nexus_crossings | Foundlings are a Dog Tradition.

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Foundlings are a Dog Tradition.

Damien hadn't been to the Nexus in quite a long time. Between a job in one universe, and everything in his own, there was no time. There wasn't much time for anything. This place was quiet and he got a coffee and started to walk the plaza to clear his mind. He'd lost track of time quickly and where he was walking though he could still hear the plaza very clearly.

The noise of people was drowned out by a pitiful sound of squeaking, or growling, maybe it was both. The Dogs had cared for the animals in all the abandoned zoos of Hunger City long ago. To this day they all kept animals, many were the descendants of those first animals. Damien knew a lot of animal sounds but this was not familiar but more importantly the sounds reminded him of pain.

He followed the sound to a mottled bird? It looked sort of like a bird but with teeth and the size of a medium dog. He could see it was hurt and squatted down to check on it. The snapping didn't anger him at all.

"Shhh.. little one." Damien whispered and gently pressed the head away while looking over the injury. It looked bad on the downy feathers but underneath looked superficial. Watching the the teeth he dug out a cream he carried that numbed pain and disinfected wounds. The bird was watching now, sniffing at the cream on his hand before he gently dabbed it on the cuts down the side and thigh. It twitched away and Damien frowned because he didn't like seeing pain despite what his jobs had always been.

"There." Damien stepped away while wiping off his hand. He froze when he heard a snorting little sound and looked back to see the bird hobbling up on its feet toward him. Damien watched it limp over and sit heavily against his calf.

"Alright." He sighed at it like a child begging to be carried. This time there was no biting as he picked it up and cradled it in his arms. The bird was surprisingly light and felt skinny under the fluffy downy feathers. Well, he had another foundling. It wouldn't be his first human or animal in the past few years. After a few minutes he was back in the plaza and worried about just how skinny the animal in his arms felt.

The first person he could approach was going to get the question at the forefront of his mind. "Do you know what bird this is?"

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The Dog nodded. "Tom insisted I needed a vacation. I haven't seen you around the tour."

Which Damien just chalked up to work in his homework needing his attention.

The words went right over his head. Though Damien had seen dinosaurs, especially in some of Zack's comics, he wasn't overly familiar with them. Certainly not enough to understand most of the words. Extinction he understood. Things were going extinct in his home quickly, including humans in some ways.

"Outside the Plaza." He moved his hand to show the blood there but the wounds were no longer bleeding nor deep enough to need more medical attention than being kept clean. "I didn't see any others."

"I admit my knowledge on prehistoric fauna is limited. I do not know whether this sort of animal hunted in packs or in relative isolation. But it did hunt. This is clearly a carnivorous predator."

The size, he recalled, varied. In his world, they were substantially smaller than similar species found in Ian Malcom's world. But the way this one quickly took to Damien suggested it was young. Isamu had good reason to assume this one might still have a lot of growing to do.

"And it did not receive its wounds here."

Not with the anti-violence field to contend with.

Damien agreed. "Yes, it has big claws." They looked disproportionately large for the body size.

He could only shrug. "Animals can hunt here." But he hadn't seen any others of the species around. It was unlikely something this small would wander far from a parent, unless the parent had been killed fending something off

"Unless it picked on something far larger and more dangerous than it could reasonably consume - which is still possible, since the young of any species rarely act with an adult's intellect or skill - it was probably being hunted by something larger instead. Which, if you did not encounter, suggests it likely managed to escape into the Nexus by accident."

At least, that was the theory Isamu was proposing for how it got here.

"I would call that lucky."

Which, if true, would make a damn good name for the creature too.

"It was in the weeds." So, Damien surmised maybe it was hiding.

"I'm lucky it didn't bite me." It had tried once and then seemed ok with his presence. It would make a good name if it stayed. Didn't birds imprint on people?

"I should go somewhere and feed it." That was an open invitation for Isamu to join him for whatever meal it was time for. Truth was he'd lost track of the time of the day hours ago.

"It certainly seems to have taken a liking to you." Isamu observed.

He was no paleontologist or biologist. But biochemically speaking, the critical period for filial imprinting typically only lasted thirty two hours. Had this creature just hatched? He doubted it, but he could be wrong.

"I suppose any kind of meat would do. Even eggs or carrion." he added as he gestured toward one of the burger joints nearby.

Damien finally crack a small smile. It was one of the first in a long time. "I raise the young back in Hunger City."

He didn't just mean the kids either, but also the foals and puppies. Maybe he had a knack for this or just young things liked him. Who knew? Damien wondered if it was bred into him because his destiny for the breeding program in the Ministry. That wasn't for now though.

"Steaks?" Damien was fond of the steakhouse here. It also seemed like the place where asking for a slab of raw meat might not be overly strange.

"That should do nicely, yes." He was fairly certain that the restaurants around the plaza had served so many different species over the years that they would hardly bat an eye to such a request.

"Speaking of the young, how are Jack and the kids doing these days?" He asked, making pleasant conversation as they went.

He walked beside Damien, but not within what he perceived to be snapping distance.

Damien started toward the restaurant while they spoke.

"They are doing well." Damien slowed and then stopped. "We liberated someone... you might want to meet."

Maybe Isamu could talk to Fox and snap him out of what was going on in his head. Maybe it would make it worse but it was worth a try.

"That I might want to meet?" That caught Isamu's attention, enough that he felt it needed repeating. "In what capacity, may I ask?"

Damien, after all, provided him with data on the Ministry's breeding program once, as it related to his own DNA. Was this someone else to run analysis on? Were there specific Anthean traits being isolated?

Heaven forbid this be another version of someone they already knew. Minoru told him recently about accidentally pulling one of the new Kuro band members into the Nexux right as Kuro tribesmen from an alternate universe were being rushed into the hospital. So the topic of alternate versions and research surrounding the phenomenon were on his mind lately.

Damien stepped in and asked for a table for three that had extra space around it. "I found another person from my breeding program on a raid."

Damien took a deep breath and followed the waitress to a table. "He's not adjusting well." Which meant he was adjusting more poorly that Damien had at first, and that wasn't an easy transition.

Thar caused Isamu to raise an eyebrow. "And you believe, out of all the resources available to you, I could be of the most assistance in this matter?"

Him? The one who nearly single-handedly got an entire species to break off ties with human scientists? The one who Ziggy blatantly accused of being as dangerous as the Ministry scientists themselves?

"I don't know." Damien admitted. Despite a lot of the other things Damien, at least, trusted Isamu to be honest and look at wider pictures without as much emotion. He might say things he shouldn't but he wouldn't hide them and sometimes that was a better angle.

"He went through worse than I did." Damien thought that way, maybe because Dominic had endured the Ministry longer. "He wasn't an enforcer like me. I think he was more like you before they scrambled his brain trying to rewrite him."

"By that, you mean he may have been one of their scientists?" Isamu questioned further.

Damien could only shrug. "He was bred in the program and remembers working in the labs and... the Ministry forcing him into other tasks but he hasn't said much."

There was a lot Damien didn't know and it would take time. At the same time, the constant fear and stress was not doing Dominic any favors.

Isamu knew of those, like Damien, who were bred with Anthean traits to be, as he put it, Enforcers. He also knew the fate of the actual Antheans held in their labs. But he was not aware of those bred for laboratory work specifically, who might actually feel more comfortable there than anywhere else.

"I see." Isamu mused aloud. "I suppose what I should be asking is, are you simply looking for someone who can relate to him or are you turning to me to research a more practical answer to neurological deprogramming?"

His grant hadn't ended yet, so he still had access to everything at IRIS. While Minoru was on tour, Isamu had split his time between trying to wrap up about a half-dozen papers and preparing an adequate resume.

"Both?" Damien answered tentatively. "I'm not sure he's ready to talk about what was happening."

Damien was having a rough time dealing with it because it was bringing up a lot of his past that he tried to bury. "I rescued two on the same day and it's.. a lot."

A lot was an understatement. Just being in those facilities was enough to send him spiraling, let along finding someone that was too close to looking in a mirror.

His mind went to the research angle first, as it typically did.

"Most of my research involving Ministry data, at least up until this point, has involved isolating Anthean sequences of DNA in otherwise human subjects and determining the traits related to those additions on a biochemical level. I have not yet extrapolated how the environment imposed by the Ministry may or may not aid in the expression of those genetic characteristics or on brain function as a whole." He replied. "Though, given the unfortunate popularity of various mind control techniques, there is likely a tremendous amount of data on the general subject in IRIS databases. And not solely from a psychological standpoint either. Of course, any additional data you have would be appreciated..."

Isamu paused. He was getting ahead of himself, like he always did.

He visibly sunk back as he attempted to curb his curiosity.

"If you are ready to talk about it, I mean..."

Damien listened and bit his lip, frowning slightly. "I was hoping you would treat him like a fellow scientist, not a data set."

Damien didn't want to argue and knew that comment might cause it so added. "I have had years to come to terms with everything. He was still in the facility only three weeks ago."

Damien shook his head. "I wouldn't have been ready for all the data that soon after escape, and I came out with my memories intact."

"And I was hoping you would be clear on what you are requesting of me." Isamu replied calmly, but firmly. "I do not currently possess a level of practical knowledge on neurological deprogramming techniques that would benefit anyone you have rescued. Not without further research. His role in that research has really not been specified."

Which meant Isamu could have been thinking of him as an assistant as well as a subject. (He was supposed to benefit from the research, after all. Wasn't that what Damien was asking for?)

"Or did you mean to hypothesize that any collaboration between us in general may be enough to deprogram and rehabilitate in its own right?"

Damien wanted to facepalm and stared at Isamu. "You're overcomplicating this."

Though his exterior looked calm, the little raptor looked up and trill. It could sense its new parent was stressed and wondered why. Damien took a moment to collect his thoughts before saying anything more. This wasn't the easiest topic for him either he was finding out.

"Is this how you treat everyone when someone says, "Hey I want to introduce you to someone I think you will get along with?" or are you treating this introduction different because he is like me?" Damien wanted to stop this line of thinking because Dominic would have a meltdown over some of this talk. Damien looked down at the little raptor, stroking her gently and shook his head. "I don't think you have the experience to understand, and that's good."

It wasn't that Damien wouldn't do his best to explain but how could anyone understand something like this without living it or at least living through it with someone.

"If he is both a recent refugee and former Ministry scientist, I would postulate things are already complicated." Isamu noted. "But in many ways, yes. To both options."

He did overanalyze potential acquaintances, sometimes with less empathy than he should. He also had particular interest in much of the data Damien provided when no one else would.

There were reasons no one else would...

"For what it is worth, however, I may only be able to assist with any sort of research component much longer." He added. "My grant with IRIS will be ending soon. I am debating whether to reapply."

"I understand more how you get under the Anthean's skin." Damien was used to this kind of talk. The Ministry often work on those principles and when push came to shove, sometimes the Dogs did too.

"I don't need research." Damien shook his head and laughed cynically. He was a walking experiment, so was Dominic. Their whole lives were research projects at the core. More research probably wasn't the answer. "Do you want to understand?"

"If by understanding, you mean another trip into Hunger City, once was quite enough for one lifetime."

He still couldn't fathom how Minoru went there to train, and did it willingly.

"No, that wouldn't help." Damien didn't want anyone afraid in Hunger City anyway. It was dangerous when someone was there afraid. Dangerous for everyone, especially when they didn't need to be there.

"I can explain what he might be experiencing." Even he had to shrug though. "I don't know all of it. They didn't manage to write any new memories on me."

"I think I need beer." And Damien did order a whole pitcher of beer to go with his raw steak. He rarely drank but right now, he was going to.

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