Trinity
Trinity
by ff_b
Located just off the tip of Long Island and six miles from the Connecticut coastline, the Plum Island level-4 bioresearch facility was during the Cold War era a secret government installation reputed to be involved in the genetic engineering of animals for use as biological weapons against the Soviets, and it was there during the mid-1980's that a young fox named Renald writhed in pain as a large needle was driven into his flank for the third time that day in a treatment regimen that had been carried on for several months. The thick serum being injected burned as it passed into the fox's bloodstream, and he strained in vain against the gloved hand of the lab technician that held him immobile in his cage.
"If only I could bite him, he might stop!," thought the fox, but try as he might, he was unable to reach the restraining hand with his teeth. Renald pulled towards the man's arm with all his might and the full force of his will, and then something unexpected happened. A small patch on the sleeve of the lab technician's coat burst into flame.
The technician didn't notice the burning spot on his sleeve for an instant, and then he stared at it for a moment longer, as if incredulous at what he was seeing. The man next released his hold on the fox and slapped at the flames, shaking his arm which seemed only to fan the growing fire. As the flames grew and crept up the worker's arm to reach his shoulder, he began to panic and begin a kind of jerky, spinning dance. Screams began as the blaze reached his head and face, causing the technician to beat at himself wildly. Fully enveloped now in fire and with reason having left him, the man ran into the wall and fell to the floor in a ball of flame, where he flailed and twitched until becoming still. An odor of burning flesh much like pork filled the air.
Pulling the hypodermic from his flank with his mouth, the fox took advantage of the unexpected chain of events by jumping out of the cage door which the technician's departure had left open. Renald moved cautiously towards an access door in the lab, and suddenly found a cat appear at his side.
"Hello," greeted the calico cat. "My name is Felis, and who might you be?," he asked the fox.
"My name's Renald," answered the fox, "and I didn't see you coming! Did you pop out of thin air," he asked.
"Well, in a manner of speaking, I did," smiled the cat. "I'm a teleport, you see. They did something to me here that made me able to move from one area to another just by thinking about it!"
"How can you do that?," marveled Renald.
"Gee, I dunno," responded Felis. "They say it's something about passing through other dimensions."
"That's really cool!," remarked Renald. "But if you can pass through stuff, why didn't you just get yourself out of here?"
"I really didn't want to," confessed Felis. "They feed me here, and sometimes pet me!"
The fox rolled his eyes. "I sure can tell that you're a domestic animal!," he chided. "But I'm wild, and want to run free!--Can you help me get out of here?," he asked the cat.
"Yeah, maybe," said the cat, "but we should ask someone else here if they'd like to get out as well."
"And who is that?," prompted Renald.
In answer, Felis led the fox to another portion of the lab where there was a cage completely covered over with opaque materials. "Freddy lives here," explained Felis. "He's a ferret. They don't want him to be able to be able to make direct eye contact with anyone," he continued. "Even when feeding him or cleaning Freddy's cage, they only view him through a mirror."
"Why is that?," marveled Renald.
"Well, Freddy's a mental dominant," remarked Felis. "If he makes direct eye contact with anyone, he can make them do pretty much anything that he wants!"
"Ain't that a kick in the head!," exclaimed Renald. "Do you think you can get him out of that cage? There's a lock on it," noted the fox.
"No problemo," replied Felis. His form then vanished right before the fox as Felis phased into another dimension, re-appearing inside Freddy's cage. "Game for an outing?," the cat asked the ferret.
"Sure, why not?," responded Freddy. The cat then wrapped his paws around the ferret, and momentarily they both appeared outside of the locked cage in front of Renald.
"That's a neat trick!," admitted Renald. "So you can take someone along with you when you teleport?," he asked Felis.
"If they're not too big, yeah," agreed the cat. "And no more than one or two at a time," he added.
"But what is this 'mental dominant' thing?," inquired the fox.
In response, the ferret looked at Felis, staring him fully in the eyes. "Bark like a dog!," he commanded. The cat's eyes glazed over, and he began yipping and woofing as if a canine. "OK, knock it off," countered the ferret. The cat shook his head and looked confused.
"What just went on?," asked Felis, honestly clueless.
"Nothing to worry about," assured the ferret. "Let's just say you're adept in a foreign language!"
Renald was about to ask another question when a researcher entered the room and saw the ferret outside of his cage. "Holy shit!," he cried.
The ferret locked eyes with the scientist. "Go to sleep!," he said. Instantly the man slumped to the floor and began snoring. A woman rushed in, and was equally distressed. Freddy caught her gaze, and remarked, "You're just a big baby!" The woman wet herself, dropped to her knees, and began drooling and making gurgling sounds.
"That's pretty awesome," commended Renald. An alarm cut his further remarks short.
"They're on to us!," exclaimed Felis. "We'd better get out of here!"
The trio hurried into a hallway only to be met by a group of armed guards toting rifles. "The experimentals have escaped!," sounded their commander. "We can't take chances!--Shoot them dead!" The guard leveled their rifles.
"Nooo!," screamed Renald. Some kind of aura projected out of the fox at the instant that several rifles cracked sharply. The bullets hit the aura, converting from solid to liquid to harmless puffs of gas that rose to the ceiling. "Fight fire with fire, I say!," declared the fox, pushing his power outward with the full force of his will.
The power came spiraling wildly out of the fox, a fireball which expanded to fill the width of the corridor, sweeping down the length of the hallway and utterly incinerating the firing guards where they stood. Small patches of smouldering ash marked where the men had moments before stood.
"Jesus Christ, what did they make out of you?," muttered Freddy quietly.
"Fire cleanses," remarked Renald, appearing drained from the tremendous energy he had just expended.
"We'd better get out of here now," admonished Felis. "The pursuit of the government will be relentless. I guess we're all in this now," he said soberly. Grabbing his two new friends, the cat made a series of jumps with them, arriving finally in southern New Jersey.
"New Jersey, huh?--It just gets better and better!," remarked the ferret sarcatically.
"We're in a remote part of the state called the Pine Barrens," advised Felis. "It's vast...they'll never find us here!" The three reposed in the wilderness as nightfall approached, the cat nuzzling the fox, who enjoyed the feeling of another male's flesh against his own.
"Get a room!," advised Freddy, who didn't swing that way.
Felis stood up, his feline senses perceiving something out there in the night. A pair of red eyes announced the approach of some kind of creature. Freddy also sprang to attention, seeking to lock eyes with the intruder and neutralize any threat. "Look at me!," he challenged the unknown beast. Renald assumed a defensive posture, points of red, yellow, and white-hot heat pulsing over his coat like embers in a campfire as he prepared to use his remaining energy, dying if necessary for his friends.
A pair of large, leathery wings fluttered before them, the red eyes revealing that they were attached to a long, horse-like head and a body that had a serpentine tail. The imposing cryptid looked at the trio and smiled.
"Ain't you three a sight!," he declared, extending a hoof in friendship. "I'm the thirteenth son of Mother Leeds, a kind of bipedal hippogriff," explained the creature, "sort of like the offspring of a griffin and a mare. I'm better known, though, as the 'Jersey Devil'...
The three nodded in understanding. "I've heard of your work," mentioned Felis.
"You three blokes must have escaped from the Plum Island facility!," ventured the cryptid. "Hell of a place, isn't it?--Well, there's room for all of you here, and you're more than welcome!--Care for some food I raided from the humans in Smithville?," the Jersey Devil asked.
"Gee, thanks, Mr. Devil!," said Renald, relieved.
"Hell, just call me 'JD!,' laughed the unlikely creature heartily, embracing his new friends...
...and New Jersey, the Garden State, would never even notice the arrival of three more oddballs...