Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It doesn’t look like much. Like a raw, bloody heart in an oversized pickle jar, floating in thick, bubbly green ooze. An ‘artificial womb,’ they call it.

Maria, only ten, has to get up close to really see it. This weird, underdeveloped thing curled in on itself, hairless and wrinkly. Its eyeballs, massive in regards to the rest of it, are only just visible past its closed, see-through veiny eyelids. No ears yet.

Up until now, she’s only seen the animal in black-and-white snapshots her grandfather keeps in his clinical research folder. Pictures of when it used to look more like a kidney bean, and microscopic stills from when it used to be too small to see otherwise. It used to be on a petri dish. Now, it’s the size of a human fist, a purplish-pink color, looking more like a chihuahua with an oversized head, its paws tucked in.

The machines of the laboratory record its heart; it sounds like the muffled beats of a horse galloping. One of the many large computer screens displays an ever-shifting chart of the creature’s brain activity. Despite not having fully formed ears yet, her grandfather had told her this clump no bigger than an apple was ‘already showing brain activity responding to auditory stimuli this early in development, something surprising but fully unpredictable.’

“Can I see it, Grandfather?” Maria asked in wonder, sounding innocently youthful, eager yet polite.

“Of course. Mind the steps, dear,” said an elderly, bespectacled man in a white coat with hair on his face and none on his head. Her grandfather, or as the staff on board the space station know him: Professor Gerald Robotnik. 

Maria eagerly hopped up the three short steps, getting a closer look at the animal. It floats in place with strings that lead to the many electrode stickers attached to it. Its tiny twitches make it seem so fragile.

“It’s so cute!” she coos, bouncing on the tips of her toes, restraining the urge to squeal.

Behind her, a boy about eight says in a bored tone, “...Ew. Is that it? It looks so gross.”

Maria whirls around. “Hush, Abe! Don’t be rude,” she scolds. “Grandfather and his team have worked very hard.”

Abe, or Abraham, shrugs. “Still gross-looking.”

Her grandfather chuckles. “It may not look like much at the moment, but rest assured, if all is well, it will continue growing into something extraordinary. With this supply of nutrients, its development should remain steady.”

“What even is it? Looks nothing like the lizard,” Abraham says, disappointed the ‘surprise’ the professor had been teasing for months on end turned out to be this.

“The Biolizard was a salamander. An amphibian,” her grandfather professionally corrects. “And that’s a good question, young man. It’s a Mobian. A common Mobian hedgehog, to be precise. I’m sure you’ve learned about this species in one of your classes. This is your chance to see one up close.”

Maria, though born and raised on Earth for the first few years of her life, can’t remember ever seeing a Mobian before. Not one that wasn’t in black-and-white photographs, poster paintings for traveling circus advertisements, and in that one film about rabid Mobians attacking that showed in the open-air cinema her parents took her with one time. She can’t remember much of it.

What she does know is everything she was taught by Professor Ambrose, one of the scientists who volunteered to teach biology to the two children on board. The ARK hadn’t expected to harbor any children at all, but none became two. Maria’s grandfather had pulled some strings with the government to have her transported from the pediatric ICU in a hospital specializing in rare diseases on Earth and have her sent to the ARK. She’s still not sure how he’d talked her parents into it, though she sometimes wonders if he ever did talk to them or if they agreed to it. 

Abraham Tower sort of… just happened. Born right here on the ARK. The accidental child of two staff members.

“Those talking animals from Earth? Yeah, I guess,” Abraham says in an uninterested tone. “Still not as cool as the lizard.”

Maria huffs. “Well, I think every creature is unique and deserves respect all the same!” She puts her hand right up to the glass. It’s surprisingly warm. “Grow big and strong, little one. I can’t wait to meet you.”

***

The adults who signed up for the journey aboard the ARK—the top researchers and inventors, the most talented of chefs, multi-award winning surgeons, world renowned agriculturalists to maintain the greenhouse harvest habitats aboard the ARK, even the cleaners and security guards—knew of the isolation they were going to be subjected to.

Maria had no choice in the matter. She can’t blame this on her grandfather. It’s not his fault, or anyone’s, that she has NIDS. It’s not anybody’s fault the Earth she loves so much could be the thing to kill her faster if she’d stayed on it.

Before the doctors were able to narrow down a diagnosis, she’d caught tuberculosis, had bronchitis twice, developed a severe allergy to pollen, and a simple cold had almost ended her; she started having painful hives from some clothing materials she used to be fine with, and she missed ice skating practice and music classes because of repeated nasal inflammation and throat infections; she’d gone from being a picky eater to only being allowed to eat certain things; anything and everything upset her stomach.

She’d had days of random blindness and deafness doctors either couldn't explain, or explained away as a mental issue. One cigarette smoking pediatrician brushed it all off as her faking symptoms. The frustration of being a child not believed that things hurt drove her into days of silence where her parents tried everything to get her to speak. At some point, when she caught the regular flu that quickly led to pneumonia, she went into anaphylactic shock from a newly formed allergy to one of the antibiotics administered. Her parents switched between fretting around her and losing their temper at the medical staff when she woke up intubated.

The experience had left her mentally shocked for some time. It was her own father, an archaeologist, who sat at the edge of her hospital bed and sifted through medical research papers with a pen in hand, crossing out medical conditions until he narrowed down potential diseases. He had to throw around his famous name to convince doctors; even then, the facility they’d been in couldn’t test for a number of the conditions he highlighted.

By the time he got in touch with a clinic specializing in rare disease research, Maria could no longer stand; she’d developed Rheumatoid arthritis, it was flaring up quite badly, and she couldn’t keep food or water down. IV bags and feeding tubes kept her alive. Truth be told, she doesn’t remember much of being in the new hospital, other than her brief, lucid moments where she’d switch between fits of anger over somehow being both under-stimulated and overstimulated in hospitals, and trying to enjoy fleeting moments with her family.

After her confirmed diagnosis, it was expected she’d keep getting worse, her body attacking itself, until cancers and opportunistic infections could take hold and do her in. Her parents tried not to bring up those grim details, but her youthful curiosity had her asking questions after questions. It was frustrating when her body was failing and nobody wanted to tell her anything about what was happening.

The friends she used to have stopped showing up to see her in the PICU through the viewing glass. Not that they could play anymore without risking her getting worse. It wasn’t their fault their parents didn’t want them seeing her anymore. She didn’t blame her friends if they were told she was contagious.

She isn’t stupid. She knows, just by how everyone acts, that she’s going to die younger than expected. She’s not sure what death is going to look like; it’s just a shapeless concept to her even now.

So, no, she doesn’t blame her grandfather for taking her away from Earth. She wouldn’t be alive today if he hadn’t. She’s still dying, just much slower. Even if he’d left her there, she doesn’t have friends anymore—not ones whose parents would allow near her, anyway. She can’t go back to school. She can’t talk to her parents back on Earth. 

The ARK has tight security. Not much gets in or out. There’s a wide window in her bedroom, a room that also functions as her private hospital wing. She sees the sprinkle of stars through the glass. There’s no consistent day and night cycle on the ARK. The staff work in continuous shifts. It creates this feeling of being frozen in time, of nothing really happening.

It gets very, very lonely at times.

Abraham was nice to have around. At first. When he was young. But he goes to Earth a lot, and he’s now got it in his head that he’s too old for icky girls. Ideas he’s picked up from Earth kids, she presumes. The staff have convinced themselves Maria still adores him. Or they want her to adore him. Either way, even if ten-year-old Maria puts up with it, Abraham’s typical eight-year-old bratty personality does little to improve whatever relationship the staff are betting their cards on.

They usher him toward her whenever he’s back on the ARK with his parents, either not realizing she and Abraham have nothing in common other than being ARK children, or they know but are vehemently trying to force some sort of relationship. She treats him kindly when she’s in less pain and he’s cooperative enough to not be a pain in the butt.

She’s overheard her grandfather describe her as “Young Abraham's big sister” with pride, and now she can’t bring herself to disappoint him.

She’s trying. But, at times, it just feels like she’s babysitting. Abraham himself seems more and more bored with her, because she never has anything new going on aside from health scares, and he sees new things on Earth every time he goes back: new food and new people and new parks.

Being sick is immensely boring . Quiet. Uncertain. Isolating.

But that little fetus in its grow tank… she can’t wait for it. Her grandfather assured her it’s growing at a fast but steady rate, and should be ready to come out earlier than hoglets conceived and carried to term naturally.

It doesn’t feel fast enough. It’s been a long time since she’s made a friend.

***

After two months, the fetus can open its eyes.

She finds it blinking sleepily after she’d slipped away from the nurse. It would’ve been a much harder task with how wobbly she is today. She took the wheelchair on this grand escape, timed it right when she knew most of the researchers wouldn’t be buzzing around this lab.

The hoglet’s baby pelt has grown in. Black fur and fine, long hairs that are still too soft at this stage to be called quills. There’s some red in between the black; she can’t tell if that’s fur coloration or blood. It can’t be anything to worry about if it’s the latter; the researchers are monitoring it too well. Its ears are flat against its head like a Scottish fold cat. It looks more like an actual animal now.

There’s a line of some sort coming out of its stomach. Attached to its belly button, maybe, like an artificial umbilical cord.

She heaves herself out of the wheelchair to climb the three steps up to the tank, her legs unsteady, her knees knocking against each other. She sees her reflection on the curved glass, her hair a mess from just getting out of bed, and her eyes pink from a combination of irregular sleep and dehydration giving her salty tears that burn.

Past her reflection, the hoglet stares at her through half-lidded eyes, its body half-curled up. It looks so drowsy.

Maria puts a palm against the glass, giggling, excited for whatever reason. A bit mischievous, even, despite the discomfort in her muscles.

“Maria!” Her grandfather’s voice from the doorway startles her. “There you are, young lady. You’ve had the nurses worried out of their minds looking for you. Get down from there, please; you’re in no shape to—”

“Look, Grandfather! It’s looking at me,” Maria exclaimed cheerily.

Her grandfather’s face relaxes, his concern now easing with fondness at her innocence. When he speaks, his worried tone shifts to one of mild amusement. “Yes, it tends to do that these days. Come down from there now, dear. You must rest.”

“It needs a name!” Maria decides. “Is it a boy or a girl?" Or something like the Biolizard, an egg-lying male. "Can you tell yet?”

“It’s male. And Project Shadow Oh-Six-One-Nine is a fine enough title. Now—”

“That’s not a name,” she laughs. “Don’t be silly, Grandfather. I can’t call my friend something like that. He needs a real name!” A thought hits her. “Shadow. That’s it.”

Her grandfather hums. “Interesting. A tad mournful.”

“I don’t think so. Where there is shadow, there is light. ” She took a moment, as though hit with an epiphany. “A shadow shows you where to find the light. Isn’t that right, Shadow?”

Her grandfather lets out a short, defeated sigh of acceptance. “Quiet the stubborn one, aren’t you?”

Maria simply laughs. “You’re going to save people, Shadow.”

***

Sometimes, Maria can’t stop by on her own.

Sometimes, her grandfather, the Professor, would wheel her in to see Shadow, or a nurse would, and Maria wouldn’t talk much or at all.

Sometimes, she doesn’t look at the hoglet in the tank, her eyes unfocused from fatigue or a cocktail of medications, or she’s simply blind on those days.

Sometimes, she wouldn’t be wearing her usual blue dress and blue shoes, but a hospital gown and white slippers that always fall off of her, her arms bruised from IV insertions.

She slouches like holding her head up is too hard. But she still insists on seeing him. She can’t leave him by himself. She knows what it’s like to only be surrounded by medical staff, hardly seeing her friends until they stop showing up. She can’t do that to him, either, even if he might not understand what’s going on.

He might understand some, though. At least, she suspects that he does. He’s been maintaining eye contact longer these days, and there’s always something in that stare of his. Curiosity, mostly. Sometimes intrigue. He looks at other people with more suspicion or indifference. 

She doesn’t think much about it until she hears the nervous whispers from the researchers. Something about him being “too aware, too soon.”

The nurse who wheels her in today is a chubby woman in her forties named Dorothy. “See, sweetheart?” Dorothy says. “It’s as fine as it always is. There was no need to get out of bed.”

“Of course there is.” Maria’s voice doesn’t sound like hers. It’s scratchy, dry. “He’s my friend. Grandfather has been busy lately. Shadow’s left all alone here.”

The nurse, looking mildly uncomfortable under Shadow's half-lidded gaze, clears her throat. “I’m sure the team is keeping it company. Come now, you must rest. I know! I’ll see if Abraham is free to stop by. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Hopefully Abraham says no. She’s too tired for that.

Dorothy is correct about one thing: Gerald Robotnik’s team does spend time with Shadow the longest. Reluctantly, of course. Despite Shadow’s consistent state of drifting in and out of sleep, being conscious for only minutes at a time, the researchers jump frightfully at every muscle twitch Shadow makes.

They murmur amongst themselves in hushed tones when they think her grandfather isn’t around, when they mistakenly believe she’s permanently hard of hearing when she actually has fluctuating hearing.

Too bad for her and them, she hears them clear as day today.

“It’s growing too fast.”

“I know. The same thing happened to the Biolizard.”

“Is Professor Robotnik not worried? This… This isn’t even a full Mobian. We don’t know what to expect.”

“Professor Robotnik’s too stubborn, I'm afraid. He’s in over his head. I understand finding a treatment method for NIDS, but surely all this funding could go into the research of more prevalent conditions. NIDS, as unfortunate as it is, is a rarity. Not to mention the girl seems to be doing marvelously as is on-board the ARK. Why, I see her running about the halls often. She’s doing perfectly well on the current treatments. But you know how the Professor is when he sets his mind on something.”

“Has he learned nothing from the last time he’s tried something like this? And this one… Does it not seem…peculiarly aware?”

“It is. That’s what worries me. I understand the salamander had its faults, its uncooperative nature being one... but Mobians have human-like intelligence and above-average abilities; that’s a mind much more complex than what we’ve worked on. I understand the hesitancy in applying the framework used on the Biolizard, but to start from scratch with a Mobian? I'm unsure why Professor Robotnik felt the need to hybridize it with… that, of all things. I don’t believe the Professor has brought this into consideration.”

Maria’s cold fingers grip the armrests of her wheelchair. Shadow isn’t even born yet and they already hate him. He didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not fair. She wants to yell at them to stop being so mean.

Her grandfather’s voice cuts in. “I assure you, I’ve thought long and hard on every aspect of this project.” He’s calm yet stern, startling his underlings. Professionalism with no trace of that sweet nature he saves for her. “Have you taken his vitals?”

“All— All is well, Professor!” one of the scientists stammers. “All is well.”

Her grandfather doesn’t entertain them with a reply. He adjusts his glasses, his thin fingertips gliding over the chunky keys of a control panel. He reads the data on the screen. The drowsy hoglet suspended in fluid glances at him through half-closed eyes. “Project Shadow holds the means for great leaps in medical research, not just for NIDS. Perhaps it is difficult for one disconnected from such a predicament to understand why someone might go to such lengths.”

Shadow’s eyes drift shut, going back into a state of deep sleep as Maria’s grandfather says, “And you, my boy, will be the champion of life. My magnum opus. I’m putting my faith in you.”

***

Shadow is the size of a small cat now, now better resembling the Mobian hedgehog species he’d been cloned from. Fur and quills and harmless baby claws on paws he presses up against the glass when he sees Maria. 

Professor Ambrose let Maria borrow some books on Mobians. Maria’s used to having too much free time on her hands; so she put the two intimidating thousand-something-page zoology hardcovers on her bedside table, sitting up and propping one of the books up against her legs to read.

Shadow’s a bit bigger than newborns of his species. Mobian hedgehogs have litters, each hoglet small enough to hold in one hand, their convenient size supposedly because the whole litter had to fit inside the mother. And they tend to have lighter-colored coats that darken with age, something she can’t imagine happening to Shadow given how dark his coat already is. He’s genetically modified and growing in a tube; of course he wouldn’t be developing normally. Her grandfather did say something about his growth being initially fast. At least, until he reaches a certain stage of development. She doesn’t understand the specifics of that.

Still, as amazing as it is, there’s something sad about Shadow growing in a green-lit tube all by himself, instead of being in a carrier’s dark womb, pressing up against warm siblings individually wrapped in their placentas. The books say Mobians have a family social structure similar to humans. What would that mean for Shadow? The researchers have thought this through, surely.

They should. They’re scientists. They know more than her.

At least, she hopes they treat him right. Better than the salamander her grandfather told her they had to eventually euthanize. Maria hadn’t realized the salamander had been in constant pain until he got large enough to start screaming in agony. Ever since he got too big for the tube, the researchers had put him away where she never saw him again. She’d woken up to metallic banging sounds that echoed throughout the ARK one night, punctuated by the salamander’s warbly screaming. The emergency alarms were going off. It lasted a few hours. Nobody gave her answers for a while—the adults either didn’t know what was going on, or knew and refused to tell her. 

Her grandfather explained to her in a gentle, somber voice, that the Biolizard had been in pain, lashed out, and needed to be put down. She never liked this aspect of science—all the dead white mice in the laboratory, the distressed macaques with their heads clamped in glass boxes, the kenneled beagle dogs who are debarked so their barks and yelps and howls don’t hurt the researchers’ ears—despite her grandfather assuring her these things are just part of it, the necessary evil. She’s still alive, not just thanks to the lower gravity and sterilization of the ARK, but also the cocktail of medications she’s on, developed through animal testing. 

These things are just unavoidable. The salamander was no exception to that rule. Her grandfather has explained this to her. She understands why he has to remind her of this whenever she carefully handles the docile animals and speaks to them in a sweet voice one would use to talk to infant children. She knows most of them will be in pain and will die. It hurts when they do, but at least she shows them kindness for just a little bit.

The Biolizard’s outcome was sad but not unexpected. Abraham still insists it’s alive because he’d overheard his dad saying something about it. But he also thinks Shadow will be some sort of demon because that’s what he hears his dad say—a silly notion, really.

***

She’s well enough to stand, though she gets dizzy spells on occasion, so a cane will do today. 

The lab where Shadow is kept is empty of researchers for now. Other than the beeping of machines, the heart monitor, and the occasional bubble inside the tank, it’s peacefully quiet.

Until Abraham steps up to the tank, where Shadow lies asleep, and starts rapping on the glass with his knuckles like this is a boring fish aquarium. The sound is an echo-y thud.

“Abe! Abe, stop that!” Maria hisses, not wanting to disturb the sleeping hoglet any further.

Shadow stirs, his face scrunching up, his semi-folded juvenile ears rotating at the base. He goes lax, trying to ignore the knocking against the glass.

“Stop bothering him! Can’t you see he doesn’t like that?” Maria scolds.

Abraham ignores her and keeps obnoxiously knocking, his childish curiosity eager for a reaction. Shadow cracks one eye open. Irritated, the hoglet’s muzzle twitches, curling into a subtle snarl for a few seconds. 

It gives the boy a brief glimpse of sharp teeth that disturb him into stepping away from the tank, almost falling backward.

Maria’s surprised by Abraham’s stumble for a moment, then snickers. “See? You made him cranky.”

“It showed its teeth at me— Did you see that?!” Abraham exclaims, his heterochromatic eyes wide in apprehension.

Maria laughs and playfully nudges him with the foot of her cane. “You startled him!” She turns to Shadow, smiles at him. “Were you sleeping? I’m sorry. Don’t mind Abraham; he’s just a little grumpy about his dental appointment today.”

“Am not!” Abraham took offense.

Maria simply giggles at the angry face he’s pulling. “Sure, you’re not.”

“Shut up!” Abraham stumps his foot. “And I don’t see why you have to see this thing all the time. I hear my dad talk about it. He says it’s gonna bite somebody!”

“Why, Abe, are you afraid of a baby hedgehog?” Maria teases. She can’t exactly shoot back at him with an insult at his dad. She pats the boy on the head. “There, there. I’m sure Shadow won’t bite like the lab mice do.”

Flustered, Abraham clenches his fists. One of his fingers has a band-aid plaster on it—an incident from him grabbing one of the hairless lab rats, something they could usually do in Lab #22; only, that particular batch of rats had just been transported from the breeding racks and hadn’t been fully socialized. Abraham simply hadn’t bothered to read the card on the glass container because they never had to before.

Going pink in the face with anger, Abraham smacks her hand away. “I’m serious! My dad said this thing is a monster!”

“Hey!” Maria says, feeling offended on Shadow’s behalf. “Don’t say stuff like that.”

Abraham stands stiff, mildly guilty, but also still stubborn. Instead of choosing between apologizing or doubling down, he decides to turn away and run for the exit, the automatic doors opening for him and closing after him with a hiss.

Maria stares sadly at the door for a moment. She turns back to the tank, wearing an apologetic smile. “I hope he comes around. When you’re here, don’t listen to his dad. Doctor Towers likes to over-exaggerate. And… and if nobody’s on your side, know that I am, so you’ll never be alone!”

She knows he doesn’t understand most of what she’s saying. He still doesn’t know what words mean. He’s still looking at her sleepily, holding eye contact the best he could manage with how drowsy he still is. He’s probably at the stage where his vision isn’t so blurry anymore. He deems she won’t wake him up like Abraham did and tucks away into a ball, continuing his nap.

***

When her grandfather tells her they'll release Shadow from containment soon, Maria is ecstatic.

She could do without the line of G.U.N. soldiers present, though. She’s not even sure why they’re here or when they got here. They’re not from the ARK, that’s for sure. She would know—she’s been here so long, some of the staff think she was born here like Abraham. 

It’s normal for scientists to crowd Shadow’s tank every now and then, but there’s tension today, not just because they’re finally letting the hoglet wake up, but the soldiers are making everyone uneasy. Firearms at the ready, their bodies clad head to toe in armor, their faces obscured by the visors of their helmets. Them being the farthest away from his tank, their backs right up against the walls, is merciful.

In the center of the lab, closest to the tank, her grandfather operates the dashboard. His team stays at a distance, recording the event on camera, taking notes, monitoring data from afar, and preparing medical equipment: a portable oxygen tank with its mask, defibrillators, syringes, a catch pole, and a loaded jab stick. The staff closest to the tank are wearing scratch-proof gloves, holding leather cuffs and a small black basket muzzle they probably got from the lab with the dogs. 

As much as they valued Professor Robotnik’s skills and accomplishments over the years, it seems they're still veering on the side of caution. He’s a kind man, her grandfather. But accidents happen. Things like the Biolizard can happen. They brought items in case the hoglet attacks. They brought items in case the hoglet comes out and his lungs don’t work, in case his heart stops after only beating once and twice, in case he goes brain dead and they have to take him apart and put him in jars and in the freezer for studying.

Despite the tension in the lab, Maria’s too excited to stay still. She buzzes around the tank, bouncing on her feet in anticipation. She can’t take her eyes off of the sleeping black hoglet in the bubbly cylinder.

“Professor,” the commander, a white man in a medal-embellished government military uniform, voices out, clearing his throat uncomfortably, “care to explain the child’s presence?”

Maria instantly freezes, feeling that man’s disapproving eyes on her.

“Certainly.” Her grandfather doesn’t seem phased by the commander’s tone, his attention on his creation. “You’ve asked me of fail-safes, and of the project’s willingness to cooperate.”

“I have.” The commander’s monotone voice does not hide the smidge of confusion in it.

“There’s a reason why we decided on a Mobian. They may be animals, but psychologically speaking, they’re more alike to us humans than previously assumed. Their ability to learn and adapt is remarkably close to that of ours. You’ve seen some of the test animals in Wing E-Four, yes? Ever wondered why they’re fairly well-socialized? Save for the juvenile mice taken straight out of the breeding racks, of course—”

“Get to the point, Professor,” the commander cuts in. “We did not space travel for the ramblings of an old man.”

Her grandfather clears his throat. He has that face Maria is familiar with—the one he has when scolding younger, lesser experienced staff. She guesses he holds his tongue this time, given that he’s not speaking to an underling, but a member of the government.

“I was getting to that,” her grandfather says. “Simply put, well-socialized specimens are cooperative and handleable. Mobians are a highly social species, with social connections not that different from ours. Project Shadow Six-One-Nine—or just Shadow, for convenience—is still quite young. Its growth over the next few months will be abnormally rapid, just as what we’d witnessed with a previous experiment; however, I’ve made some modifications. If things proceed as expected, Project Shadow’s aging will slow down to what you’d expect from a regular, unmodified Mobian hedgehog. That means, within that short time frame, it needs to be familiar with handling, and comfortable in the presence of new situations and stimuli. It needs to form a bond to obediently follow instructions. That is where my granddaughter comes in.”

Maria perks up. Suddenly, all eyes are on her.

The commander scowls. “Professor, are you telling me you plan to place this… thing in the hands of a little girl?”

The professor's voice becomes less enthusiastic, more professional. “Shadow was designed, first and foremost, to cure currently incurable diseases. Finding a solution for NIDS is my main goal. Project Shadow will need a tether, an anchor, and I can’t think of a better option than the very person he was created for.”

The commander cuts in. “You’re entrusting this creature to a mere child ?” he asked, incredulous. “This is asinine! When you informed me you were releasing it from its…whatever you call this, I’d hoped you’d learned from your last mistake to not take the act of playing God lightly. Have you forgotten?”

The professor fiddles with dials and keys. “I have not. I’d hoped my rigorous efforts would assure you enough to trust I know what I'm doing.”

“I trust that you have the gall to omit major flaws in your progress reports, just as you’d done with the prototype.”

Her grandfather’s demeanor becomes stiff. Ah. A topic that shouldn’t be discussed publicly, then.

Her grandfather says, “I had reported that the Biolizard’s conditions were not sustainable and we unanimously agreed to discontinue and start from the very beginning.”

“And yet, you seemed to find it acceptable to not make mention of its aggressive outbursts in your report.”

For a minute, the only noise is that of computers and generators.

“Release it,” the commander orders. “This is your last chance, Professor Robotnik. If this creator doesn’t yield what you promised, this project is over.”

Her grandfather doesn’t say anything. He focuses on the screen showing Shadow’s vitals. He pulls down a level on the dashboard. The cylindrical tank hisses. Sharp steam sprays from the seam where the glass of the tank connects to the metallic cups holding it in place. Bubbles boil up inside.

Of all the people in the room, it’s the line of military soldiers who jump at the sound, already readying their guns at the tank as though it actually did anything other than blow bubbles. The researchers gasp and take cover behind each other or computer monitors, seeing as the nervous soldiers clearly don’t seem all that concerned whoever might be in the line of fire. 

Maria feels her grandfather’s calloused hands grab her by the shoulders and, with all the effort a man his age can, drag her to the side so she’s not between the tank and the soldier’s aim. The sight of multiple guns drawn clogs her throat tight.

The commander stands rigid, his hands folded behind his back, his mouth a stern, thin line. When nothing else happens, he gestures with his hand for his team to lower their weapons. They do so reluctantly, their shoulders stiff with anxiety, their thickly gloved hands still gripping their weapons hard. The researchers look amongst each other nervously, unsure how safe they feel being between jumpy G.U.N. soldiers and what they saw as Frankenstein's monster.

All this worry over a sleeping hoglet, Maria thinks.

Her grandfather switches off the incubation tank in stages, halting periodically to see if everything is alright to proceed. Shadow’s usually good at sleeping through the commotion of researchers, but now Maria sees him startle awake, sensing something different is happening. His eyes still have that half-sleep look Maria’s used to seeing on him. With another switch, the liquid inside the cylinder quickly drains, lowering Shadow with it.

The researchers, sweating in the face and clearly afraid, lunge forward all at once like one body, crowding the tank, obscuring Maria’s view.

Her grandfather taps her shoulder, tells her, “Stay here.” He joins the wave of people in lab coats, ordering someone for some medical device as the team opens up the tank from the back. 

The soldiers still point their guns, murmuring to each other. The commander has to remind them to “Hold!” every time they flinch, like repeatedly telling a dog to “Stay!” because it’s only half-listening when something else has its attention.

The researchers with armor and catch poles back away from the crowd of lab coats by two steps. The woman with the loaded jab stick still holds the weapon up, just in case. With time—forty minutes, maybe—the commotion eases into something Maria’s more familiar with, the team, now less stressed, going through the motions as they’d do with most experiments, with expert hands that aren’t shaking anymore from adrenaline.

She’s sitting down by then, using one of the researcher’s spinning chairs. She catches glimpses of the hoglet in her grandfather’s hold, partially wrapped in a blue surgical towel she’s used to seeing draped over her hospital bed for operations. He’s curled up, the size of a cat or a small dog. It’s hard to see what they’re doing to him. But nobody’s panicking anymore—well, none of the scientists; she can’t say the same about the soldiers in the back—so she hopes that means everything’s fine. Even the jab stick woman lowers the tool.

Maria waits anxiously, quiet. It’s either he’s fine, or he’s dead.

The commander must be wondering the same thing. “Professor Robotnik, is the project deceased?”

Instead of acknowledging the commander, her grandfather gently calls for her instead. “Maria, come here.”

She can’t decipher what his soft tone means. Bracing herself, she gets off the chair—too quickly, as the thing goes rolling away—and hurries over, her cold hands clasping together. The researchers part to make away, some going off to note down their reports.

Her worry lifts once she sees how her grandfather’s cheeks bunch up a bit, his mustache hiding his smile. He presents her with the hoglet wrapped up in the blue surgical covers. Shadow is awake, his red pupils looking around in confusion, his attention never settling on one thing for longer than a second. His fur is still a little wet, ears still folded down. On his wrist, there’s a shaved patch, perfectly rectangular: a spot where blood had been extracted. They’ve put something on his neck. A red, disposable veterinary ID band, similar to what some of the lab dogs wear. His ID— #0619 —is written on it with a black marker.

Her grandfather chuckles. “It's a bit startled, but everything seems to be working as intended thus far.” His organs haven’t failed yet, is what Maria knows he means. “He’s clean. You may hold him.”

Shadow doesn’t weigh much when Maria takes him. He stares up at her with some recognition, remembering the image of her but not sure what to do about that. He’s a little unsteady trying to keep his head lifted, still used to having the buoyancy of thick water to do the work for him.

His face scrunches up, the tip of a fang peaking out. He sneezes hard, his whole body jostling with the motion. He blinks wide-eyed, like he’d scared himself doing that. His face scrunches up again, and it’s funny seeing him try to fight off another sneeze by pawing at his face like a cat cleaning itself after a meal. His middle and ring fingers are red, the fur underside of his palm a dark beige like his muzzle. His paw pads are pink, and his black claws are too dull to scratch her.

His quills are relaxed, at least, or he’s still too ‘new’ to harden them. She hugs him, mindful of his size. “Oh, Grandfather, I love him!”

Shadow whines in annoyance.

She’s so enamored by him that she doesn’t pay attention to what her grandfather and the commander are discussing.

TBC

Chapter Text

“Why is it in your room?” Abraham demands, standing in the doorway of her bedroom. He looks angrier as every second passes.

Maria sits cross-legged in her bed, atop the rumpled blanket, Shadow on her lap. He’d fallen asleep there, tuckered out from being forcefully removed from his peaceful tank, only to get startled awake with a little ‘mrrp’ noise by Abraham’s sudden entrance.

“Grandfather said I can have him for a few hours,” Maria says simply, as if it’s a normal thing to have a lab-grown baby hedgehog in one's bedroom.

She’s well aware the camera in her bedroom is monitoring everything more closely than ever. Almost every part of the ARK has surveillance, and she’s used to the one in her bedroom recording her for the past few years, but she doesn’t doubt someone is now watching a live-feed and will switch cameras if she takes Shadow anywhere else in the ARK. Her grandfather wants Shadow back so he can put him in a sleep incubator for health monitoring before Maria goes to bed.

Abraham and Shadow stare at each other for an uncomfortably long time, the former squinting with distrust, the latter doing the same, recognizing this is the Glass Knocker. Shadow’s face crunches, the side of his mouth lifting just enough to show teeth. Abraham stiffens and takes a nervous step back.

“He’s gonna bite you!” Abraham accuses.

Maria giggles. “Don’t be ridiculous, just look at him!” She picks Shadow up, holds him in the air with his feet dangling. He’s still glaring at Abraham, unfazed by Maria’s handling of him. “Isn’t he the cutest? You can come pet him—he’s nice.”

Abraham doesn’t look thrilled at all. He clenches his fists by his sides. “No.”

Maria puts Shadow on her bed, turning her nose up at Abraham. “Suit yourself. Shadow and I will have fun without you.”

Shadow sniffs the bedding. He tries walking on all fours but stumbles and wobbles, still not used to moving around. He briefly pauses to scratch at his collar with a back leg, only he’s too uncoordinated and topples over.

Maria giggles and picks him up again. Soldiers had space-traveled in fear of this .

***

She carries Shadow around like a doll, hugging him to her chest. He doesn’t seem to mind, or he just doesn’t care. 

On days when her balance is off or she’s too tired to walk, she sits in her wheelchair, plops a confused Shadow on her lap, and goes speeding through the halls. She scares the daylights out of professionally dressed adults she passes by, causing two of them to lose hold of a stack of papers they were carrying and having important paperwork rain down. She just yells ‘Hi’ and 'Sorry!' after she’s long passed them.

Professor Tower, Abraham’s dad, later tattles on her to her grandfather about when she’d run over his feet doing that stunt. Maria was deliberate with that one. Her grandfather simply waves him off, mumbling absent-mindedly something about accidents and children.

Most of the researchers look perturbed with how she handles their very expensive, supposedly very dangerous experiment. Flaunting him, picking him up and squishing his cheek against hers, propping him on her shoulders so he can see stuff he wouldn’t be able to otherwise. She’d pick him up and dance to Roy Brown singing Love Don't Love Nobody on the record player, snorting and losing her breath at the disapproving way his ears swiveled back when she put on an Elvis Presley record.

He has a habit of putting things in his mouth, much like a baby would. Well, he does that in her room, at least. When he’s on an examination table, he doesn’t have much interest in anything. Shadow’s curious when it comes to new things, but he doesn’t do anything about it until given instructions.

Her grandfather wasn’t exaggerating when he said Shadow would grow fast in the beginning. He’s walking upright just a few weeks in. His ears are now erect, his quills now stiffer. She hears him talk, saying a few words every now and then, trying them out, getting the feel of them on his tongue, in his mouth, in his ears. Mostly English, and in the similar manner her and her grandfather speak. Copying.

She sees how his ears swivel, pay attention, when some researchers revert to their native languages when conversing with each other—Hindi, Mandarin, Dutch—and while Maria doesn’t hear him verbally speak them himself, she guesses he’s learned those as well in the short time he’s been alive thus far.

One time, she has him sitting on her bed facing away from her so she can try hair accessories on him, the needle of the record player on the spinning vinyl. She’s made him wear a pearl necklace, and she’s painted his claws white.

She sees him do it again, swivel his ears back and eavesdrop, keeping his eyes forward to not reveal that he’s listening. But he’s listening. He’s listening to scientists conversing in Spanish passing outside her bedroom.

Maria stops fiddling with the bow at the back of his head and excitedly asks, “Shadow, do you understand Spanish?”

“Hm?” He glances behind him at her from the corner of his eye, surprised he got caught, but only for a second. “With context, yes. Is that what they are speaking?”

Maria pauses. “You don’t know?” How does he understand when he doesn’t even know what the language he picked up even is?

“They never stated what it was.”

So, he understands some staff members switched to speak other languages sometimes, but doesn’t know what those languages are despite picking up on when certain words are used in what manner. He explains to her that “Professor Aguilera speaks it differently than Professor Diaz,” by which she thinks he means a difference in dialects.

“Shadow, that’s amazing!” she exclaims.

Her high pitch surprises him just enough for him to glance behind him at her. His expression reverts back to being neutral just as quickly, not fully grasping why she finds this of great importance.

Her bedroom doors open. Her grandfather walks in, wiping his glasses off with a fiber clothe. “Maria, it’s bedtime for you. I’ll have to take Shadow back—” He puts his glasses back on, takes in the scene of his creation’s head dappled with feminine accessories, and pauses. “...what is happening here?”

“Doesn’t Shadow look pretty, Grandfather?” Maria asks in a bright tone, Shadow sitting on her bed, looking completely unbothered.

Her grandfather lets out a little chuckle that sounds like a chuff. “That he does. Alright, I think Shadow’s done enough modeling for now. Bed time, both of you.”

Maria lets out a disappointed “Alright,” removes her accessories off of Shadow. She gives him a hug while he just sits there and lets her. He always just sits there. She tells him, “Goodnight.”

He doesn’t say anything. Not when he slides off her bed, not when he follows her grandfather out, only glancing at her once before leaving. He knows many languages, but he hardly ever uses any. She can only wonder what goes on in his head.

She doesn’t mind him being quiet. It’s just how he is.

When people talk, he looks up: at faces, at indicators of a command, a direction, guidance. He waits to be told what to do. Run on the treadmill; give a blood sample, squeeze the dynamometer; do a spinal tap. He’s got a voice, a memory lauded with languages, all the means and reasons to ask the what and the why.

They drain him, the researchers; yet, he doesn’t ask what for. Maybe somebody’s already told him. Her grandfather, maybe, or he overheard his purpose. He’s alive so she can stop dying too early, and that’s enough for a purpose for him, so he does as he’s told.

She tries to give him opportunities to just be her little brother, be her friend, just do fun things with her, things that don’t hurt him. He’s always clueless what to do then, looking at her for a command, instructions—anything. She’ll give him a page of her sketchbook to draw on, color in; he’d spend half that time contemplating what to do, and the other half being embarrassed at being bad at this simple thing.

Mobian hedgehogs are a social species, much in the same way humans are. Shadow’s not very social. She can’t fault him for that. It’s not his fault he’s in space. It’s not his fault he’s not part of a litter he can learn from. It’s not his fault her dying is what led to him being here. It’s not his fault he sees only two friendly faces, both of whom human and smell like a clinic; only one of whom doesn’t siphon his blood in bags.

There’s a lot in his head that he won’t or can't say. It’s just how he is. She’s fine with that.

***

While she still has to hand him over for his usual physical and lab tests, if it’s in Lab #42, she’s allowed to see him through the glass in the observation room, where it’s mostly scientists taking notes as they watch.

Only if it’s Lab #42. She doesn’t know what they do to him in all the others. Stuff her grandfather doesn’t want her to see, she figures. Stuff like what they do with the mice and macaques and dogs. And maybe her grandfather is right in not letting her see what they do with Shadow.

At least in Lab #42, it’s quick and tame enough that she gets to see. She stands off to the side from two researchers, one of whom doesn’t bother to wear her lab coat, letting her rolling chair wear it instead. They watch through the glass as her grandfather and a few assistants take Shadow’s measurements on the table.

One thing Shadow excels at is taking orders. He does nothing until told to. Tell him to put his arm out for a blood draw; he does it. Tell him to sneak ice cream out of the freezer nearest one of the food catering rooms; he does it.

Right now, her grandfather tells him to cooperate; he does. Without question. Never a question. He lets her grandfather put a muzzle on him, snap them on tightly around his little head. Shadow lets them strap him down on the table, limbs stretched out like a starfish, resists shutting his eyes when they angle a medical ceiling-mounted LED light at his face, the head of it wide and saucer-like.

The assistants—two of them—are visibly anxious. They always are with Shadow, sweat beading on their foreheads as they stare too intensely.

One of them, holding some sort of fat pen, jumps a little when her grandfather addresses him. "Is something the matter?"

“It’s looking at me,” the assistant says in a hushed voice, hesitant. Sure enough, Shadow's staring at the man from the corner of his eyes.

“Yes,” her grandfather states matter-of-factly, “it tends to do that these days.”

The assistant turns the pen on. It buzzes. Maria can’t see what he’s doing with it. Later, when they're done and she takes him to her room, she sees the tattoo. It’s in his ear, a number—6192001. They’d removed his collar. They don’t need it when the ID is on his skin.

She tries not to laugh at the cone he’s wearing around his neck, encapsulating his head like a satellite dish. She fails to smother it. He sulks on her bed with the grumpiest face he’s pulled so far, his arms crossed.

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” she tries. But a quiver of a laugh still wavers in her words.

He grimaces harder and turns his face away from her in shame. “I don’t need this,” he grumbles.

His tattooed ear twitches in irritation at the new wound. He can’t scratch it with the cone on. Despite him insisting he won’t touch it, her grandfather simply laughed, gave him a pat on the head, and assured him he heals fast, so the tattoo should heal fast, too. It’s only been a few hours, and the tattoo has already passed the swelling stage and is now in the itchy, peeling stage.

“It’s thin. I can break it,” he says with a huff. Not a threat, just a reminder that he thinks it’s laughable anybody would assume that this can stop him.

“But you won’t.” She grins. She knows he won’t. Her grandfather told him to keep it on, because it’s easy to tell someone not to scratch an itch and not forget an hour later. Seeing his scowl and reluctant acceptance of the medical device, she takes pity on him. “That’s okay. Let me take it off.”

He looks at her, confused. “But the Professor—”

“Just for a few hours. Grandfather doesn’t need to know.” And even if he does find out, she doubts he’ll do anything besides remind them that the cone had to be on.

She takes it off, puts it on her bed somewhere. By the time she angled the film projector at the wall and started playing a black-and-white film, the cone’s somewhere on the floor, having been kicked or pushed off accidentally. Not that either of them care, their eyes transfixed on the film they’d already watched six times before.

They fall asleep watching it. Maria’s only half awake when she hears her automatic doors hiss open and somebody stepping in. Her back’s to the door. She’s hugging Shadow to her chest, the crown of his head under her chin, the blanket just barely covering them. The projector’s run out of tape to play, now just shining a beam of empty light at the wall.

“Maria,” her grandfather tries, testing.

She hugs Shadow tighter, hopes it’s too dark to notice. She feels Shadow’s ears flick. He’s awake, too. Like her, he pretends he’s not.

After a minute, her grandfather sighs. “Alright. As you wish. Don’t make it a regular habit.” He shuts off the projector and simply leaves.

Shadow’s ears droop, relaxing. It tickles her chin. His light purring is therapeutic on her tired bones.

Shadow doesn’t have his own bed; he sleeps tied to an operating table, his head covered in electrodes to study his brain activity in his sleep. She understands it’s just how things are here. It doesn’t make it easier handing him over every time. He gets to sleep in her bed tonight. It’s sweaty, holding him so tight. He’s not soft like a teddy. His spines are relaxed, harmless, but he’s still a hedgehog; even his relaxed spines are rough to the touch.

But he’s as warm as a kitten. She wants him to stay here with her.

***

It’s not a one-time thing. It happens again. She welcomes it, even if she’s hurting.

She’s not sure her grandfather is against it this time. He can’t be. Not unless he’s okay with upsetting her when she’s not feeling well.

She’s been feeling dizzy. Not a new thing for her. Her body tends to do whatever it wants, and half the time, nobody can figure out what the problem is. It’ll either go away after a while, or stay as is until days later, or it’ll get worse and end with something more life threatening.

Sometimes, her organs fall out of place. Sometimes, her bones pop out of their sockets. Sometimes, like now, something in her head just stops working and thinking gets muddy.

She doesn’t find Shadow. In one of the labs, probably. The ones she’s not allowed in, because she already checked Lab #42; it’s locked and the other side is quiet.

The fluorescent overhead lights in the hallways hurt. A migraine comes and goes, knocking at the back of her right eye. She drags her feet, her hand brushing the wall for stability. Her vision blurs like she’s crying, like there’s water in her eyes and she can’t see right. But she’s not crying; her eyes feel too dry.

Sometimes, most times, symptoms just happen. It might be something. It might be nothing. It might be a side effect of a medication or her pre-existing illness that she’s not aware of.

Sometimes, most times, it's hard to tell if anything in her body hurts, because something will hurt a little bit but turn into intense pain at a snail’s pace, and that pace tricks her into getting used to it. It messes up her perception of the pain scale. whenever she's asked if something hurts, she's left stupid, because something always hurts, and she can't tell what level of hurt is normal. The normal level for everybody else is zero; for her, it's a question mark.

Her heart beats too fast. She’s used to this happening on occasion. The shaky fingers, also a frequent thing.

It’s the coldness of her sweat that sets off a tiny alarm in her head. Her mind’s slower than it should be; the combination of all these things at once should've been more obvious to her.

Only, the few seconds she does acknowledge it, the thought turns into sand and spills between her fingers. She stands in the hallway in a state of confusion. Her legs wobble, so she continues walking, leaning against the wall. Forward will do—that’s the way she was heading anyway before she forgot why she was out here.

Boots clap the ground. They echo. Some men march past her in a hurry. They don’t acknowledge her. She’s too blind to see their faces as they pass her by; she’s not blind enough to recognize they’re wearing very dark uniforms with helmets. Despite the sanitization protocol on the ARK everyone entering has to go through, the men smell.

They smell like smoke, like dust, like metal.

Soldiers. She remembers seeing soldiers before. They have a name; she can’t remember what it is.

She can’t remember much of anything. Nothing’s tangible.

She turns a corner. Her shadow on the wall makes her pause. Partly because, for a second, she thought she was going to run into somebody, and partly because, as soon as it’s clear this isn’t anybody, it rings a bell in her muddled mind.

That’s right. She’s been looking for a shadow.

“Maria?” asks an anxious, familiar voice. Dorothy. “Are you alright?”

She’s looking for her shadow, she tries to say, but words won’t come out.

“Oh dear.” Dorothy suddenly hurries forward.

Maria can’t remember when falling, just the sensation of being caught and her knees hitting the cold floor. Dorothy keeps Maria sitting upright, leaning against her, while the nurse barks into a communicator she’s fished out of her pocket. Not long after, doctors swarm like vultures swooping in for the carcass.

They can’t take her yet. She’s still looking for her shadow.

“Shadow…” is all that comes out of her mouth, her lower jaw quivering. It’s all she says when they lift her onto a gurney. When they wheel her away. When her grandfather’s blurry form appears, leans close, asks her things she can’t hear, presses his palm flat against her head.

Her hearing cuts off. Not like turning off the radio, more like being on a propliner, like diving underwater. Like a balloon blown big enough inside her head to clog both of her ears.

There are hands and needles she can’t see. The white blurry movements of people she must know but can't hear.

She’s somewhat familiar with this. She had this happen before. White noise is all she hears; white cotton is all she sees.

There’s a squirming inside her chest, like a ball of mice tied by the tails, convulsing, scratching desperately trying to come apart. White mice. Red-eyed mice. There’s pain in her chest, in her limbs, and a creepy-crawly sensation under her skin, like the mice looking for a way out. It makes her body shiver uncontrollably.

A vibration calms the mice down. It rumbles against her chest. She’s still deaf, but she can feel this. Something’s pressing against her, something warm and fluffy, and a little scratchy. She moves her arms to hold it closer—her muscles stiff, indicating she hasn’t moved them in a while. There’s the familiar feeling of an IV needle and its tube. She’s too exhausted to care if she tangles that.

The scratchy thing is black among the white of the hospital room. She hugs him close, his head tucking under her chin. Her dry fingers run over bandages she doesn’t know why he’s wearing. Bandages looping around his back and midsection—something he acquired from one of the labs, for sure.

The vibration is rolling out of his throat and chest.

It’s soothing. It’s warm.

She's not a stranger to pain. The confusing kind that’s both scalding and cold. The kind that makes every breath she takes makes her internally beg for a button that fast-forwards to a time when things don’t feel like this. A pain that’s a trickster. A jester, wherein she’s the butt of the joke, targeted, put on the spot, and everybody else is free to stand on the sidelines.

She’s not a stranger to being held hostage by her body; to having hours, days, weeks wasted in pain in bed; to having no consent over the many clinically-gloved hands.

It’s an isolating feeling, knowing she can never truly make anyone understand when she’s trapped inside her head.

At least, for the first time, there’s a little shadow waiting for her.

***

She turns eleven.

She has a birthday party, if you’d call having cake in a conference room with a bunch of adults a ‘birthday party.’ Half of them at least changed out of their uniforms. The other half needed to head back to work as soon as the party ended.

Abraham’s here; his mom, a scientist specializing in biostatistics, holds him by the shoulders like he’ll do something stupid if left to his own devices. He looks like he doesn’t want to be here. He especially eyes Shadow, standing by her left with his arms crossed, unbothered by Abraham’s stare. Everyone’s always staring regardless.

Abraham’s been… weird, to say the least. He’ll stop by her room on occasion, and if Shadow’s not around with her, he’d just fidget in place, looking anywhere but at her while mumbling random questions he can think of on the spot in an awkward attempt at a conversation.

They haven’t talked in a while. It’s hard to jump back onto a dynamic that they left when Abraham graduated from being a toddler going on autopilot, toddling after her, into becoming an Earth boy who wanted Earth boy things. An Earth boy with rich parents, two barely-lived in houses in different countries, and a getaway beachfront villa on a Mobian island rich people decided is a nice vacation spot so long as there’s people boating in the waters and not alligator Mobians fishing.

Under different circumstances, Maria would’ve been an Earth girl if she’d stayed on Earth, if she hadn’t had a body that’s trying to kill itself in new ways. Her family was— is wealthy. If things were different, she could’ve had things in common with Abraham. Things to talk about, because she never has new things to talk about up here in space. The things she gets sent up aren’t really new things to talk about: VHS tapes of movies released two, three, eight years ago, fiction books kids on Earth have already read, or clothes.

She appreciates that he’s trying. It’s painfully awkward and it’s kind of weird, because neither of them really know how to proceed. She’s not an Earth girl. Her grandfather had let her know her parents had had another baby girl. She has a sister she’s never met. He’d tried to say it gently, with some sad hopefulness in his voice. She’s happy to have a little sister.

At the same time, she has to acknowledge the unsaid implications. She’s been in space long enough that her parents never got to raise her. Her sister tested negative for NIDS. Her sister will be an Earth girl who goes off to private schools then college and get all those degrees and friends, and she’ll watch movies the same year they come out. Big Sister Maria’s just a star in the sky.

So, no, she doesn’t hate Abraham for being the way he is. There’s a little bit of embarrassed regret in his posture whenever he tries to figure out what to do other than stand in the same room with her. He lent her a superhero comic book, at least. Not her taste, but it’s something.

He’s trying. Kind of.

Unless he walks into her room and Shadow’s already there with her, playing chess on the floor, cards on the bed, or watching a movie projected on the wall while on Maria’s bed. Abraham’s face would twist up into something rancid. It’s like having two younger brothers, one of which has one-sided beef against the other. Abraham would sneer, call him the meanest things— freak monster alien demon —and Shadow would remain sitting there with a never changing stoic expression. No reaction. A flick of an ear, nothing more.

Maria still scolds Abraham on Shadow’s behalf.

“He’s not entirely wrong,” Shadow told her one time, voice monotone, arms crossed with patience. Unbothered.

She hates to think Shadow’s just used to this. 

She teases Shadow that he’s technically one year old, even though he now has the body of what’s considered a preteen for his species. His growth, just as her grandfather has hoped, had slowed down to something more normal. He’s big enough to need to wear gloves and footwear.

Mobians wear gloves in most of the pictures she’s seen in books. Originally to protect sensitive paw pads; that branched out to other correlated reasons: for subspecies that can’t retract their claws, to keep the claws from chipping; preventing accidental scratches when trying to do simple things like hold others’ paws; some paw pads have scent glands that some of the subspecies use to mark territory and loved ones, so they’re cautious with where they spread it and on whom; in some cases, certain gloves are culturally significant, tied to social status or profession.

In Shadow’s case, his baby claws have slowly morphed into sharp talons, too sharp for the humans in skin and clothes to feel comfortable with. He’s always careful, and besides, the only person he holds hands with is Maria, where she can feel how he’s all too aware with his fingers. The scratch he’d left in her palm—it was a shallow white line, didn’t even break skin—frazzled Dorothy enough.

There was talk about possibly declawing him. He still has them, so maybe they changed their minds for whatever reason. Gloves are a simpler solution, anyway.

The adults don’t celebrate Shadow’s birthday, or acknowledge that he has a birth date. She and her grandfather give him shoes and cuffs. Air shoes and Chaos suppressors, partially designed by her, the rest done by her grandfather.

Shadow’s indifferent about her grandfather. Shadow talks with him with the professionalism of colleagues, responding to questions with the mechanical tone of a robot. That’s to be expected, maybe. Shadow’s in restricted labs more often now, the rooms you’d never want to go into if you’re not human. She doesn’t know the details, doesn’t know if it’s best to stay not knowing.

She overhears snippets: her grandfather discussing drug prototypes, what has and hasn’t failed, what reactions did Shadow have compared to the lab mice, and how fast did he heal from this-and-that.

The words are all clinical from her grandfather’s tongue. Professional.

It’s not his fault Maria’s attached to what’s essentially a lab mouse in the eyes of science. Her grandfather is still her grandfather. He loves her; he’s not doing this to Shadow for no reason. She reminds herself over and over to not get angry at him, especially on days when whatever they do to Shadow takes a massive toll on him that he walks with a wobble and a hitch to his breath that he insists is nothing.

On those days, he’ll just stand with unfocused eyes, unable to follow or understand conversations.

She'll hold both of his paws and asks him, “Shadow, what happened?”

He’ll look away, ashamed, like he’d failed, and bitterly admit, “It didn’t work.”

It didn’t work. ‘It.’ The drug. The test.

Not that he’s in pain, just that it didn’t work. In his head, it’s somehow his fault it didn’t work.

It didn’t work.

The tone of self-blaming disappointment in his voice is the same as the one in her grandfather’s when the sleep-deprived old man sighs and tiredly says, “We’ll think of something else. We’re getting close.”

Her grandfather: a world-renowned genius. Shadow: a bioengineered Mobian. Maria’s the most ‘normal’ amongst them. In times like this, it feels like she’s the only one not seeing things for how they do.

They both love her. She knows they do. They wouldn’t be doing all this, otherwise. Their love for her fuels this project.

It just hurts that everything is this way.

***

She’s twelve. Shadow’s technically two, but very clearly isn’t.

He’s still shorter than her, and will always be shorter than her, given his species, but he’s strong enough to catch her when she faints. He’s actually good at predicting the timing of some of her health episodes if he’s in the same room as her. She chalks it up to him being attentive enough to catch signs that seem too subtle for anybody else. But he’d even figure out if she’s nursing a migraine somehow when she has other regular issues that mimic migraine symptoms.

She jokingly asked him how he knew once; the question caught him off guard and he went quiet for a few seconds, thinking it over, then he admitted, “You show signs.”

“Signs?”

“I can’t see them. They’re just there.”

So he doesn’t know how, either, or he has a clue but isn’t sure how to articulate it.

One time, she feels like it's one of her Good Days; good enough that she ventures into the lower levels of the ARK, taking the elevator down, where she knows she’d find Shadow and her grandfather. And maybe G.U.N. agents. She’s been seeing soldiers in G.U.N. uniforms more often on the ARK recently. They’re either visiting more often, or they have private barracks somewhere aboard now. Here to monitor Shadow, no doubt. She’s not really happy about that arrangement. Not that she has any say about it.

She’s technically advised not to come down to the training grounds in the lower level of the ARK. She’s not banned , per se—she’s been down here before when Shadow first tried out the air shoes—but the last time she came down here looking for Shadow, it looked as though she’d walked in at a bad time, with her grandfather halting whatever deep conversation he was having with none other than the G.U.N. commander amidst the scattered remains of broken robot dummies Shadow had presumably destroyed.

That had been the only clue Maria needed to figure out that the government funding her grandfather’s project isn’t just for medical research.

When she gets to the lower level, she stays behind the protective glass walls. The place used to be a medical and technological testing ground, not something for military use. So the little military robots—the black hovering disks flying erratically like hummingbirds—stand out in the all white room meant for biochemical research.

Her grandfather and the commander are there, both with their hands behind their backs, observing. Two other soldiers stand on either side of them. Her grandfather isn’t wearing his lab coat; it’s draped over his shoulder.

In the center of the training ground, Shadow’s holding a gun. A handgun. He holds it like he actually knows how. The prospect that he’s held it before makes her uneasy.

With a stopwatch in hand, the commander barks an order.

Gunshots rap. Gold cartridges drop, ringing like pennies.

The flying targets pop and buzz and drop to the ground.

There’s two left when the gun click-clicks empty. Shadow pitches the gun at one of the targets hard enough for the robot to go sailing and crack against the wall, falling and buzzing in circles on the ground like a downed bee.

For the other target: Shadow flicked his paw, shooting the military robot down with an arrow of electricity. Chaos energy.

The stopwatch clicks.

“Halt!” The commander’s voice echoes.

Shadow’s defensive posture eases. He stands straight.

“I expect better,” says the commander.

Shadow doesn’t say anything. His ears fold back in silent irritation. There’s a twitch at the corner of his lip, withholding a snarl.

Her grandfather looks at his wristwatch, clearing his throat. “Well, that’s all the time Project Shadow has for you today.”

The commander glares at her grandfather from the corner of his eye. “The project is nowhere near ready.”

“Haven't claimed it to be.”

“And it will never be, at this rate. I should not have to negotiate with you on this matter, but I did, and I'm beginning to question how flippant you are regarding the handling of it.” ‘It’. ‘It’ being Shadow. 

Her grandfather sounds almost detached from his own voice when he speaks. His effort in maintaining professionalism under pressure. “The success of Project Shadow is all I’ve been preoccupied with for the past few years. You’re not obliged to believe me. I’m merely stating my objective in the pursuit of medical breakthroughs has not wavered. Your patriotic expectations are of little concern to me, in the grand scheme of things.”

“I beg your pardon.” The commander looks angrier now.

“I mean no offense, Commander. The Project is only two years old. We’ve already made great leaps in that short time frame, thanks to its unique biology. I’m immensely respectful to the funding terms we’d agreed on. And as I recall correctly, as stated within the agreement, Project Shadow would only be deployed for military service upon international security emergencies. How the United Federation defines ‘international’ is out of my hands, but I digress.

“There has yet to be any such emergency. Unless mere drones qualify,” he adds with a humorous huff. “And if, Gaia forbids, it does happen tomorrow or thereafter, postponing the research for more hours of messily gunfire wouldn’t benefit anyone. I let you train Project Shadow for when the time comes. Based upon our agreement, for as long as the research for a treatment for NIDS is still under development, and no harm has yet come to planet Earth, Project Shadow’s priority remains in the medical research field.” Her grandfather takes his lab coat off of his shoulder, snaps it out to dust it off. “Come now, Shadow. We have work to do.”

Her grandfather doesn’t need to raise his voice like the commander does. Shadow doesn’t even acknowledge the commander when he walks past him, adjusting his gloves that spark with Chaos Energy remnants.

The commander, still standing stiff, clenches his jaws. “I never took you for a Gaia-worshipper, Professor. If that’s not a sign you’ve had enough time with that thing, I fear who our country’s entrusting it’s safety in.”

Her grandfather stops and flutters his lab coat to slip into. He chuckles lightly, mustache hiding his mouth. “Is my choice of religion not to your liking, Commander? That’s what troubles you? If it qualms your worries, Shadow himself knows very little regarding the branches of Mobian religions.”

The commander clicks his tongue. “When you’re finished using G.U.N.’s secret weapon as a nanny dog for your grandchild, there better be something worth of value in the progress reports to make up for this expensively wasted time.”

Her grandfather halts, but only momentarily, long enough to state, “I didn’t take my grandchild away from my son and her home for amusement, Commander. All of this is of value. Have a good afternoon.”

Nobody talks after that. Footsteps echo. Shoes, military boots, and the solid clicks of Shadow’s skates.

Shadow hasn’t said a word throughout. He doesn’t really talk unless he needs to. With a man like the commander, he doesn’t need to. From Maria’s experience with doctors before her correct diagnosis, words are usually a waste with people who don’t listen to voices other than their own.

Shadow suddenly pauses. His eyes dart and quickly spot her. He does that sometimes. It’s his sense of smell, he’d told her. She often forgets about reading that most Mobians had good noses.

She smiles and excitedly waves at him, pretending like the gun thing didn’t happen, like she hadn’t heard everything she had. Shadow’s not a talker; he’s an observer. There’s no way he doesn’t know she knows.

None of them—not her, not him, not her grandfather—ever brings up what goes on around the testing ground-turned-training ground. Bringing it up means acknowledging it, and acknowledging it opens up a military government-esque can of worms they’ll never be able to clean up.

Gun wants a military attack dog; her grandfather needs a lab mouse; Maria wants her baby brother.

She's not sure what Shadow wants. He just does as he's told.

TBC

Chapter Text

The mice are little cotton balls with beady red dots for eyes; Professor Ambrose, a black woman with some graying in her braids, brought four of them into class in a small acrylic container with two handles on the lid for easy carrying. A container like what Maria remembers children carrying around on Earth with baby red-eared slider turtles inside of them, with one plastic palm tree decoration and soggy, uneaten turtle pellets sloshing in a miniscule amount of water. The mice have yellow bedding like shredded paper.

Ever since moving onto the ARK, Maria has been, in a way, ‘homeschooled’. Her teachers being ARK researchers volunteering to teach her certain subjects. Hard subjects. ‘College-level’ things. She prefers it this way. It’s more challenging than what private school on Earth had offered her. 

Abraham, being younger, has a different curriculum, meant to keep him up-to-date with his studies in prestigious schools on Earth whenever he has to go back home, so she often doesn't share classes with him.

For a long time, it was just her in this small laboratory-turned-class. Shadow comes to class with her now. He’s far too small for the human-sized chair and desk; he has to sit on a fat pillow or a stack of books. He’s quieter whenever he raises his paw up to answer questions, whereas Maria practically waves her hand by instinct. He doesn’t like class. He looks bored two-thirds of the way into every lesson. Maria’s never seen him turn in any homework or assignments. She figures he doesn’t care because there’s no grading or rewards.

Professor Ambrose lets the mice out to skitter around the long table Maria and Shadow us as a desk. Their clawed feet make quick clicking sounds as they move across papers with scribbled notes. Smiling, Maria cups one mouse in her hands, picks it up.

Professor Ambrose chuckles. “Those look familiar? Any idea what model these are?”

“Swiss Webster!” She blurts out. Then notices Shadow lowering his paw, giving her a mildly annoyed look. “Oh, sorry!”

Professor Ambrose snorts, raising a suspicious brow. “That’s right. You got that just from looking?”

“It’s just one of the few ones I’m allowed to handle sometimes,” Maria admits bashfully.

“Figured. Can’t exactly give you our mice with little to no immunity—those buggers die easy. Shadow? Recall what these are ideal for?”

Shadow looked at the mouse in Maria’s hands, its body small and round, sitting up to wipe its face with small pink paws. “General multipurpose and drug efficiency testing.”

Professor Ambrose nods. She picks one up by the tail, puts it on her arm and lets it climb up to her shoulders. “Each model has its uses in science. With inbred models, they’re almost all identical. Clones, essentially. Isogenic. This allows for uniformity and predictability. For example: mice selectively bred with a predisposition for developing cancers, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease are ideal for the medical research of those conditions.”

Maria remembers one of the cancer mice. Hairless, all wrinkles, with a shiny bulge the size of its own head in the side of its neck.

Next to her, Shadow puts down his pencil and lets a mouse climb onto his open palm. The mouse peaks its head between his fingers, innocently sniffs a pointed claw pressing at the fabric of his glove, then begins climbing its way up his arm.

Professor Ambrose ignores the mouse that slides off her shoulder and into the front pocket of her lab coat. She turns and draws on the blackboard with white chalk. “It doesn’t look like it, but mice are one of the closest non-primate, non-Mobian relatives to humans. You remember when we learned cladograms, I hope.” She draws a family tree type of diagram, only one side has fewer twigs sprouting out of its branches, ending with names of wild-derived mice, whereas the branches on the other side, the side with inbred mice models, have many twigs with more twigs growing out of them with hardly any space in-between.

Maria’s only half listening to Professor Ambrose explaining. She lets the mouse in her hand explore her palm and sit up to lick at its back. She offers it her finger, which it holds with two forepaws and glides its snout against.

Shadow is blurry from the corner of her eye. She takes a glance while Professor Ambrose’s back is still turned. Shadow has a paw up to his muzzle, against his closed mouth, the white mouse visible between his half-curled fingers. His eyes stare down at the table, evidently not listening to the lesson. He’s concentrating on something else. She’s… not entirely sure what he’s doing.

“Shadow,” Maria whispers, curious.  

His ears twitch. His blinks, lowering the mouse from his face, looking briefly lost.

Maria scoots closer, asks, “Is something wrong?”

He takes a few seconds, as though he’s going through drawers in his mind. Grimacing, he murmurs, “Something smells different in this one.”

Maria tilts her head quizzically. “Different?” The one he’s holding looks identical to the others. She’s tempted to smell the one she’s holding before remembering that Shadow’s sense of smell is vastly different than hers. “Different how?”

He hesitates, then—“Like when you faint sometimes.”

Oh.

Professor Ambrose continues explaining, “Wild-derived field mice have a vast genetic diversity. Compare that with the inbred models with predisposition to developing autoimmunity resembling lupus in humans," she writes NZW/LacJ on the board, then on another side, writes NZB/B1NJ, "and those that develop autoimmune disease like hemolytic anemia.” She turns to face her students and sees Maria’s hand raised. “Question, Maria?”

“No. Well, yes, but not about that. Shadow says something’s wrong with that one.”

Professor Ambrose puts the chalk away. The mouse in her front pocket pops its head out for a few seconds before retreating back inside. “How so?” she asks, intrigued, approaching the student table.

Shadow presents the mouse in his open palm. “Its scent changed from when you brought it in. It smells… sick.”

Professor Ambrose hums. There’s a knowing in her eyes, locking onto an answer in her head she’s not about to voice yet. “Wouldn’t be surprising if it is. Can you figure out what’s going on?”

The question—or rather, test—doesn’t seem to catch Shadow off guard, as though this is a normal task. “I’ve smelled something similar to it.”

“You’re right on the money.” She stops the remaining mouse freeloading on the table from attempting to jump off it, cupping it in her hand. “These are from the lab conducting behavior studies. Sometimes they’ll add a few test subjects with a disease amongst healthy ones, diseases that are visually imperceptible to prevent a placebo effect when conducting research, only checking to see which ones had the disease after results are collected. Miss Maria has hypoglycemic episodes alongside other medical abnormalities that happen together. Safe to assume that the mouse there is from the batch fed a diet to induce diabetes.”

Maria takes a moment to decipher what the professor means. She recalls all the times Shadow predicted some of her health crashes—she’d brushed him off as being a worrywart—he’s proven to be accurate most of the time, if he’s standing close enough to notice. He’s figured she’s about to have migraines, or acute deficiencies whenever her body decides what vitamin it refuses to absorb anymore at any given time.

She’d assumed he’d just been picking up on signs she wasn’t aware of. Which might be the case. He’s picking up on patterns he can’t fully explain when he tries to.

A memory occurs to her. The rat in the behavioral lab trained to sniff out cancer cells on petri dishes. Correct by at least seventy percent, rewarded with a sunflower seed. Dogs do stuff like that, too, don’t they?

A lightbulb goes off in her head. Maria exclaims, “Wait! Professor Ambrose, are you saying Shadow can smell the mouse’s diabetes?!” It’s not impossible. It’s just hard to imagine having senses strong enough to pinpoint diabetes in a mouse.

“Not exactly,” Professor Ambrose says. “I wouldn’t say he’s detecting the diagnosis, more so some of the symptoms associated with diabetes that can be detectable. If he’s the same as what we’ve seen with dogs and rodents and even bees, I’d assume it’s more likely what he’s catching is the odor produced from the change in chemical balance in the body.”

Shadow’s eyes brighten. “I see.” He looks down at the mouse in his paw, feverishly cleaning itself like a cat. “So that’s what it is.” His words are distant. He’s not talking about the mouse.

Maria can tell what he’s thinking. He’s putting all the pieces together. He’s been unconsciously keeping tabs on every time he has detected and missed some of Maria’s health flare-ups. The times he’d missed—there were so many factors for that. Him being in a different area on the ARK than her; him being too exhausted from whatever they’d inject him with; him needing to have smelled this certain scent over and over to sift it out of the tangle of other scents consisting of her medications and oatmeal and high anxiety levels and everything else; her smelling too much like antiseptic, vomit, and too many other things that drown out the one scent in her breath that he’d have to remember he caught in her breath a year ago.

Shadow, in her eyes, is her little brother. She can be shown all the evidence in the world proving the contrary, but he’s still her brother, her best friend; the guy she hugged and dragged around by the paw; the guy whose quills she’d aimed paper airplanes into, and would just give her the most deadpan look over her silly antics.

Does he ever see himself as her brother? As something other than the reason he was ever made?

***

She turns thirteen. She’s too sick for a birthday party.

Her fever gave her pneumonia, and her pneumonia gave her lung abscesses that needed to be drained—a proceeding she had to be awake for, sitting up in a hospital bed, her head leaning forward, trying and failing to think of anything other than the yellow pus being suctioned out of a clinically made puncture on the left side of her back, the thick mucus riding up the clear, looping tube and into the syringe.

She only gets to rest for two hours before realizing her abdominal pain might not be one of her usual pains or associated with the pus extraction. Her violent coughing had caused her a prolapsed bladder. They’d deal with that later; until then, she’d have to deal with the consistent feel of false bladder fullness and unusual pressure on her lower back. She breathes in the plastic smell of the nasal cannula for the rest of the day.

When she’s alone in her bedroom that’s also her hospital room, she asks Dorothy to turn off the lights, at least some of them, and let her rest her eyes. But turn off the automation on the double doors, leave them open. Dorothy turns off the lights over Maria’s head. Still too bright; better than before, at least.

On her side, through half-lidded eyes, red dots blink in the dark; the lights on hospital machines, indicating they’re turned on.

Red dots like mice eyes, mice with cold, leathery feet, and visible spiderweb veins in their thin ears. Many will die because she hasn’t yet.

There’s a pair of new red dots in the dark. It’s past the doorway, in the hallway. Glowing red eyes on a darker silhouette, the triangle ears looking like short goat horns.

“Shadow,” she says, her voice almost gone. “Come here.”

He hesitates before deciding to come in. He might’ve opted to leave her alone so as to not wake her if she hadn’t called him in. He holds his back straight, but his ears are pointing backward on his head. He’s walking unevenly, favoring one leg over the other. His shoulders are stiff.

She knows that posture. The one he holds in an attempt to hide discomfort. His fur is unkempt, patches circling at odd angles like a bad case of bedhead. Shadow's like a cat; he keeps himself well groomed, tidy, patting his quills down more than she does toss her hair back. Messy fur is a bad sign.

When he's close enough to her bed, she reached for his arm. It's slightly damp. There's sections of fur that feel too dry and scratchy. Burnt. He must've just finished doing something on the training grounds—something that burned him, or something exploded, maybe, then he took a deep shower and disinfected himself all over, burns and all, so he wouldn't bring dead fur and ash to her. He didn't dry himself well enough.

“That must hurt,” she says. A pinch in her chest has her coughing, the sound wet and bubbly, with a crackling in her lunges and a wheezing at the end. A smoker’s cough. There’s mucus in her mouth. “...Ask Grandfather for medicine.”

“Are you in pain?” He looks up at her fluid bag hanging on the IV pole, checking if it’d emptied. It’s a quarter full, still.

“No—medicine for your burns.” She’s in discomfort. The pain isn’t the traditional kind, not the pain one would think of associated with the word, but more so an intense discomfort in her entire skeletal structure and a tightness in her ligaments; no medication can help her with that without damaging her arteries.

“They’ll heal. I heal quickly,” he insists.

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

“It's fine,” he mumbles, looking away from her.

She weakly grabs his paw. It's larger than her hand. “Was the commander being mean to you again?”

She knows it’s a yes. She's not fond of that man or any of his underlings, touting badges over their breasts like their guns don't do all the work. She’d hear the commander’s voice echo through the base sometimes, scrutinizing Shadow for not doing better, not being faster, not doing whatever else the man comes up with to be angry about. He’s loud. Obnoxiously so. Someone who likes hearing himself bark. Barking and barking. Unlike all the beagles, the researchers can debark him.

“He's nothing for you to be concerned about,” Shadow dismisses gently. His eyes trace her IV line. There's silence for a while. Then—“Have they fed you?”

“I'm sure they have.”

“You don’t recall?”

“I’ve been sleeping a lot. Makes it hard to remember things.”

“Do you need me to ask the professor?”

“No. That’s fine.” She can't tell if she’s hungry or not. The thought of sitting up for anything sounds like a chore, though. She can see him thinking, rolling a thought in his head, trying to be discreet about it. She asks, “Is something wrong?”

Her question snaps him out of it. A quiet hum is all he gives her. He looks to the side, at her wall. Her Earth calendar. Being in space, the ARK has its own designated time zone in an attempt to lessen the impact of cabin fever.

“Huh.” She squints at the numbers. Her eyesight hasn’t been as clear lately. “Is it still my birthday?” Sickness fog makes it hard to tell.

“Yes.”

“Good. Cause you haven’t wished me a happy birthday yet. That’s rude,” she jokes weakly.

He looks surprised for a moment, like he can’t believe that’s what she’s thinking about right now. He relaxes and makes a short hum, probably remembering, yeah, she’d do that.

“Happy birthday,” he says. It’s the most monotonous voice anybody can wish a person a happy birthday.

Her body shakes a bit in her effort not to laugh. It’s hard, but she doesn’t want the coughing fit to start up again. “I might be the only girl in the universe to have a baby brother who sounds like an old man.”

“I’m not an infant,” he corrects, mildly annoyed and, judging by his mild head tilt, very much confused why she’d make such a mistake. He’s still not good at picking up on jokes.

“Oh, Shadow,” she says fondly, “you’ll always be my baby brother.”

TBC

Chapter Text

The mice are all dead. The white one with shiny red eyes.

At first glance, it’s not clear what’s in the acrylic box Maria sees the researcher hauling out of the lab. It looks like wads of crumpled tissue in a container. The cluster of tissues shifts and folds over itself when the man jostles the box. Lots of tissue balls with blood droplets, like someone might have been dabbing at a needle prick on their thumb. But she sees they’re dried up eyes. Mice eyes. Stiff mice. Lots of them.

The researcher goes into a room. Lab #22. Maria tries the handle. It clicks open; the man hadn’t locked it behind him, probably just in to grab something. That’s exactly what he does. She sees him get a red plastic bag from one of the lower drawers, snaps it open, lets it get fat with air. Fully expanded, it’s large enough to fit an adult person.

He tosses all the dead lab mice in; they tumble out of the box as one body, one clump that’s vaguely liver shaped. They’re all tangled up in each other, twisted around on another, frozen that way like ambiguously shaped puzzle pieces. They must’ve died together all at once. Euthanized in the box with anesthesia gas overdose.

“Ah, Miss Maria,” says the man, just now noticing her in the doorway holding the door open. “Are you looking for your grandfather?” He’s wearing black chemical resistant gloves he’d put on for handling the dead mice. The respirator’s on his face so he doesn’t breathe in flying fur flaking off into the air. He ties the open end of the garbage bag into a fat knot. Dead bodies in bags meant they wouldn’t go in the freezer, but the incinerator, then dispersed into outer space. “He’s overseeing Project Shadow somewhere over in the toxicology department, I think. Did you need something I can help you with?”

She’s seen this researcher before. He’s so much of a potted plant that whatever his name is never sticks in her mind. “No, it’s alright.”

He hauls the bag into a red metal drum with BIOHAZARD written on it in black text. It opens with a foot pedal, snaps shut too loudly. He dips his hands, gloves still on, into a sink full of antiseptic before taking the gloves off. Like handling raw chicken breasts, he tosses them onto a metal tray with the smacking sound of wet fish. Somebody else will come collect them later.

“You know,” he says, shedding his lab coat, draping it over the backrest of a rolling chair. Something falls out of the front pocket. He turns away, none the wiser, and keeps talking. “I have daughters on Earth. Three of them. One’s got cerebral palsy.”

She’s only half listening. Her eyes don’t look away from what fell out of the lab coat’s front pocket. The man’s ID card, the retractable holder still attached. Her hand twitches by her side.

“—not the end of the world.” He keeps talking with his back turned, putting on new gloves and a new disposable lab coat, popping open a foggy freezer with rows and rows of plugged test tubes, dates and timestamps written on their labels. He rearranges the ones with older dates to the bottom row. “She may not have pursued higher education, but that’s not everything in life, is it? No, of course it’s not!” he exclaims in exaggeration, like he’s trying to convince somebody—himself, she assumes—of something. “She’s married, last I heard. Moved to Spagonia. Or was it somewhere in Adabat?” He doesn’t know. Might not even be in contact with her. Or she’d stopped contacting him . Maria’s not even sure what his point is.

She doesn’t care to listen to the rest. Making sure the man’s back is still turned, she snatches the card off the floor, her heartbeats rabbit-quick. She leaves the lab walking backwards, making a run for it as soon as she’s left the room.

Her heart throbs; she puts a hand flat over it. She’s only been in the toxicology area on rare occasions, always with her grandfather. Last time was years ago. It’d upset her too much, so her grandfather never brought her back.

She shouldn’t see. She’s always better off not seeing. She has a general idea of what she’ll find; what good would seeing do other than make it hard for her to sleep?

But she’s already got the card positioned just above the swipe scanner. It takes two seconds of her holding it up, contemplating, before swiping the card. The lock clicks. The double doors are heavy; she has to push hard with her shoulder against the force of the manual door closer. Her shoulder partially dislocates before popping back into its socket with a dull pop sound. It luckily doesn’t hurt much.

The door shuts behind her, the stopper making it soundless. It’s all white, tiles and ceiling, fluorescence and all. She stands in place for a moment, the light above her head blinking, buzzing, making clicking sounds akin to a refrigerator.

Years ago, when she’d been an Earth girl, when her body only malfunctioned on occasions and the doctors would say it’s something—the flu, an allergy, just stress, or whatever else—she’d go home after. Then back to the hospital, to white walls and white coats.

Home and back. Home and back. Home—

And back. And that’s where she stayed.

They’d take her out of the hospital to put her in another one. She’d only glimpse the outside world through her hospital room window: a rectangle of sky, a bushy top of a tree. Skies changing colors. Blues and oranges and purples and glitter black. The tree's leaves changing from lush green to bright reds, to leafless black twigs, to sprouting no growth with flowers. Rain speckling the widow, the damp smell seeping into her hospital room. Snow that coats the corners, fogs the glass.

The pop of a rotten acorn under her shoe, the humid diner by her school that played Bobby Darin and Ray Charles on the Jukebox, the thud of a slab of snow sliding off the roof of her house, her dress pockets always heavy with coins for payphones, the dust left behind on her thumb when plucking grass—all things of the past, all things only Earth girls can have.

And suddenly, she’s in space, and everything blue and green is out of reach. 

The white room is quiet. Quiet in the way it shouldn’t be, the way a packed auditorium is silent: a cough here, a sniffle there.

The hallway leads to a door with another hallway. Animal restraint devices are empty alongside the wall, contraptions with leather straps and metal headlocks. For clean-up: a trolley bucket and mop. She hurries past them, her baby blue shoes clacking, echoing too loudly.

Past another set of doors, the smell of ammonia and disinfectant. Shoe box-sized acrylic containers are stacked up in stainless steel racks against the wall. There’s a lot of skittering noises. Overgrown mouse claws scratching at the transparent acrylic, red eyes glinting. They squeak, chitter; their feet crinkle the shredded paper bedding, their teeth grind the end of the spouts of upside-down water bottles.

Many of the mice huddle into large clusters of white fur, twitching, clutching each other hard—

Maria looks away, walks away.

The room after: kennels line up to her right. She almost mistakes the sounds of claws clicking against the floor as Shadow, only to remember she doesn’t hear the clicks of his claws often ever since getting his shoes. He’d been walking on bare paws back when he was the size of a cat. The raspy coughs tear away that nostalgic picture in her mind.

The beagles bark like they’re coughing. Coughing like when she’d had pneumonia. Dirty forepaws grapple at chain link kennel doors. Their footsteps wet, the air humid—the kennel floors still glistens from hosing bodily fluids down the drain. The dogs look up at her with wagging tails and bright black eyes, expressions contradictory to their trembling bodies crouching low to the ground. They don’t whine; they can’t.

She goes past another pair of heavy double doors. Most of the lights are off. The cages here are tall, and freestanding on wheels like that of office chairs. The cages are wrapped in tarp. She can't see whatever's inside, but from the screeches, it's easy to guess they're primates. The cages jostle in place, vibrating like someone had overstuffed a washing machine; the primates performing repetitive behaviors.

She averts her eyes and starts running. Through one door after another, she roughly slams into them hands first, running past animals behind glass she forces herself to not look at. It's impossible not to look. She's got no say in how wide her peripheral can reach. She sees glimpses—rabbits with transparent domes replacing the removed part of their skull, loud cats headbutting the cage bars, their meows like human infants'—

She's slamming into the doors with her shoulder. Her arm tingles all the way down. The echoey clacking of her shoes gets masked under the rushing sound of her heart beating in her ears. It's only when her balance abandons her and she tumbles, falls, slides across the floor, that she catches on her body's not working right.

The tiles smell of antiseptic. They're ice cold against her cheek as she stays on the floor, panting, until her heart calms enough for her to sit up. Her legs quiver as she manages to stand. Her hearing is muffled, stuffed with cotton, but she makes out the murmurs of scientists. The door she finds and opens doesn't lead to the lab itself, but its crowded observation room, a wide viewing window separating them.

Adults huddle by the glass, their backs turned to her, none the wiser to her presence. The lights are dim, minimizing reflections on the window. The lab on the other side is fluorescent white, eye-straining.

In there, Shadow's strapped to a metal chair, panting, hitching forward as much as the metal restraints would allow. Quills all fanning out defensively, fists gripping the armrests they’re pinned to with metal clamps. He’s covered in wires hooking him up to a brain scan and a heart monitor that’s continuously spitting out readings on a never-ending paper.

There’s a tray with many vials of collected blood. Blood collected throughout everything, just in case they catch anything before Shadow’s body gets rid of it. A few researchers flutter around the lab, saying things Maria can’t hear through the glass. One of them gives her grandfather a large syringe equipped with yellow fluid. 

Her grandfather leans near Shadow's lowered head, asks him something.

Shadow seems to force himself to breathe normally, then curtly nods, a ‘yes’ to something. He lifts his head, straightens his shoulders. He's got a muzzle on; it makes her baby brother, whose biggest offence is stealing coffee beans, look like he's a criminal on death row.

Her grandfather pinches and pulls some skin on Shadow’s abdomen, aiming the needle, sinking it in. Shadow shuts his eyes, tries to stay still despite the obvious way his body starts quivering, his heart monitor acting up. The researchers in the observation room murmur amongst each other, discussing things Marie’s muffled ears can’t fully catch.

When Shadow’s face scrunches up into a snarl with wrinkles around the muzzle on his face, his body jerks violently against restraints with grunts and growls rumbling out of him. The researchers in the lab back away from him, whereas the ones in the observation room make notes on paper like they’re students scribbling down things to go over later.

He thrashes his head, shakes it, physically holding himself back from a full out rampage. He holds his arms still enough for her grandfather to take two vials of blood—nobody else is brave enough to get that close with him like that. Her grandfather gives him a respectful nod.

All the while, Maria’s hands cup over her mouth in horror. She shouldn’t have come down here. She shouldn’t be seeing him like this. She knew she wouldn't find anything good and still did it anyway. Her grandfather patiently asks him things, waits for him to gather himself enough to give answers between strained huffs, voicing side effects the monitors can’t pick up.

She knows why they do this. It doesn’t make her feel better about it. He’s in pain and she wants it to stop stop stop you’re hurting him stop he did nothing wrong—

“Hey,” someone's voice cuts through the cotton in her ears. “How did you get in here?”

Her cognitive function is not all there. She takes too long to recognize the researchers in the same room as her are talking to her. Her earlier fall might’ve knocked a screw loose in her head. Or maybe it’s just one of those brain fog moments she can’t do anything about but ride it through. She can’t come up with anything, words or reactions, when her thoughts are seeping out of her grasp like molasses.

One of the researchers grabs her wrist. In concern or to get her attention, she’s too unfocused to tell. There's a light tug at her arm. It sends a sharp pain, like someone trying to tug out her nerve out of her elbow. With a pained yelp, she staggers. Her legs fail to move on command; it has her losing balance and sinking to her knees. She can somewhat understand the researchers’ words.

“How’d she get in here?”

“Is Miss Maria alright?”

“Can you hear me, dear?”

They’re cut off by a demonic snarl, the sound guttural, feral. It’s followed by the sound of snapping metal. The heart monitor goes wild. The researchers in the lab scramble for safety. One tries unsuccessfully to load a jab stick with shaky hands.

“Shadow, settle down, my boy,” Her grandfather tries with the calmest voice he can gather. 

Another metallic snap. The viewing glass shatters into a waterfall of white sand. Maria instinctively ducks her head, turning her face away from the blast of glittery shards. Bright red eyes come blazing through. The hand on her wrist abruptly lets her go.

“Don’t touch her!” comes the demand within a deep, unhuman snarl. Shadow stands between her and the researchers, facing them with a hunched posture, hackles up and quills flaring out, the fingers of his paws half curling toward the palm.

The door is behind Maria; the frightened researchers can’t leave.

Shadow reaches for his face, curls his stiff fingers through the wires of the muzzle clinging to his face, and pulls at it with such force that the wires break off of the rest of the headgear. The few wires left still clinging to the thick straps around his head are bent. His mouth’s half open, lips curling like a pained smile, threatening teeth on full display.

She’s never seen him like this. It hurts to see him like this. He’s hurting and, like her, isn’t fully there at the moment.

She grabs his rigid paw. He doesn’t budge, eyeing the cluster of tall, ghostly white robes bunching together in fear.

“Shadow?” Maria, still on her knees, tugs at his paw more desperately. “Shadow, stop. It’s okay… This isn’t you. I know you’re not feeling well. Please don’t be angry.”

She feels the stiffness of his paw relax somewhat. He finally turns to her, and his posture sags some more, the angry wrinkles on his face smoothing out. As if just now catching onto what he’d done, he averts his eyes in shame, his mouth closing, lips pressing into a thin line.

Maria sighs, relieved. “It’s okay,” she reassures. She tugs at him some more, down to the floor with her, until she’s wrapping her arms around his head. His body feels like a coiled spring. He’s still in pain but won’t say he is. He never does.

She cards her fingers through his quills. The researchers see it as their chance to sneak away, trodding over crunchy glass, nervously pressing their shoulders against the wall farthest from Shadow. A few brave ones stay behind, taking turns collecting all the precious scattered papers and notepads, and picking up blood vials while the others take up being watchmen.

Her grandfather’s shoes crunch over the sparkly bits of glass. It takes him some effort to crouch with cracking knees. He sighs, voice wobbly with fatigue.

Maria tries to think of something—anything to say. “Grandfather, I…” She’s not sure what to tell him. It’s her fault Shadow got angry. She knows she shouldn’t have come down here. She caused this mess.

“Are you injured?” her grandfather asks gently. Past his spectacles, he’s got guilty eyes.

“I… no.” Not from the glass, at least. Her joints ache, though.

“You’re pale, my dear.”

She hums in acknowledgement. She doesn’t really care if she looks sick right now. She looks sick often. Even sicker the older she gets. She nuzzles her chin between Shadow’s ears. The fact he’s still motionless in her hold is concerning. His breathing is uneven, hitching, as though breathing hurts.

One of the researchers still in the room asks her grandfather something.

“There will not be further testing for today,” her grandfather tells them. “Take up the samples for evaluation, for now. Good day.”

The researchers murmur their own “Good day” as they leave with a rattling trolley of vails on the top tray and paper files on the lower tray.

“Will Shadow be okay?” Maria whispers anxiously.

“He will. He always is,” he reassures, confident. “Give him time. How’s your hearing?”

“Can I take him up to my room?” she asks instead. She could ask him for pain medication for Shadow, but she already knows the answer to that. She’d asked that question years ago about the drug testing dogs. They can’t. They shouldn’t. It’d mess with results, and react with the experimental drugs in their system.

After a moment, her grandfather says, “Very well.”

That’s all she needs to hear. Everything after is a blur.

***

By the time she’s back in her room with a cannula tapped to the back of her hand, she’s too exhausted for anything. Shadow’s in her limp arms. He’s still, peaceful. Not asleep, though, because his ears flick every now and then. He recovers quickly; his antibodies might’ve already neutralized the drugs.

Him being awake means he’s hearing everything being said outside of her bedroom across the halls. There must be a lot being said that she can’t hear, if the frequent movement of Shadow’s ears is anything to go by. She only catches the loudest ones. The closest ones:

“—going to get someone hurt.”

“Tore the thing off like it was nothing.”

“It’s going to get harder to keep under control the stronger it gets.”

“Now, now. Nobody’s gotten harmed.”

“Not yet.”

“Shadow?” Maria whispers, feels his ear flick. “Can you put a record on for me?”

He twitches in her hold, hesitating, as though in those few seconds, he’s just realizing she knows he’s been awake for some time.

He soundlessly slides out of her limp arms. “Which one?”

“Whichever’s already there.” She just doesn’t want either of them to listen to more hallway gossip.

The disc already set in the record player is one of the newer discs a researcher brought in after their short visit to Earth. The Platters singing Only You, And You Alone . The needle jumps sometimes. There’s scratching within the song, no fault of the disc, but the overused player itself. Shadow just stands in front of the record player, arms crossed, red eyes staring blearily at the spinning disc.

“Shadow,” she calls. Well, as much as she can, with how little voice she has left in her. It snaps him to attention, blinking. She waves at him to get closer. Dropping his paws to his sides, he approaches with a serious look on his face, assuming she has something important to say.

He gets a boop on the nose instead, startling him. The bewildered look on his face has her giggling.

“You’re too serious sometimes,” she says.

With confliction in his eyes, and rolling thoughts in his head, he resorts to looking away, his ears folding back. He's never been good at expressing himself verbally. That’s fine with her. She’s learned to read him well enough.

“You can talk to me, if you want,” she says. “It’s okay if you don’t, though. I know it’s hard for you sometimes.”

Her gentle consideration has him lifting his eyes back up to her. “It’s…” He thinks it over. “I’m supposed to be better than this.”

“What do you mean?” She doesn’t bother to hide her sleepy tone. Puts less pressure on him.

“I should’ve controlled myself better.” There’s an edge to his voice. Blaming himself. Angry with himself. “And… I should be the key to medicine. And yet, so far…” He clenches his fists tight.

“You know what I think?” she says. “I think you have a lot on your shoulders. Please don’t think badly of yourself. When Grandfather made you, do you know what I thought of, first?”

He titles his head, one ear shifting to the side, curious.

She finds that too adorable not to giggle at. “I’d finally have a friend. And I was right. Helps that you turned out cute.”

Flustered, he turns his face away, his ears flattening back. He mumbles something about not being cute.

***

When she’s well enough, she goes back to studying, picking up where she left off with her teachers. It’s long been established that if she’s not in class, Shadow doesn’t bother attending, so the staff responsible for her teaching put everything on hold until she’s back on her feet or her wheelchair. She’s tapping her pen against her paper, trying to solve an equation written on the board.

Shadow just stares at his paper while leaning his cheek against his knuckles, not even trying or caring. His ears flick twice. Then perk up. The boredom on his face snaps to alertness.

Before Maria can ask, her grandfather’s boisterous laughter in the hallway startles her. Even her math teacher turns to the door, blinking, maybe wondering if he’d heard that right.

The doors hiss open. Her grandfather strolls in with his hands cupped together. “Good evening, Doctor Wright.”

Maria’s math teacher barely manages a confused “I, uh, evening…”

“Excuse my interruption. It’ll just be a moment.” Her grandfather’s too excited to even face her teacher when speaking. He immediately approaches Maria’s table.

She straightens, admittedly puzzled by how giddy her grandfather seems. “Grandfather? What’s going on?”

Instead of answering, he extends his cupped hands to her. “Here.”

Instinctively dropping her pencil and putting her hands up, the familiar soft fur and tiny prickly claws meet her sweaty palms.

A white mouse. It sniffs her hands, stands up on its hind legs to look up and all around with little red eyes, its nose and whiskers twitching.

Maria stares at it with perplexity. “Grandfather?”

“One of our humanized mouse models,” her grandfather says. “It’s received six medium doses of the current trial-run drug. Its condition improves with every injection. And while the effectiveness of the drug decreases within approximately two to three days before receiving another dose, and it seems to put a mild strain on its kidneys, it’s a breakthrough.”

Maria’s eyes widened. Her hands are still held up even though the mouse has jumped off and onto the table. “You mean…?”

“We’re on the right track,” he affirms proudly.

The short laugh that comes out of her sounds like a wet sob. By her side, Shadow’s still, eyes wide in astonishment. He stares at the mouse delicately grasping with its paws a corner of his notepaper to nibble on, this little thing unaware of the commotion of the giants around it. Maria draws Shadow into a hug, squeezing him.

He doesn’t hug back. He never does. The look of absolute wonder and hope in those red eyes shines through.

***

[ALERT! ALERT!]

The thing about Shadow, Maria thinks, is that he knows what it must feel like to be a lab mouse. A test subject. An equation in science, in medicine.

[THE ARK HAS BEEN BREACHED! ALERT! ALERT!]

She’s been at the end of scapula and stitches. Injections and drugs doctors tried because they didn’t know what else would work. Doctors talking about her, not to her.

[PLEASE EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!]

And she can’t tell them being seen as nothing more than a patient for years on end hurts just as much as what they’re trying to help her with.

“Maria! Maria, what are you doing?! Let me out! Don’t—! Maria, open the pod!”

Shadow’s no researcher. No doctor or nurse or any of those things. He’s a friend, the best one she’s ever had.

He’s not good at expressing himself.

It’s fine with her. He’s fine as he is.

“Hands up! Back away from the controls, kid. No sudden moves. I said hands up!”

Her friends from school are a hazy cloud in her memory.

How did her parents sound, again?

She’s never met her baby sister.

She doesn’t know Abraham that well anymore.

“By order of the Guardian Units of Nations, you’re to surrender Project Shadow!”

This red-eyed little Shadow… He scares the wits out of grownups by just existing, even though they made him. He still can’t draw well, holds markers too hard. He’s stealthy, but when her grandfather’s favorite coffee beans go missing, Shadow’s coffee breath gives him away.

“I said step back—I’m not warning you again, kid!”

She loves this little guy who’s brought her company and joy when everything hurts. Brought her warmth, stayed with her when she can’t move out of bed, when the fluid seeping from the IV into her veins makes her bones feel too cold.

He’d never been the cuddliest thing to hug. Even when his spines are relaxed and soft. He just feels like rough fur. She’s held him enough times to memorize the length of his snout, if the cluster of quills she feels with her hands are on his back or his head. He doesn’t tell her he’s sorry she might not go to college, or whatever else people like to say.

He’s just there.

He doesn’t talk much. Him always being there says enough.

It’s an isolating feeling, knowing she can never truly make anyone understand when she’s trapped inside her head.

But she’s had this little shadow always waiting for her.

It’s made a world of a difference.

“Maria! Maria—!”

There’s a bang. It could be the gun, the bullet, the sudden way her back and chest jerk, her skull making impact with the ground—her temple cold against the tiles.

There’s a ringing in her ears. It’s not her usual tinnitus. It’s not the sirens, either, the ones accompanying the flashing red lights that paint everything all red and black. Her clothes cling to her the way they do when she’s sweaty with a fever. She lifts her head. The black splatter on the floor might not be black. It's on her hands. It doesn’t feel like anything. There’s a bulge coming up her throat and the need to vomit.

She’s pulled the lever at least. She thinks she did. Hopes she did.

It takes her a few blinks to focus. Shadow’s still in the escape pod, looking shell shocked, mouth agape and lower jaw quivering. Still as ice, not believing what’s happening. There's red speckles on the glass of his pod. A little bit of her.

His paws are firmly on the glass. It’d hadn't been that long ago when he’d done that in his grow tank, putting his paw against the glass, mimicking her putting her hand there.

Underneath the insistent ringing in her head, there’s the distant audible memory of claws clicking against tiles, the hum of skates she’s helped make, the purrs she’d fallen asleep to. It’s quiet in outer space. Shadow is quiet by nature, and yet, he’s filled her little world with so much of him.

There’s a glinting red puddle growing around her.

She’s fallen many, many times. For once, somehow, she knows she can’t get up this time. She does what she always does when she’s not feeling well and Shadow looks helpless; she weakly smiles.

“I’m sorry… we can’t go to Earth together.” Talking is hard. She still can’t hear well. Her voice is a vibration in her skull. “It’s beautiful down there… You’ll see… People they… they can make beautiful things from… beautiful dreams when you give them a chance… Promise me you’ll give them a chance, Shadow… give people the chance to be happy…” Her head lower, her cheek resting on her outstretched arm. “Let them live for their dreams…”

He’s still pressing up against the glass, a devastated look of horror on his face, wide eyes never daring to blink. The escape pod jostles before dropping out of her view.

She drifts in and out of sleep on the floor. Every time she wakes up, she’s a little closer to one of the wide viewing windows overlooking space. Crawling toward it is tiring. She makes it. Earth is right there. And there’s the little escape pod rocketing off.

The alarms stop. So do half the systems on this floor. Her hearing’s only half there. There’s the distorted, distant sound of music; it’s impossible to tell if it’s all in her head, or if it’s the record player she’s left still running upon the evacuation order. The device was abandoned in her room, the last she’d put in it—Kaye Ballard singing In Other Words (Fly Me to the Moon) —echoing through the hallways with human lumps crumpled on the floor, wearing white coats with red dots. Escaped mice skitter around shards of smashed medicine vials.

Out of strength, she lets herself rest against the floor. She can’t move anymore. She’s used to that, her body shutting off on her at random.

She can’t remember what her Earth family looked like. Hasn’t been able to in so long.

She remembers Earth. Blue and green and beautiful, full of noise, and always changing. Shadow will have to learn to be a field mouse than a lab mouse, but he's been all sorts of things already.

Shadow will like it down there.

END