Intro
#1 of Transitions
Intro:
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"So class, we gather here today, the first of the school year, to learn about human biology... Such as it is." Mr. Marcolaus started, easily stepping into what was probably a rehearsed speech. He sauntered easily across the room, between the desks of eager students, going on with his routine, "This class, is part science, part social science and part history. That much is on the books..."
"So.... What's not on the books?" Piped up a starry-eyed learner, leaning forward in his desk.
"Well, there's enough about this we don't know, we have to take some of it on faith, and faith, in all it's forms is theology. And you really can't discuss theology without discussing philosophy. Those five pretty much make up the umbrella." Marcolaus shrugs, "Human biology has changed so much in the last few centuries that we are unable to properly teach it under one conventional classification. The hormonal aspect alone, ranging throughout the genus makes for interesting discussion. So we've compromised and stuffed it into a veritable potpourri of learning. Truly, I think it makes for a more efficient process not being blogged down in trying to keep the black on one side of the line and the white on the other."
Marcolaus made his way back to his desk, sitting in his chair, he slumped a little, rearranged himself comfortably, and observed his class, "65 percent of your grade will be your schoolwork, which is mostly tests and assignments, the other 35 percent will be the exam at the end of the year." Scratching his cheek, he looked to the chalkboard, "Entering into this class you were expected to have taken Pre-Change Biology, which will be referred to as "PCB" so our first unit will deal with the change, how it immediately affected humanity, possible origins, and how it was sorted out."
As he spoke, he stood, walking to the white board and scrawling out relevant lines. He had an elegant, easy to read writing style that had, if nothing else endeared him to his note-taking audience, he again broke into his speech, explaining the future units, how they were broken down, and general time frames. which were dutifully scribbled down. Except by one young lad.
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"Well.... Ain't that neat." Jake thought to himself, looking around to his more dutiful classmates, "Why anyone would ever write this down is beyond me, he tells it to us at the beginning of every class." He wiggled his toes, slipping out of his sandles to rub his feet against each other, he always liked a good foot rub, sorts out the fur. He looked down, the sandle straps had matted it down a bit, but that'd sort itself out after a brush. Call him a foot fetishist, but also make note that he liked his barrel of a tail, lean build and long, sensitive ears, for Jake was a roo, and all that came with the territory.
Marcolaus, on the other paw, was a beaver, and although he got a lot of jokes thrown his way, the students liked their teacher, and Jake was no exception. Marcolaus was definitely head and shoulders above the rest of the faculty, and the girls thought his washboard tail was cute. He had a way of not making the lessons quite as dull as they could have been. Conversely, he hated the rat-faced Ms. Nesbitt, who seemed to make it her goal in life to make every day go by slower, and to be so universally hated that she'd make sure she'd always be alone. Fortunately, if you can have a fortunate moment when Nesbitt was concerned, he didn't have to spend a whole lot of time with her this year, she had been moved to conventional biology this year and seeing as you only had to take one bio, he'd only be seeing her once or twice a year, during a general lecture. He had made plans to become sick those days.
"Jake? You with us?"
Jake looked up, a little startled, "Oh... erm... yea" D'oh!
"Well then," Marcolaus looked amused, "Please guide us through the first little bit in the texts, starting at June 15th"
Madly scrabbling through his desk, cluttered as always, pushing aside papers and binders until he found his text. Opening it to the first unit, he cleared his throat and read dutifully; "June 9th, 2056. Although we have not been able to determine the root cause of the change, and therefore we cannot be certain of the exact time the phenominon started, or where, the first case was reported into The St. Catherine's Medical Facility in Nestle, Ohio. This was the case of Thomas Drewey, who had apparently gotten a skin disease which later caused severe hair growth and deformities ranging from bone growth to a slight decrease in height. Watching him change over the couse of a only a few hours, which is amazing in and of itself, he followed a series of five steps that would rack his body until he appeared for all for all intents and purposes to be the cross between a human and a fox. The medical staff around him also became ill and developed the condition, later called Drewey Syndrome, or 'the Drews'. From there, family members, friends, and strangers on the street all came down with it, one after another, in a pandemic that eventually effected the entire world."
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"Thank you, Mr. Summers." Marcolaus interrupted, "This was, understandably, a confusing time for people. Because of the way it spread, it was theorized then, and still is, that the changes were brought on by an airborne disease, the problem with that was that it broke out everywhere, in every major city, in every country, around the globe, which means that it wasn't naturally occurring, and was release. Natually occurring phenomenon aren't that well choreographed. Some researchers thought that it might have been a bio attack, though if it was, it wasn't executed well, the people releasing it would have been effected too. It has also been suggested that a 'green' party thought getting back to nature would help us take care of our planet. That also would have been a bust for, aside from some violence at the outset, which caused huge amounts of casualties at the outset, people still pretty much carry on as normal. Our ensuing 'green-ness' is more a product of our needs than our fur.
"It's also strange that people in bunkers, or airtight compartments, eventually became infected. It took a long time, but it happened. The best theory is that the disease might have been able to work its way through solid objects over time. We have discounted radiation on the basis of size. Nothing emits enough radiation to cover the world with enough concentration to make those kinds of changes. It really is a big mystery, even to today."
Marcolaus picked up a sheaf of papers in his brown-furred paws, licking a finger and flicking through them, he passed out booklets to each student, "Most students walk into my classroom with at least this much knowledge, but I like to go over the basics anyway, just like the birds and the bees, some parents have a hard time talking about this subject, and it's much less interesting so youngsters don't usually find out on their own." He winks to the class, "So in a nutshell...."
"To the people watching their friends change, and then themselves, it appeared that everyone was changing into animals, it wasn't known how far the changes would progress, or how it would effect the victims mentally. The sociological ramifications of the change will be addressed in a unit one."
Interrupting him, a badger quickly raised his paw, "'Scuse me... I was just wondering if there was a connection between the person and the animal they became?"
Marcolaus, looked over, a knowing grin on his face, "Wondering to yourself, 'Why a badger?' Mr. Klein? Well, so is pretty much everyone else, it was initially theorized that you would change into an animal that you had contact with, mainly because dogs, cats, horses and other domestic animal types were predominant. That notion was quickly squashed at the discovery of a kangaroo," He nodded to Jake, "In Kansas, the newly changed roo had never left the county, and there were no other roos in the Greater United states, outside of a zoo or two,which he had never attended. So we were left wondering. And then, enough cases of 'exotic' breeds were found that we just abandoned it to pure chance."
Eyes glinting left, then right, the teacher continued in a conversational, almost conspiratorial tone, "Now... Off the books, and never in a test; I think that the power of belief was at work here. The power of belief is amazing, it was studied and a group of university students came up with an easy to understand example: If you set up a test, where you push a button and there's a 50/50 chance that the button will turn on either a red or green light, randomly, you'd figure that if you pushed the button 100 times, you'd get a 50/50 tally of red and green, right? Well, for the most part, you would. BUT..." He stopped to make sure the whole class was paying attention, "If the person pushing the button has a vested interest in that light being red more, say, a monetary incentive, and hopes for the outcome to be red more often, tests show that red WILL come up more often, sometimes by as much as an 80/20 split. To an extent proving the power of belief. If you believe.
"That said, I think the change was a little bit subconscious, more people changed into domestic-types because they were around them, on their mind. Where some people, like our friend the roo, may have seen pictures, or movies, or even read about and had a good idea about an animal that they had expressed interest in. When you think about it, aside from some secondary characteristics, we all look pretty similar, two arms, two legs, torso, head, tail. What changes are the way they're made up. A lot of characteristics that serve purposes on our more feral counterparts are fairly obsolete with us. We really have no use for our tails. Like the male nipple, everyone is built of the same 'stuff' it just grew differently. And my theory is that a little subconscious desire may have influenced the change. Discussions on theories pertaining to the change will be discussed in unit two.
"Finally units three and four are what you'd more or less expect from a conventional bio class. We will discuss some of what has changed from pre-2056 to post-2056 in the non-cosmetic manner, broken up by the kingdom of animal... mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and insects. We will also look at some of the new post-56 universal truths, and how the effect us all."
"Universal truths?" Asked a boy frog, raising a green skinned brow.
"Well... For instance. In reproduction, the offspring usually takes on the primary characteristics of the mother, so, for instance, if a male frog and a female wolf produced a child, that child would be a wolf. Most likely a wolf with the fur color the same as the mother, with a small chance of throwback on the pigmentation from the father, making it possible the wolf child would have green fur." A chuckle rippled through the class, "Because this is the truth, a lot of young couples look within their species for a mate, it's typically easier on the father to care for a child that resembles him.
"There are always exceptions to the rules though, even those we call 'universal truths', and those are with pedigrees; a male Doberman and female Shetland produce a male horse, that male horse and a female collie could produce an offspring that is a Doberman/collie cross, proving that the Doberman gene is still present, if recessive in the horse's genes. All this is because the primary cosmetic characteristics are present on the female X gene, recessively on the male Y. Furthermore, this example tells us that breeds in the same species can 'mix' their characteristics much the same way our feral counterparts do."
"There are dozens of examples like this that effect all genus equally... That is unit four. And that class...." He looks at the wall clock, very close to time, "Is the introduction. See you tomorrow."
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As Jake was walking home, all he could think of was the cute butt of the shelia that sat in front of him in class. But I'm sure that somewhere, deep down, he heard everything his buck-toothed teacher said, and filed it somewhere he'd remember it, just in case.