Memory transcription subject: Daniel Stat, human virologist
Date [Standardized human time]: August 29th, 2148
[Day 22]
“Careful, Silvvy,” I chirped, helping her along. She was wearing a new sort of brace to help her balance without limiting her mobility as the crutches did.
“I know how to walk, Danny. It’s fine,” she smiled.
“Alright, don’t let me stop you then,” I put my hands up placatingly and the venlil hobbled along the hallway.
“So, what’s the news so far?” She asked as we suited up in the PPE room.
“Nothing on a cure yet,” I said, “But the first batch of modified cells are being tested as we speak. We think it’ll work out. Oh, and a vaccine is in the middle of being tested back home thanks to those few recovered patients.”
“Oh! That’s great!” Silvvy cheered. “I was watching the news the other day and heard the stuff in Ransu is settled down now.”
“Thank god,” I muttered, “I didn’t even consider the level of unrest the virus would cause.”
“I don’t think anybody could’ve predicted it.”
We walked together toward the virus lab, donning identical lab coats. “You sure you’re ready?” I asked when we got to the door.
“What do mean? Of course, I am,” she responded.
“Well- I- y’know,” I stammered, “back to working with the virus again, dangerous work and all,” I chuckled awkwardly.
“Danny, what are you getting at?”
“I just think, maybe you could… stay at home?”
She gave me a look of understanding and patted me on the back with a gloved paw. “You’re afraid I’ll get infected, aren’t you?” I nodded slowly.
“I can’t lose you, Silvon,” I stated.
“You won’t lose me, Danny. I’ve got all my gear on, I’m fully protected. You’ll never have to worry about it,” she tried to comfort me, but I was still on edge. I kept thinking of those venlil personnel hooked up to all those wires, and the nightmares.
“I love you, Silvvy,” I shuddered, throwing my arms around her.
“I love you too, Danny. Now let’s go save Skalga, okay?”
We stepped into the decontamination room for a cycle, then walked into the lab. It was unusually bustling today. Several yotul were running back and forth with stacks of paper. Jakiv was furiously scribbling something next to a microscope.
“Holy shit! Danny! Silvon! C’mere!” Tinasi cried from next to the arxur. We both rushed over. The microscope was hooked to a holo display and focused on a petri dish swamped with venlil cells. Jakiv carefully dripped a sample of the virus into the dish and we watched in amazement as the venlil cells began actually fighting them off!
“Those aren’t human-” I gasped incredulously. “H-how did?” I spun to see one of our yotul coworkers, a man named Juwun.
“Correct observation,” he grinned. “We went a step further in our research, isolating certain cytokines and splicing a little bit of DNA. Those venlil cells in that dish are part human!” The marsupial exclaimed.
“And… and this worked?”
“Well, yes! Turns out your biology isn’t all that dissimilar. The thing is though, we haven’t tested it on an actual person yet. For all we know, it could be ineffective in the body, or worse,” he shook his head.
“But,” Jakiv interjected, “We’re culturing a few more samples to test before moving onto actual subjects. We want to minimize risk, but we also want to minimize the time it takes to get it out to the public,” the arxur explained.
I exchanged a flabbergasted look with Silvon, who looked like she was going to explode with joy. “Mesu wasn’t lying!” I exclaimed, “You really do know how to get results,” I said, turning back to Juwun.
“We’ve still got to run the results past Governor Maulo, but I’m sure everything will be okay,” the yotul smiled.
~~~
Memory transcription subject: Aaron Clemont, Humanity First rallier
Date [Standardized human time]: August 29th, 2148
[Day 22]
“Good morning!” I shouted. The pair of venlil roused immediately, almost leaping out of bed in fright. I cackled as the shorter one on the right clutched his heart, the fear in their eyes was delightful.
“Who are you?” He breathed. “What do you want?”
“The name’s Aaron,” I answered, keeping the gun trained between his eyes. Not a hard feat with how far apart they are. “Get up. Now.”
Both venlil slowly crawled out of bed. Vernon and Landen flanked them on either side, corralling the animals along toward the living room. I motioned for them to have a seat on the couch, and my associates stood behind them watching for any funny business.
“Real nice place you two have,” I remarked, inspecting a shelf with some badges and photographs of the male venlil, much skinnier and in uniform. My translator told me his name was Nulon. “We’ve got just a couple of easy questions to ask, then we’ll get out of your hair. Or fur. Or whatever the fuck.”
“You’re Humanity First,” Nulon breathed.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Excellent observation, Xeno,” I smiled. “Answer our questions, or we’ll make you past tense, yeah?” He glared in response. “Great. So, Nulon, where’s Silvon?” I growled. He and his wife exchanged frantic glances.
“I’d never tell-” I cracked him across the snout with the butt of my gun.
“Nulon!” his wife cried as he cradled his snout.
“I’m fine, Lew,” he grimaced.
“Where is Silvon?” I asked again.
“Up your ass!” he barked. I smashed my free hand into his chest, he rolled to the floor gasping. I took this chance to kick his ribs and flip him back around to face me.
“WHERE IS SHE?!” I screamed. “TELL ME WHERE SILVON AND THAT TRAITOR TO HUMANITY ARE OR-” I pointed the gun at his wife, “OR WE’RE GONNA MAKE A FUCKIN’ MESS!”
“Don’t tell him-” Lew pleaded.
“Shut the fuck up!” I roared, backhanding her.
Nulon was quick, I’d give him that. In the blink of an eye, he was up and leaping toward me while my attention was on his wife. “Don’t lay a hand on her!” He growled, clawing at my arm. The gun escaped my hand as I tried to shield myself from the rabid prey’s onslaught.
“Fuck! Vernon!” I got out between heavy blows, “Do-”
“NULON!” Lew’s voice rang out.
There was a crack, I could hear the splattering of blood on the floor as the venlil on top of me went limp, and fell sideways with a wet thud. Vernon towered over with the crowbar in hand, the bent claw soaked orange. The venlil’s legs twitched slightly as I moved past him to recover the handgun.
“Now then,” I said professionally, pointing the gun at his sobbing whore. “Where is she?”
Lew looked up at me, teary-eyed, and uttered, “Go to hell, predator.”
I didn’t regret pulling the trigger.
“Always such a messy ordeal with Xenos, isn’t it?” I mused, wiping my nose on my sleeve. It came back bloody. Little shit. “Search their room for a holopad, I’m willing to bet wherever Silvon and Stat are, they kept in contact,” Landen and Vernon nodded affirmatively and fanned out.
I retreated to their bathroom to dig through the medicine cabinet. Nulon’s claws did a number on my arm, and I was dripping blood all over the place. This was gonna be a crime scene soon, so this plan was a one-way ticket.
“Aaron!” Landen called from across the house. I finished wrapping my arm and hurried over.
The pair were sitting at the table, Vernon was holding a holopad and brute-forcing the password. “Whose was it?” I questioned.
“I found it on the side of the bed Nulon was on, so his I think,” Landen explained.
I nodded, trodding back into the living room. I clicked on the lights to see better as I entered. The whole place was a bloody mess. I stepped over Nulon’s body and examined the shelf of war memorabilia. There was a certificate with his birthday on it. It first translated to 4-12-2094, and then I was able to have my translator convert the date properly to paws.
“2-12-91,” I muttered. In the silence, there was breathing just faint enough to hear. I walked over to Nulon, whose brain was partially exposed, gaping up at me like a fish out of water. We stared at each other for a while, I enjoyed the fear in his eyes, and then I stamped my foot down on his temple, caving his skull.
“Landen,” I grinned, “Try 2-1-2-9-1.”
He punched in the numbers, “Oh shit! Hey it worked!” the holopad unlocked without further issue. Classic stupid prey.
I took the holopad and navigated to the contacts list. It seemed Nulon had himself a fair few friends around town. I scrolled a while before finally landing on Silvon. I opened the message history.
“Hey, Dad! Starting my first day at the lab, talk to you tonight!” I scrolled up more.
“Just landed in New Litsen!” Attached was a photograph of the spaceport. The arriving terminal was in view, a sign read Leirn in bold font.
“Looks like we’ve got our place. Vernon, see if there are any flights out to… ‘New Litsen’ on Leirn.”
“On it, Aaron,” he replied.
“Landen, go soil up the crime scene. Give the cops a little reward for their work,” I chuckled. He took one of the samples from the carrier case and went to the living room.
I snapped the holopad in two and rose to strut to the door. The pair were all prettied up for the cops, they’d make a nice crime scene photo. Once the place was properly laced with the virus sample, we hit the road again. We’d already gotten all of our bags out of the motel and were ready to head off to Leirn.
“We’ve got tickets for a flight in about half a paw, and I booked them a couple of cities over to avoid suspicion,” Vernon told me as we packed into a street shuttle.
“Great job, boys,” I grinned. “Let’s make Stat pay.”
~~~
Memory transcription subject: Governor Maulo of the Venlil Republic
Date [Standardized human time]: August 30th, 2148
[Day 23]
“Well that’s certainly great news,” I said to the yotul over the holopad, “But I’m not sure I can okay any testing on living people. It’s too experimental right now.”
“I understand that, which is why we’d like to request testing it on some of the personnel we have here. A lot of our venlil are sick, and they will die one way or the other,” he urged. I glanced up at Servaen, who was listening intently and shifting uncomfortably on his feet. “We’ve already gotten consent from them, all we need is your word.”
“Fine,” I sighed, “You can go ahead with the testing. But if it ends up posing a greater risk to the first subject, you are not to try it again until you figure out why,” I demanded.
“We happily accept these conditions. Thank you, Governor,” the yotul bowed and fizzled away. I set down the holopad and rubbed my eyes.
“So…” Servaen began, “I know you just got off some pretty good news and all,” he shifted again, fidgeting with his holopad, “But uh, there’s something you should probably also know about.”
“What is it?” I asked. He flipped open the device and a photograph of two brutalized venlil materialized. I quickly looked away, struggling to keep down my lunch, “Stars, Servaen! You could’ve warned me!”
“S-sorry,” he mumbled.
I shook my head, regaining my cool. Now that I was expecting it, I didn’t feel as sick. “What happened here?”
“We believe this couple was murdered by Humanity First,” he said. “We found human blood at the scene,” a new photo appeared. It was a mugshot of a pale human with blonde hair and soulless eyes. “This is Aaron Clemont, he’s got a history of uh… similar crimes, violent extremism and all. It was his blood we found at the crime scene, and the same fingerprints found on Emiv’s body up in Teiza. We’re almost certain it’s related to the attempt made on Dr. Silvon’s life.”
I studied the human a bit, he certainly didn’t look all that pleasant. “Can I see his full criminal record?” The venlil nodded, flipping through a few documents and handing me the holopad. I scrolled past a few counts of armed robbery, assault, and attempted murder, and finally landed on a capture from some CCTV camera in Beiton. It managed to get his full body in the frame, and zooming in on his hand revealed the trademark Humanity First band.
“Oh, I was just going to bring that up,” Servaen said. “He’s got something against Dr. Silvon, and probably Stat by proxy. I feel we may need to warn them before it’s too late.”
“Agreed. Do we know Aaron’s current whereabouts?” I asked.
Servaen shook his head. “For all we know, they could be on their way to Leirn. We recovered a holopad at the scene that they destroyed. If they’re searching for Dr. Silvon, they may well have found her.”