After thinking a minute about the transformation gun, Jake said, “God! I can’t decide what to do with this.”
He looked through the possible settings: Animal, Age, Gender, Mind changes…
“Let’s give animal a go.”
The menu read: Horse, Cow, Dog, Cat… Monkey.
Yeah, Monkey, he decided. At least he’d still be a primate if something went wrong.
He selected Monkey from the menu, and right away another menu appeared that asked, “Percentage anthro?”
Jake wasn’t quite sure what “anthro” was, but he figured that it might be safest just to go with 50 percent to start with.
He hit the ready icon, aimed and fired the gun at himself.
Again, a blue glow enveloped him, and he felt himself begin to change. The first thing he noticed was that he was shrinking. More than that, he was having a harder and harder time standing upright. His back seemed to want to curve naturally and his legs wouldn’t keep straight. Then, he felt a ticklish sensation crawling over his skin as fur began to sprout all over his body.
His clothes were changing to fit him as he shrank, all except for his shoes and socks, which vanished, revealing his lengthening toes.
He could sense his face reshaping as well. His nose shrank and his forehead flattened out, while his mouth and ears became comparatively bigger.
As he felt the changes slowing, he noticed something strange happening. The bottom of his spine was stretching out away from his backside.
“A tail?” he asked in a more shrieky, higher voice.
Soon his tail was 2 feet long and furry as the rest of his body, save his face, palms and the bottoms of his feet.
Then, it was over. He stood hunched over, with his hands resting on the ground for balance.
“Whoa,” he said. “This is weird.”
Jake figured that he was barely 3 feet tall now, even if he stood up straight, which he realized, after a few tries, was nearly impossible to do.
“I’ve got to see what I look like.”
He headed for the stairs, galloping along smoothly on his hands and feet. Moving like that felt strangely natural now, much more natural than walking upright.
Jake flew up the steps in no time and leaped up on the bathroom sink with the dexterity of a gymnast.
What Jake saw perched on the sink and staring back at him in the mirror wasn’t him, nor was it a monkey, either. He could recognize some of his features, like the shape of his face, while at the same time, he was unmistakably not human, even if he wore human clothes. He was half boy and half monkey.
“Fifty Percent,” he said, remembering the setting on the gun for “antrho.”
“I’m half monkey now. I get it.”
He smiled a big dopey monkey smile, and started to laugh at how strange it looked. But, the laugh quickly became a series of monkey hoots and screeches.
Jake held his furry hands to his mouth, surprised at what had come out of it just then.
He felt his stomach rumble, and realized he was starving all of the sudden. Then, a strange craving hit him.
“I wonder if we have any bananas,” he said.
Jake hopped down off the sink and followed his hunger to the kitchen. All the while, he had left the transformation gun sitting forgotten in its box where anyone could find it.