Shifti - User contributions [en]

Talk:Lloyd's Favorites

2009-06-29T12:46:30Z

Cubist:

== Horror Template ==

I found an image on wikimedia commons that I'm currently using for my horror icon. If anyone else wants to do so the template name is Horror. Not very creative I know, but it works =D -- [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]]

==Comments==

WOW! Thanks so much for faving my story, you don't know how important this means to me! I can't believe it! And you even put a star there, oh my god! Thankyouthankyou holy shit wowowowowowow! I feel like crying with joy...but that would be awkward. Still, a huge thank you! It was really, really great of you to fave my story! Even a :) can't express my joy! (I'd put more thankyou's, but that would take up a lot of space)--[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]], 15:30, 28 June 2009
:Where are my stories? LOL. All kidding aside, I like the list. It is one of the shorter ones on this site, so I actually read through the whole thing. Oh, and I was woudnering how long it would take you to add "Finding Himself." It's one of the best stories on Shifti.--[[User:Guvnor Of Space|Guvnor Of Space]] 12:37, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
::I agree with you there, Guvnor - and that is why I'm going to be adding it to [[ShadowWolfs Pack|my list]] when [[User:WolfyDrake95|Wolfy]] has had a chance to address the critique I've given it. [[User:WolfyDrake95|Wolfy]], [[User:Concerned Reader|CR]] and [[User:Guvnor Of Space|you]] are three of the better writers that have shown up on Shifti. And all three of you respond well to helpful criticism of your works and try to improve them. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 13:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
:::Ow... my poor ego =P -- [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]]
::::No, I wasn't excluding you, Lloyd. For some reason I see you as not being a newcomer that started with Shifti, but as an already established author. If that isn't true, then you would make a fourth for that list :) -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
:::::I'm making the transition from essays to creative writing if that counts, but what's on Shifti is mainly my first foray. -- [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]]

Hey, I have an abbreviation! I feel like I'm part of the gang now. I too came from writing essays, I guess because we're both fresh out of high school, but I think I enjoy writing narratives much more. And Lloyd, you've technically been published, if you count Anthro, not sure how many of us can claim that. --[[User:Concerned Reader|Concerned Reader]] 17:48, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

:Oh no...ego...inflating...urge to...BRAG TO EVERYONE!!! Must...RESIST! No, stop glaring. That was just a joke. Jeez, what's a guy got to do for a laugh around here? Anyway, narratives ''are'' much more fun than essays. Essays are boring and overly short, whereas narratives give you the chance to elaborate on character. I'm only worried about how I transition back to essays when school reopens. HIGH SCHOOL POWER! HIGH FIVE, CR! Never mind. And, yes, Lloyd, *points accusingly* how many people are published in the awesomest newletter of the world? All hail Lloyd, who was in Anthro!

:Still, a big thanks for the faves, you two. If I haven't told you guys yet, it means a lot to me. --[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]], 08:10, 29 June 2009

::Hehe... yea... we're all awesome. But Wolfy, you must have alot of nice teachers since all the essays I've written this year have been 3 pages minimum. You should see my law final. But its all worth it, I graduated last thursday ^^. On another note, I wouldn't be suprised if Cubist approached either you, Guvnor, or Concerned for Anthro sometime. -- [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]]

All my essays were 3-5 pages, but double spaced. I fudged it on some of them. My final essay was on my affinity for commas. I got a 92. --[[User:Concerned Reader|Concerned Reader]] 02:34, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

:Well, my final essay was on Lord of The Flies, this book that we're doing for Lit. I ran out of time, so I only got about one page down. But that's more or less what's expected during a test: I write real slow by hand. --[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]], 11:12, 29 June 2009

I write quickly, but not legibly. I've never actually read lord of the flies, but I hear it has children eating each other. On a side note, Shifti needs a chat box or something. --[[User:Concerned Reader|Concerned Reader]] 03:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

:Actually, LOTF is a story on human morality and stuff. It's about a bunch of boys who get stranded on an island and try to make a civilization there while awaiting rescue, but they slowly descend into savegery. A very morally reverberating story. And yes, I do agree with Concerned Reader: Shifti could use a "chat box or something". I'm sure it would encourage conversations and socializing among the users, and that would help us grow as a community. --[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]], 11:28, 29 June 2009

Yes! exactly. That way we would have a dedicated area, and not be filling up Lloyds talk page with our crap. --[[User:Concerned Reader|Concerned Reader]] 03:45, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

:Yup. See, even now we're filling up his talk page. At first we were talking about some noob's story making the list, but now we're on to chat boxes. See? SEE? SEE?!

::You see... Shifti does have this really nifty "chat box" called IRC :) (see irc.lapinia.org - almost any channel)

::Seriously, though, a chatbox sounds like a decent idea. I could probably hack one together pretty quick, but my "quick hacks" are never all that stable. And [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]] isn't the only one chatting here who has been "published" in Anthro - your [[User:ShadowWolf|humble administrator]] is co-author of the temporarily-on-hiatus 'Bastard Assassins From Hell' series and the sole author of the "Pro-rights" side of the "Rights of the Transformed" essay. And I've also been published in the now defunct TSAT - that's where [[From Thesis to Synthesis]] was originally published (IIRC). :P -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 06:13, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

:::Oh my god...we're in the presence of...''awesomeness''. Can we open a fan club? Pleeeease? Then we can go and talk about how much we <3 you. I bet we'll get a lot of members!:P --[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]], 17:45, 29 June 2009

::::Okay, enough sarcasm there Wolfy. Don't make me go and edit the Pack to remove you entirely :P
::::Seriously, though, I have mentioned the three of you who haven't been in Anthro to Cubist and he's said he'll look at what you've got with an eye on a future issue. (Oh, and if it matters for anything, I actually have had poetry published in a print volume o.O) -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 11:22, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

:::::Nah, it's more "minor exaggeration" than "sarcasm". It's cool that you wrote so much stuff, and Thesis to Synthesis was one of the essays that I found really helpful in the Writer's School. I do read there a lot. However, I've never found out where the Bastard Assassins from Hell series was, 'cos the link on your user page is gone, and neither have I read your Rights of the Transformed essay. Perhaps a link, please? :) --[[User:WolfyDrake95|Drake]], 20:04, 29 June 2009

::::::Greetlings, Wolfy! Quentin "editor of both ANTHRO and TSAT" Long here. ''TSAT'''s 48 issues can be found [http://tsat.transform.to/ here], and ''Rights of the Transformed'', [http://tsat.transform.to/i.44/tf.rights.pro.html here]. As to the BAFH stories, you can find them at ''[http://anthrozine.com Anthro]''. In order: ''[http://www.anthrozine.com/stry/cleared.for.departure.html Cleared for Departure]'' -- ''[http://www.anthrozine.com/stry/tip.your.assassins.html Don't Forget to Tip Your Assassins]'' -- ''[http://www.anthrozine.com/stry/fish.barrel.dynamite.html Fish, Barrel, Dynamite]''. Regarding your stories: What ShadowWolf said... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 12:46, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

The Muse Files

2009-03-31T20:34:54Z

Cubist: Question answered (perhaps acceptably)

{{Note|Here you'll find various questions being asked or ideas being posted. This is all to help you find inspiration. If you've got ideas you can't use just add them here.}}

In a world where "reformatting" your body is a popular form of self-expression, how does a person that is medically restricted from using the tech survive?

Alternatively… How does such tech become popular? How are the first users of it treated?

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Similar to the Paradise setting a "Random Event" effects people, turning them into furs. But rather than being hidden from sight they are in the open. Some persecution is sure to occur, but what if the government took the stance that they were still "human" under the law and extended all protections the law offers to them?

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Wierd End of the World Dream:
* "end of the world" - but a few (one?) - survived
* how - everything was put in stasis - contained mushroom clouds, etc.
* why not this person
* why can survive?! - logically shouldn't be able to
* why did survive
* done by aliens to save species since didn't have time to stop the bombs/explosions
* each stasis bubble seals off own "reality" - but still bound by constants of universe - hero cannot enter bubbles - but can make way between them
* end - transformed to help save world - why and into what??

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* man into merman transformation via brain transplant - NO - biological"merman" suit taken on expedition to Europa in addition to biological space suits and others
* taken to Europa to swim in oceans underneath ice and find out what is there - quite deep - covered by ice - close to zero
* what is there?

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One race is surveying planet that is in space between them and another race. Transform into race to go down and see what is going on since have detected advanced weapons fire in early bronze age culture - go down - Kafer/Star Trek scenario - how does it feel to be "energized" by adrenalin? (NOTE: Kafer are alien race from Traveller 2300 -- when they get excited, get an adrenalin rush, they LITERALLY get smarter. Most of the smartness wears off when the adrenalin goes away, but not all)

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Non sentient alien swarm (aka Tyrannid/Alien) paste humanity. Humanity flees across the galaxy for centuries to hide and gradually develop enough tech to fight back.

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Terraforming of Mars/Planaforming of Humans. Human deciding to be planaformed/planaformed human working on terraforming equipment lured to join 'natives'/other.

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SF story about a human using a hightech alien fursuit to spy on an alien culture. In essence "fursuit" is biological lifeform that fully TFs wearer into said alien -- sensations, skin, eyes, senses, etc.

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"First in" scout arrives in system. Surveys planet. Animal life is odd - it seems to be very slow and methodical, and always very well armoured. Sends created life form down - created to have simple brain but no mind - it has no problems.

Goes down self - gets out - swarmed by wasps and head "explodes"

Finally wakes up - is now MASSIVE insect swarm. Apparently insects need complex brain neural connections to survive. They also absorb some of the knowledge from the neural connections they consume. His arrival triggered the arrival of massive swarms from all over for the free meal and his mind overwhelmed them. He is now a massive hive but has to survive

How? Hives are normally small because can only really feed off of dead animals. Learns to set traps, etc. and apply intelligence

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Centaroid aliens arrive bringing their own planet along with them. There is no apparent means of propulsion. They are creating a 'galactic supermind' [ala Star Maker] to join the Star Maker entity they can dimly perceive now. They part their planet near Earth in the same orbit so that both planets share the moon (which now has a figure 8 orbit). The only measurable affect of their arrival are REALLY strong neutrino detection results in pools. Eventually they come to earth, turn off all weapons, and transform all life in some way to obtain their aim, and will wait until sentience on earth is ready to join the group mind.

POV character is journalist covering the opening of one of the neutrino detection sites.

Alternate plot thoughts: Humanity/other life modified into telepathic non-mobile brains (live by photosynthesis?) -- story could be one man relaying this, and then fighting to maintain his identity as the group mind slowly consumes him. End with him seeing "God"

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Genetically enginnered, non-human. Treated as slaves in high tech religiusocracy US (ala Heinlein's interregnum -- same name)
Is helped escaped particularly brutal master to be helped escape to Canada
Meets various people, escapes patrols, lots of close calls - learns (she thinks) about what it means to be free.
Final friends hug -- lots of sadness, joy
POV walks into Canada

Is greeted by "immigration", led to electrocution chair. "Sorry, but we have analyzed the threat of your genetic capabilities to humanity. We can't take the chance. It's as painless as we can make it. I'm sorry."

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Modified human with some vacuum adaptions, and with arms and hands replacing feet, is officer/commander/watchman of one of six ‘Hohmann Stations’ that exist in an elliptical orbit that also orbits both earth and mars on regular legs of its trip. Freight is transported to the station and latched to it, human cargo is generally carried in stasis).

Has pet engineered cyberetic octopus (lives in air, moves by jet propulsion, can interface with computer hardware, has roughly the IQ of a 12 year old)

Two months ago received unusually large transmission from earth for relay/boost to mars.

Story starts with AI from message addressing our hero. He is taking over the station and plans to reroute it to the asteroids as a base for colonies there

Story is struggle to preserve ship/defeat AI. AI has control of most functions, but critical functions (life support, drive) are locked away and require our hero’s personal activation – AI is cracking the code

Hero has to get to core, force system reset over software overrides – at end AI flees into Octopus, hides, our hero realizes it, and kills the octopus

At end begins growing a clone and prepares to read backup of its neural cortext into the clone to restore it

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Person who loses their legs wants artificial legs, but demands hoofed/pawed digitgrade artificial legs

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Something gloatingly, joyously human-centric, without irony. Had this knocking around for a while - a kudu is chased across the savanna by a human hunter. It outpaces him, easily, time and again, but every time it stops, he catches up, following its track. Two to five hours in extreme heat. Persistence hunting! Eventually the kudu collapses from exhaustion, heart about to burst, and the hunter, instead of bashing its head in, does... something. Kudu turns into a human, or mostly-human. Not furry - hairless and with sweat glands, a big rounded flat-faced head, elastic feet, hyoid bone, decoupled shoulders, the works. Why?

:After the kudu is TFed to human...
::...the hunter says, "NOW do you believe that cursorial hunting is a damned effective strategy, Harry?"
::...the ex-kudu leaps on the hunter, and highly intimate physical acts ensue (i.e., the whole chase/hunt routine was *foreplay*).
::...the hunter asks, "How'd it go?", the ex-kudu babbles about how wonderful the experience was, and the hunter says, "Alright, you've made your point. Next time, *I* get to be the prey!"
::...it turns out that the ex-kudu is a criminal who did something horrible to the hunter (and/or the hunter's family), and assumed the kudu form to escape the consequences; the hunter changed the kudu back to be *sure* he had the right one, and after confirmation, he puts a bullet thru the ex-kudu's head.
:Feel free to use any or all of these notions... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 20:34, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

----

To Understand a Dolphin

Part 1: Decision:

*at dead end in research
*virtual reality tanks/rich living on through transplants
*transplant own brain into fetal dolphin shortly before birth
*discussion with grad students - explanations - thoughts
*resolution - quote - To Catch a Thief, use a Thief - to Understand a Dolphin, BE a Dolphin

Part 2: Birth:

*awake in the womb
*senses
*learning to use senses and to move
*struggle
*boredom
*birth
*to the surface and first breath of air

Part 3: Youth:
*growing up as a dolphin
*irregular contacts as grow up
*first hunt
*leaving mother
*finding "friends"
*drifting away from humanity

Part 4: Mate:
*joining a "gang"
*"hunt" for a female in a group
*victory - first pleasures
*last report - less and less human

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Human biologist on Mars. Mars is being terraformed (partially?). Story occurs in great valley roofed over/walled for higher pressure. Life forms are being developed and released to gradually adapt Mars biosphere. One of these forms is heavily modified wolves. Something has started killing the herbivorous animals -- wolves are suspected. Biologist is sent to confirm, terminate wolves (genetic "off switch"?) What REALLY happened is that "something" has been awakened, something highly Lovecraftian/non-human, and it is eating things. Thing attacks biologist, wolves come and save, one looks at her (certain level of intelligence) and basically tells her to GET THE HELL AWAY before returning to the doomed fight.

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The Price of Survival

*supervisor/foreman on orbital construction platform
*late in shift – goes by airlock where the new organic (shudder) suits stored for C shift – show hatred, distrust, quesiness

*disaster – collision alert – hatches sealed – trapped with suits
*doors hiss shut – jerks of vector changes – lights go out – restart dim and red

*now what?
*wait for rescue – try radio contact – nothing – but should be safe *but had vector change – could be on collision or in decaying orbit
*opens door and looks at suits – description – horror - stories
*wait or not to wait?

*would be stupid to die over a little fear – should be safe – but….
*part of him starts to wonder what it would be like
*goes over to largest EVA suit – reaction gas bladders are full on suit

*how much air left? How much power? Starts to feel hot – a vac suit would be wonderful

*creeps forward and touches largest one – warm, inviting, alive
*suddenly clam shell front opens…

*shoves self back into wall (freefall) – hot to the touch – breathing heavily
*no choice

*backs into suit

*reaction – skin crawling – slides arms into slots, legs into slots *air is getting very hot – creaks and groans in metal in background

*settles in – not too bad – but still open
*afraid? – how to seal? – sweating now

*panic? – can’t move arms – tries to wiggle fingers – touches something – suit seals…

*NO! – tentacles, goo in lungs, etc.
*then fine/free – moves around – no problem – wish knew how to use reaction jet – can sense them but… - then drifts into far wall – so that’s how – feels like farting

*makes way to airlock – opens inner and then outer door – in space – fear, sensation, feeling
*makes contact with rescue stick – gets ready to jump out – there is a collision/explosion likely soon

*then pauses – just a minute – remembers the other suits – better rescue them too…

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Two high tech races infiltrating primitive world. Each posing as "god". Objective is to gain theocratic control of culture, instill a technic society, and advance their techbase sufficient to join the respective empires. Done this way so that the world "seems" to do it on their own, to maintain the "cold war" status between the two races and not escalate the situation

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Astronaut working on orbital construction. Accident of some kind? Has air and environment, but no jets, no safety rope, nothing to push against. A multi-tonne girder is drifting *SLOWLY* towards him -- will *SLOWLY* crush him (Why can't move? Trapped somehow?) Psychological story about his reaction to pending unstoppable death. Live at end? How? Push against girder somehow? Give enough of slow gradual vector change so that girder will only crush leg?

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Zombie Apocalypse Extreme, or how your dreams tell you that you watch too much Stargate: Atlantis. Story is about survivors of a Zombie Apocalypse. They are trying to survive/get somewhere. Region they are in is flooded, some kind of ground subsistence (from nuclear strikes/earthquake). Are attacked by "super zombie/wraith" that is smart, fast, STUPIDLY TOUGH, and sucks out your life energy. Find one, somehow manage to kill it. Survivor group includes at least one military. End up on island surrounded by shallow water -- top of underground parking garage. At some point lost one character. Hope they got all of the "wraiths" - manhole covers pop open, another superzombie/wraith comes out -- it's the former character. Kill it due to grenade sacrifice of another survivor but military type is bitten/infected by virus vector. Radios base, states area MUST be nuked. Absolutely. More superzombies come out, surrounding him, waiting. He can feel the change. He keeps talking in the radio as mushroom clouds appear on the horizon. "Got you, you bastards". Rest move forward-- nuclear annihilation.

----

Writer is woken up and grabbed by military and whisked off. Turns out alien has landed, and the description matches EXACTLY a book that said writer got published recently. Questioned, taken to observe alien -- alien sees him/her -- "You!" Turns out alien/human are somehow linked -- either by third party, soul sharing, or whatever. Alien whisks human off as he's needed to fulfill some task?

Talk:Pig and Whistle

2009-03-29T08:22:45Z

Cubist: /* Question about uplifting */

Thanks for that work, Cubist! — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 21:18, 28 August 2007 (EDT)

:De nada! Question: Who gets the credit for creating this thing? That is, who holds the copyright on it? This is of more than academic interest, since there's a fair chance that some of the stories for this setting might end up in one of the ANTHROlogy paperbacks, which, in turn, means that it'd be nice to address the question of who gets the "creator's cut" of whichever profits (if any)... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 06:05, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

::I'd have to say nobody. This creation arose out of numerous conversations and e-mail exchanges. While it seems, to me, that I instigated it—I can't say that I deserve creators rights. At the same time I can't say whether anyone else that participated in the design deserves them either. What this means is that I'd rather we run this as a trust—that is, everyone listed on the byline has equal rights. If it comes to a head—such as someone wishing to use the setting as the backdrop for a commercial project—then there should be some form of trust such that whatever community grows up around PAW benefits from it rather than any one individual. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:12, 29 August 2007 (EDT)

== Rules for submission (Or how I learned to keep the record straight.) ==

Speaking from my experience as one who came in via reading the years of TBP stories produced, I believe there are some very critical rules that are required to help keep the story universe from turning in to an incoherent jumble that is confusing to read and impossible to keep track of in any meaningful way either as reader or writer.

These rules are for a story to be canon. One may still write stories in the setting that remain non-canon.

# The author must note the timeframe, as specific as possible, into a date range on the story universe timeline. While a vague range is expected, it should be ideally given within the right year.
# Any cannon story must be included on the central repository. You can still display it elsewhere, still retain rights to it, it just must be filed on the central repository. As a reader coming in to the scene as TBP was apparently falling apart, it became incredibly aggravating to try and find the stories to read. Many stories are effectively lost to the ages. Erosion of the founded history of the story universe will kill it quite dead.
# Now this rule is somewhat more up to opinion. The inclusion of your PaW story as canon means you authorize its duplication into a collected work of all the PaW stories. You lose no rights. You only authorize the story be able to be printed in book form if for some reason in future this can be arranged. Not-for-profit and what not of course included in the legal jargon.

- [[User:Timelord|Timelord]] 02:44, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

:Cleaned up, elucidated on and added to the guidelines. Thanks for the great suggestion! — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 03:11, 26 September 2007 (EDT)

Just a thought on note 4 but the punishment meted out can be monitored by various people(the press, concerned citizens, the international community) and it would be transparent to mete out a slap on the wrist for an asassin. A better alternative would be to just simply put someone in charge of investigating who would 'run out of leads'.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 04:47, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

:Nothing to say that that isn't done in some cases. It all depends on whether the assassin is known or not. (And we also don't want to head off into "NMF" territory with a hyper-specified, iron straight-jacket of a setting description) — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:11, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

== Question concerning the nature of the Disease ==
If it's possible to get the Blowtorch Fever more than once, how does it come back? Does one get re-infected? Or is it like the Chicken Pox, where you get infected ones, it then stays with you (though you are not infectious anymore) and then there's a possiblility of it reviving itself, like Shingles? Are you always a carrier of the disease if you are once infected with it? [[User:Saber|Saber]]
:All of the above? Seriously, though, that's getting into the mechanics of the disease and those mechanics aren't going to be revealed this early. Not that "All of the Above" isn't the correct answer... [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 17:34, 11 October 2007 (EDT)

== Question about uplifting ==

When it mentions the 2050 date for the time when biologists confirmed that TFOR affects non-humans, does that mean if we write a story with an uplifted character it has to be set no earlier than 2050? -- [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]]

:"Confirmed" - ie: it has been proven that a non-human origin 'Teefer' exists. The point is that it is in 2050 that they are confirmed to exist - prior to that it was all unconfirmed reports. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 21:05, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

:: Thankee -- [[User:Lloyd Brunnel|Lloyd]]

:I quote, with appropriate emphasis: "'Uplifted animal' teefers '''have existed all along''', but given the chaos and societal breakdown that accompanied the disease's advent, it wasn't until the 2050s that any biologist managed to confirm that the disease does hit species other than human." Just as neutrinos existed before scientists discovered them, so can uplifted-animal teefers exist without any scientist recognizing them for what they are. As well, note that characters can have their own beliefs about things, beliefs which may or may not be true; if you want to write about a pre-2050 teefer who ''sincerely believes'' that they're an uplifted animal, go for it! Maybe they're mistaken about that (in which case you have the seed of a story in which they discover the truth about the human being they used to be), and maybe they're right (in which case one of their character traits might be a jaundiced view of scientists, seeing as how those idiots simply refuse to acknowledge that the character "really is" an uplifted animal). [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 08:22, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Pig and Whistle

2009-03-29T08:15:18Z

Cubist: /* Question about uplifting */

Talk:PAW Collab

2009-03-07T18:43:49Z

Cubist: /* Minor Question */

==Sue==

Not sure on when this story is supposed to be set but looking at the dates given in the 'little things' I assumed it was at least 2038.

I am aiming with this character to show a bit of technology from the near future to contrast with the anti technological bias in the blind pig storys. Today prosthesis are about roughly 1/6th as strong as normal human limbs but research into stuff like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_elastomers Dielectric elastomers]] points towards possible fully functional prosthetic limbs in the forseeable future, even DARPA has doled out funding with the mission of developing a prosthetic arm as functionally capable as a human arm by 2009.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 06:13, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

:Good idea there, Devin. This story is one of the "indeterminites" - the scene-setting itself should be around 2038, but the vignettes themselves are going to fit in the period from the onset of "blowtorch fever" and TFOR all the way through to the stories "present". I think we might have to specify the time period every time we shift to another vignette. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:09, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

== Page Purpose? ==

I can't make head nor tail of this page. I think the story needs to be broken off onto its own page, with links to character backgrounds instead. What I see is that it's somehow embedded into the middle of the page. And that makes me go huh? --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 22:18, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

:The page isn't really "public", per-se. Sure, we're letting people see the story as it evolves, but at the moment we've got it formatted in the way that worked the best for us when we started the collaboration. But I'll change the page about and move the story so it's the first thing visible. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:30, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

::Just my two cents here, but wouldn't it be more beneficial for the setting as a whole if the character descriptions were kept on a seperate page altogether? I'm just asking because Alexei's description is seperate and things might get messy if everyone writing in PaW does the same.
== Getting a 'Complete' story out of this ==

Howdy. This here is just a little thought on how much more writing we need to get this story done and presentable.

Now we have beginnings for all the characters atm, so thats good. Now for a bare bones example lets say we also need a middle and an end. If everyone writes two more snippets of size similar to what they already have this will if you look at the amount already written be a tremendous boon to the word count.

The goal should be that your middle snippet describe something towards the middle of the night. Bits of the game, conversation, getting something from goordy, intellectual monologues(I know how much you guys love these;) ).

And the last snippet describes something towards the end of the night. People leaving, yourself leaving, an oath to stay up all night and drink as much as possible I don't know you figure it out.

But this will at the very least give us a story which is what we are aiming for. We can add snippets of cool ideas on after word or during but we should at least have a story with a beginning a middle and an end. Otherwise if we don't keep this in mind we risk being stuck on what to do with this story a month or two down the road, which i will not let happen.

The advantage of this? Everyone only has to write a couple more segments of whatever size they can manage and this puppy will have enough meat to be considered done!

Order could be a problem but my advice is to just not worry so much about it and write what you can. If you can write something in response to something someone else wrote go for it! If not, just write as though its the middle or the end of the evening and if its the end keep in mind whether or not people are still there is all. Thats it.

:At this point, it's clear that the story is not progressing well. Why? I think it's because we don't really have a ''story'' yet. We have an overall goal, yes -- "let's introduce readers to the PAW setting" -- but without a ''story,'' we might as well be writing a travelogue/documentary. 
:I have a suggestion for the overall plot: This story is about Mr. Peaches' ferretgirl. Specifically, it's the tale of how she comes to terms with her new body. The other characters are pretty much accustomed to being TFORs, and we can use their backstories to both (a) give readers info on the setting, and (b) help the ferretgirl get used to what she is. Yes? No? [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 02:54, 29 January 2009 (EST)

== Ideas ==

I've been thinking of the editing we're going to have to do after we finish writing this and there aren't many solutions to making the story easier to follow. The problem it has, currently, is that the shifts in perspective are rather jarring and the tense and voice change for each part.

There are an innumerable number of ways to do the edit, but there are only two that would solve the above problem:
# pick a viewpoint character and rewrite all the parts so that character is telling the story
# use third-person omniscient
# Select a standard tense and voice, then expand and condense the different parts so they are longer and have the events overlap, told from the different characters

The first option would involve a lot of work by all involved people and selecting who to have as the character narrating the story is always a chore. Changing the viewpoint to third-person omniscient would seem to be the easiest, but it would remove a lot of the unique voice of the different authors involved. And the third choice isn't much different from the first in the amount of work required, but it is a much more commonly seen format and is generally used for round-robin type stories. If anything, the third choice will preserve the unique voices and also provide a platform for the different authors to extend their characterization a lot. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 19:53, 14 October 2007 (EDT)

: Speaking as a guy who once wrote a short story with 11 different first-person viewpoints, I don't see what's so horrible about having multiple different perspective-shifts. As long as you clearly identify the 'breakpoints', like we're doing right now, where's the problem? [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 05:15, 15 October 2007 (EDT)

I think I have to agree with Cubist on this. Option 1 would require cutting out massive portions of other peoples snippets(just look at dash's or sue's introduction for instance.) and the other two options would be very labour intensive and may not come across the way they were originally written afterwards.

Although I cant think of to many examples of published stuff I have read with this many different writers working on a single story like this all doing their own different thing I have seen this happen multiple times on the TSA List itself and considering that not a whole lot of the writers on the list are being paid for anything they write it is almost always an easy thing to forgive.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 15:50, 15 October 2007 (EDT)

:Bard is the one who started the whole thing. I kinda agree with it, which is why I like the third option the most – it gives us a way to preserve everything that exists and will also lessen the jarring nature of the currently existing parts. Of course, we could always edit the smaller sections together into single, coherent wholes :) — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 17:18, 15 October 2007 (EDT)

== 1.21 ==

Good couple pieces by felix and peaches here, I really liked how you handled rosa's sense of dispair peaches! I got an idea for sue for after rosa leaves the washroom just before anyone starts on a follow up to this newest one of rosa's and if not up tonight its because I fell asleep at the computer and it should be up tomorrow night at the latest.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 04:23, 2 January 2008 (EST)

:I'd like to call the one after yours, Devin. I've got some good ideas as well. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 05:23, 2 January 2008 (EST)

::Go ahead with it :) I've got a part in the works for Scott that fits between the latest Dash and Rosa parts — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:38, 2 January 2008 (EST)

== Minor Question ==

This is just a small question but its been bugging me for a while. The character description says that Scott is two meters tall... but isn't that around 6'7" or something?

:Yes. He's a ''big'' sumbitch. [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 18:43, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

User:Cubist/No Quick Fix

2009-02-16T10:39:03Z

Cubist: Fixing the TF tag

{{title|name=No Quick Fix|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF tag | type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
Jubatus here. Lately I haven't been in attendance at the Blind Pig as often as I used to. I'm not sure anyone's noticed, and even if they have, I doubt they care one way or another. It's not like I've gone out of my way to make myself popular.

I've also cut way back on the time I spend at the West Street Shelter.

You see, a lapine SCAB named Phil is hurting. And I can't do a goddamned thing about it. No matter how badly I ''want'' to.

He's hurting because his significant other, Clover, left him for another man. I didn't even know what was happening until after the axe had fallen… and seeing what Phil is going through now, I'm beginning to remember why I stopped doing interpersonal relationships all those decades ago. Then again, could be he's faking to gain sympathy and exert a little revenge on Clover. After all, I had no idea how bad it was until I was ''told'' about it, until I overheard some conversations that maybe I shouldn't.

But my SCABS-heightened senses tell me it's genuine. Sure, Phil ''could be'' fooling with his scent and vocal overtones and all that… and ''I'' could be elected 'Mr. Congeniality' by unanimous vote.

Like hell he's faking.

You must understand: Phil saved my ass at a time when my ass well and truly ''needed'' saving. I owe that rabbit, ''big'' time. You'd think this would be a perfect opportunity for me to repay some of that debt, wouldn't you? I wish.

How do you comfort a rabbit? Physical contact is a good way, but that doesn't work so well for me. I'm a cheetah, a carnivorous predator, and Phil (being a prey species) gets nervous just from being in my general vicinity. Call me a pessimist if you must, but I really don't think it would do Phil any good to snuggle up to Death with spotted fur and sharp claws.

And even if psychological factors didn't make it impossible, the physical factors would get in the way. Cheetahs have no body fat to speak of; I'm made of skin and blood vessels and whipcord muscle wrapped around hard, hard bone. Why would Phil want to hug ''me'' when there are so many coils of garden hose available? Pretty much the same tactile sensations, and no risk of sending him into a terror-induced fugue state.

Okay, so snuggling is out, but there's other stuff I could do, right? I'm wealthy—last year, in 2037, I was #386 on the FORBES 400 list of the world's richest SCABs—and money is power, isn't it?

Yeah, right. What the hell do you buy to solve an emotional crisis? I ''do'' have an idea; I've got ideas for everything. I could buy Phil any firearm he likes, but he'd have to visit a gunsmith to have it modified for his paws, and I don't think he'd go for it…

So… neither snuggling nor money is in the cards. Alright, fine, there's got to be ''something'' I can do to help. I'm the fastest SCAB alive, so whatever needs to be done, I can do it in record time, right? Right! Except for one thing.

Do ''what,'' '''exactly''', in record time?

I don't have any ''useful'' ideas. And I can't ask anyone, because there's two kinds of people: Those who're hurting for Phil themselves, so I won't intrude on them; and those I wouldn't trust as far as they can be thrown, so I won't ask them. That means I'm left to my own devices, and as before, you damn betcha I've got ideas. I could hunt down Rio and remove every square inch of his skin in record time, that's one…

Somehow, I doubt Phil would approve. Again, call me a pessimist if you must, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't agree to anything that boils down to ''Whom shall I slay for you this day, my master?'' He's just not into inflicting pain on anything more sentient than a carrot.

And just for the sake of argument, let's say that Phil ''did'' give me the go-ahead. Would that give me the right to wreak havoc on people I don't even know? I've never met Rio, wouldn't recognize him if I ran over him on the street. Could easily be that he's a wonderful human being, congenial and intelligent, great sense of humor, credit to his species, all that and a bag of potato chips. But…

Phil's hurting. And that son of a bitch Rio is half of the reason why.

The other half of it is Clover, of course. I think I saw her once, couldn't pick her scent out of a lineup. And… I'm not stupid. I ''know'' that people can change. I ''know'' that relationships don't always work out. I ''know'' that I've got no right to even ''think'' about passing judgement on any of the parties to this affair, no matter how much one of those parties is suffering, no matter that the one in pain is someone I am deeply indebted to. It's none of my damned business, full stop.

And what the hell, Phil's no plaster saint. I have no clue about the details of how it all went down; could be he bears some of the blame himself. Maybe even most of it, for all I know. I may be socially inept, but I'm not blind, and I know he's got some bad points. He can be a sneaky, manipulative bastard when it suits him; maybe he's bought into that "cute harmless fluffy victim" stereotype a little too much; and there could easily be God knows what-all else I ''don't'' know about.

Even so, with all of that said and acknowledged…

Phil saved my ass. I owe him. And he's hurting.

For me, that's the bottom line: Phil's hurting.

And there's a little voice in the back of my skull. Every so often, not a continuous thing. A whispery little voice, maybe once every day or two, that says it would be a good idea to hunt down and kill the bastards. Make them pay in blood, both of them. Make them both fucking ''vanish,'' so that their bodies are never found. And hey, if it ever came to trial in spite of no evidence, I'm wealthy enough to buy myself some justice, right?

That inner voice scares me. Not just what it says, although ''that's'' bad enough, but also that I can't tell whether it comes from ''me'' or my goddamn ''instincts.'' Fortunately, while that voice scares me, that's ''all'' it does. It does not dictate my actions; it carries no compulsion. I don't ''have to'' go hunting. So I won't.

I'm not going to strip their entire skeletons down to the bone in 20 seconds apiece. Nor will I make inquiries about where Clover and Rio are and throw trans-sonic fastballs at the place. I will not a-hacking go, fuck up their credit ratings and broadcast secrets they'd prefer no one know about and extend the statute of limitations on any legal offenses they've ever committed in their lives. I'm not about to edit their public records to implicate them in crimes they weren't involved with. Maybe someone's going to make their lives a living Hell, using tactics that cripple their ability to counterattack and can't be traced back to the perpetrator even if they ''were'' somehow able to strike back… but that someone is ''not'' going to be me.

I'm going to back slowly away from the mess. I can do this, I'm good at avoiding problems. I've got lots of practice running away from messes. Been doing it for years and years. All I have to do is sit on my spotted behind while Phil hurts. Stay the hell out of his way, lest my mere ''presence'' fuck him up worse than he is now.

No worries. Nothing to it. Piece of cake. Easy as mincemeat pie ''a la'' Rio. Just one thing: Up until now, every problem I've run from has been my own.

I never dreamed it could be so damned difficult to run away from ''someone else's'' problem…

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:No Quick Fix}}

User:Cubist/Building the Perfect Beast

2009-02-16T10:38:22Z

Cubist: Fixing the TF tag

{{series bar
|series=Life in the Fast Lane
|next=[[So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star]]}}
{{title|name=Building the Perfect Beast|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF tag | type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}
{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
My name is Jubatus, and I think I've created a monster.

And it all started so innocuously, too…

Set the WABAC machine for a few months ago, when I, the non-singing terror of the Blind Pig Glee Club, actually did hook up with said group. I play instructor. What I do is ID vocal flaws and help the vocalist in question to overcome them. In theory, this should be Wanderer's job, as he's the big kahuna and has tons more vocal training and theory than I ever did, but that wolf couldn't teach his grandmother how to suck eggs. Me? I'm a technical writer—transferring data between brains is what I do for a living.

Between us, we make a fairly effective team.

Speaking of 'effective teams', I really ought to introduce the rest of the Glee Club. First off is Eltro Gannet, morphlocked buffalo-type SCAB. No horns or hooves, maybe some hair/fur action going. He's two and a half men wide; 10 men strong; and 20 men dignified. ''Basso profundo,'' the kind that makes James Earl Jones sound like a baritone. Gannet's voice is even deeper than mine used to be, and good enough that if I could still sing, I would be plotting his painful demise. I'm almost certain that he does have a sense of humor—it's just hard to tell, since he specializes in Subtle and Deadpan.

Constance is our token alto. SCABS made her a bumblebee. She's got a fair degree of control over her form, anything from complete bee-hood to mostly-norm and anywhere in between. Interestingly, she can also restrict the form-shift to any individual part of her body, or group thereof. No, I haven't asked her about the stinger. At her most human, all she's got is the markings up and down her torso, plus oversized compound eyes; I never cared for the 'big eye' thing in Japanese animation, and it doesn't look any better in real life. Yes, the world ''does'' look pretty damned weird from her point of view, and I sometimes wonder how much of her customary 'smiling airhead/ditz' behavior is due to that.

Wolfshead is a baritone. As the name implies, he's got the head of a wolf—but that's ''it.'' Everything below his jawline is human-normal, which means he's got a standard issue larynx feeding into the resonance chambers of his lupine sinus cavities. As a result, his voice has a very distinctive timbre. I like it; your mileage may vary. He's generally shy and retiring, so why did he hook up with the generally raucous Lupine Boys? He's got to have ''some'' kind of party animal in him, I just haven't seen it myself.

Then there's my dear friend Ringwolf; he's another Lupine Boy, and we get along as smoothly as a cat's tongue, he and I. It's probably because the first thing I ever said to him was that his enunciation sucked. Mind you, he ''did'' need to work on it. He's a tenor, maybe that explains his reaction. Externally speaking, all he's got to show for his SCABhood is ears, a tail, and overly sharp fingernails. His day job, telemarketing, involves making dozens of cold calls per hour, so it's kind of amusing that he gets so damned self-conscious when it comes to performing in the flesh.

Our soprano is Sunya, and SCABS got creative with her. I suppose you could call her a non-equine centaur: Below her waist, she's an oversized jaguar. Gorgeous green eyes, fur so black it almost looks blue, and ditto her hair, which grows into a sort of crewcut mane down her spine. She can add claws and fur ''ad libitum,'' not sure about any other form-shifting. Believe me, you haven't seen a prima donna attitude until you've seen one with a feline accent…

The last of the Glee Club's original vocalists is Wanderer, founder and leader of the Lupine Boys. You might expect that a shameless exhibitionist of a performer like him would be a ham, but he's a wolf, and the closest he can get to human isn't, particularly. At least he's bipedal with hands and a voice. I'm told that he regresses to pure animal-hood when he's tired, sick, or drunk. Haven't seen it, myself. Maybe someday. Baritone is his preferred range, pre-1970 Broadway show tunes his preferred repertoire, flamboyantly Elizabethan his preferred mode of affectation, optimistic his preferred attitude. I've given up trying to understand how he gets away with it.

Finally there's me, Jubatus. I haven't sung for a while. Morphlocked by preference; I'm 95% pure cheetah, and if I am able to pump that up to 100%, ''I don't want to know.'' When I'm not playing instructor, which is good chunk of the time, I play something else: Percussion. The first couple of sessions I had my laptop running KeyBard with the Zildjian plug-in module, but now I'm rataplanning away on a set of Tsukowa-Roland drumpads. Fully programmable in every sense of the word. I'm not using more than a fraction of their potential, which is sad in a way. On the other hand, I simply don't ''need'' any more than that fraction, and you won't catch ''me'' artsy-fartsing up a tune merely because my tools allow me to. Let's just say I've got room to grow if I ever ''do'' need it.

So once I started helping Wanderer on the instructional end of things, the vocal quality went up sharply—and they weren't half bad to begin with. Word gets around, and we end up with more gigs, some of them even ''paid'' gigs. That's good, and what's better is when our first horse, Dr. Bob Stein, joined us. Yeah, ''that'' Dr. Bob Stein. He is a world-renowned scientist and all that, but he's ''also'' a damn fine baritone. I kid you not; we're talking eight years with the Virginia Opera, okay? Who knew?

If you ask me, I think Wanderer only let the Doc sit in the first time because he didn't want to say 'no' to one of the most respected SCABS researchers on the face of the planet. Like I said, who knew?

But I digress. As you might expect, we started getting serious media coverage once the Doc signed on. And media coverage begat even more gigs (and box office), which begat even more media coverage, and so on, worlds without end, amen. And somewhere in there, an otter by name of Peregrine Quinn Dobhran joined up—I'm not sure of the details, you'd have to ask Perry or Wanderer—to add his low baritone vocals to the mix. His keyboard chops ain't bad either, but we don't do that. He's more than a little temperamental. Not that ''I'' have any standing to criticize on ''that'' ground, of course…

In case you're not keeping track, that brings us up to a total of nine musicians in this motley crew. And with a mob that size, the logistics of transportation, if nothing else, can get sticky. Enter: an equine SCAB named Greyflank, stage left, bearing with him invaluable experience with all things backstage-related. He's as queer as a three-dollar bill, and not just in sexual preference, but by Thespis, he knows his stuff. You ask me, a large part of our success is directly attributable to Grey's work on publicity and bookings, and his connections in the biz, and God knows what else. He's a natural target for two—count 'em, two—different groups of bigots (homophobes ''and'' SCABS-bashers), which even I can't bring myself to laugh about unless I ''really'' work at it. I tried to set up a betting pool for the day Grey first hits on Wanderer, but amazingly enough, no one else seemed to be interested…

Logistics, by the way, is how come I'm the only non-vocalist we've got. Every instrument you don't carry with you is an instrument you don't have to tune, or keep track of, or insure, and that makes life ''much'' easier, thanks.

Now, as I've already said, Wanderer is heavily into 20th Century show tunes, and the group's repertoire reflected that. Not any more. Oh, we still do numbers from '''''Mame''''' and '''''My Fair Lady''''' and such, but now they're maybe 15% of our material, not the 90-odd% they were before I came along. Can't say I'm the only one who suggests new tunes, just the single most profligate suggestor. Wanderer's vetoed a fair number of my ideas (for instance, I still think we could knock 'em dead with '''''Who Are the Brain Police'''),'' and he's been doubtful about others ''('''Helter Skelter''''' is a tune he didn't even want to ''try'' until I played him the Bobs' ''a capella'' arrangement), but on the whole, I really can't complain. And neither can the wolf, because we're now getting a decidedly larger audience than we used to. You just wouldn't believe how much wider a segment of the concert-going public you can attract when you start performing a wider variety of music.

If you've been paying attention, you'll notice that I haven't mentioned our sound man. That's because we didn't really have one, not at first. I tripled as engineer for a while, and I'm fast enough that I could get away with commuting between stage and mixing board even during our performances. But I wasn't comfortable with wearing three hats (the other two being instructor and percussion, if you'll recall), so I was happy to delegate this job to Greyflank when he came on board. Bad move; Grey's technical expertise (he's a rigger, he's a gaffer, you name it) is not accompanied by any kind of musical talent, and a sound man needs at least a little of both. So we made it a rotating position for a few weeks, and it turned out that Ringwolf is actually the best engineer we had, so we stuck him with the job. That did mean we had to put the mixer up on stage with us, but it worked.

And that's how matters stood up until five Wednesday evenings ago.

We came in for the usual Wednesday rehearsal, and discovered a large package, one meter square by 1.5 long, on the piano bench. One of the Lupine Boys said to Wanderer, "UPS delivered it around 3 pm. I think it's yours."

"Well-a-day! 'Tis more than passing strange… Aye, the intended recipient indeed be the Blind Pig Glee Club, in care of the Blind Pig Gin Mill."

"Return address?" I asked.

"The source whence this came would appear to be a Chicagoan gentleman, one 'Mixman 3000' by name," Wanderer said, puzzled.

''Bingo. So he '''did''' respond.'' "No problem," I said. "He's a Chi-town DJ. I spread the word we were looking for an engineer, and I guess he responded to my message." I upshifted, moved in and used a claw to neatly open the package, downshifted. I opened the lid. "Of course, he could've just sent an e-mail. Let's see what—huh?"

''t' t' '''tum''' p' t' '''tah''' t' tm pm p' '''tah!''''' ''t' t' '''tum''' p' t' '''tah''' t' tm pm p' '''tah!'''''

A percussion riff rumbled forth from inside the package, whose contents drifted up into the air. It was vaguely rectangular, with mass quantities of knobs and sliders and gauges on its largest flat surface—a floating sound board, in other words—and animated neon-type visual effects surrounded it. The riff kept rolling as the thing rotated around a vertical axis, giving the entire bar a good look at it.

''t' t' '''tum''' p' t' '''tah''' t' tm pm p' '''tah!''''' ''t' t' '''tum''' p' t' '''tah''' t' tm pm p' '''tah!'''''

It settled down to a couple centimeters above the piano. The shifting neon stabilized to create a blue/gold/red image of a human DJ working the board. A bass guitar line started a beat or two before the lyrics:

"Well ya '''got''' a little '''prob'''lem—'''on''' the '''stage'''—

"An' it's '''got'''ta be '''fixed''' 'fore you're '''all''' the '''rage!'''

"Ya '''need''' a so'''lu'''tion an' ya '''want''' it to'''day?'''" Here the instruments stopped dead.

"Just '''list'''en to the wisdom of—'''M'''—'''3'''—'''K!'''" Now the accompaniment picked up again.

"I'm a '''mix'''er—A '''fix'''er—An '''e'''lectronic '''trick'''- ster

"What '''I''' can do makes '''o'''ther soundmen '''run''' off feelin' '''sick,''' sure!

"Ya '''sought''' it—I '''got''' it—There '''ain't''' no more to '''say'''—" The accompaniment changed to a descending flurry of drum hits.

"The '''an'''swer you are seeking, is—'''M'''—'''3'''—'''K!'''"

The neon image smiled, spread its hands, looked around expectantly. There was a patter of applause; most of the bar's patrons wore surprised expressions. "Let me guess: I went a little over the top, didn't I?"

"Ah… yes, I believe that would be a cogent and accurate summary," Wanderer said. "However, as a demonstration of your proficiency, I cannot gainsay the efficacy of your performance."

One of the image's eyes twinkled. Literally, like a cheap special effect. "So I'm in?"

"Mayhap. Perchance a sort of trial session might be in order?"

"In other words," I said, "let's see how you do with material that's ''not'' 1980s rap."

"No problem at all," the board replied. A drawer slid open, revealing several small wireless microphones with velcro tabs to hold them onto fur. "As you can see, I came prepared. Go ahead and plug in ''here,'' Jube." An LED flashed near one of the sockets on the back panel.

So I hooked up my drum set, and the rest of the crew did the usual routine with their mikes, and before too long we got into a Swingle Singers arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach—'''''Wise and Foolish Virgins''','' I think it was. Sounded pretty good. And then it was '''''Don't Rain on My Parade''','' and '''''The Longest Time''','' and '''''The Thunder Rolls''''' with Wanderer's rewritten lyrics, and '''''Helter Skelter''','' and '''''Stars and Stripes Forever''','' and…

Could've gone on longer, but Wanderer killed it at 2 hours—no sense letting the voices nuke their throats for a tryout. And when we stopped, we got the most damn applause ''ever'' from this gang of drunks.

So here we are, possibly the most exotic musical group of all time: Three wolves; two cats; one horse, otter, bee, and buffalo; a dead sound engineer; and we even drafted a horse as roadie/gaffer/Lord High Everything Else. We've got a number of downloadable cuts on the Net, we're working on an album, we've got plenty of local gigs, and we just might go nationwide.

Oh, and you can stop calling us the Blind Pig Glee Club. That name just doesn't fit any more. We're the Strikebreakers.

Only possible name for the group, really.

I mean, what ''else'' can you call a bunch of filthy, stinking, good-for-nothing SCABs?
[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Building the Perfect Beast}}

User:Cubist/Christmas Rush

2009-02-16T10:27:34Z

Cubist: Fixing the TF tag

{{title|name=Christmas Rush|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF tag | type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
The name is Jubatus, and I'm the fastest SCAB alive. Granted, there might be one or two inanimorphs faster than me, but then I did specify 'alive', so stop quibbling, alright? Anyway, this'll be my first Christmas at the Blind Pig—the Strikebreakers (me included) were on tour last winter, and before that... well. Let's just say I was collecting data on ''why'' no man, or SCAB, is an island.

Frankly, 2039's been one hell of a calendar year, and I'll be glad to see the end of it. For me, at least, the lowlights were January, when the Strikebreakers tour died on contact with Godzilla—

Yeah. ''That.'' Made the news and everything. Free advice: Whatever you do, don't even ''think'' about applying the placebo effect to inanimorphs. Long story, just... ''don't,'' okay?

To continue: July's when I came ''this'' close to maiming a lifelong dream beyond repair. Again, long story. Next, ending in September, I spent four solid weeks in a concussed and feral state after a car accident. Wasn't so bad ''at the time,'' since I (being concussed ''and'' feral) was terminally bereft of clue. Trouble is, when I got better, I discovered that my ''instincts'' are less dangerous than ''I'' am. How's ''that'' for a kick in the teeth? Oh, yeah, and there's a leonine SCAB high-schooler, Hallan Myers, has me to thank for the beating he received in March. Sure, he gave better than he got, and that's the final crap he ever took from the bullies who'd been riding his ass for months, but even so...

Like I said: One rhodium-plated, USDA Choice, triple-distilled ''hell'' of a year.

I'm at my usual seat, the small booth halfway between the bathrooms and the entrance to the pool room. Mathematically speaking, I'd've preferred a centralized location, meaning minimal distance to anywhere in the common or pool rooms or the big side hall opposite the pool tables, but someone might wonder why I changed my routine, and given what I'll be doing all night, it's going to be hard enough not to attract attention just because.

I repeat myself, but it bears repeating: For me, 2039 has been one hell of a year. Even so, I managed to get through it with no small amount of help from... hmm. I'm not sure if it's the right word, but... oh, what the heck. I got by with a little help from my friends. Seriously. Without Hallan in particular, Metron only knows where I'd be now. So: I racked up some debts of a non-monetary kind, and I was wondering how to pay 'em off. And somewhere along the way, not really sure when, I got the bright idea of playing 'secret Santa' to the Blind Pig. Cool image: At the Xmas party, someone reaches for his drink, his hand bumps into something he didn't notice before, and it's a present for him. Pleasant surprises all around.

It'd spoil the effect if anyone figured out who's behind these displays of selfless generosity, of course, but I'm not too worried on that score. First, yes I ''am '''that''''' fast, courtesy of my SCABS-granted ability to make my personal Time run fast or slow: I upshift, zip over to the target, deposit the payload, zip back, and finally return to the normal (slow) tempo. After a few calendar days of practice in a warehouse I rented and remodeled for this purpose, I've got it down to a science. Elapsed clock-time .8 seconds or less for a round trip to ''anywhere'' in the Pig's three main ground-floor rooms, and no more than half a second to anywhere in the common room. Second, there are advantages to having invested ''so'' much time and effort in earning a 'high-strung, moody, fussbudget asshole' rep. As long as I don't let myself be caught in the act, ''nobody's'' going to even ''suspect'' that I'm the culprit.

Trouble is, gifts are a problem for me. Not the buying—I'm as wealthy as the next technically skilled SCAB who can squeeze a few months'-worth of billable hours into one calendar day—but, rather, the ''choosing'' part of the deal. In the workplace, I'm fine; off duty, in a purely ''social'' setting, I suck rocks. For good reason, or at least for what I ''thought'' was good reason. Okay, I was wrong there, but even though I can and should acquire them, social skills just don't come naturally to me. Which begs the question: What do you get ''from'' the man who can afford everything... except a decent idea of what you actually ''want?''

Well, food is always an option. SCAB or norm, food's good for ''anything'' that's biological (and even a few inanimorphs, who aren't), even if most people don't need it in the quantities ''I'' consume. That's why God invented Sizzler gift certificates. Yeah, Sizzler's a steak house, but they've had a decent salad bar since about 1970, so herbivores are covered, too. $70 buys dinner for two, and then some.

I've got $100 gift certificates. 200 of them.

Oh, I've got other things picked out for a select few of tonight's patrons, but the Pig gets more of a crowd than usual on Christmas Eve. Higher SCAB quotient than usual, too, since norms tend to have more romantic/social entanglements to spend the holiday with. Funny how that works, hm?

Anyway—'in for a penny, in for a pound', like the man says. If I'm going to be all generous in the first place, ''why not'' cast the net wide, as it were? So I'll play inverse pickpocket, drop certificates into the pockets of people I don't know, until I run out or until closing time, whichever comes first. As for those I ''do'' know...

Dr. Stein was easy: He's a car freak, antique gas burners in specific, to the point that he devotes a good chunk of his spare time to his pet Pontiac GTO. Took a bit of digging, but I found a model GTO, 1:12 scale—pretty sad condition, but all the wheels are still there and can turn. Sure, I ''could've'' gotten one in mint, or even in the unopened original packaging, but those are damned expensive. No sense giving an anonymous present whose price rules out 99% of potential donors.

God knows why he's in a funk tonight, but the toy should help—he'll ''love'' it.

Jim Hart wasn't quite so easy: I don't really know much about him, aside from he's a wrestling-obsessed full-morph squirrel. Further, I strongly doubt anyone else does, either. Go ahead; talk to the tree-rat about ''anything,'' and I'll give you $1,000 if you can keep the topic off of Wrestling for more than 90 clock-seconds. Frankly, if it weren't for my nagging suspicion that I'm one of the contributing factors that led to his inadvertent (and, thankfully, unsuccessful) suicide attempt, I'd have been just as happy to leave him out of it entirely...

Anyway, I did some net-searching, and I found something I hope he'll ''really'' like: Shoes. That's right, shoes. What's so special about wrestling shoes? Hell if I know, but on a wrestler's forum, I saw a 'laces or velcro?' flamewar that was every bit as intense as a Linux-''versus''-BSD jihad. And it turns out there ''is'' a company makes 'em for animorph SCABs—even psychotic little squirrels!—for the low, low price of $2,900 a pair. What the hell, it's only money, right?

I got some lingerie for Raven Blackmane. Real hardcore stuff, long past PG and well into X. You think that's not appropriate for a devout Christian? Sure it is, especially for a Christian who's been exposing herself over a pool table for an absolute minimum of 1.5 calendar years. Major exhibitionist tendencies, she has. I have no idea how she reconciles them with her religious beliefs; then again, I don't ''need'' to know how she does it. The fact that she ''has'' reconciled 'em is good enough for me.

Then there's Sue Carter, the plant with a brain the size of a planet. Sadly, she sees other people as nothing more than tools to exploit. That's why I found her a vintage LEGO Mindstorms set—robotics kit for kids, used to be popular before the turn of the millennium. My hope is that while she's playing with it, she'll notice that she treats the Mindstorms parts the same way she treats people: Namely, she manipulates the hell out of 'em. Depending on how much empathy is left in her, that realization might just help spur the dryad to change her ways.

Frankly, I wasn't expecting Carter to actually show up tonight. She ''did'' make an email promise to attend; thing is, it's a 6,000-mile commute for her, you know? But she ''is'' here, and that's good. She gets her present now, instead of—

Huh. When did Hallan Myers get here?

"Hello, Mr. Acinonyx!" It's the lion cub himself, striding through the crowd, all wrapped up against the cold snap that rolled in earlier today.

"Hey there, catboy. What's a nice kid like you doing in place like ''this?'' Don't you have a family to be with?"

"Yes, sir, I do. I came to drop off some gifts for those who don't," he said, digging through his backpack for a flat, near-square package, wrapped in cheap holofoil-embossed paper. Before he can actually hand it over to me, it changes to one covered in plain white paper. "Merry Christmas—sir?"

Of course he was surprised; a little upshift let me pull the swap in the blink of ''his'' eye. Meanwhile, I turn over the original (shiny) gift in my hands, spectrums dancing across the foil.

"It's for you," I tell him. "May as well open it now."

I follow my own advice. A few claw-made slits in the foil later, I see a disc whose title I don't recognize: '''''Speechless With Wonderment'''.'' No UPC barcode...

"I burned it myself," the cub says as he uses one of his own claws to slice up the wrapping on his little package. "Of course, that's after I converted the files to play back at sextuple—''oh wow!"''

Bingo. I smile. He's just seen that I gave him a pre-release copy of '''''The Strikebreakers Meet Godzilla''','' our second album. Definitely ''not'' a title ''I'' would've chosen, but both Greyflank and Wanderer said "there's no such thing as bad publicity", so—

"Oh my gosh! ''Omigosh!"''

—and that's Myers realizing that yes, the thing ''is'' autographed. By all the band members.

'''''"Oh—My—Gosh!"'''''

I think he likes it.

I upshift and put a glass (filled with a teabag and hot water) before Myers; once he stops roaring, he's gonna need a little something for his throat. That's not all I did in fast-time. I also dropped a couple of plastic tubes in his backpack—tubes which just happen to contain $50 worth of tokens for local video arcades. Given his audio response to the CD, I think I better be elsewhere when he notices the tubes.

In the meantime, I check out my new disc—no, ''discs.'' Two of 'em. As the name implies, they're a collection of instrumentals, some of which I haven't heard in years: '''''Skating''','' by the Vince Guaraldi Trio; one movement of '''''Water Musick''''' by Handel; '''''Music Box Dancer''';'' the '''''Rockford Files''''' theme; a Steeleye Span tune, '''''Robbery With Violins''';'' Tomita's version of the '''''Canon in D''';'' a Vangelis cut I don't recognize the name of; '''''Classical Gas''';'' a couple of J.S. Bach pieces; '''''Chateau''','' by Larry 'Synergy' Fast...

"You're welcome, sir."

It's Myers, talking in between sips of tea—oh, right. I must've muttered 'thanks' while preoccupied. Gotta watch that... "Looks like a decent selection. You really didn't need to go to the trouble of sextupling the playback speed, though; I can get that through software, no sweat."

He grins. "Of course—but this way, you get the music at ''your'' normal speed from ''any'' CD player!"

I smile back at him. "Good point." We exchange a few more words before he moves on to his next delivery. Me, I just stay put in my booth, or at least that's what it ''looks'' like. Every so often I do my own delivering: Upshift high; leap up to the ceiling and then directly over my target; let my foot-claws pin me to the ceiling as I reach down to deposit the package; then return to my seat, going back the way I came. All that at a tempo of 40, by the way—no, I wasn't joking when I said I could make a round trip to anywhere in .8 seconds or less. Technically, I could drop 'em off at a rate of about 100 presents per minute, get it all over and done with in a few minutes; but that idea's a non-starter, as it would pretty well guarantee I'm caught in the act. I keep a watchful eye on the crowd, and I only do the deed during moments when ''nobody'' is looking in my general direction.

Oh, fucking joy. Dr. Stein was talking to Donnie a bit earlier, and now everybody knows, or at least the regulars: The Doc's GTO broke, and there just ''aren't'' any replacement parts available. Shit! Wonderful time for him to receive a present that reminds him, damn it.

Maybe I can salvage something. Literally. I zip out to the Extremis for privacy as I work. Pontiac made I don't know how many million of the damn things, so the first avenue of attack is spiders to comb odd corners of the Net for relevant blueprints, CAD files in particular. While that's happening, a second set of spiders will sort through the past eight decades of DMV records nationwide, focusing primarily on Planned Non-Operation certificates... No need for me to babysit the machinery while it's running; I'll just pop back out every couple hours, for a status check. Here's hoping I can locate a useable transmission...

Interesting: When I re-enter the Pig, there's a full-morph wolf laired under the pool table, and the Lupine Boys' Ladies Auxiliary is nowhere to be seen. The 'what' of it's obvious, but not the 'why', so I buttonhole Wanderer: "Looks like Blackmane turned quad. What's up?"

"She was among the beneficiaries of our would-be Father Christmas; her gift proved to be a rather ''exotic'' set of lingerie; and an incautious reference to certain visual misadventures appears to have triggered an attack of purest mortification."

"That's crazy," I say, frowning. "She's been giving free shows for as long as ''I've'' been around, at least eighteen calendar-months—and ''now'' she gets the vapors over it?"

He shrugs. "A most cogent and perspicacious observation, my abrasive friend. Alas, she who might explain the mystery is literally in no shape to do so."

Bloody hell. Don't want to think I made a mistake, but... hold that thought for when she's back. Onward to more pleasant matters: I see that Wanderer and his niece are holding court near the Lupine Boys' table. Nice girl, polite. Not sure when he got back from his performance; somewhere near... well, hell. When ''did'' he return? A trivial question, true, but it won't let me alone as I sip my drink. Mini-CD, a diluted 'catnip daiquiri', the only thing whose residency time in my system is long enough that it ''can'' get me drunk. Anyway—the wolf left, what, 4:30 PM? Yeah, that's about right. 4:30, 4:40, in there somewhere. And he returned...

My blood cools below freezing point, sobering me up, as I realize ''I don't know.''

I downshift to a tempo of .9, just below normal; walk carefully to the bathroom; pour my drink down the sink; and then spend a half-hour waiting for my metabolism to dispose of what's currently contaminating my bloodstream. Upshifted to a tempo of 35, I'm done in less than one clock-minute, after which I leave to get a vodka boilermaker. Alcohol's safe; I burn it off too damn fast... and no, I am ''not'' overreacting to the thought that maybe, just maybe, I ''might'' have gotten too blitzed to remember when Wanderer made his entrance.

Not overreacting at all. When you can break the sound barrier, you ''can't'' afford ''any'' degree of loss of control...

Back in the common room, I keep busy (does the phrase "Jubatus has time to kill" ring any bells?). First, there's the gift runs, and while I'm at it, I also try to keep an eye out for potential troublemakers. Haven't seen any yet; every one of the merrymakers really is interested in making merry, thank Dionysus.

Ah—Blackmane's resumed her anthropomorphic status. The more I consider it, the more uncertain I become about her present... I zip over to catch her before she can rejoin the throng. "Santa Claus kinda screwed up on your gift, huh?"

Raven jerks around, looks at me. "Oh! Jubatus. Yes, I suppose you could say that. I just, well, it was a real shock to learn that I'd been exposing myself..."

Damn. I ''did'' mess up. "I thought you knew already," I say quietly. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out, and she ends up closing the jaws and looking at me. "Come on. ''One'' free show, fine, that's an accident. But doing it over and over again, week after week, month after month—you ''had'' to be aware of it."

"I don't see how that follows," she says carefully. "Clothing ''is'' kind of loose and floppy, by its very nature. I don't think you can reasonably expect someone to be micrometrically aware, at ''all'' times, of the position of ''every'' inch of cloth they're wearing."

"You damn well ''better'' be," I say, annoyed at her lackadaisical attitude. "Otherwise, you're just asking for people to get pistol-whipped when you walk by them. Hell, even a loose zipper can take the skin right off a body!" She doesn't reply, just gives me a confused look. "What's the matter, you need a demonstration?" And suddenly light dawns in her eyes.

"Jubatus? Just how quickly do you think I move?"

I glare. '''How quickly', my bleeding''—And then the clue phone rings. Now it's ''my'' turn to open mouth and say nothing.

Meekly, she says, "So... you really do have to worry about uncontrolled cloth."

"And you really don't," is my brilliant riposte. ''Game over. Sigh. ''"Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted... Alright. Stay put and I'll get you the receipt..." And I trail off because I don't recognize the expression on Blackmane's face. "You ''are'' going to exchange the lingerie, right?"

"Not relevant. You said 'fun while it lasted'—why must it end ''now?"''

''Isn't it obvious? Well, maybe not, after the cloth routine...'' I shrug. "I screwed up. When that happens, I do what I can to solve the resulting problems and ensure there's no rerun, then move on."

I'm about to retrieve the receipt, when she says, "Jubatus." We look into each other's eyes, then she continues: "It's ''okay'' for you to be fallible."

"You think Stein would agree?"

She's got that expression again. "I think... he'd agree it's not your fault that you couldn't foresee his breakdown. As for me, you only hurt my dignity! If I cared about ''that,'' would I be a regular here?" she asks. "I think it's a very good thing you're doing, and it would be a shame if you stopped."

"Oh, really. So I should spoil a few more people's Christmas?"

"No. You should ''brighten'' a few more people's Christmas." She pauses for a moment. "If you're responsible for ''all'' the surprise packages this evening, you should know that your hits outnumber your misses by a sizeable margin. Ask Wanderer, or that squirrel—"

"Jim Hart."

"Yes. Talk to Jim Hart, find out what ''he'' thinks of his gift. Or even Greyflank; I'm not at all sure I ''want'' to know what he got, but whatever it is, he seems to like it..."

"You're right—you ''don't'' want to know."

The wolfette blinks twice. "I, see. In any case... You're a better man than you give yourself credit for, Jubatus. Please, don't give up."

And then one of the Boys challenges her to a game of pool, thus proving that a wolf SCAB can be very like a lamb to the slaughter.

'''Don't give up', she says. And why the hell not? My old habits are looking mighty comfortable right now! Also safe, can't forget safe. There's so much that could go wrong, so many ways for me to hurt people without trying to, without even knowing! And the cheetah side of me sure doesn't see anything wrong with being socially isolated...''

''Sigh. That way lies madness, and you damn well '''know''' it. Gotta get out of that shell before it crushes you. The prospect scares you? BFD. Phil's got at least as much reason to be afraid—and '''being eaten alive''' is what '''he's''' afraid of! If that kind of fear isn't enough to stop Phil from putting himself on public display, what the hell is '''your''' excuse, Jube...''

A voice breaks into my reverie: "—meseems that our fair maid of the verdant complexion hath been o'erly silent of late—" Wanderer, as if anyone ''else'' sounds like ''that.'' He's inviting the dryad to play toastmistress! Carter eats it up with a spoon; if she ever decides to mellow out a little, I think she might turn out to be a bigger ham than the wolf. Something to look forward to...'' 'Look forward'? My, my. Is that actually Hope I see before me? Heh! Looks like even '''my''' pessimism has finally hit the wall.''

Hope: It's an unfamiliar feeling.

"A toast, then," Carter says, and my mind continues the sentiment: ''It's not like Anybody's out there actually '''listening''', but...''

''Can next year not suck? Let 2040 turn out halfway decent?''

''Please..?''

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christmas Rush}}

User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution

2009-02-16T10:27:05Z

Cubist: Fixing the TF tag

{{title|name=The John Moschitta School of Elocution|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF tag | type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}
{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
__TOC__
They call me Jubatus. Me being the fastest SCAB alive, I ''always'' have time to kill... so I always need new ways to kill time, simply to avoid going mad from boredom. You could call it Parkinson's Law of Temporal Consumption: "Activities multiply to fill whatever you've got in the way of spare time." I didn't used to find this a problem — I got plenty of interests — but then, I also didn't used to think there could be more than 24 hours in a day. There can, particularly for people like me, to whom SCABS gave a seriously overclocked brain. That's short for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, and can you blame anyone for preferring the acronym? I've got SCABS to thank for my being a bipedal cheetah with a train of thought that runs six times faster than anyone else's, which explains how come from ''my'' point of view, there's ''150'' hours in a day. Fortunately, I can control the rate at which my personal 'clock' runs; upshifting for greater speed, downshifting to interact with you slowpokes.

What do I ''do'' with all that time, I hear you ask? Whatever I damned well please, and six times more of it than I ever could before. Today, like pretty much every other day, it pleases me to spend a couple hours of clock time puttering around the West Street Shelter. Seems I've got a bit of history with one of their volunteers, a rabbit named Phil, and I like to keep an eye on him. Think of me as a guardian angel with spotted fur and sharp, pointy teeth. May the good Lord forgive any fool who thinks he can give the rabbit a hard time, because ''I'' sure as hell ''won't.'' Phil is good people, and if anyone forgets how good people should be treated, I'm up for teaching 'em a quick lesson in manners any day of the week.

I'm not sure Phil notices, but I make a point of reducing my Dangerous quotient before I drop in. I trim my claws; I kill 'cheetah breath' with mouthwash; I also downshift to a tempo of around .95, marginally slower than the norm. Not that it matters whether he's consciously aware. The way I see it, he doesn't need to worry about a small flotilla of high-velocity knife edges zipping around him in loose formation. That's basically the reason I bother with the Shelter at all, when you get right down to it — reducing the level of hassle Phil gets from an important part of his life. The instant Phil leaves, I'm gone, too.

At this point, I'll bet some of you are wondering how ''anyone,'' a highly-morphed SCAB like me in particular, could possibly be indifferent to the good work done at the Shelter. You guys should talk to the ones who ''aren't'' asking; they're just as cynical as I am, and therefore ''know'' why somebody might be less than enthusiastic about ostensibly-altruistic behavior. Let's just say I'm a 'value given for value received' kind of guy and leave it at that, shall we?

I suspect Splendor (the sometimes cold-blooded mistress of West Street in general, and the Shelter in particular) has an idea of what I'm ''really'' about here, but no matter how our philosophies may differ, she's too pragmatic to reject assistance from any quarter. So far I've spruced up the joint's Net presence, made sure a few time-sensitive deliveries arrived on schedule, written two drafts of a Shelter procedures manual, and done a fair amount of websearching on a notable variety of topics, to name only four of the tasks I've fielded here.

Right now I'm seated in the lobby, not far from Phil's office. I'm continuing work on the Shelter's website. Specifically, the interface of the Shelter's online database of SCAB-friendly businesses. Got my PowerBook before me, and I intend to cut that interface down to size, or die trying. You'd be surprised how many 56K modems are still in service, particularly among the SCAB populace that's the Shelter's target audience. And even if ''you'' aren't surprised, the twit who originally created this interface certainly would be! I'll bet he was thinking more of how it would look in his portfolio than how it would serve the client, damn his highly-trained eyes. He had every pixel of the bloody thing thickly encrusted with bandwidth-sucking leeches — I'm talking 32-bit animation, Java-3 applets, multi-track sound files, and on and on. End result: Not only does the sucker take for''ever'' to finish loading on a slow connection, but it runs like an arthritic clam (when it runs at all) on any machine the intended audience is likely to be able to afford.

So far, I've sandblasted ''all'' the graphics down to bit-depths of 8 or less, and killed ''every'' piece of animation that had no valid reason to live. The payoff is that the download time over a 56K modem has dropped to 235 seconds. Yes, ''dropped.'' By a factor of five. I won't be satisfied until I reduce that figure to twenty seconds or less, and if I have to go with pure text to get —

Phil is nervous, I can ''smell'' it. That scent, the odor of frightened prey, drills straight to the vital core of my hindbrain to stir up predatory voices. I can't help that, but I sure as Artemis don't have to ''listen'' to what those voices are saying.

Being a rabbit, Phil scares easily; I don't want to overreact. I close the laptop, carrying it with me as I walk calmly over towards the converted walk-in closet he calls his office. He's with a client, a big sumbitch. From the back, the client looks like a norm with orange stripes dyed into his black crewcut, or maybe it's ''vice versa.'' I hear a VoxPop voder say, "Sorry, but that command was invalid."

"Grrrrrr..." I ''know'' that growl, it's the sound of an angry carnivore that's 1.5 seconds away from ''killing'' something! I upshift, the growl dopplers down into the deep subsonic, and tiger-boy freezes up like the rest of the world. I memorize my position and move in, get a clear view of ''exactly'' what he's up to... and breathe a sigh of relief. Tiger-boy is glaring down at the voder in his furless hands, caught in the act of stabbing one finger down to the touchscreen. He's got fur down his neck; thick black skin on the bottom of his very human nose; round pupils in his glittery, reflective eyes. Okay, tiger-boy's no ''immediate'' danger to Phil, but I still don't like his mood.

I return to my memorized position, downshift, pick up the walk where I left off. "Say, is that a Vox Populi voder I heard?" I ask. Tiger-boy doesn't react, but Phil looks up.

"Yes, it is!" the rabbit says in his cute, high-pitched voice. Not sure if he counts as tenor or soprano, I keep forgetting to ask Wanderer. Phil continues, "How much do you know about them? Mr. Anthony here is having a little trouble with his. Do you think that you could help?"

"I can give it a shot. Got nothing better to do," I say with a smile that keeps my teeth decently hidden. I make a show of looking for another chair, which of course there isn't — no room. "Alright. Mr. Anthony, was it? Good. My name is Jubatus. How about we go up front where we can both sit down?"

We move out, and Phil's distress is inversely proportional to the distance between him and us. I give tiger-boy some leading questions he can answer with head motion and/or hand gestures: He's a local. Single. Started to SCAB over eleven days ago. Spoke his last intelligible words nine days back. Just got released from hospital a week ago. Hasn't noticed any tigerish instincts yet. The salesman pushed him into buying a top-of-the-line VoxPop that he really couldn't afford.

We sit down in the lobby. I open the laptop, bring up SimpleText, set the voice for "Alfred, high quality", show him how to make it recite what's typed into the window. "Mr. Anthony, that salesman didn't do you a service," I say. "Vox Populi voders ''do'' sound as good as you were told, yes, but they're finicky bastards. If you're a novice, you'll have as much luck with it as a kid with a learner's permit would have with an eighteen-wheeler."

"Call me Felix," my laptop says for him. "Agreed. What replacement?"

I ponder for a moment. "If your heart is set on using a voder, I'd say go with a Kurzweil. The vocal quality sucks at the low end, but even the worst Kurzweil has clear enunciation, and you can make yourself understandable within two days tops. Most people, a couple hours' practice is enough. You want a KV-240, maybe a KV-200 if you're ''really'' hard up for cash. Anything less than a 200, well, it's cheap and it works."

"Voder not needed?"

Sharp man — he caught the implication of my 'if your heart is set on it' phrasing. I shrug: "Hell if ''I'' know. Depends on what SCABS did to your vocal tract. Can you open your mouth? I want to see what you've got to work with here." He opens, and it's a perfectly normal human mouth. Tongue, palate, teeth, jaws, all right out of a pre-'Flu medical textbook. With his flat face, I'll bet his sinus cavities are human-normal as well. "Looks good to me. Now let me check out your neck." I lay my hands on either side of his throat, taking care not to let my claws touch fur, let alone flesh; I don't feel a larynx in there. Not a good sign. "Okay, make some noise."

"Rrrrrrrr..." he rumbles. Nothing's vibrating in his neck.

"Keep it going." He does. I move one hand to his chest — ''there's'' vibration. "Alright, that's enough. You should definitely get a second opinion on this, Felix, but here's what I think: Your larynx is gone. That's the source of vibration for a normal human voice, and you ain't got one no more. No voicebox, just a purr-box. The good news is, the ''rest'' of your vocal tract looks okay, and if I'm right about that, it should be fairly easy for you to relearn speech." ''You lucky bastard,'' I don't say. "In the meantime, let's see what I can do with that VoxPop of yours. Got the manual?"

He does, and is happy to hand it over. I upshift high, skim from cover to cover, re-read the important bits, downshift. I'm a technical writer, cramming like this is what I do for a living. And the problem I'm now faced with is how to cut the bleeding options down to something a novice can manage. Damn thing's got more bells, whistles, and gongs than Office 2024 (yes, that's the version the Feds actually passed a law requiring Microsoft to recall every copy of), and thanks to a multi-layered contextual menu system, every last control and setting is accessible with no more than four taps on the touchscreen. Wonderful if you know what you're doing; otherwise, one misplaced tap gets you an Urdu accent thick enough to cut with a chainsaw — if you're lucky.

I do a slash-and-burn job on the on-screen controls, hiding 99.9% of them. I don't touch the semantic analysis subroutines, they'll ensure decent inflection, but I lock down the recognition parameters so Anthony can't screw it up by accident.

Next comes input. "You got the subvocalization options package?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Good. That'll help you retrain the muscles that shape your resonance cavities. But until you get the hang of it, you'll probably want to do input by hand. Palmspring user?" I ask, referring to one of the more popular PDAs.

"Yes."

"How's your shorthand?" SCABS has given the two major shorthand systems (Pittman and Gregg) a new lease on life after decades of slow, word processor-induced decline.

"Grafitti only." That's the simplified letterform system that was devised a few decades back as a practical solution to the problem of handwriting recognition, and pretty much every palmtop these days can handle it.

I nod. I turn off Pittman and Gregg, leaving Grafitti and the onscreen keyboard as the two manual input modes. As a final touch, if he manages to screw it up in spite of what I've done, I give him a friendly red button to click on that'll restore the damn thing to the state I left it in. And just in case he manages to nuke the button, I beam a backup copy of the configuration file to my laptop.

"Here you go. Use Grafitti, or click here to bring up a keyboard you can use the stylus with. Like so," I say, demonstrating. "And if anything goes wrong, this is the panic button — as long as that's visible, clicking on it should reset everything to this condition."

Oh yeah, tiger-boy knows his Grafitti. It's only a second or two before his VoxPop says, "That was impressive. Thank you, Jubatus. How are you at speech training?"

"You really want to learn how to talk from someone who sounds like me?" I ask with a smile. It's not a rhetorical question, because I ''know'' what kind of noise comes out of my mouth, damn it. Ever heard an old-time tracheotomy patient whose voice is driven by a hand-held electric buzzer? It's a nasty timbre, metallic and inhuman, and my speech has been compared to that. Unfavorably. And then there's a familiar whiff of nervousness in the air; Phil speaks up before I finish turning to look at him.

"I would if I were you, Mr. Anthony," says Phil. I aim a puzzled look in his direction. ''What's that rabbit think he's doing?'' He continues: "Jubatus would never admit it, but there's nothing human left in his throat and mouth. His speech is quite good, don't you agree?"

Phil can be devious and manipulative when it suits him. Fortunately, he's sworn to use this great power only for Good. I'll bet half my stock portfolio that I know what he's up to now. "So how many ''other'' mutes you gonna deliver into my tender care?" I ask him.

"Total of six," he says, bubbly and cheerful. "We've already started cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms for your class."

I keep my tone light — no need to disturb Phil's client. "And when were you thinking about letting ''me'' on on the secret?"

Phil waggles his ears in a noncommittal fashion. "I thought that you'd figure it out on your own, so I wouldn't ''have to'' say anything. Isn't that what happened?" he asks with an innocent, guileless expression. That rabbit has no shame. I think he had it surgically removed, unless SCABS got there first.

I get the feeling that maybe Phil manipulated ''me,'' and I don't ''like'' being manipulated. If the rabbit really did play me like a violin... Anyone else, I'd be thinking about how to make the bastard pay. But not Phil. ''Never'' Phil. As far as I'm concerned, he's paid so far in advance that ''I'' owe ''him,'' and I always will. I swallow my aggravation, and nod. "Alright. Six students, including Mr. Anthony here. No problem. You wouldn't happen to have any information on the other five, would you?"

"Sure," he says, hopping over to me. "In the backpack." Which he's wearing, so I open the main pocket and extract a set of manila folders. If you're wondering why he didn't just hand them to me, you should know that Phil doesn't ''have'' hands. His forepaws really are ''paws,'' bloody near zero manipulatory capacity. But ''he'' can ''speak,'' damn it! Somebody had to have helped him with the files, and I deliberately, explicitly refuse to become annoyed at this evidence of premeditation on his part. He thanks me and hops back to his hutch-''cum''-office.

Tiger-boy's VoxPop speaks up: "There really is nothing left of your human voice?"

It's the voder's built-in tone of polite inquiry — dunno what ''he'd'' prefer the question sound like. I take it at face value. "You can't tell? Yup, all gone. You're lucky, SCABS didn't even ''touch'' most of ''your'' vocal tract. All ''you'' have to do is learn how to work with a new sound source. Probably end up with an exotic-sounding tone in the bass register, good for attracting girls."

He starts composing a reply, then stops and looks at me. After a moment, his VoxPop says, "You sound bitter."

I hadn't intended to, but he's right. Vocalizing has always been a touchy subject for me, ever since I SCABbed over. Maybe tiger-boy is just offering me a sympathetic ear; too bad that kind of offer is one I'm not about to accept. ''Ever.'' "That's one reason I don't use a voder — most of 'em can't do emotional overtones very well. The VoxPop line is an exception, but you already know how delicate the controls are," I say with a shrug. "Anyhow, I'd recommend that you exchange the damn thing and get a more economical model, or at least one you don't need a Masters' Degree in to use properly..."

Tiger-boy leaves after I'm done giving him advice. I close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and breathe deeply; it took more effort than usual to keep a lid on my customary bad temper, and the voice thing is why. And then Phil's scent again —

"Are you alright, Jubatus?"

I don't bother to move or look at the rabbit. "Hello, Phil. It would've killed you to ask? Or even give me some advance notice?"

"If I'd asked, you would have refused," he says reasonably. "But I don't know what your problem is. Really, what's the worst that could happen?"

"You see me in a puddle of blood, none of it mine, on the Six O'Clock News," I say without thinking.

There's an elongated pause, broken by Phil. "You know what, Jubatus? You worry too much. And coming from a rabbit, that's saying something."

I almost laugh — of course, ''he'' doesn't know how goddamn close my scenario came to playing itself out, with him supplying the blood, when we first met. "Gee. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Gotta run — bye-bye!" And then the rabbit is gone.

Sigh.

A cursory scan of the files indicates that all six are animorph SCABs of one kind or another. I start with Anthony's file, which confirms what I already knew, then go on to Kerry Dennison. Sales clerk, married, no kids. He's a fish-morph, bulgy eyes and webbed fingers and scales all over, and a Godawful ''ugly'' bastard, to boot. The picture shows flat, wide tubing wrapped around his neck... ah. He's got (barely-) functional gills ''and'' the remnants of his old lungs; the tubing supplies water for his gills, and between them and his lungs, he gets enough oxygen to survive. No wonder his file has nothing on his current capacity for vocalization... the doctors would've had their hands full just keeping him alive, and his insurance ran out before they could do anything else.

Third in line, Mary ''(née'' Martin) Zelinski, is a living cliché: She's a fox gendermorph, a fuzz-covered wet dream who could've stepped out of a '''''PlaySCAB''''' centerfold. Formerly an investment banker with a trophy wife, the 'Flu giveth her an all-over permanent fur coat as the 'Flu taketh away her mind. She's not feral, just amnesiac — a near-complete ''tabula rasa.'' With her (former) profession, she's got to have money, so why is she here at the Shelter, instead of upstate at St. Jude Medical or the like? And how come she went through ''five'' doctors in her first month as a SCAB? Reading between the lines of the vixen's file, I can't help but wonder how much the ''other'' Mrs. Zelinski has to answer for...

File Number Four is a schoolteacher, name of Sawyer Borman. He's a man-sized insect-morph, cricket with an occasional grasshoppery touch. Basic body plan could be described as "humanoid with four arms". Doesn't even have lungs, ''per se'' — his body is thoroughly riddled with a branching network of air passages that oxygenate all tissues ''directly,'' never mind that considerations of airflow and surface area make that scheme unworkable for a critter as big as him. What the hell, he's a polymorph (with a limited selection of insectoid forms), I guess he can have an impossible metabolism if he wants to.

Next is the Right Reverend Charles Calgonetti. I'll get to him.

And finally... oh, joy. Inanimorph. This one's been living (?) at the Shelter for seventeen weeks now, ever since the day an animated, life-sized granite statue of a Great Dane showed up from nowhere. No ID, no clue to her former life — and even the 'her' is only an educated guess, based on the statue's anatomically correct details. At least she (?) answers to 'Jenny'. She can understand spoken or written English, but doesn't appear to be able to speak or write herself. Wonder how badly she's been disoriented by her radical transformation? Inanimorphs... well, hell. Just have to see what (if anything) I can do to reach her. It. Whatever.

After I'm done with my reading, I suspect the preacher's going to be the hardest nut to crack. Physically speaking, Calgonetti is a mynah bird scaled up to a body length of four feet, with avian-type talons at the ends of his feather-covered, humanish legs. Black feathers all over, interrupted only by a ring of iridescent white around his throat. Who says SCABS doesn't have a sense of humor? Chuck traded up from his human body eleven years ago, and hasn't spoken a word since. Pretty tough on a guy who'd been a professional talker.

A mynah bird, speechless? Yeah, right. My best guess is, he's got a self-imposed mental block about speech. This sort of thing definitely isn't my forte, but I'm betting he'll talk if I can piss him off bad enough. I'll try not to enjoy needling a man of God.

Okay, I'll try not to enjoy it ''too'' much.

But I digress... I don't recognize Chuck's denomination, but it's clearly not one of the bigoted ones: His flock — sorry, couldn't resist — have been supporting him all this time, providing sufficient resources (financial and otherwise) to keep him going until he's ready to get back in the pulpit. He's got a record, he does; over the years he's attended eight different speech classes, none of which did him any good whatsoever. He's always gotten good marks for attendance and participation, always declined use of a voder, always projected a congenial air, consistently maintained that the Lord will restore him to full voice whenever it suits Him to do so. All of which does nothing to explain why he's ''here,'' a bloody ''homeless shelter'' in a rotting neighborhood that's maybe three steps away from complete and absolute urban collapse, for the love of Ahura-Mazda.

I've got an uncomfortable feeling that I know what's ''really'' going on behind those beady little eyes. I think I may already have been where he is — except, of course, that ''he's'' got faith in the Almighty. I wonder how much of that faith is still alive in his heart right now...

{{Separator|k}}

I don't need to check the schedule. I work with the Shelter's online resources, I already knew that the speech class will begin three calendar days from now. Just didn't know who the 'teacher to be announced' would be.

Three calendar days. Plenty of time for me to familiarize myself with my classroom, work up a lesson plan, collect and/or create some teaching resources, talk to Donnie at the Pig, make arrangements with Dr. Derksen for use of his lab, and generally prep for the tutoring gig.

== the first week ==

Time for the first session to begin. Butterflies in my stomach? Naah, the hornets killed and ate them all... I really shouldn't ought to be as nervous as I am. After all, I'm a technical writer; teaching people is what I do for a living! I just don't usually do it ''in person.'' And I also don't usually do it with topics that are quite so personal, topics that strike quite so close to the core of what a human being truly is.

Who am I kidding? I'm nervous because this hits ''me'' where I live. Even now I get the shakes just ''thinking'' about those first few days after I SCABbed over. That's when I ''couldn't'' talk ''at all,'' when I didn't know how to coax anything close to an articulate sound from my newly-remodeled throat, when I had no way of knowing whether or not I ever would be able to speak another word for the rest of my life...

It was bad. Leave it at that.

What the hell, it'll be a learning experience in more ways than one.

No more waffling; I walk up the stairs, down the hall, and into my classroom. What do you know — Jenny's mass of stone doesn't exceed the limits of the Shelter's structural integrity.

Once at my desk, I upshift while setting up all the connections for my laptop, then look at each student in turn. "Hello. My name's Jubatus. I think we all know why we're here, so no need to belabor the point. The first thing you should know is that if you really ''want'' to talk, you ''can.'' And you'll do it before the end of this first session. That's a promise." I pause to let that sink in, then flip three small devices out of a vest pocket and catch them between the fingers of my other hand. Some of my students recognize the gadgets, which I hold up and fan out like a poker hand. "These are voders. Low-end Kurzweil models, KV-150s; nothing fancy, but they do the job. I've got one for everybody. And they're the reason I can make that promise.

"What I ''don't'' promise is that you'll be able to talk ''without'' mechanical assistance. Maybe you can, maybe not — it depends on two things. First, on exactly what kind of mess SCABS made of your vocal tract, and second, on whether or not you can figure out how to manhandle a comprehensible voice out of your ''current'' set of pipes.

"And hell, maybe you'll decide you ''don't'' actually want to talk. Even then, you've got options; you can learn Sign," — here I fingerspell ''AMESLAN IS NOT A VAN VOGT NOVEL'' — "and if all else fails, there's always the written word. Donnie Sinclair, guy who runs the Blind Pig, is mute and doesn't use a voder; I'll see if I can't get him up here to fill you in on living without a voice. I think that would be a mistake, myself, but it's ''your'' decision, and as long as ''you're'' satisfied, it's none of my damn business how you choose to live your life.

"And now that that's out of the way..." Here I pick a manila folder up off my desk, open it, look at the contents. "Couple of you guys have a bit of a track record. Calgonetti, says here you've been slacking off in vocalization classes for more than a decade," I say, hearing amused noises as I drop some papers into a convenient trash can. The bird doesn't appreciate my description. Good. "Dennison, you've got a signed certificate says you're permanently mute." I drop more papers. "As for the rest of you..." I shut the folder, send it to rejoin its missing contents. Then I take a butane lighter from a vest-pocket, ignite it, and toss ''it'' into the trash. There's a momentary ''FWOOSH'' as an inches-wide ball of flame rises up, dissipating before it hits the ceiling. It's pure theater — I'm just burning Xeroxes — but it does the job. All six of my students are focussed fully on ''me.''

"I don't give a flying fuck what ''anyone'' may have told you before today. Far as I'm concerned? As of now, each and every one of you ''will'' talk — or I'll know the reason why.

"Any questions?"

I wasn't expecting any response, but the bug makes a 'clickick' noise and raises his upper left hand while his upper right scribbles on a notepad in his lower pair. After he's done, a quick upshift and the notepad 'teleports' into ''my'' hands.

"Okay... Borman here wants to know what happens if someone can't talk by the end of summer." Another upshift reunites the bug and his paper. "Well, it's true that we only got this room for ten weeks, but it's ''also'' true that the Shelter's not teaching this class. ''I am.'' You want out, say the word and you're out; otherwise, I'm not giving up until you ''can'' speak. And if that's after session ten, I'll just have to find us a different classroom. Any other questions?"

Dead air.

"Good. First, let's take a look at how speech works when it ''does'' work..." Here I upshift, extract a roll of eight-millimeter correction tape (red) from my vest, and spend a clock-second or so putting a schematic diagram of the human vocal tract on the wall. Back at a tempo of 1, I point at one specific bit of the diagram. "See this? It's the larynx, but you can call it a 'voicebox'. It's got a couple folds of skin that vibrate when you shove air past 'em, not unlike a clarinet reed..."

By the time I'm done, my students (most of them, anyway; with the fox and rock, it's hard to tell) have a solid grounding in the biomechanics of spoken language — ''i.e.,'' how a normal human vocal tract operates. Now for the voders, which I distribute in half an upshifted clock-second.

"Okay, time to keep that promise I started class with. See what's on your desk? It's a KV-150. If you're clueless about voders, give the built-in tutorial a try. You can't figure something out, lemme know and I'll see if I can make it clear for you."

Within two clock-minutes, the first "Hello, world!" tutorial is audible. And ten clock-minutes further on, they get to "The time is eight forty-seven pee-emm" and "I am a SCAB" and "Today is Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of June, two-thousand thirty-eight ay-dee." Damned if I can tell how the inanimorph works a voder with stone paws, but she (?) does. Too bad her machine's only reciting random words and phrases. Zelinski's doing better; she actually got her voder to say "My name is Mary Zelinski." On purpose, yet. The150s sound better than I do, damn it, but then I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. Focusing on technical matters — how well my students are or aren't using the Kurzweils — helps me keep a lid on my annoyance.

I assign homework (practice with the 150s), and then it's over. Dennison and Anthony drive themselves home; Zelinski's picked up by some random luxury car; Chuck and Borman ride the bus; and the innie, the stone dog, walks downstairs. What are the odds of the vixen's ride being an incognito limousine? I make a note to check the license plates with the DMV.

Only after I'm finally alone do I let myself unclench. I didn't come anywhere near losing it; the scents of the bird and fish didn't make me any hungrier than usual; all in all, it went better than I expected. Of course, 'better than I expected' just means I didn't dismember anyone...

"How did it go, Jubatus?" Who else? It's the damn bunny.

"No blood got spilt. Guess that means I'm stuck teaching next week's class, right?"

Puzzled, the rabbit wrinkles his fuzzy nose. "Why wouldn't you be? Judging by what I saw and heard from your students, you did quite well — as I knew that you would!"

Sigh. "Phil, has it ever occured to you I might have a ''reason'' to be a pain-in-the-ass loner?"

"Well, you're a cheetah-derived animorph SCAB. Which means that you're influenced by cheetah characteristics, including their solitary nature, are you not?"

He doesn't get it — wonderful. Time for an object lesson. "That's right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Hold on a sec..." The Shelter's got a few board games; Monopoly, Yahtzee, like that. I upshift, grab some dice, downshift. "...okay. See this?" I say, holding one of the dice before me. "Got a deal for you. Roll it, and if you get anything but a one, I give you a million dollars."

His ears skew at odd angles. "What's the catch? If I ''do'' roll a one, do I have to pay you?"

"No catch, the money's yours either way — but if you roll a one, somebody within a twenty-block radius of here ends up maimed or dead. What do you say, Phil?"

He stares at me for a moment and says, "No."

"Why not? It's an honest die; there's five chances in six that no blood gets shed!"

"Perhaps, but it's that ''one'' chance in six that bothers me!"

"Come on, that's not even 17%!"

He shrugs with his ears. "I don't care. I wouldn't roll that die for a million dollars."

Suddenly I've got ''two'' dice in my hand. "Fine. How about now? Same deal, but nobody gets hurt unless you roll snake-eyes, a one on ''both'' dice. That's a 35-to-1 longshot, less than 3% chance of it actually happening. How about it, Phil?"

"Still no."

"Okay," five dice, "how about ''this?'' Five ones, that's a little over point-zero-one percent, just one chance out of 7,776. Isn't that worth a megabuck?"

"No, it —"

"Ten dice!" I say, putting them on the desk between us. "One million dollars, Phil. ''One. Million. Dollars.'' Only one chance in sixty million they come up solid ones."

"Only one chance in sixty million that someone gets hurt, you mean!"

I shrug. "Details. Alright, how about a ''billion'' dollars? I'm good for it, you know. Roll these ten dice, and one gigabuck is yours, free and clear!"

Stunned, the rabbit stares at me for a while until he finally says, "I don't care how many dice it is, and I don't care how much money it is either. I'm not going to do it, Jubatus."

"Why not? For the love of Mammon, you're throwing away ''one billion dollars'' because of a sixty-million-to-one longshot! Don't you ''want'' to be filthy rich?"

''"Not like that, I don't!"''

My voice is quiet — "Good." — and his face goes blank with surprise. Then I go on: "I'm not perfect, Phil. I got mood swings make a rabid wolverine look like a Zen master. I can fuck up, ''bad.'' 'Can', hell; I already ''have!'' And with my kind of speed —" I break off, almost managing not to shudder. "You're damn right I worry. Wouldn't you?"

He doesn't need two swats from a clue-by-four. "Oh."

"Yeah."

And again: "Oh!"

I dig out a smile from somewhere. "Don't worry, me going postal on any given day ''is'' a world-class longshot — billion-to-one, trillion-to-one, somewhere up there. The real risk is long-term: If I keep rolling those dice, they ''will'' come up snake-eyes sooner or later. The only question is when. And if you're wondering how I can justify putting innocents at risk by hanging around the Pig, it's because the odds of me having a lethal breakdown will go ''way'' up if I ''don't'' interact with other people."

"I think that I see the problem now," Phil says thoughtfully. "You believe that your life is like an unending game of Russian roulette, do you not, Jubatus?"

I nod. "Pretty much, except it's not ''me'' who'll get hurt when I lose. The thing is... what choice have I got?"

"Perhaps you don't have any better alternatives," the rabbit acknowledges. "But then again, perhaps you ''do!"''

"Oh, really?" I bet I know where he's going, so I cut him off before he can get there: "Look, Phil — if you're thinking about taking me on as a client, forget it. My days are 150 hours long, remember? There's no point in you reinventing wheels I considered, and discarded, years ago."

His ears shrug for him. "Very well, let's say that it truly would be a waste of time for me to try to help you. What difference could that make? It is, after all, my own time to waste, if I so choose!"

"Gimme a break! You're always pissing and moaning about the ones you lost, so why make it worse for yourself? Why the hell would'ja want to fart around with ''me'' when you could give more attention to someone who ''really'' needs you?"

"I see your point, Jubatus, but there are two factors that you haven't taken into account. And the first one is that whether you know it or not, you already are a client of mine, and have been ever since the night we met!"

Suddenly it's my turn to say, "Oh." '''''Now''' he tells me.'' "And... the other factor?"

"When I work on you, I ''am'' giving attention to someone who ''really'' needs me."

It's not often that I'm left without an appropriate comeback...

"Of course, I must admit that I don't give you as much attention as perhaps I really ought. Not that I don't care about your well-being, not at all! But truly, your case just isn't as urgent as the rest of the ones I deal with. And unlike you, I simply don't have the ''time'' to do everything I want to or need to, Jubatus." He sighs. "Speaking of which, I've a date with Clover that I'd greatly prefer not to be late for, so I simply must say 'good-bye' now. Good-bye!"

And then I'm alone again. Just the way I like it. Right?

{{Separator|k}}

Time flies, even when you're not having fun; I've got 43 contracts in various stages of completion, ''i.e.'' my usual workload. And where do I find the time to handle all the tasks related to teaching my class? I could've cut back a little, freed up some hours for classwork, but I didn't because I can get the extra time from upshifting. Of course, my concept of 'classwork' may be a little more expansive than some people's. F'rinstance, take the car that picked up Zelinski. DMV files say it's a TransportElegance rental; TE records indicate that it was paid for by a corporate credit card; and according to SEC databanks, 51% of that particular corporation is held by one "Alison Gomez". Care to guess the maiden name of Zelinski's wife? Yeah. Such a coincidence, that. Just another drop of data in the stream I'm sucking in, the better to figure out what the hell is going on in the Zelinski household.

Then there's Jenny. The Shelter's inquiries went nowhere, but then ''I'' wasn't the one asking the questions. Not that I expect to do any better, mind you. All I've got to go on is SCABS; an apparent gender (which may or may not be the one she was born with); a given name (ditto); the date on which this innie first showed at the Shelter (which only puts a lower limit on how recently she could've SCABbed over); and a dog's likeness (which may or may not have anything to do with any pet she may have owned or admired). What the hell — that's why God invented internet spiders and agent software. The count so far: 137 possible 'hits', each one a false alarm. Good thing computers don't get tired or distracted.

Maybe I ''am'' trying to do too much... every once in a while I get this funny feeling, like someone's looking over my shoulder from behind. Nobody ever is, of course, but my hackles keep rising anyway. Okay, I'm paranoid, but it's not usually ''this'' bad! Sigh. Must remember to get more sleep. Sometimes I hate being a cat...

== the second week ==

Second class rolls around; everyone's present and punctual, even the rock. "Good evening, people. How you doing, Dennison?"

"I, am, fine. This, voder, is, harder, to, work, than, I'd, thought."

''With '''your''' webbed fingers? No shit, fish-boy.'' "Bummer. Keep at it. What about you, Borman?"

The cricket's voder says he's doing okay, and his superintendent claims they'll return him to active class duty once he re-learns how to talk. I don't sneer or contradict; granted, he's an utter moron if he believes what he's saying, but I don't have time to set him straight. Okay, maybe ''I'' do, but the slowpokes here don't. I wish him luck, then I continue the impromptu survey of my students' level of skill with the voder. Only item of note is that Jenny's box yelped "Pangloss!" when I got to her. Why? Thoth only knows...

That done, I explain we'll cover sound sources this time. Then I hit a key, and my laptop plays a thin, weak, wispy tone, like an anemic flute. "Anyone care to guess what this is? No? Fine. It's the sound produced by the human voicebox. Some damn fool back in the 1960s let a doctor shove a microphone down her throat to record the actual vibrations produced by her larynx, and that's what we're hearing now." I let the sound continue a few seconds before I kill it. One of my students' hands is raised, so I ask, "What is it, Anthony?"

I note that tiger-boy's using the KV-150 I handed out, not his VoxPop. "If that's a recording of the human larynx, why doesn't it resemble speech?"

"Like I said, it was recorded deep in the throat, at the source. So we're hearing the waveform ''before'' it gets worked over by nasal resonance cavities and like that. Same deal as how a trumpet mouthpiece sounds a lot different when you play it by itself, without the rest of the horn." Then, to the class at large: "Remember what you just heard! As long as you're good for ''any'' sound ''whatsoever,'' there's a chance you can turn it into intelligible speech. You already know how Norms make noise, so let's check out how other species manage..."

Between putting anatomical diagrams on the walls, playing relevant sound files, explaining what it all means, and answering questions when someone needs further clarification, I'm pretty busy for the next clock-hour and a half.

"...inflection, at the very least! Alright — here's your homework assignments." I pause, scan the class. ''Who to start with...'' I roll mental dice and turn to fish-boy.

"Dennison," I say, looking straight into his bulgy eyes. "I'll bet you're wondering why I haven't ''already'' given up on you. After all, fish are intrinsically silent, right?" He nods his head. ''"Wrong.'' It just so happens that ''some'' fish damn well ''do'' make noise!" I start to count on my fingers: "Angelfish, parrotfish, silver perch, red drum, black drum, and more than 200 other species. Most of 'em got this air-filled, internal swim bladder they smack around. Ever heard of the oyster toadfish? Didn't think so, but you're ugly enough to be one, and that sucker's got specialized muscles to swat its bladder up to 200 times per second. So if you ''are'' a toadfish, you should be good for pitches topping off right around G below middle C. And if not? Well, we'll just have to find out what you are, won't we?" A quick upshift, and a sheet of paper appears on his desk. I continue as he picks it up to read it: "27 questions, and I'll want the answers two weeks from now."

Then it's the bug's turn. "Borman. You're mostly a cricket — can you chirp like one?" He nods and makes the noise, two or three octaves below a natural-born cricket. "Congratulations. What you just did is called 'stridulation', and it's the sound source of a natural-born cricket. You want to arm-wrestle intelligible words out of it, you're gonna need to vary that sound. Can you? Damn if ''I'' know; that's ''your'' homework. I'll want a sound file. Get cracking on it. And by the way: If stridulation doesn't work for you, there's at least two other avenues you can explore before you abandon speech."

I let the bug ponder my remark as I look at the inanimorph... ''What's going on inside that rock? Are you even '''there''', Jenny? Is '''anyone''' there?'' Nothing in those dull, grey eyes, or at least nothing discernable to me. Sigh. ''Moving right along —'' "Calgonetti. What's up with you, guy? Considering how well natural-born mynahs talk, it's hard to see why ''you'' should have ''any'' problems with speech, let alone take more'n ''ten bloody years'' to re-learn it. So... what's the story?"

"It is not for us to question the Lord's will," the preacher's voder says. "I have faith that He will return my voice to me at a time of His choosing."

Sounds like a rehearsed answer to me. "Uhhh-''huh.'' Would that be before or after the Second Coming?" Oh yeah, ''that'' hit a nerve. Good. Bird-brain glares at me as other people make amused noises. "Come on, Chuck. You're gonna have to work with me here. 'God helps those who help themselves', am I right?" A sheet of paper 'teleports' onto his desk. "But I digress. Your homework is ''phonemes'' — the individual sounds that serve as the fundamental building blocks of spoken language. English uses 40 of 'em, each one of which is on your list there, and you're gonna record 'em all. I don't care what format you use, just let me know if it's cassette or MP3 or what, I want three samples of each phoneme, and I want you to bring the recording in two weeks. And that goes for you, too, Borman."

Chuck's not happy. His voder says, "What if I cannot make all the sounds?"

Looking at him and the cricketmorph, I shrug. "Try 'em and see. If there's any you can't do, all it means is that SCABS worked over your noisemaker worse than I thought. Get on it."

Then I turn to the fox. "Zelinski. How's your voice, girl?"

Her smile strikes me as a lot more genuine than mine usually is, and she's game to try: "Oowwwwrrr..." Oh, well. Too bad she's not there yet. She taps at her voder — a Magnavox Express; wonder what happened to the KV-150 and where the new one came from? — which says, "I am prack-tiss-ing. I will learn."

I nod. "Can't ask for more than that. Keep it up."

"I will. I praw-miss."

I nod, and look at the last of my students. "Mr. Anthony," I say. A sheet of paper pops up on his desk. "You get what the bird got. Again, I don't care if it's MP3 or WAV or what, but it'd be nice if you can gimme advance notice of which."

He nods. His voder says, "MP3."

"Groovy. Email it to me any time within the next two weeks." To the whole class: "Remember, we've got a field trip next Tuesday, so I don't need your homework 'til the week after. For now... go home."

They leave, mostly. Tiger-boy sticks around after the rest are gone. He says — ''he'' honest-to-God ''says'' — "Ehhhrro, Djju-bhadd-huzz."

"You've been practicing, haven't you."

He nods, then gets his VoxPop out of an inside pocket. "Yes. I've also done some research on you."

''Oh, joy.'' "That's nice. Want a cookie?"

He smiles and goes on: "No, thanks. You're helping me; I just wondered how I could help you in return."

An idealist? Will wonders never cease. "Help ''me?'' Forget it — you can't. Anything else the rabbit twisted your arm about?"

Tiger-boy looks hurt for a moment. "Phil didn't twist my arm, Jubatus. But he ''did'' warn me what to expect from you."

"If he said I can be blunt, rude, offensive, abrasive, difficult, obnoxious, and generally antisocial, he was right. Anything else you want to know before you leave?"

The hint is as subtle as a sixteen-ton weight. Even so, whole clock-seconds pass in silence, me staring a laser-sharp, unblinking gaze into his eyes, before he gets the message. "Next week," his voder says. Then he's gone.

A few seconds later, I quit staring at the door. I can't really say I ''like'' stomping on people like that, but... it's better this way. Lesser of N evils, honestly.

Sigh...

{{Separator|k}}

The next week's pretty boring, so I'll just give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. More hours put in at the Shelter; the net-spiders researching Jenny turned up another 950 false alarms, plus three leads I haven't ''yet'' proven bogus; I've sucked down a lot more information (financial and otherwise) related to the Zelinski household — I'll bet Mrs. Allison noticed that somebody's been poking their snout into her family's private affairs, because somehow, I just don't think it's coincidental that she's boosted the budget for security (real-world and cyberspace both) within the past couple weeks. Like I care. As for the contracts I handle in my day job, it's five down, 38 to go.

Business as usual, really.

== the third week ==

Third class is a field trip. To Derksen's clinic. Would have preferred to start the class there, but this was the first Tuesday evening the doc-roach's lab was free. Remodeled the living space in my Extremis; there's four new seats (rented) in back. Those plus the passenger's seat up front will handle the five humanoids, and there's also room for Jenny the Rock to lie down. Hey, why ''shouldn't'' I play chauffeur? I'm the teacher, it's my responsibility to see that the class gets to where it needs to be, right?

Good: Everyone's a little early, especially the foxy lady. She's delivered by what looks like the same pair of bodyguard-types, driving the same car, as got her home last week. She smiles at me, and she ''(not'' her voder) says: "Hrraiie-yhheaarh, Dj... Tchew... hraour!"

I nod without smiling. "Better'n last week. Keep practicing, you'll get there soon enough."

She digs her Magnavox out of her purse to reply. "I know I will, but. In the meantime. It can be frustrating."

''Now'' I smile. "Tell me about it. You're getting off easy, lady — ''you'' have an instructor who's been there himself."

"Which you didn't," her voder says.

"Yeah." Shrug. "Ready for the field trip?"

"Oh, yes. Allie was very pleased. She's always wanted to —" and one rent-a-thug reaches over her shoulder to press the voder's 'mute' button.

"What did Miss Allison tell you about violating her privacy, Miss Mary?" says the thug.

The vixen's face spends a moment at 'pissed off' before shifting over to 'mild embarrassment'. She un-mutes the voder, nods at the thug: "You're right, George. I shouldn't discuss family business in public." To me, she (or at least her voder) says, "Apologies, Jubatus. Yes, I'm ready for this field trip. And I've been looking forward to it. Are we really going to see Dr. Derksen himself?"

"Doubtful. He's booked solid until the 12th of Never, you know?"

That gets a couple of yipping laughs out of her muzzle. Which is about when Dennison shows up, with Anthony following close. Not so very much later, me and my class are tooling along towards the doc-roach's lab. The rent-a-thugs weren't happy about the fox being in ''my'' car instead of with ''them.'' That's nice. They weren't ''explicitly'' instructed to stay within arm's reach 24/7, and even if they were, I couldn't care less.

The traffic's thicker than I anticipated. 38 clock-minutes later, I pull into a reserved space in the parking lot of Derksen's lab. My passengers talked; I paid attention to the road. Guess which hired limo stayed within five car-lengths of us all the way there?

Derksen being a big name in SCABS research, his lab's security is a couple notches above the norm — you never know when some idiot Nazi wannabe, Humans First or whatever, will take it into his head to strike a blow for stupid people everywhere. Me and my students pass through the outer gate without incident, but Zelinski's thugs get detained when they set off an alarm. Good. There's two more layers of protection I'm aware of, and Vulcan knows how many others. I wish the thugs joy of them all.

I'm intimately familiar with the doc-roach's torture chamber — his primary examination room — from all the times he's worked ''me'' over. Being the highly exotic breed of chronomorph I am, it's only natural that a world-class SCABS researcher like Derksen would want to observe the hell out of me, as often as he can... oh, joy. He's here. I was afraid of that. On the plus side, he's practically human today. Soft skin, blond hair, no antennae, compound eyes only a little bigger than human normal. See, Derksen's one of us; he's a polymorph SCAB, insectoid forms his specialty, and the roach traits kind of creep up on him when he's irritated or preoccupied or whatever. One more reason I'm glad not to be a shapeshifter myself.

"Hello, Jubatus," he says, and his voice is a hell of a lot smoother than when he goes ''blattidae'' on you. Damn it. " I don't suppose —"

"That's right, you ''don't'' suppose. And you don't get another crack at me for seventeen days."

"Oh, well; can't blame a mad scientist for trying!" He sounds happy, but even with no discernable chitin on him, his scent is too roachy for me to tell his ''real'' mood. BFD.

I snort my disagreement at him. "Whatever. Since you're here, does that mean you're gonna make yourself useful checking out the fox?"

"Yes." ''Now'' he's serious. "Among other things, I find it curious that her medical records are silent on a number of points that ''may'' add up to grounds for a malpractice hearing."

My ears prick up. "Oh, really? Then what's the story with Dr. Gordon?" I ask, referring to the physician in charge of the Zelinski case. "Is he corrupt, or just incompetent?"

At this point, Derksen's face hardens — literally — as exoskeletal plates form. ''"That'' is what I intend to find out. Either way, it's clear that this Dr. Gordon has no business working with SCABs; the data from this examination will tell me whether I should push for censure or disbarment." Then he sighs, and his plates soften a little. "Excuse me, Jubatus," he says, and then he's off to supervise a whole-body scan of Jenny, the stone dog.

There's an empty chair off to one side of the lab. I sit back and let Derksen (and his flunkies) scurry around the place with various implements of medicine. It's actually kind of interesting to see them work on ''someone else.'' Hell, this time I don't even mind the stench of disinfectant!

Derksen & Co. conduct a sextet of ''very'' thorough physical examinations, covering everything from respiratory airflow to basal metabolic rate to speed of neural transmission to God knows what-all else. The doc-roach is going the extra mile, and then some — I'd only asked him to cover the vocal tract — but if that's what he wants to do, it's fine by me. That's odd... they've left off a number of procedures he likes to use on me, but then they also include a few I'm not familiar with. I make mental notes — the lapses and additions probably have to do with my chronomorph power, which I don't want ''anyone,'' Derksen or no, to learn ''too'' much about.

Hmm... maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that Derksen's concern for Zelinski goes a little beyond the standard doctor/patient relationship..? Whatever; it's none of my business.

Entry to exit, we're done in four clock-hours. Zelinski's thugs aren't around when we leave — how sad. The drive back to the Shelter is uneventful; my passengers are too busy comparing notes to bother me. I park, five of the six bug out, the vixen doesn't.

"Waiting for something?" I ask.

Foxy's fingers touch her voder, but it stays mute. She looks at me. I look back. Her machine finally says, "Were you always male, Jubatus?"

''Huh..?'' I consider asking why she wants to know, but I decide to just answer the question. "Yes."

She spends a few seconds thinking before her voder speaks up again. "Then why are you so angry?"

"Angry?" I snort a laugh. "Like ''any'' SCAB needs to ask."

Dead air. Zelinski's not happy. Before anything else can happen, a particular rented limo screeches to a halt beside us. I point a thumb at them.

"Your ride's here," I say. "See you next Tuesday."

{{Separator|k}}

The homework showed up across a week, starting last Friday. Tiger-boy's arrived first; birdbrain's came last. Funny how that works. Right now I'm in my classroom, reviewing the assignments over lunch. Nothing from Jenny — not that I expected anything, of course. But what ''could'' I have assigned her, damn it?

Inanimorphs...

Lots of people fear them, with good reason — check out any of the 'true crime' books about inanimorph perps — but I just think they're damned weird, is all. Strictly speaking, I guess I ''should'' be afraid, since innies are among the few things in this world with half a chance of hurting me... but I'm not.

''Thank you, Jay Nelson Xavier.''

"What the —"

Somehow, I '''know''' that the voice I'm hearing in my head ''(not'' my ears) is Jenny. And when I turn to look at the stone dog, I see... something. Can't make out details — my eyes can't decide whether it's transparent or not — wait, it's solid now. Human body, female, which I (again, 'somehow') '''know''' to be an idealized version of Jenny's pre-SCABS body. Clothed, yet.

Her lips don't move: ''Is this form more to your liking, Jay Nelson Xavier?''

I evade the question. "Call me Jubatus, I use the other name for business. Thanks for what?"

''For your downshifting. The single-minded intensity of your concentration. For giving me something to focus on. I am grateful. What you did allowed me to... obviate? Reify? — no. I am sorry, you lack the vocabulary.''

"Whatever. You know, there's paperwork to fill out if you're dropping the class..."

For the first time in my life, I 'hear' a laugh that ''really is'' like the tinkling of bells. No mockery in it; I '''know''' that she's just appreciating the absurdity of the situation... ''Thank you again, Jubatus. It is very good to exist in human reality.''

"There's another kind?"

''In a manner of speaking. If two people perceive the Universe so differently that they cannot communicate, are they truly living in the same reality?''

Philosophy? Feh. "Yes, they are," I say. "Look, it's not like you need a speech tutor any more, so why are you here?"

''As I said, Jubatus, I am grateful. I want to express my gratitude in tangible form.''

'Tangible form'? Heh! The first image that comes to mind is impossible — I'm a cat, and she's dead — but she apparently picks it out of my brain anyway. And suddenly, without any warning, Jenny's a cheetah, too! She's fur-naked, and there's this indescribable ''scent,'' and she's stepping towards me, and — ''Very well, Ju-''

''"'''No!'''"'' I scream from the far corner of the room, only twitching a little. "No. That's, ah, no. None of that. Really."

And then she's back in her chair, back in human form, and a repentant sigh echoes lightly through my mind. ''I misunderstood...'' ''I apologize.''

It's easy for me to calm down, because I '''know''' her remorse is genuine. "That's, um, okay. So. You can read minds."

A light touch of uncertainty... ''In effect, yes. While I am not truly telepathic, I have certain... perceptions...''

"...which I lack the vocabulary for you to describe."

''I'm afraid so.'' This time, I '''know''' the communication gap's got her as frustrated as me — maybe more so — but she's honestly doing the best she can. ''I really am sorry — all of '''this''', being an inanimorph, it's still very new to me. I hope you can forgive me my errors.''

I shrug. "Not a problem. No harm done, you didn't mean it, and you learn from your mistakes. Right?"

''Right,'' she 'says', and for a moment I feel — ''something'' — like someone walked over my grave? Or like I'm being ''watched'' from every direction at once? Vocabulary again. Not really painful or unpleasant; just, I don't know, weird. Whatever the sensation is, I don't miss it when it stops. ''It's so very hard '''not''' to make mistakes with an unfamiliar set of abilities you've only just acquired... wouldn't you say?''

I give her a tolerant, rueful smile. "Tell me about it."

''As if I need to!'' Her sympathetic amusement is clear. ''But seriously: You did me an enormous favor, and I want to reciprocate. What would you like?''

'What would you like?' If it was anyone biological, I'd tell them to forget it — but this is an ''inanimorph'' 'talking'. And innies can do pretty much ''anything,'' blowing off physical laws as needed...

The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

She's 'silent' for a good ten-fifteen clock-seconds. I don't press her, and clouds of uncertainty and intense concentration drift through my brain as the time passes. ''I... don't know. I '''think''' I —''

"'''Do it!'''"

She's taken aback by the force of my command. That makes two of us.

''Let me finish, please. As I was going to say, I '''think''' I can eliminate all traces of Martian Flu virus from your body. That much I'm reasonably sure of. Changes inflicted by SCABS are a tougher problem, but I may even be able to undo them, too. The problem is, I don't know what condition you'll be in when I'm finished! Yes, you '''might''' return to your former, human, self; but you could also end up a normal cheetah, or even dead. If I try this, it could ruin your life, your very '''existence''', in any of thousands of different ways. On second thought, make that 'millions'. Is this a risk you really want to take, Jubatus?''

Rhetorical question. To be human again — ''fully human!'' — well, let's just say it's one hell of a prize Jenny's dangling before me. How can I believe she's up to the task? How can I ''not?'' There may be no hope of a cure from any ''human'' agency, but that doesn't say squat about what an ''innie'' might be capable of! ''"Do it,"'' I repeat.

She's quiet for a long moment before she 'talks' again. ''Jubatus. You '''do''' realize that just as I can perform actions far beyond any limits of biological life... so, too, can I make mistakes far more terrible than anything biological life is capable of.''

"No shit, Sherlock."

''You know this, but you still want me to try.''

"Got it in one."

''You're absolutely certain.''

"You're damn right I'm absolutely certain," I snarl. "Stop screwing around! Shit or get off the pot! ''Do it, or fuck off and...'' oh, hell. Just... do it."

Another longish pause, then she 'says', ''Very well. I'm going to scan you now, Jubatus...'' and suddenly that bizarre 'watched from all directions' sensation is back, in spades, doubled and redoubled. It feels like she's poring over my entire life, back to the moment of my birth and forward to my eventual death, simultaneously — and no, I haven't got Clue One ''how'' that impression entered my sensorium. Then my mind is drenched by a mixture of embarrassment and pity and regret and endless, bottomless sorrow.

''Oh, dear...''

"What's wrong?"

''You... don't even know, do you, Jubatus?''

''Huh?'' "What the ''fuck'' are you talking about!?"

''I really and truly am sorry. But I... I just '''can't''' give you what you '''really''' want.''

What the — goddamn bitch! It's my ''life'' she's toying with! "'Can't', or 'won't'?" I growl.

A foreign sigh drifts across my frontal lobes. ''If you must put it that way, it's 'won't' —''

I've had ''more'' than enough. So what if she's an inanimorph, ''nobody'' jerks me around like that! ''No-fucking-body!'' I don't let her 'say' another word: "Then get lost. Go find another fly to pull the wings off, you goddamn corpse."

''Please, let me exp-''

Okay, ''that'' is the proverbial '''''it'''.'' I scream and upshift high and leap straight for her lying throat and —

— and then the world turns inside-out around me and it's like I'm ''moving'' in some direction I wasn't previously familiar with and —

— disoriented, I blink. ''What the... oh, hell. I missed another meal, didn't I?'' With my high-speed metabolism, I've found that my higher brain functions tend to seize up after a couple of clock-hours without food. ''Better get a snack once I'm done here.''

Let's see... Jenny just asked what she could do for me. Right. The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

''I'm afraid not,'' she 'says', and I '''know''' her regret is sincere. ''Maybe at some future time, but right now, I don't even know if it's possible, let alone how to do it.''

"You mean innies ''aren't'' omnipotent?"

That gets me a mental cloud of tolerance/amusement/sympathy/self-effacement. ''You may find it hard to believe, Jubatus, but we inanimorphs '''do''' have limitations. They're just, different, from the ones you live with.''

I roll my eyes. "Oh, well." ''That'll teach me to hope...'' "Since you can't do what I want, I guess I'll take a rain check."

Either she's old enough to know the term, or she learned it when she scanned me earlier: ''Alright, a rain check it is.'' A sequence of 40 digits drifts across my forebrain, and I '''know''' I'll never forget it. ''Type that number on any computer or telephone keyboard, and I'll be there for you.''

"Do I want to know the details?"

A mixture of amusement and frustration, both mild. ''Yes, you do, and if you had the vocabulary, I '''would''' explain.''

"Gee, thanks. I'm beginning to see why you guys don't usually hang around with us ''living'' types."

''Tell me about it,'' she 'says', her words and tone echoing an earlier remark of mine. ''And thank you once again; now I know what I should '''do''' with myself.''

"Gonna play Speaker-to-Breathers, huh?"

A tinkling giggle dances through my brain... ''Something like that, yes. Farewell, Jubatus. Until we meet again...''

...and I'm alone in the room...''

== the fourth week ==

Homework. Birdbrain did a decent job on all 40 phonemes; tiger-boy did better; foxy lady did best of all. I flatly ''will not'' think about how her voice is gonna end up sounding. The bug's — Borman's — stridulation is a little iffy, but not bad for a first shot. Dennison? My questions for him amount to an abbreviated Piscine Anatomy 101 final exam, and he aced it. 25 answers dead-on correct, the other two ''technically'' invalid but strongly arguable anyway. As for Jenny... she's outta here. All her paperwork and computer files are in order, not that anybody noticed her turning in any forms or anything. None of my business anyway (he says, with a shrug).

As for the class itself (number four in a series of ten — collect them all!): Anthony sounds better than I do, goddamn his near-intact throat. I give 10:1 odds in favor of the bastard regaining full human speech before the final class session. Calgonetti? Phonemes he's got down pat, but he can't ''quite'' manage to put 'em together into honest-to-God ''speech.'' Funny, that. Chalk up another one for 'self-imposed mental block', and I go out of my way to rub salt in his wound. He'll thank me for it later, right? Borman actually surprises me by stridulating recognizable phonemes; only three of 'em, granted, but I didn't think he'd be able to swing it ''at all.'' Not this early, anyway. Good sign. Dennison turns out to have an internal swim-bladder, complete with swatting muscles, and he demonstrates it with a kind of "ahh-eee-ahh" that more-or-less spans an augmented fifth.

And then there's Zelinski. Her eyes aren't as bright as last week; her vocalizing is decidedly worse than before; and she fumbles with her voder like she'd only just started using the damn thing yesterday. Oh, and I could tell her scent was 'off' (including what the 'new' chemicals were) before she stepped into the classroom. I do the math, and the answer is clear: She's drugged. Given the data I've already acquired re: the Zelinski household, there's exactly 1 (one) person who could've done it to her: Alison Zelinski, her 'loving' spouse. You think I'm pissed off? Damn right I am. ''Nobody'' has the right to fuck up someone else's free will like that! I stifle my anger for the duration of the class.

This week's homework is pretty much a rerun of last week's; more phoneme-practice, singly and in combination. When the rest leave, I ask the vixen to stay. She gives me a vague look: "I muost gho homm," her voder says. "Mizz Awl-lee dee-uz-int wand me tu ss'tay owwit laid."

"Maybe so, but she also wants you to relearn how to talk, am I right?" Zelinski pauses, then makes with an uncertain nod, and I go on before her voder can say anything else: "You need a little extra attention right now, is all. That's what we're going to do tonight, and if Miss Allie doesn't like it, you just tell her it's ''my'' fault, how's that?"

I keep an eye on the parking lot while I talk — an occasional momentary upshift, nothing the fox even ''can'' notice in her drugged-out state — so I see the TransportElegance limo as it pulls in. Good thing Zelinski rather likes the idea of having some time away from home: Her face slides into an off-kilter grin, and her voder says, "Ohh khay!"

"Great. Now, sit down and close your eyes; I've got a big surprise for you." She obeys. I upshift. Four-point-eight clock-seconds later, she's in the back of my car, seated in front of a big-ass computer display with '''''Newspaper Tycoon VII''''' running. The rent-a-thugs in the limo think Zelinski's still in the Shelter; I brought her down so fast they didn't — couldn't — percieve ''anything.'' I could care less if they try to look in the Extremis; there's a couple aftermarket features that normally let me sleep in private, but they work just as well now. Specifically, the electrochromic film on the windows (currently set to Total Eclipse), and the cab divider in front of the cargo space.

Zelinski makes with a little squeal of delight when she opens her eyes. "There you go!" I say. "I've got the game set up for voice commands, but you can also use mouse and keyboard, if you'd rather. Need any help?" Apparently not — her fingers dance on the keyboard as she dives right in.

"Thank you," her box says, "but I don't believe that will be necessary." Interesting: Her skill with the voder is distinctly higher now than it was a few minutes ago. Good.

My cel phone has a wireless link to the Extremis' video cameras; that's how I know when the rent-a-thugs leave their vehicle for the Shelter. Absorbed in an orgy of virtual capitalism, the vixen doesn't even notice when I drive off. The rent-a-thugs won't be following us — not with their distributor cap in my glove compartment, they won't. Upshifting can be useful at times...

At this point, I'm not sure what the deal is with Alison Zelinski. Sure, I know ''what'' she's done to her ex-husband, but I don't know ''why,'' and the 'why' matters. Well, I'll find out soon enough.

Guaranteed.

Moving right along: Most people think the "Betty Ford Clinic" is just a punchline, what with all the rich actors and singers who supposedly go there to detoxify or whatever. Wrong. The Clinic is ''very'' real, ''very'' discreet, and damned good at what they do. And they've got a SCAB-friendly branch office in the west end of Pennsylvania. A couple hours of air-conditioned driving, and foxy lady is safely deposited there. The staff was quite professional, even while enrolling an unscheduled client at 2 AM. Wasn't exactly 'no questions asked', but that's okay; what with all my poking around the Zelinskis' private affairs, I had the right answers.

{{Separator|k}}

So. It's 9 AM Wednesday. By now Alison Zelinski's ''got'' to know that her gendermorph hubby has evaporated. Odds are, she hasn't slept. She's probably shitting bricks wondering when the ransom note will arrive. Wish I could've seen her face when ''my'' e-note ''did'' arrive in her inbox...

<tt>FROM: J. Acinonyx (fiver@jubatus.nucom)

SUBJ: re: Mary Zelinski's vocalization

I'm afraid that Mary's progress in class has been disrupted by a set of problems beyond my capacity to solve. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of securing an outside specialist who can help her overcome these problems. I would like to speak to you in a private conference, at your earliest convenience, about preventing a recurrence of these problems. When would be a good time for you?</tt>

Heh! I think I hit ''just'' the right chords; aside from the none-too-subtle hints that I know ''exactly'' what she's done, I've all but confessed to the kidnapping. Best of all, the language is sufficiently innocuous that no lawyer or judge could regard the note as evidence of ''anything'' nefarious. How long will it take Zelinski to decide that her only option is to talk to me?

I get her answer at 2:26PM. She wants to meet this evening, her place, 8 o'clock. As usual, I got clock-hours to kill — oh, joy. In between working on my legit contracts, I make contact with the Zelinski home network. Well, well: Miss Allison has been researching ''me,'' much good may it do her. Security protocols are unchanged, which just means that if she ''is'' planning any surprises, she's doing it offline. Do I have a plan? Damn straight I do. No point wasting time in conversational parry and riposte. Instead, I'm gonna blitzkrieg the bitch — hit her fast and hard, from multiple directions at once, changing attacks before she can adjust or reply. Considering how easily I torque people off just because, it'll be interesting to see how bad I can rattle somebody when I ''work'' at it. All of which assumes there's no armed resistance or whatever. If there is, no problem: I upshift and nuke it, after which Zelinski gets my ''undivided'' attention.

The clock-hours crawl by...

8PM — showtime. The Zelinski house is a bloated, two-story carbuncle with a bunch of underground floor space; when I ring the bell, the front door is opened by a familiar-smelling rent-a-thug. His demeanor is designed to intimidate, not that I give a damn. He says, "Miss Allison will receive you in the living room," and leads me inside.

The living room turns out to be an interior chamber with a good chunk of one wall taken up by an oversized flat-plasma display. Once I'm there, a female voice says "Thank you, Marcus. That will be all," and thug-boy leaves as we both sit down. This voice belongs to a female norm, straight black hair, semi-dark skin tone. Judging from her scent, she's a little shaky, uncomfortable, and trying not to let it show. Let's see how fast I can coax a reaction out of her. "I'm... my name is Alison Zelinski," she says.

"Jubatus," I reply.

"Would you..." She breaks off with a sigh. "I'm sorry, this is all so complicated..."

Shrug. "Seems pretty straightforward to me. Your hubby SCABbed over seven months ago — different sex and species. She's been stoned out of her gourd ever since, courtesy of ''you.'' I'm curious, how many doctors did you go through?"

"Excuse me?" Hmmm... steady pulse and scent... nope, her confusion is just an act. This isn't the first time my SCABS-heightened senses have come in handy.

"How many doctors?" I repeat. "Before you found one who didn't care ''what'' he did to Mary, as long as your checks cleared."

Okay, ''now'' it's a genuine response: High-end anger. ''"Mister'' Jubatus, I'll tha-"

Her words are drowned under my "Shut up, bitch." My voice may suck rocks, but I can definitely go Loud when I feel like it. ''"You'' may not be old enough to remember date-rape drugs, but ''I'' sure as hell am, and the only difference I see is that you ''married'' your victim first!"

"I — you —" From 'calm' to 'stuttering, with pulsing vein in forehead' in under 7 clock-seconds. I love it when a plan comes together. "How ''dare'' you!"

''"How dare '''you''', lady!?'' Go play the Righteous Indignation card somewhere else, 'cause I'm not interested. What I've got on you, I could nail you to the wall in court yet — and I just might."

It's working. I can practically smell her brain cells burning out as she ''almost'' keeps up''.'' "You — you'd never win!"

I give her a nasty smile, heavy on the fangs. "Bets on that? Imagine your face plastered across the front page of every newspaper in a 1,000-mile radius, not to mention all the broadcast media and net coverage. Think of all the editorials. Visualize the Zelinski name permanently associated with cute stuff like anti-SCABS bigotry, chemically-mediated enslav-"

''— attack: threat level high: 12 o'clock —''

— oh, hell. It's not the first time this has happened: My instincts trigger an upshift without ''my'' say-so, because they don't like something in my immediate vicinity. In this case it's Zelinski, floating in midair, with hands poised to do some damage. Physical assault? Gosh, I must've hit a ''very sensitive'' nerve. I ''could'' tear her several new assholes... but instead, I just move around to lean on the back of her chair, resume a tempo of 1, and watch her land, clumsily, on the couch I just vacated.

Confused, she looks around, and I speak when her eyes meet mine: "That was your first free shot at me. Hope you enjoyed it, because ''nobody'' gets ''two."''

"Bastard! I'll sue —"

I laugh, a cruel, venomous noise that shatters her focus. "Hah! Go ahead and try, for all the good it'll do you. Face it: Whatever you do, you ''can't'' stop me opening a can of worms ''you'd'' much prefer stay closed. Me, I could care less about bad publicity — can you say the same? If you think you can ''possibly'' fuck up a SCAB's social status any worse'n it ''already'' is, feel free to try. Who knows, you might even be able to come up with something that's '''not''' ''prima facie'' grounds for a libel suit. Should be fun."

"You..." I can smell fear, anger, concern, and confusion fighting it out in her scent. Fear wins. "Alright. Do your worst, you monster."

"Says the bald ape who arranged a permanent brainwashing prescription for their own spouse," I retort. "Alright , ''Mrs.'' Zelinski. I've got half a mind to sic my lawyer on you anyway, but I'm a reasonable man. Play it straight with me, I'll return the favor. Fuck with me, and I will ''own'' your sorry ass. Your choice."

Fear and guilt: A powerful combo. They're both on her face and in her scent. Eventually, she gets herself under control again. "What... what do you want?" she asks.

She's defeated, alright — scent doesn't lie — so I get down to business: "I want the truth. ''Why is Mary a drugged-out zombie?"''

Zelinski kind of sags in her chair. She sighs, doesn't (can't?) look at my face. "I... no one ever intended..."

A few seconds after she trails off, I kill the silence. "I'm not hearing a 'why'."

"It's... complicated..."

"You already said that," I point out. "Feel free to start at the beginning. Alternately, how about I just leave, wait 'til Mary's done getting detoxified, and let ''her'' decide how many new orifices to rip out of your hide? Your call — pick one."

She goes for 'start at the beginning'. Takes her an unnecessarily long time to spit it out: Hubby SCABs over (fur and tits), goes nutbar over the gender thing, needs to be sedated for his/her own protection... and ever since, Zelinski makes sure hubby gets a fresh dose whenever she's ''too'' close to sober.

"You... didn't know Martin before," she says, as if her words were threading a minefield. "He was... difficult to live with, not —"

I cut her off. "So. Fucking. What. If ''Mary'' wants to be permanently blitzed, fine, but guess what? ''That's not '''your''' goddamn decision, lady!'' So here's the deal: As of now, Dr. Gordon is off Mary's —"

"What gives you the right to interfere with the private affairs of this family!"

Zelinski shuts up when I look directly into her eyes. She looks right back. Both of us are way the hell pissed. Her anger is cold like liquid helium; mine is hotter than a deuterium-fusion torch.

Zelinski breaks first. When she lowers her gaze, I speak up, as inexorable as a glacier: "What, ''exactly,'' gave ''you'' the right to '''''interfere'''"'' — I spit that word out with a freightload of sarcasm — "with your spouse's mind and free will."

Her scent goes heavy on shame, with a side order of fear. No other response.

Okay, fine. "Like I was saying, here's the deal. One: You ''will'' sever ''all'' connections, professional and otherwise, between Mary and ''Doctor'' Gordon. Two: You ''will'' accept ''whoever'' Dr. Derksen recommends for Gordon's replacement. Three: You have ''no say whatsoever'' about Mary's medical needs — you ''will'' do ''anything'' the new guy says, agree to ''anything'' they recommend, and generally treat the new guy as if they're the Voice of God Himself. Four: If, at ''any'' time in the future, I find out that you have ''ever again'' so much as ''dreamed'' about '''''interfering''''' with Mary's medical treatment..." Here I whisper, as lethal as a sack of cobras: "I. Will. ''Destroy.'' You."

Zelinski crumples in silence. Her eyes glint with highlights that weren't there before — poor fucking baby.

I give her 15 clock-seconds; still no reply.

I'm out of there. Nobody gets in my way, not Marcus the thug nor any other hireling. Fine by me. The mood I'm in, I'd go ''through'' them. Not a good idea to leave a trail of broken bodies. I give the Extremis a once-over when I get to it; nope, no signs of tampering. Only then do I let myself relax. A little, anyway.

On the road, I don't think about what I just did. I don't ''want'' to think about it. I just drive. I want to — no. Bad idea; I ''don't'' want to get drunk.

Well... maybe just a little...

== the fifth week ==

It's none of my business, of course, but I keep an eye on the foxy lady over the next few days. Just to make sure Miss Alison stays the hell ''away'' from her ex-husband's treatment, is all. And wouldn't you know it, Zelinski makes quote, remarkable, unquote, progress. Think it might have something to do with ''not'' getting pumped full of mindfuck drugs on a regular basis? Funny how that works. Even so, the Ford medics insist on keeping her there "for observation" for another 8-10 days, minimum... which means she's going to miss a class. Maybe two.

In other news, I close 5 more contracts before next Tuesday. 33 more to go; I might run out before the tenth class. Hey, I ''am'' taking it easy — I haven't accepted any new clients since I started teaching the class.

Speaking of which, this session (the fifth) has a guest lecturer: Donnie Sinclair. And while he's scribbling at my students, I fill in for him behind the counter at the Pig. That's the pound of flesh he demanded before he'd do what I asked. I hate the idea; I mean, I don't ''do'' crowds! But since it puts a three-foot-wide ''faux''-marble countertop between me and the customers, it should be okay... right..? Aside from that, I have no idea how Donnie creates and maintains the Pig's SCAB-friendly atmosphere — so I won't even ''try.'' Instead I'm going to pour the booze, keep a paranoid eye on ''everything,'' and stomp on anything that smells like it even ''might'' be trouble. I just hope I can stay alert until closing time; for whatever reason, SCABS left me with a half-hour-long sleep cycle. Mind you, I don't ''have'' to conk out that often. I can actually stay up five hours at a time, but that's kind of like a norm staying up for five days solid... well, that should be enough. Hopefully. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

Having a few weeks' advance notice, I did my usual obsessive prep work beforehand. The cash register is a late-2016 NCR job, tablet-style touchscreen; before I'm through, I know it better than Donnie himself does. I'm packing 47,583 different drink recipes on a PDA, complete with recommended ingredient substitutions for when stuff runs out, and the thing happens to be equipped with a wireless internet hookup in case somebody wants something outside the onboard library. More recently, I confirmed that the Pig's supply database is 100% up to date (I double-checked each item myself). Come the fatal Tuesday, I make sure the lavatories are fully loaded — which is trickier than you might think, since the Pig's bathrooms accomodate a ''wide'' range of SCAB body types. Comfortably, yet. I also stash a couple dozen pounds of beef jerky behind the counter; the kind of calories I burn, I'm gonna ''need'' that protein...

And then it's showtime.

The hours pass in a blur. ''Jesu Christe,'' there's a shitload of customers — ''I'' sometimes have trouble keeping up with the orders! Upshifting doesn't help, because I ''have to'' understand what all you damn slowpokes are saying. And that means my tempo needs to be ''real'' close to 1 most of the time...

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Gimme a Stattenvorl."

I take orders.

"Three shots of Jack Daniels, straight."

I make change.

"Vodka martini for me, an' a Purple Ray for the li'l lady."

I pour booze.

"— tellya, I wuz on top'a th' world —"

I hate it. Sob stories from self-pitying morons — gaah! I pay those twits as little attention as I can manage. Most of 'em take the hint and stay the fuck ''away'' from the counter; occasionally I delegate one to Wanderer or somebody ''via'' an an upshifted note in their glass.

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Atomic Firewater!"

I take orders.

"Scotch and soda, heavy on the soda."

I make change.

"— ''you'' gonna do about it, runt?"

Oh, fucking ''joy.'' I quit pouring. Commotion by the dart board; there's a St. Bernard-derived animorph SCAB who can't aim worth shit, lost a bet, and is now proving himself to be a welching asshole and a ''mean'' drunk.

I point one finger ceilingward. "'Scuse me a sec," I tell the customers I haven't gotten to yet. Then I zip over to the big dog, telling him, "You lost, Bernie. Pay up and deal with it."

He's like six-foot-thirteen and 380 pounds, none of it fat; me, I'm five-eleven and forty-odd kilos. Seeing this as he turns to look down at me, Bernie makes with a contemptuous grin. "Who's gonna ma-''yeee!!!"''

There's an instant cloud of ozone and burnt fur — I didn't let Bernie ''see'' my TASER, but he damn sure ''felt'' it. He hits the floor like a 380-pound sack of dog food. Upshift, extract his wallet from a pocket, downshift, hand the wallet over to the norm-looking guy that beat Bernie. I say, "Take your winnings out of this," then I upshift again, this time so's I can haul Bernie's ass out the front door. We cheetahs are stronger than we look — we ''have to'' be, since our legendary top speed is muscle-powered — and besides, I've found that local gravity gets weaker when I upshift. Put 'em together, and I'm not even breathing hard when I set Bernie down on the sidewalk outside the Pig.

Once more behind the counter, I inhale dried meat, downshift, and pick up where I left off — elapsed time 8.6 clock-seconds in all. "I'm back. You there, what do you want?"

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Make mine a Jumper Cable."

I take orders.

"Bacardi 151 on the rocks."

I make change.

"Irish Coffee."

I pour booze.

Time goes on. The clock-hours spin and gyrate...

...and suddenly I blink, confused at what I see before me. ''Minotaur?'' I ask myself. ''That's — hold it, what's Donnie doing here..?

Ah. Right.''

The place is damn near empty, only a couple of stragglers still hanging on; I must have signaled Closing Time already. ''Thank any applicable god... Oh, yeah. Must ask...'' "Hhhh..." I stop, close eyes, swallow, restart. "How'd the class go?"

Donnie shrugs, then gives me an interrogative "Mmm?"-and-look combo.

I'm tired. My head hurts. "If you're asking how ''my'' end of the deal went, it sucked. I have ''no'' idea how you can ''stand'' doing what you do. Can I go now?"

Donnie looks at me with some inscrutable bovine expression. He nods.

I do likewise myself, no words. I manage to drag myself out to the Extremis, get inside, and lock up before I collapse...

== the sixth week ==

Week 6: Nothing much happened. Okay, I ''did'' lose another student, but it's all good... I guess...

On Thursday (that being July 29th, if you've lost track), I get a call from out of state — the Betty Ford Clinic. Guess which of their recent patients put in a request to chat me up, personal-like? Right — ''her.'' No reason given. Well, what the hell. I got time to kill, like always, so I agree to do the conversation today. I make time for it (and I ''do'' mean '''make'' time'), and at 5 PM, I'm in Mary Zelinski's private room at the Clinic.

She screws up her face a little, concentrating, and says — ''she'' honest-to-Thoth ''says! — ''"Hhhee-rhho, Tcheu-baddhuz."

I smile and nod. "Hello yourself, Ms. Zelinski. Needs work, but not too damned shabby. Y'know, if you wanted to let me know you're dropping the class, you could've just sent me e-mail..."

Despite herself, the foxy lady smiles. Only for a moment, but it's ''there.'' And then she goes on: "Iiayy, w''rr''ahndtuu... ''hrraauuw!"'' A frustrated yowl. Frowning, she picks up her voder, which just happens to have been lying on her nightstand, and lets it speak for her. "Yes. I'm dropping your class. This is about something else. What happened to my wife?"

I wasn't expecting ''that.'' If I had eyebrows, I'd raise them. "It matters?"

Angry and some other emotion fight it out on Zelinski's face; Angry is losing, ''big'' time. "I'm not sure any more," her voder says in its incongruously level tone. "I'm not sure I want to know. But I must know. And you can tell me. Can't you?"

''Oh, fucking joy.'' "Yeah. I can. But just remember, you ''asked'' for it..." And I make with an infodump. I give Zelinski the whole story, everything from when I first read her file to when I hammered on dear little Alison. The foxy lady doesn't interrupt; she sits there and absorbs it all without making a sound. And then I'm done...

"...back to the Pig, to get smashed."

At this point, Zelinski isn't the least bit angry. She's kind of hunched over into herself; her voder lies, forgotten, on the bed next to her.

I wait a bit, then kill the silence: "You asked. I answered. Is that it?"

The vixen pulls herself together. "Yes," her voder says, "that's enough." Then her fingers pause over the talk-box. A few moments later, it recites the words she'd been typing; it gets as far as "I wish" before she hits the 'abort' button. She starts over, her hands a little shaky: "Tank you mitt sir Jubatus. You comforted my suspectings. Please lever me out lone."

Which I do. The Ford Clinic staff wants to debrief me; I blow off most of their questions with variations on, "Ask the foxy lady — it's ''her'' call."

And then I'm on the road again, driving back home.

{{Separator|k}}

Nothing much happened for the next week or so, and that includes during the next class session. Fortunately. I've been on the short end of too damn many surprises already...

Wait, there was ''one'' thing: The bug. Borman. He can actually stridulate one-syllable words! He sounds lousy (still better than ''I'' do, damn it), and it sucks up so much of his attention and concentration that changing to a different syllable is a major feat, but when all is said and done, he ''can'' talk. It's just a matter of practice, honing his currently-primitive skill.

{{Separator|k}}

So I'm coming in for today's stint at the West Street Shelter. I'm not three steps past the front door when this lightly morphed rat-SCAB, a new addition to the staff, says Splendor wants to see me in her office right away. What does she ''want'' from me? Hell if I know — but 'in her office' means it's a private conversation, and ''that'' cuts ''way'' back on the number of alternatives...

By the time I open her office door, the short list is down to about three possible agendas. I close the door. Splendor's just beginning to greet me; I interrupt her, saying, "You want I should work somebody over."

She blinks. "What makes you... never mind. Actually —"

Some things are best stopped ''before'' they start. I cut her off again: "Not interested. Go find someone else to play shock trooper. I'm sure there's ''plenty'' of people around here who'd ''love'' to put a hurting on some asshole who desperately deserves —"

"That's exactly why I want ''you'' for this job!" Her turn to interrupt, it seems.

My turn to blink.

"Okay..." I finally say. "You've piqued my curiosity. Explain."

"Thank you. First, some background." She opens a file drawer, pulls out a manila folder, hands it to me. "Read this."

Upshifting, I follow her advice. 'This' is a collection of eyewitness reports — seems that Splendor has an unofficial network of informers all over the City. It's mostly surveillance on the comings and goings of various lowlifes, but there's also some educated guesses on what said lowlifes will be up to in the near future. Hmmm... if I'm reading this right, it looks like the West Street neighborhood's been relatively low on criminals for a while, and a gang from outside the City is planning to move into what they perceive as a vacuum.

I close the folder, slip back to a tempo of 1 — "Done." — and return it to her. "Alright, that's the background. So what?"

"I know the local thugs, and I've gotten most of them to stop committing their crimes in ''my'' neighborhood."

"Bully for you." I've got an uncomfortable feeling I know what's on her mind, but — "And I should get involved... why?"

She gestures at the folder. "The Cargill Mob. If they establish a presence here, it will be... well. Let's just say it would be best for all concerned if they don't. I want to dissuade them with a show of force; give them a demonstra-"

"No. I flatly ''refuse'' to play enforcer."

''"Will'' you let me ''finish!?"'' she says, glaring at me. Well, what do you know — the snake-lady actually ''has'' a temper. I gesture for her to continue; she does. "I've set up a meeting with Jocko Cargill," — head honcho of the eponymous Mob, says her files, real name 'Giocomo' — "and I want to be accompanied by people who I can be ''absolutely certain'' will not initiate any hostile action."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I say without much sarcasm. "So what ''do'' you want from me?"

"You're welcome. And I want you to serve as bodyguard."

Damn... it's not often that I'm left speechless...

"Frankly, I'd be a fool to trust Jocko as far as I can —" '''''BLAM!'''''

''— attack: threat level extreme: 2 o'clock —''

Damn... the whole south wall's erupted with itsy-bitsy explosions. The instincts upshifted me to a tempo of 35-40, somewhere up there, and the ambient noise Dopplers down like always; I can see...

Holy limping Hephæstus — ''I '''can''' see the bullets moving!''

It actually takes a couple seconds of my time before I snap out of it and get to work. Numero Uno: Digital camera from my vest, aim it at the wall's exit wounds, leave it floating in midair at1,000 shots per clock-second. Numero Two-o: Shpritz a layer of DeadGlove (inert polymer in a spray can) on my hands, grab bullets out of the air, store 'em five-to-a-mylar-envelope. Would've preferred individually-wrapped, but I ran out — wasn't prepped for ''this'' many projectiles! Numero Three-o: There's a second wave of airborne crap (shards of window glass, wood chips, nails, yada yada), so I sweep it all to the carpet and bury it under several dozen pounds of books to make sure it don't go noplace it shouldn't ought to.

I retrieve my camera — good, it's still got 91% free RAM — and there's nothing visibly moving at the moment, so I downshift to a tempo of 1 so's I can hear if there's any more impacts. There aren't any, but I ''do'' hear screams and wails from casualties, damnit! Well, hell; they probably won't die in the next few clock-seconds, so I upshift my tempo to 35 and avoid the jagged remnants of windowpane in the frame as I go outside to get some good shots of a late-model Chrysler, nicely framed between a lamp post and a dumpster; driver and two passengers, shabby paint and no discernable plates. Oh, and a pair of rifle barrels sticking out its side windows, complete with muzzle flash and ''more fucking bullets'' on the way. The car's tilted forward, which means the sons of bitches are braking to give themselves more time to shoot.

Fine. I move in, camera ''k'chnkk''-ing away as it stores images of the bullets and their source, and when I'm in range, I reach inside the car; grab the front gun by its chamber; and '''''pull''''' the fucker out and down, with as much force as you'd expect from muscles that can shove a hundred-pound mass around at 70 MPH. Next up: A re-run with the back-seat firearm.

Both guns are firmly lodged in the dirt, barrel-first. The guys who ''were'' holding them have a bunch of fingers sticking out at ''real'' weird angles. Fuck 'em both. I'm busy — the guns are harmless, but there's all the bullets they ''already'' fired — okay, got the last one. My envelopes now hold seven bullets apiece.

Hungry now. I inhale a slab of beef jerky from my vest while I plan out my next move...

By the time I've made my decision, the dudes-in-car are starting to react to the abrupt change in their immediate surroundings; there's the beginnings of shocked/worried expressions evolving on their faces. Hmm... the car's not so tilted as it had been... betcha the driver's floored it. I grin as I extract a genuine Swiss Army Knife from a vest-pocket, unfold the (diamond-hard, waterproof, corrosion-resistant, tungsten/vanadium alloy) cutting blade, and slash a diagonal gouge all the way across the tread of the driver's side front tire. Not waiting for it to finish blowing out, I do likewise to the driver's side rear; then I step back onto the sidewalk, resume munching on shriveled meat, downshift to a tempo of 1, and watch the wreck change from 'incipient' to 'actual'.

As per my unwritten script, the car — driver's side, at least — drops to the pavement with a hell of a clang and a shower of sparks. Then it makes with a metal-on-asphalt shriek all the way to its 45-MPH collision with the dumpster. Oooh, no airbags! ''That's'' gonna leave a mark...

I finish my snack, keeping an eye on the perps in case someone feels like doing something cute; nobody does. I upshift high, strip all three assholes down to their underwear, expend an entire pocket-sized roll of duct tape making ''damn'' sure the perps are gonna sit tight where they are, clean out the glove box and trunk... and for an encore, I downshift and call in the whole sorry encounter to the local police precinct.

Citizen's arrest is a ''good'' thing, right?

Waiting for the cops to show, I drop back to my default tempo of 6 and amuse myself checking out my loot. No discernable ID on any of the trio — such a surprise — so we'll just see what their photos, fingerprints, and DNA (from impromptu blood samples) have to say about the matter. Again, the car is plateless, and there's no VIN either. As for the guns, they look like they could be Izakawa 'Divine Wrath'-model automatics. That, or else homebrew jobs. I sure hope it's the latter, since I happen to know that Izakawa doesn't ''do'' firearms for any ''civilian'' market.

Onward to happier thoughts. Let's see... the clothes look to be generic off-the-rack Target. Residual scent is mostly drowned under cheap-ass cologne, so there's not so much chance of getting olfactory ID off of it. Just one of the tricks criminals have learned for dealing with a post-SCABS world...

...ah. Someone's approaching — correction: ''Splendor's'' approaching. I downshift to match her tempo.

"Nice day, huh?" I say.

She grimaces a little. "Hardly. It seems I'm not the only one who felt a show of force might be appropriate."

"Seems like," I agree. "The timing's pretty interesting, though. It ''could'' be coincidence... but me, I bet Cargill had your office wired for sound. Not sure when."

Splendor nods. "That makes sense. Perhaps we should relocate this discussion to a more secure place?"

"No point. I mean, he's ''already'' eavesdropping, right? So he's gotta know his boys got ''way'' the hell hammered on, by someone who's ''literally'' faster than a speeding bullet. He may not be sure what other tricks I have up my sleeve, but I, for one, will be happy to help him learn — the ''hard'' way. Of course, that's assuming Jocko Homo has the balls, not to mention the requisite lack of functional brain cells, to suit up for Round Two."

Splendor's eyes widen, just for a moment, about halfway through my last sentence. Then she gets it and puts a subtle smile on her face. "I... see. I trust you know what you're doing..."

"Always," I state flatly. "And I know something else: That fucknose is ''toast."

<hr>

The next few days are kind of busy, and not just because of my unfinished contracts (29 and counting) and speech-class-related stuff and helping Splendor deal with the listening devices. To begin with, I pore over police records and the snake-lady's files — but that's maybe a couple of clock-hours at most. No, what ''really'' occupies my time is what I ''do'' with the data thereby gained: I smash hands.

See, the cops have a pretty good idea of who-all is on Jocko's payroll, and what their particular duties are. Just because the authorities don't have enough hard evidence to nail a guy in court, that doesn't mean they're clueless about why he ''should'' be nailed in court. And if you're curious about why the police might grant a puny civilian — ''i.e.,'' me — access to this sort of sensitive information? Two reasons:

First, money talks.

Second, it seems I got a bit of a fan club in blue. Something to do with all those meticulously detailed complaint reports I keep filing any time some jackass messes with me or my property. I'm told that last year, about17% of all City trials for SCAB-related hate crimes used at least ''some'' data from one of my complaint reports — make it 23%, if you're only interested in ''convictions.''

The point is, I got a line on Jocko's ''whole organization.'' His ''entire'' chain of command, from him and his most-trusted seconds all the way down to his lowliest footsoldiers. And I also got several dozen of the freelancers he's most likely to call when he needs a little extra manpower.

Put it all together, I got me a good, long list of targets to hit... and hit them, I do. With a pair of bricks. At a closing velocity ''well'' in excess of the speed of sound.

I tap each of their hands twice. Hit Number One, the bricks are parallel to the plane of the palm; Hit Number Two, they're at right angles. Locating a target's never difficult. After that, I do my business, leave a card, and bug out.

The card, you ask? Just something I whipped up on a cheap-ass laser printer I bought, used for this one job, and melted to untraceable slag immediately after. Each card bears six words — "TELL JOCKO HOMO TO GET LOST" — and a single letter, "J".

No, as a matter of fact I ''couldn't'' just waste 'em all. Three words:

'''''I.'''''

'''''Don't.'''''

'''''Kill.'''''

Got it?

Aside from that, leaving Jocko's crew mostly-intact is a ''good'' thing. There's a lot to hate about organized crime, but one thing they get right is, ''you take care of your own people.'' 'Cause if you don't... well, either you take care of them, or else ''they'' take care of ''you.'' Not to mention, a rep for fucking over your underlings makes it a ''lot'' harder to get replacement thugs when you need them.

So. If I'd left Jocko with a pile of corpses, he'd just bury 'em and that's ''it.'' But he's got a pile of cripples instead, so he's got ''lots'' bigger problems — like medical expenses for the victims, rent and food for their families, yada yada yada. Unless he's just crazy, he ''must'' deal with all this stuff.

Well, maybe Jocko ''is'' batshit insane; doesn't matter. Crazy or not, he ''still'' needs warm bodies to do his business, right? Which means he needs a whole new 'army'. And if people know how badly he screwed his last gang, who the hell's gonna ''want'' to sign on with his ''next'' gang? Answer: ''No''-fucking-body. And no, Jocko ''can't'' just lean on people to ensure silence. Not while all the guys who ''would'' be doing the actual leaning are in hospital with mangled hands, he can't...

{{Separator|k}}

Splendor catches up to me the day after the drive-by. Another ''tete-a-tete'' in her office, which is where two of the five bugs were. She did what I would've suggested if she'd asked: Left 'em all in place, just paying attention to prefabricated soundtracks rather than ambient sights and sounds. But as I walk through the door this time, she welcomes me with a gesture that (by sheer coincidence, I'm sure) switches off the 'bug bamboozler' I installed in this room. ''Confusion to the enemy, hm? Okay, I can play along,'' I muse to myself with a subtle hand gesture that she picks up on.

"Thank you for your promptness, Jubatus," she says. "How many eavesdropping devices have you found?"

"Two, I think."

"You... ''think."''

And then she makes with a disapproving look, so I put on a show of annoyance: "Damn right, I ''think!'' You got any idea how old this place's wiring is? There's all kinds of components that the only reason I could even ''recognize'' them is, I'm old enough to have seen 'em back in the '90s! And further-"

The phone on Splendor's desk rings. Twice. She picks up before ring #3, saying: "West Street Shelter. Splendor speaking."

I hear the voice from the handset, real clear. "Hey there, Miss Splendor! How ya doin'? I heard'ja had some trouble just recent."

Having heard that voice on some police surveillance recordings, I recognize it as Jocko Cargill; not sure about the snake-lady. "I am doing well," she says in a professionally-controlled tone that doesn't give away a damn thing. "If you'd care to tell me what business you have with the Shelter —"

"Yeah," Jocko interrupts. "I got business with you, alright: One'a your freaks dissed me, ''real'' badand it ain't the kind of thing you can clear up with an apology. I know the little pussy's ''there,'' so how's about you put 'im on the line, huh?"

"Ve-" she begins. A momentary upshift lets me confirm there's no incoming assaults; when I revert back to the normal tempo, she's turned on the speakerphone function, and she's saying, "-ell. He's here now."

"Jubatus," I say to the 'phone, playing my part. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I want a cheetah-skin rug, ''Mister'' Juba-"

"Well, if it ain't Jocko Homo!" I break in. "What's crawled up ''your'' ass, Mr. H?"

"Ha, fuckin', ha," he replies. It's hard to tell, what with the audio distortions of the telephone system, but I ''think'' his level of irritation just got boosted a notch or two. Good. "Funny, kitty-cat. ''Real'' funny. Lemme tell you what I do to little pussies that stick their noses where they don't belong: I skin the fuckers alive."

"You and what army?" I sneer back at him. "Get real, Jocko — you ain't got shit, and we both ''know'' it. Face facts: '''''I''' am the fastest SCAB alive.'' You ''can't'' threaten me — not when I can outrun any bullet on the face of the Earth! Hell, I can ''catch'' your damn bullets and throw 'em right back in your face!"

''"You're dead, you goddamn pussy!"''

I give Splendor a 'thumbs up' gesture as I hammer the needles deeper beneath his skin: "Go ahead, Homo — ''lose'' your temper. Blow a gasket, that's a good little thug. Let your blood pressure rise until your arteries explode. I'll be sure to dance a jig of grief at your funeral, and piss on your grave."

I hold my hand up, warning the snake-lady not to interrupt, for the few moments of heavy breathing it takes Jocko to regain a semblance of self-control. Which he does: "Okay... Okay... You got me goin' there, I admit it. Not too bad — for a ''fuckin' animal.'' Enjoy it while you can, Mister Kitty, 'cause you won't enjoy ''nothin''' after ''I'm'' done with you!"

"So you can tag somebody that can break the sound barrier under his own power? Not!" is my smugly confident reply. "Try a gas weapon, Homo. A poisonous cloud is a lot harder to dodge than a bullet, and ''maybe'' I won't zip through it so damn fast it doesn't have ''time'' to affect me."

"That's ''real'' fuckin' hilarious, Mister Kitty." — and now he pauses, just for a very short moment — "In fact, you're a goddamn comedian, ain't'cha? Well, it wouldn't be polite of me to keep you from laughin' it up, so I'll just say g'bye now." And he hangs up. I think about Jocko Homo's pre- and post-pause vocal overtones, as much as I could hear them over the telephone, as Splendor turns the 'bamboozler' back on with a heartfelt exhalation...

"Well," she says, ''"that'' was interesting. May I assume there was a reason you insisted on giving Jocko the bright idea to try chemical weapons?"

"Damn straight." I grin mercilessly. "Look: We SCABs have an insanely wide range of biochemistries, right? What that means is, you can spend however-many megabucks developing a weapon that takes out ''one'' SCAB — but you got basically ''no'' idea whether or not it's gonna affect ''any other'' SCAB! So let's say you're a weapons researcher who's just been handed a pile of cash to come up with an equalizer that'll work on people like us. Do you spend it on chemical weapons, knowing that it's a fucking waste of resources, or do you spend it on new and improved projectile weapons, which are ''guaranteed'' to work on ''almost all'' SCABs?"

She thinks it over a moment, and likes the answer: "In other words, you goaded Jocko into wasting some of his available resources on an intrinsically futile gambit."

"Bingo! Got it in one."

"Unfortunately, I believe there's a flaw in your thinking. What's to keep Jocko from attempting to acquire one of those experimental projectile weapons you spoke of?"

I shrug. "Calculated risk. Assuming Jocko manages to get his hands on ''any'' military hardware ''at all,'' I'm betting he won't get more than one or two pieces, if that. And the more he focuses on ''me'' in particular, the less he's gonna be able to do to ''anybody else."''

"I see..." Splendor just looks at me for a clock-second or so. "You're determined to play lightning rod, aren't you."

"Better me than one of you slowpokes," I say with a shrug. "What's your point? I'm the hardest target you've ''got,'' so why ''shouldn't'' I paint a bullseye on my chest?"

"No reason at all," she says in a neutral tone. "Thank you, Jubatus."

"For what? Premature much?" I grimace. "Save your gratitude until ''after'' we've dealt with the problem at hand."

{{Separator|k}}

Jocko's no Jubatus. If it was ''me'' plotting an assault on the Shelter, I'd have researched the place in exhaustive detail ahead of time, including all of its resident SCABs and their combat-useful abilities. I'd also have worked up about 14 layers of contingency plans in case Something Went Wrong. And in particular, I would ''not'' have allowed my targets ''any'' breathing space ''whatsoever'' after my first attack. Then again, maybe Cargill did have a Plan B — Splendor doesn't think so, but, y'know, for the sake of argument? Like I said: Maybe the guy ''did'' have a backup plan, but I got my counterattack in ''before'' he could push the button.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, I'm not about to let up on him. For one thing, I've only tagged 68% of the targets on my list, and if you're a slowpoke (which everybody associated with the Shelter ''is),'' just ''one'' disgruntled twit with a high-powered rifle is all it takes to ruin your whole day. For another thing, three of the targets on my list have ''already'' bolted and run, apparently the moment they heard about what happened to my first victims. Or ''did'' they run away? Could be Jocko ordered 'em to go elsewhere and pick up a few 55-gallon drums of industrial-strength Whupass. Again, Spendor doesn't think Jocko's subtle enough (or smart enough) to do that; I'm inclined to agree, myself. Nevertheless, it's a loose end that needs to be tied off ''before'' it trips up anybody who matters. I've uploaded a few spiders to the Net, to keep an eye on the runners' financial activity; nothing big, just what I need so's I'll have a little advance notice if/when they make a suspicious purchase wherever, or they return to this fair city, or yada yada yada.

{{Separator|k}}

"Hey, don't get me wrong — I don't like killin' people any more'n the next guy! But what can you do when some fuckin' dipshit ''asks'' f-"

''— multiple attacks: threat levels high, extreme, extreme, lethal, extreme: 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 o'clock —''

— the instincts upshifted me to a tempo of ''40?'' Damn. Looks like my buddy Jocko is playing with ''very'' dangerous toys! A rather strong hammerblow to my back pushes me forward; I go with it, especially because there's a couple points on the back of my head that're feeling ''real'' hot just now. As I fall forward, the hot spots on my skull cool down a bit, and a second hammerblow glances off one shoulder.

Yes, Virginia, I got hit with supersonic bullets ''and'' military lasers. How did I survive to tell the tale, you ask? Tempo of 40, that's how. Upshifted that high, from ''my'' point of view the bullets were only carrying ''one-sixteenth of a percent'' of their 'full' load of kinetic energy; body armor did the rest. As for the energy weapons, my upshift cut their power — how much energy they deliver in a given amount of time — to only 1/40 normal, not to mention what it did to the photons' frequency. That kind of tweakage can really mess up a laser beam's innate capacity for destruction, you know? Still dangerous, but only if I'm dumb enough to stick around and wait for it to burn me. No, I can't outrun photons; then again, I don't ''have to'' be faster than light.

I just have to be faster than whatever's adjusting the laser's point-of-aim.

Moving right along: You damn betcha I'm prepped for beam weapons. Jocko may not be Jubatus, but ''I am.'' One vest pocket holds a few grams of light-sensitive dust; laser-safety goggles in another; a third pocket's got a matched set of six corner-cube reflectors. My left hand tosses clouds of powder into the air for the beams to reflect/refract off of, while I put the goggles on with my right... bingo! ''There's'' the beamlines — all three of the SOBs. Fine. Three corner-cubes, coming right up. I give each one a ''whole'' bunch of angular velocity so it twirls in place; that won't stop it from reflecting the laser ''exactly'' back the way it came, but it ''will'' reduce the amount of time any particular piece of reflector spends in direct contact with its beam.

The adrenaline rush is fading — I can feel blood vessels throbbing in my neck and scalp, not to mention the opening twinges of a killer migraine. That's what I get for overstraining my chronomorph power. I can't maintain a tempo of 40 for long, so I gotta make the most of each Time-shifted fractional second while I can.

Okay — the bullets. Only one source, thank Ares. They look to be moving at 40-45 MPH, which (after factoring in my tempo) means they ''are'' supersonic. Somewhere around Mach two-point-five, I think. The exact figure doesn't matter: I extract a pair of hand-sized metal plates from yet another vest pocket, align the plates at ''just'' the right angles, and thereby nudge the stream of bullets towards the trajectory I'd rather they follow. The headache's just begun, but I ain't got ''time'' to deal with the pain, so I ignore it. I give the room a quick scan; yep, the same four targets. Good. Hmmm... the first bullet just struck target 1, so I shift my 'bucklers' to redirect the stream to the next in line, then target 3, and finally Jocko himself. Bastard ''would'' ensure that ''he's'' not anywhere near the direct line of fire, damn it.

The lasers are gone now — ''quelle'' surprise, and I appreciate the corner-cubes' sacrifice — so it's time to deal with the gun-on-steroids. The cloud of drywall fragments tells me ''exactly'' where the bullets are coming from, so I leap straight at that point, twirling my hand-held shields before me in a paddle-wheel-type maneuver so's the projectiles get knocked out of my flight path into the floor. Each bullet-slap jars me up to the shoulders, in a rhythm that clashes against the pulsating throbs of my cerebral arteries. I hit the wall a little over the bullets' exit hole; no problem! I dig into the wall with the claws of two feet and one arm, and I use my free hand to ram a 'shield' right down the barrel of the damn gun.

Okay, it won't fit — it's too big — but ''you'' know what I mean, right? If I can clog up the barrel with its own bullets, I negate this particular threat. And the bullets keep coming; each new impact against the 'buckler' sends a ''serious'' shockwave up my arm and down my torso to rattle my internal organs. One... two... thr- ''Sn'f'fckngbtch!!!''

''Very'' bright light. Then pain makes a fast getaway as the world goes ''real'' dark...

{{Separator|k}}

Lying down; I smell medicines and rubbing alcohol; right. I'm in a hospital. Private room. Kind of tired, but I don't feel much pain — apparently, I've been healing for a while? And... okay, I recognize ''that'' scent: It's Splendor. I see a light cast on her left elbow, neatly-applied dressings on her neck and the right side of her face, plus a glued-down patch over her right eye — and who knows what ''else'' she's hiding ''underneath'' her clothes. No cane; she must not've been hurt ''that'' badly. I downshift to talk to her...

"Hello, Splendor," I say. "I'm guessing the good guys won."

"Jubatus!" She seems a little surprised to hear me speak; not sure why. "Welcome to the land of the living. And yes, we did."

"Good. What happened after I fell asleep on the job?"

The lady makes with one of her oh-so-elegant veiled smiles. "You may have 'fell asleep', but I shan't complain. After all, a railgun ''did'' explode in your face..."

I roll my eyes. "Now tell me something I ''don't'' know."

"Of course," she says, nodding. "From what I could determine afterwards, I was outside the blast radius proper, but the shockwave knocked me senseless anyway. When I came to, I was naked except for the coils of duct tape Jocko had wrapped around me — and I knew it was him because he wasn't finished. I'm afraid he noticed I was awake before I'd quite recovered my wits; he took great pleasure in telling me ''exactly and precisely'' what he intended to do to me, now that you were too dead to protect me." Now she looks me in the eyes; her unblinking gaze makes it real clear (like it wasn't before?) what kind of critter that damn disease blended her with. I wait for the snake-lady to keep talking.

"And then he raped me." It's a flat, calm, statement of fact she's just made... "Which only proves that he was unaware of the ''full'' extent of what SCABS did to me."

My mind races — there's a few rumors about certain events in her past — I throw out an educated guess: "Projecting chronomorph?"

Splendor acknowledges my remark with a subtle inclination of her head. "Correct. I can only adjust other people's ages downward — but when sex is involved, the rejuvenative effect is ''permanent."''

I ponder the possibilities... "So you rolled his odometer back. How far?"

"I fully intended to 'roll his odometer back', as you put it, to the point at which his zygote originally formed." I blink at that. ''Okay... someone remind me never to piss her off...'' "As it happened, I didn't need to go that far; at the moment of his death, I'd reduced him to a first-trimester premature birth."

"Damn..." I picture the scene in my mind. "And since he ''was'' raping you at the time..."

"Exactly. Jocko was too distracted to perceive any difficulties until ''after'' he was physically incapable of doing anything about it. Now it's your turn, Jubatus. What ''did'' you spend these past few days doing?"

So I talk. Snake-lady listens — and from her occasional questions and comments, it's pretty clear that my info is mostly just confirming what she's already learned from other sources.

Doesn't take me long to finish the story. Splendor stares off into the middle distance for a while; I take the opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep...

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:John Moschitta School of Elocution}}

User:Cubist/Speedy Trials

2009-02-16T10:26:20Z

Cubist: Fixing the TF tag

{{title|name=Speedy Trials|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF tag | type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
The Secrets of Jubatus, #275 in a series (collect them all!): I don't really have a disposition – it's more of a rocket-propelled roller-coaster ride. How can this be, you ask? I've got a ''seriously'' overbuilt endocrine system, that's how, with glands that could satisfy all the hormonal needs of any three ZIP Codes in the continental United States. It's just the ticket for any critter whose lifestyle is built around the need to at any moment go from zero to 50 MPH in two seconds. I don't recommend it, myself. The downside is that my bloodstream gets flooded with insane quantities of hormones and enzymes and God knows what at the drop of a hat, ergo my emotions tend to hit ''hard'' and ''fast'' and ''very'' intense.

And here I'll bet ''you'' thought my severe mood swings were merely a sign of mental instability, am I right? No such luck. Oh, instability is ''part'' of it, true, but not a particularly ''large'' part. Under 30% for sure, might be less than 10%.

It's not unlike living in a minefield – hit just one "danger zone" by mistake, and whammo! your mental equilibrium gets whipsawed all to hell. All of which said, I ''have'' been like this for a couple years, and by now I've pretty much got a handle on it. For the most part.

The exceptions can be pretty memorable. Let me tell you about one of them.

{{separator}}

This has not been a good day.

I've just spent six clock-hours smashing my brains against a wall that happens to be a client. Figuratively speaking, of course – he's no inanimorph, just an unmitigated idiot with more dollars than brain cells. I know, I know, twits happen, but ''this'' bozo is in a class unto himself. Call him Mr. Moron. Son of a bitch not only welches on our contract, refuses to pay me ''any'' money ''at all, ''but also files suit against me when I politely request that he destroy all the work I sent him.

He's got lies and bluster on his side, nothing more. I, contrariwise, have plentiful documentation, complete with digital timestamps, digital signatures, and wall-to-wall encryption, all of it open source, all peer-reviewed algorithms. And as per usual, I've also got a couple surprises up my sleeve for any fool who tries to hack my chosen crypto. You say 'unfounded paranoia'; I say 'prudent precaution for anyone who does business over an intrinsically anonymous medium such as the Net'.

Mr. Moron's actual complaint is a thick document, chock full of boilerplate text. I amuse myself by perusing the silly thing and identifying all the bits which just don't apply to this situation. My attorney is kind enough to check my guesses; I'm batting .550, not bad for a layman. It's obvious that Mr. Moron is posturing, in an attempt to intimidate me into silence.

Like a cute little bird once said, ''He don't '''know''' me vewwy well, '''do''' he?''

I'll give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version, no sense in ''both'' of us going half-mad waiting for the inevitable: Seven weeks of pre-trial maneuvers. Six unendurably protracted hours of sitting on my ass in an overheated Chicago courtroom. Four minutes for the judge to rule in my favor after the lawyers shut up. 3.5 seconds for Mr. Moron to announce (through his mouthpiece) that he's appealing the decision. One big, fat, juicy countersuit to recover my legal expenses and then some. No partridges nor pear trees in sight.

Mr. Moron's got money, but then so do I. He thinks he can stretch it out until I'm broke, and then declare victory, he's got a ''major'' surprise coming. Is it any wonder that I've been ''thoroughly'' torqued off since halfway into today's legal ordeal? Still, while my temper may burn hot, it also burns out quick. We cheetahs have no reserves to speak of, we can't sustain much of ''any''thing for long. Thus does my anger diminish from ''NUKE THE ENTIRE BLEEDING WORLD, GOD WILL KNOW HIS OWN!'' all the way down to ''i'm annoyed, really i am'' by the time I pull into the Blind Pig's parking lot. No reserves, nothing left in me. You slowpokes don't know from tired; a cheetah running on EMPTY, now ''that's'' tired.

I'm irritated to see Wanderer's glee club, random mixture of species that it is. I completely forgot that this was one of their nights to rehearse. My end of my relationship with that group is a love/hate deal, thanks to my own (lack of) singing ability. There are times I wish SCABS had finished the job, made me ''completely'' mute, because total silence might just be more tolerable than the half-assed vocalizing I'm stuck with.

Don't sweat it. You ''would'' understand if you'd ever heard my ''real'' voice.

I get a boilermaker with an ounce of whatever it is Sinclair found that ''can'' get me drunk – alcohol won't work, I burn it off too fast. The glee club isn't singing? Of course not, they must be through for the evening. Morbidly curious, I move towards them to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"– turns into a howl!" That's Wanderer. Momus' beard! I hope they're not discussing what I ''think'' they're discussing – not while my own musically useful range covers all of an augmented third, pestilence take it.

"I know," says another lupine, I think it's Ringwolf, obviously sympathizing. "Me, I can't even ''reach'' high C before ''my'' control is shot." Heiliger Christus, they ''are'' – No, damn it, I will ''not'' stand here and listen as these multi-octave sons of bitches piss and moan about how ''unfair'' it is that ''their'' range isn't any wider! But of course, I do anyway. Somehow, it's all I can do to not collapse into a chair, let alone move my entire body away. The damnable lupine morphs continue on in this vein, and it's the Maraschino cherry on the sundae, it is.

Something fragile and overstrained shatters inside me – I do believe it's the last surviving vestige of my patience, however much of ''that'' managed to withstand a day of dealing with Mr. Moron, L'Imbecile Sans Peur. Yes indeed, the wolves' self-pitying complaints are the proverbial pluperfect Last Goddamn Straw, complete with genuine imitation rhinestones inlaid to spell out ''YOU DONE GONE AND SCREWED THE POOCH, SONNY-BOY!'' on its dorsal and ventral surfaces. My brains and blood almost vibrate with a surge of adrenaline I wouldn't have believed I still had in me. I move before my conscious mind kicks in, and for once I and my hardwired instincts are as one.

"Outta my way," I growl, shoving past and through anyone who doesn't obey quickly enough to suit me. I couldn't care less about the disgruntled murmurs that mark my progress through the crowd. Once at the piano, I arpeggiate a C major chord an octave above high C – and ''that'' pisses me off even ''more,'' the fact that a goddamn ''fifth'' is now close to my limit, when my ''human'' hands were able to span an octave plus change.

"Wanderer! ''Howl!"'' I snarl at him, punctuating the command by snapping my other arm up to point directly at him. He obeys, I'd say more out of shock than for any other reason.

"Awwoo''oooo –''"

– and the instant he hits that G, I clench my hand shut and snap out, "Hold that note!" Next it's "Ringwolf! ''Howl!"'' and "Hold that E!", and finally Wolfshead on the C. Their chord has a unique quality to it, a timbre that I can't recall hearing from them ever before.

I repeat the C chord. "Modulate! ''Up!"'' I transpose to D, and the three wolves move up a major second. ''"Down!"'' Back to C. ''"Down!"'' Next stop: B flat. ''"Up!"'' Back home at C. They've tracked me pretty damned well, considering they were just recently kvetching about how impossible it was for them to hit controlled, musically useful notes in this register. After a few seconds more of C, I end it by ripping my arm through the air in a gesture that looks well-suited for gutting a very large sturgeon.

"You got all that?" I ask, hurling the question at them as though it were a hand grenade. "You damn well better, because I ''never'' want to hear ''any'' of you bloody sons of bitches making ''any'' goddamn noise about the top end of your fucking range '''ever again'''! Jesus Christonagddmnfknscr –" and my tempo begins to rise even before I finish swearing at them. The front door slams within seconds.

I'm done. Spent. Exhausted. If I was running on fumes before, what I'm burning now must be the ''memory'' of fumes. The proof is in my involuntary upshift: I didn't do it because I was in a hurry to leave, I did it because I was so damned tired that I lost the concentration I need to stay at the human tempo. No, I lie. Forget exhaustion; it's ''hunger'' that docks me 60 IQ points, and it's my attorney's advice that brought me to this state, more fool I for following that advice. It's been ''nine whole clock-hours'' since I've eaten ''any'' protein, and for a turbocharged metabolism like mine, this constitutes a hunger strike. It's ''always'' time to feed the beast, damn it. Next time a lawyer advises me not to bring food into a courtroom, ''I'll'' advise ''him'' to shut the hell up.

It's a still night, not much going on in the neighborhood. I've got slabs of meat in a small fridge in my Extremis – the largest Ford-made SUV of all time – I trudge on over. The colors of fast-time are as odd as ever, but I'm long since used to it. I hear the purring rumble of crickets in a vacant lot a couple blocks to the north, the leathery sounds of fistfights and arguments from many directions. My vibrissae (cat-whiskers) tell me there's a breeze, but I can't really ''feel'' it through my fur. Too bad. I catch the scents of fresh urine and vomit from faceless drunks here on West Street. Fun location we're at. I don't quite fumble the key, and the side door opens.

Three kilos of sirloin start thawing; I dial my hotplate to 40 degrees Celsius. Waiting for the microwave's bell, I have time to set the table for dinner. Good silverware, china, and crystal, the whole nine yards. I may be a true carnivore, but there are still forms that must be observed, by God. I'll be dead and damned before I adopt non-human eating habits to go with my non-human diet. Not that the diet is ''absolutely'' non-human, mind. I've a decent collection of condiments – sauces and spices and such – and tonight I choose to experiment with a garlic-enhanced Worchestershire blend.

I ''could'' just inhale the raw protein right now, as is – there's a vacuum inside me that's bigger than I am – but I won't. Makes for a fine test of my willpower, and thus far I'm winning. Can't do much about the drooling, damn it. About the same time as my main dish is ready, the Pig's front door creeps open, framing a silhouette. I transfer one slab of meat to my plate, the rest to the hotplate that will keep them at body temperature until I'm ready for them. The shadow-shape inches towards me, gradually resolving itself to Wanderer as the seconds ooze by. I've got plenty of time to observe him in motion, plenty of time to think as I cut (with a fork and knife!), chew, and swallow.

I don't understand people like Wanderer. In my experience, generosity is the fastest, surest route to ingratitude; no good deed goes unpunished; turning the other cheek gets you a matching bruise; intimacy just lets them get close enough to stab you in a vital spot; and ''anyone'' can fuck you over at ''any'' time. And yet Wanderer ''is'' generous and forgiving and on and on – he makes himself a perpetual goddamn target – so ''how does he get away with it? ''It irks me, it really does. I don't ''like'' unsolvable puzzles…

Ah. His mouth is open. His voice dopplers up as I downshift to his tempo: "–rrre you in a civilized mood?"

I let out a sigh; even that sounds "off" to me. I swirl my glass, hold it up to let the single street light within 100 meters sparkle off of its contents. "Getting there." I lower the glass, take a sip, look at the wolf. "How in hell do ''you'' manage, damn it?" I ask, irritated.

"Excuse me? I really –"

"Fuck ''that'' noise," I interrupt. "You know damn well what I'm talking about, or at least you ''should.'' You're the life of the bleeding party, you are, always ready with a quip and a smile, and never a hint that you ''know'' how positively shitty life can get. ''How in Polyhymnia's name do you '''do''' it?"''

He doesn't answer, just looks at me, and finally (after a good second of silence) states, "You honestly don't know."

I grimace. "''Suurre'' I do. The only reason I even bothered to ask is that I just ''love'' to hear the sound of my own voice." I sigh again, and my whole body sags in on itself – I can't sustain more than a pilot light's worth of annoyance, if even that much. "Never mind. What do you want from me?"

Another pause, this one well over two seconds.

Finally, Wanderer says, "I want to know how long you're going to continue making yourself miserable. Didn't you say it's been more than two years? When ''will'' you get on with your life?"

"'Life, don't talk to me about life'," I quote, then laugh and echo his earlier words. "Heh heh heh. You honestly don't know." I continue laughing, and it's a bitter, jagged, thoroughly unpleasant noise; whatever humor it might have held to start with is soon absent. Hysteria, thy name is Jubatus. And then Wanderer is in the Extremis with me and he grabs my right shoulder and there's a sharp pain in –

– ''damage: non-impairing: kill'' –

– '''''NO, Goddamnit!''''' –

– and I stifle a murderous yowl. Or maybe I just let it die for want of effort, it's hard to say. It ''is'' hard to say. Hard to speak, think, do much of anything else. That last adrenal surge really took it out of me. The forepaw that was poised to rip the wolf's face off of his skull, I instead let drift down along my own face, gingerly tracing the shallow furrows he left when he slapped me. My hand comes away with fluid on it. Smells like blood, feels like it, doesn't look like it. Oh. Right. Colors of fast-time. I try to raise my hand for a closer look, can't do more than slow its descent to my lap. Don't have the energy. Heh. Fastest SCAB alive, and here I am too tired even to ''move.'' Funny.

My head falls forward. Good. Wanted a clearer view of the stuff on my fingers. Heh. Just thought of a punchline. Wanderer will love it. Oh yeah, gotta downshift, he won't understand it at this tempo. Can't hardly think, hard to shift. Okay, talk slow & deep.

"TThhaaannkksss… II… nneeeeddeedd… tthhaaa…"

{{separator}}

I'm lying down?

I am. On a full-sized bed, under a blanket which (amazingly enough) is only warm, not sweltering. I'm not wearing any clothes, that must be why I'm not overheated. I feel a dull, throbbing ache all over, head to tail and toes. Still tired, just not the marrow-deep ''exhaustion'' of last night. I could open my eyes, but why bother? I can already catch the scents of antiseptic, specialized foods, and Wanderer. Not to mention the delightful sensation of sharp things poking into blood vessels in my arms. Put it all together, it spells "hospital".

For a moment I wonder what the wolf is doing here. Then I remember what happened. He slapped my face, and I collapsed like a string-cut puppet. Christ on a sidecar, I could lay ''such'' a guilt trip on him… heh. Forget it, I've done enough already.

"You're awake!" It's him. I must've said something, I've been known to talk in my sleep. "Are you alright?"

"Mm. I feel like…" Only cliches come to mind. "Damn. If my brain weren't wrapped in cotton right now, I'd have a better description than my brain feels like it's wrapped in cotton."

"I hardly think this is a joking matter," is the quiet reply.

"Why not? There's always ''something'' to chuckle over, if you take your humor black. 'If I may be seen to laugh at any mortal thing'…" I begin.

"…'it is so that I may not cry'," he says, completing the quote. "From '''''Don Juan''''', by Lord Byron, isn't it?"

"Yes, but in my case, the operative verb isn't 'cry'. ''I'' laugh so that I won't take an illicit assault weapon to the nearest rooftop and fire randomly into the crowd."

"Hmm. That's rather a hefty load of anger you're carrying," he observes thoughtfully.

"No kidding. What was your first clue?" I sneer, but my heart isn't in it. "Yes, I've got a bad temper, and no, it's nothing to do with SCABS. I'm just an angry young man who ''stayed'' angry." I finally open my eyes, to look at the wolf. He's seen better days; it wouldn't surprise me if he'd slept in that chair. "Your turn. I've already asked, and I don't think that 'how long will you mourn' crap is the ''real'' answer: What do you want from me?"

He considers me for a long moment. "I'd like to know how you got pure tones out of us in ''that'' register, if I may. I wouldn't have thought it possible!"

I shrug. "It was obvious. Your vocal tract is basically human, but from the way you bitch about high notes, there's gotta be some lupine bits in there as well. Two different boxes of tools, two different skill-sets. Can't work with the ''lupine'' bits if you're stuck on ''human'' vocal techniques. Like I said, obvious."

He chuckles ruefully. "To ''you,'' perhaps, but I can assure you it was appreciably less than obvious to ''us!'' And such being the case, I should be very pleased if you would consent to work with us in future. What would you say to that?"

"Fuck off and die," I state, calmly and without heat. "Work with you? Yeah, right. You guys are an amateur vocal group, and ''I can't sing!'' Look, Wanderer. You can invent pointless little make-work tasks to keep me out of your hair. You can even give me a fancy title like Artistic Director to distract me from realizing what you're doing. But what you ''can't'' do is expect me not to recognize when I'm being blatantly patronized."

"I hardly think it patronizing to want to benefit from any further 'obvious' ideas of yours!"

"What makes you think there'll ''be'' any more? Even if I owned a hat, I couldn't pull miracles out of it on command."

"You're right, of course. Just because you can walk on water doesn't mean you should be able to swim."

"Say ''what?'' I think you missed my point," I begin, but the wolf doesn't give me the chance to explain.

"Nay, sirrah, 'tis ''you'' have missed ''mine!"'' he growls. "What makes you think I'm doing this for some half-brained feline with the manners of a drunken monkey? Do you ''honestly'' think you're such an attractive charity case that I just can't stay away? Please, Jubatus. If I knew anyone else who could do it half as well, I'd be on their doorstep in a heartbeat, and I mean one of yours.

"Because I know my limits. I'm an actor, a singer, and something of a comedian. But I will never be a dancer, and not just because these footpads of mine are utter wrecks on anything with less traction than carpet. I can't dance anything more complicated than the box step without a lot of training. I'll never be a choreographer because I can't analyze my own movement, let alone someone else's. And I'll sure as I'm wearing a fur coat never be a choir leader, because I can't explain it to anyone who doesn't already know it. Now, do you need more reasons, or has yon fool of a wolf satisfied thy curiousity?"

My mind whirls, albeit at a much lower RPM than usual.

''Not a charity case – Never a choir leader – How could he '''not''' know – No charity –What's he think he's '''been''' doing – Instructor wanted – No leader, my ass – Not a handout –''

"So… you really ''are'' interested. In me. With your boys. Teaching."

"I believe that ''is'' what I said, yes," Wanderer replies in a tone of dry amusement.

Hope flares without warning – ''I'm a technical writer, teaching people is what I do for a living'' – and dies just as suddenly. "That's great, but… I think I've burned a few too many bridges. You really think ''they're'' gonna stand for working with ''me?"''

"You oughtn't be ''too'' quick to disqualify yourself. Would you care to know what the group thought of your little exhibition?"

I grimace. "Don't tell me. The cat-thing reacted with amused contempt; the tenor wants my head on a platter; the bug is too spaced-out to comprehend what went on; the other wolf can't figure out why I don't just leave you the hell alone; the buffalo didn't deign to notice anything; and Wanderer would like me to apologize for publicly humiliating the lupines." My lack of energy shows in my tone all throughout this recitation. "How'd I do, Rin Tin Tin?"

He smiles. "Poorly, if you must know. In point of fact, you engendered the same initial reaction in all six of us – intense fear. I truly cannot recall our exhibiting such unanimity on ''any'' other topic!" I wince at this statement. ''So I scared them all shitless. Oh, joy.'' "At least you're not a violent person," he concludes cheerfully.

I frown. "Fat lot ''you'' know about it."

"In truth, I rather think I do. You were ''quite'' the fearsome sight throughout your little tutoring session; I wasn't at all certain that you could refrain from opening a few arteries! Yet, the only things you ''did'' open were our upper registers. And during your first visit to Donnie's establishment you were disquietingly active, but, again, peace of mind was the only thing you inflicted any significant damage on."

I look him in the eyes. "Thank you," I say quietly, and I ''mean'' it.

He nods. "You are most welcome. Now, if I may continue: We spoke amongst ourselves after you, ''hrrhrm,'' became indisposed, shall we say? Once the topic ran to what you actually did, as opposed to the distasteful manner in which you did it, we quickly realized that your insights could be of great value to us. And as it happens, even Ringwolf is willing to put aside his enmity, presuming your ministrations prove to be as beneficial as I suspect they will.

"The question is, are ''you'' prepared to behave yourself? Can you put an end to mourning your lost voice? If not, which is to say if you ''continue'' to disrupt our rehearsals, we'd best start looking for a new space in which ''to'' rehearse."

I think I know what the wolf's aiming at here, and I cut to the chase. "You're trying for that 'shared pain is lessened' bullshit, aren't you."

He nods. "I have always found it to be helpful."

"That makes one of us," I say with another grimace. Then again, nothing ''I've'' tried has done any good yet, so what the hell? Can't hurt. "Alright, fine. You ask me 'how long, o Lord?' I dunno. I got denial out of the way already – did I mention that I couldn't even ''speak'' at first? ''That,'' I denied ''so'' strongly that I actually taught myself how to talk again, took me five calendar days. Anger, I got that as soon as I stopped being relieved about learning to talk again, and been there ever since. Bargaining, probably not. I've never believed in any god to bargain with. Does my research into possible cures count? Depression, well, it was only ''frustration'' when all I knew was that I couldn't sing. Now that I know ''why'' I can't sing – my vocal tract is pure cheetah, nothing ''to'' sing ''with'' – '''now''' I'm getting some depression, big time. Acceptance… I just don't know. Ask me again next year."

"I shall. In the meantime, though… what carries you through the day? Were your life such a torment, I rather doubt you'd have lived to see the bar."

I give him a wan smile. "It's not ''that'' bad, mostly. Hell, I can go for clock-hours on end without thinking about it."

"Clock-hours?" Wanderer asks, puzzled at this non-standard term.

"Hours by the clock." I wave a vague gesture. "What you slowpokes live by. ''My'' hours are faster." He gets it – and suddenly ''I'' get something, too: Wanderer is moving, even though I didn't downshift to his tempo. ''Derksen must have me on some kind of metabolic depressant. Wonder why?'' "Anyhow, like I said, I can go for clock-hours at a time without hurting. But with the glee club around…" I shake my head. "Think of me as a moth, helplessly spiraling to my doom around the fire of your little group."

"But surely you possess more self-control than the insect you name?"

"Of course I do! It's just, well… I think I can name that pain in four words: ''Humans'' sing. ''Animals'' don't."

"Animals do, actually," Wanderer answers with a smirk. I glare back at him. "We wolves love a good sing-along."

I cut in before he can say more. "Oh, ''please.'' You know any ''natural-born'' wolves can belt out a Broadway show tune? Me, neither. Sure, a wolf call is an interesting noise, but ''it's not '''song'''!'' And the same goes for the sounds whales make, if you were thinking about going there. Singing, ''real'' singing, is a uniquely ''human'' activity. And I was ''awfully'' damned good at it… before."

"So ''this'' is at the root of it all: You fear for your humanity."

Anger flares within me. ''"'''Yes''' yousonofafuckingbitch I '''am''' afraid –"'' I snap at him, then I realize what I've just said, what I've admitted. My anger fades.

''Oh, shit…''

That's what I get for having the fastest mouth in the Western Hemisphere. I wait for the other shoe to drop. I just ''know'' it's going to be a very heavy steel-toed boot, with plenty of sharpened cleats protruding from its hobnailed sole, that falls with great force onto something highly sensitive.

The silence lasts many seconds. I'm the one who finally breaks it: "I don't suppose you'd be willing to forget what you just heard?"

Wanderer shakes his head. "No. If ''you'' are willing to speak further on 't, however, I should be curious to follow your reasoning. Surely you don't believe that lack of singing ability ought automatically brand one as subhuman?"

I stare up at the ceiling. ''If I'm willing to speak on it, he says. '''Suurrre''' I'm willing to talk about it. Golly gee whiz, who '''wouldn't''' jump at the chance to put their vulnerable points on public display? '''Oh''' yeah, sure thing, you betcha.''

''But… this is Wanderer. He doesn't behave like a '''real''' human being. Maybe…''

"Alright. You want it, you got it. On one condition: ''You don't talk.'' Whatever you see or hear, ''none of it'' leaves the room. You ''ever ''repeat ''any'' of this, and I swear by Tyr and Themis, your next role is Cream of Wolf on Toast. Capische?"

I think he got the message. He's uncharacteristically serious: "My lips are sealed. I promise you, I shall be the very soul of discretion."

"You'd better."

I move the blanket aside, then sit up, ignoring all the complaints from the muscles involved. Ordinarily I'd just ''do'' it, from thought to act in one smooth, electric sweep. But now, doing anything feels… 'laborious' isn't the right word. The best description I can think of at the moment, is that I'm ''aware'' of the effort I'm expending. It's almost as if a utility company had just started metering my muscle-power. Slowly, so very slowly, I stand, revealing the full extent of what SCABS did to me. I used to be human, surely I should be able to remember if ''this'' is what it felt like to move the body around?

"Here I am. Take a good look." I turn around twice, clockwise first and then widdershins. It's been such a long time since I lived at the normal tempo… I move ponderously, not just because of low energy or the all-over ache, but also because of the tubes running into my arms. Wouldn't want to tangle them up or pull one out.

I lower myself back down onto the mattress. Gravity is more insistent than I'm used to, I must continually expend more of that metered power lest I collapse in an untidy heap. It feels ''so'' good to just lie in bed and let the pain diminish to a weak background sensation.

"That's me all over, Wanderer. Derksen tells me my body is pure cheetah, except for a 5% intrusion of human traits. So the body isn't human, but that's just the physical instrument, isn't it? You're only as human as you think, right?"

I've gone this far, may as well give him the whole package. No matter how nervous it makes me. I swallow. "Okay, fine. But. My mind ''isn't'' human. Not completely. Got a choice collection of brand-new personality quirks when I SCABbed over. And. Some of 'em scare the living shit out of me." ''If you're gonna go for the whole package, Jube old son, '''go''' for the whole package.'' I scan Wanderer with my eyes; this time, breaking a solemn promise I made to myself years ago, I let the beast in my hindbrain get a look in. "25 MPH tops. Time to intercept, no more than 15 seconds. Maximum chance of escape, 5%. Healthy; lots of good meat on the bones. Keep me going 2 days easy, less if a scavenger finds you before I'm done with you."

The wolf is silent, and I can't blame him. Not only have I just pronounced him easy prey, I've coldly quantified exactly ''how'' easy…

"And if ''that'' kind of crap weren't bad enough, there's the mental changes which ''might'' be SCABS-related. Personality traits I had before, but they're a Hell of a lot stronger ''now.'' Short-tempered, antisocial, et cetera ad nauseum. Maybe I would've gotten that way without the Martian Flu; then again, maybe I wouldn't. Bottom line is, ''I've got no way to know'' how much of my mind survived the fur coat!

"So. My ''body'' surely isn't human, and God only knows how much of my ''mind'' still is. Which begs the question: What's left of ''me?'' What percentage ''didn't'' get over-written by the beast? All I really know is… however much humanity I had before, I've got one Hell of a lot ''less'' of it ''now.''"

I swallow again, and my next words are quiet, perhaps below the threshhold of human hearing: "I can't ''afford'' to lose any more."

Swallow. Deep breath, exhale. Back to a normal volume level: "Does that answer your question?"

The wolf nods. "I believe so, yes. Now it's your turn." So saying, he disrobes completely, one article of clothing at a time, starting with his cape and working his way down to the bare fur. Then he turns around, aping my earlier action; on him, it looks like a pirouette. "Here am I! Only one small bonus away from being as much a wolf as you are a cat, and damn lucky to be here. When I get tired, or sick, or drunk, I'm not even this well off. You could say I go to the dogs. Or haven't you heard about that little trick yet?"

"No." I shake my head. "Four on the floor, is that it? 'Look, Ma, no hands'? Strong and ''silent'' type?" The wolf confirms all three with a nod and a "Yes."

I say nothing for a moment, then chuckle. It's a genuinely healthy laugh, very unlike the noise I made last night. "Just can't stop yourself slumming among the voiceless, is that it?" I ask, a sardonic smile on my face.

Wanderer sighs and shakes his head. "You, sir, are incorrigible."

"So don't incorrige me."

He looks exasperated. "As if I ever have! Well. If you will be so kind as to excuse me, I ''do'' have other business to attend to. Good day, Jubatus."

"Be seeing you, Wanderer."

Suddenly, neither he nor his clothes are in the room. And I didn't notice him leaving… right, I took a catnap. Fell asleep without even realizing it. For some reason, this doesn't particularly bother me; must be ''good'' drugs Derksen's got me on.

Speaking of the doc-roach, he drops in to chew me out. There's a reason he put me on a metabolic depressant: I ''was'' running on empty. When the blast furnace I call a metabolism ran out of loose protein and nutrients to burn, it moved on to the next available source of fuel. Namely, my own muscle and connective tissues. Self-inflicted tissue damage, anyone?

No wonder I ache all over. No wonder Derksen wants my metabolic activity throttled back to where the body's got half a chance of healing. And finally, no wonder he's not happy about my vital signs spiking up to near ''my'' normal levels. He does something to the mix being fed into my veins, and I'm ''gone,'' Jack. Within seconds I can feel random pieces of my brain shutting down.

I spend the next week as a semi-intelligent meat puppet – or, if you like, Derksen's prescription keeps me mellowed out on a scale unseen since the 1960s. I'm pretty sure I had at least one more visitor, but I'll be damned if I can remember any specifics. Wonder what sort of conversationalist I was.

Seven interminable days. That's how long it takes the doc-roach to pronounce me healthy enough to release, if that's what I want – and want, I most definitely do. Inactivity grates on us cheetahs, medically-enforced or no. If it weren't for my status as a drug-induced zombie, I'd be leaving footprints on the goddamn walls and ceiling; as it is, I'm only a little annoyed.

I'm on the street three hours after I tell Derksen I want out, what with paperwork and reclaiming my stuff and other flavors of bureaucratic nonsense. Somewhere along the way, I pick up a week's supply of some fluid that's polysyllabic and hard to pronounce. I dub it Prozac Plus, the post-industrial strength pain reliever.

So I'm looking over the parking lot, and where the hell is my Ford Extremis? ''Think, cat! Alright, I remember pulling up at the Blind Pig, and then – oh, shit. '''I''' sure as Elysium didn't lock the car! God only knows what's left of it now…''

I'm back in the lobby at time T plus 3 hours 45 seconds, calling the 'Pig.

A female human answers. "Blind Pig Gin Mill. Susan speaking, how can I help you?" I think I recognize the voice; it's Donnie's daughter.

"Hi there. This is Jubatus. Could someone look out the window and tell me how bad the damage is?"

"Ah… hold on," she says uncertainly. I hear indistinct conversation-type noises. It occurs to me, belatedly, that I really ought to have explained the situation to her. Less than a minute later (and for once, ''my'' minutes and ''clock''-minutes match up with each other), Susan's back on the line: "Mr. Jubatus? We had your vehicle towed to the West Street Shelter, and you'll find it to be completely intact."

''Praise Hermes,'' I think to myself. "Thanks for the update," I say, punctuating this remark by hanging up. My next call is for a taxi.

The cabbie wakes me up outside the Shelter. I must've lapsed into unconsciousness again – gotta watch that. I pay the man, and it doesn't even cross my mind that I might have been overcharged. I make sure I don't leave anything in the cab before I disembark.

I trudge on up to the front door… ''so'' damned slow… and then inside. I can't recall the Shelter ever being this busy. Then again, I ''am'' stuck at ''their'' tempo for the duration – maybe it's ''always'' looked this way to slow eyes?

A human-seeming woman with a snake-cold manner about her interrupts my rubbernecking. "You would be Jubatus, correct?"

Her voice is cool and cultured. She looks important, maybe I've seen her before, but I'll be damned if I can remember where or when. "That's me. You mean there are ''other'' cheetahs in this town?"

A smile floats briefly across her lips. "You'd be surprised. Have you any business here besides reclaiming your vehicle?"

"Not really. If Phil was around I'd say hello, but I guess he's not here."

"Mr. Geusz is unavailable," she confirms. "However, I will pass the sentiment along to him. As for your car, follow me." So saying, she leads the way through corridors I'd get lost in without a guide. I laugh a little when it hits me that I actually have to hurry up to keep pace with her – who'd'a thunk it? I just smile and shake my head when she looks quizzically back at me.

We arrive at the Shelter's garage. Even to my drug-bedimmed faculties, it's obvious that they had to rearrange the place to make room for my Extremis. I wonder how many man-hours went into this unscheduled remodeling.

I get my checkbook out of my vest. "Look, you don't strike me as the kind that goes for senseless acts of random kindness," I say, and then I retrieve a pen. "How much do I owe you?"

"Fifty thousand dollars." If I had any eyebrows to raise, I would. I could buy another Extremis for that kind of money. Of course, it wouldn't cover a tenth of the modifications I've installed… I look at her. I think she's serious. What the hell, non-profits got to get their income where they can.

I nod. "Fifty grand. Isn't that a bit steep for parking?" I ask with a smile. I can afford it, I don't feel like arguing, I write the check.

She looks at the numbers as I write them. She says her next line with a deadpan delivery: "Did I mention the handling charges?"

"What?" I ask. "No, you…" That's when a neural impulse finally makes it across the lone synapse between my two functioning brain cells. "Oh. That was a joke, wasn't it. The 50 thousand, I mean."

"I'm afraid it was. But since you did ask…" She goes on; I tune out her voice and think about what I've just written. I realize that it's the literal truth: I ''do'' have more money than I know what to do with. I could let this check stand, and never notice or care. Hell, it's even drawn on my Petty Cash account!

I hand the check to her. "Here. Have a donation." After all, the Shelter ''did'' keep my car safe while I went AWOL. Value given for value received. Anyway, it'll be… hmm. "It's tax-deductible, right?"

Suddenly I'm in the driver's seat. Must've fallen asleep. ''Again.'' This is getting ridiculous – whoever heard of a narcoleptic cheetah? Thinking back, motion seems to be the key; my brain is active when, and ''only'' when, my body is. I call the hospital. Anyone think I ''hadn't'' installed a cel-phone in the car? Good.

Derksen must have anticipated me. The flunkie who answers is well-informed, says I can cut 15% off the dosage, and a like amount more if the spontaneous episodes continue. Praise the Lord, any Lord, any Lord at all.

Speaking of which: The dashboard clock says it's been more than four hours since I last ate, and I'm not hungry. I repeat: ''I am not hungry!'' Just a touch of appetite, I have to make a special effort to even notice it, nothing like the insatiable, bottomless vacuum that's inhabited my gut ever since I SCABbed over. God, it's been ''so'' bloody long…

I think I could get used to this. I even sustain that fantasy for a few seconds, until reality intrudes. You can't go home again, and I can't live at the normal tempo. Right now, moving the body feels like telepresence across orbital distances: My brain issues the command to do something, and there's a ''lag'' between thought and deed. A tiny delay, a mere fraction of a second, nothing big… but it's driving me bugfuck, because ''it's always there'' for ''everything'' I do!

And the lag is only the beginning; the body is ''slow,'' it moves at a snail's pace by comparison to what I've grown accustomed to. And on top of everything else, I'm so damned ''heavy'' – 32 feet per second per second, by slow standards, is only 5 plus change, by mine. ''You'' try living with a fraction of your normal energy level ''and'' lead weights hanging off of every joint. Me, I'm pretty sure I can stick it out for a week. Anything much longer, and all bets are off.

Enough. Gotta keep my mind on something else; Wanderer's offer is a suitable topic. He means well, but he's ''such'' a bloody optimist, I'd want a second opinion if he told me the Sun was shining. I think he really does believe his kids would be willing to work with me, I just ''can't'' buy into it on his say-so alone. I need hard evidence. Me sitting in with 'em on a song, now ''that'' I could believe, for good or ill. Ideally I'd want a song that plays to my strengths as a vocalist, but I haven't ''got'' any, damn it!

Pitch range? I can handle an augmented third, D to G in the bass clef. On those occasions when Apollo feels well-disposed towards me, I'm good for maybe 1 or 2 semitones more on either end. Anything beyond that, and you can start a betting pool on where my voice craps out first – tone, timbre, volume, or pitch.

Dynamic range? I'm good to go if and ''only'' if it's mezzo-forte. Louder or softer, and it's anybody's guess whether my volume level matches the composer's notation. Having spent a number of years (''my'' years) trying to make it do what it won't, it's my considered opinion that my current vocal apparatus just plain ''doesn't'' have the precision of the human version.

Tone and timbre? Forget it. You'd get just as good results trying to use a sound effects module as a voder. I should know, I arm-wrestle intelligible speech out of a completely non-human vocal tract. You may have wondered why I talk so much if I can't stand what I sound like? I need to keep in practice, that's why. It's ''not'' easy, and I ''really'' don't want to lose it again.

Endurance? Hmmm… maybe I spoke too soon. My human voicebox got replaced by a feline purr-box, and when's the last time any cat stopped purring to inhale? Yeah, I can keep a note going indefinitely. Give me one in my D-to-G range, and I'll do you proud… wait a minute…

God's teeth and gums! There ''is'' a vocal piece, I did it in college with that madrigal group, the entire bass line consists of a few quarter-notes at either end of an organ point – that's one continuous note, held until you keel over dead or the composer tells you different, whichever comes first – and it's an ''E-flat'' organ point! I can hit it as is, no need to even transpose the damn thing!

This is the kind of good fortune that leads some people to conclude there is a God. Me, I ask inconvenient questions, like where the hell was God when my voice died?

I break out a disc I couldn't bring myself to dispose of, even though I believed I'd never use it again. It's the old 4.7-gigabyte DVD format. Among other things, it contains my complete collection of multi-part vocal arrangements – including an early 20th-Century piece called '''''Balulalow''','' by a guy named Peter Warlock. '''''Balulalow'''.'' Stupid name, exquisite music.

I bring it up on my laptop's screen. Oh yes, I remember it well… The lyrics are English, just not ''contemporary'' English. Not good. Rather than force the group to wrestle with the likes of "with sangis sweit unto thy gloir", I spend a few minutes sandblasting the language down to modern specifications:

''O my dear heart, young Jesus kind, 
''Prepare thy cradle in my mind, 
''And I shall rock thee in my heart 
''And never more from thee depart. 
''But I shall praise eternally 
''With song sung sweet to glory thee; 
''The knees of my heart shall I bow, 
''And, artful, sing Balulalow!

Could be better, I suppose… Hell, nobody ''really'' listens to the words of these things anyway. Close enough for government work; it'll serve.

That problem solved, I move on to the question of assigning parts. It's SATB (soprano-alto-tenor-bass) with a soprano solo on the side, and the glee club does have enough warm bodies to pull it off even without me. Too bad they've only got 1 (one) soprano to work with. Okay… I give the soprano accompaniment to the tenor, Ringwolf, and bump Wanderer up from his usual baritone to the tenor line.

I print out seven copies of the sheet music, one for each of the vocalists who'll perform the damn thing – Wanderer, the five other members of his group, and me.

It's 11 PM. Time enough to lapse into a coma.

Next morning I wake up, thaw and devour breakfast, take the reduced dose of Prozac Plus. Much, much better than yesterday. I feel within arm's reach of normal, or at least what passes for normal in my life. Looks like I'm running at a tempo of 2, or thereabouts. Still a fraction of my ''usual'' tempo, still going easy on my overstressed body.

It's 7 AM on Wednesday. They'll rehearse tonight, starting maybe 8 PM? I've got time, and I spend it catching up on business I let slide during my unscheduled vacation. A lot more of it than I was expecting – no, it just seems that way because I'm not up to speed. Lots of e-mails, a fair number of "where's the work I hired you to do?" complaints. I send a mass e-mail to all my clients explaining that I had an unexpected medical emergency, that I won't be fully recovered for another few days yet, and that this is the first opportunity I've had to make contact with them. Clients whose deadlines I've blown get extra verbiage; I won't object if they invoke the penalty clause for non-performance, apologize for the necessity of even discussing it, and give 'em pointers to people who can finish the job if they decide to terminate their contract with me.

I spend the next hour conducting triage, deciding what jobs get which priority, then have brunch. Or at least that's the plan; my appetite isn't playing along. Of course – I ate for my ''usual'' hunger, not what I'm enjoying now. It's been ''so'' very long since my stomach stayed full for more than a couple of minutes! I don't miss the sensation. I feel ''bloated''. Gotta burn calories, and then some.

My Extremis has a royal mess of crap stacked around and over and under it. I don't bother summoning help from the Shelter offices; I just upshift and clear a path by myself, moving crates and machine parts out of the way, so I can drive out. I punch my tempo up to 10, as high as I can comfortably go right now, so it takes less than four clock-minutes. I then downshift, drive the car out to the curbside, park, upshift back to 10, and re-organize the Shelter's garage. This final task takes an hour of my time, including frequent curbside jaunts to make sure the Extremis is still in one piece. Only after the garage is ship-shape do I lock down my car. Then I take a nice, leisurely jog around the city at the default tempo, not bothering to shift up or down.

I said "around the city", and I mean that literally. Total circumnavigation of the greater metropolitan area. I move along the shoulder of the road when I can, cut through private property when necessary, use bike lanes and pedestrian paths when possible. Feels damn good… right, my glands are cheetah enough for the endorphins to ''really'' kick in, and my brain is human enough to enjoy the hell out of it.

I'll have to try this again sometime.

I'm back at the Shelter before 10 AM. The Extremis is still untouched. I drive the few blocks over to the Blind Pig, park, set an alarm, go back to work at a tempo of 8. I cube a slab of turkey breast, nibble on the resulting snack at random intervals. 7 PM is when I call it a day. Still got time to kill before the glee club shows; I go jogging again. If Derksen had known how it makes me feel, he would've prescribed 75 miles a day.

Back at the 'Pig once more, and it's 8:10. I make sure I've got the sheet music in my shoulder bag, then breeze on inside. They've just started Ado Annie's song from '''''Oklahoma''','' and ''damn'' they're good. Donnie's got fresh oranges today; I get a screwdriver, sidle over to them unnoticed, sit down and enjoy.

It's done too soon: "– caaaaan't saaaaaay noooooo!" they conclude, and the applause is why they rehearse ''here'' instead of some place with better acoustics. I make with a lupine howl instead of clapping – we cheetahs ain't half bad at sound effects. Good enough to fool Wanderer, who comes up empty looking for the new wolf. Heh. He does a doubletake when he sees me.

"Ah, Jubatus. It pleases me that –" He breaks off, puzzled. Now that I think of it, I don't believe he's ever seen me in ''this'' good a mood before. "You?"

"I went jogging. Runner's high," I tell him. "What's the matter, never seen a cheetah smile?"

He's speechless. I make a mental note of the occasion.

What the hell, that's as good a cue as any. I catch the glee club's collective attention by standing up. "Hello. I suppose you're wondering why I've called you all here today…" Well, ''that'' joke fell flat. Wanderer manages to crack a smile, but then he ''would,'' wouldn't he? Gesturing at him, I continue: "Benji here tells me you people are in the market for a pain in the ass who does vocal training on the side, and I'm number one on your short list. Fine by me, but first, I got two words for you all," I say, inserting a dramatic pause before my next words.

"I apologize."

Dead silence from the club. It's the tenor who is first to reply: "Who are you, and what have you done with that cocksucker of a cheetah?"

I smile. Familiar ground at last. "I love you, too, Ringwolf. Don't worry, the Jubatus you know and loathe will return as soon as the drugs wear off. In the meantime, I brought a peace offering with me."

I extract the music from my shoulder bag. First copy goes to Sunya, who isn't a centaur because her below-the-waist bits are pure jaguar. She's got these amazing green eyes, a more than decent soprano voice, and an attitude best described as prima donna with a feline accent. "Here you go, sweetness. Enjoy." She raises one eyebrow, affects that superior catlike expression, accepts the solo part as her due.

Next is the alto, Constance. She's part bumblebee; SCABS gave up on her after bestowing those distinctive markings up and down her torso, plus oversized compound eyes that have ''got'' to give her a ''very'' strange worldview. No idea how much ''internal'' remodeling she got, of course. Quiet girl, not all there. She nods and smiles her quirky smile, just like always.

Third in line is Ringwolf, tenor and Lupine Boy both, who gets along with me as smoothly as #5 sandpaper. He's better than he thinks he is, when he forgets the damn self-consciousness. He snatches his copy out of my hand before I can give it to him. "You write this?" he asks.

"Nope, it's a little before my time," I reply. "Who knows, you might like it." Ringwolf snorts by way of response.

On to the two baritones. I hit Wolfshead first, he's another Lupine Boy. He's easy to overlook; he's so bloody retiring a soul that I can't figure out how, or why, he ever hooked up with the Boys in the first place. Keeps to himself. I have no idea what he does when he's not at the Pig. "Thank you, sir," he says when I hand him his music.

"My pleasure," I say.

The second baritone is actually a ''first'' baritone, oddly enough – it's Wanderer. "Thanks indeed!" he says when he gets his copy. He freezes almost immediately when he sees what he's got, looks at me as though I suddenly turned into Richard M. Nixon, then shakes his head and blinks and focuses on the music. The rest of the crew started in scanning their own specific parts as soon as their music was in hand; Wanderer's looking over the whole thing. I can practically hear him working out the harmonic relationships in his mind, the dynamics, the overall tonal quality of the piece. And yes, he does mess with my part assignments. Heh. Amused, I think to myself, ''"Never be a choir leader" my ass, you melodramatic scenery-chewer!''

He focuses on something at the bottom of the first page. "'The basses are instructed to stagger their breathing, so as not to interrupt the smooth flow of sound'," he says, quoting the performance note that caught his attention. His eyes hold a question that I ignore.

"That's right," I say. "Composer's orders."

The last handout goes to Eltro Gannet, the glee club's ''basso'' absurdly ''profundo.'' He's got some bison in him; he's solid muscle, about two-and-a-third men wide, and with 15 men's dignity. I'd bet he's seriously annoyed at being stuck with a one-note harmony line (I wasn't happy about it myself when first I performed it, as I recall), but that kind of complaint would be beneath him, so he only says, "Mr. Jubatus? The bass line is… unusual."

"Sure is," I agree. "But the end result's gonna be worth it. Think of it as one of those sacrifices people make for their art."

So now everybody's got their melodic line, and Wanderer plays the various parts out on the piano, and it's not long before the whole group's prepped and ready for the first trial run. Before they do, I make my move.

I've got one final copy of the music. I take it out, move up next to Gannet. I ignore my elevated pulse rate as best I can. "Awwrrrhhh –" I begin abortively, clear my throat, try again. "I thought I'd sit in with you. Tonight. Unless anyone has any objections?"

Ringwolf looks like he does, but one look from Wanderer shuts him up. The not-a-leader asks, "So I am to presume that this is in the way of a trial run, then."

I nod. "Yep. And if you're wondering, I ''do'' know my part."

He doesn't even glance at the sheet music, just looks me in the eye. "Well, I am told that preparedness is a virtue. Very well." We get our starting notes from the piano, and we begin.

I let Gannet do the heavy lifting for those of the initial notes I can't hit worth a damn, but I'm right there when that big, beautiful E-flat organ point starts rolling…

For those of you who haven't heard '''''Balulalow''':'' It's an etherial soprano solo floating over a continuous, gradually-shifting chord structure. And it's beautiful. By all the gods that never were… it's one of the most ''beautiful'' pieces of music I've ever heard.

There's a difference between just ''hearing'' the music, and ''making'' it. And I've been on the short end of that difference for ''so'' damnably long a time… My cheeks are damp and getting more so. I don't care, it's not affecting my voice.

"My voice", now ''there's'' a joke. Christ almighty, what right have I to apply that term to the noise that comes out of my mouth! None at all, no right whatsoever. Not when I've spent ''years'' of my time desperately trying to smash a square peg into a round hole, sweating blood just to achieve a minimal degree of intelligibility, working my ass off simply to be ''understood,'' and any one of ''these'' people can blow me completely out of the water on their ''worst'' day.

So here I am with a song hand-picked to afford me every possible advantage, a piece that might as well have been commissioned especially for me… and I'm still a seventh-rater. Compared to ''real'' singers I simply don't measure up any more, ''and I never will.''

Alright, ''that'' affected my sound; I hope nobody else noticed. ''Keep your flipping mind on your part, Jube old boy.'' I manage to hold it together for the duration of the organ point, and let Gannet handle the notes I can't at the end. Pan and Apollo, the difference between me and them… I'm sorely tempted to swiftly and silently vanish away, but that would make this whole exercise a waste of time.

Now comes the hard part…

"What do you think?" I ask, and behind my poker-face, I am sweating bricks. The 2-meter concrete kind, that they build skyscraper foundations out of. I remember Ringwolf gleefully pointing out every last mistake he noticed in my performance, which is about 50% more than I actually made; Wanderer complimenting my taste in music; everything else they said might as well be white noise, for all I can remember of it. And then I'm walking calmly over to the counter for straight bourbon. No blood was spilled at the piano, so I guess it went well, and that brings us up to date.

Okay… so I can't sing worth a damn. Big deal. Lots of people can't. My vocalist days are done.

''t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat ta-tat – ta-tat tat tat''

It still hurts, and I don't know if I'd ever ''want'' the pain to go away ''entirely,'' but… Somehow, it just isn't as bad any more. I think the wound is finally starting to heal.

''t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat ta-tat – ta-tat tat tat''

Bit of an anticlimax, really. Especially after all that weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth I've been doing all this time. Whatever.

''t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat ta-tat – ta-tat tat tat''

Like I've always said, life is better when you accept Reality for what it is. No matter how hard it may be, accepting Reality is better than the alternative.

''t't't'rat, t't't'rat, tat tat t't't'rat, tat, tat, t't't'rat-t't't'rat''

That's interesting… haven't done ''that'' for a while; I'm tapping out rhythms on the table. I try varying between clawtips and finger pads.

''t't't'rat tyt tyt, t't't'rat tyt tyt, t't't'rat tyt ta-tyt – ti-tat tyt tyt''

Hmmm.

I'm done with singing… but maybe I'm not done with ''music?''

''t't't'rat tyt tyt, t't't'rat tyt tyt, t't't'rytta-tytta-tytta-tyt''

I walk over towards the piano, tap Wanderer on the shoulder.

"Yes, Jubatus?"

"You think you guys could use a little percussion?"

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Speedy Trials}}

User:Cubist/Second Heat

2009-02-16T10:24:04Z

Cubist: Fixing the TF tag

{{title|name=Second Heat|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF tag | type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
I hear some of you prefer Cliff's Notes to the original manuscript. Just for you, here's the short form: The Blind Pig Gin Mill acquires a new regular. A puzzle is solved, and the solution creates more puzzles. A lost soul begins finding its way back.

That's it. Now you can go away.

And the rest of you, who ''do'' want details? Stick around, they're coming.

My name is Jubatus, and I'm a cheetah-morph. Yeah, I can practically hear you thinking, "Hi, Jubatus!" to yourself, but don't bother saying it. There's no 12-step program for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, no matter that a lot of people would be much happier if there were. Me, for one.

A couple years back, when the Martian Flu hit me and I SCABbed over, I pretty much went into freefall— cut all ties to family and friends, buried myself in work and reading, only ''just'' meeting the MDR of social interaction. Pathetic, really. But I can't blame the disease; I was damaged goods already, and SCABS was more in the line of The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back.

Mind you, SCABS is one king hell ''monster'' of a straw. ''It killed my voice.''

I can speak, I'm not mute… I just can't ''sing.'' And two years down the line, even ''thinking'' about what's gone ''still'' hurts like gargling razor blades.

On the plus side of the ledger, I can now shift my personal time-sense up or down, from a high tempo of maybe 30 times faster than the norm to a low tempo of around one-third as fast as norms, with a default tempo of 6 or so. Although this ability has proven itself useful on occasion, for some reason I don't regard it as an adequate substitute for what I've lost.

But I digress.

Anyway: Once I got SCABS, my sanity started dribbling away fast''er.'' I didn't really know how bad I was getting; I sure as hell didn't ''acknowledge'' anything, not even to myself. I put up a pretty good front, keeping the inner demons at bay with nothing but sheer willpower, but even the best band-aid can't do squat for appendicitis.

I think the crisis point would have come 26, maybe 27 months after my fur coat arrived. I think I know the general outlines of the breakdown that would have occured, and I'm pretty sure I'd have gotten bigger headlines than Charles Manson ever did. Don't ask, neither of us needs the nightmares.

I first dropped into the Blind Pig at time T plus ''25'' months. That initial visit is when and where I met the rabbit whose throat I near-as-damn-all ripped out on sight, and who got my sorry ass into therapy. He doesn't know about the throat thing— it went by too fast for him to notice. His name is Phil Geusz, and I owe him, ''big'' time. So from now on, my motto is, '''''Nobody''' fucks with the rabbit.''

One month, maybe two. Damn right I'm a lucky son of a bitch.

I don't usually introspect, but today is special. Today I kill time in a waiting room. It's my first physical examination in just under two years, or it will be whenever that sloth of a Good Doctor deigns to see me. I've already read every magazine I could find, cover to cover, and conducted another exhaustive search of the entire floor just in case there's a copy of '''''Good Housekeeping''''' or '''''SCABbard''''' I missed the first time around. Same goes for the bulletin boards, posters, and other words on the walls. I think about it, but I'm still not desperate enough to touch the yellowing, poorly-dusted '''''National Inquisitor''''' some mouth-breathing norm left here 10 months ago, going by the cover date.

This is part of the price I pay for living at so much faster a tempo than the rest of the world: I always have time to kill. ''Always.'' I now regret having chosen to leave my laptop in the car— with my intrinsic speed, I really don't have to be all ''that'' cautious about my belongings.

It occurs to me that there's quite a lot of things I've been overly cautious, if not downright paranoid, about. And one of those things would do nicely to keep me occupied until the doctor finally shows. While I haven't tried it before, I see no reason why it shouldn't work.

I downshift 
                from the 
                        already 
                            slow 
                              human 
                             tempo 
                    and upshift 
          back to norm 

when someone rushes towards me. Correction: Some''thing, ''large and arthropoid. I believe it's Bryan Derksen himself, although it's hard to tell with polymorphs. Then again, it's a cockroach-morph ''and'' a physician— what are the odds? Gotta be Derksen, world-class researcher and so on. No complaints, but I am curious to know how come I rate ''his'' personal attention.

"You are Jubatus?"

"That's me. Dr. Derksen, I presume?" We shake hands. His chitin has an interesting feel to it. I find his scent vaguely irritating, for some reason— I don't ask what ''he'' thinks of ''mine.''

"Correct. Is that your first or last name?"

"Both, just like on the Smothers Brothers." He doesn't get it. Another perfectly good obscure reference wasted. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?"

He chitters— it must be insectoid laughter. "I heard about your first night at the Blind Pig." ''Oh, Lord, he doesn't mean..?'' My face flushes, not that it's visible under the fur. "Is it true that you ran all the way across the ceiling?" ''He does. Damn.''

"Look, I was blitzed." And I was, too, in spite of having a nitro-burning, fuel-injected metabolism that eats alcohol like a Bunsen burner. Had I known he was actually up to the task, I'd never have asked the bleeding minotaur to get me soused. "You— "

Derksen raises a shiny hand. I shut up. "Well? ''Did'' you?"

I have no truly clear memories of what I did before I lapsed into a coma that evening. I'm certain I made a complete, absolute, unmitigated imbecile of myself, and I've been too embarrassed to ask anyone about it. Whatever else happened, I'm pretty sure there was one point at which I looked ''up'' at the floor 10 feet over my head, even if I can't quite recall how I got into that position. "Well… I ''think'' so, yes. Like I said— "

Derksen shuts me down again. "Then that's why we're here. I can think of a few different methods by which you might have accomplished that feat, most of which imply at least one very interesting corollary."

"And you're going to find out which is true if it kills me."

He chitters again. "Right the first time— you cheetahs ''are'' fast. Shall we repair to my laboratory?" He puts an odd emphasis on the word ''laboratory;'' I am abruptly reminded of Colin Clive, who first played the mad scientist to Boris Karloff's Frankenstein monster.

"Lead the way. I'm warning you, though: I see even ''one'' Jacob's ladder buzzing away, I'm ''out'' of there so fast it'll twine your antennae together."

The next several hours are simultaneously dull and filled with activity. Not in the order of occurance: I get several tomographic scans, both whole-body and specific portions thereof. My eyes and ears are probed. I donate samples of blood, bone, muscle tissue, cartilage, saliva, fur, claw, and lymphatic fluid, among other substances. I get a variety of reflex tests. I run on a treadmill with my entire muzzle comfortably seated within a SCABS-friendly gas mask, and a forest of telemetric devices sprouting from random locations all over my body. I get tracer chemicals injected into some of my favorite blood vessels. The respective acuities of ''all'' my senses are charted. Environmentally sealed cameras are inserted up/down/into various of my bodily orifices. And so on, and so forth, procedures without end (or so it seems), amen.

I perform the physical tests several times over, at a different tempo each time. Such fun.

The doc roach and I end the festivities with a detailed examination of my voice (or lack thereof). Derksen got ''real'' interested after I pointed out that natural-born cheetahs have a wide variety of vocalizations, including a number of sounds made by ''no'' other cat; hell, cheetahs can even do ''bird calls!'' Decidedly strange, in view of ''my'' deficiency in this area.

I wish to God I had the background to understand more of the data that's been collected. Derksen, a highly competent scientist, says only that until he's had a chance to collate and analyze the data, his spiracles are sealed. Bastard. He does promise to page me as soon as he reaches any solid conclusions, which is something.

I deliberately scheduled this for an otherwise-empty day. I could've rescheduled my other appointments, except that my calendar only ''has'' one other appointment, which I'll be damned before I reschedule for ''any'' reason. Therefore, say it with me, children: ''Jubatus has some time to kill.'' I take a nice, relaxing walk back to my car at ''my'' normal tempo, by way of the entire outer perimeter of the hospital grounds with numerous excursions into the surrounding neighborhood.

Well, well, well. I see that my Ford Extremis has entertained a visitor, and he forgot his switchblade. I am shocked— ''shocked,'' I tell you— to discover that there is anti-SCAB bigotry in this fine city. Yeah, right. It's not the first time I've met up with this kind of situation, and I strongly doubt it'll be the last.

The knife protrudes from the left rear tire. I memorize every scent on the handle before I do anything else— whoever the clown is, I want at least the option of ripping him a new orifice if I pass him on the street. Judging from the color, odor, and consistency of the green goop that's oozed around the blade, the visit occured at 3:15 PM or so, about 3 hours ago. I take my camera from its pocket in my vest (which is normally the only garment I wear); I collect three sets of images, one in visible wavelengths, one in IR, one in UV. I can't sniff out any foreign scents anywhere but on and around the knife. I take deci-millimeter-resolution images covering everything within a half-meter of the blade itself, then millimeter-res covering the rest of the car (including roof and undercarriage) and the parking lot within two meters thereof. They'll be admissible in court— I made a point of looking into such things when I decided to stick around here. I extract a can of DeadGlove polymer coating from another vest-pocket and spray a goodly film of the stuff onto both hands. DeadGlove is inert and impermeable, it allows me to pull the blade out of the tire and not muck up the evidence with skin oils or whatever. I take a pre-creased Mylar sheet from yet another vest pocket, fold it up to completely encompass the blade and handle, and another shpritz of DeadGlove seals up the natural goodness inside the envelope.

Some folks can't believe how well I handle it when this kind of thing happens. What ''I'' can't believe is the fact that ''they'' find it unusual. Look, I'm a SCAB; do the math, already! I and my car are perpetually attractive targets for certain types of sleazeball, therefore I've previously had to collect evidence a time or two, so how stupid would I have to be to ''not'' get better at it, hmm?

By the time I finish, the pre-oozed green goop looks about ready to drop off the tire on its own. It pulls off with no effort, revealing a narrow slit filled with much darker green stuff, and ''no'' air loss. 'Slyme' is the goop's brand name; in my experience, it's the best sealant on the market. The fact that its appearance is enough to make idiots think it's full of Martian Flu virus is an added bonus.

The layer of DeadGlove peels off my hands easily— it doesn't even adhere to fur, hardly. I drive on over to the local precinct house, curious to know whether or not these particular police officers treat SCABs like people. I swear out a complaint, they take my statement, I beam the images onto their system, they take custody of the knife, a bloodhound-derived morph checks out the tire. All very businesslike and competent. If there's any cause for concern, I'm not seeing it. I make a mental note to send scabsonthenet.org a report.

I'm back in the driver's seat at 7:53. No word from the doc roach yet— as if I'd really expected anything this soon. I drive. Before long I'm parking near the Blind Pig, and anyone who's ever seen an Extremis knows why "near" is the operative word. That model has been aptly described, with surprisingly little exaggeration, as 'a suburban bungalow on wheels'.

I am wary as I approach the door, but not for the reasons you might think. From what I've gleaned off the Net, this bar is a hotbed of practical jokes; it seems that being the victim of a prank is a fairly reliable indication that the regulars regard you as one of their own. Acceptance into a larger community— what a concept.

Doesn't mean I have to blindly walk into a pie or sit down on a whoopie cushion, however. Perhaps they got it out of the way during my first visit— how could ''I'' tell, smashed as I was?— but until I know for certain, I'm going to exercise caution in my daily affairs. Especially with that lemon on my left, as the saying goes.

As I enter the 'Pig, nothing happens. Yet. Fine by me; I pick up a bag of Fritos and a tall, cool Meisterbrau from the counter, pay Sinclair, then move towards the piano where Wanderer is holding court. Son of a bitch, he's got a ''glee club'' going here!

I should turn away, not torture myself, but I am weak enough to succumb to temptation. I sit off to one side and listen to them sing. They're rehearsing… yes, it's '''''Lydia Rose''''' from '''''The Music Man'''.'' I ''do'' feel a sharp twinge, but I ignore it because I'm (figuratively) wearing my Reviewer hat. I cock my ears and focus on the mechanics of song. They've been doing this for a while. I detect a few flaws, nothing horribly serious. Pan's pipes, I've heard worse from ''professional'' vocalists! I revise my initial judgement of their quality upwards as they continue…

I blink. Time has passed. Yes, Virginia, there ''is'' such a thing as being ''too'' focused. "Excuse me?" I ask, looking around to see what got my attention.

"O'er here, Jubatus," says Wanderer. "Thine rapt attentiveness hath not passed wi'out notice. Prithee, would'st grant us the honor of thine opinion regarding our poor attempts at singing?"

"Helluvalot better than ''mine,''" I snap back at him by irritated reflex. No, I shouldn't ought to take it out on Wanderer; it was just a normal question like any performer, amateur or otherwise, might ask. Not ''his'' fault that ''my'' SCABS killed my voice. I shake my head, take another sip of my 'Brau. "Sorry, it's just, kind of a sore spot for me. Singing, I mean."

I inhale deeply, release the breath. "Okay. You're the tenor?" I ask one of Wanderer's little boys, a mere two meters tall. He nods, and I go on before he can speak. "Your enunciation sucks. Gotta work on that. Did you have that much trouble with it ''before'' your vocal tract got remodeled?"

"Cr-r-rave pardon, pard!" No need to wonder who said ''that.'' More quietly, Wanderer continues, "Would you mind leaving us our egos intact? We're not getting paid to do this, you know!"

"You're ''not'' getting paid?" I echo Wanderer, my surprise clearly evident to all. "You mean, ''this'' is strictly amateur?"

I think Wanderer is amused at my reaction, also pleased. "Yes. I take it you took us for professionals, then?"

"Damn right. I mean, why ''wouldn't'' I? Okay, different standards," I reply, shifting mental gears. "As amateurs go, you guys are one of the better— drat. Hold on."

With the impeccable timing of the inanimate, my pager chooses guess which moment to vibrate. It's nominally silent, but I can hear its motor whine anyway— the ears aren't decorative. I pull it from its vest-pocket, read its display. Derksen, already? I table the question of whether this surprise is good or bad.

"Excuse me, I ''must'' make a call," I say before hustling out to the nearest phone niche. I've got plenty of change with which to feed the machine.

"Hello. Is this Jubatus?" Derksen asks.

"Sure is," I reply. "I must admit, I hadn't expected you to page me tonight. You've got something?"

"Not me, but the speech pathologist in Chicago I sent the voice package to. He just got back to me, and I don't think you're going to like it…" Then with a few concise sentences, heavily larded with Latinate terminology, the bug turns my world inside-down and upside-out (and yes, I ''know'' what I just said). I couldn't be more shocked if demons had just flown out of my nose. Derksen says other things I respond to mechanically, purely on autopilot.

I hang up when the nice operator instructs me regarding the proper procedure for making a call. I walk back out into the common room, decidedly preoccupied, glancing lightly off of random customers as I go. Wanderer sees me, does a double-take.

"Are you okay, Jubatus?" he asks, his tone uncharacteristically somber. I am distantly aware of his concern. 'Distantly' is how I'm aware of ''everything'', at the moment.

"Fine. Just fine," I respond without tone or inflection. I haven't blinked once since Derksen dropped his bombshell on me. "No worries at all."

"So, what news?" he asks ominously. "Did Dr. Derksen find out what's wrong with your voice?"

"Yes. Yes, he did." I continue to stare forward. After a while, I realize that Wanderer is waiting for more details. "It's my vocal tract. I haven't got one."

"Oh, well, if— ''what??"'' He really punches up his bass on that last word.

"No vocal folds. Sinus cavities all wrong. That sort of thing."

Wanderer opens his mouth to respond, shuts it, frowns. For some reason, he goes with a bad James Earl Jones impression: "Then how…"

"Yeah. Me, too. The doc roach says a speech pathologist arrives Monday. I need a drink."

Wanderer nods slowly, and keeps the Jones riff going. "Yes. I think you do at that."

The normal chatter sounds muted in my ears. Everyone I pass by is thoughtful enough to make no sudden moves. The state I'm in, that kind of kind consideration is the only thing stops me from tripping over an outstretched leg or whatever. When I reach the counter it takes Sinclair close to 3 seconds just to notice my arrival, after which he plods wearily towards me. Must have had a long, hard day.

I stare at the wall blankly, as my mind is blank, waiting for the minotaur— all very Zen. In the fullness of Time, my field of view is gradually eclipsed by one of Sinclair's handwritten notes: [WHAT WILL IT BE, MR. J?]

"Mini-CD 50." This cryptic phrase is a request for equal parts water and catnip daiquiri (''i.e.'' the vile concoction that got me blitzed first time around), served in a beer glass rather than a 2-liter bottle.

Sinclair's bovine head creeps down, then up, before he slogs away to mix my drink. Everything he's done, he's done in a ponderous, enervated manner… and that's when I realize something is off. Make that ''has been'' off for a while, since just after I talked to Derksen, in fact. Bingo! Now I know what's up, and why. Of course— what should I expect when I'm hit with the sure knowledge that by rights, I shouldn't even be able to ''talk?'' Of course my control slipped! But now I'm back on top of things. It wasn't much of a puzzle but I solved it anyway, and as so often in the past, the solving helps me regain my equilibrium.

I sped up because I was distracted… It's a sobering thought: Absent a continuing, undisturbed act of will, I am a semi-intelligible blur to every other sentient being on the face of the planet.

I swivel on my barstool to look at the crowd, let myself revert back to my normal tempo. Scent doesn't change, but audio dopplers down and colors shift. I survey the gallery of voltage-starved audio-animatrons which (to ''my'' eyes) is the Pig's common room.

Downshift: It's a cheap dive filled with pain and triumph and stupid jokes and music and hurting and booze and hope and fear and bright lights and arguments and fellowship and shadows and diversity more infinite than Roddenberry ever imagined and ''life,'' damnit, it's ''alive'' in a way I haven't been for quite some time now.

Upshift: It's a strangely-lit exhibit of crude anthrobots in a sterile museum hall.

Downshift: I hear laughter and sobbing and singing and gossip and shared confidences.

Upshift: I hear a droning, ''alien'' sound effect, deep in the lower register, whose harmonic structure changes with the glacially slow turning of the seconds.

Two different worlds. Mutually exclusive. And a voluntary act of will allows me to commute between them.

A voluntary act of will… and I don't ''have to'' volunteer, do I?

I could live in fast-time ''all'' the time. I ''could'' do it, I really could. Hellfire and damnation, I ''have'' done it! In the last few weeks before I hooked up with the 'Pig, I hardly bothered to downshift at all, unless I needed something that wasn't available online for whatever reason. Fast-time has many advantages, not least of which is that it's ''safe.'' When I upshift, I am purely ''un-fucking-touchable.'' Okay, a laser charbroils me as easily as any of you slowpokes, but if it's not a direct hit, I'm ''elsewhere'' faster than any norm can hope to track me. And for anything much slower than photons, to say nothing of hand-to-hand attacks, fuggeddaboutit! We cheetahs are ''extremely'' damned good at running away. Not that I was so bad at running away as a human, mind you, which was (no, make that 'is') part of my problems.

Permanent fast-time. I ''could'' do it.

Never get hurt again. Never have to deal with another Humans First asshole. Never miss another professional deadline. Never have to scent or see that initial shock of fear on a norm's face when they first meet me. Yes, there are ''lots'' of reasons to abandon the slow world, if I've a mind to. The proposition is not unattractive…

…except for a very specific image in my mind's eye. I see an oversized rabbit, the interior of his trachea clearly visible from the outside, his body slowly cooling in a deep puddle of his own blood. That is, I see what I ''didn't'' do to Phil, but oh-so-horrifically-easily ''could have.''

I '''''really''''' don't want to go ''there.'' And if avoiding that fate means I get to suck up a little suffering on the side, I say it's cheap at the price.

''Time to rejoin the human race, Jubatus, old SCAB,'' I tell myself. Irony: It's not just for breakfast any more.

I turn to face the counter. That's interesting— how long has Sinclair been there, my Mini-CD in hand? Never mind, doesn't matter. I thank the minotaur kindly, trade some cash for the drink. I sip lightly and cautiously; even cut with equal parts water, a little of this stuff goes a ''long'' way.

I am on my way over to Wanderer and company when my bladder butts in on my internal dialogue. Best to relieve hydraulic pressure in the customary chamber, which ain't the common room. There's a wolfish type I don't recognize, clothed in well-worn denim overalls, at the bathroom doors. He stops me from entering the men's room: "Excuse me, sir, but we're working in there. You'll have to use the other bathroom."

I nod, acknowledging the plumber's words. I hadn't noticed the arrival of any plumbers, but then I was preoccupied. I get that way sometimes. I step thr—

''— attack: overhead: threat level unclear— ''

— and my back is to the wall, 7 feet off to one side of the door. Gotta love those hardwired instincts of mine, which have apparently upshifted me to a very high tempo. For the moment I seem to be something like 30 times faster than human, judging from the color of my fur and the stately downward motion of what's immediately above the door. Hmmm. That's one honkin' big water balloon, whose support was apparently rigged to give out when the door closed. And that was a ''lupine'' morph in overalls, steering me directly to the drop zone? He's a Lupine ''Boy.'' Gotta be, I'll bet C-notes to crumpets he is.

Now, why the hell would they want to drench…

They ''have'' accepted me. Only answer makes any sense. Now I know how Sally Fields felt and, well, it's a feeling I am not accustomed to. Just for a moment I seriously consider stepping beneath the balloon and downshifting; it's surely one way to acknowledge their comradeship. As well, whoever implemented this prank, it would be a pity to let their work go to waste, so..?

Naaah. I got a better idea. Rejoin the human race, yes, but I'll be damned if I'm going to just stand there and ''let'' someone make a fool of me.

Let's see… yep, it's all here. Duct tape from my vest, the folded chunks of cardboard that formerly supported the balloon, wastebasket liner and a roll of toilet paper from one of the cabinets under the sink, and of course the balloon itself.

This first bit's the trickiest: Catch the balloon, currently at head level and falling with ever-increasing celerity, ''without'' busting it or getting splashed if it breaks anyway. I wrap the trash liner around the balloon, hold tight, downshift with care, annnnndddd… got it! I sniff cautiously, and the unmistakable aroma of pine-scented cleanser assaults my nose ''through'' the synthetic rubber of the balloon. Figured as much. As for the cardboard bits, they carry enough of a foresty scent to overpower any other that might be on them— clever Boys.

From here on in, it's a piece of cake.

Upshift, some assembly required, downshift. When I'm done, the balloon (part A) is securely taped to the wall (part B) over the door (part C). A long, solid piece of cardboard (part D) is taped to the bottom of the balloon (part A)— one good tug on it, and say hello to tropical storm Pine-Sol. The roll of paper (part E) is taped to the free end of the cantilever (part D), and also has some tape looped around it sticky side out (part F). The cantilever (part D) is currently sticking out at an angle, supported by another piece of cardboard (part G) that's taped to the door proper (part C) and also has a duct tape "rope" (part H) connecting ''its'' free end to the wall (part B). And lastly, there's an area on the door (part C) full of double-sided tape loops (part I) that patiently awaits the kiss of their sister tape-loop (part F).

Rube Goldberg would be proud.

I examine my handiwork with a critical eye, envisioning how it will work. When I open part C to leave, part G gets pulled out from under part D; but that's okay, because part C will take up the slack. When part C closes, part D swivels down, lowering part F to make contact with part I. At this point, the door is armed and ready to zap whosoever next opens it. Even better, I'm effectively co-opting the Lupine Boy to ensure that no innocent target gets hit, since he will presumably continue directing noncombatants away from the line of fire.

I grin like a lunatic, I can't help it. Sure, I ''could have'' simply reset everything to the way it was before I walked in, but where's the fun in ''that?'' And fun or no, you just don't leave a work of art unsigned.

Never before have I dodged a bullet in a bathroom. It's a heady feeling— no, sorry, that's my drink. Whatever. Either way, I don't for a millisecond believe that I can keep it up indefinitely. It's only a matter of time until the Boys factor my reflexes into their battle plan, or else they come up with something that ''can't'' be short-circuited by sheer, raw speed. Good. It'll be a battle of wits, and I find myself relishing the prospect.

I review my handiwork once more and pronounce it good, then go about the business I originally came here for. I'll have to go into detail about the Pig's toilet facilities sometime; SCABS can add a ''frisson'' of interest to even the most mundane activities. I take another sip from my Mini-CD— what, you think I'm gonna leave a drink ''out there'' without at least an armed guard?— and walk calmly out the door.

The overall'ed wolf-type is where I left him. He doesn't stifle his surprise quickly enough to prevent ''me'' from noticing. Yep, he's in on it.

"I hope everything was satisfactory, sir?"

"Sure was," I say. ''What the heck, let's see if I can hit a nerve.'' "I must admit, some of the fixtures struck me as a bit odd… but then I don't spend a lot of time in ''women's'' bathrooms." He's good. This time he either doesn't let his reaction show ''at all,'' or else he buries it before even I can detect it. "Be seeing you," I conclude with a cheery Village-style salute.

I head back out to the common room. I see that Wanderer is already halfway to the facilities— such a coincidence.

"Ah, Jubatus! I trust thou 'rt well?" he says. I don't ''know'' why he insists on going all Elizabethan at the drop of a hat, but I have my suspicions. My guess is that he figures he'll never be able to do Inconspicuous ever again, so ''why not'' try to hog every spotlight within line of sight at every opportunity? He may have a point. To norms, a wolfman is a homicidal monstrosity, but a ''Shakespeare-spouting'' wolfman is a canine of quite a different color entirely. For me, it's bad jokes, puns, and obscure references do the job.

"Ay, indeed. Most well am I, and both hale and hearty to boot. The doc-roach Derksen, recently messed with my head, but now I'm okay."

He looks puzzled for a moment, then smiles as he gets it. "In sooth, our cheetah / Be ment'ly well enow to / Improvise haiku. Say, are the plumbers done with the men's room yet?"

''Gonna play it '''that''' way, are you?'' I shrug, my anatomical structure forcing my shoulders to move more forward than up. "No, according to the crossing guard there. Women's room is open, though."

He nods. "Certes, I be in thy debt for thine courtesy. Crave pardon whilst I attend to business most insistent!" ''Not insistent enough to make you cut out the Elizabethan jazz,'' I do not say.

"Go for it," I say to Wanderer's back as he continues on with all deliberate speed. He gets to that overall'ed lupine; they talk for a bit; he walks through the door to the women's room, at which precise instant several liters of aromatic fluid (like I said, it was a ''big'' water balloon) descend upon him.

I smile. ''Houston, we have splashdown.'' Poor lad's cape will never be the same.

It was definitely a well-conceived prank. At the moment of release, everyone within a 5-meter radius is instantly aware of the new aroma; doesn't take more than a couple seconds before ''every'' Blind Pig occupant with a nose is likewise aware.

All sound dies out.

There is a pause, not unlike the stillness which must have preceded the first test of an atomic weapon.

Long seconds later, a redolently dripping Wanderer steps out of the bathroom. He unlimbers a creditable glare, turning to take in each and every person in sight.

"You're ''all'' dethhh''pic''able." Bastard— his Daffy Duck isn't bad at all. The room detonates with laughter. He walks over to me with a steady, measured pace, seemingly oblivious to the surrounding merriment.

"I want you to know that I shall loathe and abominate you, with every fiber of my being, for all the remaining days of my mortal life," he declaims in a rich, ringing tone somewhere in the neighborhood of Patrick Stewart. Unfortunately, the fact that this full-bodied voice is coming from what looks very like a rain-soaked dog does work against the effect he's trying for…

I'm definitely feeling the effects of the Mini-CD. I let my eyes grow wide, put an expression of Innocence Betrayed on my face as best I can. I spotweld a quaver onto my voice: "But— does this mean the engagement is ''off?"''

Wanderer is a highly skilled actor. His own face is a cast-iron mask of Disapproval, offering no clue to what's ''really'' going on inside his head. He says nothing, turns around with a theatrical swirl of his cape that flings pine-scented droplets every which way— yes, I ''do'' intercept a few of them— and stalks back to where the Boys are waiting to razz him, up, close, and personal. Looks like rehearsal's done for the night.

''Now'' what do I do? I suppose I could try to strike up a conversation with someone, but my decades of avoiding personal contact have left me ill-equipped for interaction on a purely social level. If I ever did have a library of opening gambits such as I imagine most other people collect, I've long since forgotten it. I find this realization mildly disturbing, and I'm not sure why; I made certain choices about how to live my life, for reasons I considered good and sufficient at the time, and this is simply one of the consequences of my decisions…

…hmmm. This must be my day for introspection. Either I'm not very good at it, or else you're not ''supposed'' to reach any well-defined conclusions when you introspect, I'm not sure which. My pocket watch tells me I spent about a quarter-hour lost in my thoughts just now— good Lord, what has Wanderer gotten up to during that time? I cock my ears, eavesdrop from across the common room. Alright, I ''try'' to eavesdrop from across the room. The signal-to-noise ratio is terrible, but I don't want to risk moving closer, and I ''do'' understand ''some'' of what they're saying: "… fast … if we … Juba- … volleys …"

Good enough; they ''are'' planning out their next trick, and I'm the guest of honor. I take another sip of Sinclair's evil potion— diluted as it is, I can still feel it doing me harm. The taste ain't half bad, though.

I think I'll change the wolves' subject for them. I upshift, zip on over, sit down next to Wanderer, downshift. I might as well have teleported in, as far as slow eyes can see.

"Hi, guys. Miss me?"

My sudden appearance has the desired effect. I collect a variety of surprised reactions for my trouble— twitches, brew-spews, double-takes, and so on. Wanderer recovers first. "Well! 'Tis most certain that we did, friend Jubatus, albeit the precise mechanism by which our aim was diverted be yet a mystery."

I shrug, wave the implied question away. "I'm a moving target. Anyway, you really were serious about the glee club here not being pros?"

"How could we be? I don't know how to pronouce anything, and I'm sure the rest of us aren't any better." It's the tenor, apparently still unhappy with me.

I look amused. "You ''really'' need to develop a thicker skin. Bad reviews come with the territory when you're a performer," I reply. "Yeah, I said your enunciation sucked. But you know what? There's a whole lot of people out there whose enunciation sucks a whole lot ''worse'' than yours, and ''those'' guys ''still'' get paid."

"Oh, yeah? Name two."

I count them off on my fingers. "One: Bob Dylan. Even ''before'' he needed that respirator, he was one of the few vocalists bad enough for ''me'' to now have half a chance of singing better than. Two: The lead singer for the Kingsmen, I forget his name, but he's the schmuck who laid down vocals for '''''Louie Louie''''' that were ''so'' damned sloppy, the FCC officially declared that recording 'unintelligible at any speed'." Despite himself, the tenor smiles at that phrase. Good. "So if you guys just want to noodle around, sing in the shower and maybe volunteer for the occasional local gig, you're good to go, as is. Have fun.

"But if you want more, if you want to take it further, maybe see if you can attract and hold a paying audience? For what it's worth, I think you might well be able to do that right now. But, again for what it's worth, I also think that if you're all willing to invest some effort in smoothing out the rough edges, ''then'' you'd be ''more'' than good enough to turn pro."

If I'm reading their reactions correctly, this is not the first time they've discussed the P-word; said discussion resumes. I can actually offer some helpful comments, thanks to my having self-published a small number of tapes and CDs back when I had a voice. I touch on copyrights, compulsory mechanical licenses, what to keep in mind when assigning the order of songs for a project, other related matters.

Time passes without my being particularly aware of it. The discussion ends only when Sinclair calls closing time, which task he uses a hand bell for.

"So you're going to email me a record of your speaking voice, right?" I ask the tenor. "Until then, I'll get some netbots search— "

— ''attack: multiple projectiles: direction 10 o'clock''—

— upshifted again. Good old hardwired instincts.

I shake my head in disappointment, looking at the spheroids inching their way through the air towards me. Surely they can't imagine they can tag me with a mere volley of water balloons, not after that earlier demonstration of just how effective that sort of thing ''isn't?'' They're coming from a narrow range of directions, it's trivial to dodge the lot, just a step and turn—

— '''''SPQWLTLTT!'''''—

— straight into a pie. Lemon meringue. A pie that Wanderer just happened to be holding at the right position and angle for me to slam my face into. Part of an old song leaps, unbidden, to mind: ''"When I tried to step aside / I moved to where they hoped I'd be."''

Thinking back, there ''was'' a period when Wanderer was absent; hell, people were coming and going all throughout. Plenty of opportunities for him and his crew to plot and spread the word, especially with me being as oblivious to extraneous matters as I often am. And he just stood there with that pie, not moving quickly enough to trigger my 'early warning system', waiting for the surgically precise moment to use it.

Hell, ''he's'' a Looney Tunes fan, ''too.'' I can't do the appropriate voice, but the words alone should suffice. With a toothy grin, not to mention blobs of meringue and lemony stuff dripping off my face, I say: "I hope you realize— this means war."

His grin is a match for mine. "I wouldn't have it any other way." We shake hands. "Welcome aboard, Jubatus!"

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Second Heat}}

User:Cubist/A Good Run of Luck

2009-02-16T10:23:16Z

Cubist: Fixing the TF tag

{{title|name=A Good Run of Luck|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF tag | type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
I am a fortunate man.

Truly, I am.

I was born with many innate advantages — tall, good looks,
intelligent, an exceptionally fine voice, ''et cetera, ad nauseum.''

Even the Martian Flu has been remarkably kind to me. My initial
symptoms were indistinguishable from a mild cold, and I happened
to be asleep when it progressed to full-blown SCABS, thus sparing
me the unpleasant sensations that come while one's entire body
is reshaping itself into an alien form.

I had little trouble adjusting to my new body; in fact, my co-ordination
was far better after I woke up than it had ever been before. And
the good news doesn't stop there! This body has certain physical
capabilities far in excess of what I could do as a mere human.
Further, I retained in full my hands, voice, bipedal posture,
gender, organic nature, and intellect, albeit not quite the same
in all details. And finally, while there are some disadvantages
to my new form, each such problem came with at least one accompanying
built-in benefit.

And on top of everything else, I'm a SCAB-come lately — SCABS
only hit me two years ago, rather than at the time the 'Flu first
appeared on Earth. Can anyone doubt that this was another stroke
of good fortune? It was, truly, since it gave our Government and
legal system time to adapt to the concept of radical bodily transformation.
Identity theft was a major problem for the first crop of SCABs,
who, after all, no longer matched the ''human'' photos on their passports and driver's licenses and so on. Such
is not the case at present; nowadays, SCABs are only slightly
more likely to suffer identity theft than are baseline humans.
After a minimal amount of bureaucratic fuss, not much (if any)
worse than a visit to the DMV, I was legally acknowledged to be
myself, and could get on with my life.

I am a fortunate man. Truly.

Well, a fortunate ''male'', anyway. I have SCABS to thank for my tail; digitigrade legs;
built-in, all-over, spotted fur coat; feline-style face and head;
and all the other features that mark me for life as a cheetah/human
hybrid. Though my ''human'' looks are forever lost, I am assured that my present appearance
is quite handsome by ''feline'' standards. As well, my vocal tract has lost much of its versatility.
Thus did SCABS stop me from wasting any more of my time idly dreaming
of a career in voice work. Am I not fortunate?

As a bipedal cheetah, it's thematically appropriate that I am
speed incarnate. My metabolism, digestion, healing processes,
neurons, virtually all aspects of my body function at least an
order of magnitude more quickly than the human norm. This is a
mixed blessing. On the one hand, it took several realtime days
for me to re-learn how to react and speak and interact at the
normal human tempo, during which period I lost my old job (retail
'phone bank, if you must know); on the other hand, it gives me
a near-unbeatable advantage when dealing with anti-SCABS bigots
of a certain type.

I well remember my first encounter with SCABS-bashers — even
when I'd rather not. I was walking out of a bookstore, and they
intercepted me before I reached my vehicle (a converted van, about
which more anon). They couldn't have known much about me, as they
clearly took me for an easy target.

They probably thought that someone with my inhumanly slim build
had to be a physical weakling; they didn't know my muscles have
power enough to propel me at speeds above 65 MPH. They didn't
know about my heightened senses of hearing and smell, nor that
my vibrissae — cat whiskers — are just as sensitive to air currents
as those of any natural-born feline. They must have known that
my fangs and claws are dangerous, but I doubt it occured to them
that my feet are as well-equipped as my hands.

They couldn't have known just how ''fast'' I can be. I certainly didn't, at that time.

There were five of them.

I ignored them, hoping that they would content themselves with
verbal abuse and move on, but no such luck. They surrounded me,
and their intent was clear.

I am a fortunate man. Truly. When my fight-or-flight reflex
kicked in, the world ground to a near-halt around me, slowed down
by a factor of at least 20. Or, from ''their'' perspective, suddenly I accelerated to 20 or more times quicker
than I had been. Take your pick; either way, they never had a
goddamn chance.

I hadn't realized, before this encounter, this body comes with
hardwired instincts. And when I recovered from what I can only
describe as a berserk frenzy… it wasn't pretty. Not pretty at
all. Not the least bit.

I didn't kill them. This is important, you must believe me:'' I didn't kill anyone!'' Not one of them was dead when I left that place. ''All'' of my would-be assailants were living. All five of them.

There were legal repercussions, of course, but as with so much
else in my life, fortune favored me. Truly, it did. It seems that
three of the five had extensive rap sheets, two of them featuring
numerous SCABS-oriented hate crimes. In consequence, my statement
was accepted without question, and while one of the bigots' families
did prefer charges, the judge elected to throw their complaint
out of court. Something about us SCABs being a "suspect class",
I believe. See how fortunate I am? As for myself, I chose not
to file a complaint — what point would there be? Two of the five
died within three weeks, and the remaining three would be scarred
and crippled for life.

But I get ahead of myself. A few hours after the attack, visiting
an establishment of a kind I'd never felt the need to patronize
before, I discovered yet another of the many benefits SCABS has
bestowed upon me: I can't get drunk. With my hyped-up metabolism,
alcohol simply doesn't stay in my system long enough to affect
me.

However, my tear ducts are still fully functional.

Three days after that abortive assault, I left my hometown.
I haven't been back since. It was not difficult at all, thanks
to my then-landlord. I'd known of his allergy to cats, of course
— it was the reason feline pets were forbidden to his renters
— and so I was unsurprised when my rent tripled after SCABS hit
me. Had I not been fired, I might have considered fighting the
rent increase; as it was, I couldn't afford to exercise my rights
under the law. He did return my deposit, which was quite helpful.
So with my savings and severance paycheck, I bought a second-hand
Ford Extremis and converted the cargo space to living quarters.
Of my possessions, I sold what I didn't want or need to keep;
took with me what the van had room for; and put the rest into
storage. I really needed to winnow out the excess crap anyway,
so it's fortunate that my landlord gave me the impetus to do so.
Truly, it is.

While this put a roof over my head, it did nothing for my income.
Then and ever since, online contracts have kept me afloat. I'm
talking web design, copy editing, graphics, programming, you name
it — anything I can do through an Internet connection. On the
'Net, no one knows you're a SCAB, as the saying goes. And I can
comfortably take on more contracts than the average freelancer:
Not only does my natural tempo give me the functional equivalent
of a 100-hour day to play with, but I have discovered that I almost
don't need to sleep. A few catnaps scattered through the day are
sufficient unto my needs, and I can get them over with in a few
seconds apiece by slipping into fast-time. Thus do I make far
more money now than I ever did when I had a stationary home. Truly,
am I not fortunate?

I haven't had a fixed address since. Not for snailmail, that
is — my fiver@jubatus.nucom e'ddress has been quite stable, thanks
for asking. I travel the country, going from place to place as
the spirit moves me. ''My'' spirit moves me in a predictable fashion; one slashed tire or
broken window, and I'm out of there.

My migratory existance doesn't preclude social interactions.
Such comradeship as I need, I get through my laptop. Email, newsgroups,
instant messages, that sort of thing suffices. Truly, it does.
That, and the occasional face-to-face meeting when I'm in the
neighborhood of an online acquaintance. It's not like I had many
offline friends even before I SCABbed over, so goodbyes were rather
less of a problem for me than one might expect.

As for my online comrades, it's interesting to observe their
reactions when they first see me in the flesh. While I've never
volunteered the fact that I'm a SCAB, neither do I deny it when
asked. Most people get over their initial nervousness quickly
when they meet me, and the ones who can't, aren't worth my time.
Thus does my inhuman appearance reduce the number of twits and
idiots that I would otherwise be forced to deal with on a daily
basis. Since I have never suffered fools gladly, I count this
as fortunate. Truly.

Among other benefits, this gives me more time to read. Three
years ago, I clocked in at 900 words per minute; now, particularly
when I shift into fast-time, my reading speed would put an Evelyn
Wood graduate to shame. I used to think I was a voracious reader…
and then SCABS taught me the ''true'' meaning of that phrase. Truly, a most fortunate turn of events
for a bibliophile such as myself. And as a side benefit, I'm building
up a truly impressive collection of library cards in my travels.

You needn't bother telling me; I already know that I overuse
the words "fortunate" and "truly". Do you think it makes me sound
like Pollyanna? If so, you are more right than you know. I've
read the book, and Pollyanna was no mindless optimist. She was
fully aware of how terribly cruel the world can be. For her, looking
on the bright side was a deliberate, premeditated choice. It worked
for Pollyanna, and it works tolerably well for me.

Oh, I know the statistics. I know the suicide rate, median income,
homeless percentage, violent crimes commited against, mental health
figures, all the dismal litany of the "average" SCAB's existence.
Christ on a sidecar!, I ''know'' the bloody numbers, I could recite them under anaesthesia (if
anyone could find a drug that kept me under long enough to do
it), and so far, I've beaten the odds. For two long years running,
I have beaten the odds, do you hear me? ''I have beaten the odds!''

I ''am'' fortunate. Truly. And if you think I perhaps shouldn't need to
remind myself of this fact quite as often as I do, if you don't
agree with my tactics, you may kiss any of my furry cheeks that
strikes your fancy. It's ''my'' case of SCABS — ''my'' life — and by the God I don't believe in, I'll continue to cope
with it ''my'' way, thank you very kindly for asking. I've gotten by on my own
quite nicely thus far. And for some peculiar reason, I simply
don't see any great need to cast aside a tactic with an established,
favorable track record just to adopt someone else's unproven,
ill-informed, yet oh so very well-intended advice. Whatever else
that bloody disease has taken from me, I still retain my full
original complement of IQ points, and I'm not afraid to use them,
damn your eyes! I don't want or need your sympathy, and I will
'''''not''''' be patronized. By '''''anyone'''''.

Bitter? ''Moi? ''Of course not. Truly. I'm such a fortunate fellow, there's not
a blessed thing in my life that I could ''possibly'' feel bitter about, least of all "the gift that '''really''' keeps on giving". Why, SCABS has even improved my sarcasm, it
has!

I'm sorry, I've been a trifle overstressed of late — you didn't
need to hear that.

It won't happen again.

I'll make certain it doesn't.

I ''am'' feeling more stress than usual, mind you. I just can't figure
out why, as I've been fortunate enough to live a fairly stable
life over the past year or so. I'm not getting any less sleep
now than I did before; my workload hasn't changed; my brushes
with bigotry are fewer, since my growing familiarity with the
warning signs has made me better able to avoid such situations
to begin with; and it surely can't be ''directly'' related to SCABS, considering the two whole years I've had to
grow accustomed to myself. All of which said, nevertheless I am
indeed feeling an inordinate level of stress, even if the cause
eludes me. These days I've got a mild headache 24/7, among other
symptoms. Annoying, true, but nothing I can't live with until
I figure out what's going on.

Perhaps a bit of sightseeing will help. To my chagrin, I realize
that I can't remember the name of the city I'm now parked in —
stress. Definitely stress. No matter, that's why God invented
civilian GPS units. I fire up mine, and I know where I am. Next
on the agenda: Locate a few sights to see. I surf the web to scabsonthenet.org,
and not just because I did much of the initial design for that
site. I do like to see how much of my work they're still using,
granted, but it's also a damn fine set of resources for SCABs
in daily life.

In particular, I'm now consulting the regional index of tolerance
for SCABS. I conceived it as a scrollable, zoomable map with various
regions color-coded as either green ("you're a SCAB? great! I'm
a Virgo"), blue ("gosh, it's too bad you can't stay longer"),
red ("we don't ''like'' your kind 'round ''these'' parts, friend"), or black ("burn the freaks! '''now'''!"). Mindful of my own visual deficiencies, I spent a bit of time
finding tints and hues that can be distinguished even by the legally
color-blind. It may be an aesthetic disaster, but the damn thing
''works''. Hmmm, that's interesting. The map's colored regions now have
distinctive crosshatch patterns in addition to the colors. I didn't
do that, but I think I understand; it makes the map usable for
people whose retinas can only distinguish black from white. And
there's a link to a "sonified" page? They ''have'' been busy, haven't they?

No, I'm not just farting around on the Net. By myself, I percieve
Time at a rate at least six times faster than normal humans; why
do you think I had to re-learn how to interact with normal humans?
And the site I'm visiting is built for speed. It's a lean, clean,
infosharing machine, with none of those bandwidth-sucking bells
and whistles that make so many other sites a Chinese torture for
anyone who can't afford the latest and greatest Net-toys. ''This'' site only does animation with 8-bit GIFs, the way God and Vint
Cerf intended, and it reuses them with wild abandon. In short,
the time I spend here is minimal. And even if it weren't, I've
found that reviewing my past work often sparks a sense of pride
and accomplishment that helps me cope with life's little disappointments.
This, I'd say, is far too important to be dismissed as wasteful.

But I digress.

I've found the regional index to be quite useful in my travels.
The data comes from reports emailed in by SCABs around the world
— not unlike, oh, the Zagat tourist guides — and I do appreciate
having advance notice of just how unpleasant my first exposure
a new town is likely to be. Here we are; the site mates with my
GPS as though they were made for each other (they were), it zooms
in to display the city within 20 blocks of my position, and there's
a beautiful green spot on the map.

Well, well, well. It's the Blind Pig Gin Mill. I've never been
there, but word does get around if you know where to look, especially
to message boards and USENET threads and so on. For that matter,
a few of my email correspondents drop in there every so often.
Some people are well and truly besotted with it; messages from
them paint the 'Pig up to be Callahan's Place made real.

I'll believe ''that'' when I see it.

Still, even the most hardened cynics admit that it's a fairly
comfortable place for a SCAB to get soused in. If it only lives
up to that undemanding standard, I'll be satisfied; anything more
would be pure ''lagniappe''. I slip into the driver's seat, spark the motor, and I'm off
to see the Blind Pig.

Traffic is traffic — except if you're in Boston, in which case
traffic is Hell — and I am fortunate enough to get an opportunity
to give my store of French expletives a good workout before I
reach my destination. The Blind Pig is an unimpressive hole-in-the-wall
kind of bar in a ''very'' lived-in neighborhood, and the cars in its parking lot say something
about the financial status of its patrons. My own vehicle stands
out, and not just because of its behemoth-like size: No dents
in the bodywork.

I arm the defenses, prime the sensors, re-check certain gauges.
Only then do I exit the cab and lock 'er down. I've sunk quite
a few dollars into my mobile home, and I don't care to lose any
of it to some moron who had nothing better to do than whale on
a SCAB's vehicle. Every broken window gets replaced with Lexan
II polymer; there's only one of the original glass ones left.
The tires are both puncture-resistant and filled with an amusing
greenish fluid, good both for sealing knife slashes and for scaring
the shit out of vandals who jump to the conclusion that the wheels
contain live Martian Flu culture. Can't imagine why, other than
maybe the numerous "biohazard" symbols stenciled on strategic
locations. Or perhaps it's the bumper stickers — "SCABS Is Not
For Sissies" is one of my favorites.

Then again, perhaps it's the active measures I've had installed.
The ''real'' transmission, fuel lines, and so on, are all safely concealed
behind an armored undercarriage plate; what ''seem'' to be vulnerable tubes and cables are, in truth, filled with
a fluid that my car finds quite inessential, under 7 atmospheres
of pressure. It's mostly water, with cornstarch for a hint of
non-newtonian sliminess, syrup for adhesion, a couple other inert
ingredients, plus a damned expensive catalyst that makes the inert
stuff react with certain chemicals in human sweat to create an
exceedingly color-fast dye. In other words: Any son of a bitch
thinks it's a good idea to hack at my brake lines, he gets a face
full of something that feels like a bacterial culture and turns
his skin a ''very'' bright shade of green not found in Nature ''that doesn't wash off.'' I can't put the fear of God into such idiots; fear of SCABS,
now, ''that's'' something they've ''already'' got, and I'd be an idiot myself not to use it against them.

It occurs to me that I'm lingering at my car, and I don't know
why. It's a ''bar,'' for God's sake. An exceptionally SCABS-friendly bar. With a minotaur
barkeep who doubles as bouncer, or so I've read. And I ''chose'' to come here of my own free will. What the hell am I waiting
for?

Perhaps it's that my Extremis is the only point of familiarity
in some Godforsaken candidate for urban renewal I've never seen
nor visited before…

Stress. Definitely stress. I need to unwind, and ''will'' enjoy doing so.

I step across the threshhold. Almost instantly I feel, I don't
know, I can't put a clawtip on it. Whatever this unidentifiable
sensation is, however, I know that I like it.

The joint is jumping, as they say. I pad silently through the
crowd, trying to attach faces to any of the names I've gleaned
from electronic messages. The (literally) bull-headed man tapping
a fresh keg is easy, he's got to be the bartender, Donald Sinclair.
There's a flamboyant, caped canine SCAB seated at the piano, his
back to the keys, chatting up some sweet young thing. Near the
counter is a pack of canines that must be the Lupine Boys.

I don't realize I'm gravitating towards the jukebox until I'm
right up next to the infernal device. It looks to be a late '90s
Wurlitzer, I think. By some quirk of fate, the jukebox is playing
Bobby McFerran — '''''Don't Worry, Be Happy''''' — and I am pleasantly surprised to find that it no longer pains
me to listen. Can the emotional wounds have healed? Truly, another
stroke of good fortune! I forget myself, purr an improvised basso
accompaniment to McFerran's multitracked ''a capella'' —

"Keep it down, willya?" These words are uttered, quietly, by
the female to my left. A cheerful woman, she is marked as SCABS
only by her nonhuman pupils and lightly-scaled skin. She is mildly
intoxicated. "I'm tryna lissen here." Of course. I fall silent.

If the wounds were healed, at least one has just re-opened.
I move away from the jukebox, concentrate on sounds in my immediate
vicinity. Anyone who objects to being eavesdropped upon has no
business conducting a conversation in a SCAB bar.

People converse around me. I say nothing; it's impolite to butt
in. I slip through the throng like a Stealth bomber, observing
without being observed. My goal is the counter. I intend to see
if Sinclair is up to building a pousse-cafe, a rainbow whose seven
liquid layers are held separate only by their differing densities.
Bartenders fall into two classes: Those who can't make a pousse-cafe,
and those who are very, very good.

"Gr-r-r-reetings, pard!" The "r", far from a growl, is magnificently
rolled. I'd already known that one of the wolves was approaching
(my sensory enhancements, you know how it goes) and with that
oh-so-teddibly-propah Received Standard accent, I feel it's got
to be the cape wearer. It is — such a surprise. He offers his
right hand; I like theatrical, that's why I follow his example.
He's got a firm grip, solid without being uncomfortable.

"'Pard'? Sorry, Rin Tin Tin, wrong species. I'm no leopard,
I'm a cheetah."

"Quotha!" expostulates the refugee from a Shakespeare festival.
"Thou'rt truly educated!" I blink at his use of the "t"-word.
He goes on with a sly expression: "Mayhap o'erly so, as all of
Christendom do know that divers and sundry other felines be contained
wi'in the compass of yon word."

"Oh, well, if you want to get ''technical'' about it…"

The wolf grins broadly. "Well met indeed! I hight Wanderer,
and 'tis a most fortunate fate hast led thou hither." I can't
help it; I burst out laughing. Wanderer is ''so ''blatant, lays it on ''so'' thick, and then he has to go and say my two favorite words. What
the hell, I'll play along.

"Certes, it be that in all good sooth, friend Wanderer. An thou
hath spake thy name unto me, so now doth I reciprocate: Jubatus
am I yclept."

The wolf's eyes are wide. I really don't think he was expecting
''that'' kind of reaction. He snaps out of it very fast, for someone who
isn't a cheetah. "Gadzooks! 'Unless mine ears mistake me quite
/ It seems this Wand'rer of —'"

My smile fades; I shake my head and hold up one hand. Wanderer
lets his stanza die. "No. I came here to get plastered, not talk,"
I say.

He looks into my eyes. "Let me guess. You're an actor, am I
right?"

I ''had'' been wearing a smile. You can tell. Truly. "Not really. Once
I sang in the chorus of ''HMS Pinafore'', but that…" My posture sags, my head bows. I ''would ''have to remind myself, wouldn't I? A fine way to kill a mood.
I sigh before continuing. "That was a ''long'' time ago." I turn to the minotaur. "Mr. Sinclair, I believe?"

"He hight Donnie," Wanderer points out helpfully. I half-smile
without looking at the wolf, and Donnie stands before me with
an expectant look on his face. Now I remember — SCABS pressed
the "mute" button on him. Permanently. By comparison I ''am'' fortunate, well and truly, but I haven't yet crossed over the
jagged, gaping chasm that lies between ''knowing'' it and ''feeling'' it. Not sure if I ever will. Don't know if I ever ''can.'' I suppose it's petty of me to continue brooding over my own trivial
impairment, isn't it?

If it's ''so'' goddamned trivial, ''why does it still hurt like a fucking shrapnel grenade to the chest??''

Abruptly, I realize that Donnie (hell, the entire room) stands
in the stillness of fast-time. I ponder, make a decision, then
downshift to ''their'' speed. "I'd like to show you something, Mr. Sinclair — establish
my ''bona fides.''" I rest an elbow on the counter with my arm pointing straight
up; I pivot to lay my palm on the formica countertop, then return
the arm to an upright position. From here on it's lather and rinse
and repeat, like it says on shampoo bottles. I continue to move
my arm in this way, upshifting to fast-time and beyond as I do,
until slow eyes perceive my arm in two places at once with a translucent
blur in between. Just for the hell of it, I make the two arms
circle slowly around each other for a second or so before I downshift
back to the common tempo.

"Mr. Sinclair, what I ''want'' is to get blind, stinking drunk. I'm talking throw-up-on-the-floor-and-not-remember-it
drunk, would-you-like-some-blood-in-your-alcoholstream drunk.
But I've got a metabolism like a blast furnace, so what I'll ''settle for'' is anything that's good for better than a mild buzz, and keeps
me there for more than a half-hour. What have you got for me?"

"Mmmmmm," the minotaur remarks thoughtfully. He fishes a notepad
and pen from a front pocket, and — good Lord, he's actually ''writing in longhand!'' It's the 21st Century, and this poor SCAB bastard is still using
''pen and paper'' to communicate? I can't believe what I see; ''any'' damn body can afford a voder, you can get a KV-140 for… Oh.
Right. With a 140, you're typing out everything letter by letter
anyway, and the voice sucks worse than mine, so why bother?

I'm a technical writer; solving problems is how I make my living.
To have my nose rubbed in a need like this, is to instantly start
figuring out how to satisfy said need. Keep the retail price under
$50, meaning parts cost of $10 or less… I am lost in my own
private cyberspace, The World Inside The Crystal, working out
details and making notes to myself to research areas that I'm
ignorant of.

Truly, a technocrat like me is fortunate to have a overclocked
brain, even if it did have to come courtesy of SCABS. I've already
created rough cuts of three different interface designs, one of
them based on good old hunt-and-peck, when a loud ''thram'' on the counter brings me back to reality. I see Sinclair's notepad:
"HOW ABOUT I MIX YOU UP A CATNIP DAIQUIRI, MISTER CHEETAH?"

I look into the middle distance, pondering. A catnip daiquiri,
for God's sake? What kind of twisted mind would ''conceive'' of such a monstrosity? Donnie's, that's what kind. "Go for it,"
I reply. "This could be… ''innnnn''-teresting."

Donnie busies himself with his mad creation; I busy myself with
filling in more details of the schematic I'm constructing in my
mind. I'm truly a problem-solving animal, and it's fortunate that
SCABS granted me the ability to solve them so much more quickly.
Almost makes up for the insoluble problems that came with it.
Goddamn package deal.

I hear Wanderer say something to me and I don't even look at
him. I ask him what he knows about the 2001 Crusoe architecture,
and he shuts up. Time passes. I am abruptly wrenched out of my
technogeek trance, this time by an odor most peculiar and insistent.
I look around, blinking, and see Sinclair before me. Him, and
a cut-down 2-liter bottle filled with the source of the aroma
and a corrugated tube. ''Jesu Christe,'' I'm getting buzzed from the smell alone! I can feel my nose twitch
for the fluid; my tongue moves with a mind of its own. I smile
at Sinclair, being careful to keep my teeth as well-hidden as
I can manage. "If that stuff lives up to its advance PR, you're
getting a ''real'' big tip."

Sinclair nods. His facial anatomy is no good for smiling, but
I'll be damned if he doesn't give the impression of a smile anyway,
I have no idea how. I raise the converted coke bottle to my muzzle,
close mouth on the straw and sip an experimental sip.

Oh, my dear Lord…

The catnip daiquiri is good. Very good. Very ''extremely'' good. The afterburn sears my palate, tongue, and throat with
imperious vigor, and when it hits my stomach, the results are
not unlike the reaction one might get from throwing a stick of
dynamite into a blast furnace.

A good chunk of time passes in a catnip-and-alcohol haze. Nothing
is clear, but I think I'm a loquacious drunk, presuming "drunk"
is the right word for a victim of Donnie's evil potion. Loquacious,
and highly energetic — such a surprise, hm? I think I spew rapid-fire
jokes and puns; mourn my lost singing voice; drink people under
the table with Coors beer; berate the damned jukebox; perform
a Flamenco dance (my first) on the counter; cry when even my Peter
Lorre goes unrecognized, for God's sake I can't even do ''Peter bleeding Lorre'' any more; soundly thrash Wanderer in an impromptu session of
Name That Folio; and God knows what else. I shift up and down,
not just from fast- to slow-time and then some, but also in wild
emotional gyrations. I'm a 33-RPM manic-depressive playing at
78. I am dimly aware that my behavior is within arm's reach of
textbook insanity, and ''I don't fucking '''care'''''. The tighter a spring is wound, the more violent its thrashing
when it's released, not so? Zoroaster ''knows'' how tightly ''this'' spring has been wound over the past two years.

So it is that a hyperactive cheetah-morph bounces off the walls
(literally, at least once) of the Blind Pig until even the Sinister
Fluid of Donald Sinclair cannot fuel further activity. Total elapsed
time, from taking that first sip to the ultimate loss of consciousness,
might be as long as two hours, probably less. Cheetahs aren't
known for their endurance.

I don't remember falling asleep…

{{separator}}

''physical contact: food creature: harmless: attack in progress''—

— and at the instant of my awakening, I find that I occupy
a large, overstuffed chair (but how — never mind) and one hand
is slashing at a rabbit-morph's neck in a swift, lethal arc. I
am ''just'' able to curl my fingers in time to prevent my claws from gouging
into it, deep and deadly. I flip sideways out of the chair, putting
the lapine well out of harm's reach. How could I have been so
stupid, allowing myself to fall asleep in a place I've never been
where I don't know anyone? My heart hammers out a post-techno
beat, 6 per second, as I realize how terribly near a thing it
truly was. Exactly how close I came to committing murder during
that fraction of a second when the body's instincts were in the
driver's seat… I shudder. Uncontrollably. I'm running on fast-time,
to my eyes the room's other occupants are hardly moving. Must
slow down — it's impolite to be unintelligibly fast. I am shaking
when I decelerate to their tempo, and not just because of the
aftermath of the receding adrenaline rush.

"Geez — I knew cats are high-strung, but ''this'' is ''ridiculous!"''

The cheerful voice belongs to the rabbit-morph. He has neither
the sound nor scent of a person who has just escaped bloody death
by a painfully narrow margin. Only then does it hit me: ''He doesn't know.'' From his viewpoint, my action must have appeared as nothing more
than a sand-colored blur and a ''whoosh'' of air. I should say something, but how do I tell an innocent
man that the simple act of waking me up brought him '''''this''''' close to being killed and eaten?

Still shaking, I lean heavily on the chair I'd just vacated.
God only knows what kind of expression is on my face. ''Now'' the rabbit is afraid (a bit late there, friend). He doesn't look
it, much, however. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, and
his voice is almost level.

I shut my eyes and concentrate. ''I '''will''' calm down. I will '''not''' break here and now, goddamn it!'' It works as designed: I stop shaking. I appear perfectly at peace with myself and the world. "Thank you, but there really isn't
anything ''to'' talk about," I say with a confident smile. ''Nothing other than, "Hey, I bloody near '''wasted''' your cotton-tailed ass when you woke me up just now. How about those 'Niners, huh?"'' I may not be able to sing worth a damn these days, but SCABS failed to rob me of my vocal control. My voice sounds exactly as the voice of a bipedal cheetah should; no tremors, no strain, and my tone is mildly apologetic, suggesting that minor degree of regret appropriate to having just wasted a small amount of someone else's valuable time. I've still got it. Still got my control. Fortunate. Truly.

I smile and continue: "I do appreciate the offer, but truly,
you needn't worry about me." I shrug, spread my hands. I am as
steady as a rock, and display my true state of mind every bit
as accurately, too. I look around; the ambient sounds and aromas
already told me, and my eyes confirm, that I am among the last
customers. I turn to Donnie. "I see that you're getting ready
to close for the evening; I really shouldn't detain you from your
duties. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?"

Donnie and the rabbit look at each other for a moment. I sense
something pass between them, some private understanding. Then
the lapine says, "You know, there just might be something you
could do. See, I'm what you might call a counselor."

"That's funny — you don't ''look'' half-Betazoid," I interject, going straight for the jocular.

The rabbit rolls his eyes and doesn't ''completely'' conceal his amusement. "Star Trek Lite. And here I was thinking
that you had taste." I am about to respond, dragging the conversation
further afield, but the rabbit doesn't allow me the opportunity.
"Anyway, you're right, that's about the size of it. I'm a career
counselor, but I do a little social work on the side. SCABS cases
— can't imagine why, can you?" Again, I want to respond; again,
the rabbit scurries along so that I can't deflect this little
chat to other topics. "And believe you me, I've seen ''all'' the ways a life can unravel when the Martian Flu gets involved.
But SCABS isn't the worst of it." He shakes his head. "So many
times I've walked in on the wreckage, so many times I've had to
help some poor bastard reassemble a pile of broken shards into
some kind of life. That's the worst of it, really; knowing, just
''knowing'', that I could have done a lot more good for the client, if only
the son of a bitch had opened up enough to ask for help ''before'' he hit bottom.

"For real social workers, that's got to be one of the worst
feelings there is. It's one of the leading causes of burnout,
y'know. So… I was wondering, do ''you'' know of anybody who's having a little trouble at the moment?
Nothing big, just something that a good word now can stop from
growing into major crap a few months down the line. You know anybody
who fits that bill?"

He looks at me with a carefully neutral expression. I say nothing.
The silence elongates. Finally, I hear a voice reply to the rabbit's
query. "I think I might know of someone who fits your criteria."
Good — nothing to do with me, of course, but it's nice when someone
who needs help can get it before they pass the point of no return.
The new voice continues: "Perhaps you have a business card I could
pass along?" I don't understand why I'm still standing here, eavesdropping
on a conversation that (by rights) I ought not be privy to, until
I recognize the new voice.

It's me.

Perhaps my hardwired instincts are good for more than gouging
wet chunks out of organic statues. It would be nice to think so.

We continue speaking, the counselor and I. His name is Phil.
Our conversation is, simultaneously, both a ludicrous charade
and as deadly serious as deciding a man's destiny. Arrangements
are made. Appointments are scheduled. I fear what will occur —
to be open is to make yourself a vulnerable target; to openly
admit needing help is to invite being stomped on without mercy
— but now, for the first time, I fear it less than the alternative.

I ''am'' truly fortunate.

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Good Run of Luck}}

User:Cubist/So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star

2009-02-16T10:21:31Z

Cubist: Fixing the TF tag

{{title|name=So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF tag | type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
''jubatus''

Sometime within the next four hours, I'm going to be in one of the back rooms at the Blind Pig with Greyflank. It's not a place I want to be—and my reticence has nothing to do with sexual preference, thanks.

The room itself isn't a problem. No windows, ergo no worries about anyone bouncing a laser beam off the glass, and no lip-readers, either, even if that skill is a lot less useful where we SCABs are concerned than any eavesdropper would prefer. I'm reasonably confident that no conventional bugging devices can cut through the acoustic and electronic countermeasures Donnie gave me the okay to install for the duration. None of my tech-tricks will do a bit of good if some inanimorph happens to be listening in ''via'' their usual impossible senses, of course, but BlueNight tells me he's got that covered. I don't ''think'' he's shitting me; then again, I couldn't tell if he ''was,'' could I?

So… the room itself is fine. What's ''not'' fine is what I'll be doing there.

You see, Greyflank is the PR man for the Strikebreakers. One part of that job is knowing how to respond when evil-minded people spread malicious truths about you… and it's a lot easier to do that if you already know what those malicious truths ''are.'' Which is why he's inquiring about any nasty surprises we band-members may be concealing from public view.

Any questions?

''greyflank''

I've done some evil things in my life. Terrible things that should never see the light of day. Being a deviant isn't so bad, but I crossed the line to full-fledged monster, and I still have nightmares about it every so often. I never intended to hurt anyone… did I?

It doesn't matter. That's all past. Now, it's time to focus on the present and future. And for the immediate future, I'm support crew for the band, roadie and gaffer and Lord High Everything Else. Jubatus coined that title, and I think I like it.

''constance''

the world is a mosaic of people and places, actions and events
it's all good, even the bad pieces, for difference is necessary
high points wouldn't be high if there weren't any low points
the sun would not shine so bright without the night for contrast
wheels within wheels; patterns made of patterns
patterns of light and sound, time and motion, patterns i am a shining part of
part of a greater whole
part of the mosaic that is the world
i love being a part of it

''ringwolf''

Yeah, yeah, telemarketing. I've heard all the damn jokes, okay? I guess SCABS let me off easy; didn't do much on the outside, and the stuff it did inside actually made me sound better. Maybe I got some instincts in there too, I dunno. I don't really ''feel'' like a wolf. It's just, sometimes I get a little impulsive, know what I mean?

Of course, impulsive ain't why I hooked up with Wanderer. No way! Charisma, that's what it is. He may be a SCAB and come off like Marlon Brando's gay grandson, but damn if that wolf ain't got more ''charisma'' than practically anybody. So one day he talks to me, and sure enough he's noticed the voice, and what d' you ''expect'' me to do when he says maybe I oughtta join the glee club?

Charisma, like I said. No use even ''trying'' to fight it.

''dr. stein''

Singing? I missed it, I really did. I have so many fond memories of my performances with the Virginia Opera; whether it was '''''Porgy and Bess''''' or '''''Turandot''''' or '''''Lippizaner's Complaint''','' it was… well, I don't know if I can describe what it's like. At the very least, I can say it's gratifying in a way that my scientific pursuits have never been—and ''vice versa,'' of course.

The trouble is, over the past several years, vocalizing was a hobby I just didn't have the time to indulge. When the Martian Flu virus arrived on Earth, and during the pandemic that followed, I allowed professional concerns to take precedence over personal interests; more recently, the aftermath of the whole Barnes episode made my life rather complicated. But now…

Well. It's been a very long, very strange trip, but I've finally come home.

''dobhran''

I don't know what I'm doing here. Don't have a clue, honestly. Considering all the crap I've done to myself, it's a wonder I still have any mind left to lose. I don't know; maybe I ''am'' insane.

Or maybe I'm tired of the multi-layered shittiness that is my life. Maybe I've finally hit the wall, found my limit, exceeded my tolerances. Maybe I want to to be part of something I don't ''need'' to lie about, not to ''anyone.''

Maybe I just want to be able to look at my face in a mirror without flinching.

Gods and goddesses grant that I not fuck it up! ''Please.'' May I not fuck ''this'' up, ''too…''

''wanderer''

Ahhh! To make a joyful noise unto the Lord—or, indeed, any other audience! I have long since consecrated the whole of my existence to the performing arts, and I have no regrets, none at all. When one holds the audience's collective soul in the palms of one's hands, each party feeding off of the other in a kind of spiritual symbiosis… There is nothing in this world that can truly compare to the experience.

Nothing whatsoever!

I suspect that even Jubatus would agree with me on this point—not that he'd ever be so incautious as to openly acknowledge that he possesses human emotions, of course.

''wolfshead''

Why did I join the Blind Pig Glee Club? You might as well ask why I joined the Lupine Boys. I don't have an answer for either question, or at least I have no truly ''satisfactory'' answers.

I was an accountant before… well… ''before.'' I still am, but, it's different now. I loved numbers, the orderly arrays of digits. Unfortunately, the Martian Flu did something to my brain. Now I am by no means innumerate, but… it's just more difficult now. No more do the numerals fly gracefully through my mind; now they plod along, leaden and stolid, a conscript army rather than a flock of seagulls.

I don't truly know why I am here, but I have certain suspicions which I've never had the courage to confirm or deny: I suspect (if not fear) that it is lupine instincts which impelled me to join the Lupine Boys. After all, wolves are pack animals, aren't they? And wolves do howl in groups. To be sure, no one has yet openly acknowledged the similarities between that activity and the Glee Club… but acknowledged or no, the similarities do exist. ''E pur si mouv','' as Galileo is supposed to have said.

As for myself, I choose to believe that it is simply fellowship and love of music that motivates me to associate with Wanderer. I choose to believe this, no matter that I hadn't been much of a joiner nor yet musically inclined beforehand, because the alternative is… discomforting.

''sunya''

The dear creatures need me, of course. And ''I'' was Wanderer's first choice, no matter what those silly wolves may say or think. Oh, he was making pleasant noise with them from the start, but the Glee Club simply didn't ''exist'' until Wanderer sweet-talked ''me'' into gracing them with my presence. So it really doesn't matter what the wolves believe, you see; they're only canine, they can't help being a lower form of life. And I don't correct them, as it would only hurt their feelings.

I must admit I felt a certain amount of trepidation when Wanderer first introduced the bison to our little group, but it worked out very well, didn't it? And then the insect joined us, with a range we were a trifle lacking in. I can hardly believe how much better that alto made the accompaniment sound! And when ''they'' sound better, ''I'' sound better. Be honest now, isn't ''that'' all that really matters? That is when I finally decided to leave the membership firmly in Wanderer's capable paws. Honestly, there are times I almost forget he's not feline!

Fortunately, his subsequent choices have done nothing to damage my faith in him. Especially Jubatus. Watching that cheetah's supremely dexterous hands move over his drumpads, I can't help but wonder if it feels as good as it looks. ''Mmrrrroowwww!''

''m3k''

Music is life, man. I shit thee not. Even back in the day, it was harmony and rhythm got me through the bad times. Worst time of all was when the Martian Goddamn Flu worked me over, 'cuz I woke up ''dead.'' Breathers don't know what it's like, and they never will; the words do not exist to clue 'em in.

It's a whole different universe out there, when you're an inanimorph. ''Completely'' different. Factors in common with the living world are few and far between, and I was off in a cosmos all my own.

But I'd changed. Sure, my mind was way the hell out there, but my body was a 24-track mixing board with built-in holographic SFX. So my crew, they fixed me up with a new soundman, and the music was back. Rhythm first, then harmony, flowing through me in a way that was just words before. The music brought me back, and it showed me what I could do, and I am ''never'' going away again.

The Strikebreakers are an interesting gig; working from live feed ain't the same as working from tapes or MP3s. Dunno how long it'll run, but I'm in it for the duration.

''gannet''

So many children seek their parents' approval. I do not, nor have I since I realized, as a youth, exactly what the price of that approval was and would be. My age of majority could not arrive quickly enough to suit me. I remember my joy when I first learned that some chronomorphs could adjust the ages of others; also my disappointment when I discovered that such alterations were always of strictly temporary duration, and that the Law ignored such SCABS-derived adjustments when counting a person's age.

I will not become my father. Rather, what I become shall be a thing of ''my'' choosing. I cannot say that coming down with SCABS was my own choice, of course, but at least it was not ''his,'' either, so I will not complain. Do not scan the birth records in search of me; "Eltro Gannet" was born in a law clerk's office when I changed my name.

I am not what my father would have me be. I live in a neighborhood he would not approve of, associating with the wrong sort of people, using the money he insists on depositing in my account for purposes that would surely enrage him if he were keeping track, and I have made one choice more: I am a musician, a vocalist.

I am not my father, and I am content.

''jubatus''

I make music because I damned well feel like it. That's all you need to know. You want to know why the rest of 'em put up with me, go ask them.

''greyflank''

It's a curious position I'm in: In effect, I am a voyeur, gathering up all the group's dirty little secrets without having to reveal any of my own. And I have so many secrets! There's the whole Kinoly thing, of course, that goes without saying. I've excised Kinoly from my life, but he's still got some dangling threads of unfinished business that might be troublesome. There's what happened in Italy, for instance.

Of course, that's all in the past. Too bad my present isn't that much better. Even without Kinoly, I do manage to get mixed up in things that really shouldn't be brought to light; I'm sure that delectable Jeff would agree, and so would his wife…

It doesn't matter. I've got experience with PR campaigns, I know how to respond if anyone dredges up ''my'' dark secrets. I just hope no one ''does…''

''dr. stein''

"—old enough to collect Social Security, but it can still beat almost anything else on the road. And, well, let's say that highway patrolmen don't always appreciate being left in the dust."

Greyflank gives a light snort of impatience—a sign that non-equines probably wouldn't notice or interpret properly. "Very well, traffic tickets. And do you have any secrets of a more ''serious'' nature, that might be harmful to the group?"

Do ''I'' have any more serious secrets! The question is almost amusing, really. But do I really want to mention the Barnes affair? Whatever else Humans First may be, that group ''is'' a collection of fanatics. They're not the kind to forget or forgive, especially where SCABS is concerned, and they don't express their displeasure with strongly-worded press releases. Molotov cocktails are more like it.

I hadn't really considered this before. Now that I have, I realize that secrecy is futile: If my mere presence is going to endanger the band, their ignorance will not save them. "Do you remember the downfall of Barnes?" I ask. "Let me tell you a story about that…"

''dobhran''

What the hell does Greyflank ''want'' from me? I've told him I'm scared of stinging insects, heights, and crowds. I've told him I can't swim, and that's pretty goddamn sad for a river otter SCAB, isn't it? I've told him about my special perceptions, that I can sort of 'sense' the past inhabitants of a room. And he said, "Very interesting. Is that all? No past acquaintances who might know some embarrassing secrets, for instance?"

Lord and Lady! Do I ''ever'' have past acquaintances… and some of 'em, there's no way in the deepest pits of Gehenna that I'm ''ever'' going to tell ''anyone'' about them, because my life is fucking ''over'' if word gets out. Can't tell him about my embezzling, or what I did with all that stolen estrogen, or… shit. What ''can'' I tell the damn horse? Hell, I've gotta give him ''something,'' or he'll just keep on digging and digging—ah! Got it, I know what to say.

"Nothing recent, Greyflank. A few years ago, there was this girl named Maria. We had something special going, for a while. But we were drifting apart, and it got worse after I turned SCAB… it took a long time for us to break up, and things got pretty ugly for a while there. But like I said, that was years ago, and I haven't seen or heard anything from her since the breakup."

''wanderer''

One doesn't wish to be a bother, of course. And so, inasmuch as Greyflank has gone to the trouble of setting up this series of private ''tete-a-tetes'' with the group, it would be most uncouth of me to waste his time by failing to provide him with what he seeks. I just wish it weren't so embarrassing!

"—Lord, no! Can you believe I would have taken that role if I had known what an abortion the final product would turn out to be?" I shake my head and continue with a sigh: "At least it wasn't as bad as the video that ended up being released under the name '''''Catholic High School SCABs In Trouble'''''—" here I can't help but notice Greyflank making a note of that title, for reasons I firmly refuse to speculate on "—and let me hasten to add that as heinous as some of my credited roles may have been, ''none'' of them are pornographic."

"Really? That's too bad. I think—

No. I simply ''refuse'' to contemplate what sort of notions might be passing through Greyflank's mind. ''"But I digress.'' Now, where were we? Oh, yes. You will recall that haunted house I mentioned?"

The equine's face displays confusion, but only for a moment. He asks, haltingly, "That's, the one you play werewolf for, most Hallowe'ens?"

It is just such lapses as this, minor though they be, which make me wonder if the poor fellow might suffer from some neural affliction or other. However, as long as he declines to discuss such matters (which he does) and is able to competently perform his band-related duties (which he is), the details are hardly any of my business. "You are correct, sir. And those, my equine friend, are the major lowlights of my checkered career."

His flicking ears are a signal of his curiosity. "'Major', meaning there's more?"

My skin reddens. That's invisible beneath my fur, but it also shows up in my scent, sad to say. Once again I silently curse the damnable rarity of roles for a person of my body type ''(i.e.,'' lupine animorph SCAB). ''You'd think I would be used to it by now. ''"Nothing relevant to the question at hand, which is aspects of our lives that might prove to be ''deleterious'' to the group's success!" I exclaim, with rather more pique than I'd intended. "Or did I fail to comprehend your purpose in making these inquiries?"

While our equine factotum and assistant parses my statement, I calm myself…

"Alright. What's the deal between you and Lady Death?"

I'd been expecting this, so I allow myself a tooth-free smile. "We find each other's company to be quite congenial. We're not actually sleeping together, mind you, but she does stay at my humble domicile from time to time. Thus, it would hardly be surprising if anyone leapt to the obvious, if erroneous, conclusion. Tell me, do you think it would be better to confirm or deny the truth of any such rumors?"

''jubatus''

"…want to say?"

Grey's voice brings me back to the here and now. Or maybe I'm just stalling for time. Either way, I've got to say something. "I'm here," I reply. "Just… putting my thoughts in order. Alright. I got into a little scrape in February of '36, a couple weeks after I traded up from my human body. Berkeley area."

"That being your original home, in California," he says, slow and uncertain… well, ''everybody's'' a slow learner, compared to me. They can't ''all'' be brain-damaged, right?

"Yeah. Left Coast. My first run-in with SCAB-bashers. Also the first time I upshifted, first time my instincts ''really'' took over. Five of the fuckers, knives and baseball bats. Two ended up dead—"

"Did you intend to kill them?"

I squelch my anger. ''He doesn't know, he's just asking—'' "No. Like I said, ''ended up'' dead. Intensive care unit, a couple weeks later. I, uh, worked 'em over ''real'' bad. All of 'em. The other three lived, just crippled for life. Relatives of one of the dead guys filed a complaint against me; the judge told 'em to piss off. You want details, I can pipe you the court transcripts and so on."

Grey nods. "I'd like that, thanks. Okay; SCAB-bashers, five on one, you turned the tables on them. Good. Anything else?"

"Yeah." I say, then swallow. Just a nervous habit, really, since there's no larynx down there for the saliva to lubricate. "April of '36. South Carolina. I, uh, pulled this kid's arm off. Completely out of the socket…"

"Rough trade," the horse says, looking at me with those mismatched eyes of his. "What did the parents think?"

I make with a sad and sardonic smile. "Par'''ent'''. Single mother, and believe it or don't, she was okay with it. See, there was this busted water main that'd turned a vacant lot into wall-to-wall quicksand, and the kid was drowning. I upshifted so I could step without sinking, and… well… I fucked up. Didn't think that if the mud was too solid to sink into, it'd be too solid to pull her out from."

"Hm. Hard to imagine ''you'' making that kind of mistake."

I snort. "I wouldn't—''now.'' But back then, I hadn't even ''been'' a cheetah for three months, okay? And, well, not even ''that'' much experience with upshifting…"

"I see." Now he frowns. "What about the girl?"

"Retrieved the rest of her body on the second pass. Dug her out of the mud, then ferried her over to the hospital. The docs even managed to reattach the arm."

"Nice. You know, that sounds like quite a stroke of good fortune."

"Yeah. I'm one lucky son of a bitch, I am."

"I suppose…" He makes a few notes. "Okay, April of 2036. Anything since then?"

"Well—"

''gannet''

Greyflank clearly doesn't understand.

"So you're telling me that this is a waste of time?" he asks.

"Yes. sir. Insofar as I am concerned, it is exactly that. You needn't worry about my ever having done anything that would make your job more difficult."

Puzzled, he says, "Why not? Everyone's done ''something."''

"I don't deny that, sir. Nor do I claim that my own life has been entirely blameless. I am simply saying that whatever I may have done or not done, it just isn't relevant. I can't really say I have a family, but my… birth relatives… are quite wealthy, and my biological father has made a point of keeping his blood kin's peccadilloes out of the public eye."

"So… Daddy doesn't like you, but you ''are'' his son, so he'll make sure you don't bring dishonor to the family name."

"That is correct, sir. Any dark secrets of mine could only be revealed with ''his'' active cooperation, which simply will never happen. Will that be all?"

''ringwolf''

My nose tells me that fuckin' cat—Jubatus—was here, but not recently. Good. Damn if I know why he gets under my skin so bad, but he does, okay? I mean, shit, he don't slag me off any worse'n he does anyone else, and we ''do'' sound better since he stared helping Wanderer explain about vocal stuff, and… oh, hell with it.

"Hey there, Grey."

"Ringwolf," he says, flicking his ears at me. "Do you know why you're here?"

"Yeah. You want I should tell you if I got any PR disasters inna making."

"Thank you. That, or anything that could become a PR disaster if it were blown out of proportion."

"Okay, fine. Had some tax problems back in the '20s. Kinda stopped filing in '23, y' know?"

Horsey shuffles some papers. "That's when you came down with SCABS, isn't it?"

"Yeah. The usual pile o' crap: SCABbed over, lost my job, money got scarce for a while, yadda yadda yadda."

"How did it end?"

I smile at the horsey. "I declared bankruptcy. And then Congress passed the SCAB Tax Amnesty Act of '28. IRS fuckers bitched like hell, but they couldn't do shit, y' know? An' then I got the phone job, so money ain't been a problem since."

"Is there anything that ''has'' been a problem?"

"Nothing big. Back before I got used to the tail an' everything, I spent a few Sundays in the county lockup; I was just lettin' off steam is all, but some jerks got cut on my fingernails, y' know? So when the cops broke it up, I got my own private cell."

"So you were taken in for… what… disturbing the peace?"

"Yeah," I say with a shrug. "That's what the cops called it, leastways. Solitary was okay; it's real easy to get time off for good behavior when there's nobody else gettin' in yer face."

Grey talks as he's taking notes: "Disturbing the peace. If I remember right, you don't do that sort of thing now. When did you stop, and is there any chance of a relapse?"

"Hrrr… I gave it up in '28, '29, somewhere back then. A re-run ain't too likely; I'm gettin' too old to bust up bars any more. And even if I wasn't, I damn well wouldn't bust up the Pig. Shit, Grey, you ''know'' how hard it is to find a place lets a SCAB drink in peace!"

"Well, yes, but…" The horsey looks confused for a second. He's good at that, got a lot of practice. "Never mind. Drunk and disorderly, check. Taxes, check. Is that all?"

"Yeah. Now I can leave, right?"

''m3k''

Horse-boy's last question is damn silly, and my projected 'self'-image shows how amused I am. "Skeletons? In ''my'' closet? Damn straight, and plenty of 'em! I used to run with a pretty bad crowd, y' know? I just did the soundtrack—never got ''directly'' involved with the lawbreaking end of things, you understand—but yeah, I was an accessory to all sorts of crap. Aiding and abetting, as they say. I was up for shoplifting, malicious mischief, one or two flavors of murder, you name it. And then I caught the 'Flu, and I died, but I got better. If y' want, I can prob'ly get you a copy of my old rap sheet."

The horse doesn't look surprised or anything; he just nods. "That would be fine," he says. "And what of your relatives?"

"Heh! I suppose I got some, but anyone who thinks they can track 'em down is welcome to try. The breathers, anyway—the dead ones ain't goin' nowhere."

He's worried, and I can't say as I blame the man, much. "Are you sure? After all, ''you're'' dead…"

"Come on, Grey. You know damn well that catching the 'Flu in the first place is only, like, 2 or 3 percent per year. Once you're there, SCABS is an 11-to-1 longshot, okay? And us inanimorphs are maybe point-one-percent of all SCABs, if even ''that'' much! You think there's other innies in my family tree, that's a bet I'd take any day of the week, at just about any odds."

Now he does that horse-y whiffling noise. "Be serious. This isn't a game."

"You sure about that?"

"As sure as I am of anything… What happens if someone gets on the news claiming to be a relative of yours, or an abandoned husband or wife?"

My image shrugs. "Let 'em. There's a hell of a lot of performers got ''lots'' o' mileage out of that kinda shit! I say it's not a problem 'til they sue us over it. And if they ''do'' try that, Jube's lawyer stomps 'em into paste in court, and we get plenty more free publicity while it lasts. So we're covered every which way, right?"

''sunya''

"Now really, dear boy. How can you ''possibly'' believe that there could be ''anything'' in my past or present life that might shame the group?"

He's so ''cute'' when he's confused! "I don't know, Miss Sunya. But PR isn't about facts; it's about how people feel about the facts. So…"

"So?"

"So… um… Look, can we start over again?"

"Are you sure you truly want to? I can think of, oh, at least three or four things that would be more fun for a man and a woman in a soundproofed room…"

My! I certainly do have his ''full'' attention! Now, whatever shall I do with it?

''wolfshead''

I can't put my finger on why, but I find Greyflank's gaze to be somewhat uncomfortable. In part, I suppose, it's the mere fact that he's focussing on me at all, in the first place; I've never enjoyed being the center of attention…

"I'm afraid I don't even have any unpaid parking tickets."

"Really?"

"Really. My DMV record has been clear all the way back to when I got my first learner's permit, nor have I ever been late filing my tax returns. The last time I recieved any disciplinary action in my academic career, I was 15 years old. And—yes?"

"15 years old… you would have been in high school?"

I nod. "Yes, sir. I was caught smoking marijuana during my freshman year. That was the last time I ever experimented with illegal drugs. My GPA for that year was 3.65, and never lower than 3.95 afterwards."

"Sounds like you haven't ever gotten into any serious trouble, then."

No… I haven't, have I? Never gotten in serious trouble, never took a significant risk—in fact, this upcoming tour with the Strikebreakers will be perhaps the single most exotic and adventurous thing I have ever done in my life!

"You okay, 'Head?"

I blink. "I'm sorry, Greyflank. What you said, about my never having gotten into trouble… you're absolutely right. I haven't. I had never truly realized that before, and I'm not sure how I should feel about it."

He cocks his ears at me. "Secure?"

''constance''

to change yes
change is renewal is regeneration is freshness and new
if the present is better than the past it's because of change
pain is always in the past
pain is how you know you need to do better
pain and change are two of the building blocks that make up the universe
where did the horse-man go

''greyflank''

Well, well, well. Aren't we the motley crew? Let me review what I've learned, while it's still fresh in my mind…

Jubatus was a surprise—or was he? He's about as open as a sealed bank vault, so I figured he'd have ''something'' to say, but… Frankly, I never would have expected that kind of blood and pain. It would help if he were into that sort of thing, but… I suppose it goes a long way toward explaining how he got to be the way he is, poor kitten. I wonder if getting him laid would help him calm down? In fact, I just might… no. Best keep my mind on business.

Whether he knows it or not, Wanderer's 'dark secrets' will be very helpful, especially the videos. I'll bet the publisher would be more than happy to print up a fresh batch of DVDs for us to sell with the T-shirts and programs, to say nothing of the cross-marketing possibilities—"Starring Wanderer, lead singer of the Strikebreakers!" is merely the first and most obvious gambit.

Perry Dobhran bears watching. I've concealed too many secrets myself to miss the signs in other people. I don't need to know ''what'' he's hiding to know that he ''is'' hiding it, and whatever it is, ''he'' seems to think the Apocalypse would come if it were revealed. Yes, he definitely bears watching. It's a good thing he's so pleasant ''to'' watch!

Dr. Stein… Now, ''there's'' a man with unplumbed depths, and his vocal talents are only the tip of the iceberg. Who would have thought that the man who gave SCABS its name could have been instrumental in causing the downfall of that bastard Barnes? And then there's his 'nephew', Robbie—well. I am certainly glad to be learning the truth ''now,'' rather than be forced to improvise a response when someone else brings it up later. I never very good at improvising…

As for the rest, well, it's like Mixman said: Scandals have been very good indeed, for ''some'' performers. I'll sleep on it, and tomorrow I'll start work on the data package for '''''Rolling Stone'''.''
[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star}}

User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution

2009-02-16T02:57:05Z

Cubist: Adding semantic tags

{{title|name=The John Moschitta School of Elocution|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}
{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
__TOC__
They call me Jubatus. Me being the fastest SCAB alive, I ''always'' have time to kill... so I always need new ways to kill time, simply to avoid going mad from boredom. You could call it Parkinson's Law of Temporal Consumption: "Activities multiply to fill whatever you've got in the way of spare time." I didn't used to find this a problem — I got plenty of interests — but then, I also didn't used to think there could be more than 24 hours in a day. There can, particularly for people like me, to whom SCABS gave a seriously overclocked brain. That's short for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, and can you blame anyone for preferring the acronym? I've got SCABS to thank for my being a bipedal cheetah with a train of thought that runs six times faster than anyone else's, which explains how come from ''my'' point of view, there's ''150'' hours in a day. Fortunately, I can control the rate at which my personal 'clock' runs; upshifting for greater speed, downshifting to interact with you slowpokes.

What do I ''do'' with all that time, I hear you ask? Whatever I damned well please, and six times more of it than I ever could before. Today, like pretty much every other day, it pleases me to spend a couple hours of clock time puttering around the West Street Shelter. Seems I've got a bit of history with one of their volunteers, a rabbit named Phil, and I like to keep an eye on him. Think of me as a guardian angel with spotted fur and sharp, pointy teeth. May the good Lord forgive any fool who thinks he can give the rabbit a hard time, because ''I'' sure as hell ''won't.'' Phil is good people, and if anyone forgets how good people should be treated, I'm up for teaching 'em a quick lesson in manners any day of the week.

I'm not sure Phil notices, but I make a point of reducing my Dangerous quotient before I drop in. I trim my claws; I kill 'cheetah breath' with mouthwash; I also downshift to a tempo of around .95, marginally slower than the norm. Not that it matters whether he's consciously aware. The way I see it, he doesn't need to worry about a small flotilla of high-velocity knife edges zipping around him in loose formation. That's basically the reason I bother with the Shelter at all, when you get right down to it — reducing the level of hassle Phil gets from an important part of his life. The instant Phil leaves, I'm gone, too.

At this point, I'll bet some of you are wondering how ''anyone,'' a highly-morphed SCAB like me in particular, could possibly be indifferent to the good work done at the Shelter. You guys should talk to the ones who ''aren't'' asking; they're just as cynical as I am, and therefore ''know'' why somebody might be less than enthusiastic about ostensibly-altruistic behavior. Let's just say I'm a 'value given for value received' kind of guy and leave it at that, shall we?

I suspect Splendor (the sometimes cold-blooded mistress of West Street in general, and the Shelter in particular) has an idea of what I'm ''really'' about here, but no matter how our philosophies may differ, she's too pragmatic to reject assistance from any quarter. So far I've spruced up the joint's Net presence, made sure a few time-sensitive deliveries arrived on schedule, written two drafts of a Shelter procedures manual, and done a fair amount of websearching on a notable variety of topics, to name only four of the tasks I've fielded here.

Right now I'm seated in the lobby, not far from Phil's office. I'm continuing work on the Shelter's website. Specifically, the interface of the Shelter's online database of SCAB-friendly businesses. Got my PowerBook before me, and I intend to cut that interface down to size, or die trying. You'd be surprised how many 56K modems are still in service, particularly among the SCAB populace that's the Shelter's target audience. And even if ''you'' aren't surprised, the twit who originally created this interface certainly would be! I'll bet he was thinking more of how it would look in his portfolio than how it would serve the client, damn his highly-trained eyes. He had every pixel of the bloody thing thickly encrusted with bandwidth-sucking leeches — I'm talking 32-bit animation, Java-3 applets, multi-track sound files, and on and on. End result: Not only does the sucker take for''ever'' to finish loading on a slow connection, but it runs like an arthritic clam (when it runs at all) on any machine the intended audience is likely to be able to afford.

So far, I've sandblasted ''all'' the graphics down to bit-depths of 8 or less, and killed ''every'' piece of animation that had no valid reason to live. The payoff is that the download time over a 56K modem has dropped to 235 seconds. Yes, ''dropped.'' By a factor of five. I won't be satisfied until I reduce that figure to twenty seconds or less, and if I have to go with pure text to get —

Phil is nervous, I can ''smell'' it. That scent, the odor of frightened prey, drills straight to the vital core of my hindbrain to stir up predatory voices. I can't help that, but I sure as Artemis don't have to ''listen'' to what those voices are saying.

Being a rabbit, Phil scares easily; I don't want to overreact. I close the laptop, carrying it with me as I walk calmly over towards the converted walk-in closet he calls his office. He's with a client, a big sumbitch. From the back, the client looks like a norm with orange stripes dyed into his black crewcut, or maybe it's ''vice versa.'' I hear a VoxPop voder say, "Sorry, but that command was invalid."

"Grrrrrr..." I ''know'' that growl, it's the sound of an angry carnivore that's 1.5 seconds away from ''killing'' something! I upshift, the growl dopplers down into the deep subsonic, and tiger-boy freezes up like the rest of the world. I memorize my position and move in, get a clear view of ''exactly'' what he's up to... and breathe a sigh of relief. Tiger-boy is glaring down at the voder in his furless hands, caught in the act of stabbing one finger down to the touchscreen. He's got fur down his neck; thick black skin on the bottom of his very human nose; round pupils in his glittery, reflective eyes. Okay, tiger-boy's no ''immediate'' danger to Phil, but I still don't like his mood.

I return to my memorized position, downshift, pick up the walk where I left off. "Say, is that a Vox Populi voder I heard?" I ask. Tiger-boy doesn't react, but Phil looks up.

"Yes, it is!" the rabbit says in his cute, high-pitched voice. Not sure if he counts as tenor or soprano, I keep forgetting to ask Wanderer. Phil continues, "How much do you know about them? Mr. Anthony here is having a little trouble with his. Do you think that you could help?"

"I can give it a shot. Got nothing better to do," I say with a smile that keeps my teeth decently hidden. I make a show of looking for another chair, which of course there isn't — no room. "Alright. Mr. Anthony, was it? Good. My name is Jubatus. How about we go up front where we can both sit down?"

We move out, and Phil's distress is inversely proportional to the distance between him and us. I give tiger-boy some leading questions he can answer with head motion and/or hand gestures: He's a local. Single. Started to SCAB over eleven days ago. Spoke his last intelligible words nine days back. Just got released from hospital a week ago. Hasn't noticed any tigerish instincts yet. The salesman pushed him into buying a top-of-the-line VoxPop that he really couldn't afford.

We sit down in the lobby. I open the laptop, bring up SimpleText, set the voice for "Alfred, high quality", show him how to make it recite what's typed into the window. "Mr. Anthony, that salesman didn't do you a service," I say. "Vox Populi voders ''do'' sound as good as you were told, yes, but they're finicky bastards. If you're a novice, you'll have as much luck with it as a kid with a learner's permit would have with an eighteen-wheeler."

"Call me Felix," my laptop says for him. "Agreed. What replacement?"

I ponder for a moment. "If your heart is set on using a voder, I'd say go with a Kurzweil. The vocal quality sucks at the low end, but even the worst Kurzweil has clear enunciation, and you can make yourself understandable within two days tops. Most people, a couple hours' practice is enough. You want a KV-240, maybe a KV-200 if you're ''really'' hard up for cash. Anything less than a 200, well, it's cheap and it works."

"Voder not needed?"

Sharp man — he caught the implication of my 'if your heart is set on it' phrasing. I shrug: "Hell if ''I'' know. Depends on what SCABS did to your vocal tract. Can you open your mouth? I want to see what you've got to work with here." He opens, and it's a perfectly normal human mouth. Tongue, palate, teeth, jaws, all right out of a pre-'Flu medical textbook. With his flat face, I'll bet his sinus cavities are human-normal as well. "Looks good to me. Now let me check out your neck." I lay my hands on either side of his throat, taking care not to let my claws touch fur, let alone flesh; I don't feel a larynx in there. Not a good sign. "Okay, make some noise."

"Rrrrrrrr..." he rumbles. Nothing's vibrating in his neck.

"Keep it going." He does. I move one hand to his chest — ''there's'' vibration. "Alright, that's enough. You should definitely get a second opinion on this, Felix, but here's what I think: Your larynx is gone. That's the source of vibration for a normal human voice, and you ain't got one no more. No voicebox, just a purr-box. The good news is, the ''rest'' of your vocal tract looks okay, and if I'm right about that, it should be fairly easy for you to relearn speech." ''You lucky bastard,'' I don't say. "In the meantime, let's see what I can do with that VoxPop of yours. Got the manual?"

He does, and is happy to hand it over. I upshift high, skim from cover to cover, re-read the important bits, downshift. I'm a technical writer, cramming like this is what I do for a living. And the problem I'm now faced with is how to cut the bleeding options down to something a novice can manage. Damn thing's got more bells, whistles, and gongs than Office 2024 (yes, that's the version the Feds actually passed a law requiring Microsoft to recall every copy of), and thanks to a multi-layered contextual menu system, every last control and setting is accessible with no more than four taps on the touchscreen. Wonderful if you know what you're doing; otherwise, one misplaced tap gets you an Urdu accent thick enough to cut with a chainsaw — if you're lucky.

I do a slash-and-burn job on the on-screen controls, hiding 99.9% of them. I don't touch the semantic analysis subroutines, they'll ensure decent inflection, but I lock down the recognition parameters so Anthony can't screw it up by accident.

Next comes input. "You got the subvocalization options package?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Good. That'll help you retrain the muscles that shape your resonance cavities. But until you get the hang of it, you'll probably want to do input by hand. Palmspring user?" I ask, referring to one of the more popular PDAs.

"Yes."

"How's your shorthand?" SCABS has given the two major shorthand systems (Pittman and Gregg) a new lease on life after decades of slow, word processor-induced decline.

"Grafitti only." That's the simplified letterform system that was devised a few decades back as a practical solution to the problem of handwriting recognition, and pretty much every palmtop these days can handle it.

I nod. I turn off Pittman and Gregg, leaving Grafitti and the onscreen keyboard as the two manual input modes. As a final touch, if he manages to screw it up in spite of what I've done, I give him a friendly red button to click on that'll restore the damn thing to the state I left it in. And just in case he manages to nuke the button, I beam a backup copy of the configuration file to my laptop.

"Here you go. Use Grafitti, or click here to bring up a keyboard you can use the stylus with. Like so," I say, demonstrating. "And if anything goes wrong, this is the panic button — as long as that's visible, clicking on it should reset everything to this condition."

Oh yeah, tiger-boy knows his Grafitti. It's only a second or two before his VoxPop says, "That was impressive. Thank you, Jubatus. How are you at speech training?"

"You really want to learn how to talk from someone who sounds like me?" I ask with a smile. It's not a rhetorical question, because I ''know'' what kind of noise comes out of my mouth, damn it. Ever heard an old-time tracheotomy patient whose voice is driven by a hand-held electric buzzer? It's a nasty timbre, metallic and inhuman, and my speech has been compared to that. Unfavorably. And then there's a familiar whiff of nervousness in the air; Phil speaks up before I finish turning to look at him.

"I would if I were you, Mr. Anthony," says Phil. I aim a puzzled look in his direction. ''What's that rabbit think he's doing?'' He continues: "Jubatus would never admit it, but there's nothing human left in his throat and mouth. His speech is quite good, don't you agree?"

Phil can be devious and manipulative when it suits him. Fortunately, he's sworn to use this great power only for Good. I'll bet half my stock portfolio that I know what he's up to now. "So how many ''other'' mutes you gonna deliver into my tender care?" I ask him.

"Total of six," he says, bubbly and cheerful. "We've already started cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms for your class."

I keep my tone light — no need to disturb Phil's client. "And when were you thinking about letting ''me'' on on the secret?"

Phil waggles his ears in a noncommittal fashion. "I thought that you'd figure it out on your own, so I wouldn't ''have to'' say anything. Isn't that what happened?" he asks with an innocent, guileless expression. That rabbit has no shame. I think he had it surgically removed, unless SCABS got there first.

I get the feeling that maybe Phil manipulated ''me,'' and I don't ''like'' being manipulated. If the rabbit really did play me like a violin... Anyone else, I'd be thinking about how to make the bastard pay. But not Phil. ''Never'' Phil. As far as I'm concerned, he's paid so far in advance that ''I'' owe ''him,'' and I always will. I swallow my aggravation, and nod. "Alright. Six students, including Mr. Anthony here. No problem. You wouldn't happen to have any information on the other five, would you?"

"Sure," he says, hopping over to me. "In the backpack." Which he's wearing, so I open the main pocket and extract a set of manila folders. If you're wondering why he didn't just hand them to me, you should know that Phil doesn't ''have'' hands. His forepaws really are ''paws,'' bloody near zero manipulatory capacity. But ''he'' can ''speak,'' damn it! Somebody had to have helped him with the files, and I deliberately, explicitly refuse to become annoyed at this evidence of premeditation on his part. He thanks me and hops back to his hutch-''cum''-office.

Tiger-boy's VoxPop speaks up: "There really is nothing left of your human voice?"

It's the voder's built-in tone of polite inquiry — dunno what ''he'd'' prefer the question sound like. I take it at face value. "You can't tell? Yup, all gone. You're lucky, SCABS didn't even ''touch'' most of ''your'' vocal tract. All ''you'' have to do is learn how to work with a new sound source. Probably end up with an exotic-sounding tone in the bass register, good for attracting girls."

He starts composing a reply, then stops and looks at me. After a moment, his VoxPop says, "You sound bitter."

I hadn't intended to, but he's right. Vocalizing has always been a touchy subject for me, ever since I SCABbed over. Maybe tiger-boy is just offering me a sympathetic ear; too bad that kind of offer is one I'm not about to accept. ''Ever.'' "That's one reason I don't use a voder — most of 'em can't do emotional overtones very well. The VoxPop line is an exception, but you already know how delicate the controls are," I say with a shrug. "Anyhow, I'd recommend that you exchange the damn thing and get a more economical model, or at least one you don't need a Masters' Degree in to use properly..."

Tiger-boy leaves after I'm done giving him advice. I close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and breathe deeply; it took more effort than usual to keep a lid on my customary bad temper, and the voice thing is why. And then Phil's scent again —

"Are you alright, Jubatus?"

I don't bother to move or look at the rabbit. "Hello, Phil. It would've killed you to ask? Or even give me some advance notice?"

"If I'd asked, you would have refused," he says reasonably. "But I don't know what your problem is. Really, what's the worst that could happen?"

"You see me in a puddle of blood, none of it mine, on the Six O'Clock News," I say without thinking.

There's an elongated pause, broken by Phil. "You know what, Jubatus? You worry too much. And coming from a rabbit, that's saying something."

I almost laugh — of course, ''he'' doesn't know how goddamn close my scenario came to playing itself out, with him supplying the blood, when we first met. "Gee. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Gotta run — bye-bye!" And then the rabbit is gone.

Sigh.

A cursory scan of the files indicates that all six are animorph SCABs of one kind or another. I start with Anthony's file, which confirms what I already knew, then go on to Kerry Dennison. Sales clerk, married, no kids. He's a fish-morph, bulgy eyes and webbed fingers and scales all over, and a Godawful ''ugly'' bastard, to boot. The picture shows flat, wide tubing wrapped around his neck... ah. He's got (barely-) functional gills ''and'' the remnants of his old lungs; the tubing supplies water for his gills, and between them and his lungs, he gets enough oxygen to survive. No wonder his file has nothing on his current capacity for vocalization... the doctors would've had their hands full just keeping him alive, and his insurance ran out before they could do anything else.

Third in line, Mary ''(née'' Martin) Zelinski, is a living cliché: She's a fox gendermorph, a fuzz-covered wet dream who could've stepped out of a '''''PlaySCAB''''' centerfold. Formerly an investment banker with a trophy wife, the 'Flu giveth her an all-over permanent fur coat as the 'Flu taketh away her mind. She's not feral, just amnesiac — a near-complete ''tabula rasa.'' With her (former) profession, she's got to have money, so why is she here at the Shelter, instead of upstate at St. Jude Medical or the like? And how come she went through ''five'' doctors in her first month as a SCAB? Reading between the lines of the vixen's file, I can't help but wonder how much the ''other'' Mrs. Zelinski has to answer for...

File Number Four is a schoolteacher, name of Sawyer Borman. He's a man-sized insect-morph, cricket with an occasional grasshoppery touch. Basic body plan could be described as "humanoid with four arms". Doesn't even have lungs, ''per se'' — his body is thoroughly riddled with a branching network of air passages that oxygenate all tissues ''directly,'' never mind that considerations of airflow and surface area make that scheme unworkable for a critter as big as him. What the hell, he's a polymorph (with a limited selection of insectoid forms), I guess he can have an impossible metabolism if he wants to.

Next is the Right Reverend Charles Calgonetti. I'll get to him.

And finally... oh, joy. Inanimorph. This one's been living (?) at the Shelter for seventeen weeks now, ever since the day an animated, life-sized granite statue of a Great Dane showed up from nowhere. No ID, no clue to her former life — and even the 'her' is only an educated guess, based on the statue's anatomically correct details. At least she (?) answers to 'Jenny'. She can understand spoken or written English, but doesn't appear to be able to speak or write herself. Wonder how badly she's been disoriented by her radical transformation? Inanimorphs... well, hell. Just have to see what (if anything) I can do to reach her. It. Whatever.

After I'm done with my reading, I suspect the preacher's going to be the hardest nut to crack. Physically speaking, Calgonetti is a mynah bird scaled up to a body length of four feet, with avian-type talons at the ends of his feather-covered, humanish legs. Black feathers all over, interrupted only by a ring of iridescent white around his throat. Who says SCABS doesn't have a sense of humor? Chuck traded up from his human body eleven years ago, and hasn't spoken a word since. Pretty tough on a guy who'd been a professional talker.

A mynah bird, speechless? Yeah, right. My best guess is, he's got a self-imposed mental block about speech. This sort of thing definitely isn't my forte, but I'm betting he'll talk if I can piss him off bad enough. I'll try not to enjoy needling a man of God.

Okay, I'll try not to enjoy it ''too'' much.

But I digress... I don't recognize Chuck's denomination, but it's clearly not one of the bigoted ones: His flock — sorry, couldn't resist — have been supporting him all this time, providing sufficient resources (financial and otherwise) to keep him going until he's ready to get back in the pulpit. He's got a record, he does; over the years he's attended eight different speech classes, none of which did him any good whatsoever. He's always gotten good marks for attendance and participation, always declined use of a voder, always projected a congenial air, consistently maintained that the Lord will restore him to full voice whenever it suits Him to do so. All of which does nothing to explain why he's ''here,'' a bloody ''homeless shelter'' in a rotting neighborhood that's maybe three steps away from complete and absolute urban collapse, for the love of Ahura-Mazda.

I've got an uncomfortable feeling that I know what's ''really'' going on behind those beady little eyes. I think I may already have been where he is — except, of course, that ''he's'' got faith in the Almighty. I wonder how much of that faith is still alive in his heart right now...

{{Separator|k}}

I don't need to check the schedule. I work with the Shelter's online resources, I already knew that the speech class will begin three calendar days from now. Just didn't know who the 'teacher to be announced' would be.

Three calendar days. Plenty of time for me to familiarize myself with my classroom, work up a lesson plan, collect and/or create some teaching resources, talk to Donnie at the Pig, make arrangements with Dr. Derksen for use of his lab, and generally prep for the tutoring gig.

== the first week ==

Time for the first session to begin. Butterflies in my stomach? Naah, the hornets killed and ate them all... I really shouldn't ought to be as nervous as I am. After all, I'm a technical writer; teaching people is what I do for a living! I just don't usually do it ''in person.'' And I also don't usually do it with topics that are quite so personal, topics that strike quite so close to the core of what a human being truly is.

Who am I kidding? I'm nervous because this hits ''me'' where I live. Even now I get the shakes just ''thinking'' about those first few days after I SCABbed over. That's when I ''couldn't'' talk ''at all,'' when I didn't know how to coax anything close to an articulate sound from my newly-remodeled throat, when I had no way of knowing whether or not I ever would be able to speak another word for the rest of my life...

It was bad. Leave it at that.

What the hell, it'll be a learning experience in more ways than one.

No more waffling; I walk up the stairs, down the hall, and into my classroom. What do you know — Jenny's mass of stone doesn't exceed the limits of the Shelter's structural integrity.

Once at my desk, I upshift while setting up all the connections for my laptop, then look at each student in turn. "Hello. My name's Jubatus. I think we all know why we're here, so no need to belabor the point. The first thing you should know is that if you really ''want'' to talk, you ''can.'' And you'll do it before the end of this first session. That's a promise." I pause to let that sink in, then flip three small devices out of a vest pocket and catch them between the fingers of my other hand. Some of my students recognize the gadgets, which I hold up and fan out like a poker hand. "These are voders. Low-end Kurzweil models, KV-150s; nothing fancy, but they do the job. I've got one for everybody. And they're the reason I can make that promise.

"What I ''don't'' promise is that you'll be able to talk ''without'' mechanical assistance. Maybe you can, maybe not — it depends on two things. First, on exactly what kind of mess SCABS made of your vocal tract, and second, on whether or not you can figure out how to manhandle a comprehensible voice out of your ''current'' set of pipes.

"And hell, maybe you'll decide you ''don't'' actually want to talk. Even then, you've got options; you can learn Sign," — here I fingerspell ''AMESLAN IS NOT A VAN VOGT NOVEL'' — "and if all else fails, there's always the written word. Donnie Sinclair, guy who runs the Blind Pig, is mute and doesn't use a voder; I'll see if I can't get him up here to fill you in on living without a voice. I think that would be a mistake, myself, but it's ''your'' decision, and as long as ''you're'' satisfied, it's none of my damn business how you choose to live your life.

"And now that that's out of the way..." Here I pick a manila folder up off my desk, open it, look at the contents. "Couple of you guys have a bit of a track record. Calgonetti, says here you've been slacking off in vocalization classes for more than a decade," I say, hearing amused noises as I drop some papers into a convenient trash can. The bird doesn't appreciate my description. Good. "Dennison, you've got a signed certificate says you're permanently mute." I drop more papers. "As for the rest of you..." I shut the folder, send it to rejoin its missing contents. Then I take a butane lighter from a vest-pocket, ignite it, and toss ''it'' into the trash. There's a momentary ''FWOOSH'' as an inches-wide ball of flame rises up, dissipating before it hits the ceiling. It's pure theater — I'm just burning Xeroxes — but it does the job. All six of my students are focussed fully on ''me.''

"I don't give a flying fuck what ''anyone'' may have told you before today. Far as I'm concerned? As of now, each and every one of you ''will'' talk — or I'll know the reason why.

"Any questions?"

I wasn't expecting any response, but the bug makes a 'clickick' noise and raises his upper left hand while his upper right scribbles on a notepad in his lower pair. After he's done, a quick upshift and the notepad 'teleports' into ''my'' hands.

"Okay... Borman here wants to know what happens if someone can't talk by the end of summer." Another upshift reunites the bug and his paper. "Well, it's true that we only got this room for ten weeks, but it's ''also'' true that the Shelter's not teaching this class. ''I am.'' You want out, say the word and you're out; otherwise, I'm not giving up until you ''can'' speak. And if that's after session ten, I'll just have to find us a different classroom. Any other questions?"

Dead air.

"Good. First, let's take a look at how speech works when it ''does'' work..." Here I upshift, extract a roll of eight-millimeter correction tape (red) from my vest, and spend a clock-second or so putting a schematic diagram of the human vocal tract on the wall. Back at a tempo of 1, I point at one specific bit of the diagram. "See this? It's the larynx, but you can call it a 'voicebox'. It's got a couple folds of skin that vibrate when you shove air past 'em, not unlike a clarinet reed..."

By the time I'm done, my students (most of them, anyway; with the fox and rock, it's hard to tell) have a solid grounding in the biomechanics of spoken language — ''i.e.,'' how a normal human vocal tract operates. Now for the voders, which I distribute in half an upshifted clock-second.

"Okay, time to keep that promise I started class with. See what's on your desk? It's a KV-150. If you're clueless about voders, give the built-in tutorial a try. You can't figure something out, lemme know and I'll see if I can make it clear for you."

Within two clock-minutes, the first "Hello, world!" tutorial is audible. And ten clock-minutes further on, they get to "The time is eight forty-seven pee-emm" and "I am a SCAB" and "Today is Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of June, two-thousand thirty-eight ay-dee." Damned if I can tell how the inanimorph works a voder with stone paws, but she (?) does. Too bad her machine's only reciting random words and phrases. Zelinski's doing better; she actually got her voder to say "My name is Mary Zelinski." On purpose, yet. The150s sound better than I do, damn it, but then I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. Focusing on technical matters — how well my students are or aren't using the Kurzweils — helps me keep a lid on my annoyance.

I assign homework (practice with the 150s), and then it's over. Dennison and Anthony drive themselves home; Zelinski's picked up by some random luxury car; Chuck and Borman ride the bus; and the innie, the stone dog, walks downstairs. What are the odds of the vixen's ride being an incognito limousine? I make a note to check the license plates with the DMV.

Only after I'm finally alone do I let myself unclench. I didn't come anywhere near losing it; the scents of the bird and fish didn't make me any hungrier than usual; all in all, it went better than I expected. Of course, 'better than I expected' just means I didn't dismember anyone...

"How did it go, Jubatus?" Who else? It's the damn bunny.

"No blood got spilt. Guess that means I'm stuck teaching next week's class, right?"

Puzzled, the rabbit wrinkles his fuzzy nose. "Why wouldn't you be? Judging by what I saw and heard from your students, you did quite well — as I knew that you would!"

Sigh. "Phil, has it ever occured to you I might have a ''reason'' to be a pain-in-the-ass loner?"

"Well, you're a cheetah-derived animorph SCAB. Which means that you're influenced by cheetah characteristics, including their solitary nature, are you not?"

He doesn't get it — wonderful. Time for an object lesson. "That's right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Hold on a sec..." The Shelter's got a few board games; Monopoly, Yahtzee, like that. I upshift, grab some dice, downshift. "...okay. See this?" I say, holding one of the dice before me. "Got a deal for you. Roll it, and if you get anything but a one, I give you a million dollars."

His ears skew at odd angles. "What's the catch? If I ''do'' roll a one, do I have to pay you?"

"No catch, the money's yours either way — but if you roll a one, somebody within a twenty-block radius of here ends up maimed or dead. What do you say, Phil?"

He stares at me for a moment and says, "No."

"Why not? It's an honest die; there's five chances in six that no blood gets shed!"

"Perhaps, but it's that ''one'' chance in six that bothers me!"

"Come on, that's not even 17%!"

He shrugs with his ears. "I don't care. I wouldn't roll that die for a million dollars."

Suddenly I've got ''two'' dice in my hand. "Fine. How about now? Same deal, but nobody gets hurt unless you roll snake-eyes, a one on ''both'' dice. That's a 35-to-1 longshot, less than 3% chance of it actually happening. How about it, Phil?"

"Still no."

"Okay," five dice, "how about ''this?'' Five ones, that's a little over point-zero-one percent, just one chance out of 7,776. Isn't that worth a megabuck?"

"No, it —"

"Ten dice!" I say, putting them on the desk between us. "One million dollars, Phil. ''One. Million. Dollars.'' Only one chance in sixty million they come up solid ones."

"Only one chance in sixty million that someone gets hurt, you mean!"

I shrug. "Details. Alright, how about a ''billion'' dollars? I'm good for it, you know. Roll these ten dice, and one gigabuck is yours, free and clear!"

Stunned, the rabbit stares at me for a while until he finally says, "I don't care how many dice it is, and I don't care how much money it is either. I'm not going to do it, Jubatus."

"Why not? For the love of Mammon, you're throwing away ''one billion dollars'' because of a sixty-million-to-one longshot! Don't you ''want'' to be filthy rich?"

''"Not like that, I don't!"''

My voice is quiet — "Good." — and his face goes blank with surprise. Then I go on: "I'm not perfect, Phil. I got mood swings make a rabid wolverine look like a Zen master. I can fuck up, ''bad.'' 'Can', hell; I already ''have!'' And with my kind of speed —" I break off, almost managing not to shudder. "You're damn right I worry. Wouldn't you?"

He doesn't need two swats from a clue-by-four. "Oh."

"Yeah."

And again: "Oh!"

I dig out a smile from somewhere. "Don't worry, me going postal on any given day ''is'' a world-class longshot — billion-to-one, trillion-to-one, somewhere up there. The real risk is long-term: If I keep rolling those dice, they ''will'' come up snake-eyes sooner or later. The only question is when. And if you're wondering how I can justify putting innocents at risk by hanging around the Pig, it's because the odds of me having a lethal breakdown will go ''way'' up if I ''don't'' interact with other people."

"I think that I see the problem now," Phil says thoughtfully. "You believe that your life is like an unending game of Russian roulette, do you not, Jubatus?"

I nod. "Pretty much, except it's not ''me'' who'll get hurt when I lose. The thing is... what choice have I got?"

"Perhaps you don't have any better alternatives," the rabbit acknowledges. "But then again, perhaps you ''do!"''

"Oh, really?" I bet I know where he's going, so I cut him off before he can get there: "Look, Phil — if you're thinking about taking me on as a client, forget it. My days are 150 hours long, remember? There's no point in you reinventing wheels I considered, and discarded, years ago."

His ears shrug for him. "Very well, let's say that it truly would be a waste of time for me to try to help you. What difference could that make? It is, after all, my own time to waste, if I so choose!"

"Gimme a break! You're always pissing and moaning about the ones you lost, so why make it worse for yourself? Why the hell would'ja want to fart around with ''me'' when you could give more attention to someone who ''really'' needs you?"

"I see your point, Jubatus, but there are two factors that you haven't taken into account. And the first one is that whether you know it or not, you already are a client of mine, and have been ever since the night we met!"

Suddenly it's my turn to say, "Oh." '''''Now''' he tells me.'' "And... the other factor?"

"When I work on you, I ''am'' giving attention to someone who ''really'' needs me."

It's not often that I'm left without an appropriate comeback...

"Of course, I must admit that I don't give you as much attention as perhaps I really ought. Not that I don't care about your well-being, not at all! But truly, your case just isn't as urgent as the rest of the ones I deal with. And unlike you, I simply don't have the ''time'' to do everything I want to or need to, Jubatus." He sighs. "Speaking of which, I've a date with Clover that I'd greatly prefer not to be late for, so I simply must say 'good-bye' now. Good-bye!"

And then I'm alone again. Just the way I like it. Right?

{{Separator|k}}

Time flies, even when you're not having fun; I've got 43 contracts in various stages of completion, ''i.e.'' my usual workload. And where do I find the time to handle all the tasks related to teaching my class? I could've cut back a little, freed up some hours for classwork, but I didn't because I can get the extra time from upshifting. Of course, my concept of 'classwork' may be a little more expansive than some people's. F'rinstance, take the car that picked up Zelinski. DMV files say it's a TransportElegance rental; TE records indicate that it was paid for by a corporate credit card; and according to SEC databanks, 51% of that particular corporation is held by one "Alison Gomez". Care to guess the maiden name of Zelinski's wife? Yeah. Such a coincidence, that. Just another drop of data in the stream I'm sucking in, the better to figure out what the hell is going on in the Zelinski household.

Then there's Jenny. The Shelter's inquiries went nowhere, but then ''I'' wasn't the one asking the questions. Not that I expect to do any better, mind you. All I've got to go on is SCABS; an apparent gender (which may or may not be the one she was born with); a given name (ditto); the date on which this innie first showed at the Shelter (which only puts a lower limit on how recently she could've SCABbed over); and a dog's likeness (which may or may not have anything to do with any pet she may have owned or admired). What the hell — that's why God invented internet spiders and agent software. The count so far: 137 possible 'hits', each one a false alarm. Good thing computers don't get tired or distracted.

Maybe I ''am'' trying to do too much... every once in a while I get this funny feeling, like someone's looking over my shoulder from behind. Nobody ever is, of course, but my hackles keep rising anyway. Okay, I'm paranoid, but it's not usually ''this'' bad! Sigh. Must remember to get more sleep. Sometimes I hate being a cat...

== the second week ==

Second class rolls around; everyone's present and punctual, even the rock. "Good evening, people. How you doing, Dennison?"

"I, am, fine. This, voder, is, harder, to, work, than, I'd, thought."

''With '''your''' webbed fingers? No shit, fish-boy.'' "Bummer. Keep at it. What about you, Borman?"

The cricket's voder says he's doing okay, and his superintendent claims they'll return him to active class duty once he re-learns how to talk. I don't sneer or contradict; granted, he's an utter moron if he believes what he's saying, but I don't have time to set him straight. Okay, maybe ''I'' do, but the slowpokes here don't. I wish him luck, then I continue the impromptu survey of my students' level of skill with the voder. Only item of note is that Jenny's box yelped "Pangloss!" when I got to her. Why? Thoth only knows...

That done, I explain we'll cover sound sources this time. Then I hit a key, and my laptop plays a thin, weak, wispy tone, like an anemic flute. "Anyone care to guess what this is? No? Fine. It's the sound produced by the human voicebox. Some damn fool back in the 1960s let a doctor shove a microphone down her throat to record the actual vibrations produced by her larynx, and that's what we're hearing now." I let the sound continue a few seconds before I kill it. One of my students' hands is raised, so I ask, "What is it, Anthony?"

I note that tiger-boy's using the KV-150 I handed out, not his VoxPop. "If that's a recording of the human larynx, why doesn't it resemble speech?"

"Like I said, it was recorded deep in the throat, at the source. So we're hearing the waveform ''before'' it gets worked over by nasal resonance cavities and like that. Same deal as how a trumpet mouthpiece sounds a lot different when you play it by itself, without the rest of the horn." Then, to the class at large: "Remember what you just heard! As long as you're good for ''any'' sound ''whatsoever,'' there's a chance you can turn it into intelligible speech. You already know how Norms make noise, so let's check out how other species manage..."

Between putting anatomical diagrams on the walls, playing relevant sound files, explaining what it all means, and answering questions when someone needs further clarification, I'm pretty busy for the next clock-hour and a half.

"...inflection, at the very least! Alright — here's your homework assignments." I pause, scan the class. ''Who to start with...'' I roll mental dice and turn to fish-boy.

"Dennison," I say, looking straight into his bulgy eyes. "I'll bet you're wondering why I haven't ''already'' given up on you. After all, fish are intrinsically silent, right?" He nods his head. ''"Wrong.'' It just so happens that ''some'' fish damn well ''do'' make noise!" I start to count on my fingers: "Angelfish, parrotfish, silver perch, red drum, black drum, and more than 200 other species. Most of 'em got this air-filled, internal swim bladder they smack around. Ever heard of the oyster toadfish? Didn't think so, but you're ugly enough to be one, and that sucker's got specialized muscles to swat its bladder up to 200 times per second. So if you ''are'' a toadfish, you should be good for pitches topping off right around G below middle C. And if not? Well, we'll just have to find out what you are, won't we?" A quick upshift, and a sheet of paper appears on his desk. I continue as he picks it up to read it: "27 questions, and I'll want the answers two weeks from now."

Then it's the bug's turn. "Borman. You're mostly a cricket — can you chirp like one?" He nods and makes the noise, two or three octaves below a natural-born cricket. "Congratulations. What you just did is called 'stridulation', and it's the sound source of a natural-born cricket. You want to arm-wrestle intelligible words out of it, you're gonna need to vary that sound. Can you? Damn if ''I'' know; that's ''your'' homework. I'll want a sound file. Get cracking on it. And by the way: If stridulation doesn't work for you, there's at least two other avenues you can explore before you abandon speech."

I let the bug ponder my remark as I look at the inanimorph... ''What's going on inside that rock? Are you even '''there''', Jenny? Is '''anyone''' there?'' Nothing in those dull, grey eyes, or at least nothing discernable to me. Sigh. ''Moving right along —'' "Calgonetti. What's up with you, guy? Considering how well natural-born mynahs talk, it's hard to see why ''you'' should have ''any'' problems with speech, let alone take more'n ''ten bloody years'' to re-learn it. So... what's the story?"

"It is not for us to question the Lord's will," the preacher's voder says. "I have faith that He will return my voice to me at a time of His choosing."

Sounds like a rehearsed answer to me. "Uhhh-''huh.'' Would that be before or after the Second Coming?" Oh yeah, ''that'' hit a nerve. Good. Bird-brain glares at me as other people make amused noises. "Come on, Chuck. You're gonna have to work with me here. 'God helps those who help themselves', am I right?" A sheet of paper 'teleports' onto his desk. "But I digress. Your homework is ''phonemes'' — the individual sounds that serve as the fundamental building blocks of spoken language. English uses 40 of 'em, each one of which is on your list there, and you're gonna record 'em all. I don't care what format you use, just let me know if it's cassette or MP3 or what, I want three samples of each phoneme, and I want you to bring the recording in two weeks. And that goes for you, too, Borman."

Chuck's not happy. His voder says, "What if I cannot make all the sounds?"

Looking at him and the cricketmorph, I shrug. "Try 'em and see. If there's any you can't do, all it means is that SCABS worked over your noisemaker worse than I thought. Get on it."

Then I turn to the fox. "Zelinski. How's your voice, girl?"

Her smile strikes me as a lot more genuine than mine usually is, and she's game to try: "Oowwwwrrr..." Oh, well. Too bad she's not there yet. She taps at her voder — a Magnavox Express; wonder what happened to the KV-150 and where the new one came from? — which says, "I am prack-tiss-ing. I will learn."

I nod. "Can't ask for more than that. Keep it up."

"I will. I praw-miss."

I nod, and look at the last of my students. "Mr. Anthony," I say. A sheet of paper pops up on his desk. "You get what the bird got. Again, I don't care if it's MP3 or WAV or what, but it'd be nice if you can gimme advance notice of which."

He nods. His voder says, "MP3."

"Groovy. Email it to me any time within the next two weeks." To the whole class: "Remember, we've got a field trip next Tuesday, so I don't need your homework 'til the week after. For now... go home."

They leave, mostly. Tiger-boy sticks around after the rest are gone. He says — ''he'' honest-to-God ''says'' — "Ehhhrro, Djju-bhadd-huzz."

"You've been practicing, haven't you."

He nods, then gets his VoxPop out of an inside pocket. "Yes. I've also done some research on you."

''Oh, joy.'' "That's nice. Want a cookie?"

He smiles and goes on: "No, thanks. You're helping me; I just wondered how I could help you in return."

An idealist? Will wonders never cease. "Help ''me?'' Forget it — you can't. Anything else the rabbit twisted your arm about?"

Tiger-boy looks hurt for a moment. "Phil didn't twist my arm, Jubatus. But he ''did'' warn me what to expect from you."

"If he said I can be blunt, rude, offensive, abrasive, difficult, obnoxious, and generally antisocial, he was right. Anything else you want to know before you leave?"

The hint is as subtle as a sixteen-ton weight. Even so, whole clock-seconds pass in silence, me staring a laser-sharp, unblinking gaze into his eyes, before he gets the message. "Next week," his voder says. Then he's gone.

A few seconds later, I quit staring at the door. I can't really say I ''like'' stomping on people like that, but... it's better this way. Lesser of N evils, honestly.

Sigh...

{{Separator|k}}

The next week's pretty boring, so I'll just give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. More hours put in at the Shelter; the net-spiders researching Jenny turned up another 950 false alarms, plus three leads I haven't ''yet'' proven bogus; I've sucked down a lot more information (financial and otherwise) related to the Zelinski household — I'll bet Mrs. Allison noticed that somebody's been poking their snout into her family's private affairs, because somehow, I just don't think it's coincidental that she's boosted the budget for security (real-world and cyberspace both) within the past couple weeks. Like I care. As for the contracts I handle in my day job, it's five down, 38 to go.

Business as usual, really.

== the third week ==

Third class is a field trip. To Derksen's clinic. Would have preferred to start the class there, but this was the first Tuesday evening the doc-roach's lab was free. Remodeled the living space in my Extremis; there's four new seats (rented) in back. Those plus the passenger's seat up front will handle the five humanoids, and there's also room for Jenny the Rock to lie down. Hey, why ''shouldn't'' I play chauffeur? I'm the teacher, it's my responsibility to see that the class gets to where it needs to be, right?

Good: Everyone's a little early, especially the foxy lady. She's delivered by what looks like the same pair of bodyguard-types, driving the same car, as got her home last week. She smiles at me, and she ''(not'' her voder) says: "Hrraiie-yhheaarh, Dj... Tchew... hraour!"

I nod without smiling. "Better'n last week. Keep practicing, you'll get there soon enough."

She digs her Magnavox out of her purse to reply. "I know I will, but. In the meantime. It can be frustrating."

''Now'' I smile. "Tell me about it. You're getting off easy, lady — ''you'' have an instructor who's been there himself."

"Which you didn't," her voder says.

"Yeah." Shrug. "Ready for the field trip?"

"Oh, yes. Allie was very pleased. She's always wanted to —" and one rent-a-thug reaches over her shoulder to press the voder's 'mute' button.

"What did Miss Allison tell you about violating her privacy, Miss Mary?" says the thug.

The vixen's face spends a moment at 'pissed off' before shifting over to 'mild embarrassment'. She un-mutes the voder, nods at the thug: "You're right, George. I shouldn't discuss family business in public." To me, she (or at least her voder) says, "Apologies, Jubatus. Yes, I'm ready for this field trip. And I've been looking forward to it. Are we really going to see Dr. Derksen himself?"

"Doubtful. He's booked solid until the 12th of Never, you know?"

That gets a couple of yipping laughs out of her muzzle. Which is about when Dennison shows up, with Anthony following close. Not so very much later, me and my class are tooling along towards the doc-roach's lab. The rent-a-thugs weren't happy about the fox being in ''my'' car instead of with ''them.'' That's nice. They weren't ''explicitly'' instructed to stay within arm's reach 24/7, and even if they were, I couldn't care less.

The traffic's thicker than I anticipated. 38 clock-minutes later, I pull into a reserved space in the parking lot of Derksen's lab. My passengers talked; I paid attention to the road. Guess which hired limo stayed within five car-lengths of us all the way there?

Derksen being a big name in SCABS research, his lab's security is a couple notches above the norm — you never know when some idiot Nazi wannabe, Humans First or whatever, will take it into his head to strike a blow for stupid people everywhere. Me and my students pass through the outer gate without incident, but Zelinski's thugs get detained when they set off an alarm. Good. There's two more layers of protection I'm aware of, and Vulcan knows how many others. I wish the thugs joy of them all.

I'm intimately familiar with the doc-roach's torture chamber — his primary examination room — from all the times he's worked ''me'' over. Being the highly exotic breed of chronomorph I am, it's only natural that a world-class SCABS researcher like Derksen would want to observe the hell out of me, as often as he can... oh, joy. He's here. I was afraid of that. On the plus side, he's practically human today. Soft skin, blond hair, no antennae, compound eyes only a little bigger than human normal. See, Derksen's one of us; he's a polymorph SCAB, insectoid forms his specialty, and the roach traits kind of creep up on him when he's irritated or preoccupied or whatever. One more reason I'm glad not to be a shapeshifter myself.

"Hello, Jubatus," he says, and his voice is a hell of a lot smoother than when he goes ''blattidae'' on you. Damn it. " I don't suppose —"

"That's right, you ''don't'' suppose. And you don't get another crack at me for seventeen days."

"Oh, well; can't blame a mad scientist for trying!" He sounds happy, but even with no discernable chitin on him, his scent is too roachy for me to tell his ''real'' mood. BFD.

I snort my disagreement at him. "Whatever. Since you're here, does that mean you're gonna make yourself useful checking out the fox?"

"Yes." ''Now'' he's serious. "Among other things, I find it curious that her medical records are silent on a number of points that ''may'' add up to grounds for a malpractice hearing."

My ears prick up. "Oh, really? Then what's the story with Dr. Gordon?" I ask, referring to the physician in charge of the Zelinski case. "Is he corrupt, or just incompetent?"

At this point, Derksen's face hardens — literally — as exoskeletal plates form. ''"That'' is what I intend to find out. Either way, it's clear that this Dr. Gordon has no business working with SCABs; the data from this examination will tell me whether I should push for censure or disbarment." Then he sighs, and his plates soften a little. "Excuse me, Jubatus," he says, and then he's off to supervise a whole-body scan of Jenny, the stone dog.

There's an empty chair off to one side of the lab. I sit back and let Derksen (and his flunkies) scurry around the place with various implements of medicine. It's actually kind of interesting to see them work on ''someone else.'' Hell, this time I don't even mind the stench of disinfectant!

Derksen & Co. conduct a sextet of ''very'' thorough physical examinations, covering everything from respiratory airflow to basal metabolic rate to speed of neural transmission to God knows what-all else. The doc-roach is going the extra mile, and then some — I'd only asked him to cover the vocal tract — but if that's what he wants to do, it's fine by me. That's odd... they've left off a number of procedures he likes to use on me, but then they also include a few I'm not familiar with. I make mental notes — the lapses and additions probably have to do with my chronomorph power, which I don't want ''anyone,'' Derksen or no, to learn ''too'' much about.

Hmm... maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that Derksen's concern for Zelinski goes a little beyond the standard doctor/patient relationship..? Whatever; it's none of my business.

Entry to exit, we're done in four clock-hours. Zelinski's thugs aren't around when we leave — how sad. The drive back to the Shelter is uneventful; my passengers are too busy comparing notes to bother me. I park, five of the six bug out, the vixen doesn't.

"Waiting for something?" I ask.

Foxy's fingers touch her voder, but it stays mute. She looks at me. I look back. Her machine finally says, "Were you always male, Jubatus?"

''Huh..?'' I consider asking why she wants to know, but I decide to just answer the question. "Yes."

She spends a few seconds thinking before her voder speaks up again. "Then why are you so angry?"

"Angry?" I snort a laugh. "Like ''any'' SCAB needs to ask."

Dead air. Zelinski's not happy. Before anything else can happen, a particular rented limo screeches to a halt beside us. I point a thumb at them.

"Your ride's here," I say. "See you next Tuesday."

{{Separator|k}}

The homework showed up across a week, starting last Friday. Tiger-boy's arrived first; birdbrain's came last. Funny how that works. Right now I'm in my classroom, reviewing the assignments over lunch. Nothing from Jenny — not that I expected anything, of course. But what ''could'' I have assigned her, damn it?

Inanimorphs...

Lots of people fear them, with good reason — check out any of the 'true crime' books about inanimorph perps — but I just think they're damned weird, is all. Strictly speaking, I guess I ''should'' be afraid, since innies are among the few things in this world with half a chance of hurting me... but I'm not.

''Thank you, Jay Nelson Xavier.''

"What the —"

Somehow, I '''know''' that the voice I'm hearing in my head ''(not'' my ears) is Jenny. And when I turn to look at the stone dog, I see... something. Can't make out details — my eyes can't decide whether it's transparent or not — wait, it's solid now. Human body, female, which I (again, 'somehow') '''know''' to be an idealized version of Jenny's pre-SCABS body. Clothed, yet.

Her lips don't move: ''Is this form more to your liking, Jay Nelson Xavier?''

I evade the question. "Call me Jubatus, I use the other name for business. Thanks for what?"

''For your downshifting. The single-minded intensity of your concentration. For giving me something to focus on. I am grateful. What you did allowed me to... obviate? Reify? — no. I am sorry, you lack the vocabulary.''

"Whatever. You know, there's paperwork to fill out if you're dropping the class..."

For the first time in my life, I 'hear' a laugh that ''really is'' like the tinkling of bells. No mockery in it; I '''know''' that she's just appreciating the absurdity of the situation... ''Thank you again, Jubatus. It is very good to exist in human reality.''

"There's another kind?"

''In a manner of speaking. If two people perceive the Universe so differently that they cannot communicate, are they truly living in the same reality?''

Philosophy? Feh. "Yes, they are," I say. "Look, it's not like you need a speech tutor any more, so why are you here?"

''As I said, Jubatus, I am grateful. I want to express my gratitude in tangible form.''

'Tangible form'? Heh! The first image that comes to mind is impossible — I'm a cat, and she's dead — but she apparently picks it out of my brain anyway. And suddenly, without any warning, Jenny's a cheetah, too! She's fur-naked, and there's this indescribable ''scent,'' and she's stepping towards me, and — ''Very well, Ju-''

''"'''No!'''"'' I scream from the far corner of the room, only twitching a little. "No. That's, ah, no. None of that. Really."

And then she's back in her chair, back in human form, and a repentant sigh echoes lightly through my mind. ''I misunderstood...'' ''I apologize.''

It's easy for me to calm down, because I '''know''' her remorse is genuine. "That's, um, okay. So. You can read minds."

A light touch of uncertainty... ''In effect, yes. While I am not truly telepathic, I have certain... perceptions...''

"...which I lack the vocabulary for you to describe."

''I'm afraid so.'' This time, I '''know''' the communication gap's got her as frustrated as me — maybe more so — but she's honestly doing the best she can. ''I really am sorry — all of '''this''', being an inanimorph, it's still very new to me. I hope you can forgive me my errors.''

I shrug. "Not a problem. No harm done, you didn't mean it, and you learn from your mistakes. Right?"

''Right,'' she 'says', and for a moment I feel — ''something'' — like someone walked over my grave? Or like I'm being ''watched'' from every direction at once? Vocabulary again. Not really painful or unpleasant; just, I don't know, weird. Whatever the sensation is, I don't miss it when it stops. ''It's so very hard '''not''' to make mistakes with an unfamiliar set of abilities you've only just acquired... wouldn't you say?''

I give her a tolerant, rueful smile. "Tell me about it."

''As if I need to!'' Her sympathetic amusement is clear. ''But seriously: You did me an enormous favor, and I want to reciprocate. What would you like?''

'What would you like?' If it was anyone biological, I'd tell them to forget it — but this is an ''inanimorph'' 'talking'. And innies can do pretty much ''anything,'' blowing off physical laws as needed...

The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

She's 'silent' for a good ten-fifteen clock-seconds. I don't press her, and clouds of uncertainty and intense concentration drift through my brain as the time passes. ''I... don't know. I '''think''' I —''

"'''Do it!'''"

She's taken aback by the force of my command. That makes two of us.

''Let me finish, please. As I was going to say, I '''think''' I can eliminate all traces of Martian Flu virus from your body. That much I'm reasonably sure of. Changes inflicted by SCABS are a tougher problem, but I may even be able to undo them, too. The problem is, I don't know what condition you'll be in when I'm finished! Yes, you '''might''' return to your former, human, self; but you could also end up a normal cheetah, or even dead. If I try this, it could ruin your life, your very '''existence''', in any of thousands of different ways. On second thought, make that 'millions'. Is this a risk you really want to take, Jubatus?''

Rhetorical question. To be human again — ''fully human!'' — well, let's just say it's one hell of a prize Jenny's dangling before me. How can I believe she's up to the task? How can I ''not?'' There may be no hope of a cure from any ''human'' agency, but that doesn't say squat about what an ''innie'' might be capable of! ''"Do it,"'' I repeat.

She's quiet for a long moment before she 'talks' again. ''Jubatus. You '''do''' realize that just as I can perform actions far beyond any limits of biological life... so, too, can I make mistakes far more terrible than anything biological life is capable of.''

"No shit, Sherlock."

''You know this, but you still want me to try.''

"Got it in one."

''You're absolutely certain.''

"You're damn right I'm absolutely certain," I snarl. "Stop screwing around! Shit or get off the pot! ''Do it, or fuck off and...'' oh, hell. Just... do it."

Another longish pause, then she 'says', ''Very well. I'm going to scan you now, Jubatus...'' and suddenly that bizarre 'watched from all directions' sensation is back, in spades, doubled and redoubled. It feels like she's poring over my entire life, back to the moment of my birth and forward to my eventual death, simultaneously — and no, I haven't got Clue One ''how'' that impression entered my sensorium. Then my mind is drenched by a mixture of embarrassment and pity and regret and endless, bottomless sorrow.

''Oh, dear...''

"What's wrong?"

''You... don't even know, do you, Jubatus?''

''Huh?'' "What the ''fuck'' are you talking about!?"

''I really and truly am sorry. But I... I just '''can't''' give you what you '''really''' want.''

What the — goddamn bitch! It's my ''life'' she's toying with! "'Can't', or 'won't'?" I growl.

A foreign sigh drifts across my frontal lobes. ''If you must put it that way, it's 'won't' —''

I've had ''more'' than enough. So what if she's an inanimorph, ''nobody'' jerks me around like that! ''No-fucking-body!'' I don't let her 'say' another word: "Then get lost. Go find another fly to pull the wings off, you goddamn corpse."

''Please, let me exp-''

Okay, ''that'' is the proverbial '''''it'''.'' I scream and upshift high and leap straight for her lying throat and —

— and then the world turns inside-out around me and it's like I'm ''moving'' in some direction I wasn't previously familiar with and —

— disoriented, I blink. ''What the... oh, hell. I missed another meal, didn't I?'' With my high-speed metabolism, I've found that my higher brain functions tend to seize up after a couple of clock-hours without food. ''Better get a snack once I'm done here.''

Let's see... Jenny just asked what she could do for me. Right. The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

''I'm afraid not,'' she 'says', and I '''know''' her regret is sincere. ''Maybe at some future time, but right now, I don't even know if it's possible, let alone how to do it.''

"You mean innies ''aren't'' omnipotent?"

That gets me a mental cloud of tolerance/amusement/sympathy/self-effacement. ''You may find it hard to believe, Jubatus, but we inanimorphs '''do''' have limitations. They're just, different, from the ones you live with.''

I roll my eyes. "Oh, well." ''That'll teach me to hope...'' "Since you can't do what I want, I guess I'll take a rain check."

Either she's old enough to know the term, or she learned it when she scanned me earlier: ''Alright, a rain check it is.'' A sequence of 40 digits drifts across my forebrain, and I '''know''' I'll never forget it. ''Type that number on any computer or telephone keyboard, and I'll be there for you.''

"Do I want to know the details?"

A mixture of amusement and frustration, both mild. ''Yes, you do, and if you had the vocabulary, I '''would''' explain.''

"Gee, thanks. I'm beginning to see why you guys don't usually hang around with us ''living'' types."

''Tell me about it,'' she 'says', her words and tone echoing an earlier remark of mine. ''And thank you once again; now I know what I should '''do''' with myself.''

"Gonna play Speaker-to-Breathers, huh?"

A tinkling giggle dances through my brain... ''Something like that, yes. Farewell, Jubatus. Until we meet again...''

...and I'm alone in the room...''

== the fourth week ==

Homework. Birdbrain did a decent job on all 40 phonemes; tiger-boy did better; foxy lady did best of all. I flatly ''will not'' think about how her voice is gonna end up sounding. The bug's — Borman's — stridulation is a little iffy, but not bad for a first shot. Dennison? My questions for him amount to an abbreviated Piscine Anatomy 101 final exam, and he aced it. 25 answers dead-on correct, the other two ''technically'' invalid but strongly arguable anyway. As for Jenny... she's outta here. All her paperwork and computer files are in order, not that anybody noticed her turning in any forms or anything. None of my business anyway (he says, with a shrug).

As for the class itself (number four in a series of ten — collect them all!): Anthony sounds better than I do, goddamn his near-intact throat. I give 10:1 odds in favor of the bastard regaining full human speech before the final class session. Calgonetti? Phonemes he's got down pat, but he can't ''quite'' manage to put 'em together into honest-to-God ''speech.'' Funny, that. Chalk up another one for 'self-imposed mental block', and I go out of my way to rub salt in his wound. He'll thank me for it later, right? Borman actually surprises me by stridulating recognizable phonemes; only three of 'em, granted, but I didn't think he'd be able to swing it ''at all.'' Not this early, anyway. Good sign. Dennison turns out to have an internal swim-bladder, complete with swatting muscles, and he demonstrates it with a kind of "ahh-eee-ahh" that more-or-less spans an augmented fifth.

And then there's Zelinski. Her eyes aren't as bright as last week; her vocalizing is decidedly worse than before; and she fumbles with her voder like she'd only just started using the damn thing yesterday. Oh, and I could tell her scent was 'off' (including what the 'new' chemicals were) before she stepped into the classroom. I do the math, and the answer is clear: She's drugged. Given the data I've already acquired re: the Zelinski household, there's exactly 1 (one) person who could've done it to her: Alison Zelinski, her 'loving' spouse. You think I'm pissed off? Damn right I am. ''Nobody'' has the right to fuck up someone else's free will like that! I stifle my anger for the duration of the class.

This week's homework is pretty much a rerun of last week's; more phoneme-practice, singly and in combination. When the rest leave, I ask the vixen to stay. She gives me a vague look: "I muost gho homm," her voder says. "Mizz Awl-lee dee-uz-int wand me tu ss'tay owwit laid."

"Maybe so, but she also wants you to relearn how to talk, am I right?" Zelinski pauses, then makes with an uncertain nod, and I go on before her voder can say anything else: "You need a little extra attention right now, is all. That's what we're going to do tonight, and if Miss Allie doesn't like it, you just tell her it's ''my'' fault, how's that?"

I keep an eye on the parking lot while I talk — an occasional momentary upshift, nothing the fox even ''can'' notice in her drugged-out state — so I see the TransportElegance limo as it pulls in. Good thing Zelinski rather likes the idea of having some time away from home: Her face slides into an off-kilter grin, and her voder says, "Ohh khay!"

"Great. Now, sit down and close your eyes; I've got a big surprise for you." She obeys. I upshift. Four-point-eight clock-seconds later, she's in the back of my car, seated in front of a big-ass computer display with '''''Newspaper Tycoon VII''''' running. The rent-a-thugs in the limo think Zelinski's still in the Shelter; I brought her down so fast they didn't — couldn't — percieve ''anything.'' I could care less if they try to look in the Extremis; there's a couple aftermarket features that normally let me sleep in private, but they work just as well now. Specifically, the electrochromic film on the windows (currently set to Total Eclipse), and the cab divider in front of the cargo space.

Zelinski makes with a little squeal of delight when she opens her eyes. "There you go!" I say. "I've got the game set up for voice commands, but you can also use mouse and keyboard, if you'd rather. Need any help?" Apparently not — her fingers dance on the keyboard as she dives right in.

"Thank you," her box says, "but I don't believe that will be necessary." Interesting: Her skill with the voder is distinctly higher now than it was a few minutes ago. Good.

My cel phone has a wireless link to the Extremis' video cameras; that's how I know when the rent-a-thugs leave their vehicle for the Shelter. Absorbed in an orgy of virtual capitalism, the vixen doesn't even notice when I drive off. The rent-a-thugs won't be following us — not with their distributor cap in my glove compartment, they won't. Upshifting can be useful at times...

At this point, I'm not sure what the deal is with Alison Zelinski. Sure, I know ''what'' she's done to her ex-husband, but I don't know ''why,'' and the 'why' matters. Well, I'll find out soon enough.

Guaranteed.

Moving right along: Most people think the "Betty Ford Clinic" is just a punchline, what with all the rich actors and singers who supposedly go there to detoxify or whatever. Wrong. The Clinic is ''very'' real, ''very'' discreet, and damned good at what they do. And they've got a SCAB-friendly branch office in the west end of Pennsylvania. A couple hours of air-conditioned driving, and foxy lady is safely deposited there. The staff was quite professional, even while enrolling an unscheduled client at 2 AM. Wasn't exactly 'no questions asked', but that's okay; what with all my poking around the Zelinskis' private affairs, I had the right answers.

{{Separator|k}}

So. It's 9 AM Wednesday. By now Alison Zelinski's ''got'' to know that her gendermorph hubby has evaporated. Odds are, she hasn't slept. She's probably shitting bricks wondering when the ransom note will arrive. Wish I could've seen her face when ''my'' e-note ''did'' arrive in her inbox...

<tt>FROM: J. Acinonyx (fiver@jubatus.nucom)

SUBJ: re: Mary Zelinski's vocalization

I'm afraid that Mary's progress in class has been disrupted by a set of problems beyond my capacity to solve. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of securing an outside specialist who can help her overcome these problems. I would like to speak to you in a private conference, at your earliest convenience, about preventing a recurrence of these problems. When would be a good time for you?</tt>

Heh! I think I hit ''just'' the right chords; aside from the none-too-subtle hints that I know ''exactly'' what she's done, I've all but confessed to the kidnapping. Best of all, the language is sufficiently innocuous that no lawyer or judge could regard the note as evidence of ''anything'' nefarious. How long will it take Zelinski to decide that her only option is to talk to me?

I get her answer at 2:26PM. She wants to meet this evening, her place, 8 o'clock. As usual, I got clock-hours to kill — oh, joy. In between working on my legit contracts, I make contact with the Zelinski home network. Well, well: Miss Allison has been researching ''me,'' much good may it do her. Security protocols are unchanged, which just means that if she ''is'' planning any surprises, she's doing it offline. Do I have a plan? Damn straight I do. No point wasting time in conversational parry and riposte. Instead, I'm gonna blitzkrieg the bitch — hit her fast and hard, from multiple directions at once, changing attacks before she can adjust or reply. Considering how easily I torque people off just because, it'll be interesting to see how bad I can rattle somebody when I ''work'' at it. All of which assumes there's no armed resistance or whatever. If there is, no problem: I upshift and nuke it, after which Zelinski gets my ''undivided'' attention.

The clock-hours crawl by...

8PM — showtime. The Zelinski house is a bloated, two-story carbuncle with a bunch of underground floor space; when I ring the bell, the front door is opened by a familiar-smelling rent-a-thug. His demeanor is designed to intimidate, not that I give a damn. He says, "Miss Allison will receive you in the living room," and leads me inside.

The living room turns out to be an interior chamber with a good chunk of one wall taken up by an oversized flat-plasma display. Once I'm there, a female voice says "Thank you, Marcus. That will be all," and thug-boy leaves as we both sit down. This voice belongs to a female norm, straight black hair, semi-dark skin tone. Judging from her scent, she's a little shaky, uncomfortable, and trying not to let it show. Let's see how fast I can coax a reaction out of her. "I'm... my name is Alison Zelinski," she says.

"Jubatus," I reply.

"Would you..." She breaks off with a sigh. "I'm sorry, this is all so complicated..."

Shrug. "Seems pretty straightforward to me. Your hubby SCABbed over seven months ago — different sex and species. She's been stoned out of her gourd ever since, courtesy of ''you.'' I'm curious, how many doctors did you go through?"

"Excuse me?" Hmmm... steady pulse and scent... nope, her confusion is just an act. This isn't the first time my SCABS-heightened senses have come in handy.

"How many doctors?" I repeat. "Before you found one who didn't care ''what'' he did to Mary, as long as your checks cleared."

Okay, ''now'' it's a genuine response: High-end anger. ''"Mister'' Jubatus, I'll tha-"

Her words are drowned under my "Shut up, bitch." My voice may suck rocks, but I can definitely go Loud when I feel like it. ''"You'' may not be old enough to remember date-rape drugs, but ''I'' sure as hell am, and the only difference I see is that you ''married'' your victim first!"

"I — you —" From 'calm' to 'stuttering, with pulsing vein in forehead' in under 7 clock-seconds. I love it when a plan comes together. "How ''dare'' you!"

''"How dare '''you''', lady!?'' Go play the Righteous Indignation card somewhere else, 'cause I'm not interested. What I've got on you, I could nail you to the wall in court yet — and I just might."

It's working. I can practically smell her brain cells burning out as she ''almost'' keeps up''.'' "You — you'd never win!"

I give her a nasty smile, heavy on the fangs. "Bets on that? Imagine your face plastered across the front page of every newspaper in a 1,000-mile radius, not to mention all the broadcast media and net coverage. Think of all the editorials. Visualize the Zelinski name permanently associated with cute stuff like anti-SCABS bigotry, chemically-mediated enslav-"

''— attack: threat level high: 12 o'clock —''

— oh, hell. It's not the first time this has happened: My instincts trigger an upshift without ''my'' say-so, because they don't like something in my immediate vicinity. In this case it's Zelinski, floating in midair, with hands poised to do some damage. Physical assault? Gosh, I must've hit a ''very sensitive'' nerve. I ''could'' tear her several new assholes... but instead, I just move around to lean on the back of her chair, resume a tempo of 1, and watch her land, clumsily, on the couch I just vacated.

Confused, she looks around, and I speak when her eyes meet mine: "That was your first free shot at me. Hope you enjoyed it, because ''nobody'' gets ''two."''

"Bastard! I'll sue —"

I laugh, a cruel, venomous noise that shatters her focus. "Hah! Go ahead and try, for all the good it'll do you. Face it: Whatever you do, you ''can't'' stop me opening a can of worms ''you'd'' much prefer stay closed. Me, I could care less about bad publicity — can you say the same? If you think you can ''possibly'' fuck up a SCAB's social status any worse'n it ''already'' is, feel free to try. Who knows, you might even be able to come up with something that's '''not''' ''prima facie'' grounds for a libel suit. Should be fun."

"You..." I can smell fear, anger, concern, and confusion fighting it out in her scent. Fear wins. "Alright. Do your worst, you monster."

"Says the bald ape who arranged a permanent brainwashing prescription for their own spouse," I retort. "Alright , ''Mrs.'' Zelinski. I've got half a mind to sic my lawyer on you anyway, but I'm a reasonable man. Play it straight with me, I'll return the favor. Fuck with me, and I will ''own'' your sorry ass. Your choice."

Fear and guilt: A powerful combo. They're both on her face and in her scent. Eventually, she gets herself under control again. "What... what do you want?" she asks.

She's defeated, alright — scent doesn't lie — so I get down to business: "I want the truth. ''Why is Mary a drugged-out zombie?"''

Zelinski kind of sags in her chair. She sighs, doesn't (can't?) look at my face. "I... no one ever intended..."

A few seconds after she trails off, I kill the silence. "I'm not hearing a 'why'."

"It's... complicated..."

"You already said that," I point out. "Feel free to start at the beginning. Alternately, how about I just leave, wait 'til Mary's done getting detoxified, and let ''her'' decide how many new orifices to rip out of your hide? Your call — pick one."

She goes for 'start at the beginning'. Takes her an unnecessarily long time to spit it out: Hubby SCABs over (fur and tits), goes nutbar over the gender thing, needs to be sedated for his/her own protection... and ever since, Zelinski makes sure hubby gets a fresh dose whenever she's ''too'' close to sober.

"You... didn't know Martin before," she says, as if her words were threading a minefield. "He was... difficult to live with, not —"

I cut her off. "So. Fucking. What. If ''Mary'' wants to be permanently blitzed, fine, but guess what? ''That's not '''your''' goddamn decision, lady!'' So here's the deal: As of now, Dr. Gordon is off Mary's —"

"What gives you the right to interfere with the private affairs of this family!"

Zelinski shuts up when I look directly into her eyes. She looks right back. Both of us are way the hell pissed. Her anger is cold like liquid helium; mine is hotter than a deuterium-fusion torch.

Zelinski breaks first. When she lowers her gaze, I speak up, as inexorable as a glacier: "What, ''exactly,'' gave ''you'' the right to '''''interfere'''"'' — I spit that word out with a freightload of sarcasm — "with your spouse's mind and free will."

Her scent goes heavy on shame, with a side order of fear. No other response.

Okay, fine. "Like I was saying, here's the deal. One: You ''will'' sever ''all'' connections, professional and otherwise, between Mary and ''Doctor'' Gordon. Two: You ''will'' accept ''whoever'' Dr. Derksen recommends for Gordon's replacement. Three: You have ''no say whatsoever'' about Mary's medical needs — you ''will'' do ''anything'' the new guy says, agree to ''anything'' they recommend, and generally treat the new guy as if they're the Voice of God Himself. Four: If, at ''any'' time in the future, I find out that you have ''ever again'' so much as ''dreamed'' about '''''interfering''''' with Mary's medical treatment..." Here I whisper, as lethal as a sack of cobras: "I. Will. ''Destroy.'' You."

Zelinski crumples in silence. Her eyes glint with highlights that weren't there before — poor fucking baby.

I give her 15 clock-seconds; still no reply.

I'm out of there. Nobody gets in my way, not Marcus the thug nor any other hireling. Fine by me. The mood I'm in, I'd go ''through'' them. Not a good idea to leave a trail of broken bodies. I give the Extremis a once-over when I get to it; nope, no signs of tampering. Only then do I let myself relax. A little, anyway.

On the road, I don't think about what I just did. I don't ''want'' to think about it. I just drive. I want to — no. Bad idea; I ''don't'' want to get drunk.

Well... maybe just a little...

== the fifth week ==

It's none of my business, of course, but I keep an eye on the foxy lady over the next few days. Just to make sure Miss Alison stays the hell ''away'' from her ex-husband's treatment, is all. And wouldn't you know it, Zelinski makes quote, remarkable, unquote, progress. Think it might have something to do with ''not'' getting pumped full of mindfuck drugs on a regular basis? Funny how that works. Even so, the Ford medics insist on keeping her there "for observation" for another 8-10 days, minimum... which means she's going to miss a class. Maybe two.

In other news, I close 5 more contracts before next Tuesday. 33 more to go; I might run out before the tenth class. Hey, I ''am'' taking it easy — I haven't accepted any new clients since I started teaching the class.

Speaking of which, this session (the fifth) has a guest lecturer: Donnie Sinclair. And while he's scribbling at my students, I fill in for him behind the counter at the Pig. That's the pound of flesh he demanded before he'd do what I asked. I hate the idea; I mean, I don't ''do'' crowds! But since it puts a three-foot-wide ''faux''-marble countertop between me and the customers, it should be okay... right..? Aside from that, I have no idea how Donnie creates and maintains the Pig's SCAB-friendly atmosphere — so I won't even ''try.'' Instead I'm going to pour the booze, keep a paranoid eye on ''everything,'' and stomp on anything that smells like it even ''might'' be trouble. I just hope I can stay alert until closing time; for whatever reason, SCABS left me with a half-hour-long sleep cycle. Mind you, I don't ''have'' to conk out that often. I can actually stay up five hours at a time, but that's kind of like a norm staying up for five days solid... well, that should be enough. Hopefully. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

Having a few weeks' advance notice, I did my usual obsessive prep work beforehand. The cash register is a late-2016 NCR job, tablet-style touchscreen; before I'm through, I know it better than Donnie himself does. I'm packing 47,583 different drink recipes on a PDA, complete with recommended ingredient substitutions for when stuff runs out, and the thing happens to be equipped with a wireless internet hookup in case somebody wants something outside the onboard library. More recently, I confirmed that the Pig's supply database is 100% up to date (I double-checked each item myself). Come the fatal Tuesday, I make sure the lavatories are fully loaded — which is trickier than you might think, since the Pig's bathrooms accomodate a ''wide'' range of SCAB body types. Comfortably, yet. I also stash a couple dozen pounds of beef jerky behind the counter; the kind of calories I burn, I'm gonna ''need'' that protein...

And then it's showtime.

The hours pass in a blur. ''Jesu Christe,'' there's a shitload of customers — ''I'' sometimes have trouble keeping up with the orders! Upshifting doesn't help, because I ''have to'' understand what all you damn slowpokes are saying. And that means my tempo needs to be ''real'' close to 1 most of the time...

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Gimme a Stattenvorl."

I take orders.

"Three shots of Jack Daniels, straight."

I make change.

"Vodka martini for me, an' a Purple Ray for the li'l lady."

I pour booze.

"— tellya, I wuz on top'a th' world —"

I hate it. Sob stories from self-pitying morons — gaah! I pay those twits as little attention as I can manage. Most of 'em take the hint and stay the fuck ''away'' from the counter; occasionally I delegate one to Wanderer or somebody ''via'' an an upshifted note in their glass.

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Atomic Firewater!"

I take orders.

"Scotch and soda, heavy on the soda."

I make change.

"— ''you'' gonna do about it, runt?"

Oh, fucking ''joy.'' I quit pouring. Commotion by the dart board; there's a St. Bernard-derived animorph SCAB who can't aim worth shit, lost a bet, and is now proving himself to be a welching asshole and a ''mean'' drunk.

I point one finger ceilingward. "'Scuse me a sec," I tell the customers I haven't gotten to yet. Then I zip over to the big dog, telling him, "You lost, Bernie. Pay up and deal with it."

He's like six-foot-thirteen and 380 pounds, none of it fat; me, I'm five-eleven and forty-odd kilos. Seeing this as he turns to look down at me, Bernie makes with a contemptuous grin. "Who's gonna ma-''yeee!!!"''

There's an instant cloud of ozone and burnt fur — I didn't let Bernie ''see'' my TASER, but he damn sure ''felt'' it. He hits the floor like a 380-pound sack of dog food. Upshift, extract his wallet from a pocket, downshift, hand the wallet over to the norm-looking guy that beat Bernie. I say, "Take your winnings out of this," then I upshift again, this time so's I can haul Bernie's ass out the front door. We cheetahs are stronger than we look — we ''have to'' be, since our legendary top speed is muscle-powered — and besides, I've found that local gravity gets weaker when I upshift. Put 'em together, and I'm not even breathing hard when I set Bernie down on the sidewalk outside the Pig.

Once more behind the counter, I inhale dried meat, downshift, and pick up where I left off — elapsed time 8.6 clock-seconds in all. "I'm back. You there, what do you want?"

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Make mine a Jumper Cable."

I take orders.

"Bacardi 151 on the rocks."

I make change.

"Irish Coffee."

I pour booze.

Time goes on. The clock-hours spin and gyrate...

...and suddenly I blink, confused at what I see before me. ''Minotaur?'' I ask myself. ''That's — hold it, what's Donnie doing here..?

Ah. Right.''

The place is damn near empty, only a couple of stragglers still hanging on; I must have signaled Closing Time already. ''Thank any applicable god... Oh, yeah. Must ask...'' "Hhhh..." I stop, close eyes, swallow, restart. "How'd the class go?"

Donnie shrugs, then gives me an interrogative "Mmm?"-and-look combo.

I'm tired. My head hurts. "If you're asking how ''my'' end of the deal went, it sucked. I have ''no'' idea how you can ''stand'' doing what you do. Can I go now?"

Donnie looks at me with some inscrutable bovine expression. He nods.

I do likewise myself, no words. I manage to drag myself out to the Extremis, get inside, and lock up before I collapse...

== the sixth week ==

Week 6: Nothing much happened. Okay, I ''did'' lose another student, but it's all good... I guess...

On Thursday (that being July 29th, if you've lost track), I get a call from out of state — the Betty Ford Clinic. Guess which of their recent patients put in a request to chat me up, personal-like? Right — ''her.'' No reason given. Well, what the hell. I got time to kill, like always, so I agree to do the conversation today. I make time for it (and I ''do'' mean '''make'' time'), and at 5 PM, I'm in Mary Zelinski's private room at the Clinic.

She screws up her face a little, concentrating, and says — ''she'' honest-to-Thoth ''says! — ''"Hhhee-rhho, Tcheu-baddhuz."

I smile and nod. "Hello yourself, Ms. Zelinski. Needs work, but not too damned shabby. Y'know, if you wanted to let me know you're dropping the class, you could've just sent me e-mail..."

Despite herself, the foxy lady smiles. Only for a moment, but it's ''there.'' And then she goes on: "Iiayy, w''rr''ahndtuu... ''hrraauuw!"'' A frustrated yowl. Frowning, she picks up her voder, which just happens to have been lying on her nightstand, and lets it speak for her. "Yes. I'm dropping your class. This is about something else. What happened to my wife?"

I wasn't expecting ''that.'' If I had eyebrows, I'd raise them. "It matters?"

Angry and some other emotion fight it out on Zelinski's face; Angry is losing, ''big'' time. "I'm not sure any more," her voder says in its incongruously level tone. "I'm not sure I want to know. But I must know. And you can tell me. Can't you?"

''Oh, fucking joy.'' "Yeah. I can. But just remember, you ''asked'' for it..." And I make with an infodump. I give Zelinski the whole story, everything from when I first read her file to when I hammered on dear little Alison. The foxy lady doesn't interrupt; she sits there and absorbs it all without making a sound. And then I'm done...

"...back to the Pig, to get smashed."

At this point, Zelinski isn't the least bit angry. She's kind of hunched over into herself; her voder lies, forgotten, on the bed next to her.

I wait a bit, then kill the silence: "You asked. I answered. Is that it?"

The vixen pulls herself together. "Yes," her voder says, "that's enough." Then her fingers pause over the talk-box. A few moments later, it recites the words she'd been typing; it gets as far as "I wish" before she hits the 'abort' button. She starts over, her hands a little shaky: "Tank you mitt sir Jubatus. You comforted my suspectings. Please lever me out lone."

Which I do. The Ford Clinic staff wants to debrief me; I blow off most of their questions with variations on, "Ask the foxy lady — it's ''her'' call."

And then I'm on the road again, driving back home.

{{Separator|k}}

Nothing much happened for the next week or so, and that includes during the next class session. Fortunately. I've been on the short end of too damn many surprises already...

Wait, there was ''one'' thing: The bug. Borman. He can actually stridulate one-syllable words! He sounds lousy (still better than ''I'' do, damn it), and it sucks up so much of his attention and concentration that changing to a different syllable is a major feat, but when all is said and done, he ''can'' talk. It's just a matter of practice, honing his currently-primitive skill.

{{Separator|k}}

So I'm coming in for today's stint at the West Street Shelter. I'm not three steps past the front door when this lightly morphed rat-SCAB, a new addition to the staff, says Splendor wants to see me in her office right away. What does she ''want'' from me? Hell if I know — but 'in her office' means it's a private conversation, and ''that'' cuts ''way'' back on the number of alternatives...

By the time I open her office door, the short list is down to about three possible agendas. I close the door. Splendor's just beginning to greet me; I interrupt her, saying, "You want I should work somebody over."

She blinks. "What makes you... never mind. Actually —"

Some things are best stopped ''before'' they start. I cut her off again: "Not interested. Go find someone else to play shock trooper. I'm sure there's ''plenty'' of people around here who'd ''love'' to put a hurting on some asshole who desperately deserves —"

"That's exactly why I want ''you'' for this job!" Her turn to interrupt, it seems.

My turn to blink.

"Okay..." I finally say. "You've piqued my curiosity. Explain."

"Thank you. First, some background." She opens a file drawer, pulls out a manila folder, hands it to me. "Read this."

Upshifting, I follow her advice. 'This' is a collection of eyewitness reports — seems that Splendor has an unofficial network of informers all over the City. It's mostly surveillance on the comings and goings of various lowlifes, but there's also some educated guesses on what said lowlifes will be up to in the near future. Hmmm... if I'm reading this right, it looks like the West Street neighborhood's been relatively low on criminals for a while, and a gang from outside the City is planning to move into what they perceive as a vacuum.

I close the folder, slip back to a tempo of 1 — "Done." — and return it to her. "Alright, that's the background. So what?"

"I know the local thugs, and I've gotten most of them to stop committing their crimes in ''my'' neighborhood."

"Bully for you." I've got an uncomfortable feeling I know what's on her mind, but — "And I should get involved... why?"

She gestures at the folder. "The Cargill Mob. If they establish a presence here, it will be... well. Let's just say it would be best for all concerned if they don't. I want to dissuade them with a show of force; give them a demonstra-"

"No. I flatly ''refuse'' to play enforcer."

''"Will'' you let me ''finish!?"'' she says, glaring at me. Well, what do you know — the snake-lady actually ''has'' a temper. I gesture for her to continue; she does. "I've set up a meeting with Jocko Cargill," — head honcho of the eponymous Mob, says her files, real name 'Giocomo' — "and I want to be accompanied by people who I can be ''absolutely certain'' will not initiate any hostile action."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I say without much sarcasm. "So what ''do'' you want from me?"

"You're welcome. And I want you to serve as bodyguard."

Damn... it's not often that I'm left speechless...

"Frankly, I'd be a fool to trust Jocko as far as I can —" '''''BLAM!'''''

''— attack: threat level extreme: 2 o'clock —''

Damn... the whole south wall's erupted with itsy-bitsy explosions. The instincts upshifted me to a tempo of 35-40, somewhere up there, and the ambient noise Dopplers down like always; I can see...

Holy limping Hephæstus — ''I '''can''' see the bullets moving!''

It actually takes a couple seconds of my time before I snap out of it and get to work. Numero Uno: Digital camera from my vest, aim it at the wall's exit wounds, leave it floating in midair at1,000 shots per clock-second. Numero Two-o: Shpritz a layer of DeadGlove (inert polymer in a spray can) on my hands, grab bullets out of the air, store 'em five-to-a-mylar-envelope. Would've preferred individually-wrapped, but I ran out — wasn't prepped for ''this'' many projectiles! Numero Three-o: There's a second wave of airborne crap (shards of window glass, wood chips, nails, yada yada), so I sweep it all to the carpet and bury it under several dozen pounds of books to make sure it don't go noplace it shouldn't ought to.

I retrieve my camera — good, it's still got 91% free RAM — and there's nothing visibly moving at the moment, so I downshift to a tempo of 1 so's I can hear if there's any more impacts. There aren't any, but I ''do'' hear screams and wails from casualties, damnit! Well, hell; they probably won't die in the next few clock-seconds, so I upshift my tempo to 35 and avoid the jagged remnants of windowpane in the frame as I go outside to get some good shots of a late-model Chrysler, nicely framed between a lamp post and a dumpster; driver and two passengers, shabby paint and no discernable plates. Oh, and a pair of rifle barrels sticking out its side windows, complete with muzzle flash and ''more fucking bullets'' on the way. The car's tilted forward, which means the sons of bitches are braking to give themselves more time to shoot.

Fine. I move in, camera ''k'chnkk''-ing away as it stores images of the bullets and their source, and when I'm in range, I reach inside the car; grab the front gun by its chamber; and '''''pull''''' the fucker out and down, with as much force as you'd expect from muscles that can shove a hundred-pound mass around at 70 MPH. Next up: A re-run with the back-seat firearm.

Both guns are firmly lodged in the dirt, barrel-first. The guys who ''were'' holding them have a bunch of fingers sticking out at ''real'' weird angles. Fuck 'em both. I'm busy — the guns are harmless, but there's all the bullets they ''already'' fired — okay, got the last one. My envelopes now hold seven bullets apiece.

Hungry now. I inhale a slab of beef jerky from my vest while I plan out my next move...

By the time I've made my decision, the dudes-in-car are starting to react to the abrupt change in their immediate surroundings; there's the beginnings of shocked/worried expressions evolving on their faces. Hmm... the car's not so tilted as it had been... betcha the driver's floored it. I grin as I extract a genuine Swiss Army Knife from a vest-pocket, unfold the (diamond-hard, waterproof, corrosion-resistant, tungsten/vanadium alloy) cutting blade, and slash a diagonal gouge all the way across the tread of the driver's side front tire. Not waiting for it to finish blowing out, I do likewise to the driver's side rear; then I step back onto the sidewalk, resume munching on shriveled meat, downshift to a tempo of 1, and watch the wreck change from 'incipient' to 'actual'.

As per my unwritten script, the car — driver's side, at least — drops to the pavement with a hell of a clang and a shower of sparks. Then it makes with a metal-on-asphalt shriek all the way to its 45-MPH collision with the dumpster. Oooh, no airbags! ''That's'' gonna leave a mark...

I finish my snack, keeping an eye on the perps in case someone feels like doing something cute; nobody does. I upshift high, strip all three assholes down to their underwear, expend an entire pocket-sized roll of duct tape making ''damn'' sure the perps are gonna sit tight where they are, clean out the glove box and trunk... and for an encore, I downshift and call in the whole sorry encounter to the local police precinct.

Citizen's arrest is a ''good'' thing, right?

Waiting for the cops to show, I drop back to my default tempo of 6 and amuse myself checking out my loot. No discernable ID on any of the trio — such a surprise — so we'll just see what their photos, fingerprints, and DNA (from impromptu blood samples) have to say about the matter. Again, the car is plateless, and there's no VIN either. As for the guns, they look like they could be Izakawa 'Divine Wrath'-model automatics. That, or else homebrew jobs. I sure hope it's the latter, since I happen to know that Izakawa doesn't ''do'' firearms for any ''civilian'' market.

Onward to happier thoughts. Let's see... the clothes look to be generic off-the-rack Target. Residual scent is mostly drowned under cheap-ass cologne, so there's not so much chance of getting olfactory ID off of it. Just one of the tricks criminals have learned for dealing with a post-SCABS world...

...ah. Someone's approaching — correction: ''Splendor's'' approaching. I downshift to match her tempo.

"Nice day, huh?" I say.

She grimaces a little. "Hardly. It seems I'm not the only one who felt a show of force might be appropriate."

"Seems like," I agree. "The timing's pretty interesting, though. It ''could'' be coincidence... but me, I bet Cargill had your office wired for sound. Not sure when."

Splendor nods. "That makes sense. Perhaps we should relocate this discussion to a more secure place?"

"No point. I mean, he's ''already'' eavesdropping, right? So he's gotta know his boys got ''way'' the hell hammered on, by someone who's ''literally'' faster than a speeding bullet. He may not be sure what other tricks I have up my sleeve, but I, for one, will be happy to help him learn — the ''hard'' way. Of course, that's assuming Jocko Homo has the balls, not to mention the requisite lack of functional brain cells, to suit up for Round Two."

Splendor's eyes widen, just for a moment, about halfway through my last sentence. Then she gets it and puts a subtle smile on her face. "I... see. I trust you know what you're doing..."

"Always," I state flatly. "And I know something else: That fucknose is ''toast."

<hr>

The next few days are kind of busy, and not just because of my unfinished contracts (29 and counting) and speech-class-related stuff and helping Splendor deal with the listening devices. To begin with, I pore over police records and the snake-lady's files — but that's maybe a couple of clock-hours at most. No, what ''really'' occupies my time is what I ''do'' with the data thereby gained: I smash hands.

See, the cops have a pretty good idea of who-all is on Jocko's payroll, and what their particular duties are. Just because the authorities don't have enough hard evidence to nail a guy in court, that doesn't mean they're clueless about why he ''should'' be nailed in court. And if you're curious about why the police might grant a puny civilian — ''i.e.,'' me — access to this sort of sensitive information? Two reasons:

First, money talks.

Second, it seems I got a bit of a fan club in blue. Something to do with all those meticulously detailed complaint reports I keep filing any time some jackass messes with me or my property. I'm told that last year, about17% of all City trials for SCAB-related hate crimes used at least ''some'' data from one of my complaint reports — make it 23%, if you're only interested in ''convictions.''

The point is, I got a line on Jocko's ''whole organization.'' His ''entire'' chain of command, from him and his most-trusted seconds all the way down to his lowliest footsoldiers. And I also got several dozen of the freelancers he's most likely to call when he needs a little extra manpower.

Put it all together, I got me a good, long list of targets to hit... and hit them, I do. With a pair of bricks. At a closing velocity ''well'' in excess of the speed of sound.

I tap each of their hands twice. Hit Number One, the bricks are parallel to the plane of the palm; Hit Number Two, they're at right angles. Locating a target's never difficult. After that, I do my business, leave a card, and bug out.

The card, you ask? Just something I whipped up on a cheap-ass laser printer I bought, used for this one job, and melted to untraceable slag immediately after. Each card bears six words — "TELL JOCKO HOMO TO GET LOST" — and a single letter, "J".

No, as a matter of fact I ''couldn't'' just waste 'em all. Three words:

'''''I.'''''

'''''Don't.'''''

'''''Kill.'''''

Got it?

Aside from that, leaving Jocko's crew mostly-intact is a ''good'' thing. There's a lot to hate about organized crime, but one thing they get right is, ''you take care of your own people.'' 'Cause if you don't... well, either you take care of them, or else ''they'' take care of ''you.'' Not to mention, a rep for fucking over your underlings makes it a ''lot'' harder to get replacement thugs when you need them.

So. If I'd left Jocko with a pile of corpses, he'd just bury 'em and that's ''it.'' But he's got a pile of cripples instead, so he's got ''lots'' bigger problems — like medical expenses for the victims, rent and food for their families, yada yada yada. Unless he's just crazy, he ''must'' deal with all this stuff.

Well, maybe Jocko ''is'' batshit insane; doesn't matter. Crazy or not, he ''still'' needs warm bodies to do his business, right? Which means he needs a whole new 'army'. And if people know how badly he screwed his last gang, who the hell's gonna ''want'' to sign on with his ''next'' gang? Answer: ''No''-fucking-body. And no, Jocko ''can't'' just lean on people to ensure silence. Not while all the guys who ''would'' be doing the actual leaning are in hospital with mangled hands, he can't...

{{Separator|k}}

Splendor catches up to me the day after the drive-by. Another ''tete-a-tete'' in her office, which is where two of the five bugs were. She did what I would've suggested if she'd asked: Left 'em all in place, just paying attention to prefabricated soundtracks rather than ambient sights and sounds. But as I walk through the door this time, she welcomes me with a gesture that (by sheer coincidence, I'm sure) switches off the 'bug bamboozler' I installed in this room. ''Confusion to the enemy, hm? Okay, I can play along,'' I muse to myself with a subtle hand gesture that she picks up on.

"Thank you for your promptness, Jubatus," she says. "How many eavesdropping devices have you found?"

"Two, I think."

"You... ''think."''

And then she makes with a disapproving look, so I put on a show of annoyance: "Damn right, I ''think!'' You got any idea how old this place's wiring is? There's all kinds of components that the only reason I could even ''recognize'' them is, I'm old enough to have seen 'em back in the '90s! And further-"

The phone on Splendor's desk rings. Twice. She picks up before ring #3, saying: "West Street Shelter. Splendor speaking."

I hear the voice from the handset, real clear. "Hey there, Miss Splendor! How ya doin'? I heard'ja had some trouble just recent."

Having heard that voice on some police surveillance recordings, I recognize it as Jocko Cargill; not sure about the snake-lady. "I am doing well," she says in a professionally-controlled tone that doesn't give away a damn thing. "If you'd care to tell me what business you have with the Shelter —"

"Yeah," Jocko interrupts. "I got business with you, alright: One'a your freaks dissed me, ''real'' badand it ain't the kind of thing you can clear up with an apology. I know the little pussy's ''there,'' so how's about you put 'im on the line, huh?"

"Ve-" she begins. A momentary upshift lets me confirm there's no incoming assaults; when I revert back to the normal tempo, she's turned on the speakerphone function, and she's saying, "-ell. He's here now."

"Jubatus," I say to the 'phone, playing my part. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I want a cheetah-skin rug, ''Mister'' Juba-"

"Well, if it ain't Jocko Homo!" I break in. "What's crawled up ''your'' ass, Mr. H?"

"Ha, fuckin', ha," he replies. It's hard to tell, what with the audio distortions of the telephone system, but I ''think'' his level of irritation just got boosted a notch or two. Good. "Funny, kitty-cat. ''Real'' funny. Lemme tell you what I do to little pussies that stick their noses where they don't belong: I skin the fuckers alive."

"You and what army?" I sneer back at him. "Get real, Jocko — you ain't got shit, and we both ''know'' it. Face facts: '''''I''' am the fastest SCAB alive.'' You ''can't'' threaten me — not when I can outrun any bullet on the face of the Earth! Hell, I can ''catch'' your damn bullets and throw 'em right back in your face!"

''"You're dead, you goddamn pussy!"''

I give Splendor a 'thumbs up' gesture as I hammer the needles deeper beneath his skin: "Go ahead, Homo — ''lose'' your temper. Blow a gasket, that's a good little thug. Let your blood pressure rise until your arteries explode. I'll be sure to dance a jig of grief at your funeral, and piss on your grave."

I hold my hand up, warning the snake-lady not to interrupt, for the few moments of heavy breathing it takes Jocko to regain a semblance of self-control. Which he does: "Okay... Okay... You got me goin' there, I admit it. Not too bad — for a ''fuckin' animal.'' Enjoy it while you can, Mister Kitty, 'cause you won't enjoy ''nothin''' after ''I'm'' done with you!"

"So you can tag somebody that can break the sound barrier under his own power? Not!" is my smugly confident reply. "Try a gas weapon, Homo. A poisonous cloud is a lot harder to dodge than a bullet, and ''maybe'' I won't zip through it so damn fast it doesn't have ''time'' to affect me."

"That's ''real'' fuckin' hilarious, Mister Kitty." — and now he pauses, just for a very short moment — "In fact, you're a goddamn comedian, ain't'cha? Well, it wouldn't be polite of me to keep you from laughin' it up, so I'll just say g'bye now." And he hangs up. I think about Jocko Homo's pre- and post-pause vocal overtones, as much as I could hear them over the telephone, as Splendor turns the 'bamboozler' back on with a heartfelt exhalation...

"Well," she says, ''"that'' was interesting. May I assume there was a reason you insisted on giving Jocko the bright idea to try chemical weapons?"

"Damn straight." I grin mercilessly. "Look: We SCABs have an insanely wide range of biochemistries, right? What that means is, you can spend however-many megabucks developing a weapon that takes out ''one'' SCAB — but you got basically ''no'' idea whether or not it's gonna affect ''any other'' SCAB! So let's say you're a weapons researcher who's just been handed a pile of cash to come up with an equalizer that'll work on people like us. Do you spend it on chemical weapons, knowing that it's a fucking waste of resources, or do you spend it on new and improved projectile weapons, which are ''guaranteed'' to work on ''almost all'' SCABs?"

She thinks it over a moment, and likes the answer: "In other words, you goaded Jocko into wasting some of his available resources on an intrinsically futile gambit."

"Bingo! Got it in one."

"Unfortunately, I believe there's a flaw in your thinking. What's to keep Jocko from attempting to acquire one of those experimental projectile weapons you spoke of?"

I shrug. "Calculated risk. Assuming Jocko manages to get his hands on ''any'' military hardware ''at all,'' I'm betting he won't get more than one or two pieces, if that. And the more he focuses on ''me'' in particular, the less he's gonna be able to do to ''anybody else."''

"I see..." Splendor just looks at me for a clock-second or so. "You're determined to play lightning rod, aren't you."

"Better me than one of you slowpokes," I say with a shrug. "What's your point? I'm the hardest target you've ''got,'' so why ''shouldn't'' I paint a bullseye on my chest?"

"No reason at all," she says in a neutral tone. "Thank you, Jubatus."

"For what? Premature much?" I grimace. "Save your gratitude until ''after'' we've dealt with the problem at hand."

{{Separator|k}}

Jocko's no Jubatus. If it was ''me'' plotting an assault on the Shelter, I'd have researched the place in exhaustive detail ahead of time, including all of its resident SCABs and their combat-useful abilities. I'd also have worked up about 14 layers of contingency plans in case Something Went Wrong. And in particular, I would ''not'' have allowed my targets ''any'' breathing space ''whatsoever'' after my first attack. Then again, maybe Cargill did have a Plan B — Splendor doesn't think so, but, y'know, for the sake of argument? Like I said: Maybe the guy ''did'' have a backup plan, but I got my counterattack in ''before'' he could push the button.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, I'm not about to let up on him. For one thing, I've only tagged 68% of the targets on my list, and if you're a slowpoke (which everybody associated with the Shelter ''is),'' just ''one'' disgruntled twit with a high-powered rifle is all it takes to ruin your whole day. For another thing, three of the targets on my list have ''already'' bolted and run, apparently the moment they heard about what happened to my first victims. Or ''did'' they run away? Could be Jocko ordered 'em to go elsewhere and pick up a few 55-gallon drums of industrial-strength Whupass. Again, Spendor doesn't think Jocko's subtle enough (or smart enough) to do that; I'm inclined to agree, myself. Nevertheless, it's a loose end that needs to be tied off ''before'' it trips up anybody who matters. I've uploaded a few spiders to the Net, to keep an eye on the runners' financial activity; nothing big, just what I need so's I'll have a little advance notice if/when they make a suspicious purchase wherever, or they return to this fair city, or yada yada yada.

{{Separator|k}}

"Hey, don't get me wrong — I don't like killin' people any more'n the next guy! But what can you do when some fuckin' dipshit ''asks'' f-"

''— multiple attacks: threat levels high, extreme, extreme, lethal, extreme: 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 o'clock —''

— the instincts upshifted me to a tempo of ''40?'' Damn. Looks like my buddy Jocko is playing with ''very'' dangerous toys! A rather strong hammerblow to my back pushes me forward; I go with it, especially because there's a couple points on the back of my head that're feeling ''real'' hot just now. As I fall forward, the hot spots on my skull cool down a bit, and a second hammerblow glances off one shoulder.

Yes, Virginia, I got hit with supersonic bullets ''and'' military lasers. How did I survive to tell the tale, you ask? Tempo of 40, that's how. Upshifted that high, from ''my'' point of view the bullets were only carrying ''one-sixteenth of a percent'' of their 'full' load of kinetic energy; body armor did the rest. As for the energy weapons, my upshift cut their power — how much energy they deliver in a given amount of time — to only 1/40 normal, not to mention what it did to the photons' frequency. That kind of tweakage can really mess up a laser beam's innate capacity for destruction, you know? Still dangerous, but only if I'm dumb enough to stick around and wait for it to burn me. No, I can't outrun photons; then again, I don't ''have to'' be faster than light.

I just have to be faster than whatever's adjusting the laser's point-of-aim.

Moving right along: You damn betcha I'm prepped for beam weapons. Jocko may not be Jubatus, but ''I am.'' One vest pocket holds a few grams of light-sensitive dust; laser-safety goggles in another; a third pocket's got a matched set of six corner-cube reflectors. My left hand tosses clouds of powder into the air for the beams to reflect/refract off of, while I put the goggles on with my right... bingo! ''There's'' the beamlines — all three of the SOBs. Fine. Three corner-cubes, coming right up. I give each one a ''whole'' bunch of angular velocity so it twirls in place; that won't stop it from reflecting the laser ''exactly'' back the way it came, but it ''will'' reduce the amount of time any particular piece of reflector spends in direct contact with its beam.

The adrenaline rush is fading — I can feel blood vessels throbbing in my neck and scalp, not to mention the opening twinges of a killer migraine. That's what I get for overstraining my chronomorph power. I can't maintain a tempo of 40 for long, so I gotta make the most of each Time-shifted fractional second while I can.

Okay — the bullets. Only one source, thank Ares. They look to be moving at 40-45 MPH, which (after factoring in my tempo) means they ''are'' supersonic. Somewhere around Mach two-point-five, I think. The exact figure doesn't matter: I extract a pair of hand-sized metal plates from yet another vest pocket, align the plates at ''just'' the right angles, and thereby nudge the stream of bullets towards the trajectory I'd rather they follow. The headache's just begun, but I ain't got ''time'' to deal with the pain, so I ignore it. I give the room a quick scan; yep, the same four targets. Good. Hmmm... the first bullet just struck target 1, so I shift my 'bucklers' to redirect the stream to the next in line, then target 3, and finally Jocko himself. Bastard ''would'' ensure that ''he's'' not anywhere near the direct line of fire, damn it.

The lasers are gone now — ''quelle'' surprise, and I appreciate the corner-cubes' sacrifice — so it's time to deal with the gun-on-steroids. The cloud of drywall fragments tells me ''exactly'' where the bullets are coming from, so I leap straight at that point, twirling my hand-held shields before me in a paddle-wheel-type maneuver so's the projectiles get knocked out of my flight path into the floor. Each bullet-slap jars me up to the shoulders, in a rhythm that clashes against the pulsating throbs of my cerebral arteries. I hit the wall a little over the bullets' exit hole; no problem! I dig into the wall with the claws of two feet and one arm, and I use my free hand to ram a 'shield' right down the barrel of the damn gun.

Okay, it won't fit — it's too big — but ''you'' know what I mean, right? If I can clog up the barrel with its own bullets, I negate this particular threat. And the bullets keep coming; each new impact against the 'buckler' sends a ''serious'' shockwave up my arm and down my torso to rattle my internal organs. One... two... thr- ''Sn'f'fckngbtch!!!''

''Very'' bright light. Then pain makes a fast getaway as the world goes ''real'' dark...

{{Separator|k}}

Lying down; I smell medicines and rubbing alcohol; right. I'm in a hospital. Private room. Kind of tired, but I don't feel much pain — apparently, I've been healing for a while? And... okay, I recognize ''that'' scent: It's Splendor. I see a light cast on her left elbow, neatly-applied dressings on her neck and the right side of her face, plus a glued-down patch over her right eye — and who knows what ''else'' she's hiding ''underneath'' her clothes. No cane; she must not've been hurt ''that'' badly. I downshift to talk to her...

"Hello, Splendor," I say. "I'm guessing the good guys won."

"Jubatus!" She seems a little surprised to hear me speak; not sure why. "Welcome to the land of the living. And yes, we did."

"Good. What happened after I fell asleep on the job?"

The lady makes with one of her oh-so-elegant veiled smiles. "You may have 'fell asleep', but I shan't complain. After all, a railgun ''did'' explode in your face..."

I roll my eyes. "Now tell me something I ''don't'' know."

"Of course," she says, nodding. "From what I could determine afterwards, I was outside the blast radius proper, but the shockwave knocked me senseless anyway. When I came to, I was naked except for the coils of duct tape Jocko had wrapped around me — and I knew it was him because he wasn't finished. I'm afraid he noticed I was awake before I'd quite recovered my wits; he took great pleasure in telling me ''exactly and precisely'' what he intended to do to me, now that you were too dead to protect me." Now she looks me in the eyes; her unblinking gaze makes it real clear (like it wasn't before?) what kind of critter that damn disease blended her with. I wait for the snake-lady to keep talking.

"And then he raped me." It's a flat, calm, statement of fact she's just made... "Which only proves that he was unaware of the ''full'' extent of what SCABS did to me."

My mind races — there's a few rumors about certain events in her past — I throw out an educated guess: "Projecting chronomorph?"

Splendor acknowledges my remark with a subtle inclination of her head. "Correct. I can only adjust other people's ages downward — but when sex is involved, the rejuvenative effect is ''permanent."''

I ponder the possibilities... "So you rolled his odometer back. How far?"

"I fully intended to 'roll his odometer back', as you put it, to the point at which his zygote originally formed." I blink at that. ''Okay... someone remind me never to piss her off...'' "As it happened, I didn't need to go that far; at the moment of his death, I'd reduced him to a first-trimester premature birth."

"Damn..." I picture the scene in my mind. "And since he ''was'' raping you at the time..."

"Exactly. Jocko was too distracted to perceive any difficulties until ''after'' he was physically incapable of doing anything about it. Now it's your turn, Jubatus. What ''did'' you spend these past few days doing?"

So I talk. Snake-lady listens — and from her occasional questions and comments, it's pretty clear that my info is mostly just confirming what she's already learned from other sources.

Doesn't take me long to finish the story. Splendor stares off into the middle distance for a while; I take the opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep...

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:John Moschitta School of Elocution}}

User:Cubist/So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star

2009-02-16T02:55:06Z

Cubist:

{{title|name=So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
''jubatus''

Sometime within the next four hours, I'm going to be in one of the back rooms at the Blind Pig with Greyflank. It's not a place I want to be—and my reticence has nothing to do with sexual preference, thanks.

The room itself isn't a problem. No windows, ergo no worries about anyone bouncing a laser beam off the glass, and no lip-readers, either, even if that skill is a lot less useful where we SCABs are concerned than any eavesdropper would prefer. I'm reasonably confident that no conventional bugging devices can cut through the acoustic and electronic countermeasures Donnie gave me the okay to install for the duration. None of my tech-tricks will do a bit of good if some inanimorph happens to be listening in ''via'' their usual impossible senses, of course, but BlueNight tells me he's got that covered. I don't ''think'' he's shitting me; then again, I couldn't tell if he ''was,'' could I?

So… the room itself is fine. What's ''not'' fine is what I'll be doing there.

You see, Greyflank is the PR man for the Strikebreakers. One part of that job is knowing how to respond when evil-minded people spread malicious truths about you… and it's a lot easier to do that if you already know what those malicious truths ''are.'' Which is why he's inquiring about any nasty surprises we band-members may be concealing from public view.

Any questions?

''greyflank''

I've done some evil things in my life. Terrible things that should never see the light of day. Being a deviant isn't so bad, but I crossed the line to full-fledged monster, and I still have nightmares about it every so often. I never intended to hurt anyone… did I?

It doesn't matter. That's all past. Now, it's time to focus on the present and future. And for the immediate future, I'm support crew for the band, roadie and gaffer and Lord High Everything Else. Jubatus coined that title, and I think I like it.

''constance''

the world is a mosaic of people and places, actions and events
it's all good, even the bad pieces, for difference is necessary
high points wouldn't be high if there weren't any low points
the sun would not shine so bright without the night for contrast
wheels within wheels; patterns made of patterns
patterns of light and sound, time and motion, patterns i am a shining part of
part of a greater whole
part of the mosaic that is the world
i love being a part of it

''ringwolf''

Yeah, yeah, telemarketing. I've heard all the damn jokes, okay? I guess SCABS let me off easy; didn't do much on the outside, and the stuff it did inside actually made me sound better. Maybe I got some instincts in there too, I dunno. I don't really ''feel'' like a wolf. It's just, sometimes I get a little impulsive, know what I mean?

Of course, impulsive ain't why I hooked up with Wanderer. No way! Charisma, that's what it is. He may be a SCAB and come off like Marlon Brando's gay grandson, but damn if that wolf ain't got more ''charisma'' than practically anybody. So one day he talks to me, and sure enough he's noticed the voice, and what d' you ''expect'' me to do when he says maybe I oughtta join the glee club?

Charisma, like I said. No use even ''trying'' to fight it.

''dr. stein''

Singing? I missed it, I really did. I have so many fond memories of my performances with the Virginia Opera; whether it was '''''Porgy and Bess''''' or '''''Turandot''''' or '''''Lippizaner's Complaint''','' it was… well, I don't know if I can describe what it's like. At the very least, I can say it's gratifying in a way that my scientific pursuits have never been—and ''vice versa,'' of course.

The trouble is, over the past several years, vocalizing was a hobby I just didn't have the time to indulge. When the Martian Flu virus arrived on Earth, and during the pandemic that followed, I allowed professional concerns to take precedence over personal interests; more recently, the aftermath of the whole Barnes episode made my life rather complicated. But now…

Well. It's been a very long, very strange trip, but I've finally come home.

''dobhran''

I don't know what I'm doing here. Don't have a clue, honestly. Considering all the crap I've done to myself, it's a wonder I still have any mind left to lose. I don't know; maybe I ''am'' insane.

Or maybe I'm tired of the multi-layered shittiness that is my life. Maybe I've finally hit the wall, found my limit, exceeded my tolerances. Maybe I want to to be part of something I don't ''need'' to lie about, not to ''anyone.''

Maybe I just want to be able to look at my face in a mirror without flinching.

Gods and goddesses grant that I not fuck it up! ''Please.'' May I not fuck ''this'' up, ''too…''

''wanderer''

Ahhh! To make a joyful noise unto the Lord—or, indeed, any other audience! I have long since consecrated the whole of my existence to the performing arts, and I have no regrets, none at all. When one holds the audience's collective soul in the palms of one's hands, each party feeding off of the other in a kind of spiritual symbiosis… There is nothing in this world that can truly compare to the experience.

Nothing whatsoever!

I suspect that even Jubatus would agree with me on this point—not that he'd ever be so incautious as to openly acknowledge that he possesses human emotions, of course.

''wolfshead''

Why did I join the Blind Pig Glee Club? You might as well ask why I joined the Lupine Boys. I don't have an answer for either question, or at least I have no truly ''satisfactory'' answers.

I was an accountant before… well… ''before.'' I still am, but, it's different now. I loved numbers, the orderly arrays of digits. Unfortunately, the Martian Flu did something to my brain. Now I am by no means innumerate, but… it's just more difficult now. No more do the numerals fly gracefully through my mind; now they plod along, leaden and stolid, a conscript army rather than a flock of seagulls.

I don't truly know why I am here, but I have certain suspicions which I've never had the courage to confirm or deny: I suspect (if not fear) that it is lupine instincts which impelled me to join the Lupine Boys. After all, wolves are pack animals, aren't they? And wolves do howl in groups. To be sure, no one has yet openly acknowledged the similarities between that activity and the Glee Club… but acknowledged or no, the similarities do exist. ''E pur si mouv','' as Galileo is supposed to have said.

As for myself, I choose to believe that it is simply fellowship and love of music that motivates me to associate with Wanderer. I choose to believe this, no matter that I hadn't been much of a joiner nor yet musically inclined beforehand, because the alternative is… discomforting.

''sunya''

The dear creatures need me, of course. And ''I'' was Wanderer's first choice, no matter what those silly wolves may say or think. Oh, he was making pleasant noise with them from the start, but the Glee Club simply didn't ''exist'' until Wanderer sweet-talked ''me'' into gracing them with my presence. So it really doesn't matter what the wolves believe, you see; they're only canine, they can't help being a lower form of life. And I don't correct them, as it would only hurt their feelings.

I must admit I felt a certain amount of trepidation when Wanderer first introduced the bison to our little group, but it worked out very well, didn't it? And then the insect joined us, with a range we were a trifle lacking in. I can hardly believe how much better that alto made the accompaniment sound! And when ''they'' sound better, ''I'' sound better. Be honest now, isn't ''that'' all that really matters? That is when I finally decided to leave the membership firmly in Wanderer's capable paws. Honestly, there are times I almost forget he's not feline!

Fortunately, his subsequent choices have done nothing to damage my faith in him. Especially Jubatus. Watching that cheetah's supremely dexterous hands move over his drumpads, I can't help but wonder if it feels as good as it looks. ''Mmrrrroowwww!''

''m3k''

Music is life, man. I shit thee not. Even back in the day, it was harmony and rhythm got me through the bad times. Worst time of all was when the Martian Goddamn Flu worked me over, 'cuz I woke up ''dead.'' Breathers don't know what it's like, and they never will; the words do not exist to clue 'em in.

It's a whole different universe out there, when you're an inanimorph. ''Completely'' different. Factors in common with the living world are few and far between, and I was off in a cosmos all my own.

But I'd changed. Sure, my mind was way the hell out there, but my body was a 24-track mixing board with built-in holographic SFX. So my crew, they fixed me up with a new soundman, and the music was back. Rhythm first, then harmony, flowing through me in a way that was just words before. The music brought me back, and it showed me what I could do, and I am ''never'' going away again.

The Strikebreakers are an interesting gig; working from live feed ain't the same as working from tapes or MP3s. Dunno how long it'll run, but I'm in it for the duration.

''gannet''

So many children seek their parents' approval. I do not, nor have I since I realized, as a youth, exactly what the price of that approval was and would be. My age of majority could not arrive quickly enough to suit me. I remember my joy when I first learned that some chronomorphs could adjust the ages of others; also my disappointment when I discovered that such alterations were always of strictly temporary duration, and that the Law ignored such SCABS-derived adjustments when counting a person's age.

I will not become my father. Rather, what I become shall be a thing of ''my'' choosing. I cannot say that coming down with SCABS was my own choice, of course, but at least it was not ''his,'' either, so I will not complain. Do not scan the birth records in search of me; "Eltro Gannet" was born in a law clerk's office when I changed my name.

I am not what my father would have me be. I live in a neighborhood he would not approve of, associating with the wrong sort of people, using the money he insists on depositing in my account for purposes that would surely enrage him if he were keeping track, and I have made one choice more: I am a musician, a vocalist.

I am not my father, and I am content.

''jubatus''

I make music because I damned well feel like it. That's all you need to know. You want to know why the rest of 'em put up with me, go ask them.

''greyflank''

It's a curious position I'm in: In effect, I am a voyeur, gathering up all the group's dirty little secrets without having to reveal any of my own. And I have so many secrets! There's the whole Kinoly thing, of course, that goes without saying. I've excised Kinoly from my life, but he's still got some dangling threads of unfinished business that might be troublesome. There's what happened in Italy, for instance.

Of course, that's all in the past. Too bad my present isn't that much better. Even without Kinoly, I do manage to get mixed up in things that really shouldn't be brought to light; I'm sure that delectable Jeff would agree, and so would his wife…

It doesn't matter. I've got experience with PR campaigns, I know how to respond if anyone dredges up ''my'' dark secrets. I just hope no one ''does…''

''dr. stein''

"—old enough to collect Social Security, but it can still beat almost anything else on the road. And, well, let's say that highway patrolmen don't always appreciate being left in the dust."

Greyflank gives a light snort of impatience—a sign that non-equines probably wouldn't notice or interpret properly. "Very well, traffic tickets. And do you have any secrets of a more ''serious'' nature, that might be harmful to the group?"

Do ''I'' have any more serious secrets! The question is almost amusing, really. But do I really want to mention the Barnes affair? Whatever else Humans First may be, that group ''is'' a collection of fanatics. They're not the kind to forget or forgive, especially where SCABS is concerned, and they don't express their displeasure with strongly-worded press releases. Molotov cocktails are more like it.

I hadn't really considered this before. Now that I have, I realize that secrecy is futile: If my mere presence is going to endanger the band, their ignorance will not save them. "Do you remember the downfall of Barnes?" I ask. "Let me tell you a story about that…"

''dobhran''

What the hell does Greyflank ''want'' from me? I've told him I'm scared of stinging insects, heights, and crowds. I've told him I can't swim, and that's pretty goddamn sad for a river otter SCAB, isn't it? I've told him about my special perceptions, that I can sort of 'sense' the past inhabitants of a room. And he said, "Very interesting. Is that all? No past acquaintances who might know some embarrassing secrets, for instance?"

Lord and Lady! Do I ''ever'' have past acquaintances… and some of 'em, there's no way in the deepest pits of Gehenna that I'm ''ever'' going to tell ''anyone'' about them, because my life is fucking ''over'' if word gets out. Can't tell him about my embezzling, or what I did with all that stolen estrogen, or… shit. What ''can'' I tell the damn horse? Hell, I've gotta give him ''something,'' or he'll just keep on digging and digging—ah! Got it, I know what to say.

"Nothing recent, Greyflank. A few years ago, there was this girl named Maria. We had something special going, for a while. But we were drifting apart, and it got worse after I turned SCAB… it took a long time for us to break up, and things got pretty ugly for a while there. But like I said, that was years ago, and I haven't seen or heard anything from her since the breakup."

''wanderer''

One doesn't wish to be a bother, of course. And so, inasmuch as Greyflank has gone to the trouble of setting up this series of private ''tete-a-tetes'' with the group, it would be most uncouth of me to waste his time by failing to provide him with what he seeks. I just wish it weren't so embarrassing!

"—Lord, no! Can you believe I would have taken that role if I had known what an abortion the final product would turn out to be?" I shake my head and continue with a sigh: "At least it wasn't as bad as the video that ended up being released under the name '''''Catholic High School SCABs In Trouble'''''—" here I can't help but notice Greyflank making a note of that title, for reasons I firmly refuse to speculate on "—and let me hasten to add that as heinous as some of my credited roles may have been, ''none'' of them are pornographic."

"Really? That's too bad. I think—

No. I simply ''refuse'' to contemplate what sort of notions might be passing through Greyflank's mind. ''"But I digress.'' Now, where were we? Oh, yes. You will recall that haunted house I mentioned?"

The equine's face displays confusion, but only for a moment. He asks, haltingly, "That's, the one you play werewolf for, most Hallowe'ens?"

It is just such lapses as this, minor though they be, which make me wonder if the poor fellow might suffer from some neural affliction or other. However, as long as he declines to discuss such matters (which he does) and is able to competently perform his band-related duties (which he is), the details are hardly any of my business. "You are correct, sir. And those, my equine friend, are the major lowlights of my checkered career."

His flicking ears are a signal of his curiosity. "'Major', meaning there's more?"

My skin reddens. That's invisible beneath my fur, but it also shows up in my scent, sad to say. Once again I silently curse the damnable rarity of roles for a person of my body type ''(i.e.,'' lupine animorph SCAB). ''You'd think I would be used to it by now. ''"Nothing relevant to the question at hand, which is aspects of our lives that might prove to be ''deleterious'' to the group's success!" I exclaim, with rather more pique than I'd intended. "Or did I fail to comprehend your purpose in making these inquiries?"

While our equine factotum and assistant parses my statement, I calm myself…

"Alright. What's the deal between you and Lady Death?"

I'd been expecting this, so I allow myself a tooth-free smile. "We find each other's company to be quite congenial. We're not actually sleeping together, mind you, but she does stay at my humble domicile from time to time. Thus, it would hardly be surprising if anyone leapt to the obvious, if erroneous, conclusion. Tell me, do you think it would be better to confirm or deny the truth of any such rumors?"

''jubatus''

"…want to say?"

Grey's voice brings me back to the here and now. Or maybe I'm just stalling for time. Either way, I've got to say something. "I'm here," I reply. "Just… putting my thoughts in order. Alright. I got into a little scrape in February of '36, a couple weeks after I traded up from my human body. Berkeley area."

"That being your original home, in California," he says, slow and uncertain… well, ''everybody's'' a slow learner, compared to me. They can't ''all'' be brain-damaged, right?

"Yeah. Left Coast. My first run-in with SCAB-bashers. Also the first time I upshifted, first time my instincts ''really'' took over. Five of the fuckers, knives and baseball bats. Two ended up dead—"

"Did you intend to kill them?"

I squelch my anger. ''He doesn't know, he's just asking—'' "No. Like I said, ''ended up'' dead. Intensive care unit, a couple weeks later. I, uh, worked 'em over ''real'' bad. All of 'em. The other three lived, just crippled for life. Relatives of one of the dead guys filed a complaint against me; the judge told 'em to piss off. You want details, I can pipe you the court transcripts and so on."

Grey nods. "I'd like that, thanks. Okay; SCAB-bashers, five on one, you turned the tables on them. Good. Anything else?"

"Yeah." I say, then swallow. Just a nervous habit, really, since there's no larynx down there for the saliva to lubricate. "April of '36. South Carolina. I, uh, pulled this kid's arm off. Completely out of the socket…"

"Rough trade," the horse says, looking at me with those mismatched eyes of his. "What did the parents think?"

I make with a sad and sardonic smile. "Par'''ent'''. Single mother, and believe it or don't, she was okay with it. See, there was this busted water main that'd turned a vacant lot into wall-to-wall quicksand, and the kid was drowning. I upshifted so I could step without sinking, and… well… I fucked up. Didn't think that if the mud was too solid to sink into, it'd be too solid to pull her out from."

"Hm. Hard to imagine ''you'' making that kind of mistake."

I snort. "I wouldn't—''now.'' But back then, I hadn't even ''been'' a cheetah for three months, okay? And, well, not even ''that'' much experience with upshifting…"

"I see." Now he frowns. "What about the girl?"

"Retrieved the rest of her body on the second pass. Dug her out of the mud, then ferried her over to the hospital. The docs even managed to reattach the arm."

"Nice. You know, that sounds like quite a stroke of good fortune."

"Yeah. I'm one lucky son of a bitch, I am."

"I suppose…" He makes a few notes. "Okay, April of 2036. Anything since then?"

"Well—"

''gannet''

Greyflank clearly doesn't understand.

"So you're telling me that this is a waste of time?" he asks.

"Yes. sir. Insofar as I am concerned, it is exactly that. You needn't worry about my ever having done anything that would make your job more difficult."

Puzzled, he says, "Why not? Everyone's done ''something."''

"I don't deny that, sir. Nor do I claim that my own life has been entirely blameless. I am simply saying that whatever I may have done or not done, it just isn't relevant. I can't really say I have a family, but my… birth relatives… are quite wealthy, and my biological father has made a point of keeping his blood kin's peccadilloes out of the public eye."

"So… Daddy doesn't like you, but you ''are'' his son, so he'll make sure you don't bring dishonor to the family name."

"That is correct, sir. Any dark secrets of mine could only be revealed with ''his'' active cooperation, which simply will never happen. Will that be all?"

''ringwolf''

My nose tells me that fuckin' cat—Jubatus—was here, but not recently. Good. Damn if I know why he gets under my skin so bad, but he does, okay? I mean, shit, he don't slag me off any worse'n he does anyone else, and we ''do'' sound better since he stared helping Wanderer explain about vocal stuff, and… oh, hell with it.

"Hey there, Grey."

"Ringwolf," he says, flicking his ears at me. "Do you know why you're here?"

"Yeah. You want I should tell you if I got any PR disasters inna making."

"Thank you. That, or anything that could become a PR disaster if it were blown out of proportion."

"Okay, fine. Had some tax problems back in the '20s. Kinda stopped filing in '23, y' know?"

Horsey shuffles some papers. "That's when you came down with SCABS, isn't it?"

"Yeah. The usual pile o' crap: SCABbed over, lost my job, money got scarce for a while, yadda yadda yadda."

"How did it end?"

I smile at the horsey. "I declared bankruptcy. And then Congress passed the SCAB Tax Amnesty Act of '28. IRS fuckers bitched like hell, but they couldn't do shit, y' know? An' then I got the phone job, so money ain't been a problem since."

"Is there anything that ''has'' been a problem?"

"Nothing big. Back before I got used to the tail an' everything, I spent a few Sundays in the county lockup; I was just lettin' off steam is all, but some jerks got cut on my fingernails, y' know? So when the cops broke it up, I got my own private cell."

"So you were taken in for… what… disturbing the peace?"

"Yeah," I say with a shrug. "That's what the cops called it, leastways. Solitary was okay; it's real easy to get time off for good behavior when there's nobody else gettin' in yer face."

Grey talks as he's taking notes: "Disturbing the peace. If I remember right, you don't do that sort of thing now. When did you stop, and is there any chance of a relapse?"

"Hrrr… I gave it up in '28, '29, somewhere back then. A re-run ain't too likely; I'm gettin' too old to bust up bars any more. And even if I wasn't, I damn well wouldn't bust up the Pig. Shit, Grey, you ''know'' how hard it is to find a place lets a SCAB drink in peace!"

"Well, yes, but…" The horsey looks confused for a second. He's good at that, got a lot of practice. "Never mind. Drunk and disorderly, check. Taxes, check. Is that all?"

"Yeah. Now I can leave, right?"

''m3k''

Horse-boy's last question is damn silly, and my projected 'self'-image shows how amused I am. "Skeletons? In ''my'' closet? Damn straight, and plenty of 'em! I used to run with a pretty bad crowd, y' know? I just did the soundtrack—never got ''directly'' involved with the lawbreaking end of things, you understand—but yeah, I was an accessory to all sorts of crap. Aiding and abetting, as they say. I was up for shoplifting, malicious mischief, one or two flavors of murder, you name it. And then I caught the 'Flu, and I died, but I got better. If y' want, I can prob'ly get you a copy of my old rap sheet."

The horse doesn't look surprised or anything; he just nods. "That would be fine," he says. "And what of your relatives?"

"Heh! I suppose I got some, but anyone who thinks they can track 'em down is welcome to try. The breathers, anyway—the dead ones ain't goin' nowhere."

He's worried, and I can't say as I blame the man, much. "Are you sure? After all, ''you're'' dead…"

"Come on, Grey. You know damn well that catching the 'Flu in the first place is only, like, 2 or 3 percent per year. Once you're there, SCABS is an 11-to-1 longshot, okay? And us inanimorphs are maybe point-one-percent of all SCABs, if even ''that'' much! You think there's other innies in my family tree, that's a bet I'd take any day of the week, at just about any odds."

Now he does that horse-y whiffling noise. "Be serious. This isn't a game."

"You sure about that?"

"As sure as I am of anything… What happens if someone gets on the news claiming to be a relative of yours, or an abandoned husband or wife?"

My image shrugs. "Let 'em. There's a hell of a lot of performers got ''lots'' o' mileage out of that kinda shit! I say it's not a problem 'til they sue us over it. And if they ''do'' try that, Jube's lawyer stomps 'em into paste in court, and we get plenty more free publicity while it lasts. So we're covered every which way, right?"

''sunya''

"Now really, dear boy. How can you ''possibly'' believe that there could be ''anything'' in my past or present life that might shame the group?"

He's so ''cute'' when he's confused! "I don't know, Miss Sunya. But PR isn't about facts; it's about how people feel about the facts. So…"

"So?"

"So… um… Look, can we start over again?"

"Are you sure you truly want to? I can think of, oh, at least three or four things that would be more fun for a man and a woman in a soundproofed room…"

My! I certainly do have his ''full'' attention! Now, whatever shall I do with it?

''wolfshead''

I can't put my finger on why, but I find Greyflank's gaze to be somewhat uncomfortable. In part, I suppose, it's the mere fact that he's focussing on me at all, in the first place; I've never enjoyed being the center of attention…

"I'm afraid I don't even have any unpaid parking tickets."

"Really?"

"Really. My DMV record has been clear all the way back to when I got my first learner's permit, nor have I ever been late filing my tax returns. The last time I recieved any disciplinary action in my academic career, I was 15 years old. And—yes?"

"15 years old… you would have been in high school?"

I nod. "Yes, sir. I was caught smoking marijuana during my freshman year. That was the last time I ever experimented with illegal drugs. My GPA for that year was 3.65, and never lower than 3.95 afterwards."

"Sounds like you haven't ever gotten into any serious trouble, then."

No… I haven't, have I? Never gotten in serious trouble, never took a significant risk—in fact, this upcoming tour with the Strikebreakers will be perhaps the single most exotic and adventurous thing I have ever done in my life!

"You okay, 'Head?"

I blink. "I'm sorry, Greyflank. What you said, about my never having gotten into trouble… you're absolutely right. I haven't. I had never truly realized that before, and I'm not sure how I should feel about it."

He cocks his ears at me. "Secure?"

''constance''

to change yes
change is renewal is regeneration is freshness and new
if the present is better than the past it's because of change
pain is always in the past
pain is how you know you need to do better
pain and change are two of the building blocks that make up the universe
where did the horse-man go

''greyflank''

Well, well, well. Aren't we the motley crew? Let me review what I've learned, while it's still fresh in my mind…

Jubatus was a surprise—or was he? He's about as open as a sealed bank vault, so I figured he'd have ''something'' to say, but… Frankly, I never would have expected that kind of blood and pain. It would help if he were into that sort of thing, but… I suppose it goes a long way toward explaining how he got to be the way he is, poor kitten. I wonder if getting him laid would help him calm down? In fact, I just might… no. Best keep my mind on business.

Whether he knows it or not, Wanderer's 'dark secrets' will be very helpful, especially the videos. I'll bet the publisher would be more than happy to print up a fresh batch of DVDs for us to sell with the T-shirts and programs, to say nothing of the cross-marketing possibilities—"Starring Wanderer, lead singer of the Strikebreakers!" is merely the first and most obvious gambit.

Perry Dobhran bears watching. I've concealed too many secrets myself to miss the signs in other people. I don't need to know ''what'' he's hiding to know that he ''is'' hiding it, and whatever it is, ''he'' seems to think the Apocalypse would come if it were revealed. Yes, he definitely bears watching. It's a good thing he's so pleasant ''to'' watch!

Dr. Stein… Now, ''there's'' a man with unplumbed depths, and his vocal talents are only the tip of the iceberg. Who would have thought that the man who gave SCABS its name could have been instrumental in causing the downfall of that bastard Barnes? And then there's his 'nephew', Robbie—well. I am certainly glad to be learning the truth ''now,'' rather than be forced to improvise a response when someone else brings it up later. I never very good at improvising…

As for the rest, well, it's like Mixman said: Scandals have been very good indeed, for ''some'' performers. I'll sleep on it, and tomorrow I'll start work on the data package for '''''Rolling Stone'''.''
[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star}}

User:Cubist/Building the Perfect Beast

2009-02-16T02:54:39Z

Cubist:

{{series bar
|series=Life in the Fast Lane
|next=[[So You Want to Be a Rock & Roll Star]]}}
{{title|name=Building the Perfect Beast|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}
{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
My name is Jubatus, and I think I've created a monster.

And it all started so innocuously, too…

Set the WABAC machine for a few months ago, when I, the non-singing terror of the Blind Pig Glee Club, actually did hook up with said group. I play instructor. What I do is ID vocal flaws and help the vocalist in question to overcome them. In theory, this should be Wanderer's job, as he's the big kahuna and has tons more vocal training and theory than I ever did, but that wolf couldn't teach his grandmother how to suck eggs. Me? I'm a technical writer—transferring data between brains is what I do for a living.

Between us, we make a fairly effective team.

Speaking of 'effective teams', I really ought to introduce the rest of the Glee Club. First off is Eltro Gannet, morphlocked buffalo-type SCAB. No horns or hooves, maybe some hair/fur action going. He's two and a half men wide; 10 men strong; and 20 men dignified. ''Basso profundo,'' the kind that makes James Earl Jones sound like a baritone. Gannet's voice is even deeper than mine used to be, and good enough that if I could still sing, I would be plotting his painful demise. I'm almost certain that he does have a sense of humor—it's just hard to tell, since he specializes in Subtle and Deadpan.

Constance is our token alto. SCABS made her a bumblebee. She's got a fair degree of control over her form, anything from complete bee-hood to mostly-norm and anywhere in between. Interestingly, she can also restrict the form-shift to any individual part of her body, or group thereof. No, I haven't asked her about the stinger. At her most human, all she's got is the markings up and down her torso, plus oversized compound eyes; I never cared for the 'big eye' thing in Japanese animation, and it doesn't look any better in real life. Yes, the world ''does'' look pretty damned weird from her point of view, and I sometimes wonder how much of her customary 'smiling airhead/ditz' behavior is due to that.

Wolfshead is a baritone. As the name implies, he's got the head of a wolf—but that's ''it.'' Everything below his jawline is human-normal, which means he's got a standard issue larynx feeding into the resonance chambers of his lupine sinus cavities. As a result, his voice has a very distinctive timbre. I like it; your mileage may vary. He's generally shy and retiring, so why did he hook up with the generally raucous Lupine Boys? He's got to have ''some'' kind of party animal in him, I just haven't seen it myself.

Then there's my dear friend Ringwolf; he's another Lupine Boy, and we get along as smoothly as a cat's tongue, he and I. It's probably because the first thing I ever said to him was that his enunciation sucked. Mind you, he ''did'' need to work on it. He's a tenor, maybe that explains his reaction. Externally speaking, all he's got to show for his SCABhood is ears, a tail, and overly sharp fingernails. His day job, telemarketing, involves making dozens of cold calls per hour, so it's kind of amusing that he gets so damned self-conscious when it comes to performing in the flesh.

Our soprano is Sunya, and SCABS got creative with her. I suppose you could call her a non-equine centaur: Below her waist, she's an oversized jaguar. Gorgeous green eyes, fur so black it almost looks blue, and ditto her hair, which grows into a sort of crewcut mane down her spine. She can add claws and fur ''ad libitum,'' not sure about any other form-shifting. Believe me, you haven't seen a prima donna attitude until you've seen one with a feline accent…

The last of the Glee Club's original vocalists is Wanderer, founder and leader of the Lupine Boys. You might expect that a shameless exhibitionist of a performer like him would be a ham, but he's a wolf, and the closest he can get to human isn't, particularly. At least he's bipedal with hands and a voice. I'm told that he regresses to pure animal-hood when he's tired, sick, or drunk. Haven't seen it, myself. Maybe someday. Baritone is his preferred range, pre-1970 Broadway show tunes his preferred repertoire, flamboyantly Elizabethan his preferred mode of affectation, optimistic his preferred attitude. I've given up trying to understand how he gets away with it.

Finally there's me, Jubatus. I haven't sung for a while. Morphlocked by preference; I'm 95% pure cheetah, and if I am able to pump that up to 100%, ''I don't want to know.'' When I'm not playing instructor, which is good chunk of the time, I play something else: Percussion. The first couple of sessions I had my laptop running KeyBard with the Zildjian plug-in module, but now I'm rataplanning away on a set of Tsukowa-Roland drumpads. Fully programmable in every sense of the word. I'm not using more than a fraction of their potential, which is sad in a way. On the other hand, I simply don't ''need'' any more than that fraction, and you won't catch ''me'' artsy-fartsing up a tune merely because my tools allow me to. Let's just say I've got room to grow if I ever ''do'' need it.

So once I started helping Wanderer on the instructional end of things, the vocal quality went up sharply—and they weren't half bad to begin with. Word gets around, and we end up with more gigs, some of them even ''paid'' gigs. That's good, and what's better is when our first horse, Dr. Bob Stein, joined us. Yeah, ''that'' Dr. Bob Stein. He is a world-renowned scientist and all that, but he's ''also'' a damn fine baritone. I kid you not; we're talking eight years with the Virginia Opera, okay? Who knew?

If you ask me, I think Wanderer only let the Doc sit in the first time because he didn't want to say 'no' to one of the most respected SCABS researchers on the face of the planet. Like I said, who knew?

But I digress. As you might expect, we started getting serious media coverage once the Doc signed on. And media coverage begat even more gigs (and box office), which begat even more media coverage, and so on, worlds without end, amen. And somewhere in there, an otter by name of Peregrine Quinn Dobhran joined up—I'm not sure of the details, you'd have to ask Perry or Wanderer—to add his low baritone vocals to the mix. His keyboard chops ain't bad either, but we don't do that. He's more than a little temperamental. Not that ''I'' have any standing to criticize on ''that'' ground, of course…

In case you're not keeping track, that brings us up to a total of nine musicians in this motley crew. And with a mob that size, the logistics of transportation, if nothing else, can get sticky. Enter: an equine SCAB named Greyflank, stage left, bearing with him invaluable experience with all things backstage-related. He's as queer as a three-dollar bill, and not just in sexual preference, but by Thespis, he knows his stuff. You ask me, a large part of our success is directly attributable to Grey's work on publicity and bookings, and his connections in the biz, and God knows what else. He's a natural target for two—count 'em, two—different groups of bigots (homophobes ''and'' SCABS-bashers), which even I can't bring myself to laugh about unless I ''really'' work at it. I tried to set up a betting pool for the day Grey first hits on Wanderer, but amazingly enough, no one else seemed to be interested…

Logistics, by the way, is how come I'm the only non-vocalist we've got. Every instrument you don't carry with you is an instrument you don't have to tune, or keep track of, or insure, and that makes life ''much'' easier, thanks.

Now, as I've already said, Wanderer is heavily into 20th Century show tunes, and the group's repertoire reflected that. Not any more. Oh, we still do numbers from '''''Mame''''' and '''''My Fair Lady''''' and such, but now they're maybe 15% of our material, not the 90-odd% they were before I came along. Can't say I'm the only one who suggests new tunes, just the single most profligate suggestor. Wanderer's vetoed a fair number of my ideas (for instance, I still think we could knock 'em dead with '''''Who Are the Brain Police'''),'' and he's been doubtful about others ''('''Helter Skelter''''' is a tune he didn't even want to ''try'' until I played him the Bobs' ''a capella'' arrangement), but on the whole, I really can't complain. And neither can the wolf, because we're now getting a decidedly larger audience than we used to. You just wouldn't believe how much wider a segment of the concert-going public you can attract when you start performing a wider variety of music.

If you've been paying attention, you'll notice that I haven't mentioned our sound man. That's because we didn't really have one, not at first. I tripled as engineer for a while, and I'm fast enough that I could get away with commuting between stage and mixing board even during our performances. But I wasn't comfortable with wearing three hats (the other two being instructor and percussion, if you'll recall), so I was happy to delegate this job to Greyflank when he came on board. Bad move; Grey's technical expertise (he's a rigger, he's a gaffer, you name it) is not accompanied by any kind of musical talent, and a sound man needs at least a little of both. So we made it a rotating position for a few weeks, and it turned out that Ringwolf is actually the best engineer we had, so we stuck him with the job. That did mean we had to put the mixer up on stage with us, but it worked.

And that's how matters stood up until five Wednesday evenings ago.

We came in for the usual Wednesday rehearsal, and discovered a large package, one meter square by 1.5 long, on the piano bench. One of the Lupine Boys said to Wanderer, "UPS delivered it around 3 pm. I think it's yours."

"Well-a-day! 'Tis more than passing strange… Aye, the intended recipient indeed be the Blind Pig Glee Club, in care of the Blind Pig Gin Mill."

"Return address?" I asked.

"The source whence this came would appear to be a Chicagoan gentleman, one 'Mixman 3000' by name," Wanderer said, puzzled.

''Bingo. So he '''did''' respond.'' "No problem," I said. "He's a Chi-town DJ. I spread the word we were looking for an engineer, and I guess he responded to my message." I upshifted, moved in and used a claw to neatly open the package, downshifted. I opened the lid. "Of course, he could've just sent an e-mail. Let's see what—huh?"

''t' t' '''tum''' p' t' '''tah''' t' tm pm p' '''tah!''''' ''t' t' '''tum''' p' t' '''tah''' t' tm pm p' '''tah!'''''

A percussion riff rumbled forth from inside the package, whose contents drifted up into the air. It was vaguely rectangular, with mass quantities of knobs and sliders and gauges on its largest flat surface—a floating sound board, in other words—and animated neon-type visual effects surrounded it. The riff kept rolling as the thing rotated around a vertical axis, giving the entire bar a good look at it.

''t' t' '''tum''' p' t' '''tah''' t' tm pm p' '''tah!''''' ''t' t' '''tum''' p' t' '''tah''' t' tm pm p' '''tah!'''''

It settled down to a couple centimeters above the piano. The shifting neon stabilized to create a blue/gold/red image of a human DJ working the board. A bass guitar line started a beat or two before the lyrics:

"Well ya '''got''' a little '''prob'''lem—'''on''' the '''stage'''—

"An' it's '''got'''ta be '''fixed''' 'fore you're '''all''' the '''rage!'''

"Ya '''need''' a so'''lu'''tion an' ya '''want''' it to'''day?'''" Here the instruments stopped dead.

"Just '''list'''en to the wisdom of—'''M'''—'''3'''—'''K!'''" Now the accompaniment picked up again.

"I'm a '''mix'''er—A '''fix'''er—An '''e'''lectronic '''trick'''- ster

"What '''I''' can do makes '''o'''ther soundmen '''run''' off feelin' '''sick,''' sure!

"Ya '''sought''' it—I '''got''' it—There '''ain't''' no more to '''say'''—" The accompaniment changed to a descending flurry of drum hits.

"The '''an'''swer you are seeking, is—'''M'''—'''3'''—'''K!'''"

The neon image smiled, spread its hands, looked around expectantly. There was a patter of applause; most of the bar's patrons wore surprised expressions. "Let me guess: I went a little over the top, didn't I?"

"Ah… yes, I believe that would be a cogent and accurate summary," Wanderer said. "However, as a demonstration of your proficiency, I cannot gainsay the efficacy of your performance."

One of the image's eyes twinkled. Literally, like a cheap special effect. "So I'm in?"

"Mayhap. Perchance a sort of trial session might be in order?"

"In other words," I said, "let's see how you do with material that's ''not'' 1980s rap."

"No problem at all," the board replied. A drawer slid open, revealing several small wireless microphones with velcro tabs to hold them onto fur. "As you can see, I came prepared. Go ahead and plug in ''here,'' Jube." An LED flashed near one of the sockets on the back panel.

So I hooked up my drum set, and the rest of the crew did the usual routine with their mikes, and before too long we got into a Swingle Singers arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach—'''''Wise and Foolish Virgins''','' I think it was. Sounded pretty good. And then it was '''''Don't Rain on My Parade''','' and '''''The Longest Time''','' and '''''The Thunder Rolls''''' with Wanderer's rewritten lyrics, and '''''Helter Skelter''','' and '''''Stars and Stripes Forever''','' and…

Could've gone on longer, but Wanderer killed it at 2 hours—no sense letting the voices nuke their throats for a tryout. And when we stopped, we got the most damn applause ''ever'' from this gang of drunks.

So here we are, possibly the most exotic musical group of all time: Three wolves; two cats; one horse, otter, bee, and buffalo; a dead sound engineer; and we even drafted a horse as roadie/gaffer/Lord High Everything Else. We've got a number of downloadable cuts on the Net, we're working on an album, we've got plenty of local gigs, and we just might go nationwide.

Oh, and you can stop calling us the Blind Pig Glee Club. That name just doesn't fit any more. We're the Strikebreakers.

Only possible name for the group, really.

I mean, what ''else'' can you call a bunch of filthy, stinking, good-for-nothing SCABs?
[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Building the Perfect Beast}}

User:Cubist/No Quick Fix

2009-02-16T02:50:28Z

Cubist:

{{title|name=No Quick Fix|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
Jubatus here. Lately I haven't been in attendance at the Blind Pig as often as I used to. I'm not sure anyone's noticed, and even if they have, I doubt they care one way or another. It's not like I've gone out of my way to make myself popular.

I've also cut way back on the time I spend at the West Street Shelter.

You see, a lapine SCAB named Phil is hurting. And I can't do a goddamned thing about it. No matter how badly I ''want'' to.

He's hurting because his significant other, Clover, left him for another man. I didn't even know what was happening until after the axe had fallen… and seeing what Phil is going through now, I'm beginning to remember why I stopped doing interpersonal relationships all those decades ago. Then again, could be he's faking to gain sympathy and exert a little revenge on Clover. After all, I had no idea how bad it was until I was ''told'' about it, until I overheard some conversations that maybe I shouldn't.

But my SCABS-heightened senses tell me it's genuine. Sure, Phil ''could be'' fooling with his scent and vocal overtones and all that… and ''I'' could be elected 'Mr. Congeniality' by unanimous vote.

Like hell he's faking.

You must understand: Phil saved my ass at a time when my ass well and truly ''needed'' saving. I owe that rabbit, ''big'' time. You'd think this would be a perfect opportunity for me to repay some of that debt, wouldn't you? I wish.

How do you comfort a rabbit? Physical contact is a good way, but that doesn't work so well for me. I'm a cheetah, a carnivorous predator, and Phil (being a prey species) gets nervous just from being in my general vicinity. Call me a pessimist if you must, but I really don't think it would do Phil any good to snuggle up to Death with spotted fur and sharp claws.

And even if psychological factors didn't make it impossible, the physical factors would get in the way. Cheetahs have no body fat to speak of; I'm made of skin and blood vessels and whipcord muscle wrapped around hard, hard bone. Why would Phil want to hug ''me'' when there are so many coils of garden hose available? Pretty much the same tactile sensations, and no risk of sending him into a terror-induced fugue state.

Okay, so snuggling is out, but there's other stuff I could do, right? I'm wealthy—last year, in 2037, I was #386 on the FORBES 400 list of the world's richest SCABs—and money is power, isn't it?

Yeah, right. What the hell do you buy to solve an emotional crisis? I ''do'' have an idea; I've got ideas for everything. I could buy Phil any firearm he likes, but he'd have to visit a gunsmith to have it modified for his paws, and I don't think he'd go for it…

So… neither snuggling nor money is in the cards. Alright, fine, there's got to be ''something'' I can do to help. I'm the fastest SCAB alive, so whatever needs to be done, I can do it in record time, right? Right! Except for one thing.

Do ''what,'' '''exactly''', in record time?

I don't have any ''useful'' ideas. And I can't ask anyone, because there's two kinds of people: Those who're hurting for Phil themselves, so I won't intrude on them; and those I wouldn't trust as far as they can be thrown, so I won't ask them. That means I'm left to my own devices, and as before, you damn betcha I've got ideas. I could hunt down Rio and remove every square inch of his skin in record time, that's one…

Somehow, I doubt Phil would approve. Again, call me a pessimist if you must, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't agree to anything that boils down to ''Whom shall I slay for you this day, my master?'' He's just not into inflicting pain on anything more sentient than a carrot.

And just for the sake of argument, let's say that Phil ''did'' give me the go-ahead. Would that give me the right to wreak havoc on people I don't even know? I've never met Rio, wouldn't recognize him if I ran over him on the street. Could easily be that he's a wonderful human being, congenial and intelligent, great sense of humor, credit to his species, all that and a bag of potato chips. But…

Phil's hurting. And that son of a bitch Rio is half of the reason why.

The other half of it is Clover, of course. I think I saw her once, couldn't pick her scent out of a lineup. And… I'm not stupid. I ''know'' that people can change. I ''know'' that relationships don't always work out. I ''know'' that I've got no right to even ''think'' about passing judgement on any of the parties to this affair, no matter how much one of those parties is suffering, no matter that the one in pain is someone I am deeply indebted to. It's none of my damned business, full stop.

And what the hell, Phil's no plaster saint. I have no clue about the details of how it all went down; could be he bears some of the blame himself. Maybe even most of it, for all I know. I may be socially inept, but I'm not blind, and I know he's got some bad points. He can be a sneaky, manipulative bastard when it suits him; maybe he's bought into that "cute harmless fluffy victim" stereotype a little too much; and there could easily be God knows what-all else I ''don't'' know about.

Even so, with all of that said and acknowledged…

Phil saved my ass. I owe him. And he's hurting.

For me, that's the bottom line: Phil's hurting.

And there's a little voice in the back of my skull. Every so often, not a continuous thing. A whispery little voice, maybe once every day or two, that says it would be a good idea to hunt down and kill the bastards. Make them pay in blood, both of them. Make them both fucking ''vanish,'' so that their bodies are never found. And hey, if it ever came to trial in spite of no evidence, I'm wealthy enough to buy myself some justice, right?

That inner voice scares me. Not just what it says, although ''that's'' bad enough, but also that I can't tell whether it comes from ''me'' or my goddamn ''instincts.'' Fortunately, while that voice scares me, that's ''all'' it does. It does not dictate my actions; it carries no compulsion. I don't ''have to'' go hunting. So I won't.

I'm not going to strip their entire skeletons down to the bone in 20 seconds apiece. Nor will I make inquiries about where Clover and Rio are and throw trans-sonic fastballs at the place. I will not a-hacking go, fuck up their credit ratings and broadcast secrets they'd prefer no one know about and extend the statute of limitations on any legal offenses they've ever committed in their lives. I'm not about to edit their public records to implicate them in crimes they weren't involved with. Maybe someone's going to make their lives a living Hell, using tactics that cripple their ability to counterattack and can't be traced back to the perpetrator even if they ''were'' somehow able to strike back… but that someone is ''not'' going to be me.

I'm going to back slowly away from the mess. I can do this, I'm good at avoiding problems. I've got lots of practice running away from messes. Been doing it for years and years. All I have to do is sit on my spotted behind while Phil hurts. Stay the hell out of his way, lest my mere ''presence'' fuck him up worse than he is now.

No worries. Nothing to it. Piece of cake. Easy as mincemeat pie ''a la'' Rio. Just one thing: Up until now, every problem I've run from has been my own.

I never dreamed it could be so damned difficult to run away from ''someone else's'' problem…

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:No Quick Fix}}

User:Cubist/Speedy Trials

2009-02-16T02:45:28Z

Cubist:

{{title|name=Speedy Trials|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
The Secrets of Jubatus, #275 in a series (collect them all!): I don't really have a disposition – it's more of a rocket-propelled roller-coaster ride. How can this be, you ask? I've got a ''seriously'' overbuilt endocrine system, that's how, with glands that could satisfy all the hormonal needs of any three ZIP Codes in the continental United States. It's just the ticket for any critter whose lifestyle is built around the need to at any moment go from zero to 50 MPH in two seconds. I don't recommend it, myself. The downside is that my bloodstream gets flooded with insane quantities of hormones and enzymes and God knows what at the drop of a hat, ergo my emotions tend to hit ''hard'' and ''fast'' and ''very'' intense.

And here I'll bet ''you'' thought my severe mood swings were merely a sign of mental instability, am I right? No such luck. Oh, instability is ''part'' of it, true, but not a particularly ''large'' part. Under 30% for sure, might be less than 10%.

It's not unlike living in a minefield – hit just one "danger zone" by mistake, and whammo! your mental equilibrium gets whipsawed all to hell. All of which said, I ''have'' been like this for a couple years, and by now I've pretty much got a handle on it. For the most part.

The exceptions can be pretty memorable. Let me tell you about one of them.

{{separator}}

This has not been a good day.

I've just spent six clock-hours smashing my brains against a wall that happens to be a client. Figuratively speaking, of course – he's no inanimorph, just an unmitigated idiot with more dollars than brain cells. I know, I know, twits happen, but ''this'' bozo is in a class unto himself. Call him Mr. Moron. Son of a bitch not only welches on our contract, refuses to pay me ''any'' money ''at all, ''but also files suit against me when I politely request that he destroy all the work I sent him.

He's got lies and bluster on his side, nothing more. I, contrariwise, have plentiful documentation, complete with digital timestamps, digital signatures, and wall-to-wall encryption, all of it open source, all peer-reviewed algorithms. And as per usual, I've also got a couple surprises up my sleeve for any fool who tries to hack my chosen crypto. You say 'unfounded paranoia'; I say 'prudent precaution for anyone who does business over an intrinsically anonymous medium such as the Net'.

Mr. Moron's actual complaint is a thick document, chock full of boilerplate text. I amuse myself by perusing the silly thing and identifying all the bits which just don't apply to this situation. My attorney is kind enough to check my guesses; I'm batting .550, not bad for a layman. It's obvious that Mr. Moron is posturing, in an attempt to intimidate me into silence.

Like a cute little bird once said, ''He don't '''know''' me vewwy well, '''do''' he?''

I'll give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version, no sense in ''both'' of us going half-mad waiting for the inevitable: Seven weeks of pre-trial maneuvers. Six unendurably protracted hours of sitting on my ass in an overheated Chicago courtroom. Four minutes for the judge to rule in my favor after the lawyers shut up. 3.5 seconds for Mr. Moron to announce (through his mouthpiece) that he's appealing the decision. One big, fat, juicy countersuit to recover my legal expenses and then some. No partridges nor pear trees in sight.

Mr. Moron's got money, but then so do I. He thinks he can stretch it out until I'm broke, and then declare victory, he's got a ''major'' surprise coming. Is it any wonder that I've been ''thoroughly'' torqued off since halfway into today's legal ordeal? Still, while my temper may burn hot, it also burns out quick. We cheetahs have no reserves to speak of, we can't sustain much of ''any''thing for long. Thus does my anger diminish from ''NUKE THE ENTIRE BLEEDING WORLD, GOD WILL KNOW HIS OWN!'' all the way down to ''i'm annoyed, really i am'' by the time I pull into the Blind Pig's parking lot. No reserves, nothing left in me. You slowpokes don't know from tired; a cheetah running on EMPTY, now ''that's'' tired.

I'm irritated to see Wanderer's glee club, random mixture of species that it is. I completely forgot that this was one of their nights to rehearse. My end of my relationship with that group is a love/hate deal, thanks to my own (lack of) singing ability. There are times I wish SCABS had finished the job, made me ''completely'' mute, because total silence might just be more tolerable than the half-assed vocalizing I'm stuck with.

Don't sweat it. You ''would'' understand if you'd ever heard my ''real'' voice.

I get a boilermaker with an ounce of whatever it is Sinclair found that ''can'' get me drunk – alcohol won't work, I burn it off too fast. The glee club isn't singing? Of course not, they must be through for the evening. Morbidly curious, I move towards them to eavesdrop on their conversation.

"– turns into a howl!" That's Wanderer. Momus' beard! I hope they're not discussing what I ''think'' they're discussing – not while my own musically useful range covers all of an augmented third, pestilence take it.

"I know," says another lupine, I think it's Ringwolf, obviously sympathizing. "Me, I can't even ''reach'' high C before ''my'' control is shot." Heiliger Christus, they ''are'' – No, damn it, I will ''not'' stand here and listen as these multi-octave sons of bitches piss and moan about how ''unfair'' it is that ''their'' range isn't any wider! But of course, I do anyway. Somehow, it's all I can do to not collapse into a chair, let alone move my entire body away. The damnable lupine morphs continue on in this vein, and it's the Maraschino cherry on the sundae, it is.

Something fragile and overstrained shatters inside me – I do believe it's the last surviving vestige of my patience, however much of ''that'' managed to withstand a day of dealing with Mr. Moron, L'Imbecile Sans Peur. Yes indeed, the wolves' self-pitying complaints are the proverbial pluperfect Last Goddamn Straw, complete with genuine imitation rhinestones inlaid to spell out ''YOU DONE GONE AND SCREWED THE POOCH, SONNY-BOY!'' on its dorsal and ventral surfaces. My brains and blood almost vibrate with a surge of adrenaline I wouldn't have believed I still had in me. I move before my conscious mind kicks in, and for once I and my hardwired instincts are as one.

"Outta my way," I growl, shoving past and through anyone who doesn't obey quickly enough to suit me. I couldn't care less about the disgruntled murmurs that mark my progress through the crowd. Once at the piano, I arpeggiate a C major chord an octave above high C – and ''that'' pisses me off even ''more,'' the fact that a goddamn ''fifth'' is now close to my limit, when my ''human'' hands were able to span an octave plus change.

"Wanderer! ''Howl!"'' I snarl at him, punctuating the command by snapping my other arm up to point directly at him. He obeys, I'd say more out of shock than for any other reason.

"Awwoo''oooo –''"

– and the instant he hits that G, I clench my hand shut and snap out, "Hold that note!" Next it's "Ringwolf! ''Howl!"'' and "Hold that E!", and finally Wolfshead on the C. Their chord has a unique quality to it, a timbre that I can't recall hearing from them ever before.

I repeat the C chord. "Modulate! ''Up!"'' I transpose to D, and the three wolves move up a major second. ''"Down!"'' Back to C. ''"Down!"'' Next stop: B flat. ''"Up!"'' Back home at C. They've tracked me pretty damned well, considering they were just recently kvetching about how impossible it was for them to hit controlled, musically useful notes in this register. After a few seconds more of C, I end it by ripping my arm through the air in a gesture that looks well-suited for gutting a very large sturgeon.

"You got all that?" I ask, hurling the question at them as though it were a hand grenade. "You damn well better, because I ''never'' want to hear ''any'' of you bloody sons of bitches making ''any'' goddamn noise about the top end of your fucking range '''ever again'''! Jesus Christonagddmnfknscr –" and my tempo begins to rise even before I finish swearing at them. The front door slams within seconds.

I'm done. Spent. Exhausted. If I was running on fumes before, what I'm burning now must be the ''memory'' of fumes. The proof is in my involuntary upshift: I didn't do it because I was in a hurry to leave, I did it because I was so damned tired that I lost the concentration I need to stay at the human tempo. No, I lie. Forget exhaustion; it's ''hunger'' that docks me 60 IQ points, and it's my attorney's advice that brought me to this state, more fool I for following that advice. It's been ''nine whole clock-hours'' since I've eaten ''any'' protein, and for a turbocharged metabolism like mine, this constitutes a hunger strike. It's ''always'' time to feed the beast, damn it. Next time a lawyer advises me not to bring food into a courtroom, ''I'll'' advise ''him'' to shut the hell up.

It's a still night, not much going on in the neighborhood. I've got slabs of meat in a small fridge in my Extremis – the largest Ford-made SUV of all time – I trudge on over. The colors of fast-time are as odd as ever, but I'm long since used to it. I hear the purring rumble of crickets in a vacant lot a couple blocks to the north, the leathery sounds of fistfights and arguments from many directions. My vibrissae (cat-whiskers) tell me there's a breeze, but I can't really ''feel'' it through my fur. Too bad. I catch the scents of fresh urine and vomit from faceless drunks here on West Street. Fun location we're at. I don't quite fumble the key, and the side door opens.

Three kilos of sirloin start thawing; I dial my hotplate to 40 degrees Celsius. Waiting for the microwave's bell, I have time to set the table for dinner. Good silverware, china, and crystal, the whole nine yards. I may be a true carnivore, but there are still forms that must be observed, by God. I'll be dead and damned before I adopt non-human eating habits to go with my non-human diet. Not that the diet is ''absolutely'' non-human, mind. I've a decent collection of condiments – sauces and spices and such – and tonight I choose to experiment with a garlic-enhanced Worchestershire blend.

I ''could'' just inhale the raw protein right now, as is – there's a vacuum inside me that's bigger than I am – but I won't. Makes for a fine test of my willpower, and thus far I'm winning. Can't do much about the drooling, damn it. About the same time as my main dish is ready, the Pig's front door creeps open, framing a silhouette. I transfer one slab of meat to my plate, the rest to the hotplate that will keep them at body temperature until I'm ready for them. The shadow-shape inches towards me, gradually resolving itself to Wanderer as the seconds ooze by. I've got plenty of time to observe him in motion, plenty of time to think as I cut (with a fork and knife!), chew, and swallow.

I don't understand people like Wanderer. In my experience, generosity is the fastest, surest route to ingratitude; no good deed goes unpunished; turning the other cheek gets you a matching bruise; intimacy just lets them get close enough to stab you in a vital spot; and ''anyone'' can fuck you over at ''any'' time. And yet Wanderer ''is'' generous and forgiving and on and on – he makes himself a perpetual goddamn target – so ''how does he get away with it? ''It irks me, it really does. I don't ''like'' unsolvable puzzles…

Ah. His mouth is open. His voice dopplers up as I downshift to his tempo: "–rrre you in a civilized mood?"

I let out a sigh; even that sounds "off" to me. I swirl my glass, hold it up to let the single street light within 100 meters sparkle off of its contents. "Getting there." I lower the glass, take a sip, look at the wolf. "How in hell do ''you'' manage, damn it?" I ask, irritated.

"Excuse me? I really –"

"Fuck ''that'' noise," I interrupt. "You know damn well what I'm talking about, or at least you ''should.'' You're the life of the bleeding party, you are, always ready with a quip and a smile, and never a hint that you ''know'' how positively shitty life can get. ''How in Polyhymnia's name do you '''do''' it?"''

He doesn't answer, just looks at me, and finally (after a good second of silence) states, "You honestly don't know."

I grimace. "''Suurre'' I do. The only reason I even bothered to ask is that I just ''love'' to hear the sound of my own voice." I sigh again, and my whole body sags in on itself – I can't sustain more than a pilot light's worth of annoyance, if even that much. "Never mind. What do you want from me?"

Another pause, this one well over two seconds.

Finally, Wanderer says, "I want to know how long you're going to continue making yourself miserable. Didn't you say it's been more than two years? When ''will'' you get on with your life?"

"'Life, don't talk to me about life'," I quote, then laugh and echo his earlier words. "Heh heh heh. You honestly don't know." I continue laughing, and it's a bitter, jagged, thoroughly unpleasant noise; whatever humor it might have held to start with is soon absent. Hysteria, thy name is Jubatus. And then Wanderer is in the Extremis with me and he grabs my right shoulder and there's a sharp pain in –

– ''damage: non-impairing: kill'' –

– '''''NO, Goddamnit!''''' –

– and I stifle a murderous yowl. Or maybe I just let it die for want of effort, it's hard to say. It ''is'' hard to say. Hard to speak, think, do much of anything else. That last adrenal surge really took it out of me. The forepaw that was poised to rip the wolf's face off of his skull, I instead let drift down along my own face, gingerly tracing the shallow furrows he left when he slapped me. My hand comes away with fluid on it. Smells like blood, feels like it, doesn't look like it. Oh. Right. Colors of fast-time. I try to raise my hand for a closer look, can't do more than slow its descent to my lap. Don't have the energy. Heh. Fastest SCAB alive, and here I am too tired even to ''move.'' Funny.

My head falls forward. Good. Wanted a clearer view of the stuff on my fingers. Heh. Just thought of a punchline. Wanderer will love it. Oh yeah, gotta downshift, he won't understand it at this tempo. Can't hardly think, hard to shift. Okay, talk slow & deep.

"TThhaaannkksss… II… nneeeeddeedd… tthhaaa…"

{{separator}}

I'm lying down?

I am. On a full-sized bed, under a blanket which (amazingly enough) is only warm, not sweltering. I'm not wearing any clothes, that must be why I'm not overheated. I feel a dull, throbbing ache all over, head to tail and toes. Still tired, just not the marrow-deep ''exhaustion'' of last night. I could open my eyes, but why bother? I can already catch the scents of antiseptic, specialized foods, and Wanderer. Not to mention the delightful sensation of sharp things poking into blood vessels in my arms. Put it all together, it spells "hospital".

For a moment I wonder what the wolf is doing here. Then I remember what happened. He slapped my face, and I collapsed like a string-cut puppet. Christ on a sidecar, I could lay ''such'' a guilt trip on him… heh. Forget it, I've done enough already.

"You're awake!" It's him. I must've said something, I've been known to talk in my sleep. "Are you alright?"

"Mm. I feel like…" Only cliches come to mind. "Damn. If my brain weren't wrapped in cotton right now, I'd have a better description than my brain feels like it's wrapped in cotton."

"I hardly think this is a joking matter," is the quiet reply.

"Why not? There's always ''something'' to chuckle over, if you take your humor black. 'If I may be seen to laugh at any mortal thing'…" I begin.

"…'it is so that I may not cry'," he says, completing the quote. "From '''''Don Juan''''', by Lord Byron, isn't it?"

"Yes, but in my case, the operative verb isn't 'cry'. ''I'' laugh so that I won't take an illicit assault weapon to the nearest rooftop and fire randomly into the crowd."

"Hmm. That's rather a hefty load of anger you're carrying," he observes thoughtfully.

"No kidding. What was your first clue?" I sneer, but my heart isn't in it. "Yes, I've got a bad temper, and no, it's nothing to do with SCABS. I'm just an angry young man who ''stayed'' angry." I finally open my eyes, to look at the wolf. He's seen better days; it wouldn't surprise me if he'd slept in that chair. "Your turn. I've already asked, and I don't think that 'how long will you mourn' crap is the ''real'' answer: What do you want from me?"

He considers me for a long moment. "I'd like to know how you got pure tones out of us in ''that'' register, if I may. I wouldn't have thought it possible!"

I shrug. "It was obvious. Your vocal tract is basically human, but from the way you bitch about high notes, there's gotta be some lupine bits in there as well. Two different boxes of tools, two different skill-sets. Can't work with the ''lupine'' bits if you're stuck on ''human'' vocal techniques. Like I said, obvious."

He chuckles ruefully. "To ''you,'' perhaps, but I can assure you it was appreciably less than obvious to ''us!'' And such being the case, I should be very pleased if you would consent to work with us in future. What would you say to that?"

"Fuck off and die," I state, calmly and without heat. "Work with you? Yeah, right. You guys are an amateur vocal group, and ''I can't sing!'' Look, Wanderer. You can invent pointless little make-work tasks to keep me out of your hair. You can even give me a fancy title like Artistic Director to distract me from realizing what you're doing. But what you ''can't'' do is expect me not to recognize when I'm being blatantly patronized."

"I hardly think it patronizing to want to benefit from any further 'obvious' ideas of yours!"

"What makes you think there'll ''be'' any more? Even if I owned a hat, I couldn't pull miracles out of it on command."

"You're right, of course. Just because you can walk on water doesn't mean you should be able to swim."

"Say ''what?'' I think you missed my point," I begin, but the wolf doesn't give me the chance to explain.

"Nay, sirrah, 'tis ''you'' have missed ''mine!"'' he growls. "What makes you think I'm doing this for some half-brained feline with the manners of a drunken monkey? Do you ''honestly'' think you're such an attractive charity case that I just can't stay away? Please, Jubatus. If I knew anyone else who could do it half as well, I'd be on their doorstep in a heartbeat, and I mean one of yours.

"Because I know my limits. I'm an actor, a singer, and something of a comedian. But I will never be a dancer, and not just because these footpads of mine are utter wrecks on anything with less traction than carpet. I can't dance anything more complicated than the box step without a lot of training. I'll never be a choreographer because I can't analyze my own movement, let alone someone else's. And I'll sure as I'm wearing a fur coat never be a choir leader, because I can't explain it to anyone who doesn't already know it. Now, do you need more reasons, or has yon fool of a wolf satisfied thy curiousity?"

My mind whirls, albeit at a much lower RPM than usual.

''Not a charity case – Never a choir leader – How could he '''not''' know – No charity –What's he think he's '''been''' doing – Instructor wanted – No leader, my ass – Not a handout –''

"So… you really ''are'' interested. In me. With your boys. Teaching."

"I believe that ''is'' what I said, yes," Wanderer replies in a tone of dry amusement.

Hope flares without warning – ''I'm a technical writer, teaching people is what I do for a living'' – and dies just as suddenly. "That's great, but… I think I've burned a few too many bridges. You really think ''they're'' gonna stand for working with ''me?"''

"You oughtn't be ''too'' quick to disqualify yourself. Would you care to know what the group thought of your little exhibition?"

I grimace. "Don't tell me. The cat-thing reacted with amused contempt; the tenor wants my head on a platter; the bug is too spaced-out to comprehend what went on; the other wolf can't figure out why I don't just leave you the hell alone; the buffalo didn't deign to notice anything; and Wanderer would like me to apologize for publicly humiliating the lupines." My lack of energy shows in my tone all throughout this recitation. "How'd I do, Rin Tin Tin?"

He smiles. "Poorly, if you must know. In point of fact, you engendered the same initial reaction in all six of us – intense fear. I truly cannot recall our exhibiting such unanimity on ''any'' other topic!" I wince at this statement. ''So I scared them all shitless. Oh, joy.'' "At least you're not a violent person," he concludes cheerfully.

I frown. "Fat lot ''you'' know about it."

"In truth, I rather think I do. You were ''quite'' the fearsome sight throughout your little tutoring session; I wasn't at all certain that you could refrain from opening a few arteries! Yet, the only things you ''did'' open were our upper registers. And during your first visit to Donnie's establishment you were disquietingly active, but, again, peace of mind was the only thing you inflicted any significant damage on."

I look him in the eyes. "Thank you," I say quietly, and I ''mean'' it.

He nods. "You are most welcome. Now, if I may continue: We spoke amongst ourselves after you, ''hrrhrm,'' became indisposed, shall we say? Once the topic ran to what you actually did, as opposed to the distasteful manner in which you did it, we quickly realized that your insights could be of great value to us. And as it happens, even Ringwolf is willing to put aside his enmity, presuming your ministrations prove to be as beneficial as I suspect they will.

"The question is, are ''you'' prepared to behave yourself? Can you put an end to mourning your lost voice? If not, which is to say if you ''continue'' to disrupt our rehearsals, we'd best start looking for a new space in which ''to'' rehearse."

I think I know what the wolf's aiming at here, and I cut to the chase. "You're trying for that 'shared pain is lessened' bullshit, aren't you."

He nods. "I have always found it to be helpful."

"That makes one of us," I say with another grimace. Then again, nothing ''I've'' tried has done any good yet, so what the hell? Can't hurt. "Alright, fine. You ask me 'how long, o Lord?' I dunno. I got denial out of the way already – did I mention that I couldn't even ''speak'' at first? ''That,'' I denied ''so'' strongly that I actually taught myself how to talk again, took me five calendar days. Anger, I got that as soon as I stopped being relieved about learning to talk again, and been there ever since. Bargaining, probably not. I've never believed in any god to bargain with. Does my research into possible cures count? Depression, well, it was only ''frustration'' when all I knew was that I couldn't sing. Now that I know ''why'' I can't sing – my vocal tract is pure cheetah, nothing ''to'' sing ''with'' – '''now''' I'm getting some depression, big time. Acceptance… I just don't know. Ask me again next year."

"I shall. In the meantime, though… what carries you through the day? Were your life such a torment, I rather doubt you'd have lived to see the bar."

I give him a wan smile. "It's not ''that'' bad, mostly. Hell, I can go for clock-hours on end without thinking about it."

"Clock-hours?" Wanderer asks, puzzled at this non-standard term.

"Hours by the clock." I wave a vague gesture. "What you slowpokes live by. ''My'' hours are faster." He gets it – and suddenly ''I'' get something, too: Wanderer is moving, even though I didn't downshift to his tempo. ''Derksen must have me on some kind of metabolic depressant. Wonder why?'' "Anyhow, like I said, I can go for clock-hours at a time without hurting. But with the glee club around…" I shake my head. "Think of me as a moth, helplessly spiraling to my doom around the fire of your little group."

"But surely you possess more self-control than the insect you name?"

"Of course I do! It's just, well… I think I can name that pain in four words: ''Humans'' sing. ''Animals'' don't."

"Animals do, actually," Wanderer answers with a smirk. I glare back at him. "We wolves love a good sing-along."

I cut in before he can say more. "Oh, ''please.'' You know any ''natural-born'' wolves can belt out a Broadway show tune? Me, neither. Sure, a wolf call is an interesting noise, but ''it's not '''song'''!'' And the same goes for the sounds whales make, if you were thinking about going there. Singing, ''real'' singing, is a uniquely ''human'' activity. And I was ''awfully'' damned good at it… before."

"So ''this'' is at the root of it all: You fear for your humanity."

Anger flares within me. ''"'''Yes''' yousonofafuckingbitch I '''am''' afraid –"'' I snap at him, then I realize what I've just said, what I've admitted. My anger fades.

''Oh, shit…''

That's what I get for having the fastest mouth in the Western Hemisphere. I wait for the other shoe to drop. I just ''know'' it's going to be a very heavy steel-toed boot, with plenty of sharpened cleats protruding from its hobnailed sole, that falls with great force onto something highly sensitive.

The silence lasts many seconds. I'm the one who finally breaks it: "I don't suppose you'd be willing to forget what you just heard?"

Wanderer shakes his head. "No. If ''you'' are willing to speak further on 't, however, I should be curious to follow your reasoning. Surely you don't believe that lack of singing ability ought automatically brand one as subhuman?"

I stare up at the ceiling. ''If I'm willing to speak on it, he says. '''Suurrre''' I'm willing to talk about it. Golly gee whiz, who '''wouldn't''' jump at the chance to put their vulnerable points on public display? '''Oh''' yeah, sure thing, you betcha.''

''But… this is Wanderer. He doesn't behave like a '''real''' human being. Maybe…''

"Alright. You want it, you got it. On one condition: ''You don't talk.'' Whatever you see or hear, ''none of it'' leaves the room. You ''ever ''repeat ''any'' of this, and I swear by Tyr and Themis, your next role is Cream of Wolf on Toast. Capische?"

I think he got the message. He's uncharacteristically serious: "My lips are sealed. I promise you, I shall be the very soul of discretion."

"You'd better."

I move the blanket aside, then sit up, ignoring all the complaints from the muscles involved. Ordinarily I'd just ''do'' it, from thought to act in one smooth, electric sweep. But now, doing anything feels… 'laborious' isn't the right word. The best description I can think of at the moment, is that I'm ''aware'' of the effort I'm expending. It's almost as if a utility company had just started metering my muscle-power. Slowly, so very slowly, I stand, revealing the full extent of what SCABS did to me. I used to be human, surely I should be able to remember if ''this'' is what it felt like to move the body around?

"Here I am. Take a good look." I turn around twice, clockwise first and then widdershins. It's been such a long time since I lived at the normal tempo… I move ponderously, not just because of low energy or the all-over ache, but also because of the tubes running into my arms. Wouldn't want to tangle them up or pull one out.

I lower myself back down onto the mattress. Gravity is more insistent than I'm used to, I must continually expend more of that metered power lest I collapse in an untidy heap. It feels ''so'' good to just lie in bed and let the pain diminish to a weak background sensation.

"That's me all over, Wanderer. Derksen tells me my body is pure cheetah, except for a 5% intrusion of human traits. So the body isn't human, but that's just the physical instrument, isn't it? You're only as human as you think, right?"

I've gone this far, may as well give him the whole package. No matter how nervous it makes me. I swallow. "Okay, fine. But. My mind ''isn't'' human. Not completely. Got a choice collection of brand-new personality quirks when I SCABbed over. And. Some of 'em scare the living shit out of me." ''If you're gonna go for the whole package, Jube old son, '''go''' for the whole package.'' I scan Wanderer with my eyes; this time, breaking a solemn promise I made to myself years ago, I let the beast in my hindbrain get a look in. "25 MPH tops. Time to intercept, no more than 15 seconds. Maximum chance of escape, 5%. Healthy; lots of good meat on the bones. Keep me going 2 days easy, less if a scavenger finds you before I'm done with you."

The wolf is silent, and I can't blame him. Not only have I just pronounced him easy prey, I've coldly quantified exactly ''how'' easy…

"And if ''that'' kind of crap weren't bad enough, there's the mental changes which ''might'' be SCABS-related. Personality traits I had before, but they're a Hell of a lot stronger ''now.'' Short-tempered, antisocial, et cetera ad nauseum. Maybe I would've gotten that way without the Martian Flu; then again, maybe I wouldn't. Bottom line is, ''I've got no way to know'' how much of my mind survived the fur coat!

"So. My ''body'' surely isn't human, and God only knows how much of my ''mind'' still is. Which begs the question: What's left of ''me?'' What percentage ''didn't'' get over-written by the beast? All I really know is… however much humanity I had before, I've got one Hell of a lot ''less'' of it ''now.''"

I swallow again, and my next words are quiet, perhaps below the threshhold of human hearing: "I can't ''afford'' to lose any more."

Swallow. Deep breath, exhale. Back to a normal volume level: "Does that answer your question?"

The wolf nods. "I believe so, yes. Now it's your turn." So saying, he disrobes completely, one article of clothing at a time, starting with his cape and working his way down to the bare fur. Then he turns around, aping my earlier action; on him, it looks like a pirouette. "Here am I! Only one small bonus away from being as much a wolf as you are a cat, and damn lucky to be here. When I get tired, or sick, or drunk, I'm not even this well off. You could say I go to the dogs. Or haven't you heard about that little trick yet?"

"No." I shake my head. "Four on the floor, is that it? 'Look, Ma, no hands'? Strong and ''silent'' type?" The wolf confirms all three with a nod and a "Yes."

I say nothing for a moment, then chuckle. It's a genuinely healthy laugh, very unlike the noise I made last night. "Just can't stop yourself slumming among the voiceless, is that it?" I ask, a sardonic smile on my face.

Wanderer sighs and shakes his head. "You, sir, are incorrigible."

"So don't incorrige me."

He looks exasperated. "As if I ever have! Well. If you will be so kind as to excuse me, I ''do'' have other business to attend to. Good day, Jubatus."

"Be seeing you, Wanderer."

Suddenly, neither he nor his clothes are in the room. And I didn't notice him leaving… right, I took a catnap. Fell asleep without even realizing it. For some reason, this doesn't particularly bother me; must be ''good'' drugs Derksen's got me on.

Speaking of the doc-roach, he drops in to chew me out. There's a reason he put me on a metabolic depressant: I ''was'' running on empty. When the blast furnace I call a metabolism ran out of loose protein and nutrients to burn, it moved on to the next available source of fuel. Namely, my own muscle and connective tissues. Self-inflicted tissue damage, anyone?

No wonder I ache all over. No wonder Derksen wants my metabolic activity throttled back to where the body's got half a chance of healing. And finally, no wonder he's not happy about my vital signs spiking up to near ''my'' normal levels. He does something to the mix being fed into my veins, and I'm ''gone,'' Jack. Within seconds I can feel random pieces of my brain shutting down.

I spend the next week as a semi-intelligent meat puppet – or, if you like, Derksen's prescription keeps me mellowed out on a scale unseen since the 1960s. I'm pretty sure I had at least one more visitor, but I'll be damned if I can remember any specifics. Wonder what sort of conversationalist I was.

Seven interminable days. That's how long it takes the doc-roach to pronounce me healthy enough to release, if that's what I want – and want, I most definitely do. Inactivity grates on us cheetahs, medically-enforced or no. If it weren't for my status as a drug-induced zombie, I'd be leaving footprints on the goddamn walls and ceiling; as it is, I'm only a little annoyed.

I'm on the street three hours after I tell Derksen I want out, what with paperwork and reclaiming my stuff and other flavors of bureaucratic nonsense. Somewhere along the way, I pick up a week's supply of some fluid that's polysyllabic and hard to pronounce. I dub it Prozac Plus, the post-industrial strength pain reliever.

So I'm looking over the parking lot, and where the hell is my Ford Extremis? ''Think, cat! Alright, I remember pulling up at the Blind Pig, and then – oh, shit. '''I''' sure as Elysium didn't lock the car! God only knows what's left of it now…''

I'm back in the lobby at time T plus 3 hours 45 seconds, calling the 'Pig.

A female human answers. "Blind Pig Gin Mill. Susan speaking, how can I help you?" I think I recognize the voice; it's Donnie's daughter.

"Hi there. This is Jubatus. Could someone look out the window and tell me how bad the damage is?"

"Ah… hold on," she says uncertainly. I hear indistinct conversation-type noises. It occurs to me, belatedly, that I really ought to have explained the situation to her. Less than a minute later (and for once, ''my'' minutes and ''clock''-minutes match up with each other), Susan's back on the line: "Mr. Jubatus? We had your vehicle towed to the West Street Shelter, and you'll find it to be completely intact."

''Praise Hermes,'' I think to myself. "Thanks for the update," I say, punctuating this remark by hanging up. My next call is for a taxi.

The cabbie wakes me up outside the Shelter. I must've lapsed into unconsciousness again – gotta watch that. I pay the man, and it doesn't even cross my mind that I might have been overcharged. I make sure I don't leave anything in the cab before I disembark.

I trudge on up to the front door… ''so'' damned slow… and then inside. I can't recall the Shelter ever being this busy. Then again, I ''am'' stuck at ''their'' tempo for the duration – maybe it's ''always'' looked this way to slow eyes?

A human-seeming woman with a snake-cold manner about her interrupts my rubbernecking. "You would be Jubatus, correct?"

Her voice is cool and cultured. She looks important, maybe I've seen her before, but I'll be damned if I can remember where or when. "That's me. You mean there are ''other'' cheetahs in this town?"

A smile floats briefly across her lips. "You'd be surprised. Have you any business here besides reclaiming your vehicle?"

"Not really. If Phil was around I'd say hello, but I guess he's not here."

"Mr. Geusz is unavailable," she confirms. "However, I will pass the sentiment along to him. As for your car, follow me." So saying, she leads the way through corridors I'd get lost in without a guide. I laugh a little when it hits me that I actually have to hurry up to keep pace with her – who'd'a thunk it? I just smile and shake my head when she looks quizzically back at me.

We arrive at the Shelter's garage. Even to my drug-bedimmed faculties, it's obvious that they had to rearrange the place to make room for my Extremis. I wonder how many man-hours went into this unscheduled remodeling.

I get my checkbook out of my vest. "Look, you don't strike me as the kind that goes for senseless acts of random kindness," I say, and then I retrieve a pen. "How much do I owe you?"

"Fifty thousand dollars." If I had any eyebrows to raise, I would. I could buy another Extremis for that kind of money. Of course, it wouldn't cover a tenth of the modifications I've installed… I look at her. I think she's serious. What the hell, non-profits got to get their income where they can.

I nod. "Fifty grand. Isn't that a bit steep for parking?" I ask with a smile. I can afford it, I don't feel like arguing, I write the check.

She looks at the numbers as I write them. She says her next line with a deadpan delivery: "Did I mention the handling charges?"

"What?" I ask. "No, you…" That's when a neural impulse finally makes it across the lone synapse between my two functioning brain cells. "Oh. That was a joke, wasn't it. The 50 thousand, I mean."

"I'm afraid it was. But since you did ask…" She goes on; I tune out her voice and think about what I've just written. I realize that it's the literal truth: I ''do'' have more money than I know what to do with. I could let this check stand, and never notice or care. Hell, it's even drawn on my Petty Cash account!

I hand the check to her. "Here. Have a donation." After all, the Shelter ''did'' keep my car safe while I went AWOL. Value given for value received. Anyway, it'll be… hmm. "It's tax-deductible, right?"

Suddenly I'm in the driver's seat. Must've fallen asleep. ''Again.'' This is getting ridiculous – whoever heard of a narcoleptic cheetah? Thinking back, motion seems to be the key; my brain is active when, and ''only'' when, my body is. I call the hospital. Anyone think I ''hadn't'' installed a cel-phone in the car? Good.

Derksen must have anticipated me. The flunkie who answers is well-informed, says I can cut 15% off the dosage, and a like amount more if the spontaneous episodes continue. Praise the Lord, any Lord, any Lord at all.

Speaking of which: The dashboard clock says it's been more than four hours since I last ate, and I'm not hungry. I repeat: ''I am not hungry!'' Just a touch of appetite, I have to make a special effort to even notice it, nothing like the insatiable, bottomless vacuum that's inhabited my gut ever since I SCABbed over. God, it's been ''so'' bloody long…

I think I could get used to this. I even sustain that fantasy for a few seconds, until reality intrudes. You can't go home again, and I can't live at the normal tempo. Right now, moving the body feels like telepresence across orbital distances: My brain issues the command to do something, and there's a ''lag'' between thought and deed. A tiny delay, a mere fraction of a second, nothing big… but it's driving me bugfuck, because ''it's always there'' for ''everything'' I do!

And the lag is only the beginning; the body is ''slow,'' it moves at a snail's pace by comparison to what I've grown accustomed to. And on top of everything else, I'm so damned ''heavy'' – 32 feet per second per second, by slow standards, is only 5 plus change, by mine. ''You'' try living with a fraction of your normal energy level ''and'' lead weights hanging off of every joint. Me, I'm pretty sure I can stick it out for a week. Anything much longer, and all bets are off.

Enough. Gotta keep my mind on something else; Wanderer's offer is a suitable topic. He means well, but he's ''such'' a bloody optimist, I'd want a second opinion if he told me the Sun was shining. I think he really does believe his kids would be willing to work with me, I just ''can't'' buy into it on his say-so alone. I need hard evidence. Me sitting in with 'em on a song, now ''that'' I could believe, for good or ill. Ideally I'd want a song that plays to my strengths as a vocalist, but I haven't ''got'' any, damn it!

Pitch range? I can handle an augmented third, D to G in the bass clef. On those occasions when Apollo feels well-disposed towards me, I'm good for maybe 1 or 2 semitones more on either end. Anything beyond that, and you can start a betting pool on where my voice craps out first – tone, timbre, volume, or pitch.

Dynamic range? I'm good to go if and ''only'' if it's mezzo-forte. Louder or softer, and it's anybody's guess whether my volume level matches the composer's notation. Having spent a number of years (''my'' years) trying to make it do what it won't, it's my considered opinion that my current vocal apparatus just plain ''doesn't'' have the precision of the human version.

Tone and timbre? Forget it. You'd get just as good results trying to use a sound effects module as a voder. I should know, I arm-wrestle intelligible speech out of a completely non-human vocal tract. You may have wondered why I talk so much if I can't stand what I sound like? I need to keep in practice, that's why. It's ''not'' easy, and I ''really'' don't want to lose it again.

Endurance? Hmmm… maybe I spoke too soon. My human voicebox got replaced by a feline purr-box, and when's the last time any cat stopped purring to inhale? Yeah, I can keep a note going indefinitely. Give me one in my D-to-G range, and I'll do you proud… wait a minute…

God's teeth and gums! There ''is'' a vocal piece, I did it in college with that madrigal group, the entire bass line consists of a few quarter-notes at either end of an organ point – that's one continuous note, held until you keel over dead or the composer tells you different, whichever comes first – and it's an ''E-flat'' organ point! I can hit it as is, no need to even transpose the damn thing!

This is the kind of good fortune that leads some people to conclude there is a God. Me, I ask inconvenient questions, like where the hell was God when my voice died?

I break out a disc I couldn't bring myself to dispose of, even though I believed I'd never use it again. It's the old 4.7-gigabyte DVD format. Among other things, it contains my complete collection of multi-part vocal arrangements – including an early 20th-Century piece called '''''Balulalow''','' by a guy named Peter Warlock. '''''Balulalow'''.'' Stupid name, exquisite music.

I bring it up on my laptop's screen. Oh yes, I remember it well… The lyrics are English, just not ''contemporary'' English. Not good. Rather than force the group to wrestle with the likes of "with sangis sweit unto thy gloir", I spend a few minutes sandblasting the language down to modern specifications:

''O my dear heart, young Jesus kind, 
''Prepare thy cradle in my mind, 
''And I shall rock thee in my heart 
''And never more from thee depart. 
''But I shall praise eternally 
''With song sung sweet to glory thee; 
''The knees of my heart shall I bow, 
''And, artful, sing Balulalow!

Could be better, I suppose… Hell, nobody ''really'' listens to the words of these things anyway. Close enough for government work; it'll serve.

That problem solved, I move on to the question of assigning parts. It's SATB (soprano-alto-tenor-bass) with a soprano solo on the side, and the glee club does have enough warm bodies to pull it off even without me. Too bad they've only got 1 (one) soprano to work with. Okay… I give the soprano accompaniment to the tenor, Ringwolf, and bump Wanderer up from his usual baritone to the tenor line.

I print out seven copies of the sheet music, one for each of the vocalists who'll perform the damn thing – Wanderer, the five other members of his group, and me.

It's 11 PM. Time enough to lapse into a coma.

Next morning I wake up, thaw and devour breakfast, take the reduced dose of Prozac Plus. Much, much better than yesterday. I feel within arm's reach of normal, or at least what passes for normal in my life. Looks like I'm running at a tempo of 2, or thereabouts. Still a fraction of my ''usual'' tempo, still going easy on my overstressed body.

It's 7 AM on Wednesday. They'll rehearse tonight, starting maybe 8 PM? I've got time, and I spend it catching up on business I let slide during my unscheduled vacation. A lot more of it than I was expecting – no, it just seems that way because I'm not up to speed. Lots of e-mails, a fair number of "where's the work I hired you to do?" complaints. I send a mass e-mail to all my clients explaining that I had an unexpected medical emergency, that I won't be fully recovered for another few days yet, and that this is the first opportunity I've had to make contact with them. Clients whose deadlines I've blown get extra verbiage; I won't object if they invoke the penalty clause for non-performance, apologize for the necessity of even discussing it, and give 'em pointers to people who can finish the job if they decide to terminate their contract with me.

I spend the next hour conducting triage, deciding what jobs get which priority, then have brunch. Or at least that's the plan; my appetite isn't playing along. Of course – I ate for my ''usual'' hunger, not what I'm enjoying now. It's been ''so'' very long since my stomach stayed full for more than a couple of minutes! I don't miss the sensation. I feel ''bloated''. Gotta burn calories, and then some.

My Extremis has a royal mess of crap stacked around and over and under it. I don't bother summoning help from the Shelter offices; I just upshift and clear a path by myself, moving crates and machine parts out of the way, so I can drive out. I punch my tempo up to 10, as high as I can comfortably go right now, so it takes less than four clock-minutes. I then downshift, drive the car out to the curbside, park, upshift back to 10, and re-organize the Shelter's garage. This final task takes an hour of my time, including frequent curbside jaunts to make sure the Extremis is still in one piece. Only after the garage is ship-shape do I lock down my car. Then I take a nice, leisurely jog around the city at the default tempo, not bothering to shift up or down.

I said "around the city", and I mean that literally. Total circumnavigation of the greater metropolitan area. I move along the shoulder of the road when I can, cut through private property when necessary, use bike lanes and pedestrian paths when possible. Feels damn good… right, my glands are cheetah enough for the endorphins to ''really'' kick in, and my brain is human enough to enjoy the hell out of it.

I'll have to try this again sometime.

I'm back at the Shelter before 10 AM. The Extremis is still untouched. I drive the few blocks over to the Blind Pig, park, set an alarm, go back to work at a tempo of 8. I cube a slab of turkey breast, nibble on the resulting snack at random intervals. 7 PM is when I call it a day. Still got time to kill before the glee club shows; I go jogging again. If Derksen had known how it makes me feel, he would've prescribed 75 miles a day.

Back at the 'Pig once more, and it's 8:10. I make sure I've got the sheet music in my shoulder bag, then breeze on inside. They've just started Ado Annie's song from '''''Oklahoma''','' and ''damn'' they're good. Donnie's got fresh oranges today; I get a screwdriver, sidle over to them unnoticed, sit down and enjoy.

It's done too soon: "– caaaaan't saaaaaay noooooo!" they conclude, and the applause is why they rehearse ''here'' instead of some place with better acoustics. I make with a lupine howl instead of clapping – we cheetahs ain't half bad at sound effects. Good enough to fool Wanderer, who comes up empty looking for the new wolf. Heh. He does a doubletake when he sees me.

"Ah, Jubatus. It pleases me that –" He breaks off, puzzled. Now that I think of it, I don't believe he's ever seen me in ''this'' good a mood before. "You?"

"I went jogging. Runner's high," I tell him. "What's the matter, never seen a cheetah smile?"

He's speechless. I make a mental note of the occasion.

What the hell, that's as good a cue as any. I catch the glee club's collective attention by standing up. "Hello. I suppose you're wondering why I've called you all here today…" Well, ''that'' joke fell flat. Wanderer manages to crack a smile, but then he ''would,'' wouldn't he? Gesturing at him, I continue: "Benji here tells me you people are in the market for a pain in the ass who does vocal training on the side, and I'm number one on your short list. Fine by me, but first, I got two words for you all," I say, inserting a dramatic pause before my next words.

"I apologize."

Dead silence from the club. It's the tenor who is first to reply: "Who are you, and what have you done with that cocksucker of a cheetah?"

I smile. Familiar ground at last. "I love you, too, Ringwolf. Don't worry, the Jubatus you know and loathe will return as soon as the drugs wear off. In the meantime, I brought a peace offering with me."

I extract the music from my shoulder bag. First copy goes to Sunya, who isn't a centaur because her below-the-waist bits are pure jaguar. She's got these amazing green eyes, a more than decent soprano voice, and an attitude best described as prima donna with a feline accent. "Here you go, sweetness. Enjoy." She raises one eyebrow, affects that superior catlike expression, accepts the solo part as her due.

Next is the alto, Constance. She's part bumblebee; SCABS gave up on her after bestowing those distinctive markings up and down her torso, plus oversized compound eyes that have ''got'' to give her a ''very'' strange worldview. No idea how much ''internal'' remodeling she got, of course. Quiet girl, not all there. She nods and smiles her quirky smile, just like always.

Third in line is Ringwolf, tenor and Lupine Boy both, who gets along with me as smoothly as #5 sandpaper. He's better than he thinks he is, when he forgets the damn self-consciousness. He snatches his copy out of my hand before I can give it to him. "You write this?" he asks.

"Nope, it's a little before my time," I reply. "Who knows, you might like it." Ringwolf snorts by way of response.

On to the two baritones. I hit Wolfshead first, he's another Lupine Boy. He's easy to overlook; he's so bloody retiring a soul that I can't figure out how, or why, he ever hooked up with the Boys in the first place. Keeps to himself. I have no idea what he does when he's not at the Pig. "Thank you, sir," he says when I hand him his music.

"My pleasure," I say.

The second baritone is actually a ''first'' baritone, oddly enough – it's Wanderer. "Thanks indeed!" he says when he gets his copy. He freezes almost immediately when he sees what he's got, looks at me as though I suddenly turned into Richard M. Nixon, then shakes his head and blinks and focuses on the music. The rest of the crew started in scanning their own specific parts as soon as their music was in hand; Wanderer's looking over the whole thing. I can practically hear him working out the harmonic relationships in his mind, the dynamics, the overall tonal quality of the piece. And yes, he does mess with my part assignments. Heh. Amused, I think to myself, ''"Never be a choir leader" my ass, you melodramatic scenery-chewer!''

He focuses on something at the bottom of the first page. "'The basses are instructed to stagger their breathing, so as not to interrupt the smooth flow of sound'," he says, quoting the performance note that caught his attention. His eyes hold a question that I ignore.

"That's right," I say. "Composer's orders."

The last handout goes to Eltro Gannet, the glee club's ''basso'' absurdly ''profundo.'' He's got some bison in him; he's solid muscle, about two-and-a-third men wide, and with 15 men's dignity. I'd bet he's seriously annoyed at being stuck with a one-note harmony line (I wasn't happy about it myself when first I performed it, as I recall), but that kind of complaint would be beneath him, so he only says, "Mr. Jubatus? The bass line is… unusual."

"Sure is," I agree. "But the end result's gonna be worth it. Think of it as one of those sacrifices people make for their art."

So now everybody's got their melodic line, and Wanderer plays the various parts out on the piano, and it's not long before the whole group's prepped and ready for the first trial run. Before they do, I make my move.

I've got one final copy of the music. I take it out, move up next to Gannet. I ignore my elevated pulse rate as best I can. "Awwrrrhhh –" I begin abortively, clear my throat, try again. "I thought I'd sit in with you. Tonight. Unless anyone has any objections?"

Ringwolf looks like he does, but one look from Wanderer shuts him up. The not-a-leader asks, "So I am to presume that this is in the way of a trial run, then."

I nod. "Yep. And if you're wondering, I ''do'' know my part."

He doesn't even glance at the sheet music, just looks me in the eye. "Well, I am told that preparedness is a virtue. Very well." We get our starting notes from the piano, and we begin.

I let Gannet do the heavy lifting for those of the initial notes I can't hit worth a damn, but I'm right there when that big, beautiful E-flat organ point starts rolling…

For those of you who haven't heard '''''Balulalow''':'' It's an etherial soprano solo floating over a continuous, gradually-shifting chord structure. And it's beautiful. By all the gods that never were… it's one of the most ''beautiful'' pieces of music I've ever heard.

There's a difference between just ''hearing'' the music, and ''making'' it. And I've been on the short end of that difference for ''so'' damnably long a time… My cheeks are damp and getting more so. I don't care, it's not affecting my voice.

"My voice", now ''there's'' a joke. Christ almighty, what right have I to apply that term to the noise that comes out of my mouth! None at all, no right whatsoever. Not when I've spent ''years'' of my time desperately trying to smash a square peg into a round hole, sweating blood just to achieve a minimal degree of intelligibility, working my ass off simply to be ''understood,'' and any one of ''these'' people can blow me completely out of the water on their ''worst'' day.

So here I am with a song hand-picked to afford me every possible advantage, a piece that might as well have been commissioned especially for me… and I'm still a seventh-rater. Compared to ''real'' singers I simply don't measure up any more, ''and I never will.''

Alright, ''that'' affected my sound; I hope nobody else noticed. ''Keep your flipping mind on your part, Jube old boy.'' I manage to hold it together for the duration of the organ point, and let Gannet handle the notes I can't at the end. Pan and Apollo, the difference between me and them… I'm sorely tempted to swiftly and silently vanish away, but that would make this whole exercise a waste of time.

Now comes the hard part…

"What do you think?" I ask, and behind my poker-face, I am sweating bricks. The 2-meter concrete kind, that they build skyscraper foundations out of. I remember Ringwolf gleefully pointing out every last mistake he noticed in my performance, which is about 50% more than I actually made; Wanderer complimenting my taste in music; everything else they said might as well be white noise, for all I can remember of it. And then I'm walking calmly over to the counter for straight bourbon. No blood was spilled at the piano, so I guess it went well, and that brings us up to date.

Okay… so I can't sing worth a damn. Big deal. Lots of people can't. My vocalist days are done.

''t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat ta-tat – ta-tat tat tat''

It still hurts, and I don't know if I'd ever ''want'' the pain to go away ''entirely,'' but… Somehow, it just isn't as bad any more. I think the wound is finally starting to heal.

''t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat ta-tat – ta-tat tat tat''

Bit of an anticlimax, really. Especially after all that weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth I've been doing all this time. Whatever.

''t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat tat, t't't'rat tat ta-tat – ta-tat tat tat''

Like I've always said, life is better when you accept Reality for what it is. No matter how hard it may be, accepting Reality is better than the alternative.

''t't't'rat, t't't'rat, tat tat t't't'rat, tat, tat, t't't'rat-t't't'rat''

That's interesting… haven't done ''that'' for a while; I'm tapping out rhythms on the table. I try varying between clawtips and finger pads.

''t't't'rat tyt tyt, t't't'rat tyt tyt, t't't'rat tyt ta-tyt – ti-tat tyt tyt''

Hmmm.

I'm done with singing… but maybe I'm not done with ''music?''

''t't't'rat tyt tyt, t't't'rat tyt tyt, t't't'rytta-tytta-tytta-tyt''

I walk over towards the piano, tap Wanderer on the shoulder.

"Yes, Jubatus?"

"You think you guys could use a little percussion?"

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Speedy Trials}}

User:Cubist/Second Heat

2009-02-16T02:28:39Z

Cubist:

{{title|name=Second Heat|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
I hear some of you prefer Cliff's Notes to the original manuscript. Just for you, here's the short form: The Blind Pig Gin Mill acquires a new regular. A puzzle is solved, and the solution creates more puzzles. A lost soul begins finding its way back.

That's it. Now you can go away.

And the rest of you, who ''do'' want details? Stick around, they're coming.

My name is Jubatus, and I'm a cheetah-morph. Yeah, I can practically hear you thinking, "Hi, Jubatus!" to yourself, but don't bother saying it. There's no 12-step program for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, no matter that a lot of people would be much happier if there were. Me, for one.

A couple years back, when the Martian Flu hit me and I SCABbed over, I pretty much went into freefall— cut all ties to family and friends, buried myself in work and reading, only ''just'' meeting the MDR of social interaction. Pathetic, really. But I can't blame the disease; I was damaged goods already, and SCABS was more in the line of The Straw That Broke The Camel's Back.

Mind you, SCABS is one king hell ''monster'' of a straw. ''It killed my voice.''

I can speak, I'm not mute… I just can't ''sing.'' And two years down the line, even ''thinking'' about what's gone ''still'' hurts like gargling razor blades.

On the plus side of the ledger, I can now shift my personal time-sense up or down, from a high tempo of maybe 30 times faster than the norm to a low tempo of around one-third as fast as norms, with a default tempo of 6 or so. Although this ability has proven itself useful on occasion, for some reason I don't regard it as an adequate substitute for what I've lost.

But I digress.

Anyway: Once I got SCABS, my sanity started dribbling away fast''er.'' I didn't really know how bad I was getting; I sure as hell didn't ''acknowledge'' anything, not even to myself. I put up a pretty good front, keeping the inner demons at bay with nothing but sheer willpower, but even the best band-aid can't do squat for appendicitis.

I think the crisis point would have come 26, maybe 27 months after my fur coat arrived. I think I know the general outlines of the breakdown that would have occured, and I'm pretty sure I'd have gotten bigger headlines than Charles Manson ever did. Don't ask, neither of us needs the nightmares.

I first dropped into the Blind Pig at time T plus ''25'' months. That initial visit is when and where I met the rabbit whose throat I near-as-damn-all ripped out on sight, and who got my sorry ass into therapy. He doesn't know about the throat thing— it went by too fast for him to notice. His name is Phil Geusz, and I owe him, ''big'' time. So from now on, my motto is, '''''Nobody''' fucks with the rabbit.''

One month, maybe two. Damn right I'm a lucky son of a bitch.

I don't usually introspect, but today is special. Today I kill time in a waiting room. It's my first physical examination in just under two years, or it will be whenever that sloth of a Good Doctor deigns to see me. I've already read every magazine I could find, cover to cover, and conducted another exhaustive search of the entire floor just in case there's a copy of '''''Good Housekeeping''''' or '''''SCABbard''''' I missed the first time around. Same goes for the bulletin boards, posters, and other words on the walls. I think about it, but I'm still not desperate enough to touch the yellowing, poorly-dusted '''''National Inquisitor''''' some mouth-breathing norm left here 10 months ago, going by the cover date.

This is part of the price I pay for living at so much faster a tempo than the rest of the world: I always have time to kill. ''Always.'' I now regret having chosen to leave my laptop in the car— with my intrinsic speed, I really don't have to be all ''that'' cautious about my belongings.

It occurs to me that there's quite a lot of things I've been overly cautious, if not downright paranoid, about. And one of those things would do nicely to keep me occupied until the doctor finally shows. While I haven't tried it before, I see no reason why it shouldn't work.

I downshift 
                from the 
                        already 
                            slow 
                              human 
                             tempo 
                    and upshift 
          back to norm 

when someone rushes towards me. Correction: Some''thing, ''large and arthropoid. I believe it's Bryan Derksen himself, although it's hard to tell with polymorphs. Then again, it's a cockroach-morph ''and'' a physician— what are the odds? Gotta be Derksen, world-class researcher and so on. No complaints, but I am curious to know how come I rate ''his'' personal attention.

"You are Jubatus?"

"That's me. Dr. Derksen, I presume?" We shake hands. His chitin has an interesting feel to it. I find his scent vaguely irritating, for some reason— I don't ask what ''he'' thinks of ''mine.''

"Correct. Is that your first or last name?"

"Both, just like on the Smothers Brothers." He doesn't get it. Another perfectly good obscure reference wasted. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?"

He chitters— it must be insectoid laughter. "I heard about your first night at the Blind Pig." ''Oh, Lord, he doesn't mean..?'' My face flushes, not that it's visible under the fur. "Is it true that you ran all the way across the ceiling?" ''He does. Damn.''

"Look, I was blitzed." And I was, too, in spite of having a nitro-burning, fuel-injected metabolism that eats alcohol like a Bunsen burner. Had I known he was actually up to the task, I'd never have asked the bleeding minotaur to get me soused. "You— "

Derksen raises a shiny hand. I shut up. "Well? ''Did'' you?"

I have no truly clear memories of what I did before I lapsed into a coma that evening. I'm certain I made a complete, absolute, unmitigated imbecile of myself, and I've been too embarrassed to ask anyone about it. Whatever else happened, I'm pretty sure there was one point at which I looked ''up'' at the floor 10 feet over my head, even if I can't quite recall how I got into that position. "Well… I ''think'' so, yes. Like I said— "

Derksen shuts me down again. "Then that's why we're here. I can think of a few different methods by which you might have accomplished that feat, most of which imply at least one very interesting corollary."

"And you're going to find out which is true if it kills me."

He chitters again. "Right the first time— you cheetahs ''are'' fast. Shall we repair to my laboratory?" He puts an odd emphasis on the word ''laboratory;'' I am abruptly reminded of Colin Clive, who first played the mad scientist to Boris Karloff's Frankenstein monster.

"Lead the way. I'm warning you, though: I see even ''one'' Jacob's ladder buzzing away, I'm ''out'' of there so fast it'll twine your antennae together."

The next several hours are simultaneously dull and filled with activity. Not in the order of occurance: I get several tomographic scans, both whole-body and specific portions thereof. My eyes and ears are probed. I donate samples of blood, bone, muscle tissue, cartilage, saliva, fur, claw, and lymphatic fluid, among other substances. I get a variety of reflex tests. I run on a treadmill with my entire muzzle comfortably seated within a SCABS-friendly gas mask, and a forest of telemetric devices sprouting from random locations all over my body. I get tracer chemicals injected into some of my favorite blood vessels. The respective acuities of ''all'' my senses are charted. Environmentally sealed cameras are inserted up/down/into various of my bodily orifices. And so on, and so forth, procedures without end (or so it seems), amen.

I perform the physical tests several times over, at a different tempo each time. Such fun.

The doc roach and I end the festivities with a detailed examination of my voice (or lack thereof). Derksen got ''real'' interested after I pointed out that natural-born cheetahs have a wide variety of vocalizations, including a number of sounds made by ''no'' other cat; hell, cheetahs can even do ''bird calls!'' Decidedly strange, in view of ''my'' deficiency in this area.

I wish to God I had the background to understand more of the data that's been collected. Derksen, a highly competent scientist, says only that until he's had a chance to collate and analyze the data, his spiracles are sealed. Bastard. He does promise to page me as soon as he reaches any solid conclusions, which is something.

I deliberately scheduled this for an otherwise-empty day. I could've rescheduled my other appointments, except that my calendar only ''has'' one other appointment, which I'll be damned before I reschedule for ''any'' reason. Therefore, say it with me, children: ''Jubatus has some time to kill.'' I take a nice, relaxing walk back to my car at ''my'' normal tempo, by way of the entire outer perimeter of the hospital grounds with numerous excursions into the surrounding neighborhood.

Well, well, well. I see that my Ford Extremis has entertained a visitor, and he forgot his switchblade. I am shocked— ''shocked,'' I tell you— to discover that there is anti-SCAB bigotry in this fine city. Yeah, right. It's not the first time I've met up with this kind of situation, and I strongly doubt it'll be the last.

The knife protrudes from the left rear tire. I memorize every scent on the handle before I do anything else— whoever the clown is, I want at least the option of ripping him a new orifice if I pass him on the street. Judging from the color, odor, and consistency of the green goop that's oozed around the blade, the visit occured at 3:15 PM or so, about 3 hours ago. I take my camera from its pocket in my vest (which is normally the only garment I wear); I collect three sets of images, one in visible wavelengths, one in IR, one in UV. I can't sniff out any foreign scents anywhere but on and around the knife. I take deci-millimeter-resolution images covering everything within a half-meter of the blade itself, then millimeter-res covering the rest of the car (including roof and undercarriage) and the parking lot within two meters thereof. They'll be admissible in court— I made a point of looking into such things when I decided to stick around here. I extract a can of DeadGlove polymer coating from another vest-pocket and spray a goodly film of the stuff onto both hands. DeadGlove is inert and impermeable, it allows me to pull the blade out of the tire and not muck up the evidence with skin oils or whatever. I take a pre-creased Mylar sheet from yet another vest pocket, fold it up to completely encompass the blade and handle, and another shpritz of DeadGlove seals up the natural goodness inside the envelope.

Some folks can't believe how well I handle it when this kind of thing happens. What ''I'' can't believe is the fact that ''they'' find it unusual. Look, I'm a SCAB; do the math, already! I and my car are perpetually attractive targets for certain types of sleazeball, therefore I've previously had to collect evidence a time or two, so how stupid would I have to be to ''not'' get better at it, hmm?

By the time I finish, the pre-oozed green goop looks about ready to drop off the tire on its own. It pulls off with no effort, revealing a narrow slit filled with much darker green stuff, and ''no'' air loss. 'Slyme' is the goop's brand name; in my experience, it's the best sealant on the market. The fact that its appearance is enough to make idiots think it's full of Martian Flu virus is an added bonus.

The layer of DeadGlove peels off my hands easily— it doesn't even adhere to fur, hardly. I drive on over to the local precinct house, curious to know whether or not these particular police officers treat SCABs like people. I swear out a complaint, they take my statement, I beam the images onto their system, they take custody of the knife, a bloodhound-derived morph checks out the tire. All very businesslike and competent. If there's any cause for concern, I'm not seeing it. I make a mental note to send scabsonthenet.org a report.

I'm back in the driver's seat at 7:53. No word from the doc roach yet— as if I'd really expected anything this soon. I drive. Before long I'm parking near the Blind Pig, and anyone who's ever seen an Extremis knows why "near" is the operative word. That model has been aptly described, with surprisingly little exaggeration, as 'a suburban bungalow on wheels'.

I am wary as I approach the door, but not for the reasons you might think. From what I've gleaned off the Net, this bar is a hotbed of practical jokes; it seems that being the victim of a prank is a fairly reliable indication that the regulars regard you as one of their own. Acceptance into a larger community— what a concept.

Doesn't mean I have to blindly walk into a pie or sit down on a whoopie cushion, however. Perhaps they got it out of the way during my first visit— how could ''I'' tell, smashed as I was?— but until I know for certain, I'm going to exercise caution in my daily affairs. Especially with that lemon on my left, as the saying goes.

As I enter the 'Pig, nothing happens. Yet. Fine by me; I pick up a bag of Fritos and a tall, cool Meisterbrau from the counter, pay Sinclair, then move towards the piano where Wanderer is holding court. Son of a bitch, he's got a ''glee club'' going here!

I should turn away, not torture myself, but I am weak enough to succumb to temptation. I sit off to one side and listen to them sing. They're rehearsing… yes, it's '''''Lydia Rose''''' from '''''The Music Man'''.'' I ''do'' feel a sharp twinge, but I ignore it because I'm (figuratively) wearing my Reviewer hat. I cock my ears and focus on the mechanics of song. They've been doing this for a while. I detect a few flaws, nothing horribly serious. Pan's pipes, I've heard worse from ''professional'' vocalists! I revise my initial judgement of their quality upwards as they continue…

I blink. Time has passed. Yes, Virginia, there ''is'' such a thing as being ''too'' focused. "Excuse me?" I ask, looking around to see what got my attention.

"O'er here, Jubatus," says Wanderer. "Thine rapt attentiveness hath not passed wi'out notice. Prithee, would'st grant us the honor of thine opinion regarding our poor attempts at singing?"

"Helluvalot better than ''mine,''" I snap back at him by irritated reflex. No, I shouldn't ought to take it out on Wanderer; it was just a normal question like any performer, amateur or otherwise, might ask. Not ''his'' fault that ''my'' SCABS killed my voice. I shake my head, take another sip of my 'Brau. "Sorry, it's just, kind of a sore spot for me. Singing, I mean."

I inhale deeply, release the breath. "Okay. You're the tenor?" I ask one of Wanderer's little boys, a mere two meters tall. He nods, and I go on before he can speak. "Your enunciation sucks. Gotta work on that. Did you have that much trouble with it ''before'' your vocal tract got remodeled?"

"Cr-r-rave pardon, pard!" No need to wonder who said ''that.'' More quietly, Wanderer continues, "Would you mind leaving us our egos intact? We're not getting paid to do this, you know!"

"You're ''not'' getting paid?" I echo Wanderer, my surprise clearly evident to all. "You mean, ''this'' is strictly amateur?"

I think Wanderer is amused at my reaction, also pleased. "Yes. I take it you took us for professionals, then?"

"Damn right. I mean, why ''wouldn't'' I? Okay, different standards," I reply, shifting mental gears. "As amateurs go, you guys are one of the better— drat. Hold on."

With the impeccable timing of the inanimate, my pager chooses guess which moment to vibrate. It's nominally silent, but I can hear its motor whine anyway— the ears aren't decorative. I pull it from its vest-pocket, read its display. Derksen, already? I table the question of whether this surprise is good or bad.

"Excuse me, I ''must'' make a call," I say before hustling out to the nearest phone niche. I've got plenty of change with which to feed the machine.

"Hello. Is this Jubatus?" Derksen asks.

"Sure is," I reply. "I must admit, I hadn't expected you to page me tonight. You've got something?"

"Not me, but the speech pathologist in Chicago I sent the voice package to. He just got back to me, and I don't think you're going to like it…" Then with a few concise sentences, heavily larded with Latinate terminology, the bug turns my world inside-down and upside-out (and yes, I ''know'' what I just said). I couldn't be more shocked if demons had just flown out of my nose. Derksen says other things I respond to mechanically, purely on autopilot.

I hang up when the nice operator instructs me regarding the proper procedure for making a call. I walk back out into the common room, decidedly preoccupied, glancing lightly off of random customers as I go. Wanderer sees me, does a double-take.

"Are you okay, Jubatus?" he asks, his tone uncharacteristically somber. I am distantly aware of his concern. 'Distantly' is how I'm aware of ''everything'', at the moment.

"Fine. Just fine," I respond without tone or inflection. I haven't blinked once since Derksen dropped his bombshell on me. "No worries at all."

"So, what news?" he asks ominously. "Did Dr. Derksen find out what's wrong with your voice?"

"Yes. Yes, he did." I continue to stare forward. After a while, I realize that Wanderer is waiting for more details. "It's my vocal tract. I haven't got one."

"Oh, well, if— ''what??"'' He really punches up his bass on that last word.

"No vocal folds. Sinus cavities all wrong. That sort of thing."

Wanderer opens his mouth to respond, shuts it, frowns. For some reason, he goes with a bad James Earl Jones impression: "Then how…"

"Yeah. Me, too. The doc roach says a speech pathologist arrives Monday. I need a drink."

Wanderer nods slowly, and keeps the Jones riff going. "Yes. I think you do at that."

The normal chatter sounds muted in my ears. Everyone I pass by is thoughtful enough to make no sudden moves. The state I'm in, that kind of kind consideration is the only thing stops me from tripping over an outstretched leg or whatever. When I reach the counter it takes Sinclair close to 3 seconds just to notice my arrival, after which he plods wearily towards me. Must have had a long, hard day.

I stare at the wall blankly, as my mind is blank, waiting for the minotaur— all very Zen. In the fullness of Time, my field of view is gradually eclipsed by one of Sinclair's handwritten notes: [WHAT WILL IT BE, MR. J?]

"Mini-CD 50." This cryptic phrase is a request for equal parts water and catnip daiquiri (''i.e.'' the vile concoction that got me blitzed first time around), served in a beer glass rather than a 2-liter bottle.

Sinclair's bovine head creeps down, then up, before he slogs away to mix my drink. Everything he's done, he's done in a ponderous, enervated manner… and that's when I realize something is off. Make that ''has been'' off for a while, since just after I talked to Derksen, in fact. Bingo! Now I know what's up, and why. Of course— what should I expect when I'm hit with the sure knowledge that by rights, I shouldn't even be able to ''talk?'' Of course my control slipped! But now I'm back on top of things. It wasn't much of a puzzle but I solved it anyway, and as so often in the past, the solving helps me regain my equilibrium.

I sped up because I was distracted… It's a sobering thought: Absent a continuing, undisturbed act of will, I am a semi-intelligible blur to every other sentient being on the face of the planet.

I swivel on my barstool to look at the crowd, let myself revert back to my normal tempo. Scent doesn't change, but audio dopplers down and colors shift. I survey the gallery of voltage-starved audio-animatrons which (to ''my'' eyes) is the Pig's common room.

Downshift: It's a cheap dive filled with pain and triumph and stupid jokes and music and hurting and booze and hope and fear and bright lights and arguments and fellowship and shadows and diversity more infinite than Roddenberry ever imagined and ''life,'' damnit, it's ''alive'' in a way I haven't been for quite some time now.

Upshift: It's a strangely-lit exhibit of crude anthrobots in a sterile museum hall.

Downshift: I hear laughter and sobbing and singing and gossip and shared confidences.

Upshift: I hear a droning, ''alien'' sound effect, deep in the lower register, whose harmonic structure changes with the glacially slow turning of the seconds.

Two different worlds. Mutually exclusive. And a voluntary act of will allows me to commute between them.

A voluntary act of will… and I don't ''have to'' volunteer, do I?

I could live in fast-time ''all'' the time. I ''could'' do it, I really could. Hellfire and damnation, I ''have'' done it! In the last few weeks before I hooked up with the 'Pig, I hardly bothered to downshift at all, unless I needed something that wasn't available online for whatever reason. Fast-time has many advantages, not least of which is that it's ''safe.'' When I upshift, I am purely ''un-fucking-touchable.'' Okay, a laser charbroils me as easily as any of you slowpokes, but if it's not a direct hit, I'm ''elsewhere'' faster than any norm can hope to track me. And for anything much slower than photons, to say nothing of hand-to-hand attacks, fuggeddaboutit! We cheetahs are ''extremely'' damned good at running away. Not that I was so bad at running away as a human, mind you, which was (no, make that 'is') part of my problems.

Permanent fast-time. I ''could'' do it.

Never get hurt again. Never have to deal with another Humans First asshole. Never miss another professional deadline. Never have to scent or see that initial shock of fear on a norm's face when they first meet me. Yes, there are ''lots'' of reasons to abandon the slow world, if I've a mind to. The proposition is not unattractive…

…except for a very specific image in my mind's eye. I see an oversized rabbit, the interior of his trachea clearly visible from the outside, his body slowly cooling in a deep puddle of his own blood. That is, I see what I ''didn't'' do to Phil, but oh-so-horrifically-easily ''could have.''

I '''''really''''' don't want to go ''there.'' And if avoiding that fate means I get to suck up a little suffering on the side, I say it's cheap at the price.

''Time to rejoin the human race, Jubatus, old SCAB,'' I tell myself. Irony: It's not just for breakfast any more.

I turn to face the counter. That's interesting— how long has Sinclair been there, my Mini-CD in hand? Never mind, doesn't matter. I thank the minotaur kindly, trade some cash for the drink. I sip lightly and cautiously; even cut with equal parts water, a little of this stuff goes a ''long'' way.

I am on my way over to Wanderer and company when my bladder butts in on my internal dialogue. Best to relieve hydraulic pressure in the customary chamber, which ain't the common room. There's a wolfish type I don't recognize, clothed in well-worn denim overalls, at the bathroom doors. He stops me from entering the men's room: "Excuse me, sir, but we're working in there. You'll have to use the other bathroom."

I nod, acknowledging the plumber's words. I hadn't noticed the arrival of any plumbers, but then I was preoccupied. I get that way sometimes. I step thr—

''— attack: overhead: threat level unclear— ''

— and my back is to the wall, 7 feet off to one side of the door. Gotta love those hardwired instincts of mine, which have apparently upshifted me to a very high tempo. For the moment I seem to be something like 30 times faster than human, judging from the color of my fur and the stately downward motion of what's immediately above the door. Hmmm. That's one honkin' big water balloon, whose support was apparently rigged to give out when the door closed. And that was a ''lupine'' morph in overalls, steering me directly to the drop zone? He's a Lupine ''Boy.'' Gotta be, I'll bet C-notes to crumpets he is.

Now, why the hell would they want to drench…

They ''have'' accepted me. Only answer makes any sense. Now I know how Sally Fields felt and, well, it's a feeling I am not accustomed to. Just for a moment I seriously consider stepping beneath the balloon and downshifting; it's surely one way to acknowledge their comradeship. As well, whoever implemented this prank, it would be a pity to let their work go to waste, so..?

Naaah. I got a better idea. Rejoin the human race, yes, but I'll be damned if I'm going to just stand there and ''let'' someone make a fool of me.

Let's see… yep, it's all here. Duct tape from my vest, the folded chunks of cardboard that formerly supported the balloon, wastebasket liner and a roll of toilet paper from one of the cabinets under the sink, and of course the balloon itself.

This first bit's the trickiest: Catch the balloon, currently at head level and falling with ever-increasing celerity, ''without'' busting it or getting splashed if it breaks anyway. I wrap the trash liner around the balloon, hold tight, downshift with care, annnnndddd… got it! I sniff cautiously, and the unmistakable aroma of pine-scented cleanser assaults my nose ''through'' the synthetic rubber of the balloon. Figured as much. As for the cardboard bits, they carry enough of a foresty scent to overpower any other that might be on them— clever Boys.

From here on in, it's a piece of cake.

Upshift, some assembly required, downshift. When I'm done, the balloon (part A) is securely taped to the wall (part B) over the door (part C). A long, solid piece of cardboard (part D) is taped to the bottom of the balloon (part A)— one good tug on it, and say hello to tropical storm Pine-Sol. The roll of paper (part E) is taped to the free end of the cantilever (part D), and also has some tape looped around it sticky side out (part F). The cantilever (part D) is currently sticking out at an angle, supported by another piece of cardboard (part G) that's taped to the door proper (part C) and also has a duct tape "rope" (part H) connecting ''its'' free end to the wall (part B). And lastly, there's an area on the door (part C) full of double-sided tape loops (part I) that patiently awaits the kiss of their sister tape-loop (part F).

Rube Goldberg would be proud.

I examine my handiwork with a critical eye, envisioning how it will work. When I open part C to leave, part G gets pulled out from under part D; but that's okay, because part C will take up the slack. When part C closes, part D swivels down, lowering part F to make contact with part I. At this point, the door is armed and ready to zap whosoever next opens it. Even better, I'm effectively co-opting the Lupine Boy to ensure that no innocent target gets hit, since he will presumably continue directing noncombatants away from the line of fire.

I grin like a lunatic, I can't help it. Sure, I ''could have'' simply reset everything to the way it was before I walked in, but where's the fun in ''that?'' And fun or no, you just don't leave a work of art unsigned.

Never before have I dodged a bullet in a bathroom. It's a heady feeling— no, sorry, that's my drink. Whatever. Either way, I don't for a millisecond believe that I can keep it up indefinitely. It's only a matter of time until the Boys factor my reflexes into their battle plan, or else they come up with something that ''can't'' be short-circuited by sheer, raw speed. Good. It'll be a battle of wits, and I find myself relishing the prospect.

I review my handiwork once more and pronounce it good, then go about the business I originally came here for. I'll have to go into detail about the Pig's toilet facilities sometime; SCABS can add a ''frisson'' of interest to even the most mundane activities. I take another sip from my Mini-CD— what, you think I'm gonna leave a drink ''out there'' without at least an armed guard?— and walk calmly out the door.

The overall'ed wolf-type is where I left him. He doesn't stifle his surprise quickly enough to prevent ''me'' from noticing. Yep, he's in on it.

"I hope everything was satisfactory, sir?"

"Sure was," I say. ''What the heck, let's see if I can hit a nerve.'' "I must admit, some of the fixtures struck me as a bit odd… but then I don't spend a lot of time in ''women's'' bathrooms." He's good. This time he either doesn't let his reaction show ''at all,'' or else he buries it before even I can detect it. "Be seeing you," I conclude with a cheery Village-style salute.

I head back out to the common room. I see that Wanderer is already halfway to the facilities— such a coincidence.

"Ah, Jubatus! I trust thou 'rt well?" he says. I don't ''know'' why he insists on going all Elizabethan at the drop of a hat, but I have my suspicions. My guess is that he figures he'll never be able to do Inconspicuous ever again, so ''why not'' try to hog every spotlight within line of sight at every opportunity? He may have a point. To norms, a wolfman is a homicidal monstrosity, but a ''Shakespeare-spouting'' wolfman is a canine of quite a different color entirely. For me, it's bad jokes, puns, and obscure references do the job.

"Ay, indeed. Most well am I, and both hale and hearty to boot. The doc-roach Derksen, recently messed with my head, but now I'm okay."

He looks puzzled for a moment, then smiles as he gets it. "In sooth, our cheetah / Be ment'ly well enow to / Improvise haiku. Say, are the plumbers done with the men's room yet?"

''Gonna play it '''that''' way, are you?'' I shrug, my anatomical structure forcing my shoulders to move more forward than up. "No, according to the crossing guard there. Women's room is open, though."

He nods. "Certes, I be in thy debt for thine courtesy. Crave pardon whilst I attend to business most insistent!" ''Not insistent enough to make you cut out the Elizabethan jazz,'' I do not say.

"Go for it," I say to Wanderer's back as he continues on with all deliberate speed. He gets to that overall'ed lupine; they talk for a bit; he walks through the door to the women's room, at which precise instant several liters of aromatic fluid (like I said, it was a ''big'' water balloon) descend upon him.

I smile. ''Houston, we have splashdown.'' Poor lad's cape will never be the same.

It was definitely a well-conceived prank. At the moment of release, everyone within a 5-meter radius is instantly aware of the new aroma; doesn't take more than a couple seconds before ''every'' Blind Pig occupant with a nose is likewise aware.

All sound dies out.

There is a pause, not unlike the stillness which must have preceded the first test of an atomic weapon.

Long seconds later, a redolently dripping Wanderer steps out of the bathroom. He unlimbers a creditable glare, turning to take in each and every person in sight.

"You're ''all'' dethhh''pic''able." Bastard— his Daffy Duck isn't bad at all. The room detonates with laughter. He walks over to me with a steady, measured pace, seemingly oblivious to the surrounding merriment.

"I want you to know that I shall loathe and abominate you, with every fiber of my being, for all the remaining days of my mortal life," he declaims in a rich, ringing tone somewhere in the neighborhood of Patrick Stewart. Unfortunately, the fact that this full-bodied voice is coming from what looks very like a rain-soaked dog does work against the effect he's trying for…

I'm definitely feeling the effects of the Mini-CD. I let my eyes grow wide, put an expression of Innocence Betrayed on my face as best I can. I spotweld a quaver onto my voice: "But— does this mean the engagement is ''off?"''

Wanderer is a highly skilled actor. His own face is a cast-iron mask of Disapproval, offering no clue to what's ''really'' going on inside his head. He says nothing, turns around with a theatrical swirl of his cape that flings pine-scented droplets every which way— yes, I ''do'' intercept a few of them— and stalks back to where the Boys are waiting to razz him, up, close, and personal. Looks like rehearsal's done for the night.

''Now'' what do I do? I suppose I could try to strike up a conversation with someone, but my decades of avoiding personal contact have left me ill-equipped for interaction on a purely social level. If I ever did have a library of opening gambits such as I imagine most other people collect, I've long since forgotten it. I find this realization mildly disturbing, and I'm not sure why; I made certain choices about how to live my life, for reasons I considered good and sufficient at the time, and this is simply one of the consequences of my decisions…

…hmmm. This must be my day for introspection. Either I'm not very good at it, or else you're not ''supposed'' to reach any well-defined conclusions when you introspect, I'm not sure which. My pocket watch tells me I spent about a quarter-hour lost in my thoughts just now— good Lord, what has Wanderer gotten up to during that time? I cock my ears, eavesdrop from across the common room. Alright, I ''try'' to eavesdrop from across the room. The signal-to-noise ratio is terrible, but I don't want to risk moving closer, and I ''do'' understand ''some'' of what they're saying: "… fast … if we … Juba- … volleys …"

Good enough; they ''are'' planning out their next trick, and I'm the guest of honor. I take another sip of Sinclair's evil potion— diluted as it is, I can still feel it doing me harm. The taste ain't half bad, though.

I think I'll change the wolves' subject for them. I upshift, zip on over, sit down next to Wanderer, downshift. I might as well have teleported in, as far as slow eyes can see.

"Hi, guys. Miss me?"

My sudden appearance has the desired effect. I collect a variety of surprised reactions for my trouble— twitches, brew-spews, double-takes, and so on. Wanderer recovers first. "Well! 'Tis most certain that we did, friend Jubatus, albeit the precise mechanism by which our aim was diverted be yet a mystery."

I shrug, wave the implied question away. "I'm a moving target. Anyway, you really were serious about the glee club here not being pros?"

"How could we be? I don't know how to pronouce anything, and I'm sure the rest of us aren't any better." It's the tenor, apparently still unhappy with me.

I look amused. "You ''really'' need to develop a thicker skin. Bad reviews come with the territory when you're a performer," I reply. "Yeah, I said your enunciation sucked. But you know what? There's a whole lot of people out there whose enunciation sucks a whole lot ''worse'' than yours, and ''those'' guys ''still'' get paid."

"Oh, yeah? Name two."

I count them off on my fingers. "One: Bob Dylan. Even ''before'' he needed that respirator, he was one of the few vocalists bad enough for ''me'' to now have half a chance of singing better than. Two: The lead singer for the Kingsmen, I forget his name, but he's the schmuck who laid down vocals for '''''Louie Louie''''' that were ''so'' damned sloppy, the FCC officially declared that recording 'unintelligible at any speed'." Despite himself, the tenor smiles at that phrase. Good. "So if you guys just want to noodle around, sing in the shower and maybe volunteer for the occasional local gig, you're good to go, as is. Have fun.

"But if you want more, if you want to take it further, maybe see if you can attract and hold a paying audience? For what it's worth, I think you might well be able to do that right now. But, again for what it's worth, I also think that if you're all willing to invest some effort in smoothing out the rough edges, ''then'' you'd be ''more'' than good enough to turn pro."

If I'm reading their reactions correctly, this is not the first time they've discussed the P-word; said discussion resumes. I can actually offer some helpful comments, thanks to my having self-published a small number of tapes and CDs back when I had a voice. I touch on copyrights, compulsory mechanical licenses, what to keep in mind when assigning the order of songs for a project, other related matters.

Time passes without my being particularly aware of it. The discussion ends only when Sinclair calls closing time, which task he uses a hand bell for.

"So you're going to email me a record of your speaking voice, right?" I ask the tenor. "Until then, I'll get some netbots search— "

— ''attack: multiple projectiles: direction 10 o'clock''—

— upshifted again. Good old hardwired instincts.

I shake my head in disappointment, looking at the spheroids inching their way through the air towards me. Surely they can't imagine they can tag me with a mere volley of water balloons, not after that earlier demonstration of just how effective that sort of thing ''isn't?'' They're coming from a narrow range of directions, it's trivial to dodge the lot, just a step and turn—

— '''''SPQWLTLTT!'''''—

— straight into a pie. Lemon meringue. A pie that Wanderer just happened to be holding at the right position and angle for me to slam my face into. Part of an old song leaps, unbidden, to mind: ''"When I tried to step aside / I moved to where they hoped I'd be."''

Thinking back, there ''was'' a period when Wanderer was absent; hell, people were coming and going all throughout. Plenty of opportunities for him and his crew to plot and spread the word, especially with me being as oblivious to extraneous matters as I often am. And he just stood there with that pie, not moving quickly enough to trigger my 'early warning system', waiting for the surgically precise moment to use it.

Hell, ''he's'' a Looney Tunes fan, ''too.'' I can't do the appropriate voice, but the words alone should suffice. With a toothy grin, not to mention blobs of meringue and lemony stuff dripping off my face, I say: "I hope you realize— this means war."

His grin is a match for mine. "I wouldn't have it any other way." We shake hands. "Welcome aboard, Jubatus!"

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Second Heat}}

User:Cubist/A Good Run of Luck

2009-02-16T02:11:03Z

Cubist:

{{title|name=A Good Run of Luck|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
I am a fortunate man.

Truly, I am.

I was born with many innate advantages — tall, good looks,
intelligent, an exceptionally fine voice, ''et cetera, ad nauseum.''

Even the Martian Flu has been remarkably kind to me. My initial
symptoms were indistinguishable from a mild cold, and I happened
to be asleep when it progressed to full-blown SCABS, thus sparing
me the unpleasant sensations that come while one's entire body
is reshaping itself into an alien form.

I had little trouble adjusting to my new body; in fact, my co-ordination
was far better after I woke up than it had ever been before. And
the good news doesn't stop there! This body has certain physical
capabilities far in excess of what I could do as a mere human.
Further, I retained in full my hands, voice, bipedal posture,
gender, organic nature, and intellect, albeit not quite the same
in all details. And finally, while there are some disadvantages
to my new form, each such problem came with at least one accompanying
built-in benefit.

And on top of everything else, I'm a SCAB-come lately — SCABS
only hit me two years ago, rather than at the time the 'Flu first
appeared on Earth. Can anyone doubt that this was another stroke
of good fortune? It was, truly, since it gave our Government and
legal system time to adapt to the concept of radical bodily transformation.
Identity theft was a major problem for the first crop of SCABs,
who, after all, no longer matched the ''human'' photos on their passports and driver's licenses and so on. Such
is not the case at present; nowadays, SCABs are only slightly
more likely to suffer identity theft than are baseline humans.
After a minimal amount of bureaucratic fuss, not much (if any)
worse than a visit to the DMV, I was legally acknowledged to be
myself, and could get on with my life.

I am a fortunate man. Truly.

Well, a fortunate ''male'', anyway. I have SCABS to thank for my tail; digitigrade legs;
built-in, all-over, spotted fur coat; feline-style face and head;
and all the other features that mark me for life as a cheetah/human
hybrid. Though my ''human'' looks are forever lost, I am assured that my present appearance
is quite handsome by ''feline'' standards. As well, my vocal tract has lost much of its versatility.
Thus did SCABS stop me from wasting any more of my time idly dreaming
of a career in voice work. Am I not fortunate?

As a bipedal cheetah, it's thematically appropriate that I am
speed incarnate. My metabolism, digestion, healing processes,
neurons, virtually all aspects of my body function at least an
order of magnitude more quickly than the human norm. This is a
mixed blessing. On the one hand, it took several realtime days
for me to re-learn how to react and speak and interact at the
normal human tempo, during which period I lost my old job (retail
'phone bank, if you must know); on the other hand, it gives me
a near-unbeatable advantage when dealing with anti-SCABS bigots
of a certain type.

I well remember my first encounter with SCABS-bashers — even
when I'd rather not. I was walking out of a bookstore, and they
intercepted me before I reached my vehicle (a converted van, about
which more anon). They couldn't have known much about me, as they
clearly took me for an easy target.

They probably thought that someone with my inhumanly slim build
had to be a physical weakling; they didn't know my muscles have
power enough to propel me at speeds above 65 MPH. They didn't
know about my heightened senses of hearing and smell, nor that
my vibrissae — cat whiskers — are just as sensitive to air currents
as those of any natural-born feline. They must have known that
my fangs and claws are dangerous, but I doubt it occured to them
that my feet are as well-equipped as my hands.

They couldn't have known just how ''fast'' I can be. I certainly didn't, at that time.

There were five of them.

I ignored them, hoping that they would content themselves with
verbal abuse and move on, but no such luck. They surrounded me,
and their intent was clear.

I am a fortunate man. Truly. When my fight-or-flight reflex
kicked in, the world ground to a near-halt around me, slowed down
by a factor of at least 20. Or, from ''their'' perspective, suddenly I accelerated to 20 or more times quicker
than I had been. Take your pick; either way, they never had a
goddamn chance.

I hadn't realized, before this encounter, this body comes with
hardwired instincts. And when I recovered from what I can only
describe as a berserk frenzy… it wasn't pretty. Not pretty at
all. Not the least bit.

I didn't kill them. This is important, you must believe me:'' I didn't kill anyone!'' Not one of them was dead when I left that place. ''All'' of my would-be assailants were living. All five of them.

There were legal repercussions, of course, but as with so much
else in my life, fortune favored me. Truly, it did. It seems that
three of the five had extensive rap sheets, two of them featuring
numerous SCABS-oriented hate crimes. In consequence, my statement
was accepted without question, and while one of the bigots' families
did prefer charges, the judge elected to throw their complaint
out of court. Something about us SCABs being a "suspect class",
I believe. See how fortunate I am? As for myself, I chose not
to file a complaint — what point would there be? Two of the five
died within three weeks, and the remaining three would be scarred
and crippled for life.

But I get ahead of myself. A few hours after the attack, visiting
an establishment of a kind I'd never felt the need to patronize
before, I discovered yet another of the many benefits SCABS has
bestowed upon me: I can't get drunk. With my hyped-up metabolism,
alcohol simply doesn't stay in my system long enough to affect
me.

However, my tear ducts are still fully functional.

Three days after that abortive assault, I left my hometown.
I haven't been back since. It was not difficult at all, thanks
to my then-landlord. I'd known of his allergy to cats, of course
— it was the reason feline pets were forbidden to his renters
— and so I was unsurprised when my rent tripled after SCABS hit
me. Had I not been fired, I might have considered fighting the
rent increase; as it was, I couldn't afford to exercise my rights
under the law. He did return my deposit, which was quite helpful.
So with my savings and severance paycheck, I bought a second-hand
Ford Extremis and converted the cargo space to living quarters.
Of my possessions, I sold what I didn't want or need to keep;
took with me what the van had room for; and put the rest into
storage. I really needed to winnow out the excess crap anyway,
so it's fortunate that my landlord gave me the impetus to do so.
Truly, it is.

While this put a roof over my head, it did nothing for my income.
Then and ever since, online contracts have kept me afloat. I'm
talking web design, copy editing, graphics, programming, you name
it — anything I can do through an Internet connection. On the
'Net, no one knows you're a SCAB, as the saying goes. And I can
comfortably take on more contracts than the average freelancer:
Not only does my natural tempo give me the functional equivalent
of a 100-hour day to play with, but I have discovered that I almost
don't need to sleep. A few catnaps scattered through the day are
sufficient unto my needs, and I can get them over with in a few
seconds apiece by slipping into fast-time. Thus do I make far
more money now than I ever did when I had a stationary home. Truly,
am I not fortunate?

I haven't had a fixed address since. Not for snailmail, that
is — my fiver@jubatus.nucom e'ddress has been quite stable, thanks
for asking. I travel the country, going from place to place as
the spirit moves me. ''My'' spirit moves me in a predictable fashion; one slashed tire or
broken window, and I'm out of there.

My migratory existance doesn't preclude social interactions.
Such comradeship as I need, I get through my laptop. Email, newsgroups,
instant messages, that sort of thing suffices. Truly, it does.
That, and the occasional face-to-face meeting when I'm in the
neighborhood of an online acquaintance. It's not like I had many
offline friends even before I SCABbed over, so goodbyes were rather
less of a problem for me than one might expect.

As for my online comrades, it's interesting to observe their
reactions when they first see me in the flesh. While I've never
volunteered the fact that I'm a SCAB, neither do I deny it when
asked. Most people get over their initial nervousness quickly
when they meet me, and the ones who can't, aren't worth my time.
Thus does my inhuman appearance reduce the number of twits and
idiots that I would otherwise be forced to deal with on a daily
basis. Since I have never suffered fools gladly, I count this
as fortunate. Truly.

Among other benefits, this gives me more time to read. Three
years ago, I clocked in at 900 words per minute; now, particularly
when I shift into fast-time, my reading speed would put an Evelyn
Wood graduate to shame. I used to think I was a voracious reader…
and then SCABS taught me the ''true'' meaning of that phrase. Truly, a most fortunate turn of events
for a bibliophile such as myself. And as a side benefit, I'm building
up a truly impressive collection of library cards in my travels.

You needn't bother telling me; I already know that I overuse
the words "fortunate" and "truly". Do you think it makes me sound
like Pollyanna? If so, you are more right than you know. I've
read the book, and Pollyanna was no mindless optimist. She was
fully aware of how terribly cruel the world can be. For her, looking
on the bright side was a deliberate, premeditated choice. It worked
for Pollyanna, and it works tolerably well for me.

Oh, I know the statistics. I know the suicide rate, median income,
homeless percentage, violent crimes commited against, mental health
figures, all the dismal litany of the "average" SCAB's existence.
Christ on a sidecar!, I ''know'' the bloody numbers, I could recite them under anaesthesia (if
anyone could find a drug that kept me under long enough to do
it), and so far, I've beaten the odds. For two long years running,
I have beaten the odds, do you hear me? ''I have beaten the odds!''

I ''am'' fortunate. Truly. And if you think I perhaps shouldn't need to
remind myself of this fact quite as often as I do, if you don't
agree with my tactics, you may kiss any of my furry cheeks that
strikes your fancy. It's ''my'' case of SCABS — ''my'' life — and by the God I don't believe in, I'll continue to cope
with it ''my'' way, thank you very kindly for asking. I've gotten by on my own
quite nicely thus far. And for some peculiar reason, I simply
don't see any great need to cast aside a tactic with an established,
favorable track record just to adopt someone else's unproven,
ill-informed, yet oh so very well-intended advice. Whatever else
that bloody disease has taken from me, I still retain my full
original complement of IQ points, and I'm not afraid to use them,
damn your eyes! I don't want or need your sympathy, and I will
'''''not''''' be patronized. By '''''anyone'''''.

Bitter? ''Moi? ''Of course not. Truly. I'm such a fortunate fellow, there's not
a blessed thing in my life that I could ''possibly'' feel bitter about, least of all "the gift that '''really''' keeps on giving". Why, SCABS has even improved my sarcasm, it
has!

I'm sorry, I've been a trifle overstressed of late — you didn't
need to hear that.

It won't happen again.

I'll make certain it doesn't.

I ''am'' feeling more stress than usual, mind you. I just can't figure
out why, as I've been fortunate enough to live a fairly stable
life over the past year or so. I'm not getting any less sleep
now than I did before; my workload hasn't changed; my brushes
with bigotry are fewer, since my growing familiarity with the
warning signs has made me better able to avoid such situations
to begin with; and it surely can't be ''directly'' related to SCABS, considering the two whole years I've had to
grow accustomed to myself. All of which said, nevertheless I am
indeed feeling an inordinate level of stress, even if the cause
eludes me. These days I've got a mild headache 24/7, among other
symptoms. Annoying, true, but nothing I can't live with until
I figure out what's going on.

Perhaps a bit of sightseeing will help. To my chagrin, I realize
that I can't remember the name of the city I'm now parked in —
stress. Definitely stress. No matter, that's why God invented
civilian GPS units. I fire up mine, and I know where I am. Next
on the agenda: Locate a few sights to see. I surf the web to scabsonthenet.org,
and not just because I did much of the initial design for that
site. I do like to see how much of my work they're still using,
granted, but it's also a damn fine set of resources for SCABs
in daily life.

In particular, I'm now consulting the regional index of tolerance
for SCABS. I conceived it as a scrollable, zoomable map with various
regions color-coded as either green ("you're a SCAB? great! I'm
a Virgo"), blue ("gosh, it's too bad you can't stay longer"),
red ("we don't ''like'' your kind 'round ''these'' parts, friend"), or black ("burn the freaks! '''now'''!"). Mindful of my own visual deficiencies, I spent a bit of time
finding tints and hues that can be distinguished even by the legally
color-blind. It may be an aesthetic disaster, but the damn thing
''works''. Hmmm, that's interesting. The map's colored regions now have
distinctive crosshatch patterns in addition to the colors. I didn't
do that, but I think I understand; it makes the map usable for
people whose retinas can only distinguish black from white. And
there's a link to a "sonified" page? They ''have'' been busy, haven't they?

No, I'm not just farting around on the Net. By myself, I percieve
Time at a rate at least six times faster than normal humans; why
do you think I had to re-learn how to interact with normal humans?
And the site I'm visiting is built for speed. It's a lean, clean,
infosharing machine, with none of those bandwidth-sucking bells
and whistles that make so many other sites a Chinese torture for
anyone who can't afford the latest and greatest Net-toys. ''This'' site only does animation with 8-bit GIFs, the way God and Vint
Cerf intended, and it reuses them with wild abandon. In short,
the time I spend here is minimal. And even if it weren't, I've
found that reviewing my past work often sparks a sense of pride
and accomplishment that helps me cope with life's little disappointments.
This, I'd say, is far too important to be dismissed as wasteful.

But I digress.

I've found the regional index to be quite useful in my travels.
The data comes from reports emailed in by SCABs around the world
— not unlike, oh, the Zagat tourist guides — and I do appreciate
having advance notice of just how unpleasant my first exposure
a new town is likely to be. Here we are; the site mates with my
GPS as though they were made for each other (they were), it zooms
in to display the city within 20 blocks of my position, and there's
a beautiful green spot on the map.

Well, well, well. It's the Blind Pig Gin Mill. I've never been
there, but word does get around if you know where to look, especially
to message boards and USENET threads and so on. For that matter,
a few of my email correspondents drop in there every so often.
Some people are well and truly besotted with it; messages from
them paint the 'Pig up to be Callahan's Place made real.

I'll believe ''that'' when I see it.

Still, even the most hardened cynics admit that it's a fairly
comfortable place for a SCAB to get soused in. If it only lives
up to that undemanding standard, I'll be satisfied; anything more
would be pure ''lagniappe''. I slip into the driver's seat, spark the motor, and I'm off
to see the Blind Pig.

Traffic is traffic — except if you're in Boston, in which case
traffic is Hell — and I am fortunate enough to get an opportunity
to give my store of French expletives a good workout before I
reach my destination. The Blind Pig is an unimpressive hole-in-the-wall
kind of bar in a ''very'' lived-in neighborhood, and the cars in its parking lot say something
about the financial status of its patrons. My own vehicle stands
out, and not just because of its behemoth-like size: No dents
in the bodywork.

I arm the defenses, prime the sensors, re-check certain gauges.
Only then do I exit the cab and lock 'er down. I've sunk quite
a few dollars into my mobile home, and I don't care to lose any
of it to some moron who had nothing better to do than whale on
a SCAB's vehicle. Every broken window gets replaced with Lexan
II polymer; there's only one of the original glass ones left.
The tires are both puncture-resistant and filled with an amusing
greenish fluid, good both for sealing knife slashes and for scaring
the shit out of vandals who jump to the conclusion that the wheels
contain live Martian Flu culture. Can't imagine why, other than
maybe the numerous "biohazard" symbols stenciled on strategic
locations. Or perhaps it's the bumper stickers — "SCABS Is Not
For Sissies" is one of my favorites.

Then again, perhaps it's the active measures I've had installed.
The ''real'' transmission, fuel lines, and so on, are all safely concealed
behind an armored undercarriage plate; what ''seem'' to be vulnerable tubes and cables are, in truth, filled with
a fluid that my car finds quite inessential, under 7 atmospheres
of pressure. It's mostly water, with cornstarch for a hint of
non-newtonian sliminess, syrup for adhesion, a couple other inert
ingredients, plus a damned expensive catalyst that makes the inert
stuff react with certain chemicals in human sweat to create an
exceedingly color-fast dye. In other words: Any son of a bitch
thinks it's a good idea to hack at my brake lines, he gets a face
full of something that feels like a bacterial culture and turns
his skin a ''very'' bright shade of green not found in Nature ''that doesn't wash off.'' I can't put the fear of God into such idiots; fear of SCABS,
now, ''that's'' something they've ''already'' got, and I'd be an idiot myself not to use it against them.

It occurs to me that I'm lingering at my car, and I don't know
why. It's a ''bar,'' for God's sake. An exceptionally SCABS-friendly bar. With a minotaur
barkeep who doubles as bouncer, or so I've read. And I ''chose'' to come here of my own free will. What the hell am I waiting
for?

Perhaps it's that my Extremis is the only point of familiarity
in some Godforsaken candidate for urban renewal I've never seen
nor visited before…

Stress. Definitely stress. I need to unwind, and ''will'' enjoy doing so.

I step across the threshhold. Almost instantly I feel, I don't
know, I can't put a clawtip on it. Whatever this unidentifiable
sensation is, however, I know that I like it.

The joint is jumping, as they say. I pad silently through the
crowd, trying to attach faces to any of the names I've gleaned
from electronic messages. The (literally) bull-headed man tapping
a fresh keg is easy, he's got to be the bartender, Donald Sinclair.
There's a flamboyant, caped canine SCAB seated at the piano, his
back to the keys, chatting up some sweet young thing. Near the
counter is a pack of canines that must be the Lupine Boys.

I don't realize I'm gravitating towards the jukebox until I'm
right up next to the infernal device. It looks to be a late '90s
Wurlitzer, I think. By some quirk of fate, the jukebox is playing
Bobby McFerran — '''''Don't Worry, Be Happy''''' — and I am pleasantly surprised to find that it no longer pains
me to listen. Can the emotional wounds have healed? Truly, another
stroke of good fortune! I forget myself, purr an improvised basso
accompaniment to McFerran's multitracked ''a capella'' —

"Keep it down, willya?" These words are uttered, quietly, by
the female to my left. A cheerful woman, she is marked as SCABS
only by her nonhuman pupils and lightly-scaled skin. She is mildly
intoxicated. "I'm tryna lissen here." Of course. I fall silent.

If the wounds were healed, at least one has just re-opened.
I move away from the jukebox, concentrate on sounds in my immediate
vicinity. Anyone who objects to being eavesdropped upon has no
business conducting a conversation in a SCAB bar.

People converse around me. I say nothing; it's impolite to butt
in. I slip through the throng like a Stealth bomber, observing
without being observed. My goal is the counter. I intend to see
if Sinclair is up to building a pousse-cafe, a rainbow whose seven
liquid layers are held separate only by their differing densities.
Bartenders fall into two classes: Those who can't make a pousse-cafe,
and those who are very, very good.

"Gr-r-r-reetings, pard!" The "r", far from a growl, is magnificently
rolled. I'd already known that one of the wolves was approaching
(my sensory enhancements, you know how it goes) and with that
oh-so-teddibly-propah Received Standard accent, I feel it's got
to be the cape wearer. It is — such a surprise. He offers his
right hand; I like theatrical, that's why I follow his example.
He's got a firm grip, solid without being uncomfortable.

"'Pard'? Sorry, Rin Tin Tin, wrong species. I'm no leopard,
I'm a cheetah."

"Quotha!" expostulates the refugee from a Shakespeare festival.
"Thou'rt truly educated!" I blink at his use of the "t"-word.
He goes on with a sly expression: "Mayhap o'erly so, as all of
Christendom do know that divers and sundry other felines be contained
wi'in the compass of yon word."

"Oh, well, if you want to get ''technical'' about it…"

The wolf grins broadly. "Well met indeed! I hight Wanderer,
and 'tis a most fortunate fate hast led thou hither." I can't
help it; I burst out laughing. Wanderer is ''so ''blatant, lays it on ''so'' thick, and then he has to go and say my two favorite words. What
the hell, I'll play along.

"Certes, it be that in all good sooth, friend Wanderer. An thou
hath spake thy name unto me, so now doth I reciprocate: Jubatus
am I yclept."

The wolf's eyes are wide. I really don't think he was expecting
''that'' kind of reaction. He snaps out of it very fast, for someone who
isn't a cheetah. "Gadzooks! 'Unless mine ears mistake me quite
/ It seems this Wand'rer of —'"

My smile fades; I shake my head and hold up one hand. Wanderer
lets his stanza die. "No. I came here to get plastered, not talk,"
I say.

He looks into my eyes. "Let me guess. You're an actor, am I
right?"

I ''had'' been wearing a smile. You can tell. Truly. "Not really. Once
I sang in the chorus of ''HMS Pinafore'', but that…" My posture sags, my head bows. I ''would ''have to remind myself, wouldn't I? A fine way to kill a mood.
I sigh before continuing. "That was a ''long'' time ago." I turn to the minotaur. "Mr. Sinclair, I believe?"

"He hight Donnie," Wanderer points out helpfully. I half-smile
without looking at the wolf, and Donnie stands before me with
an expectant look on his face. Now I remember — SCABS pressed
the "mute" button on him. Permanently. By comparison I ''am'' fortunate, well and truly, but I haven't yet crossed over the
jagged, gaping chasm that lies between ''knowing'' it and ''feeling'' it. Not sure if I ever will. Don't know if I ever ''can.'' I suppose it's petty of me to continue brooding over my own trivial
impairment, isn't it?

If it's ''so'' goddamned trivial, ''why does it still hurt like a fucking shrapnel grenade to the chest??''

Abruptly, I realize that Donnie (hell, the entire room) stands
in the stillness of fast-time. I ponder, make a decision, then
downshift to ''their'' speed. "I'd like to show you something, Mr. Sinclair — establish
my ''bona fides.''" I rest an elbow on the counter with my arm pointing straight
up; I pivot to lay my palm on the formica countertop, then return
the arm to an upright position. From here on it's lather and rinse
and repeat, like it says on shampoo bottles. I continue to move
my arm in this way, upshifting to fast-time and beyond as I do,
until slow eyes perceive my arm in two places at once with a translucent
blur in between. Just for the hell of it, I make the two arms
circle slowly around each other for a second or so before I downshift
back to the common tempo.

"Mr. Sinclair, what I ''want'' is to get blind, stinking drunk. I'm talking throw-up-on-the-floor-and-not-remember-it
drunk, would-you-like-some-blood-in-your-alcoholstream drunk.
But I've got a metabolism like a blast furnace, so what I'll ''settle for'' is anything that's good for better than a mild buzz, and keeps
me there for more than a half-hour. What have you got for me?"

"Mmmmmm," the minotaur remarks thoughtfully. He fishes a notepad
and pen from a front pocket, and — good Lord, he's actually ''writing in longhand!'' It's the 21st Century, and this poor SCAB bastard is still using
''pen and paper'' to communicate? I can't believe what I see; ''any'' damn body can afford a voder, you can get a KV-140 for… Oh.
Right. With a 140, you're typing out everything letter by letter
anyway, and the voice sucks worse than mine, so why bother?

I'm a technical writer; solving problems is how I make my living.
To have my nose rubbed in a need like this, is to instantly start
figuring out how to satisfy said need. Keep the retail price under
$50, meaning parts cost of $10 or less… I am lost in my own
private cyberspace, The World Inside The Crystal, working out
details and making notes to myself to research areas that I'm
ignorant of.

Truly, a technocrat like me is fortunate to have a overclocked
brain, even if it did have to come courtesy of SCABS. I've already
created rough cuts of three different interface designs, one of
them based on good old hunt-and-peck, when a loud ''thram'' on the counter brings me back to reality. I see Sinclair's notepad:
"HOW ABOUT I MIX YOU UP A CATNIP DAIQUIRI, MISTER CHEETAH?"

I look into the middle distance, pondering. A catnip daiquiri,
for God's sake? What kind of twisted mind would ''conceive'' of such a monstrosity? Donnie's, that's what kind. "Go for it,"
I reply. "This could be… ''innnnn''-teresting."

Donnie busies himself with his mad creation; I busy myself with
filling in more details of the schematic I'm constructing in my
mind. I'm truly a problem-solving animal, and it's fortunate that
SCABS granted me the ability to solve them so much more quickly.
Almost makes up for the insoluble problems that came with it.
Goddamn package deal.

I hear Wanderer say something to me and I don't even look at
him. I ask him what he knows about the 2001 Crusoe architecture,
and he shuts up. Time passes. I am abruptly wrenched out of my
technogeek trance, this time by an odor most peculiar and insistent.
I look around, blinking, and see Sinclair before me. Him, and
a cut-down 2-liter bottle filled with the source of the aroma
and a corrugated tube. ''Jesu Christe,'' I'm getting buzzed from the smell alone! I can feel my nose twitch
for the fluid; my tongue moves with a mind of its own. I smile
at Sinclair, being careful to keep my teeth as well-hidden as
I can manage. "If that stuff lives up to its advance PR, you're
getting a ''real'' big tip."

Sinclair nods. His facial anatomy is no good for smiling, but
I'll be damned if he doesn't give the impression of a smile anyway,
I have no idea how. I raise the converted coke bottle to my muzzle,
close mouth on the straw and sip an experimental sip.

Oh, my dear Lord…

The catnip daiquiri is good. Very good. Very ''extremely'' good. The afterburn sears my palate, tongue, and throat with
imperious vigor, and when it hits my stomach, the results are
not unlike the reaction one might get from throwing a stick of
dynamite into a blast furnace.

A good chunk of time passes in a catnip-and-alcohol haze. Nothing
is clear, but I think I'm a loquacious drunk, presuming "drunk"
is the right word for a victim of Donnie's evil potion. Loquacious,
and highly energetic — such a surprise, hm? I think I spew rapid-fire
jokes and puns; mourn my lost singing voice; drink people under
the table with Coors beer; berate the damned jukebox; perform
a Flamenco dance (my first) on the counter; cry when even my Peter
Lorre goes unrecognized, for God's sake I can't even do ''Peter bleeding Lorre'' any more; soundly thrash Wanderer in an impromptu session of
Name That Folio; and God knows what else. I shift up and down,
not just from fast- to slow-time and then some, but also in wild
emotional gyrations. I'm a 33-RPM manic-depressive playing at
78. I am dimly aware that my behavior is within arm's reach of
textbook insanity, and ''I don't fucking '''care'''''. The tighter a spring is wound, the more violent its thrashing
when it's released, not so? Zoroaster ''knows'' how tightly ''this'' spring has been wound over the past two years.

So it is that a hyperactive cheetah-morph bounces off the walls
(literally, at least once) of the Blind Pig until even the Sinister
Fluid of Donald Sinclair cannot fuel further activity. Total elapsed
time, from taking that first sip to the ultimate loss of consciousness,
might be as long as two hours, probably less. Cheetahs aren't
known for their endurance.

I don't remember falling asleep…

{{separator}}

''physical contact: food creature: harmless: attack in progress''—

— and at the instant of my awakening, I find that I occupy
a large, overstuffed chair (but how — never mind) and one hand
is slashing at a rabbit-morph's neck in a swift, lethal arc. I
am ''just'' able to curl my fingers in time to prevent my claws from gouging
into it, deep and deadly. I flip sideways out of the chair, putting
the lapine well out of harm's reach. How could I have been so
stupid, allowing myself to fall asleep in a place I've never been
where I don't know anyone? My heart hammers out a post-techno
beat, 6 per second, as I realize how terribly near a thing it
truly was. Exactly how close I came to committing murder during
that fraction of a second when the body's instincts were in the
driver's seat… I shudder. Uncontrollably. I'm running on fast-time,
to my eyes the room's other occupants are hardly moving. Must
slow down — it's impolite to be unintelligibly fast. I am shaking
when I decelerate to their tempo, and not just because of the
aftermath of the receding adrenaline rush.

"Geez — I knew cats are high-strung, but ''this'' is ''ridiculous!"''

The cheerful voice belongs to the rabbit-morph. He has neither
the sound nor scent of a person who has just escaped bloody death
by a painfully narrow margin. Only then does it hit me: ''He doesn't know.'' From his viewpoint, my action must have appeared as nothing more
than a sand-colored blur and a ''whoosh'' of air. I should say something, but how do I tell an innocent
man that the simple act of waking me up brought him '''''this''''' close to being killed and eaten?

Still shaking, I lean heavily on the chair I'd just vacated.
God only knows what kind of expression is on my face. ''Now'' the rabbit is afraid (a bit late there, friend). He doesn't look
it, much, however. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, and
his voice is almost level.

I shut my eyes and concentrate. ''I '''will''' calm down. I will '''not''' break here and now, goddamn it!'' It works as designed: I stop shaking. I appear perfectly at peace with myself and the world. "Thank you, but there really isn't
anything ''to'' talk about," I say with a confident smile. ''Nothing other than, "Hey, I bloody near '''wasted''' your cotton-tailed ass when you woke me up just now. How about those 'Niners, huh?"'' I may not be able to sing worth a damn these days, but SCABS failed to rob me of my vocal control. My voice sounds exactly as the voice of a bipedal cheetah should; no tremors, no strain, and my tone is mildly apologetic, suggesting that minor degree of regret appropriate to having just wasted a small amount of someone else's valuable time. I've still got it. Still got my control. Fortunate. Truly.

I smile and continue: "I do appreciate the offer, but truly,
you needn't worry about me." I shrug, spread my hands. I am as
steady as a rock, and display my true state of mind every bit
as accurately, too. I look around; the ambient sounds and aromas
already told me, and my eyes confirm, that I am among the last
customers. I turn to Donnie. "I see that you're getting ready
to close for the evening; I really shouldn't detain you from your
duties. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?"

Donnie and the rabbit look at each other for a moment. I sense
something pass between them, some private understanding. Then
the lapine says, "You know, there just might be something you
could do. See, I'm what you might call a counselor."

"That's funny — you don't ''look'' half-Betazoid," I interject, going straight for the jocular.

The rabbit rolls his eyes and doesn't ''completely'' conceal his amusement. "Star Trek Lite. And here I was thinking
that you had taste." I am about to respond, dragging the conversation
further afield, but the rabbit doesn't allow me the opportunity.
"Anyway, you're right, that's about the size of it. I'm a career
counselor, but I do a little social work on the side. SCABS cases
— can't imagine why, can you?" Again, I want to respond; again,
the rabbit scurries along so that I can't deflect this little
chat to other topics. "And believe you me, I've seen ''all'' the ways a life can unravel when the Martian Flu gets involved.
But SCABS isn't the worst of it." He shakes his head. "So many
times I've walked in on the wreckage, so many times I've had to
help some poor bastard reassemble a pile of broken shards into
some kind of life. That's the worst of it, really; knowing, just
''knowing'', that I could have done a lot more good for the client, if only
the son of a bitch had opened up enough to ask for help ''before'' he hit bottom.

"For real social workers, that's got to be one of the worst
feelings there is. It's one of the leading causes of burnout,
y'know. So… I was wondering, do ''you'' know of anybody who's having a little trouble at the moment?
Nothing big, just something that a good word now can stop from
growing into major crap a few months down the line. You know anybody
who fits that bill?"

He looks at me with a carefully neutral expression. I say nothing.
The silence elongates. Finally, I hear a voice reply to the rabbit's
query. "I think I might know of someone who fits your criteria."
Good — nothing to do with me, of course, but it's nice when someone
who needs help can get it before they pass the point of no return.
The new voice continues: "Perhaps you have a business card I could
pass along?" I don't understand why I'm still standing here, eavesdropping
on a conversation that (by rights) I ought not be privy to, until
I recognize the new voice.

It's me.

Perhaps my hardwired instincts are good for more than gouging
wet chunks out of organic statues. It would be nice to think so.

We continue speaking, the counselor and I. His name is Phil.
Our conversation is, simultaneously, both a ludicrous charade
and as deadly serious as deciding a man's destiny. Arrangements
are made. Appointments are scheduled. I fear what will occur —
to be open is to make yourself a vulnerable target; to openly
admit needing help is to invite being stomped on without mercy
— but now, for the first time, I fear it less than the alternative.

I ''am'' truly fortunate.

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Good Run of Luck}}

User:Cubist/Christmas Rush

2009-02-16T02:07:22Z

Cubist:

{{title|name=Christmas Rush|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{post-tf}}{{TF type=Animal | degree=full form | species=Cheetah}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
The name is Jubatus, and I'm the fastest SCAB alive. Granted, there might be one or two inanimorphs faster than me, but then I did specify 'alive', so stop quibbling, alright? Anyway, this'll be my first Christmas at the Blind Pig—the Strikebreakers (me included) were on tour last winter, and before that... well. Let's just say I was collecting data on ''why'' no man, or SCAB, is an island.

Frankly, 2039's been one hell of a calendar year, and I'll be glad to see the end of it. For me, at least, the lowlights were January, when the Strikebreakers tour died on contact with Godzilla—

Yeah. ''That.'' Made the news and everything. Free advice: Whatever you do, don't even ''think'' about applying the placebo effect to inanimorphs. Long story, just... ''don't,'' okay?

To continue: July's when I came ''this'' close to maiming a lifelong dream beyond repair. Again, long story. Next, ending in September, I spent four solid weeks in a concussed and feral state after a car accident. Wasn't so bad ''at the time,'' since I (being concussed ''and'' feral) was terminally bereft of clue. Trouble is, when I got better, I discovered that my ''instincts'' are less dangerous than ''I'' am. How's ''that'' for a kick in the teeth? Oh, yeah, and there's a leonine SCAB high-schooler, Hallan Myers, has me to thank for the beating he received in March. Sure, he gave better than he got, and that's the final crap he ever took from the bullies who'd been riding his ass for months, but even so...

Like I said: One rhodium-plated, USDA Choice, triple-distilled ''hell'' of a year.

I'm at my usual seat, the small booth halfway between the bathrooms and the entrance to the pool room. Mathematically speaking, I'd've preferred a centralized location, meaning minimal distance to anywhere in the common or pool rooms or the big side hall opposite the pool tables, but someone might wonder why I changed my routine, and given what I'll be doing all night, it's going to be hard enough not to attract attention just because.

I repeat myself, but it bears repeating: For me, 2039 has been one hell of a year. Even so, I managed to get through it with no small amount of help from... hmm. I'm not sure if it's the right word, but... oh, what the heck. I got by with a little help from my friends. Seriously. Without Hallan in particular, Metron only knows where I'd be now. So: I racked up some debts of a non-monetary kind, and I was wondering how to pay 'em off. And somewhere along the way, not really sure when, I got the bright idea of playing 'secret Santa' to the Blind Pig. Cool image: At the Xmas party, someone reaches for his drink, his hand bumps into something he didn't notice before, and it's a present for him. Pleasant surprises all around.

It'd spoil the effect if anyone figured out who's behind these displays of selfless generosity, of course, but I'm not too worried on that score. First, yes I ''am '''that''''' fast, courtesy of my SCABS-granted ability to make my personal Time run fast or slow: I upshift, zip over to the target, deposit the payload, zip back, and finally return to the normal (slow) tempo. After a few calendar days of practice in a warehouse I rented and remodeled for this purpose, I've got it down to a science. Elapsed clock-time .8 seconds or less for a round trip to ''anywhere'' in the Pig's three main ground-floor rooms, and no more than half a second to anywhere in the common room. Second, there are advantages to having invested ''so'' much time and effort in earning a 'high-strung, moody, fussbudget asshole' rep. As long as I don't let myself be caught in the act, ''nobody's'' going to even ''suspect'' that I'm the culprit.

Trouble is, gifts are a problem for me. Not the buying—I'm as wealthy as the next technically skilled SCAB who can squeeze a few months'-worth of billable hours into one calendar day—but, rather, the ''choosing'' part of the deal. In the workplace, I'm fine; off duty, in a purely ''social'' setting, I suck rocks. For good reason, or at least for what I ''thought'' was good reason. Okay, I was wrong there, but even though I can and should acquire them, social skills just don't come naturally to me. Which begs the question: What do you get ''from'' the man who can afford everything... except a decent idea of what you actually ''want?''

Well, food is always an option. SCAB or norm, food's good for ''anything'' that's biological (and even a few inanimorphs, who aren't), even if most people don't need it in the quantities ''I'' consume. That's why God invented Sizzler gift certificates. Yeah, Sizzler's a steak house, but they've had a decent salad bar since about 1970, so herbivores are covered, too. $70 buys dinner for two, and then some.

I've got $100 gift certificates. 200 of them.

Oh, I've got other things picked out for a select few of tonight's patrons, but the Pig gets more of a crowd than usual on Christmas Eve. Higher SCAB quotient than usual, too, since norms tend to have more romantic/social entanglements to spend the holiday with. Funny how that works, hm?

Anyway—'in for a penny, in for a pound', like the man says. If I'm going to be all generous in the first place, ''why not'' cast the net wide, as it were? So I'll play inverse pickpocket, drop certificates into the pockets of people I don't know, until I run out or until closing time, whichever comes first. As for those I ''do'' know...

Dr. Stein was easy: He's a car freak, antique gas burners in specific, to the point that he devotes a good chunk of his spare time to his pet Pontiac GTO. Took a bit of digging, but I found a model GTO, 1:12 scale—pretty sad condition, but all the wheels are still there and can turn. Sure, I ''could've'' gotten one in mint, or even in the unopened original packaging, but those are damned expensive. No sense giving an anonymous present whose price rules out 99% of potential donors.

God knows why he's in a funk tonight, but the toy should help—he'll ''love'' it.

Jim Hart wasn't quite so easy: I don't really know much about him, aside from he's a wrestling-obsessed full-morph squirrel. Further, I strongly doubt anyone else does, either. Go ahead; talk to the tree-rat about ''anything,'' and I'll give you $1,000 if you can keep the topic off of Wrestling for more than 90 clock-seconds. Frankly, if it weren't for my nagging suspicion that I'm one of the contributing factors that led to his inadvertent (and, thankfully, unsuccessful) suicide attempt, I'd have been just as happy to leave him out of it entirely...

Anyway, I did some net-searching, and I found something I hope he'll ''really'' like: Shoes. That's right, shoes. What's so special about wrestling shoes? Hell if I know, but on a wrestler's forum, I saw a 'laces or velcro?' flamewar that was every bit as intense as a Linux-''versus''-BSD jihad. And it turns out there ''is'' a company makes 'em for animorph SCABs—even psychotic little squirrels!—for the low, low price of $2,900 a pair. What the hell, it's only money, right?

I got some lingerie for Raven Blackmane. Real hardcore stuff, long past PG and well into X. You think that's not appropriate for a devout Christian? Sure it is, especially for a Christian who's been exposing herself over a pool table for an absolute minimum of 1.5 calendar years. Major exhibitionist tendencies, she has. I have no idea how she reconciles them with her religious beliefs; then again, I don't ''need'' to know how she does it. The fact that she ''has'' reconciled 'em is good enough for me.

Then there's Sue Carter, the plant with a brain the size of a planet. Sadly, she sees other people as nothing more than tools to exploit. That's why I found her a vintage LEGO Mindstorms set—robotics kit for kids, used to be popular before the turn of the millennium. My hope is that while she's playing with it, she'll notice that she treats the Mindstorms parts the same way she treats people: Namely, she manipulates the hell out of 'em. Depending on how much empathy is left in her, that realization might just help spur the dryad to change her ways.

Frankly, I wasn't expecting Carter to actually show up tonight. She ''did'' make an email promise to attend; thing is, it's a 6,000-mile commute for her, you know? But she ''is'' here, and that's good. She gets her present now, instead of—

Huh. When did Hallan Myers get here?

"Hello, Mr. Acinonyx!" It's the lion cub himself, striding through the crowd, all wrapped up against the cold snap that rolled in earlier today.

"Hey there, catboy. What's a nice kid like you doing in place like ''this?'' Don't you have a family to be with?"

"Yes, sir, I do. I came to drop off some gifts for those who don't," he said, digging through his backpack for a flat, near-square package, wrapped in cheap holofoil-embossed paper. Before he can actually hand it over to me, it changes to one covered in plain white paper. "Merry Christmas—sir?"

Of course he was surprised; a little upshift let me pull the swap in the blink of ''his'' eye. Meanwhile, I turn over the original (shiny) gift in my hands, spectrums dancing across the foil.

"It's for you," I tell him. "May as well open it now."

I follow my own advice. A few claw-made slits in the foil later, I see a disc whose title I don't recognize: '''''Speechless With Wonderment'''.'' No UPC barcode...

"I burned it myself," the cub says as he uses one of his own claws to slice up the wrapping on his little package. "Of course, that's after I converted the files to play back at sextuple—''oh wow!"''

Bingo. I smile. He's just seen that I gave him a pre-release copy of '''''The Strikebreakers Meet Godzilla''','' our second album. Definitely ''not'' a title ''I'' would've chosen, but both Greyflank and Wanderer said "there's no such thing as bad publicity", so—

"Oh my gosh! ''Omigosh!"''

—and that's Myers realizing that yes, the thing ''is'' autographed. By all the band members.

'''''"Oh—My—Gosh!"'''''

I think he likes it.

I upshift and put a glass (filled with a teabag and hot water) before Myers; once he stops roaring, he's gonna need a little something for his throat. That's not all I did in fast-time. I also dropped a couple of plastic tubes in his backpack—tubes which just happen to contain $50 worth of tokens for local video arcades. Given his audio response to the CD, I think I better be elsewhere when he notices the tubes.

In the meantime, I check out my new disc—no, ''discs.'' Two of 'em. As the name implies, they're a collection of instrumentals, some of which I haven't heard in years: '''''Skating''','' by the Vince Guaraldi Trio; one movement of '''''Water Musick''''' by Handel; '''''Music Box Dancer''';'' the '''''Rockford Files''''' theme; a Steeleye Span tune, '''''Robbery With Violins''';'' Tomita's version of the '''''Canon in D''';'' a Vangelis cut I don't recognize the name of; '''''Classical Gas''';'' a couple of J.S. Bach pieces; '''''Chateau''','' by Larry 'Synergy' Fast...

"You're welcome, sir."

It's Myers, talking in between sips of tea—oh, right. I must've muttered 'thanks' while preoccupied. Gotta watch that... "Looks like a decent selection. You really didn't need to go to the trouble of sextupling the playback speed, though; I can get that through software, no sweat."

He grins. "Of course—but this way, you get the music at ''your'' normal speed from ''any'' CD player!"

I smile back at him. "Good point." We exchange a few more words before he moves on to his next delivery. Me, I just stay put in my booth, or at least that's what it ''looks'' like. Every so often I do my own delivering: Upshift high; leap up to the ceiling and then directly over my target; let my foot-claws pin me to the ceiling as I reach down to deposit the package; then return to my seat, going back the way I came. All that at a tempo of 40, by the way—no, I wasn't joking when I said I could make a round trip to anywhere in .8 seconds or less. Technically, I could drop 'em off at a rate of about 100 presents per minute, get it all over and done with in a few minutes; but that idea's a non-starter, as it would pretty well guarantee I'm caught in the act. I keep a watchful eye on the crowd, and I only do the deed during moments when ''nobody'' is looking in my general direction.

Oh, fucking joy. Dr. Stein was talking to Donnie a bit earlier, and now everybody knows, or at least the regulars: The Doc's GTO broke, and there just ''aren't'' any replacement parts available. Shit! Wonderful time for him to receive a present that reminds him, damn it.

Maybe I can salvage something. Literally. I zip out to the Extremis for privacy as I work. Pontiac made I don't know how many million of the damn things, so the first avenue of attack is spiders to comb odd corners of the Net for relevant blueprints, CAD files in particular. While that's happening, a second set of spiders will sort through the past eight decades of DMV records nationwide, focusing primarily on Planned Non-Operation certificates... No need for me to babysit the machinery while it's running; I'll just pop back out every couple hours, for a status check. Here's hoping I can locate a useable transmission...

Interesting: When I re-enter the Pig, there's a full-morph wolf laired under the pool table, and the Lupine Boys' Ladies Auxiliary is nowhere to be seen. The 'what' of it's obvious, but not the 'why', so I buttonhole Wanderer: "Looks like Blackmane turned quad. What's up?"

"She was among the beneficiaries of our would-be Father Christmas; her gift proved to be a rather ''exotic'' set of lingerie; and an incautious reference to certain visual misadventures appears to have triggered an attack of purest mortification."

"That's crazy," I say, frowning. "She's been giving free shows for as long as ''I've'' been around, at least eighteen calendar-months—and ''now'' she gets the vapors over it?"

He shrugs. "A most cogent and perspicacious observation, my abrasive friend. Alas, she who might explain the mystery is literally in no shape to do so."

Bloody hell. Don't want to think I made a mistake, but... hold that thought for when she's back. Onward to more pleasant matters: I see that Wanderer and his niece are holding court near the Lupine Boys' table. Nice girl, polite. Not sure when he got back from his performance; somewhere near... well, hell. When ''did'' he return? A trivial question, true, but it won't let me alone as I sip my drink. Mini-CD, a diluted 'catnip daiquiri', the only thing whose residency time in my system is long enough that it ''can'' get me drunk. Anyway—the wolf left, what, 4:30 PM? Yeah, that's about right. 4:30, 4:40, in there somewhere. And he returned...

My blood cools below freezing point, sobering me up, as I realize ''I don't know.''

I downshift to a tempo of .9, just below normal; walk carefully to the bathroom; pour my drink down the sink; and then spend a half-hour waiting for my metabolism to dispose of what's currently contaminating my bloodstream. Upshifted to a tempo of 35, I'm done in less than one clock-minute, after which I leave to get a vodka boilermaker. Alcohol's safe; I burn it off too damn fast... and no, I am ''not'' overreacting to the thought that maybe, just maybe, I ''might'' have gotten too blitzed to remember when Wanderer made his entrance.

Not overreacting at all. When you can break the sound barrier, you ''can't'' afford ''any'' degree of loss of control...

Back in the common room, I keep busy (does the phrase "Jubatus has time to kill" ring any bells?). First, there's the gift runs, and while I'm at it, I also try to keep an eye out for potential troublemakers. Haven't seen any yet; every one of the merrymakers really is interested in making merry, thank Dionysus.

Ah—Blackmane's resumed her anthropomorphic status. The more I consider it, the more uncertain I become about her present... I zip over to catch her before she can rejoin the throng. "Santa Claus kinda screwed up on your gift, huh?"

Raven jerks around, looks at me. "Oh! Jubatus. Yes, I suppose you could say that. I just, well, it was a real shock to learn that I'd been exposing myself..."

Damn. I ''did'' mess up. "I thought you knew already," I say quietly. She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out, and she ends up closing the jaws and looking at me. "Come on. ''One'' free show, fine, that's an accident. But doing it over and over again, week after week, month after month—you ''had'' to be aware of it."

"I don't see how that follows," she says carefully. "Clothing ''is'' kind of loose and floppy, by its very nature. I don't think you can reasonably expect someone to be micrometrically aware, at ''all'' times, of the position of ''every'' inch of cloth they're wearing."

"You damn well ''better'' be," I say, annoyed at her lackadaisical attitude. "Otherwise, you're just asking for people to get pistol-whipped when you walk by them. Hell, even a loose zipper can take the skin right off a body!" She doesn't reply, just gives me a confused look. "What's the matter, you need a demonstration?" And suddenly light dawns in her eyes.

"Jubatus? Just how quickly do you think I move?"

I glare. '''How quickly', my bleeding''—And then the clue phone rings. Now it's ''my'' turn to open mouth and say nothing.

Meekly, she says, "So... you really do have to worry about uncontrolled cloth."

"And you really don't," is my brilliant riposte. ''Game over. Sigh. ''"Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted... Alright. Stay put and I'll get you the receipt..." And I trail off because I don't recognize the expression on Blackmane's face. "You ''are'' going to exchange the lingerie, right?"

"Not relevant. You said 'fun while it lasted'—why must it end ''now?"''

''Isn't it obvious? Well, maybe not, after the cloth routine...'' I shrug. "I screwed up. When that happens, I do what I can to solve the resulting problems and ensure there's no rerun, then move on."

I'm about to retrieve the receipt, when she says, "Jubatus." We look into each other's eyes, then she continues: "It's ''okay'' for you to be fallible."

"You think Stein would agree?"

She's got that expression again. "I think... he'd agree it's not your fault that you couldn't foresee his breakdown. As for me, you only hurt my dignity! If I cared about ''that,'' would I be a regular here?" she asks. "I think it's a very good thing you're doing, and it would be a shame if you stopped."

"Oh, really. So I should spoil a few more people's Christmas?"

"No. You should ''brighten'' a few more people's Christmas." She pauses for a moment. "If you're responsible for ''all'' the surprise packages this evening, you should know that your hits outnumber your misses by a sizeable margin. Ask Wanderer, or that squirrel—"

"Jim Hart."

"Yes. Talk to Jim Hart, find out what ''he'' thinks of his gift. Or even Greyflank; I'm not at all sure I ''want'' to know what he got, but whatever it is, he seems to like it..."

"You're right—you ''don't'' want to know."

The wolfette blinks twice. "I, see. In any case... You're a better man than you give yourself credit for, Jubatus. Please, don't give up."

And then one of the Boys challenges her to a game of pool, thus proving that a wolf SCAB can be very like a lamb to the slaughter.

'''Don't give up', she says. And why the hell not? My old habits are looking mighty comfortable right now! Also safe, can't forget safe. There's so much that could go wrong, so many ways for me to hurt people without trying to, without even knowing! And the cheetah side of me sure doesn't see anything wrong with being socially isolated...''

''Sigh. That way lies madness, and you damn well '''know''' it. Gotta get out of that shell before it crushes you. The prospect scares you? BFD. Phil's got at least as much reason to be afraid—and '''being eaten alive''' is what '''he's''' afraid of! If that kind of fear isn't enough to stop Phil from putting himself on public display, what the hell is '''your''' excuse, Jube...''

A voice breaks into my reverie: "—meseems that our fair maid of the verdant complexion hath been o'erly silent of late—" Wanderer, as if anyone ''else'' sounds like ''that.'' He's inviting the dryad to play toastmistress! Carter eats it up with a spoon; if she ever decides to mellow out a little, I think she might turn out to be a bigger ham than the wolf. Something to look forward to...'' 'Look forward'? My, my. Is that actually Hope I see before me? Heh! Looks like even '''my''' pessimism has finally hit the wall.''

Hope: It's an unfamiliar feeling.

"A toast, then," Carter says, and my mind continues the sentiment: ''It's not like Anybody's out there actually '''listening''', but...''

''Can next year not suck? Let 2040 turn out halfway decent?''

''Please..?''

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christmas Rush}}

User:Cubist/Nobody's Coming

2009-02-16T01:59:00Z

Cubist:

{{title|name=Nobody's Coming|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{fiction}}{{TF tag | type=Inanimate | degree=full form}}
Seriously, its not as bad as youve heard. Sure, those origins are ludicrously conspicuous events, but they just arent as common as youd believe from reading the headlines. Honestly, the chance of getting hit by an origin isnt much higher than that of getting struck by lightning!

Which doesnt really help when ''youre'' the one who gets hit, of course

I could have moved, but why? I liked Californias climate, okay? And I liked the San Francisco Bay Area. Cost of livings a bit high, surebut pay is too, so it all comes out in the wash. Anyway, yes I had an origin, and no bloody thanks to the goddamn Seismaster.

I was driving north on Highway 280 when that geophysical miscreant fired his Stratagitator Ray directly into the San Andreas Fault, which just happens to run more-or-less parallel to 280. Unfortunately, Seismaster happened to be in SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, at the timeand yes, I ''do'' think its amusing that SLAC (spelled the straightest two-mile-long object on Earth) intersects the most notorious earthquake fault known

Way ahead of me, I see. Yes, the quake triggered by Seismasters S-Ray interfered with an experiment; yes, SLAC also intersects Highway 280; yes, I was directly above the beamline at ''just'' the wrong moment; yes, the massive energy field interacted weirdly with my cars electrical system, detonating the fuel tank and turning my Ford Escort into a ball of plasma; yes, my human body was instantly incinerated. Nothing left, and I do mean no ''thing''

Waking up wasnt a surprise.

Maybe it should have been, but it went by so ''fast''by the time I would have had a chance to register the pain and so on, it was long since over! I didnt even know that my body had been reduced to free-floating atoms, not until later anyway. As far as I was concerned, one instant I was driving; the next instant, I was a disembodied viewpoint floating over the puddle of slowly-cooling slag that used to be my car

Hold on a second.

It ''had been'' my car. I ''knew'' this. But all I had to work with was an unrecognizable pool of congealing metal, so ''how'' did I know?

Stupid question. Id just had an origin, so that mysterious knowledge was obviously a manifestation of one of my powers. Just wonderful. I really hadnt wanted to be a supertype, because while the powers and abilities are kind of neat, the price tag is just too high. See, all supertypes''all'' of themexhibit unusual behavior patterns. They dont react as a sane, rational human being would; instead, their responses fit into one of a relatively small number of profiles (archetypes, as theyre called) which govern various aspects of their behavior in various situations. And thats the problem: When you get superpowers, you give up some of your free will.

But then again, if youve got a world groveling at your feet, who cares about free will

Oh, hell. Its already started; Im already getting pulled towards one or another of the available archetypes. This ones probably the Mad Conqueror, the archetype best suited for wisely ruling over the undeserving no!

Im ''not'' going to go ''there'', damnit! Id sooner see the entire world burning rivers of blood

Oh, joyous and peachy. No, not Pure Evil, either. Got that? Maybe I have to spend the rest of my life as a supertype, but Im ''not'' going to waste all my time trashing everything in sight! If it came to that, Id much prefer to focus on constructive pastimes. Like a gleaming 400-story skyscraper studded with clean, efficient monorail no, not the Cosmic Architect, either!

I glared up into the skya neat trick when youre disembodied, but thats what it ''felt'' like, okay?and waited for Whoever to quit playing games with my head. I already knew which archetype I wanted to run with, thanks very much for asking, and it sure wasnt the Thrillseeker, or the Spandexed Boy Scout, or any flavor of Anti-Hero, or the Misguided Idealist

Get it over with!

Like I said, I knew which archetype I preferred: The Harbinger. That archetypes reason for existence was to gather heroic supertypes whenever dire cosmic hazards threatened the Earth. As such, a Harbinger wielded vast power (always a plus), spent almost all its time out of the spotlight (unlike, say, the Boy Scout), and best of all, had the distinct pleasure of telling those annoyingly smug hero-types I told you so on a regular basis.

Yeah. Harbinger drat. Looked like there actually ''was'' a cosmic hazard in the offing! Just my luck to get into the super biz at a bad moment oh, well. Not for a while yet, however, so I had time to explore my new powers, get accustomed to my new life, and generally prep myself for whatever the future held for me.

So: The powers. If I can read molecular structures (which I obviously could, that being how I recognized my car in its current form), its a good bet I can manipulate them, too. Okay, lets see about restoring my car to its pre-zap condition. Just a matter of visualizing the desired end result, andwhoa! Not only did it work, but ''I was the car!'' I see; I have to inhabit a physical object if I want to shuffle its molecules around. And well, well, well. The objects molecules stay the way I put them, even after I abandon it! Sweet! Okay, I got back on board and yes, I ''could'' animate the car.

I twiddled the radio from the inside, and music by the Talking Heads filled the air as I drove myself on down the highway.

''Were on the road to nowhere'' 
''Come on inside''

User:Cubist/Nobody's Coming

2009-02-16T01:57:42Z

Cubist: Adding semantic tags

{{title|name=Nobody's Coming|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{fiction}}{{TF tag | type=Inanimate | degree=Full Form}}
Seriously, its not as bad as youve heard. Sure, those origins are ludicrously conspicuous events, but they just arent as common as youd believe from reading the headlines. Honestly, the chance of getting hit by an origin isnt much higher than that of getting struck by lightning!

Which doesnt really help when ''youre'' the one who gets hit, of course

I could have moved, but why? I liked Californias climate, okay? And I liked the San Francisco Bay Area. Cost of livings a bit high, surebut pay is too, so it all comes out in the wash. Anyway, yes I had an origin, and no bloody thanks to the goddamn Seismaster.

I was driving north on Highway 280 when that geophysical miscreant fired his Stratagitator Ray directly into the San Andreas Fault, which just happens to run more-or-less parallel to 280. Unfortunately, Seismaster happened to be in SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, at the timeand yes, I ''do'' think its amusing that SLAC (spelled the straightest two-mile-long object on Earth) intersects the most notorious earthquake fault known

Way ahead of me, I see. Yes, the quake triggered by Seismasters S-Ray interfered with an experiment; yes, SLAC also intersects Highway 280; yes, I was directly above the beamline at ''just'' the wrong moment; yes, the massive energy field interacted weirdly with my cars electrical system, detonating the fuel tank and turning my Ford Escort into a ball of plasma; yes, my human body was instantly incinerated. Nothing left, and I do mean no ''thing''

Waking up wasnt a surprise.

Maybe it should have been, but it went by so ''fast''by the time I would have had a chance to register the pain and so on, it was long since over! I didnt even know that my body had been reduced to free-floating atoms, not until later anyway. As far as I was concerned, one instant I was driving; the next instant, I was a disembodied viewpoint floating over the puddle of slowly-cooling slag that used to be my car

Hold on a second.

It ''had been'' my car. I ''knew'' this. But all I had to work with was an unrecognizable pool of congealing metal, so ''how'' did I know?

Stupid question. Id just had an origin, so that mysterious knowledge was obviously a manifestation of one of my powers. Just wonderful. I really hadnt wanted to be a supertype, because while the powers and abilities are kind of neat, the price tag is just too high. See, all supertypes''all'' of themexhibit unusual behavior patterns. They dont react as a sane, rational human being would; instead, their responses fit into one of a relatively small number of profiles (archetypes, as theyre called) which govern various aspects of their behavior in various situations. And thats the problem: When you get superpowers, you give up some of your free will.

But then again, if youve got a world groveling at your feet, who cares about free will

Oh, hell. Its already started; Im already getting pulled towards one or another of the available archetypes. This ones probably the Mad Conqueror, the archetype best suited for wisely ruling over the undeserving no!

Im ''not'' going to go ''there'', damnit! Id sooner see the entire world burning rivers of blood

Oh, joyous and peachy. No, not Pure Evil, either. Got that? Maybe I have to spend the rest of my life as a supertype, but Im ''not'' going to waste all my time trashing everything in sight! If it came to that, Id much prefer to focus on constructive pastimes. Like a gleaming 400-story skyscraper studded with clean, efficient monorail no, not the Cosmic Architect, either!

I glared up into the skya neat trick when youre disembodied, but thats what it ''felt'' like, okay?and waited for Whoever to quit playing games with my head. I already knew which archetype I wanted to run with, thanks very much for asking, and it sure wasnt the Thrillseeker, or the Spandexed Boy Scout, or any flavor of Anti-Hero, or the Misguided Idealist

Get it over with!

Like I said, I knew which archetype I preferred: The Harbinger. That archetypes reason for existence was to gather heroic supertypes whenever dire cosmic hazards threatened the Earth. As such, a Harbinger wielded vast power (always a plus), spent almost all its time out of the spotlight (unlike, say, the Boy Scout), and best of all, had the distinct pleasure of telling those annoyingly smug hero-types I told you so on a regular basis.

Yeah. Harbinger drat. Looked like there actually ''was'' a cosmic hazard in the offing! Just my luck to get into the super biz at a bad moment oh, well. Not for a while yet, however, so I had time to explore my new powers, get accustomed to my new life, and generally prep myself for whatever the future held for me.

So: The powers. If I can read molecular structures (which I obviously could, that being how I recognized my car in its current form), its a good bet I can manipulate them, too. Okay, lets see about restoring my car to its pre-zap condition. Just a matter of visualizing the desired end result, andwhoa! Not only did it work, but ''I was the car!'' I see; I have to inhabit a physical object if I want to shuffle its molecules around. And well, well, well. The objects molecules stay the way I put them, even after I abandon it! Sweet! Okay, I got back on board and yes, I ''could'' animate the car.

I twiddled the radio from the inside, and music by the Talking Heads filled the air as I drove myself on down the highway.

''Were on the road to nowhere'' 
''Come on inside''

User:Cubist/A Good Run of Luck

2009-02-16T01:48:42Z

Cubist:

{{title|name=A Good Run of Luck|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{author tag|Cubist}}{{fiction}}{{universe|Tales from the Blind Pig}}
I am a fortunate man.

Truly, I am.

I was born with many innate advantages — tall, good looks,
intelligent, an exceptionally fine voice, ''et cetera, ad nauseum.''

Even the Martian Flu has been remarkably kind to me. My initial
symptoms were indistinguishable from a mild cold, and I happened
to be asleep when it progressed to full-blown SCABS, thus sparing
me the unpleasant sensations that come while one's entire body
is reshaping itself into an alien form.

I had little trouble adjusting to my new body; in fact, my co-ordination
was far better after I woke up than it had ever been before. And
the good news doesn't stop there! This body has certain physical
capabilities far in excess of what I could do as a mere human.
Further, I retained in full my hands, voice, bipedal posture,
gender, organic nature, and intellect, albeit not quite the same
in all details. And finally, while there are some disadvantages
to my new form, each such problem came with at least one accompanying
built-in benefit.

And on top of everything else, I'm a SCAB-come lately — SCABS
only hit me two years ago, rather than at the time the 'Flu first
appeared on Earth. Can anyone doubt that this was another stroke
of good fortune? It was, truly, since it gave our Government and
legal system time to adapt to the concept of radical bodily transformation.
Identity theft was a major problem for the first crop of SCABs,
who, after all, no longer matched the ''human'' photos on their passports and driver's licenses and so on. Such
is not the case at present; nowadays, SCABs are only slightly
more likely to suffer identity theft than are baseline humans.
After a minimal amount of bureaucratic fuss, not much (if any)
worse than a visit to the DMV, I was legally acknowledged to be
myself, and could get on with my life.

I am a fortunate man. Truly.

Well, a fortunate ''male'', anyway. I have SCABS to thank for my tail; digitigrade legs;
built-in, all-over, spotted fur coat; feline-style face and head;
and all the other features that mark me for life as a cheetah/human
hybrid. Though my ''human'' looks are forever lost, I am assured that my present appearance
is quite handsome by ''feline'' standards. As well, my vocal tract has lost much of its versatility.
Thus did SCABS stop me from wasting any more of my time idly dreaming
of a career in voice work. Am I not fortunate?

As a bipedal cheetah, it's thematically appropriate that I am
speed incarnate. My metabolism, digestion, healing processes,
neurons, virtually all aspects of my body function at least an
order of magnitude more quickly than the human norm. This is a
mixed blessing. On the one hand, it took several realtime days
for me to re-learn how to react and speak and interact at the
normal human tempo, during which period I lost my old job (retail
'phone bank, if you must know); on the other hand, it gives me
a near-unbeatable advantage when dealing with anti-SCABS bigots
of a certain type.

I well remember my first encounter with SCABS-bashers — even
when I'd rather not. I was walking out of a bookstore, and they
intercepted me before I reached my vehicle (a converted van, about
which more anon). They couldn't have known much about me, as they
clearly took me for an easy target.

They probably thought that someone with my inhumanly slim build
had to be a physical weakling; they didn't know my muscles have
power enough to propel me at speeds above 65 MPH. They didn't
know about my heightened senses of hearing and smell, nor that
my vibrissae — cat whiskers — are just as sensitive to air currents
as those of any natural-born feline. They must have known that
my fangs and claws are dangerous, but I doubt it occured to them
that my feet are as well-equipped as my hands.

They couldn't have known just how ''fast'' I can be. I certainly didn't, at that time.

There were five of them.

I ignored them, hoping that they would content themselves with
verbal abuse and move on, but no such luck. They surrounded me,
and their intent was clear.

I am a fortunate man. Truly. When my fight-or-flight reflex
kicked in, the world ground to a near-halt around me, slowed down
by a factor of at least 20. Or, from ''their'' perspective, suddenly I accelerated to 20 or more times quicker
than I had been. Take your pick; either way, they never had a
goddamn chance.

I hadn't realized, before this encounter, this body comes with
hardwired instincts. And when I recovered from what I can only
describe as a berserk frenzy… it wasn't pretty. Not pretty at
all. Not the least bit.

I didn't kill them. This is important, you must believe me:'' I didn't kill anyone!'' Not one of them was dead when I left that place. ''All'' of my would-be assailants were living. All five of them.

There were legal repercussions, of course, but as with so much
else in my life, fortune favored me. Truly, it did. It seems that
three of the five had extensive rap sheets, two of them featuring
numerous SCABS-oriented hate crimes. In consequence, my statement
was accepted without question, and while one of the bigots' families
did prefer charges, the judge elected to throw their complaint
out of court. Something about us SCABs being a "suspect class",
I believe. See how fortunate I am? As for myself, I chose not
to file a complaint — what point would there be? Two of the five
died within three weeks, and the remaining three would be scarred
and crippled for life.

But I get ahead of myself. A few hours after the attack, visiting
an establishment of a kind I'd never felt the need to patronize
before, I discovered yet another of the many benefits SCABS has
bestowed upon me: I can't get drunk. With my hyped-up metabolism,
alcohol simply doesn't stay in my system long enough to affect
me.

However, my tear ducts are still fully functional.

Three days after that abortive assault, I left my hometown.
I haven't been back since. It was not difficult at all, thanks
to my then-landlord. I'd known of his allergy to cats, of course
— it was the reason feline pets were forbidden to his renters
— and so I was unsurprised when my rent tripled after SCABS hit
me. Had I not been fired, I might have considered fighting the
rent increase; as it was, I couldn't afford to exercise my rights
under the law. He did return my deposit, which was quite helpful.
So with my savings and severance paycheck, I bought a second-hand
Ford Extremis and converted the cargo space to living quarters.
Of my possessions, I sold what I didn't want or need to keep;
took with me what the van had room for; and put the rest into
storage. I really needed to winnow out the excess crap anyway,
so it's fortunate that my landlord gave me the impetus to do so.
Truly, it is.

While this put a roof over my head, it did nothing for my income.
Then and ever since, online contracts have kept me afloat. I'm
talking web design, copy editing, graphics, programming, you name
it — anything I can do through an Internet connection. On the
'Net, no one knows you're a SCAB, as the saying goes. And I can
comfortably take on more contracts than the average freelancer:
Not only does my natural tempo give me the functional equivalent
of a 100-hour day to play with, but I have discovered that I almost
don't need to sleep. A few catnaps scattered through the day are
sufficient unto my needs, and I can get them over with in a few
seconds apiece by slipping into fast-time. Thus do I make far
more money now than I ever did when I had a stationary home. Truly,
am I not fortunate?

I haven't had a fixed address since. Not for snailmail, that
is — my fiver@jubatus.nucom e'ddress has been quite stable, thanks
for asking. I travel the country, going from place to place as
the spirit moves me. ''My'' spirit moves me in a predictable fashion; one slashed tire or
broken window, and I'm out of there.

My migratory existance doesn't preclude social interactions.
Such comradeship as I need, I get through my laptop. Email, newsgroups,
instant messages, that sort of thing suffices. Truly, it does.
That, and the occasional face-to-face meeting when I'm in the
neighborhood of an online acquaintance. It's not like I had many
offline friends even before I SCABbed over, so goodbyes were rather
less of a problem for me than one might expect.

As for my online comrades, it's interesting to observe their
reactions when they first see me in the flesh. While I've never
volunteered the fact that I'm a SCAB, neither do I deny it when
asked. Most people get over their initial nervousness quickly
when they meet me, and the ones who can't, aren't worth my time.
Thus does my inhuman appearance reduce the number of twits and
idiots that I would otherwise be forced to deal with on a daily
basis. Since I have never suffered fools gladly, I count this
as fortunate. Truly.

Among other benefits, this gives me more time to read. Three
years ago, I clocked in at 900 words per minute; now, particularly
when I shift into fast-time, my reading speed would put an Evelyn
Wood graduate to shame. I used to think I was a voracious reader…
and then SCABS taught me the ''true'' meaning of that phrase. Truly, a most fortunate turn of events
for a bibliophile such as myself. And as a side benefit, I'm building
up a truly impressive collection of library cards in my travels.

You needn't bother telling me; I already know that I overuse
the words "fortunate" and "truly". Do you think it makes me sound
like Pollyanna? If so, you are more right than you know. I've
read the book, and Pollyanna was no mindless optimist. She was
fully aware of how terribly cruel the world can be. For her, looking
on the bright side was a deliberate, premeditated choice. It worked
for Pollyanna, and it works tolerably well for me.

Oh, I know the statistics. I know the suicide rate, median income,
homeless percentage, violent crimes commited against, mental health
figures, all the dismal litany of the "average" SCAB's existence.
Christ on a sidecar!, I ''know'' the bloody numbers, I could recite them under anaesthesia (if
anyone could find a drug that kept me under long enough to do
it), and so far, I've beaten the odds. For two long years running,
I have beaten the odds, do you hear me? ''I have beaten the odds!''

I ''am'' fortunate. Truly. And if you think I perhaps shouldn't need to
remind myself of this fact quite as often as I do, if you don't
agree with my tactics, you may kiss any of my furry cheeks that
strikes your fancy. It's ''my'' case of SCABS — ''my'' life — and by the God I don't believe in, I'll continue to cope
with it ''my'' way, thank you very kindly for asking. I've gotten by on my own
quite nicely thus far. And for some peculiar reason, I simply
don't see any great need to cast aside a tactic with an established,
favorable track record just to adopt someone else's unproven,
ill-informed, yet oh so very well-intended advice. Whatever else
that bloody disease has taken from me, I still retain my full
original complement of IQ points, and I'm not afraid to use them,
damn your eyes! I don't want or need your sympathy, and I will
'''''not''''' be patronized. By '''''anyone'''''.

Bitter? ''Moi? ''Of course not. Truly. I'm such a fortunate fellow, there's not
a blessed thing in my life that I could ''possibly'' feel bitter about, least of all "the gift that '''really''' keeps on giving". Why, SCABS has even improved my sarcasm, it
has!

I'm sorry, I've been a trifle overstressed of late — you didn't
need to hear that.

It won't happen again.

I'll make certain it doesn't.

I ''am'' feeling more stress than usual, mind you. I just can't figure
out why, as I've been fortunate enough to live a fairly stable
life over the past year or so. I'm not getting any less sleep
now than I did before; my workload hasn't changed; my brushes
with bigotry are fewer, since my growing familiarity with the
warning signs has made me better able to avoid such situations
to begin with; and it surely can't be ''directly'' related to SCABS, considering the two whole years I've had to
grow accustomed to myself. All of which said, nevertheless I am
indeed feeling an inordinate level of stress, even if the cause
eludes me. These days I've got a mild headache 24/7, among other
symptoms. Annoying, true, but nothing I can't live with until
I figure out what's going on.

Perhaps a bit of sightseeing will help. To my chagrin, I realize
that I can't remember the name of the city I'm now parked in —
stress. Definitely stress. No matter, that's why God invented
civilian GPS units. I fire up mine, and I know where I am. Next
on the agenda: Locate a few sights to see. I surf the web to scabsonthenet.org,
and not just because I did much of the initial design for that
site. I do like to see how much of my work they're still using,
granted, but it's also a damn fine set of resources for SCABs
in daily life.

In particular, I'm now consulting the regional index of tolerance
for SCABS. I conceived it as a scrollable, zoomable map with various
regions color-coded as either green ("you're a SCAB? great! I'm
a Virgo"), blue ("gosh, it's too bad you can't stay longer"),
red ("we don't ''like'' your kind 'round ''these'' parts, friend"), or black ("burn the freaks! '''now'''!"). Mindful of my own visual deficiencies, I spent a bit of time
finding tints and hues that can be distinguished even by the legally
color-blind. It may be an aesthetic disaster, but the damn thing
''works''. Hmmm, that's interesting. The map's colored regions now have
distinctive crosshatch patterns in addition to the colors. I didn't
do that, but I think I understand; it makes the map usable for
people whose retinas can only distinguish black from white. And
there's a link to a "sonified" page? They ''have'' been busy, haven't they?

No, I'm not just farting around on the Net. By myself, I percieve
Time at a rate at least six times faster than normal humans; why
do you think I had to re-learn how to interact with normal humans?
And the site I'm visiting is built for speed. It's a lean, clean,
infosharing machine, with none of those bandwidth-sucking bells
and whistles that make so many other sites a Chinese torture for
anyone who can't afford the latest and greatest Net-toys. ''This'' site only does animation with 8-bit GIFs, the way God and Vint
Cerf intended, and it reuses them with wild abandon. In short,
the time I spend here is minimal. And even if it weren't, I've
found that reviewing my past work often sparks a sense of pride
and accomplishment that helps me cope with life's little disappointments.
This, I'd say, is far too important to be dismissed as wasteful.

But I digress.

I've found the regional index to be quite useful in my travels.
The data comes from reports emailed in by SCABs around the world
— not unlike, oh, the Zagat tourist guides — and I do appreciate
having advance notice of just how unpleasant my first exposure
a new town is likely to be. Here we are; the site mates with my
GPS as though they were made for each other (they were), it zooms
in to display the city within 20 blocks of my position, and there's
a beautiful green spot on the map.

Well, well, well. It's the Blind Pig Gin Mill. I've never been
there, but word does get around if you know where to look, especially
to message boards and USENET threads and so on. For that matter,
a few of my email correspondents drop in there every so often.
Some people are well and truly besotted with it; messages from
them paint the 'Pig up to be Callahan's Place made real.

I'll believe ''that'' when I see it.

Still, even the most hardened cynics admit that it's a fairly
comfortable place for a SCAB to get soused in. If it only lives
up to that undemanding standard, I'll be satisfied; anything more
would be pure ''lagniappe''. I slip into the driver's seat, spark the motor, and I'm off
to see the Blind Pig.

Traffic is traffic — except if you're in Boston, in which case
traffic is Hell — and I am fortunate enough to get an opportunity
to give my store of French expletives a good workout before I
reach my destination. The Blind Pig is an unimpressive hole-in-the-wall
kind of bar in a ''very'' lived-in neighborhood, and the cars in its parking lot say something
about the financial status of its patrons. My own vehicle stands
out, and not just because of its behemoth-like size: No dents
in the bodywork.

I arm the defenses, prime the sensors, re-check certain gauges.
Only then do I exit the cab and lock 'er down. I've sunk quite
a few dollars into my mobile home, and I don't care to lose any
of it to some moron who had nothing better to do than whale on
a SCAB's vehicle. Every broken window gets replaced with Lexan
II polymer; there's only one of the original glass ones left.
The tires are both puncture-resistant and filled with an amusing
greenish fluid, good both for sealing knife slashes and for scaring
the shit out of vandals who jump to the conclusion that the wheels
contain live Martian Flu culture. Can't imagine why, other than
maybe the numerous "biohazard" symbols stenciled on strategic
locations. Or perhaps it's the bumper stickers — "SCABS Is Not
For Sissies" is one of my favorites.

Then again, perhaps it's the active measures I've had installed.
The ''real'' transmission, fuel lines, and so on, are all safely concealed
behind an armored undercarriage plate; what ''seem'' to be vulnerable tubes and cables are, in truth, filled with
a fluid that my car finds quite inessential, under 7 atmospheres
of pressure. It's mostly water, with cornstarch for a hint of
non-newtonian sliminess, syrup for adhesion, a couple other inert
ingredients, plus a damned expensive catalyst that makes the inert
stuff react with certain chemicals in human sweat to create an
exceedingly color-fast dye. In other words: Any son of a bitch
thinks it's a good idea to hack at my brake lines, he gets a face
full of something that feels like a bacterial culture and turns
his skin a ''very'' bright shade of green not found in Nature ''that doesn't wash off.'' I can't put the fear of God into such idiots; fear of SCABS,
now, ''that's'' something they've ''already'' got, and I'd be an idiot myself not to use it against them.

It occurs to me that I'm lingering at my car, and I don't know
why. It's a ''bar,'' for God's sake. An exceptionally SCABS-friendly bar. With a minotaur
barkeep who doubles as bouncer, or so I've read. And I ''chose'' to come here of my own free will. What the hell am I waiting
for?

Perhaps it's that my Extremis is the only point of familiarity
in some Godforsaken candidate for urban renewal I've never seen
nor visited before…

Stress. Definitely stress. I need to unwind, and ''will'' enjoy doing so.

I step across the threshhold. Almost instantly I feel, I don't
know, I can't put a clawtip on it. Whatever this unidentifiable
sensation is, however, I know that I like it.

The joint is jumping, as they say. I pad silently through the
crowd, trying to attach faces to any of the names I've gleaned
from electronic messages. The (literally) bull-headed man tapping
a fresh keg is easy, he's got to be the bartender, Donald Sinclair.
There's a flamboyant, caped canine SCAB seated at the piano, his
back to the keys, chatting up some sweet young thing. Near the
counter is a pack of canines that must be the Lupine Boys.

I don't realize I'm gravitating towards the jukebox until I'm
right up next to the infernal device. It looks to be a late '90s
Wurlitzer, I think. By some quirk of fate, the jukebox is playing
Bobby McFerran — '''''Don't Worry, Be Happy''''' — and I am pleasantly surprised to find that it no longer pains
me to listen. Can the emotional wounds have healed? Truly, another
stroke of good fortune! I forget myself, purr an improvised basso
accompaniment to McFerran's multitracked ''a capella'' —

"Keep it down, willya?" These words are uttered, quietly, by
the female to my left. A cheerful woman, she is marked as SCABS
only by her nonhuman pupils and lightly-scaled skin. She is mildly
intoxicated. "I'm tryna lissen here." Of course. I fall silent.

If the wounds were healed, at least one has just re-opened.
I move away from the jukebox, concentrate on sounds in my immediate
vicinity. Anyone who objects to being eavesdropped upon has no
business conducting a conversation in a SCAB bar.

People converse around me. I say nothing; it's impolite to butt
in. I slip through the throng like a Stealth bomber, observing
without being observed. My goal is the counter. I intend to see
if Sinclair is up to building a pousse-cafe, a rainbow whose seven
liquid layers are held separate only by their differing densities.
Bartenders fall into two classes: Those who can't make a pousse-cafe,
and those who are very, very good.

"Gr-r-r-reetings, pard!" The "r", far from a growl, is magnificently
rolled. I'd already known that one of the wolves was approaching
(my sensory enhancements, you know how it goes) and with that
oh-so-teddibly-propah Received Standard accent, I feel it's got
to be the cape wearer. It is — such a surprise. He offers his
right hand; I like theatrical, that's why I follow his example.
He's got a firm grip, solid without being uncomfortable.

"'Pard'? Sorry, Rin Tin Tin, wrong species. I'm no leopard,
I'm a cheetah."

"Quotha!" expostulates the refugee from a Shakespeare festival.
"Thou'rt truly educated!" I blink at his use of the "t"-word.
He goes on with a sly expression: "Mayhap o'erly so, as all of
Christendom do know that divers and sundry other felines be contained
wi'in the compass of yon word."

"Oh, well, if you want to get ''technical'' about it…"

The wolf grins broadly. "Well met indeed! I hight Wanderer,
and 'tis a most fortunate fate hast led thou hither." I can't
help it; I burst out laughing. Wanderer is ''so ''blatant, lays it on ''so'' thick, and then he has to go and say my two favorite words. What
the hell, I'll play along.

"Certes, it be that in all good sooth, friend Wanderer. An thou
hath spake thy name unto me, so now doth I reciprocate: Jubatus
am I yclept."

The wolf's eyes are wide. I really don't think he was expecting
''that'' kind of reaction. He snaps out of it very fast, for someone who
isn't a cheetah. "Gadzooks! 'Unless mine ears mistake me quite
/ It seems this Wand'rer of —'"

My smile fades; I shake my head and hold up one hand. Wanderer
lets his stanza die. "No. I came here to get plastered, not talk,"
I say.

He looks into my eyes. "Let me guess. You're an actor, am I
right?"

I ''had'' been wearing a smile. You can tell. Truly. "Not really. Once
I sang in the chorus of ''HMS Pinafore'', but that…" My posture sags, my head bows. I ''would ''have to remind myself, wouldn't I? A fine way to kill a mood.
I sigh before continuing. "That was a ''long'' time ago." I turn to the minotaur. "Mr. Sinclair, I believe?"

"He hight Donnie," Wanderer points out helpfully. I half-smile
without looking at the wolf, and Donnie stands before me with
an expectant look on his face. Now I remember — SCABS pressed
the "mute" button on him. Permanently. By comparison I ''am'' fortunate, well and truly, but I haven't yet crossed over the
jagged, gaping chasm that lies between ''knowing'' it and ''feeling'' it. Not sure if I ever will. Don't know if I ever ''can.'' I suppose it's petty of me to continue brooding over my own trivial
impairment, isn't it?

If it's ''so'' goddamned trivial, ''why does it still hurt like a fucking shrapnel grenade to the chest??''

Abruptly, I realize that Donnie (hell, the entire room) stands
in the stillness of fast-time. I ponder, make a decision, then
downshift to ''their'' speed. "I'd like to show you something, Mr. Sinclair — establish
my ''bona fides.''" I rest an elbow on the counter with my arm pointing straight
up; I pivot to lay my palm on the formica countertop, then return
the arm to an upright position. From here on it's lather and rinse
and repeat, like it says on shampoo bottles. I continue to move
my arm in this way, upshifting to fast-time and beyond as I do,
until slow eyes perceive my arm in two places at once with a translucent
blur in between. Just for the hell of it, I make the two arms
circle slowly around each other for a second or so before I downshift
back to the common tempo.

"Mr. Sinclair, what I ''want'' is to get blind, stinking drunk. I'm talking throw-up-on-the-floor-and-not-remember-it
drunk, would-you-like-some-blood-in-your-alcoholstream drunk.
But I've got a metabolism like a blast furnace, so what I'll ''settle for'' is anything that's good for better than a mild buzz, and keeps
me there for more than a half-hour. What have you got for me?"

"Mmmmmm," the minotaur remarks thoughtfully. He fishes a notepad
and pen from a front pocket, and — good Lord, he's actually ''writing in longhand!'' It's the 21st Century, and this poor SCAB bastard is still using
''pen and paper'' to communicate? I can't believe what I see; ''any'' damn body can afford a voder, you can get a KV-140 for… Oh.
Right. With a 140, you're typing out everything letter by letter
anyway, and the voice sucks worse than mine, so why bother?

I'm a technical writer; solving problems is how I make my living.
To have my nose rubbed in a need like this, is to instantly start
figuring out how to satisfy said need. Keep the retail price under
$50, meaning parts cost of $10 or less… I am lost in my own
private cyberspace, The World Inside The Crystal, working out
details and making notes to myself to research areas that I'm
ignorant of.

Truly, a technocrat like me is fortunate to have a overclocked
brain, even if it did have to come courtesy of SCABS. I've already
created rough cuts of three different interface designs, one of
them based on good old hunt-and-peck, when a loud ''thram'' on the counter brings me back to reality. I see Sinclair's notepad:
"HOW ABOUT I MIX YOU UP A CATNIP DAIQUIRI, MISTER CHEETAH?"

I look into the middle distance, pondering. A catnip daiquiri,
for God's sake? What kind of twisted mind would ''conceive'' of such a monstrosity? Donnie's, that's what kind. "Go for it,"
I reply. "This could be… ''innnnn''-teresting."

Donnie busies himself with his mad creation; I busy myself with
filling in more details of the schematic I'm constructing in my
mind. I'm truly a problem-solving animal, and it's fortunate that
SCABS granted me the ability to solve them so much more quickly.
Almost makes up for the insoluble problems that came with it.
Goddamn package deal.

I hear Wanderer say something to me and I don't even look at
him. I ask him what he knows about the 2001 Crusoe architecture,
and he shuts up. Time passes. I am abruptly wrenched out of my
technogeek trance, this time by an odor most peculiar and insistent.
I look around, blinking, and see Sinclair before me. Him, and
a cut-down 2-liter bottle filled with the source of the aroma
and a corrugated tube. ''Jesu Christe,'' I'm getting buzzed from the smell alone! I can feel my nose twitch
for the fluid; my tongue moves with a mind of its own. I smile
at Sinclair, being careful to keep my teeth as well-hidden as
I can manage. "If that stuff lives up to its advance PR, you're
getting a ''real'' big tip."

Sinclair nods. His facial anatomy is no good for smiling, but
I'll be damned if he doesn't give the impression of a smile anyway,
I have no idea how. I raise the converted coke bottle to my muzzle,
close mouth on the straw and sip an experimental sip.

Oh, my dear Lord…

The catnip daiquiri is good. Very good. Very ''extremely'' good. The afterburn sears my palate, tongue, and throat with
imperious vigor, and when it hits my stomach, the results are
not unlike the reaction one might get from throwing a stick of
dynamite into a blast furnace.

A good chunk of time passes in a catnip-and-alcohol haze. Nothing
is clear, but I think I'm a loquacious drunk, presuming "drunk"
is the right word for a victim of Donnie's evil potion. Loquacious,
and highly energetic — such a surprise, hm? I think I spew rapid-fire
jokes and puns; mourn my lost singing voice; drink people under
the table with Coors beer; berate the damned jukebox; perform
a Flamenco dance (my first) on the counter; cry when even my Peter
Lorre goes unrecognized, for God's sake I can't even do ''Peter bleeding Lorre'' any more; soundly thrash Wanderer in an impromptu session of
Name That Folio; and God knows what else. I shift up and down,
not just from fast- to slow-time and then some, but also in wild
emotional gyrations. I'm a 33-RPM manic-depressive playing at
78. I am dimly aware that my behavior is within arm's reach of
textbook insanity, and ''I don't fucking '''care'''''. The tighter a spring is wound, the more violent its thrashing
when it's released, not so? Zoroaster ''knows'' how tightly ''this'' spring has been wound over the past two years.

So it is that a hyperactive cheetah-morph bounces off the walls
(literally, at least once) of the Blind Pig until even the Sinister
Fluid of Donald Sinclair cannot fuel further activity. Total elapsed
time, from taking that first sip to the ultimate loss of consciousness,
might be as long as two hours, probably less. Cheetahs aren't
known for their endurance.

I don't remember falling asleep…

{{separator}}

''physical contact: food creature: harmless: attack in progress''—

— and at the instant of my awakening, I find that I occupy
a large, overstuffed chair (but how — never mind) and one hand
is slashing at a rabbit-morph's neck in a swift, lethal arc. I
am ''just'' able to curl my fingers in time to prevent my claws from gouging
into it, deep and deadly. I flip sideways out of the chair, putting
the lapine well out of harm's reach. How could I have been so
stupid, allowing myself to fall asleep in a place I've never been
where I don't know anyone? My heart hammers out a post-techno
beat, 6 per second, as I realize how terribly near a thing it
truly was. Exactly how close I came to committing murder during
that fraction of a second when the body's instincts were in the
driver's seat… I shudder. Uncontrollably. I'm running on fast-time,
to my eyes the room's other occupants are hardly moving. Must
slow down — it's impolite to be unintelligibly fast. I am shaking
when I decelerate to their tempo, and not just because of the
aftermath of the receding adrenaline rush.

"Geez — I knew cats are high-strung, but ''this'' is ''ridiculous!"''

The cheerful voice belongs to the rabbit-morph. He has neither
the sound nor scent of a person who has just escaped bloody death
by a painfully narrow margin. Only then does it hit me: ''He doesn't know.'' From his viewpoint, my action must have appeared as nothing more
than a sand-colored blur and a ''whoosh'' of air. I should say something, but how do I tell an innocent
man that the simple act of waking me up brought him '''''this''''' close to being killed and eaten?

Still shaking, I lean heavily on the chair I'd just vacated.
God only knows what kind of expression is on my face. ''Now'' the rabbit is afraid (a bit late there, friend). He doesn't look
it, much, however. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, and
his voice is almost level.

I shut my eyes and concentrate. ''I '''will''' calm down. I will '''not''' break here and now, goddamn it!'' It works as designed: I stop shaking. I appear perfectly at peace with myself and the world. "Thank you, but there really isn't
anything ''to'' talk about," I say with a confident smile. ''Nothing other than, "Hey, I bloody near '''wasted''' your cotton-tailed ass when you woke me up just now. How about those 'Niners, huh?"'' I may not be able to sing worth a damn these days, but SCABS failed to rob me of my vocal control. My voice sounds exactly as the voice of a bipedal cheetah should; no tremors, no strain, and my tone is mildly apologetic, suggesting that minor degree of regret appropriate to having just wasted a small amount of someone else's valuable time. I've still got it. Still got my control. Fortunate. Truly.

I smile and continue: "I do appreciate the offer, but truly,
you needn't worry about me." I shrug, spread my hands. I am as
steady as a rock, and display my true state of mind every bit
as accurately, too. I look around; the ambient sounds and aromas
already told me, and my eyes confirm, that I am among the last
customers. I turn to Donnie. "I see that you're getting ready
to close for the evening; I really shouldn't detain you from your
duties. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?"

Donnie and the rabbit look at each other for a moment. I sense
something pass between them, some private understanding. Then
the lapine says, "You know, there just might be something you
could do. See, I'm what you might call a counselor."

"That's funny — you don't ''look'' half-Betazoid," I interject, going straight for the jocular.

The rabbit rolls his eyes and doesn't ''completely'' conceal his amusement. "Star Trek Lite. And here I was thinking
that you had taste." I am about to respond, dragging the conversation
further afield, but the rabbit doesn't allow me the opportunity.
"Anyway, you're right, that's about the size of it. I'm a career
counselor, but I do a little social work on the side. SCABS cases
— can't imagine why, can you?" Again, I want to respond; again,
the rabbit scurries along so that I can't deflect this little
chat to other topics. "And believe you me, I've seen ''all'' the ways a life can unravel when the Martian Flu gets involved.
But SCABS isn't the worst of it." He shakes his head. "So many
times I've walked in on the wreckage, so many times I've had to
help some poor bastard reassemble a pile of broken shards into
some kind of life. That's the worst of it, really; knowing, just
''knowing'', that I could have done a lot more good for the client, if only
the son of a bitch had opened up enough to ask for help ''before'' he hit bottom.

"For real social workers, that's got to be one of the worst
feelings there is. It's one of the leading causes of burnout,
y'know. So… I was wondering, do ''you'' know of anybody who's having a little trouble at the moment?
Nothing big, just something that a good word now can stop from
growing into major crap a few months down the line. You know anybody
who fits that bill?"

He looks at me with a carefully neutral expression. I say nothing.
The silence elongates. Finally, I hear a voice reply to the rabbit's
query. "I think I might know of someone who fits your criteria."
Good — nothing to do with me, of course, but it's nice when someone
who needs help can get it before they pass the point of no return.
The new voice continues: "Perhaps you have a business card I could
pass along?" I don't understand why I'm still standing here, eavesdropping
on a conversation that (by rights) I ought not be privy to, until
I recognize the new voice.

It's me.

Perhaps my hardwired instincts are good for more than gouging
wet chunks out of organic statues. It would be nice to think so.

We continue speaking, the counselor and I. His name is Phil.
Our conversation is, simultaneously, both a ludicrous charade
and as deadly serious as deciding a man's destiny. Arrangements
are made. Appointments are scheduled. I fear what will occur —
to be open is to make yourself a vulnerable target; to openly
admit needing help is to invite being stomped on without mercy
— but now, for the first time, I fear it less than the alternative.

I ''am'' truly fortunate.

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Good Run of Luck}}

Talk:PAW Collab

2009-01-29T07:54:24Z

Cubist: /* Getting a 'Complete' story out of this */

==Sue==

Not sure on when this story is supposed to be set but looking at the dates given in the 'little things' I assumed it was at least 2038.

I am aiming with this character to show a bit of technology from the near future to contrast with the anti technological bias in the blind pig storys. Today prosthesis are about roughly 1/6th as strong as normal human limbs but research into stuff like [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_elastomers Dielectric elastomers]] points towards possible fully functional prosthetic limbs in the forseeable future, even DARPA has doled out funding with the mission of developing a prosthetic arm as functionally capable as a human arm by 2009.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 06:13, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

:Good idea there, Devin. This story is one of the "indeterminites" - the scene-setting itself should be around 2038, but the vignettes themselves are going to fit in the period from the onset of "blowtorch fever" and TFOR all the way through to the stories "present". I think we might have to specify the time period every time we shift to another vignette. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 14:09, 2 October 2007 (EDT)

== Page Purpose? ==

I can't make head nor tail of this page. I think the story needs to be broken off onto its own page, with links to character backgrounds instead. What I see is that it's somehow embedded into the middle of the page. And that makes me go huh? --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 22:18, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

:The page isn't really "public", per-se. Sure, we're letting people see the story as it evolves, but at the moment we've got it formatted in the way that worked the best for us when we started the collaboration. But I'll change the page about and move the story so it's the first thing visible. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:30, 5 October 2007 (EDT)

== Getting a 'Complete' story out of this ==

Howdy. This here is just a little thought on how much more writing we need to get this story done and presentable.

Now we have beginnings for all the characters atm, so thats good. Now for a bare bones example lets say we also need a middle and an end. If everyone writes two more snippets of size similar to what they already have this will if you look at the amount already written be a tremendous boon to the word count.

The goal should be that your middle snippet describe something towards the middle of the night. Bits of the game, conversation, getting something from goordy, intellectual monologues(I know how much you guys love these;) ).

And the last snippet describes something towards the end of the night. People leaving, yourself leaving, an oath to stay up all night and drink as much as possible I don't know you figure it out.

But this will at the very least give us a story which is what we are aiming for. We can add snippets of cool ideas on after word or during but we should at least have a story with a beginning a middle and an end. Otherwise if we don't keep this in mind we risk being stuck on what to do with this story a month or two down the road, which i will not let happen.

The advantage of this? Everyone only has to write a couple more segments of whatever size they can manage and this puppy will have enough meat to be considered done!

Order could be a problem but my advice is to just not worry so much about it and write what you can. If you can write something in response to something someone else wrote go for it! If not, just write as though its the middle or the end of the evening and if its the end keep in mind whether or not people are still there is all. Thats it.

:At this point, it's clear that the story is not progressing well. Why? I think it's because we don't really have a ''story'' yet. We have an overall goal, yes -- "let's introduce readers to the PAW setting" -- but without a ''story,'' we might as well be writing a travelogue/documentary. 
:I have a suggestion for the overall plot: This story is about Mr. Peaches' ferretgirl. Specifically, it's the tale of how she comes to terms with her new body. The other characters are pretty much accustomed to being TFORs, and we can use their backstories to both (a) give readers info on the setting, and (b) help the ferretgirl get used to what she is. Yes? No? [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 02:54, 29 January 2009 (EST)

== Ideas ==

I've been thinking of the editing we're going to have to do after we finish writing this and there aren't many solutions to making the story easier to follow. The problem it has, currently, is that the shifts in perspective are rather jarring and the tense and voice change for each part.

There are an innumerable number of ways to do the edit, but there are only two that would solve the above problem:
# pick a viewpoint character and rewrite all the parts so that character is telling the story
# use third-person omniscient
# Select a standard tense and voice, then expand and condense the different parts so they are longer and have the events overlap, told from the different characters

The first option would involve a lot of work by all involved people and selecting who to have as the character narrating the story is always a chore. Changing the viewpoint to third-person omniscient would seem to be the easiest, but it would remove a lot of the unique voice of the different authors involved. And the third choice isn't much different from the first in the amount of work required, but it is a much more commonly seen format and is generally used for round-robin type stories. If anything, the third choice will preserve the unique voices and also provide a platform for the different authors to extend their characterization a lot. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 19:53, 14 October 2007 (EDT)

: Speaking as a guy who once wrote a short story with 11 different first-person viewpoints, I don't see what's so horrible about having multiple different perspective-shifts. As long as you clearly identify the 'breakpoints', like we're doing right now, where's the problem? [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 05:15, 15 October 2007 (EDT)

I think I have to agree with Cubist on this. Option 1 would require cutting out massive portions of other peoples snippets(just look at dash's or sue's introduction for instance.) and the other two options would be very labour intensive and may not come across the way they were originally written afterwards.

Although I cant think of to many examples of published stuff I have read with this many different writers working on a single story like this all doing their own different thing I have seen this happen multiple times on the TSA List itself and considering that not a whole lot of the writers on the list are being paid for anything they write it is almost always an easy thing to forgive.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 15:50, 15 October 2007 (EDT)

:Bard is the one who started the whole thing. I kinda agree with it, which is why I like the third option the most – it gives us a way to preserve everything that exists and will also lessen the jarring nature of the currently existing parts. Of course, we could always edit the smaller sections together into single, coherent wholes :) — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 17:18, 15 October 2007 (EDT)

== 1.21 ==

Good couple pieces by felix and peaches here, I really liked how you handled rosa's sense of dispair peaches! I got an idea for sue for after rosa leaves the washroom just before anyone starts on a follow up to this newest one of rosa's and if not up tonight its because I fell asleep at the computer and it should be up tomorrow night at the latest.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 04:23, 2 January 2008 (EST)

:I'd like to call the one after yours, Devin. I've got some good ideas as well. [[User:Arrow Quivershaft|Arrow Quivershaft]] 05:23, 2 January 2008 (EST)

::Go ahead with it :) I've got a part in the works for Scott that fits between the latest Dash and Rosa parts — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:38, 2 January 2008 (EST)

User talk:Leasara

2009-01-10T01:10:19Z

Cubist:

Welcome to Shifti. If you're looking for help at becoming a better author, you've definitely found a good place for it. While I don't have quite the volume (or quality) of [[User:Michael Bard|Michael Bard]] I'll gladly provide critiques and suggestions on how to improve any story. And, of course, the newest part of Shifti — the [[Writer's School]] is there to provide help to writer's, both old and new. — [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 15:42, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Hey there. I wanted to echo ShadowWolf with a hearty welcome aboard. From the looks of things, you know your way around a Wiki. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 18:03, 10 January 2008 (EST)

== Uploading Art ==

Hi there. Make sure when you upload art that you have permission from the artist. Thanks. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 13:49, 12 January 2008 (EST)

==Template:My stories==

Hi, just thought I should drop a note here since I imagine most authors won't be regularly checking [[Help:Templates]] for updates. I've finally added a template that I should have created long ago, a tag to put on userpages to facilitate linking to your personal story category; [[Template:My stories]]. If you want, just stick this code at the top of your userpage to create a standardized little box with a direct link in it: <nowiki>{{my stories}}</nowiki>. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 22:29, 18 January 2008 (EST)

==A note on Three-Fourths ==

Just in case you haven't watchlisted your stories and aren't making the rounds of all the comment pages, letting you know I dropped a note at [[User talk:Leasara/Three-Fourths]]. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 20:30, 15 February 2008 (EST)

== Pursuit deleted ==

Since you indicated you wanted the page deleted in the most recent edit to your story [[User:Leasara/Pursuit|Pursuit]], I've gone ahead and deleted it. Page deletion can only be performed by administrators but you can request a deletion by adding [[Template:Request deletion]] to a page (or by requesting it via edit summary or talk page or whatever, but the template is the most standardized approach).

On a more personal note, good luck with the publication attempt. I had that one listed on my picks page with a star, so hopefully it's off to a good start. And hopefully we'll be able to host it on Shifti again someday. :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 01:28, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

== Shifti Book ==
Please see [[Best of Shifti]] and leave a note on the [[Talk:Best of Shifti|talk page]] to let us know whether or not we have your permission. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 20:06, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

:Quentin 'Cubist' Long here. I'd like to send you something by private email (namely, the introduction to your story in the Shiftibook), but since I don't have your email address, this could be a mite difficult. Could you send me an email, so's I can reply properly? Thanks! [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 20:10, 9 January 2009 (EST)

User:Cubist

2008-11-16T09:10:55Z

Cubist:

{{my stories
|name=Cubist
|category=Cubist
}}
My offline name is Quentin Long. Among other things, I edited/webmastered 30 issues of the netzine [http://tsat.transform.to TSAT] before I killed it, and currently am editor/webmaster of the live, bimonthly-without-fail netzine [http://anthrozine.com Anthro] (established Sep/Oct 2005), which I invite everyone to browse. If you like ''Anthro's'' content ''(i.e.,'' its stories and art), feel free to [http://anthrozine.com/site/support.html donate money or subscribe]; [http://anthrozine.com/site/ad.policy.html place an advertisement]; check out the [http://anthrozine.com/site/support.books.1.html recommended books] and/or [http://www.zazzle.com/cubist* art for sale]; or purchase paperback editions of [http://www.lulu.com/content/536807 ANTHROlogy One] (the zine's first year), [http://www.lulu.com/content/1860705 ANTHROlogy Two] (the zine's second year), or [http://www.lulu.com/content/541536 ''The Human Memoirs],'' the zine's first serial. Aside from that, I've also done a bit of writing myself...

== My TBP stories ==

In the TF community-of-interest, my Blind Pig stories are prolly what I'm best known for. My character, Jubatus, is a ''very'' broken person; he's suspicious to the point of paranoia, he's honest ''beyond'' a fault, he's ''highly'' cynical and sarcastic and antisocial and impatient and perfectionistic and... basically, he's just a ''whole'' lot of fun to write. 
Fortunately, Jube seems to be a whole lot of fun to ''read,'' too. 
The stories I've linked to from this page are those written by me, and me alone. There's also some Jube stories that I wrote in collaboration with other people, not to mention the ones I didn't have anything at all to do with the writing of; I am unsure if I should link to them from ''here,'' but they're collected in [http://transform.to/~cubist/ my personal story archive]...

[[User:Cubist/A Good Run of Luck|A Run of Good Luck]] 
[[User:Cubist/Second Heat|Second Heat]] 
[[User:Cubist/Speedy Trials|Speedy Trials]] 
[[User:Cubist/No Quick Fix|No Quick Fix]] 
[[User:Cubist/Building the Perfect Beast|Building the Perfect Beast]] (track 1 of Life in the Fast Lane) 
[[User:Cubist/So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star|So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star]] (track 2 of Life in the Fast Lane) 
[[User:Cubist/Christmas Rush|Christmas Rush]]

And I have some TBP works-in-progress, too. Perhaps posting them here will gather some feedback and/or help spur me on to finish them at a faster rate than I am now...

[[User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution|The John Moschitta School of Elocution]] -- Big sucker. Like, 115K...

== My other stories ==

TBP isn't the ''only'' thing I do, of course. For instance, I've written the incredible but true Origin story of my avatar in the HEROINES setting...

[[User:Cubist/Nobody's Coming|Nobody's Coming]]

[[Category:Author]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Cubist}}

User:Cubist/Nobody's Coming

2008-10-24T08:29:03Z

Cubist: Edits for Shiftibook (yay!)

Seriously, its not as bad as youve heard. Sure, those origins are ludicrously conspicuous events, but they just arent as common as youd believe from reading the headlines. Honestly, the chance of getting hit by an origin isnt much higher than that of getting struck by lightning!

Which doesnt really help when ''youre'' the one who gets hit, of course

I could have moved, but why? I liked Californias climate, okay? And I liked the San Francisco Bay Area. Cost of livings a bit high, surebut pay is too, so it all comes out in the wash. Anyway, yes I had an origin, and no bloody thanks to the goddamn Seismaster.

I was driving north on Highway 280 when that geophysical miscreant fired his Stratagitator Ray directly into the San Andreas Fault, which just happens to run more-or-less parallel to 280. Unfortunately, Seismaster happened to be in SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, at the timeand yes, I ''do'' think its amusing that SLAC (spelled the straightest two-mile-long object on Earth) intersects the most notorious earthquake fault known

Way ahead of me, I see. Yes, the quake triggered by Seismasters S-Ray interfered with an experiment; yes, SLAC also intersects Highway 280; yes, I was directly above the beamline at ''just'' the wrong moment; yes, the massive energy field interacted weirdly with my cars electrical system, detonating the fuel tank and turning my Ford Escort into a ball of plasma; yes, my human body was instantly incinerated. Nothing left, and I do mean no ''thing''

Waking up wasnt a surprise.

Maybe it should have been, but it went by so ''fast''by the time I would have had a chance to register the pain and so on, it was long since over! I didnt even know that my body had been reduced to free-floating atoms, not until later anyway. As far as I was concerned, one instant I was driving; the next instant, I was a disembodied viewpoint floating over the puddle of slowly-cooling slag that used to be my car

Hold on a second.

It ''had been'' my car. I ''knew'' this. But all I had to work with was an unrecognizable pool of congealing metal, so ''how'' did I know?

Stupid question. Id just had an origin, so that mysterious knowledge was obviously a manifestation of one of my powers. Just wonderful. I really hadnt wanted to be a supertype, because while the powers and abilities are kind of neat, the price tag is just too high. See, all supertypes''all'' of themexhibit unusual behavior patterns. They dont react as a sane, rational human being would; instead, their responses fit into one of a relatively small number of profiles (archetypes, as theyre called) which govern various aspects of their behavior in various situations. And thats the problem: When you get superpowers, you give up some of your free will.

But then again, if youve got a world groveling at your feet, who cares about free will

Oh, hell. Its already started; Im already getting pulled towards one or another of the available archetypes. This ones probably the Mad Conqueror, the archetype best suited for wisely ruling over the undeserving no!

Im ''not'' going to go ''there'', damnit! Id sooner see the entire world burning rivers of blood

Oh, joyous and peachy. No, not Pure Evil, either. Got that? Maybe I have to spend the rest of my life as a supertype, but Im ''not'' going to waste all my time trashing everything in sight! If it came to that, Id much prefer to focus on constructive pastimes. Like a gleaming 400-story skyscraper studded with clean, efficient monorail no, not the Cosmic Architect, either!

I glared up into the skya neat trick when youre disembodied, but thats what it ''felt'' like, okay?and waited for Whoever to quit playing games with my head. I already knew which archetype I wanted to run with, thanks very much for asking, and it sure wasnt the Thrillseeker, or the Spandexed Boy Scout, or any flavor of Anti-Hero, or the Misguided Idealist

Get it over with!

Like I said, I knew which archetype I preferred: The Harbinger. That archetypes reason for existence was to gather heroic supertypes whenever dire cosmic hazards threatened the Earth. As such, a Harbinger wielded vast power (always a plus), spent almost all its time out of the spotlight (unlike, say, the Boy Scout), and best of all, had the distinct pleasure of telling those annoyingly smug hero-types I told you so on a regular basis.

Yeah. Harbinger drat. Looked like there actually ''was'' a cosmic hazard in the offing! Just my luck to get into the super biz at a bad moment oh, well. Not for a while yet, however, so I had time to explore my new powers, get accustomed to my new life, and generally prep myself for whatever the future held for me.

So: The powers. If I can read molecular structures (which I obviously could, that being how I recognized my car in its current form), its a good bet I can manipulate them, too. Okay, lets see about restoring my car to its pre-zap condition. Just a matter of visualizing the desired end result, andwhoa! Not only did it work, but ''I was the car!'' I see; I have to inhabit a physical object if I want to shuffle its molecules around. And well, well, well. The objects molecules stay the way I put them, even after I abandon it! Sweet! Okay, I got back on board and yes, I ''could'' animate the car.

I twiddled the radio from the inside, and music by the Talking Heads filled the air as I drove myself on down the highway.

''Were on the road to nowhere'' 
''Come on inside''

Talk:Best of Shifti

2008-10-12T10:51:13Z

Cubist:

No, no, NO! Not that one! ANYTHING but that one!

Yea, sure, you can use it.

--Michael Bard, Oct 1/2008

:Given that it's going to cost ~$20 a copy to give one to the authors, I voluntarily give up my free copy. I will buy it to support Shifti. I strongly recommend other authors do the same.

:--Michael Bard, Oct 7/2008

Yes. I give full permission to use my story 'Gaia's Rain' in your Anthology.

Felix Sagittarius

Aka James Wolf
10/1 2008

Thank you both! ^^

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 17:51, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Meh. Feel free, so long as the publication process doesn't screw up the formatting.
--[[User:Viqsi|Viqsi]] 20:47, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Go for it. [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 01:07, 2 October 2008 (EDT)
:Addendum to above: I'd like to receive a contributor's copy. [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 06:51, 12 October 2008 (EDT)

I hereby give permission to use my story in exchange for a contributor copy of the anthology.
--[[User:Xodiac|Xodiac]] 14:50, 2 October 2008 (PDT)

Hiya! I'd be happy to see Hoof Beat in print - for my part, since this is a fund raiser, a courtesy copy (or two, :grin:) of the book would be all the payment I would look for. Hope it works out! --[[User:Posti|Bob Stein]] 16:30, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

Huh. No objections to using 501st, but I think I've written better ones more recently. Maybe the Perils of Voice Acting. I'll see if I can draw something related and scan it. --[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]] 22:16, 2 October 2008 (EDT)
* Sudden thought - 501st is borderline fan fiction. Lucasarts mostly ignores fan fiction, but a couple of years back there was a lot of trouble when someone wrote a fan novel and put it on Amazon. I'd rather not stir anything up. Maybe this story should be pulled. --[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]] 12:34, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
:Potential is there, always…
:# This is clearly not "Star Wars"
:# Where it does touch on Lucas Arts/Lucas Films licensed material it is edge-on - ie: it doesn't do so in any manner that could be construed as anything but deferential
:# I don't think we have anything that could replace it - and besides, this story is one of the few that received multiple nominations, so it is, quite clearly, one of the "Best of Shifti"
: However… If you feel that strongly about it I will discuss replacements for it with the rest of the administrative staff. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:41, 7 October 2008 (EDT)

:: Hmm. You should have seen the fan rage about that novel; people really thought Lucasarts was going to come down on fanfiction in general. And my story doesn't have just a few name drops or comparisons... I don't feel strongly about it, no, I'm just wary.
:: Guess I'll follow Bard's example and say no copy for me, thanks, but I ''would'' like to see scans of front and back cover. What are you thinking about in terms of cover art? --[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]] 23:07, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
::: The cover is being done by Craven and is planned to be a version of DaVinci's "The Vitruvian Man" showing someone in mid-TF. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 06:12, 8 October 2008 (EDT)
:After discussion among the staff here, we've decided to err on the side of caution and run with your suggested replacement, "The Perils of Voice Acting". -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 09:07, 11 October 2008 (EDT)

You have permission to use "Public Domain" for this collection. However, if I can sell it elsewhere, I reserve the right. I probably won't, mind you. But...
Phil Geusz

Sure, you can use "Sisters Three" as long as Jon approves; he's ''in'' the story so he should have some say. CGM
:I don't mind the story getting included if we make some changes to the names of the characters. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 22:03, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

You may use my story "A Long Forgotten Madness" in your Best of Shifti book. I'm honored that you would so ask. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 21:40, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

I have no problem with you using "Swift of Foot and Hoof", though someone might want to give it a quick edit first. I'm sure that I ran into the occasional "pronoun trouble" as Sylvester used to say.--[[User:Eirik|Eirik]] 10:51, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

I'd be honored to have my story, ''"What You Eat"'', included in your fund-raising book. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help this along, I can be reached at lady(dot]amalthea[at)gmail(dot]com -- [[User:Leasara|Leasara]] 16:04, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

Ye Editor here, with a progress report: I've finished tweaking RUSH HOUR, REPLAY, and TWO-PAGE SUICIDE NOTE. Should I send the edited manuscripts to their authors for review (which is what I'd do if this were ANTHRO)? If not, what ''is'' the protocol? Currently in progress: Working over HOOF BEAT... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 06:47, 12 October 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Best of Shifti

2008-10-12T10:47:48Z

Cubist:

No, no, NO! Not that one! ANYTHING but that one!

Yea, sure, you can use it.

--Michael Bard, Oct 1/2008

:Given that it's going to cost ~$20 a copy to give one to the authors, I voluntarily give up my free copy. I will buy it to support Shifti. I strongly recommend other authors do the same.

:--Michael Bard, Oct 7/2008

Yes. I give full permission to use my story 'Gaia's Rain' in your Anthology.

Felix Sagittarius

Aka James Wolf
10/1 2008

Thank you both! ^^

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 17:51, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Meh. Feel free, so long as the publication process doesn't screw up the formatting.
--[[User:Viqsi|Viqsi]] 20:47, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Go for it. [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 01:07, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

I hereby give permission to use my story in exchange for a contributor copy of the anthology.
--[[User:Xodiac|Xodiac]] 14:50, 2 October 2008 (PDT)

Hiya! I'd be happy to see Hoof Beat in print - for my part, since this is a fund raiser, a courtesy copy (or two, :grin:) of the book would be all the payment I would look for. Hope it works out! --[[User:Posti|Bob Stein]] 16:30, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

Huh. No objections to using 501st, but I think I've written better ones more recently. Maybe the Perils of Voice Acting. I'll see if I can draw something related and scan it. --[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]] 22:16, 2 October 2008 (EDT)
* Sudden thought - 501st is borderline fan fiction. Lucasarts mostly ignores fan fiction, but a couple of years back there was a lot of trouble when someone wrote a fan novel and put it on Amazon. I'd rather not stir anything up. Maybe this story should be pulled. --[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]] 12:34, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
:Potential is there, always…
:# This is clearly not "Star Wars"
:# Where it does touch on Lucas Arts/Lucas Films licensed material it is edge-on - ie: it doesn't do so in any manner that could be construed as anything but deferential
:# I don't think we have anything that could replace it - and besides, this story is one of the few that received multiple nominations, so it is, quite clearly, one of the "Best of Shifti"
: However… If you feel that strongly about it I will discuss replacements for it with the rest of the administrative staff. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 22:41, 7 October 2008 (EDT)

:: Hmm. You should have seen the fan rage about that novel; people really thought Lucasarts was going to come down on fanfiction in general. And my story doesn't have just a few name drops or comparisons... I don't feel strongly about it, no, I'm just wary.
:: Guess I'll follow Bard's example and say no copy for me, thanks, but I ''would'' like to see scans of front and back cover. What are you thinking about in terms of cover art? --[[User:Joysweeper|Joysweeper]] 23:07, 7 October 2008 (EDT)
::: The cover is being done by Craven and is planned to be a version of DaVinci's "The Vitruvian Man" showing someone in mid-TF. -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 06:12, 8 October 2008 (EDT)
:After discussion among the staff here, we've decided to err on the side of caution and run with your suggested replacement, "The Perils of Voice Acting". -- [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]] 09:07, 11 October 2008 (EDT)

You have permission to use "Public Domain" for this collection. However, if I can sell it elsewhere, I reserve the right. I probably won't, mind you. But...
Phil Geusz

Sure, you can use "Sisters Three" as long as Jon approves; he's ''in'' the story so he should have some say. CGM
:I don't mind the story getting included if we make some changes to the names of the characters. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 22:03, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

You may use my story "A Long Forgotten Madness" in your Best of Shifti book. I'm honored that you would so ask. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 21:40, 3 October 2008 (EDT)

I have no problem with you using "Swift of Foot and Hoof", though someone might want to give it a quick edit first. I'm sure that I ran into the occasional "pronoun trouble" as Sylvester used to say.--[[User:Eirik|Eirik]] 10:51, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

I'd be honored to have my story, ''"What You Eat"'', included in your fund-raising book. Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help this along, I can be reached at lady(dot]amalthea[at)gmail(dot]com -- [[User:Leasara|Leasara]] 16:04, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

Ye Editor here, with a progress report: I've finished tweaking RUSH HOUR, REPLAY, and TWO-PAGE SUICIDE NOTE. Should I send the edited manuscripts to their authors for review (which is what I'd do if this were ANTHRO)? If not, what ''is'' the protocol? Currently in progress: Working over HOOF BEAT... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 06:47, 12 October 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Best of Shifti

2008-10-02T05:07:26Z

Cubist:

No, no, NO! Not that one! ANYTHING but that one!

Yea, sure, you can use it.

--Michael Bard, Oct 1/2008

Yes. I give full permission to use my story 'Gaia's Rain' in your Anthology.

Felix Sagittarius

Aka James Wolf
10/1 2008

Thank you both! ^^

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 17:51, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Meh. Feel free, so long as the publication process doesn't screw up the formatting.
--[[User:Viqsi|Viqsi]] 20:47, 1 October 2008 (EDT)

Go for it. [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 01:07, 2 October 2008 (EDT)

User talk:Michael Bard/My Name is...

2008-09-29T02:35:41Z

Cubist:

So is she a Captain Everything? --Alex Warlorn 2008 09 28

:No. Captain Everything is a complete and utter moron whose megapowers have ''absolutely '''no''' limits whatsoever;'' Supermare is quite intelligent, and her powers are resolutely finite, if only in the sense that 10^50 is a finite number... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 22:35, 28 September 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Paradise (Setting)

2008-03-10T09:03:13Z

Cubist:

It's an interesting setting, what I've read so far, and I've got an idea or two percolating that may or may not come to fruition. A seed is trying to sprout for an idea starting in '05 and going forward.

One little detail though, (and it doesn't really apply to me but may for others), removing hippo's, rhino's and elephants from the pool seems to be a bit speciest, considering moose are allowed. In looking at the Wiki, it seems that hippos (1.5meters) and rhinos (2.0 meters) are actually generally smaller or the same size as the largest moose (2.1 metres) species. Elephants seem to average about a meter or two larger than the moose.

Perhaps a better restriction would be to allow any land mammal (and any sea mammal that is between the sizes of the minimum land mammal size and the maximum land mammal size), but set minimum and maximum furre sizes; something like a min of 1.2 metres or 4ft to a max of 2.0 metres or 7ft.

Anyways, I'll try and keep an eye on things and see if I can culture this idea I've got further. - 19:50, 10 January 2008 [[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]

== Theory on how the Change 'spreads' ==

Been thinking about how it might spread, such that we have a higher proportion of Changed in NA, but not leaving the rest of the world out, and I think I know how.

The 'computer virus' that Changes people, uses the RDF to spread itself. Our 'program's' own protection method is also spreading the damages.

Basically, I am guessing that if the RDF needs to kick in on you, then you are passively 'infected'.

Then, when August 17th comes around, the Virus triggers itself, but it for whatever reason can only copy itself for every previously Changed person. (The Doubling effect), and it can only affect people that have been passively infected, ie people who have had the RDF kick in on them.

The goal of the virus is to spread as far as it can, so it takes the number of new Changed it can, and spreads it more or less evenly across the available (RDF-affected) population.

So the first Changed is in Chicago (I think). Through the year until the next Change, she will encounter thousands of people, even in passing, which triggers the RDF on them and passively infects them.

Come August, 1988, the next Changed will be picked randomly from those thousands of people, and now we'll have 2 people spreading the RDF virus. 1989, a big chunk of Chicago has probably had the RDF trigger at least once, not to mention some tourists and other visitors to the city.

In 89, we get 2 more Changed, and one of them could possibly be in a different random city, just because he'd been to Chicago in the past 2 years and unknowingly seen a Changed, and a new nest of RDF-field affected people starts up.

European and Asian and Oceanic outbreaks could happen in years to come as the number of tourists and business people from those reasons travel into North America and begin to be fielded and infected themselves.

The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City probably 'infected' most of the people who were around and watching, meaning that by then (if not before) pretty much anyone has a chance to be Changed.

It also means that truly isolated areas of the world (South Pacific islands, isolated Amazonian tribes, etc) could potentially be unchanged after the 2020 deadline; but any encounter at all with a Changed would likely Change them immediately and spread like wildfire through the village)

And while the RDF may 'fail' at some point, it'll probably still be around in a less effective form, trying to maintain some stability and spreading the Change. --[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]]
:I'll give that some thought. It's somewhat similar to something I already had in mind. Perhaps those who have the RDF fail completely will be much more likely to change the next year, or they might even change out-of-phase. In any case, once they figure out that it's like a communicable disease, and everyone is already 'infected', the remaining humans will go nuts. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 12:35, 27 January 2008 (EST)

== Change and disabilities? ==

I keep forgetting to bring this up on IRC, but how do people (as in writers and other interested people in this setting) think disabilities would be affected by the change? Both Mental and Physical?

Would a paraplegic who lost his legs in an accident regrow them if he changed? Would he regain the use of them if they weren't lost but just disabled? (back injury)? What about false teeth, deafness, blindness, etc?

What if the cause was not from a physical accident, but was viral or bacterial in nature? Some disease struck them blind? Would they stay blind?

And what if the disabilities were genetic? Would those genetic flaws still show in the new form?

Finally, what about mental disabilities? Could the Change 'cure' Alzheimer's? Would it affect someone who is literally a brain dead vegetable on life support?

If it does have curative properties, I suspect we'll start seeing more and more miracle cures (assuming they can survive the flu) in the years to come. Which may imply that there'll be a push in the early to mid 2010's to just keep someone alive as long as possible in the home they Change and are cured/fixed.

Thoughts?

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 11:00, 4 February 2008 (EST)

:I think there are good arguments to be made for some healing properties of the Change, but I wouldn't make it go all out. A person missing a limb should still be missing a limb after the change (I have in mind a scene with a one-armed pianist who goes monkey and starts playing with his feet).

:When it comes to things like Alzheimer's, that is a much more difficult choice. I don't see mental retardation being suddenly healed by the Change, as that is a birth defect (and such things happen in animals too). But progressive diseases may backtrack, even if the conditions begin to return over time. That could make an even more painful story, somebody suffering from Alzheimer's, who Changes and now recognizes all his family again. But after a year or so everything starts to slip away again...

:Anyway, the whole keeping folks alive and hoping for a Change could make a good dynamic too. I just think there's a lot fo possibilities to consider before we make a decision on this. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 12:24, 4 February 2008 (EST)
::I'm inclined to do as Matthias suggests. It's more or less what I had in mind. However, one of the things that the Change does is it puts everyone in very good health. Even being a 300 pound female bear, CM is in very good shape. It will cure some ailments, and put chronic diseases into remission. Those developments will confuse the medical community enough without regrowing limbs or curing Down's Syndrome. But if you've read the latest Tall Tales, ROB is being forced to act more openly. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 15:40, 4 February 2008 (EST)

:What happens to medical devices like heart pacemakers or hip replacements that were implanted in people before they changed? --[[User:JeniSkunk|Jenifur Charne]] 20:45, 10 February 2008 (EST)

::That's basically an open-ended question. I'm going to leave the answer to that one unsaid because I think it'd be a good Plot Point in a story. A furry episode of ''House'' maybe? --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 22:45, 10 February 2008 (EST)

Hey, not really sure on any of the points raised, have to give it some thought. One thing to consider though is can anthro's act as a bridge to humans for viruses that currently only affect animals?--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 23:35, 10 February 2008 (EST)

== A mortal analysis of Paradise ==

Lets me see if I get some of the details right.

There is a post-singularity Uber-computer, that when projected into 3-space, has the same consistency as humanity's combined thumbnail and happens to be running a simulation of the events leading up to its own creation. Secondly, it gets infected by a super-bug/virus that makes borg nano-probes look overly large and cumbersome. Said post-singularity, sentient, ROB-type entity/ virus changes some lines of code (if such things can be referred to as such) in reference to the people in the simulation, in and around the vicinity of Chicago (maybe the super-bug's designers had way-distant ancestors from there, or whose ancestors had a grudge against the place). The Uber-comp, in a flash of inspiration counters with the 'firewall-from-not-heck', or RDF as we understand it. The ROB is still successful with its dastardly and despicable plan to make the simulated history end differently.

That I get as far as it can be understood by a three-dimensional entity not particularly versed in post-singularity, multi-dimensional physics and computational theory.

The RDF, The Veil, The "Really-Annoying-Mess-Up-Everyones-Lives" Field, appears to start collapsing or 'twisting' in several personal accounts. In fact, it would seem that there are certain individuals who have appeared to figure out means of 'gazing-past' the gaps in said previously mentioned field even though they do not have one of their own. Yes it has been theorized that they will soon fall victim to the ROB, however, consider that all of this is in one sense mere coding (albeit it happens to be far more complex than that), and that said people are taking advantage of 'bugs' in the code. How many bugs are there? Is it possible for someone (probably a changed, or mad scientist) to 'tune' or 'tinker' with the field, probably no more than tweaks to appearance or color? I know the Primary Engineer Of This Work has stated that there are no 'powers', but then again, this is all just code, and hackers can sometimes be just mortal.

Just a thought or two. I should probably stop this monologue before a super spy shows up.
~midon~

:You're pretty close overall, though the simulation doesn't necessarily have to be of the ROB's own creation. Human Earth could be something It came up with all by Itself. Another book that's similar to what I've come up with here is ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinia_(novel) Darwinia]''. Someone suggested that the best thing for the ROB to do is to restore from backup. The thing is, these are still people. ROB doesn't have a moral problem with allowing them to die within the sim, but will act to protect both itself and its people from an outside threat. Hence the RDF and other measures.--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 17:46, 4 February 2008 (EST)

== Thinking far future... ==

First, to make it VERY clear, I am NOT thinking of any stories or anything set in the 2020 period yet. I've just been thinking of how the world may be like by then, as the last half are about to change.

I suspect there would be a mix of celebration (the last humans are joining us!) and mourning (humans will no longer be as they were). Regionally, there will probably be searches for the "last human baby", the ones born days/hours before the last Aug 17 change; they'd probably be local celebrities, similar to "New Years Babies"

And in 2021, the nervousness would start. Is the change source gone? Is it mutating? Are we going to change further? Or into something else now? For the Changed Generation, that little shiver of fear every August 17th will probably persist until they are all gone.

All that assumes civilization hasn't fallen apart by then of course. :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:42, 25 February 2008 (EST)

== Summer Olympics ==

This was nagging at the back of my mind a bit, but I finally nailed it down to actually check dates:

:"The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, will be celebrated from August 8, 2008 to August 24, 2008".

For the record, the 2004 Olympics also just straddled the Change day, having started on Aug 13th. No other Summer Olympics have straddled Change day, but the 1996 games ended just before it, and the Paralympic Games that year did straddle the Change day.

The 2012 games in London curiously have a break between the end of the Olympics on Aug 12, 2012, and the start of the Paralympics on Aug 29.

Just something to think about for writers out there. :)

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 10:07, 27 February 2008 (EST)

:The Change takes place right in the middle of the Olympics. All it takes is for one or two athletes to change to gum up the works. These people are already in top physical shape, too. But what happens when a swimmer becomes a dolphin, an otter, or perhaps something that doesn't swim well? I don't think the RDF can handle becoming as large as a rhino. They'll still displace an awful lot of water when they splash in.

:I'll have to mention this in Open Secrets.

:--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 14:53, 27 February 2008 (EST)

::At least the illness will be a bit of a cover. Depending on how many Changed athletes there are, (both active and new Changed), the illness could be used to skip out on some events out of necessity.

::Still the pressure to perform, even if their form is inappropriate for the sport (A Bull trying to do a polevault or the triathlon in general? A bear for gymnastics? A Mouse in weightlifting? ) will be intense

::There would probably be a lot of discussion when a star athlete suddenly isn't performing as well as they did before.

::Of course, a few years after that, the Beijing Olympics here will probably end up with a * like the LA and Moscow Olympics, as people find out about the Change and the number of ringers (otters in swimming events, felines and primates in gymnastics, gazelles and cheetahs in track events, bears and bulls in weight lifting, etc...) semi-intentionally sent by the various countries. We could very well see TTC-level problems happening in Olympic Village.

--[[User:Jetfire|Jetfire]] 15:07, 27 February 2008 (EST)

== What happens ''after'' 2020? ==

Point one: Computer programs are never ''intrinsically'' equipped with an off-switch. Rather, a shutdown condition must be explicitly coded into a program -- and any program which ''lacks'' an explicit shutdown condition, will continue to chug merrily along until something hardware-ish gets in the way.

Point two: The Change is the result of a 'furry virus", ''i.e.,'' a '''computer program'''.

2020 is when the entire planetary population will be furry... but who's to say the 'furry virus' won't ''continue'' to do its thing, Changing people year in and year out, with each year's quantity of Changes being double that of the year before? We know that being Changed is ''not'' an absolute protection against the 'furry virus' -- the setting rules themselves ''explicitly allow'' previously-Changed people to get hit with another dose of Change, after all -- so ''either'' (a) the 'furry virus' ''does'' have an explicitly-coded off-switch, or else (b) starting in 2020, an ever-increasing number of people are going to end up Changing ''two or more times in any given year.''

If the 'furry virus' ''has'' a built-in off-switch, that begs the question of what, exactly, its shutdown condition ''is.'' Does it stop spreading/infecting when there's no unchanged Human left, is it waiting for some specific event or combination of events before it quits, or what? Perhaps the guy who wrote the 'furry virus' did so with the specific intent of encouraging ROB to make [insert specific changes here] in ROB's virtual world, such that the results of those changes are the virus's 'off-switch'?

If, on the other hand, the 'furry virus' has ''no'' built-in brakes, things can get weird, fast. People have already floated the notion of Changes happening "out of season"; what if these 'unscheduled' Changes are merely a harbinger of things to come, in which people can be re-zapped at any time of year, an arbitrarily large number of times per year? It may be instructive, or at least amusing, to extrapolate the data given in "The Numbers", and divide each year's expected number of Changes by the expected population for that year: In 2020, there's 1.12 Changes per person (perhaps every human being Changes, regardless of their current state, and there's a 12% chance of one guy Changing ''twice?).'' Since we're basically talking about a doubling function, it only takes until 2024 for every ex-human to be an involuntary member of the Change Of The Month Club (because there's a touch over 17 Changes per person that year), and the Change Of The '''Day''' Club starts up in 2029 (during which year there's a bit less than 514 Changes per person per year). In 2034, the extrapolated number of Changes per person for that year is significantly over 15,000 (which works out to about 7/4 of a Change ''per hour,'' every hour, for every human being); by 2040, we hit 1.75 Changes per ''minute;'' 2046 is when every human being starts to hit 1 Change per ''second.''

To repeat what I said above: Things get weird, fast.

Obviously, the above figures are ridiculous, since they're derived from mindless extrapolation of an exponential curve. Perhaps the most sensible way to go is to presume that ROB manages to ''do'' something about the metatstasizing 'furry virus' no later than 2025 or so. In any case, one hopes said figures at least provide a bit of food for thought... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 05:03, 10 March 2008 (EDT)

The Message at the Center of the Novel

2008-03-07T11:06:38Z

Cubist: Fixed an errant italics-marker

{{byline|author=Rabbit|user=Rabbit}}
[[Category:Essays by Phil Geusz]][[Category:Writers School]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Message at the Center of the Novel, The}}

There's a trite old saying in the world of writing that goes something like this: "If you want to send a message, call Western Union." The intended import of this old adage is that a writer should focus on essentials like plot and characterization rather than upon social or political messages. To an extent, I as a writer agree with this philosophy and consider it sound advice, though masterful exceptions like '''''The Grapes of Wrath''''' abound. As a general rule, it is indeed unwise for a writer, particularly for a writer new and lacking in self-confidence enough to seek out and take this kind of advice, to try and politicize or socialize their work. At best, such a work alienates whole segments of the population of readers and book-buyers, and at worst a heavy sociopolitical overtone can destroy a novel from within.

However, this does ''not'' mean that your novel should lack a theme.

Theme is to a novel what a soul is to humanity; it is the heart and spirit and essence of a novel. Without theme, a novel is merely a series of events that may or may not entertain, but which will certainly never be memorable or "important". It is the hidden emotional message that guides and structures your work and renders it emotionally coherent. It is the hard, pure core around which everything else must be built.

Despite its huge importance in literature, theme is a very difficult thing to define. A quick perusal of various literary websites indicates that individuals with far more advanced educations than my own also have trouble communicating what should be a fairly simple concept. Since this column is generally about writing and written for writers, I'll stick my neck out and state that, for our purposes, theme can be defined as the mission statement of a novel, as the "something" which we as artists are trying to say.

When I first began writing, I didn't think about theme consciously, yet without doubt I instinctively included it as something that was clearly essential to the success of my work. '''''Transmutation Now!''''', my first "serious" work, very definitely has a central theme, one that evolved naturally through the writing of the piece. As I got further and further along, it became harder and harder to know what to write next. '''''TN!''''' just sort of grew through the first three parts; I didn't do any plot planning at all until beginning part four, almost halfway through, and even then I was very vague as to how the work would end. Yet, subconsciously, I adhered very tightly to a theme, which was that change and acceptance of change brings about personal growth and empowerment. Because this theme was first and foremost in my mind, the novel "works" (or at least ''I'' think that it works) even though the plot is far from straightforward. Because each and every part shares a common and powerful theme, the work is coherent and whole. It reads in a consistent voice, and (admittedly subconsciously) I built and built and built on my theme, until at the end Jack Strafford has so grown in stature that he helps to create God in his own image. Because the theme is consistent throughout, this totally unplanned ending fits as well as if that was where I'd been consciously aiming all along.

(And I admit it; I got lucky.)

Robert Heinlein was a skilled theme-builder in his finer works as well. The theme of '''''The Moon is a Harsh Mistress''''' is that freedom can triumph over anything and is well worth sacrificing for. '''''Orphans of the Sky''''' is about what happens when a society deliberately closes its mind to the truth. '''''Double Star''''' deals with the nature of who we as humans are and what distinguishes us one from another. Indeed, in my opinion Heinlein's powerful and masterful use of theme is a big part of what sets him apart from so many other less successful SF writers, who are often far more interested in dazzling us with new tech rather than answering deeply and essentially human questions. Only a handful of others, in my mind most notably Sir Arthur C. Clarke, can equal or exceed Heinlein in this arena. His short story '''''The Star''','' for example, is a masterpiece about the eternal conflict between science and faith. An aspiring SF writer could do far, far worse than to read everything Clarke or Heinlein ever wrote as a way to study the use of theme in SF/F. (And, I'll note in passing, an aspiring writer can learn as much or more from the failures of these two masters as from their successes.)

I've thought a lot about theme in fiction over the past few years, mostly as a result of trying to figure out why some of my novels are more satisfactory to me than are others. I've come to believe that theme is the answer. Where the theme is strong and emotionally powerful and well carried through, I end up with a novel that I am happy with. Where I've failed to follow my heart and instead have wavered in my path, the result is far weaker. Theme, I have come to believe, is the absolutely essential centerpiece of a strong novel and very often (though not always) the heart of shorter pieces as well. It is the central underlying truth that underpins our made-up worlds, the hub around which all else must spin and to which all other story-stuff must take a back seat. Of late, when I've felt lost in a tale I've sat and asked myself out loud "Is so-and-so a character consistent with my theme?" Or, "How does this scene relate to my theme? How does this sequence of events advance what I am trying to do?" While I must say that this has made my writing far more difficult, these questions have "kept me honest" as a writer. I believe they are what make me able to think of myself as an artist rather than as a hack.

Stephen King once said that above all else, writers owe readers the essential truth of their works. I would submit to you that this "truth" he spoke of is what is more commonly known as "theme", and that delivering a theme is indeed the very highest calling and duty of a writer. Theme is what separates the wheat from the chaff, or so I most truly believe.

Theme is power, and theme is art. Theme is beauty and impact. Theme is the heart of your work, the window through which the writer inserts his soul. And, if you want to know the warm, happy glow of the successful writer, if you want to know that you have reached out and shaped the god-stuff of which the universe is made in your fiction, then you will study theme and learn to use it both wisely and proficiently.

Theme is the signature of the true craftsman.

User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution

2008-02-24T01:13:32Z

Cubist: /* it begins */

{{title|name=The John Moschitta School of Elocution|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}

__TOC__
They call me Jubatus. Me being the fastest SCAB alive, I ''always'' have time to kill... so I always need new ways to kill time, simply to avoid going mad from boredom. You could call it Parkinson's Law of Temporal Consumption: "Activities multiply to fill whatever you've got in the way of spare time." I didn't used to find this a problem — I got plenty of interests — but then, I also didn't used to think there could be more than 24 hours in a day. There can, particularly for people like me, to whom SCABS gave a seriously overclocked brain. That's short for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, and can you blame anyone for preferring the acronym? I've got SCABS to thank for my being a bipedal cheetah with a train of thought that runs six times faster than anyone else's, which explains how come from ''my'' point of view, there's ''150'' hours in a day. Fortunately, I can control the rate at which my personal 'clock' runs; upshifting for greater speed, downshifting to interact with you slowpokes.

What do I ''do'' with all that time, I hear you ask? Whatever I damned well please, and six times more of it than I ever could before. Today, like pretty much every other day, it pleases me to spend a couple hours of clock time puttering around the West Street Shelter. Seems I've got a bit of history with one of their volunteers, a rabbit named Phil, and I like to keep an eye on him. Think of me as a guardian angel with spotted fur and sharp, pointy teeth. May the good Lord forgive any fool who thinks he can give the rabbit a hard time, because ''I'' sure as hell ''won't.'' Phil is good people, and if anyone forgets how good people should be treated, I'm up for teaching 'em a quick lesson in manners any day of the week.

I'm not sure Phil notices, but I make a point of reducing my Dangerous quotient before I drop in. I trim my claws; I kill 'cheetah breath' with mouthwash; I also downshift to a tempo of around .95, marginally slower than the norm. Not that it matters whether he's consciously aware. The way I see it, he doesn't need to worry about a small flotilla of high-velocity knife edges zipping around him in loose formation. That's basically the reason I bother with the Shelter at all, when you get right down to it — reducing the level of hassle Phil gets from an important part of his life. The instant Phil leaves, I'm gone, too.

At this point, I'll bet some of you are wondering how ''anyone,'' a highly-morphed SCAB like me in particular, could possibly be indifferent to the good work done at the Shelter. You guys should talk to the ones who ''aren't'' asking; they're just as cynical as I am, and therefore ''know'' why somebody might be less than enthusiastic about ostensibly-altruistic behavior. Let's just say I'm a 'value given for value received' kind of guy and leave it at that, shall we?

I suspect Splendor (the sometimes cold-blooded mistress of West Street in general, and the Shelter in particular) has an idea of what I'm ''really'' about here, but no matter how our philosophies may differ, she's too pragmatic to reject assistance from any quarter. So far I've spruced up the joint's Net presence, made sure a few time-sensitive deliveries arrived on schedule, written two drafts of a Shelter procedures manual, and done a fair amount of websearching on a notable variety of topics, to name only four of the tasks I've fielded here.

Right now I'm seated in the lobby, not far from Phil's office. I'm continuing work on the Shelter's website. Specifically, the interface of the Shelter's online database of SCAB-friendly businesses. Got my PowerBook before me, and I intend to cut that interface down to size, or die trying. You'd be surprised how many 56K modems are still in service, particularly among the SCAB populace that's the Shelter's target audience. And even if ''you'' aren't surprised, the twit who originally created this interface certainly would be! I'll bet he was thinking more of how it would look in his portfolio than how it would serve the client, damn his highly-trained eyes. He had every pixel of the bloody thing thickly encrusted with bandwidth-sucking leeches — I'm talking 32-bit animation, Java-3 applets, multi-track sound files, and on and on. End result: Not only does the sucker take for''ever'' to finish loading on a slow connection, but it runs like an arthritic clam (when it runs at all) on any machine the intended audience is likely to be able to afford.

So far, I've sandblasted ''all'' the graphics down to bit-depths of 8 or less, and killed ''every'' piece of animation that had no valid reason to live. The payoff is that the download time over a 56K modem has dropped to 235 seconds. Yes, ''dropped.'' By a factor of five. I won't be satisfied until I reduce that figure to twenty seconds or less, and if I have to go with pure text to get —

Phil is nervous, I can ''smell'' it. That scent, the odor of frightened prey, drills straight to the vital core of my hindbrain to stir up predatory voices. I can't help that, but I sure as Artemis don't have to ''listen'' to what those voices are saying.

Being a rabbit, Phil scares easily; I don't want to overreact. I close the laptop, carrying it with me as I walk calmly over towards the converted walk-in closet he calls his office. He's with a client, a big sumbitch. From the back, the client looks like a norm with orange stripes dyed into his black crewcut, or maybe it's ''vice versa.'' I hear a VoxPop voder say, "Sorry, but that command was invalid."

"Grrrrrr..." I ''know'' that growl, it's the sound of an angry carnivore that's 1.5 seconds away from ''killing'' something! I upshift, the growl dopplers down into the deep subsonic, and tiger-boy freezes up like the rest of the world. I memorize my position and move in, get a clear view of ''exactly'' what he's up to... and breathe a sigh of relief. Tiger-boy is glaring down at the voder in his furless hands, caught in the act of stabbing one finger down to the touchscreen. He's got fur down his neck; thick black skin on the bottom of his very human nose; round pupils in his glittery, reflective eyes. Okay, tiger-boy's no ''immediate'' danger to Phil, but I still don't like his mood.

I return to my memorized position, downshift, pick up the walk where I left off. "Say, is that a Vox Populi voder I heard?" I ask. Tiger-boy doesn't react, but Phil looks up.

"Yes, it is!" the rabbit says in his cute, high-pitched voice. Not sure if he counts as tenor or soprano, I keep forgetting to ask Wanderer. Phil continues, "How much do you know about them? Mr. Anthony here is having a little trouble with his. Do you think that you could help?"

"I can give it a shot. Got nothing better to do," I say with a smile that keeps my teeth decently hidden. I make a show of looking for another chair, which of course there isn't — no room. "Alright. Mr. Anthony, was it? Good. My name is Jubatus. How about we go up front where we can both sit down?"

We move out, and Phil's distress is inversely proportional to the distance between him and us. I give tiger-boy some leading questions he can answer with head motion and/or hand gestures: He's a local. Single. Started to SCAB over eleven days ago. Spoke his last intelligible words nine days back. Just got released from hospital a week ago. Hasn't noticed any tigerish instincts yet. The salesman pushed him into buying a top-of-the-line VoxPop that he really couldn't afford.

We sit down in the lobby. I open the laptop, bring up SimpleText, set the voice for "Alfred, high quality", show him how to make it recite what's typed into the window. "Mr. Anthony, that salesman didn't do you a service," I say. "Vox Populi voders ''do'' sound as good as you were told, yes, but they're finicky bastards. If you're a novice, you'll have as much luck with it as a kid with a learner's permit would have with an eighteen-wheeler."

"Call me Felix," my laptop says for him. "Agreed. What replacement?"

I ponder for a moment. "If your heart is set on using a voder, I'd say go with a Kurzweil. The vocal quality sucks at the low end, but even the worst Kurzweil has clear enunciation, and you can make yourself understandable within two days tops. Most people, a couple hours' practice is enough. You want a KV-240, maybe a KV-200 if you're ''really'' hard up for cash. Anything less than a 200, well, it's cheap and it works."

"Voder not needed?"

Sharp man — he caught the implication of my 'if your heart is set on it' phrasing. I shrug: "Hell if ''I'' know. Depends on what SCABS did to your vocal tract. Can you open your mouth? I want to see what you've got to work with here." He opens, and it's a perfectly normal human mouth. Tongue, palate, teeth, jaws, all right out of a pre-'Flu medical textbook. With his flat face, I'll bet his sinus cavities are human-normal as well. "Looks good to me. Now let me check out your neck." I lay my hands on either side of his throat, taking care not to let my claws touch fur, let alone flesh; I don't feel a larynx in there. Not a good sign. "Okay, make some noise."

"Rrrrrrrr..." he rumbles. Nothing's vibrating in his neck.

"Keep it going." He does. I move one hand to his chest — ''there's'' vibration. "Alright, that's enough. You should definitely get a second opinion on this, Felix, but here's what I think: Your larynx is gone. That's the source of vibration for a normal human voice, and you ain't got one no more. No voicebox, just a purr-box. The good news is, the ''rest'' of your vocal tract looks okay, and if I'm right about that, it should be fairly easy for you to relearn speech." ''You lucky bastard,'' I don't say. "In the meantime, let's see what I can do with that VoxPop of yours. Got the manual?"

He does, and is happy to hand it over. I upshift high, skim from cover to cover, re-read the important bits, downshift. I'm a technical writer, cramming like this is what I do for a living. And the problem I'm now faced with is how to cut the bleeding options down to something a novice can manage. Damn thing's got more bells, whistles, and gongs than Office 2024 (yes, that's the version the Feds actually passed a law requiring Microsoft to recall every copy of), and thanks to a multi-layered contextual menu system, every last control and setting is accessible with no more than four taps on the touchscreen. Wonderful if you know what you're doing; otherwise, one misplaced tap gets you an Urdu accent thick enough to cut with a chainsaw — if you're lucky.

I do a slash-and-burn job on the on-screen controls, hiding 99.9% of them. I don't touch the semantic analysis subroutines, they'll ensure decent inflection, but I lock down the recognition parameters so Anthony can't screw it up by accident.

Next comes input. "You got the subvocalization options package?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Good. That'll help you retrain the muscles that shape your resonance cavities. But until you get the hang of it, you'll probably want to do input by hand. Palmspring user?" I ask, referring to one of the more popular PDAs.

"Yes."

"How's your shorthand?" SCABS has given the two major shorthand systems (Pittman and Gregg) a new lease on life after decades of slow, word processor-induced decline.

"Grafitti only." That's the simplified letterform system that was devised a few decades back as a practical solution to the problem of handwriting recognition, and pretty much every palmtop these days can handle it.

I nod. I turn off Pittman and Gregg, leaving Grafitti and the onscreen keyboard as the two manual input modes. As a final touch, if he manages to screw it up in spite of what I've done, I give him a friendly red button to click on that'll restore the damn thing to the state I left it in. And just in case he manages to nuke the button, I beam a backup copy of the configuration file to my laptop.

"Here you go. Use Grafitti, or click here to bring up a keyboard you can use the stylus with. Like so," I say, demonstrating. "And if anything goes wrong, this is the panic button — as long as that's visible, clicking on it should reset everything to this condition."

Oh yeah, tiger-boy knows his Grafitti. It's only a second or two before his VoxPop says, "That was impressive. Thank you, Jubatus. How are you at speech training?"

"You really want to learn how to talk from someone who sounds like me?" I ask with a smile. It's not a rhetorical question, because I ''know'' what kind of noise comes out of my mouth, damn it. Ever heard an old-time tracheotomy patient whose voice is driven by a hand-held electric buzzer? It's a nasty timbre, metallic and inhuman, and my speech has been compared to that. Unfavorably. And then there's a familiar whiff of nervousness in the air; Phil speaks up before I finish turning to look at him.

"I would if I were you, Mr. Anthony," says Phil. I aim a puzzled look in his direction. ''What's that rabbit think he's doing?'' He continues: "Jubatus would never admit it, but there's nothing human left in his throat and mouth. His speech is quite good, don't you agree?"

Phil can be devious and manipulative when it suits him. Fortunately, he's sworn to use this great power only for Good. I'll bet half my stock portfolio that I know what he's up to now. "So how many ''other'' mutes you gonna deliver into my tender care?" I ask him.

"Total of six," he says, bubbly and cheerful. "We've already started cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms for your class."

I keep my tone light — no need to disturb Phil's client. "And when were you thinking about letting ''me'' on on the secret?"

Phil waggles his ears in a noncommittal fashion. "I thought that you'd figure it out on your own, so I wouldn't ''have to'' say anything. Isn't that what happened?" he asks with an innocent, guileless expression. That rabbit has no shame. I think he had it surgically removed, unless SCABS got there first.

I get the feeling that maybe Phil manipulated ''me,'' and I don't ''like'' being manipulated. If the rabbit really did play me like a violin... Anyone else, I'd be thinking about how to make the bastard pay. But not Phil. ''Never'' Phil. As far as I'm concerned, he's paid so far in advance that ''I'' owe ''him,'' and I always will. I swallow my aggravation, and nod. "Alright. Six students, including Mr. Anthony here. No problem. You wouldn't happen to have any information on the other five, would you?"

"Sure," he says, hopping over to me. "In the backpack." Which he's wearing, so I open the main pocket and extract a set of manila folders. If you're wondering why he didn't just hand them to me, you should know that Phil doesn't ''have'' hands. His forepaws really are ''paws,'' bloody near zero manipulatory capacity. But ''he'' can ''speak,'' damn it! Somebody had to have helped him with the files, and I deliberately, explicitly refuse to become annoyed at this evidence of premeditation on his part. He thanks me and hops back to his hutch-''cum''-office.

Tiger-boy's VoxPop speaks up: "There really is nothing left of your human voice?"

It's the voder's built-in tone of polite inquiry — dunno what ''he'd'' prefer the question sound like. I take it at face value. "You can't tell? Yup, all gone. You're lucky, SCABS didn't even ''touch'' most of ''your'' vocal tract. All ''you'' have to do is learn how to work with a new sound source. Probably end up with an exotic-sounding tone in the bass register, good for attracting girls."

He starts composing a reply, then stops and looks at me. After a moment, his VoxPop says, "You sound bitter."

I hadn't intended to, but he's right. Vocalizing has always been a touchy subject for me, ever since I SCABbed over. Maybe tiger-boy is just offering me a sympathetic ear; too bad that kind of offer is one I'm not about to accept. ''Ever.'' "That's one reason I don't use a voder — most of 'em can't do emotional overtones very well. The VoxPop line is an exception, but you already know how delicate the controls are," I say with a shrug. "Anyhow, I'd recommend that you exchange the damn thing and get a more economical model, or at least one you don't need a Masters' Degree in to use properly..."

Tiger-boy leaves after I'm done giving him advice. I close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and breathe deeply; it took more effort than usual to keep a lid on my customary bad temper, and the voice thing is why. And then Phil's scent again —

"Are you alright, Jubatus?"

I don't bother to move or look at the rabbit. "Hello, Phil. It would've killed you to ask? Or even give me some advance notice?"

"If I'd asked, you would have refused," he says reasonably. "But I don't know what your problem is. Really, what's the worst that could happen?"

"You see me in a puddle of blood, none of it mine, on the Six O'Clock News," I say without thinking.

There's an elongated pause, broken by Phil. "You know what, Jubatus? You worry too much. And coming from a rabbit, that's saying something."

I almost laugh — of course, ''he'' doesn't know how goddamn close my scenario came to playing itself out, with him supplying the blood, when we first met. "Gee. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Gotta run — bye-bye!" And then the rabbit is gone.

Sigh.

A cursory scan of the files indicates that all six are animorph SCABs of one kind or another. I start with Anthony's file, which confirms what I already knew, then go on to Kerry Dennison. Sales clerk, married, no kids. He's a fish-morph, bulgy eyes and webbed fingers and scales all over, and a Godawful ''ugly'' bastard, to boot. The picture shows flat, wide tubing wrapped around his neck... ah. He's got (barely-) functional gills ''and'' the remnants of his old lungs; the tubing supplies water for his gills, and between them and his lungs, he gets enough oxygen to survive. No wonder his file has nothing on his current capacity for vocalization... the doctors would've had their hands full just keeping him alive, and his insurance ran out before they could do anything else.

Third in line, Mary ''(née'' Martin) Zelinski, is a living cliché: She's a fox gendermorph, a fuzz-covered wet dream who could've stepped out of a '''''PlaySCAB''''' centerfold. Formerly an investment banker with a trophy wife, the 'Flu giveth her an all-over permanent fur coat as the 'Flu taketh away her mind. She's not feral, just amnesiac — a near-complete ''tabula rasa.'' With her (former) profession, she's got to have money, so why is she here at the Shelter, instead of upstate at St. Jude Medical or the like? And how come she went through ''five'' doctors in her first month as a SCAB? Reading between the lines of the vixen's file, I can't help but wonder how much the ''other'' Mrs. Zelinski has to answer for...

File Number Four is a schoolteacher, name of Sawyer Borman. He's a man-sized insect-morph, cricket with an occasional grasshoppery touch. Basic body plan could be described as "humanoid with four arms". Doesn't even have lungs, ''per se'' — his body is thoroughly riddled with a branching network of air passages that oxygenate all tissues ''directly,'' never mind that considerations of airflow and surface area make that scheme unworkable for a critter as big as him. What the hell, he's a polymorph (with a limited selection of insectoid forms), I guess he can have an impossible metabolism if he wants to.

Next is the Right Reverend Charles Calgonetti. I'll get to him.

And finally... oh, joy. Inanimorph. This one's been living (?) at the Shelter for seventeen weeks now, ever since the day an animated, life-sized granite statue of a Great Dane showed up from nowhere. No ID, no clue to her former life — and even the 'her' is only an educated guess, based on the statue's anatomically correct details. At least she (?) answers to 'Jenny'. She can understand spoken or written English, but doesn't appear to be able to speak or write herself. Wonder how badly she's been disoriented by her radical transformation? Inanimorphs... well, hell. Just have to see what (if anything) I can do to reach her. It. Whatever.

After I'm done with my reading, I suspect the preacher's going to be the hardest nut to crack. Physically speaking, Calgonetti is a mynah bird scaled up to a body length of four feet, with avian-type talons at the ends of his feather-covered, humanish legs. Black feathers all over, interrupted only by a ring of iridescent white around his throat. Who says SCABS doesn't have a sense of humor? Chuck traded up from his human body eleven years ago, and hasn't spoken a word since. Pretty tough on a guy who'd been a professional talker.

A mynah bird, speechless? Yeah, right. My best guess is, he's got a self-imposed mental block about speech. This sort of thing definitely isn't my forte, but I'm betting he'll talk if I can piss him off bad enough. I'll try not to enjoy needling a man of God.

Okay, I'll try not to enjoy it ''too'' much.

But I digress... I don't recognize Chuck's denomination, but it's clearly not one of the bigoted ones: His flock — sorry, couldn't resist — have been supporting him all this time, providing sufficient resources (financial and otherwise) to keep him going until he's ready to get back in the pulpit. He's got a record, he does; over the years he's attended eight different speech classes, none of which did him any good whatsoever. He's always gotten good marks for attendance and participation, always declined use of a voder, always projected a congenial air, consistently maintained that the Lord will restore him to full voice whenever it suits Him to do so. All of which does nothing to explain why he's ''here,'' a bloody ''homeless shelter'' in a rotting neighborhood that's maybe three steps away from complete and absolute urban collapse, for the love of Ahura-Mazda.

I've got an uncomfortable feeling that I know what's ''really'' going on behind those beady little eyes. I think I may already have been where he is — except, of course, that ''he's'' got faith in the Almighty. I wonder how much of that faith is still alive in his heart right now...

{{Separator|k}}

I don't need to check the schedule. I work with the Shelter's online resources, I already knew that the speech class will begin three calendar days from now. Just didn't know who the 'teacher to be announced' would be.

Three calendar days. Plenty of time for me to familiarize myself with my classroom, work up a lesson plan, collect and/or create some teaching resources, talk to Donnie at the Pig, make arrangements with Dr. Derksen for use of his lab, and generally prep for the tutoring gig.

== the first week ==

Time for the first session to begin. Butterflies in my stomach? Naah, the hornets killed and ate them all... I really shouldn't ought to be as nervous as I am. After all, I'm a technical writer; teaching people is what I do for a living! I just don't usually do it ''in person.'' And I also don't usually do it with topics that are quite so personal, topics that strike quite so close to the core of what a human being truly is.

Who am I kidding? I'm nervous because this hits ''me'' where I live. Even now I get the shakes just ''thinking'' about those first few days after I SCABbed over. That's when I ''couldn't'' talk ''at all,'' when I didn't know how to coax anything close to an articulate sound from my newly-remodeled throat, when I had no way of knowing whether or not I ever would be able to speak another word for the rest of my life...

It was bad. Leave it at that.

What the hell, it'll be a learning experience in more ways than one.

No more waffling; I walk up the stairs, down the hall, and into my classroom. What do you know — Jenny's mass of stone doesn't exceed the limits of the Shelter's structural integrity.

Once at my desk, I upshift while setting up all the connections for my laptop, then look at each student in turn. "Hello. My name's Jubatus. I think we all know why we're here, so no need to belabor the point. The first thing you should know is that if you really ''want'' to talk, you ''can.'' And you'll do it before the end of this first session. That's a promise." I pause to let that sink in, then flip three small devices out of a vest pocket and catch them between the fingers of my other hand. Some of my students recognize the gadgets, which I hold up and fan out like a poker hand. "These are voders. Low-end Kurzweil models, KV-150s; nothing fancy, but they do the job. I've got one for everybody. And they're the reason I can make that promise.

"What I ''don't'' promise is that you'll be able to talk ''without'' mechanical assistance. Maybe you can, maybe not — it depends on two things. First, on exactly what kind of mess SCABS made of your vocal tract, and second, on whether or not you can figure out how to manhandle a comprehensible voice out of your ''current'' set of pipes.

"And hell, maybe you'll decide you ''don't'' actually want to talk. Even then, you've got options; you can learn Sign," — here I fingerspell ''AMESLAN IS NOT A VAN VOGT NOVEL'' — "and if all else fails, there's always the written word. Donnie Sinclair, guy who runs the Blind Pig, is mute and doesn't use a voder; I'll see if I can't get him up here to fill you in on living without a voice. I think that would be a mistake, myself, but it's ''your'' decision, and as long as ''you're'' satisfied, it's none of my damn business how you choose to live your life.

"And now that that's out of the way..." Here I pick a manila folder up off my desk, open it, look at the contents. "Couple of you guys have a bit of a track record. Calgonetti, says here you've been slacking off in vocalization classes for more than a decade," I say, hearing amused noises as I drop some papers into a convenient trash can. The bird doesn't appreciate my description. Good. "Dennison, you've got a signed certificate says you're permanently mute." I drop more papers. "As for the rest of you..." I shut the folder, send it to rejoin its missing contents. Then I take a butane lighter from a vest-pocket, ignite it, and toss ''it'' into the trash. There's a momentary ''FWOOSH'' as an inches-wide ball of flame rises up, dissipating before it hits the ceiling. It's pure theater — I'm just burning Xeroxes — but it does the job. All six of my students are focussed fully on ''me.''

"I don't give a flying fuck what ''anyone'' may have told you before today. Far as I'm concerned? As of now, each and every one of you ''will'' talk — or I'll know the reason why.

"Any questions?"

I wasn't expecting any response, but the bug makes a 'clickick' noise and raises his upper left hand while his upper right scribbles on a notepad in his lower pair. After he's done, a quick upshift and the notepad 'teleports' into ''my'' hands.

"Okay... Borman here wants to know what happens if someone can't talk by the end of summer." Another upshift reunites the bug and his paper. "Well, it's true that we only got this room for ten weeks, but it's ''also'' true that the Shelter's not teaching this class. ''I am.'' You want out, say the word and you're out; otherwise, I'm not giving up until you ''can'' speak. And if that's after session ten, I'll just have to find us a different classroom. Any other questions?"

Dead air.

"Good. First, let's take a look at how speech works when it ''does'' work..." Here I upshift, extract a roll of eight-millimeter correction tape (red) from my vest, and spend a clock-second or so putting a schematic diagram of the human vocal tract on the wall. Back at a tempo of 1, I point at one specific bit of the diagram. "See this? It's the larynx, but you can call it a 'voicebox'. It's got a couple folds of skin that vibrate when you shove air past 'em, not unlike a clarinet reed..."

By the time I'm done, my students (most of them, anyway; with the fox and rock, it's hard to tell) have a solid grounding in the biomechanics of spoken language — ''i.e.,'' how a normal human vocal tract operates. Now for the voders, which I distribute in half an upshifted clock-second.

"Okay, time to keep that promise I started class with. See what's on your desk? It's a KV-150. If you're clueless about voders, give the built-in tutorial a try. You can't figure something out, lemme know and I'll see if I can make it clear for you."

Within two clock-minutes, the first "Hello, world!" tutorial is audible. And ten clock-minutes further on, they get to "The time is eight forty-seven pee-emm" and "I am a SCAB" and "Today is Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of June, two-thousand thirty-eight ay-dee." Damned if I can tell how the inanimorph works a voder with stone paws, but she (?) does. Too bad her machine's only reciting random words and phrases. Zelinski's doing better; she actually got her voder to say "My name is Mary Zelinski." On purpose, yet. The150s sound better than I do, damn it, but then I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. Focusing on technical matters — how well my students are or aren't using the Kurzweils — helps me keep a lid on my annoyance.

I assign homework (practice with the 150s), and then it's over. Dennison and Anthony drive themselves home; Zelinski's picked up by some random luxury car; Chuck and Borman ride the bus; and the innie, the stone dog, walks downstairs. What are the odds of the vixen's ride being an incognito limousine? I make a note to check the license plates with the DMV.

Only after I'm finally alone do I let myself unclench. I didn't come anywhere near losing it; the scents of the bird and fish didn't make me any hungrier than usual; all in all, it went better than I expected. Of course, 'better than I expected' just means I didn't dismember anyone...

"How did it go, Jubatus?" Who else? It's the damn bunny.

"No blood got spilt. Guess that means I'm stuck teaching next week's class, right?"

Puzzled, the rabbit wrinkles his fuzzy nose. "Why wouldn't you be? Judging by what I saw and heard from your students, you did quite well — as I knew that you would!"

Sigh. "Phil, has it ever occured to you I might have a ''reason'' to be a pain-in-the-ass loner?"

"Well, you're a cheetah-derived animorph SCAB. Which means that you're influenced by cheetah characteristics, including their solitary nature, are you not?"

He doesn't get it — wonderful. Time for an object lesson. "That's right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Hold on a sec..." The Shelter's got a few board games; Monopoly, Yahtzee, like that. I upshift, grab some dice, downshift. "...okay. See this?" I say, holding one of the dice before me. "Got a deal for you. Roll it, and if you get anything but a one, I give you a million dollars."

His ears skew at odd angles. "What's the catch? If I ''do'' roll a one, do I have to pay you?"

"No catch, the money's yours either way — but if you roll a one, somebody within a twenty-block radius of here ends up maimed or dead. What do you say, Phil?"

He stares at me for a moment and says, "No."

"Why not? It's an honest die; there's five chances in six that no blood gets shed!"

"Perhaps, but it's that ''one'' chance in six that bothers me!"

"Come on, that's not even 17%!"

He shrugs with his ears. "I don't care. I wouldn't roll that die for a million dollars."

Suddenly I've got ''two'' dice in my hand. "Fine. How about now? Same deal, but nobody gets hurt unless you roll snake-eyes, a one on ''both'' dice. That's a 35-to-1 longshot, less than 3% chance of it actually happening. How about it, Phil?"

"Still no."

"Okay," five dice, "how about ''this?'' Five ones, that's a little over point-zero-one percent, just one chance out of 7,776. Isn't that worth a megabuck?"

"No, it —"

"Ten dice!" I say, putting them on the desk between us. "One million dollars, Phil. ''One. Million. Dollars.'' Only one chance in sixty million they come up solid ones."

"Only one chance in sixty million that someone gets hurt, you mean!"

I shrug. "Details. Alright, how about a ''billion'' dollars? I'm good for it, you know. Roll these ten dice, and one gigabuck is yours, free and clear!"

Stunned, the rabbit stares at me for a while until he finally says, "I don't care how many dice it is, and I don't care how much money it is either. I'm not going to do it, Jubatus."

"Why not? For the love of Mammon, you're throwing away ''one billion dollars'' because of a sixty-million-to-one longshot! Don't you ''want'' to be filthy rich?"

''"Not like that, I don't!"''

My voice is quiet — "Good." — and his face goes blank with surprise. Then I go on: "I'm not perfect, Phil. I got mood swings make a rabid wolverine look like a Zen master. I can fuck up, ''bad.'' 'Can', hell; I already ''have!'' And with my kind of speed —" I break off, almost managing not to shudder. "You're damn right I worry. Wouldn't you?"

He doesn't need two swats from a clue-by-four. "Oh."

"Yeah."

And again: "Oh!"

I dig out a smile from somewhere. "Don't worry, me going postal on any given day ''is'' a world-class longshot — billion-to-one, trillion-to-one, somewhere up there. The real risk is long-term: If I keep rolling those dice, they ''will'' come up snake-eyes sooner or later. The only question is when. And if you're wondering how I can justify putting innocents at risk by hanging around the Pig, it's because the odds of me having a lethal breakdown will go ''way'' up if I ''don't'' interact with other people."

"I think that I see the problem now," Phil says thoughtfully. "You believe that your life is like an unending game of Russian roulette, do you not, Jubatus?"

I nod. "Pretty much, except it's not ''me'' who'll get hurt when I lose. The thing is... what choice have I got?"

"Perhaps you don't have any better alternatives," the rabbit acknowledges. "But then again, perhaps you ''do!"''

"Oh, really?" I bet I know where he's going, so I cut him off before he can get there: "Look, Phil — if you're thinking about taking me on as a client, forget it. My days are 150 hours long, remember? There's no point in you reinventing wheels I considered, and discarded, years ago."

His ears shrug for him. "Very well, let's say that it truly would be a waste of time for me to try to help you. What difference could that make? It is, after all, my own time to waste, if I so choose!"

"Gimme a break! You're always pissing and moaning about the ones you lost, so why make it worse for yourself? Why the hell would'ja want to fart around with ''me'' when you could give more attention to someone who ''really'' needs you?"

"I see your point, Jubatus, but there are two factors that you haven't taken into account. And the first one is that whether you know it or not, you already are a client of mine, and have been ever since the night we met!"

Suddenly it's my turn to say, "Oh." '''''Now''' he tells me.'' "And... the other factor?"

"When I work on you, I ''am'' giving attention to someone who ''really'' needs me."

It's not often that I'm left without an appropriate comeback...

"Of course, I must admit that I don't give you as much attention as perhaps I really ought. Not that I don't care about your well-being, not at all! But truly, your case just isn't as urgent as the rest of the ones I deal with. And unlike you, I simply don't have the ''time'' to do everything I want to or need to, Jubatus." He sighs. "Speaking of which, I've a date with Clover that I'd greatly prefer not to be late for, so I simply must say 'good-bye' now. Good-bye!"

And then I'm alone again. Just the way I like it. Right?

{{Separator|k}}

Time flies, even when you're not having fun; I've got 43 contracts in various stages of completion, ''i.e.'' my usual workload. And where do I find the time to handle all the tasks related to teaching my class? I could've cut back a little, freed up some hours for classwork, but I didn't because I can get the extra time from upshifting. Of course, my concept of 'classwork' may be a little more expansive than some people's. F'rinstance, take the car that picked up Zelinski. DMV files say it's a TransportElegance rental; TE records indicate that it was paid for by a corporate credit card; and according to SEC databanks, 51% of that particular corporation is held by one "Alison Gomez". Care to guess the maiden name of Zelinski's wife? Yeah. Such a coincidence, that. Just another drop of data in the stream I'm sucking in, the better to figure out what the hell is going on in the Zelinski household.

Then there's Jenny. The Shelter's inquiries went nowhere, but then ''I'' wasn't the one asking the questions. Not that I expect to do any better, mind you. All I've got to go on is SCABS; an apparent gender (which may or may not be the one she was born with); a given name (ditto); the date on which this innie first showed at the Shelter (which only puts a lower limit on how recently she could've SCABbed over); and a dog's likeness (which may or may not have anything to do with any pet she may have owned or admired). What the hell — that's why God invented internet spiders and agent software. The count so far: 137 possible 'hits', each one a false alarm. Good thing computers don't get tired or distracted.

Maybe I ''am'' trying to do too much... every once in a while I get this funny feeling, like someone's looking over my shoulder from behind. Nobody ever is, of course, but my hackles keep rising anyway. Okay, I'm paranoid, but it's not usually ''this'' bad! Sigh. Must remember to get more sleep. Sometimes I hate being a cat...

== the second week ==

Second class rolls around; everyone's present and punctual, even the rock. "Good evening, people. How you doing, Dennison?"

"I, am, fine. This, voder, is, harder, to, work, than, I'd, thought."

''With '''your''' webbed fingers? No shit, fish-boy.'' "Bummer. Keep at it. What about you, Borman?"

The cricket's voder says he's doing okay, and his superintendent claims they'll return him to active class duty once he re-learns how to talk. I don't sneer or contradict; granted, he's an utter moron if he believes what he's saying, but I don't have time to set him straight. Okay, maybe ''I'' do, but the slowpokes here don't. I wish him luck, then I continue the impromptu survey of my students' level of skill with the voder. Only item of note is that Jenny's box yelped "Pangloss!" when I got to her. Why? Thoth only knows...

That done, I explain we'll cover sound sources this time. Then I hit a key, and my laptop plays a thin, weak, wispy tone, like an anemic flute. "Anyone care to guess what this is? No? Fine. It's the sound produced by the human voicebox. Some damn fool back in the 1960s let a doctor shove a microphone down her throat to record the actual vibrations produced by her larynx, and that's what we're hearing now." I let the sound continue a few seconds before I kill it. One of my students' hands is raised, so I ask, "What is it, Anthony?"

I note that tiger-boy's using the KV-150 I handed out, not his VoxPop. "If that's a recording of the human larynx, why doesn't it resemble speech?"

"Like I said, it was recorded deep in the throat, at the source. So we're hearing the waveform ''before'' it gets worked over by nasal resonance cavities and like that. Same deal as how a trumpet mouthpiece sounds a lot different when you play it by itself, without the rest of the horn." Then, to the class at large: "Remember what you just heard! As long as you're good for ''any'' sound ''whatsoever,'' there's a chance you can turn it into intelligible speech. You already know how Norms make noise, so let's check out how other species manage..."

Between putting anatomical diagrams on the walls, playing relevant sound files, explaining what it all means, and answering questions when someone needs further clarification, I'm pretty busy for the next clock-hour and a half.

"...inflection, at the very least! Alright — here's your homework assignments." I pause, scan the class. ''Who to start with...'' I roll mental dice and turn to fish-boy.

"Dennison," I say, looking straight into his bulgy eyes. "I'll bet you're wondering why I haven't ''already'' given up on you. After all, fish are intrinsically silent, right?" He nods his head. ''"Wrong.'' It just so happens that ''some'' fish damn well ''do'' make noise!" I start to count on my fingers: "Angelfish, parrotfish, silver perch, red drum, black drum, and more than 200 other species. Most of 'em got this air-filled, internal swim bladder they smack around. Ever heard of the oyster toadfish? Didn't think so, but you're ugly enough to be one, and that sucker's got specialized muscles to swat its bladder up to 200 times per second. So if you ''are'' a toadfish, you should be good for pitches topping off right around G below middle C. And if not? Well, we'll just have to find out what you are, won't we?" A quick upshift, and a sheet of paper appears on his desk. I continue as he picks it up to read it: "27 questions, and I'll want the answers two weeks from now."

Then it's the bug's turn. "Borman. You're mostly a cricket — can you chirp like one?" He nods and makes the noise, two or three octaves below a natural-born cricket. "Congratulations. What you just did is called 'stridulation', and it's the sound source of a natural-born cricket. You want to arm-wrestle intelligible words out of it, you're gonna need to vary that sound. Can you? Damn if ''I'' know; that's ''your'' homework. I'll want a sound file. Get cracking on it. And by the way: If stridulation doesn't work for you, there's at least two other avenues you can explore before you abandon speech."

I let the bug ponder my remark as I look at the inanimorph... ''What's going on inside that rock? Are you even '''there''', Jenny? Is '''anyone''' there?'' Nothing in those dull, grey eyes, or at least nothing discernable to me. Sigh. ''Moving right along —'' "Calgonetti. What's up with you, guy? Considering how well natural-born mynahs talk, it's hard to see why ''you'' should have ''any'' problems with speech, let alone take more'n ''ten bloody years'' to re-learn it. So... what's the story?"

"It is not for us to question the Lord's will," the preacher's voder says. "I have faith that He will return my voice to me at a time of His choosing."

Sounds like a rehearsed answer to me. "Uhhh-''huh.'' Would that be before or after the Second Coming?" Oh yeah, ''that'' hit a nerve. Good. Bird-brain glares at me as other people make amused noises. "Come on, Chuck. You're gonna have to work with me here. 'God helps those who help themselves', am I right?" A sheet of paper 'teleports' onto his desk. "But I digress. Your homework is ''phonemes'' — the individual sounds that serve as the fundamental building blocks of spoken language. English uses 40 of 'em, each one of which is on your list there, and you're gonna record 'em all. I don't care what format you use, just let me know if it's cassette or MP3 or what, I want three samples of each phoneme, and I want you to bring the recording in two weeks. And that goes for you, too, Borman."

Chuck's not happy. His voder says, "What if I cannot make all the sounds?"

Looking at him and the cricketmorph, I shrug. "Try 'em and see. If there's any you can't do, all it means is that SCABS worked over your noisemaker worse than I thought. Get on it."

Then I turn to the fox. "Zelinski. How's your voice, girl?"

Her smile strikes me as a lot more genuine than mine usually is, and she's game to try: "Oowwwwrrr..." Oh, well. Too bad she's not there yet. She taps at her voder — a Magnavox Express; wonder what happened to the KV-150 and where the new one came from? — which says, "I am prack-tiss-ing. I will learn."

I nod. "Can't ask for more than that. Keep it up."

"I will. I praw-miss."

I nod, and look at the last of my students. "Mr. Anthony," I say. A sheet of paper pops up on his desk. "You get what the bird got. Again, I don't care if it's MP3 or WAV or what, but it'd be nice if you can gimme advance notice of which."

He nods. His voder says, "MP3."

"Groovy. Email it to me any time within the next two weeks." To the whole class: "Remember, we've got a field trip next Tuesday, so I don't need your homework 'til the week after. For now... go home."

They leave, mostly. Tiger-boy sticks around after the rest are gone. He says — ''he'' honest-to-God ''says'' — "Ehhhrro, Djju-bhadd-huzz."

"You've been practicing, haven't you."

He nods, then gets his VoxPop out of an inside pocket. "Yes. I've also done some research on you."

''Oh, joy.'' "That's nice. Want a cookie?"

He smiles and goes on: "No, thanks. You're helping me; I just wondered how I could help you in return."

An idealist? Will wonders never cease. "Help ''me?'' Forget it — you can't. Anything else the rabbit twisted your arm about?"

Tiger-boy looks hurt for a moment. "Phil didn't twist my arm, Jubatus. But he ''did'' warn me what to expect from you."

"If he said I can be blunt, rude, offensive, abrasive, difficult, obnoxious, and generally antisocial, he was right. Anything else you want to know before you leave?"

The hint is as subtle as a sixteen-ton weight. Even so, whole clock-seconds pass in silence, me staring a laser-sharp, unblinking gaze into his eyes, before he gets the message. "Next week," his voder says. Then he's gone.

A few seconds later, I quit staring at the door. I can't really say I ''like'' stomping on people like that, but... it's better this way. Lesser of N evils, honestly.

Sigh...

{{Separator|k}}

The next week's pretty boring, so I'll just give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. More hours put in at the Shelter; the net-spiders researching Jenny turned up another 950 false alarms, plus three leads I haven't ''yet'' proven bogus; I've sucked down a lot more information (financial and otherwise) related to the Zelinski household — I'll bet Mrs. Allison noticed that somebody's been poking their snout into her family's private affairs, because somehow, I just don't think it's coincidental that she's boosted the budget for security (real-world and cyberspace both) within the past couple weeks. Like I care. As for the contracts I handle in my day job, it's five down, 38 to go.

Business as usual, really.

== the third week ==

Third class is a field trip. To Derksen's clinic. Would have preferred to start the class there, but this was the first Tuesday evening the doc-roach's lab was free. Remodeled the living space in my Extremis; there's four new seats (rented) in back. Those plus the passenger's seat up front will handle the five humanoids, and there's also room for Jenny the Rock to lie down. Hey, why ''shouldn't'' I play chauffeur? I'm the teacher, it's my responsibility to see that the class gets to where it needs to be, right?

Good: Everyone's a little early, especially the foxy lady. She's delivered by what looks like the same pair of bodyguard-types, driving the same car, as got her home last week. She smiles at me, and she ''(not'' her voder) says: "Hrraiie-yhheaarh, Dj... Tchew... hraour!"

I nod without smiling. "Better'n last week. Keep practicing, you'll get there soon enough."

She digs her Magnavox out of her purse to reply. "I know I will, but. In the meantime. It can be frustrating."

''Now'' I smile. "Tell me about it. You're getting off easy, lady — ''you'' have an instructor who's been there himself."

"Which you didn't," her voder says.

"Yeah." Shrug. "Ready for the field trip?"

"Oh, yes. Allie was very pleased. She's always wanted to —" and one rent-a-thug reaches over her shoulder to press the voder's 'mute' button.

"What did Miss Allison tell you about violating her privacy, Miss Mary?" says the thug.

The vixen's face spends a moment at 'pissed off' before shifting over to 'mild embarrassment'. She un-mutes the voder, nods at the thug: "You're right, George. I shouldn't discuss family business in public." To me, she (or at least her voder) says, "Apologies, Jubatus. Yes, I'm ready for this field trip. And I've been looking forward to it. Are we really going to see Dr. Derksen himself?"

"Doubtful. He's booked solid until the 12th of Never, you know?"

That gets a couple of yipping laughs out of her muzzle. Which is about when Dennison shows up, with Anthony following close. Not so very much later, me and my class are tooling along towards the doc-roach's lab. The rent-a-thugs weren't happy about the fox being in ''my'' car instead of with ''them.'' That's nice. They weren't ''explicitly'' instructed to stay within arm's reach 24/7, and even if they were, I couldn't care less.

The traffic's thicker than I anticipated. 38 clock-minutes later, I pull into a reserved space in the parking lot of Derksen's lab. My passengers talked; I paid attention to the road. Guess which hired limo stayed within five car-lengths of us all the way there?

Derksen being a big name in SCABS research, his lab's security is a couple notches above the norm — you never know when some idiot Nazi wannabe, Humans First or whatever, will take it into his head to strike a blow for stupid people everywhere. Me and my students pass through the outer gate without incident, but Zelinski's thugs get detained when they set off an alarm. Good. There's two more layers of protection I'm aware of, and Vulcan knows how many others. I wish the thugs joy of them all.

I'm intimately familiar with the doc-roach's torture chamber — his primary examination room — from all the times he's worked ''me'' over. Being the highly exotic breed of chronomorph I am, it's only natural that a world-class SCABS researcher like Derksen would want to observe the hell out of me, as often as he can... oh, joy. He's here. I was afraid of that. On the plus side, he's practically human today. Soft skin, blond hair, no antennae, compound eyes only a little bigger than human normal. See, Derksen's one of us; he's a polymorph SCAB, insectoid forms his specialty, and the roach traits kind of creep up on him when he's irritated or preoccupied or whatever. One more reason I'm glad not to be a shapeshifter myself.

"Hello, Jubatus," he says, and his voice is a hell of a lot smoother than when he goes ''blattidae'' on you. Damn it. " I don't suppose —"

"That's right, you ''don't'' suppose. And you don't get another crack at me for seventeen days."

"Oh, well; can't blame a mad scientist for trying!" He sounds happy, but even with no discernable chitin on him, his scent is too roachy for me to tell his ''real'' mood. BFD.

I snort my disagreement at him. "Whatever. Since you're here, does that mean you're gonna make yourself useful checking out the fox?"

"Yes." ''Now'' he's serious. "Among other things, I find it curious that her medical records are silent on a number of points that ''may'' add up to grounds for a malpractice hearing."

My ears prick up. "Oh, really? Then what's the story with Dr. Gordon?" I ask, referring to the physician in charge of the Zelinski case. "Is he corrupt, or just incompetent?"

At this point, Derksen's face hardens — literally — as exoskeletal plates form. ''"That'' is what I intend to find out. Either way, it's clear that this Dr. Gordon has no business working with SCABs; the data from this examination will tell me whether I should push for censure or disbarment." Then he sighs, and his plates soften a little. "Excuse me, Jubatus," he says, and then he's off to supervise a whole-body scan of Jenny, the stone dog.

There's an empty chair off to one side of the lab. I sit back and let Derksen (and his flunkies) scurry around the place with various implements of medicine. It's actually kind of interesting to see them work on ''someone else.'' Hell, this time I don't even mind the stench of disinfectant!

Derksen & Co. conduct a sextet of ''very'' thorough physical examinations, covering everything from respiratory airflow to basal metabolic rate to speed of neural transmission to God knows what-all else. The doc-roach is going the extra mile, and then some — I'd only asked him to cover the vocal tract — but if that's what he wants to do, it's fine by me. That's odd... they've left off a number of procedures he likes to use on me, but then they also include a few I'm not familiar with. I make mental notes — the lapses and additions probably have to do with my chronomorph power, which I don't want ''anyone,'' Derksen or no, to learn ''too'' much about.

Hmm... maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that Derksen's concern for Zelinski goes a little beyond the standard doctor/patient relationship..? Whatever; it's none of my business.

Entry to exit, we're done in four clock-hours. Zelinski's thugs aren't around when we leave — how sad. The drive back to the Shelter is uneventful; my passengers are too busy comparing notes to bother me. I park, five of the six bug out, the vixen doesn't.

"Waiting for something?" I ask.

Foxy's fingers touch her voder, but it stays mute. She looks at me. I look back. Her machine finally says, "Were you always male, Jubatus?"

''Huh..?'' I consider asking why she wants to know, but I decide to just answer the question. "Yes."

She spends a few seconds thinking before her voder speaks up again. "Then why are you so angry?"

"Angry?" I snort a laugh. "Like ''any'' SCAB needs to ask."

Dead air. Zelinski's not happy. Before anything else can happen, a particular rented limo screeches to a halt beside us. I point a thumb at them.

"Your ride's here," I say. "See you next Tuesday."

{{Separator|k}}

The homework showed up across a week, starting last Friday. Tiger-boy's arrived first; birdbrain's came last. Funny how that works. Right now I'm in my classroom, reviewing the assignments over lunch. Nothing from Jenny — not that I expected anything, of course. But what ''could'' I have assigned her, damn it?

Inanimorphs...

Lots of people fear them, with good reason — check out any of the 'true crime' books about inanimorph perps — but I just think they're damned weird, is all. Strictly speaking, I guess I ''should'' be afraid, since innies are among the few things in this world with half a chance of hurting me... but I'm not.

''Thank you, Jay Nelson Xavier.''

"What the —"

Somehow, I '''know''' that the voice I'm hearing in my head ''(not'' my ears) is Jenny. And when I turn to look at the stone dog, I see... something. Can't make out details — my eyes can't decide whether it's transparent or not — wait, it's solid now. Human body, female, which I (again, 'somehow') '''know''' to be an idealized version of Jenny's pre-SCABS body. Clothed, yet.

Her lips don't move: ''Is this form more to your liking, Jay Nelson Xavier?''

I evade the question. "Call me Jubatus, I use the other name for business. Thanks for what?"

''For your downshifting. The single-minded intensity of your concentration. For giving me something to focus on. I am grateful. What you did allowed me to... obviate? Reify? — no. I am sorry, you lack the vocabulary.''

"Whatever. You know, there's paperwork to fill out if you're dropping the class..."

For the first time in my life, I 'hear' a laugh that ''really is'' like the tinkling of bells. No mockery in it; I '''know''' that she's just appreciating the absurdity of the situation... ''Thank you again, Jubatus. It is very good to exist in human reality.''

"There's another kind?"

''In a manner of speaking. If two people perceive the Universe so differently that they cannot communicate, are they truly living in the same reality?''

Philosophy? Feh. "Yes, they are," I say. "Look, it's not like you need a speech tutor any more, so why are you here?"

''As I said, Jubatus, I am grateful. I want to express my gratitude in tangible form.''

'Tangible form'? Heh! The first image that comes to mind is impossible — I'm a cat, and she's dead — but she apparently picks it out of my brain anyway. And suddenly, without any warning, Jenny's a cheetah, too! She's fur-naked, and there's this indescribable ''scent,'' and she's stepping towards me, and — ''Very well, Ju-''

''"'''No!'''"'' I scream from the far corner of the room, only twitching a little. "No. That's, ah, no. None of that. Really."

And then she's back in her chair, back in human form, and a repentant sigh echoes lightly through my mind. ''I misunderstood...'' ''I apologize.''

It's easy for me to calm down, because I '''know''' her remorse is genuine. "That's, um, okay. So. You can read minds."

A light touch of uncertainty... ''In effect, yes. While I am not truly telepathic, I have certain... perceptions...''

"...which I lack the vocabulary for you to describe."

''I'm afraid so.'' This time, I '''know''' the communication gap's got her as frustrated as me — maybe more so — but she's honestly doing the best she can. ''I really am sorry — all of '''this''', being an inanimorph, it's still very new to me. I hope you can forgive me my errors.''

I shrug. "Not a problem. No harm done, you didn't mean it, and you learn from your mistakes. Right?"

''Right,'' she 'says', and for a moment I feel — ''something'' — like someone walked over my grave? Or like I'm being ''watched'' from every direction at once? Vocabulary again. Not really painful or unpleasant; just, I don't know, weird. Whatever the sensation is, I don't miss it when it stops. ''It's so very hard '''not''' to make mistakes with an unfamiliar set of abilities you've only just acquired... wouldn't you say?''

I give her a tolerant, rueful smile. "Tell me about it."

''As if I need to!'' Her sympathetic amusement is clear. ''But seriously: You did me an enormous favor, and I want to reciprocate. What would you like?''

'What would you like?' If it was anyone biological, I'd tell them to forget it — but this is an ''inanimorph'' 'talking'. And innies can do pretty much ''anything,'' blowing off physical laws as needed...

The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

She's 'silent' for a good ten-fifteen clock-seconds. I don't press her, and clouds of uncertainty and intense concentration drift through my brain as the time passes. ''I... don't know. I '''think''' I —''

"'''Do it!'''"

She's taken aback by the force of my command. That makes two of us.

''Let me finish, please. As I was going to say, I '''think''' I can eliminate all traces of Martian Flu virus from your body. That much I'm reasonably sure of. Changes inflicted by SCABS are a tougher problem, but I may even be able to undo them, too. The problem is, I don't know what condition you'll be in when I'm finished! Yes, you '''might''' return to your former, human, self; but you could also end up a normal cheetah, or even dead. If I try this, it could ruin your life, your very '''existence''', in any of thousands of different ways. On second thought, make that 'millions'. Is this a risk you really want to take, Jubatus?''

Rhetorical question. To be human again — ''fully human!'' — well, let's just say it's one hell of a prize Jenny's dangling before me. How can I believe she's up to the task? How can I ''not?'' There may be no hope of a cure from any ''human'' agency, but that doesn't say squat about what an ''innie'' might be capable of! ''"Do it,"'' I repeat.

She's quiet for a long moment before she 'talks' again. ''Jubatus. You '''do''' realize that just as I can perform actions far beyond any limits of biological life... so, too, can I make mistakes far more terrible than anything biological life is capable of.''

"No shit, Sherlock."

''You know this, but you still want me to try.''

"Got it in one."

''You're absolutely certain.''

"You're damn right I'm absolutely certain," I snarl. "Stop screwing around! Shit or get off the pot! ''Do it, or fuck off and...'' oh, hell. Just... do it."

Another longish pause, then she 'says', ''Very well. I'm going to scan you now, Jubatus...'' and suddenly that bizarre 'watched from all directions' sensation is back, in spades, doubled and redoubled. It feels like she's poring over my entire life, back to the moment of my birth and forward to my eventual death, simultaneously — and no, I haven't got Clue One ''how'' that impression entered my sensorium. Then my mind is drenched by a mixture of embarrassment and pity and regret and endless, bottomless sorrow.

''Oh, dear...''

"What's wrong?"

''You... don't even know, do you, Jubatus?''

''Huh?'' "What the ''fuck'' are you talking about!?"

''I really and truly am sorry. But I... I just '''can't''' give you what you '''really''' want.''

What the — goddamn bitch! It's my ''life'' she's toying with! "'Can't', or 'won't'?" I growl.

A foreign sigh drifts across my frontal lobes. ''If you must put it that way, it's 'won't' —''

I've had ''more'' than enough. So what if she's an inanimorph, ''nobody'' jerks me around like that! ''No-fucking-body!'' I don't let her 'say' another word: "Then get lost. Go find another fly to pull the wings off, you goddamn corpse."

''Please, let me exp-''

Okay, ''that'' is the proverbial '''''it'''.'' I scream and upshift high and leap straight for her lying throat and —

— and then the world turns inside-out around me and it's like I'm ''moving'' in some direction I wasn't previously familiar with and —

— disoriented, I blink. ''What the... oh, hell. I missed another meal, didn't I?'' With my high-speed metabolism, I've found that my higher brain functions tend to seize up after a couple of clock-hours without food. ''Better get a snack once I'm done here.''

Let's see... Jenny just asked what she could do for me. Right. The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

''I'm afraid not,'' she 'says', and I '''know''' her regret is sincere. ''Maybe at some future time, but right now, I don't even know if it's possible, let alone how to do it.''

"You mean innies ''aren't'' omnipotent?"

That gets me a mental cloud of tolerance/amusement/sympathy/self-effacement. ''You may find it hard to believe, Jubatus, but we inanimorphs '''do''' have limitations. They're just, different, from the ones you live with.''

I roll my eyes. "Oh, well." ''That'll teach me to hope...'' "Since you can't do what I want, I guess I'll take a rain check."

Either she's old enough to know the term, or she learned it when she scanned me earlier: ''Alright, a rain check it is.'' A sequence of 40 digits drifts across my forebrain, and I '''know''' I'll never forget it. ''Type that number on any computer or telephone keyboard, and I'll be there for you.''

"Do I want to know the details?"

A mixture of amusement and frustration, both mild. ''Yes, you do, and if you had the vocabulary, I '''would''' explain.''

"Gee, thanks. I'm beginning to see why you guys don't usually hang around with us ''living'' types."

''Tell me about it,'' she 'says', her words and tone echoing an earlier remark of mine. ''And thank you once again; now I know what I should '''do''' with myself.''

"Gonna play Speaker-to-Breathers, huh?"

A tinkling giggle dances through my brain... ''Something like that, yes. Farewell, Jubatus. Until we meet again...''

...and I'm alone in the room...''

== the fourth week ==

Homework. Birdbrain did a decent job on all 40 phonemes; tiger-boy did better; foxy lady did best of all. I flatly ''will not'' think about how her voice is gonna end up sounding. The bug's — Borman's — stridulation is a little iffy, but not bad for a first shot. Dennison? My questions for him amount to an abbreviated Piscine Anatomy 101 final exam, and he aced it. 25 answers dead-on correct, the other two ''technically'' invalid but strongly arguable anyway. As for Jenny... she's outta here. All her paperwork and computer files are in order, not that anybody noticed her turning in any forms or anything. None of my business anyway (he says, with a shrug).

As for the class itself (number four in a series of ten — collect them all!): Anthony sounds better than I do, goddamn his near-intact throat. I give 10:1 odds in favor of the bastard regaining full human speech before the final class session. Calgonetti? Phonemes he's got down pat, but he can't ''quite'' manage to put 'em together into honest-to-God ''speech.'' Funny, that. Chalk up another one for 'self-imposed mental block', and I go out of my way to rub salt in his wound. He'll thank me for it later, right? Borman actually surprises me by stridulating recognizable phonemes; only three of 'em, granted, but I didn't think he'd be able to swing it ''at all.'' Not this early, anyway. Good sign. Dennison turns out to have an internal swim-bladder, complete with swatting muscles, and he demonstrates it with a kind of "ahh-eee-ahh" that more-or-less spans an augmented fifth.

And then there's Zelinski. Her eyes aren't as bright as last week; her vocalizing is decidedly worse than before; and she fumbles with her voder like she'd only just started using the damn thing yesterday. Oh, and I could tell her scent was 'off' (including what the 'new' chemicals were) before she stepped into the classroom. I do the math, and the answer is clear: She's drugged. Given the data I've already acquired re: the Zelinski household, there's exactly 1 (one) person who could've done it to her: Alison Zelinski, her 'loving' spouse. You think I'm pissed off? Damn right I am. ''Nobody'' has the right to fuck up someone else's free will like that! I stifle my anger for the duration of the class.

This week's homework is pretty much a rerun of last week's; more phoneme-practice, singly and in combination. When the rest leave, I ask the vixen to stay. She gives me a vague look: "I muost gho homm," her voder says. "Mizz Awl-lee dee-uz-int wand me tu ss'tay owwit laid."

"Maybe so, but she also wants you to relearn how to talk, am I right?" Zelinski pauses, then makes with an uncertain nod, and I go on before her voder can say anything else: "You need a little extra attention right now, is all. That's what we're going to do tonight, and if Miss Allie doesn't like it, you just tell her it's ''my'' fault, how's that?"

I keep an eye on the parking lot while I talk — an occasional momentary upshift, nothing the fox even ''can'' notice in her drugged-out state — so I see the TransportElegance limo as it pulls in. Good thing Zelinski rather likes the idea of having some time away from home: Her face slides into an off-kilter grin, and her voder says, "Ohh khay!"

"Great. Now, sit down and close your eyes; I've got a big surprise for you." She obeys. I upshift. Four-point-eight clock-seconds later, she's in the back of my car, seated in front of a big-ass computer display with '''''Newspaper Tycoon VII''''' running. The rent-a-thugs in the limo think Zelinski's still in the Shelter; I brought her down so fast they didn't — couldn't — percieve ''anything.'' I could care less if they try to look in the Extremis; there's a couple aftermarket features that normally let me sleep in private, but they work just as well now. Specifically, the electrochromic film on the windows (currently set to Total Eclipse), and the cab divider in front of the cargo space.

Zelinski makes with a little squeal of delight when she opens her eyes. "There you go!" I say. "I've got the game set up for voice commands, but you can also use mouse and keyboard, if you'd rather. Need any help?" Apparently not — her fingers dance on the keyboard as she dives right in.

"Thank you," her box says, "but I don't believe that will be necessary." Interesting: Her skill with the voder is distinctly higher now than it was a few minutes ago. Good.

My cel phone has a wireless link to the Extremis' video cameras; that's how I know when the rent-a-thugs leave their vehicle for the Shelter. Absorbed in an orgy of virtual capitalism, the vixen doesn't even notice when I drive off. The rent-a-thugs won't be following us — not with their distributor cap in my glove compartment, they won't. Upshifting can be useful at times...

At this point, I'm not sure what the deal is with Alison Zelinski. Sure, I know ''what'' she's done to her ex-husband, but I don't know ''why,'' and the 'why' matters. Well, I'll find out soon enough.

Guaranteed.

Moving right along: Most people think the "Betty Ford Clinic" is just a punchline, what with all the rich actors and singers who supposedly go there to detoxify or whatever. Wrong. The Clinic is ''very'' real, ''very'' discreet, and damned good at what they do. And they've got a SCAB-friendly branch office in the west end of Pennsylvania. A couple hours of air-conditioned driving, and foxy lady is safely deposited there. The staff was quite professional, even while enrolling an unscheduled client at 2 AM. Wasn't exactly 'no questions asked', but that's okay; what with all my poking around the Zelinskis' private affairs, I had the right answers.

{{Separator|k}}

So. It's 9 AM Wednesday. By now Alison Zelinski's ''got'' to know that her gendermorph hubby has evaporated. Odds are, she hasn't slept. She's probably shitting bricks wondering when the ransom note will arrive. Wish I could've seen her face when ''my'' e-note ''did'' arrive in her inbox...

<tt>FROM: J. Acinonyx (fiver@jubatus.nucom)

SUBJ: re: Mary Zelinski's vocalization

I'm afraid that Mary's progress in class has been disrupted by a set of problems beyond my capacity to solve. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of securing an outside specialist who can help her overcome these problems. I would like to speak to you in a private conference, at your earliest convenience, about preventing a recurrence of these problems. When would be a good time for you?</tt>

Heh! I think I hit ''just'' the right chords; aside from the none-too-subtle hints that I know ''exactly'' what she's done, I've all but confessed to the kidnapping. Best of all, the language is sufficiently innocuous that no lawyer or judge could regard the note as evidence of ''anything'' nefarious. How long will it take Zelinski to decide that her only option is to talk to me?

I get her answer at 2:26PM. She wants to meet this evening, her place, 8 o'clock. As usual, I got clock-hours to kill — oh, joy. In between working on my legit contracts, I make contact with the Zelinski home network. Well, well: Miss Allison has been researching ''me,'' much good may it do her. Security protocols are unchanged, which just means that if she ''is'' planning any surprises, she's doing it offline. Do I have a plan? Damn straight I do. No point wasting time in conversational parry and riposte. Instead, I'm gonna blitzkrieg the bitch — hit her fast and hard, from multiple directions at once, changing attacks before she can adjust or reply. Considering how easily I torque people off just because, it'll be interesting to see how bad I can rattle somebody when I ''work'' at it. All of which assumes there's no armed resistance or whatever. If there is, no problem: I upshift and nuke it, after which Zelinski gets my ''undivided'' attention.

The clock-hours crawl by...

8PM — showtime. The Zelinski house is a bloated, two-story carbuncle with a bunch of underground floor space; when I ring the bell, the front door is opened by a familiar-smelling rent-a-thug. His demeanor is designed to intimidate, not that I give a damn. He says, "Miss Allison will receive you in the living room," and leads me inside.

The living room turns out to be an interior chamber with a good chunk of one wall taken up by an oversized flat-plasma display. Once I'm there, a female voice says "Thank you, Marcus. That will be all," and thug-boy leaves as we both sit down. This voice belongs to a female norm, straight black hair, semi-dark skin tone. Judging from her scent, she's a little shaky, uncomfortable, and trying not to let it show. Let's see how fast I can coax a reaction out of her. "I'm... my name is Alison Zelinski," she says.

"Jubatus," I reply.

"Would you..." She breaks off with a sigh. "I'm sorry, this is all so complicated..."

Shrug. "Seems pretty straightforward to me. Your hubby SCABbed over seven months ago — different sex and species. She's been stoned out of her gourd ever since, courtesy of ''you.'' I'm curious, how many doctors did you go through?"

"Excuse me?" Hmmm... steady pulse and scent... nope, her confusion is just an act. This isn't the first time my SCABS-heightened senses have come in handy.

"How many doctors?" I repeat. "Before you found one who didn't care ''what'' he did to Mary, as long as your checks cleared."

Okay, ''now'' it's a genuine response: High-end anger. ''"Mister'' Jubatus, I'll tha-"

Her words are drowned under my "Shut up, bitch." My voice may suck rocks, but I can definitely go Loud when I feel like it. ''"You'' may not be old enough to remember date-rape drugs, but ''I'' sure as hell am, and the only difference I see is that you ''married'' your victim first!"

"I — you —" From 'calm' to 'stuttering, with pulsing vein in forehead' in under 7 clock-seconds. I love it when a plan comes together. "How ''dare'' you!"

''"How dare '''you''', lady!?'' Go play the Righteous Indignation card somewhere else, 'cause I'm not interested. What I've got on you, I could nail you to the wall in court yet — and I just might."

It's working. I can practically smell her brain cells burning out as she ''almost'' keeps up''.'' "You — you'd never win!"

I give her a nasty smile, heavy on the fangs. "Bets on that? Imagine your face plastered across the front page of every newspaper in a 1,000-mile radius, not to mention all the broadcast media and net coverage. Think of all the editorials. Visualize the Zelinski name permanently associated with cute stuff like anti-SCABS bigotry, chemically-mediated enslav-"

''— attack: threat level high: 12 o'clock —''

— oh, hell. It's not the first time this has happened: My instincts trigger an upshift without ''my'' say-so, because they don't like something in my immediate vicinity. In this case it's Zelinski, floating in midair, with hands poised to do some damage. Physical assault? Gosh, I must've hit a ''very sensitive'' nerve. I ''could'' tear her several new assholes... but instead, I just move around to lean on the back of her chair, resume a tempo of 1, and watch her land, clumsily, on the couch I just vacated.

Confused, she looks around, and I speak when her eyes meet mine: "That was your first free shot at me. Hope you enjoyed it, because ''nobody'' gets ''two."''

"Bastard! I'll sue —"

I laugh, a cruel, venomous noise that shatters her focus. "Hah! Go ahead and try, for all the good it'll do you. Face it: Whatever you do, you ''can't'' stop me opening a can of worms ''you'd'' much prefer stay closed. Me, I could care less about bad publicity — can you say the same? If you think you can ''possibly'' fuck up a SCAB's social status any worse'n it ''already'' is, feel free to try. Who knows, you might even be able to come up with something that's '''not''' ''prima facie'' grounds for a libel suit. Should be fun."

"You..." I can smell fear, anger, concern, and confusion fighting it out in her scent. Fear wins. "Alright. Do your worst, you monster."

"Says the bald ape who arranged a permanent brainwashing prescription for their own spouse," I retort. "Alright , ''Mrs.'' Zelinski. I've got half a mind to sic my lawyer on you anyway, but I'm a reasonable man. Play it straight with me, I'll return the favor. Fuck with me, and I will ''own'' your sorry ass. Your choice."

Fear and guilt: A powerful combo. They're both on her face and in her scent. Eventually, she gets herself under control again. "What... what do you want?" she asks.

She's defeated, alright — scent doesn't lie — so I get down to business: "I want the truth. ''Why is Mary a drugged-out zombie?"''

Zelinski kind of sags in her chair. She sighs, doesn't (can't?) look at my face. "I... no one ever intended..."

A few seconds after she trails off, I kill the silence. "I'm not hearing a 'why'."

"It's... complicated..."

"You already said that," I point out. "Feel free to start at the beginning. Alternately, how about I just leave, wait 'til Mary's done getting detoxified, and let ''her'' decide how many new orifices to rip out of your hide? Your call — pick one."

She goes for 'start at the beginning'. Takes her an unnecessarily long time to spit it out: Hubby SCABs over (fur and tits), goes nutbar over the gender thing, needs to be sedated for his/her own protection... and ever since, Zelinski makes sure hubby gets a fresh dose whenever she's ''too'' close to sober.

"You... didn't know Martin before," she says, as if her words were threading a minefield. "He was... difficult to live with, not —"

I cut her off. "So. Fucking. What. If ''Mary'' wants to be permanently blitzed, fine, but guess what? ''That's not '''your''' goddamn decision, lady!'' So here's the deal: As of now, Dr. Gordon is off Mary's —"

"What gives you the right to interfere with the private affairs of this family!"

Zelinski shuts up when I look directly into her eyes. She looks right back. Both of us are way the hell pissed. Her anger is cold like liquid helium; mine is hotter than a deuterium-fusion torch.

Zelinski breaks first. When she lowers her gaze, I speak up, as inexorable as a glacier: "What, ''exactly,'' gave ''you'' the right to '''''interfere'''"'' — I spit that word out with a freightload of sarcasm — "with your spouse's mind and free will."

Her scent goes heavy on shame, with a side order of fear. No other response.

Okay, fine. "Like I was saying, here's the deal. One: You ''will'' sever ''all'' connections, professional and otherwise, between Mary and ''Doctor'' Gordon. Two: You ''will'' accept ''whoever'' Dr. Derksen recommends for Gordon's replacement. Three: You have ''no say whatsoever'' about Mary's medical needs — you ''will'' do ''anything'' the new guy says, agree to ''anything'' they recommend, and generally treat the new guy as if they're the Voice of God Himself. Four: If, at ''any'' time in the future, I find out that you have ''ever again'' so much as ''dreamed'' about '''''interfering''''' with Mary's medical treatment..." Here I whisper, as lethal as a sack of cobras: "I. Will. ''Destroy.'' You."

Zelinski crumples in silence. Her eyes glint with highlights that weren't there before — poor fucking baby.

I give her 15 clock-seconds; still no reply.

I'm out of there. Nobody gets in my way, not Marcus the thug nor any other hireling. Fine by me. The mood I'm in, I'd go ''through'' them. Not a good idea to leave a trail of broken bodies. I give the Extremis a once-over when I get to it; nope, no signs of tampering. Only then do I let myself relax. A little, anyway.

On the road, I don't think about what I just did. I don't ''want'' to think about it. I just drive. I want to — no. Bad idea; I ''don't'' want to get drunk.

Well... maybe just a little...

== the fifth week ==

It's none of my business, of course, but I keep an eye on the foxy lady over the next few days. Just to make sure Miss Alison stays the hell ''away'' from her ex-husband's treatment, is all. And wouldn't you know it, Zelinski makes quote, remarkable, unquote, progress. Think it might have something to do with ''not'' getting pumped full of mindfuck drugs on a regular basis? Funny how that works. Even so, the Ford medics insist on keeping her there "for observation" for another 8-10 days, minimum... which means she's going to miss a class. Maybe two.

In other news, I close 5 more contracts before next Tuesday. 33 more to go; I might run out before the tenth class. Hey, I ''am'' taking it easy — I haven't accepted any new clients since I started teaching the class.

Speaking of which, this session (the fifth) has a guest lecturer: Donnie Sinclair. And while he's scribbling at my students, I fill in for him behind the counter at the Pig. That's the pound of flesh he demanded before he'd do what I asked. I hate the idea; I mean, I don't ''do'' crowds! But since it puts a three-foot-wide ''faux''-marble countertop between me and the customers, it should be okay... right..? Aside from that, I have no idea how Donnie creates and maintains the Pig's SCAB-friendly atmosphere — so I won't even ''try.'' Instead I'm going to pour the booze, keep a paranoid eye on ''everything,'' and stomp on anything that smells like it even ''might'' be trouble. I just hope I can stay alert until closing time; for whatever reason, SCABS left me with a half-hour-long sleep cycle. Mind you, I don't ''have'' to conk out that often. I can actually stay up five hours at a time, but that's kind of like a norm staying up for five days solid... well, that should be enough. Hopefully. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

Having a few weeks' advance notice, I did my usual obsessive prep work beforehand. The cash register is a late-2016 NCR job, tablet-style touchscreen; before I'm through, I know it better than Donnie himself does. I'm packing 47,583 different drink recipes on a PDA, complete with recommended ingredient substitutions for when stuff runs out, and the thing happens to be equipped with a wireless internet hookup in case somebody wants something outside the onboard library. More recently, I confirmed that the Pig's supply database is 100% up to date (I double-checked each item myself). Come the fatal Tuesday, I make sure the lavatories are fully loaded — which is trickier than you might think, since the Pig's bathrooms accomodate a ''wide'' range of SCAB body types. Comfortably, yet. I also stash a couple dozen pounds of beef jerky behind the counter; the kind of calories I burn, I'm gonna ''need'' that protein...

And then it's showtime.

The hours pass in a blur. ''Jesu Christe,'' there's a shitload of customers — ''I'' sometimes have trouble keeping up with the orders! Upshifting doesn't help, because I ''have to'' understand what all you damn slowpokes are saying. And that means my tempo needs to be ''real'' close to 1 most of the time...

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Gimme a Stattenvorl."

I take orders.

"Three shots of Jack Daniels, straight."

I make change.

"Vodka martini for me, an' a Purple Ray for the li'l lady."

I pour booze.

"— tellya, I wuz on top'a th' world —"

I hate it. Sob stories from self-pitying morons — gaah! I pay those twits as little attention as I can manage. Most of 'em take the hint and stay the fuck ''away'' from the counter; occasionally I delegate one to Wanderer or somebody ''via'' an an upshifted note in their glass.

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Atomic Firewater!"

I take orders.

"Scotch and soda, heavy on the soda."

I make change.

"— ''you'' gonna do about it, runt?"

Oh, fucking ''joy.'' I quit pouring. Commotion by the dart board; there's a St. Bernard-derived animorph SCAB who can't aim worth shit, lost a bet, and is now proving himself to be a welching asshole and a ''mean'' drunk.

I point one finger ceilingward. "'Scuse me a sec," I tell the customers I haven't gotten to yet. Then I zip over to the big dog, telling him, "You lost, Bernie. Pay up and deal with it."

He's like six-foot-thirteen and 380 pounds, none of it fat; me, I'm five-eleven and forty-odd kilos. Seeing this as he turns to look down at me, Bernie makes with a contemptuous grin. "Who's gonna ma-''yeee!!!"''

There's an instant cloud of ozone and burnt fur — I didn't let Bernie ''see'' my TASER, but he damn sure ''felt'' it. He hits the floor like a 380-pound sack of dog food. Upshift, extract his wallet from a pocket, downshift, hand the wallet over to the norm-looking guy that beat Bernie. I say, "Take your winnings out of this," then I upshift again, this time so's I can haul Bernie's ass out the front door. We cheetahs are stronger than we look — we ''have to'' be, since our legendary top speed is muscle-powered — and besides, I've found that local gravity gets weaker when I upshift. Put 'em together, and I'm not even breathing hard when I set Bernie down on the sidewalk outside the Pig.

Once more behind the counter, I inhale dried meat, downshift, and pick up where I left off — elapsed time 8.6 clock-seconds in all. "I'm back. You there, what do you want?"

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Make mine a Jumper Cable."

I take orders.

"Bacardi 151 on the rocks."

I make change.

"Irish Coffee."

I pour booze.

Time goes on. The clock-hours spin and gyrate...

...and suddenly I blink, confused at what I see before me. ''Minotaur?'' I ask myself. ''That's — hold it, what's Donnie doing here..?

Ah. Right.''

The place is damn near empty, only a couple of stragglers still hanging on; I must have signaled Closing Time already. ''Thank any applicable god... Oh, yeah. Must ask...'' "Hhhh..." I stop, close eyes, swallow, restart. "How'd the class go?"

Donnie shrugs, then gives me an interrogative "Mmm?"-and-look combo.

I'm tired. My head hurts. "If you're asking how ''my'' end of the deal went, it sucked. I have ''no'' idea how you can ''stand'' doing what you do. Can I go now?"

Donnie looks at me with some inscrutable bovine expression. He nods.

I do likewise myself, no words. I manage to drag myself out to the Extremis, get inside, and lock up before I collapse...

== the sixth week ==

Week 6: Nothing much happened. Okay, I ''did'' lose another student, but it's all good... I guess...

On Thursday (that being July 29th, if you've lost track), I get a call from out of state — the Betty Ford Clinic. Guess which of their recent patients put in a request to chat me up, personal-like? Right — ''her.'' No reason given. Well, what the hell. I got time to kill, like always, so I agree to do the conversation today. I make time for it (and I ''do'' mean '''make'' time'), and at 5 PM, I'm in Mary Zelinski's private room at the Clinic.

She screws up her face a little, concentrating, and says — ''she'' honest-to-Thoth ''says! — ''"Hhhee-rhho, Tcheu-baddhuz."

I smile and nod. "Hello yourself, Ms. Zelinski. Needs work, but not too damned shabby. Y'know, if you wanted to let me know you're dropping the class, you could've just sent me e-mail..."

Despite herself, the foxy lady smiles. Only for a moment, but it's ''there.'' And then she goes on: "Iiayy, w''rr''ahndtuu... ''hrraauuw!"'' A frustrated yowl. Frowning, she picks up her voder, which just happens to have been lying on her nightstand, and lets it speak for her. "Yes. I'm dropping your class. This is about something else. What happened to my wife?"

I wasn't expecting ''that.'' If I had eyebrows, I'd raise them. "It matters?"

Angry and some other emotion fight it out on Zelinski's face; Angry is losing, ''big'' time. "I'm not sure any more," her voder says in its incongruously level tone. "I'm not sure I want to know. But I must know. And you can tell me. Can't you?"

''Oh, fucking joy.'' "Yeah. I can. But just remember, you ''asked'' for it..." And I make with an infodump. I give Zelinski the whole story, everything from when I first read her file to when I hammered on dear little Alison. The foxy lady doesn't interrupt; she sits there and absorbs it all without making a sound. And then I'm done...

"...back to the Pig, to get smashed."

At this point, Zelinski isn't the least bit angry. She's kind of hunched over into herself; her voder lies, forgotten, on the bed next to her.

I wait a bit, then kill the silence: "You asked. I answered. Is that it?"

The vixen pulls herself together. "Yes," her voder says, "that's enough." Then her fingers pause over the talk-box. A few moments later, it recites the words she'd been typing; it gets as far as "I wish" before she hits the 'abort' button. She starts over, her hands a little shaky: "Tank you mitt sir Jubatus. You comforted my suspectings. Please lever me out lone."

Which I do. The Ford Clinic staff wants to debrief me; I blow off most of their questions with variations on, "Ask the foxy lady — it's ''her'' call."

And then I'm on the road again, driving back home.

{{Separator|k}}

Nothing much happened for the next week or so, and that includes during the next class session. Fortunately. I've been on the short end of too damn many surprises already...

Wait, there was ''one'' thing: The bug. Borman. He can actually stridulate one-syllable words! He sounds lousy (still better than ''I'' do, damn it), and it sucks up so much of his attention and concentration that changing to a different syllable is a major feat, but when all is said and done, he ''can'' talk. It's just a matter of practice, honing his currently-primitive skill.

{{Separator|k}}

So I'm coming in for today's stint at the West Street Shelter. I'm not three steps past the front door when this lightly morphed rat-SCAB, a new addition to the staff, says Splendor wants to see me in her office right away. What does she ''want'' from me? Hell if I know — but 'in her office' means it's a private conversation, and ''that'' cuts ''way'' back on the number of alternatives...

By the time I open her office door, the short list is down to about three possible agendas. I close the door. Splendor's just beginning to greet me; I interrupt her, saying, "You want I should work somebody over."

She blinks. "What makes you... never mind. Actually —"

Some things are best stopped ''before'' they start. I cut her off again: "Not interested. Go find someone else to play shock trooper. I'm sure there's ''plenty'' of people around here who'd ''love'' to put a hurting on some asshole who desperately deserves —"

"That's exactly why I want ''you'' for this job!" Her turn to interrupt, it seems.

My turn to blink.

"Okay..." I finally say. "You've piqued my curiosity. Explain."

"Thank you. First, some background." She opens a file drawer, pulls out a manila folder, hands it to me. "Read this."

Upshifting, I follow her advice. 'This' is a collection of eyewitness reports — seems that Splendor has an unofficial network of informers all over the City. It's mostly surveillance on the comings and goings of various lowlifes, but there's also some educated guesses on what said lowlifes will be up to in the near future. Hmmm... if I'm reading this right, it looks like the West Street neighborhood's been relatively low on criminals for a while, and a gang from outside the City is planning to move into what they perceive as a vacuum.

I close the folder, slip back to a tempo of 1 — "Done." — and return it to her. "Alright, that's the background. So what?"

"I know the local thugs, and I've gotten most of them to stop committing their crimes in ''my'' neighborhood."

"Bully for you." I've got an uncomfortable feeling I know what's on her mind, but — "And I should get involved... why?"

She gestures at the folder. "The Cargill Mob. If they establish a presence here, it will be... well. Let's just say it would be best for all concerned if they don't. I want to dissuade them with a show of force; give them a demonstra-"

"No. I flatly ''refuse'' to play enforcer."

''"Will'' you let me ''finish!?"'' she says, glaring at me. Well, what do you know — the snake-lady actually ''has'' a temper. I gesture for her to continue; she does. "I've set up a meeting with Jocko Cargill," — head honcho of the eponymous Mob, says her files, real name 'Giocomo' — "and I want to be accompanied by people who I can be ''absolutely certain'' will not initiate any hostile action."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I say without much sarcasm. "So what ''do'' you want from me?"

"You're welcome. And I want you to serve as bodyguard."

Damn... it's not often that I'm left speechless...

"Frankly, I'd be a fool to trust Jocko as far as I can —" '''''BLAM!'''''

''— attack: threat level extreme: 2 o'clock —''

Damn... the whole south wall's erupted with itsy-bitsy explosions. The instincts upshifted me to a tempo of 35-40, somewhere up there, and the ambient noise Dopplers down like always; I can see...

Holy limping Hephæstus — ''I '''can''' see the bullets moving!''

It actually takes a couple seconds of my time before I snap out of it and get to work. Numero Uno: Digital camera from my vest, aim it at the wall's exit wounds, leave it floating in midair at1,000 shots per clock-second. Numero Two-o: Shpritz a layer of DeadGlove (inert polymer in a spray can) on my hands, grab bullets out of the air, store 'em five-to-a-mylar-envelope. Would've preferred individually-wrapped, but I ran out — wasn't prepped for ''this'' many projectiles! Numero Three-o: There's a second wave of airborne crap (shards of window glass, wood chips, nails, yada yada), so I sweep it all to the carpet and bury it under several dozen pounds of books to make sure it don't go noplace it shouldn't ought to.

I retrieve my camera — good, it's still got 91% free RAM — and there's nothing visibly moving at the moment, so I downshift to a tempo of 1 so's I can hear if there's any more impacts. There aren't any, but I ''do'' hear screams and wails from casualties, damnit! Well, hell; they probably won't die in the next few clock-seconds, so I upshift my tempo to 35 and avoid the jagged remnants of windowpane in the frame as I go outside to get some good shots of a late-model Chrysler, nicely framed between a lamp post and a dumpster; driver and two passengers, shabby paint and no discernable plates. Oh, and a pair of rifle barrels sticking out its side windows, complete with muzzle flash and ''more fucking bullets'' on the way. The car's tilted forward, which means the sons of bitches are braking to give themselves more time to shoot.

Fine. I move in, camera ''k'chnkk''-ing away as it stores images of the bullets and their source, and when I'm in range, I reach inside the car; grab the front gun by its chamber; and '''''pull''''' the fucker out and down, with as much force as you'd expect from muscles that can shove a hundred-pound mass around at 70 MPH. Next up: A re-run with the back-seat firearm.

Both guns are firmly lodged in the dirt, barrel-first. The guys who ''were'' holding them have a bunch of fingers sticking out at ''real'' weird angles. Fuck 'em both. I'm busy — the guns are harmless, but there's all the bullets they ''already'' fired — okay, got the last one. My envelopes now hold seven bullets apiece.

Hungry now. I inhale a slab of beef jerky from my vest while I plan out my next move...

By the time I've made my decision, the dudes-in-car are starting to react to the abrupt change in their immediate surroundings; there's the beginnings of shocked/worried expressions evolving on their faces. Hmm... the car's not so tilted as it had been... betcha the driver's floored it. I grin as I extract a genuine Swiss Army Knife from a vest-pocket, unfold the (diamond-hard, waterproof, corrosion-resistant, tungsten/vanadium alloy) cutting blade, and slash a diagonal gouge all the way across the tread of the driver's side front tire. Not waiting for it to finish blowing out, I do likewise to the driver's side rear; then I step back onto the sidewalk, resume munching on shriveled meat, downshift to a tempo of 1, and watch the wreck change from 'incipient' to 'actual'.

As per my unwritten script, the car — driver's side, at least — drops to the pavement with a hell of a clang and a shower of sparks. Then it makes with a metal-on-asphalt shriek all the way to its 45-MPH collision with the dumpster. Oooh, no airbags! ''That's'' gonna leave a mark...

I finish my snack, keeping an eye on the perps in case someone feels like doing something cute; nobody does. I upshift high, strip all three assholes down to their underwear, expend an entire pocket-sized roll of duct tape making ''damn'' sure the perps are gonna sit tight where they are, clean out the glove box and trunk... and for an encore, I downshift and call in the whole sorry encounter to the local police precinct.

Citizen's arrest is a ''good'' thing, right?

Waiting for the cops to show, I drop back to my default tempo of 6 and amuse myself checking out my loot. No discernable ID on any of the trio — such a surprise — so we'll just see what their photos, fingerprints, and DNA (from impromptu blood samples) have to say about the matter. Again, the car is plateless, and there's no VIN either. As for the guns, they look like they could be Izakawa 'Divine Wrath'-model automatics. That, or else homebrew jobs. I sure hope it's the latter, since I happen to know that Izakawa doesn't ''do'' firearms for any ''civilian'' market.

Onward to happier thoughts. Let's see... the clothes look to be generic off-the-rack Target. Residual scent is mostly drowned under cheap-ass cologne, so there's not so much chance of getting olfactory ID off of it. Just one of the tricks criminals have learned for dealing with a post-SCABS world...

...ah. Someone's approaching — correction: ''Splendor's'' approaching. I downshift to match her tempo.

"Nice day, huh?" I say.

She grimaces a little. "Hardly. It seems I'm not the only one who felt a show of force might be appropriate."

"Seems like," I agree. "The timing's pretty interesting, though. It ''could'' be coincidence... but me, I bet Cargill had your office wired for sound. Not sure when."

Splendor nods. "That makes sense. Perhaps we should relocate this discussion to a more secure place?"

"No point. I mean, he's ''already'' eavesdropping, right? So he's gotta know his boys got ''way'' the hell hammered on, by someone who's ''literally'' faster than a speeding bullet. He may not be sure what other tricks I have up my sleeve, but I, for one, will be happy to help him learn — the ''hard'' way. Of course, that's assuming Jocko Homo has the balls, not to mention the requisite lack of functional brain cells, to suit up for Round Two."

Splendor's eyes widen, just for a moment, about halfway through my last sentence. Then she gets it and puts a subtle smile on her face. "I... see. I trust you know what you're doing..."

"Always," I state flatly. "And I know something else: That fucknose is ''toast."

<hr>

The next few days are kind of busy, and not just because of my unfinished contracts (29 and counting) and speech-class-related stuff and helping Splendor deal with the listening devices. To begin with, I pore over police records and the snake-lady's files — but that's maybe a couple of clock-hours at most. No, what ''really'' occupies my time is what I ''do'' with the data thereby gained: I smash hands.

See, the cops have a pretty good idea of who-all is on Jocko's payroll, and what their particular duties are. Just because the authorities don't have enough hard evidence to nail a guy in court, that doesn't mean they're clueless about why he ''should'' be nailed in court. And if you're curious about why the police might grant a puny civilian — ''i.e.,'' me — access to this sort of sensitive information? Two reasons:

First, money talks.

Second, it seems I got a bit of a fan club in blue. Something to do with all those meticulously detailed complaint reports I keep filing any time some jackass messes with me or my property. I'm told that last year, about17% of all City trials for SCAB-related hate crimes used at least ''some'' data from one of my complaint reports — make it 23%, if you're only interested in ''convictions.''

The point is, I got a line on Jocko's ''whole organization.'' His ''entire'' chain of command, from him and his most-trusted seconds all the way down to his lowliest footsoldiers. And I also got several dozen of the freelancers he's most likely to call when he needs a little extra manpower.

Put it all together, I got me a good, long list of targets to hit... and hit them, I do. With a pair of bricks. At a closing velocity ''well'' in excess of the speed of sound.

I tap each of their hands twice. Hit Number One, the bricks are parallel to the plane of the palm; Hit Number Two, they're at right angles. Locating a target's never difficult. After that, I do my business, leave a card, and bug out.

The card, you ask? Just something I whipped up on a cheap-ass laser printer I bought, used for this one job, and melted to untraceable slag immediately after. Each card bears six words — "TELL JOCKO HOMO TO GET LOST" — and a single letter, "J".

No, as a matter of fact I ''couldn't'' just waste 'em all. Three words:

'''''I.'''''

'''''Don't.'''''

'''''Kill.'''''

Got it?

Aside from that, leaving Jocko's crew mostly-intact is a ''good'' thing. There's a lot to hate about organized crime, but one thing they get right is, ''you take care of your own people.'' 'Cause if you don't... well, either you take care of them, or else ''they'' take care of ''you.'' Not to mention, a rep for fucking over your underlings makes it a ''lot'' harder to get replacement thugs when you need them.

So. If I'd left Jocko with a pile of corpses, he'd just bury 'em and that's ''it.'' But he's got a pile of cripples instead, so he's got ''lots'' bigger problems — like medical expenses for the victims, rent and food for their families, yada yada yada. Unless he's just crazy, he ''must'' deal with all this stuff.

Well, maybe Jocko ''is'' batshit insane; doesn't matter. Crazy or not, he ''still'' needs warm bodies to do his business, right? Which means he needs a whole new 'army'. And if people know how badly he screwed his last gang, who the hell's gonna ''want'' to sign on with his ''next'' gang? Answer: ''No''-fucking-body. And no, Jocko ''can't'' just lean on people to ensure silence. Not while all the guys who ''would'' be doing the actual leaning are in hospital with mangled hands, he can't...

{{Separator|k}}

Splendor catches up to me the day after the drive-by. Another ''tete-a-tete'' in her office, which is where two of the five bugs were. She did what I would've suggested if she'd asked: Left 'em all in place, just paying attention to prefabricated soundtracks rather than ambient sights and sounds. But as I walk through the door this time, she welcomes me with a gesture that (by sheer coincidence, I'm sure) switches off the 'bug bamboozler' I installed in this room. ''Confusion to the enemy, hm? Okay, I can play along,'' I muse to myself with a subtle hand gesture that she picks up on.

"Thank you for your promptness, Jubatus," she says. "How many eavesdropping devices have you found?"

"Two, I think."

"You... ''think."''

And then she makes with a disapproving look, so I put on a show of annoyance: "Damn right, I ''think!'' You got any idea how old this place's wiring is? There's all kinds of components that the only reason I could even ''recognize'' them is, I'm old enough to have seen 'em back in the '90s! And further-"

The phone on Splendor's desk rings. Twice. She picks up before ring #3, saying: "West Street Shelter. Splendor speaking."

I hear the voice from the handset, real clear. "Hey there, Miss Splendor! How ya doin'? I heard'ja had some trouble just recent."

Having heard that voice on some police surveillance recordings, I recognize it as Jocko Cargill; not sure about the snake-lady. "I am doing well," she says in a professionally-controlled tone that doesn't give away a damn thing. "If you'd care to tell me what business you have with the Shelter —"

"Yeah," Jocko interrupts. "I got business with you, alright: One'a your freaks dissed me, ''real'' badand it ain't the kind of thing you can clear up with an apology. I know the little pussy's ''there,'' so how's about you put 'im on the line, huh?"

"Ve-" she begins. A momentary upshift lets me confirm there's no incoming assaults; when I revert back to the normal tempo, she's turned on the speakerphone function, and she's saying, "-ell. He's here now."

"Jubatus," I say to the 'phone, playing my part. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I want a cheetah-skin rug, ''Mister'' Juba-"

"Well, if it ain't Jocko Homo!" I break in. "What's crawled up ''your'' ass, Mr. H?"

"Ha, fuckin', ha," he replies. It's hard to tell, what with the audio distortions of the telephone system, but I ''think'' his level of irritation just got boosted a notch or two. Good. "Funny, kitty-cat. ''Real'' funny. Lemme tell you what I do to little pussies that stick their noses where they don't belong: I skin the fuckers alive."

"You and what army?" I sneer back at him. "Get real, Jocko — you ain't got shit, and we both ''know'' it. Face facts: '''''I''' am the fastest SCAB alive.'' You ''can't'' threaten me — not when I can outrun any bullet on the face of the Earth! Hell, I can ''catch'' your damn bullets and throw 'em right back in your face!"

''"You're dead, you goddamn pussy!"''

I give Splendor a 'thumbs up' gesture as I hammer the needles deeper beneath his skin: "Go ahead, Homo — ''lose'' your temper. Blow a gasket, that's a good little thug. Let your blood pressure rise until your arteries explode. I'll be sure to dance a jig of grief at your funeral, and piss on your grave."

I hold my hand up, warning the snake-lady not to interrupt, for the few moments of heavy breathing it takes Jocko to regain a semblance of self-control. Which he does: "Okay... Okay... You got me goin' there, I admit it. Not too bad — for a ''fuckin' animal.'' Enjoy it while you can, Mister Kitty, 'cause you won't enjoy ''nothin''' after ''I'm'' done with you!"

"So you can tag somebody that can break the sound barrier under his own power? Not!" is my smugly confident reply. "Try a gas weapon, Homo. A poisonous cloud is a lot harder to dodge than a bullet, and ''maybe'' I won't zip through it so damn fast it doesn't have ''time'' to affect me."

"That's ''real'' fuckin' hilarious, Mister Kitty." — and now he pauses, just for a very short moment — "In fact, you're a goddamn comedian, ain't'cha? Well, it wouldn't be polite of me to keep you from laughin' it up, so I'll just say g'bye now." And he hangs up. I think about Jocko Homo's pre- and post-pause vocal overtones, as much as I could hear them over the telephone, as Splendor turns the 'bamboozler' back on with a heartfelt exhalation...

"Well," she says, ''"that'' was interesting. May I assume there was a reason you insisted on giving Jocko the bright idea to try chemical weapons?"

"Damn straight." I grin mercilessly. "Look: We SCABs have an insanely wide range of biochemistries, right? What that means is, you can spend however-many megabucks developing a weapon that takes out ''one'' SCAB — but you got basically ''no'' idea whether or not it's gonna affect ''any other'' SCAB! So let's say you're a weapons researcher who's just been handed a pile of cash to come up with an equalizer that'll work on people like us. Do you spend it on chemical weapons, knowing that it's a fucking waste of resources, or do you spend it on new and improved projectile weapons, which are ''guaranteed'' to work on ''almost all'' SCABs?"

She thinks it over a moment, and likes the answer: "In other words, you goaded Jocko into wasting some of his available resources on an intrinsically futile gambit."

"Bingo! Got it in one."

"Unfortunately, I believe there's a flaw in your thinking. What's to keep Jocko from attempting to acquire one of those experimental projectile weapons you spoke of?"

I shrug. "Calculated risk. Assuming Jocko manages to get his hands on ''any'' military hardware ''at all,'' I'm betting he won't get more than one or two pieces, if that. And the more he focuses on ''me'' in particular, the less he's gonna be able to do to ''anybody else."''

"I see..." Splendor just looks at me for a clock-second or so. "You're determined to play lightning rod, aren't you."

"Better me than one of you slowpokes," I say with a shrug. "What's your point? I'm the hardest target you've ''got,'' so why ''shouldn't'' I paint a bullseye on my chest?"

"No reason at all," she says in a neutral tone. "Thank you, Jubatus."

"For what? Premature much?" I grimace. "Save your gratitude until ''after'' we've dealt with the problem at hand."

{{Separator|k}}

Jocko's no Jubatus. If it was ''me'' plotting an assault on the Shelter, I'd have researched the place in exhaustive detail ahead of time, including all of its resident SCABs and their combat-useful abilities. I'd also have worked up about 14 layers of contingency plans in case Something Went Wrong. And in particular, I would ''not'' have allowed my targets ''any'' breathing space ''whatsoever'' after my first attack. Then again, maybe Cargill did have a Plan B — Splendor doesn't think so, but, y'know, for the sake of argument? Like I said: Maybe the guy ''did'' have a backup plan, but I got my counterattack in ''before'' he could push the button.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, I'm not about to let up on him. For one thing, I've only tagged 68% of the targets on my list, and if you're a slowpoke (which everybody associated with the Shelter ''is),'' just ''one'' disgruntled twit with a high-powered rifle is all it takes to ruin your whole day. For another thing, three of the targets on my list have ''already'' bolted and run, apparently the moment they heard about what happened to my first victims. Or ''did'' they run away? Could be Jocko ordered 'em to go elsewhere and pick up a few 55-gallon drums of industrial-strength Whupass. Again, Spendor doesn't think Jocko's subtle enough (or smart enough) to do that; I'm inclined to agree, myself. Nevertheless, it's a loose end that needs to be tied off ''before'' it trips up anybody who matters. I've uploaded a few spiders to the Net, to keep an eye on the runners' financial activity; nothing big, just what I need so's I'll have a little advance notice if/when they make a suspicious purchase wherever, or they return to this fair city, or yada yada yada.

{{Separator|k}}

"Hey, don't get me wrong — I don't like killin' people any more'n the next guy! But what can you do when some fuckin' dipshit ''asks'' f-"

''— multiple attacks: threat levels high, extreme, extreme, lethal, extreme: 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 o'clock —''

— the instincts upshifted me to a tempo of ''40?'' Damn. Looks like my buddy Jocko is playing with ''very'' dangerous toys! A rather strong hammerblow to my back pushes me forward; I go with it, especially because there's a couple points on the back of my head that're feeling ''real'' hot just now. As I fall forward, the hot spots on my skull cool down a bit, and a second hammerblow glances off one shoulder.

Yes, Virginia, I got hit with supersonic bullets ''and'' military lasers. How did I survive to tell the tale, you ask? Tempo of 40, that's how. Upshifted that high, from ''my'' point of view the bullets were only carrying ''one-sixteenth of a percent'' of their 'full' load of kinetic energy; body armor did the rest. As for the energy weapons, my upshift cut their power — how much energy they deliver in a given amount of time — to only 1/40 normal, not to mention what it did to the photons' frequency. That kind of tweakage can really mess up a laser beam's innate capacity for destruction, you know? Still dangerous, but only if I'm dumb enough to stick around and wait for it to burn me. No, I can't outrun photons; then again, I don't ''have to'' be faster than light.

I just have to be faster than whatever's adjusting the laser's point-of-aim.

Moving right along: You damn betcha I'm prepped for beam weapons. Jocko may not be Jubatus, but ''I am.'' One vest pocket holds a few grams of light-sensitive dust; laser-safety goggles in another; a third pocket's got a matched set of six corner-cube reflectors. My left hand tosses clouds of powder into the air for the beams to reflect/refract off of, while I put the goggles on with my right... bingo! ''There's'' the beamlines — all three of the SOBs. Fine. Three corner-cubes, coming right up. I give each one a ''whole'' bunch of angular velocity so it twirls in place; that won't stop it from reflecting the laser ''exactly'' back the way it came, but it ''will'' reduce the amount of time any particular piece of reflector spends in direct contact with its beam.

The adrenaline rush is fading — I can feel blood vessels throbbing in my neck and scalp, not to mention the opening twinges of a killer migraine. That's what I get for overstraining my chronomorph power. I can't maintain a tempo of 40 for long, so I gotta make the most of each Time-shifted fractional second while I can.

Okay — the bullets. Only one source, thank Ares. They look to be moving at 40-45 MPH, which (after factoring in my tempo) means they ''are'' supersonic. Somewhere around Mach two-point-five, I think. The exact figure doesn't matter: I extract a pair of hand-sized metal plates from yet another vest pocket, align the plates at ''just'' the right angles, and thereby nudge the stream of bullets towards the trajectory I'd rather they follow. The headache's just begun, but I ain't got ''time'' to deal with the pain, so I ignore it. I give the room a quick scan; yep, the same four targets. Good. Hmmm... the first bullet just struck target 1, so I shift my 'bucklers' to redirect the stream to the next in line, then target 3, and finally Jocko himself. Bastard ''would'' ensure that ''he's'' not anywhere near the direct line of fire, damn it.

The lasers are gone now — ''quelle'' surprise, and I appreciate the corner-cubes' sacrifice — so it's time to deal with the gun-on-steroids. The cloud of drywall fragments tells me ''exactly'' where the bullets are coming from, so I leap straight at that point, twirling my hand-held shields before me in a paddle-wheel-type maneuver so's the projectiles get knocked out of my flight path into the floor. Each bullet-slap jars me up to the shoulders, in a rhythm that clashes against the pulsating throbs of my cerebral arteries. I hit the wall a little over the bullets' exit hole; no problem! I dig into the wall with the claws of two feet and one arm, and I use my free hand to ram a 'shield' right down the barrel of the damn gun.

Okay, it won't fit — it's too big — but ''you'' know what I mean, right? If I can clog up the barrel with its own bullets, I negate this particular threat. And the bullets keep coming; each new impact against the 'buckler' sends a ''serious'' shockwave up my arm and down my torso to rattle my internal organs. One... two... thr- ''Sn'f'fckngbtch!!!''

''Very'' bright light. Then pain makes a fast getaway as the world goes ''real'' dark...

{{Separator|k}}

Lying down; I smell medicines and rubbing alcohol; right. I'm in a hospital. Private room. Kind of tired, but I don't feel much pain — apparently, I've been healing for a while? And... okay, I recognize ''that'' scent: It's Splendor. I see a light cast on her left elbow, neatly-applied dressings on her neck and the right side of her face, plus a glued-down patch over her right eye — and who knows what ''else'' she's hiding ''underneath'' her clothes. No cane; she must not've been hurt ''that'' badly. I downshift to talk to her...

"Hello, Splendor," I say. "I'm guessing the good guys won."

"Jubatus!" She seems a little surprised to hear me speak; not sure why. "Welcome to the land of the living. And yes, we did."

"Good. What happened after I fell asleep on the job?"

The lady makes with one of her oh-so-elegant veiled smiles. "You may have 'fell asleep', but I shan't complain. After all, a railgun ''did'' explode in your face..."

I roll my eyes. "Now tell me something I ''don't'' know."

"Of course," she says, nodding. "From what I could determine afterwards, I was outside the blast radius proper, but the shockwave knocked me senseless anyway. When I came to, I was naked except for the coils of duct tape Jocko had wrapped around me — and I knew it was him because he wasn't finished. I'm afraid he noticed I was awake before I'd quite recovered my wits; he took great pleasure in telling me ''exactly and precisely'' what he intended to do to me, now that you were too dead to protect me." Now she looks me in the eyes; her unblinking gaze makes it real clear (like it wasn't before?) what kind of critter that damn disease blended her with. I wait for the snake-lady to keep talking.

"And then he raped me." It's a flat, calm, statement of fact she's just made... "Which only proves that he was unaware of the ''full'' extent of what SCABS did to me."

My mind races — there's a few rumors about certain events in her past — I throw out an educated guess: "Projecting chronomorph?"

Splendor acknowledges my remark with a subtle inclination of her head. "Correct. I can only adjust other people's ages downward — but when sex is involved, the rejuvenative effect is ''permanent."''

I ponder the possibilities... "So you rolled his odometer back. How far?"

"I fully intended to 'roll his odometer back', as you put it, to the point at which his zygote originally formed." I blink at that. ''Okay... someone remind me never to piss her off...'' "As it happened, I didn't need to go that far; at the moment of his death, I'd reduced him to a first-trimester premature birth."

"Damn..." I picture the scene in my mind. "And since he ''was'' raping you at the time..."

"Exactly. Jocko was too distracted to perceive any difficulties until ''after'' he was physically incapable of doing anything about it. Now it's your turn, Jubatus. What ''did'' you spend these past few days doing?"

So I talk. Snake-lady listens — and from her occasional questions and comments, it's pretty clear that my info is mostly just confirming what she's already learned from other sources.

Doesn't take me long to finish the story. Splendor stares off into the middle distance for a while; I take the opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep...

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:John Moschitta School of Elocution}}

User talk:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution

2008-02-24T01:12:37Z

Cubist: /* Tables of contents */

==Tables of contents==

You can also force the table of contents to appear in a specific location by adding the magic word "<nowiki>__TOC__</nowiki>" (that's two underscores, TOC, and then two more underscores) at the spot where you want it to appear. Conversely, if you ''don't'' want a table of contents to appear anywhere, put "<nowiki>__NOTOC__</nowiki>" anywhere in the page. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 12:40, 23 February 2008 (EST)

Ah! Coolness. Thank you for the clue-stick! [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 20:12, 23 February 2008 (EST)

User:Cubist

2008-02-23T12:33:02Z

Cubist:

{{my stories
|name=Cubist
|category=Cubist
}}
My offline name is Quentin Long. Among other things, I edited/webmastered 30 issues of the netzine [http://tsat.transform.to TSAT] before I killed it, and currently am editor/webmaster of the live, bimonthly-without-fail netzine [http://anthrozine.com Anthro] (established Sep/Oct 2005), which I invite everyone to browse. If you like ''Anthro's'' content ''(i.e.,'' its stories and art), feel free to [http://anthrozine.com/site/support.html donate money or subscribe]; [http://anthrozine.com/site/ad.policy.html place an advertisement]; check out the [http://anthrozine.com/site/support.books.1.html recommended books] and/or [http://www.zazzle.com/cubist* art for sale]; or purchase paperback editions of [http://www.lulu.com/content/536807 the zine's first six issues] or [http://www.lulu.com/content/541536 ''The Human Memoirs],'' the zine's first serial. Aside from that, I've also done a bit of writing myself...

== My TBP stories ==

In the TF community-of-interest, my Blind Pig stories are prolly what I'm best known for. My character, Jubatus, is a ''very'' broken person; he's suspicious to the point of paranoia, he's honest ''beyond'' a fault, he's ''highly'' cynical and sarcastic and antisocial and impatient and perfectionistic and... basically, he's just a ''whole'' lot of fun to write. 
Fortunately, Jube seems to be a whole lot of fun to ''read,'' too. 
The stories I've linked to from this page are those written by me, and me alone. There's also some Jube stories that I wrote in collaboration with other people, not to mention the ones I didn't have anything at all to do with the writing of; I am unsure if I should link to them from ''here,'' but they're collected in [http://transform.to/~cubist/ my personal story archive]...

[[User:Cubist/A Good Run of Luck|A Run of Good Luck]] 
[[User:Cubist/Second Heat|Second Heat]] 
[[User:Cubist/Speedy Trials|Speedy Trials]] 
[[User:Cubist/No Quick Fix|No Quick Fix]] 
[[User:Cubist/Building the Perfect Beast|Building the Perfect Beast]] (track 1 of Life in the Fast Lane) 
[[User:Cubist/So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star|So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star]] (track 2 of Life in the Fast Lane) 
[[User:Cubist/Christmas Rush|Christmas Rush]]

And I have some TBP works-in-progress, too. Perhaps posting them here will gather some feedback and/or help spur me on to finish them at a faster rate than I am now...

[[User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution|The John Moschitta School of Elocution]] -- Big sucker. Like, 115K...

== My other stories ==

TBP isn't the ''only'' thing I do, of course. For instance, I've written the incredible but true Origin story of my avatar in the HEROINES setting...

[[User:Cubist/Nobody's Coming|Nobody's Coming]]

[[Category:Author]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Cubist}}

User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution

2008-02-23T12:14:00Z

Cubist: Silly me, thinking that the "table of contents" would go at the top of the page, as opposed to wherever the first section header happens to be...

{{title|name=The John Moschitta School of Elocution|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}

== it begins ==

They call me Jubatus. Me being the fastest SCAB alive, I ''always'' have time to kill... so I always need new ways to kill time, simply to avoid going mad from boredom. You could call it Parkinson's Law of Temporal Consumption: "Activities multiply to fill whatever you've got in the way of spare time." I didn't used to find this a problem — I got plenty of interests — but then, I also didn't used to think there could be more than 24 hours in a day. There can, particularly for people like me, to whom SCABS gave a seriously overclocked brain. That's short for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, and can you blame anyone for preferring the acronym? I've got SCABS to thank for my being a bipedal cheetah with a train of thought that runs six times faster than anyone else's, which explains how come from ''my'' point of view, there's ''150'' hours in a day. Fortunately, I can control the rate at which my personal 'clock' runs; upshifting for greater speed, downshifting to interact with you slowpokes.

What do I ''do'' with all that time, I hear you ask? Whatever I damned well please, and six times more of it than I ever could before. Today, like pretty much every other day, it pleases me to spend a couple hours of clock time puttering around the West Street Shelter. Seems I've got a bit of history with one of their volunteers, a rabbit named Phil, and I like to keep an eye on him. Think of me as a guardian angel with spotted fur and sharp, pointy teeth. May the good Lord forgive any fool who thinks he can give the rabbit a hard time, because ''I'' sure as hell ''won't.'' Phil is good people, and if anyone forgets how good people should be treated, I'm up for teaching 'em a quick lesson in manners any day of the week.

I'm not sure Phil notices, but I make a point of reducing my Dangerous quotient before I drop in. I trim my claws; I kill 'cheetah breath' with mouthwash; I also downshift to a tempo of around .95, marginally slower than the norm. Not that it matters whether he's consciously aware. The way I see it, he doesn't need to worry about a small flotilla of high-velocity knife edges zipping around him in loose formation. That's basically the reason I bother with the Shelter at all, when you get right down to it — reducing the level of hassle Phil gets from an important part of his life. The instant Phil leaves, I'm gone, too.

At this point, I'll bet some of you are wondering how ''anyone,'' a highly-morphed SCAB like me in particular, could possibly be indifferent to the good work done at the Shelter. You guys should talk to the ones who ''aren't'' asking; they're just as cynical as I am, and therefore ''know'' why somebody might be less than enthusiastic about ostensibly-altruistic behavior. Let's just say I'm a 'value given for value received' kind of guy and leave it at that, shall we?

I suspect Splendor (the sometimes cold-blooded mistress of West Street in general, and the Shelter in particular) has an idea of what I'm ''really'' about here, but no matter how our philosophies may differ, she's too pragmatic to reject assistance from any quarter. So far I've spruced up the joint's Net presence, made sure a few time-sensitive deliveries arrived on schedule, written two drafts of a Shelter procedures manual, and done a fair amount of websearching on a notable variety of topics, to name only four of the tasks I've fielded here.

Right now I'm seated in the lobby, not far from Phil's office. I'm continuing work on the Shelter's website. Specifically, the interface of the Shelter's online database of SCAB-friendly businesses. Got my PowerBook before me, and I intend to cut that interface down to size, or die trying. You'd be surprised how many 56K modems are still in service, particularly among the SCAB populace that's the Shelter's target audience. And even if ''you'' aren't surprised, the twit who originally created this interface certainly would be! I'll bet he was thinking more of how it would look in his portfolio than how it would serve the client, damn his highly-trained eyes. He had every pixel of the bloody thing thickly encrusted with bandwidth-sucking leeches — I'm talking 32-bit animation, Java-3 applets, multi-track sound files, and on and on. End result: Not only does the sucker take for''ever'' to finish loading on a slow connection, but it runs like an arthritic clam (when it runs at all) on any machine the intended audience is likely to be able to afford.

So far, I've sandblasted ''all'' the graphics down to bit-depths of 8 or less, and killed ''every'' piece of animation that had no valid reason to live. The payoff is that the download time over a 56K modem has dropped to 235 seconds. Yes, ''dropped.'' By a factor of five. I won't be satisfied until I reduce that figure to twenty seconds or less, and if I have to go with pure text to get —

Phil is nervous, I can ''smell'' it. That scent, the odor of frightened prey, drills straight to the vital core of my hindbrain to stir up predatory voices. I can't help that, but I sure as Artemis don't have to ''listen'' to what those voices are saying.

Being a rabbit, Phil scares easily; I don't want to overreact. I close the laptop, carrying it with me as I walk calmly over towards the converted walk-in closet he calls his office. He's with a client, a big sumbitch. From the back, the client looks like a norm with orange stripes dyed into his black crewcut, or maybe it's ''vice versa.'' I hear a VoxPop voder say, "Sorry, but that command was invalid."

"Grrrrrr..." I ''know'' that growl, it's the sound of an angry carnivore that's 1.5 seconds away from ''killing'' something! I upshift, the growl dopplers down into the deep subsonic, and tiger-boy freezes up like the rest of the world. I memorize my position and move in, get a clear view of ''exactly'' what he's up to... and breathe a sigh of relief. Tiger-boy is glaring down at the voder in his furless hands, caught in the act of stabbing one finger down to the touchscreen. He's got fur down his neck; thick black skin on the bottom of his very human nose; round pupils in his glittery, reflective eyes. Okay, tiger-boy's no ''immediate'' danger to Phil, but I still don't like his mood.

I return to my memorized position, downshift, pick up the walk where I left off. "Say, is that a Vox Populi voder I heard?" I ask. Tiger-boy doesn't react, but Phil looks up.

"Yes, it is!" the rabbit says in his cute, high-pitched voice. Not sure if he counts as tenor or soprano, I keep forgetting to ask Wanderer. Phil continues, "How much do you know about them? Mr. Anthony here is having a little trouble with his. Do you think that you could help?"

"I can give it a shot. Got nothing better to do," I say with a smile that keeps my teeth decently hidden. I make a show of looking for another chair, which of course there isn't — no room. "Alright. Mr. Anthony, was it? Good. My name is Jubatus. How about we go up front where we can both sit down?"

We move out, and Phil's distress is inversely proportional to the distance between him and us. I give tiger-boy some leading questions he can answer with head motion and/or hand gestures: He's a local. Single. Started to SCAB over eleven days ago. Spoke his last intelligible words nine days back. Just got released from hospital a week ago. Hasn't noticed any tigerish instincts yet. The salesman pushed him into buying a top-of-the-line VoxPop that he really couldn't afford.

We sit down in the lobby. I open the laptop, bring up SimpleText, set the voice for "Alfred, high quality", show him how to make it recite what's typed into the window. "Mr. Anthony, that salesman didn't do you a service," I say. "Vox Populi voders ''do'' sound as good as you were told, yes, but they're finicky bastards. If you're a novice, you'll have as much luck with it as a kid with a learner's permit would have with an eighteen-wheeler."

"Call me Felix," my laptop says for him. "Agreed. What replacement?"

I ponder for a moment. "If your heart is set on using a voder, I'd say go with a Kurzweil. The vocal quality sucks at the low end, but even the worst Kurzweil has clear enunciation, and you can make yourself understandable within two days tops. Most people, a couple hours' practice is enough. You want a KV-240, maybe a KV-200 if you're ''really'' hard up for cash. Anything less than a 200, well, it's cheap and it works."

"Voder not needed?"

Sharp man — he caught the implication of my 'if your heart is set on it' phrasing. I shrug: "Hell if ''I'' know. Depends on what SCABS did to your vocal tract. Can you open your mouth? I want to see what you've got to work with here." He opens, and it's a perfectly normal human mouth. Tongue, palate, teeth, jaws, all right out of a pre-'Flu medical textbook. With his flat face, I'll bet his sinus cavities are human-normal as well. "Looks good to me. Now let me check out your neck." I lay my hands on either side of his throat, taking care not to let my claws touch fur, let alone flesh; I don't feel a larynx in there. Not a good sign. "Okay, make some noise."

"Rrrrrrrr..." he rumbles. Nothing's vibrating in his neck.

"Keep it going." He does. I move one hand to his chest — ''there's'' vibration. "Alright, that's enough. You should definitely get a second opinion on this, Felix, but here's what I think: Your larynx is gone. That's the source of vibration for a normal human voice, and you ain't got one no more. No voicebox, just a purr-box. The good news is, the ''rest'' of your vocal tract looks okay, and if I'm right about that, it should be fairly easy for you to relearn speech." ''You lucky bastard,'' I don't say. "In the meantime, let's see what I can do with that VoxPop of yours. Got the manual?"

He does, and is happy to hand it over. I upshift high, skim from cover to cover, re-read the important bits, downshift. I'm a technical writer, cramming like this is what I do for a living. And the problem I'm now faced with is how to cut the bleeding options down to something a novice can manage. Damn thing's got more bells, whistles, and gongs than Office 2024 (yes, that's the version the Feds actually passed a law requiring Microsoft to recall every copy of), and thanks to a multi-layered contextual menu system, every last control and setting is accessible with no more than four taps on the touchscreen. Wonderful if you know what you're doing; otherwise, one misplaced tap gets you an Urdu accent thick enough to cut with a chainsaw — if you're lucky.

I do a slash-and-burn job on the on-screen controls, hiding 99.9% of them. I don't touch the semantic analysis subroutines, they'll ensure decent inflection, but I lock down the recognition parameters so Anthony can't screw it up by accident.

Next comes input. "You got the subvocalization options package?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Good. That'll help you retrain the muscles that shape your resonance cavities. But until you get the hang of it, you'll probably want to do input by hand. Palmspring user?" I ask, referring to one of the more popular PDAs.

"Yes."

"How's your shorthand?" SCABS has given the two major shorthand systems (Pittman and Gregg) a new lease on life after decades of slow, word processor-induced decline.

"Grafitti only." That's the simplified letterform system that was devised a few decades back as a practical solution to the problem of handwriting recognition, and pretty much every palmtop these days can handle it.

I nod. I turn off Pittman and Gregg, leaving Grafitti and the onscreen keyboard as the two manual input modes. As a final touch, if he manages to screw it up in spite of what I've done, I give him a friendly red button to click on that'll restore the damn thing to the state I left it in. And just in case he manages to nuke the button, I beam a backup copy of the configuration file to my laptop.

"Here you go. Use Grafitti, or click here to bring up a keyboard you can use the stylus with. Like so," I say, demonstrating. "And if anything goes wrong, this is the panic button — as long as that's visible, clicking on it should reset everything to this condition."

Oh yeah, tiger-boy knows his Grafitti. It's only a second or two before his VoxPop says, "That was impressive. Thank you, Jubatus. How are you at speech training?"

"You really want to learn how to talk from someone who sounds like me?" I ask with a smile. It's not a rhetorical question, because I ''know'' what kind of noise comes out of my mouth, damn it. Ever heard an old-time tracheotomy patient whose voice is driven by a hand-held electric buzzer? It's a nasty timbre, metallic and inhuman, and my speech has been compared to that. Unfavorably. And then there's a familiar whiff of nervousness in the air; Phil speaks up before I finish turning to look at him.

"I would if I were you, Mr. Anthony," says Phil. I aim a puzzled look in his direction. ''What's that rabbit think he's doing?'' He continues: "Jubatus would never admit it, but there's nothing human left in his throat and mouth. His speech is quite good, don't you agree?"

Phil can be devious and manipulative when it suits him. Fortunately, he's sworn to use this great power only for Good. I'll bet half my stock portfolio that I know what he's up to now. "So how many ''other'' mutes you gonna deliver into my tender care?" I ask him.

"Total of six," he says, bubbly and cheerful. "We've already started cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms for your class."

I keep my tone light — no need to disturb Phil's client. "And when were you thinking about letting ''me'' on on the secret?"

Phil waggles his ears in a noncommittal fashion. "I thought that you'd figure it out on your own, so I wouldn't ''have to'' say anything. Isn't that what happened?" he asks with an innocent, guileless expression. That rabbit has no shame. I think he had it surgically removed, unless SCABS got there first.

I get the feeling that maybe Phil manipulated ''me,'' and I don't ''like'' being manipulated. If the rabbit really did play me like a violin... Anyone else, I'd be thinking about how to make the bastard pay. But not Phil. ''Never'' Phil. As far as I'm concerned, he's paid so far in advance that ''I'' owe ''him,'' and I always will. I swallow my aggravation, and nod. "Alright. Six students, including Mr. Anthony here. No problem. You wouldn't happen to have any information on the other five, would you?"

"Sure," he says, hopping over to me. "In the backpack." Which he's wearing, so I open the main pocket and extract a set of manila folders. If you're wondering why he didn't just hand them to me, you should know that Phil doesn't ''have'' hands. His forepaws really are ''paws,'' bloody near zero manipulatory capacity. But ''he'' can ''speak,'' damn it! Somebody had to have helped him with the files, and I deliberately, explicitly refuse to become annoyed at this evidence of premeditation on his part. He thanks me and hops back to his hutch-''cum''-office.

Tiger-boy's VoxPop speaks up: "There really is nothing left of your human voice?"

It's the voder's built-in tone of polite inquiry — dunno what ''he'd'' prefer the question sound like. I take it at face value. "You can't tell? Yup, all gone. You're lucky, SCABS didn't even ''touch'' most of ''your'' vocal tract. All ''you'' have to do is learn how to work with a new sound source. Probably end up with an exotic-sounding tone in the bass register, good for attracting girls."

He starts composing a reply, then stops and looks at me. After a moment, his VoxPop says, "You sound bitter."

I hadn't intended to, but he's right. Vocalizing has always been a touchy subject for me, ever since I SCABbed over. Maybe tiger-boy is just offering me a sympathetic ear; too bad that kind of offer is one I'm not about to accept. ''Ever.'' "That's one reason I don't use a voder — most of 'em can't do emotional overtones very well. The VoxPop line is an exception, but you already know how delicate the controls are," I say with a shrug. "Anyhow, I'd recommend that you exchange the damn thing and get a more economical model, or at least one you don't need a Masters' Degree in to use properly..."

Tiger-boy leaves after I'm done giving him advice. I close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and breathe deeply; it took more effort than usual to keep a lid on my customary bad temper, and the voice thing is why. And then Phil's scent again —

"Are you alright, Jubatus?"

I don't bother to move or look at the rabbit. "Hello, Phil. It would've killed you to ask? Or even give me some advance notice?"

"If I'd asked, you would have refused," he says reasonably. "But I don't know what your problem is. Really, what's the worst that could happen?"

"You see me in a puddle of blood, none of it mine, on the Six O'Clock News," I say without thinking.

There's an elongated pause, broken by Phil. "You know what, Jubatus? You worry too much. And coming from a rabbit, that's saying something."

I almost laugh — of course, ''he'' doesn't know how goddamn close my scenario came to playing itself out, with him supplying the blood, when we first met. "Gee. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Gotta run — bye-bye!" And then the rabbit is gone.

Sigh.

A cursory scan of the files indicates that all six are animorph SCABs of one kind or another. I start with Anthony's file, which confirms what I already knew, then go on to Kerry Dennison. Sales clerk, married, no kids. He's a fish-morph, bulgy eyes and webbed fingers and scales all over, and a Godawful ''ugly'' bastard, to boot. The picture shows flat, wide tubing wrapped around his neck... ah. He's got (barely-) functional gills ''and'' the remnants of his old lungs; the tubing supplies water for his gills, and between them and his lungs, he gets enough oxygen to survive. No wonder his file has nothing on his current capacity for vocalization... the doctors would've had their hands full just keeping him alive, and his insurance ran out before they could do anything else.

Third in line, Mary ''(née'' Martin) Zelinski, is a living cliché: She's a fox gendermorph, a fuzz-covered wet dream who could've stepped out of a '''''PlaySCAB''''' centerfold. Formerly an investment banker with a trophy wife, the 'Flu giveth her an all-over permanent fur coat as the 'Flu taketh away her mind. She's not feral, just amnesiac — a near-complete ''tabula rasa.'' With her (former) profession, she's got to have money, so why is she here at the Shelter, instead of upstate at St. Jude Medical or the like? And how come she went through ''five'' doctors in her first month as a SCAB? Reading between the lines of the vixen's file, I can't help but wonder how much the ''other'' Mrs. Zelinski has to answer for...

File Number Four is a schoolteacher, name of Sawyer Borman. He's a man-sized insect-morph, cricket with an occasional grasshoppery touch. Basic body plan could be described as "humanoid with four arms". Doesn't even have lungs, ''per se'' — his body is thoroughly riddled with a branching network of air passages that oxygenate all tissues ''directly,'' never mind that considerations of airflow and surface area make that scheme unworkable for a critter as big as him. What the hell, he's a polymorph (with a limited selection of insectoid forms), I guess he can have an impossible metabolism if he wants to.

Next is the Right Reverend Charles Calgonetti. I'll get to him.

And finally... oh, joy. Inanimorph. This one's been living (?) at the Shelter for seventeen weeks now, ever since the day an animated, life-sized granite statue of a Great Dane showed up from nowhere. No ID, no clue to her former life — and even the 'her' is only an educated guess, based on the statue's anatomically correct details. At least she (?) answers to 'Jenny'. She can understand spoken or written English, but doesn't appear to be able to speak or write herself. Wonder how badly she's been disoriented by her radical transformation? Inanimorphs... well, hell. Just have to see what (if anything) I can do to reach her. It. Whatever.

After I'm done with my reading, I suspect the preacher's going to be the hardest nut to crack. Physically speaking, Calgonetti is a mynah bird scaled up to a body length of four feet, with avian-type talons at the ends of his feather-covered, humanish legs. Black feathers all over, interrupted only by a ring of iridescent white around his throat. Who says SCABS doesn't have a sense of humor? Chuck traded up from his human body eleven years ago, and hasn't spoken a word since. Pretty tough on a guy who'd been a professional talker.

A mynah bird, speechless? Yeah, right. My best guess is, he's got a self-imposed mental block about speech. This sort of thing definitely isn't my forte, but I'm betting he'll talk if I can piss him off bad enough. I'll try not to enjoy needling a man of God.

Okay, I'll try not to enjoy it ''too'' much.

But I digress... I don't recognize Chuck's denomination, but it's clearly not one of the bigoted ones: His flock — sorry, couldn't resist — have been supporting him all this time, providing sufficient resources (financial and otherwise) to keep him going until he's ready to get back in the pulpit. He's got a record, he does; over the years he's attended eight different speech classes, none of which did him any good whatsoever. He's always gotten good marks for attendance and participation, always declined use of a voder, always projected a congenial air, consistently maintained that the Lord will restore him to full voice whenever it suits Him to do so. All of which does nothing to explain why he's ''here,'' a bloody ''homeless shelter'' in a rotting neighborhood that's maybe three steps away from complete and absolute urban collapse, for the love of Ahura-Mazda.

I've got an uncomfortable feeling that I know what's ''really'' going on behind those beady little eyes. I think I may already have been where he is — except, of course, that ''he's'' got faith in the Almighty. I wonder how much of that faith is still alive in his heart right now...

{{Separator|k}}

I don't need to check the schedule. I work with the Shelter's online resources, I already knew that the speech class will begin three calendar days from now. Just didn't know who the 'teacher to be announced' would be.

Three calendar days. Plenty of time for me to familiarize myself with my classroom, work up a lesson plan, collect and/or create some teaching resources, talk to Donnie at the Pig, make arrangements with Dr. Derksen for use of his lab, and generally prep for the tutoring gig.

== the first week ==

Time for the first session to begin. Butterflies in my stomach? Naah, the hornets killed and ate them all... I really shouldn't ought to be as nervous as I am. After all, I'm a technical writer; teaching people is what I do for a living! I just don't usually do it ''in person.'' And I also don't usually do it with topics that are quite so personal, topics that strike quite so close to the core of what a human being truly is.

Who am I kidding? I'm nervous because this hits ''me'' where I live. Even now I get the shakes just ''thinking'' about those first few days after I SCABbed over. That's when I ''couldn't'' talk ''at all,'' when I didn't know how to coax anything close to an articulate sound from my newly-remodeled throat, when I had no way of knowing whether or not I ever would be able to speak another word for the rest of my life...

It was bad. Leave it at that.

What the hell, it'll be a learning experience in more ways than one.

No more waffling; I walk up the stairs, down the hall, and into my classroom. What do you know — Jenny's mass of stone doesn't exceed the limits of the Shelter's structural integrity.

Once at my desk, I upshift while setting up all the connections for my laptop, then look at each student in turn. "Hello. My name's Jubatus. I think we all know why we're here, so no need to belabor the point. The first thing you should know is that if you really ''want'' to talk, you ''can.'' And you'll do it before the end of this first session. That's a promise." I pause to let that sink in, then flip three small devices out of a vest pocket and catch them between the fingers of my other hand. Some of my students recognize the gadgets, which I hold up and fan out like a poker hand. "These are voders. Low-end Kurzweil models, KV-150s; nothing fancy, but they do the job. I've got one for everybody. And they're the reason I can make that promise.

"What I ''don't'' promise is that you'll be able to talk ''without'' mechanical assistance. Maybe you can, maybe not — it depends on two things. First, on exactly what kind of mess SCABS made of your vocal tract, and second, on whether or not you can figure out how to manhandle a comprehensible voice out of your ''current'' set of pipes.

"And hell, maybe you'll decide you ''don't'' actually want to talk. Even then, you've got options; you can learn Sign," — here I fingerspell ''AMESLAN IS NOT A VAN VOGT NOVEL'' — "and if all else fails, there's always the written word. Donnie Sinclair, guy who runs the Blind Pig, is mute and doesn't use a voder; I'll see if I can't get him up here to fill you in on living without a voice. I think that would be a mistake, myself, but it's ''your'' decision, and as long as ''you're'' satisfied, it's none of my damn business how you choose to live your life.

"And now that that's out of the way..." Here I pick a manila folder up off my desk, open it, look at the contents. "Couple of you guys have a bit of a track record. Calgonetti, says here you've been slacking off in vocalization classes for more than a decade," I say, hearing amused noises as I drop some papers into a convenient trash can. The bird doesn't appreciate my description. Good. "Dennison, you've got a signed certificate says you're permanently mute." I drop more papers. "As for the rest of you..." I shut the folder, send it to rejoin its missing contents. Then I take a butane lighter from a vest-pocket, ignite it, and toss ''it'' into the trash. There's a momentary ''FWOOSH'' as an inches-wide ball of flame rises up, dissipating before it hits the ceiling. It's pure theater — I'm just burning Xeroxes — but it does the job. All six of my students are focussed fully on ''me.''

"I don't give a flying fuck what ''anyone'' may have told you before today. Far as I'm concerned? As of now, each and every one of you ''will'' talk — or I'll know the reason why.

"Any questions?"

I wasn't expecting any response, but the bug makes a 'clickick' noise and raises his upper left hand while his upper right scribbles on a notepad in his lower pair. After he's done, a quick upshift and the notepad 'teleports' into ''my'' hands.

"Okay... Borman here wants to know what happens if someone can't talk by the end of summer." Another upshift reunites the bug and his paper. "Well, it's true that we only got this room for ten weeks, but it's ''also'' true that the Shelter's not teaching this class. ''I am.'' You want out, say the word and you're out; otherwise, I'm not giving up until you ''can'' speak. And if that's after session ten, I'll just have to find us a different classroom. Any other questions?"

Dead air.

"Good. First, let's take a look at how speech works when it ''does'' work..." Here I upshift, extract a roll of eight-millimeter correction tape (red) from my vest, and spend a clock-second or so putting a schematic diagram of the human vocal tract on the wall. Back at a tempo of 1, I point at one specific bit of the diagram. "See this? It's the larynx, but you can call it a 'voicebox'. It's got a couple folds of skin that vibrate when you shove air past 'em, not unlike a clarinet reed..."

By the time I'm done, my students (most of them, anyway; with the fox and rock, it's hard to tell) have a solid grounding in the biomechanics of spoken language — ''i.e.,'' how a normal human vocal tract operates. Now for the voders, which I distribute in half an upshifted clock-second.

"Okay, time to keep that promise I started class with. See what's on your desk? It's a KV-150. If you're clueless about voders, give the built-in tutorial a try. You can't figure something out, lemme know and I'll see if I can make it clear for you."

Within two clock-minutes, the first "Hello, world!" tutorial is audible. And ten clock-minutes further on, they get to "The time is eight forty-seven pee-emm" and "I am a SCAB" and "Today is Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of June, two-thousand thirty-eight ay-dee." Damned if I can tell how the inanimorph works a voder with stone paws, but she (?) does. Too bad her machine's only reciting random words and phrases. Zelinski's doing better; she actually got her voder to say "My name is Mary Zelinski." On purpose, yet. The150s sound better than I do, damn it, but then I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. Focusing on technical matters — how well my students are or aren't using the Kurzweils — helps me keep a lid on my annoyance.

I assign homework (practice with the 150s), and then it's over. Dennison and Anthony drive themselves home; Zelinski's picked up by some random luxury car; Chuck and Borman ride the bus; and the innie, the stone dog, walks downstairs. What are the odds of the vixen's ride being an incognito limousine? I make a note to check the license plates with the DMV.

Only after I'm finally alone do I let myself unclench. I didn't come anywhere near losing it; the scents of the bird and fish didn't make me any hungrier than usual; all in all, it went better than I expected. Of course, 'better than I expected' just means I didn't dismember anyone...

"How did it go, Jubatus?" Who else? It's the damn bunny.

"No blood got spilt. Guess that means I'm stuck teaching next week's class, right?"

Puzzled, the rabbit wrinkles his fuzzy nose. "Why wouldn't you be? Judging by what I saw and heard from your students, you did quite well — as I knew that you would!"

Sigh. "Phil, has it ever occured to you I might have a ''reason'' to be a pain-in-the-ass loner?"

"Well, you're a cheetah-derived animorph SCAB. Which means that you're influenced by cheetah characteristics, including their solitary nature, are you not?"

He doesn't get it — wonderful. Time for an object lesson. "That's right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Hold on a sec..." The Shelter's got a few board games; Monopoly, Yahtzee, like that. I upshift, grab some dice, downshift. "...okay. See this?" I say, holding one of the dice before me. "Got a deal for you. Roll it, and if you get anything but a one, I give you a million dollars."

His ears skew at odd angles. "What's the catch? If I ''do'' roll a one, do I have to pay you?"

"No catch, the money's yours either way — but if you roll a one, somebody within a twenty-block radius of here ends up maimed or dead. What do you say, Phil?"

He stares at me for a moment and says, "No."

"Why not? It's an honest die; there's five chances in six that no blood gets shed!"

"Perhaps, but it's that ''one'' chance in six that bothers me!"

"Come on, that's not even 17%!"

He shrugs with his ears. "I don't care. I wouldn't roll that die for a million dollars."

Suddenly I've got ''two'' dice in my hand. "Fine. How about now? Same deal, but nobody gets hurt unless you roll snake-eyes, a one on ''both'' dice. That's a 35-to-1 longshot, less than 3% chance of it actually happening. How about it, Phil?"

"Still no."

"Okay," five dice, "how about ''this?'' Five ones, that's a little over point-zero-one percent, just one chance out of 7,776. Isn't that worth a megabuck?"

"No, it —"

"Ten dice!" I say, putting them on the desk between us. "One million dollars, Phil. ''One. Million. Dollars.'' Only one chance in sixty million they come up solid ones."

"Only one chance in sixty million that someone gets hurt, you mean!"

I shrug. "Details. Alright, how about a ''billion'' dollars? I'm good for it, you know. Roll these ten dice, and one gigabuck is yours, free and clear!"

Stunned, the rabbit stares at me for a while until he finally says, "I don't care how many dice it is, and I don't care how much money it is either. I'm not going to do it, Jubatus."

"Why not? For the love of Mammon, you're throwing away ''one billion dollars'' because of a sixty-million-to-one longshot! Don't you ''want'' to be filthy rich?"

''"Not like that, I don't!"''

My voice is quiet — "Good." — and his face goes blank with surprise. Then I go on: "I'm not perfect, Phil. I got mood swings make a rabid wolverine look like a Zen master. I can fuck up, ''bad.'' 'Can', hell; I already ''have!'' And with my kind of speed —" I break off, almost managing not to shudder. "You're damn right I worry. Wouldn't you?"

He doesn't need two swats from a clue-by-four. "Oh."

"Yeah."

And again: "Oh!"

I dig out a smile from somewhere. "Don't worry, me going postal on any given day ''is'' a world-class longshot — billion-to-one, trillion-to-one, somewhere up there. The real risk is long-term: If I keep rolling those dice, they ''will'' come up snake-eyes sooner or later. The only question is when. And if you're wondering how I can justify putting innocents at risk by hanging around the Pig, it's because the odds of me having a lethal breakdown will go ''way'' up if I ''don't'' interact with other people."

"I think that I see the problem now," Phil says thoughtfully. "You believe that your life is like an unending game of Russian roulette, do you not, Jubatus?"

I nod. "Pretty much, except it's not ''me'' who'll get hurt when I lose. The thing is... what choice have I got?"

"Perhaps you don't have any better alternatives," the rabbit acknowledges. "But then again, perhaps you ''do!"''

"Oh, really?" I bet I know where he's going, so I cut him off before he can get there: "Look, Phil — if you're thinking about taking me on as a client, forget it. My days are 150 hours long, remember? There's no point in you reinventing wheels I considered, and discarded, years ago."

His ears shrug for him. "Very well, let's say that it truly would be a waste of time for me to try to help you. What difference could that make? It is, after all, my own time to waste, if I so choose!"

"Gimme a break! You're always pissing and moaning about the ones you lost, so why make it worse for yourself? Why the hell would'ja want to fart around with ''me'' when you could give more attention to someone who ''really'' needs you?"

"I see your point, Jubatus, but there are two factors that you haven't taken into account. And the first one is that whether you know it or not, you already are a client of mine, and have been ever since the night we met!"

Suddenly it's my turn to say, "Oh." '''''Now''' he tells me.'' "And... the other factor?"

"When I work on you, I ''am'' giving attention to someone who ''really'' needs me."

It's not often that I'm left without an appropriate comeback...

"Of course, I must admit that I don't give you as much attention as perhaps I really ought. Not that I don't care about your well-being, not at all! But truly, your case just isn't as urgent as the rest of the ones I deal with. And unlike you, I simply don't have the ''time'' to do everything I want to or need to, Jubatus." He sighs. "Speaking of which, I've a date with Clover that I'd greatly prefer not to be late for, so I simply must say 'good-bye' now. Good-bye!"

And then I'm alone again. Just the way I like it. Right?

{{Separator|k}}

Time flies, even when you're not having fun; I've got 43 contracts in various stages of completion, ''i.e.'' my usual workload. And where do I find the time to handle all the tasks related to teaching my class? I could've cut back a little, freed up some hours for classwork, but I didn't because I can get the extra time from upshifting. Of course, my concept of 'classwork' may be a little more expansive than some people's. F'rinstance, take the car that picked up Zelinski. DMV files say it's a TransportElegance rental; TE records indicate that it was paid for by a corporate credit card; and according to SEC databanks, 51% of that particular corporation is held by one "Alison Gomez". Care to guess the maiden name of Zelinski's wife? Yeah. Such a coincidence, that. Just another drop of data in the stream I'm sucking in, the better to figure out what the hell is going on in the Zelinski household.

Then there's Jenny. The Shelter's inquiries went nowhere, but then ''I'' wasn't the one asking the questions. Not that I expect to do any better, mind you. All I've got to go on is SCABS; an apparent gender (which may or may not be the one she was born with); a given name (ditto); the date on which this innie first showed at the Shelter (which only puts a lower limit on how recently she could've SCABbed over); and a dog's likeness (which may or may not have anything to do with any pet she may have owned or admired). What the hell — that's why God invented internet spiders and agent software. The count so far: 137 possible 'hits', each one a false alarm. Good thing computers don't get tired or distracted.

Maybe I ''am'' trying to do too much... every once in a while I get this funny feeling, like someone's looking over my shoulder from behind. Nobody ever is, of course, but my hackles keep rising anyway. Okay, I'm paranoid, but it's not usually ''this'' bad! Sigh. Must remember to get more sleep. Sometimes I hate being a cat...

== the second week ==

Second class rolls around; everyone's present and punctual, even the rock. "Good evening, people. How you doing, Dennison?"

"I, am, fine. This, voder, is, harder, to, work, than, I'd, thought."

''With '''your''' webbed fingers? No shit, fish-boy.'' "Bummer. Keep at it. What about you, Borman?"

The cricket's voder says he's doing okay, and his superintendent claims they'll return him to active class duty once he re-learns how to talk. I don't sneer or contradict; granted, he's an utter moron if he believes what he's saying, but I don't have time to set him straight. Okay, maybe ''I'' do, but the slowpokes here don't. I wish him luck, then I continue the impromptu survey of my students' level of skill with the voder. Only item of note is that Jenny's box yelped "Pangloss!" when I got to her. Why? Thoth only knows...

That done, I explain we'll cover sound sources this time. Then I hit a key, and my laptop plays a thin, weak, wispy tone, like an anemic flute. "Anyone care to guess what this is? No? Fine. It's the sound produced by the human voicebox. Some damn fool back in the 1960s let a doctor shove a microphone down her throat to record the actual vibrations produced by her larynx, and that's what we're hearing now." I let the sound continue a few seconds before I kill it. One of my students' hands is raised, so I ask, "What is it, Anthony?"

I note that tiger-boy's using the KV-150 I handed out, not his VoxPop. "If that's a recording of the human larynx, why doesn't it resemble speech?"

"Like I said, it was recorded deep in the throat, at the source. So we're hearing the waveform ''before'' it gets worked over by nasal resonance cavities and like that. Same deal as how a trumpet mouthpiece sounds a lot different when you play it by itself, without the rest of the horn." Then, to the class at large: "Remember what you just heard! As long as you're good for ''any'' sound ''whatsoever,'' there's a chance you can turn it into intelligible speech. You already know how Norms make noise, so let's check out how other species manage..."

Between putting anatomical diagrams on the walls, playing relevant sound files, explaining what it all means, and answering questions when someone needs further clarification, I'm pretty busy for the next clock-hour and a half.

"...inflection, at the very least! Alright — here's your homework assignments." I pause, scan the class. ''Who to start with...'' I roll mental dice and turn to fish-boy.

"Dennison," I say, looking straight into his bulgy eyes. "I'll bet you're wondering why I haven't ''already'' given up on you. After all, fish are intrinsically silent, right?" He nods his head. ''"Wrong.'' It just so happens that ''some'' fish damn well ''do'' make noise!" I start to count on my fingers: "Angelfish, parrotfish, silver perch, red drum, black drum, and more than 200 other species. Most of 'em got this air-filled, internal swim bladder they smack around. Ever heard of the oyster toadfish? Didn't think so, but you're ugly enough to be one, and that sucker's got specialized muscles to swat its bladder up to 200 times per second. So if you ''are'' a toadfish, you should be good for pitches topping off right around G below middle C. And if not? Well, we'll just have to find out what you are, won't we?" A quick upshift, and a sheet of paper appears on his desk. I continue as he picks it up to read it: "27 questions, and I'll want the answers two weeks from now."

Then it's the bug's turn. "Borman. You're mostly a cricket — can you chirp like one?" He nods and makes the noise, two or three octaves below a natural-born cricket. "Congratulations. What you just did is called 'stridulation', and it's the sound source of a natural-born cricket. You want to arm-wrestle intelligible words out of it, you're gonna need to vary that sound. Can you? Damn if ''I'' know; that's ''your'' homework. I'll want a sound file. Get cracking on it. And by the way: If stridulation doesn't work for you, there's at least two other avenues you can explore before you abandon speech."

I let the bug ponder my remark as I look at the inanimorph... ''What's going on inside that rock? Are you even '''there''', Jenny? Is '''anyone''' there?'' Nothing in those dull, grey eyes, or at least nothing discernable to me. Sigh. ''Moving right along —'' "Calgonetti. What's up with you, guy? Considering how well natural-born mynahs talk, it's hard to see why ''you'' should have ''any'' problems with speech, let alone take more'n ''ten bloody years'' to re-learn it. So... what's the story?"

"It is not for us to question the Lord's will," the preacher's voder says. "I have faith that He will return my voice to me at a time of His choosing."

Sounds like a rehearsed answer to me. "Uhhh-''huh.'' Would that be before or after the Second Coming?" Oh yeah, ''that'' hit a nerve. Good. Bird-brain glares at me as other people make amused noises. "Come on, Chuck. You're gonna have to work with me here. 'God helps those who help themselves', am I right?" A sheet of paper 'teleports' onto his desk. "But I digress. Your homework is ''phonemes'' — the individual sounds that serve as the fundamental building blocks of spoken language. English uses 40 of 'em, each one of which is on your list there, and you're gonna record 'em all. I don't care what format you use, just let me know if it's cassette or MP3 or what, I want three samples of each phoneme, and I want you to bring the recording in two weeks. And that goes for you, too, Borman."

Chuck's not happy. His voder says, "What if I cannot make all the sounds?"

Looking at him and the cricketmorph, I shrug. "Try 'em and see. If there's any you can't do, all it means is that SCABS worked over your noisemaker worse than I thought. Get on it."

Then I turn to the fox. "Zelinski. How's your voice, girl?"

Her smile strikes me as a lot more genuine than mine usually is, and she's game to try: "Oowwwwrrr..." Oh, well. Too bad she's not there yet. She taps at her voder — a Magnavox Express; wonder what happened to the KV-150 and where the new one came from? — which says, "I am prack-tiss-ing. I will learn."

I nod. "Can't ask for more than that. Keep it up."

"I will. I praw-miss."

I nod, and look at the last of my students. "Mr. Anthony," I say. A sheet of paper pops up on his desk. "You get what the bird got. Again, I don't care if it's MP3 or WAV or what, but it'd be nice if you can gimme advance notice of which."

He nods. His voder says, "MP3."

"Groovy. Email it to me any time within the next two weeks." To the whole class: "Remember, we've got a field trip next Tuesday, so I don't need your homework 'til the week after. For now... go home."

They leave, mostly. Tiger-boy sticks around after the rest are gone. He says — ''he'' honest-to-God ''says'' — "Ehhhrro, Djju-bhadd-huzz."

"You've been practicing, haven't you."

He nods, then gets his VoxPop out of an inside pocket. "Yes. I've also done some research on you."

''Oh, joy.'' "That's nice. Want a cookie?"

He smiles and goes on: "No, thanks. You're helping me; I just wondered how I could help you in return."

An idealist? Will wonders never cease. "Help ''me?'' Forget it — you can't. Anything else the rabbit twisted your arm about?"

Tiger-boy looks hurt for a moment. "Phil didn't twist my arm, Jubatus. But he ''did'' warn me what to expect from you."

"If he said I can be blunt, rude, offensive, abrasive, difficult, obnoxious, and generally antisocial, he was right. Anything else you want to know before you leave?"

The hint is as subtle as a sixteen-ton weight. Even so, whole clock-seconds pass in silence, me staring a laser-sharp, unblinking gaze into his eyes, before he gets the message. "Next week," his voder says. Then he's gone.

A few seconds later, I quit staring at the door. I can't really say I ''like'' stomping on people like that, but... it's better this way. Lesser of N evils, honestly.

Sigh...

{{Separator|k}}

The next week's pretty boring, so I'll just give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. More hours put in at the Shelter; the net-spiders researching Jenny turned up another 950 false alarms, plus three leads I haven't ''yet'' proven bogus; I've sucked down a lot more information (financial and otherwise) related to the Zelinski household — I'll bet Mrs. Allison noticed that somebody's been poking their snout into her family's private affairs, because somehow, I just don't think it's coincidental that she's boosted the budget for security (real-world and cyberspace both) within the past couple weeks. Like I care. As for the contracts I handle in my day job, it's five down, 38 to go.

Business as usual, really.

== the third week ==

Third class is a field trip. To Derksen's clinic. Would have preferred to start the class there, but this was the first Tuesday evening the doc-roach's lab was free. Remodeled the living space in my Extremis; there's four new seats (rented) in back. Those plus the passenger's seat up front will handle the five humanoids, and there's also room for Jenny the Rock to lie down. Hey, why ''shouldn't'' I play chauffeur? I'm the teacher, it's my responsibility to see that the class gets to where it needs to be, right?

Good: Everyone's a little early, especially the foxy lady. She's delivered by what looks like the same pair of bodyguard-types, driving the same car, as got her home last week. She smiles at me, and she ''(not'' her voder) says: "Hrraiie-yhheaarh, Dj... Tchew... hraour!"

I nod without smiling. "Better'n last week. Keep practicing, you'll get there soon enough."

She digs her Magnavox out of her purse to reply. "I know I will, but. In the meantime. It can be frustrating."

''Now'' I smile. "Tell me about it. You're getting off easy, lady — ''you'' have an instructor who's been there himself."

"Which you didn't," her voder says.

"Yeah." Shrug. "Ready for the field trip?"

"Oh, yes. Allie was very pleased. She's always wanted to —" and one rent-a-thug reaches over her shoulder to press the voder's 'mute' button.

"What did Miss Allison tell you about violating her privacy, Miss Mary?" says the thug.

The vixen's face spends a moment at 'pissed off' before shifting over to 'mild embarrassment'. She un-mutes the voder, nods at the thug: "You're right, George. I shouldn't discuss family business in public." To me, she (or at least her voder) says, "Apologies, Jubatus. Yes, I'm ready for this field trip. And I've been looking forward to it. Are we really going to see Dr. Derksen himself?"

"Doubtful. He's booked solid until the 12th of Never, you know?"

That gets a couple of yipping laughs out of her muzzle. Which is about when Dennison shows up, with Anthony following close. Not so very much later, me and my class are tooling along towards the doc-roach's lab. The rent-a-thugs weren't happy about the fox being in ''my'' car instead of with ''them.'' That's nice. They weren't ''explicitly'' instructed to stay within arm's reach 24/7, and even if they were, I couldn't care less.

The traffic's thicker than I anticipated. 38 clock-minutes later, I pull into a reserved space in the parking lot of Derksen's lab. My passengers talked; I paid attention to the road. Guess which hired limo stayed within five car-lengths of us all the way there?

Derksen being a big name in SCABS research, his lab's security is a couple notches above the norm — you never know when some idiot Nazi wannabe, Humans First or whatever, will take it into his head to strike a blow for stupid people everywhere. Me and my students pass through the outer gate without incident, but Zelinski's thugs get detained when they set off an alarm. Good. There's two more layers of protection I'm aware of, and Vulcan knows how many others. I wish the thugs joy of them all.

I'm intimately familiar with the doc-roach's torture chamber — his primary examination room — from all the times he's worked ''me'' over. Being the highly exotic breed of chronomorph I am, it's only natural that a world-class SCABS researcher like Derksen would want to observe the hell out of me, as often as he can... oh, joy. He's here. I was afraid of that. On the plus side, he's practically human today. Soft skin, blond hair, no antennae, compound eyes only a little bigger than human normal. See, Derksen's one of us; he's a polymorph SCAB, insectoid forms his specialty, and the roach traits kind of creep up on him when he's irritated or preoccupied or whatever. One more reason I'm glad not to be a shapeshifter myself.

"Hello, Jubatus," he says, and his voice is a hell of a lot smoother than when he goes ''blattidae'' on you. Damn it. " I don't suppose —"

"That's right, you ''don't'' suppose. And you don't get another crack at me for seventeen days."

"Oh, well; can't blame a mad scientist for trying!" He sounds happy, but even with no discernable chitin on him, his scent is too roachy for me to tell his ''real'' mood. BFD.

I snort my disagreement at him. "Whatever. Since you're here, does that mean you're gonna make yourself useful checking out the fox?"

"Yes." ''Now'' he's serious. "Among other things, I find it curious that her medical records are silent on a number of points that ''may'' add up to grounds for a malpractice hearing."

My ears prick up. "Oh, really? Then what's the story with Dr. Gordon?" I ask, referring to the physician in charge of the Zelinski case. "Is he corrupt, or just incompetent?"

At this point, Derksen's face hardens — literally — as exoskeletal plates form. ''"That'' is what I intend to find out. Either way, it's clear that this Dr. Gordon has no business working with SCABs; the data from this examination will tell me whether I should push for censure or disbarment." Then he sighs, and his plates soften a little. "Excuse me, Jubatus," he says, and then he's off to supervise a whole-body scan of Jenny, the stone dog.

There's an empty chair off to one side of the lab. I sit back and let Derksen (and his flunkies) scurry around the place with various implements of medicine. It's actually kind of interesting to see them work on ''someone else.'' Hell, this time I don't even mind the stench of disinfectant!

Derksen & Co. conduct a sextet of ''very'' thorough physical examinations, covering everything from respiratory airflow to basal metabolic rate to speed of neural transmission to God knows what-all else. The doc-roach is going the extra mile, and then some — I'd only asked him to cover the vocal tract — but if that's what he wants to do, it's fine by me. That's odd... they've left off a number of procedures he likes to use on me, but then they also include a few I'm not familiar with. I make mental notes — the lapses and additions probably have to do with my chronomorph power, which I don't want ''anyone,'' Derksen or no, to learn ''too'' much about.

Hmm... maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that Derksen's concern for Zelinski goes a little beyond the standard doctor/patient relationship..? Whatever; it's none of my business.

Entry to exit, we're done in four clock-hours. Zelinski's thugs aren't around when we leave — how sad. The drive back to the Shelter is uneventful; my passengers are too busy comparing notes to bother me. I park, five of the six bug out, the vixen doesn't.

"Waiting for something?" I ask.

Foxy's fingers touch her voder, but it stays mute. She looks at me. I look back. Her machine finally says, "Were you always male, Jubatus?"

''Huh..?'' I consider asking why she wants to know, but I decide to just answer the question. "Yes."

She spends a few seconds thinking before her voder speaks up again. "Then why are you so angry?"

"Angry?" I snort a laugh. "Like ''any'' SCAB needs to ask."

Dead air. Zelinski's not happy. Before anything else can happen, a particular rented limo screeches to a halt beside us. I point a thumb at them.

"Your ride's here," I say. "See you next Tuesday."

{{Separator|k}}

The homework showed up across a week, starting last Friday. Tiger-boy's arrived first; birdbrain's came last. Funny how that works. Right now I'm in my classroom, reviewing the assignments over lunch. Nothing from Jenny — not that I expected anything, of course. But what ''could'' I have assigned her, damn it?

Inanimorphs...

Lots of people fear them, with good reason — check out any of the 'true crime' books about inanimorph perps — but I just think they're damned weird, is all. Strictly speaking, I guess I ''should'' be afraid, since innies are among the few things in this world with half a chance of hurting me... but I'm not.

''Thank you, Jay Nelson Xavier.''

"What the —"

Somehow, I '''know''' that the voice I'm hearing in my head ''(not'' my ears) is Jenny. And when I turn to look at the stone dog, I see... something. Can't make out details — my eyes can't decide whether it's transparent or not — wait, it's solid now. Human body, female, which I (again, 'somehow') '''know''' to be an idealized version of Jenny's pre-SCABS body. Clothed, yet.

Her lips don't move: ''Is this form more to your liking, Jay Nelson Xavier?''

I evade the question. "Call me Jubatus, I use the other name for business. Thanks for what?"

''For your downshifting. The single-minded intensity of your concentration. For giving me something to focus on. I am grateful. What you did allowed me to... obviate? Reify? — no. I am sorry, you lack the vocabulary.''

"Whatever. You know, there's paperwork to fill out if you're dropping the class..."

For the first time in my life, I 'hear' a laugh that ''really is'' like the tinkling of bells. No mockery in it; I '''know''' that she's just appreciating the absurdity of the situation... ''Thank you again, Jubatus. It is very good to exist in human reality.''

"There's another kind?"

''In a manner of speaking. If two people perceive the Universe so differently that they cannot communicate, are they truly living in the same reality?''

Philosophy? Feh. "Yes, they are," I say. "Look, it's not like you need a speech tutor any more, so why are you here?"

''As I said, Jubatus, I am grateful. I want to express my gratitude in tangible form.''

'Tangible form'? Heh! The first image that comes to mind is impossible — I'm a cat, and she's dead — but she apparently picks it out of my brain anyway. And suddenly, without any warning, Jenny's a cheetah, too! She's fur-naked, and there's this indescribable ''scent,'' and she's stepping towards me, and — ''Very well, Ju-''

''"'''No!'''"'' I scream from the far corner of the room, only twitching a little. "No. That's, ah, no. None of that. Really."

And then she's back in her chair, back in human form, and a repentant sigh echoes lightly through my mind. ''I misunderstood...'' ''I apologize.''

It's easy for me to calm down, because I '''know''' her remorse is genuine. "That's, um, okay. So. You can read minds."

A light touch of uncertainty... ''In effect, yes. While I am not truly telepathic, I have certain... perceptions...''

"...which I lack the vocabulary for you to describe."

''I'm afraid so.'' This time, I '''know''' the communication gap's got her as frustrated as me — maybe more so — but she's honestly doing the best she can. ''I really am sorry — all of '''this''', being an inanimorph, it's still very new to me. I hope you can forgive me my errors.''

I shrug. "Not a problem. No harm done, you didn't mean it, and you learn from your mistakes. Right?"

''Right,'' she 'says', and for a moment I feel — ''something'' — like someone walked over my grave? Or like I'm being ''watched'' from every direction at once? Vocabulary again. Not really painful or unpleasant; just, I don't know, weird. Whatever the sensation is, I don't miss it when it stops. ''It's so very hard '''not''' to make mistakes with an unfamiliar set of abilities you've only just acquired... wouldn't you say?''

I give her a tolerant, rueful smile. "Tell me about it."

''As if I need to!'' Her sympathetic amusement is clear. ''But seriously: You did me an enormous favor, and I want to reciprocate. What would you like?''

'What would you like?' If it was anyone biological, I'd tell them to forget it — but this is an ''inanimorph'' 'talking'. And innies can do pretty much ''anything,'' blowing off physical laws as needed...

The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

She's 'silent' for a good ten-fifteen clock-seconds. I don't press her, and clouds of uncertainty and intense concentration drift through my brain as the time passes. ''I... don't know. I '''think''' I —''

"'''Do it!'''"

She's taken aback by the force of my command. That makes two of us.

''Let me finish, please. As I was going to say, I '''think''' I can eliminate all traces of Martian Flu virus from your body. That much I'm reasonably sure of. Changes inflicted by SCABS are a tougher problem, but I may even be able to undo them, too. The problem is, I don't know what condition you'll be in when I'm finished! Yes, you '''might''' return to your former, human, self; but you could also end up a normal cheetah, or even dead. If I try this, it could ruin your life, your very '''existence''', in any of thousands of different ways. On second thought, make that 'millions'. Is this a risk you really want to take, Jubatus?''

Rhetorical question. To be human again — ''fully human!'' — well, let's just say it's one hell of a prize Jenny's dangling before me. How can I believe she's up to the task? How can I ''not?'' There may be no hope of a cure from any ''human'' agency, but that doesn't say squat about what an ''innie'' might be capable of! ''"Do it,"'' I repeat.

She's quiet for a long moment before she 'talks' again. ''Jubatus. You '''do''' realize that just as I can perform actions far beyond any limits of biological life... so, too, can I make mistakes far more terrible than anything biological life is capable of.''

"No shit, Sherlock."

''You know this, but you still want me to try.''

"Got it in one."

''You're absolutely certain.''

"You're damn right I'm absolutely certain," I snarl. "Stop screwing around! Shit or get off the pot! ''Do it, or fuck off and...'' oh, hell. Just... do it."

Another longish pause, then she 'says', ''Very well. I'm going to scan you now, Jubatus...'' and suddenly that bizarre 'watched from all directions' sensation is back, in spades, doubled and redoubled. It feels like she's poring over my entire life, back to the moment of my birth and forward to my eventual death, simultaneously — and no, I haven't got Clue One ''how'' that impression entered my sensorium. Then my mind is drenched by a mixture of embarrassment and pity and regret and endless, bottomless sorrow.

''Oh, dear...''

"What's wrong?"

''You... don't even know, do you, Jubatus?''

''Huh?'' "What the ''fuck'' are you talking about!?"

''I really and truly am sorry. But I... I just '''can't''' give you what you '''really''' want.''

What the — goddamn bitch! It's my ''life'' she's toying with! "'Can't', or 'won't'?" I growl.

A foreign sigh drifts across my frontal lobes. ''If you must put it that way, it's 'won't' —''

I've had ''more'' than enough. So what if she's an inanimorph, ''nobody'' jerks me around like that! ''No-fucking-body!'' I don't let her 'say' another word: "Then get lost. Go find another fly to pull the wings off, you goddamn corpse."

''Please, let me exp-''

Okay, ''that'' is the proverbial '''''it'''.'' I scream and upshift high and leap straight for her lying throat and —

— and then the world turns inside-out around me and it's like I'm ''moving'' in some direction I wasn't previously familiar with and —

— disoriented, I blink. ''What the... oh, hell. I missed another meal, didn't I?'' With my high-speed metabolism, I've found that my higher brain functions tend to seize up after a couple of clock-hours without food. ''Better get a snack once I'm done here.''

Let's see... Jenny just asked what she could do for me. Right. The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

''I'm afraid not,'' she 'says', and I '''know''' her regret is sincere. ''Maybe at some future time, but right now, I don't even know if it's possible, let alone how to do it.''

"You mean innies ''aren't'' omnipotent?"

That gets me a mental cloud of tolerance/amusement/sympathy/self-effacement. ''You may find it hard to believe, Jubatus, but we inanimorphs '''do''' have limitations. They're just, different, from the ones you live with.''

I roll my eyes. "Oh, well." ''That'll teach me to hope...'' "Since you can't do what I want, I guess I'll take a rain check."

Either she's old enough to know the term, or she learned it when she scanned me earlier: ''Alright, a rain check it is.'' A sequence of 40 digits drifts across my forebrain, and I '''know''' I'll never forget it. ''Type that number on any computer or telephone keyboard, and I'll be there for you.''

"Do I want to know the details?"

A mixture of amusement and frustration, both mild. ''Yes, you do, and if you had the vocabulary, I '''would''' explain.''

"Gee, thanks. I'm beginning to see why you guys don't usually hang around with us ''living'' types."

''Tell me about it,'' she 'says', her words and tone echoing an earlier remark of mine. ''And thank you once again; now I know what I should '''do''' with myself.''

"Gonna play Speaker-to-Breathers, huh?"

A tinkling giggle dances through my brain... ''Something like that, yes. Farewell, Jubatus. Until we meet again...''

...and I'm alone in the room...''

== the fourth week ==

Homework. Birdbrain did a decent job on all 40 phonemes; tiger-boy did better; foxy lady did best of all. I flatly ''will not'' think about how her voice is gonna end up sounding. The bug's — Borman's — stridulation is a little iffy, but not bad for a first shot. Dennison? My questions for him amount to an abbreviated Piscine Anatomy 101 final exam, and he aced it. 25 answers dead-on correct, the other two ''technically'' invalid but strongly arguable anyway. As for Jenny... she's outta here. All her paperwork and computer files are in order, not that anybody noticed her turning in any forms or anything. None of my business anyway (he says, with a shrug).

As for the class itself (number four in a series of ten — collect them all!): Anthony sounds better than I do, goddamn his near-intact throat. I give 10:1 odds in favor of the bastard regaining full human speech before the final class session. Calgonetti? Phonemes he's got down pat, but he can't ''quite'' manage to put 'em together into honest-to-God ''speech.'' Funny, that. Chalk up another one for 'self-imposed mental block', and I go out of my way to rub salt in his wound. He'll thank me for it later, right? Borman actually surprises me by stridulating recognizable phonemes; only three of 'em, granted, but I didn't think he'd be able to swing it ''at all.'' Not this early, anyway. Good sign. Dennison turns out to have an internal swim-bladder, complete with swatting muscles, and he demonstrates it with a kind of "ahh-eee-ahh" that more-or-less spans an augmented fifth.

And then there's Zelinski. Her eyes aren't as bright as last week; her vocalizing is decidedly worse than before; and she fumbles with her voder like she'd only just started using the damn thing yesterday. Oh, and I could tell her scent was 'off' (including what the 'new' chemicals were) before she stepped into the classroom. I do the math, and the answer is clear: She's drugged. Given the data I've already acquired re: the Zelinski household, there's exactly 1 (one) person who could've done it to her: Alison Zelinski, her 'loving' spouse. You think I'm pissed off? Damn right I am. ''Nobody'' has the right to fuck up someone else's free will like that! I stifle my anger for the duration of the class.

This week's homework is pretty much a rerun of last week's; more phoneme-practice, singly and in combination. When the rest leave, I ask the vixen to stay. She gives me a vague look: "I muost gho homm," her voder says. "Mizz Awl-lee dee-uz-int wand me tu ss'tay owwit laid."

"Maybe so, but she also wants you to relearn how to talk, am I right?" Zelinski pauses, then makes with an uncertain nod, and I go on before her voder can say anything else: "You need a little extra attention right now, is all. That's what we're going to do tonight, and if Miss Allie doesn't like it, you just tell her it's ''my'' fault, how's that?"

I keep an eye on the parking lot while I talk — an occasional momentary upshift, nothing the fox even ''can'' notice in her drugged-out state — so I see the TransportElegance limo as it pulls in. Good thing Zelinski rather likes the idea of having some time away from home: Her face slides into an off-kilter grin, and her voder says, "Ohh khay!"

"Great. Now, sit down and close your eyes; I've got a big surprise for you." She obeys. I upshift. Four-point-eight clock-seconds later, she's in the back of my car, seated in front of a big-ass computer display with '''''Newspaper Tycoon VII''''' running. The rent-a-thugs in the limo think Zelinski's still in the Shelter; I brought her down so fast they didn't — couldn't — percieve ''anything.'' I could care less if they try to look in the Extremis; there's a couple aftermarket features that normally let me sleep in private, but they work just as well now. Specifically, the electrochromic film on the windows (currently set to Total Eclipse), and the cab divider in front of the cargo space.

Zelinski makes with a little squeal of delight when she opens her eyes. "There you go!" I say. "I've got the game set up for voice commands, but you can also use mouse and keyboard, if you'd rather. Need any help?" Apparently not — her fingers dance on the keyboard as she dives right in.

"Thank you," her box says, "but I don't believe that will be necessary." Interesting: Her skill with the voder is distinctly higher now than it was a few minutes ago. Good.

My cel phone has a wireless link to the Extremis' video cameras; that's how I know when the rent-a-thugs leave their vehicle for the Shelter. Absorbed in an orgy of virtual capitalism, the vixen doesn't even notice when I drive off. The rent-a-thugs won't be following us — not with their distributor cap in my glove compartment, they won't. Upshifting can be useful at times...

At this point, I'm not sure what the deal is with Alison Zelinski. Sure, I know ''what'' she's done to her ex-husband, but I don't know ''why,'' and the 'why' matters. Well, I'll find out soon enough.

Guaranteed.

Moving right along: Most people think the "Betty Ford Clinic" is just a punchline, what with all the rich actors and singers who supposedly go there to detoxify or whatever. Wrong. The Clinic is ''very'' real, ''very'' discreet, and damned good at what they do. And they've got a SCAB-friendly branch office in the west end of Pennsylvania. A couple hours of air-conditioned driving, and foxy lady is safely deposited there. The staff was quite professional, even while enrolling an unscheduled client at 2 AM. Wasn't exactly 'no questions asked', but that's okay; what with all my poking around the Zelinskis' private affairs, I had the right answers.

{{Separator|k}}

So. It's 9 AM Wednesday. By now Alison Zelinski's ''got'' to know that her gendermorph hubby has evaporated. Odds are, she hasn't slept. She's probably shitting bricks wondering when the ransom note will arrive. Wish I could've seen her face when ''my'' e-note ''did'' arrive in her inbox...

<tt>FROM: J. Acinonyx (fiver@jubatus.nucom)

SUBJ: re: Mary Zelinski's vocalization

I'm afraid that Mary's progress in class has been disrupted by a set of problems beyond my capacity to solve. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of securing an outside specialist who can help her overcome these problems. I would like to speak to you in a private conference, at your earliest convenience, about preventing a recurrence of these problems. When would be a good time for you?</tt>

Heh! I think I hit ''just'' the right chords; aside from the none-too-subtle hints that I know ''exactly'' what she's done, I've all but confessed to the kidnapping. Best of all, the language is sufficiently innocuous that no lawyer or judge could regard the note as evidence of ''anything'' nefarious. How long will it take Zelinski to decide that her only option is to talk to me?

I get her answer at 2:26PM. She wants to meet this evening, her place, 8 o'clock. As usual, I got clock-hours to kill — oh, joy. In between working on my legit contracts, I make contact with the Zelinski home network. Well, well: Miss Allison has been researching ''me,'' much good may it do her. Security protocols are unchanged, which just means that if she ''is'' planning any surprises, she's doing it offline. Do I have a plan? Damn straight I do. No point wasting time in conversational parry and riposte. Instead, I'm gonna blitzkrieg the bitch — hit her fast and hard, from multiple directions at once, changing attacks before she can adjust or reply. Considering how easily I torque people off just because, it'll be interesting to see how bad I can rattle somebody when I ''work'' at it. All of which assumes there's no armed resistance or whatever. If there is, no problem: I upshift and nuke it, after which Zelinski gets my ''undivided'' attention.

The clock-hours crawl by...

8PM — showtime. The Zelinski house is a bloated, two-story carbuncle with a bunch of underground floor space; when I ring the bell, the front door is opened by a familiar-smelling rent-a-thug. His demeanor is designed to intimidate, not that I give a damn. He says, "Miss Allison will receive you in the living room," and leads me inside.

The living room turns out to be an interior chamber with a good chunk of one wall taken up by an oversized flat-plasma display. Once I'm there, a female voice says "Thank you, Marcus. That will be all," and thug-boy leaves as we both sit down. This voice belongs to a female norm, straight black hair, semi-dark skin tone. Judging from her scent, she's a little shaky, uncomfortable, and trying not to let it show. Let's see how fast I can coax a reaction out of her. "I'm... my name is Alison Zelinski," she says.

"Jubatus," I reply.

"Would you..." She breaks off with a sigh. "I'm sorry, this is all so complicated..."

Shrug. "Seems pretty straightforward to me. Your hubby SCABbed over seven months ago — different sex and species. She's been stoned out of her gourd ever since, courtesy of ''you.'' I'm curious, how many doctors did you go through?"

"Excuse me?" Hmmm... steady pulse and scent... nope, her confusion is just an act. This isn't the first time my SCABS-heightened senses have come in handy.

"How many doctors?" I repeat. "Before you found one who didn't care ''what'' he did to Mary, as long as your checks cleared."

Okay, ''now'' it's a genuine response: High-end anger. ''"Mister'' Jubatus, I'll tha-"

Her words are drowned under my "Shut up, bitch." My voice may suck rocks, but I can definitely go Loud when I feel like it. ''"You'' may not be old enough to remember date-rape drugs, but ''I'' sure as hell am, and the only difference I see is that you ''married'' your victim first!"

"I — you —" From 'calm' to 'stuttering, with pulsing vein in forehead' in under 7 clock-seconds. I love it when a plan comes together. "How ''dare'' you!"

''"How dare '''you''', lady!?'' Go play the Righteous Indignation card somewhere else, 'cause I'm not interested. What I've got on you, I could nail you to the wall in court yet — and I just might."

It's working. I can practically smell her brain cells burning out as she ''almost'' keeps up''.'' "You — you'd never win!"

I give her a nasty smile, heavy on the fangs. "Bets on that? Imagine your face plastered across the front page of every newspaper in a 1,000-mile radius, not to mention all the broadcast media and net coverage. Think of all the editorials. Visualize the Zelinski name permanently associated with cute stuff like anti-SCABS bigotry, chemically-mediated enslav-"

''— attack: threat level high: 12 o'clock —''

— oh, hell. It's not the first time this has happened: My instincts trigger an upshift without ''my'' say-so, because they don't like something in my immediate vicinity. In this case it's Zelinski, floating in midair, with hands poised to do some damage. Physical assault? Gosh, I must've hit a ''very sensitive'' nerve. I ''could'' tear her several new assholes... but instead, I just move around to lean on the back of her chair, resume a tempo of 1, and watch her land, clumsily, on the couch I just vacated.

Confused, she looks around, and I speak when her eyes meet mine: "That was your first free shot at me. Hope you enjoyed it, because ''nobody'' gets ''two."''

"Bastard! I'll sue —"

I laugh, a cruel, venomous noise that shatters her focus. "Hah! Go ahead and try, for all the good it'll do you. Face it: Whatever you do, you ''can't'' stop me opening a can of worms ''you'd'' much prefer stay closed. Me, I could care less about bad publicity — can you say the same? If you think you can ''possibly'' fuck up a SCAB's social status any worse'n it ''already'' is, feel free to try. Who knows, you might even be able to come up with something that's '''not''' ''prima facie'' grounds for a libel suit. Should be fun."

"You..." I can smell fear, anger, concern, and confusion fighting it out in her scent. Fear wins. "Alright. Do your worst, you monster."

"Says the bald ape who arranged a permanent brainwashing prescription for their own spouse," I retort. "Alright , ''Mrs.'' Zelinski. I've got half a mind to sic my lawyer on you anyway, but I'm a reasonable man. Play it straight with me, I'll return the favor. Fuck with me, and I will ''own'' your sorry ass. Your choice."

Fear and guilt: A powerful combo. They're both on her face and in her scent. Eventually, she gets herself under control again. "What... what do you want?" she asks.

She's defeated, alright — scent doesn't lie — so I get down to business: "I want the truth. ''Why is Mary a drugged-out zombie?"''

Zelinski kind of sags in her chair. She sighs, doesn't (can't?) look at my face. "I... no one ever intended..."

A few seconds after she trails off, I kill the silence. "I'm not hearing a 'why'."

"It's... complicated..."

"You already said that," I point out. "Feel free to start at the beginning. Alternately, how about I just leave, wait 'til Mary's done getting detoxified, and let ''her'' decide how many new orifices to rip out of your hide? Your call — pick one."

She goes for 'start at the beginning'. Takes her an unnecessarily long time to spit it out: Hubby SCABs over (fur and tits), goes nutbar over the gender thing, needs to be sedated for his/her own protection... and ever since, Zelinski makes sure hubby gets a fresh dose whenever she's ''too'' close to sober.

"You... didn't know Martin before," she says, as if her words were threading a minefield. "He was... difficult to live with, not —"

I cut her off. "So. Fucking. What. If ''Mary'' wants to be permanently blitzed, fine, but guess what? ''That's not '''your''' goddamn decision, lady!'' So here's the deal: As of now, Dr. Gordon is off Mary's —"

"What gives you the right to interfere with the private affairs of this family!"

Zelinski shuts up when I look directly into her eyes. She looks right back. Both of us are way the hell pissed. Her anger is cold like liquid helium; mine is hotter than a deuterium-fusion torch.

Zelinski breaks first. When she lowers her gaze, I speak up, as inexorable as a glacier: "What, ''exactly,'' gave ''you'' the right to '''''interfere'''"'' — I spit that word out with a freightload of sarcasm — "with your spouse's mind and free will."

Her scent goes heavy on shame, with a side order of fear. No other response.

Okay, fine. "Like I was saying, here's the deal. One: You ''will'' sever ''all'' connections, professional and otherwise, between Mary and ''Doctor'' Gordon. Two: You ''will'' accept ''whoever'' Dr. Derksen recommends for Gordon's replacement. Three: You have ''no say whatsoever'' about Mary's medical needs — you ''will'' do ''anything'' the new guy says, agree to ''anything'' they recommend, and generally treat the new guy as if they're the Voice of God Himself. Four: If, at ''any'' time in the future, I find out that you have ''ever again'' so much as ''dreamed'' about '''''interfering''''' with Mary's medical treatment..." Here I whisper, as lethal as a sack of cobras: "I. Will. ''Destroy.'' You."

Zelinski crumples in silence. Her eyes glint with highlights that weren't there before — poor fucking baby.

I give her 15 clock-seconds; still no reply.

I'm out of there. Nobody gets in my way, not Marcus the thug nor any other hireling. Fine by me. The mood I'm in, I'd go ''through'' them. Not a good idea to leave a trail of broken bodies. I give the Extremis a once-over when I get to it; nope, no signs of tampering. Only then do I let myself relax. A little, anyway.

On the road, I don't think about what I just did. I don't ''want'' to think about it. I just drive. I want to — no. Bad idea; I ''don't'' want to get drunk.

Well... maybe just a little...

== the fifth week ==

It's none of my business, of course, but I keep an eye on the foxy lady over the next few days. Just to make sure Miss Alison stays the hell ''away'' from her ex-husband's treatment, is all. And wouldn't you know it, Zelinski makes quote, remarkable, unquote, progress. Think it might have something to do with ''not'' getting pumped full of mindfuck drugs on a regular basis? Funny how that works. Even so, the Ford medics insist on keeping her there "for observation" for another 8-10 days, minimum... which means she's going to miss a class. Maybe two.

In other news, I close 5 more contracts before next Tuesday. 33 more to go; I might run out before the tenth class. Hey, I ''am'' taking it easy — I haven't accepted any new clients since I started teaching the class.

Speaking of which, this session (the fifth) has a guest lecturer: Donnie Sinclair. And while he's scribbling at my students, I fill in for him behind the counter at the Pig. That's the pound of flesh he demanded before he'd do what I asked. I hate the idea; I mean, I don't ''do'' crowds! But since it puts a three-foot-wide ''faux''-marble countertop between me and the customers, it should be okay... right..? Aside from that, I have no idea how Donnie creates and maintains the Pig's SCAB-friendly atmosphere — so I won't even ''try.'' Instead I'm going to pour the booze, keep a paranoid eye on ''everything,'' and stomp on anything that smells like it even ''might'' be trouble. I just hope I can stay alert until closing time; for whatever reason, SCABS left me with a half-hour-long sleep cycle. Mind you, I don't ''have'' to conk out that often. I can actually stay up five hours at a time, but that's kind of like a norm staying up for five days solid... well, that should be enough. Hopefully. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

Having a few weeks' advance notice, I did my usual obsessive prep work beforehand. The cash register is a late-2016 NCR job, tablet-style touchscreen; before I'm through, I know it better than Donnie himself does. I'm packing 47,583 different drink recipes on a PDA, complete with recommended ingredient substitutions for when stuff runs out, and the thing happens to be equipped with a wireless internet hookup in case somebody wants something outside the onboard library. More recently, I confirmed that the Pig's supply database is 100% up to date (I double-checked each item myself). Come the fatal Tuesday, I make sure the lavatories are fully loaded — which is trickier than you might think, since the Pig's bathrooms accomodate a ''wide'' range of SCAB body types. Comfortably, yet. I also stash a couple dozen pounds of beef jerky behind the counter; the kind of calories I burn, I'm gonna ''need'' that protein...

And then it's showtime.

The hours pass in a blur. ''Jesu Christe,'' there's a shitload of customers — ''I'' sometimes have trouble keeping up with the orders! Upshifting doesn't help, because I ''have to'' understand what all you damn slowpokes are saying. And that means my tempo needs to be ''real'' close to 1 most of the time...

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Gimme a Stattenvorl."

I take orders.

"Three shots of Jack Daniels, straight."

I make change.

"Vodka martini for me, an' a Purple Ray for the li'l lady."

I pour booze.

"— tellya, I wuz on top'a th' world —"

I hate it. Sob stories from self-pitying morons — gaah! I pay those twits as little attention as I can manage. Most of 'em take the hint and stay the fuck ''away'' from the counter; occasionally I delegate one to Wanderer or somebody ''via'' an an upshifted note in their glass.

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Atomic Firewater!"

I take orders.

"Scotch and soda, heavy on the soda."

I make change.

"— ''you'' gonna do about it, runt?"

Oh, fucking ''joy.'' I quit pouring. Commotion by the dart board; there's a St. Bernard-derived animorph SCAB who can't aim worth shit, lost a bet, and is now proving himself to be a welching asshole and a ''mean'' drunk.

I point one finger ceilingward. "'Scuse me a sec," I tell the customers I haven't gotten to yet. Then I zip over to the big dog, telling him, "You lost, Bernie. Pay up and deal with it."

He's like six-foot-thirteen and 380 pounds, none of it fat; me, I'm five-eleven and forty-odd kilos. Seeing this as he turns to look down at me, Bernie makes with a contemptuous grin. "Who's gonna ma-''yeee!!!"''

There's an instant cloud of ozone and burnt fur — I didn't let Bernie ''see'' my TASER, but he damn sure ''felt'' it. He hits the floor like a 380-pound sack of dog food. Upshift, extract his wallet from a pocket, downshift, hand the wallet over to the norm-looking guy that beat Bernie. I say, "Take your winnings out of this," then I upshift again, this time so's I can haul Bernie's ass out the front door. We cheetahs are stronger than we look — we ''have to'' be, since our legendary top speed is muscle-powered — and besides, I've found that local gravity gets weaker when I upshift. Put 'em together, and I'm not even breathing hard when I set Bernie down on the sidewalk outside the Pig.

Once more behind the counter, I inhale dried meat, downshift, and pick up where I left off — elapsed time 8.6 clock-seconds in all. "I'm back. You there, what do you want?"

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Make mine a Jumper Cable."

I take orders.

"Bacardi 151 on the rocks."

I make change.

"Irish Coffee."

I pour booze.

Time goes on. The clock-hours spin and gyrate...

...and suddenly I blink, confused at what I see before me. ''Minotaur?'' I ask myself. ''That's — hold it, what's Donnie doing here..?

Ah. Right.''

The place is damn near empty, only a couple of stragglers still hanging on; I must have signaled Closing Time already. ''Thank any applicable god... Oh, yeah. Must ask...'' "Hhhh..." I stop, close eyes, swallow, restart. "How'd the class go?"

Donnie shrugs, then gives me an interrogative "Mmm?"-and-look combo.

I'm tired. My head hurts. "If you're asking how ''my'' end of the deal went, it sucked. I have ''no'' idea how you can ''stand'' doing what you do. Can I go now?"

Donnie looks at me with some inscrutable bovine expression. He nods.

I do likewise myself, no words. I manage to drag myself out to the Extremis, get inside, and lock up before I collapse...

== the sixth week ==

Week 6: Nothing much happened. Okay, I ''did'' lose another student, but it's all good... I guess...

On Thursday (that being July 29th, if you've lost track), I get a call from out of state — the Betty Ford Clinic. Guess which of their recent patients put in a request to chat me up, personal-like? Right — ''her.'' No reason given. Well, what the hell. I got time to kill, like always, so I agree to do the conversation today. I make time for it (and I ''do'' mean '''make'' time'), and at 5 PM, I'm in Mary Zelinski's private room at the Clinic.

She screws up her face a little, concentrating, and says — ''she'' honest-to-Thoth ''says! — ''"Hhhee-rhho, Tcheu-baddhuz."

I smile and nod. "Hello yourself, Ms. Zelinski. Needs work, but not too damned shabby. Y'know, if you wanted to let me know you're dropping the class, you could've just sent me e-mail..."

Despite herself, the foxy lady smiles. Only for a moment, but it's ''there.'' And then she goes on: "Iiayy, w''rr''ahndtuu... ''hrraauuw!"'' A frustrated yowl. Frowning, she picks up her voder, which just happens to have been lying on her nightstand, and lets it speak for her. "Yes. I'm dropping your class. This is about something else. What happened to my wife?"

I wasn't expecting ''that.'' If I had eyebrows, I'd raise them. "It matters?"

Angry and some other emotion fight it out on Zelinski's face; Angry is losing, ''big'' time. "I'm not sure any more," her voder says in its incongruously level tone. "I'm not sure I want to know. But I must know. And you can tell me. Can't you?"

''Oh, fucking joy.'' "Yeah. I can. But just remember, you ''asked'' for it..." And I make with an infodump. I give Zelinski the whole story, everything from when I first read her file to when I hammered on dear little Alison. The foxy lady doesn't interrupt; she sits there and absorbs it all without making a sound. And then I'm done...

"...back to the Pig, to get smashed."

At this point, Zelinski isn't the least bit angry. She's kind of hunched over into herself; her voder lies, forgotten, on the bed next to her.

I wait a bit, then kill the silence: "You asked. I answered. Is that it?"

The vixen pulls herself together. "Yes," her voder says, "that's enough." Then her fingers pause over the talk-box. A few moments later, it recites the words she'd been typing; it gets as far as "I wish" before she hits the 'abort' button. She starts over, her hands a little shaky: "Tank you mitt sir Jubatus. You comforted my suspectings. Please lever me out lone."

Which I do. The Ford Clinic staff wants to debrief me; I blow off most of their questions with variations on, "Ask the foxy lady — it's ''her'' call."

And then I'm on the road again, driving back home.

{{Separator|k}}

Nothing much happened for the next week or so, and that includes during the next class session. Fortunately. I've been on the short end of too damn many surprises already...

Wait, there was ''one'' thing: The bug. Borman. He can actually stridulate one-syllable words! He sounds lousy (still better than ''I'' do, damn it), and it sucks up so much of his attention and concentration that changing to a different syllable is a major feat, but when all is said and done, he ''can'' talk. It's just a matter of practice, honing his currently-primitive skill.

{{Separator|k}}

So I'm coming in for today's stint at the West Street Shelter. I'm not three steps past the front door when this lightly morphed rat-SCAB, a new addition to the staff, says Splendor wants to see me in her office right away. What does she ''want'' from me? Hell if I know — but 'in her office' means it's a private conversation, and ''that'' cuts ''way'' back on the number of alternatives...

By the time I open her office door, the short list is down to about three possible agendas. I close the door. Splendor's just beginning to greet me; I interrupt her, saying, "You want I should work somebody over."

She blinks. "What makes you... never mind. Actually —"

Some things are best stopped ''before'' they start. I cut her off again: "Not interested. Go find someone else to play shock trooper. I'm sure there's ''plenty'' of people around here who'd ''love'' to put a hurting on some asshole who desperately deserves —"

"That's exactly why I want ''you'' for this job!" Her turn to interrupt, it seems.

My turn to blink.

"Okay..." I finally say. "You've piqued my curiosity. Explain."

"Thank you. First, some background." She opens a file drawer, pulls out a manila folder, hands it to me. "Read this."

Upshifting, I follow her advice. 'This' is a collection of eyewitness reports — seems that Splendor has an unofficial network of informers all over the City. It's mostly surveillance on the comings and goings of various lowlifes, but there's also some educated guesses on what said lowlifes will be up to in the near future. Hmmm... if I'm reading this right, it looks like the West Street neighborhood's been relatively low on criminals for a while, and a gang from outside the City is planning to move into what they perceive as a vacuum.

I close the folder, slip back to a tempo of 1 — "Done." — and return it to her. "Alright, that's the background. So what?"

"I know the local thugs, and I've gotten most of them to stop committing their crimes in ''my'' neighborhood."

"Bully for you." I've got an uncomfortable feeling I know what's on her mind, but — "And I should get involved... why?"

She gestures at the folder. "The Cargill Mob. If they establish a presence here, it will be... well. Let's just say it would be best for all concerned if they don't. I want to dissuade them with a show of force; give them a demonstra-"

"No. I flatly ''refuse'' to play enforcer."

''"Will'' you let me ''finish!?"'' she says, glaring at me. Well, what do you know — the snake-lady actually ''has'' a temper. I gesture for her to continue; she does. "I've set up a meeting with Jocko Cargill," — head honcho of the eponymous Mob, says her files, real name 'Giocomo' — "and I want to be accompanied by people who I can be ''absolutely certain'' will not initiate any hostile action."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I say without much sarcasm. "So what ''do'' you want from me?"

"You're welcome. And I want you to serve as bodyguard."

Damn... it's not often that I'm left speechless...

"Frankly, I'd be a fool to trust Jocko as far as I can —" '''''BLAM!'''''

''— attack: threat level extreme: 2 o'clock —''

Damn... the whole south wall's erupted with itsy-bitsy explosions. The instincts upshifted me to a tempo of 35-40, somewhere up there, and the ambient noise Dopplers down like always; I can see...

Holy limping Hephæstus — ''I '''can''' see the bullets moving!''

It actually takes a couple seconds of my time before I snap out of it and get to work. Numero Uno: Digital camera from my vest, aim it at the wall's exit wounds, leave it floating in midair at1,000 shots per clock-second. Numero Two-o: Shpritz a layer of DeadGlove (inert polymer in a spray can) on my hands, grab bullets out of the air, store 'em five-to-a-mylar-envelope. Would've preferred individually-wrapped, but I ran out — wasn't prepped for ''this'' many projectiles! Numero Three-o: There's a second wave of airborne crap (shards of window glass, wood chips, nails, yada yada), so I sweep it all to the carpet and bury it under several dozen pounds of books to make sure it don't go noplace it shouldn't ought to.

I retrieve my camera — good, it's still got 91% free RAM — and there's nothing visibly moving at the moment, so I downshift to a tempo of 1 so's I can hear if there's any more impacts. There aren't any, but I ''do'' hear screams and wails from casualties, damnit! Well, hell; they probably won't die in the next few clock-seconds, so I upshift my tempo to 35 and avoid the jagged remnants of windowpane in the frame as I go outside to get some good shots of a late-model Chrysler, nicely framed between a lamp post and a dumpster; driver and two passengers, shabby paint and no discernable plates. Oh, and a pair of rifle barrels sticking out its side windows, complete with muzzle flash and ''more fucking bullets'' on the way. The car's tilted forward, which means the sons of bitches are braking to give themselves more time to shoot.

Fine. I move in, camera ''k'chnkk''-ing away as it stores images of the bullets and their source, and when I'm in range, I reach inside the car; grab the front gun by its chamber; and '''''pull''''' the fucker out and down, with as much force as you'd expect from muscles that can shove a hundred-pound mass around at 70 MPH. Next up: A re-run with the back-seat firearm.

Both guns are firmly lodged in the dirt, barrel-first. The guys who ''were'' holding them have a bunch of fingers sticking out at ''real'' weird angles. Fuck 'em both. I'm busy — the guns are harmless, but there's all the bullets they ''already'' fired — okay, got the last one. My envelopes now hold seven bullets apiece.

Hungry now. I inhale a slab of beef jerky from my vest while I plan out my next move...

By the time I've made my decision, the dudes-in-car are starting to react to the abrupt change in their immediate surroundings; there's the beginnings of shocked/worried expressions evolving on their faces. Hmm... the car's not so tilted as it had been... betcha the driver's floored it. I grin as I extract a genuine Swiss Army Knife from a vest-pocket, unfold the (diamond-hard, waterproof, corrosion-resistant, tungsten/vanadium alloy) cutting blade, and slash a diagonal gouge all the way across the tread of the driver's side front tire. Not waiting for it to finish blowing out, I do likewise to the driver's side rear; then I step back onto the sidewalk, resume munching on shriveled meat, downshift to a tempo of 1, and watch the wreck change from 'incipient' to 'actual'.

As per my unwritten script, the car — driver's side, at least — drops to the pavement with a hell of a clang and a shower of sparks. Then it makes with a metal-on-asphalt shriek all the way to its 45-MPH collision with the dumpster. Oooh, no airbags! ''That's'' gonna leave a mark...

I finish my snack, keeping an eye on the perps in case someone feels like doing something cute; nobody does. I upshift high, strip all three assholes down to their underwear, expend an entire pocket-sized roll of duct tape making ''damn'' sure the perps are gonna sit tight where they are, clean out the glove box and trunk... and for an encore, I downshift and call in the whole sorry encounter to the local police precinct.

Citizen's arrest is a ''good'' thing, right?

Waiting for the cops to show, I drop back to my default tempo of 6 and amuse myself checking out my loot. No discernable ID on any of the trio — such a surprise — so we'll just see what their photos, fingerprints, and DNA (from impromptu blood samples) have to say about the matter. Again, the car is plateless, and there's no VIN either. As for the guns, they look like they could be Izakawa 'Divine Wrath'-model automatics. That, or else homebrew jobs. I sure hope it's the latter, since I happen to know that Izakawa doesn't ''do'' firearms for any ''civilian'' market.

Onward to happier thoughts. Let's see... the clothes look to be generic off-the-rack Target. Residual scent is mostly drowned under cheap-ass cologne, so there's not so much chance of getting olfactory ID off of it. Just one of the tricks criminals have learned for dealing with a post-SCABS world...

...ah. Someone's approaching — correction: ''Splendor's'' approaching. I downshift to match her tempo.

"Nice day, huh?" I say.

She grimaces a little. "Hardly. It seems I'm not the only one who felt a show of force might be appropriate."

"Seems like," I agree. "The timing's pretty interesting, though. It ''could'' be coincidence... but me, I bet Cargill had your office wired for sound. Not sure when."

Splendor nods. "That makes sense. Perhaps we should relocate this discussion to a more secure place?"

"No point. I mean, he's ''already'' eavesdropping, right? So he's gotta know his boys got ''way'' the hell hammered on, by someone who's ''literally'' faster than a speeding bullet. He may not be sure what other tricks I have up my sleeve, but I, for one, will be happy to help him learn — the ''hard'' way. Of course, that's assuming Jocko Homo has the balls, not to mention the requisite lack of functional brain cells, to suit up for Round Two."

Splendor's eyes widen, just for a moment, about halfway through my last sentence. Then she gets it and puts a subtle smile on her face. "I... see. I trust you know what you're doing..."

"Always," I state flatly. "And I know something else: That fucknose is ''toast."

<hr>

The next few days are kind of busy, and not just because of my unfinished contracts (29 and counting) and speech-class-related stuff and helping Splendor deal with the listening devices. To begin with, I pore over police records and the snake-lady's files — but that's maybe a couple of clock-hours at most. No, what ''really'' occupies my time is what I ''do'' with the data thereby gained: I smash hands.

See, the cops have a pretty good idea of who-all is on Jocko's payroll, and what their particular duties are. Just because the authorities don't have enough hard evidence to nail a guy in court, that doesn't mean they're clueless about why he ''should'' be nailed in court. And if you're curious about why the police might grant a puny civilian — ''i.e.,'' me — access to this sort of sensitive information? Two reasons:

First, money talks.

Second, it seems I got a bit of a fan club in blue. Something to do with all those meticulously detailed complaint reports I keep filing any time some jackass messes with me or my property. I'm told that last year, about17% of all City trials for SCAB-related hate crimes used at least ''some'' data from one of my complaint reports — make it 23%, if you're only interested in ''convictions.''

The point is, I got a line on Jocko's ''whole organization.'' His ''entire'' chain of command, from him and his most-trusted seconds all the way down to his lowliest footsoldiers. And I also got several dozen of the freelancers he's most likely to call when he needs a little extra manpower.

Put it all together, I got me a good, long list of targets to hit... and hit them, I do. With a pair of bricks. At a closing velocity ''well'' in excess of the speed of sound.

I tap each of their hands twice. Hit Number One, the bricks are parallel to the plane of the palm; Hit Number Two, they're at right angles. Locating a target's never difficult. After that, I do my business, leave a card, and bug out.

The card, you ask? Just something I whipped up on a cheap-ass laser printer I bought, used for this one job, and melted to untraceable slag immediately after. Each card bears six words — "TELL JOCKO HOMO TO GET LOST" — and a single letter, "J".

No, as a matter of fact I ''couldn't'' just waste 'em all. Three words:

'''''I.'''''

'''''Don't.'''''

'''''Kill.'''''

Got it?

Aside from that, leaving Jocko's crew mostly-intact is a ''good'' thing. There's a lot to hate about organized crime, but one thing they get right is, ''you take care of your own people.'' 'Cause if you don't... well, either you take care of them, or else ''they'' take care of ''you.'' Not to mention, a rep for fucking over your underlings makes it a ''lot'' harder to get replacement thugs when you need them.

So. If I'd left Jocko with a pile of corpses, he'd just bury 'em and that's ''it.'' But he's got a pile of cripples instead, so he's got ''lots'' bigger problems — like medical expenses for the victims, rent and food for their families, yada yada yada. Unless he's just crazy, he ''must'' deal with all this stuff.

Well, maybe Jocko ''is'' batshit insane; doesn't matter. Crazy or not, he ''still'' needs warm bodies to do his business, right? Which means he needs a whole new 'army'. And if people know how badly he screwed his last gang, who the hell's gonna ''want'' to sign on with his ''next'' gang? Answer: ''No''-fucking-body. And no, Jocko ''can't'' just lean on people to ensure silence. Not while all the guys who ''would'' be doing the actual leaning are in hospital with mangled hands, he can't...

{{Separator|k}}

Splendor catches up to me the day after the drive-by. Another ''tete-a-tete'' in her office, which is where two of the five bugs were. She did what I would've suggested if she'd asked: Left 'em all in place, just paying attention to prefabricated soundtracks rather than ambient sights and sounds. But as I walk through the door this time, she welcomes me with a gesture that (by sheer coincidence, I'm sure) switches off the 'bug bamboozler' I installed in this room. ''Confusion to the enemy, hm? Okay, I can play along,'' I muse to myself with a subtle hand gesture that she picks up on.

"Thank you for your promptness, Jubatus," she says. "How many eavesdropping devices have you found?"

"Two, I think."

"You... ''think."''

And then she makes with a disapproving look, so I put on a show of annoyance: "Damn right, I ''think!'' You got any idea how old this place's wiring is? There's all kinds of components that the only reason I could even ''recognize'' them is, I'm old enough to have seen 'em back in the '90s! And further-"

The phone on Splendor's desk rings. Twice. She picks up before ring #3, saying: "West Street Shelter. Splendor speaking."

I hear the voice from the handset, real clear. "Hey there, Miss Splendor! How ya doin'? I heard'ja had some trouble just recent."

Having heard that voice on some police surveillance recordings, I recognize it as Jocko Cargill; not sure about the snake-lady. "I am doing well," she says in a professionally-controlled tone that doesn't give away a damn thing. "If you'd care to tell me what business you have with the Shelter —"

"Yeah," Jocko interrupts. "I got business with you, alright: One'a your freaks dissed me, ''real'' badand it ain't the kind of thing you can clear up with an apology. I know the little pussy's ''there,'' so how's about you put 'im on the line, huh?"

"Ve-" she begins. A momentary upshift lets me confirm there's no incoming assaults; when I revert back to the normal tempo, she's turned on the speakerphone function, and she's saying, "-ell. He's here now."

"Jubatus," I say to the 'phone, playing my part. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I want a cheetah-skin rug, ''Mister'' Juba-"

"Well, if it ain't Jocko Homo!" I break in. "What's crawled up ''your'' ass, Mr. H?"

"Ha, fuckin', ha," he replies. It's hard to tell, what with the audio distortions of the telephone system, but I ''think'' his level of irritation just got boosted a notch or two. Good. "Funny, kitty-cat. ''Real'' funny. Lemme tell you what I do to little pussies that stick their noses where they don't belong: I skin the fuckers alive."

"You and what army?" I sneer back at him. "Get real, Jocko — you ain't got shit, and we both ''know'' it. Face facts: '''''I''' am the fastest SCAB alive.'' You ''can't'' threaten me — not when I can outrun any bullet on the face of the Earth! Hell, I can ''catch'' your damn bullets and throw 'em right back in your face!"

''"You're dead, you goddamn pussy!"''

I give Splendor a 'thumbs up' gesture as I hammer the needles deeper beneath his skin: "Go ahead, Homo — ''lose'' your temper. Blow a gasket, that's a good little thug. Let your blood pressure rise until your arteries explode. I'll be sure to dance a jig of grief at your funeral, and piss on your grave."

I hold my hand up, warning the snake-lady not to interrupt, for the few moments of heavy breathing it takes Jocko to regain a semblance of self-control. Which he does: "Okay... Okay... You got me goin' there, I admit it. Not too bad — for a ''fuckin' animal.'' Enjoy it while you can, Mister Kitty, 'cause you won't enjoy ''nothin''' after ''I'm'' done with you!"

"So you can tag somebody that can break the sound barrier under his own power? Not!" is my smugly confident reply. "Try a gas weapon, Homo. A poisonous cloud is a lot harder to dodge than a bullet, and ''maybe'' I won't zip through it so damn fast it doesn't have ''time'' to affect me."

"That's ''real'' fuckin' hilarious, Mister Kitty." — and now he pauses, just for a very short moment — "In fact, you're a goddamn comedian, ain't'cha? Well, it wouldn't be polite of me to keep you from laughin' it up, so I'll just say g'bye now." And he hangs up. I think about Jocko Homo's pre- and post-pause vocal overtones, as much as I could hear them over the telephone, as Splendor turns the 'bamboozler' back on with a heartfelt exhalation...

"Well," she says, ''"that'' was interesting. May I assume there was a reason you insisted on giving Jocko the bright idea to try chemical weapons?"

"Damn straight." I grin mercilessly. "Look: We SCABs have an insanely wide range of biochemistries, right? What that means is, you can spend however-many megabucks developing a weapon that takes out ''one'' SCAB — but you got basically ''no'' idea whether or not it's gonna affect ''any other'' SCAB! So let's say you're a weapons researcher who's just been handed a pile of cash to come up with an equalizer that'll work on people like us. Do you spend it on chemical weapons, knowing that it's a fucking waste of resources, or do you spend it on new and improved projectile weapons, which are ''guaranteed'' to work on ''almost all'' SCABs?"

She thinks it over a moment, and likes the answer: "In other words, you goaded Jocko into wasting some of his available resources on an intrinsically futile gambit."

"Bingo! Got it in one."

"Unfortunately, I believe there's a flaw in your thinking. What's to keep Jocko from attempting to acquire one of those experimental projectile weapons you spoke of?"

I shrug. "Calculated risk. Assuming Jocko manages to get his hands on ''any'' military hardware ''at all,'' I'm betting he won't get more than one or two pieces, if that. And the more he focuses on ''me'' in particular, the less he's gonna be able to do to ''anybody else."''

"I see..." Splendor just looks at me for a clock-second or so. "You're determined to play lightning rod, aren't you."

"Better me than one of you slowpokes," I say with a shrug. "What's your point? I'm the hardest target you've ''got,'' so why ''shouldn't'' I paint a bullseye on my chest?"

"No reason at all," she says in a neutral tone. "Thank you, Jubatus."

"For what? Premature much?" I grimace. "Save your gratitude until ''after'' we've dealt with the problem at hand."

{{Separator|k}}

Jocko's no Jubatus. If it was ''me'' plotting an assault on the Shelter, I'd have researched the place in exhaustive detail ahead of time, including all of its resident SCABs and their combat-useful abilities. I'd also have worked up about 14 layers of contingency plans in case Something Went Wrong. And in particular, I would ''not'' have allowed my targets ''any'' breathing space ''whatsoever'' after my first attack. Then again, maybe Cargill did have a Plan B — Splendor doesn't think so, but, y'know, for the sake of argument? Like I said: Maybe the guy ''did'' have a backup plan, but I got my counterattack in ''before'' he could push the button.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, I'm not about to let up on him. For one thing, I've only tagged 68% of the targets on my list, and if you're a slowpoke (which everybody associated with the Shelter ''is),'' just ''one'' disgruntled twit with a high-powered rifle is all it takes to ruin your whole day. For another thing, three of the targets on my list have ''already'' bolted and run, apparently the moment they heard about what happened to my first victims. Or ''did'' they run away? Could be Jocko ordered 'em to go elsewhere and pick up a few 55-gallon drums of industrial-strength Whupass. Again, Spendor doesn't think Jocko's subtle enough (or smart enough) to do that; I'm inclined to agree, myself. Nevertheless, it's a loose end that needs to be tied off ''before'' it trips up anybody who matters. I've uploaded a few spiders to the Net, to keep an eye on the runners' financial activity; nothing big, just what I need so's I'll have a little advance notice if/when they make a suspicious purchase wherever, or they return to this fair city, or yada yada yada.

{{Separator|k}}

"Hey, don't get me wrong — I don't like killin' people any more'n the next guy! But what can you do when some fuckin' dipshit ''asks'' f-"

''— multiple attacks: threat levels high, extreme, extreme, lethal, extreme: 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 o'clock —''

— the instincts upshifted me to a tempo of ''40?'' Damn. Looks like my buddy Jocko is playing with ''very'' dangerous toys! A rather strong hammerblow to my back pushes me forward; I go with it, especially because there's a couple points on the back of my head that're feeling ''real'' hot just now. As I fall forward, the hot spots on my skull cool down a bit, and a second hammerblow glances off one shoulder.

Yes, Virginia, I got hit with supersonic bullets ''and'' military lasers. How did I survive to tell the tale, you ask? Tempo of 40, that's how. Upshifted that high, from ''my'' point of view the bullets were only carrying ''one-sixteenth of a percent'' of their 'full' load of kinetic energy; body armor did the rest. As for the energy weapons, my upshift cut their power — how much energy they deliver in a given amount of time — to only 1/40 normal, not to mention what it did to the photons' frequency. That kind of tweakage can really mess up a laser beam's innate capacity for destruction, you know? Still dangerous, but only if I'm dumb enough to stick around and wait for it to burn me. No, I can't outrun photons; then again, I don't ''have to'' be faster than light.

I just have to be faster than whatever's adjusting the laser's point-of-aim.

Moving right along: You damn betcha I'm prepped for beam weapons. Jocko may not be Jubatus, but ''I am.'' One vest pocket holds a few grams of light-sensitive dust; laser-safety goggles in another; a third pocket's got a matched set of six corner-cube reflectors. My left hand tosses clouds of powder into the air for the beams to reflect/refract off of, while I put the goggles on with my right... bingo! ''There's'' the beamlines — all three of the SOBs. Fine. Three corner-cubes, coming right up. I give each one a ''whole'' bunch of angular velocity so it twirls in place; that won't stop it from reflecting the laser ''exactly'' back the way it came, but it ''will'' reduce the amount of time any particular piece of reflector spends in direct contact with its beam.

The adrenaline rush is fading — I can feel blood vessels throbbing in my neck and scalp, not to mention the opening twinges of a killer migraine. That's what I get for overstraining my chronomorph power. I can't maintain a tempo of 40 for long, so I gotta make the most of each Time-shifted fractional second while I can.

Okay — the bullets. Only one source, thank Ares. They look to be moving at 40-45 MPH, which (after factoring in my tempo) means they ''are'' supersonic. Somewhere around Mach two-point-five, I think. The exact figure doesn't matter: I extract a pair of hand-sized metal plates from yet another vest pocket, align the plates at ''just'' the right angles, and thereby nudge the stream of bullets towards the trajectory I'd rather they follow. The headache's just begun, but I ain't got ''time'' to deal with the pain, so I ignore it. I give the room a quick scan; yep, the same four targets. Good. Hmmm... the first bullet just struck target 1, so I shift my 'bucklers' to redirect the stream to the next in line, then target 3, and finally Jocko himself. Bastard ''would'' ensure that ''he's'' not anywhere near the direct line of fire, damn it.

The lasers are gone now — ''quelle'' surprise, and I appreciate the corner-cubes' sacrifice — so it's time to deal with the gun-on-steroids. The cloud of drywall fragments tells me ''exactly'' where the bullets are coming from, so I leap straight at that point, twirling my hand-held shields before me in a paddle-wheel-type maneuver so's the projectiles get knocked out of my flight path into the floor. Each bullet-slap jars me up to the shoulders, in a rhythm that clashes against the pulsating throbs of my cerebral arteries. I hit the wall a little over the bullets' exit hole; no problem! I dig into the wall with the claws of two feet and one arm, and I use my free hand to ram a 'shield' right down the barrel of the damn gun.

Okay, it won't fit — it's too big — but ''you'' know what I mean, right? If I can clog up the barrel with its own bullets, I negate this particular threat. And the bullets keep coming; each new impact against the 'buckler' sends a ''serious'' shockwave up my arm and down my torso to rattle my internal organs. One... two... thr- ''Sn'f'fckngbtch!!!''

''Very'' bright light. Then pain makes a fast getaway as the world goes ''real'' dark...

{{Separator|k}}

Lying down; I smell medicines and rubbing alcohol; right. I'm in a hospital. Private room. Kind of tired, but I don't feel much pain — apparently, I've been healing for a while? And... okay, I recognize ''that'' scent: It's Splendor. I see a light cast on her left elbow, neatly-applied dressings on her neck and the right side of her face, plus a glued-down patch over her right eye — and who knows what ''else'' she's hiding ''underneath'' her clothes. No cane; she must not've been hurt ''that'' badly. I downshift to talk to her...

"Hello, Splendor," I say. "I'm guessing the good guys won."

"Jubatus!" She seems a little surprised to hear me speak; not sure why. "Welcome to the land of the living. And yes, we did."

"Good. What happened after I fell asleep on the job?"

The lady makes with one of her oh-so-elegant veiled smiles. "You may have 'fell asleep', but I shan't complain. After all, a railgun ''did'' explode in your face..."

I roll my eyes. "Now tell me something I ''don't'' know."

"Of course," she says, nodding. "From what I could determine afterwards, I was outside the blast radius proper, but the shockwave knocked me senseless anyway. When I came to, I was naked except for the coils of duct tape Jocko had wrapped around me — and I knew it was him because he wasn't finished. I'm afraid he noticed I was awake before I'd quite recovered my wits; he took great pleasure in telling me ''exactly and precisely'' what he intended to do to me, now that you were too dead to protect me." Now she looks me in the eyes; her unblinking gaze makes it real clear (like it wasn't before?) what kind of critter that damn disease blended her with. I wait for the snake-lady to keep talking.

"And then he raped me." It's a flat, calm, statement of fact she's just made... "Which only proves that he was unaware of the ''full'' extent of what SCABS did to me."

My mind races — there's a few rumors about certain events in her past — I throw out an educated guess: "Projecting chronomorph?"

Splendor acknowledges my remark with a subtle inclination of her head. "Correct. I can only adjust other people's ages downward — but when sex is involved, the rejuvenative effect is ''permanent."''

I ponder the possibilities... "So you rolled his odometer back. How far?"

"I fully intended to 'roll his odometer back', as you put it, to the point at which his zygote originally formed." I blink at that. ''Okay... someone remind me never to piss her off...'' "As it happened, I didn't need to go that far; at the moment of his death, I'd reduced him to a first-trimester premature birth."

"Damn..." I picture the scene in my mind. "And since he ''was'' raping you at the time..."

"Exactly. Jocko was too distracted to perceive any difficulties until ''after'' he was physically incapable of doing anything about it. Now it's your turn, Jubatus. What ''did'' you spend these past few days doing?"

So I talk. Snake-lady listens — and from her occasional questions and comments, it's pretty clear that my info is mostly just confirming what she's already learned from other sources.

Doesn't take me long to finish the story. Splendor stares off into the middle distance for a while; I take the opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep...

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:John Moschitta School of Elocution}}

User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution

2008-02-23T12:07:15Z

Cubist: Missed a couple spots, which are now fixed. Also did add section headers, because 116Kb is too damn big

{{title|name=The John Moschitta School of Elocution|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}

They call me Jubatus. Me being the fastest SCAB alive, I ''always'' have time to kill... so I always need new ways to kill time, simply to avoid going mad from boredom. You could call it Parkinson's Law of Temporal Consumption: "Activities multiply to fill whatever you've got in the way of spare time." I didn't used to find this a problem — I got plenty of interests — but then, I also didn't used to think there could be more than 24 hours in a day. There can, particularly for people like me, to whom SCABS gave a seriously overclocked brain. That's short for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, and can you blame anyone for preferring the acronym? I've got SCABS to thank for my being a bipedal cheetah with a train of thought that runs six times faster than anyone else's, which explains how come from ''my'' point of view, there's ''150'' hours in a day. Fortunately, I can control the rate at which my personal 'clock' runs; upshifting for greater speed, downshifting to interact with you slowpokes.

What do I ''do'' with all that time, I hear you ask? Whatever I damned well please, and six times more of it than I ever could before. Today, like pretty much every other day, it pleases me to spend a couple hours of clock time puttering around the West Street Shelter. Seems I've got a bit of history with one of their volunteers, a rabbit named Phil, and I like to keep an eye on him. Think of me as a guardian angel with spotted fur and sharp, pointy teeth. May the good Lord forgive any fool who thinks he can give the rabbit a hard time, because ''I'' sure as hell ''won't.'' Phil is good people, and if anyone forgets how good people should be treated, I'm up for teaching 'em a quick lesson in manners any day of the week.

I'm not sure Phil notices, but I make a point of reducing my Dangerous quotient before I drop in. I trim my claws; I kill 'cheetah breath' with mouthwash; I also downshift to a tempo of around .95, marginally slower than the norm. Not that it matters whether he's consciously aware. The way I see it, he doesn't need to worry about a small flotilla of high-velocity knife edges zipping around him in loose formation. That's basically the reason I bother with the Shelter at all, when you get right down to it — reducing the level of hassle Phil gets from an important part of his life. The instant Phil leaves, I'm gone, too.

At this point, I'll bet some of you are wondering how ''anyone,'' a highly-morphed SCAB like me in particular, could possibly be indifferent to the good work done at the Shelter. You guys should talk to the ones who ''aren't'' asking; they're just as cynical as I am, and therefore ''know'' why somebody might be less than enthusiastic about ostensibly-altruistic behavior. Let's just say I'm a 'value given for value received' kind of guy and leave it at that, shall we?

I suspect Splendor (the sometimes cold-blooded mistress of West Street in general, and the Shelter in particular) has an idea of what I'm ''really'' about here, but no matter how our philosophies may differ, she's too pragmatic to reject assistance from any quarter. So far I've spruced up the joint's Net presence, made sure a few time-sensitive deliveries arrived on schedule, written two drafts of a Shelter procedures manual, and done a fair amount of websearching on a notable variety of topics, to name only four of the tasks I've fielded here.

Right now I'm seated in the lobby, not far from Phil's office. I'm continuing work on the Shelter's website. Specifically, the interface of the Shelter's online database of SCAB-friendly businesses. Got my PowerBook before me, and I intend to cut that interface down to size, or die trying. You'd be surprised how many 56K modems are still in service, particularly among the SCAB populace that's the Shelter's target audience. And even if ''you'' aren't surprised, the twit who originally created this interface certainly would be! I'll bet he was thinking more of how it would look in his portfolio than how it would serve the client, damn his highly-trained eyes. He had every pixel of the bloody thing thickly encrusted with bandwidth-sucking leeches — I'm talking 32-bit animation, Java-3 applets, multi-track sound files, and on and on. End result: Not only does the sucker take for''ever'' to finish loading on a slow connection, but it runs like an arthritic clam (when it runs at all) on any machine the intended audience is likely to be able to afford.

So far, I've sandblasted ''all'' the graphics down to bit-depths of 8 or less, and killed ''every'' piece of animation that had no valid reason to live. The payoff is that the download time over a 56K modem has dropped to 235 seconds. Yes, ''dropped.'' By a factor of five. I won't be satisfied until I reduce that figure to twenty seconds or less, and if I have to go with pure text to get —

Phil is nervous, I can ''smell'' it. That scent, the odor of frightened prey, drills straight to the vital core of my hindbrain to stir up predatory voices. I can't help that, but I sure as Artemis don't have to ''listen'' to what those voices are saying.

Being a rabbit, Phil scares easily; I don't want to overreact. I close the laptop, carrying it with me as I walk calmly over towards the converted walk-in closet he calls his office. He's with a client, a big sumbitch. From the back, the client looks like a norm with orange stripes dyed into his black crewcut, or maybe it's ''vice versa.'' I hear a VoxPop voder say, "Sorry, but that command was invalid."

"Grrrrrr..." I ''know'' that growl, it's the sound of an angry carnivore that's 1.5 seconds away from ''killing'' something! I upshift, the growl dopplers down into the deep subsonic, and tiger-boy freezes up like the rest of the world. I memorize my position and move in, get a clear view of ''exactly'' what he's up to... and breathe a sigh of relief. Tiger-boy is glaring down at the voder in his furless hands, caught in the act of stabbing one finger down to the touchscreen. He's got fur down his neck; thick black skin on the bottom of his very human nose; round pupils in his glittery, reflective eyes. Okay, tiger-boy's no ''immediate'' danger to Phil, but I still don't like his mood.

I return to my memorized position, downshift, pick up the walk where I left off. "Say, is that a Vox Populi voder I heard?" I ask. Tiger-boy doesn't react, but Phil looks up.

"Yes, it is!" the rabbit says in his cute, high-pitched voice. Not sure if he counts as tenor or soprano, I keep forgetting to ask Wanderer. Phil continues, "How much do you know about them? Mr. Anthony here is having a little trouble with his. Do you think that you could help?"

"I can give it a shot. Got nothing better to do," I say with a smile that keeps my teeth decently hidden. I make a show of looking for another chair, which of course there isn't — no room. "Alright. Mr. Anthony, was it? Good. My name is Jubatus. How about we go up front where we can both sit down?"

We move out, and Phil's distress is inversely proportional to the distance between him and us. I give tiger-boy some leading questions he can answer with head motion and/or hand gestures: He's a local. Single. Started to SCAB over eleven days ago. Spoke his last intelligible words nine days back. Just got released from hospital a week ago. Hasn't noticed any tigerish instincts yet. The salesman pushed him into buying a top-of-the-line VoxPop that he really couldn't afford.

We sit down in the lobby. I open the laptop, bring up SimpleText, set the voice for "Alfred, high quality", show him how to make it recite what's typed into the window. "Mr. Anthony, that salesman didn't do you a service," I say. "Vox Populi voders ''do'' sound as good as you were told, yes, but they're finicky bastards. If you're a novice, you'll have as much luck with it as a kid with a learner's permit would have with an eighteen-wheeler."

"Call me Felix," my laptop says for him. "Agreed. What replacement?"

I ponder for a moment. "If your heart is set on using a voder, I'd say go with a Kurzweil. The vocal quality sucks at the low end, but even the worst Kurzweil has clear enunciation, and you can make yourself understandable within two days tops. Most people, a couple hours' practice is enough. You want a KV-240, maybe a KV-200 if you're ''really'' hard up for cash. Anything less than a 200, well, it's cheap and it works."

"Voder not needed?"

Sharp man — he caught the implication of my 'if your heart is set on it' phrasing. I shrug: "Hell if ''I'' know. Depends on what SCABS did to your vocal tract. Can you open your mouth? I want to see what you've got to work with here." He opens, and it's a perfectly normal human mouth. Tongue, palate, teeth, jaws, all right out of a pre-'Flu medical textbook. With his flat face, I'll bet his sinus cavities are human-normal as well. "Looks good to me. Now let me check out your neck." I lay my hands on either side of his throat, taking care not to let my claws touch fur, let alone flesh; I don't feel a larynx in there. Not a good sign. "Okay, make some noise."

"Rrrrrrrr..." he rumbles. Nothing's vibrating in his neck.

"Keep it going." He does. I move one hand to his chest — ''there's'' vibration. "Alright, that's enough. You should definitely get a second opinion on this, Felix, but here's what I think: Your larynx is gone. That's the source of vibration for a normal human voice, and you ain't got one no more. No voicebox, just a purr-box. The good news is, the ''rest'' of your vocal tract looks okay, and if I'm right about that, it should be fairly easy for you to relearn speech." ''You lucky bastard,'' I don't say. "In the meantime, let's see what I can do with that VoxPop of yours. Got the manual?"

He does, and is happy to hand it over. I upshift high, skim from cover to cover, re-read the important bits, downshift. I'm a technical writer, cramming like this is what I do for a living. And the problem I'm now faced with is how to cut the bleeding options down to something a novice can manage. Damn thing's got more bells, whistles, and gongs than Office 2024 (yes, that's the version the Feds actually passed a law requiring Microsoft to recall every copy of), and thanks to a multi-layered contextual menu system, every last control and setting is accessible with no more than four taps on the touchscreen. Wonderful if you know what you're doing; otherwise, one misplaced tap gets you an Urdu accent thick enough to cut with a chainsaw — if you're lucky.

I do a slash-and-burn job on the on-screen controls, hiding 99.9% of them. I don't touch the semantic analysis subroutines, they'll ensure decent inflection, but I lock down the recognition parameters so Anthony can't screw it up by accident.

Next comes input. "You got the subvocalization options package?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Good. That'll help you retrain the muscles that shape your resonance cavities. But until you get the hang of it, you'll probably want to do input by hand. Palmspring user?" I ask, referring to one of the more popular PDAs.

"Yes."

"How's your shorthand?" SCABS has given the two major shorthand systems (Pittman and Gregg) a new lease on life after decades of slow, word processor-induced decline.

"Grafitti only." That's the simplified letterform system that was devised a few decades back as a practical solution to the problem of handwriting recognition, and pretty much every palmtop these days can handle it.

I nod. I turn off Pittman and Gregg, leaving Grafitti and the onscreen keyboard as the two manual input modes. As a final touch, if he manages to screw it up in spite of what I've done, I give him a friendly red button to click on that'll restore the damn thing to the state I left it in. And just in case he manages to nuke the button, I beam a backup copy of the configuration file to my laptop.

"Here you go. Use Grafitti, or click here to bring up a keyboard you can use the stylus with. Like so," I say, demonstrating. "And if anything goes wrong, this is the panic button — as long as that's visible, clicking on it should reset everything to this condition."

Oh yeah, tiger-boy knows his Grafitti. It's only a second or two before his VoxPop says, "That was impressive. Thank you, Jubatus. How are you at speech training?"

"You really want to learn how to talk from someone who sounds like me?" I ask with a smile. It's not a rhetorical question, because I ''know'' what kind of noise comes out of my mouth, damn it. Ever heard an old-time tracheotomy patient whose voice is driven by a hand-held electric buzzer? It's a nasty timbre, metallic and inhuman, and my speech has been compared to that. Unfavorably. And then there's a familiar whiff of nervousness in the air; Phil speaks up before I finish turning to look at him.

"I would if I were you, Mr. Anthony," says Phil. I aim a puzzled look in his direction. ''What's that rabbit think he's doing?'' He continues: "Jubatus would never admit it, but there's nothing human left in his throat and mouth. His speech is quite good, don't you agree?"

Phil can be devious and manipulative when it suits him. Fortunately, he's sworn to use this great power only for Good. I'll bet half my stock portfolio that I know what he's up to now. "So how many ''other'' mutes you gonna deliver into my tender care?" I ask him.

"Total of six," he says, bubbly and cheerful. "We've already started cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms for your class."

I keep my tone light — no need to disturb Phil's client. "And when were you thinking about letting ''me'' on on the secret?"

Phil waggles his ears in a noncommittal fashion. "I thought that you'd figure it out on your own, so I wouldn't ''have to'' say anything. Isn't that what happened?" he asks with an innocent, guileless expression. That rabbit has no shame. I think he had it surgically removed, unless SCABS got there first.

I get the feeling that maybe Phil manipulated ''me,'' and I don't ''like'' being manipulated. If the rabbit really did play me like a violin... Anyone else, I'd be thinking about how to make the bastard pay. But not Phil. ''Never'' Phil. As far as I'm concerned, he's paid so far in advance that ''I'' owe ''him,'' and I always will. I swallow my aggravation, and nod. "Alright. Six students, including Mr. Anthony here. No problem. You wouldn't happen to have any information on the other five, would you?"

"Sure," he says, hopping over to me. "In the backpack." Which he's wearing, so I open the main pocket and extract a set of manila folders. If you're wondering why he didn't just hand them to me, you should know that Phil doesn't ''have'' hands. His forepaws really are ''paws,'' bloody near zero manipulatory capacity. But ''he'' can ''speak,'' damn it! Somebody had to have helped him with the files, and I deliberately, explicitly refuse to become annoyed at this evidence of premeditation on his part. He thanks me and hops back to his hutch-''cum''-office.

Tiger-boy's VoxPop speaks up: "There really is nothing left of your human voice?"

It's the voder's built-in tone of polite inquiry — dunno what ''he'd'' prefer the question sound like. I take it at face value. "You can't tell? Yup, all gone. You're lucky, SCABS didn't even ''touch'' most of ''your'' vocal tract. All ''you'' have to do is learn how to work with a new sound source. Probably end up with an exotic-sounding tone in the bass register, good for attracting girls."

He starts composing a reply, then stops and looks at me. After a moment, his VoxPop says, "You sound bitter."

I hadn't intended to, but he's right. Vocalizing has always been a touchy subject for me, ever since I SCABbed over. Maybe tiger-boy is just offering me a sympathetic ear; too bad that kind of offer is one I'm not about to accept. ''Ever.'' "That's one reason I don't use a voder — most of 'em can't do emotional overtones very well. The VoxPop line is an exception, but you already know how delicate the controls are," I say with a shrug. "Anyhow, I'd recommend that you exchange the damn thing and get a more economical model, or at least one you don't need a Masters' Degree in to use properly..."

Tiger-boy leaves after I'm done giving him advice. I close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and breathe deeply; it took more effort than usual to keep a lid on my customary bad temper, and the voice thing is why. And then Phil's scent again —

"Are you alright, Jubatus?"

I don't bother to move or look at the rabbit. "Hello, Phil. It would've killed you to ask? Or even give me some advance notice?"

"If I'd asked, you would have refused," he says reasonably. "But I don't know what your problem is. Really, what's the worst that could happen?"

"You see me in a puddle of blood, none of it mine, on the Six O'Clock News," I say without thinking.

There's an elongated pause, broken by Phil. "You know what, Jubatus? You worry too much. And coming from a rabbit, that's saying something."

I almost laugh — of course, ''he'' doesn't know how goddamn close my scenario came to playing itself out, with him supplying the blood, when we first met. "Gee. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Gotta run — bye-bye!" And then the rabbit is gone.

Sigh.

A cursory scan of the files indicates that all six are animorph SCABs of one kind or another. I start with Anthony's file, which confirms what I already knew, then go on to Kerry Dennison. Sales clerk, married, no kids. He's a fish-morph, bulgy eyes and webbed fingers and scales all over, and a Godawful ''ugly'' bastard, to boot. The picture shows flat, wide tubing wrapped around his neck... ah. He's got (barely-) functional gills ''and'' the remnants of his old lungs; the tubing supplies water for his gills, and between them and his lungs, he gets enough oxygen to survive. No wonder his file has nothing on his current capacity for vocalization... the doctors would've had their hands full just keeping him alive, and his insurance ran out before they could do anything else.

Third in line, Mary ''(née'' Martin) Zelinski, is a living cliché: She's a fox gendermorph, a fuzz-covered wet dream who could've stepped out of a '''''PlaySCAB''''' centerfold. Formerly an investment banker with a trophy wife, the 'Flu giveth her an all-over permanent fur coat as the 'Flu taketh away her mind. She's not feral, just amnesiac — a near-complete ''tabula rasa.'' With her (former) profession, she's got to have money, so why is she here at the Shelter, instead of upstate at St. Jude Medical or the like? And how come she went through ''five'' doctors in her first month as a SCAB? Reading between the lines of the vixen's file, I can't help but wonder how much the ''other'' Mrs. Zelinski has to answer for...

File Number Four is a schoolteacher, name of Sawyer Borman. He's a man-sized insect-morph, cricket with an occasional grasshoppery touch. Basic body plan could be described as "humanoid with four arms". Doesn't even have lungs, ''per se'' — his body is thoroughly riddled with a branching network of air passages that oxygenate all tissues ''directly,'' never mind that considerations of airflow and surface area make that scheme unworkable for a critter as big as him. What the hell, he's a polymorph (with a limited selection of insectoid forms), I guess he can have an impossible metabolism if he wants to.

Next is the Right Reverend Charles Calgonetti. I'll get to him.

And finally... oh, joy. Inanimorph. This one's been living (?) at the Shelter for seventeen weeks now, ever since the day an animated, life-sized granite statue of a Great Dane showed up from nowhere. No ID, no clue to her former life — and even the 'her' is only an educated guess, based on the statue's anatomically correct details. At least she (?) answers to 'Jenny'. She can understand spoken or written English, but doesn't appear to be able to speak or write herself. Wonder how badly she's been disoriented by her radical transformation? Inanimorphs... well, hell. Just have to see what (if anything) I can do to reach her. It. Whatever.

After I'm done with my reading, I suspect the preacher's going to be the hardest nut to crack. Physically speaking, Calgonetti is a mynah bird scaled up to a body length of four feet, with avian-type talons at the ends of his feather-covered, humanish legs. Black feathers all over, interrupted only by a ring of iridescent white around his throat. Who says SCABS doesn't have a sense of humor? Chuck traded up from his human body eleven years ago, and hasn't spoken a word since. Pretty tough on a guy who'd been a professional talker.

A mynah bird, speechless? Yeah, right. My best guess is, he's got a self-imposed mental block about speech. This sort of thing definitely isn't my forte, but I'm betting he'll talk if I can piss him off bad enough. I'll try not to enjoy needling a man of God.

Okay, I'll try not to enjoy it ''too'' much.

But I digress... I don't recognize Chuck's denomination, but it's clearly not one of the bigoted ones: His flock — sorry, couldn't resist — have been supporting him all this time, providing sufficient resources (financial and otherwise) to keep him going until he's ready to get back in the pulpit. He's got a record, he does; over the years he's attended eight different speech classes, none of which did him any good whatsoever. He's always gotten good marks for attendance and participation, always declined use of a voder, always projected a congenial air, consistently maintained that the Lord will restore him to full voice whenever it suits Him to do so. All of which does nothing to explain why he's ''here,'' a bloody ''homeless shelter'' in a rotting neighborhood that's maybe three steps away from complete and absolute urban collapse, for the love of Ahura-Mazda.

I've got an uncomfortable feeling that I know what's ''really'' going on behind those beady little eyes. I think I may already have been where he is — except, of course, that ''he's'' got faith in the Almighty. I wonder how much of that faith is still alive in his heart right now...

{{Separator|k}}

I don't need to check the schedule. I work with the Shelter's online resources, I already knew that the speech class will begin three calendar days from now. Just didn't know who the 'teacher to be announced' would be.

Three calendar days. Plenty of time for me to familiarize myself with my classroom, work up a lesson plan, collect and/or create some teaching resources, talk to Donnie at the Pig, make arrangements with Dr. Derksen for use of his lab, and generally prep for the tutoring gig.

== the first week ==

Time for the first session to begin. Butterflies in my stomach? Naah, the hornets killed and ate them all... I really shouldn't ought to be as nervous as I am. After all, I'm a technical writer; teaching people is what I do for a living! I just don't usually do it ''in person.'' And I also don't usually do it with topics that are quite so personal, topics that strike quite so close to the core of what a human being truly is.

Who am I kidding? I'm nervous because this hits ''me'' where I live. Even now I get the shakes just ''thinking'' about those first few days after I SCABbed over. That's when I ''couldn't'' talk ''at all,'' when I didn't know how to coax anything close to an articulate sound from my newly-remodeled throat, when I had no way of knowing whether or not I ever would be able to speak another word for the rest of my life...

It was bad. Leave it at that.

What the hell, it'll be a learning experience in more ways than one.

No more waffling; I walk up the stairs, down the hall, and into my classroom. What do you know — Jenny's mass of stone doesn't exceed the limits of the Shelter's structural integrity.

Once at my desk, I upshift while setting up all the connections for my laptop, then look at each student in turn. "Hello. My name's Jubatus. I think we all know why we're here, so no need to belabor the point. The first thing you should know is that if you really ''want'' to talk, you ''can.'' And you'll do it before the end of this first session. That's a promise." I pause to let that sink in, then flip three small devices out of a vest pocket and catch them between the fingers of my other hand. Some of my students recognize the gadgets, which I hold up and fan out like a poker hand. "These are voders. Low-end Kurzweil models, KV-150s; nothing fancy, but they do the job. I've got one for everybody. And they're the reason I can make that promise.

"What I ''don't'' promise is that you'll be able to talk ''without'' mechanical assistance. Maybe you can, maybe not — it depends on two things. First, on exactly what kind of mess SCABS made of your vocal tract, and second, on whether or not you can figure out how to manhandle a comprehensible voice out of your ''current'' set of pipes.

"And hell, maybe you'll decide you ''don't'' actually want to talk. Even then, you've got options; you can learn Sign," — here I fingerspell ''AMESLAN IS NOT A VAN VOGT NOVEL'' — "and if all else fails, there's always the written word. Donnie Sinclair, guy who runs the Blind Pig, is mute and doesn't use a voder; I'll see if I can't get him up here to fill you in on living without a voice. I think that would be a mistake, myself, but it's ''your'' decision, and as long as ''you're'' satisfied, it's none of my damn business how you choose to live your life.

"And now that that's out of the way..." Here I pick a manila folder up off my desk, open it, look at the contents. "Couple of you guys have a bit of a track record. Calgonetti, says here you've been slacking off in vocalization classes for more than a decade," I say, hearing amused noises as I drop some papers into a convenient trash can. The bird doesn't appreciate my description. Good. "Dennison, you've got a signed certificate says you're permanently mute." I drop more papers. "As for the rest of you..." I shut the folder, send it to rejoin its missing contents. Then I take a butane lighter from a vest-pocket, ignite it, and toss ''it'' into the trash. There's a momentary ''FWOOSH'' as an inches-wide ball of flame rises up, dissipating before it hits the ceiling. It's pure theater — I'm just burning Xeroxes — but it does the job. All six of my students are focussed fully on ''me.''

"I don't give a flying fuck what ''anyone'' may have told you before today. Far as I'm concerned? As of now, each and every one of you ''will'' talk — or I'll know the reason why.

"Any questions?"

I wasn't expecting any response, but the bug makes a 'clickick' noise and raises his upper left hand while his upper right scribbles on a notepad in his lower pair. After he's done, a quick upshift and the notepad 'teleports' into ''my'' hands.

"Okay... Borman here wants to know what happens if someone can't talk by the end of summer." Another upshift reunites the bug and his paper. "Well, it's true that we only got this room for ten weeks, but it's ''also'' true that the Shelter's not teaching this class. ''I am.'' You want out, say the word and you're out; otherwise, I'm not giving up until you ''can'' speak. And if that's after session ten, I'll just have to find us a different classroom. Any other questions?"

Dead air.

"Good. First, let's take a look at how speech works when it ''does'' work..." Here I upshift, extract a roll of eight-millimeter correction tape (red) from my vest, and spend a clock-second or so putting a schematic diagram of the human vocal tract on the wall. Back at a tempo of 1, I point at one specific bit of the diagram. "See this? It's the larynx, but you can call it a 'voicebox'. It's got a couple folds of skin that vibrate when you shove air past 'em, not unlike a clarinet reed..."

By the time I'm done, my students (most of them, anyway; with the fox and rock, it's hard to tell) have a solid grounding in the biomechanics of spoken language — ''i.e.,'' how a normal human vocal tract operates. Now for the voders, which I distribute in half an upshifted clock-second.

"Okay, time to keep that promise I started class with. See what's on your desk? It's a KV-150. If you're clueless about voders, give the built-in tutorial a try. You can't figure something out, lemme know and I'll see if I can make it clear for you."

Within two clock-minutes, the first "Hello, world!" tutorial is audible. And ten clock-minutes further on, they get to "The time is eight forty-seven pee-emm" and "I am a SCAB" and "Today is Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of June, two-thousand thirty-eight ay-dee." Damned if I can tell how the inanimorph works a voder with stone paws, but she (?) does. Too bad her machine's only reciting random words and phrases. Zelinski's doing better; she actually got her voder to say "My name is Mary Zelinski." On purpose, yet. The150s sound better than I do, damn it, but then I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. Focusing on technical matters — how well my students are or aren't using the Kurzweils — helps me keep a lid on my annoyance.

I assign homework (practice with the 150s), and then it's over. Dennison and Anthony drive themselves home; Zelinski's picked up by some random luxury car; Chuck and Borman ride the bus; and the innie, the stone dog, walks downstairs. What are the odds of the vixen's ride being an incognito limousine? I make a note to check the license plates with the DMV.

Only after I'm finally alone do I let myself unclench. I didn't come anywhere near losing it; the scents of the bird and fish didn't make me any hungrier than usual; all in all, it went better than I expected. Of course, 'better than I expected' just means I didn't dismember anyone...

"How did it go, Jubatus?" Who else? It's the damn bunny.

"No blood got spilt. Guess that means I'm stuck teaching next week's class, right?"

Puzzled, the rabbit wrinkles his fuzzy nose. "Why wouldn't you be? Judging by what I saw and heard from your students, you did quite well — as I knew that you would!"

Sigh. "Phil, has it ever occured to you I might have a ''reason'' to be a pain-in-the-ass loner?"

"Well, you're a cheetah-derived animorph SCAB. Which means that you're influenced by cheetah characteristics, including their solitary nature, are you not?"

He doesn't get it — wonderful. Time for an object lesson. "That's right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Hold on a sec..." The Shelter's got a few board games; Monopoly, Yahtzee, like that. I upshift, grab some dice, downshift. "...okay. See this?" I say, holding one of the dice before me. "Got a deal for you. Roll it, and if you get anything but a one, I give you a million dollars."

His ears skew at odd angles. "What's the catch? If I ''do'' roll a one, do I have to pay you?"

"No catch, the money's yours either way — but if you roll a one, somebody within a twenty-block radius of here ends up maimed or dead. What do you say, Phil?"

He stares at me for a moment and says, "No."

"Why not? It's an honest die; there's five chances in six that no blood gets shed!"

"Perhaps, but it's that ''one'' chance in six that bothers me!"

"Come on, that's not even 17%!"

He shrugs with his ears. "I don't care. I wouldn't roll that die for a million dollars."

Suddenly I've got ''two'' dice in my hand. "Fine. How about now? Same deal, but nobody gets hurt unless you roll snake-eyes, a one on ''both'' dice. That's a 35-to-1 longshot, less than 3% chance of it actually happening. How about it, Phil?"

"Still no."

"Okay," five dice, "how about ''this?'' Five ones, that's a little over point-zero-one percent, just one chance out of 7,776. Isn't that worth a megabuck?"

"No, it —"

"Ten dice!" I say, putting them on the desk between us. "One million dollars, Phil. ''One. Million. Dollars.'' Only one chance in sixty million they come up solid ones."

"Only one chance in sixty million that someone gets hurt, you mean!"

I shrug. "Details. Alright, how about a ''billion'' dollars? I'm good for it, you know. Roll these ten dice, and one gigabuck is yours, free and clear!"

Stunned, the rabbit stares at me for a while until he finally says, "I don't care how many dice it is, and I don't care how much money it is either. I'm not going to do it, Jubatus."

"Why not? For the love of Mammon, you're throwing away ''one billion dollars'' because of a sixty-million-to-one longshot! Don't you ''want'' to be filthy rich?"

''"Not like that, I don't!"''

My voice is quiet — "Good." — and his face goes blank with surprise. Then I go on: "I'm not perfect, Phil. I got mood swings make a rabid wolverine look like a Zen master. I can fuck up, ''bad.'' 'Can', hell; I already ''have!'' And with my kind of speed —" I break off, almost managing not to shudder. "You're damn right I worry. Wouldn't you?"

He doesn't need two swats from a clue-by-four. "Oh."

"Yeah."

And again: "Oh!"

I dig out a smile from somewhere. "Don't worry, me going postal on any given day ''is'' a world-class longshot — billion-to-one, trillion-to-one, somewhere up there. The real risk is long-term: If I keep rolling those dice, they ''will'' come up snake-eyes sooner or later. The only question is when. And if you're wondering how I can justify putting innocents at risk by hanging around the Pig, it's because the odds of me having a lethal breakdown will go ''way'' up if I ''don't'' interact with other people."

"I think that I see the problem now," Phil says thoughtfully. "You believe that your life is like an unending game of Russian roulette, do you not, Jubatus?"

I nod. "Pretty much, except it's not ''me'' who'll get hurt when I lose. The thing is... what choice have I got?"

"Perhaps you don't have any better alternatives," the rabbit acknowledges. "But then again, perhaps you ''do!"''

"Oh, really?" I bet I know where he's going, so I cut him off before he can get there: "Look, Phil — if you're thinking about taking me on as a client, forget it. My days are 150 hours long, remember? There's no point in you reinventing wheels I considered, and discarded, years ago."

His ears shrug for him. "Very well, let's say that it truly would be a waste of time for me to try to help you. What difference could that make? It is, after all, my own time to waste, if I so choose!"

"Gimme a break! You're always pissing and moaning about the ones you lost, so why make it worse for yourself? Why the hell would'ja want to fart around with ''me'' when you could give more attention to someone who ''really'' needs you?"

"I see your point, Jubatus, but there are two factors that you haven't taken into account. And the first one is that whether you know it or not, you already are a client of mine, and have been ever since the night we met!"

Suddenly it's my turn to say, "Oh." '''''Now''' he tells me.'' "And... the other factor?"

"When I work on you, I ''am'' giving attention to someone who ''really'' needs me."

It's not often that I'm left without an appropriate comeback...

"Of course, I must admit that I don't give you as much attention as perhaps I really ought. Not that I don't care about your well-being, not at all! But truly, your case just isn't as urgent as the rest of the ones I deal with. And unlike you, I simply don't have the ''time'' to do everything I want to or need to, Jubatus." He sighs. "Speaking of which, I've a date with Clover that I'd greatly prefer not to be late for, so I simply must say 'good-bye' now. Good-bye!"

And then I'm alone again. Just the way I like it. Right?

{{Separator|k}}

Time flies, even when you're not having fun; I've got 43 contracts in various stages of completion, ''i.e.'' my usual workload. And where do I find the time to handle all the tasks related to teaching my class? I could've cut back a little, freed up some hours for classwork, but I didn't because I can get the extra time from upshifting. Of course, my concept of 'classwork' may be a little more expansive than some people's. F'rinstance, take the car that picked up Zelinski. DMV files say it's a TransportElegance rental; TE records indicate that it was paid for by a corporate credit card; and according to SEC databanks, 51% of that particular corporation is held by one "Alison Gomez". Care to guess the maiden name of Zelinski's wife? Yeah. Such a coincidence, that. Just another drop of data in the stream I'm sucking in, the better to figure out what the hell is going on in the Zelinski household.

Then there's Jenny. The Shelter's inquiries went nowhere, but then ''I'' wasn't the one asking the questions. Not that I expect to do any better, mind you. All I've got to go on is SCABS; an apparent gender (which may or may not be the one she was born with); a given name (ditto); the date on which this innie first showed at the Shelter (which only puts a lower limit on how recently she could've SCABbed over); and a dog's likeness (which may or may not have anything to do with any pet she may have owned or admired). What the hell — that's why God invented internet spiders and agent software. The count so far: 137 possible 'hits', each one a false alarm. Good thing computers don't get tired or distracted.

Maybe I ''am'' trying to do too much... every once in a while I get this funny feeling, like someone's looking over my shoulder from behind. Nobody ever is, of course, but my hackles keep rising anyway. Okay, I'm paranoid, but it's not usually ''this'' bad! Sigh. Must remember to get more sleep. Sometimes I hate being a cat...

== the second week ==

Second class rolls around; everyone's present and punctual, even the rock. "Good evening, people. How you doing, Dennison?"

"I, am, fine. This, voder, is, harder, to, work, than, I'd, thought."

''With '''your''' webbed fingers? No shit, fish-boy.'' "Bummer. Keep at it. What about you, Borman?"

The cricket's voder says he's doing okay, and his superintendent claims they'll return him to active class duty once he re-learns how to talk. I don't sneer or contradict; granted, he's an utter moron if he believes what he's saying, but I don't have time to set him straight. Okay, maybe ''I'' do, but the slowpokes here don't. I wish him luck, then I continue the impromptu survey of my students' level of skill with the voder. Only item of note is that Jenny's box yelped "Pangloss!" when I got to her. Why? Thoth only knows...

That done, I explain we'll cover sound sources this time. Then I hit a key, and my laptop plays a thin, weak, wispy tone, like an anemic flute. "Anyone care to guess what this is? No? Fine. It's the sound produced by the human voicebox. Some damn fool back in the 1960s let a doctor shove a microphone down her throat to record the actual vibrations produced by her larynx, and that's what we're hearing now." I let the sound continue a few seconds before I kill it. One of my students' hands is raised, so I ask, "What is it, Anthony?"

I note that tiger-boy's using the KV-150 I handed out, not his VoxPop. "If that's a recording of the human larynx, why doesn't it resemble speech?"

"Like I said, it was recorded deep in the throat, at the source. So we're hearing the waveform ''before'' it gets worked over by nasal resonance cavities and like that. Same deal as how a trumpet mouthpiece sounds a lot different when you play it by itself, without the rest of the horn." Then, to the class at large: "Remember what you just heard! As long as you're good for ''any'' sound ''whatsoever,'' there's a chance you can turn it into intelligible speech. You already know how Norms make noise, so let's check out how other species manage..."

Between putting anatomical diagrams on the walls, playing relevant sound files, explaining what it all means, and answering questions when someone needs further clarification, I'm pretty busy for the next clock-hour and a half.

"...inflection, at the very least! Alright — here's your homework assignments." I pause, scan the class. ''Who to start with...'' I roll mental dice and turn to fish-boy.

"Dennison," I say, looking straight into his bulgy eyes. "I'll bet you're wondering why I haven't ''already'' given up on you. After all, fish are intrinsically silent, right?" He nods his head. ''"Wrong.'' It just so happens that ''some'' fish damn well ''do'' make noise!" I start to count on my fingers: "Angelfish, parrotfish, silver perch, red drum, black drum, and more than 200 other species. Most of 'em got this air-filled, internal swim bladder they smack around. Ever heard of the oyster toadfish? Didn't think so, but you're ugly enough to be one, and that sucker's got specialized muscles to swat its bladder up to 200 times per second. So if you ''are'' a toadfish, you should be good for pitches topping off right around G below middle C. And if not? Well, we'll just have to find out what you are, won't we?" A quick upshift, and a sheet of paper appears on his desk. I continue as he picks it up to read it: "27 questions, and I'll want the answers two weeks from now."

Then it's the bug's turn. "Borman. You're mostly a cricket — can you chirp like one?" He nods and makes the noise, two or three octaves below a natural-born cricket. "Congratulations. What you just did is called 'stridulation', and it's the sound source of a natural-born cricket. You want to arm-wrestle intelligible words out of it, you're gonna need to vary that sound. Can you? Damn if ''I'' know; that's ''your'' homework. I'll want a sound file. Get cracking on it. And by the way: If stridulation doesn't work for you, there's at least two other avenues you can explore before you abandon speech."

I let the bug ponder my remark as I look at the inanimorph... ''What's going on inside that rock? Are you even '''there''', Jenny? Is '''anyone''' there?'' Nothing in those dull, grey eyes, or at least nothing discernable to me. Sigh. ''Moving right along —'' "Calgonetti. What's up with you, guy? Considering how well natural-born mynahs talk, it's hard to see why ''you'' should have ''any'' problems with speech, let alone take more'n ''ten bloody years'' to re-learn it. So... what's the story?"

"It is not for us to question the Lord's will," the preacher's voder says. "I have faith that He will return my voice to me at a time of His choosing."

Sounds like a rehearsed answer to me. "Uhhh-''huh.'' Would that be before or after the Second Coming?" Oh yeah, ''that'' hit a nerve. Good. Bird-brain glares at me as other people make amused noises. "Come on, Chuck. You're gonna have to work with me here. 'God helps those who help themselves', am I right?" A sheet of paper 'teleports' onto his desk. "But I digress. Your homework is ''phonemes'' — the individual sounds that serve as the fundamental building blocks of spoken language. English uses 40 of 'em, each one of which is on your list there, and you're gonna record 'em all. I don't care what format you use, just let me know if it's cassette or MP3 or what, I want three samples of each phoneme, and I want you to bring the recording in two weeks. And that goes for you, too, Borman."

Chuck's not happy. His voder says, "What if I cannot make all the sounds?"

Looking at him and the cricketmorph, I shrug. "Try 'em and see. If there's any you can't do, all it means is that SCABS worked over your noisemaker worse than I thought. Get on it."

Then I turn to the fox. "Zelinski. How's your voice, girl?"

Her smile strikes me as a lot more genuine than mine usually is, and she's game to try: "Oowwwwrrr..." Oh, well. Too bad she's not there yet. She taps at her voder — a Magnavox Express; wonder what happened to the KV-150 and where the new one came from? — which says, "I am prack-tiss-ing. I will learn."

I nod. "Can't ask for more than that. Keep it up."

"I will. I praw-miss."

I nod, and look at the last of my students. "Mr. Anthony," I say. A sheet of paper pops up on his desk. "You get what the bird got. Again, I don't care if it's MP3 or WAV or what, but it'd be nice if you can gimme advance notice of which."

He nods. His voder says, "MP3."

"Groovy. Email it to me any time within the next two weeks." To the whole class: "Remember, we've got a field trip next Tuesday, so I don't need your homework 'til the week after. For now... go home."

They leave, mostly. Tiger-boy sticks around after the rest are gone. He says — ''he'' honest-to-God ''says'' — "Ehhhrro, Djju-bhadd-huzz."

"You've been practicing, haven't you."

He nods, then gets his VoxPop out of an inside pocket. "Yes. I've also done some research on you."

''Oh, joy.'' "That's nice. Want a cookie?"

He smiles and goes on: "No, thanks. You're helping me; I just wondered how I could help you in return."

An idealist? Will wonders never cease. "Help ''me?'' Forget it — you can't. Anything else the rabbit twisted your arm about?"

Tiger-boy looks hurt for a moment. "Phil didn't twist my arm, Jubatus. But he ''did'' warn me what to expect from you."

"If he said I can be blunt, rude, offensive, abrasive, difficult, obnoxious, and generally antisocial, he was right. Anything else you want to know before you leave?"

The hint is as subtle as a sixteen-ton weight. Even so, whole clock-seconds pass in silence, me staring a laser-sharp, unblinking gaze into his eyes, before he gets the message. "Next week," his voder says. Then he's gone.

A few seconds later, I quit staring at the door. I can't really say I ''like'' stomping on people like that, but... it's better this way. Lesser of N evils, honestly.

Sigh...

{{Separator|k}}

The next week's pretty boring, so I'll just give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. More hours put in at the Shelter; the net-spiders researching Jenny turned up another 950 false alarms, plus three leads I haven't ''yet'' proven bogus; I've sucked down a lot more information (financial and otherwise) related to the Zelinski household — I'll bet Mrs. Allison noticed that somebody's been poking their snout into her family's private affairs, because somehow, I just don't think it's coincidental that she's boosted the budget for security (real-world and cyberspace both) within the past couple weeks. Like I care. As for the contracts I handle in my day job, it's five down, 38 to go.

Business as usual, really.

== the third week ==

Third class is a field trip. To Derksen's clinic. Would have preferred to start the class there, but this was the first Tuesday evening the doc-roach's lab was free. Remodeled the living space in my Extremis; there's four new seats (rented) in back. Those plus the passenger's seat up front will handle the five humanoids, and there's also room for Jenny the Rock to lie down. Hey, why ''shouldn't'' I play chauffeur? I'm the teacher, it's my responsibility to see that the class gets to where it needs to be, right?

Good: Everyone's a little early, especially the foxy lady. She's delivered by what looks like the same pair of bodyguard-types, driving the same car, as got her home last week. She smiles at me, and she ''(not'' her voder) says: "Hrraiie-yhheaarh, Dj... Tchew... hraour!"

I nod without smiling. "Better'n last week. Keep practicing, you'll get there soon enough."

She digs her Magnavox out of her purse to reply. "I know I will, but. In the meantime. It can be frustrating."

''Now'' I smile. "Tell me about it. You're getting off easy, lady — ''you'' have an instructor who's been there himself."

"Which you didn't," her voder says.

"Yeah." Shrug. "Ready for the field trip?"

"Oh, yes. Allie was very pleased. She's always wanted to —" and one rent-a-thug reaches over her shoulder to press the voder's 'mute' button.

"What did Miss Allison tell you about violating her privacy, Miss Mary?" says the thug.

The vixen's face spends a moment at 'pissed off' before shifting over to 'mild embarrassment'. She un-mutes the voder, nods at the thug: "You're right, George. I shouldn't discuss family business in public." To me, she (or at least her voder) says, "Apologies, Jubatus. Yes, I'm ready for this field trip. And I've been looking forward to it. Are we really going to see Dr. Derksen himself?"

"Doubtful. He's booked solid until the 12th of Never, you know?"

That gets a couple of yipping laughs out of her muzzle. Which is about when Dennison shows up, with Anthony following close. Not so very much later, me and my class are tooling along towards the doc-roach's lab. The rent-a-thugs weren't happy about the fox being in ''my'' car instead of with ''them.'' That's nice. They weren't ''explicitly'' instructed to stay within arm's reach 24/7, and even if they were, I couldn't care less.

The traffic's thicker than I anticipated. 38 clock-minutes later, I pull into a reserved space in the parking lot of Derksen's lab. My passengers talked; I paid attention to the road. Guess which hired limo stayed within five car-lengths of us all the way there?

Derksen being a big name in SCABS research, his lab's security is a couple notches above the norm — you never know when some idiot Nazi wannabe, Humans First or whatever, will take it into his head to strike a blow for stupid people everywhere. Me and my students pass through the outer gate without incident, but Zelinski's thugs get detained when they set off an alarm. Good. There's two more layers of protection I'm aware of, and Vulcan knows how many others. I wish the thugs joy of them all.

I'm intimately familiar with the doc-roach's torture chamber — his primary examination room — from all the times he's worked ''me'' over. Being the highly exotic breed of chronomorph I am, it's only natural that a world-class SCABS researcher like Derksen would want to observe the hell out of me, as often as he can... oh, joy. He's here. I was afraid of that. On the plus side, he's practically human today. Soft skin, blond hair, no antennae, compound eyes only a little bigger than human normal. See, Derksen's one of us; he's a polymorph SCAB, insectoid forms his specialty, and the roach traits kind of creep up on him when he's irritated or preoccupied or whatever. One more reason I'm glad not to be a shapeshifter myself.

"Hello, Jubatus," he says, and his voice is a hell of a lot smoother than when he goes ''blattidae'' on you. Damn it. " I don't suppose —"

"That's right, you ''don't'' suppose. And you don't get another crack at me for seventeen days."

"Oh, well; can't blame a mad scientist for trying!" He sounds happy, but even with no discernable chitin on him, his scent is too roachy for me to tell his ''real'' mood. BFD.

I snort my disagreement at him. "Whatever. Since you're here, does that mean you're gonna make yourself useful checking out the fox?"

"Yes." ''Now'' he's serious. "Among other things, I find it curious that her medical records are silent on a number of points that ''may'' add up to grounds for a malpractice hearing."

My ears prick up. "Oh, really? Then what's the story with Dr. Gordon?" I ask, referring to the physician in charge of the Zelinski case. "Is he corrupt, or just incompetent?"

At this point, Derksen's face hardens — literally — as exoskeletal plates form. ''"That'' is what I intend to find out. Either way, it's clear that this Dr. Gordon has no business working with SCABs; the data from this examination will tell me whether I should push for censure or disbarment." Then he sighs, and his plates soften a little. "Excuse me, Jubatus," he says, and then he's off to supervise a whole-body scan of Jenny, the stone dog.

There's an empty chair off to one side of the lab. I sit back and let Derksen (and his flunkies) scurry around the place with various implements of medicine. It's actually kind of interesting to see them work on ''someone else.'' Hell, this time I don't even mind the stench of disinfectant!

Derksen & Co. conduct a sextet of ''very'' thorough physical examinations, covering everything from respiratory airflow to basal metabolic rate to speed of neural transmission to God knows what-all else. The doc-roach is going the extra mile, and then some — I'd only asked him to cover the vocal tract — but if that's what he wants to do, it's fine by me. That's odd... they've left off a number of procedures he likes to use on me, but then they also include a few I'm not familiar with. I make mental notes — the lapses and additions probably have to do with my chronomorph power, which I don't want ''anyone,'' Derksen or no, to learn ''too'' much about.

Hmm... maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that Derksen's concern for Zelinski goes a little beyond the standard doctor/patient relationship..? Whatever; it's none of my business.

Entry to exit, we're done in four clock-hours. Zelinski's thugs aren't around when we leave — how sad. The drive back to the Shelter is uneventful; my passengers are too busy comparing notes to bother me. I park, five of the six bug out, the vixen doesn't.

"Waiting for something?" I ask.

Foxy's fingers touch her voder, but it stays mute. She looks at me. I look back. Her machine finally says, "Were you always male, Jubatus?"

''Huh..?'' I consider asking why she wants to know, but I decide to just answer the question. "Yes."

She spends a few seconds thinking before her voder speaks up again. "Then why are you so angry?"

"Angry?" I snort a laugh. "Like ''any'' SCAB needs to ask."

Dead air. Zelinski's not happy. Before anything else can happen, a particular rented limo screeches to a halt beside us. I point a thumb at them.

"Your ride's here," I say. "See you next Tuesday."

{{Separator|k}}

The homework showed up across a week, starting last Friday. Tiger-boy's arrived first; birdbrain's came last. Funny how that works. Right now I'm in my classroom, reviewing the assignments over lunch. Nothing from Jenny — not that I expected anything, of course. But what ''could'' I have assigned her, damn it?

Inanimorphs...

Lots of people fear them, with good reason — check out any of the 'true crime' books about inanimorph perps — but I just think they're damned weird, is all. Strictly speaking, I guess I ''should'' be afraid, since innies are among the few things in this world with half a chance of hurting me... but I'm not.

''Thank you, Jay Nelson Xavier.''

"What the —"

Somehow, I '''know''' that the voice I'm hearing in my head ''(not'' my ears) is Jenny. And when I turn to look at the stone dog, I see... something. Can't make out details — my eyes can't decide whether it's transparent or not — wait, it's solid now. Human body, female, which I (again, 'somehow') '''know''' to be an idealized version of Jenny's pre-SCABS body. Clothed, yet.

Her lips don't move: ''Is this form more to your liking, Jay Nelson Xavier?''

I evade the question. "Call me Jubatus, I use the other name for business. Thanks for what?"

''For your downshifting. The single-minded intensity of your concentration. For giving me something to focus on. I am grateful. What you did allowed me to... obviate? Reify? — no. I am sorry, you lack the vocabulary.''

"Whatever. You know, there's paperwork to fill out if you're dropping the class..."

For the first time in my life, I 'hear' a laugh that ''really is'' like the tinkling of bells. No mockery in it; I '''know''' that she's just appreciating the absurdity of the situation... ''Thank you again, Jubatus. It is very good to exist in human reality.''

"There's another kind?"

''In a manner of speaking. If two people perceive the Universe so differently that they cannot communicate, are they truly living in the same reality?''

Philosophy? Feh. "Yes, they are," I say. "Look, it's not like you need a speech tutor any more, so why are you here?"

''As I said, Jubatus, I am grateful. I want to express my gratitude in tangible form.''

'Tangible form'? Heh! The first image that comes to mind is impossible — I'm a cat, and she's dead — but she apparently picks it out of my brain anyway. And suddenly, without any warning, Jenny's a cheetah, too! She's fur-naked, and there's this indescribable ''scent,'' and she's stepping towards me, and — ''Very well, Ju-''

''"'''No!'''"'' I scream from the far corner of the room, only twitching a little. "No. That's, ah, no. None of that. Really."

And then she's back in her chair, back in human form, and a repentant sigh echoes lightly through my mind. ''I misunderstood...'' ''I apologize.''

It's easy for me to calm down, because I '''know''' her remorse is genuine. "That's, um, okay. So. You can read minds."

A light touch of uncertainty... ''In effect, yes. While I am not truly telepathic, I have certain... perceptions...''

"...which I lack the vocabulary for you to describe."

''I'm afraid so.'' This time, I '''know''' the communication gap's got her as frustrated as me — maybe more so — but she's honestly doing the best she can. ''I really am sorry — all of '''this''', being an inanimorph, it's still very new to me. I hope you can forgive me my errors.''

I shrug. "Not a problem. No harm done, you didn't mean it, and you learn from your mistakes. Right?"

''Right,'' she 'says', and for a moment I feel — ''something'' — like someone walked over my grave? Or like I'm being ''watched'' from every direction at once? Vocabulary again. Not really painful or unpleasant; just, I don't know, weird. Whatever the sensation is, I don't miss it when it stops. ''It's so very hard '''not''' to make mistakes with an unfamiliar set of abilities you've only just acquired... wouldn't you say?''

I give her a tolerant, rueful smile. "Tell me about it."

''As if I need to!'' Her sympathetic amusement is clear. ''But seriously: You did me an enormous favor, and I want to reciprocate. What would you like?''

'What would you like?' If it was anyone biological, I'd tell them to forget it — but this is an ''inanimorph'' 'talking'. And innies can do pretty much ''anything,'' blowing off physical laws as needed...

The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

She's 'silent' for a good ten-fifteen clock-seconds. I don't press her, and clouds of uncertainty and intense concentration drift through my brain as the time passes. ''I... don't know. I '''think''' I —''

"'''Do it!'''"

She's taken aback by the force of my command. That makes two of us.

''Let me finish, please. As I was going to say, I '''think''' I can eliminate all traces of Martian Flu virus from your body. That much I'm reasonably sure of. Changes inflicted by SCABS are a tougher problem, but I may even be able to undo them, too. The problem is, I don't know what condition you'll be in when I'm finished! Yes, you '''might''' return to your former, human, self; but you could also end up a normal cheetah, or even dead. If I try this, it could ruin your life, your very '''existence''', in any of thousands of different ways. On second thought, make that 'millions'. Is this a risk you really want to take, Jubatus?''

Rhetorical question. To be human again — ''fully human!'' — well, let's just say it's one hell of a prize Jenny's dangling before me. How can I believe she's up to the task? How can I ''not?'' There may be no hope of a cure from any ''human'' agency, but that doesn't say squat about what an ''innie'' might be capable of! ''"Do it,"'' I repeat.

She's quiet for a long moment before she 'talks' again. ''Jubatus. You '''do''' realize that just as I can perform actions far beyond any limits of biological life... so, too, can I make mistakes far more terrible than anything biological life is capable of.''

"No shit, Sherlock."

''You know this, but you still want me to try.''

"Got it in one."

''You're absolutely certain.''

"You're damn right I'm absolutely certain," I snarl. "Stop screwing around! Shit or get off the pot! ''Do it, or fuck off and...'' oh, hell. Just... do it."

Another longish pause, then she 'says', ''Very well. I'm going to scan you now, Jubatus...'' and suddenly that bizarre 'watched from all directions' sensation is back, in spades, doubled and redoubled. It feels like she's poring over my entire life, back to the moment of my birth and forward to my eventual death, simultaneously — and no, I haven't got Clue One ''how'' that impression entered my sensorium. Then my mind is drenched by a mixture of embarrassment and pity and regret and endless, bottomless sorrow.

''Oh, dear...''

"What's wrong?"

''You... don't even know, do you, Jubatus?''

''Huh?'' "What the ''fuck'' are you talking about!?"

''I really and truly am sorry. But I... I just '''can't''' give you what you '''really''' want.''

What the — goddamn bitch! It's my ''life'' she's toying with! "'Can't', or 'won't'?" I growl.

A foreign sigh drifts across my frontal lobes. ''If you must put it that way, it's 'won't' —''

I've had ''more'' than enough. So what if she's an inanimorph, ''nobody'' jerks me around like that! ''No-fucking-body!'' I don't let her 'say' another word: "Then get lost. Go find another fly to pull the wings off, you goddamn corpse."

''Please, let me exp-''

Okay, ''that'' is the proverbial '''''it'''.'' I scream and upshift high and leap straight for her lying throat and —

— and then the world turns inside-out around me and it's like I'm ''moving'' in some direction I wasn't previously familiar with and —

— disoriented, I blink. ''What the... oh, hell. I missed another meal, didn't I?'' With my high-speed metabolism, I've found that my higher brain functions tend to seize up after a couple of clock-hours without food. ''Better get a snack once I'm done here.''

Let's see... Jenny just asked what she could do for me. Right. The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

''I'm afraid not,'' she 'says', and I '''know''' her regret is sincere. ''Maybe at some future time, but right now, I don't even know if it's possible, let alone how to do it.''

"You mean innies ''aren't'' omnipotent?"

That gets me a mental cloud of tolerance/amusement/sympathy/self-effacement. ''You may find it hard to believe, Jubatus, but we inanimorphs '''do''' have limitations. They're just, different, from the ones you live with.''

I roll my eyes. "Oh, well." ''That'll teach me to hope...'' "Since you can't do what I want, I guess I'll take a rain check."

Either she's old enough to know the term, or she learned it when she scanned me earlier: ''Alright, a rain check it is.'' A sequence of 40 digits drifts across my forebrain, and I '''know''' I'll never forget it. ''Type that number on any computer or telephone keyboard, and I'll be there for you.''

"Do I want to know the details?"

A mixture of amusement and frustration, both mild. ''Yes, you do, and if you had the vocabulary, I '''would''' explain.''

"Gee, thanks. I'm beginning to see why you guys don't usually hang around with us ''living'' types."

''Tell me about it,'' she 'says', her words and tone echoing an earlier remark of mine. ''And thank you once again; now I know what I should '''do''' with myself.''

"Gonna play Speaker-to-Breathers, huh?"

A tinkling giggle dances through my brain... ''Something like that, yes. Farewell, Jubatus. Until we meet again...''

...and I'm alone in the room...''

== the fourth week ==

Homework. Birdbrain did a decent job on all 40 phonemes; tiger-boy did better; foxy lady did best of all. I flatly ''will not'' think about how her voice is gonna end up sounding. The bug's — Borman's — stridulation is a little iffy, but not bad for a first shot. Dennison? My questions for him amount to an abbreviated Piscine Anatomy 101 final exam, and he aced it. 25 answers dead-on correct, the other two ''technically'' invalid but strongly arguable anyway. As for Jenny... she's outta here. All her paperwork and computer files are in order, not that anybody noticed her turning in any forms or anything. None of my business anyway (he says, with a shrug).

As for the class itself (number four in a series of ten — collect them all!): Anthony sounds better than I do, goddamn his near-intact throat. I give 10:1 odds in favor of the bastard regaining full human speech before the final class session. Calgonetti? Phonemes he's got down pat, but he can't ''quite'' manage to put 'em together into honest-to-God ''speech.'' Funny, that. Chalk up another one for 'self-imposed mental block', and I go out of my way to rub salt in his wound. He'll thank me for it later, right? Borman actually surprises me by stridulating recognizable phonemes; only three of 'em, granted, but I didn't think he'd be able to swing it ''at all.'' Not this early, anyway. Good sign. Dennison turns out to have an internal swim-bladder, complete with swatting muscles, and he demonstrates it with a kind of "ahh-eee-ahh" that more-or-less spans an augmented fifth.

And then there's Zelinski. Her eyes aren't as bright as last week; her vocalizing is decidedly worse than before; and she fumbles with her voder like she'd only just started using the damn thing yesterday. Oh, and I could tell her scent was 'off' (including what the 'new' chemicals were) before she stepped into the classroom. I do the math, and the answer is clear: She's drugged. Given the data I've already acquired re: the Zelinski household, there's exactly 1 (one) person who could've done it to her: Alison Zelinski, her 'loving' spouse. You think I'm pissed off? Damn right I am. ''Nobody'' has the right to fuck up someone else's free will like that! I stifle my anger for the duration of the class.

This week's homework is pretty much a rerun of last week's; more phoneme-practice, singly and in combination. When the rest leave, I ask the vixen to stay. She gives me a vague look: "I muost gho homm," her voder says. "Mizz Awl-lee dee-uz-int wand me tu ss'tay owwit laid."

"Maybe so, but she also wants you to relearn how to talk, am I right?" Zelinski pauses, then makes with an uncertain nod, and I go on before her voder can say anything else: "You need a little extra attention right now, is all. That's what we're going to do tonight, and if Miss Allie doesn't like it, you just tell her it's ''my'' fault, how's that?"

I keep an eye on the parking lot while I talk — an occasional momentary upshift, nothing the fox even ''can'' notice in her drugged-out state — so I see the TransportElegance limo as it pulls in. Good thing Zelinski rather likes the idea of having some time away from home: Her face slides into an off-kilter grin, and her voder says, "Ohh khay!"

"Great. Now, sit down and close your eyes; I've got a big surprise for you." She obeys. I upshift. Four-point-eight clock-seconds later, she's in the back of my car, seated in front of a big-ass computer display with '''''Newspaper Tycoon VII''''' running. The rent-a-thugs in the limo think Zelinski's still in the Shelter; I brought her down so fast they didn't — couldn't — percieve ''anything.'' I could care less if they try to look in the Extremis; there's a couple aftermarket features that normally let me sleep in private, but they work just as well now. Specifically, the electrochromic film on the windows (currently set to Total Eclipse), and the cab divider in front of the cargo space.

Zelinski makes with a little squeal of delight when she opens her eyes. "There you go!" I say. "I've got the game set up for voice commands, but you can also use mouse and keyboard, if you'd rather. Need any help?" Apparently not — her fingers dance on the keyboard as she dives right in.

"Thank you," her box says, "but I don't believe that will be necessary." Interesting: Her skill with the voder is distinctly higher now than it was a few minutes ago. Good.

My cel phone has a wireless link to the Extremis' video cameras; that's how I know when the rent-a-thugs leave their vehicle for the Shelter. Absorbed in an orgy of virtual capitalism, the vixen doesn't even notice when I drive off. The rent-a-thugs won't be following us — not with their distributor cap in my glove compartment, they won't. Upshifting can be useful at times...

At this point, I'm not sure what the deal is with Alison Zelinski. Sure, I know ''what'' she's done to her ex-husband, but I don't know ''why,'' and the 'why' matters. Well, I'll find out soon enough.

Guaranteed.

Moving right along: Most people think the "Betty Ford Clinic" is just a punchline, what with all the rich actors and singers who supposedly go there to detoxify or whatever. Wrong. The Clinic is ''very'' real, ''very'' discreet, and damned good at what they do. And they've got a SCAB-friendly branch office in the west end of Pennsylvania. A couple hours of air-conditioned driving, and foxy lady is safely deposited there. The staff was quite professional, even while enrolling an unscheduled client at 2 AM. Wasn't exactly 'no questions asked', but that's okay; what with all my poking around the Zelinskis' private affairs, I had the right answers.

{{Separator|k}}

So. It's 9 AM Wednesday. By now Alison Zelinski's ''got'' to know that her gendermorph hubby has evaporated. Odds are, she hasn't slept. She's probably shitting bricks wondering when the ransom note will arrive. Wish I could've seen her face when ''my'' e-note ''did'' arrive in her inbox...

<tt>FROM: J. Acinonyx (fiver@jubatus.nucom)

SUBJ: re: Mary Zelinski's vocalization

I'm afraid that Mary's progress in class has been disrupted by a set of problems beyond my capacity to solve. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of securing an outside specialist who can help her overcome these problems. I would like to speak to you in a private conference, at your earliest convenience, about preventing a recurrence of these problems. When would be a good time for you?</tt>

Heh! I think I hit ''just'' the right chords; aside from the none-too-subtle hints that I know ''exactly'' what she's done, I've all but confessed to the kidnapping. Best of all, the language is sufficiently innocuous that no lawyer or judge could regard the note as evidence of ''anything'' nefarious. How long will it take Zelinski to decide that her only option is to talk to me?

I get her answer at 2:26PM. She wants to meet this evening, her place, 8 o'clock. As usual, I got clock-hours to kill — oh, joy. In between working on my legit contracts, I make contact with the Zelinski home network. Well, well: Miss Allison has been researching ''me,'' much good may it do her. Security protocols are unchanged, which just means that if she ''is'' planning any surprises, she's doing it offline. Do I have a plan? Damn straight I do. No point wasting time in conversational parry and riposte. Instead, I'm gonna blitzkrieg the bitch — hit her fast and hard, from multiple directions at once, changing attacks before she can adjust or reply. Considering how easily I torque people off just because, it'll be interesting to see how bad I can rattle somebody when I ''work'' at it. All of which assumes there's no armed resistance or whatever. If there is, no problem: I upshift and nuke it, after which Zelinski gets my ''undivided'' attention.

The clock-hours crawl by...

8PM — showtime. The Zelinski house is a bloated, two-story carbuncle with a bunch of underground floor space; when I ring the bell, the front door is opened by a familiar-smelling rent-a-thug. His demeanor is designed to intimidate, not that I give a damn. He says, "Miss Allison will receive you in the living room," and leads me inside.

The living room turns out to be an interior chamber with a good chunk of one wall taken up by an oversized flat-plasma display. Once I'm there, a female voice says "Thank you, Marcus. That will be all," and thug-boy leaves as we both sit down. This voice belongs to a female norm, straight black hair, semi-dark skin tone. Judging from her scent, she's a little shaky, uncomfortable, and trying not to let it show. Let's see how fast I can coax a reaction out of her. "I'm... my name is Alison Zelinski," she says.

"Jubatus," I reply.

"Would you..." She breaks off with a sigh. "I'm sorry, this is all so complicated..."

Shrug. "Seems pretty straightforward to me. Your hubby SCABbed over seven months ago — different sex and species. She's been stoned out of her gourd ever since, courtesy of ''you.'' I'm curious, how many doctors did you go through?"

"Excuse me?" Hmmm... steady pulse and scent... nope, her confusion is just an act. This isn't the first time my SCABS-heightened senses have come in handy.

"How many doctors?" I repeat. "Before you found one who didn't care ''what'' he did to Mary, as long as your checks cleared."

Okay, ''now'' it's a genuine response: High-end anger. ''"Mister'' Jubatus, I'll tha-"

Her words are drowned under my "Shut up, bitch." My voice may suck rocks, but I can definitely go Loud when I feel like it. ''"You'' may not be old enough to remember date-rape drugs, but ''I'' sure as hell am, and the only difference I see is that you ''married'' your victim first!"

"I — you —" From 'calm' to 'stuttering, with pulsing vein in forehead' in under 7 clock-seconds. I love it when a plan comes together. "How ''dare'' you!"

''"How dare '''you''', lady!?'' Go play the Righteous Indignation card somewhere else, 'cause I'm not interested. What I've got on you, I could nail you to the wall in court yet — and I just might."

It's working. I can practically smell her brain cells burning out as she ''almost'' keeps up''.'' "You — you'd never win!"

I give her a nasty smile, heavy on the fangs. "Bets on that? Imagine your face plastered across the front page of every newspaper in a 1,000-mile radius, not to mention all the broadcast media and net coverage. Think of all the editorials. Visualize the Zelinski name permanently associated with cute stuff like anti-SCABS bigotry, chemically-mediated enslav-"

''— attack: threat level high: 12 o'clock —''

— oh, hell. It's not the first time this has happened: My instincts trigger an upshift without ''my'' say-so, because they don't like something in my immediate vicinity. In this case it's Zelinski, floating in midair, with hands poised to do some damage. Physical assault? Gosh, I must've hit a ''very sensitive'' nerve. I ''could'' tear her several new assholes... but instead, I just move around to lean on the back of her chair, resume a tempo of 1, and watch her land, clumsily, on the couch I just vacated.

Confused, she looks around, and I speak when her eyes meet mine: "That was your first free shot at me. Hope you enjoyed it, because ''nobody'' gets ''two."''

"Bastard! I'll sue —"

I laugh, a cruel, venomous noise that shatters her focus. "Hah! Go ahead and try, for all the good it'll do you. Face it: Whatever you do, you ''can't'' stop me opening a can of worms ''you'd'' much prefer stay closed. Me, I could care less about bad publicity — can you say the same? If you think you can ''possibly'' fuck up a SCAB's social status any worse'n it ''already'' is, feel free to try. Who knows, you might even be able to come up with something that's '''not''' ''prima facie'' grounds for a libel suit. Should be fun."

"You..." I can smell fear, anger, concern, and confusion fighting it out in her scent. Fear wins. "Alright. Do your worst, you monster."

"Says the bald ape who arranged a permanent brainwashing prescription for their own spouse," I retort. "Alright , ''Mrs.'' Zelinski. I've got half a mind to sic my lawyer on you anyway, but I'm a reasonable man. Play it straight with me, I'll return the favor. Fuck with me, and I will ''own'' your sorry ass. Your choice."

Fear and guilt: A powerful combo. They're both on her face and in her scent. Eventually, she gets herself under control again. "What... what do you want?" she asks.

She's defeated, alright — scent doesn't lie — so I get down to business: "I want the truth. ''Why is Mary a drugged-out zombie?"''

Zelinski kind of sags in her chair. She sighs, doesn't (can't?) look at my face. "I... no one ever intended..."

A few seconds after she trails off, I kill the silence. "I'm not hearing a 'why'."

"It's... complicated..."

"You already said that," I point out. "Feel free to start at the beginning. Alternately, how about I just leave, wait 'til Mary's done getting detoxified, and let ''her'' decide how many new orifices to rip out of your hide? Your call — pick one."

She goes for 'start at the beginning'. Takes her an unnecessarily long time to spit it out: Hubby SCABs over (fur and tits), goes nutbar over the gender thing, needs to be sedated for his/her own protection... and ever since, Zelinski makes sure hubby gets a fresh dose whenever she's ''too'' close to sober.

"You... didn't know Martin before," she says, as if her words were threading a minefield. "He was... difficult to live with, not —"

I cut her off. "So. Fucking. What. If ''Mary'' wants to be permanently blitzed, fine, but guess what? ''That's not '''your''' goddamn decision, lady!'' So here's the deal: As of now, Dr. Gordon is off Mary's —"

"What gives you the right to interfere with the private affairs of this family!"

Zelinski shuts up when I look directly into her eyes. She looks right back. Both of us are way the hell pissed. Her anger is cold like liquid helium; mine is hotter than a deuterium-fusion torch.

Zelinski breaks first. When she lowers her gaze, I speak up, as inexorable as a glacier: "What, ''exactly,'' gave ''you'' the right to '''''interfere'''"'' — I spit that word out with a freightload of sarcasm — "with your spouse's mind and free will."

Her scent goes heavy on shame, with a side order of fear. No other response.

Okay, fine. "Like I was saying, here's the deal. One: You ''will'' sever ''all'' connections, professional and otherwise, between Mary and ''Doctor'' Gordon. Two: You ''will'' accept ''whoever'' Dr. Derksen recommends for Gordon's replacement. Three: You have ''no say whatsoever'' about Mary's medical needs — you ''will'' do ''anything'' the new guy says, agree to ''anything'' they recommend, and generally treat the new guy as if they're the Voice of God Himself. Four: If, at ''any'' time in the future, I find out that you have ''ever again'' so much as ''dreamed'' about '''''interfering''''' with Mary's medical treatment..." Here I whisper, as lethal as a sack of cobras: "I. Will. ''Destroy.'' You."

Zelinski crumples in silence. Her eyes glint with highlights that weren't there before — poor fucking baby.

I give her 15 clock-seconds; still no reply.

I'm out of there. Nobody gets in my way, not Marcus the thug nor any other hireling. Fine by me. The mood I'm in, I'd go ''through'' them. Not a good idea to leave a trail of broken bodies. I give the Extremis a once-over when I get to it; nope, no signs of tampering. Only then do I let myself relax. A little, anyway.

On the road, I don't think about what I just did. I don't ''want'' to think about it. I just drive. I want to — no. Bad idea; I ''don't'' want to get drunk.

Well... maybe just a little...

== the fifth week ==

It's none of my business, of course, but I keep an eye on the foxy lady over the next few days. Just to make sure Miss Alison stays the hell ''away'' from her ex-husband's treatment, is all. And wouldn't you know it, Zelinski makes quote, remarkable, unquote, progress. Think it might have something to do with ''not'' getting pumped full of mindfuck drugs on a regular basis? Funny how that works. Even so, the Ford medics insist on keeping her there "for observation" for another 8-10 days, minimum... which means she's going to miss a class. Maybe two.

In other news, I close 5 more contracts before next Tuesday. 33 more to go; I might run out before the tenth class. Hey, I ''am'' taking it easy — I haven't accepted any new clients since I started teaching the class.

Speaking of which, this session (the fifth) has a guest lecturer: Donnie Sinclair. And while he's scribbling at my students, I fill in for him behind the counter at the Pig. That's the pound of flesh he demanded before he'd do what I asked. I hate the idea; I mean, I don't ''do'' crowds! But since it puts a three-foot-wide ''faux''-marble countertop between me and the customers, it should be okay... right..? Aside from that, I have no idea how Donnie creates and maintains the Pig's SCAB-friendly atmosphere — so I won't even ''try.'' Instead I'm going to pour the booze, keep a paranoid eye on ''everything,'' and stomp on anything that smells like it even ''might'' be trouble. I just hope I can stay alert until closing time; for whatever reason, SCABS left me with a half-hour-long sleep cycle. Mind you, I don't ''have'' to conk out that often. I can actually stay up five hours at a time, but that's kind of like a norm staying up for five days solid... well, that should be enough. Hopefully. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

Having a few weeks' advance notice, I did my usual obsessive prep work beforehand. The cash register is a late-2016 NCR job, tablet-style touchscreen; before I'm through, I know it better than Donnie himself does. I'm packing 47,583 different drink recipes on a PDA, complete with recommended ingredient substitutions for when stuff runs out, and the thing happens to be equipped with a wireless internet hookup in case somebody wants something outside the onboard library. More recently, I confirmed that the Pig's supply database is 100% up to date (I double-checked each item myself). Come the fatal Tuesday, I make sure the lavatories are fully loaded — which is trickier than you might think, since the Pig's bathrooms accomodate a ''wide'' range of SCAB body types. Comfortably, yet. I also stash a couple dozen pounds of beef jerky behind the counter; the kind of calories I burn, I'm gonna ''need'' that protein...

And then it's showtime.

The hours pass in a blur. ''Jesu Christe,'' there's a shitload of customers — ''I'' sometimes have trouble keeping up with the orders! Upshifting doesn't help, because I ''have to'' understand what all you damn slowpokes are saying. And that means my tempo needs to be ''real'' close to 1 most of the time...

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Gimme a Stattenvorl."

I take orders.

"Three shots of Jack Daniels, straight."

I make change.

"Vodka martini for me, an' a Purple Ray for the li'l lady."

I pour booze.

"— tellya, I wuz on top'a th' world —"

I hate it. Sob stories from self-pitying morons — gaah! I pay those twits as little attention as I can manage. Most of 'em take the hint and stay the fuck ''away'' from the counter; occasionally I delegate one to Wanderer or somebody ''via'' an an upshifted note in their glass.

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Atomic Firewater!"

I take orders.

"Scotch and soda, heavy on the soda."

I make change.

"— ''you'' gonna do about it, runt?"

Oh, fucking ''joy.'' I quit pouring. Commotion by the dart board; there's a St. Bernard-derived animorph SCAB who can't aim worth shit, lost a bet, and is now proving himself to be a welching asshole and a ''mean'' drunk.

I point one finger ceilingward. "'Scuse me a sec," I tell the customers I haven't gotten to yet. Then I zip over to the big dog, telling him, "You lost, Bernie. Pay up and deal with it."

He's like six-foot-thirteen and 380 pounds, none of it fat; me, I'm five-eleven and forty-odd kilos. Seeing this as he turns to look down at me, Bernie makes with a contemptuous grin. "Who's gonna ma-''yeee!!!"''

There's an instant cloud of ozone and burnt fur — I didn't let Bernie ''see'' my TASER, but he damn sure ''felt'' it. He hits the floor like a 380-pound sack of dog food. Upshift, extract his wallet from a pocket, downshift, hand the wallet over to the norm-looking guy that beat Bernie. I say, "Take your winnings out of this," then I upshift again, this time so's I can haul Bernie's ass out the front door. We cheetahs are stronger than we look — we ''have to'' be, since our legendary top speed is muscle-powered — and besides, I've found that local gravity gets weaker when I upshift. Put 'em together, and I'm not even breathing hard when I set Bernie down on the sidewalk outside the Pig.

Once more behind the counter, I inhale dried meat, downshift, and pick up where I left off — elapsed time 8.6 clock-seconds in all. "I'm back. You there, what do you want?"

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Make mine a Jumper Cable."

I take orders.

"Bacardi 151 on the rocks."

I make change.

"Irish Coffee."

I pour booze.

Time goes on. The clock-hours spin and gyrate...

...and suddenly I blink, confused at what I see before me. ''Minotaur?'' I ask myself. ''That's — hold it, what's Donnie doing here..?

Ah. Right.''

The place is damn near empty, only a couple of stragglers still hanging on; I must have signaled Closing Time already. ''Thank any applicable god... Oh, yeah. Must ask...'' "Hhhh..." I stop, close eyes, swallow, restart. "How'd the class go?"

Donnie shrugs, then gives me an interrogative "Mmm?"-and-look combo.

I'm tired. My head hurts. "If you're asking how ''my'' end of the deal went, it sucked. I have ''no'' idea how you can ''stand'' doing what you do. Can I go now?"

Donnie looks at me with some inscrutable bovine expression. He nods.

I do likewise myself, no words. I manage to drag myself out to the Extremis, get inside, and lock up before I collapse...

== the sixth week ==

Week 6: Nothing much happened. Okay, I ''did'' lose another student, but it's all good... I guess...

On Thursday (that being July 29th, if you've lost track), I get a call from out of state — the Betty Ford Clinic. Guess which of their recent patients put in a request to chat me up, personal-like? Right — ''her.'' No reason given. Well, what the hell. I got time to kill, like always, so I agree to do the conversation today. I make time for it (and I ''do'' mean '''make'' time'), and at 5 PM, I'm in Mary Zelinski's private room at the Clinic.

She screws up her face a little, concentrating, and says — ''she'' honest-to-Thoth ''says! — ''"Hhhee-rhho, Tcheu-baddhuz."

I smile and nod. "Hello yourself, Ms. Zelinski. Needs work, but not too damned shabby. Y'know, if you wanted to let me know you're dropping the class, you could've just sent me e-mail..."

Despite herself, the foxy lady smiles. Only for a moment, but it's ''there.'' And then she goes on: "Iiayy, w''rr''ahndtuu... ''hrraauuw!"'' A frustrated yowl. Frowning, she picks up her voder, which just happens to have been lying on her nightstand, and lets it speak for her. "Yes. I'm dropping your class. This is about something else. What happened to my wife?"

I wasn't expecting ''that.'' If I had eyebrows, I'd raise them. "It matters?"

Angry and some other emotion fight it out on Zelinski's face; Angry is losing, ''big'' time. "I'm not sure any more," her voder says in its incongruously level tone. "I'm not sure I want to know. But I must know. And you can tell me. Can't you?"

''Oh, fucking joy.'' "Yeah. I can. But just remember, you ''asked'' for it..." And I make with an infodump. I give Zelinski the whole story, everything from when I first read her file to when I hammered on dear little Alison. The foxy lady doesn't interrupt; she sits there and absorbs it all without making a sound. And then I'm done...

"...back to the Pig, to get smashed."

At this point, Zelinski isn't the least bit angry. She's kind of hunched over into herself; her voder lies, forgotten, on the bed next to her.

I wait a bit, then kill the silence: "You asked. I answered. Is that it?"

The vixen pulls herself together. "Yes," her voder says, "that's enough." Then her fingers pause over the talk-box. A few moments later, it recites the words she'd been typing; it gets as far as "I wish" before she hits the 'abort' button. She starts over, her hands a little shaky: "Tank you mitt sir Jubatus. You comforted my suspectings. Please lever me out lone."

Which I do. The Ford Clinic staff wants to debrief me; I blow off most of their questions with variations on, "Ask the foxy lady — it's ''her'' call."

And then I'm on the road again, driving back home.

{{Separator|k}}

Nothing much happened for the next week or so, and that includes during the next class session. Fortunately. I've been on the short end of too damn many surprises already...

Wait, there was ''one'' thing: The bug. Borman. He can actually stridulate one-syllable words! He sounds lousy (still better than ''I'' do, damn it), and it sucks up so much of his attention and concentration that changing to a different syllable is a major feat, but when all is said and done, he ''can'' talk. It's just a matter of practice, honing his currently-primitive skill.

{{Separator|k}}

So I'm coming in for today's stint at the West Street Shelter. I'm not three steps past the front door when this lightly morphed rat-SCAB, a new addition to the staff, says Splendor wants to see me in her office right away. What does she ''want'' from me? Hell if I know — but 'in her office' means it's a private conversation, and ''that'' cuts ''way'' back on the number of alternatives...

By the time I open her office door, the short list is down to about three possible agendas. I close the door. Splendor's just beginning to greet me; I interrupt her, saying, "You want I should work somebody over."

She blinks. "What makes you... never mind. Actually —"

Some things are best stopped ''before'' they start. I cut her off again: "Not interested. Go find someone else to play shock trooper. I'm sure there's ''plenty'' of people around here who'd ''love'' to put a hurting on some asshole who desperately deserves —"

"That's exactly why I want ''you'' for this job!" Her turn to interrupt, it seems.

My turn to blink.

"Okay..." I finally say. "You've piqued my curiosity. Explain."

"Thank you. First, some background." She opens a file drawer, pulls out a manila folder, hands it to me. "Read this."

Upshifting, I follow her advice. 'This' is a collection of eyewitness reports — seems that Splendor has an unofficial network of informers all over the City. It's mostly surveillance on the comings and goings of various lowlifes, but there's also some educated guesses on what said lowlifes will be up to in the near future. Hmmm... if I'm reading this right, it looks like the West Street neighborhood's been relatively low on criminals for a while, and a gang from outside the City is planning to move into what they perceive as a vacuum.

I close the folder, slip back to a tempo of 1 — "Done." — and return it to her. "Alright, that's the background. So what?"

"I know the local thugs, and I've gotten most of them to stop committing their crimes in ''my'' neighborhood."

"Bully for you." I've got an uncomfortable feeling I know what's on her mind, but — "And I should get involved... why?"

She gestures at the folder. "The Cargill Mob. If they establish a presence here, it will be... well. Let's just say it would be best for all concerned if they don't. I want to dissuade them with a show of force; give them a demonstra-"

"No. I flatly ''refuse'' to play enforcer."

''"Will'' you let me ''finish!?"'' she says, glaring at me. Well, what do you know — the snake-lady actually ''has'' a temper. I gesture for her to continue; she does. "I've set up a meeting with Jocko Cargill," — head honcho of the eponymous Mob, says her files, real name 'Giocomo' — "and I want to be accompanied by people who I can be ''absolutely certain'' will not initiate any hostile action."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I say without much sarcasm. "So what ''do'' you want from me?"

"You're welcome. And I want you to serve as bodyguard."

Damn... it's not often that I'm left speechless...

"Frankly, I'd be a fool to trust Jocko as far as I can —" '''''BLAM!'''''

''— attack: threat level extreme: 2 o'clock —''

Damn... the whole south wall's erupted with itsy-bitsy explosions. The instincts upshifted me to a tempo of 35-40, somewhere up there, and the ambient noise Dopplers down like always; I can see...

Holy limping Hephæstus — ''I '''can''' see the bullets moving!''

It actually takes a couple seconds of my time before I snap out of it and get to work. Numero Uno: Digital camera from my vest, aim it at the wall's exit wounds, leave it floating in midair at1,000 shots per clock-second. Numero Two-o: Shpritz a layer of DeadGlove (inert polymer in a spray can) on my hands, grab bullets out of the air, store 'em five-to-a-mylar-envelope. Would've preferred individually-wrapped, but I ran out — wasn't prepped for ''this'' many projectiles! Numero Three-o: There's a second wave of airborne crap (shards of window glass, wood chips, nails, yada yada), so I sweep it all to the carpet and bury it under several dozen pounds of books to make sure it don't go noplace it shouldn't ought to.

I retrieve my camera — good, it's still got 91% free RAM — and there's nothing visibly moving at the moment, so I downshift to a tempo of 1 so's I can hear if there's any more impacts. There aren't any, but I ''do'' hear screams and wails from casualties, damnit! Well, hell; they probably won't die in the next few clock-seconds, so I upshift my tempo to 35 and avoid the jagged remnants of windowpane in the frame as I go outside to get some good shots of a late-model Chrysler, nicely framed between a lamp post and a dumpster; driver and two passengers, shabby paint and no discernable plates. Oh, and a pair of rifle barrels sticking out its side windows, complete with muzzle flash and ''more fucking bullets'' on the way. The car's tilted forward, which means the sons of bitches are braking to give themselves more time to shoot.

Fine. I move in, camera ''k'chnkk''-ing away as it stores images of the bullets and their source, and when I'm in range, I reach inside the car; grab the front gun by its chamber; and '''''pull''''' the fucker out and down, with as much force as you'd expect from muscles that can shove a hundred-pound mass around at 70 MPH. Next up: A re-run with the back-seat firearm.

Both guns are firmly lodged in the dirt, barrel-first. The guys who ''were'' holding them have a bunch of fingers sticking out at ''real'' weird angles. Fuck 'em both. I'm busy — the guns are harmless, but there's all the bullets they ''already'' fired — okay, got the last one. My envelopes now hold seven bullets apiece.

Hungry now. I inhale a slab of beef jerky from my vest while I plan out my next move...

By the time I've made my decision, the dudes-in-car are starting to react to the abrupt change in their immediate surroundings; there's the beginnings of shocked/worried expressions evolving on their faces. Hmm... the car's not so tilted as it had been... betcha the driver's floored it. I grin as I extract a genuine Swiss Army Knife from a vest-pocket, unfold the (diamond-hard, waterproof, corrosion-resistant, tungsten/vanadium alloy) cutting blade, and slash a diagonal gouge all the way across the tread of the driver's side front tire. Not waiting for it to finish blowing out, I do likewise to the driver's side rear; then I step back onto the sidewalk, resume munching on shriveled meat, downshift to a tempo of 1, and watch the wreck change from 'incipient' to 'actual'.

As per my unwritten script, the car — driver's side, at least — drops to the pavement with a hell of a clang and a shower of sparks. Then it makes with a metal-on-asphalt shriek all the way to its 45-MPH collision with the dumpster. Oooh, no airbags! ''That's'' gonna leave a mark...

I finish my snack, keeping an eye on the perps in case someone feels like doing something cute; nobody does. I upshift high, strip all three assholes down to their underwear, expend an entire pocket-sized roll of duct tape making ''damn'' sure the perps are gonna sit tight where they are, clean out the glove box and trunk... and for an encore, I downshift and call in the whole sorry encounter to the local police precinct.

Citizen's arrest is a ''good'' thing, right?

Waiting for the cops to show, I drop back to my default tempo of 6 and amuse myself checking out my loot. No discernable ID on any of the trio — such a surprise — so we'll just see what their photos, fingerprints, and DNA (from impromptu blood samples) have to say about the matter. Again, the car is plateless, and there's no VIN either. As for the guns, they look like they could be Izakawa 'Divine Wrath'-model automatics. That, or else homebrew jobs. I sure hope it's the latter, since I happen to know that Izakawa doesn't ''do'' firearms for any ''civilian'' market.

Onward to happier thoughts. Let's see... the clothes look to be generic off-the-rack Target. Residual scent is mostly drowned under cheap-ass cologne, so there's not so much chance of getting olfactory ID off of it. Just one of the tricks criminals have learned for dealing with a post-SCABS world...

...ah. Someone's approaching — correction: ''Splendor's'' approaching. I downshift to match her tempo.

"Nice day, huh?" I say.

She grimaces a little. "Hardly. It seems I'm not the only one who felt a show of force might be appropriate."

"Seems like," I agree. "The timing's pretty interesting, though. It ''could'' be coincidence... but me, I bet Cargill had your office wired for sound. Not sure when."

Splendor nods. "That makes sense. Perhaps we should relocate this discussion to a more secure place?"

"No point. I mean, he's ''already'' eavesdropping, right? So he's gotta know his boys got ''way'' the hell hammered on, by someone who's ''literally'' faster than a speeding bullet. He may not be sure what other tricks I have up my sleeve, but I, for one, will be happy to help him learn — the ''hard'' way. Of course, that's assuming Jocko Homo has the balls, not to mention the requisite lack of functional brain cells, to suit up for Round Two."

Splendor's eyes widen, just for a moment, about halfway through my last sentence. Then she gets it and puts a subtle smile on her face. "I... see. I trust you know what you're doing..."

"Always," I state flatly. "And I know something else: That fucknose is ''toast."

<hr>

The next few days are kind of busy, and not just because of my unfinished contracts (29 and counting) and speech-class-related stuff and helping Splendor deal with the listening devices. To begin with, I pore over police records and the snake-lady's files — but that's maybe a couple of clock-hours at most. No, what ''really'' occupies my time is what I ''do'' with the data thereby gained: I smash hands.

See, the cops have a pretty good idea of who-all is on Jocko's payroll, and what their particular duties are. Just because the authorities don't have enough hard evidence to nail a guy in court, that doesn't mean they're clueless about why he ''should'' be nailed in court. And if you're curious about why the police might grant a puny civilian — ''i.e.,'' me — access to this sort of sensitive information? Two reasons:

First, money talks.

Second, it seems I got a bit of a fan club in blue. Something to do with all those meticulously detailed complaint reports I keep filing any time some jackass messes with me or my property. I'm told that last year, about17% of all City trials for SCAB-related hate crimes used at least ''some'' data from one of my complaint reports — make it 23%, if you're only interested in ''convictions.''

The point is, I got a line on Jocko's ''whole organization.'' His ''entire'' chain of command, from him and his most-trusted seconds all the way down to his lowliest footsoldiers. And I also got several dozen of the freelancers he's most likely to call when he needs a little extra manpower.

Put it all together, I got me a good, long list of targets to hit... and hit them, I do. With a pair of bricks. At a closing velocity ''well'' in excess of the speed of sound.

I tap each of their hands twice. Hit Number One, the bricks are parallel to the plane of the palm; Hit Number Two, they're at right angles. Locating a target's never difficult. After that, I do my business, leave a card, and bug out.

The card, you ask? Just something I whipped up on a cheap-ass laser printer I bought, used for this one job, and melted to untraceable slag immediately after. Each card bears six words — "TELL JOCKO HOMO TO GET LOST" — and a single letter, "J".

No, as a matter of fact I ''couldn't'' just waste 'em all. Three words:

'''''I.'''''

'''''Don't.'''''

'''''Kill.'''''

Got it?

Aside from that, leaving Jocko's crew mostly-intact is a ''good'' thing. There's a lot to hate about organized crime, but one thing they get right is, ''you take care of your own people.'' 'Cause if you don't... well, either you take care of them, or else ''they'' take care of ''you.'' Not to mention, a rep for fucking over your underlings makes it a ''lot'' harder to get replacement thugs when you need them.

So. If I'd left Jocko with a pile of corpses, he'd just bury 'em and that's ''it.'' But he's got a pile of cripples instead, so he's got ''lots'' bigger problems — like medical expenses for the victims, rent and food for their families, yada yada yada. Unless he's just crazy, he ''must'' deal with all this stuff.

Well, maybe Jocko ''is'' batshit insane; doesn't matter. Crazy or not, he ''still'' needs warm bodies to do his business, right? Which means he needs a whole new 'army'. And if people know how badly he screwed his last gang, who the hell's gonna ''want'' to sign on with his ''next'' gang? Answer: ''No''-fucking-body. And no, Jocko ''can't'' just lean on people to ensure silence. Not while all the guys who ''would'' be doing the actual leaning are in hospital with mangled hands, he can't...

{{Separator|k}}

Splendor catches up to me the day after the drive-by. Another ''tete-a-tete'' in her office, which is where two of the five bugs were. She did what I would've suggested if she'd asked: Left 'em all in place, just paying attention to prefabricated soundtracks rather than ambient sights and sounds. But as I walk through the door this time, she welcomes me with a gesture that (by sheer coincidence, I'm sure) switches off the 'bug bamboozler' I installed in this room. ''Confusion to the enemy, hm? Okay, I can play along,'' I muse to myself with a subtle hand gesture that she picks up on.

"Thank you for your promptness, Jubatus," she says. "How many eavesdropping devices have you found?"

"Two, I think."

"You... ''think."''

And then she makes with a disapproving look, so I put on a show of annoyance: "Damn right, I ''think!'' You got any idea how old this place's wiring is? There's all kinds of components that the only reason I could even ''recognize'' them is, I'm old enough to have seen 'em back in the '90s! And further-"

The phone on Splendor's desk rings. Twice. She picks up before ring #3, saying: "West Street Shelter. Splendor speaking."

I hear the voice from the handset, real clear. "Hey there, Miss Splendor! How ya doin'? I heard'ja had some trouble just recent."

Having heard that voice on some police surveillance recordings, I recognize it as Jocko Cargill; not sure about the snake-lady. "I am doing well," she says in a professionally-controlled tone that doesn't give away a damn thing. "If you'd care to tell me what business you have with the Shelter —"

"Yeah," Jocko interrupts. "I got business with you, alright: One'a your freaks dissed me, ''real'' badand it ain't the kind of thing you can clear up with an apology. I know the little pussy's ''there,'' so how's about you put 'im on the line, huh?"

"Ve-" she begins. A momentary upshift lets me confirm there's no incoming assaults; when I revert back to the normal tempo, she's turned on the speakerphone function, and she's saying, "-ell. He's here now."

"Jubatus," I say to the 'phone, playing my part. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I want a cheetah-skin rug, ''Mister'' Juba-"

"Well, if it ain't Jocko Homo!" I break in. "What's crawled up ''your'' ass, Mr. H?"

"Ha, fuckin', ha," he replies. It's hard to tell, what with the audio distortions of the telephone system, but I ''think'' his level of irritation just got boosted a notch or two. Good. "Funny, kitty-cat. ''Real'' funny. Lemme tell you what I do to little pussies that stick their noses where they don't belong: I skin the fuckers alive."

"You and what army?" I sneer back at him. "Get real, Jocko — you ain't got shit, and we both ''know'' it. Face facts: '''''I''' am the fastest SCAB alive.'' You ''can't'' threaten me — not when I can outrun any bullet on the face of the Earth! Hell, I can ''catch'' your damn bullets and throw 'em right back in your face!"

''"You're dead, you goddamn pussy!"''

I give Splendor a 'thumbs up' gesture as I hammer the needles deeper beneath his skin: "Go ahead, Homo — ''lose'' your temper. Blow a gasket, that's a good little thug. Let your blood pressure rise until your arteries explode. I'll be sure to dance a jig of grief at your funeral, and piss on your grave."

I hold my hand up, warning the snake-lady not to interrupt, for the few moments of heavy breathing it takes Jocko to regain a semblance of self-control. Which he does: "Okay... Okay... You got me goin' there, I admit it. Not too bad — for a ''fuckin' animal.'' Enjoy it while you can, Mister Kitty, 'cause you won't enjoy ''nothin''' after ''I'm'' done with you!"

"So you can tag somebody that can break the sound barrier under his own power? Not!" is my smugly confident reply. "Try a gas weapon, Homo. A poisonous cloud is a lot harder to dodge than a bullet, and ''maybe'' I won't zip through it so damn fast it doesn't have ''time'' to affect me."

"That's ''real'' fuckin' hilarious, Mister Kitty." — and now he pauses, just for a very short moment — "In fact, you're a goddamn comedian, ain't'cha? Well, it wouldn't be polite of me to keep you from laughin' it up, so I'll just say g'bye now." And he hangs up. I think about Jocko Homo's pre- and post-pause vocal overtones, as much as I could hear them over the telephone, as Splendor turns the 'bamboozler' back on with a heartfelt exhalation...

"Well," she says, ''"that'' was interesting. May I assume there was a reason you insisted on giving Jocko the bright idea to try chemical weapons?"

"Damn straight." I grin mercilessly. "Look: We SCABs have an insanely wide range of biochemistries, right? What that means is, you can spend however-many megabucks developing a weapon that takes out ''one'' SCAB — but you got basically ''no'' idea whether or not it's gonna affect ''any other'' SCAB! So let's say you're a weapons researcher who's just been handed a pile of cash to come up with an equalizer that'll work on people like us. Do you spend it on chemical weapons, knowing that it's a fucking waste of resources, or do you spend it on new and improved projectile weapons, which are ''guaranteed'' to work on ''almost all'' SCABs?"

She thinks it over a moment, and likes the answer: "In other words, you goaded Jocko into wasting some of his available resources on an intrinsically futile gambit."

"Bingo! Got it in one."

"Unfortunately, I believe there's a flaw in your thinking. What's to keep Jocko from attempting to acquire one of those experimental projectile weapons you spoke of?"

I shrug. "Calculated risk. Assuming Jocko manages to get his hands on ''any'' military hardware ''at all,'' I'm betting he won't get more than one or two pieces, if that. And the more he focuses on ''me'' in particular, the less he's gonna be able to do to ''anybody else."''

"I see..." Splendor just looks at me for a clock-second or so. "You're determined to play lightning rod, aren't you."

"Better me than one of you slowpokes," I say with a shrug. "What's your point? I'm the hardest target you've ''got,'' so why ''shouldn't'' I paint a bullseye on my chest?"

"No reason at all," she says in a neutral tone. "Thank you, Jubatus."

"For what? Premature much?" I grimace. "Save your gratitude until ''after'' we've dealt with the problem at hand."

{{Separator|k}}

Jocko's no Jubatus. If it was ''me'' plotting an assault on the Shelter, I'd have researched the place in exhaustive detail ahead of time, including all of its resident SCABs and their combat-useful abilities. I'd also have worked up about 14 layers of contingency plans in case Something Went Wrong. And in particular, I would ''not'' have allowed my targets ''any'' breathing space ''whatsoever'' after my first attack. Then again, maybe Cargill did have a Plan B — Splendor doesn't think so, but, y'know, for the sake of argument? Like I said: Maybe the guy ''did'' have a backup plan, but I got my counterattack in ''before'' he could push the button.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, I'm not about to let up on him. For one thing, I've only tagged 68% of the targets on my list, and if you're a slowpoke (which everybody associated with the Shelter ''is),'' just ''one'' disgruntled twit with a high-powered rifle is all it takes to ruin your whole day. For another thing, three of the targets on my list have ''already'' bolted and run, apparently the moment they heard about what happened to my first victims. Or ''did'' they run away? Could be Jocko ordered 'em to go elsewhere and pick up a few 55-gallon drums of industrial-strength Whupass. Again, Spendor doesn't think Jocko's subtle enough (or smart enough) to do that; I'm inclined to agree, myself. Nevertheless, it's a loose end that needs to be tied off ''before'' it trips up anybody who matters. I've uploaded a few spiders to the Net, to keep an eye on the runners' financial activity; nothing big, just what I need so's I'll have a little advance notice if/when they make a suspicious purchase wherever, or they return to this fair city, or yada yada yada.

{{Separator|k}}

"Hey, don't get me wrong — I don't like killin' people any more'n the next guy! But what can you do when some fuckin' dipshit ''asks'' f-"

''— multiple attacks: threat levels high, extreme, extreme, lethal, extreme: 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 o'clock —''

— the instincts upshifted me to a tempo of ''40?'' Damn. Looks like my buddy Jocko is playing with ''very'' dangerous toys! A rather strong hammerblow to my back pushes me forward; I go with it, especially because there's a couple points on the back of my head that're feeling ''real'' hot just now. As I fall forward, the hot spots on my skull cool down a bit, and a second hammerblow glances off one shoulder.

Yes, Virginia, I got hit with supersonic bullets ''and'' military lasers. How did I survive to tell the tale, you ask? Tempo of 40, that's how. Upshifted that high, from ''my'' point of view the bullets were only carrying ''one-sixteenth of a percent'' of their 'full' load of kinetic energy; body armor did the rest. As for the energy weapons, my upshift cut their power — how much energy they deliver in a given amount of time — to only 1/40 normal, not to mention what it did to the photons' frequency. That kind of tweakage can really mess up a laser beam's innate capacity for destruction, you know? Still dangerous, but only if I'm dumb enough to stick around and wait for it to burn me. No, I can't outrun photons; then again, I don't ''have to'' be faster than light.

I just have to be faster than whatever's adjusting the laser's point-of-aim.

Moving right along: You damn betcha I'm prepped for beam weapons. Jocko may not be Jubatus, but ''I am.'' One vest pocket holds a few grams of light-sensitive dust; laser-safety goggles in another; a third pocket's got a matched set of six corner-cube reflectors. My left hand tosses clouds of powder into the air for the beams to reflect/refract off of, while I put the goggles on with my right... bingo! ''There's'' the beamlines — all three of the SOBs. Fine. Three corner-cubes, coming right up. I give each one a ''whole'' bunch of angular velocity so it twirls in place; that won't stop it from reflecting the laser ''exactly'' back the way it came, but it ''will'' reduce the amount of time any particular piece of reflector spends in direct contact with its beam.

The adrenaline rush is fading — I can feel blood vessels throbbing in my neck and scalp, not to mention the opening twinges of a killer migraine. That's what I get for overstraining my chronomorph power. I can't maintain a tempo of 40 for long, so I gotta make the most of each Time-shifted fractional second while I can.

Okay — the bullets. Only one source, thank Ares. They look to be moving at 40-45 MPH, which (after factoring in my tempo) means they ''are'' supersonic. Somewhere around Mach two-point-five, I think. The exact figure doesn't matter: I extract a pair of hand-sized metal plates from yet another vest pocket, align the plates at ''just'' the right angles, and thereby nudge the stream of bullets towards the trajectory I'd rather they follow. The headache's just begun, but I ain't got ''time'' to deal with the pain, so I ignore it. I give the room a quick scan; yep, the same four targets. Good. Hmmm... the first bullet just struck target 1, so I shift my 'bucklers' to redirect the stream to the next in line, then target 3, and finally Jocko himself. Bastard ''would'' ensure that ''he's'' not anywhere near the direct line of fire, damn it.

The lasers are gone now — ''quelle'' surprise, and I appreciate the corner-cubes' sacrifice — so it's time to deal with the gun-on-steroids. The cloud of drywall fragments tells me ''exactly'' where the bullets are coming from, so I leap straight at that point, twirling my hand-held shields before me in a paddle-wheel-type maneuver so's the projectiles get knocked out of my flight path into the floor. Each bullet-slap jars me up to the shoulders, in a rhythm that clashes against the pulsating throbs of my cerebral arteries. I hit the wall a little over the bullets' exit hole; no problem! I dig into the wall with the claws of two feet and one arm, and I use my free hand to ram a 'shield' right down the barrel of the damn gun.

Okay, it won't fit — it's too big — but ''you'' know what I mean, right? If I can clog up the barrel with its own bullets, I negate this particular threat. And the bullets keep coming; each new impact against the 'buckler' sends a ''serious'' shockwave up my arm and down my torso to rattle my internal organs. One... two... thr- ''Sn'f'fckngbtch!!!''

''Very'' bright light. Then pain makes a fast getaway as the world goes ''real'' dark...

{{Separator|k}}

Lying down; I smell medicines and rubbing alcohol; right. I'm in a hospital. Private room. Kind of tired, but I don't feel much pain — apparently, I've been healing for a while? And... okay, I recognize ''that'' scent: It's Splendor. I see a light cast on her left elbow, neatly-applied dressings on her neck and the right side of her face, plus a glued-down patch over her right eye — and who knows what ''else'' she's hiding ''underneath'' her clothes. No cane; she must not've been hurt ''that'' badly. I downshift to talk to her...

"Hello, Splendor," I say. "I'm guessing the good guys won."

"Jubatus!" She seems a little surprised to hear me speak; not sure why. "Welcome to the land of the living. And yes, we did."

"Good. What happened after I fell asleep on the job?"

The lady makes with one of her oh-so-elegant veiled smiles. "You may have 'fell asleep', but I shan't complain. After all, a railgun ''did'' explode in your face..."

I roll my eyes. "Now tell me something I ''don't'' know."

"Of course," she says, nodding. "From what I could determine afterwards, I was outside the blast radius proper, but the shockwave knocked me senseless anyway. When I came to, I was naked except for the coils of duct tape Jocko had wrapped around me — and I knew it was him because he wasn't finished. I'm afraid he noticed I was awake before I'd quite recovered my wits; he took great pleasure in telling me ''exactly and precisely'' what he intended to do to me, now that you were too dead to protect me." Now she looks me in the eyes; her unblinking gaze makes it real clear (like it wasn't before?) what kind of critter that damn disease blended her with. I wait for the snake-lady to keep talking.

"And then he raped me." It's a flat, calm, statement of fact she's just made... "Which only proves that he was unaware of the ''full'' extent of what SCABS did to me."

My mind races — there's a few rumors about certain events in her past — I throw out an educated guess: "Projecting chronomorph?"

Splendor acknowledges my remark with a subtle inclination of her head. "Correct. I can only adjust other people's ages downward — but when sex is involved, the rejuvenative effect is ''permanent."''

I ponder the possibilities... "So you rolled his odometer back. How far?"

"I fully intended to 'roll his odometer back', as you put it, to the point at which his zygote originally formed." I blink at that. ''Okay... someone remind me never to piss her off...'' "As it happened, I didn't need to go that far; at the moment of his death, I'd reduced him to a first-trimester premature birth."

"Damn..." I picture the scene in my mind. "And since he ''was'' raping you at the time..."

"Exactly. Jocko was too distracted to perceive any difficulties until ''after'' he was physically incapable of doing anything about it. Now it's your turn, Jubatus. What ''did'' you spend these past few days doing?"

So I talk. Snake-lady listens — and from her occasional questions and comments, it's pretty clear that my info is mostly just confirming what she's already learned from other sources.

Doesn't take me long to finish the story. Splendor stares off into the middle distance for a while; I take the opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep...

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:John Moschitta School of Elocution}}

User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution

2008-02-23T11:42:40Z

Cubist: Formatting fixes. Sure hope I got 'em all...

{{title|name=The John Moschitta School of Elocution|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}

They call me Jubatus. Me being the fastest SCAB alive, I ''always'' have time to kill... so I always need new ways to kill time, simply to avoid going mad from boredom. You could call it Parkinson's Law of Temporal Consumption: "Activities multiply to fill whatever you've got in the way of spare time." I didn't used to find this a problem — I got plenty of interests — but then, I also didn't used to think there could be more than 24 hours in a day. There can, particularly for people like me, to whom SCABS gave a seriously overclocked brain. That's short for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, and can you blame anyone for preferring the acronym? I've got SCABS to thank for my being a bipedal cheetah with a train of thought that runs six times faster than anyone else's, which explains how come from ''my'' point of view, there's ''150'' hours in a day. Fortunately, I can control the rate at which my personal 'clock' runs; upshifting for greater speed, downshifting to interact with you slowpokes.

What do I ''do'' with all that time, I hear you ask? Whatever I damned well please, and six times more of it than I ever could before. Today, like pretty much every other day, it pleases me to spend a couple hours of clock time puttering around the West Street Shelter. Seems I've got a bit of history with one of their volunteers, a rabbit named Phil, and I like to keep an eye on him. Think of me as a guardian angel with spotted fur and sharp, pointy teeth. May the good Lord forgive any fool who thinks he can give the rabbit a hard time, because ''I'' sure as hell ''won't.'' Phil is good people, and if anyone forgets how good people should be treated, I'm up for teaching 'em a quick lesson in manners any day of the week.

I'm not sure Phil notices, but I make a point of reducing my Dangerous quotient before I drop in. I trim my claws; I kill 'cheetah breath' with mouthwash; I also downshift to a tempo of around .95, marginally slower than the norm. Not that it matters whether he's consciously aware. The way I see it, he doesn't need to worry about a small flotilla of high-velocity knife edges zipping around him in loose formation. That's basically the reason I bother with the Shelter at all, when you get right down to it — reducing the level of hassle Phil gets from an important part of his life. The instant Phil leaves, I'm gone, too.

At this point, I'll bet some of you are wondering how ''anyone,'' a highly-morphed SCAB like me in particular, could possibly be indifferent to the good work done at the Shelter. You guys should talk to the ones who ''aren't'' asking; they're just as cynical as I am, and therefore ''know'' why somebody might be less than enthusiastic about ostensibly-altruistic behavior. Let's just say I'm a 'value given for value received' kind of guy and leave it at that, shall we?

I suspect Splendor (the sometimes cold-blooded mistress of West Street in general, and the Shelter in particular) has an idea of what I'm ''really'' about here, but no matter how our philosophies may differ, she's too pragmatic to reject assistance from any quarter. So far I've spruced up the joint's Net presence, made sure a few time-sensitive deliveries arrived on schedule, written two drafts of a Shelter procedures manual, and done a fair amount of websearching on a notable variety of topics, to name only four of the tasks I've fielded here.

Right now I'm seated in the lobby, not far from Phil's office. I'm continuing work on the Shelter's website. Specifically, the interface of the Shelter's online database of SCAB-friendly businesses. Got my PowerBook before me, and I intend to cut that interface down to size, or die trying. You'd be surprised how many 56K modems are still in service, particularly among the SCAB populace that's the Shelter's target audience. And even if ''you'' aren't surprised, the twit who originally created this interface certainly would be! I'll bet he was thinking more of how it would look in his portfolio than how it would serve the client, damn his highly-trained eyes. He had every pixel of the bloody thing thickly encrusted with bandwidth-sucking leeches — I'm talking 32-bit animation, Java-3 applets, multi-track sound files, and on and on. End result: Not only does the sucker take for''ever'' to finish loading on a slow connection, but it runs like an arthritic clam (when it runs at all) on any machine the intended audience is likely to be able to afford.

So far, I've sandblasted ''all'' the graphics down to bit-depths of 8 or less, and killed ''every'' piece of animation that had no valid reason to live. The payoff is that the download time over a 56K modem has dropped to 235 seconds. Yes, ''dropped.'' By a factor of five. I won't be satisfied until I reduce that figure to twenty seconds or less, and if I have to go with pure text to get —

Phil is nervous, I can ''smell'' it. That scent, the odor of frightened prey, drills straight to the vital core of my hindbrain to stir up predatory voices. I can't help that, but I sure as Artemis don't have to ''listen'' to what those voices are saying.

Being a rabbit, Phil scares easily; I don't want to overreact. I close the laptop, carrying it with me as I walk calmly over towards the converted walk-in closet he calls his office. He's with a client, a big sumbitch. From the back, the client looks like a norm with orange stripes dyed into his black crewcut, or maybe it's ''vice versa.'' I hear a VoxPop voder say, "Sorry, but that command was invalid."

"Grrrrrr..." I ''know'' that growl, it's the sound of an angry carnivore that's 1.5 seconds away from ''killing'' something! I upshift, the growl dopplers down into the deep subsonic, and tiger-boy freezes up like the rest of the world. I memorize my position and move in, get a clear view of ''exactly'' what he's up to... and breathe a sigh of relief. Tiger-boy is glaring down at the voder in his furless hands, caught in the act of stabbing one finger down to the touchscreen. He's got fur down his neck; thick black skin on the bottom of his very human nose; round pupils in his glittery, reflective eyes. Okay, tiger-boy's no ''immediate'' danger to Phil, but I still don't like his mood.

I return to my memorized position, downshift, pick up the walk where I left off. "Say, is that a Vox Populi voder I heard?" I ask. Tiger-boy doesn't react, but Phil looks up.

"Yes, it is!" the rabbit says in his cute, high-pitched voice. Not sure if he counts as tenor or soprano, I keep forgetting to ask Wanderer. Phil continues, "How much do you know about them? Mr. Anthony here is having a little trouble with his. Do you think that you could help?"

"I can give it a shot. Got nothing better to do," I say with a smile that keeps my teeth decently hidden. I make a show of looking for another chair, which of course there isn't — no room. "Alright. Mr. Anthony, was it? Good. My name is Jubatus. How about we go up front where we can both sit down?"

We move out, and Phil's distress is inversely proportional to the distance between him and us. I give tiger-boy some leading questions he can answer with head motion and/or hand gestures: He's a local. Single. Started to SCAB over eleven days ago. Spoke his last intelligible words nine days back. Just got released from hospital a week ago. Hasn't noticed any tigerish instincts yet. The salesman pushed him into buying a top-of-the-line VoxPop that he really couldn't afford.

We sit down in the lobby. I open the laptop, bring up SimpleText, set the voice for "Alfred, high quality", show him how to make it recite what's typed into the window. "Mr. Anthony, that salesman didn't do you a service," I say. "Vox Populi voders ''do'' sound as good as you were told, yes, but they're finicky bastards. If you're a novice, you'll have as much luck with it as a kid with a learner's permit would have with an eighteen-wheeler."

"Call me Felix," my laptop says for him. "Agreed. What replacement?"

I ponder for a moment. "If your heart is set on using a voder, I'd say go with a Kurzweil. The vocal quality sucks at the low end, but even the worst Kurzweil has clear enunciation, and you can make yourself understandable within two days tops. Most people, a couple hours' practice is enough. You want a KV-240, maybe a KV-200 if you're ''really'' hard up for cash. Anything less than a 200, well, it's cheap and it works."

"Voder not needed?"

Sharp man — he caught the implication of my 'if your heart is set on it' phrasing. I shrug: "Hell if ''I'' know. Depends on what SCABS did to your vocal tract. Can you open your mouth? I want to see what you've got to work with here." He opens, and it's a perfectly normal human mouth. Tongue, palate, teeth, jaws, all right out of a pre-'Flu medical textbook. With his flat face, I'll bet his sinus cavities are human-normal as well. "Looks good to me. Now let me check out your neck." I lay my hands on either side of his throat, taking care not to let my claws touch fur, let alone flesh; I don't feel a larynx in there. Not a good sign. "Okay, make some noise."

"Rrrrrrrr..." he rumbles. Nothing's vibrating in his neck.

"Keep it going." He does. I move one hand to his chest — ''there's'' vibration. "Alright, that's enough. You should definitely get a second opinion on this, Felix, but here's what I think: Your larynx is gone. That's the source of vibration for a normal human voice, and you ain't got one no more. No voicebox, just a purr-box. The good news is, the ''rest'' of your vocal tract looks okay, and if I'm right about that, it should be fairly easy for you to relearn speech." ''You lucky bastard,'' I don't say. "In the meantime, let's see what I can do with that VoxPop of yours. Got the manual?"

He does, and is happy to hand it over. I upshift high, skim from cover to cover, re-read the important bits, downshift. I'm a technical writer, cramming like this is what I do for a living. And the problem I'm now faced with is how to cut the bleeding options down to something a novice can manage. Damn thing's got more bells, whistles, and gongs than Office 2024 (yes, that's the version the Feds actually passed a law requiring Microsoft to recall every copy of), and thanks to a multi-layered contextual menu system, every last control and setting is accessible with no more than four taps on the touchscreen. Wonderful if you know what you're doing; otherwise, one misplaced tap gets you an Urdu accent thick enough to cut with a chainsaw — if you're lucky.

I do a slash-and-burn job on the on-screen controls, hiding 99.9% of them. I don't touch the semantic analysis subroutines, they'll ensure decent inflection, but I lock down the recognition parameters so Anthony can't screw it up by accident.

Next comes input. "You got the subvocalization options package?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Good. That'll help you retrain the muscles that shape your resonance cavities. But until you get the hang of it, you'll probably want to do input by hand. Palmspring user?" I ask, referring to one of the more popular PDAs.

"Yes."

"How's your shorthand?" SCABS has given the two major shorthand systems (Pittman and Gregg) a new lease on life after decades of slow, word processor-induced decline.

"Grafitti only." That's the simplified letterform system that was devised a few decades back as a practical solution to the problem of handwriting recognition, and pretty much every palmtop these days can handle it.

I nod. I turn off Pittman and Gregg, leaving Grafitti and the onscreen keyboard as the two manual input modes. As a final touch, if he manages to screw it up in spite of what I've done, I give him a friendly red button to click on that'll restore the damn thing to the state I left it in. And just in case he manages to nuke the button, I beam a backup copy of the configuration file to my laptop.

"Here you go. Use Grafitti, or click here to bring up a keyboard you can use the stylus with. Like so," I say, demonstrating. "And if anything goes wrong, this is the panic button — as long as that's visible, clicking on it should reset everything to this condition."

Oh yeah, tiger-boy knows his Grafitti. It's only a second or two before his VoxPop says, "That was impressive. Thank you, Jubatus. How are you at speech training?"

"You really want to learn how to talk from someone who sounds like me?" I ask with a smile. It's not a rhetorical question, because I ''know'' what kind of noise comes out of my mouth, damn it. Ever heard an old-time tracheotomy patient whose voice is driven by a hand-held electric buzzer? It's a nasty timbre, metallic and inhuman, and my speech has been compared to that. Unfavorably. And then there's a familiar whiff of nervousness in the air; Phil speaks up before I finish turning to look at him.

"I would if I were you, Mr. Anthony," says Phil. I aim a puzzled look in his direction. ''What's that rabbit think he's doing?'' He continues: "Jubatus would never admit it, but there's nothing human left in his throat and mouth. His speech is quite good, don't you agree?"

Phil can be devious and manipulative when it suits him. Fortunately, he's sworn to use this great power only for Good. I'll bet half my stock portfolio that I know what he's up to now. "So how many ''other'' mutes you gonna deliver into my tender care?" I ask him.

"Total of six," he says, bubbly and cheerful. "We've already started cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms for your class."

I keep my tone light — no need to disturb Phil's client. "And when were you thinking about letting ''me'' on on the secret?"

Phil waggles his ears in a noncommittal fashion. "I thought that you'd figure it out on your own, so I wouldn't ''have to'' say anything. Isn't that what happened?" he asks with an innocent, guileless expression. That rabbit has no shame. I think he had it surgically removed, unless SCABS got there first.

I get the feeling that maybe Phil manipulated ''me,'' and I don't ''like'' being manipulated. If the rabbit really did play me like a violin... Anyone else, I'd be thinking about how to make the bastard pay. But not Phil. ''Never'' Phil. As far as I'm concerned, he's paid so far in advance that ''I'' owe ''him,'' and I always will. I swallow my aggravation, and nod. "Alright. Six students, including Mr. Anthony here. No problem. You wouldn't happen to have any information on the other five, would you?"

"Sure," he says, hopping over to me. "In the backpack." Which he's wearing, so I open the main pocket and extract a set of manila folders. If you're wondering why he didn't just hand them to me, you should know that Phil doesn't ''have'' hands. His forepaws really are ''paws,'' bloody near zero manipulatory capacity. But ''he'' can ''speak,'' damn it! Somebody had to have helped him with the files, and I deliberately, explicitly refuse to become annoyed at this evidence of premeditation on his part. He thanks me and hops back to his hutch-''cum''-office.

Tiger-boy's VoxPop speaks up: "There really is nothing left of your human voice?"

It's the voder's built-in tone of polite inquiry — dunno what ''he'd'' prefer the question sound like. I take it at face value. "You can't tell? Yup, all gone. You're lucky, SCABS didn't even ''touch'' most of ''your'' vocal tract. All ''you'' have to do is learn how to work with a new sound source. Probably end up with an exotic-sounding tone in the bass register, good for attracting girls."

He starts composing a reply, then stops and looks at me. After a moment, his VoxPop says, "You sound bitter."

I hadn't intended to, but he's right. Vocalizing has always been a touchy subject for me, ever since I SCABbed over. Maybe tiger-boy is just offering me a sympathetic ear; too bad that kind of offer is one I'm not about to accept. ''Ever.'' "That's one reason I don't use a voder — most of 'em can't do emotional overtones very well. The VoxPop line is an exception, but you already know how delicate the controls are," I say with a shrug. "Anyhow, I'd recommend that you exchange the damn thing and get a more economical model, or at least one you don't need a Masters' Degree in to use properly..."

Tiger-boy leaves after I'm done giving him advice. I close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and breathe deeply; it took more effort than usual to keep a lid on my customary bad temper, and the voice thing is why. And then Phil's scent again —

"Are you alright, Jubatus?"

I don't bother to move or look at the rabbit. "Hello, Phil. It would've killed you to ask? Or even give me some advance notice?"

"If I'd asked, you would have refused," he says reasonably. "But I don't know what your problem is. Really, what's the worst that could happen?"

"You see me in a puddle of blood, none of it mine, on the Six O'Clock News," I say without thinking.

There's an elongated pause, broken by Phil. "You know what, Jubatus? You worry too much. And coming from a rabbit, that's saying something."

I almost laugh — of course, ''he'' doesn't know how goddamn close my scenario came to playing itself out, with him supplying the blood, when we first met. "Gee. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Gotta run — bye-bye!" And then the rabbit is gone.

Sigh.

A cursory scan of the files indicates that all six are animorph SCABs of one kind or another. I start with Anthony's file, which confirms what I already knew, then go on to Kerry Dennison. Sales clerk, married, no kids. He's a fish-morph, bulgy eyes and webbed fingers and scales all over, and a Godawful ''ugly'' bastard, to boot. The picture shows flat, wide tubing wrapped around his neck... ah. He's got (barely-) functional gills ''and'' the remnants of his old lungs; the tubing supplies water for his gills, and between them and his lungs, he gets enough oxygen to survive. No wonder his file has nothing on his current capacity for vocalization... the doctors would've had their hands full just keeping him alive, and his insurance ran out before they could do anything else.

Third in line, Mary ''(née'' Martin) Zelinski, is a living cliché: She's a fox gendermorph, a fuzz-covered wet dream who could've stepped out of a '''''PlaySCAB''''' centerfold. Formerly an investment banker with a trophy wife, the 'Flu giveth her an all-over permanent fur coat as the 'Flu taketh away her mind. She's not feral, just amnesiac — a near-complete ''tabula rasa.'' With her (former) profession, she's got to have money, so why is she here at the Shelter, instead of upstate at St. Jude Medical or the like? And how come she went through ''five'' doctors in her first month as a SCAB? Reading between the lines of the vixen's file, I can't help but wonder how much the ''other'' Mrs. Zelinski has to answer for...

File Number Four is a schoolteacher, name of Sawyer Borman. He's a man-sized insect-morph, cricket with an occasional grasshoppery touch. Basic body plan could be described as "humanoid with four arms". Doesn't even have lungs, ''per se'' — his body is thoroughly riddled with a branching network of air passages that oxygenate all tissues ''directly,'' never mind that considerations of airflow and surface area make that scheme unworkable for a critter as big as him. What the hell, he's a polymorph (with a limited selection of insectoid forms), I guess he can have an impossible metabolism if he wants to.

Next is the Right Reverend Charles Calgonetti. I'll get to him.

And finally... oh, joy. Inanimorph. This one's been living (?) at the Shelter for seventeen weeks now, ever since the day an animated, life-sized granite statue of a Great Dane showed up from nowhere. No ID, no clue to her former life — and even the 'her' is only an educated guess, based on the statue's anatomically correct details. At least she (?) answers to 'Jenny'. She can understand spoken or written English, but doesn't appear to be able to speak or write herself. Wonder how badly she's been disoriented by her radical transformation? Inanimorphs... well, hell. Just have to see what (if anything) I can do to reach her. It. Whatever.

After I'm done with my reading, I suspect the preacher's going to be the hardest nut to crack. Physically speaking, Calgonetti is a mynah bird scaled up to a body length of four feet, with avian-type talons at the ends of his feather-covered, humanish legs. Black feathers all over, interrupted only by a ring of iridescent white around his throat. Who says SCABS doesn't have a sense of humor? Chuck traded up from his human body eleven years ago, and hasn't spoken a word since. Pretty tough on a guy who'd been a professional talker.

A mynah bird, speechless? Yeah, right. My best guess is, he's got a self-imposed mental block about speech. This sort of thing definitely isn't my forte, but I'm betting he'll talk if I can piss him off bad enough. I'll try not to enjoy needling a man of God.

Okay, I'll try not to enjoy it ''too'' much.

But I digress... I don't recognize Chuck's denomination, but it's clearly not one of the bigoted ones: His flock — sorry, couldn't resist — have been supporting him all this time, providing sufficient resources (financial and otherwise) to keep him going until he's ready to get back in the pulpit. He's got a record, he does; over the years he's attended eight different speech classes, none of which did him any good whatsoever. He's always gotten good marks for attendance and participation, always declined use of a voder, always projected a congenial air, consistently maintained that the Lord will restore him to full voice whenever it suits Him to do so. All of which does nothing to explain why he's ''here,'' a bloody ''homeless shelter'' in a rotting neighborhood that's maybe three steps away from complete and absolute urban collapse, for the love of Ahura-Mazda.

I've got an uncomfortable feeling that I know what's ''really'' going on behind those beady little eyes. I think I may already have been where he is — except, of course, that ''he's'' got faith in the Almighty. I wonder how much of that faith is still alive in his heart right now...

{{Separator|stars}}

I don't need to check the schedule. I work with the Shelter's online resources, I already knew that the speech class will begin three calendar days from now. Just didn't know who the 'teacher to be announced' would be.

Three calendar days. Plenty of time for me to familiarize myself with my classroom, work up a lesson plan, collect and/or create some teaching resources, talk to Donnie at the Pig, make arrangements with Dr. Derksen for use of his lab, and generally prep for the tutoring gig.

{{Separator|k|the first week}}

Time for the first session to begin. Butterflies in my stomach? Naah, the hornets killed and ate them all... I really shouldn't ought to be as nervous as I am. After all, I'm a technical writer; teaching people is what I do for a living! I just don't usually do it ''in person.'' And I also don't usually do it with topics that are quite so personal, topics that strike quite so close to the core of what a human being truly is.

Who am I kidding? I'm nervous because this hits ''me'' where I live. Even now I get the shakes just ''thinking'' about those first few days after I SCABbed over. That's when I ''couldn't'' talk ''at all,'' when I didn't know how to coax anything close to an articulate sound from my newly-remodeled throat, when I had no way of knowing whether or not I ever would be able to speak another word for the rest of my life...

It was bad. Leave it at that.

What the hell, it'll be a learning experience in more ways than one. ''

''No more waffling; I walk up the stairs, down the hall, and into my classroom. What do you know — Jenny's mass of stone doesn't exceed the limits of the Shelter's structural integrity.

Once at my desk, I upshift while setting up all the connections for my laptop, then look at each student in turn. "Hello. My name's Jubatus. I think we all know why we're here, so no need to belabor the point. The first thing you should know is that if you really ''want'' to talk, you ''can.'' And you'll do it before the end of this first session. That's a promise." I pause to let that sink in, then flip three small devices out of a vest pocket and catch them between the fingers of my other hand. Some of my students recognize the gadgets, which I hold up and fan out like a poker hand. "These are voders. Low-end Kurzweil models, KV-150s; nothing fancy, but they do the job. I've got one for everybody. And they're the reason I can make that promise.

"What I ''don't'' promise is that you'll be able to talk ''without'' mechanical assistance. Maybe you can, maybe not — it depends on two things. First, on exactly what kind of mess SCABS made of your vocal tract, and second, on whether or not you can figure out how to manhandle a comprehensible voice out of your ''current'' set of pipes.

"And hell, maybe you'll decide you ''don't'' actually want to talk. Even then, you've got options; you can learn Sign," — here I fingerspell ''AMESLAN IS NOT A VAN VOGT NOVEL'' — "and if all else fails, there's always the written word. Donnie Sinclair, guy who runs the Blind Pig, is mute and doesn't use a voder; I'll see if I can't get him up here to fill you in on living without a voice. I think that would be a mistake, myself, but it's ''your'' decision, and as long as ''you're'' satisfied, it's none of my damn business how you choose to live your life.

"And now that that's out of the way..." Here I pick a manila folder up off my desk, open it, look at the contents. "Couple of you guys have a bit of a track record. Calgonetti, says here you've been slacking off in vocalization classes for more than a decade," I say, hearing amused noises as I drop some papers into a convenient trash can. The bird doesn't appreciate my description. Good. "Dennison, you've got a signed certificate says you're permanently mute." I drop more papers. "As for the rest of you..." I shut the folder, send it to rejoin its missing contents. Then I take a butane lighter from a vest-pocket, ignite it, and toss ''it'' into the trash. There's a momentary ''FWOOSH'' as an inches-wide ball of flame rises up, dissipating before it hits the ceiling. It's pure theater — I'm just burning Xeroxes — but it does the job. All six of my students are focussed fully on ''me.''

"I don't give a flying fuck what ''anyone'' may have told you before today. Far as I'm concerned? As of now, each and every one of you ''will'' talk — or I'll know the reason why.

"Any questions?"

I wasn't expecting any response, but the bug makes a 'clickick' noise and raises his upper left hand while his upper right scribbles on a notepad in his lower pair. After he's done, a quick upshift and the notepad 'teleports' into ''my'' hands.

"Okay... Borman here wants to know what happens if someone can't talk by the end of summer." Another upshift reunites the bug and his paper. "Well, it's true that we only got this room for ten weeks, but it's ''also'' true that the Shelter's not teaching this class. ''I am.'' You want out, say the word and you're out; otherwise, I'm not giving up until you ''can'' speak. And if that's after session ten, I'll just have to find us a different classroom. Any other questions?"

Dead air.

"Good. First, let's take a look at how speech works when it ''does'' work..." Here I upshift, extract a roll of eight-millimeter correction tape (red) from my vest, and spend a clock-second or so putting a schematic diagram of the human vocal tract on the wall. Back at a tempo of 1, I point at one specific bit of the diagram. "See this? It's the larynx, but you can call it a 'voicebox'. It's got a couple folds of skin that vibrate when you shove air past 'em, not unlike a clarinet reed..."

By the time I'm done, my students (most of them, anyway; with the fox and rock, it's hard to tell) have a solid grounding in the biomechanics of spoken language — ''i.e.,'' how a normal human vocal tract operates. Now for the voders, which I distribute in half an upshifted clock-second.

"Okay, time to keep that promise I started class with. See what's on your desk? It's a KV-150. If you're clueless about voders, give the built-in tutorial a try. You can't figure something out, lemme know and I'll see if I can make it clear for you."

Within two clock-minutes, the first "Hello, world!" tutorial is audible. And ten clock-minutes further on, they get to "The time is eight forty-seven pee-emm" and "I am a SCAB" and "Today is Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of June, two-thousand thirty-eight ay-dee." Damned if I can tell how the inanimorph works a voder with stone paws, but she (?) does. Too bad her machine's only reciting random words and phrases. Zelinski's doing better; she actually got her voder to say "My name is Mary Zelinski." On purpose, yet. The150s sound better than I do, damn it, but then I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. Focusing on technical matters — how well my students are or aren't using the Kurzweils — helps me keep a lid on my annoyance.

I assign homework (practice with the 150s), and then it's over. Dennison and Anthony drive themselves home; Zelinski's picked up by some random luxury car; Chuck and Borman ride the bus; and the innie, the stone dog, walks downstairs. What are the odds of the vixen's ride being an incognito limousine? I make a note to check the license plates with the DMV.

Only after I'm finally alone do I let myself unclench. I didn't come anywhere near losing it; the scents of the bird and fish didn't make me any hungrier than usual; all in all, it went better than I expected. Of course, 'better than I expected' just means I didn't dismember anyone...

"How did it go, Jubatus?" Who else? It's the damn bunny.

"No blood got spilt. Guess that means I'm stuck teaching next week's class, right?"

Puzzled, the rabbit wrinkles his fuzzy nose. "Why wouldn't you be? Judging by what I saw and heard from your students, you did quite well — as I knew that you would!"

Sigh. "Phil, has it ever occured to you I might have a ''reason'' to be a pain-in-the-ass loner?"

"Well, you're a cheetah-derived animorph SCAB. Which means that you're influenced by cheetah characteristics, including their solitary nature, are you not?"

He doesn't get it — wonderful. Time for an object lesson. "That's right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Hold on a sec..." The Shelter's got a few board games; Monopoly, Yahtzee, like that. I upshift, grab some dice, downshift. "...okay. See this?" I say, holding one of the dice before me. "Got a deal for you. Roll it, and if you get anything but a one, I give you a million dollars."

His ears skew at odd angles. "What's the catch? If I ''do'' roll a one, do I have to pay you?"

"No catch, the money's yours either way — but if you roll a one, somebody within a twenty-block radius of here ends up maimed or dead. What do you say, Phil?"

He stares at me for a moment and says, "No."

"Why not? It's an honest die; there's five chances in six that no blood gets shed!"

"Perhaps, but it's that ''one'' chance in six that bothers me!"

"Come on, that's not even 17%!"

He shrugs with his ears. "I don't care. I wouldn't roll that die for a million dollars."

Suddenly I've got ''two'' dice in my hand. "Fine. How about now? Same deal, but nobody gets hurt unless you roll snake-eyes, a one on ''both'' dice. That's a 35-to-1 longshot, less than 3% chance of it actually happening. How about it, Phil?"

"Still no."

"Okay," five dice, "how about ''this?'' Five ones, that's a little over point-zero-one percent, just one chance out of 7,776. Isn't that worth a megabuck?"

"No, it —"

"Ten dice!" I say, putting them on the desk between us. "One million dollars, Phil. ''One. Million. Dollars.'' Only one chance in sixty million they come up solid ones."

"Only one chance in sixty million that someone gets hurt, you mean!"

I shrug. "Details. Alright, how about a ''billion'' dollars? I'm good for it, you know. Roll these ten dice, and one gigabuck is yours, free and clear!"

Stunned, the rabbit stares at me for a while until he finally says, "I don't care how many dice it is, and I don't care how much money it is either. I'm not going to do it, Jubatus."

"Why not? For the love of Mammon, you're throwing away ''one billion dollars'' because of a sixty-million-to-one longshot! Don't you ''want'' to be filthy rich?"

''"Not like that, I don't!"''

My voice is quiet — "Good." — and his face goes blank with surprise. Then I go on: "I'm not perfect, Phil. I got mood swings make a rabid wolverine look like a Zen master. I can fuck up, ''bad.'' 'Can', hell; I already ''have!'' And with my kind of speed —" I break off, almost managing not to shudder. "You're damn right I worry. Wouldn't you?"

He doesn't need two swats from a clue-by-four. "Oh."

"Yeah."

And again: "Oh!"

I dig out a smile from somewhere. "Don't worry, me going postal on any given day ''is'' a world-class longshot — billion-to-one, trillion-to-one, somewhere up there. The real risk is long-term: If I keep rolling those dice, they ''will'' come up snake-eyes sooner or later. The only question is when. And if you're wondering how I can justify putting innocents at risk by hanging around the Pig, it's because the odds of me having a lethal breakdown will go ''way'' up if I ''don't'' interact with other people."

"I think that I see the problem now," Phil says thoughtfully. "You believe that your life is like an unending game of Russian roulette, do you not, Jubatus?"

I nod. "Pretty much, except it's not ''me'' who'll get hurt when I lose. The thing is... what choice have I got?"

"Perhaps you don't have any better alternatives," the rabbit acknowledges. "But then again, perhaps you ''do!"''

"Oh, really?" I bet I know where he's going, so I cut him off before he can get there: "Look, Phil — if you're thinking about taking me on as a client, forget it. My days are 150 hours long, remember? There's no point in you reinventing wheels I considered, and discarded, years ago."

His ears shrug for him. "Very well, let's say that it truly would be a waste of time for me to try to help you. What difference could that make? It is, after all, my own time to waste, if I so choose!"

"Gimme a break! You're always pissing and moaning about the ones you lost, so why make it worse for yourself? Why the hell would'ja want to fart around with ''me'' when you could give more attention to someone who ''really'' needs you?"

"I see your point, Jubatus, but there are two factors that you haven't taken into account. And the first one is that whether you know it or not, you already are a client of mine, and have been ever since the night we met!"

Suddenly it's my turn to say, "Oh." '''''Now''' he tells me.'' "And... the other factor?"

"When I work on you, I ''am'' giving attention to someone who ''really'' needs me."

It's not often that I'm left without an appropriate comeback...

"Of course, I must admit that I don't give you as much attention as perhaps I really ought. Not that I don't care about your well-being, not at all! But truly, your case just isn't as urgent as the rest of the ones I deal with. And unlike you, I simply don't have the ''time'' to do everything I want to or need to, Jubatus." He sighs. "Speaking of which, I've a date with Clover that I'd greatly prefer not to be late for, so I simply must say 'good-bye' now. Good-bye!"

And then I'm alone again. Just the way I like it. Right?

{{Separator|stars}}

Time flies, even when you're not having fun; I've got 43 contracts in various stages of completion, ''i.e.'' my usual workload. And where do I find the time to handle all the tasks related to teaching my class? I could've cut back a little, freed up some hours for classwork, but I didn't because I can get the extra time from upshifting. Of course, my concept of 'classwork' may be a little more expansive than some people's. F'rinstance, take the car that picked up Zelinski. DMV files say it's a TransportElegance rental; TE records indicate that it was paid for by a corporate credit card; and according to SEC databanks, 51% of that particular corporation is held by one "Alison Gomez". Care to guess the maiden name of Zelinski's wife? Yeah. Such a coincidence, that. Just another drop of data in the stream I'm sucking in, the better to figure out what the hell is going on in the Zelinski household.

Then there's Jenny. The Shelter's inquiries went nowhere, but then ''I'' wasn't the one asking the questions. Not that I expect to do any better, mind you. All I've got to go on is SCABS; an apparent gender (which may or may not be the one she was born with); a given name (ditto); the date on which this innie first showed at the Shelter (which only puts a lower limit on how recently she could've SCABbed over); and a dog's likeness (which may or may not have anything to do with any pet she may have owned or admired). What the hell — that's why God invented internet spiders and agent software. The count so far: 137 possible 'hits', each one a false alarm. Good thing computers don't get tired or distracted.

Maybe I ''am'' trying to do too much... every once in a while I get this funny feeling, like someone's looking over my shoulder from behind. Nobody ever is, of course, but my hackles keep rising anyway. Okay, I'm paranoid, but it's not usually ''this'' bad! Sigh. Must remember to get more sleep. Sometimes I hate being a cat...

{{Separator|k|the second week}}

Second class rolls around; everyone's present and punctual, even the rock. "Good evening, people. How you doing, Dennison?"

"I, am, fine. This, voder, is, harder, to, work, than, I'd, thought."

''With '''your''' webbed fingers? No shit, fish-boy.'' "Bummer. Keep at it. What about you, Borman?"

The cricket's voder says he's doing okay, and his superintendent claims they'll return him to active class duty once he re-learns how to talk. I don't sneer or contradict; granted, he's an utter moron if he believes what he's saying, but I don't have time to set him straight. Okay, maybe ''I'' do, but the slowpokes here don't. I wish him luck, then I continue the impromptu survey of my students' level of skill with the voder. Only item of note is that Jenny's box yelped "Pangloss!" when I got to her. Why? Thoth only knows...

That done, I explain we'll cover sound sources this time. Then I hit a key, and my laptop plays a thin, weak, wispy tone, like an anemic flute. "Anyone care to guess what this is? No? Fine. It's the sound produced by the human voicebox. Some damn fool back in the 1960s let a doctor shove a microphone down her throat to record the actual vibrations produced by her larynx, and that's what we're hearing now." I let the sound continue a few seconds before I kill it. One of my students' hands is raised, so I ask, "What is it, Anthony?"

I note that tiger-boy's using the KV-150 I handed out, not his VoxPop. "If that's a recording of the human larynx, why doesn't it resemble speech?"

"Like I said, it was recorded deep in the throat, at the source. So we're hearing the waveform ''before'' it gets worked over by nasal resonance cavities and like that. Same deal as how a trumpet mouthpiece sounds a lot different when you play it by itself, without the rest of the horn." Then, to the class at large: "Remember what you just heard! As long as you're good for ''any'' sound ''whatsoever,'' there's a chance you can turn it into intelligible speech. You already know how Norms make noise, so let's check out how other species manage..."

Between putting anatomical diagrams on the walls, playing relevant sound files, explaining what it all means, and answering questions when someone needs further clarification, I'm pretty busy for the next clock-hour and a half.

"...inflection, at the very least! Alright — here's your homework assignments." I pause, scan the class. ''Who to start with...'' I roll mental dice and turn to fish-boy.

"Dennison," I say, looking straight into his bulgy eyes. "I'll bet you're wondering why I haven't ''already'' given up on you. After all, fish are intrinsically silent, right?" He nods his head. ''"Wrong.'' It just so happens that ''some'' fish damn well ''do'' make noise!" I start to count on my fingers: "Angelfish, parrotfish, silver perch, red drum, black drum, and more than 200 other species. Most of 'em got this air-filled, internal swim bladder they smack around. Ever heard of the oyster toadfish? Didn't think so, but you're ugly enough to be one, and that sucker's got specialized muscles to swat its bladder up to 200 times per second. So if you ''are'' a toadfish, you should be good for pitches topping off right around G below middle C. And if not? Well, we'll just have to find out what you are, won't we?" A quick upshift, and a sheet of paper appears on his desk. I continue as he picks it up to read it: "27 questions, and I'll want the answers two weeks from now."

Then it's the bug's turn. "Borman. You're mostly a cricket — can you chirp like one?" He nods and makes the noise, two or three octaves below a natural-born cricket. "Congratulations. What you just did is called 'stridulation', and it's the sound source of a natural-born cricket. You want to arm-wrestle intelligible words out of it, you're gonna need to vary that sound. Can you? Damn if ''I'' know; that's ''your'' homework. I'll want a sound file. Get cracking on it. And by the way: If stridulation doesn't work for you, there's at least two other avenues you can explore before you abandon speech."

I let the bug ponder my remark as I look at the inanimorph... ''What's going on inside that rock? Are you even '''there''', Jenny? Is '''anyone''' there?'' Nothing in those dull, grey eyes, or at least nothing discernable to me. Sigh. ''Moving right along —'' "Calgonetti. What's up with you, guy? Considering how well natural-born mynahs talk, it's hard to see why ''you'' should have ''any'' problems with speech, let alone take more'n ''ten bloody years'' to re-learn it. So... what's the story?"

"It is not for us to question the Lord's will," the preacher's voder says. "I have faith that He will return my voice to me at a time of His choosing."

Sounds like a rehearsed answer to me. "Uhhh-''huh.'' Would that be before or after the Second Coming?" Oh yeah, ''that'' hit a nerve. Good. Bird-brain glares at me as other people make amused noises. "Come on, Chuck. You're gonna have to work with me here. 'God helps those who help themselves', am I right?" A sheet of paper 'teleports' onto his desk. "But I digress. Your homework is ''phonemes'' — the individual sounds that serve as the fundamental building blocks of spoken language. English uses 40 of 'em, each one of which is on your list there, and you're gonna record 'em all. I don't care what format you use, just let me know if it's cassette or MP3 or what, I want three samples of each phoneme, and I want you to bring the recording in two weeks. And that goes for you, too, Borman."

Chuck's not happy. His voder says, "What if I cannot make all the sounds?"

Looking at him and the cricketmorph, I shrug. "Try 'em and see. If there's any you can't do, all it means is that SCABS worked over your noisemaker worse than I thought. Get on it."

Then I turn to the fox. "Zelinski. How's your voice, girl?"

Her smile strikes me as a lot more genuine than mine usually is, and she's game to try: "Oowwwwrrr..." Oh, well. Too bad she's not there yet. She taps at her voder — a Magnavox Express; wonder what happened to the KV-150 and where the new one came from? — which says, "I am prack-tiss-ing. I will learn."

I nod. "Can't ask for more than that. Keep it up."

"I will. I praw-miss."

I nod, and look at the last of my students. "Mr. Anthony," I say. A sheet of paper pops up on his desk. "You get what the bird got. Again, I don't care if it's MP3 or WAV or what, but it'd be nice if you can gimme advance notice of which."

He nods. His voder says, "MP3."

"Groovy. Email it to me any time within the next two weeks." To the whole class: "Remember, we've got a field trip next Tuesday, so I don't need your homework 'til the week after. For now... go home."

They leave, mostly. Tiger-boy sticks around after the rest are gone. He says — ''he'' honest-to-God ''says'' — "Ehhhrro, Djju-bhadd-huzz."

"You've been practicing, haven't you."

He nods, then gets his VoxPop out of an inside pocket. "Yes. I've also done some research on you."

''Oh, joy.'' "That's nice. Want a cookie?"

He smiles and goes on: "No, thanks. You're helping me; I just wondered how I could help you in return."

An idealist? Will wonders never cease. "Help ''me?'' Forget it — you can't. Anything else the rabbit twisted your arm about?"

Tiger-boy looks hurt for a moment. "Phil didn't twist my arm, Jubatus. But he ''did'' warn me what to expect from you."

"If he said I can be blunt, rude, offensive, abrasive, difficult, obnoxious, and generally antisocial, he was right. Anything else you want to know before you leave?"

The hint is as subtle as a sixteen-ton weight. Even so, whole clock-seconds pass in silence, me staring a laser-sharp, unblinking gaze into his eyes, before he gets the message. "Next week," his voder says. Then he's gone.

A few seconds later, I quit staring at the door. I can't really say I ''like'' stomping on people like that, but... it's better this way. Lesser of N evils, honestly.

Sigh...

{{Separator|stars}}

The next week's pretty boring, so I'll just give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. More hours put in at the Shelter; the net-spiders researching Jenny turned up another 950 false alarms, plus three leads I haven't ''yet'' proven bogus; I've sucked down a lot more information (financial and otherwise) related to the Zelinski household — I'll bet Mrs. Allison noticed that somebody's been poking their snout into her family's private affairs, because somehow, I just don't think it's coincidental that she's boosted the budget for security (real-world and cyberspace both) within the past couple weeks. Like I care. As for the contracts I handle in my day job, it's five down, 38 to go.

Business as usual, really.

{{Separator|k|the third week}}

Third class is a field trip. To Derksen's clinic. Would have preferred to start the class there, but this was the first Tuesday evening the doc-roach's lab was free. Remodeled the living space in my Extremis; there's four new seats (rented) in back. Those plus the passenger's seat up front will handle the five humanoids, and there's also room for Jenny the Rock to lie down. Hey, why ''shouldn't'' I play chauffeur? I'm the teacher, it's my responsibility to see that the class gets to where it needs to be, right?

Good: Everyone's a little early, especially the foxy lady. She's delivered by what looks like the same pair of bodyguard-types, driving the same car, as got her home last week. She smiles at me, and she ''(not'' her voder) says: "Hrraiie-yhheaarh, Dj... Tchew... hraour!"

I nod without smiling. "Better'n last week. Keep practicing, you'll get there soon enough."

She digs her Magnavox out of her purse to reply. "I know I will, but. In the meantime. It can be frustrating."

''Now'' I smile. "Tell me about it. You're getting off easy, lady — ''you'' have an instructor who's been there himself."

"Which you didn't," her voder says.

"Yeah." Shrug. "Ready for the field trip?"

"Oh, yes. Allie was very pleased. She's always wanted to —" and one rent-a-thug reaches over her shoulder to press the voder's 'mute' button.

"What did Miss Allison tell you about violating her privacy, Miss Mary?" says the thug.

The vixen's face spends a moment at 'pissed off' before shifting over to 'mild embarrassment'. She un-mutes the voder, nods at the thug: "You're right, George. I shouldn't discuss family business in public." To me, she (or at least her voder) says, "Apologies, Jubatus. Yes, I'm ready for this field trip. And I've been looking forward to it. Are we really going to see Dr. Derksen himself?"

"Doubtful. He's booked solid until the 12th of Never, you know?"

That gets a couple of yipping laughs out of her muzzle. Which is about when Dennison shows up, with Anthony following close. Not so very much later, me and my class are tooling along towards the doc-roach's lab. The rent-a-thugs weren't happy about the fox being in ''my'' car instead of with ''them.'' That's nice. They weren't ''explicitly'' instructed to stay within arm's reach 24/7, and even if they were, I couldn't care less.

The traffic's thicker than I anticipated. 38 clock-minutes later, I pull into a reserved space in the parking lot of Derksen's lab. My passengers talked; I paid attention to the road. Guess which hired limo stayed within five car-lengths of us all the way there?

Derksen being a big name in SCABS research, his lab's security is a couple notches above the norm — you never know when some idiot Nazi wannabe, Humans First or whatever, will take it into his head to strike a blow for stupid people everywhere. Me and my students pass through the outer gate without incident, but Zelinski's thugs get detained when they set off an alarm. Good. There's two more layers of protection I'm aware of, and Vulcan knows how many others. I wish the thugs joy of them all.

I'm intimately familiar with the doc-roach's torture chamber — his primary examination room — from all the times he's worked ''me'' over. Being the highly exotic breed of chronomorph I am, it's only natural that a world-class SCABS researcher like Derksen would want to observe the hell out of me, as often as he can... oh, joy. He's here. I was afraid of that. On the plus side, he's practically human today. Soft skin, blond hair, no antennae, compound eyes only a little bigger than human normal. See, Derksen's one of us; he's a polymorph SCAB, insectoid forms his specialty, and the roach traits kind of creep up on him when he's irritated or preoccupied or whatever. One more reason I'm glad not to be a shapeshifter myself.

"Hello, Jubatus," he says, and his voice is a hell of a lot smoother than when he goes ''blattidae'' on you. Damn it. " I don't suppose —"

"That's right, you ''don't'' suppose. And you don't get another crack at me for seventeen days."

"Oh, well; can't blame a mad scientist for trying!" He sounds happy, but even with no discernable chitin on him, his scent is too roachy for me to tell his ''real'' mood. BFD.

I snort my disagreement at him. "Whatever. Since you're here, does that mean you're gonna make yourself useful checking out the fox?"

"Yes." ''Now'' he's serious. "Among other things, I find it curious that her medical records are silent on a number of points that ''may'' add up to grounds for a malpractice hearing."

My ears prick up. "Oh, really? Then what's the story with Dr. Gordon?" I ask, referring to the physician in charge of the Zelinski case. "Is he corrupt, or just incompetent?"

At this point, Derksen's face hardens — literally — as exoskeletal plates form. ''"That'' is what I intend to find out. Either way, it's clear that this Dr. Gordon has no business working with SCABs; the data from this examination will tell me whether I should push for censure or disbarment." Then he sighs, and his plates soften a little. "Excuse me, Jubatus," he says, and then he's off to supervise a whole-body scan of Jenny, the stone dog.

There's an empty chair off to one side of the lab. I sit back and let Derksen (and his flunkies) scurry around the place with various implements of medicine. It's actually kind of interesting to see them work on ''someone else.'' Hell, this time I don't even mind the stench of disinfectant!

Derksen & Co. conduct a sextet of ''very'' thorough physical examinations, covering everything from respiratory airflow to basal metabolic rate to speed of neural transmission to God knows what-all else. The doc-roach is going the extra mile, and then some — I'd only asked him to cover the vocal tract — but if that's what he wants to do, it's fine by me. That's odd... they've left off a number of procedures he likes to use on me, but then they also include a few I'm not familiar with. I make mental notes — the lapses and additions probably have to do with my chronomorph power, which I don't want ''anyone,'' Derksen or no, to learn ''too'' much about.

Hmm... maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that Derksen's concern for Zelinski goes a little beyond the standard doctor/patient relationship..? Whatever; it's none of my business.

Entry to exit, we're done in four clock-hours. Zelinski's thugs aren't around when we leave — how sad. The drive back to the Shelter is uneventful; my passengers are too busy comparing notes to bother me. I park, five of the six bug out, the vixen doesn't.

"Waiting for something?" I ask.

Foxy's fingers touch her voder, but it stays mute. She looks at me. I look back. Her machine finally says, "Were you always male, Jubatus?"

''Huh..?'' I consider asking why she wants to know, but I decide to just answer the question. "Yes."

She spends a few seconds thinking before her voder speaks up again. "Then why are you so angry?"

"Angry?" I snort a laugh. "Like ''any'' SCAB needs to ask."

Dead air. Zelinski's not happy. Before anything else can happen, a particular rented limo screeches to a halt beside us. I point a thumb at them.

"Your ride's here," I say. "See you next Tuesday."

{{Separator|stars}}

The homework showed up across a week, starting last Friday. Tiger-boy's arrived first; birdbrain's came last. Funny how that works. Right now I'm in my classroom, reviewing the assignments over lunch. Nothing from Jenny — not that I expected anything, of course. But what ''could'' I have assigned her, damn it?

Inanimorphs...

Lots of people fear them, with good reason — check out any of the 'true crime' books about inanimorph perps — but I just think they're damned weird, is all. Strictly speaking, I guess I ''should'' be afraid, since innies are among the few things in this world with half a chance of hurting me... but I'm not.

''Thank you, Jay Nelson Xavier.''

"What the —"

Somehow, I '''know''' that the voice I'm hearing in my head ''(not'' my ears) is Jenny. And when I turn to look at the stone dog, I see... something. Can't make out details — my eyes can't decide whether it's transparent or not — wait, it's solid now. Human body, female, which I (again, 'somehow') '''know''' to be an idealized version of Jenny's pre-SCABS body. Clothed, yet.

Her lips don't move: ''Is this form more to your liking, Jay Nelson Xavier?''

I evade the question. "Call me Jubatus, I use the other name for business. Thanks for what?"

''For your downshifting. The single-minded intensity of your concentration. For giving me something to focus on. I am grateful. What you did allowed me to... obviate? Reify? — no. I am sorry, you lack the vocabulary.''

"Whatever. You know, there's paperwork to fill out if you're dropping the class..."

For the first time in my life, I 'hear' a laugh that ''really is'' like the tinkling of bells. No mockery in it; I '''know''' that she's just appreciating the absurdity of the situation... ''Thank you again, Jubatus. It is very good to exist in human reality.''

"There's another kind?"

''In a manner of speaking. If two people perceive the Universe so differently that they cannot communicate, are they truly living in the same reality?''

Philosophy? Feh. "Yes, they are," I say. "Look, it's not like you need a speech tutor any more, so why are you here?"

''As I said, Jubatus, I am grateful. I want to express my gratitude in tangible form.''

'Tangible form'? Heh! The first image that comes to mind is impossible — I'm a cat, and she's dead — but she apparently picks it out of my brain anyway. And suddenly, without any warning, Jenny's a cheetah, too! She's fur-naked, and there's this indescribable ''scent,'' and she's stepping towards me, and — ''Very well, Ju-''

''"'''No!'''"'' I scream from the far corner of the room, only twitching a little. "No. That's, ah, no. None of that. Really."

And then she's back in her chair, back in human form, and a repentant sigh echoes lightly through my mind. ''I misunderstood...'' ''I apologize.''

It's easy for me to calm down, because I '''know''' her remorse is genuine. "That's, um, okay. So. You can read minds."

A light touch of uncertainty... ''In effect, yes. While I am not truly telepathic, I have certain... perceptions...''

"...which I lack the vocabulary for you to describe."

''I'm afraid so.'' This time, I '''know''' the communication gap's got her as frustrated as me — maybe more so — but she's honestly doing the best she can. ''I really am sorry — all of '''this''', being an inanimorph, it's still very new to me. I hope you can forgive me my errors.''

I shrug. "Not a problem. No harm done, you didn't mean it, and you learn from your mistakes. Right?"

''Right,'' she 'says', and for a moment I feel — ''something'' — like someone walked over my grave? Or like I'm being ''watched'' from every direction at once? Vocabulary again. Not really painful or unpleasant; just, I don't know, weird. Whatever the sensation is, I don't miss it when it stops. ''It's so very hard '''not''' to make mistakes with an unfamiliar set of abilities you've only just acquired... wouldn't you say?''

I give her a tolerant, rueful smile. "Tell me about it."

''As if I need to!'' Her sympathetic amusement is clear. ''But seriously: You did me an enormous favor, and I want to reciprocate. What would you like?''

'What would you like?' If it was anyone biological, I'd tell them to forget it — but this is an ''inanimorph'' 'talking'. And innies can do pretty much ''anything,'' blowing off physical laws as needed...

The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

She's 'silent' for a good ten-fifteen clock-seconds. I don't press her, and clouds of uncertainty and intense concentration drift through my brain as the time passes. ''I... don't know. I '''think''' I —''

"'''Do it!'''"

She's taken aback by the force of my command. That makes two of us.

''Let me finish, please. As I was going to say, I '''think''' I can eliminate all traces of Martian Flu virus from your body. That much I'm reasonably sure of. Changes inflicted by SCABS are a tougher problem, but I may even be able to undo them, too. The problem is, I don't know what condition you'll be in when I'm finished! Yes, you '''might''' return to your former, human, self; but you could also end up a normal cheetah, or even dead. If I try this, it could ruin your life, your very '''existence''', in any of thousands of different ways. On second thought, make that 'millions'. Is this a risk you really want to take, Jubatus?''

Rhetorical question. To be human again — ''fully human!'' — well, let's just say it's one hell of a prize Jenny's dangling before me. How can I believe she's up to the task? How can I ''not?'' There may be no hope of a cure from any ''human'' agency, but that doesn't say squat about what an ''innie'' might be capable of! ''"Do it,"'' I repeat.

She's quiet for a long moment before she 'talks' again. ''Jubatus. You '''do''' realize that just as I can perform actions far beyond any limits of biological life... so, too, can I make mistakes far more terrible than anything biological life is capable of.''

"No shit, Sherlock."

''You know this, but you still want me to try.''

"Got it in one."

''You're absolutely certain.''

"You're damn right I'm absolutely certain," I snarl. "Stop screwing around! Shit or get off the pot! ''Do it, or fuck off and...'' oh, hell. Just... do it."

Another longish pause, then she 'says', ''Very well. I'm going to scan you now, Jubatus...'' and suddenly that bizarre 'watched from all directions' sensation is back, in spades, doubled and redoubled. It feels like she's poring over my entire life, back to the moment of my birth and forward to my eventual death, simultaneously — and no, I haven't got Clue One ''how'' that impression entered my sensorium. Then my mind is drenched by a mixture of embarrassment and pity and regret and endless, bottomless sorrow.

''Oh, dear...''

"What's wrong?"

''You... don't even know, do you, Jubatus?''

''Huh?'' "What the ''fuck'' are you talking about!?"

''I really and truly am sorry. But I... I just '''can't''' give you what you '''really''' want.''

What the — goddamn bitch! It's my ''life'' she's toying with! "'Can't', or 'won't'?" I growl.

A foreign sigh drifts across my frontal lobes. ''If you must put it that way, it's 'won't' —''

I've had ''more'' than enough. So what if she's an inanimorph, ''nobody'' jerks me around like that! ''No-fucking-body!'' I don't let her 'say' another word: "Then get lost. Go find another fly to pull the wings off, you goddamn corpse."

''Please, let me exp-''

Okay, ''that'' is the proverbial '''''it'''.'' I scream and upshift high and leap straight for her lying throat and —

— and then the world turns inside-out around me and it's like I'm ''moving'' in some direction I wasn't previously familiar with and —

— disoriented, I blink. ''What the... oh, hell. I missed another meal, didn't I?'' With my high-speed metabolism, I've found that my higher brain functions tend to seize up after a couple of clock-hours without food. ''Better get a snack once I'm done here.''

Let's see... Jenny just asked what she could do for me. Right. The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

''I'm afraid not,'' she 'says', and I '''know''' her regret is sincere. ''Maybe at some future time, but right now, I don't even know if it's possible, let alone how to do it.''

"You mean innies ''aren't'' omnipotent?"

That gets me a mental cloud of tolerance/amusement/sympathy/self-effacement. ''You may find it hard to believe, Jubatus, but we inanimorphs '''do''' have limitations. They're just, different, from the ones you live with.''

I roll my eyes. "Oh, well." ''That'll teach me to hope...'' "Since you can't do what I want, I guess I'll take a rain check."

Either she's old enough to know the term, or she learned it when she scanned me earlier: ''Alright, a rain check it is.'' A sequence of 40 digits drifts across my forebrain, and I '''know''' I'll never forget it. ''Type that number on any computer or telephone keyboard, and I'll be there for you.''

"Do I want to know the details?"

A mixture of amusement and frustration, both mild. ''Yes, you do, and if you had the vocabulary, I '''would''' explain.''

"Gee, thanks. I'm beginning to see why you guys don't usually hang around with us ''living'' types."

''Tell me about it,'' she 'says', her words and tone echoing an earlier remark of mine. ''And thank you once again; now I know what I should '''do''' with myself.''

"Gonna play Speaker-to-Breathers, huh?"

A tinkling giggle dances through my brain... ''Something like that, yes. Farewell, Jubatus. Until we meet again...''

...and I'm alone in the room...''

{{Separator|k|the fourth week}}

Homework. Birdbrain did a decent job on all 40 phonemes; tiger-boy did better; foxy lady did best of all. I flatly ''will not'' think about how her voice is gonna end up sounding. The bug's — Borman's — stridulation is a little iffy, but not bad for a first shot. Dennison? My questions for him amount to an abbreviated Piscine Anatomy 101 final exam, and he aced it. 25 answers dead-on correct, the other two ''technically'' invalid but strongly arguable anyway. As for Jenny... she's outta here. All her paperwork and computer files are in order, not that anybody noticed her turning in any forms or anything. None of my business anyway (he says, with a shrug).

As for the class itself (number four in a series of ten — collect them all!): Anthony sounds better than I do, goddamn his near-intact throat. I give 10:1 odds in favor of the bastard regaining full human speech before the final class session. Calgonetti? Phonemes he's got down pat, but he can't ''quite'' manage to put 'em together into honest-to-God ''speech.'' Funny, that. Chalk up another one for 'self-imposed mental block', and I go out of my way to rub salt in his wound. He'll thank me for it later, right? Borman actually surprises me by stridulating recognizable phonemes; only three of 'em, granted, but I didn't think he'd be able to swing it ''at all.'' Not this early, anyway. Good sign. Dennison turns out to have an internal swim-bladder, complete with swatting muscles, and he demonstrates it with a kind of "ahh-eee-ahh" that more-or-less spans an augmented fifth.

And then there's Zelinski. Her eyes aren't as bright as last week; her vocalizing is decidedly worse than before; and she fumbles with her voder like she'd only just started using the damn thing yesterday. Oh, and I could tell her scent was 'off' (including what the 'new' chemicals were) before she stepped into the classroom. I do the math, and the answer is clear: She's drugged. Given the data I've already acquired re: the Zelinski household, there's exactly 1 (one) person who could've done it to her: Alison Zelinski, her 'loving' spouse. You think I'm pissed off? Damn right I am. ''Nobody'' has the right to fuck up someone else's free will like that! I stifle my anger for the duration of the class.

This week's homework is pretty much a rerun of last week's; more phoneme-practice, singly and in combination. When the rest leave, I ask the vixen to stay. She gives me a vague look: "I muost gho homm," her voder says. "Mizz Awl-lee dee-uz-int wand me tu ss'tay owwit laid."

"Maybe so, but she also wants you to relearn how to talk, am I right?" Zelinski pauses, then makes with an uncertain nod, and I go on before her voder can say anything else: "You need a little extra attention right now, is all. That's what we're going to do tonight, and if Miss Allie doesn't like it, you just tell her it's ''my'' fault, how's that?"

I keep an eye on the parking lot while I talk — an occasional momentary upshift, nothing the fox even ''can'' notice in her drugged-out state — so I see the TransportElegance limo as it pulls in. Good thing Zelinski rather likes the idea of having some time away from home: Her face slides into an off-kilter grin, and her voder says, "Ohh khay!"

"Great. Now, sit down and close your eyes; I've got a big surprise for you." She obeys. I upshift. Four-point-eight clock-seconds later, she's in the back of my car, seated in front of a big-ass computer display with '''''Newspaper Tycoon VII''''' running. The rent-a-thugs in the limo think Zelinski's still in the Shelter; I brought her down so fast they didn't — couldn't — percieve ''anything.'' I could care less if they try to look in the Extremis; there's a couple aftermarket features that normally let me sleep in private, but they work just as well now. Specifically, the electrochromic film on the windows (currently set to Total Eclipse), and the cab divider in front of the cargo space.

Zelinski makes with a little squeal of delight when she opens her eyes. "There you go!" I say. "I've got the game set up for voice commands, but you can also use mouse and keyboard, if you'd rather. Need any help?" Apparently not — her fingers dance on the keyboard as she dives right in.

"Thank you," her box says, "but I don't believe that will be necessary." Interesting: Her skill with the voder is distinctly higher now than it was a few minutes ago. Good.

My cel phone has a wireless link to the Extremis' video cameras; that's how I know when the rent-a-thugs leave their vehicle for the Shelter. Absorbed in an orgy of virtual capitalism, the vixen doesn't even notice when I drive off. The rent-a-thugs won't be following us — not with their distributor cap in my glove compartment, they won't. Upshifting can be useful at times...

At this point, I'm not sure what the deal is with Alison Zelinski. Sure, I know ''what'' she's done to her ex-husband, but I don't know ''why,'' and the 'why' matters. Well, I'll find out soon enough.

Guaranteed.

Moving right along: Most people think the "Betty Ford Clinic" is just a punchline, what with all the rich actors and singers who supposedly go there to detoxify or whatever. Wrong. The Clinic is ''very'' real, ''very'' discreet, and damned good at what they do. And they've got a SCAB-friendly branch office in the west end of Pennsylvania. A couple hours of air-conditioned driving, and foxy lady is safely deposited there. The staff was quite professional, even while enrolling an unscheduled client at 2 AM. Wasn't exactly 'no questions asked', but that's okay; what with all my poking around the Zelinskis' private affairs, I had the right answers.

{{Separator|stars}}

So. It's 9 AM Wednesday. By now Alison Zelinski's ''got'' to know that her gendermorph hubby has evaporated. Odds are, she hasn't slept. She's probably shitting bricks wondering when the ransom note will arrive. Wish I could've seen her face when ''my'' e-note ''did'' arrive in her inbox...

<tt>FROM: J. Acinonyx (fiver@jubatus.nucom)

SUBJ: re: Mary Zelinski's vocalization

I'm afraid that Mary's progress in class has been disrupted by a set of problems beyond my capacity to solve. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of securing an outside specialist who can help her overcome these problems. I would like to speak to you in a private conference, at your earliest convenience, about preventing a recurrence of these problems. When would be a good time for you?</tt>

Heh! I think I hit ''just'' the right chords; aside from the none-too-subtle hints that I know ''exactly'' what she's done, I've all but confessed to the kidnapping. Best of all, the language is sufficiently innocuous that no lawyer or judge could regard the note as evidence of ''anything'' nefarious. How long will it take Zelinski to decide that her only option is to talk to me?

I get her answer at 2:26PM. She wants to meet this evening, her place, 8 o'clock. As usual, I got clock-hours to kill — oh, joy. In between working on my legit contracts, I make contact with the Zelinski home network. Well, well: Miss Allison has been researching ''me,'' much good may it do her. Security protocols are unchanged, which just means that if she ''is'' planning any surprises, she's doing it offline. Do I have a plan? Damn straight I do. No point wasting time in conversational parry and riposte. Instead, I'm gonna blitzkrieg the bitch — hit her fast and hard, from multiple directions at once, changing attacks before she can adjust or reply. Considering how easily I torque people off just because, it'll be interesting to see how bad I can rattle somebody when I ''work'' at it. All of which assumes there's no armed resistance or whatever. If there is, no problem: I upshift and nuke it, after which Zelinski gets my ''undivided'' attention.

The clock-hours crawl by...

8PM — showtime. The Zelinski house is a bloated, two-story carbuncle with a bunch of underground floor space; when I ring the bell, the front door is opened by a familiar-smelling rent-a-thug. His demeanor is designed to intimidate, not that I give a damn. He says, "Miss Allison will receive you in the living room," and leads me inside.

The living room turns out to be an interior chamber with a good chunk of one wall taken up by an oversized flat-plasma display. Once I'm there, a female voice says "Thank you, Marcus. That will be all," and thug-boy leaves as we both sit down. This voice belongs to a female norm, straight black hair, semi-dark skin tone. Judging from her scent, she's a little shaky, uncomfortable, and trying not to let it show. Let's see how fast I can coax a reaction out of her. "I'm... my name is Alison Zelinski," she says.

"Jubatus," I reply.

"Would you..." She breaks off with a sigh. "I'm sorry, this is all so complicated..."

Shrug. "Seems pretty straightforward to me. Your hubby SCABbed over seven months ago — different sex and species. She's been stoned out of her gourd ever since, courtesy of ''you.'' I'm curious, how many doctors did you go through?"

"Excuse me?" Hmmm... steady pulse and scent... nope, her confusion is just an act. This isn't the first time my SCABS-heightened senses have come in handy.

"How many doctors?" I repeat. "Before you found one who didn't care ''what'' he did to Mary, as long as your checks cleared."

Okay, ''now'' it's a genuine response: High-end anger. ''"Mister'' Jubatus, I'll tha-"

Her words are drowned under my "Shut up, bitch." My voice may suck rocks, but I can definitely go Loud when I feel like it. ''"You'' may not be old enough to remember date-rape drugs, but ''I'' sure as hell am, and the only difference I see is that you ''married'' your victim first!"

"I — you —" From 'calm' to 'stuttering, with pulsing vein in forehead' in under 7 clock-seconds. I love it when a plan comes together. "How ''dare'' you!"

''"How dare '''you''', lady!?'' Go play the Righteous Indignation card somewhere else, 'cause I'm not interested. What I've got on you, I could nail you to the wall in court yet — and I just might."

It's working. I can practically smell her brain cells burning out as she ''almost'' keeps up''.'' "You — you'd never win!"

I give her a nasty smile, heavy on the fangs. "Bets on that? Imagine your face plastered across the front page of every newspaper in a 1,000-mile radius, not to mention all the broadcast media and net coverage. Think of all the editorials. Visualize the Zelinski name permanently associated with cute stuff like anti-SCABS bigotry, chemically-mediated enslav-"

''— attack: threat level high: 12 o'clock —''

— oh, hell. It's not the first time this has happened: My instincts trigger an upshift without ''my'' say-so, because they don't like something in my immediate vicinity. In this case it's Zelinski, floating in midair, with hands poised to do some damage. Physical assault? Gosh, I must've hit a ''very sensitive'' nerve. I ''could'' tear her several new assholes... but instead, I just move around to lean on the back of her chair, resume a tempo of 1, and watch her land, clumsily, on the couch I just vacated.

Confused, she looks around, and I speak when her eyes meet mine: "That was your first free shot at me. Hope you enjoyed it, because ''nobody'' gets ''two."''

"Bastard! I'll sue —"

I laugh, a cruel, venomous noise that shatters her focus. "Hah! Go ahead and try, for all the good it'll do you. Face it: Whatever you do, you ''can't'' stop me opening a can of worms ''you'd'' much prefer stay closed. Me, I could care less about bad publicity — can you say the same? If you think you can ''possibly'' fuck up a SCAB's social status any worse'n it ''already'' is, feel free to try. Who knows, you might even be able to come up with something that's '''not''' ''prima facie'' grounds for a libel suit. Should be fun."

"You..." I can smell fear, anger, concern, and confusion fighting it out in her scent. Fear wins. "Alright. Do your worst, you monster."

"Says the bald ape who arranged a permanent brainwashing prescription for their own spouse," I retort. "Alright , ''Mrs.'' Zelinski. I've got half a mind to sic my lawyer on you anyway, but I'm a reasonable man. Play it straight with me, I'll return the favor. Fuck with me, and I will ''own'' your sorry ass. Your choice."

Fear and guilt: A powerful combo. They're both on her face and in her scent. Eventually, she gets herself under control again. "What... what do you want?" she asks.

She's defeated, alright — scent doesn't lie — so I get down to business: "I want the truth. ''Why is Mary a drugged-out zombie?"''

Zelinski kind of sags in her chair. She sighs, doesn't (can't?) look at my face. "I... no one ever intended..."

A few seconds after she trails off, I kill the silence. "I'm not hearing a 'why'."

"It's... complicated..."

"You already said that," I point out. "Feel free to start at the beginning. Alternately, how about I just leave, wait 'til Mary's done getting detoxified, and let ''her'' decide how many new orifices to rip out of your hide? Your call — pick one."

She goes for 'start at the beginning'. Takes her an unnecessarily long time to spit it out: Hubby SCABs over (fur and tits), goes nutbar over the gender thing, needs to be sedated for his/her own protection... and ever since, Zelinski makes sure hubby gets a fresh dose whenever she's ''too'' close to sober.

"You... didn't know Martin before," she says, as if her words were threading a minefield. "He was... difficult to live with, not —"

I cut her off. "So. Fucking. What. If ''Mary'' wants to be permanently blitzed, fine, but guess what? ''That's not '''your''' goddamn decision, lady!'' So here's the deal: As of now, Dr. Gordon is off Mary's —"

"What gives you the right to interfere with the private affairs of this family!"

Zelinski shuts up when I look directly into her eyes. She looks right back. Both of us are way the hell pissed. Her anger is cold like liquid helium; mine is hotter than a deuterium-fusion torch.

Zelinski breaks first. When she lowers her gaze, I speak up, as inexorable as a glacier: "What, ''exactly,'' gave ''you'' the right to '''''interfere'"'' — I spit that word out with a freightload of sarcasm — "with your spouse's mind and free will."

Her scent goes heavy on shame, with a side order of fear. No other response.

Okay, fine. "Like I was saying, here's the deal. One: You ''will'' sever ''all'' connections, professional and otherwise, between Mary and ''Doctor'' Gordon. Two: You ''will'' accept ''whoever'' Dr. Derksen recommends for Gordon's replacement. Three: You have ''no say whatsoever'' about Mary's medical needs — you ''will'' do ''anything'' the new guy says, agree to ''anything'' they recommend, and generally treat the new guy as if they're the Voice of God Himself. Four: If, at ''any'' time in the future, I find out that you have ''ever again'' so much as ''dreamed'' about '''''interfering''''' with Mary's medical treatment..." Here I whisper, as lethal as a sack of cobras: "I. Will. ''Destroy.'' You."

Zelinski crumples in silence. Her eyes glint with highlights that weren't there before — poor fucking baby.

I give her 15 clock-seconds; still no reply.

I'm out of there. Nobody gets in my way, not Marcus the thug nor any other hireling. Fine by me. The mood I'm in, I'd go ''through'' them. Not a good idea to leave a trail of broken bodies. I give the Extremis a once-over when I get to it; nope, no signs of tampering. Only then do I let myself relax. A little, anyway.

On the road, I don't think about what I just did. I don't ''want'' to think about it. I just drive. I want to — no. Bad idea; I ''don't'' want to get drunk.

Well... maybe just a little...

{{Separator|k|the fifth week}}

It's none of my business, of course, but I keep an eye on the foxy lady over the next few days. Just to make sure Miss Alison stays the hell ''away'' from her ex-husband's treatment, is all. And wouldn't you know it, Zelinski makes quote, remarkable, unquote, progress. Think it might have something to do with ''not'' getting pumped full of mindfuck drugs on a regular basis? Funny how that works. Even so, the Ford medics insist on keeping her there "for observation" for another 8-10 days, minimum... which means she's going to miss a class. Maybe two.

In other news, I close 5 more contracts before next Tuesday. 33 more to go; I might run out before the tenth class. Hey, I ''am'' taking it easy — I haven't accepted any new clients since I started teaching the class.

Speaking of which, this session (the fifth) has a guest lecturer: Donnie Sinclair. And while he's scribbling at my students, I fill in for him behind the counter at the Pig. That's the pound of flesh he demanded before he'd do what I asked. I hate the idea; I mean, I don't ''do'' crowds! But since it puts a three-foot-wide ''faux''-marble countertop between me and the customers, it should be okay... right..? Aside from that, I have no idea how Donnie creates and maintains the Pig's SCAB-friendly atmosphere — so I won't even ''try.'' Instead I'm going to pour the booze, keep a paranoid eye on ''everything,'' and stomp on anything that smells like it even ''might'' be trouble. I just hope I can stay alert until closing time; for whatever reason, SCABS left me with a half-hour-long sleep cycle. Mind you, I don't ''have'' to conk out that often. I can actually stay up five hours at a time, but that's kind of like a norm staying up for five days solid... well, that should be enough. Hopefully. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

Having a few weeks' advance notice, I did my usual obsessive prep work beforehand. The cash register is a late-2016 NCR job, tablet-style touchscreen; before I'm through, I know it better than Donnie himself does. I'm packing 47,583 different drink recipes on a PDA, complete with recommended ingredient substitutions for when stuff runs out, and the thing happens to be equipped with a wireless internet hookup in case somebody wants something outside the onboard library. More recently, I confirmed that the Pig's supply database is 100% up to date (I double-checked each item myself). Come the fatal Tuesday, I make sure the lavatories are fully loaded — which is trickier than you might think, since the Pig's bathrooms accomodate a ''wide'' range of SCAB body types. Comfortably, yet. I also stash a couple dozen pounds of beef jerky behind the counter; the kind of calories I burn, I'm gonna ''need'' that protein...

And then it's showtime.

The hours pass in a blur. ''Jesu Christe,'' there's a shitload of customers — ''I'' sometimes have trouble keeping up with the orders! Upshifting doesn't help, because I ''have to'' understand what all you damn slowpokes are saying. And that means my tempo needs to be ''real'' close to 1 most of the time...

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Gimme a Stattenvorl."

I take orders.

"Three shots of Jack Daniels, straight."

I make change.

"Vodka martini for me, an' a Purple Ray for the li'l lady."

I pour booze.

"— tellya, I wuz on top'a th' world —"

I hate it. Sob stories from self-pitying morons — gaah! I pay those twits as little attention as I can manage. Most of 'em take the hint and stay the fuck ''away'' from the counter; occasionally I delegate one to Wanderer or somebody ''via'' an an upshifted note in their glass.

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Atomic Firewater!"

I take orders.

"Scotch and soda, heavy on the soda."

I make change.

"— ''you'' gonna do about it, runt?"

Oh, fucking ''joy.'' I quit pouring. Commotion by the dart board; there's a St. Bernard-derived animorph SCAB who can't aim worth shit, lost a bet, and is now proving himself to be a welching asshole and a ''mean'' drunk.

I point one finger ceilingward. "'Scuse me a sec," I tell the customers I haven't gotten to yet. Then I zip over to the big dog, telling him, "You lost, Bernie. Pay up and deal with it."

He's like six-foot-thirteen and 380 pounds, none of it fat; me, I'm five-eleven and forty-odd kilos. Seeing this as he turns to look down at me, Bernie makes with a contemptuous grin. "Who's gonna ma-''yeee!!!"''

There's an instant cloud of ozone and burnt fur — I didn't let Bernie ''see'' my TASER, but he damn sure ''felt'' it. He hits the floor like a 380-pound sack of dog food. Upshift, extract his wallet from a pocket, downshift, hand the wallet over to the norm-looking guy that beat Bernie. I say, "Take your winnings out of this," then I upshift again, this time so's I can haul Bernie's ass out the front door. We cheetahs are stronger than we look — we ''have to'' be, since our legendary top speed is muscle-powered — and besides, I've found that local gravity gets weaker when I upshift. Put 'em together, and I'm not even breathing hard when I set Bernie down on the sidewalk outside the Pig.

Once more behind the counter, I inhale dried meat, downshift, and pick up where I left off — elapsed time 8.6 clock-seconds in all. "I'm back. You there, what do you want?"

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Make mine a Jumper Cable."

I take orders.

"Bacardi 151 on the rocks."

I make change.

"Irish Coffee."

I pour booze.

Time goes on. The clock-hours spin and gyrate...

...and suddenly I blink, confused at what I see before me. ''Minotaur?'' I ask myself. ''That's — hold it, what's Donnie doing here..?

Ah. Right.''

The place is damn near empty, only a couple of stragglers still hanging on; I must have signaled Closing Time already. ''Thank any applicable god... Oh, yeah. Must ask...'' "Hhhh..." I stop, close eyes, swallow, restart. "How'd the class go?"

Donnie shrugs, then gives me an interrogative "Mmm?"-and-look combo.

I'm tired. My head hurts. "If you're asking how ''my'' end of the deal went, it sucked. I have ''no'' idea how you can ''stand'' doing what you do. Can I go now?"

Donnie looks at me with some inscrutable bovine expression. He nods.

I do likewise myself, no words. I manage to drag myself out to the Extremis, get inside, and lock up before I collapse...

{{Separator|k|the sixth week}}

Week 6: Nothing much happened. Okay, I ''did'' lose another student, but it's all good... I guess...

On Thursday (that being July 29th, if you've lost track), I get a call from out of state — the Betty Ford Clinic. Guess which of their recent patients put in a request to chat me up, personal-like? Right — ''her.'' No reason given. Well, what the hell. I got time to kill, like always, so I agree to do the conversation today. I make time for it (and I ''do'' mean '''make'' time'), and at 5 PM, I'm in Mary Zelinski's private room at the Clinic.

She screws up her face a little, concentrating, and says — ''she'' honest-to-Thoth ''says! — ''"Hhhee-rhho, Tcheu-baddhuz."

I smile and nod. "Hello yourself, Ms. Zelinski. Needs work, but not too damned shabby. Y'know, if you wanted to let me know you're dropping the class, you could've just sent me e-mail..."

Despite herself, the foxy lady smiles. Only for a moment, but it's ''there.'' And then she goes on: "Iiayy, w''rr''ahndtuu... ''hrraauuw!"'' A frustrated yowl. Frowning, she picks up her voder, which just happens to have been lying on her nightstand, and lets it speak for her. "Yes. I'm dropping your class. This is about something else. What happened to my wife?"

I wasn't expecting ''that.'' If I had eyebrows, I'd raise them. "It matters?"

Angry and some other emotion fight it out on Zelinski's face; Angry is losing, ''big'' time. "I'm not sure any more," her voder says in its incongruously level tone. "I'm not sure I want to know. But I must know. And you can tell me. Can't you?"

''Oh, fucking joy.'' "Yeah. I can. But just remember, you ''asked'' for it..." And I make with an infodump. I give Zelinski the whole story, everything from when I first read her file to when I hammered on dear little Alison. The foxy lady doesn't interrupt; she sits there and absorbs it all without making a sound. And then I'm done...

"...back to the Pig, to get smashed."

At this point, Zelinski isn't the least bit angry. She's kind of hunched over into herself; her voder lies, forgotten, on the bed next to her.

I wait a bit, then kill the silence: "You asked. I answered. Is that it?"

The vixen pulls herself together. "Yes," her voder says, "that's enough." Then her fingers pause over the talk-box. A few moments later, it recites the words she'd been typing; it gets as far as "I wish" before she hits the 'abort' button. She starts over, her hands a little shaky: "Tank you mitt sir Jubatus. You comforted my suspectings. Please lever me out lone."

Which I do. The Ford Clinic staff wants to debrief me; I blow off most of their questions with variations on, "Ask the foxy lady — it's ''her'' call."

And then I'm on the road again, driving back home.

{{Separator|stars}}

Nothing much happened for the next week or so, and that includes during the next class session. Fortunately. I've been on the short end of too damn many surprises already...

Wait, there was ''one'' thing: The bug. Borman. He can actually stridulate one-syllable words! He sounds lousy (still better than ''I'' do, damn it), and it sucks up so much of his attention and concentration that changing to a different syllable is a major feat, but when all is said and done, he ''can'' talk. It's just a matter of practice, honing his currently-primitive skill.

{{Separator|stars}}

So I'm coming in for today's stint at the West Street Shelter. I'm not three steps past the front door when this lightly morphed rat-SCAB, a new addition to the staff, says Splendor wants to see me in her office right away. What does she ''want'' from me? Hell if I know — but 'in her office' means it's a private conversation, and ''that'' cuts ''way'' back on the number of alternatives...

By the time I open her office door, the short list is down to about three possible agendas. I close the door. Splendor's just beginning to greet me; I interrupt her, saying, "You want I should work somebody over."

She blinks. "What makes you... never mind. Actually —"

Some things are best stopped ''before'' they start. I cut her off again: "Not interested. Go find someone else to play shock trooper. I'm sure there's ''plenty'' of people around here who'd ''love'' to put a hurting on some asshole who desperately deserves —"

"That's exactly why I want ''you'' for this job!" Her turn to interrupt, it seems.

My turn to blink.

"Okay..." I finally say. "You've piqued my curiosity. Explain."

"Thank you. First, some background." She opens a file drawer, pulls out a manila folder, hands it to me. "Read this."

Upshifting, I follow her advice. 'This' is a collection of eyewitness reports — seems that Splendor has an unofficial network of informers all over the City. It's mostly surveillance on the comings and goings of various lowlifes, but there's also some educated guesses on what said lowlifes will be up to in the near future. Hmmm... if I'm reading this right, it looks like the West Street neighborhood's been relatively low on criminals for a while, and a gang from outside the City is planning to move into what they perceive as a vacuum.

I close the folder, slip back to a tempo of 1 — "Done." — and return it to her. "Alright, that's the background. So what?"

"I know the local thugs, and I've gotten most of them to stop committing their crimes in ''my'' neighborhood."

"Bully for you." I've got an uncomfortable feeling I know what's on her mind, but — "And I should get involved... why?"

She gestures at the folder. "The Cargill Mob. If they establish a presence here, it will be... well. Let's just say it would be best for all concerned if they don't. I want to dissuade them with a show of force; give them a demonstra-"

"No. I flatly ''refuse'' to play enforcer."

''"Will'' you let me ''finish!?"'' she says, glaring at me. Well, what do you know — the snake-lady actually ''has'' a temper. I gesture for her to continue; she does. "I've set up a meeting with Jocko Cargill," — head honcho of the eponymous Mob, says her files, real name 'Giocomo' — "and I want to be accompanied by people who I can be ''absolutely certain'' will not initiate any hostile action."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I say without much sarcasm. "So what ''do'' you want from me?"

"You're welcome. And I want you to serve as bodyguard."

Damn... it's not often that I'm left speechless...

"Frankly, I'd be a fool to trust Jocko as far as I can —" '''''BLAM!'''''

''— attack: threat level extreme: 2 o'clock —''

Damn... the whole south wall's erupted with itsy-bitsy explosions. The instincts upshifted me to a tempo of 35-40, somewhere up there, and the ambient noise Dopplers down like always; I can see...

Holy limping Hephæstus — ''I '''can''' see the bullets moving!''

It actually takes a couple seconds of my time before I snap out of it and get to work. Numero Uno: Digital camera from my vest, aim it at the wall's exit wounds, leave it floating in midair at1,000 shots per clock-second. Numero Two-o: Shpritz a layer of DeadGlove (inert polymer in a spray can) on my hands, grab bullets out of the air, store 'em five-to-a-mylar-envelope. Would've preferred individually-wrapped, but I ran out — wasn't prepped for ''this'' many projectiles! Numero Three-o: There's a second wave of airborne crap (shards of window glass, wood chips, nails, yada yada), so I sweep it all to the carpet and bury it under several dozen pounds of books to make sure it don't go noplace it shouldn't ought to.

I retrieve my camera — good, it's still got 91% free RAM — and there's nothing visibly moving at the moment, so I downshift to a tempo of 1 so's I can hear if there's any more impacts. There aren't any, but I ''do'' hear screams and wails from casualties, damnit! Well, hell; they probably won't die in the next few clock-seconds, so I upshift my tempo to 35 and avoid the jagged remnants of windowpane in the frame as I go outside to get some good shots of a late-model Chrysler, nicely framed between a lamp post and a dumpster; driver and two passengers, shabby paint and no discernable plates. Oh, and a pair of rifle barrels sticking out its side windows, complete with muzzle flash and ''more fucking bullets'' on the way. The car's tilted forward, which means the sons of bitches are braking to give themselves more time to shoot.

Fine. I move in, camera ''k'chnkk''-ing away as it stores images of the bullets and their source, and when I'm in range, I reach inside the car; grab the front gun by its chamber; and '''''pull''''' the fucker out and down, with as much force as you'd expect from muscles that can shove a hundred-pound mass around at 70 MPH. Next up: A re-run with the back-seat firearm.

Both guns are firmly lodged in the dirt, barrel-first. The guys who ''were'' holding them have a bunch of fingers sticking out at ''real'' weird angles. Fuck 'em both. I'm busy — the guns are harmless, but there's all the bullets they ''already'' fired — okay, got the last one. My envelopes now hold seven bullets apiece.

Hungry now. I inhale a slab of beef jerky from my vest while I plan out my next move...

By the time I've made my decision, the dudes-in-car are starting to react to the abrupt change in their immediate surroundings; there's the beginnings of shocked/worried expressions evolving on their faces. Hmm... the car's not so tilted as it had been... betcha the driver's floored it. I grin as I extract a genuine Swiss Army Knife from a vest-pocket, unfold the (diamond-hard, waterproof, corrosion-resistant, tungsten/vanadium alloy) cutting blade, and slash a diagonal gouge all the way across the tread of the driver's side front tire. Not waiting for it to finish blowing out, I do likewise to the driver's side rear; then I step back onto the sidewalk, resume munching on shriveled meat, downshift to a tempo of 1, and watch the wreck change from 'incipient' to 'actual'.

As per my unwritten script, the car — driver's side, at least — drops to the pavement with a hell of a clang and a shower of sparks. Then it makes with a metal-on-asphalt shriek all the way to its 45-MPH collision with the dumpster. Oooh, no airbags! ''That's'' gonna leave a mark...

I finish my snack, keeping an eye on the perps in case someone feels like doing something cute; nobody does. I upshift high, strip all three assholes down to their underwear, expend an entire pocket-sized roll of duct tape making ''damn'' sure the perps are gonna sit tight where they are, clean out the glove box and trunk... and for an encore, I downshift and call in the whole sorry encounter to the local police precinct.

Citizen's arrest is a ''good'' thing, right?

Waiting for the cops to show, I drop back to my default tempo of 6 and amuse myself checking out my loot. No discernable ID on any of the trio — such a surprise — so we'll just see what their photos, fingerprints, and DNA (from impromptu blood samples) have to say about the matter. Again, the car is plateless, and there's no VIN either. As for the guns, they look like they could be Izakawa 'Divine Wrath'-model automatics. That, or else homebrew jobs. I sure hope it's the latter, since I happen to know that Izakawa doesn't ''do'' firearms for any ''civilian'' market.

Onward to happier thoughts. Let's see... the clothes look to be generic off-the-rack Target. Residual scent is mostly drowned under cheap-ass cologne, so there's not so much chance of getting olfactory ID off of it. Just one of the tricks criminals have learned for dealing with a post-SCABS world...

...ah. Someone's approaching — correction: ''Splendor's'' approaching. I downshift to match her tempo.

"Nice day, huh?" I say.

She grimaces a little. "Hardly. It seems I'm not the only one who felt a show of force might be appropriate."

"Seems like," I agree. "The timing's pretty interesting, though. It ''could'' be coincidence... but me, I bet Cargill had your office wired for sound. Not sure when."

Splendor nods. "That makes sense. Perhaps we should relocate this discussion to a more secure place?"

"No point. I mean, he's ''already'' eavesdropping, right? So he's gotta know his boys got ''way'' the hell hammered on, by someone who's ''literally'' faster than a speeding bullet. He may not be sure what other tricks I have up my sleeve, but I, for one, will be happy to help him learn — the ''hard'' way. Of course, that's assuming Jocko Homo has the balls, not to mention the requisite lack of functional brain cells, to suit up for Round Two."

Splendor's eyes widen, just for a moment, about halfway through my last sentence. Then she gets it and puts a subtle smile on her face. "I... see. I trust you know what you're doing..."

"Always," I state flatly. "And I know something else: That fucknose is ''toast."

<hr>

The next few days are kind of busy, and not just because of my unfinished contracts (29 and counting) and speech-class-related stuff and helping Splendor deal with the listening devices. To begin with, I pore over police records and the snake-lady's files — but that's maybe a couple of clock-hours at most. No, what ''really'' occupies my time is what I ''do'' with the data thereby gained: I smash hands.

See, the cops have a pretty good idea of who-all is on Jocko's payroll, and what their particular duties are. Just because the authorities don't have enough hard evidence to nail a guy in court, that doesn't mean they're clueless about why he ''should'' be nailed in court. And if you're curious about why the police might grant a puny civilian — ''i.e.,'' me — access to this sort of sensitive information? Two reasons:

First, money talks.

Second, it seems I got a bit of a fan club in blue. Something to do with all those meticulously detailed complaint reports I keep filing any time some jackass messes with me or my property. I'm told that last year, about17% of all City trials for SCAB-related hate crimes used at least ''some'' data from one of my complaint reports — make it 23%, if you're only interested in ''convictions.''

The point is, I got a line on Jocko's ''whole organization.'' His ''entire'' chain of command, from him and his most-trusted seconds all the way down to his lowliest footsoldiers. And I also got several dozen of the freelancers he's most likely to call when he needs a little extra manpower.

Put it all together, I got me a good, long list of targets to hit... and hit them, I do. With a pair of bricks. At a closing velocity ''well'' in excess of the speed of sound.

I tap each of their hands twice. Hit Number One, the bricks are parallel to the plane of the palm; Hit Number Two, they're at right angles. Locating a target's never difficult. After that, I do my business, leave a card, and bug out.

The card, you ask? Just something I whipped up on a cheap-ass laser printer I bought, used for this one job, and melted to untraceable slag immediately after. Each card bears six words — "TELL JOCKO HOMO TO GET LOST" — and a single letter, "J".

No, as a matter of fact I ''couldn't'' just waste 'em all. Three words:

'''''I.'''''

'''''Don't.'''''

'''''Kill.'''''

Got it?

Aside from that, leaving Jocko's crew mostly-intact is a ''good'' thing. There's a lot to hate about organized crime, but one thing they get right is, ''you take care of your own people.'' 'Cause if you don't... well, either you take care of them, or else ''they'' take care of ''you.'' Not to mention, a rep for fucking over your underlings makes it a ''lot'' harder to get replacement thugs when you need them.

So. If I'd left Jocko with a pile of corpses, he'd just bury 'em and that's ''it.'' But he's got a pile of cripples instead, so he's got ''lots'' bigger problems — like medical expenses for the victims, rent and food for their families, yada yada yada. Unless he's just crazy, he ''must'' deal with all this stuff.

Well, maybe Jocko ''is'' batshit insane; doesn't matter. Crazy or not, he ''still'' needs warm bodies to do his business, right? Which means he needs a whole new 'army'. And if people know how badly he screwed his last gang, who the hell's gonna ''want'' to sign on with his ''next'' gang? Answer: ''No''-fucking-body. And no, Jocko ''can't'' just lean on people to ensure silence. Not while all the guys who ''would'' be doing the actual leaning are in hospital with mangled hands, he can't...

{{Separator|stars}}

Splendor catches up to me the day after the drive-by. Another ''tete-a-tete'' in her office, which is where two of the five bugs were. She did what I would've suggested if she'd asked: Left 'em all in place, just paying attention to prefabricated soundtracks rather than ambient sights and sounds. But as I walk through the door this time, she welcomes me with a gesture that (by sheer coincidence, I'm sure) switches off the 'bug bamboozler' I installed in this room. ''Confusion to the enemy, hm? Okay, I can play along,'' I muse to myself with a subtle hand gesture that she picks up on.

"Thank you for your promptness, Jubatus," she says. "How many eavesdropping devices have you found?"

"Two, I think."

"You... ''think."''

And then she makes with a disapproving look, so I put on a show of annoyance: "Damn right, I ''think!'' You got any idea how old this place's wiring is? There's all kinds of components that the only reason I could even ''recognize'' them is, I'm old enough to have seen 'em back in the '90s! And further-"

The phone on Splendor's desk rings. Twice. She picks up before ring #3, saying: "West Street Shelter. Splendor speaking."

I hear the voice from the handset, real clear. "Hey there, Miss Splendor! How ya doin'? I heard'ja had some trouble just recent."

Having heard that voice on some police surveillance recordings, I recognize it as Jocko Cargill; not sure about the snake-lady. "I am doing well," she says in a professionally-controlled tone that doesn't give away a damn thing. "If you'd care to tell me what business you have with the Shelter —"

"Yeah," Jocko interrupts. "I got business with you, alright: One'a your freaks dissed me, ''real'' badand it ain't the kind of thing you can clear up with an apology. I know the little pussy's ''there,'' so how's about you put 'im on the line, huh?"

"Ve-" she begins. A momentary upshift lets me confirm there's no incoming assaults; when I revert back to the normal tempo, she's turned on the speakerphone function, and she's saying, "-ell. He's here now."

"Jubatus," I say to the 'phone, playing my part. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I want a cheetah-skin rug, ''Mister'' Juba-"

"Well, if it ain't Jocko Homo!" I break in. "What's crawled up ''your'' ass, Mr. H?"

"Ha, fuckin', ha," he replies. It's hard to tell, what with the audio distortions of the telephone system, but I ''think'' his level of irritation just got boosted a notch or two. Good. "Funny, kitty-cat. ''Real'' funny. Lemme tell you what I do to little pussies that stick their noses where they don't belong: I skin the fuckers alive."

"You and what army?" I sneer back at him. "Get real, Jocko — you ain't got shit, and we both ''know'' it. Face facts: '''''I''' am the fastest SCAB alive.'' You ''can't'' threaten me — not when I can outrun any bullet on the face of the Earth! Hell, I can ''catch'' your damn bullets and throw 'em right back in your face!"

''"You're dead, you goddamn pussy!"''

I give Splendor a 'thumbs up' gesture as I hammer the needles deeper beneath his skin: "Go ahead, Homo — ''lose'' your temper. Blow a gasket, that's a good little thug. Let your blood pressure rise until your arteries explode. I'll be sure to dance a jig of grief at your funeral, and piss on your grave."

I hold my hand up, warning the snake-lady not to interrupt, for the few moments of heavy breathing it takes Jocko to regain a semblance of self-control. Which he does: "Okay... Okay... You got me goin' there, I admit it. Not too bad — for a ''fuckin' animal.'' Enjoy it while you can, Mister Kitty, 'cause you won't enjoy ''nothin''' after ''I'm'' done with you!"

"So you can tag somebody that can break the sound barrier under his own power? Not!" is my smugly confident reply. "Try a gas weapon, Homo. A poisonous cloud is a lot harder to dodge than a bullet, and ''maybe'' I won't zip through it so damn fast it doesn't have ''time'' to affect me."

"That's ''real'' fuckin' hilarious, Mister Kitty." — and now he pauses, just for a very short moment — "In fact, you're a goddamn comedian, ain't'cha? Well, it wouldn't be polite of me to keep you from laughin' it up, so I'll just say g'bye now." And he hangs up. I think about Jocko Homo's pre- and post-pause vocal overtones, as much as I could hear them over the telephone, as Splendor turns the 'bamboozler' back on with a heartfelt exhalation...

"Well," she says, ''"that'' was interesting. May I assume there was a reason you insisted on giving Jocko the bright idea to try chemical weapons?"

"Damn straight." I grin mercilessly. "Look: We SCABs have an insanely wide range of biochemistries, right? What that means is, you can spend however-many megabucks developing a weapon that takes out ''one'' SCAB — but you got basically ''no'' idea whether or not it's gonna affect ''any other'' SCAB! So let's say you're a weapons researcher who's just been handed a pile of cash to come up with an equalizer that'll work on people like us. Do you spend it on chemical weapons, knowing that it's a fucking waste of resources, or do you spend it on new and improved projectile weapons, which are ''guaranteed'' to work on ''almost all'' SCABs?"

She thinks it over a moment, and likes the answer: "In other words, you goaded Jocko into wasting some of his available resources on an intrinsically futile gambit."

"Bingo! Got it in one."

"Unfortunately, I believe there's a flaw in your thinking. What's to keep Jocko from attempting to acquire one of those experimental projectile weapons you spoke of?"

I shrug. "Calculated risk. Assuming Jocko manages to get his hands on ''any'' military hardware ''at all,'' I'm betting he won't get more than one or two pieces, if that. And the more he focuses on ''me'' in particular, the less he's gonna be able to do to ''anybody else."''

"I see..." Splendor just looks at me for a clock-second or so. "You're determined to play lightning rod, aren't you."

"Better me than one of you slowpokes," I say with a shrug. "What's your point? I'm the hardest target you've ''got,'' so why ''shouldn't'' I paint a bullseye on my chest?"

"No reason at all," she says in a neutral tone. "Thank you, Jubatus."

"For what? Premature much?" I grimace. "Save your gratitude until ''after'' we've dealt with the problem at hand."

{{Separator|stars}}

Jocko's no Jubatus. If it was ''me'' plotting an assault on the Shelter, I'd have researched the place in exhaustive detail ahead of time, including all of its resident SCABs and their combat-useful abilities. I'd also have worked up about 14 layers of contingency plans in case Something Went Wrong. And in particular, I would ''not'' have allowed my targets ''any'' breathing space ''whatsoever'' after my first attack. Then again, maybe Cargill did have a Plan B — Splendor doesn't think so, but, y'know, for the sake of argument? Like I said: Maybe the guy ''did'' have a backup plan, but I got my counterattack in ''before'' he could push the button.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, I'm not about to let up on him. For one thing, I've only tagged 68% of the targets on my list, and if you're a slowpoke (which everybody associated with the Shelter ''is),'' just ''one'' disgruntled twit with a high-powered rifle is all it takes to ruin your whole day. For another thing, three of the targets on my list have ''already'' bolted and run, apparently the moment they heard about what happened to my first victims. Or ''did'' they run away? Could be Jocko ordered 'em to go elsewhere and pick up a few 55-gallon drums of industrial-strength Whupass. Again, Spendor doesn't think Jocko's subtle enough (or smart enough) to do that; I'm inclined to agree, myself. Nevertheless, it's a loose end that needs to be tied off ''before'' it trips up anybody who matters. I've uploaded a few spiders to the Net, to keep an eye on the runners' financial activity; nothing big, just what I need so's I'll have a little advance notice if/when they make a suspicious purchase wherever, or they return to this fair city, or yada yada yada.

{{Separator|stars}}

"Hey, don't get me wrong — I don't like killin' people any more'n the next guy! But what can you do when some fuckin' dipshit ''asks'' f-"

''— multiple attacks: threat levels high, extreme, extreme, lethal, extreme: 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 o'clock —''

— the instincts upshifted me to a tempo of ''40?'' Damn. Looks like my buddy Jocko is playing with ''very'' dangerous toys! A rather strong hammerblow to my back pushes me forward; I go with it, especially because there's a couple points on the back of my head that're feeling ''real'' hot just now. As I fall forward, the hot spots on my skull cool down a bit, and a second hammerblow glances off one shoulder.

Yes, Virginia, I got hit with supersonic bullets ''and'' military lasers. How did I survive to tell the tale, you ask? Tempo of 40, that's how. Upshifted that high, from ''my'' point of view the bullets were only carrying ''one-sixteenth of a percent'' of their 'full' load of kinetic energy; body armor did the rest. As for the energy weapons, my upshift cut their power — how much energy they deliver in a given amount of time — to only 1/40 normal, not to mention what it did to the photons' frequency. That kind of tweakage can really mess up a laser beam's innate capacity for destruction, you know? Still dangerous, but only if I'm dumb enough to stick around and wait for it to burn me. No, I can't outrun photons; then again, I don't ''have to'' be faster than light.

I just have to be faster than whatever's adjusting the laser's point-of-aim.

Moving right along: You damn betcha I'm prepped for beam weapons. Jocko may not be Jubatus, but ''I am.'' One vest pocket holds a few grams of light-sensitive dust; laser-safety goggles in another; a third pocket's got a matched set of six corner-cube reflectors. My left hand tosses clouds of powder into the air for the beams to reflect/refract off of, while I put the goggles on with my right... bingo! ''There's'' the beamlines — all three of the SOBs. Fine. Three corner-cubes, coming right up. I give each one a ''whole'' bunch of angular velocity so it twirls in place; that won't stop it from reflecting the laser ''exactly'' back the way it came, but it ''will'' reduce the amount of time any particular piece of reflector spends in direct contact with its beam.

The adrenaline rush is fading — I can feel blood vessels throbbing in my neck and scalp, not to mention the opening twinges of a killer migraine. That's what I get for overstraining my chronomorph power. I can't maintain a tempo of 40 for long, so I gotta make the most of each Time-shifted fractional second while I can.

Okay — the bullets. Only one source, thank Ares. They look to be moving at 40-45 MPH, which (after factoring in my tempo) means they ''are'' supersonic. Somewhere around Mach two-point-five, I think. The exact figure doesn't matter: I extract a pair of hand-sized metal plates from yet another vest pocket, align the plates at ''just'' the right angles, and thereby nudge the stream of bullets towards the trajectory I'd rather they follow. The headache's just begun, but I ain't got ''time'' to deal with the pain, so I ignore it. I give the room a quick scan; yep, the same four targets. Good. Hmmm... the first bullet just struck target 1, so I shift my 'bucklers' to redirect the stream to the next in line, then target 3, and finally Jocko himself. Bastard ''would'' ensure that ''he's'' not anywhere near the direct line of fire, damn it.

The lasers are gone now — ''quelle'' surprise, and I appreciate the corner-cubes' sacrifice — so it's time to deal with the gun-on-steroids. The cloud of drywall fragments tells me ''exactly'' where the bullets are coming from, so I leap straight at that point, twirling my hand-held shields before me in a paddle-wheel-type maneuver so's the projectiles get knocked out of my flight path into the floor. Each bullet-slap jars me up to the shoulders, in a rhythm that clashes against the pulsating throbs of my cerebral arteries. I hit the wall a little over the bullets' exit hole; no problem! I dig into the wall with the claws of two feet and one arm, and I use my free hand to ram a 'shield' right down the barrel of the damn gun.

Okay, it won't fit — it's too big — but ''you'' know what I mean, right? If I can clog up the barrel with its own bullets, I negate this particular threat. And the bullets keep coming; each new impact against the 'buckler' sends a ''serious'' shockwave up my arm and down my torso to rattle my internal organs. One... two... thr- ''Sn'f'fckngbtch!!!''

''Very'' bright light. Then pain makes a fast getaway as the world goes ''real'' dark...

{{Separator|stars}}

Lying down; I smell medicines and rubbing alcohol; right. I'm in a hospital. Private room. Kind of tired, but I don't feel much pain — apparently, I've been healing for a while? And... okay, I recognize ''that'' scent: It's Splendor. I see a light cast on her left elbow, neatly-applied dressings on her neck and the right side of her face, plus a glued-down patch over her right eye — and who knows what ''else'' she's hiding ''underneath'' her clothes. No cane; she must not've been hurt ''that'' badly. I downshift to talk to her...

"Hello, Splendor," I say. "I'm guessing the good guys won."

"Jubatus!" She seems a little surprised to hear me speak; not sure why. "Welcome to the land of the living. And yes, we did."

"Good. What happened after I fell asleep on the job?"

The lady makes with one of her oh-so-elegant veiled smiles. "You may have 'fell asleep', but I shan't complain. After all, a railgun ''did'' explode in your face..."

I roll my eyes. "Now tell me something I ''don't'' know."

"Of course," she says, nodding. "From what I could determine afterwards, I was outside the blast radius proper, but the shockwave knocked me senseless anyway. When I came to, I was naked except for the coils of duct tape Jocko had wrapped around me — and I knew it was him because he wasn't finished. I'm afraid he noticed I was awake before I'd quite recovered my wits; he took great pleasure in telling me ''exactly and precisely'' what he intended to do to me, now that you were too dead to protect me." Now she looks me in the eyes; her unblinking gaze makes it real clear (like it wasn't before?) what kind of critter that damn disease blended her with. I wait for the snake-lady to keep talking.

"And then he raped me." It's a flat, calm, statement of fact she's just made... "Which only proves that he was unaware of the ''full'' extent of what SCABS did to me."

My mind races — there's a few rumors about certain events in her past — I throw out an educated guess: "Projecting chronomorph?"

Splendor acknowledges my remark with a subtle inclination of her head. "Correct. I can only adjust other people's ages downward — but when sex is involved, the rejuvenative effect is ''permanent."''

I ponder the possibilities... "So you rolled his odometer back. How far?"

"I fully intended to 'roll his odometer back', as you put it, to the point at which his zygote originally formed." I blink at that. ''Okay... someone remind me never to piss her off...'' "As it happened, I didn't need to go that far; at the moment of his death, I'd reduced him to a first-trimester premature birth."

"Damn..." I picture the scene in my mind. "And since he ''was'' raping you at the time..."

"Exactly. Jocko was too distracted to perceive any difficulties until ''after'' he was physically incapable of doing anything about it. Now it's your turn, Jubatus. What ''did'' you spend these past few days doing?"

So I talk. Snake-lady listens — and from her occasional questions and comments, it's pretty clear that my info is mostly just confirming what she's already learned from other sources.

Doesn't take me long to finish the story. Splendor stares off into the middle distance for a while; I take the opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep...

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:John Moschitta School of Elocution}}

User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution

2008-02-23T11:15:54Z

Cubist: Added some separators. May want to go with section headers instead, but for now...

{{title|name=The John Moschitta School of Elocution|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}

They call me Jubatus. Me being the fastest SCAB alive, I ''always'' have time to kill... so I always need new ways to kill time, simply to avoid going mad from boredom. You could call it Parkinson's Law of Temporal Consumption: "Activities multiply to fill whatever you've got in the way of spare time." I didn't used to find this a problem — I got plenty of interests — but then, I also didn't used to think there could be more than 24 hours in a day. There can, particularly for people like me, to whom SCABS gave a seriously overclocked brain. That's short for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, and can you blame anyone for preferring the acronym? I've got SCABS to thank for my being a bipedal cheetah with a train of thought that runs six times faster than anyone else's, which explains how come from ''my'' point of view, there's ''150'' hours in a day. Fortunately, I can control the rate at which my personal 'clock' runs; upshifting for greater speed, downshifting to interact with you slowpokes.

What do I ''do'' with all that time, I hear you ask? Whatever I damned well please, and six times more of it than I ever could before. Today, like pretty much every other day, it pleases me to spend a couple hours of clock time puttering around the West Street Shelter. Seems I've got a bit of history with one of their volunteers, a rabbit named Phil, and I like to keep an eye on him. Think of me as a guardian angel with spotted fur and sharp, pointy teeth. May the good Lord forgive any fool who thinks he can give the rabbit a hard time, because ''I'' sure as hell ''won't.'' Phil is good people, and if anyone forgets how good people should be treated, I'm up for teaching 'em a quick lesson in manners any day of the week.

I'm not sure Phil notices, but I make a point of reducing my Dangerous quotient before I drop in. I trim my claws; I kill 'cheetah breath' with mouthwash; I also downshift to a tempo of around .95, marginally slower than the norm. Not that it matters whether he's consciously aware. The way I see it, he doesn't need to worry about a small flotilla of high-velocity knife edges zipping around him in loose formation. That's basically the reason I bother with the Shelter at all, when you get right down to it — reducing the level of hassle Phil gets from an important part of his life. The instant Phil leaves, I'm gone, too.

At this point, I'll bet some of you are wondering how ''anyone,'' a highly-morphed SCAB like me in particular, could possibly be indifferent to the good work done at the Shelter. You guys should talk to the ones who ''aren't'' asking; they're just as cynical as I am, and therefore ''know'' why somebody might be less than enthusiastic about ostensibly-altruistic behavior. Let's just say I'm a 'value given for value received' kind of guy and leave it at that, shall we?

I suspect Splendor (the sometimes cold-blooded mistress of West Street in general, and the Shelter in particular) has an idea of what I'm ''really'' about here, but no matter how our philosophies may differ, she's too pragmatic to reject assistance from any quarter. So far I've spruced up the joint's Net presence, made sure a few time-sensitive deliveries arrived on schedule, written two drafts of a Shelter procedures manual, and done a fair amount of websearching on a notable variety of topics, to name only four of the tasks I've fielded here.

Right now I'm seated in the lobby, not far from Phil's office. I'm continuing work on the Shelter's website. Specifically, the interface of the Shelter's online database of SCAB-friendly businesses. Got my PowerBook before me, and I intend to cut that interface down to size, or die trying. You'd be surprised how many 56K modems are still in service, particularly among the SCAB populace that's the Shelter's target audience. And even if ''you'' aren't surprised, the twit who originally created this interface certainly would be! I'll bet he was thinking more of how it would look in his portfolio than how it would serve the client, damn his highly-trained eyes. He had every pixel of the bloody thing thickly encrusted with bandwidth-sucking leeches — I'm talking 32-bit animation, Java-3 applets, multi-track sound files, and on and on. End result: Not only does the sucker take for''ever'' to finish loading on a slow connection, but it runs like an arthritic clam (when it runs at all) on any machine the intended audience is likely to be able to afford.

So far, I've sandblasted ''all'' the graphics down to bit-depths of 8 or less, and killed ''every'' piece of animation that had no valid reason to live. The payoff is that the download time over a 56K modem has dropped to 235 seconds. Yes, ''dropped.'' By a factor of five. I won't be satisfied until I reduce that figure to twenty seconds or less, and if I have to go with pure text to get —

Phil is nervous, I can ''smell'' it. That scent, the odor of frightened prey, drills straight to the vital core of my hindbrain to stir up predatory voices. I can't help that, but I sure as Artemis don't have to ''listen'' to what those voices are saying.

Being a rabbit, Phil scares easily; I don't want to overreact. I close the laptop, carrying it with me as I walk calmly over towards the converted walk-in closet he calls his office. He's with a client, a big sumbitch. From the back, the client looks like a norm with orange stripes dyed into his black crewcut, or maybe it's ''vice versa.'' I hear a VoxPop voder say, "Sorry, but that command was invalid."

"Grrrrrr..." I ''know'' that growl, it's the sound of an angry carnivore that's 1.5 seconds away from ''killing'' something! I upshift, the growl dopplers down into the deep subsonic, and tiger-boy freezes up like the rest of the world. I memorize my position and move in, get a clear view of ''exactly'' what he's up to... and breathe a sigh of relief. Tiger-boy is glaring down at the voder in his furless hands, caught in the act of stabbing one finger down to the touchscreen. He's got fur down his neck; thick black skin on the bottom of his very human nose; round pupils in his glittery, reflective eyes. Okay, tiger-boy's no ''immediate'' danger to Phil, but I still don't like his mood.

I return to my memorized position, downshift, pick up the walk where I left off. "Say, is that a Vox Populi voder I heard?" I ask. Tiger-boy doesn't react, but Phil looks up.

"Yes, it is!" the rabbit says in his cute, high-pitched voice. Not sure if he counts as tenor or soprano, I keep forgetting to ask Wanderer. Phil continues, "How much do you know about them? Mr. Anthony here is having a little trouble with his. Do you think that you could help?"

"I can give it a shot. Got nothing better to do," I say with a smile that keeps my teeth decently hidden. I make a show of looking for another chair, which of course there isn't — no room. "Alright. Mr. Anthony, was it? Good. My name is Jubatus. How about we go up front where we can both sit down?"

We move out, and Phil's distress is inversely proportional to the distance between him and us. I give tiger-boy some leading questions he can answer with head motion and/or hand gestures: He's a local. Single. Started to SCAB over eleven days ago. Spoke his last intelligible words nine days back. Just got released from hospital a week ago. Hasn't noticed any tigerish instincts yet. The salesman pushed him into buying a top-of-the-line VoxPop that he really couldn't afford.

We sit down in the lobby. I open the laptop, bring up SimpleText, set the voice for "Alfred, high quality", show him how to make it recite what's typed into the window. "Mr. Anthony, that salesman didn't do you a service," I say. "Vox Populi voders ''do'' sound as good as you were told, yes, but they're finicky bastards. If you're a novice, you'll have as much luck with it as a kid with a learner's permit would have with an eighteen-wheeler."

"Call me Felix," my laptop says for him. "Agreed. What replacement?"

I ponder for a moment. "If your heart is set on using a voder, I'd say go with a Kurzweil. The vocal quality sucks at the low end, but even the worst Kurzweil has clear enunciation, and you can make yourself understandable within two days tops. Most people, a couple hours' practice is enough. You want a KV-240, maybe a KV-200 if you're ''really'' hard up for cash. Anything less than a 200, well, it's cheap and it works."

"Voder not needed?"

Sharp man — he caught the implication of my 'if your heart is set on it' phrasing. I shrug: "Hell if ''I'' know. Depends on what SCABS did to your vocal tract. Can you open your mouth? I want to see what you've got to work with here." He opens, and it's a perfectly normal human mouth. Tongue, palate, teeth, jaws, all right out of a pre-'Flu medical textbook. With his flat face, I'll bet his sinus cavities are human-normal as well. "Looks good to me. Now let me check out your neck." I lay my hands on either side of his throat, taking care not to let my claws touch fur, let alone flesh; I don't feel a larynx in there. Not a good sign. "Okay, make some noise."

"Rrrrrrrr..." he rumbles. Nothing's vibrating in his neck.

"Keep it going." He does. I move one hand to his chest — ''there's'' vibration. "Alright, that's enough. You should definitely get a second opinion on this, Felix, but here's what I think: Your larynx is gone. That's the source of vibration for a normal human voice, and you ain't got one no more. No voicebox, just a purr-box. The good news is, the ''rest'' of your vocal tract looks okay, and if I'm right about that, it should be fairly easy for you to relearn speech." ''You lucky bastard,'' I don't say. "In the meantime, let's see what I can do with that VoxPop of yours. Got the manual?"

He does, and is happy to hand it over. I upshift high, skim from cover to cover, re-read the important bits, downshift. I'm a technical writer, cramming like this is what I do for a living. And the problem I'm now faced with is how to cut the bleeding options down to something a novice can manage. Damn thing's got more bells, whistles, and gongs than Office 2024 (yes, that's the version the Feds actually passed a law requiring Microsoft to recall every copy of), and thanks to a multi-layered contextual menu system, every last control and setting is accessible with no more than four taps on the touchscreen. Wonderful if you know what you're doing; otherwise, one misplaced tap gets you an Urdu accent thick enough to cut with a chainsaw — if you're lucky.

I do a slash-and-burn job on the on-screen controls, hiding 99.9% of them. I don't touch the semantic analysis subroutines, they'll ensure decent inflection, but I lock down the recognition parameters so Anthony can't screw it up by accident.

Next comes input. "You got the subvocalization options package?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Good. That'll help you retrain the muscles that shape your resonance cavities. But until you get the hang of it, you'll probably want to do input by hand. Palmspring user?" I ask, referring to one of the more popular PDAs.

"Yes."

"How's your shorthand?" SCABS has given the two major shorthand systems (Pittman and Gregg) a new lease on life after decades of slow, word processor-induced decline.

"Grafitti only." That's the simplified letterform system that was devised a few decades back as a practical solution to the problem of handwriting recognition, and pretty much every palmtop these days can handle it.

I nod. I turn off Pittman and Gregg, leaving Grafitti and the onscreen keyboard as the two manual input modes. As a final touch, if he manages to screw it up in spite of what I've done, I give him a friendly red button to click on that'll restore the damn thing to the state I left it in. And just in case he manages to nuke the button, I beam a backup copy of the configuration file to my laptop.

"Here you go. Use Grafitti, or click here to bring up a keyboard you can use the stylus with. Like so," I say, demonstrating. "And if anything goes wrong, this is the panic button — as long as that's visible, clicking on it should reset everything to this condition."

Oh yeah, tiger-boy knows his Grafitti. It's only a second or two before his VoxPop says, "That was impressive. Thank you, Jubatus. How are you at speech training?"

"You really want to learn how to talk from someone who sounds like me?" I ask with a smile. It's not a rhetorical question, because I ''know'' what kind of noise comes out of my mouth, damn it. Ever heard an old-time tracheotomy patient whose voice is driven by a hand-held electric buzzer? It's a nasty timbre, metallic and inhuman, and my speech has been compared to that. Unfavorably. And then there's a familiar whiff of nervousness in the air; Phil speaks up before I finish turning to look at him.

"I would if I were you, Mr. Anthony," says Phil. I aim a puzzled look in his direction. ''What's that rabbit think he's doing?'' He continues: "Jubatus would never admit it, but there's nothing human left in his throat and mouth. His speech is quite good, don't you agree?"

Phil can be devious and manipulative when it suits him. Fortunately, he's sworn to use this great power only for Good. I'll bet half my stock portfolio that I know what he's up to now. "So how many ''other'' mutes you gonna deliver into my tender care?" I ask him.

"Total of six," he says, bubbly and cheerful. "We've already started cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms for your class."

I keep my tone light — no need to disturb Phil's client. "And when were you thinking about letting ''me'' on on the secret?"

Phil waggles his ears in a noncommittal fashion. "I thought that you'd figure it out on your own, so I wouldn't ''have to'' say anything. Isn't that what happened?" he asks with an innocent, guileless expression. That rabbit has no shame. I think he had it surgically removed, unless SCABS got there first.

I get the feeling that maybe Phil manipulated ''me,'' and I don't ''like'' being manipulated. If the rabbit really did play me like a violin... Anyone else, I'd be thinking about how to make the bastard pay. But not Phil. ''Never'' Phil. As far as I'm concerned, he's paid so far in advance that ''I'' owe ''him,'' and I always will. I swallow my aggravation, and nod. "Alright. Six students, including Mr. Anthony here. No problem. You wouldn't happen to have any information on the other five, would you?"

"Sure," he says, hopping over to me. "In the backpack." Which he's wearing, so I open the main pocket and extract a set of manila folders. If you're wondering why he didn't just hand them to me, you should know that Phil doesn't ''have'' hands. His forepaws really are ''paws,'' bloody near zero manipulatory capacity. But ''he'' can ''speak,'' damn it! Somebody had to have helped him with the files, and I deliberately, explicitly refuse to become annoyed at this evidence of premeditation on his part. He thanks me and hops back to his hutch-''cum''-office.

Tiger-boy's VoxPop speaks up: "There really is nothing left of your human voice?"

It's the voder's built-in tone of polite inquiry — dunno what ''he'd'' prefer the question sound like. I take it at face value. "You can't tell? Yup, all gone. You're lucky, SCABS didn't even ''touch'' most of ''your'' vocal tract. All ''you'' have to do is learn how to work with a new sound source. Probably end up with an exotic-sounding tone in the bass register, good for attracting girls."

He starts composing a reply, then stops and looks at me. After a moment, his VoxPop says, "You sound bitter."

I hadn't intended to, but he's right. Vocalizing has always been a touchy subject for me, ever since I SCABbed over. Maybe tiger-boy is just offering me a sympathetic ear; too bad that kind of offer is one I'm not about to accept. ''Ever.'' "That's one reason I don't use a voder — most of 'em can't do emotional overtones very well. The VoxPop line is an exception, but you already know how delicate the controls are," I say with a shrug. "Anyhow, I'd recommend that you exchange the damn thing and get a more economical model, or at least one you don't need a Masters' Degree in to use properly..."

Tiger-boy leaves after I'm done giving him advice. I close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and breathe deeply; it took more effort than usual to keep a lid on my customary bad temper, and the voice thing is why. And then Phil's scent again —

"Are you alright, Jubatus?"

I don't bother to move or look at the rabbit. "Hello, Phil. It would've killed you to ask? Or even give me some advance notice?"

"If I'd asked, you would have refused," he says reasonably. "But I don't know what your problem is. Really, what's the worst that could happen?"

"You see me in a puddle of blood, none of it mine, on the Six O'Clock News," I say without thinking.

There's an elongated pause, broken by Phil. "You know what, Jubatus? You worry too much. And coming from a rabbit, that's saying something."

I almost laugh — of course, ''he'' doesn't know how goddamn close my scenario came to playing itself out, with him supplying the blood, when we first met. "Gee. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Gotta run — bye-bye!" And then the rabbit is gone.

Sigh.

A cursory scan of the files indicates that all six are animorph SCABs of one kind or another. I start with Anthony's file, which confirms what I already knew, then go on to Kerry Dennison. Sales clerk, married, no kids. He's a fish-morph, bulgy eyes and webbed fingers and scales all over, and a Godawful ''ugly'' bastard, to boot. The picture shows flat, wide tubing wrapped around his neck... ah. He's got (barely-) functional gills ''and'' the remnants of his old lungs; the tubing supplies water for his gills, and between them and his lungs, he gets enough oxygen to survive. No wonder his file has nothing on his current capacity for vocalization... the doctors would've had their hands full just keeping him alive, and his insurance ran out before they could do anything else.

Third in line, Mary ''(née'' Martin) Zelinski, is a living cliché: She's a fox gendermorph, a fuzz-covered wet dream who could've stepped out of a '''''PlaySCAB''''' centerfold. Formerly an investment banker with a trophy wife, the 'Flu giveth her an all-over permanent fur coat as the 'Flu taketh away her mind. She's not feral, just amnesiac — a near-complete ''tabula rasa.'' With her (former) profession, she's got to have money, so why is she here at the Shelter, instead of upstate at St. Jude Medical or the like? And how come she went through ''five'' doctors in her first month as a SCAB? Reading between the lines of the vixen's file, I can't help but wonder how much the ''other'' Mrs. Zelinski has to answer for...

File Number Four is a schoolteacher, name of Sawyer Borman. He's a man-sized insect-morph, cricket with an occasional grasshoppery touch. Basic body plan could be described as "humanoid with four arms". Doesn't even have lungs, ''per se'' — his body is thoroughly riddled with a branching network of air passages that oxygenate all tissues ''directly,'' never mind that considerations of airflow and surface area make that scheme unworkable for a critter as big as him. What the hell, he's a polymorph (with a limited selection of insectoid forms), I guess he can have an impossible metabolism if he wants to.

Next is the Right Reverend Charles Calgonetti. I'll get to him.

And finally... oh, joy. Inanimorph. This one's been living (?) at the Shelter for seventeen weeks now, ever since the day an animated, life-sized granite statue of a Great Dane showed up from nowhere. No ID, no clue to her former life — and even the 'her' is only an educated guess, based on the statue's anatomically correct details. At least she (?) answers to 'Jenny'. She can understand spoken or written English, but doesn't appear to be able to speak or write herself. Wonder how badly she's been disoriented by her radical transformation? Inanimorphs... well, hell. Just have to see what (if anything) I can do to reach her. It. Whatever.

After I'm done with my reading, I suspect the preacher's going to be the hardest nut to crack. Physically speaking, Calgonetti is a mynah bird scaled up to a body length of four feet, with avian-type talons at the ends of his feather-covered, humanish legs. Black feathers all over, interrupted only by a ring of iridescent white around his throat. Who says SCABS doesn't have a sense of humor? Chuck traded up from his human body eleven years ago, and hasn't spoken a word since. Pretty tough on a guy who'd been a professional talker.

A mynah bird, speechless? Yeah, right. My best guess is, he's got a self-imposed mental block about speech. This sort of thing definitely isn't my forte, but I'm betting he'll talk if I can piss him off bad enough. I'll try not to enjoy needling a man of God.

Okay, I'll try not to enjoy it ''too'' much.

But I digress... I don't recognize Chuck's denomination, but it's clearly not one of the bigoted ones: His flock — sorry, couldn't resist — have been supporting him all this time, providing sufficient resources (financial and otherwise) to keep him going until he's ready to get back in the pulpit. He's got a record, he does; over the years he's attended eight different speech classes, none of which did him any good whatsoever. He's always gotten good marks for attendance and participation, always declined use of a voder, always projected a congenial air, consistently maintained that the Lord will restore him to full voice whenever it suits Him to do so. All of which does nothing to explain why he's ''here,'' a bloody ''homeless shelter'' in a rotting neighborhood that's maybe three steps away from complete and absolute urban collapse, for the love of Ahura-Mazda.

I've got an uncomfortable feeling that I know what's ''really'' going on behind those beady little eyes. I think I may already have been where he is — except, of course, that ''he's'' got faith in the Almighty. I wonder how much of that faith is still alive in his heart right now...

{{Separator|stars}}

I don't need to check the schedule. I work with the Shelter's online resources, I already knew that the speech class will begin three calendar days from now. Just didn't know who the 'teacher to be announced' would be.

Three calendar days. Plenty of time for me to familiarize myself with my classroom, work up a lesson plan, collect and/or create some teaching resources, talk to Donnie at the Pig, make arrangements with Dr. Derksen for use of his lab, and generally prep for the tutoring gig.

{{Separator|k|the first week}}

Time for the first session to begin. Butterflies in my stomach? Naah, the hornets killed and ate them all... I really shouldn't ought to be as nervous as I am. After all, I'm a technical writer; teaching people is what I do for a living! I just don't usually do it ''in person.'' And I also don't usually do it with topics that are quite so personal, topics that strike quite so close to the core of what a human being truly is.

Who am I kidding? I'm nervous because this hits ''me'' where I live. Even now I get the shakes just ''thinking'' about those first few days after I SCABbed over. That's when I ''couldn't'' talk ''at all,'' when I didn't know how to coax anything close to an articulate sound from my newly-remodeled throat, when I had no way of knowing whether or not I ever would be able to speak another word for the rest of my life...

It was bad. Leave it at that.

What the hell, it'll be a learning experience in more ways than one. ''

''No more waffling; I walk up the stairs, down the hall, and into my classroom. What do you know — Jenny's mass of stone doesn't exceed the limits of the Shelter's structural integrity.

Once at my desk, I upshift while setting up all the connections for my laptop, then look at each student in turn. "Hello. My name's Jubatus. I think we all know why we're here, so no need to belabor the point. The first thing you should know is that if you really ''want'' to talk, you ''can.'' And you'll do it before the end of this first session. That's a promise." I pause to let that sink in, then flip three small devices out of a vest pocket and catch them between the fingers of my other hand. Some of my students recognize the gadgets, which I hold up and fan out like a poker hand. "These are voders. Low-end Kurzweil models, KV-150s; nothing fancy, but they do the job. I've got one for everybody. And they're the reason I can make that promise.

"What I ''don't'' promise is that you'll be able to talk ''without'' mechanical assistance. Maybe you can, maybe not — it depends on two things. First, on exactly what kind of mess SCABS made of your vocal tract, and second, on whether or not you can figure out how to manhandle a comprehensible voice out of your ''current'' set of pipes.

"And hell, maybe you'll decide you ''don't'' actually want to talk. Even then, you've got options; you can learn Sign," — here I fingerspell ''AMESLAN IS NOT A VAN VOGT NOVEL'' — "and if all else fails, there's always the written word. Donnie Sinclair, guy who runs the Blind Pig, is mute and doesn't use a voder; I'll see if I can't get him up here to fill you in on living without a voice. I think that would be a mistake, myself, but it's ''your'' decision, and as long as ''you're'' satisfied, it's none of my damn business how you choose to live your life.

"And now that that's out of the way..." Here I pick a manila folder up off my desk, open it, look at the contents. "Couple of you guys have a bit of a track record. Calgonetti, says here you've been slacking off in vocalization classes for more than a decade," I say, hearing amused noises as I drop some papers into a convenient trash can. The bird doesn't appreciate my description. Good. "Dennison, you've got a signed certificate says you're permanently mute." I drop more papers. "As for the rest of you..." I shut the folder, send it to rejoin its missing contents. Then I take a butane lighter from a vest-pocket, ignite it, and toss ''it'' into the trash. There's a momentary ''FWOOSH'' as an inches-wide ball of flame rises up, dissipating before it hits the ceiling. It's pure theater — I'm just burning Xeroxes — but it does the job. All six of my students are focussed fully on ''me.''

"I don't give a flying fuck what ''anyone'' may have told you before today. Far as I'm concerned? As of now, each and every one of you ''will'' talk — or I'll know the reason why.

"Any questions?"

I wasn't expecting any response, but the bug makes a 'clickick' noise and raises his upper left hand while his upper right scribbles on a notepad in his lower pair. After he's done, a quick upshift and the notepad 'teleports' into ''my'' hands.

"Okay... Borman here wants to know what happens if someone can't talk by the end of summer." Another upshift reunites the bug and his paper. "Well, it's true that we only got this room for ten weeks, but it's ''also'' true that the Shelter's not teaching this class. ''I am.'' You want out, say the word and you're out; otherwise, I'm not giving up until you ''can'' speak. And if that's after session ten, I'll just have to find us a different classroom. Any other questions?"

Dead air.

"Good. First, let's take a look at how speech works when it ''does'' work..." Here I upshift, extract a roll of eight-millimeter correction tape (red) from my vest, and spend a clock-second or so putting a schematic diagram of the human vocal tract on the wall. Back at a tempo of 1, I point at one specific bit of the diagram. "See this? It's the larynx, but you can call it a 'voicebox'. It's got a couple folds of skin that vibrate when you shove air past 'em, not unlike a clarinet reed..."

By the time I'm done, my students (most of them, anyway; with the fox and rock, it's hard to tell) have a solid grounding in the biomechanics of spoken language — ''i.e.,'' how a normal human vocal tract operates. Now for the voders, which I distribute in half an upshifted clock-second.

"Okay, time to keep that promise I started class with. See what's on your desk? It's a KV-150. If you're clueless about voders, give the built-in tutorial a try. You can't figure something out, lemme know and I'll see if I can make it clear for you."

Within two clock-minutes, the first "Hello, world!" tutorial is audible. And ten clock-minutes further on, they get to "The time is eight forty-seven pee-emm" and "I am a SCAB" and "Today is Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of June, two-thousand thirty-eight ay-dee." Damned if I can tell how the inanimorph works a voder with stone paws, but she (?) does. Too bad her machine's only reciting random words and phrases. Zelinski's doing better; she actually got her voder to say "My name is Mary Zelinski." On purpose, yet. The150s sound better than I do, damn it, but then I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. Focusing on technical matters — how well my students are or aren't using the Kurzweils — helps me keep a lid on my annoyance.

I assign homework (practice with the 150s), and then it's over. Dennison and Anthony drive themselves home; Zelinski's picked up by some random luxury car; Chuck and Borman ride the bus; and the innie, the stone dog, walks downstairs. What are the odds of the vixen's ride being an incognito limousine? I make a note to check the license plates with the DMV.

Only after I'm finally alone do I let myself unclench. I didn't come anywhere near losing it; the scents of the bird and fish didn't make me any hungrier than usual; all in all, it went better than I expected. Of course, 'better than I expected' just means I didn't dismember anyone...

"How did it go, Jubatus?" Who else? It's the damn bunny.

"No blood got spilt. Guess that means I'm stuck teaching next week's class, right?"

Puzzled, the rabbit wrinkles his fuzzy nose. "Why wouldn't you be? Judging by what I saw and heard from your students, you did quite well — as I knew that you would!"

Sigh. "Phil, has it ever occured to you I might have a ''reason'' to be a pain-in-the-ass loner?"

"Well, you're a cheetah-derived animorph SCAB. Which means that you're influenced by cheetah characteristics, including their solitary nature, are you not?"

He doesn't get it — wonderful. Time for an object lesson. "That's right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Hold on a sec..." The Shelter's got a few board games; Monopoly, Yahtzee, like that. I upshift, grab some dice, downshift. "...okay. See this?" I say, holding one of the dice before me. "Got a deal for you. Roll it, and if you get anything but a one, I give you a million dollars."

His ears skew at odd angles. "What's the catch? If I ''do'' roll a one, do I have to pay you?"

"No catch, the money's yours either way — but if you roll a one, somebody within a twenty-block radius of here ends up maimed or dead. What do you say, Phil?"

He stares at me for a moment and says, "No."

"Why not? It's an honest die; there's five chances in six that no blood gets shed!"

"Perhaps, but it's that ''one'' chance in six that bothers me!"

"Come on, that's not even 17%!"

He shrugs with his ears. "I don't care. I wouldn't roll that die for a million dollars."

Suddenly I've got ''two'' dice in my hand. "Fine. How about now? Same deal, but nobody gets hurt unless you roll snake-eyes, a one on ''both'' dice. That's a 35-to-1 longshot, less than 3% chance of it actually happening. How about it, Phil?"

"Still no."

"Okay," five dice, "how about ''this?'' Five ones, that's a little over point-zero-one percent, just one chance out of 7,776. Isn't that worth a megabuck?"

"No, it —"

"Ten dice!" I say, putting them on the desk between us. "One million dollars, Phil. ''One. Million. Dollars.'' Only one chance in sixty million they come up solid ones."

"Only one chance in sixty million that someone gets hurt, you mean!"

I shrug. "Details. Alright, how about a ''billion'' dollars? I'm good for it, you know. Roll these ten dice, and one gigabuck is yours, free and clear!"

Stunned, the rabbit stares at me for a while until he finally says, "I don't care how many dice it is, and I don't care how much money it is either. I'm not going to do it, Jubatus."

"Why not? For the love of Mammon, you're throwing away ''one billion dollars'' because of a sixty-million-to-one longshot! Don't you ''want'' to be filthy rich?"

''"Not like that, I don't!"''

My voice is quiet — "Good." — and his face goes blank with surprise. Then I go on: "I'm not perfect, Phil. I got mood swings make a rabid wolverine look like a Zen master. I can fuck up, ''bad.'' 'Can', hell; I already ''have!'' And with my kind of speed —" I break off, almost managing not to shudder. "You're damn right I worry. Wouldn't you?"

He doesn't need two swats from a clue-by-four. "Oh."

"Yeah."

And again: "Oh!"

I dig out a smile from somewhere. "Don't worry, me going postal on any given day ''is'' a world-class longshot — billion-to-one, trillion-to-one, somewhere up there. The real risk is long-term: If I keep rolling those dice, they ''will'' come up snake-eyes sooner or later. The only question is when. And if you're wondering how I can justify putting innocents at risk by hanging around the Pig, it's because the odds of me having a lethal breakdown will go ''way'' up if I ''don't'' interact with other people."

"I think that I see the problem now," Phil says thoughtfully. "You believe that your life is like an unending game of Russian roulette, do you not, Jubatus?"

I nod. "Pretty much, except it's not ''me'' who'll get hurt when I lose. The thing is... what choice have I got?"

"Perhaps you don't have any better alternatives," the rabbit acknowledges. "But then again, perhaps you ''do!"''

"Oh, really?" I bet I know where he's going, so I cut him off before he can get there: "Look, Phil — if you're thinking about taking me on as a client, forget it. My days are 150 hours long, remember? There's no point in you reinventing wheels I considered, and discarded, years ago."

His ears shrug for him. "Very well, let's say that it truly would be a waste of time for me to try to help you. What difference could that make? It is, after all, my own time to waste, if I so choose!"

"Gimme a break! You're always pissing and moaning about the ones you lost, so why make it worse for yourself? Why the hell would'ja want to fart around with ''me'' when you could give more attention to someone who ''really'' needs you?"

"I see your point, Jubatus, but there are two factors that you haven't taken into account. And the first one is that whether you know it or not, you already are a client of mine, and have been ever since the night we met!"

Suddenly it's my turn to say, "Oh."''''' Now''''''' he tells me.'' "And... the other factor?"

"When I work on you, I ''am'' giving attention to someone who ''really'' needs me."

It's not often that I'm left without an appropriate comeback...

"Of course, I must admit that I don't give you as much attention as perhaps I really ought. Not that I don't care about your well-being, not at all! But truly, your case just isn't as urgent as the rest of the ones I deal with. And unlike you, I simply don't have the ''time'' to do everything I want to or need to, Jubatus." He sighs. "Speaking of which, I've a date with Clover that I'd greatly prefer not to be late for, so I simply must say 'good-bye' now. Good-bye!"

And then I'm alone again. Just the way I like it. Right?

{{Separator|stars}}

Time flies, even when you're not having fun; I've got 43 contracts in various stages of completion, ''i.e.'' my usual workload. And where do I find the time to handle all the tasks related to teaching my class? I could've cut back a little, freed up some hours for classwork, but I didn't because I can get the extra time from upshifting. Of course, my concept of 'classwork' may be a little more expansive than some people's. F'rinstance, take the car that picked up Zelinski. DMV files say it's a TransportElegance rental; TE records indicate that it was paid for by a corporate credit card; and according to SEC databanks, 51% of that particular corporation is held by one "Alison Gomez". Care to guess the maiden name of Zelinski's wife? Yeah. Such a coincidence, that. Just another drop of data in the stream I'm sucking in, the better to figure out what the hell is going on in the Zelinski household.

Then there's Jenny. The Shelter's inquiries went nowhere, but then ''I'' wasn't the one asking the questions. Not that I expect to do any better, mind you. All I've got to go on is SCABS; an apparent gender (which may or may not be the one she was born with); a given name (ditto); the date on which this innie first showed at the Shelter (which only puts a lower limit on how recently she could've SCABbed over); and a dog's likeness (which may or may not have anything to do with any pet she may have owned or admired). What the hell — that's why God invented internet spiders and agent software. The count so far: 137 possible 'hits', each one a false alarm. Good thing computers don't get tired or distracted.

Maybe I ''am'' trying to do too much... every once in a while I get this funny feeling, like someone's looking over my shoulder from behind. Nobody ever is, of course, but my hackles keep rising anyway. Okay, I'm paranoid, but it's not usually ''this'' bad! Sigh. Must remember to get more sleep. Sometimes I hate being a cat...

{{Separator|k|the second week}}

Second class rolls around; everyone's present and punctual, even the rock. "Good evening, people. How you doing, Dennison?"

"I, am, fine. This, voder, is, harder, to, work, than, I'd, thought."

''With '''your''' webbed fingers? No shit, fish-boy.'' "Bummer. Keep at it. What about you, Borman?"

The cricket's voder says he's doing okay, and his superintendent claims they'll return him to active class duty once he re-learns how to talk. I don't sneer or contradict; granted, he's an utter moron if he believes what he's saying, but I don't have time to set him straight. Okay, maybe ''I'' do, but the slowpokes here don't. I wish him luck, then I continue the impromptu survey of my students' level of skill with the voder. Only item of note is that Jenny's box yelped "Pangloss!" when I got to her. Why? Thoth only knows...

That done, I explain we'll cover sound sources this time. Then I hit a key, and my laptop plays a thin, weak, wispy tone, like an anemic flute. "Anyone care to guess what this is? No? Fine. It's the sound produced by the human voicebox. Some damn fool back in the 1960s let a doctor shove a microphone down her throat to record the actual vibrations produced by her larynx, and that's what we're hearing now." I let the sound continue a few seconds before I kill it. One of my students' hands is raised, so I ask, "What is it, Anthony?"

I note that tiger-boy's using the KV-150 I handed out, not his VoxPop. "If that's a recording of the human larynx, why doesn't it resemble speech?"

"Like I said, it was recorded deep in the throat, at the source. So we're hearing the waveform ''before'' it gets worked over by nasal resonance cavities and like that. Same deal as how a trumpet mouthpiece sounds a lot different when you play it by itself, without the rest of the horn." Then, to the class at large: "Remember what you just heard! As long as you're good for ''any'' sound ''whatsoever,'' there's a chance you can turn it into intelligible speech. You already know how Norms make noise, so let's check out how other species manage..."

Between putting anatomical diagrams on the walls, playing relevant sound files, explaining what it all means, and answering questions when someone needs further clarification, I'm pretty busy for the next clock-hour and a half.

"...inflection, at the very least! Alright — here's your homework assignments." I pause, scan the class. ''Who to start with...'' I roll mental dice and turn to fish-boy.

"Dennison," I say, looking straight into his bulgy eyes. "I'll bet you're wondering why I haven't ''already'' given up on you. After all, fish are intrinsically silent, right?" He nods his head. ''"Wrong.'' It just so happens that ''some'' fish damn well ''do'' make noise!" I start to count on my fingers: "Angelfish, parrotfish, silver perch, red drum, black drum, and more than 200 other species. Most of 'em got this air-filled, internal swim bladder they smack around. Ever heard of the oyster toadfish? Didn't think so, but you're ugly enough to be one, and that sucker's got specialized muscles to swat its bladder up to 200 times per second. So if you ''are'' a toadfish, you should be good for pitches topping off right around G below middle C. And if not? Well, we'll just have to find out what you are, won't we?" A quick upshift, and a sheet of paper appears on his desk. I continue as he picks it up to read it: "27 questions, and I'll want the answers two weeks from now."

Then it's the bug's turn. "Borman. You're mostly a cricket — can you chirp like one?" He nods and makes the noise, two or three octaves below a natural-born cricket. "Congratulations. What you just did is called 'stridulation', and it's the sound source of a natural-born cricket. You want to arm-wrestle intelligible words out of it, you're gonna need to vary that sound. Can you? Damn if ''I'' know; that's ''your'' homework. I'll want a sound file. Get cracking on it. And by the way: If stridulation doesn't work for you, there's at least two other avenues you can explore before you abandon speech."

I let the bug ponder my remark as I look at the inanimorph... ''What's going on inside that rock? Are you even '''there''', Jenny? Is '''anyone''' there?'' Nothing in those dull, grey eyes, or at least nothing discernable to me. Sigh. ''Moving right along —'' "Calgonetti. What's up with you, guy? Considering how well natural-born mynahs talk, it's hard to see why ''you'' should have ''any'' problems with speech, let alone take more'n ''ten bloody years'' to re-learn it. So... what's the story?"

"It is not for us to question the Lord's will," the preacher's voder says. "I have faith that He will return my voice to me at a time of His choosing."

Sounds like a rehearsed answer to me. "Uhhh-''huh.'' Would that be before or after the Second Coming?" Oh yeah, ''that'' hit a nerve. Good. Bird-brain glares at me as other people make amused noises. "Come on, Chuck. You're gonna have to work with me here. 'God helps those who help themselves', am I right?" A sheet of paper 'teleports' onto his desk. "But I digress. Your homework is ''phonemes'' — the individual sounds that serve as the fundamental building blocks of spoken language. English uses 40 of 'em, each one of which is on your list there, and you're gonna record 'em all. I don't care what format you use, just let me know if it's cassette or MP3 or what, I want three samples of each phoneme, and I want you to bring the recording in two weeks. And that goes for you, too, Borman."

Chuck's not happy. His voder says, "What if I cannot make all the sounds?"

Looking at him and the cricketmorph, I shrug. "Try 'em and see. If there's any you can't do, all it means is that SCABS worked over your noisemaker worse than I thought. Get on it."

Then I turn to the fox. "Zelinski. How's your voice, girl?"

Her smile strikes me as a lot more genuine than mine usually is, and she's game to try: "Oowwwwrrr..." Oh, well. Too bad she's not there yet. She taps at her voder — a Magnavox Express; wonder what happened to the KV-150 and where the new one came from? — which says, "I am prack-tiss-ing. I will learn."

I nod. "Can't ask for more than that. Keep it up."

"I will. I praw-miss."

I nod, and look at the last of my students. "Mr. Anthony," I say. A sheet of paper pops up on his desk. "You get what the bird got. Again, I don't care if it's MP3 or WAV or what, but it'd be nice if you can gimme advance notice of which."

He nods. His voder says, "MP3."

"Groovy. Email it to me any time within the next two weeks." To the whole class: "Remember, we've got a field trip next Tuesday, so I don't need your homework 'til the week after. For now... go home."

They leave, mostly. Tiger-boy sticks around after the rest are gone. He says — ''he'' honest-to-God ''says'' — "Ehhhrro, Djju-bhadd-huzz."

"You've been practicing, haven't you."

He nods, then gets his VoxPop out of an inside pocket. "Yes. I've also done some research on you."

''Oh, joy.'' "That's nice. Want a cookie?"

He smiles and goes on: "No, thanks. You're helping me; I just wondered how I could help you in return."

An idealist? Will wonders never cease. "Help ''me?'' Forget it — you can't. Anything else the rabbit twisted your arm about?"

Tiger-boy looks hurt for a moment. "Phil didn't twist my arm, Jubatus. But he ''did'' warn me what to expect from you."

"If he said I can be blunt, rude, offensive, abrasive, difficult, obnoxious, and generally antisocial, he was right. Anything else you want to know before you leave?"

The hint is as subtle as a sixteen-ton weight. Even so, whole clock-seconds pass in silence, me staring a laser-sharp, unblinking gaze into his eyes, before he gets the message. "Next week," his voder says. Then he's gone.

A few seconds later, I quit staring at the door. I can't really say I ''like'' stomping on people like that, but... it's better this way. Lesser of N evils, honestly.

Sigh...

{{Separator|stars}}

The next week's pretty boring, so I'll just give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. More hours put in at the Shelter; the net-spiders researching Jenny turned up another 950 false alarms, plus three leads I haven't ''yet'' proven bogus; I've sucked down a lot more information (financial and otherwise) related to the Zelinski household — I'll bet Mrs. Allison noticed that somebody's been poking their snout into her family's private affairs, because somehow, I just don't think it's coincidental that she's boosted the budget for security (real-world and cyberspace both) within the past couple weeks. Like I care. As for the contracts I handle in my day job, it's five down, 38 to go.

Business as usual, really.

{{Separator|k|the third week}}

Third class is a field trip. To Derksen's clinic. Would have preferred to start the class there, but this was the first Tuesday evening the doc-roach's lab was free. Remodeled the living space in my Extremis; there's four new seats (rented) in back. Those plus the passenger's seat up front will handle the five humanoids, and there's also room for Jenny the Rock to lie down. Hey, why ''shouldn't'' I play chauffeur? I'm the teacher, it's my responsibility to see that the class gets to where it needs to be, right?''

''Good: Everyone's a little early, especially the foxy lady. She's delivered by what looks like the same pair of bodyguard-types, driving the same car, as got her home last week. She smiles at me, and she ''(not'' her voder) says: "Hrraiie-yhheaarh, Dj... Tchew... hraour!"

I nod without smiling. "Better'n last week. Keep practicing, you'll get there soon enough."

She digs her Magnavox out of her purse to reply. "I know I will, but. In the meantime. It can be frustrating."

''Now'' I smile. "Tell me about it. You're getting off easy, lady — ''you'' have an instructor who's been there himself."

"Which you didn't," her voder says.

"Yeah." Shrug. "Ready for the field trip?"

"Oh, yes. Allie was very pleased. She's always wanted to —" and one rent-a-thug reaches over her shoulder to press the voder's 'mute' button.

"What did Miss Allison tell you about violating her privacy, Miss Mary?" says the thug.

The vixen's face spends a moment at 'pissed off' before shifting over to 'mild embarrassment'. She un-mutes the voder, nods at the thug: "You're right, George. I shouldn't discuss family business in public." To me, she (or at least her voder) says, "Apologies, Jubatus. Yes, I'm ready for this field trip. And I've been looking forward to it. Are we really going to see Dr. Derksen himself?"

"Doubtful. He's booked solid until the 12th of Never, you know?"

That gets a couple of yipping laughs out of her muzzle. Which is about when Dennison shows up, with Anthony following close. Not so very much later, me and my class are tooling along towards the doc-roach's lab. The rent-a-thugs weren't happy about the fox being in ''my'' car instead of with ''them.'' That's nice. They weren't ''explicitly'' instructed to stay within arm's reach 24/7, and even if they were, I couldn't care less.

The traffic's thicker than I anticipated. 38 clock-minutes later, I pull into a reserved space in the parking lot of Derksen's lab. My passengers talked; I paid attention to the road. Guess which hired limo stayed within five car-lengths of us all the way there?

Derksen being a big name in SCABS research, his lab's security is a couple notches above the norm — you never know when some idiot Nazi wannabe, Humans First or whatever, will take it into his head to strike a blow for stupid people everywhere. Me and my students pass through the outer gate without incident, but Zelinski's thugs get detained when they set off an alarm. Good. There's two more layers of protection I'm aware of, and Vulcan knows how many others. I wish the thugs joy of them all.

I'm intimately familiar with the doc-roach's torture chamber — his primary examination room — from all the times he's worked ''me'' over. Being the highly exotic breed of chronomorph I am, it's only natural that a world-class SCABS researcher like Derksen would want to observe the hell out of me, as often as he can... oh, joy. He's here. I was afraid of that. On the plus side, he's practically human today. Soft skin, blond hair, no antennae, compound eyes only a little bigger than human normal. See, Derksen's one of us; he's a polymorph SCAB, insectoid forms his specialty, and the roach traits kind of creep up on him when he's irritated or preoccupied or whatever. One more reason I'm glad not to be a shapeshifter myself.

"Hello, Jubatus," he says, and his voice is a hell of a lot smoother than when he goes ''blattidae'' on you. Damn it. " I don't suppose —"

"That's right, you ''don't'' suppose. And you don't get another crack at me for seventeen days."

"Oh, well; can't blame a mad scientist for trying!" He sounds happy, but even with no discernable chitin on him, his scent is too roachy for me to tell his ''real'' mood. BFD.

I snort my disagreement at him. "Whatever. Since you're here, does that mean you're gonna make yourself useful checking out the fox?"

"Yes." ''Now'' he's serious. "Among other things, I find it curious that her medical records are silent on a number of points that ''may'' add up to grounds for a malpractice hearing."

My ears prick up. "Oh, really? Then what's the story with Dr. Gordon?" I ask, referring to the physician in charge of the Zelinski case. "Is he corrupt, or just incompetent?"

At this point, Derksen's face hardens — literally — as exoskeletal plates form. ''"That'' is what I intend to find out. Either way, it's clear that this Dr. Gordon has no business working with SCABs; the data from this examination will tell me whether I should push for censure or disbarment." Then he sighs, and his plates soften a little. "Excuse me, Jubatus," he says, and then he's off to supervise a whole-body scan of Jenny, the stone dog.

There's an empty chair off to one side of the lab. I sit back and let Derksen (and his flunkies) scurry around the place with various implements of medicine. It's actually kind of interesting to see them work on ''someone else.'' Hell, this time I don't even mind the stench of disinfectant!

Derksen & Co. conduct a sextet of ''very'' thorough physical examinations, covering everything from respiratory airflow to basal metabolic rate to speed of neural transmission to God knows what-all else. The doc-roach is going the extra mile, and then some — I'd only asked him to cover the vocal tract — but if that's what he wants to do, it's fine by me. That's odd... they've left off a number of procedures he likes to use on me, but then they also include a few I'm not familiar with. I make mental notes — the lapses and additions probably have to do with my chronomorph power, which I don't want ''anyone,'' Derksen or no, to learn ''too'' much about.

Hmm... maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that Derksen's concern for Zelinski goes a little beyond the standard doctor/patient relationship..? Whatever; it's none of my business.

Entry to exit, we're done in four clock-hours. Zelinski's thugs aren't around when we leave — how sad. The drive back to the Shelter is uneventful; my passengers are too busy comparing notes to bother me. I park, five of the six bug out, the vixen doesn't.

"Waiting for something?" I ask.

Foxy's fingers touch her voder, but it stays mute. She looks at me. I look back. Her machine finally says, "Were you always male, Jubatus?"

''Huh..?'' I consider asking why she wants to know, but I decide to just answer the question. "Yes."

She spends a few seconds thinking before her voder speaks up again. "Then why are you so angry?"

"Angry?" I snort a laugh. "Like ''any'' SCAB needs to ask."

Dead air. Zelinski's not happy. Before anything else can happen, a particular rented limo screeches to a halt beside us. I point a thumb at them.

"Your ride's here," I say. "See you next Tuesday."

{{Separator|stars}}

The homework showed up across a week, starting last Friday. Tiger-boy's arrived first; birdbrain's came last. Funny how that works. Right now I'm in my classroom, reviewing the assignments over lunch. Nothing from Jenny — not that I expected anything, of course. But what ''could'' I have assigned her, damn it?

Inanimorphs...

Lots of people fear them, with good reason — check out any of the 'true crime' books about inanimorph perps — but I just think they're damned weird, is all. Strictly speaking, I guess I ''should'' be afraid, since innies are among the few things in this world with half a chance of hurting me... but I'm not.

''Thank you, Jay Nelson Xavier.''

"What the —"

Somehow, I '''know''' that the voice I'm hearing in my head ''(not'' my ears) is Jenny. And when I turn to look at the stone dog, I see... something. Can't make out details — my eyes can't decide whether it's transparent or not — wait, it's solid now. Human body, female, which I (again, 'somehow') '''know''' to be an idealized version of Jenny's pre-SCABS body. Clothed, yet.

Her lips don't move: ''Is this form more to your liking, Jay Nelson Xavier?''

I evade the question. "Call me Jubatus, I use the other name for business. Thanks for what?"

''For your downshifting. The single-minded intensity of your concentration. For giving me something to focus on. I am grateful.'' ''What you did allowed me to... obviate? Reify? — no. I am sorry, you lack the vocabulary.

''"Whatever. You know, there's paperwork to fill out if you're dropping the class..."

For the first time in my life, I 'hear' a laugh that ''really is'' like the tinkling of bells. No mockery in it; I '''know''' that she's just appreciating the absurdity of the situation... ''Thank you again, Jubatus. It is very good to exist in human reality.''

"There's another kind?"

''In a manner of speaking. If two people perceive the Universe so differently that they cannot communicate, are they truly living in the same reality?''

Philosophy? Feh. "Yes, they are," I say. "Look, it's not like you need a speech tutor any more, so why are you here?"

''As I said, Jubatus, I am grateful. I want to express my gratitude in tangible form.''

'Tangible form'? Heh! The first image that comes to mind is impossible — I'm a cat, and she's dead — but she apparently picks it out of my brain anyway. And suddenly, without any warning, Jenny's a cheetah, too! She's fur-naked, and there's this indescribable ''scent,'' and she's stepping towards me, and — ''Very well, Ju-''

''"'''No!'''"'' I scream from the far corner of the room, only twitching a little. "No. That's, ah, no. None of that. Really."

And then she's back in her chair, back in human form, and a repentant sigh echoes lightly through my mind. ''I misunderstood...'' ''I apologize.''

It's easy for me to calm down, because I '''know''' her remorse is genuine. "That's, um, okay. So. You can read minds."

A light touch of uncertainty... ''In effect, yes. While I am not truly telepathic, I have certain... perceptions...''

"...which I lack the vocabulary for you to describe."

''I'm afraid so.'' This time, I '''know''' the communication gap's got her as frustrated as me — maybe more so — but she's honestly doing the best she can. ''I really am sorry — all of '''this''', being an inanimorph, it's still very new to me. I hope you can forgive me my errors.''

I shrug. "Not a problem. No harm done, you didn't mean it, and you learn from your mistakes. Right?"

''Right,'' she 'says', and for a moment I feel — ''something'' — like someone walked over my grave? Or like I'm being ''watched'' from every direction at once? Vocabulary again. Not really painful or unpleasant; just, I don't know, weird. Whatever the sensation is, I don't miss it when it stops. ''It's so very hard '''not''' to make mistakes with an unfamiliar set of abilities you've only just acquired... wouldn't you say?''

I give her a tolerant, rueful smile. "Tell me about it."

''As if I need to!'' Her sympathetic amusement is clear. ''But seriously: You did me an enormous favor, and I want to reciprocate. What would you like?

'''What would you like?' If it was anyone biological, I'd tell them to forget it — but this is an ''inanimorph'' 'talking'. And innies can do pretty much ''anything,'' blowing off physical laws as needed...

The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

She's 'silent' for a good ten-fifteen clock-seconds. I don't press her, and clouds of uncertainty and intense concentration drift through my brain as the time passes. ''I... don't know. I '''think''' I —''

"'''Do it!'''"

She's taken aback by the force of my command. That makes two of us.

''Let me finish, please. As I was going to say, I '''think''' I can eliminate all traces of Martian Flu virus from your body. That much I'm reasonably sure of. Changes inflicted by SCABS are a tougher problem, but I may even be able to undo them, too. The problem is, I don't know what condition you'll be in when I'm finished! Yes, you '''might''' return to your former, human, self; but you could also end up a normal cheetah, or even dead. If I try this, it could ruin your life, your very '''existence''', in any of thousands of different ways. On second thought, make that 'millions'. Is this a risk you really want to take, Jubatus?''

Rhetorical question. To be human again — ''fully human!'' — well, let's just say it's one hell of a prize Jenny's dangling before me. How can I believe she's up to the task? How can I ''not?'' There may be no hope of a cure from any ''human'' agency, but that doesn't say squat about what an ''innie'' might be capable of! ''"Do it,"'' I repeat.

She's quiet for a long moment before she 'talks' again. ''Jubatus. You '''do'''''''' '''''realize that just as I can perform actions far beyond any limits of biological life... so, too, can I make mistakes far more terrible than anything biological life is capable of.

''"No shit, Sherlock."''

You know this, but you still want me to try.

''"Got it in one."''

You're absolutely certain.''

"You're damn right I'm absolutely certain," I snarl. "Stop screwing around! Shit or get off the pot! ''Do it, or fuck off and...'' oh, hell. Just... do it."

Another longish pause, then she 'says', ''Very well. I'm going to scan you now, Jubatus...'' and suddenly that bizarre 'watched from all directions' sensation is back, in spades, doubled and redoubled. It feels like she's poring over my entire life, back to the moment of my birth and forward to my eventual death, simultaneously — and no, I haven't got Clue One ''how'' that impression entered my sensorium. Then my mind is drenched by a mixture of embarrassment and pity and regret and endless, bottomless sorrow.

''Oh, dear...''

"What's wrong?"

''You... don't even know, do you, Jubatus?''

''Huh?'' "What the ''fuck'' are you talking about!?"

''I really and truly am sorry. But I... I just '''can't''' give you what you '''really''' want.''

What the — goddamn bitch! It's my ''life'' she's toying with! "'Can't', or 'won't'?" I growl.

A foreign sigh drifts across my frontal lobes. ''If you must put it that way, it's 'won't' —

''I've had ''more'' than enough. So what if she's an inanimorph, ''nobody'' jerks me around like that! ''No-fucking-body!'' I don't let her 'say' another word: "Then get lost. Go find another fly to pull the wings off, you goddamn corpse."

''Please, let me exp-''

Okay, ''that'' is the proverbial '''''it'''''''.'' I scream and upshift high and leap straight for her lying throat and —''

''— and then the world turns inside-out around me and it's like I'm ''moving'' in some direction I wasn't previously familiar with and —

— disoriented, I blink. ''What the... oh, hell. I missed another meal, didn't I?'' With my high-speed metabolism, I've found that my higher brain functions tend to seize up after a couple of clock-hours without food. ''Better get a snack once I'm done here.''

Let's see... Jenny just asked what she could do for me. Right. The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"

''I'm afraid not,'' she 'says', and I '''know''' her regret is sincere. ''Maybe at some future time, but right now, I don't even know if it's possible, let alone how to do it.

''"You mean innies ''aren't'' omnipotent?"''

''That gets me a mental cloud of tolerance/amusement/sympathy/self-effacement. ''You may find it hard to believe, Jubatus, but we inanimorphs '''do''' have limitations. They're just, different, from the ones you live with.''

I roll my eyes. "Oh, well." ''That'll teach me to hope...'' "Since you can't do what I want, I guess I'll take a rain check."

Either she's old enough to know the term, or she learned it when she scanned me earlier: ''Alright, a rain check it is.'' A sequence of 40 digits drifts across my forebrain, and I '''know''' I'll never forget it. ''Type that number on any computer or telephone keyboard, and I'll be there for you.''

"Do I want to know the details?"

A mixture of amusement and frustration, both mild. ''Yes, you do, and if you had the vocabulary, I '''would''' explain.''

"Gee, thanks. I'm beginning to see why you guys don't usually hang around with us ''living'' types."

''Tell me about it,'' she 'says', her words and tone echoing an earlier remark of mine. ''And thank you once again; now I know what I should '''do''' with myself.''

"Gonna play Speaker-to-Breathers, huh?"

A tinkling giggle dances through my brain... ''Something like that, yes. Farewell, Jubatus. Until we meet again...''

...and I'm alone in the room...''

{{Separator|k|the fourth week}}

Homework. Birdbrain did a decent job on all 40 phonemes; tiger-boy did better; foxy lady did best of all. I flatly ''will not'' think about how her voice is gonna end up sounding. The bug's — Borman's — stridulation is a little iffy, but not bad for a first shot. Dennison? My questions for him amount to an abbreviated Piscine Anatomy 101 final exam, and he aced it. 25 answers dead-on correct, the other two ''technically'' invalid but strongly arguable anyway. As for Jenny... she's outta here. All her paperwork and computer files are in order, not that anybody noticed her turning in any forms or anything. None of my business anyway (he says, with a shrug).

As for the class itself (number four in a series of ten — collect them all!): Anthony sounds better than I do, goddamn his near-intact throat. I give 10:1 odds in favor of the bastard regaining full human speech before the final class session. Calgonetti? Phonemes he's got down pat, but he can't ''quite'' manage to put 'em together into honest-to-God ''speech.'' Funny, that. Chalk up another one for 'self-imposed mental block', and I go out of my way to rub salt in his wound. He'll thank me for it later, right? Borman actually surprises me by stridulating recognizable phonemes; only three of 'em, granted, but I didn't think he'd be able to swing it ''at all.'' Not this early, anyway. Good sign. Dennison turns out to have an internal swim-bladder, complete with swatting muscles, and he demonstrates it with a kind of "ahh-eee-ahh" that more-or-less spans an augmented fifth.

And then there's Zelinski. Her eyes aren't as bright as last week; her vocalizing is decidedly worse than before; and she fumbles with her voder like she'd only just started using the damn thing yesterday. Oh, and I could tell her scent was 'off' (including what the 'new' chemicals were) before she stepped into the classroom. I do the math, and the answer is clear: She's drugged. Given the data I've already acquired re: the Zelinski household, there's exactly 1 (one) person who could've done it to her: Alison Zelinski, her 'loving' spouse. You think I'm pissed off? Damn right I am. ''Nobody'' has the right to fuck up someone else's free will like that! I stifle my anger for the duration of the class.

This week's homework is pretty much a rerun of last week's; more phoneme-practice, singly and in combination. When the rest leave, I ask the vixen to stay. She gives me a vague look: "I muost gho homm," her voder says. "Mizz Awl-lee dee-uz-int wand me tu ss'tay owwit laid."

"Maybe so, but she also wants you to relearn how to talk, am I right?" Zelinski pauses, then makes with an uncertain nod, and I go on before her voder can say anything else: "You need a little extra attention right now, is all. That's what we're going to do tonight, and if Miss Allie doesn't like it, you just tell her it's ''my'' fault, how's that?"

I keep an eye on the parking lot while I talk — an occasional momentary upshift, nothing the fox even ''can'' notice in her drugged-out state — so I see the TransportElegance limo as it pulls in. Good thing Zelinski rather likes the idea of having some time away from home: Her face slides into an off-kilter grin, and her voder says, "Ohh khay!"

"Great. Now, sit down and close your eyes; I've got a big surprise for you." She obeys. I upshift. Four-point-eight clock-seconds later, she's in the back of my car, seated in front of a big-ass computer display with '''''Newspaper Tycoon VII''''' running. The rent-a-thugs in the limo think Zelinski's still in the Shelter; I brought her down so fast they didn't — couldn't — percieve ''anything.'' I could care less if they try to look in the Extremis; there's a couple aftermarket features that normally let me sleep in private, but they work just as well now. Specifically, the electrochromic film on the windows (currently set to Total Eclipse), and the cab divider in front of the cargo space.

Zelinski makes with a little squeal of delight when she opens her eyes. "There you go!" I say. "I've got the game set up for voice commands, but you can also use mouse and keyboard, if you'd rather. Need any help?" Apparently not — her fingers dance on the keyboard as she dives right in.

"Thank you," her box says, "but I don't believe that will be necessary." Interesting: Her skill with the voder is distinctly higher now than it was a few minutes ago. Good.

My cel phone has a wireless link to the Extremis' video cameras; that's how I know when the rent-a-thugs leave their vehicle for the Shelter. Absorbed in an orgy of virtual capitalism, the vixen doesn't even notice when I drive off. The rent-a-thugs won't be following us — not with their distributor cap in my glove compartment, they won't. Upshifting can be useful at times...

At this point, I'm not sure what the deal is with Alison Zelinski. Sure, I know ''what'' she's done to her ex-husband, but I don't know ''why,'' and the 'why' matters. Well, I'll find out soon enough.

Guaranteed.

Moving right along: Most people think the "Betty Ford Clinic" is just a punchline, what with all the rich actors and singers who supposedly go there to detoxify or whatever. Wrong. The Clinic is ''very'' real, ''very'' discreet, and damned good at what they do. And they've got a SCAB-friendly branch office in the west end of Pennsylvania. A couple hours of air-conditioned driving, and foxy lady is safely deposited there. The staff was quite professional, even while enrolling an unscheduled client at 2 AM. Wasn't exactly 'no questions asked', but that's okay; what with all my poking around the Zelinskis' private affairs, I had the right answers.

{{Separator|stars}}

So. It's 9 AM Wednesday. By now Alison Zelinski's ''got'' to know that her gendermorph hubby has evaporated. Odds are, she hasn't slept. She's probably shitting bricks wondering when the ransom note will arrive. Wish I could've seen her face when ''my'' e-note ''did'' arrive in her inbox...

<tt>FROM: J. Acinonyx (fiver@jubatus.nucom)

SUBJ: re: Mary Zelinski's vocalization

I'm afraid that Mary's progress in class has been disrupted by a set of problems beyond my capacity to solve. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of securing an outside specialist who can help her overcome these problems. I would like to speak to you in a private conference, at your earliest convenience, about preventing a recurrence of these problems. When would be a good time for you?</tt>

Heh! I think I hit ''just'' the right chords; aside from the none-too-subtle hints that I know ''exactly'' what she's done, I've all but confessed to the kidnapping. Best of all, the language is sufficiently innocuous that no lawyer or judge could regard the note as evidence of ''anything'' nefarious. How long will it take Zelinski to decide that her only option is to talk to me?

I get her answer at 2:26PM. She wants to meet this evening, her place, 8 o'clock. As usual, I got clock-hours to kill — oh, joy. In between working on my legit contracts, I make contact with the Zelinski home network. Well, well: Miss Allison has been researching ''me,'' much good may it do her. Security protocols are unchanged, which just means that if she ''is'' planning any surprises, she's doing it offline. Do I have a plan? Damn straight I do. No point wasting time in conversational parry and riposte. Instead, I'm gonna blitzkrieg the bitch — hit her fast and hard, from multiple directions at once, changing attacks before she can adjust or reply. Considering how easily I torque people off just because, it'll be interesting to see how bad I can rattle somebody when I ''work'' at it. All of which assumes there's no armed resistance or whatever. If there is, no problem: I upshift and nuke it, after which Zelinski gets my ''undivided'' attention.

The clock-hours crawl by...

8PM — showtime. The Zelinski house is a bloated, two-story carbuncle with a bunch of underground floor space; when I ring the bell, the front door is opened by a familiar-smelling rent-a-thug. His demeanor is designed to intimidate, not that I give a damn. He says, "Miss Allison will receive you in the living room," and leads me inside.

The living room turns out to be an interior chamber with a good chunk of one wall taken up by an oversized flat-plasma display. Once I'm there, a female voice says "Thank you, Marcus. That will be all," and thug-boy leaves as we both sit down. This voice belongs to a female norm, straight black hair, semi-dark skin tone. Judging from her scent, she's a little shaky, uncomfortable, and trying not to let it show. Let's see how fast I can coax a reaction out of her. "I'm... my name is Alison Zelinski," she says.

"Jubatus," I reply.

"Would you..." She breaks off with a sigh. "I'm sorry, this is all so complicated..."

Shrug. "Seems pretty straightforward to me. Your hubby SCABbed over seven months ago — different sex and species. She's been stoned out of her gourd ever since, courtesy of ''you.'' I'm curious, how many doctors did you go through?"

"Excuse me?" Hmmm... steady pulse and scent... nope, her confusion is just an act. This isn't the first time my SCABS-heightened senses have come in handy.

"How many doctors?" I repeat. "Before you found one who didn't care ''what'' he did to Mary, as long as your checks cleared."

Okay, ''now'' it's a genuine response: High-end anger. ''"Mister'' Jubatus, I'll tha-"

Her words are drowned under my "Shut up, bitch." My vocal control may suck rocks, but I can definitely go Loud when I feel like it. ''"You'' may not be old enough to remember date-rape drugs, but ''I'' sure as hell am, and the only difference I see is that you ''married'' your victim first!"

"I — you —" From 'calm' to 'stuttering, with pulsing vein in forehead' in under 7 clock-seconds. I love it when a plan comes together. "How ''dare'' you!"

''"How dare '''you''', lady!?'' Go play the Righteous Indignation card somewhere else, 'cause I'm not interested. What I've got on you, I could nail you to the wall in court yet — and I just might."

It's working. I can practically smell her brain cells burning out as she ''almost'' keeps up''.'' "You — you'd never win!"

I give her a nasty smile, heavy on the fangs. "Bets on that? Imagine your face plastered across the front page of every newspaper in a 1,000-mile radius, not to mention all the broadcast media and net coverage. Think of all the editorials. Visualize the Zelinski name permanently associated with cute stuff like anti-SCABS bigotry, chemically-mediated enslav-"

''— attack: threat level high: 12 o'clock —''

— oh, hell. It's not the first time this has happened: My instincts trigger an upshift without ''my'' say-so, because they don't like something in my immediate vicinity. In this case it's Zelinski, floating in midair, with hands poised to do some damage. Physical assault? Gosh, I must've hit a ''very sensitive'' nerve. I ''could'' tear her several new assholes... but instead, I just move around to lean on the back of her chair, resume a tempo of 1, and watch her land, clumsily, on the couch I just vacated.

Confused, she looks around, and I speak when her eyes meet mine: "That was your first free shot at me. Hope you enjoyed it, because ''nobody'' gets ''two."''

"Bastard! I'll sue —"

I laugh, a cruel, venomous noise that shatters her focus. "Hah! Go ahead and try, for all the good it'll do you. Face it: Whatever you do, you ''can't'' stop me opening a can of worms ''you'd'' much prefer stay closed. Me, I could care less about bad publicity — can you say the same? If you think you can ''possibly'' fuck up a SCAB's social status any worse'n it ''already'' is, feel free to try. Who knows, you might even be able to come up with something that's '''not''' ''prima facie'' grounds for a libel suit. Should be fun."

"You..." I can smell fear, anger, concern, and confusion fighting it out in her scent. Fear wins. "Alright. Do your worst, you monster."

"Says the bald ape who arranged a permanent brainwashing prescription for their own spouse," I retort. "Alright , ''Mrs.'' Zelinski. I've got half a mind to sic my lawyer on you anyway, but I'm a reasonable man. Play it straight with me, I'll return the favor. Fuck with me, and I will ''own'' your sorry ass. Your choice."

Fear and guilt: A powerful combo. They're both on her face and in her scent. Eventually, she gets herself under control again. "What... what do you want?" she asks.

She's defeated, alright — scent doesn't lie — so I get down to business: "I want the truth. ''Why is Mary a drugged-out zombie?"''

Zelinski kind of sags in her chair. She sighs, doesn't (can't?) look at my face. "I... no one ever intended..."

A few seconds after she trails off, I kill the silence. "I'm not hearing a 'why'."

"It's... complicated..."

"You already said that," I point out. "Feel free to start at the beginning. Alternately, how about I just leave, wait 'til Mary's done getting detoxified, and let ''her'' decide how many new orifices to rip out of your hide? Your call — pick one."

She goes for 'start at the beginning'. Takes her an unnecessarily long time to spit it out: Hubby SCABs over (fur and tits), goes nutbar over the gender thing, needs to be sedated for his/her own protection... and ever since, Zelinski makes sure hubby gets a fresh dose whenever she's ''too'' close to sober.

"You... didn't know Martin before," she says, as if her words were threading a minefield. "He was... difficult to live with, not —"

I cut her off. "So. Fucking. What. If ''Mary'' wants to be permanently blitzed, fine, but guess what? ''That's not '''your''' goddamn decision, lady!'' So here's the deal: As of now, Dr. Gordon is off Mary's —"

"What gives you the right to interfere with the private affairs of this family!"

Zelinski shuts up when I look directly into her eyes. She looks right back. Both of us are way the hell pissed. Her anger is cold like liquid helium; mine is hotter than a deuterium-fusion torch.

Zelinski breaks first. When she lowers her gaze, I speak up, as inexorable as a glacier: "What, ''exactly,'' gave ''you'' the right to '''''interfere'''''''"'' — I spit that word out with a freightload of sarcasm — "with your spouse's mind and free will."

Her scent goes heavy on shame, with a side order of fear. No other response.

Okay, fine. "Like I was saying, here's the deal. One: You ''will'' sever ''all'' connections, professional and otherwise, between Mary and ''Doctor'' Gordon. Two: You ''will'' accept ''whoever'' Dr. Derksen recommends for Gordon's replacement. Three: You have ''no say whatsoever'' about Mary's medical needs — you ''will'' do ''anything'' the new guy says, agree to ''anything'' they recommend, and generally treat the new guy as if they're the Voice of God Himself. Four: If, at ''any'' time in the future, I find out that you have ''ever again'' so much as ''dreamed'' about '''''interfering''''' with Mary's medical treatment..." Here I whisper, as lethal as a sack of cobras: "I. Will. ''Destroy.'' You."

Zelinski crumples in silence. Her eyes glint with highlights that weren't there before — poor fucking baby.

I give her 15 clock-seconds; still no reply.

I'm out of there. Nobody gets in my way, not Marcus the thug nor any other hireling. Fine by me. The mood I'm in, I'd go ''through'' them. Not a good idea to leave a trail of broken bodies. I give the Extremis a once-over when I get to it; nope, no signs of tampering. Only then do I let myself relax. A little, anyway.

On the road, I don't think about what I just did. I don't ''want'' to think about it. I just drive. I want to — no. Bad idea; I ''don't'' want to get drunk.

Well... maybe just a little...

{{Separator|k|the fifth week}}

It's none of my business, of course, but I keep an eye on the foxy lady over the next few days. Just to make sure Miss Alison stays the hell ''away'' from her ex-husband's treatment, is all. And wouldn't you know it, Zelinski makes quote, remarkable, unquote, progress. Think it might have something to do with ''not'' getting pumped full of mindfuck drugs on a regular basis? Funny how that works. Even so, the Ford medics insist on keeping her there "for observation" for another 8-10 days, minimum... which means she's going to miss a class. Maybe two.

In other news, I close 5 more contracts before next Tuesday. 33 more to go; I might run out before the tenth class. Hey, I ''am'' taking it easy — I haven't accepted any new clients since I started teaching the class.

Speaking of which, this session (the fifth) has a guest lecturer: Donnie Sinclair. And while he's scribbling at my students, I fill in for him behind the counter at the Pig. That's the pound of flesh he demanded before he'd do what I asked. I hate the idea; I mean, I don't ''do'' crowds! But since it puts a three-foot-wide ''faux''-marble countertop between me and the customers, it should be okay... right..? Aside from that, I have no idea how Donnie creates and maintains the Pig's SCAB-friendly atmosphere — so I won't even ''try.'' Instead I'm going to pour the booze, keep a paranoid eye on ''everything,'' and stomp on anything that smells like it even ''might'' be trouble. I just hope I can stay alert until closing time; for whatever reason, SCABS left me with a half-hour-long sleep cycle. Mind you, I don't ''have'' to conk out that often. I can actually stay up five hours at a time, but that's kind of like a norm staying up for five days solid... well, that should be enough. Hopefully. I'm pretty sure, anyway.

Having a few weeks' advance notice, I did my usual obsessive prep work beforehand. The cash register is a late-2016 NCR job, tablet-style touchscreen; before I'm through, I know it better than Donnie himself does. I'm packing 47,583 different drink recipes on a PDA, complete with recommended ingredient substitutions for when stuff runs out, and the thing happens to be equipped with a wireless internet hookup in case somebody wants something outside the onboard library. More recently, I confirmed that the Pig's supply database is 100% up to date (I double-checked each item myself). Come the fatal Tuesday, I make sure the lavatories are fully loaded — which is trickier than you might think, since the Pig's bathrooms accomodate a ''wide'' range of SCAB body types. Comfortably, yet. I also stash a couple dozen pounds of beef jerky behind the counter; the kind of calories I burn, I'm gonna ''need'' that protein...

And then it's showtime.

The hours pass in a blur. ''Jesu Christe,'' there's a shitload of customers — ''I'' sometimes have trouble keeping up with the orders! Upshifting doesn't help, because I ''have to'' understand what all you damn slowpokes are saying. And that means my tempo needs to be ''real'' close to 1 most of the time...

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Gimme a Stattenvorl."

I take orders.

"Three shots of Jack Daniels, straight."

I make change.

"Vodka martini for me, an' a Purple Ray for the li'l lady."

I pour booze.

"— tellya, I wuz on top'a th' world —"

I hate it. Sob stories from self-pitying morons — gaah! I pay those twits as little attention as I can manage. Most of 'em take the hint and stay the fuck ''away'' from the counter; occasionally I delegate one to Wanderer or somebody ''via'' an an upshifted note in their glass.

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Atomic Firewater!"

I take orders.

"Scotch and soda, heavy on the soda."

I make change.

"— ''you'' gonna do about it, runt?"

Oh, fucking ''joy.'' I quit pouring. Commotion by the dart board; there's a St. Bernard-derived animorph SCAB who can't aim worth shit, lost a bet, and is now proving himself to be a welching asshole and a ''mean'' drunk.

I point one finger ceilingward. "'Scuse me a sec," I tell the customers I haven't gotten to yet. Then I zip over to the big dog, telling him, "You lost, Bernie. Pay up and deal with it."

He's like six-foot-thirteen and 380 pounds, none of it fat; me, I'm five-eleven and forty-odd kilos. Seeing this as he turns to look down at me, Bernie makes with a contemptuous grin. "Who's gonna ma-''yeee!!!"''

There's an instant cloud of ozone and burnt fur — I didn't let Bernie ''see'' my TASER, but he damn sure ''felt'' it. He hits the floor like a 380-pound sack of dog food. Upshift, extract his wallet from a pocket, downshift, hand the wallet over to the norm-looking guy that beat Bernie. I say, "Take your winnings out of this," then I upshift again, this time so's I can haul Bernie's ass out the front door. We cheetahs are stronger than we look — we ''have to'' be, since our legendary top speed is muscle-powered — and besides, I've found that local gravity gets weaker when I upshift. Put 'em together, and I'm not even breathing hard when I set Bernie down on the sidewalk outside the Pig.

Once more behind the counter, I inhale dried meat, downshift, and pick up where I left off — elapsed time 8.6 clock-seconds in all. "I'm back. You there, what do you want?"

I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.

"Make mine a Jumper Cable."

I take orders.

"Bacardi 151 on the rocks."

I make change.

"Irish Coffee."

I pour booze.

Time goes on. The clock-hours spin and gyrate...

...and suddenly I blink, confused at what I see before me. ''Minotaur?'' I ask myself. ''That's — hold it, what's Donnie doing here..?

Ah. Right.''

The place is damn near empty, only a couple of stragglers still hanging on; I must have signaled Closing Time already. ''Thank any applicable god... Oh, yeah. Must ask...'' "Hhhh..." I stop, close eyes, swallow, restart. "How'd the class go?"

Donnie shrugs, then gives me an interrogative "Mmm?"-and-look combo.

I'm tired. My head hurts. "If you're asking how ''my'' end of the deal went, it sucked. I have ''no'' idea how you can ''stand'' doing what you do. Can I go now?"

Donnie looks at me with some inscrutable bovine expression. He nods.

I do likewise myself, no words. I manage to drag myself out to the Extremis, get inside, and lock up before I collapse...

{{Separator|k|the sixth week}}

Week 6: Nothing much happened. Okay, I ''did'' lose another student, but it's all good... I guess...

On Thursday (that being July 29th, if you've lost track), I get a call from out of state — the Betty Ford Clinic. Guess which of their recent patients put in a request to chat me up, personal-like? Right — ''her.'' No reason given. Well, what the hell. I got time to kill, like always, so I agree to do the conversation today. I make time for it (and I ''do'' mean '''make'' time'), and at 5 PM, I'm in Mary Zelinski's private room at the Clinic.

She screws up her face a little, concentrating, and says — ''she'' honest-to-Thoth ''says! — ''"Hhhee-rhho, Tcheu-baddhuz."

I smile and nod. "Hello yourself, Ms. Zelinski. Needs work, but not too damned shabby. Y'know, if you wanted to let me know you're dropping the class, you could've just sent me e-mail..."

Despite herself, the foxy lady smiles. Only for a moment, but it's ''there.'' And then she goes on: "Iiayy, w''rr''ahndtuu... ''hrraauuw!"'' A frustrated yowl. Frowning, she picks up her voder, which just happens to have been lying on her nightstand, and lets it speak for her. "Yes. I'm dropping your class. This is about something else. What happened to my wife?"

I wasn't expecting ''that.'' If I had eyebrows, I'd raise them. "It matters?"

Angry and some other emotion fight it out on Zelinski's face; Angry is losing, ''big'' time. "I'm not sure any more," her voder says in its incongruously level tone. "I'm not sure I want to know. But I must know. And you can tell me. Can't you?"

''Oh, fucking joy.'' "Yeah. I can. But just remember, you ''asked'' for it..." And I make with an infodump. I give Zelinski the whole story, everything from when I first read her file to when I hammered on dear little Alison. The foxy lady doesn't interrupt; she sits there and absorbs it all without making a sound. And then I'm done...

"...back to the Pig, to get smashed."

At this point, Zelinski isn't the least bit angry. She's kind of hunched over into herself; her voder lies, forgotten, on the bed next to her.

I wait a bit, then kill the silence: "You asked. I answered. Is that it?"

The vixen pulls herself together. "Yes," her voder says, "that's enough." Then her fingers pause over the talk-box. A few moments later, it recites the words she'd been typing; it gets as far as "I wish" before she hits the 'abort' button. She starts over, her hands a little shaky: "Tank you mitt sir Jubatus. You comforted my suspectings. Please lever me out lone."

Which I do. The Ford Clinic staff wants to debrief me; I blow off most of their questions with variations on, "Ask the foxy lady — it's ''her'' call."

And then I'm on the road again, driving back home.

{{Separator|stars}}

Nothing much happened for the next week or so, and that includes during the next class session. Fortunately. I've been on the short end of too damn many surprises already...

Wait, there was ''one'' thing: The bug. Borman. He can actually stridulate one-syllable words! He sounds lousy (still better than ''I'' do, damn it), and it sucks up so much of his attention and concentration that changing to a different syllable is a major feat, but when all is said and done, he ''can'' talk. It's just a matter of practice, honing his currently-primitive skill.

{{Separator|stars}}

So I'm coming in for today's stint at the West Street Shelter. I'm not three steps past the front door when this lightly morphed rat-SCAB, a new addition to the staff, says Splendor wants to see me in her office right away. What does she ''want'' from me? Hell if I know — but 'in her office' means it's a private conversation, and ''that'' cuts ''way'' back on the number of alternatives...

By the time I open her office door, the short list is down to about three possible agendas. I close the door. Splendor's just beginning to greet me; I interrupt her, saying, "You want I should work somebody over."

She blinks. "What makes you... never mind. Actually —"

Some things are best stopped ''before'' they start. I cut her off again: "Not interested. Go find someone else to play shock trooper. I'm sure there's ''plenty'' of people around here who'd ''love'' to put a hurting on some asshole who desperately deserves —"

"That's exactly why I want ''you'' for this job!" Her turn to interrupt, it seems.

My turn to blink.

"Okay..." I finally say. "You've piqued my curiosity. Explain."

"Thank you. First, some background." She opens a file drawer, pulls out a manila folder, hands it to me. "Read this."

Upshifting, I follow her advice. 'This' is a collection of eyewitness reports — seems that Splendor has an unofficial network of informers all over the City. It's mostly surveillance on the comings and goings of various lowlifes, but there's also some educated guesses on what said lowlifes will be up to in the near future. Hmmm... if I'm reading this right, it looks like the West Street neighborhood's been relatively low on criminals for a while, and a gang from outside the City is planning to move into what they perceive as a vacuum.

I close the folder, slip back to a tempo of 1 — "Done." — and return it to her. "Alright, that's the background. So what?"

"I know the local thugs, and I've gotten most of them to stop committing their crimes in ''my'' neighborhood."

"Bully for you." I've got an uncomfortable feeling I know what's on her mind, but — "And I should get involved... why?"

She gestures at the folder. "The Cargill Mob. If they establish a presence here, it will be... well. Let's just say it would be best for all concerned if they don't. I want to dissuade them with a show of force; give them a demonstra-"

"No. I flatly ''refuse'' to play enforcer."

''"Will'' you let me ''finish!?"'' she says, glaring at me. Well, what do you know — the snake-lady actually ''has'' a temper. I gesture for her to continue; she does. "I've set up a meeting with Jocko Cargill," — head honcho of the eponymous Mob, says her files, real name 'Giocomo' — "and I want to be accompanied by people who I can be ''absolutely certain'' will not initiate any hostile action."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I say without much sarcasm. "So what ''do'' you want from me?"

"You're welcome. And I want you to serve as bodyguard."

Damn... it's not often that I'm left speechless...

"Frankly, I'd be a fool to trust Jocko as far as I can —" '''''BLAM!'''''

''— attack: threat level extreme: 2 o'clock —

''Damn... the whole south wall's erupted with itsy-bitsy explosions. The instincts upshifted me to a tempo of 35-40, somewhere up there, and the ambient noise Dopplers down like always; I can see...

Holy limping Hephæstus — ''I '''can''' see the bullets moving!''

It actually takes a couple seconds of my time before I snap out of it and get to work. Numero Uno: Digital camera from my vest, aim it at the wall's exit wounds, leave it floating in midair at1,000 shots per clock-second. Numero Two-o: Shpritz a layer of DeadGlove (inert polymer in a spray can) on my hands, grab bullets out of the air, store 'em five-to-a-mylar-envelope. Would've preferred individually-wrapped, but I ran out — wasn't prepped for ''this'' many projectiles! Numero Three-o: There's a second wave of airborne crap (shards of window glass, wood chips, nails, yada yada), so I sweep it all to the carpet and bury it under several dozen pounds of books to make sure it don't go noplace it shouldn't ought to.

I retrieve my camera — good, it's still got 91% free RAM — and there's nothing visibly moving at the moment, so I downshift to a tempo of 1 so's I can hear if there's any more impacts. There aren't any, but I ''do'' hear screams and wails from casualties, damnit! Well, hell; they probably won't die in the next few clock-seconds, so I upshift my tempo to 35 and avoid the jagged remnants of windowpane in the frame as I go outside to get some good shots of a late-model Chrysler, nicely framed between a lamp post and a dumpster; driver and two passengers, shabby paint and no discernable plates. Oh, and a pair of rifle barrels sticking out its side windows, complete with muzzle flash and ''more fucking bullets'' on the way. The car's tilted forward, which means the sons of bitches are braking to give themselves more time to shoot.

Fine. I move in, camera ''k'chnkk''-ing away as it stores images of the bullets and their source, and when I'm in range, I reach inside the car; grab the front gun by its chamber; and '''''pull''''' the fucker out and down, with as much force as you'd expect from muscles that can shove a hundred-pound mass around at 70 MPH. Next up: A re-run with the back-seat firearm.

Both guns are firmly lodged in the dirt, barrel-first. The guys who ''were'' holding them have a bunch of fingers sticking out at ''real'' weird angles. Fuck 'em both. I'm busy — the guns are harmless, but there's all the bullets they ''already'' fired — okay, got the last one. My envelopes now hold seven bullets apiece.

Hungry now. I inhale a slab of beef jerky from my vest while I plan out my next move...

By the time I've made my decision, the dudes-in-car are starting to react to the abrupt change in their immediate surroundings; there's the beginnings of shocked/worried expressions evolving on their faces. Hmm... the car's not so tilted as it had been... betcha the driver's floored it. I grin as I extract a genuine Swiss Army Knife from a vest-pocket, unfold the (diamond-hard, waterproof, corrosion-resistant, tungsten/vanadium alloy) cutting blade, and slash a diagonal gouge all the way across the tread of the driver's side front tire. Not waiting for it to finish blowing out, I do likewise to the driver's side rear; then I step back onto the sidewalk, resume munching on shriveled meat, downshift to a tempo of 1, and watch the wreck change from 'incipient' to 'actual'.

As per my unwritten script, the car — driver's side, at least — drops to the pavement with a hell of a clang and a shower of sparks. Then it makes with a metal-on-asphalt shriek all the way to its 45-MPH collision with the dumpster. Oooh, no airbags! ''That's'' gonna leave a mark...

I finish my snack, keeping an eye on the perps in case someone feels like doing something cute; nobody does. I upshift high, strip all three assholes down to their underwear, expend an entire pocket-sized roll of duct tape making ''damn'' sure the perps are gonna sit tight where they are, clean out the glove box and trunk... and for an encore, I downshift and call in the whole sorry encounter to the local police precinct.

Citizen's arrest is a ''good'' thing, right?

Waiting for the cops to show, I drop back to my default tempo of 6 and amuse myself checking out my loot. No discernable ID on any of the trio — such a surprise — so we'll just see what their photos, fingerprints, and DNA (from impromptu blood samples) have to say about the matter. Again, the car is plateless, and there's no VIN either. As for the guns, they look like they could be Izakawa 'Divine Wrath'-model automatics. That, or else homebrew jobs. I sure hope it's the latter, since I happen to know that Izakawa doesn't ''do'' firearms for any ''civilian'' market.

Onward to happier thoughts. Let's see... the clothes look to be generic off-the-rack Target. Residual scent is mostly drowned under cheap-ass cologne, so there's not so much chance of getting olfactory ID off of it. Just one of the tricks criminals have learned for dealing with a post-SCABS world...

...ah. Someone's approaching — correction: ''Splendor's'' approaching. I downshift to match her tempo.

"Nice day, huh?" I say.

She grimaces a little. "Hardly. It seems I'm not the only one who felt a show of force might be appropriate."

"Seems like," I agree. "The timing's pretty interesting, though. It ''could'' be coincidence... but me, I bet Cargill had your office wired for sound. Not sure when."

Splendor nods. "That makes sense. Perhaps we should relocate this discussion to a more secure place?"

"No point. I mean, he's ''already'' eavesdropping, right? So he's gotta know his boys got ''way'' the hell hammered on, by someone who's ''literally'' faster than a speeding bullet. He may not be sure what other tricks I have up my sleeve, but I, for one, will be happy to help him learn — the ''hard'' way. Of course, that's assuming Jocko Homo has the balls, not to mention the requisite lack of functional brain cells, to suit up for Round Two."

Splendor's eyes widen, just for a moment, about halfway through my last sentence. Then she gets it and puts a subtle smile on her face. "I... see. I trust you know what you're doing..."

"Always," I state flatly. "And I know something else: That fucknose is ''toast."

''

The next few days are kind of busy, and not just because of my unfinished contracts (29 and counting) and speech-class-related stuff and helping Splendor deal with the listening devices. To begin with, I pore over police records and the snake-lady's files — but that's maybe a couple of clock-hours at most. No, what ''really'' occupies my time is what I ''do'' with the data thereby gained: I smash hands.

See, the cops have a pretty good idea of who-all is on Jocko's payroll, and what their particular duties are. Just because the authorities don't have enough hard evidence to nail a guy in court, that doesn't mean they're clueless about why he ''should'' be nailed in court. And if you're curious about why the police might grant a puny civilian — ''i.e.,'' me — access to this sort of sensitive information? Two reasons:

First, money talks.

Second, it seems I got a bit of a fan club in blue. Something to do with all those meticulously detailed complaint reports I keep filing any time some jackass messes with me or my property. I'm told that last year, about17% of all City trials for SCAB-related hate crimes used at least ''some'' data from one of my complaint reports — make it 23%, if you're only interested in ''convictions.''

The point is, I got a line on Jocko's ''whole organization.'' His ''entire'' chain of command, from him and his most-trusted seconds all the way down to his lowliest footsoldiers. And I also got several dozen of the freelancers he's most likely to call when he needs a little extra manpower.

Put it all together, I got me a good, long list of targets to hit... and hit them, I do. With a pair of bricks. At a closing velocity ''well'' in excess of the speed of sound.

I tap each of their hands twice. Hit Number One, the bricks are parallel to the plane of the palm; Hit Number Two, they're at right angles. Locating a target's never difficult. After that, I do my business, leave a card, and bug out.

The card, you ask? Just something I whipped up on a cheap-ass laser printer I bought, used for this one job, and melted to untraceable slag immediately after. Each card bears six words — "TELL JOCKO HOMO TO GET LOST" — and a single letter, "J".

No, as a matter of fact I ''couldn't'' just waste 'em all. Three words:

'''''I.

Don't.

Kill.''

'''Got it?

Aside from that, leaving Jocko's crew mostly-intact is a ''good'' thing. There's a lot to hate about organized crime, but one thing they get right is, ''you take care of your own people.'' 'Cause if you don't... well, either you take care of them, or else ''they'' take care of ''you.'' Not to mention, a rep for fucking over your underlings makes it a ''lot'' harder to get replacement thugs when you need them.

So. If I'd left Jocko with a pile of corpses, he'd just bury 'em and that's ''it.'' But he's got a pile of cripples instead, so he's got ''lots'' bigger problems — like medical expenses for the victims, rent and food for their families, yada yada yada. Unless he's just crazy, he ''must'' deal with all this stuff.

Well, maybe Jocko ''is'' batshit insane; doesn't matter. Crazy or not, he ''still'' needs warm bodies to do his business, right? Which means he needs a whole new 'army'. And if people know how badly he screwed his last gang, who the hell's gonna ''want'' to sign on with his ''next'' gang? Answer: ''No''-fucking-body. And no, Jocko ''can't'' just lean on people to ensure silence. Not while all the guys who ''would'' be doing the actual leaning are in hospital with mangled hands, he can't...

{{Separator|stars}}

Splendor catches up to me the day after the drive-by. Another ''tete-a-tete'' in her office, which is where two of the five bugs were. She did what I would've suggested if she'd asked: Left 'em all in place, just paying attention to prefabricated soundtracks rather than ambient sights and sounds. But as I walk through the door this time, she welcomes me with a gesture that (by sheer coincidence, I'm sure) switches off the 'bug bamboozler' I installed in this room. ''Confusion to the enemy, hm? Okay, I can play along,'' I muse to myself with a subtle hand gesture that she picks up on.

"Thank you for your promptness, Jubatus," she says. "How many eavesdropping devices have you found?"

"Two, I think."

"You... ''think."''

And then she makes with a disapproving look, so I put on a show of annoyance: "Damn right, I ''think!'' You got any idea how old this place's wiring is? There's all kinds of components that the only reason I could even ''recognize'' them is, I'm old enough to have seen 'em back in the '90s! And further-"

The phone on Splendor's desk rings. Twice. She picks up before ring #3, saying: "West Street Shelter. Splendor speaking."

I hear the voice from the handset, real clear. "Hey there, Miss Splendor! How ya doin'? I heard'ja had some trouble just recent."

Having heard that voice on some police surveillance recordings, I recognize it as Jocko Cargill; not sure about the snake-lady. "I am doing well," she says in a professionally-controlled tone that doesn't give away a damn thing. "If you'd care to tell me what business you have with the Shelter —"

"Yeah," Jocko interrupts. "I got business with you, alright: One'a your freaks dissed me, ''real'' badand it ain't the kind of thing you can clear up with an apology. I know the little pussy's ''there,'' so how's about you put 'im on the line, huh?"

"Ve-" she begins. A momentary upshift lets me confirm there's no incoming assaults; when I revert back to the normal tempo, she's turned on the speakerphone function, and she's saying, "-ell. He's here now."

"Jubatus," I say to the 'phone, playing my part. "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"I want a cheetah-skin rug, ''Mister'' Juba-"

"Well, if it ain't Jocko Homo!" I break in. "What's crawled up ''your'' ass, Mr. H?"

"Ha, fuckin', ha," he replies. It's hard to tell, what with the audio distortions of the telephone system, but I ''think'' his level of irritation just got boosted a notch or two. Good. "Funny, kitty-cat. ''Real'' funny. Lemme tell you what I do to little pussies that stick their noses where they don't belong: I skin the fuckers alive."

"You and what army?" I sneer back at him. "Get real, Jocko — you ain't got shit, and we both ''know'' it. Face facts: '''''I''''''' am the fastest SCAB alive.'' You ''can't'' threaten me — not when I can outrun any bullet on the face of the Earth! Hell, I can ''catch'' your damn bullets and throw 'em right back in your face!"

''"You're dead, you goddamn pussy!"''

I give Splendor a 'thumbs up' gesture as I hammer the needles deeper beneath his skin: "Go ahead, Homo — ''lose'' your temper. Blow a gasket, that's a good little thug. Let your blood pressure rise until your arteries explode. I'll be sure to dance a jig of grief at your funeral, and piss on your grave."

I hold my hand up, warning the snake-lady not to interrupt, for the few moments of heavy breathing it takes Jocko to regain a semblance of self-control. Which he does: "Okay... Okay... You got me goin' there, I admit it. Not too bad — for a ''fuckin' animal.'' Enjoy it while you can, Mister Kitty, 'cause you won't enjoy ''nothin''' after ''I'm'' done with you!"

"So you can tag somebody that can break the sound barrier under his own power? Not!" is my smugly confident reply. "Try a gas weapon, Homo. A poisonous cloud is a lot harder to dodge than a bullet, and ''maybe'' I won't zip through it so damn fast it doesn't have ''time'' to affect me."

"That's ''real'' fuckin' hilarious, Mister Kitty." — and now he pauses, just for a very short moment — "In fact, you're a goddamn comedian, ain't'cha? Well, it wouldn't be polite of me to keep you from laughin' it up, so I'll just say g'bye now." And he hangs up. I think about Jocko Homo's pre- and post-pause vocal overtones, as much as I could hear them over the telephone, as Splendor turns the 'bamboozler' back on with a heartfelt exhalation...

"Well," she says, ''"that'' was interesting. May I assume there was a reason you insisted on giving Jocko the bright idea to try chemical weapons?"

"Damn straight." I grin mercilessly. "Look: We SCABs have an insanely wide range of biochemistries, right? What that means is, you can spend however-many megabucks developing a weapon that takes out ''one'' SCAB — but you got basically ''no'' idea whether or not it's gonna affect ''any other'' SCAB! So let's say you're a weapons researcher who's just been handed a pile of cash to come up with an equalizer that'll work on people like us. Do you spend it on chemical weapons, knowing that it's a fucking waste of resources, or do you spend it on new and improved projectile weapons, which are ''guaranteed'' to work on ''almost all'' SCABs?"

She thinks it over a moment, and likes the answer: "In other words, you goaded Jocko into wasting some of his available resources on an intrinsically futile gambit."

"Bingo! Got it in one."

"Unfortunately, I believe there's a flaw in your thinking. What's to keep Jocko from attempting to acquire one of those experimental projectile weapons you spoke of?"

I shrug. "Calculated risk. Assuming Jocko manages to get his hands on ''any'' military hardware ''at all,'' I'm betting he won't get more than one or two pieces, if that. And the more he focuses on ''me'' in particular, the less he's gonna be able to do to ''anybody else."''

"I see..." Splendor just looks at me for a clock-second or so. "You're determined to play lightning rod, aren't you."

"Better me than one of you slowpokes," I say with a shrug. "What's your point? I'm the hardest target you've ''got,'' so why ''shouldn't'' I paint a bullseye on my chest?"

"No reason at all," she says in a neutral tone. "Thank you, Jubatus."

"For what? Premature much?" I grimace. "Save your gratitude until ''after'' we've dealt with the problem at hand."

{{Separator|stars}}

Jocko's no Jubatus. If it was ''me'' plotting an assault on the Shelter, I'd have researched the place in exhaustive detail ahead of time, including all of its resident SCABs and their combat-useful abilities. I'd also have worked up about 14 layers of contingency plans in case Something Went Wrong. And in particular, I would ''not'' have allowed my targets ''any'' breathing space ''whatsoever'' after my first attack. Then again, maybe Cargill did have a Plan B — Splendor doesn't think so, but, y'know, for the sake of argument? Like I said: Maybe the guy ''did'' have a backup plan, but I got my counterattack in ''before'' he could push the button.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Either way, I'm not about to let up on him. For one thing, I've only tagged 68% of the targets on my list, and if you're a slowpoke (which everybody associated with the Shelter ''is),'' just ''one'' disgruntled twit with a high-powered rifle is all it takes to ruin your whole day. For another thing, three of the targets on my list have ''already'' bolted and run, apparently the moment they heard about what happened to my first victims. Or ''did'' they run away? Could be Jocko ordered 'em to go elsewhere and pick up a few 55-gallon drums of industrial-strength Whupass. Again, Spendor doesn't think Jocko's subtle enough (or smart enough) to do that; I'm inclined to agree, myself. Nevertheless, it's a loose end that needs to be tied off ''before'' it trips up anybody who matters. I've uploaded a few spiders to the Net, to keep an eye on the runners' financial activity; nothing big, just what I need so's I'll have a little advance notice if/when they make a suspicious purchase wherever, or they return to this fair city, or yada yada yada.

{{Separator|stars}}

"Hey, don't get me wrong — I don't like killin' people any more'n the next guy! But what can you do when some fuckin' dipshit ''asks'' f-"

''— multiple attacks: threat levels high, extreme, extreme, lethal, extreme: 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 o'clock —''

— the instincts upshifted me to a tempo of ''40?'' Damn. Looks like my buddy Jocko is playing with ''very'' dangerous toys! A rather strong hammerblow to my back pushes me forward; I go with it, especially because there's a couple points on the back of my head that're feeling ''real'' hot just now. As I fall forward, the hot spots on my skull cool down a bit, and a second hammerblow glances off one shoulder.

Yes, Virginia, I got hit with supersonic bullets ''and'' military lasers. How did I survive to tell the tale, you ask? Tempo of 40, that's how. Upshifted that high, from ''my'' point of view the bullets were only carrying ''one-sixteenth of a percent'' of their 'full' load of kinetic energy; body armor did the rest. As for the energy weapons, my upshift cut their power — how much energy they deliver in a given amount of time — to only 1/40 normal, not to mention what it did to the photons' frequency. That kind of tweakage can really mess up a laser beam's innate capacity for destruction, you know? Still dangerous, but only if I'm dumb enough to stick around and wait for it to burn me. No, I can't outrun photons; then again, I don't ''have to'' be faster than light.

I just have to be faster than whatever's adjusting the laser's point-of-aim.

Moving right along: You damn betcha I'm prepped for beam weapons. Jocko may not be Jubatus, but ''I am.'' One vest pocket holds a few grams of light-sensitive dust; laser-safety goggles in another; a third pocket's got a matched set of six corner-cube reflectors. My left hand tosses clouds of powder into the air for the beams to reflect/refract off of, while I put the goggles on with my right... bingo! ''There's'' the beamlines — all three of the SOBs. Fine. Three corner-cubes, coming right up. I give each one a ''whole'' bunch of angular velocity so it twirls in place; that won't stop it from reflecting the laser ''exactly'' back the way it came, but it ''will'' reduce the amount of time any particular piece of reflector spends in direct contact with its beam.

The adrenaline rush is fading — I can feel blood vessels throbbing in my neck and scalp, not to mention the opening twinges of a killer migraine. That's what I get for overstraining my chronomorph power. I can't maintain a tempo of 40 for long, so I gotta make the most of each Time-shifted fractional second while I can.

Okay — the bullets. Only one source, thank Ares. They look to be moving at 40-45 MPH, which (after factoring in my tempo) means they ''are'' supersonic. Somewhere around Mach two-point-five, I think. The exact figure doesn't matter: I extract a pair of hand-sized metal plates from yet another vest pocket, align the plates at ''just'' the right angles, and thereby nudge the stream of bullets towards the trajectory I'd rather they follow. The headache's just begun, but I ain't got ''time'' to deal with the pain, so I ignore it. I give the room a quick scan; yep, the same four targets. Good. Hmmm... the first bullet just struck target 1, so I shift my 'bucklers' to redirect the stream to the next in line, then target 3, and finally Jocko himself. Bastard ''would'' ensure that ''he's'' not anywhere near the direct line of fire, damn it.

The lasers are gone now — ''quelle'' surprise, and I appreciate the corner-cubes' sacrifice — so it's time to deal with the gun-on-steroids. The cloud of drywall fragments tells me ''exactly'' where the bullets are coming from, so I leap straight at that point, twirling my hand-held shields before me in a paddle-wheel-type maneuver so's the projectiles get knocked out of my flight path into the floor. Each bullet-slap jars me up to the shoulders, in a rhythm that clashes against the pulsating throbs of my cerebral arteries. I hit the wall a little over the bullets' exit hole; no problem! I dig into the wall with the claws of two feet and one arm, and I use my free hand to ram a 'shield' right down the barrel of the damn gun.

Okay, it won't fit — it's too big — but ''you'' know what I mean, right? If I can clog up the barrel with its own bullets, I negate this particular threat. And the bullets keep coming; each new impact against the 'buckler' sends a ''serious'' shockwave up my arm and down my torso to rattle my internal organs. One... two... thr- ''Sn'f'fckngbtch!!!''

''Very'' bright light. Then pain makes a fast getaway as the world goes ''real'' dark...

{{Separator|stars}}

Lying down; I smell medicines and rubbing alcohol; right. I'm in a hospital. Private room. Kind of tired, but I don't feel much pain — apparently, I've been healing for a while? And... okay, I recognize ''that'' scent: It's Splendor. I see a light cast on her left elbow, neatly-applied dressings on her neck and the right side of her face, plus a glued-down patch over her right eye — and who knows what ''else'' she's hiding ''underneath'' her clothes. No cane; she must not've been hurt ''that'' badly. I downshift to talk to her...

"Hello, Splendor," I say. "I'm guessing the good guys won."

"Jubatus!" She seems a little surprised to hear me speak; not sure why. "Welcome to the land of the living. And yes, we did."

"Good. What happened after I fell asleep on the job?"

The lady makes with one of her oh-so-elegant veiled smiles. "You may have 'fell asleep', but I shan't complain. After all, a railgun ''did'' explode in your face..."

I roll my eyes. "Now tell me something I ''don't'' know."

"Of course," she says, nodding. "From what I could determine afterwards, I was outside the blast radius proper, but the shockwave knocked me senseless anyway. When I came to, I was naked except for the coils of duct tape Jocko had wrapped around me — and I knew it was him because he wasn't finished. I'm afraid he noticed I was awake before I'd quite recovered my wits; he took great pleasure in telling me ''exactly and precisely'' what he intended to do to me, now that you were too dead to protect me." Now she looks me in the eyes; her unblinking gaze makes it real clear (like it wasn't before?) what kind of critter that damn disease blended her with. I wait for the snake-lady to keep talking.

"And then he raped me." It's a flat, calm, statement of fact she's just made... "Which only proves that he was unaware of the ''full'' extent of what SCABS did to me."

My mind races — there's a few rumors about certain events in her past — I throw out an educated guess: "Projecting chronomorph?"

Splendor acknowledges my remark with a subtle inclination of her head. "Correct. I can only adjust other people's ages downward — but when sex is involved, the rejuvenative effect is ''permanent."''

I ponder the possibilities... "So you rolled his odometer back. How far?"

"I fully intended to 'roll his odometer back', as you put it, to the point at which his zygote originally formed." I blink at that. ''Okay... someone remind me never to piss her off...'' "As it happened, I didn't need to go that far; at the moment of his death, I'd reduced him to a first-trimester premature birth."

"Damn..." I picture the scene in my mind. "And since he ''was'' raping you at the time..."

"Exactly. Jocko was too distracted to perceive any difficulties until ''after'' he was physically incapable of doing anything about it. Now it's your turn, Jubatus. What ''did'' you spend these past few days doing?"

So I talk. Snake-lady listens — and from her occasional questions and comments, it's pretty clear that my info is mostly just confirming what she's already learned from other sources.

Doesn't take me long to finish the story. Splendor stares off into the middle distance for a while; I take the opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep...

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:John Moschitta School of Elocution}}

User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution

2008-02-23T10:58:10Z

Cubist: New page: {{title|name=The John Moschitta School of Elocution|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{WIP}} They call me Jubatus. Me being the fastest SCAB alive, I ''always'' have time to kill....

{{title|name=The John Moschitta School of Elocution|author=Quentin "Cubist" Long|user=Cubist}}{{WIP}}
They call me Jubatus. Me being the fastest SCAB alive, I ''always'' have time to kill... so I always need new ways to kill time, simply to avoid going mad from boredom. You could call it Parkinson's Law of Temporal Consumption: "Activities multiply to fill whatever you've got in the way of spare time." I didn't used to find this a problem — I got plenty of interests — but then, I also didn't used to think there could be more than 24 hours in a day. There can, particularly for people like me, to whom SCABS gave a seriously overclocked brain. That's short for Stein's Chronic Accelerated Biomorphic Syndrome, and can you blame anyone for preferring the acronym? I've got SCABS to thank for my being a bipedal cheetah with a train of thought that runs six times faster than anyone else's, which explains how come from ''my'' point of view, there's ''150'' hours in a day. Fortunately, I can control the rate at which my personal 'clock' runs; upshifting for greater speed, downshifting to interact with you slowpokes.
What do I ''do'' with all that time, I hear you ask? Whatever I damned well please, and six times more of it than I ever could before. Today, like pretty much every other day, it pleases me to spend a couple hours of clock time puttering around the West Street Shelter. Seems I've got a bit of history with one of their volunteers, a rabbit named Phil, and I like to keep an eye on him. Think of me as a guardian angel with spotted fur and sharp, pointy teeth. May the good Lord forgive any fool who thinks he can give the rabbit a hard time, because ''I'' sure as hell ''won't.'' Phil is good people, and if anyone forgets how good people should be treated, I'm up for teaching 'em a quick lesson in manners any day of the week.
I'm not sure Phil notices, but I make a point of reducing my Dangerous quotient before I drop in. I trim my claws; I kill 'cheetah breath' with mouthwash; I also downshift to a tempo of around .95, marginally slower than the norm. Not that it matters whether he's consciously aware. The way I see it, he doesn't need to worry about a small flotilla of high-velocity knife edges zipping around him in loose formation. That's basically the reason I bother with the Shelter at all, when you get right down to it — reducing the level of hassle Phil gets from an important part of his life. The instant Phil leaves, I'm gone, too.
At this point, I'll bet some of you are wondering how ''anyone,'' a highly-morphed SCAB like me in particular, could possibly be indifferent to the good work done at the Shelter. You guys should talk to the ones who ''aren't'' asking; they're just as cynical as I am, and therefore ''know'' why somebody might be less than enthusiastic about ostensibly-altruistic behavior. Let's just say I'm a 'value given for value received' kind of guy and leave it at that, shall we?
I suspect Splendor (the sometimes cold-blooded mistress of West Street in general, and the Shelter in particular) has an idea of what I'm ''really'' about here, but no matter how our philosophies may differ, she's too pragmatic to reject assistance from any quarter. So far I've spruced up the joint's Net presence, made sure a few time-sensitive deliveries arrived on schedule, written two drafts of a Shelter procedures manual, and done a fair amount of websearching on a notable variety of topics, to name only four of the tasks I've fielded here.
Right now I'm seated in the lobby, not far from Phil's office. I'm continuing work on the Shelter's website. Specifically, the interface of the Shelter's online database of SCAB-friendly businesses. Got my PowerBook before me, and I intend to cut that interface down to size, or die trying. You'd be surprised how many 56K modems are still in service, particularly among the SCAB populace that's the Shelter's target audience. And even if ''you'' aren't surprised, the twit who originally created this interface certainly would be! I'll bet he was thinking more of how it would look in his portfolio than how it would serve the client, damn his highly-trained eyes. He had every pixel of the bloody thing thickly encrusted with bandwidth-sucking leeches — I'm talking 32-bit animation, Java-3 applets, multi-track sound files, and on and on. End result: Not only does the sucker take for''ever'' to finish loading on a slow connection, but it runs like an arthritic clam (when it runs at all) on any machine the intended audience is likely to be able to afford.
So far, I've sandblasted ''all'' the graphics down to bit-depths of 8 or less, and killed ''every'' piece of animation that had no valid reason to live. The payoff is that the download time over a 56K modem has dropped to 235 seconds. Yes, ''dropped.'' By a factor of five. I won't be satisfied until I reduce that figure to twenty seconds or less, and if I have to go with pure text to get —
Phil is nervous, I can ''smell'' it. That scent, the odor of frightened prey, drills straight to the vital core of my hindbrain to stir up predatory voices. I can't help that, but I sure as Artemis don't have to ''listen'' to what those voices are saying.
Being a rabbit, Phil scares easily; I don't want to overreact. I close the laptop, carrying it with me as I walk calmly over towards the converted walk-in closet he calls his office. He's with a client, a big sumbitch. From the back, the client looks like a norm with orange stripes dyed into his black crewcut, or maybe it's ''vice versa.'' I hear a VoxPop voder say, "Sorry, but that command was invalid."
"Grrrrrr..." I ''know'' that growl, it's the sound of an angry carnivore that's 1.5 seconds away from ''killing'' something! I upshift, the growl dopplers down into the deep subsonic, and tiger-boy freezes up like the rest of the world. I memorize my position and move in, get a clear view of ''exactly'' what he's up to... and breathe a sigh of relief. Tiger-boy is glaring down at the voder in his furless hands, caught in the act of stabbing one finger down to the touchscreen. He's got fur down his neck; thick black skin on the bottom of his very human nose; round pupils in his glittery, reflective eyes. Okay, tiger-boy's no ''immediate'' danger to Phil, but I still don't like his mood.
I return to my memorized position, downshift, pick up the walk where I left off. "Say, is that a Vox Populi voder I heard?" I ask. Tiger-boy doesn't react, but Phil looks up.
"Yes, it is!" the rabbit says in his cute, high-pitched voice. Not sure if he counts as tenor or soprano, I keep forgetting to ask Wanderer. Phil continues, "How much do you know about them? Mr. Anthony here is having a little trouble with his. Do you think that you could help?"
"I can give it a shot. Got nothing better to do," I say with a smile that keeps my teeth decently hidden. I make a show of looking for another chair, which of course there isn't — no room. "Alright. Mr. Anthony, was it? Good. My name is Jubatus. How about we go up front where we can both sit down?"
We move out, and Phil's distress is inversely proportional to the distance between him and us. I give tiger-boy some leading questions he can answer with head motion and/or hand gestures: He's a local. Single. Started to SCAB over eleven days ago. Spoke his last intelligible words nine days back. Just got released from hospital a week ago. Hasn't noticed any tigerish instincts yet. The salesman pushed him into buying a top-of-the-line VoxPop that he really couldn't afford.
We sit down in the lobby. I open the laptop, bring up SimpleText, set the voice for "Alfred, high quality", show him how to make it recite what's typed into the window. "Mr. Anthony, that salesman didn't do you a service," I say. "Vox Populi voders ''do'' sound as good as you were told, yes, but they're finicky bastards. If you're a novice, you'll have as much luck with it as a kid with a learner's permit would have with an eighteen-wheeler."
"Call me Felix," my laptop says for him. "Agreed. What replacement?"
I ponder for a moment. "If your heart is set on using a voder, I'd say go with a Kurzweil. The vocal quality sucks at the low end, but even the worst Kurzweil has clear enunciation, and you can make yourself understandable within two days tops. Most people, a couple hours' practice is enough. You want a KV-240, maybe a KV-200 if you're ''really'' hard up for cash. Anything less than a 200, well, it's cheap and it works."
"Voder not needed?"
Sharp man — he caught the implication of my 'if your heart is set on it' phrasing. I shrug: "Hell if ''I'' know. Depends on what SCABS did to your vocal tract. Can you open your mouth? I want to see what you've got to work with here." He opens, and it's a perfectly normal human mouth. Tongue, palate, teeth, jaws, all right out of a pre-'Flu medical textbook. With his flat face, I'll bet his sinus cavities are human-normal as well. "Looks good to me. Now let me check out your neck." I lay my hands on either side of his throat, taking care not to let my claws touch fur, let alone flesh; I don't feel a larynx in there. Not a good sign. "Okay, make some noise."
"Rrrrrrrr..." he rumbles. Nothing's vibrating in his neck.
"Keep it going." He does. I move one hand to his chest — ''there's'' vibration. "Alright, that's enough. You should definitely get a second opinion on this, Felix, but here's what I think: Your larynx is gone. That's the source of vibration for a normal human voice, and you ain't got one no more. No voicebox, just a purr-box. The good news is, the ''rest'' of your vocal tract looks okay, and if I'm right about that, it should be fairly easy for you to relearn speech." ''You lucky bastard,'' I don't say. "In the meantime, let's see what I can do with that VoxPop of yours. Got the manual?"
He does, and is happy to hand it over. I upshift high, skim from cover to cover, re-read the important bits, downshift. I'm a technical writer, cramming like this is what I do for a living. And the problem I'm now faced with is how to cut the bleeding options down to something a novice can manage. Damn thing's got more bells, whistles, and gongs than Office 2024 (yes, that's the version the Feds actually passed a law requiring Microsoft to recall every copy of), and thanks to a multi-layered contextual menu system, every last control and setting is accessible with no more than four taps on the touchscreen. Wonderful if you know what you're doing; otherwise, one misplaced tap gets you an Urdu accent thick enough to cut with a chainsaw — if you're lucky.
I do a slash-and-burn job on the on-screen controls, hiding 99.9% of them. I don't touch the semantic analysis subroutines, they'll ensure decent inflection, but I lock down the recognition parameters so Anthony can't screw it up by accident.
Next comes input. "You got the subvocalization options package?" I ask.
"Yes."
"Good. That'll help you retrain the muscles that shape your resonance cavities. But until you get the hang of it, you'll probably want to do input by hand. Palmspring user?" I ask, referring to one of the more popular PDAs.
"Yes."
"How's your shorthand?" SCABS has given the two major shorthand systems (Pittman and Gregg) a new lease on life after decades of slow, word processor-induced decline.
"Grafitti only." That's the simplified letterform system that was devised a few decades back as a practical solution to the problem of handwriting recognition, and pretty much every palmtop these days can handle it.
I nod. I turn off Pittman and Gregg, leaving Grafitti and the onscreen keyboard as the two manual input modes. As a final touch, if he manages to screw it up in spite of what I've done, I give him a friendly red button to click on that'll restore the damn thing to the state I left it in. And just in case he manages to nuke the button, I beam a backup copy of the configuration file to my laptop.
"Here you go. Use Grafitti, or click here to bring up a keyboard you can use the stylus with. Like so," I say, demonstrating. "And if anything goes wrong, this is the panic button — as long as that's visible, clicking on it should reset everything to this condition."
Oh yeah, tiger-boy knows his Grafitti. It's only a second or two before his VoxPop says, "That was impressive. Thank you, Jubatus. How are you at speech training?"
"You really want to learn how to talk from someone who sounds like me?" I ask with a smile. It's not a rhetorical question, because I ''know'' what kind of noise comes out of my mouth, damn it. Ever heard an old-time tracheotomy patient whose voice is driven by a hand-held electric buzzer? It's a nasty timbre, metallic and inhuman, and my speech has been compared to that. Unfavorably. And then there's a familiar whiff of nervousness in the air; Phil speaks up before I finish turning to look at him.
"I would if I were you, Mr. Anthony," says Phil. I aim a puzzled look in his direction. ''What's that rabbit think he's doing?'' He continues: "Jubatus would never admit it, but there's nothing human left in his throat and mouth. His speech is quite good, don't you agree?"
Phil can be devious and manipulative when it suits him. Fortunately, he's sworn to use this great power only for Good. I'll bet half my stock portfolio that I know what he's up to now. "So how many ''other'' mutes you gonna deliver into my tender care?" I ask him.
"Total of six," he says, bubbly and cheerful. "We've already started cleaning out one of the upstairs rooms for your class."
I keep my tone light — no need to disturb Phil's client. "And when were you thinking about letting ''me'' on on the secret?"
Phil waggles his ears in a noncommittal fashion. "I thought that you'd figure it out on your own, so I wouldn't ''have to'' say anything. Isn't that what happened?" he asks with an innocent, guileless expression. That rabbit has no shame. I think he had it surgically removed, unless SCABS got there first.
I get the feeling that maybe Phil manipulated ''me,'' and I don't ''like'' being manipulated. If the rabbit really did play me like a violin... Anyone else, I'd be thinking about how to make the bastard pay. But not Phil. ''Never'' Phil. As far as I'm concerned, he's paid so far in advance that ''I'' owe ''him,'' and I always will. I swallow my aggravation, and nod. "Alright. Six students, including Mr. Anthony here. No problem. You wouldn't happen to have any information on the other five, would you?"
"Sure," he says, hopping over to me. "In the backpack." Which he's wearing, so I open the main pocket and extract a set of manila folders. If you're wondering why he didn't just hand them to me, you should know that Phil doesn't ''have'' hands. His forepaws really are ''paws,'' bloody near zero manipulatory capacity. But ''he'' can ''speak,'' damn it! Somebody had to have helped him with the files, and I deliberately, explicitly refuse to become annoyed at this evidence of premeditation on his part. He thanks me and hops back to his hutch-''cum''-office.
Tiger-boy's VoxPop speaks up: "There really is nothing left of your human voice?"
It's the voder's built-in tone of polite inquiry — dunno what ''he'd'' prefer the question sound like. I take it at face value. "You can't tell? Yup, all gone. You're lucky, SCABS didn't even ''touch'' most of ''your'' vocal tract. All ''you'' have to do is learn how to work with a new sound source. Probably end up with an exotic-sounding tone in the bass register, good for attracting girls."
He starts composing a reply, then stops and looks at me. After a moment, his VoxPop says, "You sound bitter."
I hadn't intended to, but he's right. Vocalizing has always been a touchy subject for me, ever since I SCABbed over. Maybe tiger-boy is just offering me a sympathetic ear; too bad that kind of offer is one I'm not about to accept. ''Ever.'' "That's one reason I don't use a voder — most of 'em can't do emotional overtones very well. The VoxPop line is an exception, but you already know how delicate the controls are," I say with a shrug. "Anyhow, I'd recommend that you exchange the damn thing and get a more economical model, or at least one you don't need a Masters' Degree in to use properly..."
Tiger-boy leaves after I'm done giving him advice. I close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and breathe deeply; it took more effort than usual to keep a lid on my customary bad temper, and the voice thing is why. And then Phil's scent again —
"Are you alright, Jubatus?"
I don't bother to move or look at the rabbit. "Hello, Phil. It would've killed you to ask? Or even give me some advance notice?"
"If I'd asked, you would have refused," he says reasonably. "But I don't know what your problem is. Really, what's the worst that could happen?"
"You see me in a puddle of blood, none of it mine, on the Six O'Clock News," I say without thinking.
There's an elongated pause, broken by Phil. "You know what, Jubatus? You worry too much. And coming from a rabbit, that's saying something."
I almost laugh — of course, ''he'' doesn't know how goddamn close my scenario came to playing itself out, with him supplying the blood, when we first met. "Gee. Thanks."
"You're welcome. Gotta run — bye-bye!" And then the rabbit is gone.
Sigh.
A cursory scan of the files indicates that all six are animorph SCABs of one kind or another. I start with Anthony's file, which confirms what I already knew, then go on to Kerry Dennison. Sales clerk, married, no kids. He's a fish-morph, bulgy eyes and webbed fingers and scales all over, and a Godawful ''ugly'' bastard, to boot. The picture shows flat, wide tubing wrapped around his neck... ah. He's got (barely-) functional gills ''and'' the remnants of his old lungs; the tubing supplies water for his gills, and between them and his lungs, he gets enough oxygen to survive. No wonder his file has nothing on his current capacity for vocalization... the doctors would've had their hands full just keeping him alive, and his insurance ran out before they could do anything else.
Third in line, Mary ''(née'' Martin) Zelinski, is a living cliché: She's a fox gendermorph, a fuzz-covered wet dream who could've stepped out of a '''''PlaySCAB''''' centerfold. Formerly an investment banker with a trophy wife, the 'Flu giveth her an all-over permanent fur coat as the 'Flu taketh away her mind. She's not feral, just amnesiac — a near-complete ''tabula rasa.'' With her (former) profession, she's got to have money, so why is she here at the Shelter, instead of upstate at St. Jude Medical or the like? And how come she went through ''five'' doctors in her first month as a SCAB? Reading between the lines of the vixen's file, I can't help but wonder how much the ''other'' Mrs. Zelinski has to answer for...
File Number Four is a schoolteacher, name of Sawyer Borman. He's a man-sized insect-morph, cricket with an occasional grasshoppery touch. Basic body plan could be described as "humanoid with four arms". Doesn't even have lungs, ''per se'' — his body is thoroughly riddled with a branching network of air passages that oxygenate all tissues ''directly,'' never mind that considerations of airflow and surface area make that scheme unworkable for a critter as big as him. What the hell, he's a polymorph (with a limited selection of insectoid forms), I guess he can have an impossible metabolism if he wants to.
Next is the Right Reverend Charles Calgonetti. I'll get to him.
And finally... oh, joy. Inanimorph. This one's been living (?) at the Shelter for seventeen weeks now, ever since the day an animated, life-sized granite statue of a Great Dane showed up from nowhere. No ID, no clue to her former life — and even the 'her' is only an educated guess, based on the statue's anatomically correct details. At least she (?) answers to 'Jenny'. She can understand spoken or written English, but doesn't appear to be able to speak or write herself. Wonder how badly she's been disoriented by her radical transformation? Inanimorphs... well, hell. Just have to see what (if anything) I can do to reach her. It. Whatever.
After I'm done with my reading, I suspect the preacher's going to be the hardest nut to crack. Physically speaking, Calgonetti is a mynah bird scaled up to a body length of four feet, with avian-type talons at the ends of his feather-covered, humanish legs. Black feathers all over, interrupted only by a ring of iridescent white around his throat. Who says SCABS doesn't have a sense of humor? Chuck traded up from his human body eleven years ago, and hasn't spoken a word since. Pretty tough on a guy who'd been a professional talker.
A mynah bird, speechless? Yeah, right. My best guess is, he's got a self-imposed mental block about speech. This sort of thing definitely isn't my forte, but I'm betting he'll talk if I can piss him off bad enough. I'll try not to enjoy needling a man of God.
Okay, I'll try not to enjoy it ''too'' much.
But I digress... I don't recognize Chuck's denomination, but it's clearly not one of the bigoted ones: His flock — sorry, couldn't resist — have been supporting him all this time, providing sufficient resources (financial and otherwise) to keep him going until he's ready to get back in the pulpit. He's got a record, he does; over the years he's attended eight different speech classes, none of which did him any good whatsoever. He's always gotten good marks for attendance and participation, always declined use of a voder, always projected a congenial air, consistently maintained that the Lord will restore him to full voice whenever it suits Him to do so. All of which does nothing to explain why he's ''here,'' a bloody ''homeless shelter'' in a rotting neighborhood that's maybe three steps away from complete and absolute urban collapse, for the love of Ahura-Mazda.
I've got an uncomfortable feeling that I know what's ''really'' going on behind those beady little eyes. I think I may already have been where he is — except, of course, that ''he's'' got faith in the Almighty. I wonder how much of that faith is still alive in his heart right now...

I don't need to check the schedule. I work with the Shelter's online resources, I already knew that the speech class will begin three calendar days from now. Just didn't know who the 'teacher to be announced' would be.
Three calendar days. Plenty of time for me to familiarize myself with my classroom, work up a lesson plan, collect and/or create some teaching resources, talk to Donnie at the Pig, make arrangements with Dr. Derksen for use of his lab, and generally prep for the tutoring gig.

Time for the first session to begin. Butterflies in my stomach? Naah, the hornets killed and ate them all... I really shouldn't ought to be as nervous as I am. After all, I'm a technical writer; teaching people is what I do for a living! I just don't usually do it ''in person.'' And I also don't usually do it with topics that are quite so personal, topics that strike quite so close to the core of what a human being truly is.
Who am I kidding? I'm nervous because this hits ''me'' where I live. Even now I get the shakes just ''thinking'' about those first few days after I SCABbed over. That's when I ''couldn't'' talk ''at all,'' when I didn't know how to coax anything close to an articulate sound from my newly-remodeled throat, when I had no way of knowing whether or not I ever would be able to speak another word for the rest of my life...
It was bad. Leave it at that.
What the hell, it'll be a learning experience in more ways than one. ''
''No more waffling; I walk up the stairs, down the hall, and into my classroom. What do you know — Jenny's mass of stone doesn't exceed the limits of the Shelter's structural integrity.
Once at my desk, I upshift while setting up all the connections for my laptop, then look at each student in turn. "Hello. My name's Jubatus. I think we all know why we're here, so no need to belabor the point. The first thing you should know is that if you really ''want'' to talk, you ''can.'' And you'll do it before the end of this first session. That's a promise." I pause to let that sink in, then flip three small devices out of a vest pocket and catch them between the fingers of my other hand. Some of my students recognize the gadgets, which I hold up and fan out like a poker hand. "These are voders. Low-end Kurzweil models, KV-150s; nothing fancy, but they do the job. I've got one for everybody. And they're the reason I can make that promise.
"What I ''don't'' promise is that you'll be able to talk ''without'' mechanical assistance. Maybe you can, maybe not — it depends on two things. First, on exactly what kind of mess SCABS made of your vocal tract, and second, on whether or not you can figure out how to manhandle a comprehensible voice out of your ''current'' set of pipes.
"And hell, maybe you'll decide you ''don't'' actually want to talk. Even then, you've got options; you can learn Sign," — here I fingerspell ''AMESLAN IS NOT A VAN VOGT NOVEL'' — "and if all else fails, there's always the written word. Donnie Sinclair, guy who runs the Blind Pig, is mute and doesn't use a voder; I'll see if I can't get him up here to fill you in on living without a voice. I think that would be a mistake, myself, but it's ''your'' decision, and as long as ''you're'' satisfied, it's none of my damn business how you choose to live your life.
"And now that that's out of the way..." Here I pick a manila folder up off my desk, open it, look at the contents. "Couple of you guys have a bit of a track record. Calgonetti, says here you've been slacking off in vocalization classes for more than a decade," I say, hearing amused noises as I drop some papers into a convenient trash can. The bird doesn't appreciate my description. Good. "Dennison, you've got a signed certificate says you're permanently mute." I drop more papers. "As for the rest of you..." I shut the folder, send it to rejoin its missing contents. Then I take a butane lighter from a vest-pocket, ignite it, and toss ''it'' into the trash. There's a momentary ''FWOOSH'' as an inches-wide ball of flame rises up, dissipating before it hits the ceiling. It's pure theater — I'm just burning Xeroxes — but it does the job. All six of my students are focussed fully on ''me.''
"I don't give a flying fuck what ''anyone'' may have told you before today. Far as I'm concerned? As of now, each and every one of you ''will'' talk — or I'll know the reason why.
"Any questions?"
I wasn't expecting any response, but the bug makes a 'clickick' noise and raises his upper left hand while his upper right scribbles on a notepad in his lower pair. After he's done, a quick upshift and the notepad 'teleports' into ''my'' hands.
"Okay... Borman here wants to know what happens if someone can't talk by the end of summer." Another upshift reunites the bug and his paper. "Well, it's true that we only got this room for ten weeks, but it's ''also'' true that the Shelter's not teaching this class. ''I am.'' You want out, say the word and you're out; otherwise, I'm not giving up until you ''can'' speak. And if that's after session ten, I'll just have to find us a different classroom. Any other questions?"
Dead air.
"Good. First, let's take a look at how speech works when it ''does'' work..." Here I upshift, extract a roll of eight-millimeter correction tape (red) from my vest, and spend a clock-second or so putting a schematic diagram of the human vocal tract on the wall. Back at a tempo of 1, I point at one specific bit of the diagram. "See this? It's the larynx, but you can call it a 'voicebox'. It's got a couple folds of skin that vibrate when you shove air past 'em, not unlike a clarinet reed..."
By the time I'm done, my students (most of them, anyway; with the fox and rock, it's hard to tell) have a solid grounding in the biomechanics of spoken language — ''i.e.,'' how a normal human vocal tract operates. Now for the voders, which I distribute in half an upshifted clock-second.
"Okay, time to keep that promise I started class with. See what's on your desk? It's a KV-150. If you're clueless about voders, give the built-in tutorial a try. You can't figure something out, lemme know and I'll see if I can make it clear for you."
Within two clock-minutes, the first "Hello, world!" tutorial is audible. And ten clock-minutes further on, they get to "The time is eight forty-seven pee-emm" and "I am a SCAB" and "Today is Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of June, two-thousand thirty-eight ay-dee." Damned if I can tell how the inanimorph works a voder with stone paws, but she (?) does. Too bad her machine's only reciting random words and phrases. Zelinski's doing better; she actually got her voder to say "My name is Mary Zelinski." On purpose, yet. The150s sound better than I do, damn it, but then I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. Focusing on technical matters — how well my students are or aren't using the Kurzweils — helps me keep a lid on my annoyance.
I assign homework (practice with the 150s), and then it's over. Dennison and Anthony drive themselves home; Zelinski's picked up by some random luxury car; Chuck and Borman ride the bus; and the innie, the stone dog, walks downstairs. What are the odds of the vixen's ride being an incognito limousine? I make a note to check the license plates with the DMV.
Only after I'm finally alone do I let myself unclench. I didn't come anywhere near losing it; the scents of the bird and fish didn't make me any hungrier than usual; all in all, it went better than I expected. Of course, 'better than I expected' just means I didn't dismember anyone...
"How did it go, Jubatus?" Who else? It's the damn bunny.
"No blood got spilt. Guess that means I'm stuck teaching next week's class, right?"
Puzzled, the rabbit wrinkles his fuzzy nose. "Why wouldn't you be? Judging by what I saw and heard from your students, you did quite well — as I knew that you would!"
Sigh. "Phil, has it ever occured to you I might have a ''reason'' to be a pain-in-the-ass loner?"
"Well, you're a cheetah-derived animorph SCAB. Which means that you're influenced by cheetah characteristics, including their solitary nature, are you not?"
He doesn't get it — wonderful. Time for an object lesson. "That's right as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Hold on a sec..." The Shelter's got a few board games; Monopoly, Yahtzee, like that. I upshift, grab some dice, downshift. "...okay. See this?" I say, holding one of the dice before me. "Got a deal for you. Roll it, and if you get anything but a one, I give you a million dollars."
His ears skew at odd angles. "What's the catch? If I ''do'' roll a one, do I have to pay you?"
"No catch, the money's yours either way — but if you roll a one, somebody within a twenty-block radius of here ends up maimed or dead. What do you say, Phil?"
He stares at me for a moment and says, "No."
"Why not? It's an honest die; there's five chances in six that no blood gets shed!"
"Perhaps, but it's that ''one'' chance in six that bothers me!"
"Come on, that's not even 17%!"
He shrugs with his ears. "I don't care. I wouldn't roll that die for a million dollars."
Suddenly I've got ''two'' dice in my hand. "Fine. How about now? Same deal, but nobody gets hurt unless you roll snake-eyes, a one on ''both'' dice. That's a 35-to-1 longshot, less than 3% chance of it actually happening. How about it, Phil?"
"Still no."
"Okay," five dice, "how about ''this?'' Five ones, that's a little over point-zero-one percent, just one chance out of 7,776. Isn't that worth a megabuck?"
"No, it —"
"Ten dice!" I say, putting them on the desk between us. "One million dollars, Phil. ''One. Million. Dollars.'' Only one chance in sixty million they come up solid ones."
"Only one chance in sixty million that someone gets hurt, you mean!"
I shrug. "Details. Alright, how about a ''billion'' dollars? I'm good for it, you know. Roll these ten dice, and one gigabuck is yours, free and clear!"
Stunned, the rabbit stares at me for a while until he finally says, "I don't care how many dice it is, and I don't care how much money it is either. I'm not going to do it, Jubatus."
"Why not? For the love of Mammon, you're throwing away ''one billion dollars'' because of a sixty-million-to-one longshot! Don't you ''want'' to be filthy rich?"
''"Not like that, I don't!"''
My voice is quiet — "Good." — and his face goes blank with surprise. Then I go on: "I'm not perfect, Phil. I got mood swings make a rabid wolverine look like a Zen master. I can fuck up, ''bad.'' 'Can', hell; I already ''have!'' And with my kind of speed —" I break off, almost managing not to shudder. "You're damn right I worry. Wouldn't you?"
He doesn't need two swats from a clue-by-four. "Oh."
"Yeah."
And again: "Oh!"
I dig out a smile from somewhere. "Don't worry, me going postal on any given day ''is'' a world-class longshot — billion-to-one, trillion-to-one, somewhere up there. The real risk is long-term: If I keep rolling those dice, they ''will'' come up snake-eyes sooner or later. The only question is when. And if you're wondering how I can justify putting innocents at risk by hanging around the Pig, it's because the odds of me having a lethal breakdown will go ''way'' up if I ''don't'' interact with other people."
"I think that I see the problem now," Phil says thoughtfully. "You believe that your life is like an unending game of Russian roulette, do you not, Jubatus?"
I nod. "Pretty much, except it's not ''me'' who'll get hurt when I lose. The thing is... what choice have I got?"
"Perhaps you don't have any better alternatives," the rabbit acknowledges. "But then again, perhaps you ''do!"''
"Oh, really?" I bet I know where he's going, so I cut him off before he can get there: "Look, Phil — if you're thinking about taking me on as a client, forget it. My days are 150 hours long, remember? There's no point in you reinventing wheels I considered, and discarded, years ago."
His ears shrug for him. "Very well, let's say that it truly would be a waste of time for me to try to help you. What difference could that make? It is, after all, my own time to waste, if I so choose!"
"Gimme a break! You're always pissing and moaning about the ones you lost, so why make it worse for yourself? Why the hell would'ja want to fart around with ''me'' when you could give more attention to someone who ''really'' needs you?"
"I see your point, Jubatus, but there are two factors that you haven't taken into account. And the first one is that whether you know it or not, you already are a client of mine, and have been ever since the night we met!"
Suddenly it's my turn to say, "Oh."''''' Now''''''' he tells me.'' "And... the other factor?"
"When I work on you, I ''am'' giving attention to someone who ''really'' needs me."
It's not often that I'm left without an appropriate comeback...
"Of course, I must admit that I don't give you as much attention as perhaps I really ought. Not that I don't care about your well-being, not at all! But truly, your case just isn't as urgent as the rest of the ones I deal with. And unlike you, I simply don't have the ''time'' to do everything I want to or need to, Jubatus." He sighs. "Speaking of which, I've a date with Clover that I'd greatly prefer not to be late for, so I simply must say 'good-bye' now. Good-bye!"
And then I'm alone again. Just the way I like it. Right?

Time flies, even when you're not having fun; I've got 43 contracts in various stages of completion, ''i.e.'' my usual workload. And where do I find the time to handle all the tasks related to teaching my class? I could've cut back a little, freed up some hours for classwork, but I didn't because I can get the extra time from upshifting. Of course, my concept of 'classwork' may be a little more expansive than some people's. F'rinstance, take the car that picked up Zelinski. DMV files say it's a TransportElegance rental; TE records indicate that it was paid for by a corporate credit card; and according to SEC databanks, 51% of that particular corporation is held by one "Alison Gomez". Care to guess the maiden name of Zelinski's wife? Yeah. Such a coincidence, that. Just another drop of data in the stream I'm sucking in, the better to figure out what the hell is going on in the Zelinski household.
Then there's Jenny. The Shelter's inquiries went nowhere, but then ''I'' wasn't the one asking the questions. Not that I expect to do any better, mind you. All I've got to go on is SCABS; an apparent gender (which may or may not be the one she was born with); a given name (ditto); the date on which this innie first showed at the Shelter (which only puts a lower limit on how recently she could've SCABbed over); and a dog's likeness (which may or may not have anything to do with any pet she may have owned or admired). What the hell — that's why God invented internet spiders and agent software. The count so far: 137 possible 'hits', each one a false alarm. Good thing computers don't get tired or distracted.
Maybe I ''am'' trying to do too much... every once in a while I get this funny feeling, like someone's looking over my shoulder from behind. Nobody ever is, of course, but my hackles keep rising anyway. Okay, I'm paranoid, but it's not usually ''this'' bad! Sigh. Must remember to get more sleep. Sometimes I hate being a cat...

Second class rolls around; everyone's present and punctual, even the rock. "Good evening, people. How you doing, Dennison?"
"I, am, fine. This, voder, is, harder, to, work, than, I'd, thought."
''With '''your''' webbed fingers? No shit, fish-boy.'' "Bummer. Keep at it. What about you, Borman?"
The cricket's voder says he's doing okay, and his superintendent claims they'll return him to active class duty once he re-learns how to talk. I don't sneer or contradict; granted, he's an utter moron if he believes what he's saying, but I don't have time to set him straight. Okay, maybe ''I'' do, but the slowpokes here don't. I wish him luck, then I continue the impromptu survey of my students' level of skill with the voder. Only item of note is that Jenny's box yelped "Pangloss!" when I got to her. Why? Thoth only knows...
That done, I explain we'll cover sound sources this time. Then I hit a key, and my laptop plays a thin, weak, wispy tone, like an anemic flute. "Anyone care to guess what this is? No? Fine. It's the sound produced by the human voicebox. Some damn fool back in the 1960s let a doctor shove a microphone down her throat to record the actual vibrations produced by her larynx, and that's what we're hearing now." I let the sound continue a few seconds before I kill it. One of my students' hands is raised, so I ask, "What is it, Anthony?"
I note that tiger-boy's using the KV-150 I handed out, not his VoxPop. "If that's a recording of the human larynx, why doesn't it resemble speech?"
"Like I said, it was recorded deep in the throat, at the source. So we're hearing the waveform ''before'' it gets worked over by nasal resonance cavities and like that. Same deal as how a trumpet mouthpiece sounds a lot different when you play it by itself, without the rest of the horn." Then, to the class at large: "Remember what you just heard! As long as you're good for ''any'' sound ''whatsoever,'' there's a chance you can turn it into intelligible speech. You already know how Norms make noise, so let's check out how other species manage..."
Between putting anatomical diagrams on the walls, playing relevant sound files, explaining what it all means, and answering questions when someone needs further clarification, I'm pretty busy for the next clock-hour and a half.
"...inflection, at the very least! Alright — here's your homework assignments." I pause, scan the class. ''Who to start with...'' I roll mental dice and turn to fish-boy.
"Dennison," I say, looking straight into his bulgy eyes. "I'll bet you're wondering why I haven't ''already'' given up on you. After all, fish are intrinsically silent, right?" He nods his head. ''"Wrong.'' It just so happens that ''some'' fish damn well ''do'' make noise!" I start to count on my fingers: "Angelfish, parrotfish, silver perch, red drum, black drum, and more than 200 other species. Most of 'em got this air-filled, internal swim bladder they smack around. Ever heard of the oyster toadfish? Didn't think so, but you're ugly enough to be one, and that sucker's got specialized muscles to swat its bladder up to 200 times per second. So if you ''are'' a toadfish, you should be good for pitches topping off right around G below middle C. And if not? Well, we'll just have to find out what you are, won't we?" A quick upshift, and a sheet of paper appears on his desk. I continue as he picks it up to read it: "27 questions, and I'll want the answers two weeks from now."
Then it's the bug's turn. "Borman. You're mostly a cricket — can you chirp like one?" He nods and makes the noise, two or three octaves below a natural-born cricket. "Congratulations. What you just did is called 'stridulation', and it's the sound source of a natural-born cricket. You want to arm-wrestle intelligible words out of it, you're gonna need to vary that sound. Can you? Damn if ''I'' know; that's ''your'' homework. I'll want a sound file. Get cracking on it. And by the way: If stridulation doesn't work for you, there's at least two other avenues you can explore before you abandon speech."
I let the bug ponder my remark as I look at the inanimorph... ''What's going on inside that rock? Are you even '''there''', Jenny? Is '''anyone''' there?'' Nothing in those dull, grey eyes, or at least nothing discernable to me. Sigh. ''Moving right along —'' "Calgonetti. What's up with you, guy? Considering how well natural-born mynahs talk, it's hard to see why ''you'' should have ''any'' problems with speech, let alone take more'n ''ten bloody years'' to re-learn it. So... what's the story?"
"It is not for us to question the Lord's will," the preacher's voder says. "I have faith that He will return my voice to me at a time of His choosing."
Sounds like a rehearsed answer to me. "Uhhh-''huh.'' Would that be before or after the Second Coming?" Oh yeah, ''that'' hit a nerve. Good. Bird-brain glares at me as other people make amused noises. "Come on, Chuck. You're gonna have to work with me here. 'God helps those who help themselves', am I right?" A sheet of paper 'teleports' onto his desk. "But I digress. Your homework is ''phonemes'' — the individual sounds that serve as the fundamental building blocks of spoken language. English uses 40 of 'em, each one of which is on your list there, and you're gonna record 'em all. I don't care what format you use, just let me know if it's cassette or MP3 or what, I want three samples of each phoneme, and I want you to bring the recording in two weeks. And that goes for you, too, Borman."
Chuck's not happy. His voder says, "What if I cannot make all the sounds?"
Looking at him and the cricketmorph, I shrug. "Try 'em and see. If there's any you can't do, all it means is that SCABS worked over your noisemaker worse than I thought. Get on it."
Then I turn to the fox. "Zelinski. How's your voice, girl?"
Her smile strikes me as a lot more genuine than mine usually is, and she's game to try: "Oowwwwrrr..." Oh, well. Too bad she's not there yet. She taps at her voder — a Magnavox Express; wonder what happened to the KV-150 and where the new one came from? — which says, "I am prack-tiss-ing. I will learn."
I nod. "Can't ask for more than that. Keep it up."
"I will. I praw-miss."
I nod, and look at the last of my students. "Mr. Anthony," I say. A sheet of paper pops up on his desk. "You get what the bird got. Again, I don't care if it's MP3 or WAV or what, but it'd be nice if you can gimme advance notice of which."
He nods. His voder says, "MP3."
"Groovy. Email it to me any time within the next two weeks." To the whole class: "Remember, we've got a field trip next Tuesday, so I don't need your homework 'til the week after. For now... go home."
They leave, mostly. Tiger-boy sticks around after the rest are gone. He says — ''he'' honest-to-God ''says'' — "Ehhhrro, Djju-bhadd-huzz."
"You've been practicing, haven't you."
He nods, then gets his VoxPop out of an inside pocket. "Yes. I've also done some research on you."
''Oh, joy.'' "That's nice. Want a cookie?"
He smiles and goes on: "No, thanks. You're helping me; I just wondered how I could help you in return."
An idealist? Will wonders never cease. "Help ''me?'' Forget it — you can't. Anything else the rabbit twisted your arm about?"
Tiger-boy looks hurt for a moment. "Phil didn't twist my arm, Jubatus. But he ''did'' warn me what to expect from you."
"If he said I can be blunt, rude, offensive, abrasive, difficult, obnoxious, and generally antisocial, he was right. Anything else you want to know before you leave?"
The hint is as subtle as a sixteen-ton weight. Even so, whole clock-seconds pass in silence, me staring a laser-sharp, unblinking gaze into his eyes, before he gets the message. "Next week," his voder says. Then he's gone.
A few seconds later, I quit staring at the door. I can't really say I ''like'' stomping on people like that, but... it's better this way. Lesser of N evils, honestly.
Sigh...

The next week's pretty boring, so I'll just give you the Reader's Digest Condensed Version. More hours put in at the Shelter; the net-spiders researching Jenny turned up another 950 false alarms, plus three leads I haven't ''yet'' proven bogus; I've sucked down a lot more information (financial and otherwise) related to the Zelinski household — I'll bet Mrs. Allison noticed that somebody's been poking their snout into her family's private affairs, because somehow, I just don't think it's coincidental that she's boosted the budget for security (real-world and cyberspace both) within the past couple weeks. Like I care. As for the contracts I handle in my day job, it's five down, 38 to go.
Business as usual, really.

Third class is a field trip. To Derksen's clinic. Would have preferred to start the class there, but this was the first Tuesday evening the doc-roach's lab was free. Remodeled the living space in my Extremis; there's four new seats (rented) in back. Those plus the passenger's seat up front will handle the five humanoids, and there's also room for Jenny the Rock to lie down. Hey, why ''shouldn't'' I play chauffeur? I'm the teacher, it's my responsibility to see that the class gets to where it needs to be, right?''
''Good: Everyone's a little early, especially the foxy lady. She's delivered by what looks like the same pair of bodyguard-types, driving the same car, as got her home last week. She smiles at me, and she ''(not'' her voder) says: "Hrraiie-yhheaarh, Dj... Tchew... hraour!"
I nod without smiling. "Better'n last week. Keep practicing, you'll get there soon enough."
She digs her Magnavox out of her purse to reply. "I know I will, but. In the meantime. It can be frustrating."
''Now'' I smile. "Tell me about it. You're getting off easy, lady — ''you'' have an instructor who's been there himself."
"Which you didn't," her voder says.
"Yeah." Shrug. "Ready for the field trip?"
"Oh, yes. Allie was very pleased. She's always wanted to —" and one rent-a-thug reaches over her shoulder to press the voder's 'mute' button.
"What did Miss Allison tell you about violating her privacy, Miss Mary?" says the thug.
The vixen's face spends a moment at 'pissed off' before shifting over to 'mild embarrassment'. She un-mutes the voder, nods at the thug: "You're right, George. I shouldn't discuss family business in public." To me, she (or at least her voder) says, "Apologies, Jubatus. Yes, I'm ready for this field trip. And I've been looking forward to it. Are we really going to see Dr. Derksen himself?"
"Doubtful. He's booked solid until the 12th of Never, you know?"
That gets a couple of yipping laughs out of her muzzle. Which is about when Dennison shows up, with Anthony following close. Not so very much later, me and my class are tooling along towards the doc-roach's lab. The rent-a-thugs weren't happy about the fox being in ''my'' car instead of with ''them.'' That's nice. They weren't ''explicitly'' instructed to stay within arm's reach 24/7, and even if they were, I couldn't care less.
The traffic's thicker than I anticipated. 38 clock-minutes later, I pull into a reserved space in the parking lot of Derksen's lab. My passengers talked; I paid attention to the road. Guess which hired limo stayed within five car-lengths of us all the way there?
Derksen being a big name in SCABS research, his lab's security is a couple notches above the norm — you never know when some idiot Nazi wannabe, Humans First or whatever, will take it into his head to strike a blow for stupid people everywhere. Me and my students pass through the outer gate without incident, but Zelinski's thugs get detained when they set off an alarm. Good. There's two more layers of protection I'm aware of, and Vulcan knows how many others. I wish the thugs joy of them all.
I'm intimately familiar with the doc-roach's torture chamber — his primary examination room — from all the times he's worked ''me'' over. Being the highly exotic breed of chronomorph I am, it's only natural that a world-class SCABS researcher like Derksen would want to observe the hell out of me, as often as he can... oh, joy. He's here. I was afraid of that. On the plus side, he's practically human today. Soft skin, blond hair, no antennae, compound eyes only a little bigger than human normal. See, Derksen's one of us; he's a polymorph SCAB, insectoid forms his specialty, and the roach traits kind of creep up on him when he's irritated or preoccupied or whatever. One more reason I'm glad not to be a shapeshifter myself.
"Hello, Jubatus," he says, and his voice is a hell of a lot smoother than when he goes ''blattidae'' on you. Damn it. " I don't suppose —"
"That's right, you ''don't'' suppose. And you don't get another crack at me for seventeen days."
"Oh, well; can't blame a mad scientist for trying!" He sounds happy, but even with no discernable chitin on him, his scent is too roachy for me to tell his ''real'' mood. BFD.
I snort my disagreement at him. "Whatever. Since you're here, does that mean you're gonna make yourself useful checking out the fox?"
"Yes." ''Now'' he's serious. "Among other things, I find it curious that her medical records are silent on a number of points that ''may'' add up to grounds for a malpractice hearing."
My ears prick up. "Oh, really? Then what's the story with Dr. Gordon?" I ask, referring to the physician in charge of the Zelinski case. "Is he corrupt, or just incompetent?"
At this point, Derksen's face hardens — literally — as exoskeletal plates form. ''"That'' is what I intend to find out. Either way, it's clear that this Dr. Gordon has no business working with SCABs; the data from this examination will tell me whether I should push for censure or disbarment." Then he sighs, and his plates soften a little. "Excuse me, Jubatus," he says, and then he's off to supervise a whole-body scan of Jenny, the stone dog.
There's an empty chair off to one side of the lab. I sit back and let Derksen (and his flunkies) scurry around the place with various implements of medicine. It's actually kind of interesting to see them work on ''someone else.'' Hell, this time I don't even mind the stench of disinfectant!
Derksen & Co. conduct a sextet of ''very'' thorough physical examinations, covering everything from respiratory airflow to basal metabolic rate to speed of neural transmission to God knows what-all else. The doc-roach is going the extra mile, and then some — I'd only asked him to cover the vocal tract — but if that's what he wants to do, it's fine by me. That's odd... they've left off a number of procedures he likes to use on me, but then they also include a few I'm not familiar with. I make mental notes — the lapses and additions probably have to do with my chronomorph power, which I don't want ''anyone,'' Derksen or no, to learn ''too'' much about.
Hmm... maybe it's just me, but I get the impression that Derksen's concern for Zelinski goes a little beyond the standard doctor/patient relationship..? Whatever; it's none of my business.
Entry to exit, we're done in four clock-hours. Zelinski's thugs aren't around when we leave — how sad. The drive back to the Shelter is uneventful; my passengers are too busy comparing notes to bother me. I park, five of the six bug out, the vixen doesn't.
"Waiting for something?" I ask.
Foxy's fingers touch her voder, but it stays mute. She looks at me. I look back. Her machine finally says, "Were you always male, Jubatus?"
''Huh..?'' I consider asking why she wants to know, but I decide to just answer the question. "Yes."
She spends a few seconds thinking before her voder speaks up again. "Then why are you so angry?"
"Angry?" I snort a laugh. "Like ''any'' SCAB needs to ask."
Dead air. Zelinski's not happy. Before anything else can happen, a particular rented limo screeches to a halt beside us. I point a thumb at them.
"Your ride's here," I say. "See you next Tuesday."

The homework showed up across a week, starting last Friday. Tiger-boy's arrived first; birdbrain's came last. Funny how that works. Right now I'm in my classroom, reviewing the assignments over lunch. Nothing from Jenny — not that I expected anything, of course. But what ''could'' I have assigned her, damn it?
Inanimorphs...
Lots of people fear them, with good reason — check out any of the 'true crime' books about inanimorph perps — but I just think they're damned weird, is all. Strictly speaking, I guess I ''should'' be afraid, since innies are among the few things in this world with half a chance of hurting me... but I'm not.
''Thank you, Jay Nelson Xavier.''
"What the —"
Somehow, I '''know''' that the voice I'm hearing in my head ''(not'' my ears) is Jenny. And when I turn to look at the stone dog, I see... something. Can't make out details — my eyes can't decide whether it's transparent or not — wait, it's solid now. Human body, female, which I (again, 'somehow') '''know''' to be an idealized version of Jenny's pre-SCABS body. Clothed, yet.
Her lips don't move: ''Is this form more to your liking, Jay Nelson Xavier?''
I evade the question. "Call me Jubatus, I use the other name for business. Thanks for what?"
''For your downshifting. The single-minded intensity of your concentration. For giving me something to focus on. I am grateful.'' ''What you did allowed me to... obviate? Reify? — no. I am sorry, you lack the vocabulary.
''"Whatever. You know, there's paperwork to fill out if you're dropping the class..."
For the first time in my life, I 'hear' a laugh that ''really is'' like the tinkling of bells. No mockery in it; I '''know''' that she's just appreciating the absurdity of the situation... ''Thank you again, Jubatus. It is very good to exist in human reality.''
"There's another kind?"
''In a manner of speaking. If two people perceive the Universe so differently that they cannot communicate, are they truly living in the same reality?''
Philosophy? Feh. "Yes, they are," I say. "Look, it's not like you need a speech tutor any more, so why are you here?"
''As I said, Jubatus, I am grateful. I want to express my gratitude in tangible form.''
'Tangible form'? Heh! The first image that comes to mind is impossible — I'm a cat, and she's dead — but she apparently picks it out of my brain anyway. And suddenly, without any warning, Jenny's a cheetah, too! She's fur-naked, and there's this indescribable ''scent,'' and she's stepping towards me, and — ''Very well, Ju-''
''"'''No!'''"'' I scream from the far corner of the room, only twitching a little. "No. That's, ah, no. None of that. Really."
And then she's back in her chair, back in human form, and a repentant sigh echoes lightly through my mind. ''I misunderstood...'' ''I apologize.''
It's easy for me to calm down, because I '''know''' her remorse is genuine. "That's, um, okay. So. You can read minds."
A light touch of uncertainty... ''In effect, yes. While I am not truly telepathic, I have certain... perceptions...''
"...which I lack the vocabulary for you to describe."
''I'm afraid so.'' This time, I '''know''' the communication gap's got her as frustrated as me — maybe more so — but she's honestly doing the best she can. ''I really am sorry — all of '''this''', being an inanimorph, it's still very new to me. I hope you can forgive me my errors.''
I shrug. "Not a problem. No harm done, you didn't mean it, and you learn from your mistakes. Right?"
''Right,'' she 'says', and for a moment I feel — ''something'' — like someone walked over my grave? Or like I'm being ''watched'' from every direction at once? Vocabulary again. Not really painful or unpleasant; just, I don't know, weird. Whatever the sensation is, I don't miss it when it stops. ''It's so very hard '''not''' to make mistakes with an unfamiliar set of abilities you've only just acquired... wouldn't you say?''
I give her a tolerant, rueful smile. "Tell me about it."
''As if I need to!'' Her sympathetic amusement is clear. ''But seriously: You did me an enormous favor, and I want to reciprocate. What would you like?
'''What would you like?' If it was anyone biological, I'd tell them to forget it — but this is an ''inanimorph'' 'talking'. And innies can do pretty much ''anything,'' blowing off physical laws as needed...
The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"
She's 'silent' for a good ten-fifteen clock-seconds. I don't press her, and clouds of uncertainty and intense concentration drift through my brain as the time passes. ''I... don't know. I '''think''' I —''
"'''Do it!'''"
She's taken aback by the force of my command. That makes two of us.
''Let me finish, please. As I was going to say, I '''think''' I can eliminate all traces of Martian Flu virus from your body. That much I'm reasonably sure of. Changes inflicted by SCABS are a tougher problem, but I may even be able to undo them, too. The problem is, I don't know what condition you'll be in when I'm finished! Yes, you '''might''' return to your former, human, self; but you could also end up a normal cheetah, or even dead. If I try this, it could ruin your life, your very '''existence''', in any of thousands of different ways. On second thought, make that 'millions'. Is this a risk you really want to take, Jubatus?''
Rhetorical question. To be human again — ''fully human!'' — well, let's just say it's one hell of a prize Jenny's dangling before me. How can I believe she's up to the task? How can I ''not?'' There may be no hope of a cure from any ''human'' agency, but that doesn't say squat about what an ''innie'' might be capable of! ''"Do it,"'' I repeat.
She's quiet for a long moment before she 'talks' again. ''Jubatus. You '''do'''''''' '''''realize that just as I can perform actions far beyond any limits of biological life... so, too, can I make mistakes far more terrible than anything biological life is capable of.
''"No shit, Sherlock."''
You know this, but you still want me to try.
''"Got it in one."''
You're absolutely certain.''
"You're damn right I'm absolutely certain," I snarl. "Stop screwing around! Shit or get off the pot! ''Do it, or fuck off and...'' oh, hell. Just... do it."
Another longish pause, then she 'says', ''Very well. I'm going to scan you now, Jubatus...'' and suddenly that bizarre 'watched from all directions' sensation is back, in spades, doubled and redoubled. It feels like she's poring over my entire life, back to the moment of my birth and forward to my eventual death, simultaneously — and no, I haven't got Clue One ''how'' that impression entered my sensorium. Then my mind is drenched by a mixture of embarrassment and pity and regret and endless, bottomless sorrow.
''Oh, dear...''
"What's wrong?"
''You... don't even know, do you, Jubatus?''
''Huh?'' "What the ''fuck'' are you talking about!?"
''I really and truly am sorry. But I... I just '''can't''' give you what you '''really''' want.''
What the — goddamn bitch! It's my ''life'' she's toying with! "'Can't', or 'won't'?" I growl.
A foreign sigh drifts across my frontal lobes. ''If you must put it that way, it's 'won't' —
''I've had ''more'' than enough. So what if she's an inanimorph, ''nobody'' jerks me around like that! ''No-fucking-body!'' I don't let her 'say' another word: "Then get lost. Go find another fly to pull the wings off, you goddamn corpse."
''Please, let me exp-''
Okay, ''that'' is the proverbial '''''it'''''''.'' I scream and upshift high and leap straight for her lying throat and —''
''— and then the world turns inside-out around me and it's like I'm ''moving'' in some direction I wasn't previously familiar with and —
— disoriented, I blink. ''What the... oh, hell. I missed another meal, didn't I?'' With my high-speed metabolism, I've found that my higher brain functions tend to seize up after a couple of clock-hours without food. ''Better get a snack once I'm done here.''
Let's see... Jenny just asked what she could do for me. Right. The words are out of my mouth before I realize what I've said: "Can you cure SCABS?"
''I'm afraid not,'' she 'says', and I '''know''' her regret is sincere. ''Maybe at some future time, but right now, I don't even know if it's possible, let alone how to do it.
''"You mean innies ''aren't'' omnipotent?"''
''That gets me a mental cloud of tolerance/amusement/sympathy/self-effacement. ''You may find it hard to believe, Jubatus, but we inanimorphs '''do''' have limitations. They're just, different, from the ones you live with.''
I roll my eyes. "Oh, well." ''That'll teach me to hope...'' "Since you can't do what I want, I guess I'll take a rain check."
Either she's old enough to know the term, or she learned it when she scanned me earlier: ''Alright, a rain check it is.'' A sequence of 40 digits drifts across my forebrain, and I '''know''' I'll never forget it. ''Type that number on any computer or telephone keyboard, and I'll be there for you.''
"Do I want to know the details?"
A mixture of amusement and frustration, both mild. ''Yes, you do, and if you had the vocabulary, I '''would''' explain.''
"Gee, thanks. I'm beginning to see why you guys don't usually hang around with us ''living'' types."
''Tell me about it,'' she 'says', her words and tone echoing an earlier remark of mine. ''And thank you once again; now I know what I should '''do''' with myself.''
"Gonna play Speaker-to-Breathers, huh?"
A tinkling giggle dances through my brain... ''Something like that, yes. Farewell, Jubatus. Until we meet again...''
...and I'm alone in the room...''
''
Homework. Birdbrain did a decent job on all 40 phonemes; tiger-boy did better; foxy lady did best of all. I flatly ''will not'' think about how her voice is gonna end up sounding. The bug's — Borman's — stridulation is a little iffy, but not bad for a first shot. Dennison? My questions for him amount to an abbreviated Piscine Anatomy 101 final exam, and he aced it. 25 answers dead-on correct, the other two ''technically'' invalid but strongly arguable anyway. As for Jenny... she's outta here. All her paperwork and computer files are in order, not that anybody noticed her turning in any forms or anything. None of my business anyway (he says, with a shrug).
As for the class itself (number four in a series of ten — collect them all!): Anthony sounds better than I do, goddamn his near-intact throat. I give 10:1 odds in favor of the bastard regaining full human speech before the final class session. Calgonetti? Phonemes he's got down pat, but he can't ''quite'' manage to put 'em together into honest-to-God ''speech.'' Funny, that. Chalk up another one for 'self-imposed mental block', and I go out of my way to rub salt in his wound. He'll thank me for it later, right? Borman actually surprises me by stridulating recognizable phonemes; only three of 'em, granted, but I didn't think he'd be able to swing it ''at all.'' Not this early, anyway. Good sign. Dennison turns out to have an internal swim-bladder, complete with swatting muscles, and he demonstrates it with a kind of "ahh-eee-ahh" that more-or-less spans an augmented fifth.
And then there's Zelinski. Her eyes aren't as bright as last week; her vocalizing is decidedly worse than before; and she fumbles with her voder like she'd only just started using the damn thing yesterday. Oh, and I could tell her scent was 'off' (including what the 'new' chemicals were) before she stepped into the classroom. I do the math, and the answer is clear: She's drugged. Given the data I've already acquired re: the Zelinski household, there's exactly 1 (one) person who could've done it to her: Alison Zelinski, her 'loving' spouse. You think I'm pissed off? Damn right I am. ''Nobody'' has the right to fuck up someone else's free will like that! I stifle my anger for the duration of the class.
This week's homework is pretty much a rerun of last week's; more phoneme-practice, singly and in combination. When the rest leave, I ask the vixen to stay. She gives me a vague look: "I muost gho homm," her voder says. "Mizz Awl-lee dee-uz-int wand me tu ss'tay owwit laid."
"Maybe so, but she also wants you to relearn how to talk, am I right?" Zelinski pauses, then makes with an uncertain nod, and I go on before her voder can say anything else: "You need a little extra attention right now, is all. That's what we're going to do tonight, and if Miss Allie doesn't like it, you just tell her it's ''my'' fault, how's that?"
I keep an eye on the parking lot while I talk — an occasional momentary upshift, nothing the fox even ''can'' notice in her drugged-out state — so I see the TransportElegance limo as it pulls in. Good thing Zelinski rather likes the idea of having some time away from home: Her face slides into an off-kilter grin, and her voder says, "Ohh khay!"
"Great. Now, sit down and close your eyes; I've got a big surprise for you." She obeys. I upshift. Four-point-eight clock-seconds later, she's in the back of my car, seated in front of a big-ass computer display with '''''Newspaper Tycoon VII''''' running. The rent-a-thugs in the limo think Zelinski's still in the Shelter; I brought her down so fast they didn't — couldn't — percieve ''anything.'' I could care less if they try to look in the Extremis; there's a couple aftermarket features that normally let me sleep in private, but they work just as well now. Specifically, the electrochromic film on the windows (currently set to Total Eclipse), and the cab divider in front of the cargo space.
Zelinski makes with a little squeal of delight when she opens her eyes. "There you go!" I say. "I've got the game set up for voice commands, but you can also use mouse and keyboard, if you'd rather. Need any help?" Apparently not — her fingers dance on the keyboard as she dives right in.
"Thank you," her box says, "but I don't believe that will be necessary." Interesting: Her skill with the voder is distinctly higher now than it was a few minutes ago. Good.
My cel phone has a wireless link to the Extremis' video cameras; that's how I know when the rent-a-thugs leave their vehicle for the Shelter. Absorbed in an orgy of virtual capitalism, the vixen doesn't even notice when I drive off. The rent-a-thugs won't be following us — not with their distributor cap in my glove compartment, they won't. Upshifting can be useful at times...
At this point, I'm not sure what the deal is with Alison Zelinski. Sure, I know ''what'' she's done to her ex-husband, but I don't know ''why,'' and the 'why' matters. Well, I'll find out soon enough.
Guaranteed.
Moving right along: Most people think the "Betty Ford Clinic" is just a punchline, what with all the rich actors and singers who supposedly go there to detoxify or whatever. Wrong. The Clinic is ''very'' real, ''very'' discreet, and damned good at what they do. And they've got a SCAB-friendly branch office in the west end of Pennsylvania. A couple hours of air-conditioned driving, and foxy lady is safely deposited there. The staff was quite professional, even while enrolling an unscheduled client at 2 AM. Wasn't exactly 'no questions asked', but that's okay; what with all my poking around the Zelinskis' private affairs, I had the right answers.

So. It's 9 AM Wednesday. By now Alison Zelinski's ''got'' to know that her gendermorph hubby has evaporated. Odds are, she hasn't slept. She's probably shitting bricks wondering when the ransom note will arrive. Wish I could've seen her face when ''my'' e-note ''did'' arrive in her inbox...

FROM: J. Acinonyx (fiver@jubatus.nucom)
SUBJ: re: Mary Zelinski's vocalization
I'm afraid that Mary's progress in class has been disrupted by a set of problems beyond my capacity to solve. Accordingly, I have taken the liberty of securing an outside specialist who can help her overcome these problems. I would like to speak to you in a private conference, at your earliest convenience, about preventing a recurrence of these problems. When would be a good time for you?

Heh! I think I hit ''just'' the right chords; aside from the none-too-subtle hints that I know ''exactly'' what she's done, I've all but confessed to the kidnapping. Best of all, the language is sufficiently innocuous that no lawyer or judge could regard the note as evidence of ''anything'' nefarious. How long will it take Zelinski to decide that her only option is to talk to me?
I get her answer at 2:26PM. She wants to meet this evening, her place, 8 o'clock. As usual, I got clock-hours to kill — oh, joy. In between working on my legit contracts, I make contact with the Zelinski home network. Well, well: Miss Allison has been researching ''me,'' much good may it do her. Security protocols are unchanged, which just means that if she ''is'' planning any surprises, she's doing it offline. Do I have a plan? Damn straight I do. No point wasting time in conversational parry and riposte. Instead, I'm gonna blitzkrieg the bitch — hit her fast and hard, from multiple directions at once, changing attacks before she can adjust or reply. Considering how easily I torque people off just because, it'll be interesting to see how bad I can rattle somebody when I ''work'' at it. All of which assumes there's no armed resistance or whatever. If there is, no problem: I upshift and nuke it, after which Zelinski gets my ''undivided'' attention.
The clock-hours crawl by...
8PM — showtime. The Zelinski house is a bloated, two-story carbuncle with a bunch of underground floor space; when I ring the bell, the front door is opened by a familiar-smelling rent-a-thug. His demeanor is designed to intimidate, not that I give a damn. He says, "Miss Allison will receive you in the living room," and leads me inside.
The living room turns out to be an interior chamber with a good chunk of one wall taken up by an oversized flat-plasma display. Once I'm there, a female voice says "Thank you, Marcus. That will be all," and thug-boy leaves as we both sit down. This voice belongs to a female norm, straight black hair, semi-dark skin tone. Judging from her scent, she's a little shaky, uncomfortable, and trying not to let it show. Let's see how fast I can coax a reaction out of her. "I'm... my name is Alison Zelinski," she says.
"Jubatus," I reply.
"Would you..." She breaks off with a sigh. "I'm sorry, this is all so complicated..."
Shrug. "Seems pretty straightforward to me. Your hubby SCABbed over seven months ago — different sex and species. She's been stoned out of her gourd ever since, courtesy of ''you.'' I'm curious, how many doctors did you go through?"
"Excuse me?" Hmmm... steady pulse and scent... nope, her confusion is just an act. This isn't the first time my SCABS-heightened senses have come in handy.
"How many doctors?" I repeat. "Before you found one who didn't care ''what'' he did to Mary, as long as your checks cleared."
Okay, ''now'' it's a genuine response: High-end anger. ''"Mister'' Jubatus, I'll tha-"
Her words are drowned under my "Shut up, bitch." My vocal control may suck rocks, but I can definitely go Loud when I feel like it. ''"You'' may not be old enough to remember date-rape drugs, but ''I'' sure as hell am, and the only difference I see is that you ''married'' your victim first!"
"I — you —" From 'calm' to 'stuttering, with pulsing vein in forehead' in under 7 clock-seconds. I love it when a plan comes together. "How ''dare'' you!"
''"How dare '''you''', lady!?'' Go play the Righteous Indignation card somewhere else, 'cause I'm not interested. What I've got on you, I could nail you to the wall in court yet — and I just might."
It's working. I can practically smell her brain cells burning out as she ''almost'' keeps up''.'' "You — you'd never win!"
I give her a nasty smile, heavy on the fangs. "Bets on that? Imagine your face plastered across the front page of every newspaper in a 1,000-mile radius, not to mention all the broadcast media and net coverage. Think of all the editorials. Visualize the Zelinski name permanently associated with cute stuff like anti-SCABS bigotry, chemically-mediated enslav-"
''— attack: threat level high: 12 o'clock —''
— oh, hell. It's not the first time this has happened: My instincts trigger an upshift without ''my'' say-so, because they don't like something in my immediate vicinity. In this case it's Zelinski, floating in midair, with hands poised to do some damage. Physical assault? Gosh, I must've hit a ''very sensitive'' nerve. I ''could'' tear her several new assholes... but instead, I just move around to lean on the back of her chair, resume a tempo of 1, and watch her land, clumsily, on the couch I just vacated.
Confused, she looks around, and I speak when her eyes meet mine: "That was your first free shot at me. Hope you enjoyed it, because ''nobody'' gets ''two."''
"Bastard! I'll sue —"
I laugh, a cruel, venomous noise that shatters her focus. "Hah! Go ahead and try, for all the good it'll do you. Face it: Whatever you do, you ''can't'' stop me opening a can of worms ''you'd'' much prefer stay closed. Me, I could care less about bad publicity — can you say the same? If you think you can ''possibly'' fuck up a SCAB's social status any worse'n it ''already'' is, feel free to try. Who knows, you might even be able to come up with something that's '''not''' ''prima facie'' grounds for a libel suit. Should be fun."
"You..." I can smell fear, anger, concern, and confusion fighting it out in her scent. Fear wins. "Alright. Do your worst, you monster."
"Says the bald ape who arranged a permanent brainwashing prescription for their own spouse," I retort. "Alright , ''Mrs.'' Zelinski. I've got half a mind to sic my lawyer on you anyway, but I'm a reasonable man. Play it straight with me, I'll return the favor. Fuck with me, and I will ''own'' your sorry ass. Your choice."
Fear and guilt: A powerful combo. They're both on her face and in her scent. Eventually, she gets herself under control again. "What... what do you want?" she asks.
She's defeated, alright — scent doesn't lie — so I get down to business: "I want the truth. ''Why is Mary a drugged-out zombie?"''
Zelinski kind of sags in her chair. She sighs, doesn't (can't?) look at my face. "I... no one ever intended..."
A few seconds after she trails off, I kill the silence. "I'm not hearing a 'why'."
"It's... complicated..."
"You already said that," I point out. "Feel free to start at the beginning. Alternately, how about I just leave, wait 'til Mary's done getting detoxified, and let ''her'' decide how many new orifices to rip out of your hide? Your call — pick one."
She goes for 'start at the beginning'. Takes her an unnecessarily long time to spit it out: Hubby SCABs over (fur and tits), goes nutbar over the gender thing, needs to be sedated for his/her own protection... and ever since, Zelinski makes sure hubby gets a fresh dose whenever she's ''too'' close to sober.
"You... didn't know Martin before," she says, as if her words were threading a minefield. "He was... difficult to live with, not —"
I cut her off. "So. Fucking. What. If ''Mary'' wants to be permanently blitzed, fine, but guess what? ''That's not '''your''' goddamn decision, lady!'' So here's the deal: As of now, Dr. Gordon is off Mary's —"
"What gives you the right to interfere with the private affairs of this family!"
Zelinski shuts up when I look directly into her eyes. She looks right back. Both of us are way the hell pissed. Her anger is cold like liquid helium; mine is hotter than a deuterium-fusion torch.
Zelinski breaks first. When she lowers her gaze, I speak up, as inexorable as a glacier: "What, ''exactly,'' gave ''you'' the right to '''''interfere'''''''"'' — I spit that word out with a freightload of sarcasm — "with your spouse's mind and free will."
Her scent goes heavy on shame, with a side order of fear. No other response.
Okay, fine. "Like I was saying, here's the deal. One: You ''will'' sever ''all'' connections, professional and otherwise, between Mary and ''Doctor'' Gordon. Two: You ''will'' accept ''whoever'' Dr. Derksen recommends for Gordon's replacement. Three: You have ''no say whatsoever'' about Mary's medical needs — you ''will'' do ''anything'' the new guy says, agree to ''anything'' they recommend, and generally treat the new guy as if they're the Voice of God Himself. Four: If, at ''any'' time in the future, I find out that you have ''ever again'' so much as ''dreamed'' about '''''interfering''''' with Mary's medical treatment..." Here I whisper, as lethal as a sack of cobras: "I. Will. ''Destroy.'' You."
Zelinski crumples in silence. Her eyes glint with highlights that weren't there before — poor fucking baby.
I give her 15 clock-seconds; still no reply.
I'm out of there. Nobody gets in my way, not Marcus the thug nor any other hireling. Fine by me. The mood I'm in, I'd go ''through'' them. Not a good idea to leave a trail of broken bodies. I give the Extremis a once-over when I get to it; nope, no signs of tampering. Only then do I let myself relax. A little, anyway.
On the road, I don't think about what I just did. I don't ''want'' to think about it. I just drive. I want to — no. Bad idea; I ''don't'' want to get drunk.
Well... maybe just a little...

It's none of my business, of course, but I keep an eye on the foxy lady over the next few days. Just to make sure Miss Alison stays the hell ''away'' from her ex-husband's treatment, is all. And wouldn't you know it, Zelinski makes quote, remarkable, unquote, progress. Think it might have something to do with ''not'' getting pumped full of mindfuck drugs on a regular basis? Funny how that works. Even so, the Ford medics insist on keeping her there "for observation" for another 8-10 days, minimum... which means she's going to miss a class. Maybe two.
In other news, I close 5 more contracts before next Tuesday. 33 more to go; I might run out before the tenth class. Hey, I ''am'' taking it easy — I haven't accepted any new clients since I started teaching the class.
Speaking of which, this session (the fifth) has a guest lecturer: Donnie Sinclair. And while he's scribbling at my students, I fill in for him behind the counter at the Pig. That's the pound of flesh he demanded before he'd do what I asked. I hate the idea; I mean, I don't ''do'' crowds! But since it puts a three-foot-wide ''faux''-marble countertop between me and the customers, it should be okay... right..? Aside from that, I have no idea how Donnie creates and maintains the Pig's SCAB-friendly atmosphere — so I won't even ''try.'' Instead I'm going to pour the booze, keep a paranoid eye on ''everything,'' and stomp on anything that smells like it even ''might'' be trouble. I just hope I can stay alert until closing time; for whatever reason, SCABS left me with a half-hour-long sleep cycle. Mind you, I don't ''have'' to conk out that often. I can actually stay up five hours at a time, but that's kind of like a norm staying up for five days solid... well, that should be enough. Hopefully. I'm pretty sure, anyway.
Having a few weeks' advance notice, I did my usual obsessive prep work beforehand. The cash register is a late-2016 NCR job, tablet-style touchscreen; before I'm through, I know it better than Donnie himself does. I'm packing 47,583 different drink recipes on a PDA, complete with recommended ingredient substitutions for when stuff runs out, and the thing happens to be equipped with a wireless internet hookup in case somebody wants something outside the onboard library. More recently, I confirmed that the Pig's supply database is 100% up to date (I double-checked each item myself). Come the fatal Tuesday, I make sure the lavatories are fully loaded — which is trickier than you might think, since the Pig's bathrooms accomodate a ''wide'' range of SCAB body types. Comfortably, yet. I also stash a couple dozen pounds of beef jerky behind the counter; the kind of calories I burn, I'm gonna ''need'' that protein...
And then it's showtime.
The hours pass in a blur. ''Jesu Christe,'' there's a shitload of customers — ''I'' sometimes have trouble keeping up with the orders! Upshifting doesn't help, because I ''have to'' understand what all you damn slowpokes are saying. And that means my tempo needs to be ''real'' close to 1 most of the time...
I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.
"Gimme a Stattenvorl."
I take orders.
"Three shots of Jack Daniels, straight."
I make change.
"Vodka martini for me, an' a Purple Ray for the li'l lady."
I pour booze.
"— tellya, I wuz on top'a th' world —"
I hate it. Sob stories from self-pitying morons — gaah! I pay those twits as little attention as I can manage. Most of 'em take the hint and stay the fuck ''away'' from the counter; occasionally I delegate one to Wanderer or somebody ''via'' an an upshifted note in their glass.
I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.
"Atomic Firewater!"
I take orders.
"Scotch and soda, heavy on the soda."
I make change.
"— ''you'' gonna do about it, runt?"
Oh, fucking ''joy.'' I quit pouring. Commotion by the dart board; there's a St. Bernard-derived animorph SCAB who can't aim worth shit, lost a bet, and is now proving himself to be a welching asshole and a ''mean'' drunk.
I point one finger ceilingward. "'Scuse me a sec," I tell the customers I haven't gotten to yet. Then I zip over to the big dog, telling him, "You lost, Bernie. Pay up and deal with it."
He's like six-foot-thirteen and 380 pounds, none of it fat; me, I'm five-eleven and forty-odd kilos. Seeing this as he turns to look down at me, Bernie makes with a contemptuous grin. "Who's gonna ma-''yeee!!!"''
There's an instant cloud of ozone and burnt fur — I didn't let Bernie ''see'' my TASER, but he damn sure ''felt'' it. He hits the floor like a 380-pound sack of dog food. Upshift, extract his wallet from a pocket, downshift, hand the wallet over to the norm-looking guy that beat Bernie. I say, "Take your winnings out of this," then I upshift again, this time so's I can haul Bernie's ass out the front door. We cheetahs are stronger than we look — we ''have to'' be, since our legendary top speed is muscle-powered — and besides, I've found that local gravity gets weaker when I upshift. Put 'em together, and I'm not even breathing hard when I set Bernie down on the sidewalk outside the Pig.
Once more behind the counter, I inhale dried meat, downshift, and pick up where I left off — elapsed time 8.6 clock-seconds in all. "I'm back. You there, what do you want?"
I keep a watchful eye on the crowd.
"Make mine a Jumper Cable."
I take orders.
"Bacardi 151 on the rocks."
I make change.
"Irish Coffee."
I pour booze.
Time goes on. The clock-hours spin and gyrate...
...and suddenly I blink, confused at what I see before me. ''Minotaur?'' I ask myself. ''That's — hold it, what's Donnie doing here..?
Ah. Right.''
The place is damn near empty, only a couple of stragglers still hanging on; I must have signaled Closing Time already. ''Thank any applicable god... Oh, yeah. Must ask...'' "Hhhh..." I stop, close eyes, swallow, restart. "How'd the class go?"
Donnie shrugs, then gives me an interrogative "Mmm?"-and-look combo.
I'm tired. My head hurts. "If you're asking how ''my'' end of the deal went, it sucked. I have ''no'' idea how you can ''stand'' doing what you do. Can I go now?"
Donnie looks at me with some inscrutable bovine expression. He nods.
I do likewise myself, no words. I manage to drag myself out to the Extremis, get inside, and lock up before I collapse...

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Week 6: Nothing much happened. Okay, I ''did'' lose another student, but it's all good... I guess...
On Thursday (that being July 29th, if you've lost track), I get a call from out of state — the Betty Ford Clinic. Guess which of their recent patients put in a request to chat me up, personal-like? Right — ''her.'' No reason given. Well, what the hell. I got time to kill, like always, so I agree to do the conversation today. I make time for it (and I ''do'' mean '''make'' time'), and at 5 PM, I'm in Mary Zelinski's private room at the Clinic.
She screws up her face a little, concentrating, and says — ''she'' honest-to-Thoth ''says! — ''"Hhhee-rhho, Tcheu-baddhuz."
I smile and nod. "Hello yourself, Ms. Zelinski. Needs work, but not too damned shabby. Y'know, if you wanted to let me know you're dropping the class, you could've just sent me e-mail..."
Despite herself, the foxy lady smiles. Only for a moment, but it's ''there.'' And then she goes on: "Iiayy, w''rr''ahndtuu... ''hrraauuw!"'' A frustrated yowl. Frowning, she picks up her voder, which just happens to have been lying on her nightstand, and lets it speak for her. "Yes. I'm dropping your class. This is about something else. What happened to my wife?"
I wasn't expecting ''that.'' If I had eyebrows, I'd raise them. "It matters?"
Angry and some other emotion fight it out on Zelinski's face; Angry is losing, ''big'' time. "I'm not sure any more," her voder says in its incongruously level tone. "I'm not sure I want to know. But I must know. And you can tell me. Can't you?"
''Oh, fucking joy.'' "Yeah. I can. But just remember, you ''asked'' for it..." And I make with an infodump. I give Zelinski the whole story, everything from when I first read her file to when I hammered on dear little Alison. The foxy lady doesn't interrupt; she sits there and absorbs it all without making a sound. And then I'm done...
"...back to the Pig, to get smashed."
At this point, Zelinski isn't the least bit angry. She's kind of hunched over into herself; her voder lies, forgotten, on the bed next to her.
I wait a bit, then kill the silence: "You asked. I answered. Is that it?"
The vixen pulls herself together. "Yes," her voder says, "that's enough." Then her fingers pause over the talk-box. A few moments later, it recites the words she'd been typing; it gets as far as "I wish" before she hits the 'abort' button. She starts over, her hands a little shaky: "Tank you mitt sir Jubatus. You comforted my suspectings. Please lever me out lone."
Which I do. The Ford Clinic staff wants to debrief me; I blow off most of their questions with variations on, "Ask the foxy lady — it's ''her'' call."
And then I'm on the road again, driving back home.

Nothing much happened for the next week or so, and that includes during the next class session. Fortunately. I've been on the short end of too damn many surprises already...
Wait, there was ''one'' thing: The bug. Borman. He can actually stridulate one-syllable words! He sounds lousy (still better than ''I'' do, damn it), and it sucks up so much of his attention and concentration that changing to a different syllable is a major feat, but when all is said and done, he ''can'' talk. It's just a matter of practice, honing his currently-primitive skill.

So I'm coming in for today's stint at the West Street Shelter. I'm not three steps past the front door when this lightly morphed rat-SCAB, a new addition to the staff, says Splendor wants to see me in her office right away. What does she ''want'' from me? Hell if I know — but 'in her office' means it's a private conversation, and ''that'' cuts ''way'' back on the number of alternatives...
By the time I open her office door, the short list is down to about three possible agendas. I close the door. Splendor's just beginning to greet me; I interrupt her, saying, "You want I should work somebody over."
She blinks. "What makes you... never mind. Actually —"
Some things are best stopped ''before'' they start. I cut her off again: "Not interested. Go find someone else to play shock trooper. I'm sure there's ''plenty'' of people around here who'd ''love'' to put a hurting on some asshole who desperately deserves —"
"That's exactly why I want ''you'' for this job!" Her turn to interrupt, it seems.
My turn to blink.
"Okay..." I finally say. "You've piqued my curiosity. Explain."
"Thank you. First, some background." She opens a file drawer, pulls out a manila folder, hands it to me. "Read this."
Upshifting, I follow her advice. 'This' is a collection of eyewitness reports — seems that Splendor has an unofficial network of informers all over the City. It's mostly surveillance on the comings and goings of various lowlifes, but there's also some educated guesses on what said lowlifes will be up to in the near future. Hmmm... if I'm reading this right, it looks like the West Street neighborhood's been relatively low on criminals for a while, and a gang from outside the City is planning to move into what they perceive as a vacuum.
I close the folder, slip back to a tempo of 1 — "Done." — and return it to her. "Alright, that's the background. So what?"
"I know the local thugs, and I've gotten most of them to stop committing their crimes in ''my'' neighborhood."
"Bully for you." I've got an uncomfortable feeling I know what's on her mind, but — "And I should get involved... why?"
She gestures at the folder. "The Cargill Mob. If they establish a presence here, it will be... well. Let's just say it would be best for all concerned if they don't. I want to dissuade them with a show of force; give them a demonstra-"
"No. I flatly ''refuse'' to play enforcer."
''"Will'' you let me ''finish!?"'' she says, glaring at me. Well, what do you know — the snake-lady actually ''has'' a temper. I gesture for her to continue; she does. "I've set up a meeting with Jocko Cargill," — head honcho of the eponymous Mob, says her files, real name 'Giocomo' — "and I want to be accompanied by people who I can be ''absolutely certain'' will not initiate any hostile action."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I say without much sarcasm. "So what ''do'' you want from me?"
"You're welcome. And I want you to serve as bodyguard."
Damn... it's not often that I'm left speechless...
"Frankly, I'd be a fool to trust Jocko as far as I can —" '''''BLAM!'''''
''— attack: threat level extreme: 2 o'clock —
''Damn... the whole south wall's erupted with itsy-bitsy explosions. The instincts upshifted me to a tempo of 35-40, somewhere up there, and the ambient noise Dopplers down like always; I can see...
Holy limping Hephæstus — ''I '''can''' see the bullets moving!''
It actually takes a couple seconds of my time before I snap out of it and get to work. Numero Uno: Digital camera from my vest, aim it at the wall's exit wounds, leave it floating in midair at1,000 shots per clock-second. Numero Two-o: Shpritz a layer of DeadGlove (inert polymer in a spray can) on my hands, grab bullets out of the air, store 'em five-to-a-mylar-envelope. Would've preferred individually-wrapped, but I ran out — wasn't prepped for ''this'' many projectiles! Numero Three-o: There's a second wave of airborne crap (shards of window glass, wood chips, nails, yada yada), so I sweep it all to the carpet and bury it under several dozen pounds of books to make sure it don't go noplace it shouldn't ought to.
I retrieve my camera — good, it's still got 91% free RAM — and there's nothing visibly moving at the moment, so I downshift to a tempo of 1 so's I can hear if there's any more impacts. There aren't any, but I ''do'' hear screams and wails from casualties, damnit! Well, hell; they probably won't die in the next few clock-seconds, so I upshift my tempo to 35 and avoid the jagged remnants of windowpane in the frame as I go outside to get some good shots of a late-model Chrysler, nicely framed between a lamp post and a dumpster; driver and two passengers, shabby paint and no discernable plates. Oh, and a pair of rifle barrels sticking out its side windows, complete with muzzle flash and ''more fucking bullets'' on the way. The car's tilted forward, which means the sons of bitches are braking to give themselves more time to shoot.
Fine. I move in, camera ''k'chnkk''-ing away as it stores images of the bullets and their source, and when I'm in range, I reach inside the car; grab the front gun by its chamber; and '''''pull''''' the fucker out and down, with as much force as you'd expect from muscles that can shove a hundred-pound mass around at 70 MPH. Next up: A re-run with the back-seat firearm.
Both guns are firmly lodged in the dirt, barrel-first. The guys who ''were'' holding them have a bunch of fingers sticking out at ''real'' weird angles. Fuck 'em both. I'm busy — the guns are harmless, but there's all the bullets they ''already'' fired — okay, got the last one. My envelopes now hold seven bullets apiece.
Hungry now. I inhale a slab of beef jerky from my vest while I plan out my next move...
By the time I've made my decision, the dudes-in-car are starting to react to the abrupt change in their immediate surroundings; there's the beginnings of shocked/worried expressions evolving on their faces. Hmm... the car's not so tilted as it had been... betcha the driver's floored it. I grin as I extract a genuine Swiss Army Knife from a vest-pocket, unfold the (diamond-hard, waterproof, corrosion-resistant, tungsten/vanadium alloy) cutting blade, and slash a diagonal gouge all the way across the tread of the driver's side front tire. Not waiting for it to finish blowing out, I do likewise to the driver's side rear; then I step back onto the sidewalk, resume munching on shriveled meat, downshift to a tempo of 1, and watch the wreck change from 'incipient' to 'actual'.
As per my unwritten script, the car — driver's side, at least — drops to the pavement with a hell of a clang and a shower of sparks. Then it makes with a metal-on-asphalt shriek all the way to its 45-MPH collision with the dumpster. Oooh, no airbags! ''That's'' gonna leave a mark...
I finish my snack, keeping an eye on the perps in case someone feels like doing something cute; nobody does. I upshift high, strip all three assholes down to their underwear, expend an entire pocket-sized roll of duct tape making ''damn'' sure the perps are gonna sit tight where they are, clean out the glove box and trunk... and for an encore, I downshift and call in the whole sorry encounter to the local police precinct.
Citizen's arrest is a ''good'' thing, right?
Waiting for the cops to show, I drop back to my default tempo of 6 and amuse myself checking out my loot. No discernable ID on any of the trio — such a surprise — so we'll just see what their photos, fingerprints, and DNA (from impromptu blood samples) have to say about the matter. Again, the car is plateless, and there's no VIN either. As for the guns, they look like they could be Izakawa 'Divine Wrath'-model automatics. That, or else homebrew jobs. I sure hope it's the latter, since I happen to know that Izakawa doesn't ''do'' firearms for any ''civilian'' market.
Onward to happier thoughts. Let's see... the clothes look to be generic off-the-rack Target. Residual scent is mostly drowned under cheap-ass cologne, so there's not so much chance of getting olfactory ID off of it. Just one of the tricks criminals have learned for dealing with a post-SCABS world...
...ah. Someone's approaching — correction: ''Splendor's'' approaching. I downshift to match her tempo.
"Nice day, huh?" I say.
She grimaces a little. "Hardly. It seems I'm not the only one who felt a show of force might be appropriate."
"Seems like," I agree. "The timing's pretty interesting, though. It ''could'' be coincidence... but me, I bet Cargill had your office wired for sound. Not sure when."
Splendor nods. "That makes sense. Perhaps we should relocate this discussion to a more secure place?"
"No point. I mean, he's ''already'' eavesdropping, right? So he's gotta know his boys got ''way'' the hell hammered on, by someone who's ''literally'' faster than a speeding bullet. He may not be sure what other tricks I have up my sleeve, but I, for one, will be happy to help him learn — the ''hard'' way. Of course, that's assuming Jocko Homo has the balls, not to mention the requisite lack of functional brain cells, to suit up for Round Two."
Splendor's eyes widen, just for a moment, about halfway through my last sentence. Then she gets it and puts a subtle smile on her face. "I... see. I trust you know what you're doing..."
"Always," I state flatly. "And I know something else: That fucknose is ''toast."
''
The next few days are kind of busy, and not just because of my unfinished contracts (29 and counting) and speech-class-related stuff and helping Splendor deal with the listening devices. To begin with, I pore over police records and the snake-lady's files — but that's maybe a couple of clock-hours at most. No, what ''really'' occupies my time is what I ''do'' with the data thereby gained: I smash hands.
See, the cops have a pretty good idea of who-all is on Jocko's payroll, and what their particular duties are. Just because the authorities don't have enough hard evidence to nail a guy in court, that doesn't mean they're clueless about why he ''should'' be nailed in court. And if you're curious about why the police might grant a puny civilian — ''i.e.,'' me — access to this sort of sensitive information? Two reasons:
First, money talks.
Second, it seems I got a bit of a fan club in blue. Something to do with all those meticulously detailed complaint reports I keep filing any time some jackass messes with me or my property. I'm told that last year, about17% of all City trials for SCAB-related hate crimes used at least ''some'' data from one of my complaint reports — make it 23%, if you're only interested in ''convictions.''
The point is, I got a line on Jocko's ''whole organization.'' His ''entire'' chain of command, from him and his most-trusted seconds all the way down to his lowliest footsoldiers. And I also got several dozen of the freelancers he's most likely to call when he needs a little extra manpower.
Put it all together, I got me a good, long list of targets to hit... and hit them, I do. With a pair of bricks. At a closing velocity ''well'' in excess of the speed of sound.
I tap each of their hands twice. Hit Number One, the bricks are parallel to the plane of the palm; Hit Number Two, they're at right angles. Locating a target's never difficult. After that, I do my business, leave a card, and bug out.
The card, you ask? Just something I whipped up on a cheap-ass laser printer I bought, used for this one job, and melted to untraceable slag immediately after. Each card bears six words — "TELL JOCKO HOMO TO GET LOST" — and a single letter, "J".
No, as a matter of fact I ''couldn't'' just waste 'em all. Three words:
'''''I.
Don't.
Kill.''
'''Got it?
Aside from that, leaving Jocko's crew mostly-intact is a ''good'' thing. There's a lot to hate about organized crime, but one thing they get right is, ''you take care of your own people.'' 'Cause if you don't... well, either you take care of them, or else ''they'' take care of ''you.'' Not to mention, a rep for fucking over your underlings makes it a ''lot'' harder to get replacement thugs when you need them.
So. If I'd left Jocko with a pile of corpses, he'd just bury 'em and that's ''it.'' But he's got a pile of cripples instead, so he's got ''lots'' bigger problems — like medical expenses for the victims, rent and food for their families, yada yada yada. Unless he's just crazy, he ''must'' deal with all this stuff.
Well, maybe Jocko ''is'' batshit insane; doesn't matter. Crazy or not, he ''still'' needs warm bodies to do his business, right? Which means he needs a whole new 'army'. And if people know how badly he screwed his last gang, who the hell's gonna ''want'' to sign on with his ''next'' gang? Answer: ''No''-fucking-body. And no, Jocko ''can't'' just lean on people to ensure silence. Not while all the guys who ''would'' be doing the actual leaning are in hospital with mangled hands, he can't...

Splendor catches up to me the day after the drive-by. Another ''tete-a-tete'' in her office, which is where two of the five bugs were. She did what I would've suggested if she'd asked: Left 'em all in place, just paying attention to prefabricated soundtracks rather than ambient sights and sounds. But as I walk through the door this time, she welcomes me with a gesture that (by sheer coincidence, I'm sure) switches off the 'bug bamboozler' I installed in this room. ''Confusion to the enemy, hm? Okay, I can play along,'' I muse to myself with a subtle hand gesture that she picks up on.
"Thank you for your promptness, Jubatus," she says. "How many eavesdropping devices have you found?"
"Two, I think."
"You... ''think."''
And then she makes with a disapproving look, so I put on a show of annoyance: "Damn right, I ''think!'' You got any idea how old this place's wiring is? There's all kinds of components that the only reason I could even ''recognize'' them is, I'm old enough to have seen 'em back in the '90s! And further-"
The phone on Splendor's desk rings. Twice. She picks up before ring #3, saying: "West Street Shelter. Splendor speaking."
I hear the voice from the handset, real clear. "Hey there, Miss Splendor! How ya doin'? I heard'ja had some trouble just recent."
Having heard that voice on some police surveillance recordings, I recognize it as Jocko Cargill; not sure about the snake-lady. "I am doing well," she says in a professionally-controlled tone that doesn't give away a damn thing. "If you'd care to tell me what business you have with the Shelter —"
"Yeah," Jocko interrupts. "I got business with you, alright: One'a your freaks dissed me, ''real'' badand it ain't the kind of thing you can clear up with an apology. I know the little pussy's ''there,'' so how's about you put 'im on the line, huh?"
"Ve-" she begins. A momentary upshift lets me confirm there's no incoming assaults; when I revert back to the normal tempo, she's turned on the speakerphone function, and she's saying, "-ell. He's here now."
"Jubatus," I say to the 'phone, playing my part. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
"I want a cheetah-skin rug, ''Mister'' Juba-"
"Well, if it ain't Jocko Homo!" I break in. "What's crawled up ''your'' ass, Mr. H?"
"Ha, fuckin', ha," he replies. It's hard to tell, what with the audio distortions of the telephone system, but I ''think'' his level of irritation just got boosted a notch or two. Good. "Funny, kitty-cat. ''Real'' funny. Lemme tell you what I do to little pussies that stick their noses where they don't belong: I skin the fuckers alive."
"You and what army?" I sneer back at him. "Get real, Jocko — you ain't got shit, and we both ''know'' it. Face facts: '''''I''''''' am the fastest SCAB alive.'' You ''can't'' threaten me — not when I can outrun any bullet on the face of the Earth! Hell, I can ''catch'' your damn bullets and throw 'em right back in your face!"
''"You're dead, you goddamn pussy!"''
I give Splendor a 'thumbs up' gesture as I hammer the needles deeper beneath his skin: "Go ahead, Homo — ''lose'' your temper. Blow a gasket, that's a good little thug. Let your blood pressure rise until your arteries explode. I'll be sure to dance a jig of grief at your funeral, and piss on your grave."
I hold my hand up, warning the snake-lady not to interrupt, for the few moments of heavy breathing it takes Jocko to regain a semblance of self-control. Which he does: "Okay... Okay... You got me goin' there, I admit it. Not too bad — for a ''fuckin' animal.'' Enjoy it while you can, Mister Kitty, 'cause you won't enjoy ''nothin''' after ''I'm'' done with you!"
"So you can tag somebody that can break the sound barrier under his own power? Not!" is my smugly confident reply. "Try a gas weapon, Homo. A poisonous cloud is a lot harder to dodge than a bullet, and ''maybe'' I won't zip through it so damn fast it doesn't have ''time'' to affect me."
"That's ''real'' fuckin' hilarious, Mister Kitty." — and now he pauses, just for a very short moment — "In fact, you're a goddamn comedian, ain't'cha? Well, it wouldn't be polite of me to keep you from laughin' it up, so I'll just say g'bye now." And he hangs up. I think about Jocko Homo's pre- and post-pause vocal overtones, as much as I could hear them over the telephone, as Splendor turns the 'bamboozler' back on with a heartfelt exhalation...
"Well," she says, ''"that'' was interesting. May I assume there was a reason you insisted on giving Jocko the bright idea to try chemical weapons?"
"Damn straight." I grin mercilessly. "Look: We SCABs have an insanely wide range of biochemistries, right? What that means is, you can spend however-many megabucks developing a weapon that takes out ''one'' SCAB — but you got basically ''no'' idea whether or not it's gonna affect ''any other'' SCAB! So let's say you're a weapons researcher who's just been handed a pile of cash to come up with an equalizer that'll work on people like us. Do you spend it on chemical weapons, knowing that it's a fucking waste of resources, or do you spend it on new and improved projectile weapons, which are ''guaranteed'' to work on ''almost all'' SCABs?"
She thinks it over a moment, and likes the answer: "In other words, you goaded Jocko into wasting some of his available resources on an intrinsically futile gambit."
"Bingo! Got it in one."
"Unfortunately, I believe there's a flaw in your thinking. What's to keep Jocko from attempting to acquire one of those experimental projectile weapons you spoke of?"
I shrug. "Calculated risk. Assuming Jocko manages to get his hands on ''any'' military hardware ''at all,'' I'm betting he won't get more than one or two pieces, if that. And the more he focuses on ''me'' in particular, the less he's gonna be able to do to ''anybody else."''
"I see..." Splendor just looks at me for a clock-second or so. "You're determined to play lightning rod, aren't you."
"Better me than one of you slowpokes," I say with a shrug. "What's your point? I'm the hardest target you've ''got,'' so why ''shouldn't'' I paint a bullseye on my chest?"
"No reason at all," she says in a neutral tone. "Thank you, Jubatus."
"For what? Premature much?" I grimace. "Save your gratitude until ''after'' we've dealt with the problem at hand."

Jocko's no Jubatus. If it was ''me'' plotting an assault on the Shelter, I'd have researched the place in exhaustive detail ahead of time, including all of its resident SCABs and their combat-useful abilities. I'd also have worked up about 14 layers of contingency plans in case Something Went Wrong. And in particular, I would ''not'' have allowed my targets ''any'' breathing space ''whatsoever'' after my first attack. Then again, maybe Cargill did have a Plan B — Splendor doesn't think so, but, y'know, for the sake of argument? Like I said: Maybe the guy ''did'' have a backup plan, but I got my counterattack in ''before'' he could push the button.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Either way, I'm not about to let up on him. For one thing, I've only tagged 68% of the targets on my list, and if you're a slowpoke (which everybody associated with the Shelter ''is),'' just ''one'' disgruntled twit with a high-powered rifle is all it takes to ruin your whole day. For another thing, three of the targets on my list have ''already'' bolted and run, apparently the moment they heard about what happened to my first victims. Or ''did'' they run away? Could be Jocko ordered 'em to go elsewhere and pick up a few 55-gallon drums of industrial-strength Whupass. Again, Spendor doesn't think Jocko's subtle enough (or smart enough) to do that; I'm inclined to agree, myself. Nevertheless, it's a loose end that needs to be tied off ''before'' it trips up anybody who matters. I've uploaded a few spiders to the Net, to keep an eye on the runners' financial activity; nothing big, just what I need so's I'll have a little advance notice if/when they make a suspicious purchase wherever, or they return to this fair city, or yada yada yada.

Yeah, I can do Smug and Arrogant.

"Hey, don't get me wrong — I don't like killin' people any more'n the next guy! But what can you do when some fuckin' dipshit ''asks'' f-"
''— multiple attacks: threat levels high, extreme, extreme, lethal, extreme: 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 o'clock —''
— the instincts upshifted me to a tempo of ''40?'' Damn. Looks like my buddy Jocko is playing with ''very'' dangerous toys! A rather strong hammerblow to my back pushes me forward; I go with it, especially because there's a couple points on the back of my head that're feeling ''real'' hot just now. As I fall forward, the hot spots on my skull cool down a bit, and a second hammerblow glances off one shoulder.
Yes, Virginia, I got hit with supersonic bullets ''and'' military lasers. How did I survive to tell the tale, you ask? Tempo of 40, that's how. Upshifted that high, from ''my'' point of view the bullets were only carrying ''one-sixteenth of a percent'' of their 'full' load of kinetic energy; body armor did the rest. As for the energy weapons, my upshift cut their power — how much energy they deliver in a given amount of time — to only 1/40 normal, not to mention what it did to the photons' frequency. That kind of tweakage can really mess up a laser beam's innate capacity for destruction, you know? Still dangerous, but only if I'm dumb enough to stick around and wait for it to burn me. No, I can't outrun photons; then again, I don't ''have to'' be faster than light.
I just have to be faster than whatever's adjusting the laser's point-of-aim.
Moving right along: You damn betcha I'm prepped for beam weapons. Jocko may not be Jubatus, but ''I am.'' One vest pocket holds a few grams of light-sensitive dust; laser-safety goggles in another; a third pocket's got a matched set of six corner-cube reflectors. My left hand tosses clouds of powder into the air for the beams to reflect/refract off of, while I put the goggles on with my right... bingo! ''There's'' the beamlines — all three of the SOBs. Fine. Three corner-cubes, coming right up. I give each one a ''whole'' bunch of angular velocity so it twirls in place; that won't stop it from reflecting the laser ''exactly'' back the way it came, but it ''will'' reduce the amount of time any particular piece of reflector spends in direct contact with its beam.
The adrenaline rush is fading — I can feel blood vessels throbbing in my neck and scalp, not to mention the opening twinges of a killer migraine. That's what I get for overstraining my chronomorph power. I can't maintain a tempo of 40 for long, so I gotta make the most of each Time-shifted fractional second while I can.
Okay — the bullets. Only one source, thank Ares. They look to be moving at 40-45 MPH, which (after factoring in my tempo) means they ''are'' supersonic. Somewhere around Mach two-point-five, I think. The exact figure doesn't matter: I extract a pair of hand-sized metal plates from yet another vest pocket, align the plates at ''just'' the right angles, and thereby nudge the stream of bullets towards the trajectory I'd rather they follow. The headache's just begun, but I ain't got ''time'' to deal with the pain, so I ignore it. I give the room a quick scan; yep, the same four targets. Good. Hmmm... the first bullet just struck target 1, so I shift my 'bucklers' to redirect the stream to the next in line, then target 3, and finally Jocko himself. Bastard ''would'' ensure that ''he's'' not anywhere near the direct line of fire, damn it.
The lasers are gone now — ''quelle'' surprise, and I appreciate the corner-cubes' sacrifice — so it's time to deal with the gun-on-steroids. The cloud of drywall fragments tells me ''exactly'' where the bullets are coming from, so I leap straight at that point, twirling my hand-held shields before me in a paddle-wheel-type maneuver so's the projectiles get knocked out of my flight path into the floor. Each bullet-slap jars me up to the shoulders, in a rhythm that clashes against the pulsating throbs of my cerebral arteries. I hit the wall a little over the bullets' exit hole; no problem! I dig into the wall with the claws of two feet and one arm, and I use my free hand to ram a 'shield' right down the barrel of the damn gun.
Okay, it won't fit — it's too big — but ''you'' know what I mean, right? If I can clog up the barrel with its own bullets, I negate this particular threat. And the bullets keep coming; each new impact against the 'buckler' sends a ''serious'' shockwave up my arm and down my torso to rattle my internal organs. One... two... thr- ''Sn'f'fckngbtch!!!''
''Very'' bright light. Then pain makes a fast getaway as the world goes ''real'' dark...

Lying down; I smell medicines and rubbing alcohol; right. I'm in a hospital. Private room. Kind of tired, but I don't feel much pain — apparently, I've been healing for a while? And... okay, I recognize ''that'' scent: It's Splendor. I see a light cast on her left elbow, neatly-applied dressings on her neck and the right side of her face, plus a glued-down patch over her right eye — and who knows what ''else'' she's hiding ''underneath'' her clothes. No cane; she must not've been hurt ''that'' badly. I downshift to talk to her...
"Hello, Splendor," I say. "I'm guessing the good guys won."
"Jubatus!" She seems a little surprised to hear me speak; not sure why. "Welcome to the land of the living. And yes, we did."
"Good. What happened after I fell asleep on the job?"
The lady makes with one of her oh-so-elegant veiled smiles. "You may have 'fell asleep', but I shan't complain. After all, a railgun ''did'' explode in your face..."
I roll my eyes. "Now tell me something I ''don't'' know."
"Of course," she says, nodding. "From what I could determine afterwards, I was outside the blast radius proper, but the shockwave knocked me senseless anyway. When I came to, I was naked except for the coils of duct tape Jocko had wrapped around me — and I knew it was him because he wasn't finished. I'm afraid he noticed I was awake before I'd quite recovered my wits; he took great pleasure in telling me ''exactly and precisely'' what he intended to do to me, now that you were too dead to protect me." Now she looks me in the eyes; her unblinking gaze makes it real clear (like it wasn't before?) what kind of critter that damn disease blended her with. I wait for the snake-lady to keep talking.
"And then he raped me." It's a flat, calm, statement of fact she's just made... "Which only proves that he was unaware of the ''full'' extent of what SCABS did to me."
My mind races — there's a few rumors about certain events in her past — I throw out an educated guess: "Projecting chronomorph?"
Splendor acknowledges my remark with a subtle inclination of her head. "Correct. I can only adjust other people's ages downward — but when sex is involved, the rejuvenative effect is ''permanent."''
I ponder the possibilities... "So you rolled his odometer back. How far?"
"I fully intended to 'roll his odometer back', as you put it, to the point at which his zygote originally formed." I blink at that. ''Okay... someone remind me never to piss her off...'' "As it happened, I didn't need to go that far; at the moment of his death, I'd reduced him to a first-trimester premature birth."
"Damn..." I picture the scene in my mind. "And since he ''was'' raping you at the time..."
"Exactly. Jocko was too distracted to perceive any difficulties until ''after'' he was physically incapable of doing anything about it. Now it's your turn, Jubatus. What ''did'' you spend these past few days doing?"
So I talk. Snake-lady listens — and from her occasional questions and comments, it's pretty clear that my info is mostly just confirming what she's already learned from other sources.
Doesn't take me long to finish the story. Splendor stares off into the middle distance for a while; I take the opportunity to catch up on some much-needed sleep...

[[Category:Story]][[Category:Cubist]][[Category:Tales from the Blind Pig]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:John Moschitta School of Elocution}}

User:Cubist

2008-02-23T10:37:21Z

Cubist: /* My TBP stories */

{{my stories
|name=Cubist
|category=Cubist
}}
My offline name is Quentin Long. Among other things, I edited/webmastered 30 issues of the netzine [http://tsat.transform.to TSAT] before I killed it, and currently am editor/webmaster of the live netzine [http://anthrozine.com Anthro] (13 issues and counting), which I invite everyone to browse. If you like ''Anthro's'' content ''(i.e.,'' its stories and art), feel free to [http://anthrozine.com/site/support.html donate money or subscribe]; [http://anthrozine.com/site/ad.policy.html place an advertisement]; check out the [http://anthrozine.com/site/support.books.1.html recommended books] and/or [http://www.zazzle.com/cubist* art for sale]; or purchase paperback editions of [http://www.lulu.com/content/536807 the zine's first six issues] or [http://www.lulu.com/content/541536 ''The Human Memoirs],'' the zine's first serial. Aside from that, I've also done a bit of writing myself...

== My TBP stories ==

In the TF community-of-interest, my Blind Pig stories are prolly what I'm best known for. My character, Jubatus, is a ''very'' broken person; he's suspicious to the point of paranoia, he's honest ''beyond'' a fault, he's ''highly'' cynical and sarcastic and antisocial and impatient and perfectionistic and... basically, he's just a ''whole'' lot of fun to write. 
Fortunately, Jube seems to be a whole lot of fun to ''read,'' too. 
The stories I've linked to from this page are those written by me, and me alone. There's also some Jube stories that I wrote in collaboration with other people, not to mention the ones I didn't have anything at all to do with the writing of; I am unsure if I should link to them from ''here,'' but they're collected in [http://transform.to/~cubist/ my personal story archive]...

[[User:Cubist/A Good Run of Luck|A Run of Good Luck]] 
[[User:Cubist/Second Heat|Second Heat]] 
[[User:Cubist/Speedy Trials|Speedy Trials]] 
[[User:Cubist/No Quick Fix|No Quick Fix]] 
[[User:Cubist/Building the Perfect Beast|Building the Perfect Beast]] (track 1 of Life in the Fast Lane) 
[[User:Cubist/So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star|So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star]] (track 2 of Life in the Fast Lane) 
[[User:Cubist/Christmas Rush|Christmas Rush]]

And I have some TBP works-in-progress, too. Perhaps posting them here will gather some feedback and/or help spur me on to finish them at a faster rate than I am now...

[[User:Cubist/The John Moschitta School of Elocution|The John Moschitta School of Elocution]]

== My other stories ==

TBP isn't the ''only'' thing I do, of course. For instance, I've written the incredible but true Origin story of my avatar in the HEROINES setting...

[[User:Cubist/Nobody's Coming|Nobody's Coming]]

[[Category:Author]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Cubist}}

Uses Your Senses Dammit!

2008-02-23T10:12:24Z

Cubist: Uses Your Senses Dammit! moved to Use Your Senses Dammit!: Fixing a tyypo in the title -- "use", not "uses"

#REDIRECT [[Use Your Senses Dammit!]]

Use Your Senses Dammit!

2008-02-23T10:12:24Z

Cubist: Uses Your Senses Dammit! moved to Use Your Senses Dammit!: Fixing a tyypo in the title -- "use", not "uses"

[[Category:Michael Bard]][[Category:Essays]][[Category:Writers School]]
{{byline|user=Michael Bard}}

Somewhere I once read, or was told, that the author Poul Anderson once said that he tried to appeal to at least three* senses on every page of a fictional work. Of course those weren't his exact words, but the meaning is the same.
And sadly, very few people do this.
I've read a lot of stories recently where the author describes what is seen. All well and good. In fact virtually every story does this consistently.
Unfortunately the other senses are only rarely mentioned.
Hearing is usually only used when somebody says something, or when introducing a new scene.
Taste is virtually only used for a bit of humour: "it tastes like chicken" or any of the many many variations.
Touch is usually used only for the initial examination of a new form as the person touches their new fur, and as a description of an action. "He touched me on the arm."
Smell is virtually never used, and if so only during the first moments in a new form when the odours are overwhelming. After that it's never mentioned again. Which is odd, given that smell is one of the most evocative senses we have.

Finally, even when the other senses are used, rarely are they used other than as verbs. "He heard her." "She could smell his aftershave."
This is a horrible loss to the reader, and a failure on the part of the writer.
And, you're not the only one, published authors are guilty of this too.
Consider the following short examples:
a. He heard her calling him.
b. Her voice rang oddly in her new ears. It was distorted, slightly faded, slightly fuzzy, until he turned his ears and the sound became sharp and shrill. Suddenly it was piercing, almost painful. Instinctively he turned his ears away and her voice faded to a deep silence like the whistle of a train that just passed and had faded away.
a. He inhaled the water, tasting its salt, and swallowed it down and out across his gills.
b. The water wasn't just salty, it was full of life. He could taste particles of grit, sand, bits of shell that were sharp and stung just a tiny bit. There was drifting plankton that teased his tongue and a tiny fragment of weed the slid down his throat. He could even sense each as it passed out through his gills. The taste and scratchiness of sand and shell, the rub of fuzzy mono-cell greenery, the gelatin-like twisting and touching of the weed.
a. His hooves could sense the ground as though he was wearing a thin shoe.

b. He realized that his feet, well hooves now, were not completely insensitive. They weren't shoes that he was wearing. He could sense the ground dimly through them, like looking backwards through a telescope. The ground was soft, a leaf was beneath the rear half of his left hind hoof. There was a rounded rock under his left fore hoof. It was not the clear definition of touch that he still had in his hands, but instead it was a rough classification. He knew the ground was soft, but not whether it was damp. He knew the leaf was there, but not how large or how dry it was. He knew the rock was there, and that it was round, but only roughly how large it was.
a. He sniffed the air, and almost gagged from the density of things he could smell.
b. Sniffing the air he realized that it wasn't air, it was a rich cocktail of thick chocolates and liquors. It was all mixed together, a tangle of individual strands, but he could identify each one. And not by what they were. That one, to his new nose it felt like a pair of socks that had been worn on a two-day hike. And that one was a rough bitterness, like the sharp edge of a hard toffee.
Which of these do you, as a reader, prefer?
Poul Anderson's work is full of little evocations, especially in the name of native life from planets other than earth. But, the best author at this, in my opinion of course [glares at the one person who disagrees who then slinks away] is Lord Dunsany. Most of his work was short evocative descriptions. You can sample some of his work at <http://alangullette.com/lit/dunsany/> or in the TSAT archives at <http://tsat.transform.to/stories/coronation.thomas.shap.html> or <http://tsat.xepher.net/stories/coronation.thomas.shap.html>.
*Of course, in certain cases this is impossible. If a victim is in a sensory isolation tank and the only thing they can sense is a person's voice, well then there are no others. If a person turns into a creature with no sense of smell, well then there is no smell. In other words, like all other advice, keep this in mind, obey it when you think it's right, and ruthlessly throw it away when you think it's wrong.

User talk:JonBuck/Tall Tales

2008-02-12T12:49:57Z

Cubist: /* RDF TG ghost alternative */

Nice to see more work being done in this universe, it's an interesting setting. Looking forward to seeing one of those dolphins; I'm currently on a mermaid kick so I'm curious what their structure is like. :) [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 13:56, 23 December 2007 (EST)

A couple things on this latest update. First, thanks for the cameo! I wonder what Frasier saw of me though. Going amongst the Changed, I would be dressing my gender. As a rat, I'm also only four and a half feet tall. Also, when it comes to this new aspect of TG, that new acquaintances see the new gender, is that something that is only now starting to happen in 07, or has that always been the case? --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 17:34, 2 February 2008 (EST)
:I'll make those changes. As for the "New Acquaintances", that ''is'' new for 07, and it's a direct result of having so many furs in a small location. But it's an attempt to make the "processing power" less of an issue for our little simulated world. It could spread to other TGed furs, I'm not sure.--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 19:17, 2 February 2008 (EST)

::Frankly, I think the "New Acquaintances" schtick is a mistake. The RDF makes people see furries as whatever they used to be ''before'' they Changed; if getting Changed a ''second'' time alters the 'default image' that mundanes see, how come it's ''only'' the '''gender''' that might be involved? I mean, why doesn't Chris (he/she of many forms) appear as any of a number of species/gender combinations, depending on exactly who's looking at him/her, and exactly when they first met Chris?
::As to processing power in the simulated world, I just can't see that as being a valid concern. First off: Given that we're talking about a post-Singularity cloud of computronium, the available processing power is (or might as well be...) ''infinite,'' to all intents and purposes. Second off: If processing power really is a concern, the 'New Acquaintances' schtick makes matters ''worse.'' The whole point of the RDF is that it supplies a 'fake image' for mundanes to see, right? Well, what burns more CPU cycles -- ''one'' fake image that's seen by ''all'' mundanes, or ''two'' fake images ''plus'' the necessity to keep track of which mundanes ought to see which fake image?
::Like I said, I think the 'new acquaintances' schtick is a mistake -- at absolute best, it's an answer in search of a problem, and at worst, it's an unnecessary quirk that makes the Paradise setting more complexificationated without providing any benefits on the side. But if you're going to run with it anyway, I suggest that it be the result of some kind of unforeseen interaction(s) between the 'furry virus' and the 'antivirus shield' that's providing the RDF. Maybe the 'furry virus' has actually mutated into different strains (see also: "polymorphic viruses"); maybe things are going wonky because the 'virus' acquired some code from the 'shield' -- or ''vice versa;'' maybe something else entirely. [shrug] [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 07:40, 5 February 2008 (EST)

:::You're probably right about the conservation-of-cpu idea. I'll go ahead and use some interaction between furry virus/RDF antiviral instead. There's no reason why the furry virus has to stay the same. Since it's a sentient thing itself, it'd be looking for ways around the RDF and antivirals. Somehow it managed to change the RDF-presented gender of the furry TGers, intending to both mess their lives up and give the medical community something to puzzle over. So ROB responds with ID card changes. As the "polymorph virus" continues to wreak havoc, ROB will be forced to act more and more openly.
:::The main reason for this addition ''is'' to make things more interesting for the writers and characters.
:::Still, all this is building towards that normal people are going to figure out there's Something Wrong.--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 16:03, 5 February 2008 (EST)

:::'''Later''': Suppose the virus is screwing with the RDF by changing the human gender the TGed furs appear as. One of two things can happen here. Like PD, they could just dump their old lives entirely and start anew. This would put less strain on the RDF because it no longer has to maintain two phantom images, just one. Also, computer records can be changed. Eirik suggested that if they completely adopt their new lifestyles that even their friends would see them as newly male/female. On the other hand, victims with very established careers (like BD) would have problems.
:::As for any combinations of species/gender that would happen to folks like CM and JF, perhaps when that does happen it's a sign that the RDF is under imminent failure.--[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 16:53, 5 February 2008 (EST)

:::'''Even Later''': I wanted to do something like this from the beginning. My alternative was for a just TG image flip and have the victims deal with it like in most TG fiction. This group is currently isolated, though it'll spread to all the others the next year. ROB would not go as far as to change memories (It has a moral issue against doing that). The middle ground is Family/Friends/Coworkers still see the male image and new people see the female one. I suppose that's a little over the top. But I like that last scene too much to make any changes. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 18:31, 5 February 2008 (EST)

:::'''Final Decision''': After discussing it on IRC, this is going to stay as I've written it. But it's also a temporary measure. It will spread to all the TGed furs in 2008. And in 2009, their human ghost will flip according to the new real gender of the victim. There will be well over four million furs that year. There will be other developments during that time as well that will start to compromise the integrity of the RDF (perhaps we start getting some furs in high levels of government). But that's the plan right now. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 19:21, 5 February 2008 (EST)

::::Quick question related to this. I'm planning on having CM transfered to another plant in the area after the Philly con. Now all of her coworkers see her as female. August 08 she changes to male Rottweiler. What gender will they see Chris as then? --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 17:58, 6 February 2008 (EST)

:::::I'm not sure, since your character's situation is unique. I think there's some flexibility. What works best for the story you're trying to tell? --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 19:21, 6 February 2008 (EST)

::::::Well, I had the idea that CM has accepted being female, and then goes back to male, but everyone still sees her as female. Now CM gets the opposite TG effect, being male while everyone sees her as female! CM has to get used to being male again in the process of being treated female. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 21:34, 8 February 2008 (EST)

Nice update, I like how you did the scene you said was inspired by kaceys pic.

--[[User:Devin|Devin]] 01:18, 4 February 2008 (EST)

=RDF TG ghost alternative=

Okay, Cubist. How's this for an alternative?

Instead of the "new acquaintances" Field, what happens is that the human "ghost" TGs. It now reflects physical gender to ''everyone'', family, friends, regardless. This is a direct effect of the "polymorph virus", which is slightly more advanced than the Cloud we live in. So ROB can't directly counter it. Instead, it quickly edits in the female versions' lives, but without altering memories. What it ''does'' end up altering are the spouses of married folks. If they have kids, ''one'' of them has to be female. And they might even go furry in the process. And regular humans end up "forgetting" what gender that person actually was.

Call it a "reality shift", because in a way it is. And it's a very imperfect kludge because the ROB running the place isn't quite as smart as the virus. The question is if this would spread to all the other TGed, or it's just limited to the baker's dozen who were at this Con.

Is this version better or worse than what I have? Or should I just alter what I have to this version so it can be judged in story context? I need to discuss this with Matthias, also. It's a big change and he's already made some plans. But it also means that things are consistent across the board. ''Everyone'' sees BD as Brittany Derringer. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 01:29, 12 February 2008 (EST)

:Having it be something that just happened to the ones who were at the Con could be good, making it a harbinger of things to come without necessarily throwing a curve ball at the entire setting yet. Eventually there'll be enough furries that these sorts of RDF failures will become inevitable all over the place, but right now there are still few enough that it only happens when the concentration becomes extreme. [[User:Bryan|Bryan]] 01:58, 12 February 2008 (EST)

:My plans are changeable, Jon. However, I would like to discuss this with you on IRC sometime this week so I can decide whether I think this would be good story-wise or not. I also will need details clarified. For instance, when MP said his husband changed last night, what exactly happened to his husband. And what would or could happen to CM's wife? I'm sure I'll have more questions after I've had some time to ponder this. --[[User:MatthiasRat|MatthiasRat]] 05:04, 12 February 2008 (EST)

:What do I think of this new proposal? Three things:
:One: Having the 'ghosts' shift around ''at all'' is a mistake. (yes, I ''still'' think so)
:Two: If 'ghost'-shifting is a gratuitous layer of extra complexity spot-welded onto the setting, this proposal is an additional, ''thicker'' layer of gratuitous complexity spackled on top of the first layer.
:Three: It's your mistake to make, if you're bound and determined to make it (which all evidence to date suggests you are).
:Sorry to be a buzz-kill. Not being into TG myself, I don't really have a dog in this fight (if you'll pardon the expression). But, you know, since you ''asked'' me... [[User:Cubist|Cubist]] 07:49, 12 February 2008 (EST)

Here is a temporary page up with the alternative section: '''[[User:JonBuck/Tall Tales Alt TG|Tall Tales Alternative TG]]'''. You be the judge. --[[User:JonBuck|Buck]] 02:38, 12 February 2008 (EST)

User talk:JonBuck/Tall Tales

2008-02-05T12:40:11Z

Cubist: My two cents on the 'new acquaintances' thingie

User:Cubist

2008-01-19T13:40:13Z

Cubist:

{{my stories
|name=Cubist
|category=Cubist
}}
My offline name is Quentin Long. Among other things, I edited/webmastered 30 issues of the netzine [http://tsat.transform.to TSAT] before I killed it, and currently am editor/webmaster of the live netzine [http://anthrozine.com Anthro] (13 issues and counting), which I invite everyone to browse. If you like ''Anthro's'' content ''(i.e.,'' its stories and art), feel free to [http://anthrozine.com/site/support.html donate money or subscribe]; [http://anthrozine.com/site/ad.policy.html place an advertisement]; check out the [http://anthrozine.com/site/support.books.1.html recommended books] and/or [http://www.zazzle.com/cubist* art for sale]; or purchase paperback editions of [http://www.lulu.com/content/536807 the zine's first six issues] or [http://www.lulu.com/content/541536 ''The Human Memoirs],'' the zine's first serial. Aside from that, I've also done a bit of writing myself...

== My TBP stories ==

In the TF community-of-interest, my Blind Pig stories are prolly what I'm best known for. My character, Jubatus, is a ''very'' broken person; he's suspicious to the point of paranoia, he's honest ''beyond'' a fault, he's ''highly'' cynical and sarcastic and antisocial and impatient and perfectionistic and... basically, he's just a ''whole'' lot of fun to write. 
Fortunately, Jube seems to be a whole lot of fun to ''read,'' too. 
The stories I've linked to from this page are those written by me, and me alone. There's also some Jube stories that I wrote in collaboration with other people, not to mention the ones I didn't have anything at all to do with the writing of; I am unsure if I should link to them from ''here,'' but they're collected in [http://transform.to/~cubist/ my personal story archive]...

[[User:Cubist/A Good Run of Luck|A Run of Good Luck]] 
[[User:Cubist/Second Heat|Second Heat]] 
[[User:Cubist/Speedy Trials|Speedy Trials]] 
[[User:Cubist/No Quick Fix|No Quick Fix]] 
[[User:Cubist/Building the Perfect Beast|Building the Perfect Beast]] (track 1 of Life in the Fast Lane) 
[[User:Cubist/So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star|So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star]] (track 2 of Life in the Fast Lane) 
[[User:Cubist/Christmas Rush|Christmas Rush]]

== My other stories ==

TBP isn't the ''only'' thing I do, of course. For instance, I've written the incredible but true Origin story of my avatar in the HEROINES setting...

[[User:Cubist/Nobody's Coming|Nobody's Coming]]

[[Category:Author]]{{DEFAULTSORT:Cubist}}

Writer's School

2008-01-17T12:48:40Z

Cubist: /* Writing the Story */ Just a blurb

Writing is one of the oldest artforms, but writing fiction is one of the newest. Like any other artform it looks deceptively easy to get into, but once you start the hidden troubles show up. The best authors will tell you that you can't just learn how to write, but this is only partially true. There is a facet to writing that is a learned skill and a facet that you have to be born with.

To the layperson writing is simply stringing words together into a coherent whole. And, to an extent, that is the truth—it's also the part of the art that can be taught. Anyone can learn how to string words together into a coherent sentence and string hundreds of those sentences into a coherent story, but unless you are born with the gift of knowing how to tell a story the end product is, more often than not, bland and built of tiresome cliches and rehashed plots. But if you have been born a storyteller the end product shines, what cliches and rehashed plots it may contain used and retold in such a manner that they seem new again.

This “Writers School” is an attempt to break that mold. Not only is it going to try and teach those people who are born storytellers ways to improve their skills, but it is going to try and teach people how to tell the stories. In here you can find articles on creating believable characters and worlds, tips about how to escape many common pitfalls that snare many writers.

__TOC__

==Before Writing==
{{ws/table header}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Making Miracles]]|Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[The Message at the Center of the Novel]]|Preachiness versus Having A Theme|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Pigging Out]]|Some thoughts on one of the more enduring shared settings, "The Blind Pig"|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[The Pornography Trap]]|One of the most common TF story pitfalls|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Putting first things first|Putting First Things First]]|"It's the story, stupid!"|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Title stolen|Title Stolen by Evil, Inc.]]|Creating and writing villains|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The Tail Tale]]|Avoiding cliches and common pitfalls of TF fiction|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Writing Fantasy]]|Tips about writing good fantasy|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Learning from the Masters]]|Some recommended Science Fiction TF novels to read and take notes from|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Research:It's not just for School anymore]]|Getting your facts straight!|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Character]]|Some basics about where characters come from, how and when to describe them, and what kind of characters you really need|[[User:Fish|Fish]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Dialog]]|Punctuating dialog properly and making it sound real, but not too real|[[User:Fish|Fish]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Syntax]]| Everything you needed to know about grammar and punctuation and then some|[[User:Fish|Fish]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Word Choice]]|Choosing the right words for your story|[[User:Fish|Fish]]}}
|} 

==Writing the Story==
{{ws/table header}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[How's this for openers|How's This For Openers]]|Good advice on creating a memorable first paragraph|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Lights, camera, action|Lights, Camera, Action!]]|Tips about writing good action sequences|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[SF101: Writing Technological SF]]|An introduction to writing technological or "hard" SF explaining that it's not really as tough as it sounds|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[SF102: Learning the Basics]]|Recommended SF reading to see what's been done in the genre and how things work|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Thinking Things Through]]|If you want to toss in a neat technology or ability into a story, think about what else could be done with it before actually inserting it|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Uses Your Senses Dammit!]]|Don't just describe things visually in your writing|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
|}

==After Writing==
{{ws/table header}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The E-Publishing Dilemma]]|What, exactly, ''is'' an author to do?|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Getting published|Getting Published]]|Tips and Tricks for those people wishing to get published|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The letter|The Letter]]|How can a would-be writer know he's passed the Point of No Return?|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
|}

==General Advice==
{{ws/table header}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Beating block|Beating Block]]|Different Methods of Beating Writers Block|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Getting small|Getting Small]]|Age Regression and the world through a childs eyes|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Going soft|Going Soft]]|Through the eyes of a member of the opposite sex|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[The Horror, the Horror]]|Writing Horror Stories|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The proper tool|The Proper Tool]]|What you need if you want to be a writer.|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Experience]]|Personal adventures and experience breeds better stories|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Why we write|Why We Write]]|A look inside the auctorial mind.|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Writers Groups And Other Support Mechanisms]]|What's good ''and'' bad about them.|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The Writing Life]]|Why do they do it?|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[From Thesis to Synthesis]]|Some notes on a fundamental necessity for improving one's craft.|[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[As you and I both know]]|What is "infodump" in fiction and how to avoid it|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Creating Worlds to Share]]|An examination of why some shared universes are successful, and why others aren't|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Keeping the Editor Happy]]|Three common errors I see in fiction submitted to TSAT: Repetitive Sentence Structure, Narrator Changes, Unnatural Sounding Speech|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Technological Transformation Methodology]]|Some technological methods of inducing transformations|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Writing in Groups]]|Success and failure about writing groups formed to write co-authored novels|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Writing in the TBP universe]]|Important things you should be aware of before writing a story set in :"Tales From The Blind Pig"|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Writing Organization]]|Different methods of writing work for different folks. Outlines, sequential/non-sequential writing, etc.|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
|}

==Article Series==
<div style="width: 90%; margin:0px auto;">
The Five C's by [[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]
# [[Five C's: Creation|Creation]]
# [[Five C's: Composition|Composition]]
# [[Five C's: Critiquing|Critiquing]]
# [[Five C's: Completion|Completion]]
# [[Five C's: Commercialization|Commercialization]]
</div>

==Advanced Topics==
* [[On Heroes (essay)|On Heroes]] by [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]]

Writer's School

2008-01-17T12:46:07Z

Cubist: /* General Advice */

Writing is one of the oldest artforms, but writing fiction is one of the newest. Like any other artform it looks deceptively easy to get into, but once you start the hidden troubles show up. The best authors will tell you that you can't just learn how to write, but this is only partially true. There is a facet to writing that is a learned skill and a facet that you have to be born with.

To the layperson writing is simply stringing words together into a coherent whole. And, to an extent, that is the truth—it's also the part of the art that can be taught. Anyone can learn how to string words together into a coherent sentence and string hundreds of those sentences into a coherent story, but unless you are born with the gift of knowing how to tell a story the end product is, more often than not, bland and built of tiresome cliches and rehashed plots. But if you have been born a storyteller the end product shines, what cliches and rehashed plots it may contain used and retold in such a manner that they seem new again.

This “Writers School” is an attempt to break that mold. Not only is it going to try and teach those people who are born storytellers ways to improve their skills, but it is going to try and teach people how to tell the stories. In here you can find articles on creating believable characters and worlds, tips about how to escape many common pitfalls that snare many writers.

__TOC__

==Before Writing==
{{ws/table header}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Making Miracles]]|Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[The Message at the Center of the Novel]]|Preachiness versus Having A Theme|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Pigging Out]]|Some thoughts on one of the more enduring shared settings, "The Blind Pig"|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[The Pornography Trap]]|One of the most common TF story pitfalls|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Putting first things first|Putting First Things First]]|"It's the story, stupid!"|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Title stolen|Title Stolen by Evil, Inc.]]|Creating and writing villains|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The Tail Tale]]|Avoiding cliches and common pitfalls of TF fiction|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Writing Fantasy]]|Tips about writing good fantasy|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Learning from the Masters]]|Some recommended Science Fiction TF novels to read and take notes from|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Research:It's not just for School anymore]]|Getting your facts straight!|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Character]]|Some basics about where characters come from, how and when to describe them, and what kind of characters you really need|[[User:Fish|Fish]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Dialog]]|Punctuating dialog properly and making it sound real, but not too real|[[User:Fish|Fish]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Syntax]]| Everything you needed to know about grammar and punctuation and then some|[[User:Fish|Fish]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Word Choice]]|Choosing the right words for your story|[[User:Fish|Fish]]}}
|} 

==Writing the Story==
{{ws/table header}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[How's this for openers|How's This For Openers]]||[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Lights, camera, action|Lights, Camera, Action!]]|Tips about writing good action sequences|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[SF101: Writing Technological SF]]|An introduction to writing technological or "hard" SF explaining that it's not really as tough as it sounds|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[SF102: Learning the Basics]]|Recommended SF reading to see what's been done in the genre and how things work|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Thinking Things Through]]|If you want to toss in a neat technology or ability into a story, think about what else could be done with it before actually inserting it|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Uses Your Senses Dammit!]]|Don't just describe things visually in your writing|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
|}

==After Writing==
{{ws/table header}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The E-Publishing Dilemma]]|What, exactly, ''is'' an author to do?|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Getting published|Getting Published]]|Tips and Tricks for those people wishing to get published|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The letter|The Letter]]|How can a would-be writer know he's passed the Point of No Return?|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
|}

==General Advice==
{{ws/table header}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Beating block|Beating Block]]|Different Methods of Beating Writers Block|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Getting small|Getting Small]]|Age Regression and the world through a childs eyes|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Going soft|Going Soft]]|Through the eyes of a member of the opposite sex|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[The Horror, the Horror]]|Writing Horror Stories|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The proper tool|The Proper Tool]]|What you need if you want to be a writer.|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Experience]]|Personal adventures and experience breeds better stories|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Why we write|Why We Write]]|A look inside the auctorial mind.|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Writers Groups And Other Support Mechanisms]]|What's good ''and'' bad about them.|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[The Writing Life]]|Why do they do it?|[[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[From Thesis to Synthesis]]|Some notes on a fundamental necessity for improving one's craft.|[[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[As you and I both know]]|What is "infodump" in fiction and how to avoid it|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Creating Worlds to Share]]|An examination of why some shared universes are successful, and why others aren't|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Keeping the Editor Happy]]|Three common errors I see in fiction submitted to TSAT: Repetitive Sentence Structure, Narrator Changes, Unnatural Sounding Speech|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Technological Transformation Methodology]]|Some technological methods of inducing transformations|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Writing in Groups]]|Success and failure about writing groups formed to write co-authored novels|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row even|[[Writing in the TBP universe]]|Important things you should be aware of before writing a story set in :"Tales From The Blind Pig"|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
{{ws/table row odd|[[Writing Organization]]|Different methods of writing work for different folks. Outlines, sequential/non-sequential writing, etc.|[[User:Michael_Bard|Michael Bard]]}}
|}

==Article Series==
<div style="width: 90%; margin:0px auto;">
The Five C's by [[User:Rabbit|Rabbit]]
# [[Five C's: Creation|Creation]]
# [[Five C's: Composition|Composition]]
# [[Five C's: Critiquing|Critiquing]]
# [[Five C's: Completion|Completion]]
# [[Five C's: Commercialization|Commercialization]]
</div>

==Advanced Topics==
* [[On Heroes (essay)|On Heroes]] by [[User:ShadowWolf|ShadowWolf]]