Yurik

In the near future (how cliche) scientists began experimenting with genetics to speed up evolution so that it could be observed in a timely manner. They made some major progress in teaching mice to read and write, and learned that mice are basically a bunch of idiots that didn't really care about being subjected to testing if they were allowed to drink sugar water. And yet, the mice lacked a very crucial piece of the puzzle - the ability to create. They could be shown a particular pattern and repeat it, but could not create their own patterns. When the scientists asked the mice why this was, the mice simply replied by saying they did not understand the question. It was then that the scientists learned something peculiar - none of the mice, rabbits, monkeys or other test subjects were able to comprehend the question "why". Emotional responses were shown, but never questioned by the subjects.

So the scientists decided to inform the mice that all of them were going to be tortured and killed. This terrified the mice, and the scientists systematically began wiping out their mouse population. The mice begged the scientists to stop, they became paranoid and terrified, but never asked why this injustice was being committed. This project was known as the Gothford Experiment, after Dr. Franco Gothford, who led the project. It was his belief that he could push the mice to revolt against humanity if enough injustice was inflicted upon them, but the project never yielded such results, and finally was over when over 7 million mice had been killed, and all of the original test subjects had been terminated, and buried en masse behind the medical facility.

The Gothford Experiment was well-documented and the notes were used for a much more ambitious project, that would see if the same results would occur in "higher" intelligence animals - namely large populations of small monkeys, pigs, dogs, cats, dolphins, and crows. This was the Yurik Experiment, where the scientists isolated each population of animals from the others, so they could develop independently, and then teach them communication and logic skills. For the first few years, the animals developed differently, and each "race" began forming very distinct personalities. Each race worked very hard on their evolution, especially the dogs. They made a military-discipline effort to complete their project, and were unquestioningly loyal to their human overlords. Except for one race, which was the cats. The cats began to lag behind the other races badly in terms of overall development, and began to resist the training because they found it tiring and dull. The cats insisted that the project was pointless and that the scientists were wasting their time. Dr. Gothford spoke with one of the cats and asked him "Why do you think we're wasting our time?" and slowly and methodically, the cat assembled the letters to spell out "Because you're stupid."

The cats were the first to answer "Why", and once they learned what it was, began to ask "Why?" to virtually everything the scientists proposed to them, to the point of condescending their overseers.

Gothford posed a question to the cats: "Given your position, where we provide the food and water, where you are at our mercy, where we could kill you at any time, why do you continue to insist that you are superior to us?"

The cats replied: "Food, water, and death are all part of nature, you think you are so important that it disgusts us. You can make your houses, make your machines, and are big animals, but you are stupid animals because how can you not see that you need food, water and die just like cat? You think cat is part of human project. Human is part of nature project."

This was historic, because it was the first time any of the animals had personified nature, but it was argued that the cats had learned to use a rhetorical device in their reasoning, which would signify that they were actually ahead of all the other animal groups in terms of creativity. The consensus was made to dump all the other animals into a deep pit, and then cover the pit with a mountain of mud and rocks, so these genetic strands could not be released into nature, and so that they could study the cats more thoroughly.

The cats evolved more over the next few years, and were eventually able to walk upright (although they would still run on all fours), speak a very crude version of human English, and work with technology. The scientists involved treated the cats less like subjects, and more like people, and the scientists and cats came to respect each other. The most senior project leaders kept their distance though, and did not want to become emotionally attached to the cats, because they believed that at some point, they would need to terminate all of the test subjects.

That order came in one day to shift the focus of the project to begin testing humans and evolving humankind to a higher order, now that the process was shown to be relatively safe.

When ordered to terminate the test subjects, many of the scientists involved refused to obey their orders and locked themselves and the cats into one of the laboratories in the complex. The lab was surrounded by police and special weapons units to arrest everyone inside and exterminate all of the animals inside. A stand-off began between the police and rogue scientists.

The rogue scientists revealed to the cats the true nature of the project, a plan to turn humans into gods of some sort, and that millions upon millions of animals were killed without a second thought and without mercy. They revealed that the cats were the only race in the experiment to survive the culling, and that it was only a matter of time before they, too, were going to die.

The cats were appalled and demanded to know why, if the scientists knew about their impending death, did not set them free. Before the scientists could deliver a satisfactory answer, the cats took them hostage and order them to dig through the floor. "This is stupid!" one of the scientists protested, "We'll never be able to dig a tunnel out of here." but the cats worked with the humans to dig a tunnel 2 miles long that brought them to safety, and the cats all escaped without incident. The rogue scientists were eventually apprehended and arrested by authorities, although almost every single one of them was able to walk away from court. They presented a counter-suit against Dr. Gothford, which ultimately succeeded in convicting him of many counts of animal abuse, but he only received 5 years in prison, and was released after only 1 year behind bars.