Smart Poisons - 1 - Naming
"Get down! Get the fuck down!" a very angry wolf with a gun shouted to his comrades. They all had guns, rag-tag uniforms, a handful of supplies on each person, and stripes to signal rank. The wolf's comrades did as ordered as shells flew overhead, explosions shaking the earth near and far. Planes buzzed overhead, bullets shot from every direction, and the rumble of artillery roared in the distance. The battlefield was a ruined city, buildings crumbling, the roads torn and cracked, cars upturned, on fire, or blown out beyond repair.
The wolf poked his helmeted head up over the overturned car he had taken cover behind. He could see the movements of the enemy troops, setting up machine guns to finish the opposition on this avenue. He called out again, "Grenades you fuckers, launch 'em!" he growled, chucking a few of his own, followed shortly by a shower of similar explosive objects towards the enemy. The ploy worked, but grenades were hard to come by these days.
The wolf charged forward, calling to his comrades to surge forward as well, setting up positions on the block, taking potshots at enemies that tried to cross the intersection up ahead. One traffic light still blinked, remaining red, until some explosion or bullet shot the light out. Artillery rumbled ahead, and explosions sounded out. The wolf glanced around. He had to find a way to get him and his men four more blocks to the river, where they could cross to safety and blow the bridge, but thanks to faulty Intel, the wolf wasn't even sure the other side of the bridge was so secure as reports said it was. Useless asses! Ever since this war started, all the technological military advances made while everyone was still human had all been neglected. Satellites fell from the sky, nukes lay dormant, laser-guided bombs were misused. Everyone just shot whatever they had at everyone else. It was no better than being in World War 1. That was probably better, in the end though. If one force got a hold of all the good stuff, there'd be no fighting left to do. It'd be a massacre. At least here, on this battlefield, they had a cha-
A bullet shot straight through the wolf's helmet, and he fell dead on the ground. Artillery shells fell from the sky amidst his comrades, and screams of horror and agony filled the sky. Now the mad dash the soldiers had started on was hopeless, and they knew it. Their commander was dead and artillery was setting up another barrage. Those left in one piece helped those in two to death, and then killed themselves to avoid capture. Nobody wanted to be a Prisoner of War, not to that side. Not to the Imperial Chapel of All. Maybe to the Confederacy of Interspecies Equality; at least they were 'civil'.
There was one in the platoon that couldn't bring himself to death; a serpent by the name of Kaze Komedoku. The virus had fun with his body. He was leucistic, completely white save for his eyes and flesh beneath the scales, which was a deep green. His eyes were a brighter green, brilliant against his diamond-white scales. 'Standing' he was about six feet tall. Fifteen feet of tail stretched out, starting at his hips and where legs would normally be. He was thin, lean, lanky for the most part, but his tail was strong, and he was proud of that. But now, dressed in a petty officer's uniform, the young serpent could only stare, shell shocked, as the others of his platoon died before his eyes. He could hardly stand the ugly sight of it! In shock, he curled his dirty tail around his torso, curling himself into a tight ball, chucking his gun aside, remaining completely still. His white hair fell across his face as he whimpered, dirty and sweat stained. He closed his eyes and hugged his head to his tail, wanting the explosions, the shots, the cries of pain to stop, but most of those cries came from him.
A few moments later the gunfire and shouting died out, sounds coming from farther away where the battle still raged on. Kaze, still in shock, remained in his bundled ball, looking like a large, white, fleshy tumbleweed. He didn't even notice as Imperial soldiers marched up to him, put his balled up form on a stretcher, and carried him into a truck. He didn't notice a change of scenery until an hour later. Blood-shot eyes gazed up beyond his tail, seeing nothing but the inside of an armored truck. There was nobody else with him, and as thoughts began to drift back into his mind, it seemed that nobody else would have been as cowardly as he'd been.
He shuddered, managing to sit up and wipe his dirty, tear-stained cheeks. The truck rumbled on, and Kaze was left to piece together what had happened. They had to get to a bridge, but something went wrong... The enemy was on the wrong side of the battlefield than they expected... then the wolf was shot, and the rest... His body shook with fear, and he switched thoughts to other things. He never wanted to be a soldier. Sure it seemed cool at first, waving a gun around for a cause he thought was right, but this was terrible. The conditions were terrible, the pain worse. Before the Shift, he'd been pretty pampered, always with food to eat and a shower available, a roof over his head and a promising education path. It was all shaken down with the Shift, the virus that turned nearly every single human into a half-human half-animal creature. The popular term of the day was 'furre', but it varied from region to region.
So, here he was; a soldier of the 'Militia'. That's all they called themselves, the Militia. A group of dedicated furres that wanted to build a democracy out of the ashes of the United States, reinstate a president, and make things as they were. The Imperium had other plans though. Christianity had stepped up and made its own government, a world-spanning one, all brought together by the word of God. Now, the word of God was less important, and making an Empire was more important. God could wait, apparently. Then there was the Confederacy, a militaristic group based around communism. They made grand promises, and attracted many followers away from the Empire with those promises, but their methods weren't as clean as most would like. Suicide bombing was a popular ploy, with planes, boats, cars, and civilians. But, according to rumor, for a Militia soldier, it was better to be captured by the Confederacy than the Empire. The Confederacy would treat you well, promise you things, induct you into their ranks, and so long as you stayed away from explosives, they wouldn't strap a bomb to you and send you after the rest of the world.
From the Imperial Chapel of All, there came nothing but horror stories.
Kaze remembered his previous life. He liked computers, he was a loner, he even embraced the Shift when it came. He was skinny, much as he is still, wasn't spectacularly attractive, and fumbled with words, as was typical of loners. When the Shift came, he saw it as an opportunity to better himself, but the angry populace of the world seemed to have different plans that conflicted with Kaze's desires a great deal. Surely by the end of it all, this would be World War 3, if nothing else.
The truck lurched to a stop, and Kaze had to hold the bench in the back to keep from spilling against the front of the armored cage. He could hear muttering from the driver's seat and from outside, and the truck continued on its way. A checkpoint, Kaze deduced. The Empire was notoriously organized. He felt the truck turn more often, stop more often, move at a slower pace. Suburbs, or some smaller district. Maybe a military base, but he didn't hear many sounds from the outside, like soldiers marching or guns being fired at practice targets like he expected. Everything was eerily silent. The truck lurched to another stop, and sounds of echoing footsteps reached Kaze's ears. His forked tongue began to flick faster into the air, trying to get some sense of what was going to happen next.
The back doors of the truck opened and a masked soldier shot Kaze with a dart gun.
"One..." the guard began to count, and Kaze started to move forward sluggishly.
"Two..." the guard continued. Kaze felt himself begin to fall, and he could do nothing to stop it.
"Three." The white snake blacked out completely.
Kaze opened his eyes later, glancing around. His arms were bound behind a chair, and his tail was carefully shackled to the legs of the chair. He gazed groggily forward, but could only make out the silhouette of a figure in front of him, standing behind a desk, a spotlight shining down on several pieces of paper laid neatly across the table.
"Your name is Petty Officer Kaze Komedoku, formerly.." a man's voice droned on like a machine, relaying details of Kaze's past life, reminding him painfully of how much the world had changed. He finished with, "Do you disagree with any of the aforementioned information?"
Kaze paused, and nodded once, "My sister was one year and ten months younger than me, not two years." His tone didn't belay a sense of arrogance; he wasn't trying to be smartass. In fact, the man seemed to take it as simple fact, and jotted down a note on one of the pieces of paper.
"Thank you. You've been processed, your DNA, fingerprints, and iris scans completed, and a GPS chip has been placed in your body. Because of your unique nature, being of reptilian species and mutated at that, you've been assigned to the Twenty-Second Research Division in former San Diego, California. Do you wish to make any comments before you're transported?"
"I want the war to be over." Kaze sighed out heavily.
The man nodded once, "Don't worry. It will be, soon. Then we can all live in peace again." Though the words were spoken in such a static manner, Kaze took some comfort in them. That's all he wanted to hear, that the war would be over, soon. He gave no thought to what the 22nd Research Division was. He was taken away to another room, stripped of his clothing, cleaned vigorously, and given new clothes, something akin to a green jumpsuit, before transported to an airport, where a small plane awaited. He was the only passenger, shackled to his own chair.
When the plane landed in California, the pilot, before disembarking, gave Kaze a shot of tranquilizer to the arm, smiling as he counted down, similar to the guard before. By three, Kaze was limp as a rag doll and completely unconscious...
This time he woke in a well-lit cell. Solid metal bars stood between him and bullet proof glass on all sides. Beneath the floor and on the ceiling were dome-shaped cameras, making sure every corner was covered. He had a simple futon bed and a very small, separate room with a tiny shower stall and toilet. That room was the only place unmonitored by cameras and featuring opaque walls.
Beyond the transparent walls of his cell was a well-lit laboratory of gray and white. Everything seemed so new, high-tech, and clean. Furres in lab coats trotted this way and that, going about their business, though no sound reached Kaze's ears. The entrance of his cell was something of an airlock. Two doors vacuum sealed, a code of some type needed to open each. A very simple intercom system was set up, one station on the outside of the airlock, one on the inside, and a third on the inside of his cell. One more one-way intercom was set up in the bathroom.
One of the scientists stepped forward to the outside intercom. She was a husky, with silver fur and long white hair, a bushy tail swaying from side to side through the hole at the back of her lab coat, which left the rest of her body to the imagination. Her face looked pretty though, and her blue eyes were quite stunning as they watched Kaze. The serpent was dressed in his green jumpsuit, a one-piece baggy article that, because of his tail, acted much like some sort of dress. He couldn't wear regular pants after all, skirts were the only way. It was ok though; there were ways to mimic a pants-like look to keep him seeming masculine.
The husky activated the intercom, "Good morning." She spoke softly, in a sweet voice, a small smile crossing her lips, "Your name is Kaze, isn't it?"
Kaze nodded, "Yes, that's correct." He sighed, tail twitching anxiously.
"Well, from now on your name will be..." she paused a moment, rolling her eyes at the ceiling in thought, "...Aya." She nodded with finality, her smile that much larger.
Kaze grimaced at that, "Aya? But that's a girl's name. Why not just 'experiment insert-number-here'?" The serpent crossed his arms over his chest, watching the husky curiously. The fact that he was a guinea pig in a cage hadn't sunk in just yet.
The husky bounced a little on the balls of her feet and nodded with something of a stupid grin, "Why yes, yes it is a girl's name, and we do give you a number, but it's just for records. From now on your name will be Aya, and if you resist this assignment, from now on, you'll be given a friendly jolt from your lovely room. Do you understand?"
Kaze glanced around the room. He could see faint, tiny copper wires that lined the floor, walls, and even ceiling. He glanced to the husky, giving a small nod, "Aya..." he winced a little, "I guess I've had worse nicknames." A short second after the sentence slipped out, a shock zapped his tail, and he jumped up in surprise, "Hey-ow!"
The husky gave the most dreadful giggle Kaze had ever heard in his life, "Not a nickname, dear. It's your *name*. You'll get used to it, very quickly I'm sure." She turned off the intercom and trotted away, a little bounce in her step. Kaze watched her around the room, glaring as she went, chatting up a few other scientists before leaving the lab to whatever other business she had.
The naga sighed heavily, shaking his head in dismay, "Aya..." he muttered to himself. "I wonder what'll be next." He gazed up at the ceiling, laying back in his futon, seeing as there was nothing else he had to do, yet.