Note to Self: Install air filter in cowl.
It’s a wonder I haven’t been caught already, I’ve been sneezing ever since I entered Madison Colleges’ duct system from the roof and I can’t help but hope my son hasn’t inherited my allergies.
I follow the tick tracer’s signal as far as I can in the ceiling and then find a vent over a brightly lit hallway. Shadows from the vent slots darken my face as two men walk past below me in lab coats. I wait for them to round the corner down the hall and I then I extend a retractable claw from my gauntlet and use it as a screw driver to remove the vent. I turn the dial on my belt buckle and the camouflage-cameras in my suit turn me invisible, then I slip down into the hallway.
This area of the campus smells like a hospital—stale, sterilized air sending shivers up my spine—I’ve never been a fan of hospitals. A row of fluorescents at the other end of the hall flickers, its click-whining sounds much louder than it actually is in the silence of the corridor. I check on the tracer signal—no where to go but down. I scan the hall for an elevator and spot one in the shadows behind the flickering light.
I reach the lift but a card reader panel stands in my way—I’m not getting in unless I have a security pass. Just then the door leading to another wing opens and a single lab technician poking at a data pad walks through.
A single lab technician with a key card dangling from his belt loop.
I press myself up against the wall and wait for him to move in front of me then, as silently as possible, I reach out and grab the card with one hand and swipe at the retractable cord clipped to the belt loop with my claws—the sound like that of scissors cutting through paper. The sound doesn’t go unnoticed and the lab tech turns around just as I stuff the card into my unseen utility belt. The man looks right at me, or through me, as it were. Then snorts, shakes his head and keeps walking without a second thought as I use his card to gain access to the elevator and ride down to the lower levels.
DING! The sound of the lift reaching my sub-level floor reverberates through my mind like a call for help in a canyon. The metal doors open and the scent of the neglected sublevel hits me—moisture, age and blood. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up—the kidnapped animals, the college, the people in lab coats; it all can only mean one thing: animal testing…
And I hate animal testing.
As I step out into the old red brick sublevel I hear it—it’s faint but the ears of the costume amplify the sound. Tortured cries, howls and mews echo from somewhere down the corridor, dimly lit by sparsely spaced bulbs hanging by chains from the ceiling. It’s all so creepy because aside from the weirdo lighting and the old, dingy floors this place looks like any other facility.
And that’s the scariest part—the fact that something so inhumane and vile can look so normal. But that’s how atrocities like this are accepted in society—they hide beneath the veil of normalcy, giving them the ability to operate out in the open, protected by law because no one admits or really sees just how depraved it is.
But today I’m here, and my eyes are WIDE open. And for all those stuck here—for all those poor souls forced to endure the senseless and outdated tests that tell the so called “scientists” nothing that a properly designed computer simulation couldn’t tell them—their voices have been muzzled long enough.
The cruelty stops here.
Today.
I come to a large window that overlooks the laboratory. I scan the stolen keycard with the reader next to the door but whoever I stole it from does not have clearance for this area and the door doesn’t budge. I peer through the blue-tinted glass and my mouth drops.
And I’d been disgusted by the conditions of the animals in the back of the van. Inside the lab sat cage after cage of animals.
No.
These aren’t just “animals”…
These are people’s pets.
Family members.
Best friends.
And then I spot her—Kayla’s cat, “Double-Trouble.” Or as the sticker on her stanchion calls her: G07. She’s sitting on a cold steel table, strapped into some sort of vice. Her head’s shaved—prepped for surgery. Though what kind of operation I have no idea, and then I see others who’ve already suffered the surgery—it’s some kind of hearing implant.
Heavy metal, restricting head gear keeps the apparatus in place, and judging by the animal’s seemingly unawareness of the cries of the others around them, and with the nearby bottles of acid with tiny ear droppers next to them I’m guessing they were chemically deafened before the coiled device was implanted and the large metal rod was drilled into their skulls. I tap my cowl and zoom in on a dog’s oozing infection. The wound around the metal rod is swollen and yellow puss crusts the canine’s furry face. He’s too weak to stand—his legs gave out long ago. What these tests can possibly tell the lab techs is beyond my understanding but my years studying science has taught me at least one thing: there’s always another way.
My fists ball reflexively and I can’t wait to get my hands on those responsible. I hang my head, with the little vein popping out of the forehead, and try to regain control of myself when I see the horror behind the glass right in front of me. A steel table lined with the heads of dogs and cats who have recently died as a result of the experiments performed on them—dissected to find out what went wrong. Their brains are exposed and many of their eyes have remained open and their hollow stares penetrate my soul and etch themselves in my mind. I stagger back in revulsion and trip over something. I land but it’s not on hard linoleum.
It’s soft.
It’s cold.
And it’s wet.
I look down at my hands and find the pile of carcasses I’ve landed on. My eyes flare, not because I’m startled by the horrific sight but as a reflex of anger. And I feel that capacity for forgiveness—that one that supposedly separates us from the animals, disappear. And as much as I’ve tried to condition myself to treat everyone fairly and justly, to never cross that line—I know that deep down inside I’m going to enjoy making them pay.
I lift myself up off the floor when a door to the left of the laboratory entrance swings open, “Who’s out here?!” The feminine voice demands.
At first I consider just staying quiet but she’s from this department and I need a way into the lab. So I turn off my cameras, revealing myself to her and I answer with a gravely uttered, “me.” The woman gasps and I read her nametag. “Do you know who I am, Lydia
She nods and fights through the shock and answers with a yes.
“Then you know why I’m here.”
She peers into the lab through the glass, “I could take a wild guess.” She says, turning towards the lab with her hands clasped behind her back, her demeanor is calm and short, and I wonder if she’s somehow already called security. “Of course you don’t need a doctorate to figure you out—and I have one.” She says.
“And we’re all very impressed.” I sneer back at her.
She bats her eyes nervously at me, “so am I under arrest or something?”
She knows better than that—I hold no authority but the laws of the jungle.
She’s testing me. I smirk under my mask, “of course not, Lydia
She smiles back, “then why are you here?”
“Why are they here?” I ask with a nod towards the lab animals.
“Tests.”
“Yeah, I got that—what kind of ‘tests’?”
“Auditory. We’re trying to cure deafness.”
“Uh huh. And have you gotten anywhere with these experiments?”
“No.” She says simply. “…it’s a lost cause. But the funding we get for the program makes us a lot of money.”
I nod my head, assuming as much already it comes as no surprise. Human greed always outweighs our sense of right and wrong. “Open the door.”
“No.” She answers, shaking her head. “No, I can’t do that.”
I can’t help but chuckle, slow and dark. “I’m willing to bet that you can.” I tell her moving within an inch of her face. She quivers at my presence and it’s more than just the onion and garlic bagel I had in the Sky Fox—I’m getting to her. “And I know that you most definitely will...”
As soon as we’re in you’re going to free the animals.” I notice that she’s about to abject and I advise against it. I flip on the Jargon, ready to tell the animals awaiting salvation inside how we’re going to escape. She opens the door and it hits me—fills my ears and crashes against my brain like waves against breakwater in the middle of a storm. I stagger and grab at the inside wall of the lab wall for support. The sound threatens to drive me insane—I’ve never heard anything like it. I couldn’t hear it in full through the glass but now it’s in full force. All the test animals, all the pets, all the family members and friends, all the cramped, tested, operated on, abused, neglected, bleeding, infected and suffering critter in that lab is all crying out all at once, their translated pleas like an orphanage full of starving children. I fall to the floor screaming and clutching my head. I try to turn off the Jargon but something’s wrong. Lydia
“I hope you’ve enjoyed your tour of our campus.” She says confidently, taking another swipe at me with what remains of the coat rack. “But I still have to show you our incinerator…”
“And what if I don’t fit?” I ask her through the overload of sound in my head.
She smiles devilishly and replies, “If there’s one thing this job has taught me, hero—it’s that there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
“Lady.” I say, feeling Rascal’s collar bunched up inside my utility belt. “I couldn’t agree with you more…” Then I whip the collar around her ankle and sweep her legs out from under her. When she hits the floor I pounce, “here’s an experiment for you. I say, disconnecting the Jargon from my ears. “Let’s see what happens when the abuser listens to the jumble of agony from everyone she’s hurt…” And with that I force the Jargon on over her ears. The myriad of animal screams fill her head and she immediately starts wailing. She claws at her head, trying desperately to get the device off of her and I can’t help but notice the irony. I reach up on the counter and pull down two of the leather straps used to hold the hearing apparatuses snug against the animal’s ears and use one of them to secure the Jargon to Lydia
I pass by the Lhasa Apso’s cage and thank God I wasn’t too late to save him like I was Rascal. I karate chop the lock on his pen and he jumps happily as he follows me as I approach Double-Trouble who’s still in her stanchion. She’s in worse shape than I originally thought. Patches of dry blood cling to her fur where the clamps have forced her down and the smell of urine and blood is thick. Shed, orange fur that she’s ripped out of her own body in her struggles to escape litter the table. Gently I pet her back and even after everything she’s been through, she purrs.
I unhook the apparatus holding her in place and stiffly she sits on the table and her sweet amber eyes stare into mine while her delicate, pink nose sniffs the air as she decides if I’m a good human or a bad human as the other animals in the room stop their mewing and barking all at once. I don’t have the Jargon on me, but some things don’t need to be interpreted. Then I nod and smile at the survivors of this horror show, “alright you guys, let’s get you home.”
Four hours later we roll back into Vilas County
I learned where to leave Rascal’s collar from the address engraved on his dog tags.
The van is empty now except for one—and I drive to Kayla’s to reunite her with her best friend.
I stay and talk with her for awhile near the tree line in back of her run-down old log house while she rustles a stick in the long grass so her furry friend can pounce at it. She tells me about her life and about how happy she is to have Double-Trouble back—no matter how bald. I know what I’ve done is good—I just always wish I could do more. Because I know there are so many other reach facilities out there using live animal subjects that so many don’t even know about—that I don’t even know about…yet.
My faith in law enforcement notwithstanding—I doubt the evidence I collected from the lab will be enough to get the place shut down for good.
I’ve only delayed the inevitable—Lydia
And then, all at once, I’m troubled by something else. Something I had not considered and now, having realized my mistake, could kick myself for being so careless…“Bye Mister Feral-Man!” Kayla chimes, interrupting my self-loathing with that ridiculous name the news papers gave me.
It makes me cringe and I correct her, “call me Badger, Kiddo.” Then she smiles sweetly, cuddling her kitty in her pink nightgown and walks inside her empty house. I smile after her and hope I never have to see her again—at least not under the same circumstances anyway.
The light of day begins to fade and I feel truly alone—frozen. Not by the dropping temperatures, but by guilt—all I had wanted to do was punish that deviant doctor, and now I fear that I may have created an even bigger monster…
And the question haunts me: what won’t a corrupt, opportunistic scientist do with my invention?
This weeks’ post is dedicated to the real-life Double-Trouble or, as her abusers only knew her as, G07, who never made it out of that college in Madison, Wisconsin and for all the other defenseless innocents who have senselessly died as test subject during cruel and archaic lab experiments that have provided no real benefit to science at the cold hands of humans who saw them as nothing more than a number. To learn more about Double Trouble the Cat, just type the underlined into a search engine or follow the link below to view one of several videos of Double-Trouble—but be warned, the content is graphic:
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