The Nine Headed Fox urgently reminds you that the production of art like this story would not be legal under fascism, like that currently being advanced by the American government. During this difficult time, the Foxes advise you, the readers of stories such as this, to familiarize yourself with left-wing groups in your areas and join opposition efforts.

INTERVIEWS & NOTES FROM THE SIRE BEHAVIORAL EXPERIMENT

By the Nine Headed Fox

FOREWORD: When I grew up warfare was commonplace; and so was hunger; and most of us believed the world would end. It's been often remarked that in every practical sense that world did end, with the general strike, but we meant it in the most literalist apocalyptic terms–for a few years, global warming seemed truly unconquerable, and so did America. Now that we're forty years out, the terror and pain of that long moment have gone away from my normal thinking; but I yet recall with perfect clarity the dreams I clung to when times were hard: when I was a girl I used to think that all of my problems would be solved if only I could turn into a rat.

I think I got the idea on the subway coming home from school. I'd just learned about global warming maybe that day or a few days prior and it was all I could think about, I was just as mad as you've ever seen a girl; I remember yelling at my mother, "mommy, why didn't you stop those crooks?" which was the worst word I knew at the time. And I wasn't looking at my mom–I was looking everywhere else, really, and just so happened to take notice of a rat–I'd seen so many rats before I no longer noticed them, but that one I happened to take notice of because she was very fat and very pleased with herself even while I was very very upset. And from then on I was just generally mad and stormy, thinking we were going to boil to death in seawater, the same way all of us did at the time; but I had it in the back of my head that if I could find some way to turn into a rat, I could live on an island somewhere in Appalachia and do reasonably well for myself.

I was 12, and still very mad about things in general, when the Lorcan-Zapruder experiments took place. I think that was maybe the first time I ever felt like there was any hope for me in this life. I printed the paper out, bound it, and read it every night until I could recite it by heart. The successful simianification of Gaspard Zaeus was miraculous, but the tuathan process was a limitless frontier: I dreamed of being the first rodent to win the Preeminent SciTech Award.

Credentialism having been obviated some years prior as the worldly going order, I was able to join the lab team at Guangzhou when I was 22, which is where I met Ibrahim Zaeus–Gaspard's husband, and lead cognito-geneticist under Lorcan-Zapruder; who became my mentor of morphogenetics, and first helped me articulate the pressing necessity of the behavioral experiment which today bears my name.

I was not the first person to document Recursive Animal Mania–which today we understand to be a humorous quirk of psychology, but at the time believed could be an addiction hazard or complex mental sickness; but to my shock, I was the first person at Guangzhou to have ever proposed–at least, to anyone's recollection–the idea of extrahuman sociality as being part and parcel with extant proprioception; as malleable, but also as ultimately enduring, as the physical homunculus.

When I drew up the abstract, Zaeus belly laughed–I'll never forget, sure as I'll never forget how I got into all this: he said 'where the hell are you gonna find FIVE friends who all wanna be turned into animals?' And then, the look he had on his face when I told him I'd independently found eight candidate groups, it was like I'd pulled a gun. The tech was new and everyone wanted to do something with it, so–fearing we were going to some kind of contagious mental hazard, like the AI Brainrot–we rammed through the grant and squared off ten klicks of Kenya–and I personally insisted on being there, telling these people that this might be their last human action, that we had no idea what this was going to do to their brains, that nobody had ever stayed shifted that long and especially not in demiwild conditions, and after I say all of this I ask if there are any questions-

And Finn says "Well can we get on with it, already?"

So anyway, that's how PanAnimal Psychology got started.

Dr. Ingrid Sire,

Cognitogeneticist

Measuring Effects of Indefinite Morphogenesis on Social Bonds

Dr. Ingrid Sire–With Dr. Ibrahim Zaeus, Dr. Marcus Verbinski ; and also with Cheetah #2, 'Rey'; Hyena 4, 'Jack'.

Department of Morphogenetics

Guangzhou National College

Guangdong, Guangzhou

ABSTRACT

Widespread presumption after the initial Tuathan processes is that Recursive Animal Mania (RAM) is a heightened state during which a person becomes alienated or distant from humanity and a sense of human self, ultimately causing the collapse of social cohesion (See: Miller-Baldrich). We challenge this assumption using the Tuathan process to turn five people in close relationship with one another into animals of five different species, placing them in a stretch of savannah representative of these animals' natural habitats, and noting their behavioral changes over time towards the researchers and towards one another.

INTRODUCTION

The two most commonly cited studies in the emergent field of cognitogenetic psychology are Miller-Baldrich's Animal Mania and White-Watson's Extended Morphogenesis, which produced relatively consistent hypothesis of depersonalization and feralization-over-time in morphogenetic subjects. Analyses of both papers reveals a commonality of subject condition as a lone animal kept under observation in a static space; as well as leading language in the subjects' postexperimental studies ('Did you feel as though you were no longer human?', being answered affirmatively both times; and 'Do you feel that way now?' being answered in the negative both times).

This methodology, created for their subjects' safety, fails to factor the potential effects of alienation, boredom, structural dehumanization, and isolation on their mental health and on their self-perception, both ongoing and in recent memory. This test, performed on a larger group of subjects over a much larger time frame, was meant first to measure the proposed effects and chart the proposed course of Recursive Animal Mania.

MATERIALS & METHODOLOGY

The Animals

Included here is a list of the five subjects, here referred to pseudonymously. Part of a pre-existing social group, this group was selected due to their long-term friendship (5+ years at time of study) and commonality of ongoing medical and psychological disorders: several had outstandingly relevant prior conditions which yielded unique interactions during the transformation process, documented in attached appendices.

"Rey" –Working aged American woman; acute dysphoria, depersonalization, history of frequent depression; no outstanding medical disorders. Transformed into a female Cheetah (A. Jubatus).

"Jack" –Working aged American Man; bipolar disorder; history of hyperthyroidism–hormonal levels over transformational period enclosed (Appendix A-1). Transformed into a male hyena (Crocuta crocuta).

"Finn" –Working aged American man; no relevant psychological history; juvenile arthritis–sickle cell anemia–blood cell analysis over transformational period enclosed (Appendix A-2). Transformed into a female Masai Giraffe (G. Tippelskirchi).

Henry –Working aged American man; history of depression, dysphoria; non-celiac gluten sensitivity–analysis of gut biome over transformational period enclosed (appendix A-3). Transformed into male Nile Crocodile (C. Niloticus).

Rowe –Working aged nonbinary American; dysphoria; no relevant medical history. Transformed into a female Plover (Pluvinius Aegyptus).

The Habitat

The habitat was a 120 SqKm subdivision of Maasai Mara national reserve, loaned by the Kenyan national government. In lieu of a metal fence, a radio fence was erected, while the subjects were equipped with eartags which would play a prerecorded warning if they drew near. Subjects were told before transformation crossing over the fence during the study would be considered a total abdication of humanity, and not to do this while they had the ability to understand the warning.

The habitat, located on the river Mara, fell coincidentally in the ordinary range of all the named animal species except for the plover; for whom this was several hundred miles to the east of their natural range, though the climate and foliage bands were consistent with that of the plover's ordinary range. The plover was specifically chosen over the more widespread Egret at behest of the subject Rowe, who suggested that they would like to test their friendship with Henry by enacting the well-attested myth of the symbiotic relationship between plover and crocodiles.

This specific range of habitat was selected due to an abundance of life-giving resources combined with a virtual absence of human traffic. Notable features of the terrain included a 1.2 km stretch of the Mara, along which I planted my one-person Field Research Station. The test subjects agreed among themselves beforehand to avoid the Mara, fearing the abundant predators (crocodiles and hippopotamuses) as well as the annual great migration, which was at that time in its first stages. They elected instead to make their shared habitat at a watering hole ~700 meters from the banks of the river.

At the outset of the transformation process, the subjects were outfitted with bioferrite tracking and camera collars, with an approximate material lifespan of three months–three times the experiments' length. To preserve their authenticity of behavior, the subjects were not informed that they were being audiovisually monitored until after the conclusion of the experiment.

However, as part of the Maasai Mara's 365 Safari initiative, the animals were regularly observed by stealth drone cameras at ground and treetop level. In early days of the experiment the the animals sometimes expressed awareness of the stealth cams; over time, reaction diminished to nonexistence.

The following narrative of the study will borrow liberally from my own journal, audiovisual footage from the subjects' collars and the environmental stealthcams, and transcriptions of interviews with the subjects.

Early Days

Day 0. Late June, very hot. Initial morale is high: early climate-reconstruction efforts were underway and the greenery was tracing whole acres it hadn't touched in years. Rey, inclined towards spirituality, remarked that it truly felt like returning towards mother nature's embrace; I admit it stirred my heart.

We drove out on a hydrogen kite before sunup–I parked about a hundred meters out from the watering hole, and folded up the carpet into my base kit. The animals by this point were still, anatomically, for the most part human; though that wouldn't last for but another four hours. It was important we get them out into the habitat while transporting them was still easy.

"I got the giggles." Jack said, apropos of nothing. "Nervous laughter. Heh-heh." And we all looked at him wondering what he was on about. "Just a little hyena humor, for you all."

At this point, Henry demonstrated his capacity to produce a low, reptilian growl, as well as his presently sharpening teeth. He explained that this was a little crocodile humor; Jack wheezed a stuttering laugh.

"Be nice." Chirped Rowe, who seemed at most times like a storybook schoolteacher–patient, doting, a playfully soft exterior with time-tested firmness beneath. They were gregarious, and fearless: I worried for them, in my heart of hearts, and what the brutal realities of wilderness life might do to them–especially when they were such a tiny bird all on their lonesome.

"I'm hungry." Finn announced, apropos of nothing–"Like, really hungry. Is that normal?"

Nothing about it was "normal", of course, since nobody had ever really done this kind of thing before: but he was asking if this was expected, and it was: he would be gaining a little over ten times his body weight in the next four hours. He was already four inches taller than he had been, and looked stretched-thin along the limbs–and fearful that he might begin starving on the spot, I wasted no time in offering him a macrocalorie supplement–a superdense nutrient bar graded for malnourished elephants. He wolfed the whole thing down and it hit his stomach like the Cambrian explosion; he started growing so quickly it was observable to the naked eye–millimeters of neck and limb squeezing into being one at a time without sound or fury, as nature's ordinary mechanics of growth turned to fantastic new design.

We were privileged to witness that famous African sunrise. It came up as a wall of fire, legible for one scant moment between the senegalia trunks–then it leapt up past them to crown the sky in its full baleful radiance. At this time I took t-3 bloodwork from the animals, who were already visibly changing in the wrists and hearts–each demonstrating a heightened heart rate.

T-3 Interviews

DR. SIRE: So...how does it feel?

REY: Weird, but...I guess you probably figured that out. Not weird bad, just–gosh, I feel a little floaty in my skin, you know, like it's trying to fold on itself?

S: Is it physically unpleasant?

R: No, it's like–if a bunch of little kitties were kneading me.

[Annotation: Rey begins purring at this thought–displaying remarkable aptitude for it as well; the sound is quietly upsetting to me on an instinctual level.]

S: And how would you say you're feeling right now, emotionally:

R: Excited. Definitely excited, is the big thing. It feels like–right at the top of a roller coaster, you know, before the big drop? I'm thinking–gosh, I'm gonna be running sixty klicks an hour, claws out, I'm gonna be, uh...

[Her meter quickened before she she became abruptly self-conscious.]

S: You're excited to go on a hunt?

R [Meek]: Y-yeah. You could say that.

[*]

FINN: I don't feel good. I don't feel good at all.

[Finn is clearly at the edge of tears–his head is hanging, four inches of neck bent down so that he can rub his temples with his stiffening fingers. His voice is deeper and heavier than it was a few minutes ago but I suspect that speaking is progressively more difficult, physically; it is warbling in a way that indicates both stress and strain.]

F: I feel like–like I'm feeling every emotion, right now, and, and it's makin me freak out a little. It's like I'm being–being filled up with lightning!

[Finn is fidgeting, scratching himself and digging at the earth in effusive manic energy; I surmise that this is the result of the unprecedentedly rapid shift in hormonal makeup because of his changing sex.]

F [Verging on panic]: And my stomach hurts–my stomach hurts really bad, what was in that stuff you gave me, did you know I have allergies?

S: Yes–it was a hypoallergenic calorie paste with melon flavorant.

F: Okay...okay I'm not...allergic to...calorie paste, I don't think.

[Nobody yet known to science is allergic to HCP11. This is one of the many reasons it defeated world hunger.]

S: Are you having any difficulty breathing? [Finn shakes his head no.] Could you try box breathing for me, like we–yeah, there you go.

F: Oh, are–are my lungs bigger?

[My estimation is that Finn's lungs and heart are already 1.2x their previous size.]

[*]

ROWE: Are my lungs getting smaller already?

[My estimation is that Rowe's lungs are already .6x their previous size–in experiments thus far, mass shedding during the Tuathan process is quicker and less demanding on the subject's physiology than mass gaining–in line with projection.]

R: Because I think my voice is higher, and like–I'm taking smaller breaths, but it's not harder to breathe, if that makes sense?

[They have shed nearly 15% of their body mass at this point, evidenced as a faint steam rising from their back. The radical realignment of their hormones does not EVIDENTLY cause the same manic frenzy induced in Finn. This is consistent across trans-sexual tuathan processes where the subject's end body mass is at least 12% less than their starting body mass.]

S: Yes, that makes sense. Are you feeling any mental effects at this time?

R: It's–it's too bright, is the big thing I'm noticing right now. And everything's louder, but not too loud.

[Rowe does not manifest visible signs of aural ornification at this time.]

S: Okay–you maybe want to close your eyes? I've got some sunglasses -?"

R: No, I'll just close them.

S: So what are you most–hoping for, I guess you'd say, during this.

R: Photoshoots! ...I think those lil plover birds look really great in pictures, and, uh, that includes me now!

[*]

HENRY: Fears?

[Henry's economy of motion has slowed noticeably. He moves pensively, as though each motion requires analysis in itself. But this is punctuated with frightful bursts of rapid action. His voice has not deepened but he pronounces each word with a rumbling growl; I suspect this is inflected.]

H: I'm afraid I'll kill and eat my best friend.

S: You seem remarkably clear-headed about the possibility.

H: Panicking won't help. And–to tell you the truth, I'm deeply interested in the premise of the experiment. I'm more excited than I am scared.

S: Excited? What for, specifically?

H: Of course. I'm getting to examine the world through a completely altered sensorium. This by itself will put several fascinating existential questions in a brand new relief. If I live long enough to become human again...I dare say I'll have lived more fully than men twice my age.

S: So for you this is about what you'll learn more than what you'll do. Rowe mentioned photoshoots, and flying, as the big things they were interested in...what about you?

H: Sitting in the water with nothing to do and nowhere to be.

[*]

[Jack declined to give a T-3 interview–saying only that it was all too much and he couldn't really make his thoughts stay in order long enough to speak coherently. He did not seem, at this time, outwardly anxious; appearing, instead, withdrawn and pensive, though he would often erupt into nervous laughter.]

T-2:30

The bulk of physiological changes commenced at this time in dazzlingly rapid order. The Tuathan process, previously replicated only under laboratory conditions, took on a poetic quality here in the vast-open savannah: as though the spirit of the Earth were rising up to entangle and rewild the wayward souls, whom had into humanity strayed. I noticed that fur growth proceeded at rapid pace and was often the first "major" change completed in the mammalian volunteers, while the scales in both applicable bodies manifested nearly twenty minutes after this point. The arrival of the fur precipitated immediate emotional response from the affected.

Rey–clarifying that she did so out of awareness of feline behavior, and not a particular instinct–almost immediately began grooming her hirsute forepaws: noting both the distinctly keritinous flavor of new-grown hair, as well as the 'delightful' sensation of an extensor ligament articulating in her upper nailbed, which she further likened to "like if you put your fingernails on a warm plate".

Jack, contrarily, was immediately overcome with intense itching, scratching himself every few seconds with his shaggy, diminishing hands–he claimed to be able to feel individual crumbs of dirt and pollen taking root in his developing hairs. It is unclear at this time if this was psychosomatic, if this is an ordinary part of the Crocuta tuathan process, or if he developed abnormally sensitive hairs for reasons unknown. Over the next half hour he claimed to have "gotten used to it" and his scratching diminished to once every half a minute or so; and then down to negligibly ordinary amounts.

The strongest response came from Finn, who burst into tears, clapping her ossifying hands to her breast–transfixed by her developing fur she exclaimed, among other things, that she was beautiful, and felt at one with the rising sun. During this time she refused emotional counsel, stating that she was "fine; but overcome with beauty".

By T-2:05 The volunteers began losing digital articulation. I remained on standby with a mild benzodiazepine in case of sudden-onset panic, anticipating psychological impact consistent with Miller-Baldrich, but found that the volunteers manifested no particular signs of anxiety, even as their hand loss reached its totality. I was instead surprised to find that they were interested in each other's changes, and disinclined to focus on their own: they formed a circle with their hands on the ground and talked to one another about how strange it felt–ordinarily keeping their eyes on one another's emergent paws and hooves (in my own account, a captivating spectacle).

At one point Finn asked if they "should be freaking out about this", which Jack echoed; Henry asked what good that would do, and made a point of articulating his stubby reptilian digits. He was down to one tiny knucklebone on each finger, by then, and he had begun lying down on his belly for his own convenience.

"We signed up for this, didn't we? Why freak out now?"

"Well, the usage of fingers is...very core to the human experience." Rowe said–as an artist, they worked more intimately with their hands than any of the others assembled; I had identified her as the one most likely to have an extreme reaction. "But I guess we're not human anymore, so...maybe that's why this doesn't bother us so much?"

"Score one for humanity-as-constructed-category." Grunted Henry. He was a writer; I hadn't projected a dramatic response, but he seemed as wholly disinterested as a person could be in their own body. They were, on the whole, much more excited by what they were gaining than what they were losing: first and foremost, tails.

At t-1:45, Tuathan primacy reached the external tail growth stage. Seeming wholly unglued from ordinary conceptions of nudity and shame, they displayed no compunction about showing off their tails to one another, even taking effort to wag and articulate them for the other's amusement. The spectacle was disarmingly vulnerable, almost childish.

The giraffe, by dint of being the largest animal present, also had the largest tail, but Henry's was for sure the most eye catching: it amassed behind him in a sudden burst of force, like timelapse footage of a sprout: while the others changed gradually, his reached its fore, at four feet, in just a few short moments–or so it seemed. What we took at first to be the upward limit of growth was merely a plateau: I had in my heart anticipated a juvenile crocodile, and had not truly reckoned with what a monstrous size he would take. By T-1:40 it was nearly as long as the rest of his body put together–a whipping reptilian branch covered in rings of armored scale, that could crush a bone with one whip. The other animals–including myself in that number–were quietly frightened; less by the thought of him than more by the thought he might, with some errant motion, whip us off at the necks.

At this point he began to articulate his own feelings of advanced hunger, for which I gave him HCP11. It's not clear to me at this time why his hunger took so much longer to manifest than Finn's.

Rey displayed the strongest reaction to her tail growth: when she looked back at it and saw the cheetah-yellow spots wagging behind her, she was overcome with manic energy, and began running hundred-yard sprints across the plain.

Despite her extraordinary energy, she had considerable difficulty moving: during her sprints she often pitched forward, balance urging her onto four legs she did not yet have, and had to make herself stand back up. Her tail was alternately very stiff and whiplike: I fancied I could see the process of discovery trace across her feline face.

T-1:30. Now, the long awaited genital reconfiguration process. Results consistent with Miller-Baldrich; seemingly heightened by presence of others undergoing the Tuathan process, so that the aphrodisiac effect quickened into intensity of action best left undescribed. I collected sterile discharge from all mammalian bodies; the reptile and the bird did not yield emission.

T-1 Interviews

DR. SIRE : So the process is about 60%-70% done right now. How would you say you feel?

FINN: Overwhelmed, still. But...not on the verge of tears anymore, I guess.

[Finn is the first to have comfortably settled into a quadruped gait. Her neck is not fully developed, nor is her head, but she is at this time at least two meters taller at the breast. Her hooves and forelegs have experienced meteoric growth, but have not developed muscle weakness or early-phase bone brittleness: this is in itself a handy disapproval of Dr. Miles Corgan's hypothesis that a Tuathan process on this scale would require auxiliary vitamin processors.]

S: Would you say you feel any particular emotions, more prominently than others?

F: Excitement. Gosh, that's the–that's understating it. I feel like I could call lightning down through my neck if I wanted to. And–I can smell other giraffes, I don't know that's how I knew what they were, but I can smell them on the wind, that's fabulous. I can't wait to go meet them, I–I hope they like me, is that stupid?

S: I think they'll love you. Can you tell about how far away they are?

F: No, but–not near enough that I can see them, I don't think. Wow, that's really just fah...f-f_aaah_...

[Finn took several difficult moments attempting to articulate the sound, which–for reasons of precise tongue and tooth construction not intuitable to my naked eye, had become impossible for her to make.]

F: Cool! Losing words, feels weird...

[I raised my hand to her breast and pressed my fingers into the rolling muscles of her breast. There was most of a human head on top of a quarter of a giraffe's neck, but beneath the shoulders there was no doubt: these columnar legs and great knots of muscle commanded power like no other thing that walked; and to stand before Finn in this state was every bit as humbling as it had ever been to meet any great beast.]

S: You're phenomenal. Deep breaths, now–take it easy, you're...really big.

[Finn stepped backwards, already at ease with the motion, and pressed her jaw into my hand. Her jaw stretched out into my palm, the mass growing heavier on me moment over moment, from a melon's weight until I couldn't hold her any longer; and when I released her, her trunklike neck tensed and held her tremendously lengthened snout where it was.]

F: Real big, huh...like big...

JACK: I feel everything.

DR. SIRE: Come again?

J: I feel...[Nervous Cackling]...everything. In my paws, in my snooty-snoot...like, all the dust and the scent particles, I feel it all.

[At this point, Jack is a man-faced hyena, with extended fangs and a flaired snout, and wild yellow like a creature coughed up from myth. If I'd seen him on the savannah as he was just then, knowing nothing of the experiment, I would have dropped dead from fright. I suspected that he is himself dealing with his own nervous reaction: allergen testing prior to the experiment did not indicate he would have an adverse reaction to anything in the compound or in the environment. My initial intuition was to suggest to him what I'd suggest to any animal.]

S: Have you tried licking yourself?

J: Okay, now you come again?

S: When animals itch...

J: Oh, right. Hang on, let me try something.

[He displayed no self-consciousness or reticence to begin tongue-bathing himself in my presence: I watch in silence as he experimentally licked his wrist–and, being met with good effect, sat on his haunches, hiked up one leg, and began furiously eating his own thighs and ass with his huge slobbery tongue. I tried like six times to get his attention before concluding the interview.]

[*]

HENRY: Not much to say. Feel...very large...very hungry...

[Being near Henry was utterly terrifying. He was as long as any two humans laid end to end, all spiny tank-shell on top of rippling muscle. Even though his body was low to the ground, his stumpy legs possessed a terrific power: when he moved overland he has the cadence of a runaway train. Most terrifying of all is the tail, which whipped behind him in bone-crunching swishes as it continues to actualize: if he hit me with it, he would shatter most of my ribs, and it was not all the way done growing.]

ROWE : You look little-scared, little-scared, doc.

[Rowe displayed no fear of the man-crocodile. She–who had lost over 70% of her body mass and is still getting smaller–was perched on his shoulders, keeping balance between two spines with her talons wrapped around them as though she had been doing it for many years. She had adapted well to the limited range of motion in her upper body, and was even then eagerly pumping her arms to test herself for flight.]

DR. SIRE: You're really big. I'm afraid...well, maybe, you'll hit me by accident.

H: Afraid I'll eat you.

[This was true.]

S: Choosing to trust you.

[Henry's face did not possess the necessary articulation to express any intelligible expression; but he adjusted himself on the ground, and by some subtle tell that only a best friend would know, Rowe interpreted.]

R : Why? The studies say...inhumanity. Unsafe, if you believe them.

S: I think Miller-Baldrich is a load of old shit.

[I apologize for the crudeness of my language at this time. My emotions were running high.]

R: So that's what this is really about, then. Your own–keff- kef -"

[At this point, Rowe lost the capacity for effective human speech. I did not ask her to elaborate upon her sentiment, and instead told her simply.]

S: I'm going to retreat to observation distance now. I'll try not to bother you for the next month.

[At an ordinary walking pace, I retreated to a brush stand.]

[*]

T+0:30

In the immediate aftermath of the transformation, the animals displayed a degree of rapid-onset profound lethargy consistent with W-W and M-B experiments. As their first order of business they proceeded towards the watering hole they had chosen to be their "own"; if this was communicated post-transformation, the mechanism is not yet clear to me.

At their arrival there was immediately much upset among the local creatures: this hole had no crocodile within it, and the arrival of one scattered a flock of birds–each much larger than the little plover. Henry descended into the depths of the pond immediately, vanishing beneath the still brackish water as though he were born to it. The others' presence was not immediately alarming, and didn't stir the natives the same way: they were able to drink without incident.

With nothing better to do, the volunteers began playing: not with the other animals, but with each other, chasing one another in circles and drumming out rhythms on the dirt.

T+0:48

Finn became visibly excited when a tower of giraffes came across the plain, moving Northward abreast of the great river. I guessed they were twelve strong, but they came only within a hundred meters or so. They noticed and looked intently at Finn but did not approach her, nor she them; and after only a few seconds, went on their way.

T+1:00

Volunteers have settled into the languid rhythm of watering hole life. Very little disturbs them now: they watch the horizon with the aimless ease of wild beasts, only giving brief notice to new arrivals. The savannah life comes and goes around them, giving them no special treatment.

T+1:21

Jack and Rey began play-fighting. Jack was visibly nervous of the latter's claws and would only make occasional nips towards her while Rey would often leap on and play-bite him around the throat and brow. I am eager to see her attempt her first real hunt.

T+1:28

Rey attempted play fight with Finn and got laid right out.

T+1:56

Rey and Jack have established mutual grooming behavior.

T+2:32

Rowe has introduced herself to a small flock of ibis birds, who appear to be giving her no special regard. Change in Rowe's body language indicates dejection.

T +3:00

Delamination risk period passed without event. Moving to 12-hour reporting.

The Early Weeks

Day 3 I have begun to interpret the volunteers' activity as extraordinary evidence against the Miller-Baldrich conjecture. They have spent fully seventy-two hours in one another's proximal company, retaining familiarity and even a vestige of their daily ritual.

[Transcript of footage: from Jack's point of view, Finn and Rey can both be seen in silhouette–sitting on their haunches beside one another, framed by the setting red sun. Away in the distance the Senegalia distance rises curled in silhouette, the messy hair of sleepy mother earth.]

They have displayed no inclination of abandoning one another, no interest in going with other animals. Recursive Animal Mania is not observable in any trace. I must make an important noteL while Finn and Rowe have happily sustained themselves–respectively on leaves and worms–Jack, Rey, and Henry will all be getting hungry within the next day or so. That, I suppose, will be the truest test of how well they have adapted for this place. I do not at this time believe they represent a danger to their herbivorous friends."

[Transcript of footage: the camera, labeled REY, is bobbing through tall grass in low light; every stalk seems as a tree looming from the darkness, while the beast herself moves with ponderous grace–keen eyes fixed on something beyond the curtain, which the lens cannot catch. Then a flash of motion, the camera leaps–now two wide white eyes, smeared across a lithe and shadowed shape. The next, Rey is ripping meat from the carcass–in the space between bites, the image reveals a slain zebra.]

Henry and Rey are both hunters like the savannah has never seen. Rey will do with one swipe what takes two born cheetahs three minutes of effort.

I realized almost immediately that we had failed to examine our priors: we had been singularly fixated on the idea of human intelligence becoming degraded, becoming–in the words of M-B–Common animals. We had never considered the idea that human intelligence present in the body of a predator might induce a new apex threat to the ecosystem. Appendix R-4 charts Rey's predation habits over time, showing that she hunted at a rate of approximately forty times more effective than an ordinary cheetah.

I was faced with a difficult decision: contact the animals and urge them to slow their rate of predation to a rate consistent with ordinary savannah life, and in doing so risk the integrity oi the experiment; or allow them to hunt uninterrupted for the length of the experiment, potentially damaging a local ecosystem. Grimly aware of our forefathers' selfish decisions–the attitude of small exceptions, which nearly brought our species to ruin–I elected to break cover and approach them, after about half an hour's deliberation.

[Transcript of footage: in the dreamy midmorning light, Rey watches Dr. Sire approaching the watering hole. She wears the multicolored camouflage that makes her invisible to most African wildlife, the animals included–but above her, she is waving the bright red flag that warns of a critical error.]

[AUDIO TRANSCRIPT]

DR. SIRE: Hey–hey, Rey? Can you–can you still understand me?

Rey: [Meowing]

S: Okay, so...you've been eating too much.

R: [Meowing, purring]

S: You'll get fat.

R: [Indignant meow]

S: And it's bad for the locals, there's only so many supposed to die, you know? I need you to cut back to maybe once every two or three days...okay?

R: [Conciliatory responsible meow]

[*]

Day 4–Something happened today that conclusively disproves RAM. It's as simple as that: I spoke to Rey and she understood me full well–communicating, vocally, in response to what I said, before performing the action I requested. She maintains full linguistic faculty. As far as I'm concerned the experiment could end right now but we still have 26 days to go.

Night 4. Jack had his first interaction with a pack of hyenas. Three of them emerged from the grass to devour the meat from one of Rey's kills, and scented him almost immediately. Noticing them from his place by the water he gave a greeting whoop, which they returned; I noticed that his voice was unusually high and tinny, implying a relatively young physical age of maybe a year or so–a frankly fascinating result which I hope to one day examine further.

Then as he approached them they met him with a grunt; and I noticed here that he did not, despite the conjecture of m-b, 'revert to instinct'. Seemingly able to understand the meaning of the sound (Krulk–1972) but not knowing how to respond, Jack retreated directly away from the group, without turning his tail to them. His vocalizations ceased, even after the other hyenas began directing whoops at him. In the end, after ~40 minutes, they left; they did not greet him any further, and he showed signs of profound dejection. Covert stool analysis ~10 minutes later showed elevated corticosteroid levels consistent with acute stress.

In the aftermath of this episode, Rey and Finn both comforted Jack with their presence, lying close to him on the ground.

Day 5. 13:12 A tower of 40 came by near noon. Finn received a courtship display from a young giraffe bull; she responded with flirtatious action, before the bull was ushered away by the rest of the herd's ongoing movement–Finn chased him for some six hundred meters or so, before abdicating.

This is the furthest one of the volunteers has been from the others since the experiment began, and she does not seem in any hurry to return. Since then she has been meandering back and forth over the plain, in a course which can only be described as aimless: I would more readily characterize her as 'deep in thought' than 'lost'. Assuming she retains full faculty, I would say she is thinking about the state of things–I imagine being turned into a giraffe gives you much to consider. I would also hazard that she has never received a naked sexual advance from a compatible young man; and this, too, has given her much to consider.

16:4. I've always said nothing good happens between 3 and 7. A zoocam has noticed the unusual interspecies group and is hovering at about a hundred meters. So far the observation is completely noninvasive–but where there's something marvelous, there's someone waiting in the wings to [expletive removed]. Hoping the footage doesn't go viral.

17:18. So much for that. Just checked Namebook–footage already trending on African animal lists. Fingers crossed nobody gets any stupid ideas.

18:32. Finn has returned to the watering hole after several hours of forlorn wandering. During this time, Rey, Rowe, and Jack all watched her intently, keeping close proximity to one another. I was unable to establish visual contact with Henry and presume he remained underwater at this time. Upon her return, Finn bowed her head and affectionately locked each of the other three visible animals–displaying neither hesitation nor confusion. She therafter began playing with the others, in an uncommonly vigorous way: often jumping and skipping, making full use of her body.

A giraffe cow at play is a terrific force of nature, which I found very worrisome to observe from a distance–neither Jack nor Rey displayed particular fear of Finn, eventually both closing to engage her for play-biting; which she, in return, did not find quarrelsome.

Day 6. 9:02. A photograph of Henry and Rowe, captured during the sunset yesterday, has just become popular. In the photo, Henry is lying on the watering hole shore, his enormous crocodilian snout opened wide like a bear trap–and perched there on his lips, Rowe is finally putting proof to that thousands-year-old story.

[Transcript of footage: Rowe's point of view camera shows the gaping jaws of the crocodile, each tooth seeming as big as a body; and without a second's trepidation they are scampering hither and yon over the pearly whites, pecking down at the great beast's gums to clean away anything caught against.]

14:06. Drone traffic has increased and is holding steady at about five active units–three in the air, two terrestrial stealthcams. Net out here is too poor for video but I'm getting comments relayed from home base. 1700+ comments in the last 24 hours mostly to the extent of "look at them being friends, nature is healing!" Insane to me that there's this many zoostreams focused on this watering hole–The Great Migration in a few days will only have twelve. So far nobody's done anything dumb.

Finn has been acting strangely all afternoon. She is wandering in no particular pattern about 50 meters from the group, tail twitching in a way consistent with irritation. She went to the Senegalia grove by herself and returned in the small hours before the others woke up; and aside from this has displayed relatively little interest in eating–I estimate she's maybe only eaten 30 pounds today? I would confidently guess that she is still shaken up from yesterday: and would furthermore hazard that the experience of briefly establishing an intra-species rapport has left her feeling wistful, or unfulfilled.

16:00. Dried water condenser tank, cycled power. All systems green.

18:22. Herd of zebras came over the ford–2, maybe 300 strong. Saw crocodiles pick one or two of them out of the whitewater. Kept imagining it was Henry ripping into them; kept imagining the zebra was myself. The animals thrash and kick in senseless ways as their life runs out of them: it's a kind of ghoulish comedy to watch a zebra trying to run as its organs spill out of a split-open belly; the way the others carry on, indifferent, like New Yorkers. The great migration's first few.

[Transcript of footage: from Finn's tracking-collar camera, four meters up in the air, the African Savannah does not have the quality of a vast and tameless forest: but rather of a great blanket laid over creation, heavy and uniformly golden, save for where the little things running beneath make the grass stalks bend.

Her eyes are turned to the West, to the Mara river, down the rolling banks which only she can see across. She is away from the others, watching the sunset in rigid, un-animalistic stillness: transfixed with the beauty of the herd as they roll up the riverbank, a many-headed being of tangled stripes and limbs, caped in a cloud of desert dust.

She begins to rake at the ground with one forehoof–snorting and shaking her head, turning brief circles where she stands. But she does not go from her spot, nor take her eyes from the herd: she turns with them, to follow their progress over the great terrain, until they are a ways distant across the flatland–and she can see them still even as they gather round a distant water and settle down for sleep.]

Day 7. 4:31. Proximity sensors stimmed me awake. Lioness scented me, spent a few minutes trying to find me. Octo-Camo held steady until she left. Beautiful creature, even under moonlight–like one stray beam of sun still swirling around down here. Going back to bed.

9:54. Saw Henry making a kill today for the very first time. A bird. Sent shudders down my spine. A crocodile takes life quickly as snuffing a candle: one moment the thing was there on the shore, drinking from the water, and the next there was a monster twenty times its size, erupting open-mawed from the placid surface, so quickly that if it were you, you'd barely have time to scream; and then the reptilian snout encircled the bird and snapped down, the deadliest press nature's ever made. It only took him the one bite: he got the thing's neck, squeezed its head off in between bites. Then he laid there on the shore, open mouthed, for Rowe to come and pick him clean–which she did, displaying no fear of the same fate and no particular concern for the fresh guts gumming up the monster's teeth.

11:21. Rowe perched on Finn's ossicones and preened her fur. Stunning visual.

17:38. Word from field base that internet users are theorizing that the animals are humans who have undergone a tuathan process. The laboratory is not going to release any kind of statement, obviously, but I've been told that, frankly, the rumor is being recirculated by fringe groups, isolated obsessives–the type who would've been on the other side, a few years back. There is no real risk of anyone doing anything to jeopardize the volunteers, or the experiment–but the virtual risk is now nonzero. And accordingly it will haunt me for every day until the experiment is over. I hope only that my imagination will be too busy with our work here to make any time for my anxiety.

17:49. It turns out that there is in fact a way to become deadened to the limitless wonders of the savanna and it is called anxiety disorder. When you're worried about lunatic poachers peering out from every shadow, or watching every speck on the sky to see if it's an IED drone, it's just a bunch of grass and trees and dirt mounds and searing bright sun, which all have in common that they are excellent places for killer to hide. I had been quietly hoping that six years on my mind would've grown out of these patterns– but one whiff of danger, and again I am a partisan, watching always for the rifle barrel's gleam. I hate that I still think like this. I wonder if rats' brains can carry this same breadth of scars.

Day 8. 9:00. Rey and Henry maybe had some kind of disagreement in the night. Since I woke up about ten minutes ago Rey has been perching on a flat stone protruding from the watering hole's southern edge. He is poised bust under the water, eyes and snout visible, not far from the stone–and every so often Rey will reach out and hit him on the snout as hard as she possibly can, and he will erupt from the water to snap at the empty air where her paw was a moment previously. I was writing “for her sake I hope he doesn't catch her" but he just did, sort of–got his snout on her paw and she did a make-believe death roll while Henry rolled over and over again in the pond. I guess they were playing a game. It feels a certain sort of foolish to call a Nile croc cute but that's what he was. Rowe has joined in now: she is jumping back and forth between Rey's paws while Rey tries to catch her. She got her on the fifth or sixth try and started licking her like a lollipop.

12:02. I'm starting to worry about Finn. The marked changes in her behavior have continued unabated. She is withdrawn from the others, showing signs of despondency and loneliness: decreased food intake, minor weight loss, lethargy.

Today I noted a very specific behavior: Finn made specific movements or sounds in front one of the other animals, who mimicked her–to my eyes, passably, but Finn would always repeat the gesture, three or four times, before moving onto the next; and, showing signs of quickening frustration, she eventually left the group.

In ordinary zoology it would be amateurish and sensationalist for me to characterize this exchange in these terms, but I have demonstrated to my satisfaction that this is NOT ordinary zoology. This remains, at least in part, peer psychology, even if it is not human psychology; and and these are a people accustomed to robust and intricate communications between peers, adjusting to primitive and imprecise mechanisms which are–fundamentally, at the sensory level–irreconcilable.

Analogizing the situation: the animals speak five different languages, and physically cannot pronounce one another's principal phonemes. She is trying and failing to teach them their language. I suspect that as the animals have more interactions with their own kind they will become more and more keen of the anatomic-linguistic friction between them.

There's one other concern I have: Plover, giraffes, and hyenas are all very social animals. I'm worried of an invisible stress factor: that even if the animals think they are getting what they need, socially, from one another, their bodies disagree. I'll be watching the three of them very carefully.

The migration is getting well underway now–it's been six herds I counted already and more to come.

14:41. The inevitable happened.

[Transcript of footage: beneath the relentless midafternoon sun, Rey squats in the shadow of a lonely boulder–holding still among the tall grass, she is unseen by the creatures who come to drink from the waterhole. She is very close to the edge of the grass curtain, and can from here see her neighbors on their own level. She is transfixed by the rolling haunches and columnar legs of some forty zebras, who dwarf her lithe feline form–she comes up maybe to their shoulders.

The herd explodes into motion–snorting and screaming and aiming blind kicks into the air raising up a storm of dust while they flee the hole as one in such a great tumult they do not realize one of their number has fallen behind because a great beast has leapt from the grass and now has taken that one by the throat with six ripping claws and teeth made to kill and the lonely creature is screaming in blind terror twisting in a death spiral trying uselessly shake the cheetah loose and in the end the prey can only scream uselessly after its herd long fled while its movements slow and it falls to its foreknees, and the cat bears it slowly down to the earth–the creature its own casket, the brush its burial ground. The light slips out of the zebra's eyes and the hunter digs in.

Rey is instantly intrigued. She rises from her place among the grass and slinks over the dusty earth, eager little kitty-sounds twisting from her muzzle. The other hunter straightens up, ears perked, and answers her with a chirp–and Rey freezes so fast she nearly pitches over. She tilts her head one way, then the other; trading squeaks with the stranger, as she draws steadily nearer.

Now she is squatting by the kill, eyes locked on the hunter–he growls at her and she beeps; when he raises his hackles, she gets lower to the ground. Two or three times he looks like he might swat her–but she stands her ground until he simmers down. Now they are ripping into the carcass together.]

Rey made contact with another cheetah and the two developed an immediate social rapport; at first feeding together, before joining in play: climbing trees, playing chase. They ended up tongue-bathing one another in the aftermath. The two obviously had a heightened physical connection which Rey simply has not forged with the other animals. When the cheetah went his own way, nearly an hour on, Rey returned to the waterhole and engaged socially with the others–but, like Finn, exhibited signs of frustration with the others' inability to parse the precise intention of her gestures and sounds. Now she has begun to exhibit signs of despondency–staring out over the savanna, in the direction her playmate vanished.

The friction of interspecies communication is obviously beginning to impose a psychological toll on the volunteers. Were the purpose of this experiment not precisely to encounter and document these effects, I would recommend immediately terminating the experiment for the patients' health. But while the long-term effects are yet to reveal themselves the experiment must continue until termination. It is still my hope that, despite these emergent difficulties, this experiment will be more frequently mentioned alongside Ed Jenner than P. Zimbardo.

21:12. Rudyard Kipling once poetically wrote of the 'watering hole truce'; the idea that, in this part of the world, water is so precious, and the need for it so universal, that predators will not attack prey in sight of the waterhole. This isn't true. Those very things are what make waterholes a perfect hunting spot. Indeed, Rey has done so well for herself as a hunter partially because of her chosen stalking grounds. But it is true that water is so vital that animals will chance the holes in spite of the danger; and that sated predators will sometimes lock eyes with prey, without then rising to make the kill.

A pack of hyenas have settled down for the night ten meters out from the hole; and some zebras, maybe fifty meters past that. Jack has gone out to meet them but it's hard to see what's going on there at this time of night.

[Transcript of footage: Jack navigates this darkness like he was born to it, running fearlessly through the vast brush forests. By scent and hearing he knows where he is going; he picks a careful course, while the camera's inferior eye paints a blurry inscrutable mess. It makes the sound well enough: the disparate whoops of hyenas, fonts of music rising left and right, which Jack himself chances to join–his voice unsteady, halting, and apologetic, like he's trying a song he halfway remembers. He emerges from the curtain to a flat of trampled grass, where the bulk of the pack has settled down; save for one who is standing there to meet him, her tongue lolling out with fangs on full display.]

I would broadly 'like it' if Jack could make friends with them but I doubt it's on the cards. He's an unremarkable male, not likely to be welcome among the pack.

[Transcript of footage: Jack lowers himself to the ground before the matriarch; the camera rocks side-to-side as he wags his whole body playfully. She watches him steely-eyed, unimpressed; her rumbling grunts of disdain roll over him like punches, the preamble to violence: she takes a step forward, clenching her teeth, hackles raised. The moment before eruption, Jack raises his voice in a peculiar, ululating keen, which rises to three lugubrious peaks; the matriarch tilts her head one way, then the other; and before the song's end, her manner has changed entirely.

When Jack's noise is done, the matriarch sits on her haunches; she raises her own whoop, which falters and loses the tune–now she tries again, and the others laying in their grass beds are trying the same. The sound transfixes them; its singer is welcome among them. Tail wagging, the matriarch approaches him; she and the pup trade scents, comfortably erect in one another's presence.

Then the greeting is done: the pup tamps down a grass patch and lies among the others, who stretch and yawn and make their own faltering attempts at his sound–to them he is another vagrant blown in off the road, who bought his way into their pack for a song; the big mama didn't kill him where he stands so that means he can stay, until he proves himself deadweight. Maybe one day he'll come to smell like them and be something like family but for now he may as well be every man jack.]

Day 9. 11:34. Jack seems to have been tepidly welcomed by the other hyenas; not sure how, but good for him. Rey, likewise, has been circling the other cheetah all morning. Not to imply that the volunteers have abandoned each other; they've touched base twice since sunrise, much to the other animals' confusion.

When Rey approached Henry, the other cheetah began pacing back and forth, while displaying clear signs of fright; which intensified as Jack and Finn drew nearer–ultimately culminating in the male retreating to about ten meters. The matriarch and the rest of the hyena pack displayed no particular concern for Jack but all watched intently as he drew near the others.

Henry and Rowe have been keeping very close to each other–I think at this point for Rowe's survival. She's the one I worry about the most: a plover is a small bird and a single cat or raptor could kill her in seconds. Over the last nine days she's seen dozen of birds killed and eaten, many by her friends. Obviously, I can't ask her; but assuming she retains full faculty, I imagine the psychological effect is similar to being stranded in a war zone.

[Transcript of footage: among the ibises gathered at the shore of the waterhole, a plover is a dwarf in the land of giants. She does not even come up to their knees. From here their every squawk is thunder, every footstep a mighty timberfall; and when an ibis takes exception to the little plover in their midst, its beak comes down like a broadsword falling from Heaven–a killing black bolt that kicks up a cloud of sand, and would crush her if it caught her. These great white birds are not of her feather, and have no more regard for her than for the bugs in the brush nor the little fishes in the stream.

But though the creatures be deadly and pernicious, it is horrible all the same to see them slaughtered. The killers are lightning: one moment, the ibis preens; the next, it screams, thrashing in the wildcat's jaws–flapping wings and desperately kicking feet while the flock leaps skyward, in a flashfire of noise and motion. The kill can do nothing but die; its neck is in the cheetah's jaw–giant eats giant. Rowe stats where she is, attention fixed on the moment: the sun gleams off of the cheetah's camera collar. As the life leaves the ibis' body, Rey lets it fall, and Rowe's attention wanders–to the second set of hungry golden eyes, watching her from behind the tall grass just a few feet away.

As the cheetah pounces, Rowe screams and leaps skyward; the cat's killing claws pass within inches of where she had been, wind chasing after her as she flutters out of reach. Her heartbeat monitor is a machine gun report; she circles the area, camera pointed down at the beast who nearly killed her, as he tucks into Rey's kill.]

I haven't been there to conduct a precise measurement but from my observation post I can see that the waterhole's level has noticeably receded over the past few days. My understanding was that this was a seasonal hole projected to have a steady level for the next month at least–but either I misunderstood, or we've just gotten unlucky with rain, because I don't expect this hole to last another two days. I am, once again, considering experiment termination.

16:34. The animals are in summit; their behavior uniformly muted, contemplative–almost businesslike, I could say. Henry has come ashore from the dwindling water; Finn has laid down on her knees. The male cheetah is holding about twenty meters east; the hyenas in kind to the west. What must they be thinking? The crocodile is the most feared predator on land, the giraffe a wickedly dangerous prey; and they are watching beasts of a common pelt draw up close to them and pantomime, unlike any creatures they've ever seen.

I suspect the predators will linger for a little while longer: the migration continues apace, and dozens of herds are coming over the Mara every day. It is into the wildebeest now–they come by the hundreds, at least, as fearsome in their ordinary going as a stormcloud descended to earth. When they stop the predators rise from the brush in a hungry tide and wash the slow ones away.

I wonder what the volunteers are talking about. I suppose they'll have noticed the waterhole drying up–my guess is they're discussing experiment recall as well. Part of me hopes they decide in favor: I'm worried for them, but…I want to see this through. I want to know if it's possible to be yourself even after every part of you has changed. In my heart of hearts I want them to hold on.

20:52. Never mind what I said, this isn't worth it and there's nothing more to learn. I think something came close to eating Rowe–very close–and it's become achingly clear that this experiment is putting human lives in danger for no further gains. Yes, we all knew the risks, and they agreed to all of this, in abstract; and they are weathering all of it much more admirably than I am. But it's becoming clear that the scope of the experiment was grossly miscalculated. The volunteers have demonstrably retained the majority of their faculty and social cohesion–I do not anticipate any degradation in either, except that which is inflicted by the demands of savanna life; and cannot fathom any reason to subject them to 20 more days of these conditions, except simple malevolence. I have decided to terminate the experiment, effective immediately. I will break camp and collect the volunteers at sunrise.

[Transcript of footage: the camera labeled REY frames a moonstained jag of desert rock, which rises monolithic above her–its shadow swallows the lens.]

[Transcript of footage: Finn's camera rocks side to side; rhythmic, as though it were mounted on a cradle. The senegalia thicket is growing larger.]

[Transcript of footage: Through a forest of swaying grasses, Jack follows a spotted bobtail–they are running to beat the sunrise.]

Day 10. 5:39. The volunteers are gone. When I woke up I noticed right away I couldn't see them. Their GPS tags show that they've scattered across 8 sqkm the test habitat and are spreading out even further, with only Rowe and Henry maintaining proximity. Experiment termination procedure calls for a mobile tuathan unit at a central location–given the decentralization and distance between the animals, I am no longer able to affect experiment recall. I can think of nothing to do but wait.

[Transcript of footage: Finn has found herself welcome among the giraffes in a place of green and plenty. For nine ugly days she has contented herself with lonely Blackthorn acacia, twisting her tongue around thorns as long as knives all for a bite of bitter gunky leaf. But she has followed the herd over the desert to a copse of Flat-Tops, Vachellia Abyssinica: the photogenic lord of the plains, whose leaves sit in handsome curls over smartly twisted trunks.

Now she rips up mouthfuls of butter-white blooms, grinding them into a floral paste that sits cloudsoft on the palate–tastes bittersweet, something sharp followed with an umami almost like butter.

There are others beside her taking from the tree, giving her no special care–coming and going is the way of things in their world, and it's rare to find a friend. But it is a special sort of silence, such as animals hold between their own kind: there she finds all the things that need be said–in the twitches of tails and the stomp of hooves. She is at peace among these beasts as she was not among the other volunteers: her manner is easy and unhurried; she walks leisurely courses for their own sake around the others, through the swept-up trees, to the edge of the open brush and back again to the thick of it.]

[Transcript of footage: Rowe is by herself on the banks of the Mara. She is an unsung jewel of Africa, without her northerly cousin's length or fame, but her splendor is the envy of all: the fishes and the beasts and the birds all love her, as they have never loved the Nile. When the beasts of Africa ford her in the thousands they give thanks for her cool and the green she brings, and if they but had the words they would aver that she is the Maasai Mara's only goddess–but they do not stop to drink, because she has a goddess' caprice, and that very same life which she gives she may as easily take away.

The crocodiles, her psychopomps, lie in wait at the edge of the ford, deeper in the silt-clouds than the light can go–but a crocodile's skin is a sensitive thing, and they can mark their way by the currents' subtlest touch; the wildebeests' countless splashes are clearer to them in the murk than the world in bright relief. When their hunger quickens, they rise up from their little underworld and snatch one from the herd–one from every herd, as sure as you pay the tollman. Always the killing is horrible and rarely is it quick–for the most part it begins with the legs and the bellies.

There is no camera on Henry's neck. A radio tracker, and a vital monitor, but no camera–he is underwater 20 hours a day now, and the goddess takes machinery even more readily than she takes life. But Rowe, from her view by the riverside, can see it all: the snapping serpents, the carcasses, the offal which darkens the water–up in the tree branches, where the river-dragons have no quarter, the whole grim procession may as well be for her amusement.

By some trick she always knows which one is him, even when he is only one of many monstrous maws in the whitewater. Her camera follows him as he swims broad lazy circles through the water, and when he comes up on shore she is already looking that way. In the river, where they are shadowy things of teeth and undertow, the creatures are as much imagination as material; but on the beach, where their bodies are unfurled in full relief under the sunlight, there is a second sort of terror that comes just from seeing them.

A crocodile in his full length is eight, ten, twelve feet long, and every inch of him is lean muscles and spiny plates. They are the nearest things on earth to the Tyrannosaurus Rex–if the lion is a king of beasts, the crocodile is the emperor; and when you see them laid out in a row on the shore, each one his own domicile and executive, an island in the sun as no man has ever been, it is as near as a body may regularly come to being restrained by the hands of God. Even remote, the sight of them–dark monolithic, intercessions on the living world from a place of unlimited death–make clear that no man may go that way and keep his head: your body freezes up and defies you, your own warm blood refusing the creatures' presence–and if you go any closer then, you go into death's country.

Rowe is always watching; but she does not go near Henry anymore.]

Day 11. 14:00. Situation unchanged. Lacking any means to affect Volunteer RTB, I've returned to the field base and delivered a report to Doctors Zaeus and Verbinski, who are expectedly displeased; more with the volunteers than with me, though they both seem to think I should have done more–neither one said it, but both made it clear. At least from here I can use the Remote Viewing Units to track the volunteers' progress. Now more than ever, I wonder what they are thinking: is there a human inside them, terrified to be out here on their own? Or is this where they belong, now?

[Transcript of footage: Rey has lost weight–she was not carrying much extra, but now she has lost it. She's been tempered down to steel by two days of life in the wild, as a hellcat with no hands to hold her–save the male, who has become her constant companion. The two have gone far from the waterhole, through great tracts of brush, to an acreage with a scant few-hundred trees–which between them comprise the thickest wood on the range.

The giraffes may come to gnaw at the eaves but the thick of the trees there are only birds and cats. The cheetahs are draped over the spreading branches, paws and tails hanging down like vines. The sunspots which breach the canopy paint the ground around them mottled gold and grey–just like their coats, so that anyone looking up at them from the forest floor would be just as likely to miss them as see them, and the poor birds have no chance at all–but they are so small and colorful, their songs so sweet on the ear, that they are better for watching than eating; so this is what she does. Here is a Lilac-breasted Roller (C. Caudatus), breastfeathers of aquamarine, perched proudly in the sun; here a stern grey pygmy-falcon, who are so small and take themselves so seriously.

Rey and her friend talk to each other often, as wild cheetahs rarely do. A cheetahs' voice is a thing at odds with her body–tender and soft and squeaky, more like a housecat than a tiger, even when she bares her fang–and they ordinarily make do with subtler sounds. But when she beeps, he returns in kind; and when she makes some complex inflection, which the other volunteers could only partially imitate, he returns that too. Now they are purring, side by side; now he is licking her cheek, and she his.]

[Transcript of footage: In the early afternoon, with the sun high in his house, the cackle is assembled in the shadow cast by a great castille-rock of sandy stone–the vultures claim the peaks but the hyenas guard the gates. The queen matriarch, whose daughters and granddaughters are the pack's finest hunters, is sprawled lazily on a great flat stone, where she surveys the world with the world's own eyes: her soul is Africa's soul, which as well is hers again, and that of her packmates and all their prey; and looking away over the rolling grasses she sees only herself reflect.

In the late afternoon, sunset on the horizon, the hyena called Jack is beating a track over the savanna. He is on the left flank of the formation, going with two other males. A blue wildebeest between them runs itself ragged–the herd is half a klick away, more distant with every minute, and there is nothing on the face of creation that can help him.

Hyenas are not quick killers. Before the snuff comes the chase, but the animal is dead before the catch: dead from the chase, from the hyenas coursing after it at that hunting dog pace, for whole thousands of meters; until the animal's lungs are a tangle of burning wire, and it is hacking up wet bloody coughs, and if it by some miracle survived it would never be the same–but the dead-thing-running keeps running, because running is all it can make itself do, from mortality and the dogs who are its heralds, only half-aware of what it is running from: the wildebeest knows pain and fear but it does not grasp death in its enormity until the first dog's visegrip clamps down around its legs, through bone and muscle, and it feels itself being unmade.

Once the leg is caught, it is not quick then either. Not like the cheetah with her one to the neck, not like the crocodile with his mountain-swallowing jaws. The hyenas are eaters, more than killers: they take the meat in great gouts from the haunches and let the beast wallow in its own fresh offal.

When the killing happens it is almost as an afterthought. Hyenas prefer the lowest cuts–on an unbroken carcass, they'll start with the haunch; the genitals are a prize for the hunt leader, usually the first thing to go. Then they pull strips off the ribs, past the stomach and intestines pouring out in lumpy modeling-clay piles, up to the still-beating heart, where at last so much of the vital stuff comes unglued from its structure that the beast's integrity cannot hold–in its last moments it watches its body, which it has always taken for granted, being rendered.

Jack eats first with his brothers, burying his muzzle deep in the kill and slurping out the sweetmeats–lungs, heart, liver, which are salt and iron on his tongue. Then he rips a shank from the carcass; he and his packmates clench it in their jaws and pull it apart. He goes to eat it alone, in the shade of a spindly tree.]

Day 12. 14:00. The volunteers' vitals are holding steady, with normal periods of heightened activity and rest. RVUs show Jack and Rey have both adapted to group hunting–Jack as well has adapted to social structure of the cackle, finding welcome among the lower-ranking males. There are a few behaviors which, during close examination, betray their humanity; and but for that they appear to have become completely ordinary animals. Dr. Zaeus tendered the idea last night that they really have "gone feral", but I simply don't accept it: they didn't display patterns of cognitive decline; their breakup was orderly and premeditated.

But then what, I ask myself? Are they counting the days and planning on reconvening later? Is this their way adapting to the waterhole drying up, their seeking personal edification, or both? I guess I'll just show up at the pickup site at the end of the trial period, and hope they'll be there, but–even as I write these words that seems too clean and fanciful for the messy world of life science. My grandma had a saying: when something goes wrong, something else goes worse.

[Transcript of footage: A remote viewing unit turns a wide circle over the Maasai Mara. From up here the rocks and the trees and the great seas of grass are patterns on a quilt; the herds are afternoon shadows, rolling across a dreamily quiet world. There is a lonely thin column of dust rising from the surface road.

The dashcam of a 4x4 rover skips and shudders across rough, buckled road. The hood is in the image of those gas-guzzling kid-crushers that they don't make anymore; a love letter to a cruel bygone world, written by a soul stuck out of time. The hood ornament is a skull–no horns, too round to belong to most creatures. It is noon.

From above, a short sharp chirp–harsh, unmistakably electric, fashioned in rough likeness of a bird call. Now the vehicle slows to a stop, while a man on a hydrogen kite descends from above and alights on the ground beside him.]

RANGER EDIBI: Hey...hey–safari pass, can I see your safari pass?

BODICKER: Yeah...Sure.

[The sound of shuffling papers. Bodicker's voice is like a bike chain getting ground up in the gears.]

E: Wilhelm Bodicker, South Africa?

[Silence.]

E: This pass is good for daylight hours. You should get ready to head back soon, if you want to be at lodge by sundown.

B: Right. Thanks.

[It is nine hours later, after sundown. Bodicker is deeper into the reserve than he was before. His rover's dumb-camo is in full effect: a good muffler, and some colors the cameras can't make. He has been poaching the Maasai Mara since before Unification; his great-grandfather was here for the Partition.

Bodicker loves the Maasai Mara. He loves the way her many mouths scream, and the color of her rare blood; and most of all how her children watch their mothers fall. She is his eternally virginal barefoot and pregnant wife, and these her gifts to him for being hard in a world that tries to make men soft: he is not a limp tourist from America, come to slaughter a chained-up black rhino; poaching has been his way and right since he was ripped from the womb. To him it is a thing holy and carnal: when he takes his red pleasures from Africa, as his fathers before him, he sees the veldt bent down in supplication to the dream of Rhodesia.

He cuts the engine, switches on the bodycam. Pulls the elephant gun out from the trunk, checks the chamber for the cameras. He makes a show of the bullet, holding it up next to a soda can half its size–the mag spring struggles, like a woman. Now he is on the trail, turning over lines in his head. He's got a few phrases in mind he likes–animal freaks, fur-pervert queers, commie horror science–but he's looking for something more phallic. He wants something funny; the kind of cruel and sharp that makes red-blooded men laugh; but he's too mad to think funny thoughts.

It just gets him hot under the skin, the idea of people turning into animals–he hates more that it's being used as it is, by the Africoms and the Chinese invasion for some fuck-whatting 'research'. Some so-called 'people' deserved it; but thinking of white wombs going to waste out here making more stinking red meat, he could just crack a whip–only thing he hates worse than little boys in dresses is little boys wearing animal ears, and you see it on the news most every day now.

Paused for rest on a hillock, he mutters shoutouts to Hunter14 and HHGreg. He dreams of some sunny day when he owns this country again and can show his face on camera–no more sneaking around in night time, no more showing passes to people who have no idea what to do with this place.

The others don't believe him about his game, not yet. Fred told him it just a theory, decided to stay back. But Bodicker knows animals like he knows his own heartbeat, and knows sure as hell the humans he's been tracking aren't animals. He's had his AI Agent scrubbing the public RVUs, tracking them across the desert for the days they've been moving; plus his own drones, which he's had following the collars' RFID. Now he knows he's just a hundred and twenty meters out from the crocodile.

Bodicker posts up on the other side of the river while the beast is laying out on the shore–looking so _smu_g with what it's done to itself that the hunter could just be sick. He has an answer that'll wipe the smug right off your face; wishes he could give it some one-liner about "let's see if you still bleed red". But he's a proud man, not a foolish man: a crocodile will kill him, if he ever meets it on his own terms. But the thing that makes man the apex predator is that he always sets the terms–and the terms is, nobody turning into crocodiles.

On the other shore Henry is fast asleep; he could sleep in the water just as easily, but the preference for land is just one more thing marking him as unnatural. Bodicker settles in the dirt–puts the bipod down into the riverbank. Braces the barrel, checks range. Licks his finger, holds it up to the air, and guesses the wind. He empties his lungs and pulls the trigger.]

Day 13–02:03. Sudden vital drop from Henry–signs of bad injury–en route w/ Z&V.

02:31. Arrived on the scene ~10 minutes ago. Henry has 2 gunshot wounds–one to the upper left leg, one on the right side of the head. Blood loss stopped. Thigh tendons shredded, eye and jaw badly mangled–no chance of airlift–prognosis poor. 100% poachers. Possibly still nearby.

06:10. Henry's semi-responsive, and I believe able to tell that we are not a threat, but his vitals are dropping slowly. Animal transportation got here a few minutes ago; trauma vets took him under care. They say it's too early to tell whether he'll pull through.

Rowe is shaken. Unresponsive, she shows signs of shock and heavy stress; unusual for a plover. She's riding along with the ambulance back to FB. I'm guessing the shooter simply didn't recognize she was here: the collars are accurate to within about six inches, but she was sleeping on Harry's scalp–depending on the program, someone reading the collars' frequency could've easily failed to see both pings.

Now that I have a moment to myself I'm putting the pieces together in my head. It was two shots fired in the dead of night at one specific crocodile and no attempt was made to recover the carcass. No sign of shooting at any of the others–and Henry wasn't an outlying or weak target.

No chance this is random: not a poacher–but ideologically motivated against the project. If he found Henry that says to me he's got the radio collars' frequencies somehow, and maybe his own RVUs somewhere locally. And for sure he'll be going for the other animals, too. I explained it to Z&V who agree–no way this is a random act of violence. They asked if someone in the project could have betrayed it but I don't think that's a real possibility: there was nobody out from field base at the time of the shooting; more to the point, I trust my colleagues.

I'm much more ready to believe that this is an agent of an online fringe element–maybe a revanchist Boer–who have done some research into the Tuathan process, whipped themselves into a frenzy, saw it everywhere–I've seen people saying that the government is turning agents into birds and sending them to spy on people–and got lucky with their guess about what we're doing here. And this guy, like most shooters, was just looking for a reason.

08:28. The volunteers appear to be reconvening of their own accord–they're all moving en route to the waterhole. It seems like my guess was correct: they made a plan to reconvene after a few days apart from one another; they're still in full control of themselves; and they're reuniting. If our mystery poacher has done his research, he knows where they're headed–and like any predator, he'll be waiting for them by the waterhole. I'm back at FB with Rowe and Henry–I've attempted to file an emergency report with Wildlife Agents but a dust storm a couple miles off is cutting off comms to Narok–projected to last for another eight hours. The animals are expected to be at the waterhole within six–four hours to Narok by car, and no way I can take the kite through the storm.

In light of these extraordinary circumstances, I've retrieved one of the FB's PDWs. Now I'll take a kite out to the waterhole, activate my camo, and try to intervene against the poacher manually. Zaeus and Verbinski have strongly stated their objection to this plan but lack the authority to overrule me. At moments like this I understand why the old world was so obsessed with religion: this is, frankly, terrifying. And I'd really like to know it will all work out okay.

This has been the testimony of Dr. Ingrid Sire

[Transcript of footage: The waterhole where the volunteers first convened is dry now–not even mud remains. But a hundred meters away, down a sloping green embankment, the Mara river churns her ceaseless course; and there are many thousands up and down her length, each playing her part in that balletic array of life and death called the Great Migration. On the far side of the water, the man called Bodicker lies unseen in his hunting blind, rifle trained across the way and scoped in on the waterhole.

He's not but twenty meters from where he made the shot that took the crocodile; bunkered down, ghillied up, he watched the scientist come and go. He hadn't expected interlopers, though with hindsight he supposed he ought've. He's not worried either way: twenty minutes had passed between making the shots and body cleanup arriving–and he could fire four rounds a lot quicker than twenty minutes. He'd wanted their pelts but he's not picky: now his plan is just shoot them and go, let it be a warning to the next ones.

The migration is passing over the flatland to his right–in that so-called natural wonder he sees only a stream of stinking, shitting animals, and he's had enough of their like before. His heart does not stir at the sight of the thousands; he does not feel humbled, as a man should, by the arrangement of nature's majesty around him; he does not conceive himself part of this whole, and feels nothing for it. Indeed, he feels nothing at all, except anticipation for the wet red moment.

Away in the spotted brush, Rey has left her companion; their friendship, like most, was only for a time. Now she is going over the savanna at the cheetah's famous pace, faster than the wind or anything on legs, towards something built to last. Many dozens of miles away, Finn and Jack are doing the same: they have left the senegalia forest and the shadowed castille-rock, bound for their old waterhole for an ordinary homecoming.

Bodicker's RVU is orbiting the waterhole. On his RFID tracker he can see the cheetah is maybe 4 klicks out, the hyena only 2–maybe ten, fifteen minutes till they get here. Both animals coming from his West, neither one suspecting anything. In his head he's already made the shot and he's watching the splatter reel over and over and over again from a dozen different angles. It gets him hard; he rubs himself against the dirt, cargo pants leg pinching his bell end. Secure in that moment he lets himself forget the rules of the hunt, for just a moment–now he's not paying attention to the things he should be paying attention to.

Doctor Sire's body cam flicks on. She's three hundred meters away from where Henry was shot–on the other side of the river, where the shooter must have been. She suspects he is still here, so she landed to his East, back to the sunlight–now lying low to the earth, ghillied up in her dumb camo, she crawls the ridgeline–eyes wide, expecting a gun barrel in every patch of grass. She says nothing and makes short movements, slower than anyone who's done this before.

The cheetah closes on the patch of dirt that used to be the waterhole. It still carries her friends' scent. She keeps to the grass, letting it be her shelter–stalks slow, deliberate circles while the others get here. They're not long out now: she smells the hyena before he get there, ninety meters out–and she sees the giraffe loping towards them over the golden plain. She meows in adoration of them–leaving the curtain, she sprawls and rolls in the dirt, purring so loud it makes her whole body shake.

Bodicker sights his rifle. Zeroes the scope. Aims first at the giraffe, the easy target–then spots the cheetah making a fool of herself in the dust bath. He adjusts the target, zeroes again, takes in a deep breath –]

[tunk]

Something small, feathery, and extremely angry slams its entire weight into Bodicker's open eye. He screams and his entire body tenses up–with one hand he claps his cheek and with the other –

BOOM. He fires a misaimed shot, and the report echoes across the river and back again. The elephant gun bucks up into his ribs and jaw like an oaken fist, splitting his cheek while the report sends deafening thunder down his ear–he swipes his cheek, thinks he feels a bird or something in his hand, and he's cussing, spitting, when just to his right he hears someone yelling in English -

DR SIRE: Drop the rifle–drop it or I'll shoot!

[Bodicker drops the rifle–it hits the ground with a thud. When he turns around, he sees a woman in a ghillie suit not but eight feet away, who barely looks like she knows how to hold the gun–and in that split second he makes the decision to charge her, bob and weave–

BANG! She fires one shot and the slug whizzes past his ear, so close he feels the heat on his cheek, but before she can fire another he's on top of her, grabbing her by the wrist. She doesn't stand a chance now: he's six four of chiseled white muscle and she's just some doctor. The bird is on his shoulder, pecking over and over at his neck, like pinches from a little kid–he growls, roars, a wild man out of control. She squeezes the gun, fires it twice–he forces her wrists down, both shots hit the soil, and he forces her off balance; hooks her leg, shoves her hard; and the next moment she hits the ground elbows first, the pistol clattering over the earth. She rolls with the impact, into the thick grassy curtain her suit was made to emulate, and scrambles like an animal herself.

Bodicker feels for the pistol on his hip and gives it a yank–in the struggle, the flash hider snagged on his cargo webbing. He lowers his eyes for exactly as long as he needs to snap the strap back into place, and looks up into the cavernous mouth of a pouncing cheetah]

Of all the blood shed by Africa's wild beasts, there is none more eagerly shed than a man's. It is an occasional vintage: the men who come from Africa know that they live in countries which the animals own, and give the beasts a great berth; and the poachers, themselves in fear of Africa's people, ordinarily move very carefully. So all the veldt waits eagerly for that rare kind of fool who comes to that place as a conqueror, as cruel to the animals and people as he is to the country, and makes himself known within reach of killing teeth–and when they find him they make his folly into festival.

They raise him up to pillory and fill him with their sounds, while he is spending the last of his breath fighting things with more strength in their jaws than he has in his legs. They make him into great fun–a scratching post, a chew toy, a pull-apart anatomy doll–then food: they pull off his flesh and they eat his eyes for jujubes, and they all get a plate of ribs to share.

A bug that feels itself being taken apart can barely comprehend the sensation; it doesn't have a big enough brain to feel "pain", really. But a man who feels that same thing can scream, and scream, and scream; and the whole time as the cat's claws are raking the binding out of his back and the hyenas are slurping up his loins–as he is watching himself vanish in dripping red cutlets down wild animals' throats–he has nobody to blame for any of this but himself.]

Day 13. 18:00. Feels like a lifetime has passed in just 12 hours.

Due to extraordinary circumstance the experiment has concluded ahead of schedule. I sustained minor, unremarkable injuries. The poacher responsible for the shooting–according to his belongings, one Wilhelm B.–has been physically disassembled.

While Henry remains unresponsive in poor condition, the other volunteers have undergone a secondary Tuathan process and returned to nominal humanity; I'm going now to commence debriefings.

[Transcript of footage: in a modestly furnished interview room, Dr. Sire sits on a change lounge opposite Rey–who for her part is seated neatly in an armchair. She is obsessively drumming her fingers against the seat, grinding her teeth back and forth–adjusting to all the things she has, and doesn't.]

DR. SIRE: [Throat clearing] So, how do you...feel...?

REY: Slow. Slow, is the big thing. Like I gained four tons.

[Rey had gained ~55 kg–provided with HCP11.]

S: Is that, um...the most...intense...thing you feel?

R: Yeah? [She raises an eyebrow.]

[In that same room, at another point in time, Dr. Sire sits with Jack, whose fingers are threaded together; he frequently licks his thumbs.]

JACK: Well, disappointed, I guess. I thought we were supposed to be out there for like two more weeks. I barely–well, I didn't hardly get to know the guys. It's kinda crazy but–but I'm thinking I wanna go back, maybe?

[And in yet another point, Finn is pacing lines across the room–three brusque steps, pivot, three more, pivot. He is pumping his arms, sweating up a storm–he's getting used to being small again, while his endocrine system reacclimates to testosterone. It's rocket fuel under his tongue.]

FINN: You mean, did I feel any feelings of removal from my humanity, any gradual descent into madness, anything like that? I didn't, no, though I was fully expecting it, maybe even looking forward to it a little bit to the point that I kinda shocked myself into it for a few minutes, I was thinking here it comes, I'm going totally giraffe mode, but–I was actually just getting really sleepy. I wouldn't say I experienced any sense of detachment from myself.

S: Well I had meant on a slightly more immediate personal level, than in regards to the experiment.

[In a milky white clean room, Henry's enormous reptilian form lies in a shallow trench full of water. He is asleep now–in an induced coma, under beneath a stalactite-tangle of surgical robot arms. Vitals steady.]

S: Are you sure you want to do the interview here?

[On the other side of a thick pane of glass, in the cramped, spartan, operation theater, Rowe and Dr. Sire sit together. Rowe is making themself look through the glass, as much as they can–only for a few seconds at a time, before their guts wear thin. They chew their nails to keep themself level.]

ROWE: I'm sure. Just–just go ahead. Ask whatever it is.

S: Well, I...

[Sire can see the pain on the poor person's face–she wishes she could say 'he'll pull through' or at least leave the interview for later; but memories, the only thing they have to go by, dwindle fast. There's no way for her to make it better except to get it over with.]

S: Did you still feel–human, is the big thing.

R: As much as I ever did.

[Sire opens her mouth for the followup–closes it again, when she realizes she doesn't have the words, and lets her face do the talking.]

R: What is a human anyway, you know? Like...there's a lot of things that make a person a human, and some of them are special to humans, but some of them, just ordinary things that animals do. And it's only about what we do; it's not our bodies–it wasn't before but it's sure as heck not now, because–I was a bird this morning, but I'm human now. And that whole time I was my self, my whole self, still thinking about...home, and my friends, the way I do now...Does that answer your question?

S: I'd say so. Yeah. But, there's one other thing past that...the extraordinary circumstance, here.

R: You mean the poacher.

[*]

J: I'm worried about Henry, if that's what you mean. I just–laugh when I'm nervous, lately.

[Jack rubs his temples, letting his mouth hang open.]

S: I meant more if there were any effects on you, psychologically, emotionally.

J: …Does that not count?

[With his arms crossed and his head cocked, Jack looks in almost every way like a hyena. His heart belongs to the savanna.]

S: I meant more that–can I speak bluntly? You…you ate a man alive, earlier today.

[*]

[Rey runs the back of her neck and looks away. She is trying not to grin, but it's creeping over her face like evening sun through shades.]

R: Doctor, what was that you were having for lunch, during the reversion process?

S: Are you still hungry?

R: It was a BLT, right?

[Sire nods quietly, brow furrowed in intrigue. Rey, now looking back at her, can't restrain her wide, playful grin–nor the hunter's spark that still burns in her eyes.]

R: Do you have any opinions on the pig?

[This concludes the narrative portion of the paper.]

DISCUSSION

Tuathan Process Has No Meaningful Effects on Cognition

Despite the extraordinary events leading to an early experiment closure, the findings were conclusive. The volunteers did not experience feelings of diminished humanity, unreality, alienation from self, or meaningfully diminished cognitive ability. Pertaining to the topic of subject psychology and awareness, the conclusions espoused in Miller-Baldrich and White-Watson are not accurate.

Interspecies Language Barrier

The middle portion of the process did highlight the importance of communication between persons of different species and the way which this may be impeded. Future research into the Tuathan process, especially RE longterm psychological health, must account for this.

Tuathan Animals Apocalyptically Bad For Ecosystem

The earliest phases of the experiment indicated that Tuathan animals, without appropriate instruction in their role in the ecosystem, become superpredators capable of laying complex traps and using heightened pattern-recognition abilities to devastate local ecology. This must be a chief consideration of all future Tuathan animal interactions with open ecosystems.

Further Questions

The most obvious avenues of inquiry remaining from this experiment stem from the beginning phases of the process–specifically the logistics of being able to regularly and faultlessly supply a subject's caloric and vitamin requirement to prevent bodily collapse; and the effects of rapid endocrine system recalibration on the brain. Pursuit of further psychological questions–on the health of Tuathan animal psyche in extended absence from, or current proximity with, humans–is an obvious next step.

Acknowledgements

After 3 weeks on life support, Henry's brain healed sufficiently for doctors to administer the Tuathan reversion.

Afterward

When this paper was first published 15 years ago I had yet to lead a research project. The world at that time was in the midst of a stirring transformation, away from a barbaric few centuries into a much better shape. It was unrecognizable from the world of 30 years before–and today is just as different from then. Today the Tuathan Process is a commonly available elective procedure which most people will experience at least once in their life–with as many as 5% of people choosing to forego reversion.

I still speak to the volunteers about once a year or so. Finn has become a father and works as a Tuathan Actor in films. Rowe is a Process model, showing off new bodies on social. Jack is a safari ranger in the Maasai Mara. Henry undertook another tuathan process to become a red fox (Vulpes Vulpes), declining to ever revert. Similarly, Rey has become a dragon, and a PanAnimal therapist helping Tuathans heal from Chauvinism Trauma.

Today there is a picture of me in a Guangzhou museum crediting me as the "Mother of pananimal psychology"–and I've always loved that picture, more dearly than any I've seen or taken before or sense, because that was the first picture I had taken a few minutes after I finally became a rat–and I've never gone back.

Squeak,

Ingrid Sire