The story came to me in dream form some time ago. I started with the dream, and made a little story. I have not done anything like this since high school, so I hope this works.
Sales meeting
“ The wonderful thing about the P340 control unit is its simple, fully modular nature”
I had been peddling these things for several years. Going to trade shows, doing sales calls and installations. One would never expect a sales meeting to change your life. Even less expected would be the way you think about the nature of life itself.
“The P340 may be simple to use, but it can handle complex system monitoring, or the most basic motor control operations. Even better is the fact that . . . ” The convention center rumbled from the thunder of the storm outside. “Even better is the fact that one basic unit does both jobs. This means spare units can be kept to a minimum. Let’s face a bit of reality. We work under extreme environments. If a unit is damaged, it can be quickly replaced, and the operating system reloaded from a standard micro drive” Another lightning strike, this time the power surged as the building rumbled.
In sales, you meet people on a daily basis. There have been a few customers that have become friends. One of these became a good friend. Ray Roberts bought some of the first equipment I sold when I got into this business. At another convention, I was with him when we met some women at a nightclub, one of whom would become his wife. I stood with him at the wedding.
Ray was attending this sales briefing, sitting at one of the demonstration units. “What else can the P340 do?” he asked. It was a rectorial question. He had been using these things for some time. He was just goofing off until lunch. “It can do things that even I don’t know about” I replied, the group gave a short bit of laughter. I thought I was being funny, but I was about to get a lesson. “The engineers have built these things so robust, and they have built in several options for future capabilities. This means when your needs expand, the P340 will be right there, ready to handle the extra workload.”
At that point, lightning struck the building we were in. It was a hard strike. The power surged, and the demo unit Ray was sitting at must have adsorbed the brunt of the power. There was a bright blue flash, and the lights went out. When the emergency lights came on, Ray was no longer sitting in front of the now glowing unit. He had been knocked over, and was now lying face down on the floor.
As I rushed over to him, I noticed a faint glow was surrounding his smoldering body. As I reached out to him, I felt a tingling sensation. I carefully rolled Ray over, and noticed he was twitching, going into some sort of spasm. As I looked at his face, I first thought I was seeing damaged flesh. What I actually saw, was something I could not comprehend. His mouth and nose was extending away from his face, and it had sprouted long whiskers! At that point, I gasped and started to jump away. “Don’t let them see . . . ” came out of the now contorted face. At that point, his arm reached out and grabbed mine. I felt a stabbing pain. His hands also began to change. The claws on what where his fingers were piercing my skin. He quickly let go and curled into a tight ball. “Get everyone out of here” he cried. “I don’t want them to see . . . ”
“He’ll be OK, just has the wind knocked out of him” I lied. “ You may want to head back to your rooms. I’ll catch up with you later on this weekend on the convention floor.” I turned back to my friend to notice he was curled up into a smaller ball. His clothing was now covering him like a pile of rags. I gasped again when I noticed what looked like a tail sticking out of the ball of fur. “Ray, what the hell?” He stopped twitching, and sat up on what were now legs with paws. He shook his head, stood, and continued to shake down the rest of his body, right down to his tail. “I had been wondering if something like this could happen” said the fur-covered creature. “Like what the hell Ray, is that really you? What is going on?”
He stood there, stretched out his hands, er, paws and looked at them. “It’s me Bob, and what is going on is going to be tough to explain.” “Ray, you have turned into some animal, I’m freaking the hell out, and you sound like you know what is going on. What are you?” I said with astonishment. “Well, the short answer is some sort of dog, maybe a fox. The better question is what are we? To that, I can only say we are not what we think we are. I have had a feeling for some time, I was not exactly a normal person, there was something else going on. You remember the trip Laura and I took to Asia a few years back? “Sure” I replied, “your delayed honeymoon.” “It was much more than that” he said. “We went to seek some forbidden knowledge.” I interrupted, “You mean Laura knows about this?” “Sure, one of the reasons that clicked with us was this similar feeling. She had come across some things, and we went to check it out. Bob, life is not what we have believed, or, what we have been taught to believe. When we were over there, we found a truth. Some people are much closer to being furry animals than the thin-skinned humans we think we are. Not everyone, but more than a few. There are ways to meditate, and we have had some limited success in bringing out our real, inner selves. The monks that we found can hold a form for quite some time. We were told that some sort of shock may also bring about the change. When the P340 overloaded, I was touching the motor driver outputs. I was just getting a really small tingle when the lightning hit. That surge knocked me down, and jolted me into this form. I was thinking about changing, the power surge must have done the rest.”
He started to get weak in the knees, and I caught him on the way down. “I’m starting to turn back” he yipped. “I don’t have the skills necessary to retain this form. Get me in the side room, quick. Then bring me my clothes. It would be awkward to explain what your doing with a naked man in the conference room! We can talk about this later, but I think the P340 can help train us to control our changes.” I helped him to the room and went back for his clothing. I remarked, “Well, I could explain a naked man, better than a talking fox, standing on his hind legs. You changing like this is like something from a freak show.” “Be careful who you call a freak” he stated with a smile. “I told you, you don’t understand.” “Sorry about the freak thing, but if this doesn’t count as freaky I don’t know what does” I replied.
After a few minutes, Ray appeared back in the main room, looking much more normal, and said, “Remember when we first met? There was a moment where we knew we would be good friends. That happens to people like us, we instinctively know who to trust.” “Hold on a minute” I stuttered. “What do you mean by that?” Ray smiled and said, “To answer your question, I’ll first ask you one. Remember when you touched me, did you feel a tingle?” “Yes, I did” I stated nervously. Ray then asked, “You noticed the glow?” “Sure I did, you were smoldering too” I said. Ray looked me in the eye, and said, “I could also see a glow, but not on me. I saw it on you. You are one of us!”
