Geneticide: To Serve and Protect
The First Revelation (Revised Edition): Part 3
By: W.O.L.F 0013 & Deranged Kitsune

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. The oldest and strongest form of fear, is fear of the unknown."
--H.P. Lovecraft

Ah, the Great Outdoors. Well, actually this isn't the Great Outdoors. It's more like the Great Concrete Jungle. The night air has a sharp tinge to it that speaks of rot and decay. As we look around, we notice that the buildings have a familiar decadence to them. This is probably explained by the fact that we have returned to the vicinity of the alley where tonight's odyssey began. We are currently situated just outside the alley, watching the adjacent street for our next subject to arrive on scene.

Society has continued its decay since the turn of the century, and in this part of town that fact shows through with a vengeance. The majority of the buildings around here have been abandoned to the homeless or to the seedy elements of the city. Our narcotic dealing friend from the first portion of tonight's presentation is proof enough of that seedier element. In this cesspool of depravity, noble people are hard to come by, even on the best of nights. A truly good cop is even harder to find. Fortunately for Christian, just such a person is a member of the local police force who happens to be on duty this fateful night.

Our present subject is a young officer of the law named Terry Garrett. Terry happens to be a large, blue eyed man of no more then twenty-seven years of age. He is curishorsing the streets, making his rounds rather slowly tonight. Most of his attention is directed at the radio, as the reports coming over it are almost beyond belief. Officer Garrett is just thankful that the plague of animal and mythological transformations occurring tonight have all transpired outside his current jurisdiction. While he is used to dealing with domestic disturbances, he's not too sure he would want to handle any of those on a night like tonight.

Yet despite the multitude of odd reports, Officer Garrett continues his patrol in calm fashion. His mood is serious yet apprehensive as he sits behind the wheel of his squad car. 'Perhaps this is some kind of bizarre hoax?' he thinks, turning a corner under a burnt out streetlight. 'After all, who ever heard of spontaneous transformations? Ridiculous!'

But Garrett's train of thought is abruptly derailed when the figure of a young man darts out from an alley and into the officer's headlights. Slamming down hard on his brakes, our subject grits his teeth as the tires of his car make a bone rattling shrill against the pavement. The car screeches to a stop a few inches in front of the face of Daniel Adams, the street kid from our first segment. In fact, Daniel is caught a few inches short, and winds up essentially running into the patrol car.

Officer Garrett sits in his seat breathing heavily from the sudden shock of almost hitting this crazy punk. For a few moments he gazes at the kid on his hood. When he sees the kid pick himself off, Terry decides to slowly open his door and step outside to try and determine what is going on here. Knowing the neighborhood as well as he does, the officer keeps one hand on his firearm as he addresses the kid whom he almost ran over.

"Are you nuts?" asks Officer Garrett in a solemn tone. "What the hell are you doing?"

Daniel pants for a few more seconds before swallowing and answering the officer. "Oh, thank God. I was trying to call you guys, and I never imagined I would get lucky enough to run into one of you..."

"What are you talking about?" In the glare of his headlights, Garrett inspects the person he is talking with. In Terry's opinion, Daniel Adams is like any other street punk. The dirty clothes, the unkept hair, and the smell of the alley that is his home, all contribute to Terry's overall impression of the person he's talking with.

"My... friend," gasps out Daniel. By his current state, we can deduce that while Daniel may be wiry, he is certainly not in the best of shape. "Something.... Something's happened to him. I don't know what it is, so I left to get help." Dan starts backing up towards the alley. "Come on, you've got to help me. Chris is just lying there, unconscious. We need to get him to a hospital."

This gives the officer some pause. If it was a ploy to get him into the alley, it was the most elaborate one he has seen in a very long time. Also, the kid is doing a bang up job of acting, almost good enough to land him a spot on Broadway. Terry looks at this street kid once more, closely examining the panicked expression on his face. It seems genuine enough, and it convinces the officer that Daniel is indeed telling the truth.

"All right, just give me a moment here." Officer Garrett reaches back into his car, pulling out the mike for his radio. He makes a quick report of the situation, giving the dispatcher his current location. The acknowledgment by the dispatcher quells some of Garrett's apprehensions about following this kid. At least now there is a record of what he was doing and where he was doing it, should anything adverse happen.

Daniel is especially anxious to get going, as concern for Christian is paramount in his mind. He is thrilled that he has been lucky enough to "run into" a cop and that he can get his friend some attention immediately, but at the same time he is quite concerned about what will happen when the officer actually sees Christian.

The pair are about to enter the mouth of the alley a block from where they met, when the silence of the night is split by a resounding click. That particular sound is one that our subject knows well, as it's that of a gun being cocked. Officer Garrett has his firearm out in a blink as the pair turn down the alley.

"Okay, drop it!" shouts the officer. He already had his own gun leveled at the head of the figure in the alley. The drug dealer looks from his work, the darkness of the alley only permitting the faintest hint of the confusion on his face to reach Garrett. But Garrett is in good light, and the dealer realizes that his own gun is pointed in the wrong direction to permit him a good shot. Obediently he raises both his hands, the gun dangling by its trigger guard on his finger.

"I said drop it!" hollers the officer once more. The drug dealer, having been in this situation several times before, slowly lowers the gun to the ground, keeping both his hands in the air while maintaining eye contact with the cop. Despite being mildly buzzed, he's still not stupid enough to give the officer a reason to shoot him. He already knows how cops in this city just love to do away with his kind in such a manner.

Officer Garrett quickly advances around the piles of stinking garbage, his eyes searching for any signs of possible ambush. His mind keeps reminding him of his colleague Buzz Norton. Buzz was killed in a situation almost exactly like this one not a month before. The damned criminals of this city were always killing cops in similar manners, and Officer Garrett does not want his name to be added to the department's memorial.

"Alright, turn around." Garrett grabs the drug dealer, swiftly spinning him around and slamming him hard against the wall. The dealer grunts as the officer twists dealer's arm around behind him. While Terry is applying the cuffs -- in a fashion that shows the high esteem he holds all criminals in -- Daniel returns to the side of his friend.

Christian is unconscious again, though not from the change. His metamorphosis has long since finished running its cycle, and is not causing poor Christian any more agony. But we see that the aftereffects still linger, and that his nervous system is still highly traumatized by what it went through in addition to the simple fatigue of being changed.

"Come on, you've got to help me here," says Daniel. "I can't carry him myself."

For the first time since arriving on the scene, Officer Garrett turns to look at the heap on the ground, the heap that the drug dealer had been so intent on doing away with. He does a double take at what he sees. "What is that?!"

"I don't know, officer dude, but I was about to put it out of my misery. Before you so rudely interrupted me, that is." The drug dealer was still sucking brick; Terry's forearm braced on his neck, his hands securely cuffed.

"He's my friend," whispers Daniel as he places a hand on Christian's back. "You've got to help him."

"What happened?" asks Officer Garret as he walks over, hauling the drug dealer along by his jacket sleeve.

"I don't know. We heard a scream and decided to check it out. Then he just collapsed and started to change. I don't know how it happened, only that this is what he looks like now."

"You should have let me kill that freak."

"Shut up," says Officer Garrett. He turns back to look at Christian. The first thing that goes through the good officer's mind in relation to what he's looking at, is that it's a dragon. He always liked dragons when he was a kid, and that is exactly what this person strikes him as. A seven- foot tall dragon man. "Okay, let's do it."

Daniel grabs one side of Christian, Garrett the other. Both lift for all they are worth, but are barely able to raise the massive form off the ground. To say that Chris has gained a little weight from the change is an understatement. After their third attempt to move the dragon, Terry notices that the drug dealer is just standing idly by, watching the other two work. "You're helping," insists the officer.

The drug dealer backs away a few paces, a horrified expression on his face. "Oh, no way man. Not a chance in hell I'm touching that thing. Besides, you've got my hands cuffed behind me. Can't lift a lot like that, Mr. Policeman."

Office Garrett glares at the drug dealer as he comes to his feet. If there is one thing he hates more then dealers like this one, it's arrogant criminals who refuse to listen to what he tells them. The police officer steps behind his prisoner and we hear a series of small clicking sounds. Terry brings the dealer's hands around to the man's front before re-cuffing them. "There. Now you have no excuses. Get to it." Garrett's scowl communicates all that the dealer needs to know on that issue.

"Shit, man." The dealer hunches down next to his captor, the filthy street kid, and the unconscious dragon. We see the dealer make several hesitant moves to touch Christian, muttering and grousing through his teeth the whole time. Apparently the drug dealer is quite concerned about catching whatever Christian caught that caused his metamorphosis to happen. While we know that this isn't possible, none of the three people on the scene have that advantage. It's actually quite ironic that a person who will readily share a needle with a complete stranger is afraid to touch what is basically an overgrown lizard.

After a stern glare from the cop, the drug dealer overcomes his reservations and moves to pick up Chris. Evidently he's still concerned over Garrett deciding to shoot him for "resisting arrest". Pulling his jacket sleeves over his hands, he grabs one of the dragon's massive scaled arms and lifts.

The added effort works, and the trio is able to take their charge back to Garrett's patrol car. Terry is mildly pleased to see that it is still where he left it. In a neighborhood like the one we are currently in, this is always a good thing. In this case, a very good thing.

The dealer, Daniel, and our subject, Officer Garrett, manage to stow Christian into the back of the squad car with only mild difficulty. Actually, the dragon's wings present the biggest problem of the whole situation. But all that is important is that they do it. The three of them then pile into the car and proceed to the hospital. Garret is driving, the drug dealer is riding shotgun, and Daniel is in the back with his friend. Daniel is currently sitting on the floor, his hand absently stroking the scales of Christian's head.

"So what's your name?" asks the officer after several minutes of silent driving. Garrett had decided to turn off the radio upon his telling dispatch of his plans. He doesn't want to spook the poor kid in the back any more then he already seems to be with the strange reports that have been coming in all evening.

The response comes after a few seconds. "Daniel Adams."

"Well Daniel, I'm Terry Garrett."

"I'm Booze," pipes in the dealer.

"Who asked you?" barks Garrett.

Officer Garrett glares at the dealer from under his brow. At this time the dealer has gone back to absently watching the passing cityscape from his window, vacantly picking at a loose thread on his pants with his cuffed hands. If there is one thing our subject cannot stand, it's this kind of person. That was one of the reasons Garrett had become a cop in the first place; he hated seeing people with no respect for society get away with the things they did. And drug dealers were his favorite targets. They preyed off the weakness of small-minded people, destroying God knew how many lives in their wake.

But his brooding is cut off as they pull into the emergency ward. The truly surprising thing, at least to Officer Garrett's mind, is that the doctors don't seem too shocked when they see their patient. With the help of a handful of orderlies, they manage to extract Christian from the back of the car and take him in for exams, Daniel tagging along to tell them what happened. Terry, and his prisoner Booze, remain in the main reception area.

The hospital, unlike the one from our previous segment, is quite a modern facility. It is all white tiles, walls, and sterile looking instruments. The reception area is very comfortable despite its rather artificial feel. Officer Garrett is presently standing at the main desk filling out admit forms, while Booze is sitting cuffed in one of the reception chairs that is bolted to the floor. He's reading one of the well-used magazines and paying his surroundings no attention. There are about twenty other people scattered throughout the ER in view of our subject.

"Do you people get a lot of dragon transformations here?" Terry asks the duty nurse.

The nurse, an older woman who looks to have had the expression of someone who had just sucked a lemon permanently engraved into her heavily wrinkled face, gives him a dour look. "As a matter of fact officer, we don't. But tonight seems to be an exception. That male you brought in was our fifth case tonight, though he was our first dragon. A number of patients, and even one of the doctors have been changed, tonight."

"Do you have any idea what's caused this?"

"Not a clue. Twenty-nine years of working here and this is the damnedest thing that's ever come in. And I was here for the 2007 cloning accidents."

Officer Garrett absently nods as he returns to his forms. If there is one thing about hospitals, it is that they always seem to make their information forms more complicated then technical manuals for disarming terrorist bombs, the forms appearing to get worse every year. And by the year 2026, we can only wonder at the impenetrable maze of paper that our subject has to wade through.

"Can I borrow your phone for a moment, ma'am?"

The duty nurse gives him both an annoyed look and the receiver before returning to her computer display. Garrett punches the number for his precinct, getting himself forwarded to the duty sergeant. Somehow our patrol man convinces his superiors that questioning Christian ASAP is enough of a priority to remain at the hospital with an arrested drug dealer still in hand. Well, actually he did request that they send by another unit to pick up Booze, but was told that the citywide rash of transformations was tying up all available units.

Officer Garrett returns to his forms afterwards, continuing with them for several more minutes before glancing up to see a drained looking Daniel Adams walking down the hall. Daniel is followed closely by a doctor in a flowing white lab coat.

"So how is he?"

"He's resting comfortably," says the doctor. "Actually other than his condition, along with minor malnutrition and a few slight cuts, we can hardly find anything wrong with the patient. In fact, we expect him to regain consciousness before morning."

This gives Officer Garrett no small measure of relief. The doctor and him speak for several more moments before the other man is called away. Terry then inquires how Daniel is taking things. He's actually quite concerned about the kid, as Daniel looks almost like a walking corpse. The events of the night have taken a good deal out of the boy, and it is really starting to show.

"Hey, why don't you go and find the cafe?" says Garrett. He presses several bills that he takes from his pocket into Daniel's hand. "See if you can get me a coffee. Black."

Daniel agrees, shuffling off to search for the cafeteria. We see Officer Garrett's smile dissolves once more into a grimace as he returns to his paperwork.

Frankly it's driving the head nurse crazy, as she sits there sour faced at her computer terminal, that an officer of the law would take time off to look after what she considers a freak of nature and that he'd keep a criminal in her hospital longer then needed. Officer Garrett can't understand this too well either, and begins to question his judgement.

He ponders it for several moments, his pen hovering a few inches from the paper. It just doesn't seem right to him to abandon a person at need. He begins to weaken however, and questions start to appear in his head. The foremost of them is how this happened, but Officer Garrett quickly puts that aside for later. The next question on his mind is 'why do things feel so calm?'

Heaving a sigh, Terry Garrett returns to his paper. With a few strokes he fills in the last few fields, signing the whole document with a quick flourish of the pen. He hands it over to the duty nurse, groaning a little as he leans his head back. Rolling it from side to side, he's rewarded with the sound of cracking vertebrate with a slight tinge of pain left over.

He continues pondering the questions as he takes up a seat across from Booze in a chair with thick wooden arm rests. Garrett reaches over to one of the small tables and selects a magazine at random. Grabbing a Popular Mechanics, he flips it open to an indiscriminate page. His gaze falls upon the Time Machine feature, the thirty-year mark consisting of an article from 1995 centering on UFO's. We see the officer flip back to the cover, searching for the date. Sure enough, the magazine is a year out of date. Garrett can only shake his head as he shrugs out of his jacket.

His reading proceeds uninterrupted for several minutes. But as we all know, his peace can't last long, not with the events of tonight working the way they are. As with our previous subject, it all starts with a small, nagging itch.

As he turns another page, our subject first becomes aware that all is not right. He reaches back and absentmindedly begins to scratch his left shoulder blade. The scene stays this way for a couple of minutes, Terry Garrett being disturbed from his comfortable position by the incessant tingling on his back, right in that area where man was never built to reach.

Officer Garrett throws down his old magazine, twisting around to try and get better access to the sensation. Booze is only mildly disturbed by his captor's actions at this point. Slowly an unpleasant throbbing begins to form in both of our subject's shoulders.Garrett suddenly gets an uncomfortable look on his face as he realizes that things are starting to go seriously wrong here.

Slowly but surly, an unnatural tightness begins to form near the back of his neck. The head nurse looks up from her display when she notices the policeman using the back of the chair to try and scratch the ever-mounting tingling sensation that he's feeling.

"Are you all right?"

Garrett politely responds with a distracted, "I'm sure it's nothing."

But Officer Terry Garrett is not privy to the information that we are. If he were, then he would be far more panicked at what his body is trying to tell him.

Anyway, the tightness in Officer Garrett' s shoulders continues to grow and Garrett begins to realize an odd sensation all along his back. Sliding his back along the seat to better detect it, he believes that he recognize the feeling of feathers.

Being the most opportune time for it, the change chooses that moment to strike. Terry Garrett screams as both his shoulders explode in stunning pain. Slowly the back of Officer Garrett's shirt splits open revealing two dark black wings each roughly three feet long. Understandably the people that were startled by Garret's scream are staring to panic. However they're not panicking because Garrett is changing, they're panicking because nearly a quarter of everyone in the room is following suit, transforming into various animal morphs or mythological creatures.

But as with Dr. Curwin, our focus remains solely on Officer Garrett. Naturally Garrett has shot to his feet in an attempt to try and see what's going on, as well as possibly lessen the pain enveloping his back. He momentarily registers what is going on in the rest of the ER, but his mind is still on the subject of the rapidly growing wings upon his back. Soon his wings are so big that they are more that double his size in width when folded up, their length nearly reaching to the floor. His pain eases for a moment and he turns his head around to stare dumbfounded at his new set of wings, his breathing a heavy gasping. Much to his stunned astonishment, the wings actually flex when he thinks about moving them.

The pain -- which is never away for very long -- returns quickly, only this time it originates in his skull. The ache moves around to the front of the officer's head and begins to intensify as Garrett's teeth start to fuse together and begin pushing outwards. Soon a silver beak begins to take shape and gives Officer Garrett, oddly enough, a somewhat predatory look. As this happens the rest of his skull fractures and quickly reforms into a more avian shape. That final action elicits an unbridled screech of pain from the patrolmen. He staggers forward, catching himself on the armrest of his chair.

No sooner is that portion of the change completed, than black feathers start growing upon Garrett's scalp and his hair begins to fall out. Even his eyes are changing now, his ears following close behind. With excruciating slowness, the ears start sliding up to the top of his head and begin reforming themselves to better resemble cat ears.

The change switches direction now, moving swiftly downward. Officer Garrett's neck begins to reform to better match his head, and a combination of fur and feathers start growing as well. Further down, fur and feathers commence sprouting upon his chest, a few new flight muscles forming there as well. While it is painful, and his body is rippling with the new alterations, it's all minor growth, really.

As the pain beings to ebb for a moment, Officer Garrett can't help but to notice that at this point the surrounding chaos has grown significantly worse and that the drug dealer he arrested earlier -- Booze, Garrett seems to remember his name being -- appears to be frantically loosening his handcuffs. Officer Garrett attempts to move to and rectify the situation, only to find that almost all his muscles have been locked rigid by the metamorphosis.

A spike of pain shoots through his body, forcing another gasping screech from his beak. This immediately compels Garrett to return his attention to his ever-changing body. For a brief moment he realizes that somewhere along the line he lost his shirt, and that his nails are slowly beginning to resemble talons. A series of ten intense shards of pain lance up his arms from his fingers, causing him to grip the chair with all his strength in an attempt not to cry out. The fleeting though that it's a damn good thing it's a wooden chair and not a metal one crosses the mind of Officer Garrett, before being washed away by the horrendous pain in his arms. For the briefest of instances, the word griffin also flashes across his ravaged mind, the sudden realization being driven from him almost as quickly as it came.

The change has finally works its way down into the lower extremities of the officer's body. Fresh pain floods Terry's mind anew, as his bottom half changes to match the top. First, comes a sharp stabbing sensation near his tailbone, and he grits his beak, trying to block it out. But the pain is persistent, as it has been in all of tonight's subjects, and Officer Garrett cannot withhold his screams for long. The anguish grows, and soon the back end of his plants split to reveal a quickly growing lion's tail. It is of a black coloration, just like the rest of him. Before he can even fully turn and focus his tear clouded eyes upon it, an excruciating stretching feeling overtakes his legs, and he feels the unmistakable sensation of fur begin to spread across them as well.

Officer Garrett disengages himself from the chair, the one armrest having been utterly destroyed by the griffin's talons, and kicks off his shoes to find that his feet are beginning to look like the paws of a lion. In fact the only difference is that they're black. Garrett cries out once again, as his entire body tenses up one last time as the change rushes through him, making its final alterations on tonight's current subject.

Finally the pain eases, allowing his head to clear enough that Officer Garrett can once again assess the turmoil around him. Taking a quick inventory of himself, he finds that he is on all fours, missing a great deal of his clothing, and what clothing he does have is hanging in tatters. Panting heavily from the screaming the change caused him, he raises his head to look out over the rest of the reception area. He quickly discovers three things: He can see things in greater detail; everyone else in the room that was changed seems to be nearing completion; and it really hurts when a drug dealer hits you on the back of your head with the butt of your own gun.

Of course our subject already knew that last part, but the current turn of events have refreshed that knowledge. Anyhow, Officer Garrett is now sprawled out on the floor, his head spinning, with a panicked drug dealer standing over him holding said officer's fire arm. Now you might suppose that in a cop's final moment, he would be thinking of many different things.

If we could see Officer Garrett's thoughts, we would observe that they are centering wishing that he could have started a family, what with still being a young man and all. However all hope of that ever happening appears to be lost, and Terry Garrett begins to accept his fate as he rests his whirling head on the cold floor in preparation for the slip into unconsciousness.

The last things Officer Garrett sees during his final moments are out of the corner of his eye. He sees Booze slowly cocking the gun. He sees that punk dealer slowly start to raise the gun. He sees the sinister grin on Booze's face as he takes aim at Officer Garrett 's head. The very last thing he sees is large vaguely familiar scaled figure with wings quickly run up behind the drug dealer and commence raising his fists.

Then our subject Officer Terry Garrett sees nothing. As we draw this portion to a close, the last sensation that registers before everything goes black in our subject's brain, is a single gunshot. Officer Garrett feels no pain and his final though is the assumption that something must have gone right tonight.

Th'End of Part 3

Forward to Part 4: Where The Wild Things Are
Back to Part 2: Vulpine Mind Trip
Return to: Geneticide Index Page

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