The Way of the Ram Read online

  “I have nothing left,” Ponder said. “For all this talk of our mission, we have achieved nothing but leaping from one form of imprisonment to another, with brief glimpses of freedom in between. I have grown tired of it, Mauler. I am ready to renounce this purpose of ours.”

  “What would you do instead?”

  “Go with you. Anywhere but here. Away from these pigs, Optera and Karkus, and anyone else who has presumed to decide what you and I should do with our lives.”

  Using the last remnant of his strength, Mauler pulled Ponder until she tilted over, her head lying against his chest.

  “When we get out of here,” he said, “I will take you wherever you choose to go. Just you and me. We can find a place where the gods can’t reach us.”

  “I hope so. I could do without their interference. But I cannot do without you, Mauler. You make me whole. I understand Optera’s intent in giving me this body, but it still frustrates me. You make me forget that. You hold and touch me as if I were a creature of flesh. Your strength and agility make up for what I lack.”

  “You make me complete too, Ponder. You have a gift with words that I never will, in spite of all you’ve taught me. I never want to be apart from you.”

  Neither of them saw the two shadows moving on the wall, brimming with anticipation and hanging on every word they spoke.

  Chapter 17

  Both owners of Whole Hogs kept a nervous eye on the clock as the afternoon transitioned to evening. They kicked a ball around with a group of five lambs while parents watched from the porch. Dr. Gobb had already left for the day. When the western sky took on an orange tint, Swifter approached Healer.

  “Hey, man. I’ve got that big exam tonight.”

  Healer stopped the rolling ball with a hoof. “I’ve got this covered.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’ll finish with this group and I have one more patient this evening. Go cram. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Alright, thanks.” Swifter winked. “Have fun.”

  “Get out of here, you pooch.”

  Swifter vanished into the clinic to call his taxi. By the time he and his ride had gone out of sight into the plains, another cab was approaching from Fleece City.

  Healer finished out the lambs’ play therapy session and dismissed them. He gathered discarded toys from the yard and set them aside on the porch, hoping he’d made the place look at least somewhat presentable.

  The cab rolled up the dirt path to the house. The driver, an adolescent sheep with patchy wool, got out and ran around to open his passenger’s door.

  Healer was struck by the way Dreamer’s coat shone in the evening light. He had not noticed during their meeting a few days ago, but her wool had grown longer and more golden as she matured. He still had the presence of mind to beat her to the driver and pay for her fare.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” she said as they watched the taxi leave. “But thank you.”

  “No worries,” he said with a small grin. “Come on inside. My last patient is waiting.”

  He led Dreamer into the building and gave her a chair off to the side of the gym. He ducked into a side room and came out with a tiny pig in a hard hat and an orange reflective vest. The little pig favored one of his forelegs as he followed Healer over to a table.

  “This is Dreamer,” Healer said with a gesture. “She’s here to observe. Does she have your permission to watch what we’re doing?”

  The pig shrugged. “Sure. Makes no difference to me.”

  Dreamer pulled the chair up next to Healer to see the treatment up close.

  The pig sat up in the chair and placed both forelegs on the table. “I’m Hork. I’d shake, but…” He waggled one trotter. Healer could see that the wrist was swollen and painful.

  “I’ve seen your file, Hork, but I like to hear the story the way the patient understands it. What happened here?”

  “My crew and I work twelve-hour shifts finishing up a… building in the Megatropolis. I’m not supposed to talk about it. Point is, I just got tired and sloppy. A big pallet of bricks was swinging on a crane and I tried to steady it with my bare trotter. Sprained the crap out of it.”

  Dreamer winced. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, ouch wasn’t among the choice words I was saying at the time,” Hork said. “Anyway, they want me back on the job ASAP. Apparently you’re the guy to see. Can you fix it?”

  “Oh, yes. That’s the easy part.” Healer took hold of Hork’s trotter and looked at it closely. His eyes turned bright green as his vision delved into the flesh and found the injury. It was a simple fix, a matter of seconds.

  Healer did a careful examination, taking the repaired wrist through its full range of motion. “How’s that?”

  “Wow. Feels great.” Hork cradled and flexed his wrist. “That’s unbelievable.”

  “Like I said, that was the easy part.” Healer leaned back in his chair. “Would you consider coming back once or twice? I’d like to go through some fatigue management stuff and maybe have Swifter teach you some ergonomic exercises.”

  “Uh, maybe. If I have time.”

  “Alright. Get on back out there and I’ll call you in a couple of days. Thanks, Hork.”

  “Thank you.” The little pig hopped off his chair and headed out through the front door.

  Healer watched him go. “There you have it. It’s really not a complicated job. The trick is getting people to follow up.” He turned to face Dreamer. “What do you…”

  She was just staring.

  Healer waved a hoof. “You OK?”

  She blinked and her cheeks turned the shade of rhubarb. “Oh… I’m fine. That was just impressive.”

  He laughed. “If you say so. That’s all there is to it. Other than Gobb using my facility for a pill dispensary, everything here is great. We just play and mess around. Swifter seems to love it. We haven’t worked a day since this place opened.”

  “I love it, Healer.”

  “I’m glad you do. Just make yourself at home. I’m going to clean up real quick.”

  “I want to help. Show me how all this equipment works.”

  Chapter 18

  The ringing phone almost made Swill jump out of his white coat. His stainless steel tools fell off the tray and scattered all over the counter. Grumbling, he tossed the tray aside and snatched up the receiver.

  “I hear you’re still having trouble down there, Mr. Swill.”

  The scientist froze. That low, melodic voice was the last thing he wanted to hear right now. He took a long, deep breath and tried to gather his courage.

  “Well, sir, without my assistant, I’m having to do all the grunt work down here. So, yes, I’d say I’m struggling.”

  “I’m not talking about that, Swill. I’m told you’ve lost another batch.”

  Swill gulped. “That’s true. No matter what I do, they keep dying on me.”

  “Oh, you’re having a survivability problem. I thought you might say that. Did you get the parcel I sent along?”

  “Uh, no. No one’s brought anything… ah, someone’s knocking on my door.”

  “A gift from me, symbolic of how much of myself I have invested into the success of this project. I hope it helps. Bye, now.”

  The boss hung up without waiting for a response. Intrigued, Swill put the phone down and opened the door. One of Guz’s dour bulldogs stood there with a tiny brown bag tied off with twine. Swill took the delivery and the dog left without a word.

  Swill’s shaking trotters took a minute to fumble the wrapping open. Inside was a clear glass vial with a wax stopper. It was full of a dark red fluid.

  “Why would he send me blood?” Swill thought out loud. “How much of himself… he can’t mean…”

  Swill darted across the lab to the storage freezer and pulled out a box labeled “BASE CELLS.” He opened the vial and used a pipette to place a drop of the blood on one of the glass slides from the box, hurrying to examine it under his microscope.

  “C
ompatible… now if we…” Swill pulled the slide from the microscope and moved it to the gene sequencer. Most of the genetic information was already in the system from the countless failures; it did not take long for the new sequences to be mapped out.

  Swill’s trotters moved like those of a man possessed as he frantically rearranged the prototype DNA structure to include the new blood’s genetic contribution.

  He peered into the machine’s eyepiece as a new nucleus was manufactured from the input. A needle thinner than a hair moved to inject the nucleus into a waiting cell. The newly formed zygote was deposited in a test tube at the machine’s other end. Swill seized it and held it up to eye level.

  The cell was dividing. Fast. He could already see the embryo with his naked eye. Within minutes it would be too large for this glass tube. He hurried to power up a massive fluid-filled tank next to his computer. He poured the tube’s contents into the thick, milky liquid in the tank before plugging in more monitors and instruments.

  “Nutrients… climate control… if it has what it needs…”

  Swill stopped to watch as the form in the tank grew to the size of a golf ball. It twisted, writhed, arched as its tiny body took shape. He could see delicate bones under the translucent skin.

  BEEP.

  He looked at the monitors. A quick, faint heartbeat. Electrical signals. Life. By the time he looked back at the tank, he could see four distinct limbs.

  “By Toxid…” Swill gasped. “It’s working.”

  Chapter 19

  The crash brought Guz and every other pig within a mile of the commuter rail clamoring into the street. Affluent and destitute pigs alike gathered at the tracks that formed the dividing line between the Megatropolis’s uptown and downtown districts. They all stared at roofs and down alleys, wondering where the noise had come from.

  “Look there!” Someone pointed. Guz turned as fast as his little legs would let him.

  The gangling thing crawled on the asphalt on all fours. Its eyes gave off an amber glow in the dusk and its curved claws made the grating scrape of metal on stone.

  At the sight of it, pigs on both sides of the tracks began to run and scream. It let out a strange noise, at once a high-pitched scream and a deep roar, before scrambling onto the tracks in the direction of the crowd.

  Flashing yellow lights heralded the approach of a passenger train. As the vehicle rounded the curve, its headlights threw bright white beams ahead and Guz got a clear look at the creature for a second. It seemed to be wearing a red cloak, and its face looked like a beaked mask of wood and metal.

  Then it raised a clawed hand and sliced the track in two. As Guz watched in horror from the brick archway of the prison, the creature stood up on its hind legs, seized the cut end of the rail in its hands, and twisted it up and away from the ground.

  That rail is made of tempered steel, Guz marveled. What is this monster?

  The creature sprang out of sight just as the train car hit the damaged track. Guz backpedaled through the main door of the jail, not willing to watch what came next. He closed the door to shut out the unearthly noise from the train car jumping the tracks and careening onto the sidewalk.

  He waved down the first bulldog guard he saw. “Get on the emergency line!” he squalled. “Now!”

  The bulldog nodded much too slowly. “What do I tell ‘em?”

  Guz felt his face turning purple with rage. “Never mind, you idiot.” He heaved his sagging body across the entryway and grabbed a wall-mounted telephone.

  “Megatropolis Uptown Police Department, what’s your emergency?”

  “This is the warden! We’re being attacked! Right out front of the prison!”

  “Uh, description of the assailant, please.”

  “It’s… it looks like it’s wearing a red robe. Glowing eyes. Long claws. That’s all I could see.”

  “Well… OK. We’ll send an officer.”

  “You tell them to send more than an officer! We need clones on the scene! Now! Right now!!” Guz slammed the phone into the receiver so hard it bounced back out and dangled from its cord. But he was already on his way back outside, followed by half a dozen bulldogs.

  He ran past the overturned train car, where witnesses had begun helping passengers get out. All around, the Megatropolis was waking up like an ancient, hibernating behemoth. Streetlights turned from amber to bright white, lighting up the block as if it were midday. Hidden robotic eyes came to life on the walls and roofs of apartments. Inside the fenced compound in the center of the uptown district, the lights in the Chugg Cybernetics building came on. A pair of floodlights on metal towers activated, throwing powerful beams into the darkness of downtown.

  The creature must have been spotted by one of the countless security cameras, because a siren blared in the distance and the two high beams converged on one spot beyond Guz’s line of sight. The Cybernetics building belched a black cloud into the sky and streams of dark red emerged from side doors.

  Guz watched the red flood until it reached the tracks—a slavering pack of cloned hounds. They ran past the jail and separated into smaller groups to run down each alley. Seconds later the black cloud reached the scene, revealing itself as a swarm of ospreys.

  The target reappeared on the roof of a building right next to Guz and his men. A second later, it was surrounded by clones. Guz took an involuntary step forward, his pulse pounding. He was dying to see this thing get torn apart.

  A thrumming howl made of a hundred voices sounded off through the alleyways as the red monster was buried in dogs. Guz, the bulldogs, and the other pigs watching from the street all cheered for the raging, biting, and thrashing clones.

  Seconds later the whole pile of dogs was thrown. Some tumbled across the roof and some fell off altogether. The red beast stood in the floodlight beams, arms raised, bellowing at its attackers.

  “N-no way,” Guz gasped. “There isn’t a scratch on it. What were those dogs doing?”

  The clones still on the roof gathered for a second attack, but the creature was ready. Cutting through the oncoming dogs with a spray of blood, it leapt onto the next roof and then dove into the alley. The floodlights swept back and forth, unable to locate it again.

  The dark silhouettes of the mechanized guns along the city’s outer wall broke out of their programmed patterns, spinning away from the fields and pointing into the Megatropolis.

  Guz could have believed he’d put his head next to a jackhammer with a jet engine attached. As the mounted guns blasted away into some unfortunate spot downtown, he covered his ears and threw himself to the ground. His terrified employees followed his lead. The guns moved in a sweeping arc, utterly heedless of the damage and potential casualties they inflicted.

  The monster bounded across the street right in front of Guz, and the deadly hail of lead followed close behind. The warden and his guards scurried away from the spot as the road was converted into a dusty hole in the ground.

  “Hey!” Guz screamed at the closest camera eye. “We’re still here! Are you crazy?!”

  Of course, no answer came.

  The warden resigned himself to tracking the monster’s path in case he had to get out of the way. It tore straight down the main road, its dark red cloak flying around behind it. The pair of guns above the gate chewed up the street as the beast approached.

  It hunkered down and hurled itself at the closed gate. Guz almost laughed as it repeatedly battered its body against the reinforced metal doors. After four or five hits, it gave up and moved along the wall. One of the other guns caught sight of it and began to blast away again, ripping holes in the bottom of the wall.

  “The boss is going to be pissed!” Guz yelled to the bulldog next to him.

  “Those guns are causing more damage than the monster is!” the dog called back.

  The creature wove its way back through downtown, the guns cutting another path of destruction as they followed it. This time, it headed for the other district.

  Guz couldn’t see the mon
ster anymore, but he could infer what was going on. The floodlights near Chugg Headquarters converged on the ground. A second later, the paths of all eight wall guns did the same.

  “There’s only one place on the ground that all eight guns can see,” he said to the guards, “and that’s the front gate of the Chugg grounds.”

  For several seconds the eight merciless streams of bullets pounded away at this spot. Then they stopped firing and swept in random directions.

  “What happened? Did they lose it?”

  One of the floodlights caught it climbing the side of a nearby building. The guns trained on it, but then the other floodlight spotted the same figure on another structure.

  “There’s more than one of them?” the guards gasped. “We’re screwed!”

  The guns split up and fired on both targets, but they vanished as the bullets blasted chunks out of the sides of the buildings.

  “Holy crap, look at that!”

  Guz’s eyes followed the paw of the dog pointing up at the sky. The beast streaked right over their heads—it was flying.

  “The others were decoys,” he spat. “It’s getting away.”

  Both floodlights lit up the red figure as it glided over downtown, its billowing cloak somehow spread out into wings. It collided with the swarm of ospreys in midair and ripped right through them.

  The guns caught it as it approached the wall. It let out an agonized squawk as it was pummeled with lead, tumbling over the wall at the north end of the Megatropolis and dropping out of sight.

  Guz smirked. “Well, that takes care of that.”

  “But what was it?”

  “The higher-ups will figure it out,” the warden snapped. “Get back inside and start inspecting the damage. And someone check on the prisoners.”

  The Chugg Report

  Friday, December 12

  Minor Industrial Incident in Megatropolis

  MEGATROPOLIS—Repairs are underway after a small systems failure in downtown Megatropolis caused a hiccup in normal operations.