Memory transcription subject: Valek, Venlil tourist
Date [standardized human time]: Sept 11th, 2136. Middle of 3rd Claw
“Well then, what would that make me?”
I jolted, swinging around at the sound. I had felt the voice come from behind me and resonate in my own chest. My fur stood on end as I locked onto his baleful eye glaring down at me. Alvi was frozen to her seat and Maeve had a hand to her chest, her chair now sat nearly half a tail from the table from her jump, her veil fallen from the jolt.
“Jesus Fucking Christ, Tarlim!” She swung her head to meet his eye over her shoulder, “How are you so quiet? Please don't sneak up on me like that.”
Tarlim continued to stare me down, and I could feel myself crumbling under the weight of his attention, though Jacob broke his concentration with a kind greeting, which Maeve returned likewise before asking, “Would you like to join us? These two were just teaching me about Predator Disease. I hope that isn’t a problem?”
Just like that?! Just mentioning his diagnosis set him wild earlier, and we’re just going to keep talking?!
“Not at all!” Jacob replied while he wandered over to the opposite side of our table and sat himself down. So I guess we are going to just keep talking! Even though the Giant was so obviously glaring down at me! But despite that, they just sat across from us, squeezing onto adjacent seats.
I found my tail wrapping itself around Alvi. I didn’t want her to get hurt. I didn’t want anything to happen now that they found us. How… How did they find us? “How did you know where we were?”
The Beast swung its arms wi-
NO! No! Night be damned, you WILL get this through your thick skull Valek. Tarlim. He! Is Tarlim!
Tarlim swung his arms wide, emphasizing the otherwise barren balcony. "You have a human with you. It wasn't hard to guess. It’s a rather familiar feeling. I always seem to end up in a place that the rest of the herd isn’t, and the same seems true for humans." His weighty focus came back to me, "I believe one of you was saying that was a symptom of predator disease?”
“That’s right,” Maeve answered immediately, clueless to or pointedly ignoring Tarlim's eyes on me. “Though it confuses me how the behavior of observers can be part of a diagnosis. That seems… less than scientific.”
“Yes, I would also like to know the logic behind that,” his ears and eyes locked onto mine while pointedly eating a dough ball, “I am very curious.”
Maeve gave me a nod of encouragement, urging me to continue, “Well… I-If the herd is avoiding someone, they must not be communicating ‘safety’ well enough. O-Or even being aggressive! So they would need to be taught how to not be a danger to others.”
“Really?” His ears were perked to signal his interest. ”And since everyone runs, screams, freezes, and cowers at the sight of me simply…” His voice wavered into silence. I could see his expression barely holding back rage and despair as he forced himself to hold a neutral serious expression.
It was Maeve who finished the thought. “Simply for being what you are. Valek…” She faced me directly. Her voice was a tone I heard when we talked about difficult things; devoid of accusation and yet carried by a desperate need to know, “do you believe that a living creature, any thing, sapient or not, should be abandoned because of how they are born?”
My ears fell flat. I could feel the attention of the world on my psyche, and I felt my tail pull from Alvi to protect myself instead. “I… No… But… But what if they’re a danger to the herd? Even humans wouldn’t keep a dangerous human free, would they?”
Jacob spoke through one of his dough balls. “Depends on what you mean by ‘dangerous.’” He swallowed and picked up another, “Most ‘dangerous’ humans are like those Venlil who stabbed their partner, or that other Venlil who smashed their partner’s head on some stairs.” What?! The three of us were all startled at that news. “One was a fear response, the other just a simple accident. Worth a punishment, sure, but not always imprisonment.”
Maeve gulped and added, “Jesus, what happened on Prime Station…? Anyway, something else I noticed is: your process seemed very… proactive. Humans are reactive to injustice, or at least we try to be. Even if we know someone is at high risk of being a danger to those around them, we believe it is wrong to punish them for something they haven’t done. Innocent until proven guilty is a key tenet of our entire justice system.”
“Hey, it’s like they said,” Tarlim swallowed another ball, “it’s about teaching, not justice.” And levied his next challenge against me. “So what is it that I need to be taught? After all, you guys freaked out at seeing me, so you must know exactly what made me so aggressive and dangerous! Right?”
Of course I know why I freaked out! It was because he was big and… he was big and… No, no, that wasn’t the only reason! It couldn’t be the only reason. He was… he was big and he… His teeth! That’s it! They were… big and… And… Was that really it? Was that as deep as this fear went? I can’t even say I was afraid for my life, or for Maeve or Alvi’s life. Not next to how I felt running across the farm. There had to be something more to this than just how he looked!
My mind was spinning trying to justify itself, when Maeve cut through the fog, “Valek… What do exterminators… do?”
I thought for a long moment, “They… They protect us from predators. When there is a predator sighting, they investigate, locate, then exterminate the creature.”
Maeve took a moment to think on my words, then continued, “So what would an exterminator do… if a sapient was a Predator? Would they exterminate them too?”
“Ah, that’s simple!” A gruff voice leapt over a mouthful of dough, “They shoot ‘em with a flare with shotgun-level powder, douse ‘em with gas, and watch ‘em burn alive! That’s what they do!”
The sudden shock derailed our lesson, before Maeve asked incredulously, “Excuse me?? Did you just say exterminators… exterminate… with fire?!” Fear was evident behind her voice.
That couldn’t be true! The exterminators weren’t like that! They were- they were…
The Gi- Tarlim propped up his data pad toward us. There was a human wearing a blue spacesuit standing opposite what looked like more than a dozen exterminators in full flamer gear. The human held up one hand. “Hail people of Venlil Prime! I come in Peace! Take me to your leader!” Instantly, the exterminator closest to him pulled out a flare gun and shot the human. He fell to the ground, the flare bouncing off.
“Ah must say,” Jacob picked up another ball of dough, “Ah thank God Ah wore that suit. That flare still gave me a good bruise, but at least Ah didn’t need any skin grafts.”
I wanted to say it was just that one Venlil. But when the human defended himself, he was doused with fuel. Then there was… there was Tarlim. He was scrambling. Trying to save the human. Trying- trying to protect a friend! But he couldn’t! Jacob was set ablaze! He- he was!
The video ended with Jacob burning on the ground.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
They had to have their reasons! Their duty is to protect the herd! They were trained to do only that! They take an oath to do only that! They can’t be… Evil! There’s proof they aren’t!
Like there’s proof they helped people during Herd Protection?
My heart stopped still.
“I-I need to go.”
---
I could only hear my claws clacking against the tile as I bolted down the stairs, through the arcade and out the front door, filling my lungs with fresh air. In the noise of the city surrounding my isolation, I felt my heart steady its pulse, and I walked aimlessly to clear my head.
I looked around at the city, constantly moving and beating with life and activity. This was the prosperity that the Federation promised us, that Exterminators put themselves in harm's way to protect.
Was all of it just a facade? Some cheap veneer to cover bloodstained rot? We weren’t a utopia, I had never believed that; the Federation and Exterminators can’t be perfect. But Emerald Marble, Krakotl researchers, Tarlim’s imprisonment… These kinds of things are not accidents, and are not the work of a single person.
My mind drifted as I tried to understand why, while my paws carried me back to the hotel. I didn’t take stock of my surroundings until I heard the familiar buzz of the Forum, and stopped a moment to listen.
“My cousin Mavek got into the JEOTC, you know! That kid’s going places!”
“Did you hear? Farzer’s son was diagnosed with predator disease.” --- “I always knew something was off about that boy.”
“I saw one of those freaks on the street.” --- “Another? Are you sure it was one of them?” --- “I saw the scars on their neck! There’s no doubt that they were from there!” --- “I still can’t believe that they would just throw all those monsters out on our streets.”
“No, really! I saw it!” --- “That’s a puddle of Speh! Nobody could live in those drain tunnels for so long!” --- “On my mother’s Star I saw it! I think they’re hiding in there, working together; planning something!” --- “But they’re diseased! They don’t have the brains to work together!”
“And now the landlords are trying to more than double our rent!” --- “Double?? But- but we’re barely making ends meet as it is!” --- “Look, there’s still time to negotiate the contract. In the meantime, I can get more double shifts in the lumber yard.”
“So I called the exterminators, but instead of setting out gas or poison, they bring out the flamers! An entire half of that reserve burnt to ash! Those things only had a couple years until they were ready to cut!” --- “What?! But that reserve was part of our finance plan! How are we going to pay the equipment loans when that forest’s harvest comes around?” --- “We’ll think of something. Brahk. It was a Groben root chewer! They shouldn’t burn the forest just ‘cause it bit a worker’s hand!”
Of course: it's here too. How deep do I have to dig to see these things? Are they even buried at all?
I looked for and found a place to sit, then dug out my pad. Tarlim seemed surprised we didn’t know about him, but Alvi had, and she lived in the Capitol, so his lawsuit must have been televised. And he was right, all I had to search was ‘Dawn Creek correctional facility’ and I immediately found page after page of reports.
“A shame upon Corrections!”
“The secret drug trade of Dawn Creek”
“The failure of Dawn Creek’s Correctional Facility: Doing more harm than good.”
“Against the Herd: The predators deserved it!”
“Venlil weakness on full display”
“The illegal modifications of proven therapy devices!”
I clicked on that last one, figuring it would be the most likely to describe even a little of what physically went on inside. And it did. My stomach turned over and my heart sank to meet it: pictures of empty cells, empty of inhabitants and beds and tables and light. An open bathroom that once was sterile now a splashed palate of grime and filth. A kitchen that no one should ever eat from, with food that defies definition.
And the therapy devices! The Herd Therapy room had a photo of the safe spot, one of the investigators standing inside for scale. The article said that the room would commonly take twelve but that circle looked like it was rated for half that! And the electronics for the floor… They were a nightmare! The voltage was shown to be half-again over the mandated amount!
Then I saw The Chair… it was too big. A massive crown of connectors for the head. Metal clamps for the limbs instead of cloth straps. Electric probes set apart that a normal Venlil would be too small to connect. There… there was only one person that could have been used on.
“My stars… Why had it taken so long for the Light to find this?”
Maybe because it was never in shade?
‘Facility patient testimonials’. It took skipping three pages to get past all of Tarlim’s lawsuit, before I found another one. “This is the third week that I’ve been on latrine duty. Doctor Volm said it would teach me to value the herd. B-But I have to do it alone! I don’t understand…” Spoken from a patient of Clegel Falls Correctional Facility, followed immediately by the same Dr. Volm talking about how the diseased needed to learn their lesson with hard work. That the neglect was simply from a lack of staff. And the author sung the Doctor’s praises in their prose.
Fine. If hard work is how you fix predator disease, then what is their success rate?
The patient name went nowhere, she testified while incarcerated and never left. But the author was prolific, and I found one story that followed a success case. Checking their name, four others were released with them, in addition to a pawful from around the planet. Perfect! I would be able to cross reference their names and find out what happened! Doing just that, I found other release records, but it was just the same names again.
Ok… well if it is so successful, they must want everyone to know it! So finding lists of released persons shouldn’t be too hard. ‘Correctional facility release stories’... hmm, nope. ‘Correctional Facility successes’ - OH that is not what I meant. Brahk. Fine, how about ‘Dangerous predators released on the city’. There we go.
There’s Dawn Creek again. Guess Tarlim wasn’t lying about setting everyone loose. Alright here we go. Let's check these names. There’s my twelve. And there they are again. And again. Why is this story eve- Wait. [Standardized Human Times: 2129? 2126? 2132]...? They’re just releasing the same list over and over!
Were these people even patients?!
I checked each article detailing their release, and they couldn’t even get their diagnoses straight. Same issues: predator sympathizer was on every list, herdless behavior on most, excessive aggression on one or two, but they kept switching who had what. Ok, fine, just pick one!
Kaulna. The first article with her name mentioned predator sympathy, so start there. Treated at the Capitol… and Sweetwater? And Glacierview?? They’re on opposite sides of the Band!! Sun blast it, fine, what about early life? Nothing about education. This ‘Kaulna’ is alive and well in Clegal… and four years old. Oh, one with a medal for honorable service?? No, He died before my Kaulna’s first treatment.
Alright let's try Chelm the… Gojid Harchen? Ok what about Tarsi… who has three single biological mothers in separate cities. Brahking spawn of speh! Stranek?! Anyone?!
Please! Just one person! Just one person who got out who’s not- who’s not…
There was one.
“My son was cured after we took him to the Facility. Only took a few paws to find the right sedative!”
Wait, paws?
I altered my search. ‘Correctional sedatives’. Tons of stories now appeared. New stories. A parent would bring a child in and they would get a sedative to correct the ‘disease’ the child had and be sent on their way. There were several results about such things happening on the Yotul homeworld. But… none of these people were actually interred in the facilities. I found a public list of inmates who were incarcerated in the Capitol in the last month and compared names with the parents talking about their kids.
The kids who came back weren’t on the list. The kids who didn’t… they were.
None of the kids who were on the list had any records of leaving. No record of someone leaving after checking in. Only… only…
… Tarlim. I’m so sorry Tarlim.
I felt the wind around me as my legs sprinted back to the arcade. I shouldered through the door and kept running back to the food court, then bounded up the steps to our table, spurred again by the sound of Alvi crying.
“If what… They do is a choice… what even is a predator?” I crested the top of the stairs, “What… what even is predator disease?”
I knew the answer.