#morphic

Katherine nodded. “I’m just about ready,” she replied, glaring at her hair in the mirror. She wished she could do something with it. Its utter plainness was all the more obvious when contrasted with her rather fetching pantsuit. Oh, and don’t even get her fucking started on the pantsuit. No one would ever appreciate it for what it was, that being nothing short of a miracle. Just try putting on a tight shirt when your hands are roses and your head is covered in thorns.

Christ, what was she doing? Ruminating on her clothes? In less than five minutes, she would leave her house and step into a car, which would bring her all the way to the town courthouse. How long had it been since she’d been to town? In a car? Outside of her neigborhood, even?

She took a final look at herself in the mirror. Flawed. Perfect. Plain. Beautiful. Human. Pokémon. It was hard to describe someone like her concisely, but that’s just who she was. A mix-up. And today, she was going to change things for all the other mix-ups. Today, years of hard work would finally come to fruition. After hours and hours spent poring over books and articles and wiki pages and proceeding transcripts and histories and everything else imaginable, teaching herself the inner workings of this particular corner of law, Katherine had finally reached the day she’d been long preparing for.

Today, Katherine would testify before the city court to free the Pokémorphs from their perpetual house arrest. And, with any luck, today would be the day she was finally freed.

Unfortunately, David Ambrose woke up.

“Agh, fuck.” His head pounded as he rolled to the side, his eyes scrambling desperately into focus before resting on the alarm clock on his nightstand. 12:17. “Shit.”

Didn’t he have something today? The, uh… The thing. Fuck. What the fuck was it?

Dave flopped onto his back again and was just about to shut his eyes and fall back into the sweet embrace of sleep when he saw something taped to the ceiling. What the fuck? He squinted at it, rubbing his forehead as though it would actually do something for the pain.

It was an index card, and he could just make out the text. It read: “Court case. Katherine. 11:30, don’t forget.”

Ah, fuck. Well, he hadn’t forgotten, at least. He’d overslept, which was at the very least outside of his control… Though, if the taint of beer on his breath was to be trusted, it probably _was _in his control after all. But whatever. He’d probably have slept in until noon anyway. Right?

Groaning, he sat up and fumbled for the remote on his nightstand, nearly knocking over his alarm clock and table lamp in the process. When at last he found it, he switched on the television and turned it to channel one.

There she was, in all her morphic glory. Dave had never seen her so dressed up— she wore it wonderfully, though he found the buttons that ran along the back seam of the sleeves amusing. So that’s how she’d fit it on despite her hands…

A marquee rolled across the bottom of the screen. Dave wasn’t yet conscious enough to read it all, but he got the gist. Katherine was still making her case for the humanity of the Pokémorphs, and arguing that the Dangerous Nonhuman Act was unconstitutional— or, at least, it was unconstitutional in its application to the Pokémorphs. Dave had heard the argument a million times. He’d even helped write it. He could only hope she delivered it well, though he’d never resort to fucking praying, thank you very much. If anyone knew how important delivery was, it was him. It was definitely, fucking definitely him.

“—aware that the media paints us as half-human, half-Pokémon hybrids,” Katherine said, her voice cool but just shaky enough for it to be perceptible. Well, Dave sure as hell didn’t blame her. At least she was talking fucking sense. He’d seen way more severe television blunders on similar topics in his days, to say the least. But it didn’t take much to outperform fucking Brian, of all people. Dave didn’t realise he was shaking his head until he felt it pounding in protest.

“However, this is simply not the case. You will notice by the upright posture and intelligent behaviour of not only myself but my peers that we are much more human than anything else. As per the lab report, in fact, we are almost entirely human, with some Pokémonic genes spliced in. So, modified as we may be, Pokémorphs cannot be described as ‘nonhuman’ any more than, say, a black person, or a disabled person might be. There are simply different genes at play, but we look and behave and think the same way as anyone else. The line between human and non is blurred, to be sure, but i think that given my substantial evidence, even the most resistant will see that we are just like everyone else.”

Dave shook his head. Fuck. It was too early in the morning for this shit, and he had very important things to do today. He always did. Such as reflecting on what little he’d seen as he made his way to the kitchen.

Katherine was a fairly good public speaker, you had to give her that. But that was only true on some accounts. She presented herself confidently, true, and she vocalised without timidity. She was a proud and strong speaker. And yet, what on God’s green fucking Earth was she talking about? While he could agree that the Pokémorphs were primarily human, why he hell did she think to compare that to race and, fuck it all, disability? Well, whatever. It wasn’t Dave’s case. If he’d wanted it done better, he’d have just done it himself. This wasn’t about him. It was about the Pokémorphs, and it was also (purely by chance) about everything Dave had worked toward for the past ten yeaoh goddamn it who was he kidding.

Katherine couldn’t fuck this up. She just couldn’t. To her credit, she had a sound argument when she wasn’t botching her attempts at injecting political buzzwords. If the judge had any reason at all, he’d see her point and rule in her favor. But in truth, Dave had come to distrust the public sector a long time ago.

He’d come to distrust a lot of things, actually. Sometimes he wondered whether his drinking habits should be one of them. Even still, he produced a fresh beer from the refrigerator and cracked it open, taking a good sip. Christ, why the fuck was alcohol in the morning looked down on? There was nothing in the world like a cool splash of beer on a dry, scratchy morning throat. Absolute fucking ecstasy.

Dave took the can to his recliner and fell into it, leaning forward and taking healthy sips as he stared off into the distance, into his regrets, surrounded by a rather impressive castle of beer cans and the persistent drone of the courtcase on the television in front of him. His throne. It was another day in the life of the once-great David Ambrose.

If he had been watching the television, of course, he might have seen something very important. Game-changing, even. But, of course, it was absolutely nothing like Dave to see important things until it was entirely too late. Who did he have to blame but himself?

Literally everyone, obviously.

Sighing, he turned his gaze to the portraits that sat on his shelf. He wasn’t the sentimental type, but, well… He wasn’t the sentimental type. Having a bunch of your kids die tended to change some things about you.

He regarded the images somberly.

Will was such a sweet kid. He’s the last one you’d expect to get shot. But that also made him the likeliest. That’s what happened to sweet kids. It happened to Brian, too. When you’re in peril and you can’t stand up for yourself, you get a bullet in the fucking head. No golden charm was going to deflect that. Dave sniffed a little, and took a long drink of his beer.

Mia. Christ. What a character. And yet, Dave found himself thinking that her loss was perhaps one of the most profound ones the world would ever know. He knew he was wrong for allowing himself to choose favorites and value one life over another, but… Mia was something else. She was unstable. She was terrifying. She was a psychopath. But there was something beautiful about that. She was all of those things because she was supposed to be. They had always been here. They were not defects. They were woven into her DNA as solidly as the colour of her hair or the shape of her face. It was who she was. And now it was all gone.

Nothing personal, of course. Purely scientific. She was a marvel, biologically. Well, they all were, to be fair. But she was something else. Sometimes it seemed like she was more Scyther than anything. There was real scientific potential there. He should’ve tested her more. Should’ve prodded her. Picked her mind apart and figured out what she really was on the inside.

Well, there was nothing on the inside now, and there was no sense moping over it. Dave finished his beer, then crushed the can in his hand and threw it backward haphazardly. It fell amid a pile of similarly crushed cans, at least three dozen in number.

It was going to be a long-ass fucking day.

“Your honor, if i may.” Daniels’ voice was so damn smug that Katherine could hardly resist leaping over the bench and socking him in his face. There were two reasons she couldn’t do that, however. Firstly, the public already erred on the side of Pokémorphs being extra dangerous and violent, so her case would certainly not be helped by flagrant aggression. Secondly, her hands were roses, and she suspected they may not be very good for punching anyway.

“The plaintiff raises valid points, of course,” he continued snidely. Grr. “Points worth considering. However, it seems to me, with all due respect, like she’s gracefully failing to address the Mamoswine in the room, as it were.”

The judge raised an eyebrow. “That being?”

“Mia Kerrigan, your honor.”

The audience burst into quiet but energetic chatter.

Mia. Of course.

“Order!” the judge cried. “Continue, Mr. Daniels.”

Daniels happily obliged.“Mia Kerrigan was a proven psychopath. All witness accounts corroborate claims of her violence and dispassion. She attacked with little provocation, and herself provoked others, seemingly searching for reasons to fight or even creating them. Such behavior is consistent with the observed behavior of Scyther, and in human beings is antisocial to the point of justifying asylum. If the animal genes could have affected the mind of Mia Kerrigan in such a way as to make her unfit for human interaction, your honor, why should we assume her fellow Pokémorphs are any better off, when they are purportedly equally human? After all, we do know that several of the surviving Morphs were personally responsible for the tragic deaths of several men of the Church of Holy Truth.”

Katherine stood abruptly, heat rising to her face, heart leaping in her chest. How could he say something like that? “I object, your honor,” she said through clenched teeth with all the tact she could muster. “The kills made by the Pokémorphs are shown by the court of law to be in self-defence, and are not valid evidence against the humanity of our kind.” Even as she said it, she could feel Daniels’ smug grin. It doesn’t matter, he’d be thinking. The seeds of fear have been sown. “Mia Kerrigan was a psychopath, it’s true. There’s simply no denying it. However, her mental state is not indicative of any of the rest— there is no evidence to suggest that any of the other Pokémorphs are psychopathic in the least, and none of us have committed violent acts apart from the Church of Holy Truth incident, which as i stated previously was self-defensive. And, for what it’s worth, you don’t put psychopaths in asylums. They walk free just like everyone else, until they commit a crime. Which Mia didn’t.”

Daniels’ grin had faded. She was right, and he knew it. Or he knew she was technically right, at least. If he was anything like his cousins, Katherine knew he was fare more malicious than he was letting on. But you simply couldn’t in court. Katherine almost wished he would. Then everyone could see what a sham he was once and for all, and the support of the judge would be hers for certain.

No one else spoke, so Katherine continued. “Besides, that’s a matter of mental stability, which, while admittedly influenced by our Pokémorph genes, has nothing to do with our status as human. Your honor, i believe the truth is evident here. Despite our appearances and minor differences, we Pokémorphs are no less human than any other person in this courtroom. Our segregation is unjust and should be repealed immediately. I see no reason to believe otherwise, and none has been presented.”

And that was true. Daniels had sure said lots of things about Pokémorphs over the last few hours, most of them bad and some of them true. But none of them had anything to do with their status as human. And that’s what the case was about.

The judge’s softening impression implied that she agreed. “A fine point, Ms. Harrison.” Daniels tried rather poorly to keep his fear from spreading to his face as she spoke. “The court rules in favor of the Pokémorphs. They are hereby excluded from the provisions of the Dangerous Nonhuman Act, and otherwise protected against further discrimination by the full power of this land’s constitution.” She slammed her gavel with a resounding and unbelievable satisfying, crack. And it was all over. “Case dismissed.”

Katherine fell into her seat, lightheaded. And for the first time in a decade, free.

“Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck?” Dave sounded more angry than excited, as he often did. But in truth, his heart was leaping in exuberance. “She did it. She really fucking did it. Holy shit.” Still muttering to himself, he looked around for his daughter before remembering they no longer lived together. Fuck, how long had it been? Three years? And he still expected her to be around. Christ.

He grabbed for his phone and began punching in Jean’s number before anxiously holding it to his ear, leaning forward in his chair with anticipation.

“Hello? Dad?”

“Jean,” Dave said, more of an energetic breath than a true utterance. “You… You’re… Fuck.”

“So you heard?”

“Yes, of course i fucking heard. Wait, are we talking about the same thing? Did you watch the fucking—”

“Yes, of course i watched it. We all watched it.”

“So you know that—”

“Yes, Dad. I know. I’m in town right now, actually. God, i forgot how awesome it is here! And did you know you can pay for things with your phone now? You don’t even need credit cards! I mean, people are staring at me weird still, especially now that i’m yelling into a phone, and they probably don’t know that i’m allowed to be here yet so it’s all really weird, but still! Wow! It’s so great to be back out here, i can’t even hardly believe it! And i know i can’t really be Sarah Hooter anymore, and that sucks but i’m over it so whatever, but maybe i can be an actress in something else now? And i think Katherine should be a lawyer forever now, she was so super good. And Gabriel could toootally go into construction or mining or something, i mean he totally jives with rocks and stuff, and Jack… Well, i don’t know! But we can all have jobs now, that’s the point, and we can finally be with people, and even if they look at us weird that’s fine because we’re free, and—”

She continued for a good little while, but Dave stopped listening to the words. That wasn’t the important part. Instead he clung to her voice. The energy, the enthusiasm. It had been gone for years now. Ever since she’d evolved, there had been something off about her. This was it. The cheer. And here it was back.

His daughter was happy again.

Dave revelled in it as she spoke. And when she finally finished, drawing for air to replace all of it she’d just displaced while talking, Dave found himself at a loss for words. For once.