Wanda came awake on her back. She was laying on a smelly old coach with a smellier blanket covering her up to her neck. To her horror, she realized that it wasn’t the blanket which stank – it was her. She held down a compulsion to wretch (literally held it down). “Oh, you weren’t wrong about my stink. Sorry.”

A new figure sat down in a chair next to her. The figure’s beak was a plastic, and its grey head was bald. Cybernetic camera-eyes focused on her. The bird’s clothing was looser fitting but the same pink color.

The boar stood behind the bird. The boar said, “We all had to turn up our own filter. Indoors, you smell like a bag full of unwashed rat farts. I would know, cause we’ve got an unwashed rat who lives here.”

Wanda looked around the room carefully for the first time. It looked like a bar or saloon from the descriptions. A pair of fires, one in a fireplace and another in a barrel, warmed and illuminated but produced very little smoke. A long bar stretched across, and Hogwash leaned his back onto it. The cat was nowhere to be seen – and neither was a rat – but more light and voices came from the next room over. The wooden walls were covered with clutter: used up dart boards, cracked picture frames, and sports-weapons like bats and sticks all modified with nails and razor blades.

“Seaweed,” said the vulture. “That’s the odor. Did anyone forcably spliced your genome with seaweed genes?”

Wanda answered with hesitation, “Not as far as I know. I think I just landed in truckload of it.”

The vulture said, “It saved your life. That seaweed must have been transgenetic. Accelerated your healing, sealed some puncture wounds, numbed the pain, even blunted your respitory system to the effects of toxic air."

The boar interrupted, "Who knows what they do to our food these days." 

The vulture continued, "We thought that skin color was cosmetic, but it was a side effect of the bio-chemicals leeching into your skin from the air and the weed. Any longer in that weed, and the cure might have killed you. It couldn’t do anything about your nose which you broke after you came here. I fixed that.”

Wanda asked, “Will I have mutant seaweed powers now? Will I swing through the city on ropes of seaweed and stop muggers with photosenthesis?”

The vulture and boar both laughed at this. The boar said, “Sister, you’re funny. At least I think you’re funny. You might crazy.”

The vulture added, “They are not mutually exclusive, funny and crazy. No, you will not be attacking any muggers tonight. How are you feeling, Truman?”

Wanda answered, “I feel less terrible, thank you for asking. My name isn’t Truman”

The vulture rested his beak on his fist in a pose which looked like a slightly askew imitation of The Thinker.

The boar threw stood tossed an empty beer bottle into nearby fire. The boar said, “It’s time to introduce ourselves. I’m called Hogwash. Your doctor here is Buzzard. This place you’re stinking up is the Pink Hole, hideout of the Pink Mohawk gang. So who are you, Truman?”

“I’m human, and that’s not my name. I’m Wanda. At least, I was Wanda. I don’t like that name anymore. The only person in the world who would want to call me that died tonight. Call me – Wounded for now. It’s a distinct pleasure to make your acquaintances, Hogwash and Buzzard of the Pink Hole.” She sat up and instantly felt woozy again.

“Stay down,” the vulture advised. “You’ll need at least a full night’s rest before you’re standing and walking again. And you will need a mask.”

Wounded laid back down. She inquired, “If I may ask, where am I? I mean, I know that this place is the Pink Hole, but I have no idea where that is. I don’t know what city this is.”

Buzzard’s head pulled back in motion which might have been either confusion or repulsion, Wounded wasn’t sure. “You also have a mild concussion which seems to have knocked some memories out of your pretty little noggin.”

After a pause, Hogwash shook his head and answered, “You’re in the Warehouse District in the city of NeoMiami. It’s a transmetropolis established for the climate refugees of Miami, Havana, and Nassau. That cargo of seaweed was probably headed from the docks to laboratory further inland – or back the other way for export. The Sargasso Plantations are just off the coast, huge corporate seaweed farms for food and carbon capture. Any of this sounding familiar?”

Wounded affirmed, “I recognized the name Miami.”

Buzzard said, “That’s a start.”

Wounded asked, “So what are you guys? I mean, do all of the animals talk here?”

Hogwash buried his eyes in his hand and said, “Odin, give me strength.”

Buzzard handed her a cup of warm tea. “Drink this. It has medical nano-machines which I brewed myself to address the cerebral damage and internal micro-tear. Also chamomile.”

Hogwash continued his lesson. “We’re second generation free critters. Back during our parent’s time, the uplifted critters won the right to citizenship. The first lab animals to be uplifted were the most naturally intelligent. If you were born a dolphin or an octopus, your work was in demand and life was good. Almost as good as being a Truman or an A.I. If you were a farm animal or pet, things were different. My parents for example were born and bred for the slaughterhouse, but they qualified for citizenship as uplifted lifeforms. That saved them from the butcher, but it didn’t leave them with a way to fill their bellies. They took whatever honest work she could get, but mostly they learned to scavenge to get by. They settled in this abandoned neighborhood with other Uplifts. My mother created the Pink Mohawks to keep troublemakers out – but mostly to start our own trouble.”

Wounded sneezed into her hand. Buzzard looked at the hand. Buzzard said, “Oh dear, your body is rejecting the medi-nanites. That happens with one-in-five or so Trumans. You seem to be recovering with out it.” She took the empty tea cup from the girl. “That was your bedtime story, Wounded. You need your sleep now. We’ll find you a mask in the morning.”

Wounded pulled her blanket close. She said, “Some clothes would be even better. Where are mine?”

Hogwash said, “We burnt those rancid things.”

Buzzard consoled, “I think we can find something in your size, Wounded. Sleep tonight. Fashion show tomorrow.”

Within minutes, Wounded was snoozing away. Buzzard looked her over one last time. Then she turned to Hogwash and reported, “She’ll live through the night. Strange little Truman though. She can’t remember her home or her family from amnesia. Lost her phone and ID, everything but a small broken robot. Did you notice the scar tissue around her neck?”

Hogwash opened another bottle of beer. “Yeah, no knowledge of geography. Scars. Some friend who died earlier tonight. That girl was a somebody’s prisoner, and sooner or later, somebody is going to come looking for her.”

“That’s potential trouble, but the Pink Mohawks exist to protect one another. We’ve never taken in a Truman recruit before, but a stray is a stray.”

Hogwash took a long drink before responding. “You know the rule, Buzz. We don’t have enough slop to feed every stray. If she can’t pull her weight, she can’t stay.”