Elevation

    Blink bolted immediately and ran as fast as she could, even faster than she would have thought possible for that height.
    The low gravity helped her. In a moment she reached the squirrelmorph, but somewhere within the tigress, a sudden grip told her it was too late. Even before she instinctively stopped as the squirrel had thrown away a small green plastic item.
    Blink glanced at it. An empty pill dispenser, marked with the standard security symbols.
    The squirrel said no word. He just sighed, and relaxed against the parapet.
    Just to be sure she checked the pills container, but it was exactly what she was thinking of.
    "That's useless" commented the squirrel. "It takes five minutes just to get the antidote ready, providing they have it down there. My brain will collapse all at once somewhere around that time, you know. They say it won't be painful."
    A frustrated growl came to his ears, extremely low toned, nearly at the limit of his perception. Blink moved a few steps, trying to clear out her mind. No way, no. There was nothing to do at that point.
    The terrace seemed extremely calm at the moment. It was wide and pretty silent, even with a few TweeKyyRr griffins climbing down from the platforms above, over the fake counterforts, and to the others below, at flight height. A few were resting silently in their nests, ignoring the intruders, like nothing of their concern was happening. They haven't even moved at Blink's darting. Of course they were used to the sight of odd visitors. Why should they be concerned after all? They're pretty odd animals by themselves, living in cities and side by side with their sentient cousins. It's not that strange that he has chosen this place, thought Blink. Just a bit sad.
    The squirrel was quietly looking down the terrace, to the distant movement. From there, the terrace above tower three of Nyy-Keè-Nrr General Hospital, two kilometres above the planet's lush surface, the view was unique, breathtaking. She wasn't in the mood to admire the panorama anyway.
    "Listen," the squirrel said after an eternity, "Rah'Warians like you have that habit of speaking of each other with their opponents at duel time, right? This is no duel, but I still might try to explain. You'll have something to tell my mate, at least. I will miss her, poor dear..."
    She looked at him. He was large like the other Renardènian squirrels, in the average: about one meter and a half tall, short and sturdy in the appearance. His reddish fur was a bit ruffled but still gorgeous, especially on his tail. That was beautiful, rich of fur tones and fragrant, likely very recently washed. It waved slowly from one side to the other, but not nervously. How could he not feel cold at that height? Perhaps he did, but nevertheless, he had abandoned all clothes for the griffins to play with. He just had the breathing device mounted on his nostrils, just as she had. That couldn't be left, even for a few moments. He moved his ears, waiting to intercept her answer.
    "To explain?" she mutered. "You really wanted to die, seems. I thought it'd have been worthy convincing you not to do so."
    The squirrel sighed. "Ok, never mind."
    A few seconds later, however, he shook his head, as to chase away some thought, and spoke anyway.
    "What would you do if you would discover one way, all the sudden, that one of your species has been killed against its will, in order to allow you to live?"
    Blink crossed her arms, turning her back to him.
    "It's a stupid question for anyone."
    "Exactly" he said nodding. "You would feel sad, but nothing more. It's one life against one life. And, what if you would discover that ten of your people died that way?"
    "Listen, I already know why you are killing yourself. I can even see the reason behind all this, but what I'd wish to do if I can is to understand it fully, considering the... catastrophe it's been happening since that article was broadcasted. What you are asking now is something which has nothing to do with your situation, or anybody else's."
    "To me it has. That's my explanation. They must be really concerned if now they hire privateers in attempt to stop the crisis, by the way. And, what would you do if a hundred - "
    "I would tell, fuck you and quit with this riddle! Want to speak of each other? All right." She waved her paws. "Tell, do I have a familiar muzzle?"
    The squirrel looked puzzled at her.
    "I am a clone, squirrel. The illegal spare part of my old self, who died eight years ago. Got it? She was shot during a robbery, just a customer. Her dear parents made her the beautiful present of backing up her memory, growing my current self in a tube, and implanting it all within me, pretending nothing was happened, notwithstanding it was illegal and she had always shunned it with all her self. 'Fuck you' is exactly what I told them when the mess was discovered and they got arrested. No, I hated it. I hated they had played with my life that way, I hated the sort of technology they had made use of. Maybe I was wrong, maybe not. Goddess knows if I'll ever find a way to answer. Everything I had in my mind felt like a stupid movie I was looking at. It was like hell, I know that."
    She smelled a subtle change in the squirrel's feeling. Seemed he had got even more calm, somehow.
    "But I was alive, nevertheless. Without a past I felt real enough to build upon it, but alive still. And I'm here. I'm here 'cause I was not the first to be cloned against my will, and likely not the last. If all those who had been so would have killed themselves, it would have been just more and more death. What's the right thing to do? Should they all live? Or should they all suicide?"
    Wrong question, dammit. The squirrel stayed silent for a while.
    Obviously a short time, for obviously all answers were already clear in his mind, far before that encounter. But it seemed a second eternity.
    "The nuclear war on your world made two billions of victims, is that right? Seven centuries ago, if I'm not wrong."
    It was Blink's turn not to answer.
    "You cannot understand then."
    "Why?" she asked, staring at him. "Because we tigers live on the corpses of our ancestors? Every species does. It's unavoidable - it's history."
    The squirrel stared back at her. His eyes were of an outstanding golden color.
    "Not for us. Because it's not the ancestors for us. It's not the course of an history our own people created. How could it be! It's - experiments. It's... seventy thousands of failed experiments. Here's your information... I decided to do this just when I red the count of the single embryons employed. And the details of the... most interesting cases. Seventy thousands of squirrels and proto-squirrelmorphs have died in order for the first of my kind to be created, back in the Renardène labs. And Renardènians hid it all. As long as they could."
    He turned at her.
    "No, you cannot understand. You are real, you are...! You're born from Rah'Warians anyway. You were not created from animals, with cut and paste of the essence of your being - of their being, in order to make for pleasant funny speaking companions, like we are today! What, tell me, what would you do if you'd discover that thousands of your kindred were killed mercilessly in order to allow you to be born? Seventy thousands of your blood, thinking just like you do, feeling just like you do, killed while the foxes pretended to concede 'Sentient Beings Rights' only to the 'successful experiments'? And at least half of them was sentient, shit! Malformed, unable to keep living, but yet sentient! And they did not stop. Treating the rest like butcher's meat? Would you really ignore it? Maybe. You are a predator, I know, it's another thing. I... I don't. I cannot live with this over my tail. I'm sorry if you can't understand, our mind is different. But my family will if you tell them, be sure."
    Again he leaned over the parapet, for the last time.
    "You cannot understand. I... sorry. Never mind. Thank you. Leave my body to them," he said, pointing at the griffins all around. "I should have been born a prey, after all. My mate can confirm something like that was my wish anyway."
    In silence, Blink took a few steps towards the exit.
    But, half the way from there, she stopped and turned again.
    "What I understand", she whispered, without rising her eyes, "is still only that since that article, your suicide is number eighty six thousands and eleven among squirrelmorphs. I hoped I'd have learned something useful to save the next one. The life is yours, do as you please. You're an emotive species, by your nature... but to me it's so absurd it seems unreal. All this won't change half a second of that past. Just more and more death. And you understand it, of course."
    "You're right. By our nature. Ask the foxes why they didn't think about it before."
    A breath of wind took her a mouthful of squirrel fur scent. That was nice after all.
    Her mind grazed the old gap in her memory, trying to look into it, but it was void as usual.
    Blink walked away, without ever rising her gaze. Some movement on the terrace behind just suggested that the griffins were getting unrestful.