Tales From the Blind Pig: More Human Than Human
By Chris Hoekstra

Jack turned back to his Guiness as the patrons at the other end of the bar managed to get the white rabbit under control. Whatever had initially set him off Jack hadn’t witnessed. But at least the spell seemed to have passed quickly. The rabbit was amongst a group of individuals, apparently his friends, and all were doing their best to calm him down. The brown female rabbit that he was snuggling against was doing wonders for him.

"Why do you think it happens?" Jack muttered before taking another sip of his ale.

"Why does what happen?" asked his friend looking up from his wine.

Jack pointed over his shoulder at the rabbit amongst his friends. "Stuff like that. SCABS losing control, succumbing to their instincts momentarily."

Chris looked over at the group. He turned back to his drink and shrugged his shoulders. "Just another part of SCABS. No one can really explain it. It just happens."

Silently, Jack reached up and scratched idly behind his left ear, deep in thought. He sat like that for quite some time. "I wonder if it’s not just that."

"Oh, how do you mean?"

"Well, look at us. You’re a lynx, I’m a jackal. We’ve never had any problems like that."

Christian O’Kane murred to himself as he looked over at his friend. Jack Bowman was a little taller than when he had been human and a whole lot furrier. The coat was mostly a rusty orange color, which lightened towards his paws. The fur along his back was all black and gray and ran from just behind his ears, under the collar of his jacket, and highlighted the slightly bushy tail hanging over the stool. His muzzle was a lot narrower and more pointed than other canines, but it was still quite natural for his species.

Compared to his friend, Chris was quite the contrast. He had lost a several inches in the change, and was closer to the lower extreme of five feet. He was also feline, complete with the lynx bob-tail. His fur was dominantly tan with a profusion of darker spots. Christian’s ears had the stereotypical long tufts of fur at the top, and a bit more than the average feline hanging off his cheeks. All in all, not a bad looking lynx.

But that wasn’t what they had always looked like. Seven years ago, Chris had had a promising career in the army; two years ago Jack was just another Wall Street business man from old money. And both had been very, very human. But then they had contracted Martian Flu and been indoctrinated into the eight per cent of the population to be affected with SCABS -- Stein's Chronic Accelerated Bio-morphic Syndrome. Their genetic codes had been sent through the proverbial blender and had resulted in their present physical appearances, much like the rest of the clients of the bar they were currently patronizing.

That was something about The Blind Pig Gin Mill that really appealed to Christian. Sure, it served norms as well as SCABS, but it tended to attract mostly SCABS. Of course, that lent the place to smelling like a barn, but that was okay for him and Jack. The smell only added to the dark, well worn wood, modest lighting, and general atmosphere to give the place a kind of a homey feel. And when the world harbours a resentment towards you for your appearance, then being comfortable someplace was always a good feeling.

"I don’t think that’s entirely true. We have our share of little problems also. I’ve probably caught you in embarrassing situations more times then you’d care to admit. Like those little naps you seem so fond of taking. All stretched out in full animal form, asleep in a sunbeam when you’re supposed to be working." That was another thing about animorph SCABS -- the most prevalent type -- about a third of those affected had the ability to shift their bodies anywhere from full animal to near human. And Chris and Jack were in that thirty percent.

The jackal grimaced, his ears flatting out slightly. "Well, that’s minor. And I’ve caught you in some pretty undignified behaviour."

"Define undignified," said Chris as he scowled, his whiskers twitching in annoyance.

"Okay, how about the time you got into that patch of catnip when we supposed to be doing recon on the Pacific Digital compound?"

This time it was Chris with the grimace and the flattened ears. "Point taken."

The door to the Blind Pig clanged as a wolf morph and tigress morph walked in, arm in arm. "Well, that’s just what I mean. For almost all animal SCABS, there is some kind of odd behavioural trait that goes along with the change. But what I’m talking about going totally and utterly going feral. You’ve heard the stories and seen the news articles. Some poor SCAB loses their mind and reverts to complete animal behaviour. Did you ever notice that the majority of them seem to have a common link with our white friend over there?"

Christian growled a little. If there was one thing that alcohol did for his friend, it was get him philosophical. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Jack could really go off on some strange tangents. "Okay, what? Strong instinct?"

"Em, no. But close. Very close." He took a pull from his ale and licked a bit of the foam off his long muzzle. "The majority of them are prey animals. Yes, I do acknowledge there are exceptions but if memory serves, most are prey animals."

That really got the lynx thinking, and he began to recount some of the incidents he’d witnessed during his time in the gutter. The brief stint he had at the West Street Shelter, with all the homeless SCABS, came readily to mind. Rabbits, squirrels, other small rodents were all good examples. Heck, even deer could go quite out of their minds during mating seasons! "Okay, that’s an interesting parallel you’ve made here. So why do you think that going feral has a connection with being a prey animal?"

"Well, just look at man. Above all else, what are we?"

Chris lapped up a bit of his red chardonnay, 2025, and considered. Jack usually had the answers to the questions when he was in this kind of mood, so it was all a matter of deciding where his mind had wandered. "Well, I think we’d have to be creators. Look at all we’ve done. Civilization, language, music, art. We’ve got marvels of technology, and medical science that is doing more and more miraculous things all the time. We’re charting stars billions of miles away, and creating mathematical theory to define the very nature of the universe. Given the chance, that’s what I’d say man is: a creator."

Jack’s lip pulled back in a smile, which, on a jackal, more resembled a snarl. His shoulders then began to shake, and he turned away in uncontrolled laughter for a few moments. Calming himself, he turned back.

"No, the noble ape was never my perception of man. If you strip away all that you’ve mentioned, if you take man at his most basic level, what you get is a predator. The most fantastic and vicious predator that this world has ever known."

Jack released his glass and started rubbing his paws together as he continued to elaborate. "A man by himself is nothing, really. Poor teeth, near worthless night vision, hearing that could use some improvement, and a horrible sense of smell. On a one for one, level playing field match, man cannot hold his own against almost all other predators known. But man has one thing that they lack. He has creativity. More specifically, imagination."

The mule at the piano launched into a rendition of some popular drinking song that harkened back to Chris’ days as a Ranger. He just couldn’t remember the name of.

"Early man," continued Jack, "lived in groups for protection. But we can think, and we can make obscure connections, and we can imagine how things would work under given circumstances. That allowed the creation of technology. Once they developed weapons, early man was able to control things more. They had an edge over that which tried to kill them.

"Now, most predators will achieve an equilibrium with their environment. Not us. We have reached the level where we can manipulate environments to our own will. And we do, to an astounding degree. We move into an area, and we displace damn near everything that was there before us. Our machines give us a supreme advantage over nature. With technology, I doubt that there is an animal on earth that could stand against a properly prepared man.

"Think about it. Most predators will occasionally kill off colonies or large groups of their food or enemy. Man has wiped out many THOUSANDS of whole species with virtually no logical reason. We are only a single animal, yet we are actually raping and destroying an entire planet! Nothing before us could even come close to that! We are the pinnacle of viciousness and destruction."

At no time before had Christian heard his good friend and business partner speak in such terms. He never even had a clue that Jack felt this way. "So how does all that tie in?"

"Step back for a moment and look at the drastic alteration that SCABS inflicts on a person. One day they are a human, top of the food chain and the next, bang! A rabbit, or some other game animal. I think it’s the psychological stress of such a horrific leap to the complete opposite end of the scale that fosters the breaks and causes the subject to lose their mind."

"So it’s sort of equilibrium thing," said Chris. He wagged his finger back and forth between him and the jackal. "Because we’re both predators, because the emotions and instincts are so similar between us, you’re saying we’re able to psychologically adapt better the some of the others."

Jack mumbled an affirmative to the lynx as he refreshed himself from his almost forgotten Guniess. There came a loud crack from behind as one of the players at the pool table let loose with a particularly powerful shot. "Yes, exactly. Humans possess more of the same traits that predators do and less that the prey animals do, so it’s natural that those are the better adaptations."

"But it can also go the other way. Wolves, and cougars, and wolverines, are all well know for the rages they can go into. Remember that Steven Jensen, the wolverine serial killer? He had a drastic problem with his going feral. And that’s just one of the high profile cases."

Jack winced and shrugged a bit in defeat. "That’s the other extreme. When those emotions produce overload, you get a similar snap. Actually, I think the whole argument, both sides, boils down to equilibrium, as you said. The mind has to achieve it somehow. It needs to reconcile the conflicting ideas and instincts, so every now and again the other half gains dominance. The psychological pressure is released this way, and the person remains sane. Most, like us, seem to do this in small spurts. Those odd habits you mentioned before . But that is because we’re psychologically suited to what we are. Our psyches are able to mesh with those of our transformation better. Those who cannot, their reaction is all that much more severe and they just snap."

And those were also all valid points. But despite that, Chris didn’t feel that it was the right opinion. The lynx half turned and looked out over the rest of the bar, trying to find examples to the contrary. Hm... most of the patrons were of the predator persuasion -- like the pack of canines near the back -- or still relatively human. But then his eyes locked on a masked, ring-tailed form almost hidden in one of the back booths.

Chris turned back to Jack with a smirk. "That’s fair. But here’s one facet that even you can’t deny. Curiosity."

Jack frowned in response, prompting Chris to point at the raccoon he had noticed. Jack cocked his large ears in a contemplative fashion and considered. "All right, let’s hear your end of it."

Chris set his wine down and rubbed his paws together as he composed himself. "Okay. Now, you yourself said that man is the ultimate predator because he has creativity, and, more importantly, imagination. And I’ve always believed that imagination is closely tied to curiosity. Because we’re curious, we go out and discover and create. All the refinement and culture that we have now is because man went out and appreciated and leaned from what was there. Not go out and blatantly destroy it, as you claim we do.

"Why just look at the night sky. How many poets and dreamers, and singers and lovers has that inspired? How many artists and inventors? Something so plain inspiring so many people the world over. Van Gogh painted his Starry Night; Jules Vern wrote From The Earth to the Moon, the first book about space flight; Galileo and his telescope charted the heavens and opened a whole new field of scientific advancement. All of those people did it because of a profound curiosity, an insatiable desire to know. They weren’t people who saw something they didn’t understand and go out and destroy it, but people who insisted on understanding. They weren’t just content with the how of things work, but they needed the why."

An arctic fox stepped up to the bar behind Jack and called to the bartender, ordering a milk. The bovine bartender nodded and went to fill the order. "Now, you were talking about equilibrium earlier," continued Chris, "but what about elevation, enhancement? What if, instead of conflicting or simply meshing with the human psychee, the animal traits of the given transformation could actually elevate specific traits? Think about it for a moment. Some animals are naturally curious. Case in point." He hooked his thumb in the direction of the ‘coon. "Others are hard workers. Still others are protective, or self-assured, or playful, or even remarkably intelligent."

Jack stroked his muzzle in thought for a moment. He was about to respond only to be cut off before he could do so.

"God, who died and made you two Darwin?" said a voice from behind. The pair turned and looked at the arctic fox who hadn’t gotten very far with his drink. The look on his white furred face showed just how far he believed the lynx and jackal had gone off the deep end. His brow was cocked, and he had one side of his muzzle, along with his whiskers on that side, up in a kind of disbelieving snarl. The fox’s blue eyes shone with disbelief as he gazed at his fellow SCABS where they sat perched on the stools.

"Now, I haven’t been on the streets too much, and I haven’t been coming here a great deal, but I can tell you that’s the biggest line of bull I’ve ever heard. ‘SCABS has advantages.’. What a crock!" The fox turned and walked away, still mumbling to himself.

The lynx and jackal stared after him for a moment, then simultaneously turned back to the bar and took long, long pulls on their drinks. They sat there in silence for a long time.

"Are we really that full of shit?" Chris finally asked.

Jack tilted his glass upside down, sticking his muzzle in all the way to get the last of the foam out. He ran his tongue over his lips and prestigious canines as he set it back down. "Yeah, perhaps. You know how off I can go, and you seemed to be following right behind tonight." He noticed something and motioned with his thumb. "Pool table’s free. Want a game?"

Chris happily gulped the last of his wine. "Sure, I’m up to whipping your tail tonight."

Jack barked a laugh at his friend. "Not gonna happen, and you know it," said the jackal as Chris retrieved his cane and the two made their way to the table, the previous discourse forgotten.

The End

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