Dr. Caliban was unsure of what he was witnessing but found some words to utter anyway. "If you were worried about intelligence in Swallow this one has enough for both of them."
"That's for sure." She had idea but it wasn't going to hold for long. "We have a temporary solution for you. It should slow things down but you will still continue to grow."
"Well I suggest you use it. And if you could please, bring me some reading material related to growth. I may be able to interpret what is happening." The female skunk said.
This was a turn around she usually gave the orders. "Ah ..sure will do." She filled the syringe with the fluid and injected the creature.
"I should be able to tell you if it is working within a few minutes." It said.
Dr. Caliban couldn't believe this, the creature was only born minutes ago and now its telling them what to do. He tapped his employer on her shoulder and motioned for her to follow him. When he was sure he was out of hearing range her asked her. "Ok, what gives? That things got more intelligence in its pinky finger than I have in my whole head. You can almost smell it, not only that but its telling us what to do. What the heck did you do to that thing?"
She too was a bit puzzled "That's somewhat of a mystery but some of it is definitely my doing that's for sure. I gave the mother overdoses of a brain drug used to help mental patients. It keeps the connections in the brain for longer intervals, it's highly experimental."
Great he thought, go for the experimental stuff and overdose on it as well. "Ok that explains maybe why it's learning so fast but why can it talk. And why does it have a British accent?" That was indeed very strange.
"The birth mother was British and it looks as though it copied a lot of the neural passages straight to its own brain. Allowing it to come to term and age much faster than normal."
"Ok, but something that big and that smart is going to be dangerous."
You are correct in that assumption and I intend to rectify that situation now."
She wandered back and looked at the huge female skunk, she was an awesome sight. Her arms, legs, her whole body was one massive display of power. She was at least 5 feet in height already.
The creature saw her approach, "Your injection has worked my rate of growth is considerably less, congratulations. Do you require a more accurate description?"
"No the fact that your growth has been slowed is enough, thank you. Now we have to discuss some things."
"Understood, go on." The creature said.
A name popped into her head and now was a good a time for giving it one, "From now on you will be called Ti." It was short for Titanic meaning big.
"My name is now Ti, understood."
It showed no emotion and she continued. "You cannot leave here and you must do as I say. You are a genetic experiment and at the moment you are or could be a very dangerous one. The practice of genetic experimentation has been banned, but I have broken that rule; you Ti are one of experiments and my creation. I must avoid being incarcerated, for you would also be imprisoned or possibly destroyed. I will help you become all that you can be but you must obey me and only me. Is this understood and agreed upon?" She waited nervously for Ti's reply.
"For now I must agree, I really don't have a choice. My limited knowledge allows me no other choice, but there will be a time that I will want to be free. Will that opportunity be available to me at a later date?"
"I cannot promise that but since you have a greater intelligence and at the moment seem to be under control of your facilities. It may be foreseeable in the future that you will be able to function among others without harming them."
She looked at her creator with curiosity, what was her purpose? "I will agree and obey your commands for now. I take it this agreement is all because you fear me?"
Another surprise, she was indeed intelligent maybe too much so. "Yes, I fear you and what you are capable of doing. Also the fear of what would happen to you if I were to turn you loose. You are an experiment after all and one that hasn't had time to do much. We must learn from each other, only then will freedom come to you and the others."
Now she was surprised and it was dutifully noticeable, "There are others?" Ti was not sure if she had heard her captor correctly.
"Yes, two more in fact, one is already born her name is Swallow. The other was just impregnated the other day."
"Are they to be my sisters or brothers?"
"They will be sisters."
A look of happiness filled Ti's face. She wasn't alone in this strange place, with this strange female whose intentions were unknown. "I take it you have a name?" She said to her creator.
"I have many, today and from now on you will call me Mother."
Present Day Canada.
"Ok, Mom, don't freak out when you see her." Sabrina was nervous enough as it was without having her mother go ga-ga over Heather.
Her mother could see that her daughter was nervous. "I won't dear." She wasn't really expecting a whole lot; a nice young Skunktaur with a similar stripe pattern.
As they entered the store, a bell rang above them and echoed throughout the structure. Margrette looked around and then saw what appeared to be Sabrina coming from the back of the store on four legs no less. "My goodness dear she is the splitting image of you and your sister." She could hardly believe her eyes. The Skunktaur came up to them and put out her hand in greeting.
"You must be Sabrina's Mom. I'm Heather, welcome to my store Mrs. Johnston."
"Its nice to meet you Heather, Sabrina has told me all about you and it was quite the tale."
"I can just bet, I couldn't believe it either. Mom and Dad wanted to be here, to meet both of you, but they couldn't make it. They have invited all of you to dinner tonight at our house."
"Well that's really nice of your parents to do that, Heather. I'm pretty sure I can make it.
"Now, Sabrina here said something about a photo."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure my sister thinks this is still a prank." Sabrina said to Heather.
"Well lets go prove her wrong shall we, the camera can take a lot of small file sized pictures. So we can send her a bunch and they don't look half bad printed off."
Sabrina took at least a dozen of Heather in almost every direction. She said she had never been so photographed in her life. Then they took turns at the camera and finally she set the camera on a tripod and did a few group pictures. Sabrina and her mother couldn't believe the quality of the pictures the camera took.
"That camera takes marvelous pictures Heather, is it expensive?" Said Margrette.
"This one is, but as you can see it's a good one, it has a lot of bells and whistles. I've had people buy the less expensive ones only come in a year later and buy a better one."
"About how much is it?"
"This one is about $900.00 but if you're going to pay that much I know something better to buy."
"Heather I can't afford anything like that to go with my system. I'm barely going to make paying for the system I'm about to buy." Sabrina exclaimed
"Don't worry Sabrina I'll buy the camera for you. You just learn how to use it and then show us."
"Really, Mom that's awfully expensive?"
"I know but I think we have a little put away to pay for it." She did have the money to pay for it, thanks to their Aunt Sarah. But she didn't disclose exactly how much they received from her to Sabrina."Ok Heather show us what you had in mind."
Heather took them over and pulled out the Sony catalog. "With the advancements of electronics today the video camera is doing a whole lot more than just taking video. You can freeze frame take pictures like we just did, take movies to put on the internet. A whole mess of stuff, plus the cost has come down a lot. The camera I took the pictures with is about a year old and is almost half of the cost I paid for it."
"Really that much?"
"Yeah that much, if your going to buy a camera I suggest this one, it retails for about $1400.00 but I can get it for around $1100.00 I think. Can you stay a little while longer while I make a call? I won't be long, really."
"Sure." Said Margrette she was already past her time to return, but she had told her boss that she might not be back today.
"Mom that's really expensive do you think you can afford a camera like that?"
"It's ok dear I have it covered. Is your computer here so I can see what it will look like?"
"Sure it's very much like one of the models over here." She took her mother over to where she saw the one that was close to what Chris said to buy. It wasn't long before Heather came bouncing back in. We're in luck they have two refurbished units in and they can ship them to me tomorrow. All I have to do is give them the word."
"What do you mean refurbished?" Margrette asked with some skepticism.
"All new innards, I've seen refurbished Sony's you couldn't tell from new. What happens is the unit arrives dead in the store and they send it back for repair. They can't sell it as new but they give it a refurbished label and reduce the cost. Ninety percent of the time the entire guts of the machine are removed and replaced, its cheaper that way. Plus they don't have any complaints when the customers buy a refurbished unit, it's new."
"So you sound like you got a good deal."
"You bet I did, I got the two of them for the price of one new unit. You'll be getting that price as well, when it comes in. If you want to go for it."
"Sounds good Heather, order the camera. Now Sabrina you better tell Heather here what you wanted for your computer."
"Geesh I almost forgot, we were having so much fun." Sabrina giggled. "Everything is ok with the replacements you gave me." She showed Heather the paper. "Except for two things one the power supply. Chris wants me to go up one size and the modem. Chris says I should have this one, it's really good and reliable. He uses them at his work and has had no real problems with them."
Heather knew of the brand. "They are a good modem, ok that I'll have to order and it might take a couple of days to get. Depends a lot if my distributor has one in stock. When I get it, I'll put the system through some tests then call you. Since you're fairly new at computing I'll come and install the system for you and make sure you're up and running before I leave."
"Sounds great Heather, now how much is all this going to cost."
"Is the camera included in this?"
"No make the camera separate, I'll pay you for that." Margrette said.
"Ok, you'll have to give me a minute to get all my prices down."
"Ok take your time." Sabrina said as she watched Heather disappear into the back of the store.
"So do you like her?"
"She's a wonderful young lady, thanks for bringing me down here to meet her."
"Thought you would like her, she's really nice. I think I'll enjoy my computer a lot more knowing I can call her if something goes screwy. She seems to enjoy working with them. I heard her the other day helping one of her customers on the phone and she was really nice, she explained everything slowly and clearly. She didn't even seem to get frustrated, even though the person on the other line wasn't doing what she wanted."
"She looks like a fine young lady, I can't wait to meet her parents."
"Oh she's adopted, thought I better tell you that before I forget. Plus they are not taurs either, lions she told me."
"Well that'll be a full household that's for sure. Lions tend to be large."
It took awhile but finally Heather returned with the bill. If possible I would like half for a down payment then the balance when you are happy with the computer. The camera Mrs. Johnston, you can pay me when it comes in. No problem there. Oh I also phoned mom she said would be expecting you for dinner, just call this number if you cannot attend." She handed Margrette a piece of paper with a telephone number and an address."
"That's great Heather, I'm sure we will be able to."
Sabrina wrote Heather a cheque and handed it to her. "Here you go, I can't wait to talk to my sister over the net.
"Oh I'm betting that you won't get off of it all night the first time you have it. Have you got a spot picked out for it, close to a phone jack if possible. Also your going to need a big desk, that monitor is big once you get it out of the box."
"I moving a lot of my stuff tomorrow so I'll check for phone jacks, maybe you could come over and help me choose a spot?" She was trying to see if they could get a hopeful start to a long-term friendship.
"Sounds like a plan, give me a call and I'll see what I can do. So is there anything else I can help you with today?"
"Could you send those pictures to my sister?"
"Sure after I upload them, I'll send them."
"Ah ok, sounds great." She wrote down Sabrina's e-mail address and gave it to her. "Thanks Heather it's been fun."
"No problem Sabrina, I'll see you tonight. Bring your appetites." They smiled and waved as they left the store.
Margrette was impressed with Heather. "Well she certainly is a surprise dear, who would have thought you'd look so good as a Skunktaur?" She rubbed her daughters' head.
"Mom, I don't want four feet, I trip up on my two enough, let alone four."
Margrette smiled at her daughter, today was a good day.
End of Chapter 3
Skunks Skunks everywhere ………….arragghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!