A "Winds of Change" Story

By Jon Sleeper

I’d never ridden the subway before (called the "T" in Boston), so it was a very new experience for me. Especially since all five of us (Janet remained back at the station for obvious reasons) had to stand. It hadn’t been near long enough for any modifications to be made to the Boston rapid transit system (they were still arguing over the designs), so seats were impossible for all but a few to use. As a result, the seats had been for the most part ripped out.

The height of the ceiling was just high enough to allow Maxine and I to comfortably move around, though we both had to duck a lot in order to get inside the car. "How much time do we have until we meet Eric, Brian?" I asked.

Brian looked at the watch that was on his yellow-scaled wrist. "About three hours or so. Eric said he was going to take us to a great place for lunch, so we probably don’t want to eat anything. This subway line goes right through Boston Common. We might want to linger in the oldest public park in the US for a while."

Over Tim’s grumbling, Maxine said, "I’d love to hear more of your history, actually."

I smiled. "Boston is the best place to do it, Maxi. A lot of stuff happened here."

"Including the first introduction of the Plague to the Western Hemisphere that cut Canadian population nearly in half!" Tim blurted angrily.

Maxine just glared back at Tim. "Don’t make me turn you into a naked mole rat." With that tone of voice, we all knew she meant it. And in light of her recent change of heart regarding her Power, Tim shut up.

Brian had rather graciously confined himself to walking. Kim’s arm/wing still wasn’t healed enough yet, so though it was awkward on those huge taloned feet of theirs, they walked along with the rest of us hoofers.

The sights in the Common is something I will never forget. Old buildings surrounded it, some still unoccupied since the Plague (and ghost stories abounded in the area, a guidebook said). The gold dome of the New State House gleamed a short distance away. We decided to wander off towards that area. Passing a lot of statuary as we did so. Statues of humans, of course.

Those statues were a reminder of what had once been. Human. But, we were still human, weren’t we? I caught Bryan looking at his wooly arm, deep in thought. I myself couldn’t resist reaching up to feel my antlers, just to be sure they were there.

Few times since the Change had I ever missed my fully human face. But looking at the statue of some man, it suddenly came to me.

I sighed, remembering what had happened back in Balboa Park two days after the Change. There’d been an angry mob bent on throwing every bit of history we had away. They didn’t seem to think that it was valid any more. With the help of Nick and a few others, we’d managed to stop the mob before they did anything damaging to the museum.

That day had left lingering doubts in me. Doubts that had grown in the four months since the Change. Doubts not to what we are—since for all intents and purposes, everyone is human no matter what species they happen to look like. But more like a gnawing self doubt about what I wanted to do with my life. Science had always been my calling, it seemed. Police work had only been a fleeting thing. But there was something else that nagged the back of my partly-cervid mind ever since that day when I helped to defend a bulwark of human history.

Except I really didn’t know what this nagging thing was at the moment.

Before we walked back to the T stop, we looked at the Shaw Memorial. The memorial dedicated to the 54^th Massachusetts Infantry, the first black regiment of soldiers in the Civil War. It was an amazing piece of work, I thought.

We turned to walk back to the T station, and in order to take my mind off, I looked at the sights of the Common. Green grass, leaves just starting to turn. But above all, the people.

For all people looked like animals now, it was painfully clear to all of us that nobody had changed. Something that was both comforting and disturbing.

In the three minute walk towards the T stop I saw more odd things then I’d seen in four months in California. Like a crotchety old squirrel morph with a young boy tagging along behind. Those two reminded me of a certain cartoon that was still my favorite. I almost expected to see three pigeon morphs calling themselves the "Goodfeathers".

The air smelled very clean, though with Maxine so close I tried to focus on how she smelled. The leaves had started to turn to reds and oranges, and the air had a cool, crisp quality to it that had a rejuvenating quality to it. There also seemed to be a rather larger proportion of whitetail deer morphs about. I’d seen three other bucks in three hours. Oddly enough, my deer mind paid them no heed, though one was a ten-pointer.

To confuse my already reeling mind, there was something about being here, knowing that in the forests surrounding Boston were teeming with natural whitetails. A part of me very much wanted to go join them. But if I did, I reasoned, I couldn’t have Maxine, could I?

The trip on the T to the Harvard Square stop took another fifteen minutes, and it was a rather cramped ride. Brian and Kim were especially uncomfortable. Feathers are delicate structures, and they both looked a little bit ruffled when we got out. They also had to take a makeshift elevator because of those feet of theirs.

We met them at the top and Bryan, who had the map, pointed us to the center of the square. There we saw a red neon sign that said "Out of Town News", and standing there below was a gray high-degree donkey morph with a grin on his face. He saw us, and waved. "Over here!" he brayed.

Brian flapped his wings a couple times to get off the ground briefly, to make sure Eric had seen us. We picked up the pace a bit. Brian was the first to reach him. "Eric, I presume?"

The donkey morph extended his hand, and took Brian’s scaled hand a bit carefully. "You’re Brian, I take it? Brian Coe, I mean."

Brian cocked his head in what I knew was an avian expression of humor. "What gave me away?"

"Equine intuition," Erick replied, grinning. "And the one with the spiraled horns must be Bryan Derksen. You’re not as evil-looking as I thought you’d be."

I knew Bryan was a bit sensitive about what happened to him, he grinned anyway. "Give me a bit more time, Eric. True evil is an ongoing task." They shook hands.

Then Eric turned to me, and I let go of Maxine’s hand, which I’d been holding since we were in the park. She had a very warm hand and I didn’t want to let go, but I did anyway. "Great to meet you, Eric."

Eric looked at my antlers. "I had a relative become a deer morph. He bumped his antlers while they were still growing. Now one’s bent nearly backwards."

I couldn’t resist reaching up just to make sure that weight on my head was still symmetrical. I knew from experience that damaging the velvet in any way was just as painful as getting kicked in the groin. "That’s gotta hurt. Not to mention look funny."

"Actually, he says it makes him look unique. None of the others bucks have a rack quite like his, you know."

I couldn’t help but laugh. I introduced Maxine and Tim, while Brian introduced Kim. "Well, now that we’re all acquainted, why don’t we go eat? If we were all herbivores it would be a simple matter, but..." Eric said.

Tim interrupted. "I sort of feel like a hamburger." We stared at him. "What?"

"Do you know what you just said?" Maxine asked, aghast.

"I want a hamburger. I haven’t had one in months."

I was about to open my big cervid mouth and say, "Tim, you are hamburger," but Maxine squeeze my hand and I shut my muzzle. "Are there any places around here that have a good all around menu?"

Eric was as startled like the rest of us, perhaps moreso since he didn’t know Tim’s unique history. "Well, there’s Bartley’s Burger Cottage. It’s not a very far walk, and they even have vegetarian burgers."

Brian looked at Kim with a slight smile on his beak. "Sound good to you?" he asked her. She nodded. "That’s good for us, what about you guys?"

I found myself seeking Maxine’s opinion, too. Though I did whisper something in her ear. "I don’t think it’s quite hit your brother yet that he’s not fully human anymore..."

"I think it’s best we let him discover what he is on his own, Jon. Not all of us are as well-adjusted as you are," she whispered back. Then she turned towards everyone else. "Sounds good to us, too. I hate fast food and I chewed all my cud hours ago."

Eric grinned again. He was pretty high degree, though human shaped enough that he could wear clothing that was modified enough. Which he did. He even wore a hat. It’s name escaped me, but it was made of a dark plaid material, with the front snapped on to the brim. His ears didn’t seem to be impeded very much by it’s presence. Or he’d worn it so much that he instinctually knew it was there. Eric said, "The restaurant also has a great ruminant menu. Shall we go?"

When Tim ordered the hamburger, even the high-degree barn owl morph that served us looked stunned. "Are you sure, sir?"

Tim sighed, mumbling something else about "Americans" under his breath. "I said: Get. Me. A. Rare. Hamburger. With. All. The. Fixings."

The waiter stared at Brian with those huge eyes of his. "Is this guy serious?"

Brian only nodded, sitting on a large block perch at one end of the table. "It’s a long story. Please don’t ask."

"I won’t! Now, what can I get for the rest of you?"

From the menu I gathered that there were a lot of forest dwelling animal morphs in the area, by the names of some of the dishes. I ordered the "Bambi Special" with a bit of reluctance, though. The dish was a veggeburger with everything on it, a side of fries, and a large dinner salad. It was all "guaranteed to taste just as good the second time around." So I decided to give it a try. I wouldn’t be disappointed, but before the meal even got there, I decided to ask Eric a very common question. "So, if I may ask, what happened to you the day of the Change?"

Eric’s ears seemed to turn a bit red. "Well, I don’t think it was as exciting as the story that you posted to the list all those months back."

"Aw, come on, Eric. We won’t noise it about," Brian said.

Eric learned back in his chair, and I could see his tail sweeping wide arcs even from where I was sitting. "It’s very simple, actually. It was about eight in the morning, and I was out for my morning ride on one of the horses that I normally take out. I privately believe he’s always had it in for me. Anyway, when the first Surge hit, I felt this huge pain in my pants. Then my horse seemed to smell something he didn’t like. Lucky I was in some tall grass at the time. I almost broke my tail when he bucked me off.

"Of course, the fact that I even had a tail put me in a state of such euphoria I hardly noticed the other Surges until I looked in a mirror. I missed the whole rest of my Change because of this tail. So I kind of have mixed feelings about it.

"I don’t have to tell you the next feeling I got when I looked I the mirror. You know the feeling yourselves. There are worse things to have Changed into than what we are," Eric finished.

"That’s very, very true," Brian said. "Thought there are times when I wish I’d ended up a raccoon." He looked at Kim. "Forget I said that."

I looked at Maxine and took her hand under the table. Blind chance had made me a whitetail. And in the months since then, I’d grown to love it. While we were out here in the east coast, I swore to myself that I would find some natural whitetails and see if I could communicate with them somehow.

The waiter brought our food, setting Tim’s hamburger down last. "Finally! You American waiters are so slow!" Then he picked up the dripping piece of meat and lifted it to his mouth. We all watched him, rather astonished that he did indeed seem bent on committing what most would consider a kind of cannibalism. His mouth closed around the burger, and as it’s first juices reached his lips, he stopped. His expression, which had been happy, suddenly changed. I swear I saw his color take on a slight greenish cast to it, and he bolted out of his seat so fast he almost smashed right through everybody between him and the restroom.

It was all we could do to keep from bursting aloud in hysterical laughter. Even Bryan, who’d taken him "under his wing", as it were.

"I was wondering when it would hit him," came the waiter’s voice from somewhere behind. The booth we were sitting in was right up against an aisle between banks of booths. "That’s the third one this month I’ve seen do that. The scary thing is not all of them seem to realize what they’re about to do, and go right on eating."

"You’re kidding?" Bryan said.

The owlish man shook his head. "I’m afraid not. Not everybody thinks of what happened as reality. They act like they’re dreaming. Your friend just got a rude awakening. Want me to bring out a salad for him?"

Maxine nodded. "That might be a good idea. I think my brother has just become a vegetarian."

While we waited for Tim to reappear, we talked. Mostly about what had happened in the past few weeks. Which, of course, eventually got to the reason why we were in Boston in the first place. "I still have to call the school and tell them that I’m finally in Boston. Then we can arrange an interview time," Brian said.

Eric smiled. "I can’t think of anything more appropriate then for an eagle to be an optometrist. Are you sure that’s what you want to do with your life?"

Brian nodded. "I can’t think of anything I want to do more. I’m not looking forward to getting another interview, though."

"What about you, Jon? What do you want to do with your life?" Asked Eric.

The question caught me so completely off guard, my ears rotated backward in shock! "Um... I... I don’t know."

Bryan looked concerned. "Aren’t you a physics major? I thought you wanted to be a meteorologist."

I smiled, embarrassed. "I thought I did too, guys. But I guess that’s not really what I want to do."

"Then what do you want to do, Jon?"

It dawned on me, a moment of complete clarity that I will never forget. "History." It was more a declaration than a statement. "It’s my ambition to be the new James Burke of science history."

Bryan raised an eyebrow. "Going to be making a few ‘connections’?" He smiled. The conversation moved on.

Tim finally reappeared about an hour and a half after he’d disappeared into the restroom. Bryan had checked on him once to make sure he was okay. He sat down at the table and didn’t say a word as he ate his salad. Though we did hear a grumble about suddenly being a "living lawn mower".

It was dark outside, and we’d yet to find a motel to stay in for the night. "I guess we’d better get moving, guys. The cars are back at the station. Where should we meet you tomorrow, Eric?"

"Do you have a map?" Bryan gave Eric the map we had, and he used a pen to circle the Prudential Tower, one of the newer buildings. "I’ll meet you at the top floor. We can start the tour there."

Dragging Tim behind us, we left to go back to the station to get our cars and find a motel. When we arrived back at the station, I smelled trouble. The other bucks I’d smelled didn’t have the lilt of this scent. Even my own instincts were rather startled by it.

There was one very angry whitetail buck morph, and he was a big one. And an angry, belligerent, leave-or-you’ll-get-the-business-end-of-an-antler kind of person. Whoever this guy was, he’d let his instincts rule him.

Maxine smelled it too, but since she wasn’t a whitetail she didn’t quite know why I was so nervous. "What’s wrong?" she asked. She smelled confused, as did my friends.

"Let’s tippy-hoof back to the cars as fast as we can, okay? I don’t want to get in this guy’s way..." I whispered.

So imagine my surprise when we rounded a corner. Standing next to Maxine’s Cadillac was Janet, and a twelve-pointer. Janet saw us. "Oh! There you are! My brother and I have been waiting here for hours!"

Buckrival too big. Suggest RUNNING!!!, my instincts said.

"What do you call yourself now?" Janet airheadedly asked her brother.

"Buck Stagheart," he replied, glaring at me with utter hatred in his eyes.

I had a major problem here...

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