Consequence and Confession
#4 of D.E.B.O.R.A.H.
(The following is a work of fiction loosely based on certain ideas. D.E.B.O.R.A.H./Deborah, Moriarty, and Dr. Borden are fictional characters with no basis on any actual fur or human living or dead. The name Moriarty is originally copyright to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This story contains violence.)
The fluorescent lights flickered enough to go out for a moment before coming back on all the way. The group in the room all looked up toward it as the room darkened then came back to be fully lit once more. A small growl escaped one of the waiting furs.
"Damn lights," he growled out, "Everything is mostly up and running, but we still seem to be having some problems with it."
"Indeed," a voice asked from the doorway, "And tell me, what, exactly, caused the power to go out the other night?" The speaker had caused the others in the room to jump slightly as they turned to face him. There was a small clicking sound as he intentionally set his hooves down in such a way as to make noise on the tiled floor. The equine tail flicked behind him, the wings giving a small twitch. The eagle eyes narrowed to focus on the one who had speaking.
"Well," the other male started to say nervously as he looked at the ground, "It seems that a storm had started not long before. Uh... Apparently a crop duster was flying at the time, and got struck by lightning, causing it crash. By coincidence it happened to strike the ground where the power lines were buried. The impact ruptured the fuel tank, which then caught fire since the engine was still running. There are signs of a second explosion, so the fire of the gas tank must have caused the spray tank to explode as well, but it hasn't been confirmed yet. There was a body in the wreckage, so most likely it wasn't an intentional attack. We're going to move the remains of the plane and body to another spot where we will reproduce the site as best as we can."
The hippogriff crossed his arms as he listened, one bird talon hand drumming against the elbow of his shirt. The long horse tail gave a flick as the eyes focused narrowly, keeping intent watch on the talking male before him. He was mostly unmoving as he kept his focus. The others around them shifted uneasily, grateful they were not the one under the predatory gaze.
"Very well," he finally said when the report was finished, "So how goes the search for D.E.B.O.R.A.H. Mark one?" He turned his head suddenly and stopped to look at another of those collected about him.
"Not much luck I'm afraid Dr. Moriarty," a white rat spoke up, "The search groups have found no signs of her at any of the possible locations. We've already started to widen the search area sir but..." He shifted nervously and took a breath, "It looks like we may have to use the bio-genetic hounds to find her."
The horse eagle mix shifted to look forward into the air. He moved one hoof then the other as the long tail gave a flick.
"What difference does it make anyways?" a feline snarled out, walking over toward Moriarty, "Why do we need to find her so badly anyways? We have several other D.E.B.O.R.A.H. s currently waiting to be used. We can just activate another one. Or even more. We certainly have the room for it." He stood up to face the mythical being eye to eye, feline tail twitching.
The room turned quietly completely, everyone froze and seeming to hold their breath. The feline and hippogriff looked at each other, the tension continuing to grow until if started to feel like anything would make it snap.
Before anyone could even take notice, Moriarty had his talon on the throat of the cat and shoved to pin him to the wall. The feline cried out in surprise, then let out a strangled cry as the pressure on his throat increased, cutting off the flow of air so he could not speak. He could still breathe, but just barely, and it was difficult to make the effort to struggle against the hold.
"Now I want you to listen to me," the hippogriff growled out, his eagle beak close enough to bite the nose of the feline, "First, I am well aware of what we have waiting in cryo-storage. However, a lot of money has been invested into this project, and as such the Mark one is still a valuable asset so we lose quite a bit of money.
"Second, even though the additional models older, it would still take several years before they are mature enough to start producing milk and becoming fertile. That means we will lose some of the profits of sales and won't be able to use the other D.E.B.O.R.A.H. models for breeding.
"Now, I want you to listen intently because this is the most important reason. Our test show that something about the Mark-1 is currently unstable. We haven't figured out what yet, but we need to in order for the entire D.E.B.O.R.A.H. project to be successful. If we don't figure out what the problem is, then the same issue will emerge in the later models until we find out what it is and are able to remedy it. Understood?" He eased off to let the feline nod his head.
"Good," Moriarty responded. His talon suddenly moved across the throat, the sharp claws at the end piercing the flesh to slit open the wind pipe and sever the feline's carotid artery.
The cat grabbed at is throat, trying to press against it and stem the flow of blood. The precious life fluid slipped out between his fingers, dripping to the floor. Some of it dripped into the exposed opening of his wind pipe, causing a light mist of crimson to spray from his mouth each time he breathed out. The eyes started to glaze over as the blood continue to flow out of the gash in his throat, able to flow out from his brain but unable to get more for his functions.
The rapid flow soon let enough out that the feline's knees gave out, the body falling to them. The body finally collapsed as the loss had been enough that everything went black. The body laid on the tile floor in the final twitches of a death throw as the thick red puddle continued to spread out around the remnants.
"He's not completely wrong, unfortunately," the hippogriff contemplated as he licked at his bloody talons. He watched the room and the others, tail shifting behind him. They were all quiet and staring intently, frozen in fear. At least one of the individuals around had lost control of their bladder at the sight of the sudden execution that just occurred in front of everyone to see. He turned back to the rat suddenly, causing everyone to jump.
"You," Moriarty ordered, "Let it be known I've authorized the use of the bio-genetic hounds. They will be muzzled so as not to kill the mark one and each partner to the handler will carry a well loaded tranquilizer rifle for the hounds and the mark one if necessary." He turned to the others
"Take the body to reclamation," he continued, "the genetic material is of little use, but the raw materials can still be of benefit to us. Prepare the mark two and mark three to be awakened and begin to undergo training. When we get the mark one back, we can use the two and three to test the maternal instincts. This will give us an edge when the time to begin the hybrid's breeding program. Someone get the janitor to mop up the blood."
The eagle horse mix turned and walked out of the room, tail flicking behind him. As soon as he had stepped out, the others had started to move. They worked rapidly to do as ordered, many of them afraid of being the next one to get on his bad side and be the next to have their blood shed on the tiles.
Meanwhile, the mood was quite different elsewhere. What had been a peaceful sleep for Desert was interrupted by loud, rapid knocking at his front door, forcing him up. He pushed up off the ribs some, lifting his head from the breast he had been using as a pillow. The blanket slid off him, falling back into place to cover the half of the large female who was just starting to wake up herself.
"Who could that be?" Deborah asked groggily as she started to push herself to sit up and watch the canine pull on a pair of boxers and jeans.
"I don't know," the canine responded flatly, "No one is supposed to come by today as far as I know and definitely not this early. So I want you to stay in here for the moment please. If it's not someone looking for you, they probably won't come into my room so you should be safe from being noticed." He gave her a smile then stepped out of the room.
The wool covered cow-like female sat up, pushing back to lean against the wall. She stifled the sound as she yawned to keep be from being heard. Her palms reached up to rub at her eyes, then stopped. The hand slid down, tracing something along the edge of her eye that felt strange. Where normally there was a very short fine fur there, instead was a strange layer of something she had not felt before.
The canine padded toward the door as the knocking continued adamantly, causing a bit of irritation as he headed toward it. He finally reached the door and yanked it open, keeping back the urge to growl at whoever would be there.
On the other side of the doorway stood the figure of someone Desert had not met before. The bull looked very little like what may be expected to. He was shorter then the canine, standing around five eight or such and looked to be on the thin and weak side. His stomach was swollen out slightly, creating a bit of a gut. A pair of thick glasses rested on his face, making his eyes seem much larger.
"Oh good," the anti-stereotypical bull spoke out with enthusiasm, "I'm not too late. You're still here." He pushed past the canine to step into the house. "She is here right? She hasn't been captured before getting here or killed on the way? She didn't leave while you stayed behind?" He moved deeper into the house, looking around rapidly.
"D.E.B.O.R.A.H.!" The bovine started to shout, "D.E.B.O.R.A.H. please come out immediately. I am not here to harm you, and I most assuredly am not her to take you back to the engineering facility you managed to get free of."
The large hybrid fem moved to peek out the doorway as best she could without being noticed. She saw the odd looking male cow for a moment. The blanket was grabbed to be wrapped around her to cover her chest as well as her rear and crotch, bulging slightly around the udders. She slowly moved to head to living room, standing up to stretch out some and look down at the other two.
"Oh my," the bull said in awe, "You look incredible. I would never have imagined..." He stepped closer, running a hoofed hand over the soft wool. "Extremely soft, and you're so large. This is incredible. I never thought he would do something so well."
"Hey," the canine growled out, "Who are you anyway? And how do you know so much about her and what's going on?"
"Oh yes right," the smallish male bovine said, "Sorry. Sorry. It's just that I'm rather excited and nervous here. I think we better all sit down. I do have quite a it to tell you two after all."
The two looked at him a moment, the hybrid female with curiosity and the canine male with a bit of suspicion. She went and sat on the couch once more, the only piece of furniture that was close to being large enough to fit on, while the dog moved to one of the chairs. The odd looking bovine male took a breath and ran his hands along his shirt as he prepared himself.
"Alright," he started, "To begin, my name is Doctor Borden and I am a geneticist. Also, in a way, I am a relative of you, D.E.B.O.R.A.H." He stopped a moment, rubbing at his head as he thought.
Deborah shifted, leaning forward curiously. One of the large ears gave a small flick as he now had her full attention.
"This is a little difficult for me to put into words," Borden continued, "So give me a moment and I'll try."
Desert nodded slightly to sit back in his chair. He glanced over at the hybrid female who seemed to want to hear it. Admittedly, he would appreciate the explanation himself, but did not want to push this since the Doctor did seem a bit scatter brained.
"Alright," he finally started to say again, "About twenty years ago, I was assigned to a project request which was to find a way to increase the production of milk, wool, and originally beef. I was sent to a facility, the very facility you escaped from in fact, and assigned to work with a hippogriff by the name of Dr. Moriarty...name always sounded familiar, but I could never place as to why.
"Well when we began our work on the project, I was able to come up with the idea of combining sheep DNA with the DNA of a cow. This would mean that we would have a single source for both the milk and wool production. The project started to be called B.O.R.H. for Bovine Ovine Recombinant Hybrid. Ovine meaning sheep by the way.
"So we now had a way to create wool and milk from a single animal, but it was still in normal amounts. So it was needed to figure out a way to increase production to greater amounts. Some of the scientists came up with the idea that if we can increase the size of the animal, we can increase surface area for the wool and cubic space in the body for the milk.
"It was at this point that Dr. Moriarty came up with a way to increase the size of what was supposed to be an animal. The idea would be that way introduced dragon DNA into the mixture, focusing mainly on the genes that would influence size. Just imagine it a moment, A cow the size of a Mack truck covered from head to toe in thick warm soft wool. One would be able to provide gallons of milk a day and nearly a mile of yarn each shearing season. And so with the new addition, the project title was changed. It became Draconically Enhance Bovine Ovine Recombinant Altered Hybrid, or D.E.B.O.R.A.H. for short.
"Somewhere along the way, I'm not sure when, things started to change. Somehow, Dr. Moriarty had taken over the facility. No longer were we reporting to anyone, the entire thing was somewhat self-contained. It also seemed that I was starting to be involved in the meeting and planning less and less.
"Then one day...I found out that Dr. Moriarty had suddenly made a major change to everything. At some point, the bastard had decided to forego the production of beef and instead of the D.E.B.O.R.A.H. project being a simple animal, it would all be converted to a sentient female.
"This led to an argument between us. I told him that such a thing was illegal, and even if it were not, then what we were doing would still be wrong. I mean an simple animal is one thing, but this would make it a living person with thoughts and feelings. He said that it had already been started, so my options were either to deal with it and help, or resign. He also said that if I did something to sabotage this, he would kill me.
"So I gave him my two weeks notice. During my time between then and my final day, I tried to set things up as best I could. I managed to hook up some transmitters to the cameras in the facility and tried to find out what else I could about the projects going on in the facility.
"I managed to find out that they in fact are working on a male counterpart, but the title of the project was missing. I also found out about the reclamation where they take things and have it broken down to something useful, such as genetic material or proteins, vitamins and minerals.
"And so I left, but hopefully not without being able to do something should he be able to succeed, which I sincerely hope he would not be." He let out a sigh and flopped into a seat. His weight seemed to collapse under him as he sank into the material. The glasses were pushed up then the hand stroked over the top of his head.
"But he did succeed, as you can obviously tell," the doctor continued. "He was able to create an hybrid of a sheep and cow with dragon genetic material included in the mixture. So it was that she, that you, D.E.B.O.R.A.H Mark one, was created. Others were made and stuck into cryogenic suspension until they are needed.
"And so, there you were, held in captivity in the facility. I knew that I had to get you out. Unfortunately such things are easier said then done, especially when most of your life, you tend to be alone and not really interacting with others so you don't really know how to get in touch with those that would be willing or able to help.
"I was able to find help though. Years were spent working on a way to get you out of there. It took bribes and blackmail, getting certain individuals into positions of power, gathering additional information on the facility and area around it to figure out how to get you out and flee as quickly as possible.
"Then, a few nights ago, something happened. Something none of us expected. A crop duster was knocked down by the storm and crashed, cutting out the power to the facility. During the power outage, you managed to escape on your own and fled. I did my best to get in touch with anyone nearby who may have seen you. Luckily, one of the connections worked in a thrift store. You were seen at the thrift shop, then driving off with this young male here. We were able to find out who the donation was made by, who gave us the name and address of your friend here. And so, here we are." He waved his arms, letting his story finish.
The canine let out a sigh and pushed up off his chair. He walked out the room to his bedroom to grab a shirt and pull it on before stepping back out into the living room.
"Okay, looks like we're going to have to move faster then I thought," Desert said as he looked at the two of them, "If the Dr. and his friends were able to find us, then those at the genetic facility will probably be not far behind. So I'm going to go see about renting a truck you can fit in. Since Dr. Borden is here, you can try to ask him any more questions you want about all this." He turned to the bull. "Help yourself to anything in the kitchen."
"Actually," Dr. Borden responded as he stood up, "As much as I would love to stay and talk, I've been here longer then I should. I must be going. But no matter where you go, if you need me, call and let me know." He reached into a pocket and pulled out a business card, walking over to hand it to the large female.
"Thank you," Deborah said as she took the card and looked at it, "I really hope you can answer more some time soon. There is a lot I feel the need to know that I don't." She looked down at the card, tears starting to fill her eyes. The bull placed his hand on her leg to give a pat then started for the door.
The canine stopped a moment as he looked at the large hybrid. His ears twitched at the sight of tears starting to run down her cheeks. The male walked over to her, placing a paw on her arm then giving her a hug.
"I'll be back as soon as I can," he informed her solemnly, getting a nod. The paw gave one last pat before letting go, heading back to the door and shutting it behind him.
Deborah slid off the couch and onto the floor. She pulled her legs up to her body, wrapping her arms around them and looking at the relatively tiny card. She sat there as she felt conflicting emotions. On one hand she was happy, she had a friend and now someone who seemed to have cared for her and wanted to help her. On the other, she still had no real family. The doctor seemed nice but he was not her father. Finally she still had the facility coming after her. This all seemed to be too much for one to take first thing in the morning.