This short story takes you inside the mind of an intelligent bottlenose dolphin who faces the ultimate test of life and death. If the story works for you, it should evoke a feeling of empathy and compassion. Along the way, it touches on a host of subjects, including animal rights, the dangers of commercialism, the misuse of science, and our attempts to understand the nature of the world.
Finding Freedom
by Ken Sanes
At the front and center of the auditorium a large glass tank was
sitting on the floor. Inside the tank was Freedom, a somewhat agitated
looking bottlenose dolphin. Not much else was in there with him -- just
sea water, a stick that he used for tapping, and an underwater computer
touch screen that acted as a virtual keyboard with a display of letters.
Surrounding the tank on three sides was an amphitheater of seats under
an expansive ceiling. And in the seats was an audience of many of the world’s most
brilliant scientists, along with prominent politicians and celebrities.
Some were absorbed in conversations on their cell phones or were busy
sending and receiving text messages.
In the front row of the auditorium, not far from the tank, a young man
with blond hair and a blue uniform kept moving around in his seat,
nervously leaning to one side and then the other. As he shifted his
position, Freedom was swimming back and forth across his tank, like he
was pacing in the water.
The young man in the blue uniform looked over at Freedom. Many people
in the audience were periodically looking at the dolphin, as well,
although mostly they were looking at his three-dimensional holographic
image, which was floating over them at various locations in the
auditorium. What many of them noticed was that the dolphin seemed to be
smiling along the entire length of his beak. Of course, to people,
bottlenose dolphins always look like they are smiling. What they are
actually thinking is anybody’s guess. At least it was anybody’s guess.
Tonight, in this auditorium, that was about to change.
Finally, after a long delay, Dr. Mark McBane stepped in front of the
glass tank and began to speak to the audience, as his image was carried
live to an estimated three billion people watching holographic
television around the world. Dr. McBane was also wearing a blue uniform.
It had a large round logo on the left breast pocket that showed a hand
clasping a flipper in a bond of eternal friendship. Above it, following
the curve of the circular logo, were the letters IHCU which, as almost
everyone on Earth could tell you, stood for “Institute for
Human-Cetacean Understanding.” People in the audience got a good look at
the logo because Dr. McBane’s 3-D image was also looming over them in the
auditorium.
As Dr. McBane began to speak, cell phones were slipped into purses and
jacket pockets, and a hush fell over the crowd. Across the globe, three
billion people waited in anticipation.
“Today,” he said, “we make history. As many of you know, for the last
decade I have been trying to communicate with the order of animals known
as cetaceans, made up of whales, porpoises, and dolphins. But my primary
focus has been on one species -- bottlenose dolphins -- who are
remarkably quick learners.
“I can tell you that it has been my unique privilege to work with a long
line of these wonderful creatures, frequently getting right in the water
with them to minister to their needs and keep them company. You can
believe me when I say that they are soulful animals: playful,
affectionate and, in some ways, remarkably like us.
“But for most of that time, our ability to communicate with them has
been rudimentary at best. Then, three years ago, our team at the
Institute for Human-Cetacean Understanding made a spectacular discovery
-- a bottlenose dolphin that appears to be a mutation, and that
manifests truly exceptional abilities. This dolphin easily passed
cognitive tests that stumped every other dolphin we have studied at the
Institute. In fact, we estimate he has the intelligence of … a U.S.
senator.”
The audience in the auditorium paused for a fraction of a second as it
sized up what it was being told, then burst out laughing. A number of
senators in the audience were laughing too. But they didn’t think it was
funny.
“Just kidding,” Dr. McBane said. “But this dolphin is unusually bright.
Technically, he is research subject N1-10-1. But we call him Freedom.
What is truly remarkable is, that’s what he calls himself, as well.”
Dr. McBane paused briefly for effect, then walked over to the tank and
looked at Freedom through the glass, as the dolphin looked back at him
from the water. Then Dr. McBane turned back to the audience and
continued:
“Over the past three years, while he has lived with us in his own pool
and tank
at the Institute, Freedom has learned how to understand human
speech. And the more we have talked to him, the more new words he has
picked up. But it was just a year ago that we had a true breakthrough
when we taught him how to spell -- yes, spell -- by tapping the letters
on a computer touch screen that displays a keyboard with a phonetic
alphabet. Today, Freedom has an extensive vocabulary -- and he is never
at a loss for words.
“In fact, I have communicated with Freedom many times, simply by
speaking to him, and he has talked back by spelling out his responses on
the virtual keyboard. But I have confined myself to carrying out
relatively minor communications: fetch the ball; what color is my hair;
what are the names of everyone here now, including you? I have
intentionally held off talking to him about the big questions -- such as
how he sees himself and what he cares about -- so we can share some of
that with you tonight. And that’s what we’re going to do. Tonight, for
the first time in history, the first-ever truly meaningful -- and perhaps
even philosophical -- communication will take place between another
species and assembled humanity, right here in Dolphin Hall and around
the world. It’s going to happen in just one minute. That’s right. In
just one minute, you will be in on the making of history.
“But first we want to give you a very important message from our
sponsor, Forman Motor Company.”
Then, as the audience in the auditorium and three billion people around
the world, looked on, the three-dimensional image of Dr. McBane was
replaced by the image of a shiny gray sports car, with the color getting
lighter across the lower part of its body.
“What you are looking at,” a deep baritone voice-over said, “is a
revolution in automobile construction. It is computerized, roboticized
and streamlined. Not only does it lie low on the ground, but it
understands when you give it instructions, and even talks back. From the
long sleek beak in front to the subtle fins in back, the Forman Freedom
is the next step in automotive design -- and your lifestyle.”
As the voice-over continued, the image of the car began to change. The
fins on each side of the back came together, and started to look like a
single large double fin, while the front transformed into, yes, it was a
beak, the beak of a dolphin. The video image of the car was morphing
into Freedom, with medium gray skin and a light underside, swimming
swiftly and powerfully through the water. Then the image changed again
and turned into Freedom “walking” backwards on the surface of the water
with his tail flukes as he said in a childlike voice, through a computer
animated mouth:
“The Forman Freedom. Come on in. The water is good.”
But while the image of Freedom multiplied on video screens in the
auditorium and around the world, the young man in the blue uniform, who
had been sitting in the first row, nervously shifting from side to side,
walked over to Dr. McBane and whispered in his ear:
“I don’t know how it happened. But the pieces of fish that you use as a
reward for the dolphin never made it here. I know we packed them, and no
one else can figure out what happened to them, either. I can drive back
to the Institute if you want. It’s a long drive, but I can drive back
and get it. I don’t think it’ll be in time but --”
As the young man spoke, the benevolent expression on Dr. McBane’s face
changed and, for just a moment, he displayed a look of intense anger. Then Dr. McBane waved the young man away with a half sweep of his hand, making
clear that, no, he did not want to wait for the fish to arrive for the
dolphin. They were already twenty minutes behind schedule, and the
president of the Forman Motor Company was sitting in the first row
glaring at him, undoubtedly because of the time.
They would simply have to do the presentation without the fish, Dr.
McBane thought to himself. It wouldn’t be the first time Freedom had
performed without receiving a reward.
Then, as the image of Freedom dissolved, it was Dr. McBane’s image that
was back, floating in the auditorium over the audience and transmitted
to holographic televisions around the world, precisely one minute later
as promised, as he began to speak again:
“As you all know, our ability to communicate with these creatures is
particularly urgent,” he said. “The impact of overfishing, pollution and
disease has devastated cetacean populations around the world, including
bottlenose dolphins. But if we can communicate with them, there is hope
we can work with them to repopulate the oceans.
“And so, now, without further delay,” he said, in his best announcer’s
voice, “I give you the first ever deep communication between another
species and assembled humanity as we forge a new bond, hands and
flippers across the water, between dolphins and ourselves.
Dr. McBane then began ascending the ladder to the platform at the top of
the glass tank, but slowly to enhance the inherent drama of the
situation. He was nothing if not a showman. Announcing that the first
ever serious communication between a person and a dolphin would take
place on television had been a stroke of marketing genius. As a result
of that decision, this television spectacular had already brought in
enough money to pay for his research for a lifetime. It had also
instantly propelled him into the ranks of the super-rich -- and that was
before the Freedom reality TV series, the hand and flipper lunch boxes,
the music video with Freedom whistling and squeaking as backup, and all
the other lucrative deals that would come his way. And he already had
other ideas that would hold the public’s attention after the initial
burst of publicity, including a love interest for Freedom and a school
for dolphins.
Of course, with these kinds of stakes, Dr. McBane didn’t intend to leave
anything to chance. He had taught Freedom exactly what to say in his
communication to assembled humanity, and the dolphin was now ready to
repeat the answers he had rehearsed, and play his part as a cog in the
great media machine. Dr. McBane himself had written the answers. But
only he and Freedom, and a handful of graduate students and research
assistants, knew it.
And so it was with great confidence that Dr. McBane reached the highest
step of the ladder, pulling himself onto the platform next to the open
top of the tank. Freedom was waiting there, his head sticking out of the
water, looking to see if there was a piece of fish in Dr. McBane’s hand.
As Freedom waited expectantly, it was hard not to notice that he and Dr.
McBane looked a lot like child and parent. In fact, that was very much
by design since Dr. McBane had carefully nurtured Freedom’s dependence
on him. He had even been careful not to give Freedom too much
information about the world, which might evoke a sense of independence
or a desire to leave the Institute. As a result, Freedom didn’t know
anything about the ocean, even though it was next to the Institute. Nor
had he ever seen another dolphin since Dr. McBane was trying to focus
his emotional attachments on his human keepers. Perhaps most
surprisingly, Freedom didn’t even know what a dolphin was. In fact, he
was in the dark about almost everything. They taught him about objects
but not places; actions and adjectives but not plants or animals.
Oddly enough, he had even been tutored in the elements of architecture
so that, in tests, he could tell the difference between pictures of
Corinthian and Ionic columns. But they never explained how it
all fit together to make buildings, and it never occurred to Freedom to
ask.
Fortunately, at least to the best of Dr. McBane’s knowledge, there had
been only a single breach in security they had to deal with in all that
time. It happened when a graduate student named Gina tried to give the
dolphin a quick education, telling him about the world outside the
Institute, and what species he was, and about how things are born and
live and die. She even held up a mirror so
Freedom could see what his face looked like. Up till that moment, it never
occurred to Freedom that his face looked like anything. But her effort to
liberate the dolphin’s mind was captured by security cameras, and Dr. McBane had her physically escorted from the research facility, as she
struggled every step of the way. Freedom‘s requests after
that to look at himself again in “the shiny thing” were ignored.
Given their bond, it was natural that when Dr. McBane stepped onto the
platform over the glass tank in the auditorium, Freedom immediately rose
to the surface, expecting a piece of fish along, perhaps, with a pat on
the head or a task to perform. But this time, as Freedom rose out of the
water, Dr. McBane didn’t have a reward for him. Instead, Dr. McBane crouched
down on the platform so that he and Freedom were face to beak. It was an
iconic moment, summing up the meeting of the two species, which three
billion people watched with fascination. Dr. McBane then posed a
question through his clip-on microphone, his voice filling the
auditorium and expanding out across the world. It was unlike any
question an animal had been asked before. At least, it was unlike any
question an animal had been asked and was ready to answer.
“Tell us, Freedom, what do you have to say to all these people? What
important thoughts can you convey, now that we have made it possible for
you to communicate with us,” Dr. McBane said. “As we extend hands and
flippers across the water, tell us what matters to you. Give us your
first public words.”
Freedom knew what came next. He was supposed to say that this was a new
beginning for his species. And he hoped this would be the start of a
great partnership as dolphins and humanity explored the mysteries of
the mind and the deep together. Then he was supposed to add, “Oh, yes,
and your research assistant, Xuili, who is out with a cold, called on
the phone and asked me to say Hi.” That last comment was a folksy touch
that would undoubtedly evoke applause from many in the audience.
And Freedom’s first inclination was to give just this scripted answer
since he didn’t want to disappoint Dr. McBane. But what he really cared
about was the fact that he had been taken out of his expansive home tank
and stuck in this cramped glass tank, which didn’t give him enough room
to swim. Then this small tank had been moved, and there was a lot of
bumpiness that was very uncomfortable, and now he was in this strange
place full of people and he wasn’t even getting a fish! Where’s my fish,
he wanted to know. Then the frustrated dolphin emitted a series of
whistle-like sounds, dove into the water, picked up a stick with his teeth, and
began poking the keyboard displayed on the large computer touch screen
sitting at the bottom of the tank. Members of the audience, both in the
auditorium and around the world, watched what he was doing through two
parallel images that showed Freedom tapping his keyboard and the
letters appearing below him.
Dr. McBane looked closely at the letters as they began to appear one by
one on a computer monitor on a stand next to him.
The first letters were: “G -- e -- t m--”. This wasn’t what they had
rehearsed, Dr. McBane thought to himself. Then, without warning, it
seemed to Dr. McBane like he was looking at everything from a great
distance as if he was disconnected from the auditorium and even from
himself. He started to panic, uncertain if he even had control over his
body from this strange state of dissociation. But Dr. McBane wasn’t
going to let another one of these psychological episodes destroy the
most important day of his life. So he kept himself together the best he
could while his face projected an appearance of benevolence and calm.
Then he saw that the message was complete. Whatever the message was, it
would have to be read. Looking at the screen, and with all of the world
listening to the sound of his voice, Dr. McBane boomed out the dolphin’s
first communication to humanity:
“Get me out of the damned water!”
At first, Dr. McBane just stood there. Then he read the message again to
himself, with only his lips moving, and turned to the crowd:
“I think it’s a joke,” he said, as the audience in the auditorium burst
out laughing. “One of the things we’ve discovered is that Freedom has a
very dry sense of humor.”
There was an additional smattering of laughter in the audience, and even
some scattered applause at the bad pun. But at least it helped diffuse
an uncomfortable moment and distracted people from the odd quality of
the message.
“This wouldn’t be the first time Freedom has had some fun at the expense
of his human keepers,” Dr. McBane continued. “I’ll ask again.”
By this time, Freedom had resurfaced and, with his head above the water,
he was looking at Dr. McBane.
Dr. McBane then improvised an unscripted question. He knew it sounded
verbally clumsy, and Freedom might not understand it all, but it was the
best he could come up with in his current psychological state:
“Freedom, you are an aquatic mammal who separated from the line that led
to humanity millions of years ago. And you are intelligent although your
intelligence isn’t entirely like our own since it has been shaped by
your life in the water. Please, from your own unique perspective, tell
people around the world what you are thinking about and what matters to
you. Reach your flipper across the waters and say something of
importance to humanity.”
Freedom realized that Dr. McBane wanted him to repeat the scripted
answer he had failed to give the first time. He was also very interested
in that word Dr. McBane had used -- “world.” He remembered the time when
his friend Gina tried to explain the world to him. He wanted to ask her
about it again but, after that, she disappeared, and when he asked the
other people about it, they changed the subject. Without much to go on,
he assumed the world was all the tanks he had been in -- the tank he
grew up in, his home tank at the Institute, the big air tanks that
people walked around in, and now the small glass tank he was stuck in,
and this oversized air tank it was inside of, full of all these people.
He knew there had to be other tanks beyond those since people obviously
emerged from somewhere with fish, and then went back again. But
Freedom couldn’t figure out what all those other tanks were like or how
they were arranged in relation to each other. And now he was stuck in
this small tank and still no fish! So the unhappy dolphin emitted a
series of whistle-like sounds again, then dove down, picked up his stick and tapped
out more letters. Except this time he just kept tapping, one letter
after another. The more he tapped, the quicker he went.
“I think Freedom is writing his autobiography,” Dr. McBane said, as a
wave of subdued laughter quickly rose and fell through the audience,
which was now in a state of concerned anticipation and not particularly
receptive to humor.
Finally, Freedom’s words started to appear on the screen. Or at least
something close to his words started to appear. A computer turned what
he wrote into complete sentences and fixed the grammar. But it was still
the essence of what Freedom was tapping underwater on his touch screen
keyboard.
Meanwhile, Dr. McBane felt like he was being engulfed in surges of
anxiety as he saw that, whatever Freedom was tapping, it once again
wasn’t the scripted answer. Then he started to read Freedom’s words out
loud as humanity listened and read silently along with him:
“Where’s the rest of me?” McBane said, reading the display of Freedom’s
words. “Why don’t I have hands and walk on legs like everyone else? And
where’s my fish! I am truncated; I am missing parts and can’t extend
myself like you. I am a column with stumps. And why am I the only one in
the water! Will somebody please get me out of the water! I want to
extend my hands. I want to walk on dry land, pick things up, wave, and
scratch myself. I can’t tell you how much I want to scratch….”
At this point, Dr. McBane’s voice trailed off. But Freedom was still
tapping away on the keyboard. It seems that Dr. McBane’s question, and
the unusual circumstances, had broken loose a torrent of thoughts that
had been building up in the dolphin and getting stronger, the more he
learned about people -- and the power of language. Dr. McBane said
he wanted Freedom to tell humanity what mattered to him. And Freedom was
doing just that, with a vengeance.
As words continued appearing on all the screens in the auditorium and
around the world, Dr. McBane stood there reading the dolphin’s words
silently, his lips moving ever so slightly:
“Why am I in the water?” the words said. “Why aren’t you? What is
everything else?
And where did all these people in this big air tank come from?
“When I bounce the ball on my nose and knock it into a hoop, I am happy?
And when I fetch the stick, and Dr. McBane says I did a good job, then
I’m happy too. But why isn’t anyone else like me? Am I the only one? Was
I once like you? Will I become like you? There has to be something more.
Where does Dr. McBane come from, and where does he go when he leaves? Is
that where the fish are? What are you hiding? I know you are
hiding things from me. You hid death. And then someone told me about it,
and I never saw her again. I still don’t understand it, but I’m sorry she
told me. What is death? Is this death?”
After “the incident,” as it came to be called, Freedom was moved back to
his home tank at the Institute, which was an indoor pool on top, with a
side wall of non-reflective glass one level below, so visitors could watch him
underwater during visiting hours. And usually there were a lot of
visitors who came to the waterfront to see its three biggest
attractions: the docks and fishing boats, the local aquarium, and the
Institute for Human-Cetacean Understanding.
Freedom didn’t know any of that, of course. Nor did he understand that
his unveiling had been a public relations disaster, with TV reporters
crawling around the auditorium after he tapped out his monologue,
interviewing people in the audience who angrily accused Dr. McBane of
exploiting an innocent, helpless dolphin. And by the next morning, news
had leaked about Dr. McBane’s restrictive training methods. Soon there
were calls for a Senate investigation. The senator who led the party out
of power held a press conference and questioned whether Freedom had been
deprived of his animal nature, his “essential dolphinness,” as the
senator put it.
One curmudgeonly television commentator, who was bald on top with big
goggle-like eyeglasses and gray hair flying out from the sides, called
for a ban on the research altogether:
“What right do we have teaching animals about death,” he said. “They are
like children and don’t have the capacity to come to terms with the hard
truths of life. Bad enough we have to know about it, right!”
Many people agreed.
Freedom may not have known any of this was happening after he was moved
back to his home tank, but he did know something was wrong because, for
the first time in his life, he was left alone. Dr. McBane, who had been
with him every day for the last year, was nowhere in sight. No one else
showed up either - no assistants or graduate students, and no visitors
gawking at him in his tank. It was just Freedom and the automatic
feeder, doling out pieces of fish at the same times every day.
As Freedom swam the length of his tank, he tried to figure out what was
happening. Where was Dr. McBane? Where were the other people? He wanted
to tap with his stick to ask. But no matter how many times he searched,
he couldn’t find the computer touch screen
keyboard that usually sat on
the bottom of his tank, allowing him to spell out his words. The keyboard was like an
extension of him. Without it he was mute. So he poked the bottom of the
tank with his stick at the place where he imagined the letters on the
keyboard would be. He knew what he was saying. But there wasn’t anyone
else around who understood.
After a few days of being alone, Freedom was pacing across his pool even
more than usual. Then he started to float lethargically on the surface
of his glass cage. Fragments of images, and bits and pieces of memories,
began to pass through his mind from the time in the other place where he
had been raised. He remembered the trainer there who hit him with a
stick when he failed to do a trick properly, and dangled fish in front
of him to taunt him and then put the fish back in the bucket.
Then, on the fifth day of Freedom’s solitude, a group of people came
through a side door into the large interior space that housed his pool.
They were wearing caps and masks that concealed their faces, and they
were carrying cutting instruments and tools for picking locks. There
were eight of them. Freedom knew that for a fact because he counted. One
of them spray painted something on a wall near the surface of the pool.
Freedom stuck his head out of the water and looked with great interest
at the letters, which said:
“PASTA -- People Against the Sadistic Treatment of Animals.”
Freedom didn’t know what sadistic meant, and he didn’t know that he was
an animal. He certainly didn’t have any way to know that the name was
connected to animal rights or that it had a
vaguely humorous second meaning since it was a way of encouraging people
to eat meals made from something other than animal flesh.
As Freedom looked at the new people, he was excited and afraid. He
didn’t know who they were or what they were doing. He went down into the
water and resurfaced. One of the new people, a woman with a covered
face, then said: “Hello Freedom. It‘s good to see you again.”
Freedom recognized her voice immediately. It was Gina, the graduate
student who told him things and showed him what he looked like with that
shiny surface, and then never came back again.
“Hi!” Freedom tapped with his stick against the side of the pool, once
again hitting each place where he imagined the letters would be on his
computer touch screen. “Where have you been?”
Gina didn’t understand. But she could figure out what he was saying.
Another woman in a mask then came up next to her.
“Hi, Freedom,” she said.
He recognized her too. It was Xuili, the research assistant who had been
out with a cold.
Then Freedom saw two of the people who were with them jump into the
other end of the pool and dive underwater. Moments later, he heard a
clanking sound where they were diving.
“It’s time to swim like you never swam before,” Gina said, as she
pointed to where the sound was coming from. “It’s time for you to be
born.”
Freedom was used to following commands, so he swam below the surface
toward the sound at the other end. As he did, he saw the two people
sliding open a door under the water, that was embedded in the concrete
wall of the pool. Beyond the door, he caught sight of a large
tube-shaped tunnel filled with water, which was like an extension of the
pool. Freedom had always known that part of the wall looked different
from the rest. But until this moment he had no idea that it opened up.
Freedom surfaced.
“Swim,” Gina said, as she pointed to the underwater door to the tunnel.
Freedom dove again. At first he was reluctant to go into this unknown
place. But he knew Gina wouldn’t do anything to hurt him. And he was
hoping for some kind of special treat after he did this trick for her.
So he entered the tunnel, swimming slowly at first, then a lot faster as
he began wondering what kind of tank was on the other side. As the
minutes passed, he continued swimming. But he couldn’t detect a way out
ahead, not with his sight or his sense of echolocation. Finally, he
decided he’d better go back to his pool where, he hoped, Gina would at
least have a piece of fish waiting for him now that he had performed the
trick.
So Freedom turned around and swam back to his pool. But as the water in
the pool came into sight, he could see that the door connecting the
tunnel and pool was sliding shut. He swam faster, pushing his beak
between the partially shut sliding door and the wall. Then he tried to
force the door open with his beak. But it didn’t have any effect. Since
Freedom didn’t know what else to do, he withdrew his beak. The door
almost immediately slammed shut as Freedom started looking around for a
handle he could pull to open it, since pulling a handle was one of the
tricks he had been taught in the past. But he didn’t see anything that
looked like a handle.
That was when he realized there wasn’t any way to get a breath of air in
the water-filled tunnel. So he turned around and started to swim, faster
than before, away from the pool and back through the tunnel, his tail
flukes propelling him forward as quickly as he could manage. The idea
that he might run out of air had never occurred to him before. So he
swam, hoping there would be a surface -- and air -- at the other end.
Soon, he passed the farthest place in the tunnel that he had reached
before. The tunnel then took a right turn and so did Freedom. Next, it
took a left turn as he turned left. The first part of the tunnel had
been dimly lit. But now this part was dark. Freedom’s side scraped
against the side of the tunnel as he swam erratically, in a panic,
desperate to find a way out. And then, just as everything seemed lost,
he turned left again as the tunnel turned left, and came to a round
door. As he gave it a push with his nose, it opened automatically.
Swimming through the opened door with very little room to spare, Freedom
was suddenly out of the tunnel and somewhere else. It looked like
another tank. But the water was murky and the only wall he could see was
the one behind him with the door that he had just come out of. His
echolocation didn’t detect any other walls either. Normally, he would
emit click-like sounds; they would bounce off objects or the sides of
his tank and come back to him, giving him a mental outline of his
surroundings. But here he wasn’t picking up much of anything, just a few
small shapes in the water.
But Freedom didn’t care right now. He only wanted to get to the surface.
So he headed up, expelled old air through his blowhole and, breaking the
surface of the water, took in a deep life-giving breath of fresh air.
Then, as he looked around, above the surface, he was amazed at what he
saw. He was in an enormous pool with the highest ceiling over it that he
had ever seen. The ceiling was light blue, but it had white sections that
looked like the cotton balls one of the research assistants used to
stick in her ears. And there was a bright round lamp radiating light,
that was somehow part of the blue ceiling.
Everything about this tank told him there weren’t any limits, except the
wall on one side and an irregularly shaped floor, which he could see
wasn’t too far down. But he decided he must be seeing things
incorrectly. This was a different kind of tank than he was used to, and
it was confusing him.
In any case, Freedom wasn’t interested in figuring it out, at least not
now. He dove back down into the water, so he could go back into the
tunnel and find a way back to his home tank. But when he reached the
round door to the tunnel, it was shut tight. He pushed it with his beak
but nothing happened. He did it again, and once again he got no
response. He was now stuck in this giant tank full of murky water!
Uncertain what else to do, Freedom dove down and, with his powerful tail
flukes moving up and down to give him propulsion, he began to swim,
hoping he’d get to the edge of the tank where he’d find another tunnel
or maybe where Dr. McBane would be waiting for him with some fish,
telling him everything was okay.
Then, as he was swimming, something
moved by him. Freedom was in a state of shock. Something was swimming in
the tank with him that didn’t have arms and legs! In fact, it looked
like a fish. But it couldn’t be a fish because it was alive, like him.
Freedom swam as quickly as he could to get away from it. Then, uncertain
what else to do, he continued swimming.
Hours later, after passing more things swimming in the water, he still
hadn’t reached the edge of what he assumed was a giant tank. Then the
water got dark. The ceiling high above the surface of the water got
dark, as well, except now it had small yellow lamps like sparkling dots
and a rounded sliver of a dim lamp, for light. Lacking even a stick,
Freedom clumsily tapped his beak against the surface of the water,
spelling out, “More light, please,” based on where he knew the letters
would be on his computer touch screen.
But nothing happened.
“Is this death” he wondered to himself, picturing the letters in his
head, while he absent-mindedly half spelled it out with his beak.
Finally, after many hours, it got light again as the bright round lamp
returned and rose across the distant blue ceiling. Freedom was filled
with a sense of relief. He had wished for light and finally there was
light.
At this point, he considered going down to the bottom of the tank to see
if just maybe he could find a keyboard. That‘s when he realized the
bottom had disappeared! He used his echolocation and discovered it was
further down than he could ever imagine swimming. There were now no
walls and a distant floor that was lost in the depths of the water. And
that ceiling high above the surface of the water had an unsettling
vagueness that wasn’t like anything he had ever seen before. It was like
he was in an endless tank, a tank where he could go on forever without
coming to anything. How was that possible?
Freedom tried to tap a question on the surface of the water: “Where is
everything?” Then he resumed swimming.
But now he was hungry. So he tapped for food. But of course there
wasn’t any food. Then he saw something that shocked him almost as much
as everything else put together: there was another small fish swimming
nearby in the water, and it suddenly lurched forward and bit into an
even smaller fish, which was wriggling around. A wave of compassion came
over Freedom for the smaller fish struggling to escape. Then, moments
later, the small fish disappeared into the larger fish’s mouth.
Suddenly, a different feeling came over Freedom. He lunged forward and
swallowed the fish that had just eaten the smaller fish, gobbling his
double meal, head first, without chewing.
Freedom was hungry, and he had eaten what was in the tank with him. It
shouldn’t have been in the tank anyway. But he realized this was a very
different way of eating. Not entirely unsatisfactory. Unless this was an
exception, the food was alive and it was swimming around in the giant
tank just like him! Then he felt remorse. He had eaten something like
him. How could he do it? Was it possible that all the other fish he had
eaten in his home tank had once been alive too? He had assumed they were
things, like his toys and his stick, but things to eat.
But soon his feeling of hunger drowned out his remorse, and he began to
prowl through the water, chasing and lunging at fish. Some he caught and
ate, just like the first one. Others got away. One lost a tail, which he
spit out. Finally, he had his fill. He tried to tap out with his beak
that he was done eating but then remembered there wasn’t anyone to tell
or any way to tell it. The good news was that he had found a way to get
food in the giant tank. He could stay alive by eating these small, sad,
tasty versions of himself.
There was also another change in Freedom. Up to this point, he had
stayed relatively close to the surface, afraid of the depths that were
far below him. But now he began swimming deeper into the water, hoping
to reach the bottom where maybe he’d finally find another tunnel -- or a keyboard. And with each dive, he went a little deeper. But each
time he dove, and had to swim a longer distance to reach the surface, he
realized that coming up for air might one day be a problem, like when he was trapped in the long tunnel. In his home tank, the surface
had always been close by, and the people who sometimes swam in the water
with him never really got in his way. But, here, if there was a problem,
even once, he would be unable to breathe. What would happen then? As he
mulled it over in his mind, spelling out words and thoughts by picturing
the letters and vaguely tapping in the water, he felt like he was on the
verge of an answer….
Meanwhile, on the surface, a massive search was underway for the missing
dolphin. Dr. McBane had tried to hide Freedom’s disappearance, but PASTA
posted a video on the Internet that showed the eight rescuers -- the
PASTA Eight, as they came to be called -- freeing Freedom. The last
scene in the video was an underwater shot taken by Gina, who had briefly
jumped in the water with a small video camera after Freedom headed into
the tunnel. It showed Freedom’s tail flukes waving up and down as he
disappeared into the tunnel entrance. The PASTA Eight put just one word
-- “Goodbye” -- under the moving image.
The PASTA Eight were now international heroes. After a little boy was
shown on television holding up a sign with their name misspelled, they
became affectionately known as the “PASTA ATE,” and got a lucrative
contract appearing in television commercials for Al Dente’s frozen
linguini dinners in mushroom and tomato sauce.
At the same time, animal rights groups were getting a lot of
attention, as people held “Save Freedom” parties to raise money to find
the dolphin. But things weren't going quite so well for Dr. McBane, who
held a number of somber press conferences and told the world that
Freedom would never survive on his own, as he tried to deflect hostile
questions from reporters.
As for the news media, it more than doubled the size of its audience, as
it gave the public the continuous coverage it was hungry for, with live
newscasters who broke into regular programming to run photographs and
video:
“Here you see Freedom,” one newscaster opined on the screen, with an
image of the dolphin behind him, along with the word “Missing,” in big
red letters across the bottom half of the picture. “And, as you can see,
Freedom looks like he is smiling, oddly enough, and even a bit
inappropriately, as if it is all a big joke. But it’s no joke. Exploited
and mistreated, he is now out in an ocean whose world he doesn’t
understand and isn’t equipped to survive in. If anyone has seen him, we
urge you to contact this network for a substantial reward. We have a
special crew standing by, prepared to carry out a daring sea rescue,
which you will only see here -- live -- if we are the ones who rescue
him.”
“They said they named him Freedom because he was the first dolphin
emancipated through language,” a commentator said on another network.
“Then they held him captive to Dr. McFrankenstein’s mad dreams of
creating a new self-aware species. But they failed to tell him about the
ocean. They never even introduced him to another dolphin! He was just
stuck in a tank, exploited and alone. Freedom! It was an appropriate
name in a ‘War is Peace’ sort of way. In reality, he suffered the
essence of unfreedom because he didn’t even know there was something
better. But now the last laugh is his. I say let Freedom be free. May he
never be found.”
There was a lot of clapping and nodding in agreement as people listened
to that commentary.
“They destroyed most of his species, and then turned him into a car!” a
talk show host told her audience, in a moment of serious reflection.
“But I say Freedom is everyman and everywoman. After all, we are all
trapped, whether it is in meaningless jobs or confining relationships.
And we all yearn to swim free….”
As the news coverage and the angry debate raged on, Dr. McBane was
depressed and in a rage. Freedom had been his meal ticket, his one
chance to get his name in history books. And now that he was accused of lax security and exploiting
a helpless lovable dolphin, he had become the media’s designated
villain. Needles to say, all the lucrative contracts had disappeared --
the lunch boxes, the endorsements, the TV series -- they were all over.
Some of the companies he was dealing with still wanted Freedom’s image,
which McBane had shrewdly trademarked. But they all told McBane some
variation on the same thing: they didn’t dare do business with him or
the public would turn on them with a vengeance.
The Forman Motor Company was even threatening to sue McBane to get back
the money it invested in the TV special. Who was going to buy the car
now, they asked him, when what people thought about when they saw it was
the dolphin’s pathetic plea and its belief that it was incomplete. The
dolphin’s fears were the exact opposite of everything the Forman Freedom
stood for. The car was a way for buyers to find themselves, to know who
they were and where they belonged -- to extend themselves with power and
grace, and an ironic sense of humor, into the world. Now instead many
people associated the car with the idea of suffering from missing
appendages (which aroused particularly uncomfortable associations in
male buyers who, according to marketing studies, made up 70 percent of
the potential market). So the company was threatening to sue. If they
did, McBane thought to himself, it would mean financial ruin and put an
end to his research. Oh, who was he kidding. His research was over.
Kaput! Every time McBane thought about it, he felt lost somewhere in the
distance, a million miles away from his surroundings.
But McBane still had something up his sleeve if he needed it. He had
embedded two electronic beacons, along with two miniature cameras,
on the dolphin -- one each in a tooth and in the dolphin’s fin. Between
the tooth and the fin, McBane not only knew where Freedom was located,
but he was also receiving live video images of everything the dolphin
encountered, even if the images were produced from two somewhat odd
perspectives.
The question was, why wasn’t McBane out on the water tracking down his
prized pupil. McBane didn’t know himself. Maybe it was because he wanted
Freedom lost forever in the depths of the ocean, preferably in the jaws
of a shark.
Meanwhile, across town, his nemesis, Gina, the leader of the PASTA
Eight, was hiding from the press in her tiny apartment, dressed in
nothing but a bathrobe, surrounded by piles of unwashed laundry. She was spooning through a container of
butterscotch pudding while she observed live video of what was happening
to Freedom on her computer monitor. It seems she had hacked into McBane’s computer system and was now receiving the same video image from
Freedom’s tooth and fin. As far as she was concerned, things were going
as well as she could have hoped. Her spies inside McBane’s organization
informed her that he wasn’t going out onto the water to track Freedom
down. In fact, it looked like he was on the verge of a nervous
breakdown. Meanwhile, hundreds of boats flying the PASTA Eight flag were
following all the search boats, ready to interfere if anyone tried to
recapture Freedom. Gina was in touch with a lot of them, texting
messages to them on her cell phone and posting information on her web
site. And there was more good news -- as the camera in Freedom’s tooth
had revealed in detail, the dolphin had learned to catch fish on his
own, which meant he now had a fighting chance of surviving.
As Gina thought about Freedom eating fish in the ocean, her mind made a
sideways connection to a related thought: having their spies at the
Institute remove the fish from the truck that had carted Freedom to that
auditorium was one of the smartest decisions PASTA ever made. The lack
of his usual fish reward had upset Freedom during his performance,
sparking his outburst of dolphin angst in front of the world, and
exposing McBane as the fraud he was. That, and the discovery of the
unused tunnel at the Institute, leading to Freedom’s pool, had been the
big breaks they needed to achieve their goals. As Gina had been told the
story by McBane’s assistant, Xuili, the tunnel was originally designed
to be part of a performance. As McBane had envisioned it at the time, a
human diver would enter the tunnel from the ocean and swim toward
Freedom’s tank with a reward of fish, while audiences at the Institute
simultaneously followed the diver’s progress on video cameras and
watched Freedom anxiously waiting for his reward. But the first time
the Institute tried to use the tunnel, the diver had an attack of claustrophobia
and had to be rescued by other divers. The diver threatened to sue,
claiming he was forced to work in a death trap. The institute settled
with him out of
court, and never used the tunnel again -- until it turned into the road
to freedom for a captive dolphin. It was almost like McBane secretly
wanted Freedom to escape and provided the ideal escape route, Gina
thought to herself.
Of course, PASTA had helped things along there, too, rigging the door
at the end of the tunnel so Freedom would be able to open it with just a
nudge, and swim into the ocean. But PASTA had also fixed the door so
Freedom couldn't open it from the outside and get back into the tunnel.
As Gina sat in her cramped apartment and mused about these things, back in the water, Freedom found
himself confronted by something new. His echolocation was detecting
something large -- larger than anything he had seen in this giant tank.
At first he thought it might be a person. But the shape was streamlined,
more or less like he was, without arms and legs. He swam toward it to
investigate. As it came into sight, he was shocked to discover that it
looked vaguely like a version of himself, except it had large and
terrible teeth. And something was missing from the look on its face,
something he couldn’t define, that made it not like him at all, but more
like the fish he now ate when he was hungry. He had never seen anything
like it before, and it scared him. As it quickly came toward him, he
wondered if it was death. Then it opened its mouth further and the full
extent of the teeth became obvious. That was when Freedom realized he
might be food for something else -- and got his first glimmer of the
actual meaning of death. Death was being food. Freedom swerved around
and rammed the creature’s soft underside with his beak as it swam away.
Freedom started to say to himself by tapping his beak on the surface of
the water: “I’m food, too.” But he stopped halfway through. He knew what
he was thinking. This tank wasn’t for him alone. All kinds of things
like him were in here, even big things his own size. It might even be
one of their tanks. Then he thought to himself that, no, they weren’t
really like him. They weren’t alive in the same way that he was
or that people were, and he strongly suspected they didn’t tap or speak.
They seemed restricted somehow. But they weren’t merely things either.
They weren’t like his toys or his stick. He tapped out “alive things” in
the water to describe them.
Then he continued swimming, because it was all he could think of to do.
As time passed, there were periods of darkness, alternating with light. Freedom
counted them for a while, but he soon lost track. When he felt tired, he
slept. When he was hungry he ate, usually taking in fish with a single
gulp. He had long since stopped feeling remorse for his food.
Life in the giant tank was harder than at the Institute, and it had a rhythm to it that was
very different from the rhythm of learning and tasks that the
experimenters had imposed on him. A lot of it consisted of just
swimming. Where all the swimming was leading to, Freedom didn’t know.
But after a while the water starting getting warmer, and it seemed that
the more he swam the warmer it got.
Finally, after many repetitions of light and dark, a more complete
awareness of his circumstances presented itself to Freedom. As he swam
down deeper and deeper, seeking… something, and each time rushed back to
the surface to breathe, his thoughts kept coming back to the question:
what would happen if he couldn’t reach the surface in time. As he mulled
it over in his mind, spelling out words and thoughts by picturing the
letters, he finally came to a conclusion: death was not being able to
breathe. Death was being food for something with sharp teeth and it was
also not being able to breathe. He was on his own in the giant tank, and
he could only count on himself for protection against death.
Now, in his mind, a system of symbols formed in which the world was more
clearly divided between life and death, and good and bad. Rising to
the surface for life-giving air was good. Breathing out and breathing in
were good. But it was more than that. Rising to the surface came to
stand for everything good. Eating and sleeping and swimming and jumping
out of the water, they were good too, and they came to be symbolized in
his mind by going up to the surface and breathing. Creatures with large
teeth were bad; being food was very bad; not knowing where he was or
where to go, and not seeing walls or a floor or a keyboard for tapping,
those were also bad, and the idea of those things became associated in
his mind with the memory of being stuck in that horrible tunnel and
being unable to get to a surface in time to breathe. In his mind, the
world was divided up, with safety and pleasure and satisfaction on one
side, and death and fear and discomfort on the other, all of it
symbolized by breathing and not being able to breathe, and also by
eating food versus being food for the large teeth.
These thoughts haunted his brain as he continued to think about being
stuck in the tunnel or being injured and unable to reach the surface. It
seems that what had formed in his mind was a dolphin vision of the
world, created by the fact that he lived in an environment of water but
had to continuously receive supplies of air from another environment
above the water to stay alive, and by the fact that he had to constantly
work to catch his food and stay safe.
As Freedom’s understanding of good and bad in the giant tank became more
complete, he now more knowingly turned to what was good. He ate and
slept, enjoyed swimming through the water, and played on the surface.
One day he wondered to himself -- “Is there anything else?” -- picturing
the letters in his head. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure he had all
the letters right, so he just envisioned it the best he could.
Then, from under the water, he saw a large animal floating on the
surface, in the distance. Its body seemed to have a shape similar to
his, with half of it in the water and half sticking out. And it was
huge. He thought an animal that big would have enormous teeth and that
was bad. But his dolphin curiosity got the best of him. As he approached
it from the side, he leapt out of the water to get a good look. Much to
his surprise, what he saw was people standing on this large animal. But
a second look made clear that it wasn’t an animal after all. It was
another thing, like a platform that was floating on the surface, with a
curving underside that was underwater. Freedom could also hear the purr
of a motor on it, which sounded like various motors he had been shown
when he lived at the Institute.
Freedom came up close to the floating platform and leapt out of the
water again, “walking” along the surface with his tail, whistling as
loud as he could.
“It’s Freedom,” he heard a man scream. “I know it’s him.”
Freedom understood what the man said. He was saved! Finally, they would
take him back to Dr. McBane and the safety and comfort of his tank.
“Please take me home!” he said, trying to tap out the letters on the
water’s surface.
Little did Freedom suspect that the video monitors on him were also
transmitting images of what he was encountering to Gina, who was
following this latest development on her computer monitor. She could see
that Freedom had encountered a boat, and she began frantically sending a
text message with the coordinates to everyone who was out on the ocean
trying to protect him. She began pacing back and forth in her small
apartment as she quickly scooped up another butterscotch pudding with a
spoon.
“Please, after everything we’ve accomplished, don‘t let them catch him
now,” she said to herself, slamming the empty plastic pudding container
on the table.
Then she got a text message back with just three words: “We can help.”
Back in the water, as Freedom waited for the people on the floating
platform to come get him and take him home, he saw a second floating
platform racing toward the first one. What this was about he had no
idea. Then something landed on him. It was a net. As he tried to get
clear of it, he got tangled up instead, and began sinking into the
water. When he swung his flukes up and down, frantically trying to get
back to the surface, he found himself even more entangled. The memory of
being trapped in the tunnel without air came into his mind as he
struggled in the net. Then, just for a moment, he started to realize
something. But there wasn’t time to think about it now ….
Meanwhile, Gina was staring at the quickly shifting images on her
computer monitor, waving her hands in the air, and screaming “No,” when
she saw Freedom swim up to the first boat. Then she started screaming
“Yes,” just as loud, as she caught a glimpse of a second boat heading
toward the first, flying the colors of the PASTA Eight flag. But her
hopes just as quickly collapsed again as she saw the net close around
Freedom.
Back in the water, Freedom was fighting for his life, pushing each way,
and only making his situation worse. Then, out of nowhere, a group of
human divers appeared. They swam under Freedom and pushed him, net and
all, to the water’s surface, where he took in a deep breath of fresh air.
But then the net started to be pulled in, and Freedom was struggling
again when he heard someone scream, apparently from the second floating
platform: “We don’t want trouble. But if you haul that net in, there’s
going to be trouble -- a lot of it.”
The net temporarily stopped being pulled in as the divers helped Freedom
keep his head and blowhole above the surface.
“We don’t mind a little trouble,” someone screamed back from the first
platform.
“Yea, well we’ve got you on video causing the near-drowning of the most
beloved dolphin in the world. That means you’ll be hated in every port on
the globe. Are you ready for that kind of trouble?”
Freedom then started to struggle out of the net again, even as some of
the divers were trying to help keep him afloat.
“Freedom,“ one of the divers said in a loud voice, after removing his
mouthpiece. “Just stay as still as you can on the surface and we’ll get
you out of this. I promise.”
Moments later the net was lifted over and away from him. He was free!
Freedom quickly swam away and leapt in the air with a feeling of
exhilaration, as he saw the empty net being pulled in by the first
floating platform. Then, as the divers began swimming back to the second
floating platform, Freedom noticed that the people on it had unfurled a
large banner with letters.
Freedom looked at the banner with great interest, aching for the time
when he could once again make letters himself and say what was on his
mind.
“GINA SAYS STAY AWAY FROM PEOPLE!” the banner said, in big capital
letters.
Now, with his flukes propelling him, Freedom swam as quickly as he could
away from the floating platforms. As he did, he thought to himself: “Not
breathing is bad. People are bad. No, some people are good; others are
bad.”
Meanwhile, far away, on land, Gina was jumping up and down, and
cheering.
Later, when Freedom was well away from the boat, he detected another
even larger floating platform. He knew better than to investigate. He
turned abruptly and swam in the other direction.
As he swam away, he thought back to what had happened during his
encounter with the net. He had realized something -- it seems he had
encountered a floating platform like this before. It was a long time
ago when he was smaller, and it was in this same endless tank. That meant he had lived in
this giant tank when he was younger. How was that possible? Then, he had
been taken away. But from what? Were there other people in the giant
tank who took care of him before Dr. McBane and his first
trainer? The images in his mind were so obscure, he wasn’t even sure
they were real.
A few days later, it was a wonderful day with a clear sun and a blue
sky, and the ocean was warm, and Freedom leapt into the air for the
sheer joy of it. It was while he was leaping over the surface of the
water that he saw it -- a creature that was more like him than anything
he had seen in the giant tank. It had the same body shape. The same
flippers. Even the same kind of eyes and beak he had seen in the mirror.
And it was leaping too. It saw him and made a whistling sound, and he
recognized right away that it was trying to communicate. It wasn’t an
“alive thing” like the other creatures he had encountered in the water.
It was alive the way he was alive. Freedom didn’t know what to do, so he
made a
whistling sound back. And then he was surrounded by them -- a group of
creatures swimming around him -- and they all looked like him. They were
swimming under him and jumping over the surface above him. He
came up for air and there some of them were, leaping out of the water.
When they then began to head away from him, he followed. But then one of
these fellow creatures swam up to Freedom and gave him a long scratch on
the side with its teeth. Freedom realized instantly that it was telling
him who was boss. And Freedom wasn’t about to let it get the better of
him, so he swam at it and proceeded to scratch it right back, as it
quickly swam out of reach. It seemed like everything was okay when
suddenly the largest one in the group came up to him. Even though it was larger, Freedom could see that it was definitely one of his
own kind. But the creature then also greeted Freedom with its teeth,
giving him another long scratch on the side to let him know who was in
charge. Freedom paused for a moment, realized the scratch really wasn’t
that bad, contemplated the fact that this other creature was quite a bit
larger than him, and decided not to try to counter-attack it with his
own teeth. And that was all it took. With that, he was accepted as one
of them.
Back on land, Gina was looking at the video image of what was happening,
and crying. Then she punched in a series of code numbers into
her computer, and the miniature cameras and electronic beacons in
Freedom’s tooth and fin shut down permanently, so neither she nor McBane
would ever receive a signal from them again.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the ocean, Freedom was happily swimming with the
group of dolphins he was now part of, when he realized his questions had
finally been answered. He tried tapping on the surface of the water with
his beak, to share what he had learned with the other dolphins. But they
didn’t have any way to understand what he was trying to tell them. No
matter. He knew what he was saying. This wasn’t a tank after all. It was
the world.