The Wolf Soul - Part Four
#4 of The Wolf Soul (TF/TG Themes)
It's time to face up to the facts.
The Wolf Soul - Part Four
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"no...no...nnn...st...st..st.sshh..aaare..."
Brandon glanced over at the lopsided form of his boyfriend guiltily.
"Sorry," he said.
He dared to peek over again at the direction where his eyes had been trained before, on the other side of the waiting room. A black Bauhaus style couch, black leather and shiny steel, was a contrast to the backdrop of the wall that was a shiny shade of white, and upon the loveseat there was a...a...living, breathing, tail-flicking vixen, idly leafing through a glossy lifestyle magazine.
Brandon chastised himself for gawking. Of course he should have expected for someone to show up there. The Krieger- Jensen Clinic was the only place in the whole East Coast where fangers were being...made? Created? Modified? He couldn't choose a word he was happy with, and he felt guilty with all of them, especially since Andy was sitting on his wheelchair next to him while Brandon sat in the armchair. There were no old magazines for him to browse, although the cup of chilled water on the little stainless steel table had done something to calm his nerves. The air smelled of a bizarre mixture between a hospital and a health spa, like a disinfectant and a herbal soap. There was also an ambient noise, a gentle swooshing of the wind, or something like that. Brandon was glad it wasn't dripping water like he'd heard at some place...that just made him want to pee.
The vixen's magazine rustled.
"Do you need a drink?" Brandon asked from Andy, in the hopes of distracting himself as much as tending for his boyfriend.
"No...no...th...th...ankssh...ba...ba...hassssssselll..."
It sounded like gibberish, but Brandon understood easy enough. Andy didn't want a drink, because going to the bathroom for a leak was too much trouble, especially when not at home where everything was specially equipped to help Andy's special needs.
"Alright."
The bearded man mourned the fact that Andy's speech seemed to have become even worse in the space of the few weeks they had spent waiting for the appointment at the Clinic. His neck was more or less permanently twisted in an uncomfortable posture, as was his left leg, and his hands were, in Andy's own words, "ffffkeen ussslessh", and he seemed less and less energetic. He was endlessly unhappy about his physical disability and the strain it was putting on Brandon, too.
Right now he seemed positively excited, which only Brandon's trained eye could tell. It was in the way he was looking at things, the scifi surroundings at the clinic, the uniformed staff, the very way excitement seemed to reduce the constant tremor of his right hand against his stomach.
A nurse approached, with pneumatic steps, a permanent smile, and perfectly coiffeured hair that was adorned by an anachronistic, pearly white cap that topped off the uniform she wore. She even had a little watch attached to the lapel, as if she was in the habit of taking the pulses of random passers-by.
"Mister Laurie and Mister Collier?" she spoke through her capped smile. "Doctor Ambergris will see you now and apologizes for you having to wait. May I help you, Mister Laurie?"
"Ysshhhhh..." Andy managed a nod.
"I'll just unlock your wheels then, Mister Laurie!"
She moved with perfect professional flare, a series of metal clicks, and they were moving down along the broad, gently winding corridor. Brandon felt like he was onboard the Enterprise rather than in a building. He couldn't even imagine how much money had been put into this business.
No wonder the clients were people like Lloyd Packer, he thought.
"And here it is."
The nurse opened the door by touching a panel, and the glass doors opened - without a hiss, for which Brandon was grateful, but the double sliding doors opened very smoothly and disappeared into the structure of the wall.
The room was large and comfortable, decorated in shades of tan, beige, leather, linen, earthly colors and natural materials. There were no pieces of art or decorations, only patterns of texture and a warm, pleasant atmosphere generated by the color scheme. The windows were shaded and let out only some of the daylight, and the rest was produced by illuminating panels in the ceiling and in light pillars that passed from the ceiling to the floor.
"Mister Laurie, welcome."
Doctor Ambergris stood behind his desk. He was seven feet tall, a massive sight in his furred, maned splendor. The lion was dressed in a white coat obviously made up to his specifications to accommodate his feline shoulders and, Brandon assumed, his tail. A pair of pinze-nez eyeglasses rested over his muzzle. His eyes were blue, and his paws, folded over his hips, looked immense.
Brandon had not expected the physician to be a fanger. He wasn't sure whether he was supposed to stare so openly.
"Mister...Collier, yes?"
"Yes," Brandon said.
The nurse parked Andy next to a leather chair, received a nod from the doctor, and left the room.
"Excuse me that I do not shake hands, it is a habit I have grown to find...unsuitable for my current state," the lion spoke. "Please sit down."
His voice was deep, and almost impossible to describe in human terms. The low timbres and flows, hinting at a purr he was capable of, combined with the eyes...the eyes that pierced him onto the couch through those stylized glasses.
"I am the Chief Clinician of the Krieger-Jensen Clinic," the lion said. "I have reviewed your case along with my colleagues at the clinical decisions board."
"W...wa...wa...wha...wa...wa..k...k...k..k..k..k...sssss....say?"
The lion appeared to be unbothered by Andy's time-consuming manner of speaking, instead sitting there and listening attentively. Brandon could see his ears flicking occasionally.
"Your case is very complex, Mister Laurie," Doctor Ambergris said, "It presents us with curious challenges."
Brandon didn't like hearing that. It sounded like a polite way of saying that they simply couldn't do anything about it.
"What is it?" he asked. He didn't have patience to wait for the doctor to keep talking.
"Your disease has created severe damage to your central nervous system. The motor neuron dysfunction as a result has led into widespread atrophy of muscular tissue, peripheral nerves and several functional disorders as a cause of sedentary status as well as side effects from the neuroleptic medication."
"We know that the drugs have been doing harm too," Brandon said, "I've seen it myself."
"The mitochondrial damage extends to every cell, however, due to the genetic nature of the disease," Doctor Ambergris noted, "hence, the complete conversion provided by the therapy is the only option for a cure."
"We tried the gene therapies," Brandon said, "lactic acid scavengers, intron modification, vector implantation, whatever you call them, we did it."
"I have reviewed all the details, Mister Collier," the lion said, "I am perfectly aware of the previous interventions for treating Mister Laurie's illness. Three years ago, you underwent an embryonic mitochondrial transplant trial and two cycles of gene transplant trials to attempt to stop the BLTS from proceeding. However, the treatments were unsuccessful."
"He rejected the mitochondria and the gene transplants failed. He almost died the second time around," Brandon said, "he went septic from the generalized inflammation and toxic shock."
"I am aware," the lion nodded his great head.
"..ssshit...hap...hap...p...pen...sssshh.." Andy commented.
"I started my research in genetic therapies," Doctor Ambergris said, "I worked for fifteen years in such discipline. I saw great leaps being made, but everything is simply not possible to be treated with simple intracellular transplantation of single genes. The modalities are so complicated, the effect of so many genes accumulating...these are not simple Mendelian alleles we are discussing here, but complex disorders of genetic makeup."
"...c...c...c...c...crap...luck..." Andy harrumphed.
"And you think you can help?" Brandon asked.
"Let me show you how it's done," the lion spoke.
Brandon tensed.
The lion did not seem to want to resort to showmanship to gain the attention of his patient. HE used simple buttons to dim the lights and then to activate a display screen on one of the walls. Another tap caused the transparent surface of his computer monitor to slide out of a crevice in his desk. It lit up and brought the icons of the user interface into view. Brandon noticed that they were quite large...for big lion fingers, he thought.
"if you'd look over there..." he gestured.
The display screen produced a simple drawn image of a human person, naked, and with little expression, looking into the viewer with the blank look of a cartoon figure.
"The human being, the product of the functioning of a countless genes that police its functions, both the good and the bad," Doctor Ambergris said. "From birth to death, the genes are in charge of everything."
The image changes with a tap, to show the double helix of the DNA.
"What if the genes decide to gang up, and produce disease?"
The double helix shattered into numerous pieces. Brandon shivered at the sound of the lion's hissing laughter.
"Excuse me. It's a standard pitch," the lion said, "I am just trying to visualize what we do to you, as simply as possible."
"Cool." Andy opined.
"Cancer."
An image of a ghastly pathological sample, lying in a stainless steel kidney dish, a body part clearly lopped off a diseased individual.
"Huntington's disease."
A photograph of a woman sitting in an electric wheelchair, her body twisted, a hollow, tortured expression over her face that made Brandon especially uncomfortable, because the terrible posture reminded him of Andy, in a way.
"Cystic fibrosis."
A sickly-looking boy, wearing an oxygen mask and looking quietly at the camera.
"Proteus syndrome."
A child with such hideous deformations of the entire body that they couldn't be described in any normal terms of appearance.
"Excuse me," Doctor Ambergris said. "Some of these are rather distressing."
"It's fine," Brandon said.
The double helix of the DNA re-appeared on the screen that was now void of twisted human bodies.
"In our therapy, we read the entire genetic code of an individual..."
The double helix flashed.
"We locate the segments..."
Part of the genetic code displayed on the monitor flashed a sharp red.
"And we replace the unhealthy segments with trans-genomic genetic material."
The double helix was slashed into three pieces, the centre blasted away in smithereens, and new amino acids flew into space from off-screen and the entire, newly completed genetic code happily rotated and glowed.
"New DNA, void of disease, perfectly functioning protein synthesis. A healthy individual."
A mutant, Brandon thought, unable to look at the lion shimmering in the light from his computer.
"...no...bad....g..g...g...k.k.k..k...eeennnsss..." Andy said.
"Precisely. In some cases, the process is more self-limited, but in case such as yours..."
The screen shifted, to show a more realistic depiction of a man, still obviously computer-generated, but no longer looking like a stick figure.
"...the genetic modification of all cells with disease-resistant DNA may cause the appearance of new trans-genomic traits."
The picture shifted with a cheesy fading effect to show the human's face morph into that of a feline, whiskers, ears with tuffs, everything.
"A complete body transformation, while the patient's life experience, personality, memories, habits...emotions...they remain unaffected," the lion said, "the process may change the cells, but it does not affect the true humanity of the patient. The...soul...the spirit...it remains the same."
Brandon could barely bear to look at the image, manufactured or not.
"There have been over 100,000 successful transgenomorphic regeneration procedures worldwide," the lion said, "our success rate is 95 percent, and improving with each new generation of therapy."
Brandon let out the breath he had been holding.
"And...you cannot do it without...without the...the change?"
The lion let out a sound suspiciously like coughing up a hairball.
"I admit openly that it is not an exact science," Doctor Ambergris said, "we have to take the entire genome of two different species and create a merge of them. Hundreds, thousands of genes have to take the place of another for us to achieve the effect we desire. We are refining the process with each generation of therapy, of course."
"B...b...b...b...bu...ca...can...nnn....nnnn...t...t...t...w...w...wa...t..."Andy said.
"We know that Andy's condition is critical," Brandon said, "we know that his memory is becoming impaired. We know that...that soon not only his body, but the...the rest of him is...is going to disappear..."
"Mu...mu...mu...must...t...t...t..try..."
"That's what we are here for," the lion said.