The Chicago Rat Shifter

Chapter 5

Two Years Ago

Two Years AgoIt happened at dusk.

The evening sun, a red-hot burning disk wreathed in cirrostratus clouds, sank into the horizon, casting the first night shadows across Dr. Atticus Thurston"s office.

The doctor, engrossed in editing a scientific report that he’d been working on all day, raised his head and looked out his window on the 35th floor of the Alsatius Building. He"d lost track of time. The other researchers had gone home and their workstations were stacked with tidy messes of papers. Had they even said goodbye to him? Probably. The waning sunlight in the cavernous skyscraper valleys of downtown was always enough to remind him that it was time to go.

himHe"d marked all over the article with a pencil that he had worn to a nub but was using anyway because time was too precious to walk across his office to the pencil sharpener that his secretary had bolted to the wall for his convenience. Every minute counted when you faced a looming deadline.

He distinctly remembered that there was something he should have been doing right now. He gazed out the window, trying to jog his memory, but he could only think about rat vibrissae, or whiskers. An albino rat inside a cage, moving them back-and-forth, standing up on its hind legs and sniffing, its whiskers having a bad hair day.

Then his thoughts jammed. He rubbed his temples. His hands were covered in streaks of graphite and eraser scraps. He wiped them on his khaki pants and tried to think, when he became aware of a soft rhythm.

The Newton’s Cradle on his desk. The metal balls clicked against each other—separated, clicked, separated. His wife bought him this pendulum for his birthday. When he first unwrapped it, he pushed it aside in disgust, saying it was too clinical. This was the kind of thing you"d find in a psychiatrist’s office, not a biologist’s. But it added a manmade touch of coldness to a desk that was quite literally covered with rats—taxidermied albino rats pinned to aluminum rods, arms and legs stretched out like Superman’s, with asymmetric, cotton-balled eyes that looked like pus. Their whiskers fanned in all directions. Brushing the back of his hand against the dead rats" vibrissae reminded him of poking oneself with a blade of grass.

And then he remembered what he was supposed to be doing.

Sighing, he picked up the green phone on his desk and cradled the receiver between his head and shoulder as he dialed.

“It"s me,” he said in a soft voice. “I"m on the way.”

“I was wondering if the rats had eaten you,” his wife Eva said, cold at first. But then she brightened. “Please tell me you’re almost done with this busy season.”

“As soon as the university pays me, you’ll see so much of me, you’ll wish I was back in the office,” he said.

“We’ll see if getting enough of you is possible,” she said.

“I like where this is going,” he said, laughing and leaning back. “Tell me more.”

On the other end of the phone, a baby cried in the background, and then Atticus felt guilty, thinking of his daughter, probably sitting in a highchair for dinner, food all over her face, strands of blonde hair over her eyes.

Eva deserved a nomination for sainthood. Wouldn’t it have been nice to clock in at seven and be home by five again? Have weekends like a regular person, with Chinese takeout, foot massages on the couch, and maybe even a Cubs game? Why did his daughter crying remind him of normality?

He was married to an amazing woman with infinite patience. At some point, they’d talked about Eva going back to school for culinary arts. She’d missed her calling in life. When that time came, he’d be spending a lot less time doing overtime. No more deals with the city. Just time at home, chasing kids around, dreaming about his other kiddos here in the lab…

“Atticus?”

“I’m here,” he said quickly, shoving some papers into a leather bag. “I’ll be walking out the door in five. I know you’ve got to be starving. What can I pick up on the way home?”

“I wouldn’t stop,” Eva said.

“But it’s Friday. I’ll grab dinner at Mariano’s at least. Something from the salad bar.”

“But haven’t you seen the protesters?”

“Protesters?”

“You know, the only people more disgusted by your life"s work than me,” she said. Atticus detected a smirk. “It"s on the news. Animal people, apparently.”

“Here we go again.”

“Be careful, Atty. I know they mean well and all, but—”

“It’s fine, babe,” he said, grinning. “If things go south, I can always run to the sewers. The rats know me.”

“Why does part of me think you’re actually serious?”

“I’m one hundred percent joking. I’ve got a heavy leather bag and an umbrella I can use if I need a weapon. I’ll go old lady on anyone who tries to start trouble.”

He told her he loved her and hung up. Then irritation set in as he grabbed his pea coat and Chicago Cubs baseball cap off a coat rack near the office door.

The animal people again. It was always the goddamned animal people.

* * *

The city of Chicago had a rat problem. For years, it was voted the “rattiest city in the United States” by pest control professions, beating even New York City. At night, thousands of Norway rats—rattus norvegicus—emerged from sewers, burrows in the ground, floorboards, and other godforsaken places to feast on garbage.

rattus norvegicus—No part of the city was spared from the brown invaders; infestations were reported downtown, on the south side, and even in suburbs to the north. This year, the rat problem was particularly bad. Rats bit babies as they slept, sensing sweetness on their breath from dried formula. They raided faculty lounges in elementary schools and even roamed the halls during the day. They terrorized back alleys and parking lots; walking to your car in some areas was like re-enacting a scene from a B-list horror movie. The rodents were even known to ride the L from time to time, getting on and off with late-night passengers.

People had had enough. There were protests at apartment complexes, at City Hall, and community centers. The city renewed its “War on Rats” and established a new task force.

People wanted to live in peace. No more Hail Marys before you opened a dumpster. No more smell of rat urine every time you entered an old basement. No more lifting a toilet seat and hoping that you wouldn’t have a floating, wet surprise of the rattus norvegicus variety staring at you. No scratching in the walls at night, or waking up in the morning and finding the unpleasant and odorific surprise of rat droppings in your kitchen.

rattus norvegicusNot even public safety initiatives could solve the problem. On every alley telephone pole, city workers stuck yellow posters of an evil rat in crosshairs, saying that the area was being treated. Yet bait stations sat unexplored, turquoise rodenticides and wood snap traps inside untouched. The people who bought cats hoping for a quick solution were sorely disappointed, especially when the rats started attacking the cats.

A beacon of hope among the unwelcome, prolific invaders? A nationally-renowned lab in downtown Chicago partnered with universities in Miami and London, and a trade association of pest control professionals and consultants. A lab flush with investment money that, ironically, studied albino rats to solve the city’s rat problem. Though these lab rats were far removed genetically from their wild cousins, they shared many commonalities, namely, social behavior and biology.

Atticus Thurston wrote his dissertation in the basement of an abandoned factory, surrounded by Norway rats. Fierce, brown Norways that weighed two pounds each with banana-yellow incisors. The kind of rats that would make even a gang member jump on the hood of their car and shriek like a little girl.

The novel part of his dissertation was that he released a pack of albinos into the wild to mingle. What happened was frightening: the territorial fights, the fear, the elevated stress levels in the lab rats as they learned how to survive in an environment that not even their ancestors had experienced for hundreds of generations. But eventually, they discovered how to get along, and even thrive.

Thurston"s papers set the scientific world on fire.

Now he worked as the lead biologist for Allied Labs, a nondescript private research facility on the 35th floor of the Alsatius Building on State Street, right on the river, in the heart of downtown Chicago, in the heart of the Midwest United States, and in the heart of the rat wilderness. These days, he studied rats" vibrissae and their function in helping them explore. Understanding their navigation habits was key to assisting pest control professionals reduce the rat population, which seemed to multiply every year.

The vibrissae were also where his troubles started. During the height of the rat protests, the local news learned of Allied’s work and asked to interview him.

He gave a tour of the lab. He had been so enamored with the fact that the whole world was watching him, that people finally cared about the one thing he had studied his entire professional life—rats.

He got carried away. He led a young, scarf-clad reporter into “the stacks,” the area where the lab kept rats in tall shelves that opened and closed by rotating large metal wheels. He rolled out a seven-foot-tall tower full of rats. He grinned with delight as the reporter beheld dozens and dozens of frightened white rats. Their jewel-red eyes gleamed among steel and cedar shavings. Their hair—a common response among rodents when threatened—stood on end.

“They live like royalty,” he said. “Wild Norways never have it this good.”

After giving the reporter a play-by-play description of their routine and diet, Thurston made his fatal error. He pointed to a rat in the corner of one of the cages and said, “See anything missing with this fella?”

Of course, he knew what the problem was, but he wanted her to guess.

heThe cameras were still rolling. He was as buzzed as if he had had two glasses of wine.

“My study right now is with rat vibrissae,” he said.

The woman stared at him. He might as well had squeaked rather than talked.

“Whiskers,” he said quickly. “There"s a lot of scientific evidence that suggests that they use their whiskers much like a blind person uses a walking stick. Rats would be legally blind, you see. But more fascinating is what happens if you clip a rat"s vibrissae.”

“You clipped its whiskers?” the reporter asked, incredulous.

“Just to see what the effects would be,” he said. “Turns out it creates problems.”

He then told her that he didn"t like to do it, and that hurting rats didn"t bring him any joy. The lab went out of its way to provide the rats with pain relief, something that had assuaged ethics concerns even among his peers at other labs. He cited an oft-used statistic in the scientific community that millions of lab rats gave their lives for medical purposes to improve our own, and that was never lost on Allied Labs. He just wanted to make a difference.

But the damage had already been done.

The story aired the next day. He and his wife viewed with elation. The story—a one-minute segment within a five-minute report, analyzed what Allied Labs was doing to curb the rat problem.

It did far more than instill confidence in the city"s residents. It pissed them off. Royally.

Almost overnight, he received horrible voicemails from people and letters from all fifty states.

“How about we cut off your nose and see how you ‘navigate’”?

“How does it feel to be a murderer?”

“You, sir, are a son of a bitch.”

Thurston took the insults personally. He called the news station to ask for another interview, but the reporter didn’t return his messages.

Ever since, he always believed he was misunderstood. Just like rats.

As he rode the elevator to the granite-walled lobby of the Alsatius Building, he caught a glimpse of a small crowd of protesters across the street carrying placards with his name on them.

Stop abusing rat babies!

Stop abusing rat babies!Respect Mother Nature!

Respect Mother Nature!“Ratticus” Thurston sucks!

“Ratticus” Thurston sucks!They chanted with their fists in the air. Not even the wintry Chicago wind deterred them.

They must"ve known his schedule. Maybe there was someone in the lab who told them. He was friendly with everyone, but his enthusiasm didn"t always translate when it came to research. Was there a “rat” in the lab?

He thanked God that the protesters couldn"t see him through the tinted windows of the lobby.

A black security guard with rectangular eyeglasses and a goatee squeezed from behind the front desk to meet him. The security guards in the building barely acknowledged his existence until the protests started. Then they never forgot his face and went out of their way to treat him with deference. Their butts were on the line if something went wrong.

“Ronnie, tell me good news,” Atticus said.

“I had a killer ham sandwich today, and we didn’t have any shoplifting in the stores on the first level,” Ronnie said, “but as it pertains to you, Mr. Thurston, I don"t have any good news.”

you“It’s that bad?”

“We’ve got an officer out there right now,” Ronnie said. “He"s been there since three. Those folks are angry, but they"re not causing any trouble. Let"s hope it stays that way.”

Thurston paused and looked through the revolving doors outside, where he could see the protesters walking in circles across the street, yelling his name. If he went out there now, it would be bad news.

“I"ll call a car if you like,” Ronnie said.

The lab paid for black car service if Thurston ever needed it. It struck him as excessive. Plus, he had an aversion to rich people services. He was just a lab researcher and the son of a secretary and sanitation worker. Riding around in fancy cars just wasn"t in him.

“I"ll save you a phone call,” Thurston said. “How"s the alley today?”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Ronnie said.

“Unless the protesters thought about camping out at the loading bay, I"d say that"s a pretty good escape route, wouldn’t you?”

Ronnie sidled over to the front desk and glanced at the security cameras. He picked up the phone and had a brusque conversation with someone. After he hung up, he looked at Thurston over the tops of his glasses and said, “Suit yourself, but once you set foot out of that alley, I can"t do a thing for you.”

“I wouldn"t dream of asking you to do more,” Thurston said, waving.

* * *

A literal hop, skip, and jump off a loading bay later, Thurston landed in the darkened alley behind the Alsatius Building, among dumpsters and delivery trucks. The skyscraper rose in a dizzying, dazzling array of steel and wavy black reflective glass.

He skidded on a patch of ice but caught his balance and headed for a thread of light on the other end that would deposit him on the other side of the building. The alley was narrow and long, and it broke into an L halfway through. It should have been enough to bypass the crowds and give him a few hundred feet of cushion before ducking into the covered stairway that led up to the State/Lake L station.

A shadow darted in front of him, and he smiled.

Despite the fact that he was running away from people who hated his very existence, he was among friends now. Well, he considered them friends, but they would bite him and infect him with heaven knows what disease faster than he could blink. But if he had to pick between his enemies and wild rats, he’d choose the latter.

heHe could hear the protesters’ chanting even now, though muffled. His name. How they cursed his name. All over a misunderstanding. Some part of him wanted to charge them, curse them out, and tell them how the news reporter took him out of context, and how an edited video was wrecking his reputation. But they wouldn"t listen to him. There was no convincing someone who was convinced you were the son of Satan himself.

He rounded the bend in the alley and made his way toward the bustling street ahead. Pedestrians and cars passed by in a hurry on their way to somewhere important. He flipped the collar on his pea coat, pulled his Chicago Cubs baseball cap down to his eyebrows, and dug a hand into his pocket as he flowed onto the sidewalk.

He tasted skin and wool, felt the warm slam of someone else"s body. Static electricity danced across his cheek. He recoiled. Then—a whack against his skull, his back arching in pain, his foot slipping up from underneath him as he crashed into a brick wall.

A woman lay dazed next to him. She was dressed in a brown puffy coat, a wool beanie, and tall leather boots. Her red hair fell over her face, and she groaned as she tried to figure out what had just happened.

Thurston wiped his head and straightened his cap, shaking away stars. He pulled himself up and extended a hand. “Are you okay? I didn"t see you.”

“That makes two of us.”

The woman looked at him with green eyes and cheeks full of freckles. One tooth grew crooked in the top of her mouth. She smiled sheepishly as she took his hand. She was probably half his age—maybe early twenties.

For a few seconds, they stared at each other, and her eyes widened at the sight of his, like she was gazing deep within him. She scanned his face, and her jaw hung a little, and he noticed her maroon lipstick.

“I guess it was my fault,” she said, wobbling as she took his hand. Her hand was warm and radiated furnace-like heat. The warmth suffused up Thurston’s arm. Then she broke her gaze and laughed.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Thurston asked.

She smoothed out her coat and dismissed his question. She straightened her beanie.

She searched the sidewalk for something. Thurston spotted it a millisecond before she did—a white placard, face-down on the cement. Through the thin poster board, he made out the faint outline of his name.

A knot bloomed in his throat as someone called out.

“Hey, that’s him! It’s the rat man!”