Satisfied he’s cleaned up his prior indiscretion, Mike shut off the water, toweled himself dry, got a new set of clothes, and returned to the computer. Perhaps some answers could be found in the Chronivac.
After sifting through the library of changes the Chronivac offered, Mike’s mind wandered back to the first test he had done – shifting Jake’s coat to the lustrous black one he now sports. Jake is a dog … dog’s are man’s best friend … maybe Jake is the one Mike can consult and confide in, but he’s a dog. Dog’s don’t speak.
“Maybe I can give Jake a voice,” Mike mused to himself searching the offerings within the Chronivac. He found it was not only possible, but tame amongst the pantheon of choices the program supposedly offered. He pulled up Jake’s profile:
Name: Jake
Species: Canine
Breed: Pitbull
Age: 2 yrs
Weight: 60 lbs
Human Equivalent IQ: 20
Under Anthropomorphic Specifications, Mike turned on the Human Speech: English capability and clicked save. A warning box appeared stating that the Human Equivalent IQ must be greater than 80 to activate this feature. Caution is warranted as returning subject to prior equivalent levels may have unintended consequences. Mike was surprised by the warning, but undeterred from his plan. He bumped up Jake’s equivalent IQ to 140 because he really needed advice and Mike never regarded himself as the brightest bulb. He clicked save and the menu closed without incident. He added the conditions that only Mike would hear the speech (everyone else would hear dog sounds) and set the change to immediate and permanent. Mike hesitated a moment before activating the changes, but quickly refound his resolve and clicked on the Transform button.
As Chronivac processed Mike’s request he turned to watch his dog to see what happened.
Jake was napping at the time Mike initiated the transformation. His cranium expanding slightly to include speech centers and higher-level thought unknown to the canine species. He was jolted awake when he began to understand the lyrics to the song playing on the radio in the background. Before it was just white noise to his prior dog brain, but now it elicited images and recollections in Jake’s mind as his thought processes went from primarily emotion driven to adding a wider array of reason and logic capabilities.
Both Jake and Mike’s metaphorical jaws hit the floor when his first words spilled from his muzzle with a slight English accent, “Can you turn the music down? I’m trying to sleep here…”
“Woaaaaaah!,” Mike exclaimed, “You can talk!”
“I can talk!” Jake responded, “But how…why?”
Mike, after getting over the shock of being able to have a real conversation with his dog, explained the situation to Jake, leaving out his carnal conundrum for now. Jake, for his part, took it all in stride and seemed to understand far more than Mike did – blessed be Chronivac.
The conversation continued for hours with Jake regaling his life story and perspective on the world and how it filters through his canine senses and Mike just stared with a big ol’ grin grasping a tiny fraction of the tales. Eventually Mike got over his apprehension and asked Jake about the events earlier in the day.
Jake half barked, half laughed at Mike’s misgivings, “Your scent changed slightly so I came to investigate and found other things I needed to investigate more. Simple cause and effect nothing more, master.”
“What do you mean… my scent changed?” Mike queried.
Jake pawed at his nose, stating flatly “This big sniffer here, as you should know, is far more sensitive than your fleshy protuberance. You wouldn’t know if I explained a million different ways since you can’t experience it.”
Mike sat back looking a bit dejected and dumbfounded – had he been thinking too deeply about things? Maybe he needed to explore more of the dog life than just a sheath… Questions swirled in his brain. Meanwhile Jake, having been gifted a superior intelligence to his owner, began hatching some schemes of his own.