Doctor Rat (20 page)

The leopard blinks at me sleepily and licks his paws. No one moves to attack us. The great black buffalo is chewing the grass. A little rhinoceros has come in amongst the elephants, playfully nudging them with her horn. And the leopard cubs are playing with the hyenas!

I feel I should stand up and pound my chest. But there is no need to do so. The air is filled with contentment and a wonderful expectation. I scratch my head.

The exercise wheel is slowing down, the picture is getting weaker. I’ve got to get back on the wheel again and generate some more intuitive kilopower.

Enemy patrol coming this way! Quick, Rat, go into disguise…

Taking my tail in my mouth, I start to chase it, round and round, exhibiting all the activity of a rat caught in a compulsive syndrome. There are many such rats in the lab, all of whom were driven into this tail-chasing psychosis by the Learned Professor. I look just like one of them, going faster and faster.

The enemy patrol is slowing down, coming closer.

“Hello, in there! Can we help you?”

I spin madly on, eyes closed, whirling round and round.

“He’s too far gone…a hopeless case…”

A masterful subterfuge. The rebels are marching away. And this spinning round and round is producing a very strong intuitive field. Yes, here comes a strong signal now, straight from Washington. Hurrah, boys! Let’s deal with these revolutionaries in the one sure way of effecting a just and lasting peace!

“The Wildlife Department says they have no way of tranquilizing so many animals. By the time they get all the animals knocked out here, at Point B, those they knocked out earlier at Point A will be waking up, before a single animal’s been moved. And there are such great numbers of the smaller animals that the rangers can’t even make a dent.”

“Can’t they make a hell of a lot of noise or something and scare them all back into the woods? High-frequency whistles, maybe, to drive the animals away?”

“Every state is claiming that
herds
of deer are involved, as well as large groups of other big animals, like bears. If you tried to move them that way, you’d have them spilling out all over the highways. There’d be a traffic pile-up like nobody’s seen before. It’d cripple the nation.”

“Some environmental honcho is claiming it’s been caused by DDT in the food chain.”

“…behaviorists talking about the psychosis of mass exodus…”

“Gentlemen, the President is not interested at the moment in why it’s happened. He wants an action memo with his options for bringing about a solution, fast.”

“We can’t possibly coordinate the wildlife agencies of every little town in the country. They’re panicked anyway. I’ve talked to enough idiots today to know we’ve got no chance of solving this on the local level.”

“Have we talked to the Pentagon yet? The army’s probably got some kind of gas that will tranquilize whole herds…”

The enemy patrols have all passed by, Rat. Now is your great moment. Quietly as a tiny Eurasian Harvest Mouse I creep along, intent on reaping a full harvest of revolutionary heads. (Dissection of trachea and main vessels. I might also deliver a few kidneys. And pass a sharp needle through the thyroid gland. And transplant their adrenal glands to their groin. Ha ha!)

But first I must fashion a gas mask, if I’m going to make a successful raid on the Chemical Closet. Here, among the cleaning tools, I nibble away a piece of sponge large enough to cover my whole head. Quickly, Rat, hollow it out, make eye holes and ear holes. Nose and mouth must remain covered. It’s a crude device, but I haven’t time to write a requisition in triplicate for a proper gas mask.

Now, down this last aisle, quickly. Scurry, scurry, duck.

Hidden in the shadow of the table leg, I look all around, right and left. Go, Doctor, go!

“No, you don’t!”

A Growth Hormone goon leaps in front of me. The bastard’s bigger than a Gambian Pouched Rat. But I arch my back and begin tooth-chattering (cf. “Rat Rage,” Broome and Poole,
Psy. Post, 1967).

His back raises up, his hair is bristling. He snaps at me, misses, and I sink my teeth into his tail. “Back, you mangy overgrown mouse! Cf.
Territorial Defense,
Sloan and Wilson, 1960.”

He bites again, but I charge him head down and drive into his gut, bowling him over. Doctor Rat is light, fast, and blessed with hysterical energy, my friend. You don’t take him without a fight!

A scalpel lying here on the floor. I pick it up quickly and wave it wildly, chasing off the goon.

But other swordsmen are gathering, armed with picks, chisels, drill bits. “Disperse at once, you rabble!”

I have no fear of them, I, a Learned Mad Doctor with high scores in Competitive Behavior. “Come on, fellow rats. I shall be happy to initiate you into the mysteries of my slogan. Death…is freedom!”

Fighting them off, clanging here, beating there, I move backward up the clothes tree, fighting on the edge of this carved-claw foot. Very well, if I must die here I shall, but I’ll take some of these bastards with me…beat…parry…thrust…

Sweet Suffering Pack Rats! (genus
Neotoma)
Advancing upon me are the ring-collared females. Oh, they’re a hideously vicious bunch. By fastening a ring to their necks we were able to keep them from washing themselves, thus producing an experimental psychosis. When they had their babies, they refused to wash them and, instead, ate them.

And now they’re trying to eat me! Son of a titmouse!

“Back…back, you bitches!”

Too many of them. But I refuse to die such an ignominious death as being eaten alive by these lunatics. I turn, leaping up the clothes tree, clambering toward the white uniform hanging there.

Quick, into the pocket!

Down here in the dark—only a temporary respite. They’re rocking the clothes tree. They’ll knock it over. What is this envelope in here, a government grant, perhaps?

Hmmmmm, it’s filled with a strange white powder. I’ll just have a look at this paper and see what it says…

Cocaine! Pure-grade government research lab cocaine! I’ve never had it before, but I’m familiar with the literature and I know what to do!

Snort snort

Snort snort

BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG BONG

Let me at them! I’ll tear them to pieces, where are they—I’m crawling out of this pocket and leaping…

DOCTOR SUPER RAT!

Landing in the midst of the enemy, knocking them right and left. Wheels going off in my brain. Doctor Rat is on!

Power, raw burning Peruvian power. Racing toward the Chemical Closet I make my bid. The rebel guard is changing, saluting with their tails,
Social Behavior,
etc., and I rush them.

Snarling, biting, kicking, there, take that, you…years of frustration…punishment…stimulus…

“Stop him, bring him down!”

“You sniveling rat’s asshole, I’ll…” Incentive for correct response, socking, nipping…modification kick in the balls… Turner and Murdock…enlarged adrenals…knocking the bastards aside, fighting my way into the depth of the Closet.

“Call for reinforcements! It’s Doctor Rat!”

Motivating factors, punch in the eyeball…reward… Blumfield and Coltz diffusion panels crash…nobody fucks with Doctor Rat…bite off your tail…midsagittal section of the upper incisor…berserker rage…multiple lefts and rights, fast combinations, bowling them over… Christ, here come the hooded rats, and those boys are really frustrated,
Five Hooded Rats in the Discrimination Box,
Drake and Akins.

Bite him in the guts…gotcha, you hooded freak…interspecific conflict, seizing and biting, cf., watch out, over there, leaping and biting intervals,
Boxing Rats,
Geoffrey and Doyle…getting close to the chemical shelves…if I can only…mixing aggression with attempts at coitus, that really spooks them, fucked by a Mad Doctor, come on you sons-of-bitches, Doctor Rat’s got something for you…hair raised, urinating and defecating, the works, moving round them, back maximally arched, holding them off as I edge to the shelf.

“Get him! Don’t let him up there!”

Rapidly striking with the forelimbs, scratching with the back paws, pain-causing stimulus evoking flight amongst my enemies, now!

I’ve made it to the first shelf. Quickly, then, to the top, to the top secret chemical warfare bottles. Thanks to all this superb research, seventy-six enemy children died in Rattankirir Province near the Vietnamese border. Ha ha! Twisting my tail around the dinitrophenol, I let it fly!

Die, you goddamn gooks! Die in the name of Claude Bernard and Uncle Sam!

“Man is coming! Look, banana mice, man is coming through the trees!”

How suddenly he has appeared. Why does he wear the bushes of the jungle on his head? Now he approaches us, like a tree that walks.

But the meeting is complete! We’ll surge together with man. We’ll know the wonderful moment of all hearts beating as one!

Look overhead! Man has sent his great lifeless birds to greet us! How loud they are! How they roar, these lifeless birds. But don’t run, animals. Be steady. Now our meeting can truly begin.

The gorillas walk forward with hands raised over their heads in the gesture of receiving.

The dinitrophenol explodes magnificently on the floor, its spirit ascending into the air, the spirit of our laboratory, defending me. How wrathful she looks in her yellow gown, with her long vicious teeth shining. Wildly she sweeps over the rebels and they fall, covered with burns, blinded, vomiting. What a terrible smell, worse than a starved monkey’s fart.

Over go some more bottle bombs—dinitricorte, acid disclophenocyncetic, arsenic anhydride, calcium cyanide. Every pregnant rat in the laboratory miscarries immediately. Fewer rebels to swell the ranks! I’ve got you now, you chinky bitches! (cf.
The Women of Lam Dong Province,
Medical Diary of Dr. Nguyen, Russell War Crimes Tribunal)

I’m defoliating their ranks now, thinning them out with a few more bombs, chlorophenyl-dimethylurea and dichlorophenyl-dimethylurea, go, boys, go! Down they sail, end over end, and burst open. Sending out the death cloud (cf.
The 18,000 Inhabitants of Da Nang, Natus Disease, 1,000 Dead,
Japanese Science Council Report, 1967). Terrific! This is real power now! Doctor rat has saved the day!

I wonder what special tranquilizing gas the army is using in
its
huge maneuver?

“This is Able Baker One to Red Fox Two. Do you read me, Red Fox Two?”

“Go ahead, Able Baker.”

“This is General Denver. I want machine guns sweeping that far ridge…”

Run, cub, run!

“Momma… Momma…”

She’s fallen, she cannot run. The ground all around us is exploding. The terrible insects of man are whizzing through the air. Get up, cub, get up!

“…help me…help, Momma…”

The insects have bitten her. Blood flows from her side. I shall carry you, little cub, in my teeth. You aren’t heavy.

Many have fallen. The deer, the moose, the foxes—all dead, stung by the loud flaming insects of death. I’ve got you in my teeth, little one. How light you are…

The crying, such crying, as a great moose charges toward the men, his horns lowered. I must reach the trees. What is the sting of a bee—nothing, nothing compared to this. The ground is writhing with stung rabbits and raccoons. The bobcats are crawling, screeching. Such confusion, rolling clouds, which way… I’ve lost the forest! The cloud parts, a giant shadow steps before me.

“This way…”

Through the cloud I plunge, to follow him. So we meet again. Where are the spring flowers? Men everywhere, with their stinging lights, the deadly bees who bite deeply. A proud stag falls, tumbling through the ashes of this dump, and we leap over his twisting legs.

I follow the large dark shape of my husband, and we run, fear and death screaming beside us. The great shadow of my mate turns to me.

“Your cub is dead. Release her.”

How heavily her head hangs. Her eyes stare into mine, but she has left them.

“Come!” He sinks his teeth into my shoulder, tearing me free from the cub.

Running together, our bodies touch, as when we ran through the meadow. The porcupines are squealing, rolling in the ashes, their bellies ripped open. We run through them; why did we come here? I can’t remember now. It’s all gone. The terrible stinging has pierced our reason; we are maddened and bleeding. Quick, husband, I’m beside you. We’ll find the forest and go deep, never venturing here again.

Flames ahead! We whirl, leaping this way…

He roars, rising on his back legs, spinning in a tall overwhelming dance. Red words burst from his tongue and I too have been stung. But run with me, run!

Our paws meet in the air. His eyes gaze into mine. We are upon the spring meadow, my love, dancing in the warm light. Do you hear the swallows singing sweetly and can you smell the honeycomb?

“…Ed Hanson for CBS here in the stockyard. The entire area is marked off into combat zones, and the dogs and steers are being driven toward blind alleys and walls. Police are being assisted by armored cars. An armored car to the left there…you can see it nosing out of the alleyway. Six stampeding steers trying for the main street! The gunfire from the armored car reaches them, and the steers are down! There are dogs on every side of us, snarling, attacking everything in sight. The street is running with blood… I think we can make a switch now…can we switch over to John Cooke… John, take it from there…”

“…in what police have designated as the southeast quadrant of their massive encircling maneuver. I’m with Captain Arthur Briscomb, who’s in charge of the operation. Captain, what’s the situation right now?”

“We’re evacuating all the buildings in this area. Some of the steers are inside. They broke through doors and windows. There’s heavy gunfire, with the use of gas rifles. We want all citizens to stay clear of this area and to avoid contact with any dogs.”

“Has the force suffered casualties, Captain?”