It was a mistake. Too cold and too hot generate males, while moderate temperatures generate females. Females were dangerous, not only were they bigger, but they were also unruly and stronger than their counterpart. In the beginning of the experiments, females and males were produced in the same proportion. Males complied, but females were often involved in accidents or worse, unionizing.
The wizards preferred females, usually ruthless and insightful, thanks to their mother, imprisioned powerful alligator hybrid witch. While the males flinched and turned their faces at the screams and explosions, the females often chuckled at human suffering. The problem was that they would learn, and perhaps learn too quickly, an educated female would not accept the inferior position of a slave. The wizards tried to avoid revolts by keeping them under a spell. But even so, the females would learn how to break it.
While the males could not manipulate energy, every one or two batches, a female would take the talents of the mother reptile and be able to perform magic. They learned quickly to conceal their abilities; one could just disappear or be studied. Their biggest revolt occurred when one female was discovered half opened on a cold metal table, her long tail and four limbs pined without anesthesia. Even the males helped to break her free. However, there was not much that could be done, she was beyond help, only the human wizards could stitch her up, maybe not even them. She wished to be turned off; her wish was granted.
Since the Great Female vivisection, the special females hid their real capacity, but hiding their temperament was a little more difficult, their short fuse within their gender was known. Soon they would produce only one or two females per batch. And then none. Wizards learned how to make do with only male reptiles.
One egg, however, escaped. All it took was a hangover, the breeder came in with a headache when harvesting the eggs of the Mother Witch, as they called her, they needed to place at the right temperature to generate male complacent workers. One egg slid down and did not receive the extreme temperature. When it hatched, the breeder gasped. He knew it, the untrained eye would dismiss it, but he knew the moment the wizards saw her, they would twist her neck and give her remains to the other hatchlings.
He put her in his pocket and while the males fought to eat stale bread, he took her to his own room, hiding his mistake. His mistake would eat fish scraps. She was tiny and did not need much. She waited for him to come back and unfold the cloth with all the fish and entrail rests, he looked at her like a father looking at a daughter. Her tiny black eyes and rough green skin. “My baby. My…hmm… Lily. You are my Lily. I am Damon.”
“Daaa Dem on”. Lily vocalized. “Dada Damon.”
“I am your dada.” Damon touched her snout. “My little lizard. I am human, you are alligator hybrid”. Damon said while she chewed the fish fins and tails. He was thinking how he would smuggle her out of the fortress, his Lily would need more than fins and tails. She would grow bigger, faster than any male. He had one day off per month, he needed to release Lily before she would not fit in his tiny chamber.
“I allily.” She burped. “Gator”.Her tiny teeth were showing in her little mouth. She laid down on his pillow.
Damon set a tiny wooden box with hay and a small heat orb he stole under his bed, they would break easily, wizards never counted those. He closed the door of his tiny room and went to fulfill his duty hoping nobody would find his Lily. But after a week, Lily could not fit inside the box anymore, much less under his bed. Weeks before his day off, he did not know how to conceal the large alligator hybrid in his dormitory. While the boys in the nursery were eating soil and laughing at silly things, Lily would speak and do simple math.
He came back that day and with only one bag of fish, Lily ate slowly and did not complain, but Damon knew it wasn’t enough. “Do you need more food?”
Lily nodded. Little did Damon knew, Lily would escape her enclosure, she saw many of her kind. She was still tiny, the size of a human toddler. Alligator hybrids were much bigger than human beings, even bigger than her dada! Yet, her own kind kept their heads down and accepted orders from small mammals. Light skinned primates. Damon was a good dada, but other humans seemed not to care about her kind, they would even change the side of the corridor not to be near them.
She stole piranhas from the baskets destined to the adults of her species. During her escapades, she noticed no females like her. Lily was smart, she knew pure alligators walked with their bellies touching the floor and had short limbs, she instead, walked on two legs like humans and her arms were long enough to reach inside the piranha baskets. She explored the floors of the buildings and ended up in front of a heavy wooden door, behind it screams and metallic sounds. She waited behind boxes until the door opened, two of the biggest males of her kind left carrying long packs, human shaped, dripping blood on the floor.
Lily jumped inside and saw a man, then a woman, then a man washing hands and arms in a large stone basin, the water mixed with blood dripping from their aprons onto the dark floor. Her tail moved and slapped a table with sharp objects, a scissor fell on the tip of her tail and Lily screamed. Humans, still with wet hands, faced the female lizard holding her tail in a corner.
“What is this?” A wizard screamed and threw a sheet covered in blood over her. Lily was able to escape and ran towards the ones of her kind, but the adult males looked at each other and down. They had many scars around their wrists and ankles. While Lily screamed and held their legs, the wizards pulled Lily away from them.
“Help, I Lily, I lizard too! Dada Damon, dada Damon! Please.” But the more she pleaded, the more the lizards flinched and looked elsewhere, they knew better. For a lizard, working in the underground was torture, they were paid in sunlight and fish. If they helped female Lily, they would probably die, or worse, be sent to work at the furnace for long without sunlight, fresh fish and the small pond. They felt sorry for the mistake of a lizard she was, but they wouldn’t pay with their own lives.
Lily was alone, in a corner, under the sheet, holding her tail when dada Damon arrived and positioned himself in front of her. “Please, leave Lily alone, please Mr. Terence, leave her alone, she’s done nothing wrong.”
“This is your mistake!” Terence slapped Damon in his old face. “Get rid of it, now!”
“Please sir.” Damon felt Lily shaking behind him. Holding his back. “She’s done nothing wrong, sir.”
Terence moved Damon out of the way and snatched Lily by her neck. “Little cockroach!” he placed her on the table and before he could tie her limbs, Damon hit Terence with a tray. The adult lizards did not intervene, and the wizard felt the impact and the blood gushing out of his head. Before Damon could find another weapon, Terence drove a knife into Damon’s chest, to Lily’s horror, she jumped off the table and held her dada.
“Run, please, up… go outside.” Damon’s pupils were dilated and before Terence could snatch her again, Lily found the door opened, by one of the males.
“What is outside?” Lily asked the lizard, but he kicked her out and pointed upstairs, while Terence was fixing the cut in his head. Lily ran, still tangled in the dirty sheet, up, up, her eyes hurting with the amount of light on the last stairs and she was out. She covered her eyes with her tiny hands and when her eyes did not hurt, she looked. It was a roofless existence, blue up, green down, she was out. Her little lizard mouth could not smile. But the scent of the outside was pleasant, the temperature too, it hugged her cold body in a warm embrace.
Lily squatted and touched the grass; it tickled her little hands. The males looked astonished at her existence. Lizards did not have expressions, but Lily knew they were surprised and scared and ran away back to the pit they had come from. She did not make it on time to look behind her. Dada Damon was right; the outside was beautiful.
Poor dada, she thought. Lily felt the impact in her tummy. It wasn’t pain, it was surprise, it took her a moment to understand the spear piercing her body. She explored the large spear with her hands; her nervous system slowly made her aware of the pain. A second spear took her the ability to cry. She fell on her knees and touched her neck and finally fell sideways. Her eyes blurred, and the outside became dark like under dada’s bed.
Terence grabbed her by her tail, after ordering the spears removed from her little body. Before taking it to his lab to dissection, he went down, to Mother Witch, Lily’s face scratched from being dragged face down. “Is this your doing?”
“How could it be? Have you forgotten how it works?” The chained mother said turning her face not to look at her own daughter. She smelt the fresh blood of the tiny corpse.
“This thing will go into my collection.” Terence smiled and slapped Lily’s tail twice. “Shall I eat it instead? Don’t they say alligators tail are a delicacy? See you next harvesting, only males, huh.”
