Council

>Blood is what did Mike in.

>Among the medical miracles that an animal society discovers as it grows is a synthesizable "generic" blood, usable for transfusions with just about any species of person
>It's meant for the sort of emergencies where someone has to be hauled out of a building with shredded arms and a shattered chest, leaking a veritable river of blood from here to there.
>But it's expensive, and once someone is in a hospital or clinic they can reasonably expect to find atleast afew bags of their species blood. If the patient cant identify their species, their blood can be tested to identify what they should get.
>These tests arent supposed to ever come back inconclusive unless theres some kind of mistake.

>Carol Rabbinson is certain she hasn't made a mistake. She's ran the test three times now, but they've each come back the same way.
>Inconclusive.
>She asks a nurse to move his bed to an isolated part of the ward, opting to write nothing as she leaves the "SPECIES" blank on Mike's new medical record.
>The xray confuses her more.
>It needed to be done, if the clinic wanted to set his bones they needef to know what was going in
>Mike was against getting one when he saved her daughter for what Carol assumed were financial reasons, but as she tries and fails to match his skeletal structure to any documented "normal" she can't help but wonder.
>Who is the hairless monkey
>Why are the only Mike Schmidts she can find online all Dobermans in the midwest
>Where did he come from.
>The good doctor's next approach was to try and figure out exactly what skin condition Mike had.
>Then maybe she'd have
>She would ask him herself but someone recovering from injuries that bad sleeps most of the day, and is on heavy painkillers for the brief time they are awake
>So research it was but...
>Nothing matches his case. He's nearly hairless except for the top of his head and... private areas, unlike the patchy here and there nature of most simian baldness disorders.
>And while there are other disorders where they can be entirely hairless, those are almost always due to some sort of problem with keratin production and also cause incredibly brittle and flaky skin.
>He doesn't show any sign of that at all, the nurse who cleaned him last night can attest to that
>Carol's mind wanders back to the night she first met him, and a story she heard from Bonbon
>About how the first time she met Mike and how he joked about being a human
>It wanders to their first proper meeting again, and how desperate he was to not be examined thoroughly

>Dr. Rabbinson is a well educated woman. She knows science from fantasy.
>Dr. Rabbinson is a professional doctor. If she doesn't know what's wrong with her patients, she'll figure it out.
>Dr. Rabbinson doesn't want her daughter's friend to suffer in a hospital bed. She turns on her personal computer and goes to look for information.
>Dr. Rabbinson is convinced Mike is unlike anything she's ever read about. She searches for human folklore and anatomy.


>Just searching for "Human" on the internet wasn't actually a good idea it turned out
>Carol learned very little useful information about what Mike ought to be when healthy and gained a newfound concern for her daughter's association with Bonbon.
>What she knows now is that he is a near perfect fit for the modern depiction of Humans, albeit tailless
>Academic papers about Humans in folklore don't offer much help either
>But reading that old stories about humans nearly always end with them charging into fights they cannot win for the sake of of others makes her stifle a grim chuckle
>The doctor closes her laptop and walks through the ward and stands in the doorway of Mike's room
>His upper half is so covered in cast and bandage now that he could be easily confused for a gorilla
>How easy this would be if that's what he had turned out to be, she thinks
>Less uncomfortable guesswork about the dosages he can handle
>Carol stares at him as he sleeps
>Without him she would have buried her child
>To her, that says more about him than anything she could write down on some records
>She flicks the lights off and makes her way back to the office and begins to plan
>Synthetic blood expires quick. With some clever book keeping, she could hide the extra bags he needed in the next batch of toss outs.
>She thinks of nurses and orderlies who can keep their mouths shut. There's a Lemur on his last chance before they fire him, he'll be an easy one to convince
>It's a tiny little hospital, but she's still going to need help making a proper cover for what's going on with him
>Accomplices to the lie that can corroborate what she says
>Carol brings up her phone and starts to message her children
>"this is important, i need you to bring me the people who know the most about nike. they also need to be discreet about it"
>"about mike"
>She quickly realizes how terrifying that message will sound and follows up
>"he's not in danger just need to talk to you about him in person"

>Concealing the act of gathering up only some of Mike's friends to go see him at the hospital isn't an easy task
>Everyone's still rattled from that night, giving and getting support from each other when they can
>The wound's still fresh for everyone
>And uh, literally for Mike
>He's not ready for visitation yet, only Chiclet and the others from 87-B have been able to see him during a brief stint of consciousness
>Nevertheless, Beanie and Bonworth manage to gather afew folk between the two of them
>Bonsworth goes to Chiclet and Faz
>Unfortunately for him, April's in earshot when he's asking Chiclet to come and insists on coming
>He manages to convince Chiclet not to bring anyone else from 87-B though. Whatever is going on might be too much for Bonnibel, communicating with Frederick is more effort than help, and Mangle isn't really the discreet type
>Faz was the other logical choice for him, the bear had a sturdier mind than most and had grown closer to Mike than he'd let on
>Bonworth swore he seemed apprehensive about it though
>Beanie had a harder time finding people she could trust
>Fred was more rattled by the whole incident than he showed and Beanie knew, so she chose to ask Chichi to come along
>Mike and her got along best in the apartment, maybe she'd know something
>She thinks about asking Bonbon but she's never been the type to hold any secret
>It feels bad to keep the entirety of 87-A in the dark but she doesnt know if any of them would help
>With the six of them gathered, they head to go see what Carol wanted them for
>When they arrived a nurse recognized them, and after a brief explanation that they were here to see their mother she paged the doctor and showed them to a small waiting room
>They sit around a small table for afew minutes before Carol comes in and sets a folder down on the table and addresses them all
>"Thank you for all coming. This may seem odd, but if Mike has told any of you anything about his past, I need to know it."
>Chiclet's the first to respond
>"We don't know much more than what he's told us, honestly. Afew months ago Marion, our landlord, came to us and said he had someone who needed a place to stay. Freddy had an open bed in his room so we said sure."
>Chiclet pauses as she tries to recall
>"He was homeless for awhile before that, apparently he had been injured at his last job and didn't have any income while some legal battle ensued. But by the time he came to our door he was getting settlement checks in the mail."
>Carol furrowed her brow. She couldn't see any signs of a previous injury but its possible it was covered up by his plethora of new ones
>"And these checks, did you ever see them? Do you know what company they came from?"
>Chiclet flinched, and leaned forward alittle indignant at the inquiry
>"Yeah I saw them once or twice but I wasn't prying into every single detail of his story. I took it at face value and his checks kept coming in."
>Chiclet's expression changes: she seems defensive, both for herself and for what Carol might be trying to say about Mike, but also a twinge of sudden worry. She's growing aware just how little Mike's told of his story
>"Given he was living at Marion's, the story was just so familiar I didn't want to dredge up things noone likes to talk about."
>She sits back in the seat as her concern turns to indignation, annoyed that she was being interrogated about Mike while he lay recovering several rooms over
>Dr. Rabbinson reads her face and sees how her questions are being taken. She lets her shoulders fall and takes a seat to be almost eye level with the hen
>"I'm not trying to make you doubt Mike, I'm trying to help him but I know next to nothing about him. I need information"
>She opens the folder and clicks her pen, ready to write down anything that sounds relevant
>"You said he was injured. Do you know what happened? Was he fully recovered when he showed up?"
>Carol aimed the question at Chiclet, but after afew moments of silence betrayed the fact she didn't know, Beanie spoke up
>"Its a, uh-"
>She cleared her throat when everyone turned to her, and continued
>"It's a memory thing. I think. He joined me for one of my shifts once and I asked him what he did before showing up. He dodged the question at first but when I asked him seriously he just…"
>Beanie searches for what she wants to say and rests her paws on the table with her digits interlaced
>"He just didn't know. Not like 'didn't want to say' didn't know but genuine. I could tell by the way his voice trailed off, and when I tried to ask more he snapped back how he does when he's embarrassed."
>Chiclet nods, she's poked fun at Mike enough to know exactly what she's talking about
>Carol wrote quickly as her daughter continued
>"And after the rescue he had a bit of an explosive nightmare, combined with- uh."
>Beanie breathed deep and caught her mothers eye contact
>"He started to have hallucinations"
>The room goes quiet, and Bonworth recalls something that'll lighten the mood
>"He was also a compulsive cleaner, if that amounts to anything. When Mike stayed with us he took one look at our fridge and started throwing things in the trash. I heard he did the same at Bonbon's when he got there like a man possessed"
>Carol finished writing and set the pen down with a labored sigh
>"That's not all great news, I'll be honest. Do you know how much he can remember?"
>Chichi chimed in now, clapping her wingtips together with a soft tap
>"He remembers that he grew up in Colorado, he told me and Rackham that once."
>Carol's ears perk up at that
>"Did he say where? If we can find some next of kin, there might be something they can tell us about him atleast."
>Chichi grinds her beak for a moment trying to recall if he said anything
>"No. I think he just said the suburbs. Sorry."
>"It's a start" Rabbinson thinks as she jots down 'Colorado, suburban' on a stickynote.
>"Aside from where he grew up, has he ever mentioned family? His childhood? Has he ever given a straight answer about what he is?"
>April shifted. Despite Bonworth's insistance that it wasnt bad news, she was certain this was going to be bad news and not a questionnaire
>"I just assumed... some kind of large Gibbon."
>Carrol sighed and flipped through her notes again
>"No, his arms are the wrong proportions for Gibbons. His jaw and shoulderblades are wrong for Chimps. His hands are too off for him to be a stunted Gorilla."
>She flips through a maddeningly long list of crossed off possibilities before looking back to the lot of them
>"Anything. A story about school, an old joke he told, a family trip."
>The room goes silent as everyone comes to the realization that unlike everyone else in the complex who grew up around each other and at the restaurant, nearly Mike's entire life is a mystery
>Bonworth coughs, trying to politely clear the air before talking
>"Well gee, Ma. Are we trying to write his biography? Mike was tight lipped about himself, I think everyone here's had a go at prying him open. What's the problem here?"
>Chichi gives a nod and chirp in agreement as Carrol stands up, pushing her folder away from her
>"The problem here is that we don't know if Mike doesn't want to talk about his past or if he can't talk about his life. My best guess is that he had some sort of traumatic event and his brain decided to cope by forgetting. We don't know if he just forgot his trauma, or if hes forgotten nearly everything."
>She swings her arm back in the rough direction of his hospital room and continues
>"If his first trauma was anything like what happened at Jeremy's, who knows what he'll remember. We have to be ready f-"
>Carroll's explanation was cut short when Chiclet slapped the table, pulling part of Mike's record out of its folder for all to see
>The hen stared confused and angry at the doctor

>"Human folklore? Is this some kind of joke?!"

>Carrol grimaced as Chiclet rifled through her documents, pulling annotated pages out and splaying them across with growing indignation as the hen stood from her seat
>"You- you brought us here to grill us for what we know know about Mike because you think he's some fairy tale creature? Is that right?"
>Chiclet's so mad she's stammering as she throws what's left of the documents onto the table. She steps to the doctor and towers over her as she tries to make her case.
>"You don't understand, I've spent the past three nights here trying to make some sense of him and my leads run cold at every turn. I know this sounds mad, but please-"
>"Please nothing!"
>The table is reeling as the hen rips into Carrol, Chichi and Beanie stare at compiled lists of different "human features" ordered into "present", "not present", and "impossible", April finds a detailed account of a human from the renaissance period annotated with checkmarks and crosses indicating what does and doesn't match
>"All I've seen tonight is you making us all paranoid so you can sell us on some hysteric fantasy about Mike!"
>Chiclet continues into the doctors personal space, slowly backing her into wall behind her
>"Chiclet, enough!"
>Bonworth had gotten up from his seat and turned to face the two of them, walking over to try and offer an olive branch
>"I'm not going to try and say this whole rigmarole doesn't sound insane, but I know my mother well enough to know that she must have something more than just this."
>Chiclet turns to Bonworth with fire in her eyes
>"More than fantasy is the bear minimum, Bonworth."
>She gestures around herself at the hospital walls
>"Should Mike even be here? There are other hospitals we can take him to-"
>Dr Rabbinson reaches her arm out and grabs Chiclet
>"They'll find the same things I found, Chiclet. They'll ask the same questions."
>Chiclet scoffed, ready to dismiss her again, when she heard the click of an electrolarynx behind her
>"She's right, Chiclet."
>The room stares at Faz, the last of any of them to speak on this matter. He keeps his electrolarynx to his throat and continues
>"Dr Rabbinson isn't a quack. Any oddities she's found will be found at any other doctor we bring him to. The difference is-"
>The bear gestures to Chiclet and then waves his arm across everyone at the table
>"She sent for us to figure it out, she didn't have to. We may be the closest people to Mike, but none of us have legal control of him. Another curious doctor might try to capitalize on that."
>Chiclet lets her shoulders fall. What she thought was strange paranoia about doctors from Mike seems justified, but she still cant shake off her apprehension about the whole situation
>"So what's the plan then, just keep him off the record until he's home?"
>Carrol takes her chance to reenter the conversation
>"That won't be possible. His injuries are going to take a long while to heal, and he'll certainly need physical therapy afterwards. Even more so if he forgets again."
>She ushers Bonworth and Chiclet to sit back down before joining them herself and continuing with her explanation
>"I called you all out here because we need to come up with a plausible cover for Mike. If we're all saying the same thing whenever someone asks, it'll be alot more believable."
>She begins to outline afew basic "facts", pulling together some of her notes that Chiclet didnt throw across the table to help illustrate her point, when April interrupts her, sliding the human diagram across the table
>"I agree with Faz about not going to another hospital... but I still have my doubts about all of this"
>Beanie holds her head in her paws as the large rabbit continues
>"I can't overlook this. You were prepared to convince us Mike is secretly a human?"
>Carrol stares at April, searching for a way to say yes without outright saying so
>"I was going to try and prepare you all to accept the absurd, I admit it looks bad but-"
>Beanie pulls her head from her hands and looks at her mother exasperated
>"Looks bad? Mom, me and Bonworth gathered everyone because we thought you had something important to tell everyone, not because you suddenly went further off the deep end than Bonbon!"
>Beanie's mortified rant only serves to emblazen Carrol, who stands up to face her daughter
>"Believe me, I've gone through every conceivable option I have. His blood is unrecognizable to anything else, his x rays aren't consistent with any other species, I can't find a single simian skin disorder that would make him the way he is!"
>"And your conclusion is an internet fe- a myth? How can you put all this together and call us as if we're going to believe this-"
>Faz watched Carrol fruitlessly try bring Beanie down from her anger, knowing that the rest of the table is exactly what the lavender rabbit is shouting. They're getting nowhere like this and he knows exactly what he has to do to stop this argument
>He just hates doing what he has to do.
>Bonworth catches Faz's expression as he stands. It's the same face he made when he bent the railing in that night Nisha came to tell them their stipends were being docked for breaking their NDAs.
>The argument stops when Faz stands to his full height. He looks at Dr Rabbinson, from her expression she doesn't know what to make of his intrusion into the argument. He starts to go for his electrolarynx, but stops. With the quiet of the room he doesn't need it.

>"Mike is human. I've seen proof from him myself."

>Noone moves in response to this sudden assertion, stunned silence fills the room as Faz decides to continue through his voicebox
>"It was after your... convention trip, Bonita. Mike had come to our apartment to do laundry, and in emptying out his luggage he found a parcel of photographs. Photographs of himself, and dozens of people just like him. His old work. Not a single person in those photos like anyone else. They were all humans."
>Faz's electrolarynx makes it nearly impossible for him to say things without them sounding incredibly blunt and to the point
>But everyone is floored by just how blunt and to the point that confession was
>It's Chiclet who recovers first
>"Do you... do you have the pictures? You can show them to us right?"
>Faz, having redirected the conversation away from putting Mike in more danger by possibly moving him to a different hospital and onto himself successfully, sat back down
>"No. We burnt them. You were there, Ms. Chiclet, it was the day we grilled those fish out in the yard"
>Beanie slammed her paws onto the the table, hunching over it
>"You two burnt them?! What possible reason could you two have had to have something like that and just- just-"
>Beanie's anger turns to stammering and then an exasperated silence. She gestures defeated and steps back to her seat, slumping into it.
>Bonworth and Chiclet meet each other's gaze and share a brief knowing look before Bonworth addresses the bear for the two of them
>"'Ol Bear, you understand how peculiar that sounds, right? Was there something in those pictures about Mike you two didn't want going around the grapevine?"
>Faz took a deep breath, figuring to himself just how much he could say to break his promise as little as possible.
>"In retrospect, I should have kept one or two. Either convince him it was a good idea... or take them without him knowing. But I didn't, because yes, there we found things Mike was happy to forget."
>Chichi and Carrol both lean forward as to ask the obvious question, but Faz raises his arm to stop them.
>"You remember meeting Mike, yes Bonita? Bonworth told me you slammed the door in his face."
>Beanie's defeated resignation that the table had gone insane faded just a little into curiosity
>"Yes, but I don't know what you're-"
>Faz interrupted her, continuing his point
>"Because he resembled Safety Schmidt."
>Beanie nodded, watching Faz took as deep a breath as he could before continuing
>"In most of the photos, Mike was in his work uniform: button down dress shirt, slacks. A Green Security cap."
>With the exception of Carrol, everyone at the table knew exactly the comparison Faz was making.
>"In afew of the photos, he was with his coworkers. One of them stood out as well. Skin afew shades darker than his, worker overalls, friz-"
>"Faz."
>April, seeing the mixture of confusion and horror keep most of the table in-the-know quiet, chose to be the one to stop him
>"You cannot be serious about this. That Mike is some... Humanimatronic made real. That the other humanimatronics are real. Me and Goldie drew up their designs over a decade ago."
>Faz put his paw down on the table
>"Without the photos, all I can offer is circumstantial evidence April. Mike is unrecognizable when strictly compared to other simians. Weeks before Marion brought him into our homes, 'our Schmidt' vanishes without a trace. His near total lack of knowledge about other species. It's tenuous..."
>He trails off his point, hoping someone at the table will take it up with him. His relief is palpable when Chichi lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding and speaks
>"But it adds up. And I can see why Mike would want to keep that to himself."
>Chiclet chuckles, letting the tension out of her shoulders and trying to reason that what she's starting to believe isn't insane
>"I bet if you hadn't found him, he'd have gone mad all over again on his own."
>Beanie looks from face to face, watching them resign to this insanity. She swallows her pride and decides to follow them.
>"Well, at the least I'm glad Bonbon isn't present for this, but what are we going to do about this?"

>Carrol, seeing her moment has come again, steps back in
>"Well, we have our answer to my question. What I do is I go down to my office and put down his species as an illegible scrawl and keep my staff on him. I'll put something in his record to keep him from a blood transfusion that'd kill him if he ever ends up at a different hospital."
>She picks up the... less than scientific part of her records about Mike's apparent humanity and leaves them with the group
>"We should dispose of those. Be ready to visit often though once Mike's able. Given what we've learned about Mike's memory and his past..."
>She grimaces and looks across the table
>"There's a nonzero chance he may wake up remembering only his past, finding himself suddenly in a world he can barely recognize. We'll burn that bridge if we come to it."

>When she steps out from the room to go back to her office the room remains silent, briefly absorbing everything that just happened. Chichi breaks the silence, speaking quietly
>"What do we tell everyone back home?"
>Faz doesn't use his electrolarynx. Taking the stand like that has left him mentally winded, but he takes charge again.
>"Of what I've told you? Nothing. Mike wanted it to stay a secret at all costs, but I saw no other options than to tell you."
>Bonworth looks at him and shakes his head
>"Tell noone? Surely the others deserve to know, don't they? Cheeky?"
>Bonworth turns to Chichi and Chiclet
>"Foxglove? Fred? We can't just sit on this secret, what happens if my mom is right and he wakes up knowing none of us and lookin' for folk like him?"
>April looks at Faz's expression and sees him runnin nearly on fumes at this point. She shifts her face bandages slightly so her mouth isn't obscured before talking
>"We can and we will. It's not our right to tell everyone... we've stepped on Mike's privacy just learning about it. If the worst comes to pass, we'll explain it and hope they understand."
>Faz nods in agreement with April's statement, glad someone else at the table shared his sentiments.
>Beanie was hunched over the table again, staring at the two of them.
>"I... I think it's the best plan we're going to get. Everyone has gotten to know Mike without the truth, I don't like hiding it but it's not our decision to tell everyone. It's his."
>The hens at the table make eye contact, and then nod as well in agreement. Left as the only voice of opposition, Bonworth concedes to the group
>"You're all right, I'm the only one left over here. We'll keep it a mum between ourselves. If someone asks, mom brought us out here to ask us about his memory and past. Nothin' else."
>Everyone nods in silent agreement and sit, exhausted, until Beanie turns to Chiclet and speaks up.
>"You visited Mike before, right? You know where his room is?"
>Chiclet nods
>"Yes, but he was out of it even when he was awake. He's not really able to see anyo-"
>"I know. I'll see him anyway."
>The two share the silence for a moment before Chiclet stands up from her seat. She asks if anyone else is coming, but only Chichi feels up to coming after all that happened.
>Within minutes the three of them amble their way to his Hospital room
>Beanie quietly slides the door open and steps barely through the threshold.
>Mike lays there bound in casts and bandages, an IV bag plugged into his arm and EKG beeping faintly next to it.
>Mike lays there.
>Human
>Human, and one of them