< Scrolling text over a black background, sombre music >

Ladies and gentlebeings, it is with great sadness that we must announce
the early termination of this documentary series owing to the
unfortunate demise of Subject #2.

His life was short and meaningless, but we did glean some measure of
entertainment from his dying screa—

I say! What nonsense is—unfortunate demise of… No, he isn’t! Who is responsible for this?

< muffled chuckles >

…bloody poor taste, is what it is. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, the lot of you. What kind of self-respecting documentarions…?

Bah! We’ll fix it in post.

Ahem!

…

Blast. With all this buffoonery, I’ve gone and forgotten my entire opening monologue. Oh, whatever.

Let us now return to Subject #1… er… some minutes before sunset.

*

“Come on…” Naomi grunted, heaving with all her might. “You mother… fracking… whale!”

Her wounds were screaming at her, but she had to do this to finish treating him. She had already wrapped his arms in strips of leaf and moss and even managed to cobble together something for her own back.

The moss… was kind of gross. And it itched. But it was better than nothing. She just had to hope it would work as well as sphagnum. Then, she would have been relatively confident. Sphagnum was great for absorbing moisture and even had antiseptic properties, making it perfect for poultices. It had been in common use even as recently as World War II!

This stuff, though? She was not so sure. But the computer had been insistent. She just wished she could get it to respond to any of her other questions.

With a roar, she just managed to tip the weight of her fleshy companion over and he flopped lifelessly onto his back. His chest was moving though, torn up as it was—particularly on his right-hand side, where that… thing had been clawing at him.

The whole of which was now revealed.

“What in the…” She stared, uncomprehending.

It looked kind of like a chipmunk mixed with… maybe a tardigrade? Except those had eight legs, and this only had six. Also it had four eyes, two on either side. One side-facing. The other, forward. But it was not anywhere near as big as she had thought, perhaps only as large as a Labrador.

She kicked it angrily. And uselessly. But it made her feel a bit better. “Mean little shit. What makes you think you can just attack people, huh?”

Then, she noticed its claws, and suddenly its reasoning became a lot clearer. Each digit featured a set of inch long daggers that looked sharp enough to trim leather… except there were only two on each foot.

She twisted her lips thoughtfully. She knew her plants, and no one could claim otherwise. But animals? There, she was a little shaky. Even so, there was simply too much going on with this thing to be natural. The claws. The eyes? The legs?! Mammals simply did not have six legs… assuming it even was a mammal.

“Hold on…”

Peering closer, she could see that its fur looked off. But it was not until she pulled a strand away and held it to her face that she understood. Each one was plumed at the tip, sort of like a primitive feather. Or like it had a crap-load of split ends. But it was not rough. Far from it. The main stem was smooth, if fairly rigid, while the fuzzed end was as soft as down.

“What… are you?”

Her wrist started flashing angrily, reminding her she had more important things to be worrying about, and she tossed it aside in irritation.

Perhaps it was because of how long he had been face down in the moss, but Mike did not look anywhere near as pale from blood loss as he probably should have. Not that there was much room for comparison. The guy was white as a sheet by default.

Even so, his wounds looked… clean? Ish. But he was going to need stitches and a lot of them if they were going to have any hope of healing in a reasonable amount of time. The longer they stayed open, the more time infection would have to set in.

*

Fascinating.

Previous experiments would predict Subject #2’s condition to have deteriorated much more rapidly than it has, leading us to the conclusion that the VENUS has already taken steps to accelerate his restorative capabilities. Though, clearly this acceleration has not been so much as to circumvent his need for treatment. The Enhancement Nexus can only do so much with its current information load.

Regardless, even such minor steps as these would require vast quantities of energy.

‘Where would it have gotten this energy?’ one might reasonably ask.

Note the distended nature of his torso, rounded cheeks, and wobbling thighs. These are all indicators of what humans call ‘fat’ but are actually an arrangement of specialized microorganisms meant to store reserves of chemical energy for emergencies. The VENUS will have doubtlessly taken note of this resource and appropriated it for its own use.

‘But what of Subject #1? She does not have these indicators!’

Yes, indeed. And keenly spotted, oh fair viewer! As humans would say, she is as thin as a rail—a colloquialism thought to refer to a native species of semi-aquatic avians. Lacking such a head start, Subject #1 is what we, in the scientific community, would call a control. By running the same experiment twice, but with altered and preferably-minimized variables, we gain a keener understanding of the mechanisms under study.

We do not know why this specimen has neglected to accumulate reserves of her own. One might reasonably assume she has been unlucky in her attempts thus far at acquiring food—for human women, a complex social task involving tricking men into taking them ‘out.’ But that is a topic for another time.

Fortunately, her wounds are less severe, or she would be in dire straits. But based on these observations, we are betting that #1 will require new sources of chemical energy… quite soon.

*

Naomi’s stomach growled again testily, drawing her attention to the nearby stalk of fruit, but she could not take the time for that yet. At the very least, it gave her something to think about besides her throbbing back. Small blessings.

Just removing her tank top for her poultice had been agony. Never mind rolling the lard-ass over. There was nothing she would have liked better than to curl up into a little ball and sleep for the next three weeks. Preferably with a bottle of morphine in hand.

But… needs must. So, she started the process of slicing away the cheap fabric of his shirt with her improvised knife, more-or-less arranging the tatters of his flesh where they should go, and preparing his compress. She barely even registered the pools of jellied blood. That horror had faded as quickly as it had come, quietly set it aside so she could work.

In truth, she very much doubted he would live through the night, but she was no expert. She was just doing as directed and hoping for the best.

But as more time passed… and the light began to fail? In this place. Quiet as a tomb. Stiflingly hot. Injured. Hungry… And alone?

That was when her repressed emotions started to leak.

She swallowed roughly in an effort to control herself. She would not cry. She was not going to fall apart like some foolish movie heroine. Her mother would have slapped her silly just for thinking about it.

“It’ll be fine,” she told herself, trembling despite her own words. “Just do the work. Focus on the pain, and do the work.”

Talking helped, she realized. It made her heartbeat less audible. So she kept on mumbling about random nonsense. Idle gossip from school. The government. A few nursery rhymes. Really just anything that sprang to mind.

But then, she came to the final knot. As her hands settled back into her lap, her mind went blank. Instantly, the oppressive quiet reasserted itself, so complete, she could hear her jaw creaking. Her breathing became erratic. Panic started to set in. What was she supposed to do now? How was—?

Thwoom!

She jerked to her feet, almost soiling herself from the flood of terror gripping her heart. She had been so ready for some new horror to leap from above, even the most inconsequential snap of a twig would have sent her running blindly through the undergrowth. But this was no twig.

This? It sounded…?

Bit by bit, she settled herself just enough to try and make sense of what she was hearing. Off to her right… vaguely from the direction they had come, she could hear something like the whine of… engines?

“Damn it!” she howled in realization.

The first rule anyone was ever taught in a survival situation was to stay put! But in her arrogance, she had been so certain this was all some elaborate game—that stoic men in suits and sunglasses were watching the two of them floundering around the little, bullshit playground they had assembled—there was no way anyone would be coming to rescue them.

And now, there was no way anyone was going to be able to find them!

She had to go back! She had to let them know where they were.

Stumbling a few painful steps forward, she cast an indecisive glance over her shoulder. She could not leave Mike here alone… could she? She had no idea whether she would even be able to lead the rescue team back. But if she did not… would he have any chance of surviving?

Gritting her teeth, she punched the trunk of a nearby ‘tree’ and immediately clutched her hand. “Arrgh! Idiot. Why did you do that?”

While her hand throbbed with fresh and absolutely-unneeded agony, she gradually became aware that the engines were moving. Toward her.

“Maybe… maybe they’re circling the island?” she muttered, thinking aloud. That made sense. Once their landing site had been cleared, checking the beaches would have been the very next thing on a search party’s list. If she could just make it to shore again…

However, before she had taken three steps, the roar of the engines swept overhead, setting the huge leaves to shaking in the downdraft. For a few seconds, Naomi’s heart surged with relief… and then suspicion. A rescue team could not have found them so quickly. Not here. It had to be ‘them.’ But then, her suspicion gave way to grudging acceptance. Being recaptured was preferable to the alternative. So she simply held up her hands in surrender, passively waiting for the commando team to repel down their ropes…

…then remembered she was down to her bra and hurriedly crossed her arms over her chest.

Half a moment later, the twin jets of their craft became visible, flameless, more shadow than anything in the failing light. But no ropes fell from above. Instead, the craft began to descend as if to land. Or rather… crafts.

It was their landing pods, she realized.

Flabbergasted, she watched as the majestic technology autonomously slowed to a halt, perhaps a meter above the ground—until their engines cut out, and they both dropped like rocks. One of them even teetered on its legs precariously, wobbling in place before settling. Then, in unison, their glass doors popped open. Naomi cringed as the doubtlessly-sensitive material was seized by gravity and slammed to the moss below.

*

< audible sigh >

A note for the editing department: Try to find a more flattering angle for this shot. The audience does not need to know how cheap those pods were.

*

The exact instant the doors settled, the omnipresent silence reasserted itself, leaving Naomi in something like shock. It was like nothing of significance had happened at all. And truth be told, she was not even sure what this had accomplished.

What good were a couple of landing crafts supposed to do? Why had they moved? Were they programmed to follow them around periodically? Or was it because they had been injured? If so, how had they known? Or did they know? Maybe someone had been directing them.

Whatever the case, she could say one thing for certain: someone was tracking them. They had to be… for better or worse.

And from the blinking at her wrist, she had an inkling as to how.

“What?” she growled.

The computer replied by way of a series of images, as it always did. This time, it was another of those childish cartoons. It depicted her companion tucked away into the pod with what could have been an oxygen mask over his face. Meanwhile, a stick figure of her—presumably from the simplistic curls, though she had never worn a bow on her head—was cheering off to one side while fireworks popped in the background.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Does the pod have some kind of… automated… medical suite installed or something?”

Flash of red. Short film of bacteria breaking apart and dissolving.

“It’s sterile?”

Green.

She scrubbed at her sinuses tiredly. It was better than nothing, and a controlled environment like that would improve his odds for survival dramatically. However…

“That’s great an all, but how do you expect me to get him in there?”

The cartoon returned, this time depicting her walking over to her rotund companion, lifting him overhead in a gorilla press, and casually tossing him inside. More fireworks ended the scene.

“Are you insane?” she asked, though from her tone, it was less question than statement. “I can barely even roll him over!”

Her stick figure flexed its arms, but the biceps drooped into little U-shapes.

Naomi began to grind her teeth but bit back the scathing reply. The cartoon was not quite finished.

The figure turned and happily pointed out the corpse of the chipmunk-thing, whose real-life equivalent flashed in her vision as a square icon was cut out around it. Her cartoon avatar then trotted over, picked up the image like a mouse dragging around a jpeg, unhinged her jaw—which was composed entirely of fangs—and aggressively swallowed it down whole. She then flexed once more, this time with exaggerated and detailed musculature.

Naomi blinked slowly. “Are you saying I need… protein?!”

Emphatic green.

She glared. “Biiiitch…”

It did not reply.

She worked her jaw side-to-side for a few moments. It was just a stupid computer. Getting worked up was not going to help anything.

“Well?” she said instead. “Are you going to give me a real answer?”

Still nothing. Apparently, it had been serious.

She began gesturing helplessly. At the pod. Her co-victim. The corpse. Finally, she managed, “H-how do you expect a little meat to fix anything?! Besides, its raw! There’s no way that’s kosher!”

She grimaced guiltily at that last. Even her parents had never much cared about that nonsense. The only time it ever came up was when her bubbe and zayda came over for the holidays, and she was pretty sure they were putting on airs.

However, the computer had nothing else to say. Even her wrist had gone dark.

Sinking to her knees, her eyes continued twitching forlornly from man to pod to corpse and back. She could not make sense of it. It was farcical to think a quick—and disgusting—meal was going to solve anything. And why not the fruit?! It looked much more enticing! But the computer had not led her astray so far. Although… there had been that incident with the button.

Her brow furrowed. At the time, she had assumed it was some kind of reaction to an airborne toxin, but now that she thought about it… could it have been that the button triggered the toxin?!

“Fuck me…” It all made sense. Giant plants everywhere. Mutant rodents roaming around. A computer in her brain. She had not been dropped into the middle of a science experiment. She was part of it! The message-board goons were going to go nuts when they heard about this!

Assuming she survived. And managed to escape to tell about it.

But that would require an understanding of the rules. Even the most nutbag, mad-science freakshow would have rules.

Her fist landed in her palm. This had to be a test. Eat the meat, get a reward! Of course! The why of it was still a complete mystery, but she was confident that would come once she had assembled enough puzzle pieces.

In the meantime, she was quite certain the meat would be laced with something. Likely a tranquilizer. Then, once asleep, off-site medical professionals would zoom in, fixed them up, and return them to this exact spot, none the wiser. Not an ideal situation to find oneself in… but tolerable.

And it gave some context to the nonsensical instructions she had been given. ‘Some’ was carrying a lot of weight in that thought of course, but you could hardly expect a nut-bag mad scientist with government money to be sensible.

She glanced at the now barely-visible corpse one more time and hesitated. She was extremely hungry, but…

“Can you at least show me how to make a fire?” she tried.

More silence.

“Fffrick…”

*****

Butchering was a fairly onerous task at the best of times, though admittedly, Naomi’s experience had been limited to the occasional store-bought chicken she had broken down with her mother. Nor was the chore made easier by the lack of light or decent tools. If it were not for the ravenous void twisting her guts into knots, she probably would have given up in disgust.

Regardless, by the time true darkness descended, she was well on her way back to the beach with a huge strip of leaf in hand to serve as an improvised platter. She was trying not to think of its contents. Or how much her mouth was watering. However, she had included a few bulbs of the fruit just in case she was unable to choke the meat down—which was the entire reason she had opted to return to the shoreline in the first place.

Raw meat was one thing, but blood—she happened to know for a matter of absolute fact—was not kosher. That was her excuse, anyway. And while ocean water was hardly ideal for cleaning meat, she did not have a great many options.

Bizarrely, the oppressive darkness did not disturb her as much as it probably should have. Now that she had a task to occupy her thoughts, she had less room to imagine potential dangers. And besides, with how hauntingly silent the area was, she felt confident she could have heard a pin drop. Never mind a predator. Or another of those mutant chipmunks.

Whututut…

She froze mid-step, listening, but the sound had stopped as suddenly as it had started. However, a handful of seconds later, it came again, longer.

Whututut-tutut.

And then another, farther away. Then more. But there were none that sounded particularly close, nor were they approaching her. So she began to relax.

“Probably just insects,” she consoled herself.

Actually, in hindsight, it had been strange just how few there had been. And still were. She had never thought about it before, but most nights, the air was alive with the constant drone of wings, chirps, and calls of unseen animals. These were somewhat louder than she was used to, but that was not anything to get worked up about. She was in the tropics. There were bound to be all sorts of strange but ultimately harmless things out and enjoying the evening breeze.

Nodding at her own logic, she marshaled on, carefully picking her way through the ‘trees’ toward the approaching wash of the ocean… and the insects… all of which seemed to be ahead of her…

She slowed again. “Insects by the ocean… and not in the forest?”

That was pretty weird. Although… it was a mad-science experiment. Maybe the plants had some kind of insect repellent bred into them. That even propped up her agricultural theory.

She nodded again, less confident but determined. The bits of meat on her tray were starting to smell… really nice. She licked her lips. “Gotta wash it first, Naomi. You have to wash it first.”

Soon enough, she broke through the line of Colocasias and halted, hesitant to leave their dubious safety. There was no moon out, but there were plenty of stars to differentiate the sky from the ocean. And now that she was closer, she could clearly tell the sounds were coming from out over the water.

“Bats, maybe?” she wondered.

*

They were not bats.

Though similar in many respects, the calls #1 has been hearing are actually the product of a large flock of animals who appear to have learned to hunt via the mechanism of mimicry—specifically the mating cries of a mostly-aquatic species of lizard known to populate the area. These quasi-reptiles are well aware of this, of course, and have in turn become quite picky about which calls they respond to, which in turn has prompted the non-bats to refine their singing voices.

This sort of conflict plays out with such regularity across the universe, anyone with an iota of experience dealing with xenofauna can pick out the pattern in a twinkling, rendering our lack of taxonomic understanding for any of these creatures completely irrelevant. That sort of thing comes with years of research, and quite frankly, this planet is not all that interesting.

The only point we need be aware of is that neither species are at all likely to view the strange creature nosing about the edges of their territory with anything beyond passing curiosity… provided she does not tempt them with something more familiar.

*

Rolling her shoulders, she cautiously toed her way toward the call of waves gently lipping the shore. Bats were nothing to be afraid of. They ate insects and fruit. And blood… sometimes. She swallowed, scurrying forward until she could feel cool water at her ankles.

Hastily, she sank to her knees and dipped a hand into the mass of flesh she had been carrying. She had no idea what it was she came back with. It was too dark to see, and besides, she was too busy scanning the skies. For what, she could not say. It was not as if she could see anything there, either. Just the hordes of stars merrily winking at her.

After a few seconds, she felt as if she had washed the meat enough. Probably. Hesitating, she cast her thoughts to the unconscious Mike back in their clearing. She regretted leaving him there, but if she was right about this, she was about to get tranquilized. Once that happened, he would get all the help he needed.

Then her stomach none-too-gently reminded her of its decided lack of patience, and she took a cautious nibble of the meat.

Flavor exploded in her mouth, and she gasped as shivers of delight raced up her spine. For a moment, she had to blink back tears, so overcome was she by indescribable emotion. Before she even realized what she was doing, she had crammed the entire hunk into her cheeks, ecstatically chewing away while swishing the next piece in the water.

She had heard that hunger made things taste better, but she had never thought it could be so profound. She might have even considered fasting on occasion if she had known.

Another chunk met her lips. And then another. She could not swallow fast enough. Sex was not this good! Another chunk. The flavors. The texture! Before she knew it, she was not even washing them anymore. And that made it taste even better!

Then her hand fell upon one of the miscellaneous fruit pods and, scarcely stopping for breath, she sank her teeth in. Instantly, her tongue was assaulted by a horrific combination of the strongest raw onion flavor she had ever encountered, the burn of straight vodka, and whatever they dusted warhead candies with.

“Whoo…!” she breathed. It was more exhalation than word, like her soul fleeing her body, and she had to blink back a fresh set of tears.

“Ho-ly shit! No wonder these are going extinct.” She tapped at her wrist. “Hey! You in there. These are awful. Awful, do you hear me? You need to work on the flavor profile, or no one is ever going to grow these.”

She rolled her eyes. No one ever appreciated good advice. Imagine going through all the trouble of breeding—she paused as something else occurred to her. It was possible the fruit needed to be fermented first. That was pretty common. She would just have to see.

In the meantime, she had plenty of delicious meat left, but just as she began casting about for more, something surged from the water, straight for her hand. Screaming, she jerked back. For a few moments, her world was reduced to thrashing, slime, jagged edges, sand, and water. It could have been as small as a trout or as big as a whale. In the darkness, it was all the same. In the darkness, there was only terror.

Then came the flapping of wings. Dozens of them. Screeching. The keening cry of death. And with a flutter, they were away. Gone. Silent once more save for the uncaring waves and the unceasing calls of the wildlife above it.

*

There. You see? Didn’t I say what would happen? It pays to listen to the Narrator!

…

You be quiet.

*

Naomi just laid there for a while, trying to regain control of her erratic breathing. Trying to make sense of what had just occurred. She was okay. Her arm felt like she had just run afoul of a feral tom cat, but she was okay.

But then her gut started to twist again, and her eyes widened. “My food!”

She lunged, but no matter where she searched, her fingers found no trace of her precious meat, the leaf, or even the accursed fruit. Either those… things had gotten it, or it had been washed away in the tumult.

Whututut!

Instantly, she started wildly swinging her fists through the air. “You bunch of malakas! Give it back!”

Whututut-tutut!

Chest heaving, she glared through the darkness. She could sense them up there. Mocking her. The stars gave them away. If one of them just got low enough… then…

Then her gut almost folded her in half. She was still so hungry! It had not been enough. She needed more!

And… and she knew exactly where to get it.

Without another thought, she darted back toward the canopy. Her caution and fear had gone. Her mind had surrendered to primal instinct. All she knew was that there was a huge, partially-butchered chipmunk waiting for her somewhere in the darkness, and she meant to have it!

Here and there, she smashed headlong into one of the many trunks scattered about, but she did not let that slow her down much. Pausing only long enough to let the scent of fruit guide her, she gradually circled her way back to the clearing… to discover the sound of flapping wings waiting for her in the darkness.

“Bastards!”

Screaming in challenge, she charged forward. Her arms windmilled randomly, no idea what she was fighting, how many, or even really whether she was in the right place. The only thought in her mind was to protect her bounty.

Fortunately, the nocturnal creatures had little desire to test the capabilities of the loud and aggressive thing that had taken up residence on the island. Much like seagulls, they would take advantage of an easy meal where they could, but they would retreat to a safe distance when challenged… until its back was turned.

So, while most returned to their nightly hunting ritual, a few settled into the canopy above to wait.

Panting, Naomi cast about for the remains of her prize. The only light sources out here were the few stars peeking through the canopy and the periodic flickers of green coming from the tips of their landing pods. If it had not been for those, she would have virtually no way of orienting herself. But eventually, she managed to pick out the corpse’s rough outline well enough to stumble her way toward it.

And for a long while, the only sounds that could be heard were those of a young woman ecstatically gorging herself on the single greatest meal of her life…

…and the occasional scuffle with anything that got too close.

Eventually however, even those died away. And faintly, some while later, the outline of a large mass being dragged across the ground could be seen.

*

How intriguing.

It would appear that the requirements of the moment have driven the VENUS device toward some… rash decisions. Will they pay off? Or will their consequences be more than our subjects can deal with?

Find out in the next episode:

Aftermath.