Chapter 3
Dr. Hempshine walked into
the office for the day hoping to continue the progress him and
Achilles had made the day before. He didn't expect to hear his two
associates yelling and a huge commotion going on at Achilles cell.
Achilles was roaring and squawking so ferociously that it almost felt
that Yorik's ears would bleed from the sound.
He ran to the cell as fast as his stubby, little
legs would carry him. "What exactly is going on here?!" he
yelled at the two men.
"I don't know, sir. We came in to the office
and he was like this when we got here," Dr. Gerome said. "He
won't calm down and we've not tried to do anything except to ease
his rage."
"Achilles?" Yorik said calmly. "Achilles,
I'm here. It's ok." He put his hand to Achilles face as
gently as he could. With that gesture Achilles finally stopped his
rampage and dropped his back end to the floor, as if completely
exhausted by the whole event. "My poor Achilles. It was just a
bad dream. It's all alright." Achilles hummed with appreciation
of the doctor's caring words. "Dr. Gerome, Dr. Herald, would you
please leave us alone for a little bit? It'll calm the whole
situation down if it's just him and I." With that the two men
walked back to the lab.
Yorik looked at Achilles for a moment, examining
the creature in his entirety to make sure he hadn't hurt himself in
the commotion. After a few minutes the doctor was satisfied that
Achilles was more than ok. He patted him on the head and said, "All
better now?"
Achilles nodded in agreement and brushed his head
against Dr. Hempshine's arm to encourage him to pet him more.
Yorik acknowledged by stroking the top of Achilles's head.
"Now that we're all settled, let's go out
and do some exercises for the day. I would like to see how well you
do with flying, hm?" he said with a great sincerity in his voice.
They both walked out to the courtyard that they had rested in the day
before. The sun was shining brightly with the sky being as clear as
it could be. "Now open your wings and show me what you can do,"
Yorik said. With that the gryphon opened has gigantic wings. The
span of his wings were so great that the took up half the enormous
yard that he was standing it. With no effort at all, as far as the
doctor saw, Achilles lifted himself into the air. He took off with
great speed, faster that Dr. Hempshine thought was possible. After a
couple of laps around in the sky, Achilles came to hover just above
the doctor with ease. "Excellent, Achilles, just excellent. Now
would you please come down."
Achilles floated to the ground with no more than
a slight breeze from his wings brushing against Yorik. The gryphon
padded his way up to the doctor and brushed his arm for another
warming pat on the head. Again the doctor did as prompted and
stroked Achilles head. "We should go check your vitals to make
sure you didn't overexert yourself. Let's head into the lab, my
friend."
With that, they both headed to the lab room where
they had done the blood work the day before. "Dr. Gerome, will you
please take a moment to check Achilles vital signs for me?" Yorik
asked. The doctor did as asked and wrote every vital onto a chart
and handed it to Yorik. "Everything looks excellent. Better than
I expected actually. You are in peak physical health, Achilles. I
think it's time we move to stage 2 of your training." Achilles
looked at Dr. Hempshine puzzlingly. What was he being trained for?
Was there a hidden agenda that he didn't know about that the doctor
was preparing him for? All these things raced through his mind.
"Come," Yorik said, standing by the door. "I
want to show you something very interesting." Achilles did as
asked and followed the doctor down the corridor to a huge open room
full of paintings and cave drawings. "I wanted to show you the
history of your kind," he said. "As you can see your heritage
dates back to even caveman days. I was surprised to find these cave
drawings of your species. No one has discovered anything like this
in history, as far as I've seen." Achilles looked at all these
different pictures wondering what it all meant. Could his heritage
be so vast? Was he the last of his kind? So many questions rolled
through his mind. If these pictures were a history of his species,
how could there not have been more found already?
Out of nowhere a huge bang came from behind him.
Both Achilles and the doctor whipped around to see what the commotion
was. To both their surprise a young lab assistant had knock over a
table. "I'm so sorry, Dr. Hempshine. I was coming in to clean
the paintings but didn't realize anyone was in here. He's the
most beautiful creature I've ever seen," she said in awe.
"It's quite alright, Hilary. Come and let me
introduce you. Hilary, this is Achilles. Achilles, this is one of
our lab assistants, Hillary," Yorik gestured towards the girl as he
said her name so that Achilles would associate the name with the
person. Achilles walked up to her and nuzzled her with his beak to
greet her. She giggled and petted under his chin. "As you can see
he is very gentle," Hempshine said.
"He's amazing," said Hilary. "You are a
very majestic creature, Achilles. You should be very proud of your
great heritage." Achilles stood tall looking at all of the
paintings and drawings and truly soaked it all in. He did have a
great heritage and even if he didn't know where he came from he
knew where he was now. He was among the humans now and they were his
family. He would make them proud of him. "Well, doctor, I'll
leave you two to have bonding time. I'll see you later, Achilles,"
Hilary waved as she left the room.
"As you can see, you have a whole variety of
people looking after you and that care about you," Yorik said
encouragingly. He caressed the top of Achilles head. "As Hilary
said, you are an amazing creature." Achilles purred with enjoyment
from the gentle touch from the doctor. Achilles was starting to
realize more and more that Dr. Hempshine was much like a father to
him since he didn't know his own father or remember him for that
matter. "Well it's getting rather late. We have to take some
more blood to check again for any problems or infections. Come with
me to the lab," Yorik motioned towards the open door out of the
room with all the paintings. Achilles walked out of the doorway,
ducking down to get through as he was much taller than the doorway
itself.
They walked into the lab to find Dr. Gerome
working on a computer. "Ah, Dr. Gerome, I'm glad you're in
here. I need to get another blood sample. Would you be so kind as
to do the honors for me?" Hempshine asked.
"With pleasure, doctor," Gerome answered. He
grabbed the syringe and put his hand out to Achilles. "Can I have
your claw, Achilles?" Achilles obliged and put his enormous claw
into Dr. Gerome's hand. Dr. Gerome found a vein in Achilles'
claw and inserted the needle. The vial attached to the needle filled
quickly and Gerome removed the needle and put a square of gauze over
the wound. After only holding it a few seconds, he removed it and it
was healed.
"Excellent! Thank you, doctor," Yorik said
gratefully. "Come, Achilles, you should rest." Yorik motioned
towards the door of the lab. Achilles followed the request without
delay. They both walked down the hall side-by-side to the door of
the gryphon's cell. "In you go, my boy. Have a good night's
rest and I will see you first thing in the morning." Yorik wrapped
his arms around Achilles' neck and squeezed with great emotion.
Achilles put one claw around the doctor to hug him back.
Dr. Hempshine locked the door behind Achilles
after he had laid down for the night. He walked back to the lab and
looked at Dr. Gerome. "Gerome, what are the results of both blood
draws?" he asked.
"As far as I see there is no sign of infection
or rejection of the DNA. He's fully integrated the DNA sequencing
without any negative outcome," Gerome answered.
"Amazing," Hempshine exclaimed. He looked
over the report that Dr. Gerome had provided for him. As Gerome had
said, Achilles showed no sign of infection or rejection. "Then
Phase 1 has gone according to plan. The DNA sequencing was the hard
part. His memory erasure seems to be holding but he had some kind of
dream last night. Are his memories trying to surface in his
subconscious, I wonder?" Dr. Hempshine was puzzled by this part of
his experiment. If the memory erasure doesn't hold, could Achilles
have full recollection of his true identity? Would he lash out if
that were to happen? So many factors Yorik had to consider and
compensate for once they arose.
"I'm going to head home to my family for the
night. Let's not have another episode tomorrow morning," Yorik
barked.
"Understood. Have a good night, Dr.
Hempshine," Gerome responded.
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