A "Winds of Change" Story
I looked around the apartment for the last time. The walls were bare, the furniture gone. My roommate, Nelson, had gone home back in June, following the Change. He said he'd be back when Cal Poly started back up in a couple weeks. He still had another year to go, anyway.
I had stayed. The change had particularly bad timing for me and most of my class. Cal Poly was on a later calendar than most universities in California. Most ended classes sometime in early June or even late May, but ours went until the third week. We were still in session when the change hit. I still had two more weeks before my official graduation. The Change had screwed a lot of that up.
For the most part, the school was sympathetic, but it took a few weeks to get back in order. A lot of professors left after the change. Some had gone completely animal, or were so far gone that they were useless as teachers. Some simply vanished. Five, we knew, died in the hours and days following the change. It took time for the chaos to end.
The Life Science department held pretty much together. We did lose one of our older professors, but other than that the department survived and prospered. I stayed on during the reorganizational month as a lab assistant. We took frequent DNA samples, did tests, MRI's, the works. We had a unique advantage over a lot of research institutions. Since Cal Poly had really begun to focus on DNA research even before the Change, nearly any student or faculty was trained on the equipment as some point. As a general rule, we simply used our own DNA as a training tool. That being the case, we had full pre-Change and post-Change histories on nearly 250 people, mostly students. It was a huge amount of data to sort through.
In the end, our data was among those that confirmed at least one thing: Our DNA was largely unchanged. Even though there had been some modifications, there was more than enough intact to make positive identifications.
California had started requiring DNA analysis as a routine procedure for new drivers licenses starting that March. Since my birthday, and license expiration date, was in June, my new license had arrived only a week before the Change. My DNA was one of the few on file in official California or U.S. government records. In fact, about the only people who were able to easily prove their identity following the change were military personal, prisoners, people with high level security clearance and medical personal. All people who had DNA typing done as a routine. So, when the President signed the Emergency Identification Act, and Cal Poly was listed as one of the hundreds of locations available for official DNA typing, I was official once again.
But that was all over and done with. Poly had decided to re-start some classes to graduate off the remaining seniors. I finished my final two weeks and had shipped all my stuff home already. I had sold my little Mazda Protégé, it had been too small for me to get into anymore anyway. I really hadn't wanted to sell it. It had been the only car I had ever owned, but frankly, I couldn't sit in the seat. Before the change I had needed to push the seat all the way back to drive comfortably. Now, with my wings pushing me forward another foot, there was no way.
I walked out of the apartment and closed the door. I took another look around. The building was just eight units set perpendicular to the main street next to a small creek. It was crackerjack built, dark brown on the second floor and pale yellow on the bottom. But, it had been home for a little more than a year. No matter where I went in life, this was going to be the place that I Changed.
I fluffed out my feathers a bit against the morning chill. I remembered watching my parrot do that years ago, and never understood why till now. It helped create a cushion of air around you warmed by your body heat. I shuffled across the parking lot to the white brick building across the way. The owners of my apartment also owned the small restaurant supply store there, and I just needed to drop off the key.
I really did feel sorry for Mr. Canter, the building owner. Before the Change, he had been going slowly blind. He had just begun to learn to compensate for it all, having learned Braille and how to walk with a cane. Then nature decided to play a cruel trick on him. He'd become a bird as well, a flighted white tailed hawk.
But nature had done nothing for his eyes. He was still blind.
He would never be able to fly, and worst of all, he couldn't even read the Braille he had learned. His fingers, like mine, had become scaled. While we still could feel with them, they simply weren't sensitive enough to pick up the slight bumps of the Braille language.
Mrs. Canter, though, was in better shape. She'd changed about medium degree, and into a coyote. She had always had a smile on her face before, and now it seemed to be as etched into it as the scowl was in mine. So, naturally, when I came in she looked up and smiled.
"Flying home today?", she asked.
"Yup. Time to leave town. The apartment is vacated. Your son should have stopped by with the close out log."
She nodded and held up a sheet. From behind the counter, I could read the entire page. "Here it is. According to this, the only thing we need to do is have the carpets cleaned, but we'd have done that anyway. Tom said there were a lot of down feathers stuck to it." Her grin got a little wider.
I huffed a bit and ruffled my feathers, sending a few down feathers around the store, "Really? I wonder where they came from. Maybe Nelson had a pet I didn't know about."
"Speaking of him, how is he?"
"Not totally sure. He didn't take the Change all that well, you know. He's had a real problem keeping himself from giving into the chevortian side of himself."
She nodded, smiling a little less now, "I know what he's going through, believe me."
I pulled the keys out of my bag. "Well, here you go. If I'm up this way again, I'll try and stop in."
I started walking out the door. Mr. Canter, who'd been sitting at a desk this whole time, merely waved weakly. I really hoped that he got back to where he was soon. With all the new equipment being manufactured for the Changed, it was a definite possibility.
I headed downtown. One thing that I learned early on was that I was simply too heavy to take off easily from a standing position on the ground, even when I didn't have anything. I could do it, it was just a pain. I wanted a few stories to get a good jump start, and the best place for that was the courthouse. Usually, I could make due just by climbing a ladder to the top of the apartment, but that was only two stories. Now, because of my intention of taking a very long flight, I not only had my satchel but also my flight computer adding weight.
I was just glad that I had been able to make the money to buy them both.
I guess I was one of the ones who was luckiest after the change. Even though I didn't have many internal changes, externally, I was about as far along as you could go. A photographer looking to do some art shots had hired me briefly to take some shots for some Fourth of July merchandise he was selling. I got hired for a couple other shoots from that and made a little money when the merchandise sold well. It wasn't anything to build a career on, though. However, it did pay well for a few weeks and gave me a lot of quick money.
Of course, I had to invest that money, along with the money from selling my car, into some new equipment. A couple avionics companies had started putting out small integrated units for the flighted. In a console about the size of three stacked Steno pads there was a transponder, a two way radio, some basic avionics (altitude, airspeed, compass heading) and a link to the GPS satellite system. The computer had everything that I needed to make plans for long flights, listing restricted zones and warnings as you begin to stray into them. It was quite a unit, and I was amazed how fast it came out on the market.
I was also shocked by the price. It was nearly $3000.
The satchel was another one. Even if we'd known that the change was coming, I doubt anyone could have anticipated the range of new products, and the number of industries that would be effected. Some that were at the top of their game burned out in only a few weeks.
That reminds me. I found my old Norelco electric razor when I packed the other day. It's still pretty new. It might be worth money someday as a collectors item.
But there were other industries that found niches and filled them, and the luggage company that made my satchel was one. It didn't look like much, only a leather bag across my chest, but the design was fantastic. It strapped to my body between my wings and around my waist and neck. The straps were small enough to fit underneath the feathers, but strong enough, they claimed, to hold up to 300 lbs. worth of equipment. Right now, it was loaded up with all the stuff I'd need for my stay in Carlsbad.
The courthouse was only a few blocks away, and was the tallest building in the county, save for the Cal Poly Library. The county didn't like it all that much when the flighted morphs leapt from the observation deck of the clock tower, but there wasn't much that they could do to stop it. I climbed the stairwell (something I'd finally gotten the hang of, even if I was still clumsy about it) and stood against the low railing a while.
I looked across the town for a few moments and looked over some of the morphs. Poly was about to go back into session again, about two weeks down the road, and some of the new students were already in town. A number were looking around with cameras and maps. I looked into the sky for a moment, made sure that the area was clear of other birds, and jumped off the edge.
Unlike my first attempt at flight, I was rising in the air within moments. I flapped hard, though. It took a lot out of me to get into the air, but once there I could soar for hours. I flew over Highway 101 to catch a thermal from the concrete and felt myself climb. I made sure that I was steady in the air, and checked my wrist computer for the read out.
I planned on taking the 101 most of the way south, but I was going to have to detour around Vandenberg Air Force Base. Not only was it a restricted fly zone, but there were doing some satellite launches this afternoon and the restricted zone had been expanded. That, combined with the restriction zone for Santa Barbara Airport made me decide to detour inland after I passed through Santa Maria.
I closed my inner eyelid a moment to rewet my eyes and felt the still cool wind. I glanced at my altitude, 1500 feet. Perfect. One nice thing about this area, there were few restrictions. But I did need to make one radio call.
I punched a few buttons on the computer and activated the transponder. Then I turned on the radio. "San Luis Tower, this is Baker Echo 345 with you over San Luis Obispo."
"Baker Echo 345, roger. We have your transponder. What are your intentions?"
"San Luis, I'll be following the freeway south to the northern edge of the Vandenberg no-fly zone. At that time I'll transfer contact to Santa Barbara."
"Roger, 345. Be advised that the no-fly around Vandenberg has been extended an additional 50 miles."
"San Luis, already was aware of that, thanks. Any weather to be warned about between here and San Diego?"
"Negative 345, the sky is clear all the way to Mexico. Enjoy the trip."
"345. Thanks."
It was a pleasant enough conversation, but I hated the incredible speed by which the government had mucked up being able to fly. At first, we'd been able to fly anywhere, any height. Then, some idiot mallard morph flies into the engine of a Boeing 777 bound for LAX and we're all screwed.
It took about a week for them to declare regions around all military and international airports off limits to flight. It was another before we were required to register with the FAA, including what species we were, hence my designation. Baker Echo (BE) stood for Bald Eagle, though I had to use the phonetic alphabet to identify myself. I'm not sure what the 345 means. It took another week before we needed transponders over major cities.
At first, I didn't think much about it. After all, I was in what was almost the outback. San Luis Obsipo was a pretty sparsely populated place. Then they started to require the transponders on all flights over 100 miles and I was forced to buy one.
I tried not to think about it much. I just let myself get into the flight. I felt my wings and tail compensate for the small shifts in the air currents. A small updraft, and I dipped a wing to compensate. It turned out that flying was sort of like running. You just tell the body to do it, and it takes over. It was really the one time that the animal part of me came out.
That was the other place that I felt that I was lucky. Despite appearances, I didn't change all that much mentally. I did gain some confidence, but that was partly the result of being Changed into an animal that tended to command respect. But, unlike a lot of my friends, I had never really felt the urgent need to give into any impulses. I had never lost it, save the one time when I crashed on my first real flight. In that instant, my human mind completely shut down and the bird took over. It was only for a moment, though, and it may have saved my life.
That's not to say that there were no mental changes at all. I was able to pick out the difference between male and female bird morphs easily, something that it seemed many non-avian morphs couldn't do. I had also developed a slight craving for fish, a food that I never cared much for.
Come to think of it, I hadn't eaten beef for a few weeks. It's all been fish.
The craving was strongest when I was in flight, and I tended to pick out something from a reservoir or stream when I took flights home. It wasn't an overriding craving, though. The best way I've found to describe it is the craving you get when you're a little hungry and you pass a cookie stand in a mall. It wasn't a deep desire to eat. You could ignore it, but you somehow just had to stop. Oddly, I didn't have a problem eating the fish whole and raw. I suppose part of that is the fact that I can't really taste anything anymore.
I checked my position as the highway turned south. I had left the limits of San Luis Obispo and was in Morro Bay. The hills were still brown from the dry summer, but the coast was gorgeous. The morning sun glinted off the water, the waves crashed on the beach and the salt spray gave the view from the air a slightly crystal look.
I was glad the highway followed the coast for so much of my trip.
The 101 drifted inland a bit after Santa Maria and I followed it. I could still easily see the ocean, which actually surprised me a little. All the years that I driven up this coast, it had never occurred to me just how close the water really was. It was just over those low hills.
As I passed through some low foothills, I heard a small electronic chime on my wrist and looked at the computer. It indicated that I was not only about to leave control of San Luis Obispo Airport and enter Santa Barbara's, but also that I was approaching the expanded no-fly zone around Vandenberg.
A voice came over my radio, "Baker Echo 345 please contact Santa Barbara Tower at 154.25. Please confirm. And good day."
I keyed a couple buttons. "Contact Santa Barbara Tower 154.25, Baker Echo 345. Good day... Santa Barbara Tower, this is Baker Echo 345 requesting entrance into local airspace."
There was a short pause. "Baker Echo 345, we have you on screen. Be advised you are about to enter a restricted zone."
I nodded as I spoke, "I understand Santa Barbara. Am I clear to take an inland route?"
Another short pause, "345, you are clear to take coastal corridor 4. Fly southeast to marker point 54, south to Lake Casitus and you can follow highway 33 to the 101 from there. You are cleared to maintain your current altitude of 1500 feet."
I already had all that information in my computer, "Thank you Santa Barbara. 345."
I really didn't like all this bureaucracy. It tended to take all the fun out of being able to fly. At least this corridor would take me over Casitus. It wasn't much of a lake, only a small reservoir for the farms and residents of Ventura County, but it's a stocked sportsman's lake.
I turned southeast and stabilized myself in the air for a few moments. I saw a small flash of light in the distance and turned my head to look. Even with my vision, I wasn't able to see much detail, but I could tell that the first of the two satellite launches was going off without a hitch. It was times like these that I wish I actually had gone out and bought a better camera.
I picked up a mild tailwind and soared on over the hills. The wind currents were a little rough, and I tended to get bounced around a bit, but this is one of the few times I let the eagle in me take more control. I had never come close to losing myself in my new form, even if I had picked up a few habits that would have been considered odd before. Like the fact that I simply don't wear clothes and I have the annoying habit of eating whole, live fish like popcorn.
And I didn't even like fish, or popcorn for that matter, all that much Before.
But, I hadn't had problems keeping myself in check. Despite what people think when they see me, I am usually not trying to think of all the ways that I can dismember them. A couple weeks after the change, I thought that I had finally master a smile, something tough to do in this form. It wasn't much, really. Just a slight upward turn of my cheeks and the still slightly malleable edges of my beak, which opened slightly. I thought that it looked good.
I was told by several people, in fact, that it no longer looked like I was thinking about eating them...
They told me it looked a bit like I'd decided which wine to serve with them.
That was something I'd have to remember with Jon. He'd mentioned that he'd been a bit skittish around some predators, even when he knew better. I wasn't really a predator, though. At least not to deer. Still, I didn't want to make him nervous...
I'll just have to refrain from smiling.
I passed over the marker and headed south to the lake. I spotted it from quite a ways away. It looked like I remembered it. It was small with a tiny island in the center. A dam kept the water from flowing away. It was dark green and clean as a bell. If it wasn't for the algae, you'd be able to see to the bottom. As I started to cross over the lake, I hit the radio button.
"Santa Barbara. 345 here. I'll be dropping off your scope for a few minutes. No need for alarm."
After a slight pause, the voice came back on, I'm sure that the guy was smiling. "345, we copy. We put you at Lake Casitus. Happy hunting."
I didn't need to tell them that I was going down, but I've found that the controllers like to be told when you plan on stopping in areas outside population centers.
I eyeballed the lake for a few moments and found what I was looking for. I double checked the Velcro strap on my computer, and tilted my wings up for a fast dive. I adjusted myself to miss a couple small boats, and leveled off about fifty feet above the lake, still going at high speed. I dropped another forty, spotted a large shadow under the water, and spread my tail feathers out a little more to drop a few more feet. I reached a single talon down, just below the surface, and reflexively snapped the bass into it.
I flapped a few times, and intended to climb back up to 1500 feet and eat in flight. I didn't want to loose too much time here. But, fate conspired to keep me delayed.
I felt the strap on my chest pack suddenly go slack. I had been powering up my wings to gain altitude again, but the sudden shift of weight threw me off balance. I managed to reach a hand down and grab the bag before it fell into the water, but I was very unsteady in the air. I flapped hard a few more times, trying to stabilize myself, but lost the battle and slammed into the sandy shore of the lake.
I was a little stunned for a moment, but otherwise okay. I had discovered that first day that I was tough to hurt when I was scared or angry. It was like wearing full body armor. I couldn't turn it on and off, and I could still be hurt if I didn't see it coming, but otherwise I was pretty safe.
I hurriedly checked my computer to find that it was unharmed, save for a small scrape in the outer casing. I even found that I hadn't dropped the bass. I passed it up to my hand and idly started eating it while I surveyed the chest bag.
It only took me a minute to spot the problem. The buckle had come apart under the stress of the quick dive and attempted climb. I was contemplating what to do when I heard a deep voice come over the hill. "You okay, pal?"
I looked up to see a park ranger. He was wearing trousers and one of those hats they're so famous for. The only thought that came to mind was Missed it by that much.
He was a polar bear.
Since I assumed that he'd already heard all the jokes, I refrained. "Yea, I'm fine. I was just stopping in for a mid-flight snack when this stupid bag broke. I need to rig it up a bit to carry another couple hundred miles or so."
He walked over, "Let me take a look at that..." He took the bag and started looking it over. "This was designed to go between your wings, right?"
"That's right."
He looked it over a little more and back at me, "If you have a few minutes, and don't mind carrying this just around your waist and neck, I think I can give you a hand. Come with me up to the station house."
He started up the hill and I followed. Turned out that the station house was just a little over the hill, but out of sight from the beach.
As we entered, he turned his head back to me, "Never get tired of you folks flying in. Though you're among the first to crash out here." he said with a smirk.
I laughed a bit, which sounded a little like a screech, "You should have seen my first flight."
"Didn't do so well?"
"Let's just say that there was glass everywhere."
He nodded and sat down in an oversized wooden office chair and started fiddling with the straps of my bag. I glanced around the office for a moment. Mostly stuff you'd expect to find, plaques, pamphlets and nature prints. There was a couple framed photos hanging above the rangers desk. One was a human family, obviously pre-Change, showing a man and woman with three younger kids. The one next to it showed a similar pose with the parents replaced by a polar bear and an iguana. One of the kids was replaced with a snow hare. The other two seemed human.
The ranger glanced up and noticed me looking at the picture, "Before you ask, yes that's a before and after. My middle daughter just started the Change herself last week. She's got a couple bright green feathers."
"I just hope she gets wings. It's hard to describe how it feels."
He just smiled as he handed back the bag. "I hope not, myself. I don't even want her to start driving, much less flying. Anyway, here's your sack. Let me just help you on with it."
He came around and hoisted it up. He fiddled around a bit and I felt the straps cinch up. "Too tight?"
"No. Thanks. That should get me to Palomar."
"No problem. Happy to help." The phone rang and he stepped back to his desk. As he picked it up, he waved goodbye.
I returned the wave and stepped outside. I looked around, but didn't see anything that I could get atop to get a good flight off of, so I'd have to do this the old fashioned way. I gathered myself up and leapt straight into the air, flapping my wings hard. I kept it up until I was about fifty feet in the air, then soared over the beach, catching a slight thermal off the sand. In a few minutes, I was back in the air.
I radioed Santa Barbara again, letting them know I was back in the corridor and continued south. I was over Ventura in just a few minutes, and could see my old hometown of Camarillo in the distance. I made a low pass over the town, but didn't stop. I'd be back up in a few days, anyway. Besides, I'd just flown home a couple weeks back.
I passed over the grade and briefly considered taking the coast down, but decided to just take the route though LA I'd heard that it was pretty good on the weekends.
I briefly checked my map and verified my position. There were over a dozen through corridors over the greater Los Angeles area which took you anywhere from Long Beach out to Riverside or Las Vegas. I picked the most direct one to Orange County, got cleared through Van Nyes Airport (they and John Wayne Airport handled the bird morphs. LAX was completely off limits at all altitudes, anyway) and passed over the city.
It had grown a lot in the last few years, but there was still a lot of farmland around the city. With the booming aerospace industry it was likely to keep growing until houses and buildings covered every square inch of land between the sea and the mountains.
At least the air was still clean.
My route took me over the downtown area and I passed fairly close to Liberty Tower, the tallest building in the city. The helipad that had once been there had been partly replaced with a landing area for bird morphs.
I passed out of the LA basin and into Orange County. It was practically wall to wall fruit trees down there. There were some city aspects, particularly near Anaheim and Fullerton, but the rest looked like all farmland. I saw a lot of construction though, and I knew that the days were numbered.
I settled into a grove for a while and followed the freeway. My computer chimed again, and I looked over at the real time map it displayed. According to it, below was Camp Pendleton, an old marine base not used since the Plague. I was following I-5 and a few minutes later I came up on the windmill of Pea Soup Anderson's and just to the east of that I could see the airport. I started looking around, and a moment later spotted the single runway and airplanes on the ground. I keyed the radio.
"Palomar Tower, this is Baker Echo 345, with you over Pea Soup Anderson's, requesting clearance to land out of corridor 6."
"Baker Echo 345, we have you on the screen and on visual. At the moment, just watch for a green parrot from the south. He's already cleared. You can land on the roof after him."
I looked around a moment, spotted first the green parrot morph coming down and then the landing area. I was happy to see that they had blocks set out. It was a real pain to land on flat surfaces.
I spotted what had to be Jon sitting under a tree near a café. There wasn't much doubt of that, since there was only one hoofed morph even there at the moment, much less a eight point buck. Even from here, I could see him looking in my direction. I shifted course slightly to pass more or less over him. As I came in for my landing, I shouted, "Hey, Jon!"
As he passed out my sight, I saw him start to stand. Then, I dropped below the rapidly approaching block, flapped hard a few times to slow to a stop, and landed lightly.
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