There were those who thought 'jihad' should mean 'spiritual struggle' and then there were those who believed it more properly meant 'holy
war.'
The beautiful office building didn't stand more than a mile from where the first true sword strike had been laid upon the infidels. It gave a
beautiful view of what the infidels called 'Ground Zero.' And like the little spider that climbed up the water spout, they were repeating their
efforts so it may be destroyed again.
"Mindless robots." The not unhandsome man in the business suit said looking at the sight from his window.
A buzzer in his pocket went off. He sat down at his desk and unlocked a drawer to reveal a phone with no buttons or dial. All it had was
another custom lock. Undoing it he picked up the silent phone.
"Lovely night." He said in a calm voice as the sun shined outside.
"Last sunset was awful." Came the reply code phrase.
"Report."
"Sir. It's impossible to believe. It's should not BE possible! Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden-"
"What about our friend?"
"He's, he's, he's dead! The infidels murdered him!"
A maid outside the office heard a overpowering enraged, "WHAT-??!"
There was dead silence as the man in the business suit made no reply for several minutes as he was given the details. Finally he said, "Get the
message to our prison contact, have him inform the doctor Eugene Changes we have reconsidered his officer."
"Yes sir." The line went dead.
~~~
Deep within the protective confines of the pentagon, a man with the stars on his shoulders that marked him as a general picked up the phone
after being told by his secretary the line was secure and who it was.
He actually preferred talking to her over the phone than in person. He would be a hypocrite he called her genetic modifications unnatural. But
there was just something -off- about her compared to the other humans who had their gene tampered with by that mad scientist.
It was her hair. The general didn't know how to best explain it. Something about it felt off, tacked on somehow. It was very real, and wasn't a
wig, that much was certain, but something about it just didn't feel right when he saw it on her head. Maybe it had to do with her having been
given the DNA of a male lion when he was genetically raped. Lionesses were supposed to be baled. The general had studied biology before
changing majors to military history. 'I guess it just stands out more for me.'
"Hello Miss Doctor, it's a pleasure to hear from you again. We were VERY worried when those thugs tried to destroy your research and murder
you. . . .
"Yes we have a vested interest. But you must understand that we truly do value you, you are a brilliant woman willing to serve her country . . .
"We discussed this before, you are completely free to work on a 'cure' on your own time without super vision or restriction. But you are to
when on the clock to continue to aid in the development of Project Valkyrie. Change is too insane to be trusted and that leaves you...
"Good. Yes my son has volunteered to be the first subject once the technology has become safe enough for human testing. Yes I am proud of
him wanting to sacrifice his humanity and manhood to serve his country . . .
"Doctor I'm disappointed. You know this technology is the new atomic bomb. It'll be developed by others with or without your help. If the
technology is not controlled it'll run out of control. . . . Glade you understand that. . . .
"No. For the last time. I'm just making things go smoothly and don't spiral out of control. I'm NOT the one who came up with the idea of an
small army of genetically engineered winged reptile women! The alternative was husky dog people.. . . Yes that's what I think of it too
personally."
~~~
On the west coast, a number of men and women in business suits and casual outfits.
"So how did it go?" Asked a tanned skinned woman with long black hair.
A blue eyed blond haired man answered having just gotten off the phone, "Perfectly. Better than perfect. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned
but all the objectives have been met. Beauregard has been sentenced to life imprisonment, tra la la, good bye forever. RAM is already or will
be soon be labeled as a hate group. The enhanced have been victimized completely and utterly now in the people's minds. Dr. Change is
completely forgotten about and everyone in the media fixates on the stereotypical southern bigot Mr. Beauregard. The enhanced are the
heroes and their detractors the villains, that is what everyone is seeing now and will be for a long time."
"I have just one question." Asked the youngest man in the room. His black suit and tie were a strange contrast to his dyed purple, blue, and red
hair.He had inherited his grandfather's communication company only two months before and was still learning proper corporate etiquette.
"Where da Hell did you find that Syphilis infected Straw Republican/Straw Conversation nut job to set up as your villain in this production?"
The blond man rolled his eyes, "As I said before. Beauregard is not even aware he has the disease. No one even bothered to medically examine
him. His paranoia of doctors helped there so much. And with his history as a fundamentalist, no one is even remotely questioning his actions
as being genuinely insane. Even his own lawyer didn't realize his client actually was crazy."
"That isn't what I asked dammit!"
"I'm setting up my points. Beauregard fell into our lap. He felt the protection laws were more interested in protecting predators feeding off his
cattle than his cattle, and his falling out with the tigress was totally his own actions and his own fault for not compromising when he had the
chance. We intended him to be a stand alone villain, but when he formed his little club, and on TOP of that stealing from it at the same time?
HA! All we needed to do was slip in some donations with our insiders to make sure the group didn't go belly up before it served it's purpose
and to lead him on the path he needed to take. The man is so blindly full of himself that he took everything we suggested as his own idea.
Expanding his targets from just the tigress to was something he'd never admit wasn't his own idea."
"And?" The young man asked.
"AND!" The blond haired man said, "He gave the people just what they needed. A totally unsympathetic villain with completely insane straw
political stances out to murder an innocent woman already violated and her lover! . . . "
"You should have kept a closer eye on him." A short faux-red headed woman said. "Those punks trying to murder the lioness was NOT part of
the script. LET ALONE them altering themselves into enhanced. We scenario called for all enhanced to be sympathetic after the police finally
tracked down Change after he stabbed us all in the back."
"He never saw our faces or even knows our names let alone heard our voices. All he knew was some funding with instructions to help him
along what he was already doing on his own."
"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" The red-haired woman snarled, "Beauregard nearly killed the best chance we have in his country of making the gift
of becoming our furry selves real while you were fixated on making the gift publicly sympathetic."
"That was a rather thoughtless slip up." The tanned woman said.
"Downright stupid if you ask me." Said the young man looking out the window bored.
"Look! No harm. No foul! And we've kept the punks out of the media's attention center. That's what counts. And this DOES help us in that the
lioness will see the government can't properly protect her. We'll provide a good alternative."
"Maybe." The red haired woman said not sounding amused.
"Beauregard and his group have become the perfect antagonists that no one with any sanity or emotion will sympathize with. And Beauregard
will die forgotten in prison when his disease he refuses to even accept he has kills him off and his drops off the public's mind like Change has."
"Should we keep RAM around a bit longer? Or dispose of it?" Asked a blue eyed black haired middle aged man.
The faux red head spoke, "The group is shrinking as it is already. If it manages to continue on it's own without infusions for a little bit, I vote
we keep it around as a public stress release point until we move onto the next phase of making the gift something that the average person will
WANT! If it implodes, no big loss at this point. It's served it's purpose. Molly and her husband are heroes in the media eyes."
The young man said, "Then let's get the lion chick on board and get the fur coats you never need to take off into the public wish list."
"No." The tanned woman said, "Not yet. First we let the tensions between her and the military stretch as tight as they can before we move in as
the heroes to save her from her blight. If he leaves on her own we offer a helping hand. . . . We'll get our new species, our true inner selves,
soon enough."
~~~
They weren't all ranchers. And many of them of them, those were left, lad little of anything against Molly. At this point coming together become
more of a habit they had formed since Beauregard had brought them together.
"Did ya hear da news?" Said one of the few women there, "We're officially a Hate Group, no better than the KKK or the skin-heads." She tossed
a news paper on the table of the hall they were rent out of their own pockets after their donations that Beauregard had stolen had been
declared non-refundable.
A round man said pushing on his glasses, "That would explain that prick I had to chase off the property dressed like a ghost sayin' how we're
buddies now."
"Should have shot'em." The blond woman spat.
"Bastard would have likely sued our asses off, and the TV would have painted it as the 'forces of evil fighting among themselves' like the ghosts
(KKK) and the morons (Mormons) do already." Said a young man in black off handed.
An albino in a hat grunted, "I guess we have only one real option then. Not that it was obvious before."
The fat man asked, "Wring our stolen money out of Beauregard's hide before they ship him off to prison?"
"No." The albino said, "As of now, officially, on paper and informally. RAM no longer exists. We are dispersed."
"We can go home now?" asked the man in black.
"No." The albino said, "Beauregard was a thief and a maniac and wanted to be a murderer. But we still have people going around the country
who had their DNA recklessly altered by a mad scientist using a new technology created by a maniac, a new technology that never went
through one iota of testing, yet none of the victims were examined for side effects, like tumors. They discovered one side effect already that
exchanging of fluids spreads the retro virus or whatever. And yet they never bothered to check for OTHER unseen side effect as far as the news
papers were all told. People who take self defense classes are considered legally to be constantly carrying lethal weapons. Yet these people
who had their DNA raped are considered to be completely harmless!"
The man in black laughed, but the sharp edge was directly at his own self, not at anyone else, "Too bad the guy who blew the whistle was a
loony out for revenge?"
"Eh?" Asked a reddish skinned white haired man sitting next to the young man in black.
"Oh come on! 'Racist pig' my ass!!! Beauregard was out for revenge for day one! I don't know if he believed anyone he told us! But he just
wanted to get back at the tiger-lady for telling him no! And his ego was WAY too big for any city-girl to tell HIM no! He just wanted to pay her
and her boyfriend back for not wanting to be his work hands! All the BS about 'mindless animal' and 'dangerous' were all just so he could get
back at someone who bruised his overblown ego! He's as racist as the guy at the bar who stabs you for taking his seat is racist again people
who sit down! Good riddance!"
One of men in the room who had actually LIKED Beauregard and still refused to believe he had been robbed blind stood up from his chair and
walked out of the room and out of the meeting hall.
"And then there was one less." The woman blandly.
"Anyone in this for charisma is here for the wrong reasons." The albino said. "RAM no longer exists. End of story. Our new mission plan is
simple. One: get the government to put a collar and muzzle on this mad scientist technology before it becomes over the counter DNA or G.I.
Wombat."
"Two," Said the fat man, "Make sure people don't forget bein' human ain't all that bad and it ain't gonna make'em happy bein' somethin' else."
"Three," Said the blond woman, "Make sure the mad scientists victims aren't going to spontaneously melt into slime or something similar and
they get the examinations they should. Each one of them is completely different. So it has to be a case by case basis."
"Declarers Rational Alternative Genetics Of National Sanity."
"DRAGONS."
~~~~~~~~~~~
Changes walked away from the prison, the fence behind him. He had put on a lab coat over his bright orange prison uniform. It wouldn't fool
anyone, but it wasn't meant to, he just felt naked without one. He man he had taken it from wouldn't be needing it anymore.
The prison riot was still going on, giving him the distraction he needed. But he wouldn't get very far even with the riot on. Except if his
benefactors HADN'T been lying to him. And those mashed potatoes the convicts complained about had nothing to do with bad cooking.
He check the watch he taken from his prison impound box. "Five, four, three-"
The building shook behind him, several explosions happening at once. The explosives inside several unsuspecting prisoners going off at once.
The prison was now in flames. It would be all that harder to tell whose corpse was there and whose wasn't.
"Two seconds slow." He readjusted the watch.
The unmarked, white van drove up next to him and opened. He was actually slightly disappointed they weren't wearing turbans. Most were even
Caucasian. But he recognized those looks in their eyes. And those uzis weren't for show.
"Get in." Changes obeyed without question as they drove away from the prison.
"I'm glade you chose to release me when you did-" He was punched in the face.
"You are to be our instrument of justice against this nation of murderers. We are not your friends."
"You need better people skills." Change wiped the blood from his mouth, "You should have pretended to be friendly for a while longer."
"We don't care." The man who punched him.
"Heh. Yes I know I know. You want this nation to be like the animals they already are to you? To be the beasts you've already judge them to be?
Fine. Those near sighted prudes judged my art as a crime against humanity, a crime against nature. . . . But I'll create my art again. This time
they'll all get to experience it first hand. This time more than a small carnival show. I'll be remembered at the world's greatest scientist and
artist of this generation."
The men with the uzis just rolled their eyes. "Can you do it?"
"Of course I can. I am Dr. Changes. DNA is my clay." If anyone had known Changes in person from before. They'd have noted a, well, change
had come over the mad scientist. He was calmer now. Mellow. Almost passive. With a rather bizarre 'innocent' air to him. He had gone even
more mad. Or had gone so insane he had reached a completely different but fully functional and rational state of thinking form everyone else.
"Thankfully I was able to slightly continue my research. I wasn't able to do as much as I liked with those cameras and guard everywhere, didn't
want me to create more 'monsters.' They were hoping to use my technology to cure birth defects and cure cancer. . . . Such narrow dreams."
Again the men with uzis just rolled their eyes as they escaped the prison to where the doctor told them they should go next.
Two days later, they arrived at an abandoned carnival grounds, where it had all begun.
"Now we begin again, right where we left off." Change said acting like he was in change. "Did you young men know the difference between
DNA and RNA? And instinctual knowledge? No I don't think you would. It's not something most people do. But far more interesting, brain cells
in people's heads die every day. EVERY DAY! What a waste."
The men with the uzis wondered where Changes was going with this rambling.
"But if my genius could grow a tail. Why not neurons? Well they did already since instincts don't come out of thin air, and a creature without it's
proper instincts will choke on their own saliva or a thousand other things. Of course the Super Ego in theory rules over the Id . . . in theory.
Now imagine if I had been working on something when arrested, something even my lioness didn't know at the time. And of course, that left it
all incomplete. But what if I was able to complete it on myself while in that Hell hole? And it was already complete in all my works of art? Of
course when I saw no one was accepting their grand destiny of becoming my art steps needed to be taken. Cages simply wouldn't do for MY
art! Now did you know that pheromones can trigger irreversible biological reactions?"
~~~
In prison, the human bulldog members held down their leader (the one who had originally transformed himself, and though his body fluids had
changed his two women and through them the rest of his gang).
"He's gone freakin' nuts!" Said one of the other bulldogs for once actually GLAD when the guard showed up with some tranquilizer. Their boss
had stripped naked and was trying alternative to bend the bars like he was Superman, squeeze through them, or just use himself as a battering
ram! The loyal gang members tried to get a few words out of him. But he just told them harshly that, "What's with youses! Can't ya tell we're
NEEDED somewhere! Somewhere we GOTTA BE! And do somethin' important! Dumbasses!"
The rest of the bulldog gang and their two ladies hearing about their man's sudden change in behavior didn't feel the slightest urge, feeling,
compulsion, or need to 'be somewhere' or 'do something' except maybe actually HELP the guards hold him down as they put him under and
strap him to a bed till he came to his senses.
~~~~
I was half asleep with my wife in my arms. I didn't think much of it until she tried to shake me awake, telling me there was somewhere really
important we had to be and do, but I was too tired and worn out to really hear any of it. Eventually she left me be. I just fell asleep by the
moment I realized something didn't feel right.
When I got up in the morning, there was no sign of Molly. In the house or outside. I asked. And what I was told made no sense at all. Her
bounding across the country side naked? I had no idea that she was already long gone and in the hands of a devil I thought I wouldn't have to
think about for the rest of our days.
~~~~
The men with guns and Changes saw them approach. Changes didn't see quite as many as he remembered creating. Then he remember some
filth had apparently murdered some of his beautiful creations. Well, all art was unique and precious, but soon he'd be able to bring his self
expression onto a scale he had not even dreamed of before. And they would all embrace their new selves in a way the entire world would never
forget.
The men with guns were not stupid. They knew Molly, Leona, and the rest had all free will, a conscience (as much as the godless infidels could
have) and the ability to think their decisions through based on social conditioning. But what Changes promised was too tempting to pass up.
An example to the rest of the world, no longer humans with bodies made into evolved animals, but intelligent animals that happened to go on
two legs and had thumbs. Their social conditioning left meaningless to them. The nation of the infidels would fall apart and become a wild land
of tribal animal people. And the world would see United States for what it was all along.
Changes smiled and welcomed them with opens arms and they came to him.
Molly joined the semi-rank and file crowd of animal people, just another one of their numbers, another one of their pack. This was the
important place she had to go. It was more important than anything, even more important than her husband she had to sadly admit, though
she had wished he had joined her.
She stood naked and free along with the rest of her pack mates. Leona stood a bit closer to the front of the pack and Molly leaned a bit closer
to her friends glade to see her again.
The doctor examined Leona triumphantly. She made no protest or attempt to attack of harm him. It was the the most important thing in the
world that she come here, and it was important than she, and her pack mates, even though they were all different species, they were a pack,
protect and help the doctor, no, pack leader, in all he asked of her, of Molly, and all the others. Everything else was secondary. She didn't care
he had outright betrayed her before, used her, stabbed her in the pack. Those things didn't matter, they were meaningless.
The rest of the horde felt the same. Their families, their jobs, their friends, all superfluous in comparison where they --BELONGED--!
The men with guns felt sick at the sight before them, but comforted themselves by reminding themselves these men and women were no
longer human and thus shouldn't be offensive to the men with guns.
Soon enough, the men with guns and Changes were gone, and the small horde with them. Dr. Changes had much to do, on a swifter and
grander scale than anything he had before. And he wasn't sure how much time he had to do before his 'liberators' decided they didn't need him
anymore.
And the small horde, felt good to be back together again.