The Mechanical Rat!

Fleshless: An Anthology of Robot Stories

My name is Parker Jones, and I am obsessive-compulsive.

Notice I did not say I am "an" obsessive-compulsive, or have obsessive-compulsive "tendencies," have been "diagnosed" as obsessive-compulsive, or any other construction that might suggest I am a victim suffering from an ailment, or defective condition. Being obsessive- compulsive is part of my nature -- a lifestyle, if you will -- and frankly, one I judge superior to obsessive-compulsive-deficient people who are not as attentive to details as I.

I bring this up because in telling what started on Monday, the 4th of November, people are apt to discount my testimony saying things like He was a little obsessive-compulsive, and the like -- as though that in any way invalidated what I saw, and hereby report.

An advantage of an orderly life -- being obsessive-compulsive -- is that repetitive details emerge. One begins to notice for example, that Rob, my neighbor across the street, usually comes home early on Mondays -- around 3:00PM, as I am starting to mow my lawn -- then leaves better dressed an hour later, and his car is not seen in his driveway again until the next afternoon. Or, that on Saturdays, between 10:00 and 11:00AM, my neighbor to the left backs his Mercedes out of the garage, and washes it with what can only be described as love, rendering it uncommonly clean before driving it back into the garage, and closing the door.

The regularity of these events might escape others, but become as much a part of my routines as, for example, mowing the front yard three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, twice each time, in perpendicular directions starting East-South on Mondays, then diagonally Southeast-Northwest on Wednesdays, and West-North on Fridays.

I use a hand mower, not one of those loud gas-powered things. I also use a hand edger rather than an electrically-powered weed-whacker held sideways, and most importantly, I eschew the horribly bothersome leaf blowers. (I am also acutely sensitive to sounds.) When I finish mowing, and edging, there is only the gentle sound of whisking leaves and tiny grass cuttings into piles, then sweeping them into the yard waste bin.

I should mention my dog, Mochi, because she will become perhaps the most important part of my story. She is a thirteen-year-old female, black-and-white Shetland Sheepdog -- a Sheltie. I've spent nearly every day of my life with her since she was a puppy, less than two months old. She too is obsessive-compulsive, following my schedule perfectly. She literally goes where I go, when I go there. For instance, she is now asleep at my feet as I write this, and if I get up, she will immediately wake and follow me.

On the 4th of November, at approximately 3:00PM, however, she was lying like a little sphinx, her paws forward and head erect, watching me mow the lawn. I remember thinking she was particularly attentive that day, her eyes following me, then escaping for a few seconds to stare at other places around the yard.

For my part, I remember the neighborhood being particularly quiet. There was no sound of doors being opened or closed. No one got into and drove off in a car. And most peculiarly, Rob's car was not in his driveway. He did not seem to be home. There was a hush about the street; what my mother would describe as The Calm Before the Storm. No bird sounds. There was no breeze; just the clatter-clatter-clatter of my mower going East the length of my lawn, then turning 180 degrees to go West, halfway overlapping the previous run, then turning another 180 degrees going back; back and forth across the lawn.

I should mention that Mochi is a normally calm dog. Certainly, she has her moments of excitement, usually related to food, or me returning from an errand, but otherwise she's quiet except for appreciative moans when petted. So, I learned a long time ago to pay attention whenever she barks.

Usually, when with me in the front yard, she barks only when someone walks another dog by. My yard -- really, our yard -- is her territory, and she can't abide sharing it with anyone but me. She'll stand on all fours, her deep brown eyes staring at the dog walking by -- no matter what its size -- and bark much louder than you would imagine a small, thirty pound dog could bark. When the interloper has passed, she settles down to assume her serene, sphinx-like pose.

But, this time, there was no dog walking by. As I mentioned, there was absolutely no movement on the street at all, and Mochi was not in her usual place. Instead, she was head down barking, her tail not wagging, but hanging limply, her whole body angled up and back, away from a small bush near my garage. The message was clear: There was something under the bush.

"It's OK, Mochi. OK. I'm coming," I said, leaving the mower, walking toward her.

As I neared the bush, she left off barking with a guttural "Woof. Woof. Woof," that seemed to say See? I told you he'd come. Then she quieted and moved behind me.!

Something was definitely moving. The lower beaches of the bush trembled rhythmically. I got down on my haunches to get a better look, but whatever was in there, was hidden by shadow. I carefully lifted a branch.

A rat!

It was a large brown rat, probably nine inches long without its tail, lying on its side. It would raise its head, then arch it back in several jerks before lowering it. Then, less than a second later, it'd repeat the motion -- raise its head, jerk it back several times, then lay it down again. One of its forepaws was making a scratching motion, like it was trying to dig into air.

There was a small stick nearby, and I used it to prod the thing, thinking I might alarm it, and chase it away. But, there was no response. I could push its body to one side without changing its repetitive movements.

"It's probably injured," I told Mochi.

I thought about it, and remembered the bated traps I'd set out a few weeks ago when I thought I heard something scratching at the insulation on the air-conditioning ducting under the house. Perhaps it'd been trapped, then escaped, its spine injured. And, being a rat, it might be a source for fleas -- bubonic plague immediately came to mind -- and other parasites and diseases. I could't leave it there, and felt obliged to "put it out of its misery."

"They shoot horses," I told Mochi. "Don't they?"

We stood there staring at the thing, making its repetitive movements. You could almost hear the bones in its neck grating against one another.

We walked off, to the tool shed alongside the garage, and I got a flat, drain spade I'd used to put in the gutter drainage system. My intention was to use it to shovel out the thing from beneath the bush, put it on the lawn, and -- there is no delicate way to say it -- bash its brains out.

I slid the shovel under it, and was moving toward the lawn when I noticed two things. First, each time the rat raised its head, or scratched at the air, I could feel a rhythmic vibration in the shovel, almost as if there were a wind-up toy in the shovel, its spring running the gears down. Odder yet, each time it extended its claws and scratched, something glittered along its side; something metallic.

I laid the shovel on the lawn, with the rat on it, and Mochi immediately took to barking, one sharp Arf! Arf! Arf! after another; what I call her puppy bark because it's so high-pitched.

"Quiet," I told her, but she ignored me.

I bent over to look at the rat. It was still making insectile movements, but I could not concentrate for Mochi's barking. I turned to her.

"Quiet!"

She stopped and looked at me the way she does when she thinks I'm being foolish; that I don't understand something.

"Stay!" I told her, also making the hand gesture for that command. I turned to leave her motionless, staring at me, and bent over to look at the rat.

There was an opening on the rat's side, exposing a glistening dark red, almost black mass with several long, bone-white strands ganged together just beneath the opening. Each time the rat arched its head back, the strands seem to pull -- move backwards.

I know enough about anatomy, and frankly, have gutted enough fish and small game to know what tendons and ligaments and bone looks like, and these strands did not look like that. They looked more like plastic. As disturbing, the closer I got to the rat, the more I thought I heard the sound of servomotors: motors that use position feedback to control motion and position. Or, maybe it was the whir of tiny gears. As the rat's head jerked repeatedly, I though I heard the sound of gears slipping, like when one gear's been pushed out of position and angles against another, never quite meshing properly.

Mochi quietly came up behind he, fixing her eyes toward the same place as mine. I thought I heard a whir-click, whir-click, whir, then click, click, click and everything stopped. The rat no longer moved. Mochi stepped back, pulling her head backward, still staring at the rat. We both stared at the thing on the shovel; motionless, all.

In a way I was relieved that I wouldn't have to beat the thing to death, but it was disturbing nonetheless. I looked closer. The ivory-like "strings" were still visible, but they were not moving. I picked up the stick I'd used to prod the rat, and used it to press gently against the strings. They felt hard. I moved one along its length, then quickly dropped the stick as the rat's head slowly arched. I waited a few moments, then, picking up the stick again, moved the string in the opposite direction. The head nodded back down. I moved the string back and forth and the rat's head nodded up and down, eagerly affirming ... What?

Mochi had by this time backed up several yards. I turned to her. "What do you think?"

She barked once.
I stood up, and walked into the garage.

As my neighbor's Mercedes is uncommonly clean, so is my garage. Simple white cabinets line the walls, and atop the cabinets are neatly placed boxes that at one time contained nearly everything I own: stereo components, computers, ... anything that comes in a box. The idea is that if I ever move, or get rid of an item, I'll be able to re-box it as it came, making a neat package for easy transportation and storage. Just then, I saw the box that once housed a Bose Bluetooth wireless speaker that was just about the same size as the rat.

When I emptied the shovel into the opened box, and the rat began to slide into it, it seemed the rat was rigid, like a statue; what they call rigor mortis. In humans, I've learned from TV, this starts between three and twelve hours of death, and continues for two to two and half days.

This did not make sense. The rat was alive -- or, so I supposed -- only a few moments ago. But, then, it was a rat, not a human. Perhaps rat rigor mortis was different.

Dr. Larsen -- Carol Larsen -- has been Mochi's vet since she was a puppy. Not only does she have the unique veterinarian ability to interrogate her patients without saying a word, but she's smart as a whip. In fact, while I have what they call a "primary physician," it's Dr. Larsen I go to first with any health questions. She knows what's worrisome, and what's not.

But first, my fastidious brain told me, I needed to seal up the box with the rat in it -- to prevent any fleas, or what have you from jumping ship, as it were. I closed the box, and taped all the seams, then wrapped Seran wrap around it, and put the package into a plastic garbage bag. For good measure, I put that into another plastic garbage bag, and tied it closed.

"Com'on, Moch," I said, standing by my car, palms up, my arms forming a shelf. Mochi jumped up, knowing I would catch her. I put her in the front passenger seat, and she sat, her head just high enough to look out the window. I gingerly picked up the bag with the doubly, triply, quadruply packaged dead rat in it, and put it in the trunk.

We drove to Dr. Larsen's office.

It was empty: no receptionist; no veterinarian assistants; no other animals and their owners. Even the cages in the reception area that usually housed kittens looking for a good home were empty. 

"Hello?"

There was a small bell, like the ones they have on hotel front desks. I rang it. The "ding" echoed. I rang it again. I looked down the hall where the examining room doors were.

"Maybe they're not open," I turned to tell Mochi, who'd lain down on the scales. 30.1 pounds, I noted. She looked over my shoulder.

"Hello," Dr. Larsen said from behind me. I turned.! "Are you closed?"

"No," Dr. Larsen wrinkled her forehead, "But, we might as well be. I'm the only one here." She looked directly into my eyes.

Dr. Larsen is a big woman, graying blond, middle-aged, close to six feet tall, and well over 200 pounds. She has a toughness that reflects her early life on a horse ranch in Montana, and a love of big animal veterinary. The cats, dogs, birds, and occasional reptiles and such she sees on a daily basis, eke out just enough money to pay for the facilities and staff, so she can do what she loves: Dressage; "Horse Ballet."

"What's in the bag?"
"Oh!" I'd forgotten I was carrying it. "A rat."
She raised her eyebrows. "Dead?"
I looked at the bag and thought about it. "Pretty much."
"It's not a multiple choice question," she said, her eyes squinting.
"Yes," I looked at her. "It's dead." I looked at the bag and wanted to say, I think.

Just then Mochi came over, her tail wagging. She stood in front of Dr. Larsen and looked up. Dr. Larsen's voice hitched up an octave or two. "You want a cookie?" She reached one hand into her pants pocket.

Mochi sat down, but still looked up at the vet.

"You want a cookie?"

You could imagine Mochi was nodding her head.

Dr. Larsen retrieved some beef jerky and tore off a few pieces, letting Mochi eat them out of her hand while she talked to me.

"Your trash can's full, and you want to use mine?" she said to me, still feeding Mochi.! "No." I looked at the bag. "I want you to look at the thing. It's strange."
Dr. Larsen raised both eyebrows in an amused expression.
"I think it has some mechanical parts--"

"Mechanical parts?" She looked at the bag. "Like prosthetics?" Her eyes narrowed again. "Like, maybe it's someone's pet."

"No," I said, feeling increasingly silly. "Like," I looked up at her. "Like, it's mechanical; not real."

"Where'd you buy it?"! "Huh?"
"The mechanical rat ... toy."

We stared at each other, Dr. Larsen tearing off more jerky for Mochi, looking down now and then to smile at her. When Mochi was finished, Dr. Larsen turned and walked toward the examining rooms.

"Let's take a look at it."
Mochi turned to look at me, then followed Dr. Larsen into the room, as did I.

I put the bag on the stainless steel examining table, and started untying the knot on the outer bag. Dr. Larsen put on some examining gloves, and Mochi settled along a wall, watching.

"Nothing's going to jump out?" she asked.

"I don't think so," I said. Dr. Larsen pulled her mouth to one side, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"How long's it been dead?"
"I don't think more than an hour, or so ... Just the time it took us to pick it up--"! "You touched it?"
"Not with my hands."

She nodded approval. I brought out the inner bag, then laid the Seran-wrapped, taped box on the examining table. Dr. Larsen took the now empty bags and pushed them into a biohazard container.

"Why does it have tape on it," she looked at me, "If it's dead ..."
"I was thinking that maybe fleas and things would be hopping off it if--"

 "If? Again?"

She shook her head, then turned to the drawers behind her and assembled a surgical blade onto a holder, and began to carefully slice through the tape where it covered the seams of the box.

"It was frozen," I offered. "Like, it had rigor mortis."

"Rigor mortis doesn't start for three or four hours after death, then takes as many as twelve hours to fully set in." She looked up, as though she were operating on a patient. "If whatever's in this box just died within the last hour or so, there'll be no rigor mortis."

"That's what I thought, but it got all stiff, as soon as it stopped moving."

She gave me another perplexed look, then looked down as the box's flap popped open. She used the scalpel to gently lift the flap a little.

"Well, no critters jumping out." She raised the flap until she could get a full view of the rat. "Rattus norvegicus," she said. “The Norway, or common Brown Rat." She gently prodded the thing with her scalpel. "Looks dead enough." She opened the flap. "Small ears, slanted nose, tail shorter than its body ..." She nodded her head. "Brown rat." She looked at me.

"On the other side is a large wound."

She inverted her lips, and exhaled loudly through her nose, then reached into the box with her gloved hands, and brought the rat out, turning it over and laying it on the examining table.

"See?" I pointed. "Here. These ivory-colored things."

Dr. Larsen fished out her glasses from a pocket of her lab coat, put them on and bent close to the rat. She tapped the "strings" with her scalpel."

"They move," I started putting my finger on one.

"Don't touch it!" She turned to the drawers again, retrieving a pair of forceps. She pulled gently on one of the strings. The rat's head arched back. She let loose and its head nodded back.

"Oh, this is strange!" she whispered.

Just then, Mochi got up and walked to the examining table. She looked up, making a chuffing sound -- "Huff. Huff. Huff." -- like she was clearing her throat.

"Even Mochi doesn't like it," I said.

Dr. Larsen made a small cut in the skin just behind the rat's head, then stuck her finger under the skin and folded it back to reveal what should have been the spine where it attaches to the skull, but was in fact a delicately tooled series of discs with tiny wires running from one to the other. Dr. Larsen pushed against it and we both stepped back from the table when it made a click-click-click-click sound -- like, an automobile alternator sounds when the battery is dead.

"That's it," Dr. Larsen said, quickly placing the rat back into the box. She found a Scotch tape dispenser and began taping the box closed.

"What is it?" I asked.
"I don't know," she said, wrapping tape around the box. "It looks like a rat, but it isn't a rat."

Mochi curled up onto a chair in the examining room, and looked at us. We both returned her gaze.

"What do you think, Mochi?" Dr. Larsen said. "Is it rat, or ... not rat?"

There was a moment when we actually waited for an answer, then laughed nervously when there was none.

"Definitely not rat," I said.

"Who else knows about this?"

I didn't answer, just continued staring at the taped box.

"The rat." Dr. Larsen seemed impatient. "Who besides you and Mochi know about the rat.”

"That's it," I said. There was a long moment when Dr. Larsen and Mochi both stared at me.

"Why don't you show him?"

"What?" I said, looking up at Dr. Larsen.

"Why don't you show him?"

Was she talking under her breath, like a ventriloquist? I could't see Dr. Larsen's lips move, and her question made no sense.

"Why don't you show him?"

Dr. Larsen looked at Mochi, and I followed her gaze. Mochi was standing close to the table again, her mouth open in what always looks like a smile, panting.

"Why don't you show him, Dr. Larsen?"

I looked at her -- Dr. Larsen -- and she was still staring at Mochi. When I looked at Mochi, she -- Mochi -- said, "What difference does it make?"

I laughed for a moment, thinking Dr. Larsen was throwing her voice. But, no.

Mochi panted, then stopped panting, and said, "All the rats are mechanical, now."

"And, all the people," Dr. Larsen said. "And the cats, and horses--"

"How are you doing this?" I asked her.

"We live in amazing times," Dr. Larsen said.

"What was once scarcely imaginable," Mochi stopped panting to say, "Is now common."

"Since when?" I asked.

"Since for a very long time," Mochi said. "A little bit at a time."

"People scarcely noticed," Dr. Larsen said. "First the little things--"

"Like insects, and cats," Mochi added, seeming to smile. "Then the bigger ones ..."

"Like horses," Dr. Larsen added.

I stared at Dr. Larsen. She pulled up the sleeve of her lab coat, extending her wrist. With her other hand, she took the scalpel and quickly inscribed a bloody incision around her wrist.

"Wait!" I reached out to stop her, but she just moved back, pulling the skin away at the incision as she'd done with the rat -- as though she was taking off a pair of gloves. On the inside of her wrist were ivory-colored "strings" like the ones I'd seen in the rat. She flexed her fingers and I saw the plastic rods moving back and forth.

"Just like meat-tendons," Dr. Larsen said.

"Except, they last almost forever," Mochi added.

"And I," I looked from one to the other, "I'm the only human -- the only meat-human left?"

"Hahaha!" Mochi laughed. Dr. Larsen smiled.

"Why's that funny?"

Dr. Larsen grabbed my wrist, and pulled me toward her.

"Leave me alone!" I tried to push Dr. Larsen's hand away, but her grip was literally like steel. She brought the scalpel to my wrist.

"No!"
"Don't worry," Mochi said. "It won't hurt."

And it didn't. When Dr. Larsen pulled the skin back, I could see the ivory-colored strings move back and forth as I flexed my fingers.

"BFF?" Mochi asked.
My expression must have been peculiar, because both she and Dr. Larsen laughed.! "BFF," they said in unison.