The air condition hummed in the lecture theater where natural light had never shone. The audience of scientists chatted to the strangers and distant acquaintances they found themselves sitting next to. The air was chill, but stale.
A short balding man in spectacles came to the microphone at the lectern on the podium. He leaned forward and whispered in the mike. “Good morning, everybody.” The audience settled.
“Welcome to our presentation. As you know, we have just completed the most thorough experiment in the transformation of a human, both physically and in terms of personality. Serious doubts have been expressed about the sinister potential of this process. You will be relieved to learn that our researches so far have shown that transformation only seems to be possible with the voluntary agreement of the subject.
We knew the technology would work as we had already worked with animals. Here are some of our transformations. The room darkened and on a screen above the podium appeared a sleek Siamese cat, lounging in a silk lined basket, and staring at the world with an arrogance that only cats can express.
“This is Tai Gho” said the presenter, “and this is what he became. The initial cats you see are not him.”
A couple more Siamese were seen fastidiously licking up milk from a bowl, in all probability top rank organic cream. Suddenly a ferocious howl was heard and into the picture leapt an enormous muscular tabby tom cat with one ear chewed away and obvious and impressive genitalia.
“This is Tai Gho after the modification.”
The tabby tom attacked both Siamese fiercely and proceeded to finish off the cream, spilling it wildly. He then pounced on one of the Siamese, evidently a female, and copulated furiously. The other Siamese, a tom, darted into the bushes.
The presenter said with a quiet smirk “We thought it more appropriate to re-name Tai Gho as Tiger.”
The sound of blood-curdling cat noises came from the bushes, as it was to be assumed the new Tiger ripped apart the male whose mate he had just screwed.
“We undertook a lot of other animal transformations and we are happy to show you examples. Or we can pass on to our human experiment. Which would you prefer?”