open window and landing on the passenger seat next to Kelley. She grinned happily at me.\n\t\"Nice to see you made it, Adam!\" Then her expression turned to one of concern. \"You're hurt!\"\n\t\"It's just a broken arm,\" I said, gritting my teeth through the pain. \"Nothing serious.\"\n\tShe nodded. \"That was the bravest thing I've ever seen anyone do.\"\n\t\"Make sure to mention it in your report.\"\n\t\"I fully intend to. The whole world should know what you did today.\"\n\tI looked into her eyes and saw genuine respect there. No, more than respect. Admiration. It made me feel good inside.\n\tOur little moment was interrupted by a fusillade of bullets from above. I stuck my head out the window and looked up.\n\t\"What is it?\" asked Kelley.\n\t\"It's Ratskellar, being carried by a bird manimal,\" I replied. \"He's still trying to set off the bombs!\" The rat was holding an Uzi, which he had just finished emptying into the truck, and was in the process of slapping in another clip.\n\tKelley scowled. \"I don't see what we can do about it. We'll just have to hope he runs out of ammo before he succeeds.\"\n\tI thought for a moment. Ratskellar was smart and paranoid. He'd have planned for every contingency. I opened the glove compartment. Sure enough, there was a gun in there. I grabbed it and leaned out the window, taking a bead on the bird and rat above us. I had to use my off hand, since my right arm was useless, and the bouncing and swerving of the truck didn't help my aim any. I fired, and by sheer luck managed to score a hit on the bird. Both bird and rat plummeted onto the roof of the truck with a loud thud.\n\tI climbed up onto the roof of the cab and raised my head to peer across the roof of the trailer, which was about two feet higher. The bird was clearly dead. Ratskellar was lying sprawled face down, clutching the Uzi in his paw. He must have had some cat DNA in him, because he apparently had nine lives.\n\t\"Swerve!\" I yelled down to Kelley. \"Try to knock him off!\" She obliged, and the truck veered left, forcing both me and Ratskellar to steady ourselves. He glared at me, and I noticed he'd lost his glasses. That was good news for me; without them he could barely see. He narrowed his weak red eyes and aimed his gun, spraying lead at me. I ducked down, and the bullets flew harmlessly above my head.\n\tOnce his clip was empty, I stood up and aimed my pistol at him. He had discarded the Uzi and was drawing his pistol from his lab coat. I fired and missed, the swerving of the truck throwing my aim off. He fired and nailed me square in my chest, which felt like being hit with a sledgehammer. I collapsed atop the roof of the cab, gasping for breath.\n\tRatskellar walked to the front of the truck, steadying himself against the swerves, his white, bucktoothed face grinning maniacally as his lab coat billowed in the wind. He squinted his beady red eyes and took careful aim at me. Even at this close range he was having trouble seeing. \"Goodbye, Adam,\" he hissed.\n\t\"Heads up,\" I said.\n\t\"What?\" asked Ratskellar, raising his head. A cable slung across the street holding a traffic light clotheslined him across his throat, sweeping him out of my sight. Why do people always raise their heads when you say that to them? They're supposed to do the opposite. \n\tI pounded on the roof of the cab, and the truck braked slowly and came to a stop. Kelley opened the door and climbed up next to me, looking around. \"Where's Ratskellar?\"\n\t\"He's roadkill,\" I wheezed. My chest felt like there was an anvil sitting atop it. I grinned up at her. \"You ran a red light. You can get a ticket for that.\"\n\tShe smiled, stroking the side of my face. \"I'll pay it.\" Then she leaned over and kissed me on the lips, which surprised me. \"I'm going to find a phone and call UNTIL. Will you be all right?\"\n\tI nodded. \"Yeah, I'll just lie here counting the little birdies.\"\n\t\"I'll be back as soon as I can.\" She slid down off the roof. I lay there staring up at the sky. Each breath was a new adventure in pain. At some point I blacked out.\n\n\tWhen I awoke I found myself lying in a hospital bed, my right arm in a cast, a bandage across my chest. There was an IV in my left arm. It must have been feeding me something for the pain, because I didn't feel any, but I also couldn't move much. I groped for the call button and pressed it. Within a couple of minutes a pretty nurse came through the door. I asked her where I was. She informed me I was in the infirmary at UNTIL headquarters. I asked her if I could please have a glass of water, and she got me one, holding it to my lips while I drank and then wiping my mouth with a tissue. She asked me if there was anything else I needed. I shook my head, and she told me to press the button if there was. Then she left.\n\tA few minutes later the door opened again and Kelley came in, wearing a lab coat over her uniform, accompanied by Major Martinez. Apparently he'd flown here from New York just to see me in person. I guess I'd impressed him.\n\t\"Hello, Adam,\" Kelley said, smiling.\n\t\"Hello, Doctor. Hello, Major.\"\n\t\"How are you feeling, soldier?\" asked Martinez.\n\t\"Numb,\" I replied.\n\tKelley nodded. \"I put you on fentanyl. You had a fractured ulna and three cracked ribs.\"\n\t\"That'll teach me to be a hero.\"\n\t\"Speaking of which,\" said Martinez, picking up the TV remote and switching it on. A female newscaster's face appeared, along with a headline that read: MANIMAL SAVES CITY. Above it was my driver's license photo, which I've always hated.\n\t\"Congratulations,\" said Martinez. \"You just became a celebrity.\"\n\t\"You didn't cover it up?\" I asked.\n\tHe shrugged. \"Why bother? It's good publicity, both for us and for you.\"\n\t\"We've been barraged with requests for interviews,\" said Kelley. \"Everyone wants to talk to you. And Mayor Biselle wants to thank you personally.\"\n\t\"Great,\" I muttered. \"Harmon must be loving this.\" Then a thought struck me. \"What about Courtemanche and Danielov? Are they all right?\"\n\tMartinez nodded. \"The manimals in the sewers released them unharmed and surrendered peacefully. With Ratskellar dead, they apparently decided that was their best move.\"\n\t\"So he really is dead?\" I asked anxiously.\n\t\"As the proverbial doornail,\" said Kelley. \"I examined his body after I called UNTIL. His neck was broken. He must have died instantly.\"\n\t\"Thank God for that,\" I said, sinking back into my pillow and sighing with relief. \"So what's going to happen to the others?\"\n\t\"They're all American citizens,\" said Martinez. \"The authorities will see what they can do about re-integrating them into society. As for Lieutenant Danielov and Sergeant Courtemanche, I see no reason why they can't continue working for UNTIL. Danielov especially, with his expanded psi abilities, could be extremely useful to us. We can always use brave, talented people, no matter what they look like.\" He regarded me intently.\n\tI shook my head. \"I'm happy with the job I have, thanks. And I don't like people shooting at me.\"\n\tHe shrugged. \"Suit yourself. Regardless, you have UNTIL's gratitude, and my respect. You were a real man today, Adam.\"\n\t\"I don't think that's paying him much of a compliment, Major,\" said Kelley, causing Martinez to raise an eyebrow. \"There are precious few men who would have shown the kind of courage Adam did.\"\n\t\"Be that as it may,\" said Martinez, \"we owe you one. Anytime you need anything, just call.\"\n\tI nodded to him. \"Thank you, Major.\"\n\t\"You're welcome. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to. Good evening to you both.\" He turned and left the room, leaving Kelley and me alone together.\n\t\"Can I get you anything?\" asked Kelley.\n\t\"You could explain something for me. Why the kiss?\"\n\tShe blushed, which made her look fetchingly vulnerable, not at all like the tough, professional exterior she generally wore. \"I'm not certain myself, actually. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I suppose I thought you'd earned it.\"\n\t\"I see,\" I said. \"So that's it, then.\"\n\t\"I apologize if I gave you the wrong impression,\" she said. \"As I said, I wasn't thinking very clearly at the time. It was a rather stressful situation.\"\n\tI looked at her. \"Do you have any training in psychology, doctor?\"\n\tShe nodded. \"A little.\"\n\t\"Then you should know that it's when people are under stress that their true feelings tend to come out.\"\n\tShe hesitated a moment before responding. \"I suppose that's possible.\"\n\t\"In that case, would you mind having dinner with me?\"\n\tShe stared at me a moment, then smiled. \"Why not? You're the man of the hour, after all. It'll have to wait until you're discharged, however. Doctors aren't supposed to date their patients.\"\n\tI nodded. \"Hospital food isn't very romantic anyway. What do you prefer?\"\n\t\"I don't hate Italian.\"\n\t\"I know a place in Little Italy called Gultieri's that serves a mean ravioli stuffed with shrimp and lobster.\"\n\t\"That sounds lovely.\"\n\t\"So it's a date, then?\"\n\tShe nodded. \"Definitely.\" Then she picked up my chart and examined it, once again the consummate professional. \"I think I'll lower the dosage of your medication. You seem to be responding quite well to treatment.\" She smiled at me.\n\tI smiled back. \"I have a great doctor.\"\n\tShe leaned over and kissed me again. \"Get well soon, hero.\" Then she left the room.\n\tI lay back in my bed and put my left arm behind my head, grinning. Score one for the chimp.\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "
An Ape for All Seasons


A story set in the universe of Champions Online


\tHave you ever looked back after something bad happened to you, to a point just a little bit before, and reminisced? Maybe you thought to yourself, "Man, everything was fine then. I was just going about my life like always, without a clue what was waiting up ahead. I sure wish I were back there now." Ever done that?
\tThe point I'm wishing I were back at right now is when I woke up this morning. It was a completely ordinary morning, just like thousands of previous mornings. I awoke lying sprawled on my back in my warm, comfortable bed in my penthouse apartment in Millennium City, feeling relaxed and rested and ready to face a new day. I threw aside the covers and climbed down off the bed, walked into the bathroom, did my morning business, then got in the shower and turned on the hot water, groaning with pleasure as it soaked through my fur to my skin.
\tBy the way, my name is Adam, and I'm a chimp.
\tNot an ordinary chimp, obviously, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. I'm what's known as a manimal, created by the brilliant, visionary, and totally insane scientist Dr. Philippe Moreau. If that name sounds familiar to you, feel free to congratulate yourself on your literary erudition and give yourself a cookie. Yes, he was the great-grandson of that Dr. Moreau, the one who—thanks to H. G. Wells—most people believed until recently was a fictional character. I suppose I should be glad he wasn't, because otherwise I wouldn't exist, or at least I wouldn't be the world's smartest chimp. Then again, I also wouldn't be wishing I were back in bed this morning. But I digress.
\tAfter drying off from my shower (which is a job and a half when you're as hairy as me), drinking my morning coffee, and wolfing down a quick breakfast of Hero Os (the SUPER cereal), I got dressed (yes, I wear a suit and tie to work), went downstairs, got in my car, and drove off to my job. Look! My life is just as boring as yours!
\tWell, maybe not quite. I work for Harmon Industries, in their Advanced Projects division. See, I'm not just the world's smartest chimp; I'm also smarter than about ninety-nine percent of all humans. At the moment I head up a design team working on a new kind of anti-graviton generator that will be smaller and more energy efficient than any existing model. Or so we hope. You might wonder how my team feels about taking orders from a chimp. I wonder about that myself sometimes. But it doesn't really matter. James Harmon IV didn't hire me for my looks. At least I hope he didn't. He hired me because I get results. If any members of my team aren't comfortable taking orders from a chimp, they can always ask for a transfer. So far, nobody has.
\tJust as I entered the building, I got a call on my cell phone from my boss, who likes me to call him "Jim." UNTIL—the United Nations Tribunal on International Law—had a situation that required my expertise. When I asked him what kind of situation, he said they hadn't told him, but he was sure it must be important, so he'd told them I'd be right over. Jim is nice like that. Sighing, I went back to my car.
\tBy a happy coincidence that isn't, UNTIL's North American division offices just happen to be right here in Millennium City. I drove up to the entrance to their parking garage and flashed my ID to the guard, who did an admirable job of looking unfazed by the sight of a chimp driving a car. Then again, he worked for UNTIL, so maybe it wasn't such a big deal to him. UNTIL agents have to contend with a lot of weird stuff.
\tI was met at the elevator by a tall, slim woman with long, dark-brown hair. She wore the blue-grey jumpsuit, black combat boots, and black beret of an UNTIL agent. I suppose she was attractive by human standards, but I only say that because she resembled other human females who are generally considered attractive. As you might imagine, I have different standards of beauty. She did shake my hand without hesitation, though.
\t"Hello, Adam," she said, speaking with a British accent. "Welcome to UNTIL. I'm Dr. Cassandra Kelley."
\tOkay, I admit it. I'm a sucker for British accents. I think they're sexy. I can't explain why.
\t"Hello, Dr. Kelley," I replied. "What can I do for you?"
\t"We were hoping you might be able to help us with a little problem we've encountered," she said as we rode up in the elevator.
\t"What sort of problem?"
\t"A manimal problem."
\tI raised an eyebrow. "UNTIL is having a problem with manimals?"
\t"The Millenium City police found one dead in Westside last night."
\tI was shocked. "What was a manimal doing in Westside?"
\t"That's the problem. There aren't supposed to be any there. Apart from a handful of exceptions—like you—they're all on Monster Island."
\t"Maybe he was an escapee from ARGENT," I suggested.
\tShe shook her head. "I don't think so."
\t"Why not? They used to kidnap manimals all the time."
\t"Since ARGENT's base on Monster Island was destroyed, UNTIL has been monitoring their activities very closely. It is our opinion that they have stopped using manimals."
\tI smirked. "ARGENT is a multinational corporation with assets scattered across the globe. Just because you haven't found any manimals in any of their facilities that you know about—"
\t"Also," she interrupted, "all of ARGENT's manimals have tracking devices implanted in their bodies. This one doesn't."
\tShe had me there.
\tThe elevator door opened and she led me down a brightly-lit corridor. We passed several UNTIL agents, going about their duties, who tried really hard not to stare at me.
\t"What kind of doctor are you?" I asked as we walked.
\t"I'm an MD, a graduate of King's College London School of Medicine."
\tI was now officially impressed. "What's your specialty?"
\t"Biomedical research. I'm UNTIL's top expert on manimals."
\t"Are you now?" I smiled. "Lucky you happened to be in town."
\t"I was stationed at UNTIL headquarters in New York. I just arrived in Millennium City this morning."
\t"Caught the red-eye, did you?"
\tShe looked down at me. "Why, does it show?"
\tI shook my head. "You look perfect."
\t"Thank you, but considering that you're a chimpanzee, you'll forgive me if I hold your opinion somewhat suspect."
\tI shrugged. "Hold it any way you like."
\tWe came to a door, which she opened for me. It led into a laboratory with a table upon which lay a body beneath a sheet. It didn't take a genius to see that it wasn't human. The wings and clawed feet were a bit of a giveaway.
\tKelley drew back the sheet and I climbed up onto a stool to get a better look. It was a fairly typical bird manimal, with a head similar to a vulture's, its humanoid body covered with fine, oily, black feathers. There was a bullet hole in its abdomen.
\t"Do you know this manimal?" she asked.
\t"Never seen him before," I replied. "Did he have anything on him when he was found?"
\tShe shook her head. "He was exactly as you see him now."
\tI looked the body over. "I don't see any scars or tattoos. Manimals typically have plenty of both."
\t"You don't," she pointed out.
\t"I was given special treatment. Moreau thought my intelligence would make me useful to him."
\tNow it was her turn to smirk. "Well, that certainly didn't work out for him, did it?"
\t"Have you extracted the bullet?" I asked.
\t"It passed through him. He was shot in the back. The hole in his belly is an exit wound. It appears to have been a nine-millimeter round. There are no powder burns on his feathers, indicating that he was shot from a fair distance away. He lived at least an hour before he bled to death."
\t"Enough time to have traveled some distance from where he was shot."
\tShe nodded. "Possibly as much as a mile."
\tI rubbed my chin. The lack of scars and tattoos was bugging me. Moreau had been a good little Darwinist who frequently pitted his creations against each other in bloody gladiatorial games to cull the weak. Rare was the manimal who didn't bear the scars of such conflict. Those who survived had developed a primitive, tribal culture that included ritual tattooing. How had this bird escaped all that unscathed?
\tI looked up at Kelley. "Do you have a mass spec?"
\t"There's one just behind you," she said, nodding at it with her head.
\t"Could you draw a sample of fatty tissue from his body? Preferably from somewhere in the central nervous system?"
\t"Certainly," she said, readying a syringe. As Kelley extracted the sample from the corpse, I hopped off my stool and went over to the mass spectrometer.
\t"Need any help with that?" she asked.
\t"Nah, I'll be fine. It's just like the one in my lab." I switched the machine on and let it warm up. After I'd adjusted its settings, Kelley came over and injected the sample.
\t"What are you looking for?" she asked as we waited for the machine to conduct its analysis.
\tI lectured to her in my best professorial tone. "Monster Island—as I'm sure you're well aware—is home to a very active volcano: Andrithal. Volcanoes produce a lot of heavy metals. What's more, each volcano has its own unique signature, making it possible to trace their ejecta back to them. I happen to know that Andrithal's ash contains unusually high levels of molybdenum, which finds its way into every living thing on Monster Island. Once it becomes incorporated into fatty tissues—like the myelin coatings around nerves—it stays there for years."
\t"You're trying to show that he came from Monster Island?" she asked. "We already know that."
\t"I'm not so sure." The mass spectrometer hummed softly as it did its thing and began displaying the fruits of its labor on the screen before us. I heard Kelley gasp beside me.
\t"There's almost no molybdenum!" she said.
\tI nodded. "In fact, all the heavy metals look normal. People who live near volcanoes almost always have elevated levels of lead, zinc and copper." I turned towards her. "That bird's not from Monster Island."
\t"Where the hell else could it be from?" she demanded.
\t"That's a good question." I gazed back at the corpse on the table. "Where did you come from, stranger?"

\tAn hour later we were in a conference room, conversing with a hologram of Major Juan Martinez, UNTIL's director, from his office in New York. He listened to our findings, his dark, penetrating eyes staring at us from beneath his black beret, his transparent, grizzled face lined with concern.
\t"You're sure it's not from Monster Island?" he asked.
\t"We tested three samples from his body," I replied. "According to those, he's never been near a volcano in his life."
\t"Well, where else do manimals come from?" asked Martinez.
\t"As far as we know, nowhere," said Kelley. "And there's no ARGENT tracking device implanted, so that rules them out."
\t"Is it possible that it might have been off the island for a while, and that the tracking device was removed?" asked Martinez.
\t"There's no evidence of any such removal, Director," said Kelley.
\t"Also, it would take several years for the heavy metals in his body to decline to normal background levels," I added, "and that still wouldn't explain the lack of scars and tattoos. Almost all manimals have them."
\tMartinez nodded. "Doctor Kelley, you said it couldn't have traveled more than a mile from where it was shot?"
\t"If that," said Kelley.
\t"Then it sounds like you have your search area," said Martinez. "Put a team together and scour every building within a mile of where the bird was found. Bring in the MCPD if you have to."
\t"Understood, Director," said Kelley.
\tMartinez turned his eyes to me. "Adam, even though you're a civilian, I'd appreciate it if you'd accompany Dr. Kelley's team. Your unique insights regarding manimals could prove to be invaluable."
\t"UNTIL did their part helping out my people when we needed it, Director," I said. "I'm happy to return the favor." I noted that Kelley didn't look too happy, though she tried not to show it.
\tMartinez nodded. "Keep me informed. Martinez out." His image flickered and vanished.
\tKelley turned to me. "Would you like me to requisition any equipment for you?" she asked, keeping her voice formal and polite.
\tI smiled at her. "That won't be necessary. I can take care of myself."
\t"In that case, meet me in the parking garage in thirty minutes." She spun on her heels and left the room.
\tI went down to the parking garage to my car, opened the trunk, and removed a suitcase. I felt like Superman as I pulled open my shirt, except that there was nothing underneath but my hairy chest. The parking garage was empty, which afforded me some privacy while I changed, but I don't suppose anyone would have been especially offended by the sight of a naked chimp anyway. Within a few minutes I'd traded my suit and tie for a red-and-white jumpsuit and a utility belt with a selection of gadgets I'd invented. I also took the opportunity to check in with my boss and give him an update on what I was doing, and then called my team and asked them how work was progressing on the anti-graviton generator. Everything was apparently running smoothly in my absence. I went to a vending machine and bought myself a candy bar while I waited for Kelley and her team to arrive.
\tThey showed up at exactly the thirty minute mark. Besides Kelley, there were a slim, swarthy man with a mustache who looked to be in his late twenties, and a tough-looking middle-aged woman whose blond hair was streaked with gray. All three wore dull silver torso armor over their UNTIL uniforms, as well as pistols at their hips. The two newcomers both regarded me without expression. I suppose Kelley had already informed them what to expect.
\t"Adam, this is Lieutenant Bogdan Danielov of Bulgaria," said Kelley, indicating the man and pronouncing his rank "leftenant" the way upper-class Brits do, "and Sergeant Yanick Courtemanche of France. Lt. Danielov possesses psi talents that have proven highly useful in the past, while Sgt. Courtemanche is one of our most experienced agents."
\tI nodded to both of them. "Pleased to meet you." They both nodded back.
\t"All right, let's get this show on the road," said Kelley. She led us to an ordinary-looking sedan, tossing Courtemanche the keys, which she caught without even looking. Danielov and I got in the back while Kelley rode shotgun, and out we drove into the streets of Millennium City, heading for Westside.
\t"Do you read minds, lieutenant?" I asked Danielov.
\t"I can," he replied, with a soft Slavic accent, "but it is not easy, and I only get surface thoughts. However, I can usually tell when people are lying."
\t"Makes him hell to play cards with," said Kelley.
\tDanielov smiled. "Perhaps you are simply a bad card player, Cassandra."
\t"Not bloody likely. Back in medical school they used to call me 'the Shark.'"
\t"There is always a bigger fish." He looked at me. "I have never worked with a manimal before. This should be interesting."
\tI shrugged. "I've never worked with a Bulgarian psychic before, so ditto."
\t"How long have you been living in the United States?"
\t"Two years and change. UNTIL arranged for my immigration in return for my help in defeating Dr. Moreau."
\t"So you turned on your creator," said Danielov.
\tI gave him a hard stare. "Philippe Moreau was a madman and a sadist. The world is better off without him."
\t "I hear some manimals still revere him as a god."
\t"Megalomaniacs tend to encourage that sort of thing. As a Bulgar, you should know that all too well."
\tDanielov frowned. "Zhivkov brought Bulgaria into the modern world."
\t"And brutally suppressed all dissent for thirty-five years, not to mention expelling the ethnic Turks. Even the Soviets condemned that."
\tHe shrugged. "I was a child when he fell from power."
\t"So you've never experienced firsthand what it's like to live in an absolute dictatorship. I have. It's no fun."
\t"I understand your position among Moreau's manimals was . . . privileged?"
\tI nodded. "I had it better than most, certainly, but I was still a slave. And I never asked for special treatment. In any case, my position just made it that much easier for me to help destroy him."
\t"I am curious, then: Why did you choose to leave? Surely your knowledge and intelligence would have been most helpful to your people in their struggle to build a new society."
\t"As you said, there are manimals who still worship Moreau. They consider me a traitor. Others view me as a collaborator who only betrayed him to save my own skin. I decided the best thing was to make a clean break with the past and start fresh someplace else."
\tCourtemanche chuckled.
\t"Is something funny, sergeant?" asked Kelley sharply.
\tCourtemanche grinned at her. "I was born in Algeria, Doctor. My parents were pied-noir, French colonials. After Algeria became independent, we fled to France to avoid reprisals from the nationalists. I can sympathize with Adam's situation."
\tI decided I liked Sergeant Courtemanche. A lot.
\tWe dove into one of the steep tunnels that leads from downtown to Westside and drove along the riverfront, where countless brightly colored cargo containers were stacked like a giant child's blocks, contrasting sharply with the somber rows of drab, dreary warehouses. As we continued on towards the outskirts of Westside, we began seeing mounds of rubble and the jagged shells of half-demolished buildings. It had been more than twenty years since the lunatic called Dr. Destroyer had wiped the city of Detroit off the map, and they still hadn't finished cleaning up the wreckage. Millennium City had been built upon the ruins of Detroit, like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Even a nonhuman like me can appreciate what that says about the resilience of the human spirit.
\tKelley directed Courtemanche to turn into an abandoned gas station and stop. We got out of the car, and Kelley led us across the cracked, weed-strewn asphalt. To our left the Detroit River made its sluggish way south towards Lake Erie, and an ore freighter plowed along it, sounding its deep, husky horn. Overhead, seagulls wheeled in lazy circles, shrieking plaintively.
\tKelley stopped before a vaguely human-shaped chalk outline on the ground. "This is where the bird was found."
\t"There's no blood trail," I observed.
\tShe shook her head. "No. The police dogs couldn't follow his scent, either."
\t"That suggests that he flew here."
\tKelley raised an eyebrow. "With that hole in him?"
\t"Okay, not very far or very fast, but bird manimals can still fly even when they're badly wounded. I've seen them do it."
\t"How can we pick up the trail, then?" asked Danielov.
\t"Even if he was flying," said Courtemanche, "he still must have been dripping blood. We simply must find it."
\t"One moment," I said, taking out my cell phone and flipping it open. They all stood watching as I tapped the keys.
\t"What are you doing?" asked Kelley.
\t"Narrowing down our search area," I replied, accessing the National Weather Service's website.
\t"How?" asked Danielov.
\t"If you're a bird manimal who's been shot and you're trying to put as much distance as possible between yourself and whoever shot you, you're going to fly with the wind. And last night the wind was blowing from . . . that way." I pointed northwest.
\t"Fan out," said Kelley. "See if you can find anything that looks like a bloodstain, no matter how small."
\tOur group spread out to the northwest of the chalk outline, each of us scrutinizing the ground, searching for anything that might possibly be a bloodstain. After about ten minutes Courtemanche called out that she'd found something, and we all hurried over to her. She was standing over a small maroon blotch on the pavement, about the size of a quarter, a good hundred yards from the chalk outline. Kelley got down on all fours and sniffed at it.
\t"It's blood," she announced. She glanced up at Courtemanche. "Good work, sergeant."
\t"Adam showed us where to look," said Courtemanche, smiling at me. I smiled back. Nice of someone to mention that.
\tKelley stood up. "Thank you, Adam. All right, now we have a direction. Let's see where it leads."
\tWe walked through the waist-high grass of the empty lot, past the blackened shells of long-burned-out cars and other urban detritus, watched by the jagged eyes of abandoned buildings that were in the slow process of crumbling into dust, unaware that other, living eyes were watching us too.
\tWe found three more bloodstains, which firmly established the direction from which the bird had been flying. As we made our way through the ruins, Danielov said softly, "We are not alone."
\tCourtemanche nodded. "I hear them. There are a dozen, at least."
\tI felt embarrassed that I hadn't noticed a thing. Then again, I'm a scientist, not a field agent.
\tSix young men came out from behind the buildings to either side of us, blocking our path. They were all dressed in black and white garments, reminiscent of the droogs from the Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange. Some wore bowler hats or top hats, and all of them had the spade playing card symbol somewhere on their ensembles. They were armed with knives, chains, baseball bats, and crowbars. I recognized them as members of the Black Aces, one of Westside's street gangs.
\t"'Allo, guvnors!" said one, grinning widely as he affected a terrible Cockney accent. "'Ave you gotten y'selves lost? This is a bad neighborhood, y'know."
\t"We are UNTIL agents on official business," said Kelley evenly. "I advise you to depart at once."
\tThe punk's eyes went wide when he heard Kelley's accent. "Ooh, we've got one from the motherland! Rule Brittania!" He saluted her, then crouched down to look at me. "That's a nice pet monkey you've got, luvvy. Does it know any tricks?"
\t"I'm an ape, you twit," I said. "Monkeys have tails."
\tThe punk stared at me, his mouth agape. "It talks!" he cried, dropping the fake accent. By now, a dozen more Black Aces had emerged from the buildings, surrounding us. Danielov looked nervous, while Courtemanche stood poised and ready to move at the first sign of trouble. As for me, I had surreptitiously placed my right hand on the metallic bracer around my left wrist.
\t"I'm warning you one last time—" began Kelley.
\t"You," said the punk, having regained his composure and matching eyes with her, "don't give the orders here, luvvy. We do. And we don't . . . like . . . foreigners."
\tSeveral of the Aces had hefted chains and were swinging them above their heads in slow, whirring arcs. The UNTIL agents and I clustered together, back to back, as they closed in around us. The one who had spoken rushed at Kelley, who grabbed him and threw him to the ground with an impact so hard it forced the air out of his lungs in a loud woosh. Another one stabbed at Courtemanche. She seized his arm and twisted it, making him cry out in pain and sending his knife clattering to the ground, and then followed it up with a right cross to his jaw that sent him to join his knife. Danielov jumped back as one of them tried to knock him into the bleachers with a baseball bat, and responded with a karate kick to the punk's chin that sent him reeling backwards into his buddies.
\tA big bruiser with a chain was advancing towards me, grinning. I returned the grin. As he swung the chain at me, I raised my left arm, and a glowing disc of energy sprang to life before it and blocked the chain. My right hand shot out and grabbed the chain, and I pulled back on it hard, causing him to stumble towards me. Apparently, he was unaware that chimps have five times the upper body strength of a human. I socked him in the face and down he went.
\tOur little rumble was going reasonably well, with fully half of the Aces laid out around us, when one of them stupidly decided to up the ante by pulling out a gun and aiming it at Kelley. As fast as I could, I drew my sonic stunner and shot him, dropping him to the ground. Immediately, all three UNTIL agents drew their pistols, holding them on the Aces.
\t"All right, let's everyone take a deep breath," said Kelley. There was a pregnant pause, during which it felt as if we were all standing on a frozen lake with the ice about to give way. "Now then," she continued, "why don't you boys collect your wounded and be on your way?" The Aces looked at each other for a moment, and then began picking up the groaning or unconscious bodies of their companions and carrying them off.
\tOnce they had gone, Kelley whirled on me. "What did you think you were doing? UNTIL has strict rules about engaging civilians, and they do not include escalating hostilities by pulling guns on them!"
\tI held up a hand and started counting off points on my fingers. "First, I am not an agent of UNTIL. Second, that Ace escalated the hostilities when he drew a gun on you, and by the way, you're welcome. And third, my gun is non-lethal."
\t"I am forced to agree with Adam," said Courtemanche. "His actions were well within UNTIL's prescribed rules of engagement."
\tKelley regarded the other woman for a moment. "Well then, I suppose you'll have to mention that in your report, won't you, sergeant? Come on, let's continue." She turned and resumed walking in the direction the bird's blood was leading us. Courtemanche winked at me and followed her.
\tOur search led us to the mouth of a storm sewer tunnel, about eight feet in diameter, that emptied into a concrete aqueduct. A small stream of brown water trickled from it.
\t"Lovely," said Kelley, wrinkling her nose. She took a small but powerful flashlight from her belt and played the beam around the inside of the tunnel. Then she turned to Danielov. "Hear any thoughts?"
\tDanielov shook his head. "If there is anyone in there, they are deeper inside."
\t"In that case, I guess it's time for a sewer crawl," said Kelley. She paused for a moment to call headquarters, reporting in and telling them what we were doing, and then began advancing into the tunnel, her boots splashing in the stream of effluent. The rest of us followed her into the darkness.
\tThe sound of our footsteps echoed loudly in the tunnel as we walked along, leaving the sunlit world further and further behind. The air was chill and dank and reeked of decay. About a hundred yards in, we started hitting side tunnels. Kelley elected to go straight. I started having uncomfortable flashbacks to the warren of tunnels and caverns beneath Moreau's laboratory on Monster Island, remembering the horrors that dwelt within them. I wanted very much not to be here, but pride is a funny thing. Put a woman with a group of men, or a white guy with a group of black guys, or an architect with a group of construction workers, or any situation where someone is surrounded by people different from them, and they feel compelled to prove themselves. So yes, I felt I had to show these humans I was as good as they were, and don't tell me you'd have felt any differently if you'd been in my position, because you'd be lying, and you know it. Besides, I knew what they'd say to their friends back at UNTIL if I backed out. "Never send a monkey to do a man's work," or something equally demeaning. No one would care that I wasn't an agent and hadn't been trained for this sort of thing; all that would matter would be my species. Screw that.
\tAs we trekked along through a claustrophobic world of eternal night, Danielov suddenly stopped. We all paused, looking at him. Beneath his beret, his brow was knitted in concentration. "Stray thoughts," he said. "Frightened . . . curious."
\t"Not hostile?" asked Courtemanche, her hand on her pistol.
\tHe shook his head. "Not yet."
\t"Which direction?" asked Kelley.
\tDanielov smiled. "It does not work that way."
\tThe question was answered for us by the sound of splashing up ahead. Courtemanche was off like a fox after a hare, leaving the rest of us staring dumbly after her for a moment before we started running as well. Over the echoes of our footsteps, we heard the sound of a scuffle in the darkness. A moment later, Kelley's light shone on two figures grappling in the water. One was Courtemanche. The other was a rat manimal.
\tShe had him in a judo hold, which meant he wasn't going anywhere soon. He was about four feet tall, with brown fur and a skinny build, wearing only a tattered loincloth. He looked up at us, his black, beady eyes wide with fear.  He squirmed as we approached, his nose twitching uncontrollably, as rat manimals' noses always do when they're scared, which is most of the time. Being the smallest and weakest of Moreau's creations, they take more than their share of shit from the others. Then his gaze fixed on me, and his bucktoothed mouth dropped open.
\t"It's all right," I told him gently. "We're not going to hurt you."
\t"You can talk?" he asked in a high, squeaky voice, clearly astonished.
\tThe irony of a rat being surprised that a chimp could talk wasn't lost on me. "Yes, I can talk. What's your name?"
\tThe rat hesitated a moment before answering. "Andy Morgan."
\tMy suspicions about the origins of the dead bird were confirmed. "That's a very human-sounding name," I commented.
\tHe swallowed. "I used to be human." He looked around at all of us, his eyes pleading. "Can you change me back?"
\tKelley crouched down to be eye to eye with him. "I'm afraid not, Andy, but we can take you someplace safe and warm where you'll be cared for."
\t"I want to go home!" Andy wailed.
\tKelley's jaw tightened. Nice to see she had a heart after all. "Where is that, Andy?"
\t"34182 12 Mile Road," he said, whimpering.
\t"And how old are you?"
\t"Sixteen."
\t"Do you know how long you've been this way?"
\tHe shook his head. "I don't even know what month it is."
\t"It's August 21st," I told him.
\tHe stared at me. "I've been down here five months?"
\tKelley glanced up at Danielov. "Is he telling the truth?" The Bulgar nodded solemnly. She turned back to Andy. "What happened to you, Andy? How did you end up like this?"
\tAndy sighed. "I was walking home from a friend's house one night when someone jumped me. He put something over my face that made me pass out. When I woke up, I was down here, and I was a rat!" His voice broke and he began sobbing pitifully, staining Courtemanche's sleeve with his tears. Her expression showed that she felt for the boy, though she didn't loosen her hold on him.
\t"Are there more like you in the sewers?" asked Kelley.
\tHe nodded. "Dozens. There are rats, cats, birds, bears, and deer."
\t"Those are Moreau's standard manimal types," I said to Kelley, before I remembered that as UNTIL's top expert on manimals she no doubt already knew that.
\tAndy started. "Moreau?"
\t"You recognize that name?" Kelley asked quickly.
\tAndy nodded. "He talks about him all the time."
\t"Who does?" I asked.
\t"Ratskellar."
\tI felt my stomach contract. "Son of a bitch!"
\t"Who is that?" asked Danielov.
\tI glanced up at him. "One of Moreau's lieutenants. A rat scientist, every bit as crazy as his creator."
\tKelley nodded. "He disappeared after Moreau's defeat. UNTIL thought—or hoped—that he'd been killed in the fighting, but his body was never found." She looked at me. "I take it there was no love lost between you."
\tI snorted. "That's putting it lightly. I hated his guts and he hated mine."
\t"Well, we have what we came for," said Kelley. "Ratskellar is clearly turning humans into manimals. We need to report back to UNTIL and bring in a military team to deal with this. Lieutenant, call headquarters."
\tDanielov took his cell phone out, fiddled with it, then shook his head. "I cannot get a signal. There must be too much rock in the way."
\t"All right, let's head back then," said Kelley. "Andy, I'd like you to come with us. Let him go, sergeant."
\tCourtemanche did so, and she and Andy stood up. The rat boy looked around at all of us. "What's going to happen to me?" he asked nervously.
\t"That is not for us to decide," said Kelley, "but I promise you will not be harmed."
\t"I should hope not," I said. "Regardless of what he looks like, he's an American citizen. He has rights."
\t"Thank you for reminding me of something I am well aware of, Adam," said Kelley dryly. "Come on, let's go."
\tThoughts buzzed through my brain as if someone had kicked open a nest of hornets inside my skull. Ratskellar was alive and turning people into manimals in Millennium City. Why? What did he hope to accomplish? And why here? He was crazy, but he wasn't stupid. He could have settled down anywhere. Why do it in the city with the planet's highest concentration of superheroes per capita? He might as well have been selling dope across the street from the DEA. Which meant that there was a reason he was here, something that made the risk worth taking. What was it? I started sifting through every lunatic idea I'd ever heard him mention, hoping to find a clue to what he was up to. Unfortunately, he'd had an awful lot of lunatic ideas. Did I mention he was crazy?
\tMy mental sifting was brought to a halt, along with my body, by a sharp cry of pain from up ahead. It was Danielov. I ran up to see what was wrong, my feet splashing as I did so. The Bulgar was leaning against the inside of the tunnel, standing on one foot, while Kelley was crouched before him and trying to get his other boot off. Courtemanche and Andy stood watching, the former holding something in her hands. As I approached, she turned and showed it to me. It was a wooden plank with several nails driven through it. It must have been hidden beneath the water. I shivered as the sight of the thing brought back more memories. Punji traps were a manimal favorite back on Monster Island.
\t"It appears to have gone completely through the foot," Kelley said calmly as she broke out her medical kit. "I'll sterilize and bandage the wound and give you something for the pain." Danielov simply nodded, his teeth clenched.
\tI looked around as Kelley worked. We were at a four-way junction—the perfect spot for an ambush. Courtemanche had clearly realized this too, as she'd drawn her pistol and was aiming her flashlight down one of the cross tunnels. She silently motioned to me, indicating that I should cover the opposite tunnel. I obliged by switching on my belt light and drawing my stunner.
\tThe attack came without warning. Ear-splitting sonic shrieks hit us from both sides, causing me to drop my stunner and clap my hands over my ears, which felt as if someone had just rammed a pair of knitting needles into them. I staggered and fell, my equilibrium shot. Unfortunately, I was all too familiar with this particular form of attack. It was employed by bird manimals, and it was just as devastating now as it had been back on Monster Island. I couldn't see, either, as the shriek had shattered my belt light. Blind and deaf, I felt a net envelop me, and then something pierced my shoulder. A tranq dart, I supposed. It was a day for reliving bad old memories. I felt my consciousness fade away, and the rest was silence.

\tI awoke in my own past, a past I'd thought I'd left behind forever. I was in a stone-walled chamber lit by torches, surrounded by several dozen manimals. I was lying on my back, my wrists and ankles bound to a table by thick leather straps. My ears felt as if honey were dripping out of them. I felt sick, dazed, and woozy. I turned my head and saw the three UNTIL agents in like condition. The manimals were watching us, speaking among themselves in hushed tones. I saw that Andy was with them, his arm in the grip of a huge brown bear. The ratboy looked at me, his nose twitching in fear.
\t"Well, what do you know?" came a familiar squeaky voice from behind me. "There is a god!"
\tI turned my head to the speaker. "Hi, Ratskellar. It's been a while."
\t"Two years," said the rat, coming towards me. He wore only a dirty lab coat over his white fur. His red eyes glared at me with undisguised hatred through his Coke-bottle glasses. "Two years since you betrayed Father. He named you wrong, Adam. He should have called you Judas."
\t"Judas only got thirty pieces of silver," I replied. "I got a job at Harmon Industries and a penthouse apartment in Millennium City. I'd say I made out better."
\t"For a while," said Ratskellar, sneering. "But now it's time to pay the piper, Adam."
\tI managed to smile. "A rat telling me to pay the piper. Now that's funny." I was trying hard not to show how scared I was. Ratskellar was as much of a sadist as Moreau. Nothing would have pleased him more than to see me afraid.
\t"Ratskellar," said Kelley, raising her head and fixing him with her gaze, "you must realize that by kidnapping UNTIL agents, you've simply drawn attention to yourself. My superiors know where we were going. When we don't report in, they'll send a full assault team in here after us. They could well be on their way already. Your only chance is to release us now and surrender."
\tThe other manimals began muttering nervously to each other. "Silence!" Ratskellar screamed at them, shutting them up. Then he turned back to Kelley. "Very soon, UNTIL is going to be in no position to help you . . . or anyone else in this city."
\t"Is this the part where you tell us your master plan, Rats?" I asked. "Why you decided to set up shop in superhero central instead of someplace nobody would notice, like outer Mongolia, or the Amazon, or Cleveland? Come on, you know you want to." I grinned at him.
\t"Actually," said Ratskellar, grinning back, "what I'd like to do is give you a vasectomy with a blowtorch. But since you asked so nicely . . ." He rubbed his nearly nonexistent chin for a moment. "What is it they always say—show, don't tell?" Ratskellar turned and went over to a counter where there were five spray bottles filled with some kind of milky fluid. He paused and looked back at us as if deciding something, then selected two of the bottles and walked back towards us. Stopping between the gurneys holding Danielov and Courtemanche, he raised a spray bottle in each hand and spritzed each of them once. Immediately they both began writhing and crying out in pain, straining against the straps that held them. As Kelley and I watched in horror, their bodies began reshaping themselves, fur sprouting from their skin, faces extending into muzzles, fingernails changing into claws. Within a few minutes they had both become manimals—Danielov a cat, Courtemanche a bear.
\tRatskellar grinned at us. "Lovely, isn't it? I finally perfected Father's gene-sculpting formula. No more messy surgery; no more DNA infusions. Quick and relatively painless. Of course, it took a lot of trial and error and a lot of failed attempts, but one can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." He gave a "What-can-you-do?" shrug.
\t"That's easy to say when you're not one of the eggs," I said through clenched teeth as I gazed at the two moaning manimals.
\t"You're going to loose this on the city!" said Kelley, her face white as a sheet.
\tRatskellar nodded, grinning. "I have five gene bombs ready to go, one for each variant of the formula. They'll be taken to various locations I've chosen to give maximum coverage. When they detonate, Millennium City will become Manimal City. Think of it! A city of ten million manimals!" He turned to the others. "You'll be free to walk the streets again—return to your families—whatever you like! They won't be able to cage us or lock us away. There will simply be too many of us! And some will be former superheroes with powers!" He fixed his magnified red eyes on me. "Now, about that vasectomy . . ."
\tI squirmed as Ratskellar went to fetch a blowtorch. To say I was frightened would have been the understatement of the century. I was petrified. And while I wish I could be noble and selfless enough to say that was I only afraid for the people of Millennium City, the truth of the matter is that I was terrified of what he was going to do to me. I knew exactly what Ratskellar was capable of. I'd seen him do it before. He had enough medical knowledge to keep me alive for a long time before his tortures killed me.
\tRatskellar came up to me and lit the torch, creating a flickering blue-white tongue of death with a sound like paper tearing. He moved it up between my legs, and I whimpered as I felt the heat of it. Yes, I whimpered, okay? A psychopathic rat was about to burn my privates off. I think I can be forgiven for being afraid. As I said, I'm a scientist, not some square-jawed action hero.
\t"You're about to suffer as few beings have ever suffered, Adam," Ratskellar said, leering at me. "You're going to scream and beg for death, and I'm going to enjoy every second of it." He moved the flame closer to my groin. The heat from it was nearly unbearable, and it still hadn't even touched me yet. I hoped I would pass out quickly.
\tThen something weird happened. Ratskellar moved the torch away from my groin and down towards my right foot. At first I thought the sick bastard intended to stretch my torture out even longer, but then I noticed that his face had gone strangely blank. I glanced over at the cat who had been Danielov. He was staring at Ratskellar, his brow furrowed in concentration. He was controlling him! But that shouldn't have been possible. Danielov was only a low-level telepath . . . unless the transformation had boosted his psi powers somehow.
\tRatskellar started burning through the strap holding my right foot. I winced and gritted my teeth as the heat from the flame seared my leg, crisping the fur there. Well, it beat the alternative, anyway. In a few seconds my foot was free.
\tI snatched the blowtorch away with my foot and quickly freed my left leg and both my arms. The whole time, Ratskellar just stood there staring at me blankly. Realizing that something was wrong, the other manimals started to advance, only to stop dead as the bear that had been Courtemanche filled the room with a deafening roar and tore free of her bonds, which had after all been designed to hold a human, not a bear. I jumped over to Kelley, who was the next closest to me, and undid her straps as Courtemanche plowed into the manimals. True, some of them were bears as well, but she was a trained combat specialist and they were just transformed civilians.
\tUnfortunately, there were a lot of them. Courtemanche quickly went down, buried by sheer numbers. I looked over at Danielov, who was still strapped to his gurney and cut off from me and Kelley by manimals. The cat looked back at me, and I heard his voice in my head: "Go!" I swallowed, nodding. He was a brave man. I don't know if I could have done that. I grabbed Kelley's arm, and together we fled into the closest tunnel.
\tWe ran as if the devil himself were on our tails, bullets zinging past us as the manimals fired down the tunnel. It wasn't all that wide, so even though they couldn't see us directly, just shooting at random still gave them a good chance of hitting something. I heard Kelley cry out as one struck her, and hoped her body armor would protect her. It was pitch dark in the tunnel, but we could see a light up ahead. No doubt the manimals had all the major chambers illuminated for their own convenience. Of course, that also meant we could be heading right into a bunch of them, but there weren't a whole lot of alternatives.
\tThe tunnel opened into a large, empty, torchlit chamber that served as a junction between several major conduits, presenting us with the perfect opportunity to lose our pursuers.
\tI picked an opening at random, then a second one, then a third. Pulling Kelley towards the third, we ducked inside. I took a small chemical glowstick from a pocket of my jumpsuit and lit it up so we wouldn't be running totally blind. We hit a series of intersections, and I tried my best to randomize which direction we went at each one, wanting to avoid creating a pattern. Then I spotted an opening about three feet in diameter in the side of our tunnel, and clambered into it. Kelley followed me, and we moved about a hundred feet down it—both of us on all fours—before we finally stopped, sitting there gasping for breath with hard concrete against our backs. I put the glowstick back in my pocket to avoid giving away our location.
\t"How did you get free?" Kelley asked finally.
\t"You didn't see what happened?"
\t"I was looking the other way. I didn't want to watch him torture you."
\t"Oh." I felt strangely flattered by that. "Danielov compelled him to free me."
\t"What? He can't do that."
\t"He can now."
\tShe fell silent. Then I heard her choke back a sob.
\t"I'm sorry," I said.
\t"They were both friends of mine," she said, her voice tight.
\t"They're not dead, you know."
\t"No, I don't, and neither do you! Right now Ratskellar could be doing to them what he was going to do to you!"
\t"Ratskellar has bigger fish to fry." I winced at my unfortunate choice of words. A spot on my right leg still burned from where the flame had almost touched it.
\t"They helped us escape! In case you hadn't noticed, he's a tad vindictive!"
\t"He had a personal score to settle with me. I betrayed his god."
\t"And now bloody Moreau is going to reach up out of his grave and turn ten million people into monsters!"
\t"Is that how you see me?" I asked, trying not to reveal how hurt I felt. "As a monster?"
\t"No offense, Adam, but you shouldn't exist."
\t"How could I possibly be offended by that?" I asked, no longer bothering to hide my anger.
\t"What Moreau did was a crime against nature!"
\tI growled. "Yes, because nature is so fucking wonderful! Nature makes diseases that decimate whole continents, and wasps that lay their eggs in hosts who are then devoured alive by the larvae, and babies who are born without brains. Nature is so cruel and heartless that people have tied themselves in philosophical knots trying to reconcile it with their notions of a caring, loving god."
\t"And you think humans can do better?" she asked sarcastically. "Humans like Moreau?"
\t"Look, I hated Moreau and everything he stood for, but at least humans have the ability to care. Nature doesn't care; nature just does what it does."
\tShe chuckled mirthlessly. "This is rich. The chimp is defending humans and the human is attacking them."
\t"It's not as illogical as it sounds," I said. "Without humans I wouldn't exist, at least not in my present form, and you belong to an international police force whose main job is to stop humans from killing each other. It's only natural that you'd develop a negative view of them, given what you see day after day. But the existence of UNTIL is a testament to the nobler side of human nature, the side that cares enough to help. They helped my people—not for gain or for glory, but because we were suffering under the rule of a madman. I'll always be grateful to them for that."
\t"You make us sound like saints," said Kelley. "Let me tell you something, Adam. Monster Island was in many ways a unique situation. There are dozens of little tinpot dictators all over the world who torture and murder their own people every day, and UNTIL doesn't lift a finger to stop them because our charter doesn't allow us to conduct operations within the borders of a sovereign nation without that nation's consent. Monster Island is legally part of the Federated States of Micronesia. Moreau paid their government to leave him alone, so for years there was nothing we could do about him. It wasn't until we convinced the Micronesians that it would be in their own best interest to get rid of him that we were finally able to move in."
\t"Why?" I asked, feeling a bit disillusioned. "Why did you bother, if you didn't care what he was doing to us?"
\tShe sighed. "Because we realized that Moreau was a threat to the peace and security of the world, a fact which at this point should be all too obvious. Human beings are ridiculously weak and helpless compared to the rest of the animal kingdom. Almost every other species is stronger, faster, or better armed than we are. Consider us. I'm a trained martial artist and you're a chimpanzee nerd, for lack of a less invidious term. Yet with your natural strength I'd be hard pressed to defeat you. The only thing we humans have going for us—the only thing that's allowed us to survive—is our monopoly on intelligence. If you take that away from us . . ."
\t"Then all you have is immense military and technological superiority," I said dryly. "Not to mention outnumbering us by about seven million to one. We're no threat to your dominance. You could wipe us out anytime you felt like it."
\t"That's how things stand now," she said. "What about in the future?"
\t"That depends on whether you treat us as friends and equals . . . or as monsters."
\tShe was silent for a moment. "My words were ill-chosen," she said at last. "I apologize."
\t"Don't worry about it," I said. "Let's focus on stopping Ratskellar."
\t"Unfortunately, I don't see how we can," she said bitterly. "We don't have a map of the sewer system, and even if we did, we have no idea where his gene bombs are."
\t"I do," said a voice inside my head.
\t"Danielov?" I asked out loud.
\t"Bogdan?" asked Kelley. "Are you all right?"
\t"No, not really," he replied. "I am still tied down, and Ratskellar has blindfolded me to keep me from controlling anyone else. And I'm a cat."
\t"I'm sorry about what he did to you," I said.
\t"These things happen. Let us try to make sure it does not happen to anyone else."
\t"You said you know where the gene bombs are?" asked Kelley.
\t"Yes. Unfortunately, I do not know where you are, which makes directing you to them somewhat difficult."
\t"These are the directions we followed when we fled from Ratskellar," I said, and began relaying them to him.
\t"Ah, I see now. You must go to a large chamber northwest of your present location. From there a manhole will give you access to the surface. The bombs are aboard a semi-trailer truck in a warehouse adjacent to the manhole."
\tKelley checked her wrist compass. "Got it. Can you tell us how to get there?"
\t"No, I cannot. I do not know the layout of the sewers, only the general direction."
\tI shrugged. "It's better than nothing."
\tKelley sighed. "What do you have in the way of weapons, Adam?"
\t"Nothing. They took my utility belt. All I've got is these." I took the glowstick back out. "How about you?"
\t"Nothing," said Kelley.
\t"What, don't your boots turn into bazookas or something?"
\t"You've seen too many spy movies."
\tWe looked at each other for a moment.
\t"We're going to die," I said.
\t"It's a distinct possibility," she replied, nodding.
\t"Well, let's give them a fight they'll remember."
\t"I intend to."
\t"Good luck and Godspeed, my friends," said Danielov. "I wish I were going with you."
\t"Thanks for the help, lieutenant," I said.
\tWe began heading northeast down the tunnel, hoping it would turn west at some point.

\tAfter a long slog through a seemingly endless succession of dark, dank tunnels—and more than a few wrong turns that forced us to retrace our steps—we finally came upon the chamber that Danielov had mentioned. It was unoccupied; Ratskellar was apparently so confident we wouldn't be able to find it that he hadn't bothered to post any guards. A steel-rung ladder climbed one concrete wall to a manhole in the ceiling. I clambered up it—chimps being naturally good at that sort of thing—and lifted the heavy iron manhole cover a few inches, peering out at what lay above.
\t"What do you see?" asked Kelley, clinging to the ladder just beneath me.
\t"It's an alley," I replied. "There's a doorway in one side. The ends are blocked off by wooden fences."
\t"Any guards?"
\t"Nope."
\t"Let's go, then."
\tI pushed the cover aside and climbed up into the trash-strewn alley, then turned and offered Kelley my hand. She took it, and I pulled her up easily to join me. Several rats—normal ones—scampered about in the refuse around us.
\t"Thank you, Adam," she said. "It's good to be out of that miserable sewer." Kelley walked over to the door. There was a small window in it, but it was covered with newspaper from the inside. She tried the knob, but it was locked. Taking a set of picks from a pocket of her jumpsuit, she knelt down and went to work on it. Within a few minutes we heard the lock click.
\t"Very impressive," I said.
\t"Standard UNTIL training," she replied. "It's not unlike doing surgery, actually." She eased the door open a crack and peered inside.
\t"What do you see?" I asked anxiously.
\t"A big articulated lorry, just as Danielov described, and a dozen or so manimals carrying automatic weapons."
\t"Is Ratskellar there?"
\t"I don't see him."
\t"Could we get to the truck without being spotted?"
\t"Not a chance." She glanced back at me. "It might be best if we found a phone and called UNTIL."
\t"And take the chance that they'll leave before the cavalry arrives?"
\t"Do you think that's likely?"
\tI noted the length of the shadows around us. "Ratskellar is going to want to blow his gene bombs before everyone goes home for the day, so he can convert as many people as possible."
\tShe nodded. "Point taken." She looked back inside. "If one of us creates a diversion, the other might be able to get to the lorry and drive the bloody thing out of there."
\t"Without the key?" I asked.
\t"I can hotwire a car in under thirty seconds."
\t"Thirty seconds is a long time when people are shooting at you."
\t"Hence the need for a diversion."
\tI sighed, seeing where this was going. "Okay, fine. I'll tank for you. But I want a statue in my honor erected in Millennium Plaza—one that will put King Kong to shame."
\tKelley smiled. "I'll see what I can do."
\tShe moved aside, and I took her place at the door, scoping out the interior. Several manimal guards holding Uzi submachine guns stood between us and the truck, the back of which was facing me, its tailgate open. That gave me an idea.
\t"What kind of explosive do you suppose is in the gene bombs?" I asked.
\tKelley furrowed her brow. "Demolitions is Courtemanche's specialty, not mine. Considering that Ratskellar is going for dispersion rather than a fireball, I'd guess some low-velocity compound like TNT or ANFO."
\t"How do those react to bullets hitting them?"
\t"Not too well. We don't want the bombs to blow, Adam. We'd be doing Ratskellar's dirty work for him."
\t"I'd imagine the manimals in the warehouse don't want them to blow, either."
\t"Do you imagine they're smart enough not to shoot?"
\t"They used to be human. Most people have a natural aversion to shooting at high explosives."
\t"Then the trick will be reaching the lorry without getting killed in the process."
\t"Yeah." I looked back through the crack in the door. There was about sixty feet of floor between me and the truck, and not much in the way of cover. I estimated I could reach it in about two seconds, which is roughly the same time it takes to empty an Uzi's entire thirty-round clip. My Kevlar jumpsuit could stop bullets, but the impacts would still hurt like hell, and if the manimals got lucky and nailed me in a foot, a hand, or my head, that would be it. Still, there weren't a whole lot of other options open to me. I glanced back at Kelley. "As soon as their attention is on me, head for the cab. I'll try to buy you as much time as I can."
\tShe nodded. "You're a brave manimal, Adam."
\tI chuckled. I didn't feel brave. I felt absolutely terrified. This action movie hero bullshit was not for me. I grasped the doorknob, took a deep breath, then threw it open and charged through.
\tThe one nearest to me—a stag—did a perfect double-take, then yelled: "It's Adam! Kill him!" He raised his Uzi and ripped off a spray of lead as I leaped. Fortunately, his aim was too low and all his bullets missed as I sailed over him, clearing his rack of antlers by inches. I may be more at home in a lab than a tree, but I can still be pretty agile when I have to be. Like now, for instance. Thank you, evolution.
\tI hit the floor hands-first behind him and somersaulted, rolling to my feet and continuing on without stopping. Now they were all around me, but that actually worked to my advantage; they couldn't shoot at me without risking hitting each other. One cat apparently failed to realize this, however, as he let fly with a burst of bullets, and pain exploded in my side as one found its mark. Still, I fared better than the bear who had been standing to the other side of me, whose pelt sprouted several crimson blossoms. He collapsed in a heap as the cat yowled in anguish at what he'd just done. It would have been easier for me to feel sorry for them if they hadn't both been trying to kill me.
\tI leaped onto the tailgate of the truck. Inside were five steel drums, each of which was wired with some kind of electronic timer. Also inside was Ratskellar. His red eyes went wide behind his thick glasses as his mouth fell open. "Adam?"
\t"Hi, Rats," I said, grinning. "Can I bum a ride?" This was perfect. Ratskellar was no match for me physically, and the other manimals wouldn't dare shoot into the truck with him inside. My grin faded as he whipped a pistol out of his lab coat and aimed it at me. I threw up my arms to shield my face as he fired. The bullet struck my right forearm, and I felt one of the bones there fracture. The pain was incredible, like hot needles being driven into my flesh. I howled and hurled myself at him, knocking him on his back. He squirmed desperately beneath me, his gun arm pinned between us. I tried to put him in a hold, but he was a wriggly little cuss and I now had only one working arm. He got away from me, and I ducked behind one of the drums as he fired. The bullet struck the floor where I'd been lying a moment before.
\t"You're going to blow us both up, Rats!" I yelled.
\t"Fine with me!" he cackled. "Even with suboptimal dispersion, the formula will still do its job! I'd like to see the results, of course, but either way it will be a fitting monument to my genius!" He fired again, hitting the drum I was hiding behind but missing me.
\t"You are totally bug-fuck insane, you know that, Rats?"
\tRatskellar giggled. "Like father, like son!" Another bullet punctured the drum. The fluid inside was dribbling out the holes and pooling on the floor at my feet. Fortunately I'm already a manimal, so it had no effect on me.
\tAt that moment, the truck's engine growled to life, and a second later it jerked forward violently as Kelley floored it. Ratskellar lost his balance and disappeared as he fell off the back. I braced myself as the truck smashed into the warehouse door, tearing through it like tissue paper, leaving a trail of shredded aluminum in its wake. A couple more bullets zinged past me as Ratskellar fired at the escaping truck.
\tAs we barreled through the streets of Westside, I went to the tailgate and climbed up onto the roof. Another advantage of being a chimp—a human with a broken arm would have had only one usable hand, but I still had three. I made my way across the top of the trailer and jumped down onto the roof of the cab, swinging inside through the open window and landing on the passenger seat next to Kelley. She grinned happily at me.
\t"Nice to see you made it, Adam!" Then her expression turned to one of concern. "You're hurt!"
\t"It's just a broken arm," I said, gritting my teeth through the pain. "Nothing serious."
\tShe nodded. "That was the bravest thing I've ever seen anyone do."
\t"Make sure to mention it in your report."
\t"I fully intend to. The whole world should know what you did today."
\tI looked into her eyes and saw genuine respect there. No, more than respect. Admiration. It made me feel good inside.
\tOur little moment was interrupted by a fusillade of bullets from above. I stuck my head out the window and looked up.
\t"What is it?" asked Kelley.
\t"It's Ratskellar, being carried by a bird manimal," I replied. "He's still trying to set off the bombs!" The rat was holding an Uzi, which he had just finished emptying into the truck, and was in the process of slapping in another clip.
\tKelley scowled. "I don't see what we can do about it. We'll just have to hope he runs out of ammo before he succeeds."
\tI thought for a moment. Ratskellar was smart and paranoid. He'd have planned for every contingency. I opened the glove compartment. Sure enough, there was a gun in there. I grabbed it and leaned out the window, taking a bead on the bird and rat above us. I had to use my off hand, since my right arm was useless, and the bouncing and swerving of the truck didn't help my aim any. I fired, and by sheer luck managed to score a hit on the bird. Both bird and rat plummeted onto the roof of the truck with a loud thud.
\tI climbed up onto the roof of the cab and raised my head to peer across the roof of the trailer, which was about two feet higher. The bird was clearly dead. Ratskellar was lying sprawled face down, clutching the Uzi in his paw. He must have had some cat DNA in him, because he apparently had nine lives.
\t"Swerve!" I yelled down to Kelley. "Try to knock him off!" She obliged, and the truck veered left, forcing both me and Ratskellar to steady ourselves. He glared at me, and I noticed he'd lost his glasses. That was good news for me; without them he could barely see. He narrowed his weak red eyes and aimed his gun, spraying lead at me. I ducked down, and the bullets flew harmlessly above my head.
\tOnce his clip was empty, I stood up and aimed my pistol at him. He had discarded the Uzi and was drawing his pistol from his lab coat. I fired and missed, the swerving of the truck throwing my aim off. He fired and nailed me square in my chest, which felt like being hit with a sledgehammer. I collapsed atop the roof of the cab, gasping for breath.
\tRatskellar walked to the front of the truck, steadying himself against the swerves, his white, bucktoothed face grinning maniacally as his lab coat billowed in the wind. He squinted his beady red eyes and took careful aim at me. Even at this close range he was having trouble seeing. "Goodbye, Adam," he hissed.
\t"Heads up," I said.
\t"What?" asked Ratskellar, raising his head. A cable slung across the street holding a traffic light clotheslined him across his throat, sweeping him out of my sight. Why do people always raise their heads when you say that to them? They're supposed to do the opposite.
\tI pounded on the roof of the cab, and the truck braked slowly and came to a stop. Kelley opened the door and climbed up next to me, looking around. "Where's Ratskellar?"
\t"He's roadkill," I wheezed. My chest felt like there was an anvil sitting atop it. I grinned up at her. "You ran a red light. You can get a ticket for that."
\tShe smiled, stroking the side of my face. "I'll pay it." Then she leaned over and kissed me on the lips, which surprised me. "I'm going to find a phone and call UNTIL. Will you be all right?"
\tI nodded. "Yeah, I'll just lie here counting the little birdies."
\t"I'll be back as soon as I can." She slid down off the roof. I lay there staring up at the sky. Each breath was a new adventure in pain. At some point I blacked out.

\tWhen I awoke I found myself lying in a hospital bed, my right arm in a cast, a bandage across my chest. There was an IV in my left arm. It must have been feeding me something for the pain, because I didn't feel any, but I also couldn't move much. I groped for the call button and pressed it. Within a couple of minutes a pretty nurse came through the door. I asked her where I was. She informed me I was in the infirmary at UNTIL headquarters. I asked her if I could please have a glass of water, and she got me one, holding it to my lips while I drank and then wiping my mouth with a tissue. She asked me if there was anything else I needed. I shook my head, and she told me to press the button if there was. Then she left.
\tA few minutes later the door opened again and Kelley came in, wearing a lab coat over her uniform, accompanied by Major Martinez. Apparently he'd flown here from New York just to see me in person. I guess I'd impressed him.
\t"Hello, Adam," Kelley said, smiling.
\t"Hello, Doctor. Hello, Major."
\t"How are you feeling, soldier?" asked Martinez.
\t"Numb," I replied.
\tKelley nodded. "I put you on fentanyl. You had a fractured ulna and three cracked ribs."
\t"That'll teach me to be a hero."
\t"Speaking of which," said Martinez, picking up the TV remote and switching it on. A female newscaster's face appeared, along with a headline that read: MANIMAL SAVES CITY. Above it was my driver's license photo, which I've always hated.
\t"Congratulations," said Martinez. "You just became a celebrity."
\t"You didn't cover it up?" I asked.
\tHe shrugged. "Why bother? It's good publicity, both for us and for you."
\t"We've been barraged with requests for interviews," said Kelley. "Everyone wants to talk to you. And Mayor Biselle wants to thank you personally."
\t"Great," I muttered. "Harmon must be loving this." Then a thought struck me. "What about Courtemanche and Danielov? Are they all right?"
\tMartinez nodded. "The manimals in the sewers released them unharmed and surrendered peacefully. With Ratskellar dead, they apparently decided that was their best move."
\t"So he really is dead?" I asked anxiously.
\t"As the proverbial doornail," said Kelley. "I examined his body after I called UNTIL. His neck was broken. He must have died instantly."
\t"Thank God for that," I said, sinking back into my pillow and sighing with relief. "So what's going to happen to the others?"
\t"They're all American citizens," said Martinez. "The authorities will see what they can do about re-integrating them into society. As for Lieutenant Danielov and Sergeant Courtemanche, I see no reason why they can't continue working for UNTIL. Danielov especially, with his expanded psi abilities, could be extremely useful to us. We can always use brave, talented people, no matter what they look like." He regarded me intently.
\tI shook my head. "I'm happy with the job I have, thanks. And I don't like people shooting at me."
\tHe shrugged. "Suit yourself. Regardless, you have UNTIL's gratitude, and my respect. You were a real man today, Adam."
\t"I don't think that's paying him much of a compliment, Major," said Kelley, causing Martinez to raise an eyebrow. "There are precious few men who would have shown the kind of courage Adam did."
\t"Be that as it may," said Martinez, "we owe you one. Anytime you need anything, just call."
\tI nodded to him. "Thank you, Major."
\t"You're welcome. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to. Good evening to you both." He turned and left the room, leaving Kelley and me alone together.
\t"Can I get you anything?" asked Kelley.
\t"You could explain something for me. Why the kiss?"
\tShe blushed, which made her look fetchingly vulnerable, not at all like the tough, professional exterior she generally wore. "I'm not certain myself, actually. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I suppose I thought you'd earned it."
\t"I see," I said. "So that's it, then."
\t"I apologize if I gave you the wrong impression," she said. "As I said, I wasn't thinking very clearly at the time. It was a rather stressful situation."
\tI looked at her. "Do you have any training in psychology, doctor?"
\tShe nodded. "A little."
\t"Then you should know that it's when people are under stress that their true feelings tend to come out."
\tShe hesitated a moment before responding. "I suppose that's possible."
\t"In that case, would you mind having dinner with me?"
\tShe stared at me a moment, then smiled. "Why not? You're the man of the hour, after all. It'll have to wait until you're discharged, however. Doctors aren't supposed to date their patients."
\tI nodded. "Hospital food isn't very romantic anyway. What do you prefer?"
\t"I don't hate Italian."
\t"I know a place in Little Italy called Gultieri's that serves a mean ravioli stuffed with shrimp and lobster."
\t"That sounds lovely."
\t"So it's a date, then?"
\tShe nodded. "Definitely." Then she picked up my chart and examined it, once again the consummate professional. "I think I'll lower the dosage of your medication. You seem to be responding quite well to treatment." She smiled at me.
\tI smiled back. "I have a great doctor."
\tShe leaned over and kissed me again. "Get well soon, hero." Then she left the room.
\tI lay back in my bed and put my left arm behind my head, grinning. Score one for the chimp.

", "pools_count": 0, "title": "The Manimal Chronicles #2: An Ape for All Seasons", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "application/msword", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "1", "rating_name": "Mature", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "3", "name": "Violence", "description": "Mild violence", "rating_id": "1" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "f", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "4" }