Bestial Planet

Chapter 42: Make it Up as You Go

When we got back I was welcomed by all six other Ambassadors via vid-com, fully transformed. Seeing the future form of humanity on those screens gave me hope. There was talk of others gaining insatiable appetites but thanks to my early transformation there were protocols in place that could handle so many people needing that much food. We were finally able to get our neighbors in the Milky-way to provide food synthesizers to prevent "ecological disaster", as Mei-lin put it. People were changing in groups as small as 2 to as large as a few thousand. There were days where only one person would transform; they garnered some notoriety. Some began to believe that the world only had so much energy to help us transform a day and that these people used it all. An interesting thought but there was no science behind it. There was no science behind any of this to be fair.

Something we didn't really think about, after not needing it for so long, was clothing. We weren't as "exposed" as our former bodies sans clothing but on some people things... were very visible. Luckily there were remnants of malls and clothing stores that hadn't been destroyed but there was still a problem. On average, we were bigger. Some adults were still 5 foot and shorter but there were far more people standing at 8 feet than before. Emmeth told me we used to be around the same height, 5'10" but here I was, standing at 7'6". Researchers said it was because of the enormity of the animal species we'd been spliced with. Upon looking around I couldn't argue that point.

Catty, Nik and Emmeth were part of the first groups to transform. Catty was a giant at 8 feet tall while Nik and Emmeth were about 7, give'er take an inch between them.

"Why the hell are you so tall!"

"Cuz I'm a panther Emmeth."

"Don't give me that logic shit!"

Catty started chuckling and Nik stifled his own as Emmeth glared at the reading, straightening his posture over and over trying to eek out every millimetre of height from his new body.

"This ain't right."

"You're super fast so it balances out."

"NO! I'm supposed to be the tallest!"

I was caught off guard by his sudden anger but Catty put a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't pay any attention to him, he's just being a diva."

"No I'm not!"

"Emmy cut it..."

"DON'T CALL ME EMMY!"

The look on Catty's face changed instantly from smiling and laughing to confused and a little frightened.

"Woah woah, alright. I'm sorry."

His eyes raced to each one of us as if he were anticipating a fight. He looked at his hand and saw he'd basically crushed the neck of the scale. He looked back at us and his aggression disappeared. There was an intense sadness behind his eyes. A small murmur of "sorry" slipped out of his mouth before he left the room as fast as he could.

"Wait, Emmeth!... "

I ran out of the makeshift hospital but saw no sign of him. Catty and Nik were close behind; Catty spoke first.

"... When you were still Mannie, we'd all joke that Emmeth and Kristoff were psychically connected. If one cut them-self cooking, the other would know. They said they just knew..."

"Well that was just a joke right? They weren't really connected like that were they?"

Nik elbowed me in the side and spoke telepathically. "We are now, who's to say they weren't before." Nik walked back into the Hospital for his exam and I wasn't sure what to do besides go back to working on my A.G. System.