Page 58 of Grizzly Sleuth
Idris woketo find himself back in his nightmare.
Strapped to cold metal table. Unable to move. A bright light shining in his eyes. However, this time, he didn’t wake alone.
A shriek had him trying to turn his head, not that he needed to see to recognize Svetlana, and boy did she sound pissed.
“You asshole!” she screeched. “What is wrong with you?”
“I was testing to see if injury would make you shift like the other therianthropes.” Dr. Levy actually replied, a change from the last time Idris found himself prisoner. “And it worked, so stop your whining. You’re perfectly fine.”
“I wouldn’t call being a lab rat fine,” she spat.
“Behave and maybe you’ll earn some perks. Unlike the general, I see merit in rewarding those who cooperate.”
“I would rather die.”
“Then I guess you won’t be getting television time or pudding then. Perhaps your lover will be more accommodating.” Dr. Levy crossed the room to stand over Idris.
“Welcome back.” The man dared to grin.
“You’ve got to be the most sadistic fucker on this planet.”
“Still bitching, I see. I wonder if your weak emotions are why it doesn’t take much trauma for you to shift. Although we didnotice you needed more than a needle prick this time. You must have been practicing.”
It shouldn’t have shocked they’d been poking while he slept, but Idris couldn’t help a feeling of defilement. What else had they done while he’d been knocked out?
“I don’t suppose you’d care to explain how you managed to find another bear?” Dr. Levy looked at him over his glasses.
Svetlana answered. “Wasn’t hard. He came to our show.”
“Ah yes, your brother, the dancing bear. I’ll be honest, when your act first came across my desk, I thought no way a therianthrope would degrade themselves in such a manner, nor out themselves so publicly. The general, though, he had a feeling there might be more than met the eye. Never imagined that us tracking them down would lead us to Patient Seventy-six.”
Hearing himself reduced to a number punched Idris hard. How could you argue with someone who didn’t see you as a person?
“What are you going to do with us? We’re already bears,” Svetlana pointed out. “I thought your project was about creating shifters.”
“Creating turned out to be easy. Adjusting and perfecting requires understanding. Until now, we’ve only had one natural-born therianthrope to base our studies on. You and your brother will finally allow us to properly study the differences.”
“Patient Zero,” Idris murmured.
“Yes, although technically, he wasn’t the first. His nephew was. Alas, we lost him due to overly vigorous testing of his limits. The general’s fault. At least, by the time I came on board, he’d located two other family members. The female, the original’s sister proved to be emotionally weak, but their uncle… He’s been invaluable to our research even if he can’t explain the process or origin of his ability.”
“Because it’s magic,” Svetlana stated. “A gift from the gods.”
“Spoken by someone who would have fit in well a few hundred years ago when everything was because of deities and spirits,” mocked Levy. “Shifting is biological.”
“If that were true, then everyone could do it,” countered Svetlana.
“Everyone can, some just more easily than others. The protocol unlocks the animal inside a person, allows them to be more than just human.”
“What monster lurks inside you?” Svetlana asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
Idris couldn’t help but blurt out, “Why not? You know your procedure works. If it’s so great, why haven’t you used it on yourself?”
“Because.”
“Because you’re afraid,” surmised Idris. “You’re worried you’ll end up one of the creatures that dies when they shift because they can’t breathe air. Or that you’ll be something ridiculous.”
