Experimentations Chapter 6: The Test
content: dehumanization, insults to intelligence, species prejudice
The next morning Dr. Vaughn woke up feeling fresh. She made her breakfast, a stack of pancakes, and watched the news while eating them. A reporter in a red suit was talking about new infrastructure.
There has been recent controversy over the new speed train route going through an avian nesting ground. Henry, what does it look like for you? The screen switched over to a guy in a toboggan hat standing in front of a construction site. Well, Jane there have been many factors going into consideration with this project. The government has brought in professionals to help with managing and possibly relocating the avians, but we want the public to rest assured none of them will be endangered by the train being bui-
Dr. Vaughn shut off the TV and walked down to the research floor.
Streak spent the night very still in his makeshift nest. Angelica had done an excellent job exhausting him, both mentally and physically, the night before. His wings were still cold and damp, but he could fly uninhibited. He was awake when she checked on him, sitting still and preening quietly. He was quite hungry, and he was anxious to know what torture he would have to endure to earn the privilege of food.
When Dr. Vaughn got down to the research floor she headed to the kitchen to prepare food for the avian. She pulled out the rice that was made the day before and put a vegetable mix on top of it. She would eventually try to test the limits of the avian's diet, but for now she would give him hardy vegetarian meals. She went to the nesting room and buzzed the door open.
Streak perked up, looking down. He was making sure to be not overtly disobedient... she'd said that if he was flying, he would have to come down, but he wasn't flying. He was resting. He peered down at her, and then had a brief impulse to call good morning to her. But he didn't, he stayed quiet.
When Dr. Vaughn walked into the room she expected to see the avian on the ground. When she didn't she frowned slightly. She looked up and saw the avian peering down at her from an upper platform.
"Streak come down here," She called to him. "You need to eat something."
"If..." He swallowed hard. "If I fly, will you- put- put me in the water?" He'd struggled with nightmares the whole time he slept. He had drowned four or five times in his sleep, each time waking, but staying as still as possible so no one would know.
Dr. Vaughn was pleased with his reaction. Clearly yesterday had made a good impression on him.
"I am giving you permission to fly down here, Streak. You will only be punished for flying without permission."
He lifted his wings, jumping off and gliding down. He felt the absence of the large feathers she'd taken, but the overall effect was minimal. He was fine. He stood in front of her, wary and watchful, distrustful. He didn't know what to expect, or what to fear. He certainly was afraid of her.
Dr. Vaughn handed Streak the bowl of rice and vegetables then pulled up two chairs, both with low backs so that it was easy for the avian to tuck his wings behind the chair. "Today will be for you learning how the rest of your time here will go. So eat your food and then we will get started."
Streak wasn't sure how he would feel about that, but he let out a slow breath and nodded anyway.
"Alright." He accepted the food. For a moment, he contemplated eating with his hands, just to mess up her research, but then he realized if she had all this enrichment stuff, she knew enough about avians to know they didn't eat like animals.
"And when you're done, I get to go home," he promoted, his beautiful eyes searching desperately for confirmation, for hope.
Dr. Vaughn examined what she could see of his wings. From the variety of feathers strewn across the floor she could see that he had preened a lot last night.
"As I have told you: my boss is the one who decides whether you go home."
"Well- let me talk to them, then?" He pleaded. He was so tired of being here. He ran his hand through his hair, which was tangled and messy, and fiddled with a white strand in the front.
Dr. Vaughn noticed the fidgeting. She wondered how much worse it would get over the course of his time here. "You will speak to him only if he approves it. I have no say in the matter," She explained.
"What are you going to do to me?" Streak asked anxiously. Yesterday, she'd caught him, strapped him to a table, plucked him, exhausted him, and almost drowned him. Today was even longer than yesterday.
"Today you are going to learn how you are expected to act and then we are going to run some tests."
He nodded. Still, he said nothing. Silence of his own volition was a whole lot better than silence as a default... gagged, muzzled, like a violent dog. He wasn't violent, he wasn't a dog. He was better than she thought he was, and he would prove it to her. He finished his food and set the bowl down on the floor.
Dr. Vaughn nodded as he finished the food. She stood and moved her chair back to the edge of the room.
"Now, follow me and do not touch anything. Do you understand?"
He gave yet another nod. It was his best tool right now, nonverbal agreement. It worked. So he used it. He tucked his wings in. They folded like an accordion and pressed against his back, reducing his width to the kind that fit places, not the kind that soared through the air. He folded his arms, so she could see he wasn't touching anything.
Dr. Vaughn led him into a room he hadn't seen before there was a table in the middle of it and several screens on the walls. A few of them were interactive. She directed him to sit down at the table before pouring herself a glass of water. Streak shivered when he heard the water pour. He felt quite cold suddenly, and he was very aware of the fact that he wore no shirt.
"Now. We'll begin. Firstly, when any scientist enters a room that you are in and you are not already on the ground you will immediately fly down to the ground. I will excuse you not doing so this morning, but after this you will be expected to do so."
A nod. He was going to elongate his spine with all this damn nodding, but it was the best way to keep from mouthing off. He was worried that once he opened his mouth, he wouldn't close it.
Dr. Vaughn noticed the lack of verbal response quickly. She wasn't sure she minded that he was keeping his mouth shut. It was definitely an improvement from the day before. "When you are not actively doing anything you will stand with your wings folded, your hands clasped in front of you and your head down." She took a long sip of her water and watched the avian shiver.
He didn't change the position of his arms. He didn't change anything, because in his mind, he was close enough, and he was unwilling to yield another inch. She would find a way to take a mile. He kept his wings and arms folded, his head up but his eyes directed downward. He opened his mouth ever so slightly, but immediately decided that it wasn't worth asking. He would find out soon enough.
She was satisfied with the avian's immediate check of his posture. She wanted to see how far she could push him before he lashed out again. "You will speak only when spoken to and you will ask permission to ask a question."
All Streak's stupid little quips ran through his head. 'How can I ask permission to speak? It would require speaking,' and 'Do these rules only apply to English?' But he didn't say anything. It wasn't worth it. He didn't need to agree with any of her bullshit, he didn't need to like it, he just needed to survive. He needed to get through this, so he could go home.
Dr. Vaughn was intrigued by his restraint. She wondered what it would take to get Streak to lash out. She would push him until she found an edge and then she would smooth him out.
"Today you are going to complete a series of puzzles that determine intelligence in non-human species. I will be able to gauge what level of intelligence your species has with these tests."
His jaw clenched slightly, but he didn't do much of anything else. He shifted his weight slightly, and his eyes looked around the room he was in. His first thought was actual puzzles, wooden links and jigsaws and riddles, but she did not seem like that kind of person. So this was going to be something he couldn't see coming.
She pulled a file out of her coat and put it on the table. She flipped through it and slid a paper over to Streak.
"You have an hour to complete this worksheet. Here is a pencil." She slid the pencil to him and then left the room. The door buzzed as the lock closed.
Streak sat down rather heavily, staring at the paper.
True or False? More people have been to Rome than I have. He read it four times before deciding it was idiotic, and wrote that down instead.
The old man the boat. Why? He didn't even know what that was asking him, so he drew a middle finger and went to the next one.
Dr. Vaughn watched through a camera. She noticed he was writing quickly. She wondered what he would do when he realized that all puzzles had no solutions.
Streak was getting frustrated. All of these were bullshit, and he knew it, and she knew it, and he knew she knew it, and it was pissing him off! He wasn't stupid. He wasn't stupid. He flipped the paper over and picked a good big empty space and began to draw Dr. Vaughn, as he remembered her. It was very good, very accurate, down to the hair he'd seen out of place this morning. He depicted her exactly as he'd seen her, and then began to draw other things instead. A fish, with each scale reflecting light. A feather, anatomically correct.
Dr. Vaughn noticed him drawing and zoomed in the camera to see. He had about fifteen minutes left. She watched the clock. She wondered what else he would do.
When Streak got tired of drawing, he flapped his wings. The room wasn't big enough to fly in, but he stretched his wings out and preened some more. It was comforting. It wasn't plucking feathers, he'd done that last night. Preening was mostly straightening them, smoothing each feather in the same direction, and taking out any speck of dirt from between them. He looked around, finding the camera, and then put his wings away. He wouldn't oil his feathers while he was being watched. He went back to the paper, scrawling half baked responses to the idiotic questions and riddles. This wasn't an intelligence test, it was just... stupid.
After the time was up she went back into the room. She sat down and looked over his paper. "I expected avians to be able to keep up with the intellect of humans but this shows me otherwise. Though, it seems that you do love drawing yourself."
He rolled his eyes. "Your test is insane, lady. These questions are absolutely idiotic. If you can explain the answer to even one of these questions, I'll eat the paper. I swear to god, you're just messing with my head."
Dr. Vaughn held back a sadistic grin. She had finally gotten a rise out of him. He would pay dearly for his resistance.
"Now, I thought we went over just an hour ago, what respectful speech is expected of you. I know you haven't forgotten. I warned you what would happen if you were disrespectful. But I'll give you one chance to get out of your punishment. You will do another set of puzzles and this time you will only get half an hour to do them. If you can finish them in half an hour you will prove that I am wrong about what I see on this paper and we will move on. If not, we will find a way to discipline you appropriately for lying about your species' intelligence level. Do you understand?"
He blinked a few times. None of this made sense. Lying? About his species intelligence? She did realize avians were not clones, right? He was smarter than some and stupider than some. People were different.
She stood and walked over to one of the screens. She pulled up an intelligence puzzle on it. This one was not a bogus puzzle, instead it was a highly difficult hand eye coordination puzzle that included intellectual information. It would be nearly impossible, but not completely, to complete in the time she had given him.
"You may start when I leave the room."
Streak started on the puzzle. This one made sense, and it was actually kind of fun. He moved each piece, enjoying it. His eyes and brain processed the information much faster than expected, and he was actually finished about ten minutes before she went in.
Dr. Vaughn was impressed with his ability to finish the puzzle quickly. When she came back in the room he was working on it a second time.
"Streak sit down." She pulled out her chair. She pulled out a large packet of advanced math, stuff that even she couldn't do.
"Your next assignment is this. You will have the next two hours to do it and if you don't finish in that time we will have a nice chat about what is and is not appropriate for you to say, do you understand?" She was going to punish him either way, but she wanted him to think he had a choice.
Streak hesitated, but nodded. He could handle being yelled at. He accepted the packet, looking confused. If it was more bullshit questions, he was going to light it on fire. He sat down with it, looking through. Oh. Goddamn it.
Dr. Vaughn stood up, enjoying the look of dread on the avian's face and stepped out of the room. She went into her office and took notes on the coordination test he completed. It was clear that he had very good coordination.
Streak had heightened processing speed because of his wing type. He was an eagle, or close to one, with eyes sharper than a human could comprehend, and the brain space to process everything he saw. It came at a cost though. He only had so much room for brain in his head.
He had amazing spatial awareness and processing skills, impressive coordination, he was the kind of guy that could spin a plate on his nose. He had good fine motor skills, like drawing. But those traits took the place of others. He wasn't good with verbal instructions, or keeping things in order. If you told him to touch his toes, touch his chin, and then spin in a circle... he'd probably do two of them, backwards. He was forgetful, especially of daily tasks that bored him. He burnt food, forgetting about the oven, and ran the shower without ever getting in it.
The two hours ticked by very slowly for him. Streak looked at everything, getting very angry at it. He tore a few of the pages into very tiny pieces, and drew an angrily motivated picture of Dr Vaughn, bleeding, and then tore that up too.
When the time was up Dr. Vaughn opened up the door to the room. She walked in and saw all of the tiny shredded papers everywhere and frowned.
Aww poor Streak, he doesn't think he's dumb. He knows he a very intelligent bird!
