Enter the Hound: The Origin of Inu

Chapter 6: Family

 

            At 10:15, a nurse finally came out into the waiting room.  She apologized for the long wait, explaining that a computer malfunction had been the cause of the delay.  Ashley, Austin, and Cori-O were the only participants who didn’t believe the nurse’s excuse.

            The participants were called back two at a time, each being processed in private rooms by one of the two doctors working with the project.  Ashley and her friends thought it strange that none of the participants returned to the waiting room after being screened, but then Austin and Cori-O were called and the girls could do nothing but wait.

            When at last Ashley and Nadine were called back, they found that the little brick building was not as small as it appeared to be on the outside.  A long hallway stretched before them with six examination rooms on each side.  Ashley and Nadine were each ushered into their own rooms and checked over by the attending nurse before being left behind to wait for one of the doctors.

            She was still a little dizzy from the perfume, so she curled up on the exam table and closed her eyes to block out the light.  She could hear the other participants in their own rooms.  Some were talking to themselves while others conversed with the doctor or nurse in the room.  She sat up again thirty minutes later when at least she heard footsteps approaching her door.

            “I’m terribly sorry to keep you waiting,” said the doctor, adjusting a large fedora on his head.  “It’s been utter mayhem all day long and...”

            Ashley, who had been rubbing her eyes, looked up at the doctor as he paused in his speech.  He looked incredibly familiar, but more important was the look of shock and sudden fear on his face.  That was when Ashley realized that her ball cap was still on the exam table.

            “What the hell...” said the doctor.

            “Wait!” Ashley cried.  “Wait, I can explain!  I just want to know...”

            “...are you doing here?  Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for you to be anywhere near here?”

            Ashley frowned in confusion.  The doctor was in a mild panic, spacing about the room as if his life depended on it.  Watching his made Ashley dizzy again, so she resumed her position on the table and closed her eyes.

            “Oh!  That’s good!  Very good!  Yes, stay just like that.”  The doctor stuck his head out into the hallway and called for a nurse.  When one came, he told her that Ashley wasn’t feeling very well and to send the rest of the participants on to the next screening area.

            The doctor was considerably calmer after the rest of the patients had been taken downstairs---not only was the building not as small as Ashley had previously thought, but it also had more than one level---for the next phase of testing.  Ashley sat up again and placed her ball cap back on her head.  She studied the doctor, trying to figure out where she had seen him before.  He fidgeted with his clip board and stethoscope, chewed the end of his pen, and generally tried to avoid Ashley’s gaze without actually leaving the room.  Something, it seemed, held him back from leaving.

            The doctor reached up and adjusted his fedora again, and that’s when it clicked.

            “Doctor Pembroke?” she asked.  The doctor winced and spun around to face her.  There was no denying it: it was him.  Time may not have been kind, but this was indeed Dr. Pembroke.

            “We have to get you out of here,” he said.  “If he finds out, there’s no telling what could happen.”

            Dr. Pembroke took Ashley’s arm and dragged her from the room.  She went willingly, but was alarmed at the urgency in his voice.

            “But my friends...” she protested.

            “No time.  I’ll explain when we’re clear of this hellish place.  Just hurry!”

 

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            His name was Dr. Harvey Pembroke.  He met his beloved wife Kaede Akita on Spring Break while earning his Bachelor’s Degree in Biology, and again when he was first hired by Genome.  It was love at first sight, and if he hadn’t been so focused on work, they might have married a lot sooner than they had.

            But there had also been interference with HIM.

            As Dr. Pembroke understood it, Dr. James Edward Moreau, the current director of Genome, had not always gone by that name.  The official story was that he changed his name out of reverence for his late mentor; however, people who had worked with him before gave out that he had suffered irreparable brain damage during an experiment gone wrong, and that the name change was just another sign of his inability to distinguish between reality and fiction.  Everyone knew that there wasn’t a real Dr. Moreau, and that supposed account of his island of Beast People was really a fictional work by H.G. Wells.  Everyone knew this, but James swore up and down that it had been real, and that Moreau had been his mentor  If not for his incredible scientific genius, Dr. James Moreau would’ve been institutionalized long ago.

            “So what’s stopping him from being locked away now?” Ashley asked.  She and Dr. Pembroke sat across from each other in a booth in the strangest diner Ashley had ever seen.  The people there were dressed in odd-looking costumes, and tormented each other endlessly.  One appeared to be a very large penguin.  She dismissed it all as being part of a theme and nothing more.

            “Tenure,” Dr. Pembroke joked.  “No, sorry, I shouldn’t joke about that.  The truth is, he’s too powerful for anyone to stand up to him.  It’s not that no one can get to him, heavens no!  He’s terribly careless, doesn’t care about anything or anyone unless he can use it for his own personal gain.  That makes Genome easy to get into, but escaping is an entirely different matter.”

            Ashley started to say something, but was distracted as the large penguin leaped through the air and tackled a pickle jar.

            ‘Wow, dinner and a show,’ she thought.  ‘And it’s only lunchtime.’

            “I’m telling you this so you’ll stay away from Genome,” Dr. Pembroke resumed when the server -- a courteous gentlemen in red and blue with remnants of what appeared to be duct-table clinging to his back -- left the table.  “If Moreau finds out about you and discovers where you came from, he won’t stop at mere genetic manipulation.  He’ll try to breed his creations, and he won’t be satisfied until he has an army of sub-human mutants to sell to the lowest bidder.”

            Ashley nearly choked on her cheeseburger.  “Money?  He’s doing this for money?”

            Dr. Pembroke stabbed at his steak, his face dark and unreadable.  Even over the smells of her charred burger and his rare steak, Ashley could detect a change in his scent.  He was livid.

            “Of course it’s all for money,” he answered, his voice rumbling low in his throat.  “All the pain and suffering, the tests, the torture, the deaths; all of it for money.  It’s the god he worships, that and fame.  Every minute, every hour, he pays homage to Greed and Glory in his Temple of Anguish.  It would be best for you to stay away.”

            “But my friends...”

            “You’re friends are dead!” Dr. Pembroke snapped.  He regretted that line as soon as he said it.  He turned his head slightly to see if he had attracted unwanted attention.  A few of the other diner patrons cast glances over at Ashley and Dr. Pembroke’s booth, but only in passing.  All was well.

            “They’re dead,” he repeated in a softer voice.  “And if they’re not, they’re as good as.  There’s nothing you can do for them.”

            The two sat in silence for the remainder of the meal.  Ashley picked up her fork and stabbed half-heartedly at her cheeseburger.  She suddenly wasn’t very hungry.