Book 1: Call Me Nanuq
Striking Back

"No free man shall be taken, imprisoned, or in any other way destroyed, except by the lawful judgment of his peers."—The Magna Carta

September 5, 2031

Luke Brewer was not having a good day.

He was beginning to have second thoughts about coming to school at the center of the theri debate—already he’d received three death threats, four pledges of support, and two terribly-written anti-theri tirades that lost their sting once Luke sent them back carefully proofread.

And that was just his primary emailbox.

To add to it, a couple of his professors felt open disdain for him—he could see it in their eyes, and even smell it on them.  They took petty shots at him during lectures—particularly current events—and occasionally he would find points taken off his assignments even when he’d done the work correctly.  He was dealing with it—he’d taken his complaints to the administration—and several groups of students planned to stage walkouts in protest.

And that wasn’t the worst of it—the worst of it was that each day he found himself in almost constant arguments with people.

It would stabilize in time, he knew—it was only the beginning of the semester, and thus a lot of students were just plain still getting used to each other—but in the meantime, things were…difficult.

But he’d get through it.

He had to.

The long-term benefits outweighed the short-term cost.

And most things were good.  An associate of his had a spot on the Scribe, the campus newspaper, which was at least sympathetic to TAPT.

Also, TAPT’s search for a base of operations was bearing fruit—a software company that had gone bust during the Tech Wars of the 2020s had an old headquarters on the edge of town.  It wasn’t perfect, but it would more than serve their purposes.  And with donations at an all-time high, and the organization bringing in plenty of revenue from merchandise…

And he had a day reserved for a trip to Sanctuary—if not later this month, then sometime in early October.

Luke smiled.

Maybe today isn’t so good—but as TJ says, though this may not be the best of all possible worlds…it could sure be a lot worse.

Mal decided he liked life at the Air Force Academy.

The people here were pleasant, kind, courteous, and lived by a basic code—We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does, as the official code went—and he was sure he’d fit in just fine.

He even liked the way he looked in his uniform—he felt fresh, like he was starting anew.  They’d put him in the Fourth Cadet Group, Squadron Forty—the Warhawks.

He was still surprised he’d made it in—usually you needed a recommendation from a member of Congress, but apparently James and Richard had been as good as their word, and had gotten him nominated, and past all the paperwork and red tape.  Apparently he’d impressed them on his own merit as well.

He’d finished out the six-week Basic Cadet Training program, otherwise known as BCT, and thus he wore the shoulder-board of a fourth-class cadet.  He had thus far taken scrupulous care of his uniform, and had he not been told to, he would have hesitated to wear it on anything but a special occasion.

As it was, he barely recognized himself.

The academic program had been diversified over the years, and so he was going for a Bachelor of Science degree in History, Technology, and Society.  Once the program was over, he’d be a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force—since he was, after all, planning on continuing into the service itself.

Mal’s discovery of his theri form had only cemented his love of flying.

As Leonardo da Vinci had put it, “When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”

Mal had never understood that until he’d taken to the sky with his own wings.

He practically ached for the sky even now as he jogged through the Air Gardens, passing the Eagle and Fledglings statue at the south end.

But he fought the urge down.  It wouldn’t do to transform right here in public, out where everyone could see him.

With a shrug and a sigh, he turned back toward the building.

He had homework to do.

Nanuq usually didn’t yell.  He hated yelling.  People sometimes came close to driving him over the edge—the smaller furries at their most hyper, for instance—but he was usually able to escape the situation before he was driven that far.

This was not one of those times.

“WHAT?!” he demanded, yelling loudly enough that the ferals probably heard it.

By the time he’d returned from explaining things to Richard, James was in at least a somewhat better mood, and quickly explained to Nanuq and the others what was happening to the portion of the Pack currently interned at “Camp Sicko”.

None of them had taken the news well.

They finally knew what the facility in Montana had been in a former life—a maximum-security prison facility for troublesome prisoners.  The only thing keeping the facility from being considered cruel and unusual punishment—as close to sensory deprivation as you could get—was the amenities such as (closely monitored) net usage, among other things.

But there was an option to take said amenities away if the prisoners became out-of-control.

And with the excuse of not wanting to risk damage to the computers and other equipment, they had done just that in the rooms.

And had not returned them.

“That’s cruel and unusual punishment,” Nanuq said.  “Unconstitutional.”

“We know,” James said.  “Richard said that it came close to that.”

“Oh, it’s more than close,” Nanuq said, hustling upstairs for his law texts.  He quickly returned with a thick book.  “Look.  Here—it’s right here in the Bill of Rights: ‘Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.’  Eighth Amendment.”

“How do you decide what’s cruel and unusual?” James asked.

“They figured that out in Furman v. Georgia, a Supreme Court case back in 1972—it ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty.”  He flipped to another page.  “Here we go.  Justice William Joseph Brennan, Jr. wrote, ‘There are, then, four principles by which we may determine whether a particular punishment is “cruel and unusual”.’  And there’s a list.  The ‘essential predicate’ is ‘that a punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity’, especially torture.”

“Which sensory deprivation qualifies as.”

“Yes, under the Fifth Geneva Convention of 2011.  Also, ‘A severe punishment that is obviously inflicted in wholly arbitrary fashion.’  That also qualifies here.  ‘A severe punishment that is clearly and totally rejected throughout society.’  Well, okay, I’m not sure this qualifies, but it’s been judged as illegal.  ‘A severe punishment that is patently unnecessary.’”

“Damn right, it’s unnecessary,” James growled.

Nanuq slammed his book shut, then took a deep breath.  “It’s okay, James.  We can fix this.”

“How?”

“What did Richard say?”

“To give him a day,” James replied.  “And in the meantime, he’d try to ‘give them a little something to keep their lives interesting’.”

Nanuq nodded slowly.  Then he smiled.  “How about I speed things up a bit?”

James lifted an eyebrow.  “I’m all ears.”

Having checked through numerous law texts and having scoured the nets for relevant Supreme Court cases, Nanuq now sat on the couch with his research spread over the coffee table in front of him.

“Are we ready?” he asked Beowulf, who was working on the webcam.

“Almost,” Beowulf said.  “I’d take the time to make sure I had my stuff together.”

Nanuq nodded, and did so.

It had taken a lot of hurried research, and some contact with his contacts at the community college, who had access to whatever he didn’t.  There had been much use of the school’s scanners and Nanuq had printouts copied from numerous books laid out with his own research.

He took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself.

Beowulf made a small throat-clearing sound, causing Nanuq to look over at him.

Beowulf held up a small mirror, which Nanuq took from him.

It took Nanuq a moment to notice that the hair on his temples was white.

He closed his eyes, willing himself back to normal.

His hope for this webcast was that if the government wouldn’t pay attention to him, they might listen to the vox populi instead—and that meant addressing America directly.

Thus restored, he locked his gaze on the small red light atop the webcam.  He was told that this tended to give the viewer the impression that you were looking right at them.

“Going hot in five, four,” Beowulf started, then making hand-signs for the remaining numbers before…

“Good evening,” Nanuq said, his expression grim as he addressed the world at large.  “I know that there hasn’t been a new webcast in a while, and that this is kind of short notice, but…well, we just found out about this today.”  He paused.  “Maybe I should explain—I come before you under grave circumstances.

“No doubt,” he continued, “you are aware of the current outbreak of a strange sickness affecting theri and non-theri alike, and that many of those infected here at Sanctuary are undergoing treatment elsewhere.”  He sighed.  “Well, I can tell you what’s going on, and it’s not treatment.”

He glanced briefly down at his notes before continuing.

“In a former life, the facility we call ‘Camp Sicko’ was a facility for holding out-of-control prisoners from prisons throughout the country.  As such, certain capabilities were built in—the rooms become de facto sensory deprivation tanks whenever a prisoner misbehaves.  This would be all right in itself, as the rooms are usually equipped with bookshelves, computer desks, the works.  However, the administrators of this facility have taken to putting the rooms in sensory-deprivation mode at all times.”

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

“Now, this may not seem like such a big deal to a lot of you, but we theris are human beings—and most of us are, last time I checked, American citizens.  Meaning we’re subject to the same laws and rules as every other citizen.”  He paused.  “Now, the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution…”

Richard Doherty had been putting his case together to take before the Senate Committee on Therianthropy the next day.  He was surprised when Gunny Hufflin told him to log onto the site hosting the webcasts, which showed that Nanuq was making the case for him.

And there was little chance the politicians could keep the conditions at the Montana facility secret if every man, woman, and child in the Western Hemisphere knew about it.

He smiled.  His job had just become a whole lot easier.

“…having defined ‘cruel and unusual’ in the Furman case, the Court has also expressly forbidden certain types of punishment.  Also, the Fourteenth Amendment—‘No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws’—that also applies here, because I don’t know if any of us has ever been tried before being thrown in here.  Also, I don’t know if we theris—or at least those of us born in the United States—are still considered citizens, but if that’s no longer the case, then that violates Trop v. Dulles, the 1958 case in which the Court decided that punishing a natural-born citizen for a crime by taking away his citizenship is unconstitutionally excessive, being, quote, ‘more primitive than torture’, end quote.  This is because it involves the, quote, ‘total destruction of the individual’s status in organized society’.”  He looked directly at the camera again.  “I’m going to try to send for an absentee ballot next year, so I’ll keep you informed about that.  And if I can’t get it, I’ll sue.”  He smiled a little.  “Anyway, as I’ve laid out here, what’s happening to those theris interred at that facility is not merely immoral, it’s just plain illegal.  What crime have these people committed besides being born differently from those in power?  Even the worst of the ferals are here because of circumstances they couldn’t control.”  He paused, the smile vanishing.  “We’ve been down this road before, of imprisoning people just because of genetics or heredity—do we really want to follow that road to its conclusion?  Theris already can’t live openly in public—Sanctuary was clearly designed in the beginning so we’d be forced to kill each other off to survive.  Haven’t we been down such a road before?”

He leaned back on the couch.

“And before you protest that theris aren’t human anymore, remember that before our first transformations, before we were discovered, we were just like everyone else.  If I hadn’t had that fateful panic-attack, I’d still be at school, maybe even going for my law degree by now.”  He leaned forward again, imagining he was looking right at whoever might be on the other end of the camera.  “I know I’ve said this before, but we’re real people.  Save for some little quirk in our genetics, we’re no different from you people watching.  ‘Hath not a theri eyes?  Hath not a theri hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer as a non-theri is?  If you prick us, do we not bleed?  If you tickle us, do we not laugh?  If you poison us, do we not die?’” He pointedly excised the last part of the slightly modified Shakespeare quote he’d used in debates before.  “All I’m saying is, we need to fix this.  These theris—these people—are being imprisoned in inhumane conditions—at least at Sanctuary we have something to do!—because of something they have no control over.  And it’s because of a cure to the disease that’s been spreading—in theris, the cure tends to reset their ability to control their transformations, but it’s a problem that can be overcome as, after all, they’ve done it before.”

The slow smile returned.

“So, everyone out there, if you want to do something about this, send an email to your congressperson as soon as possible.  TAPT-north-am.org is currently providing a list of Senators and Representatives from each state along with their listed email addresses and link IP numbers.”  He smiled.  “Give ’em a buzz and let them know how you feel about this.”

Beowulf chuckled.

“And that’s pretty much it.”  He shrugged.  “That’s all there is to it.”

He smiled.

“Thanks for listening.”

Click.

Richard had managed to arrange for a convening of the Committee to discuss federal oversight of DTWC on September 9.  He’d been planning to talk to the Committee since the Camp Sicko thing had first been announced—it was only now that the Committee leaders would agree to it.

The response to the most recent webcast meant that quite a few people’s feelings were swayed on the issue.

According to Rick, Matthews…well…wasn’t.

How an outright bigot like that got elected—and stayed elected—is beyond me, Nanuq thought.

But Rick’s coming before the Committee helped a great deal in the long run.

It was the early morning of September 10—the day after Richard’s speech before the Committee—when Nanuq got another email from Luke.

Word about Camp Sicko had gone viral via the webcast.  Even the normally anti-theri had used the news as an excuse to attack several within the current administration, even though none of them had nothing to do with it.  Some of the less militantly anti-theri argued that this treatment went beyond the pale.

TAPT was in rare form, having gone on the offensive as if there was no tomorrow.  Large protests had been held in Colorado Springs and in Washington over the past few days.  Luke himself had given a speech to a crowded hall at his school, and Mal was actively recruiting among his fellow cadets at the Academy—with little to no interference from the brass.

I always say non-disapproval is about as close to approval as one needs to be…

But the big news came from Richard.

Richard had arranged for a government plane out to Helena, Montana, from which they would be transported to Camp Sicko, first thing tomorrow morning.

The date of the planned trip took a moment to register in Nanuq’s mind.

Remembrance Day—named as a national holiday in 2025.

Nanuq’s twenty-first birthday.

He smiled a little.

Weird how these things work out…

To say the others were glad to see them would be well within the realm of understatement.

He hadn’t even seen Callisto coming before she crashtackled him without changing out of her bear form.

Well, Nanuq thought, happy damn birthday to me.

He repeated the thought to Callisto and they both laughed.

James had slipped rabbit-Terry into Snowtips’s room earlier, Anubis into the other Owens sisters’ (it had taken bribery to get him to agree), Etana into Chip and Dale’s, Liam into Flipperette’s, and so on.

They weren’t able to talk about the past few weeks, so in the end Nanuq talked and Callisto just listened.

It was soothing in its own way, since she had done the same thing whenever he talked about his life pre-Sanctuary.

They made an interesting picture, walking down the hallway, he in human form, she in bear.  She would nuzzle his leg from time to time, and he would rub her head behind the ears.

Callisto seemed especially glad to hear that a representative from Texas had put forward a bill to require that theris be imprisoned only until control over the change and their form was achieved.  There was no way it would pass as written, but it was a foot in the door, at least.

They were broken out of the quote-unquote ‘conversation’ by a delighted squeal coming from the general vicinity of outdoors.

“Well, that sounds like good news,” Nanuq said.

Callisto gave a grunt of agreement and they ran to investigate.

As it turned out, Bastet was the first among the sickies to re-master the shift back to human form.

And there was much rejoicing.