Scavenger

[Floyd Looney]

I scurry across the ground between two buildings, it was just getting dark and I had awakened. There were still beings walking around and things moving around far down passed the alleys. I try to be aware of them without paying them attention unless they threaten me. They hardly ever come this way and hiding has always worked so far.

I dig through their trash and eat their scraps and leftovers, although sometimes I find things I cannot stomach. Not that I have the highest standards. I have no standards. The ones who made me did that on purpose. When there is rain I’ll lap water from a puddle, when I am hungry I will eat your garbage, bugs or rats that I manage to catch.

I found my hands to be very useful. Rats don’t have hands and neither do dogs or cats. This gives me the advantage in our encounters. They will not steal my food; I can bash them with chunks of wood or concrete. This is my alley. I sleep soundly under some metal stairs behind a trash dumpster, unbothered.

The people who live in the building throw their trash in the dumpsters. Most of them will have food scraps. Sometimes I get lucky and find tasty morsels that are pretty fresh. Once in a while I’ll find socks and other items I can use. They throw out clothing cleaner that what I wear. I have no shame stealing from their unwanted garbage, I wasn’t designed for shame.

I remember only flashes of the other place. The place where I came from, the place where they made me: White lab coats, machines, chambers, cages. I remember how scared I was there.

I remember when I finally knew that I needed to escape. I remember the look in their eyes when I did fight my way out. It was dark outside when I escaped and there rain falling. I got away.

I am not sure how many days or weeks or months ago that was.

I am barely aware of the passage of time. All I know is to wake up when darkness falls and to fight for food and hide if danger comes but I can fight if I have to. Those who made me wanted me to fight if I had to. Why else would they have given me these things?

These claws, this night vision and this hearing that allows me to hear a person sneeze blocks away even when many people are still about. Sometimes in the deepest night it gets quiet enough to slip out of the alley into the bazaar. There are hundreds of stalls that sold everything during the day but sometimes they leave food dropped on the ground. Sometimes I am hungry enough that if it is very quiet I risk foraging through the maze of vendor booths.

I have even learned their language since I escaped. I can read, with effort, the writing on the paper scraps that are everywhere.

I have heard humans speak enough that I picked up their language, or most of it.

I found a body once. I studied it. It did not have claws like me. It did not have eyes like mine and his ears were narrow and small.

His legs were too thick to be a good jumper. I don’t know how they made me if this is what they started with. I don’t know exactly how they think but they built these buildings and those machines and the road. There must be some remarkable individuals among their species for them to have these things. Or to have the ability to make me, I suppose.

I found something in the pocket of the humans’ trousers. A photograph of him, in better days, with a female human and two younglings, they looked so happy. His skin was smoother in the photograph and he chin was hairless. It must have been a long time ago, when he had a home. Home is a conception that I know almost nothing of.

I am neither human nor animal. All I know is that I am a scavenger.

[Attero Dominatus]

That is very interesting!

If he is engineered to be a living weapon, he will probably be immune to disease (both natural pathogens and biological weapons) and resistant to chemical agents, which would allow him to escape into areas most people would not enter if he needs to hide or rescue someone from exposure to such stuff. That is something to think about if you intend to write more.

[Floyd Looney]

I was kind of thinking female but I hadn't decided. The scavenger becomes more and more curious about humans and whats out there. Could he/she find some of the people who engineered him/her? For what purpose? I'm thinking he/she has come to want to want a family, to be happy. Probably not going to get that, might risk his/her life even asking them to make a mate.

[Floyd Looney]

I move from alley to alley in the silent night. It can be dangerous but my perception is better when it is so quiet. I run across an open flat area after I saw that nobody was out, not even their vehicles. Quickly I am amongst trees and bushes, it is wonderful but I am not to waste time. I must be done and back to my alley before the humans wake.

I can hear the occasional vehicle and sometimes other sounds, so I know humans are about but it is less than normal. The white cold on the ground is interesting but there is nothing to it so I don't think about it. It doesn't affect me anyway.

I pause. There is a human on a raised seating platform thirty strides to my left, it sounded as though he were having trouble in his sleep. Now there is nothing, shifting and moving must have settled his discomfort. Seeing humans outside at night does not concern me, it is a common thing. I am too busy to think much about it anyway.

Soon I am out of the trees and bushes and jumping across another open flat expanse. I am in an alley before a human would have even known they had seen me, had they seen me. There was none around though, my senses were very keen about the location of humans.

After hours of traveling I found the place. A small white building with its own short wall all around it. I easily jump the wall and climb into a tree and then onto the top of the small building. This is where I have come before and studied the human whose territory this is and he studied me.

Soon I hear the human speaking, I think he is calling me. I don't think he is really sure if I am here. I jump from the top to near the human and he is momentarily afraid. His movements and smell gave that away. He composes himself and opens the door wide, I smell for other humans. None. I scurry inside.

Again he brings me to the center room. There are bound papers with writing on them, he knows I am learning to understand, he has helped me in this.

He puts a glass of liquid on the square flat table. He sits and watches me. I look around it and smell it, I do not like that smell. He laughs. It doesn't last long, he knows I do not like that sound.

He often does these things when I come. I think he finds it amusing to try things out on me. He tried to get me to eat things all the time, of course I eat them, I can eat anything. Anything at all, I was built to consume anything. Its called surivival.

I drink the liquid, it feels funny but I let it pass.

He puts a plate on the table. I know I am not to touch until I try to say it. He tells me to pronounce "sandwich". I try but my mouth is designed different. I think I say it the same way but it comes out "S'mich". He is always amused by my "S'mich".

Soon I am leaving. He always stands at his doorway and watches me leave. Not that humans can see very far in the dark, to me its hardly noticeable, except that night has far fewer humans roaming around.

[Floyd Looney]

That is just the sort of accolades that will help me finish one of these here stories. /s

[Aaron Burr]

Like I said. Fuggin' creepy.

[Floyd Looney]

Not my alley. I am hiding here. I just had to see the place for myself. Its across another alley and across another "road". Another word I learned, "road", where they use their vehicles.

The place I was born is over there. I am not sure why I wanted to see it again. All day I hid under a metal stairway behind some metal cans, in the shadows. My ears flexed and swiveled with every sound.

A few humans came through, one of them smelled bad. He stumbled, I think he was looking for a place to rest. He didn't stick around though. My senses tell me he is at least a several alleys away.

Finally deep in the night things quieted down enough for me to get out of hiding. I cross the other alley and the road and behind the first building. There were multiple buildings, it was a complex.
Which one did I come from.

I think hard. I didn't have much time. I remember escaping. I remember a nametag, I hadn't known how to read at the time but now I can read a little.

Mason, Theodore

It was on one of the men who had fed me and played with me while I was in a cage. That was his name. I didn't have to come here but it did bring back that memory. I wondered if it was possible to find the man. I wondered if he remembered me.

That is I would do.

How though?

[Attero Dominatus]

Very interesting. I look forward to what happens when the scavenger meets Theodore and sees the inside of place he/she was born at.

[Floyd Looney]

I am sitting on the small white house again, I know he is in there but he does not expect me back so soon. The night was quiet and still, I climb to the side of the house, my claws can grip the spaces in the wall. I knock on the window where my senses tell me the human sleeps.

He looks very surprised to see me as he opens the window and I clamber inside. He shuts the window and then the blinds.

"Well, well... this is a real surprise" he said as he turned to me. I was already waiting at the doorway to the inner part of the house. I wanted the book room.

"Well, just let me catch up to you"

Soon we were inside. I quickly began to look for the right book, I was making a bit of a mess. The man was startled by this, I had never done that before.

"What has you so excited, Meer?"

That is his name for me, Meer, as in Meerkat. I don't really get it, I don't see the resemblance.

I point at the word Theodore in one book and then at the word Mason in another. The man put them together rather fast.

"That is a name right? Your not saying he is a Mason? Theodore Mason. Doesn't ring a bell. I suppose I could look online".

He was sitting in front of the white box on the desk, I hadn't seen it turned on before. He called it a "peesee". The things appearing on the screen looked random to me. I did see a word here and there I knew, but there are so many I don't.

"18 results. All kinds of different people" then he paused at looked at me. "Oh".

There on the screen were several small images and all of them named Theodore Mason. One of the them looked a lot like the man I remembered. Dr. Theodore Mason... Biological Research Center - Advanced Experiments Division.

The man came back, he was drinking from a small glass and handed me a larger one. Strawberry Milk. Good stuff.

"Do you know Theodore Mason?"

I bob my head up and down.

"Did he make you?"

I stared at him, unsure how to respond. As if I remember the details of that. I have a good reason to think he was involved but did he actually make me? I dunno.

"You want to find him? Meet him?"

Head bob. No, I came here out of curiosity. To be fair, thats the usual reason. It has been months since I started to come here, ever since this man saved my life. He owes me nothing, I owe him.

I didn't know what a gun was until some non-sleeping human saw me and decide to take a shot. This man found me, wrapped me up in his shirt and carried me here. He tended the wound and I was better in a few days.

He didn't know what I was; I still don't. As far as he could determine, I was mostly the same as a human but with some ape, possibly orangutan, lemur and maybe sloth. I don't know. I don't even remember his name.

It was while I was still too hurt to move much that I picked up one of his books. It had some pictures and not too many words, he saw me trying to read. He had already figured I was no natural creature and the attempt to read intrigued him.

We have sort of been studying each other ever since.

He owed me nothing and now I am asking him to help me find my maker. I don't pretend to understand what motivates him, but he is extremely useful.