Dove but Raven
This was from a flash fiction prompt of the following:
What I want this week is something involving Zoology or Conservation. The bizarre interactions (well intentioned and otherwise) and attempts to understand our fellow earthlings, and vice versa. This can be basically whatever you like, from Watership Down humans-as-death-gods to Steve Irwin hassling a rattlesnake for the greater good (???). You're not required to include actual humans or animals in your piece, this is about the friction between the two worlds, so elegiac pieces about animals exploring human ruins are a-ok. Like go nuts with the premise they don't have to be real animals, someone just has to be trying to understand or help them (or vice versa).
I took the flash challenge, which was to receive a picture of the prompt-giver’s cat, Peep. Peep is a good cat, and “a cat of many faces”. Whatever emotion I read on his face from that photo was to be my inspiration. I received this from the prompt-giver:
Needless to say, I saw the kernel of my story staring back at me from that face.
“Dove?”
“That’s correct,” Bengston sighed and cast his eyes downward. This was a good spot for a show of contrition. “It’s–it’s a common practice. Shorthand for us when working with the lab animals…” he trailed off with hints of shame.
“Why ‘Dove’? Are actual doves used?” the man turned to his counterparts, who wouldn’t know any better. They didn’t use doves.
“Honestly I don’t recall; someone on the team coined it and it stuck. Most research leaves it out in their reporting, but naming creatures is common. It comes from different places. Inside jokes, the creature’s personality, or the assignments they receive in the lab” This was a good spot for a show of transparency, so he added, “We included the name here because we really do view this as a partnership, and did not put those reports through the normal editing rounds…” Another man held a hand up in a patient show of cutting him off.
“Dr Bengston, we appreciate your candor, but we’re just trying to understand things here. Last quarter, the report about this raven stirred considerable excitement about the progress made by your part in this project.”
“Thank you, sir.” Bengston’s expertise on corvids, ravens in particular, was a career path that guaranteed you’ll always live with a roommate, but this project was a game changer. On top of that, he had near full autonomy over his lab conditions.
“So what happened to cause such a halt when things seemed so promising?”
“Well, some elements of this project are, as we call it, non-deterministic. We know all the inputs and the expected changes we’ll see, but…” he continued on, giving the boardroom some boilerplate scientist jargon to explain away the halt in progress. Dolphins, canines, octopi, ravens, and a number of others were all selected as part of this grant portfolio. His PhD thesis was on brain development of corvids, and a combination of medical treatment and environmental stimuli to expand centers of their brain most analogous to the prefrontal cortex of mammals. Combined with other technology, and of course the money to make this happen, it was the stuff of dreams to a biologist like him.
* * * * *
After the meeting he made his way across town back to his lab. He’d bought some more time before anyone got too nosy, and had a plan on how to fix things.
Dove the Raven looked impatient in his enclosure. As soon as he saw Dr Bengston he hopped off his perch and went to the custom kiosk they had rigged up in his cage.
When female.
He punched in a response. No female here, Dove. We can put you in a habitat with others. The translator quickly converted ‘habitat’ into ‘home’ as it converted his natural english into a trimmed verbal format that would further be translated out into symbols, images and interactive sounds for Dove to read. No female. Bengston put Dove new home. Female there. Male there. Close enough. He confirmed his message to Dove, who stared at the display, pecking softly to hear the sounds of a mixed group of ravens that went along with pictures of the same.
When online.
A stress response flashed through him. Only he knew so far. In addition to a translator feature, Dove was given an app with limited access to wikipedia and other curated site experiences. It felt important to give the creatures the ability to learn in a self-directed way.
No online.
Dove need online.
Flustered, he left the terminal to begin packing around the lab. Dove was an unmitigated success, but the problem with that expression was people’s imaginations were limited when it came to what unmitigated might mean. Dr Bengston had solid proof the treatments worked, the whole experiment worked, but Dove and their constraints around this experiment had breached far too much for him to let it see the light of day and still keep his career. He could fix it. Have a conversation with IT, a few other things on his side, and it’s done.
He returned to the terminal briefly to give a response. We fix online. Online but for Dove.
Dove but raven.
It was a firewall that was supposed to keep him in, or something. Bengston really didn’t understand that stuff. That was IT’s job. Instead, all that guy did was give him assurances and give Dove a full connection to the internet with guard-rails similar to parental controls. Bengston couldn’t break out of it in the demo, though one of the techs did but the IT guy explained it away as impossible without expert knowledge and gave all confidences about the raven being incapable of it.
The bird had not only broken out to the full internet, but with all his unmonitored hours he learned how to get around at an alarming rate. He learned his name was for another type of bird, he learned he was a raven. He had found and bookmarked many of pictures of ravens online, mostly female.
He’d created an email address, he had registered accounts all over the place with the name “Dovebutraven”. It was also his password. Dr Bengtston found he knew how to post, browsing reddit for pictures of nuts, berries, roadkill, trees, and other ravens. He had posted comments on them with things like Good. Bad. Dove fuck or Dove hate you, for pictures of female and male ravens respectively, and so on. For months.
Sometimes his comments got responses. Dove was unrelenting and cruel in his replies. Dove take your eyes, Dove kill your babies. Eat fuck. He gained a small following. People who liked his style and egged him on whenever he got into it with another poster.
He was almost finished packing and was ready for the bird when he saw a prompt Dove had left.
When online.
Dr Bengston tried responding in different words when Dove assaulted the touchscreen with a series of violent thwacks of input. A sharp flutter of wings brought the bird atop the kiosk where he quickly expelled his waste all over the glass display. He jumped back down and pressed his own send button in a smooth motion that didn’t delay his journey to the other side of the enclosure. His back was turned to the screen, which read:
Bengston bad. lol fuck
It felt so natural, so right, to give Dove a range of expressions when they first had their breakthrough, including strong ones. Every animal has the right to say ‘fuck’ in this world.
* * * * *
The mountains were about a 2 hour drive away. Ravens were sparse there but not unheard of. Dr Bengston drove carefully, his hatchback held the raven and a few other items to conceal the cage from outside viewers.
“I’m sorry friend. I’m so, so sorry buddy.” He reached behind him and offered a pair of fingers through the cage but the bird ignored him.
His first plan was to release Dove into the wild, but as he drove he understood there was a darker plan operating his thoughts and actions underneath it all. He would return home and get a new Raven, he had a few contacts who would provide for him without raising suspicions, and if he hurried, and had the right story, that new raven would be ready to replace Dove to the rest of the world and he could put this project back on the rails.
He thought he would just release him, but his subconscious spoke up in the stillness of that drive: For that to be guaranteed, Dove could not be found again.
Once up in the forest he turned to a dirt road, and kept driving until he found what seemed the best suitable location he could hope to do this.
He had removed Dove’s tags before getting him in the cage at the lab. Now all was needed was one strong twist to end the raven and leave the carcass for scavengers. He hated himself for this, but he could deal with that later. There was so much to do back home. This had to be over quickly.
With one last glance to make sure nobody was around, he pulled the cage out of his car and set it on the ground. Dove was used to being handled, but Bengston put on a pair of falconry gloves just in case. As he did so he heard a commotion.
Dove struck and pulled at the simple bars. The cage door folded open and a large black beak emerged.
“Dove! No!”
It was too late. He raced to the cage with only one glove halfway on. The raven slipped through the opening and scampered on the soil for a moment. He leapt for a tackle but Dove was already airborne.
He watched, belly on the ground, as Dove flew away and upward and disappeared among the pinetop canopy.
