“Excellent, Ms Bruce! You were everything we’ve been told about.”
I was? I shot Stuart a quizzical look. What kinds of conversations had they had when we weren’t around? Hollingsworth’s eyes held mine for way too long, and he looked so pleased, like he’d found something he’d lost.
“Now, let’s bring the specimen over to the table, and we’ll take you through the extraction process.”
Extraction process. They were going to take semen from an unconscious shifter. I grit my teeth, my eyes darting around as the memory of Gaden’s capture, of the uproar the pack were likely to make when they found out about what they were doing in this place, pummelled me. Nan’s voice wasn’t a background suggestion, it was a full-throated shout. I needed to get the fuck out of here ASAP. Of course, that wasn’t how this was going down.
I stepped back when Nick and Stuart came forward, but Hollingsworth shook his head. “Thank you, Mr Miller,” he said to Nick. “I’m sure you’re most capable, but I’d like Ms Bruce involved in this one.”
“Shannon?” Stuart said. “She does assist in our surgical work at times, but only as a means to stabilise animals. If this is to be our everyday business, Nick will need to be trained.”
“And he will, Stuart,” Hollingsworth said, “but many hands make light work and all that. I’m not paying someone top dollar to just stand around making the animals happy. Come on, Ms Bruce.”
I looked at Stuart as the man waved me forward. He frowned, but he didn’t make a move to stop Hollingsworth. I took a deep breath in and sighed through my nose. This was it, the thing Nan warned me so often about, yet here I was. I couldn’t tell the guy to fuck off like I wanted without giving something of myself away. The average person might be fascinated or grossed out, but they wouldn’t be feeling the rage running inside me, prompting a fine shake of my hands, my muscles wound tightly. They wouldn’t be experiencing washes of revulsion and nausea. Their brains wouldn’t be shrieking that this was wrong, wrong, wrong. I’d had to pretend I was something I was not my whole fucking life, and apparently, it was all leading to this. My jaw muscle tightened so much, I worried my teeth might crack, and then I stepped up.
Gaden. Was that his actual name or some barbaric label Hollingsworth had put on him? He looked small somehow for an animal over thirty kilos, laid out on the stainless-steel tabletop, a breathing tube now put down his throat by the flunkies in the room. Machines that went ping behind him showed his respiration and heart rate.
“Well,” Stuart said, standing behind Gaden, “we always put animals on a respirator when under anaesthetic. It can be a tricky business, putting an animal under. Without careful administration and monitoring, you could lose them. Now, you’ll need to put some gloves on.”
Stuart passed them over, snapping his on as I did the same. “Now we need a catheter to collect the samples and a prostate stimulator.” One of Hollingsworth’s men wheeled over a cart with a strange combination of things on the top.
“What do I need to…” My question faltered as I glanced around the room, looking but not really seeing. I couldn’t get the words out because that would make this real. My eyes settled on the unconscious Gaden, my brows jerking down.
Stuart saw my discomfort and came to my rescue.
“The process is quite simple,” he explained with a lame smile. “The catheter slides into the cat’s urethra to collect the sample, the stimulator emits a weak electric pulse that mechanically stimulates the prostate, bringing a semen sample out through the urethra.”
I’m going to zap…Gaden to get his semen. I swallowed hard.
“It’s OK, Shan,” Stuart said. “It’s a little weird, but it's important. There’s a move to create frozen zoos all over the world by stockpiling genetic material, so that if the worst happens and a species becomes extinct, we have a bank of samples with which to resurrect them rather than lose them forever.”
I understood the rationale all right, but Stuart had no idea what he was asking. I just stared at him as he used his reassuring vet guy routine on me, not realising I was stuck knee deep in existential horror. Would he be so glib if it was him on the table?
“Perhaps Ms Bruce should try inserting the catheter,”