Hello!
I got that happiest of all e-mails today, one from an editor who saw one of my older stories online and wants to put it in a collection. Unsolicited sales kick butt-- yay! (I don’t feel free at this time to share the identity of the market, as I doubt it’ll be open to author submission by it’s nature, or else I would do so.)
Anyway…
This is something from back in 1997, and is probably one of the first ten pieces of fiction I ever wrote as an adult. It was written for a contest held by a member of the TSA-Talk mailing list, which specializes in transformation fiction and is still alive and well today though far lower in volume now than in the days of yore. He wanted stories in which transformation was a key element in a game or sport, and the story had to contain the game/sport’s rules (which in turn defined the structure of this story.)
I can’t make huge or fundamental changes in this work due to the nature of the collection, but I’m glad for any lesser suggestions. It’s old and certainly not one of my stronger pieces by any means, and needs all the help it can get. On a fact-check note… I’ve verified (wikipedia) that a Pteranodon is indeed classified as a reptile. Other than that… Rip 'er up, and thank you for it! I’m on a short deadline, so if you see this later than February 28, 2015 or so, it’s too late.
Transmutational Transcontinental
Always Think Outside the Box!
That was the slogan engraved on the cover of my laptop, and I did my absolute best to live by it. A transmutational racer must at heart be an optimist, and that went double for me. I spent hours and sometimes even days before every event poring over the rules, seeking out loopholes, oversights and inspiration. Such large purses were well worth a little skull-sweat! But this year’s North American Classic regulations seemed entirely bulletproof. The race looked to be a straight run for the money. I scowled in frustration and scratched an itchy ear with a hindpaw. Damnit! I’d won more than a few easy victories in the past by outthinking race committees, but they were catching on fast. This year it looked like I’d have to win the hard way if I wanted to remain champion.
I hated the hard way. It was too much work!
The year’s biggest competition (and largest purse!) was a toughie— New York to San Francisco by paw, hoof or whatever; racer’s choice. We were permitted to set our own courses, choose our own forms, and take our own chances. All the transcontinentals worked like that. Humans have always raced against each other by every means available. Cars, carriages, pogo sticks… If miles can be made with it, it’s been raced. Most likely with great intensity and enthusiasm. So when transmutation technology became both widespread and cheap, new forms of racing quite naturally followed. At first it was human horses, but soon there were cheetahs, pigeons, hawks, frogs, whales, baboons…
Since the sport was a natural for tridee, high profile events quickly grew both intense and frequent. Serious prize money and endorsement contracts were on the line almost weekly. Once you hit the pro level, well… I rarely had time to become human between competitions anymore. Even as I prepared for the second annual North American Classic, I was still wearing the jackrabbit’s body that’d carried me to a very respectable second-place finish in the Outback Dash. The winner made the obvious choice of camel form, as did the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth-place finishers. My schtick was to put on more of a show via not choosing the obvious while still remaining a serious contender. Second place was plenty good enough to keep me well up in the point standings for the year. Besides, the sponsors paid a lot better for something different. Especially, they paid well for a form that just might not survive the event. At the finish line of the Outback I actually drew more media attention than the winner. In the long run I expected to earn considerably more than she did as well.
Sighing, I used the pencil in my mouth to press the “page back” key repeatedly on my machine until once again ready to begin at the beginning. Most of the rules were pretty straightforward. The race was to run from the foot of the Empire State Building to the Golden Gate Bridge. Except for defined paths through the cities at both ends of the course, travel by road or rail right-of-way was forbidden. Competitors were required to live entirely off the land— trashcan-raiding was specifically prohibited, though farms and household gardens were fair game— and weren’t allowed any contact with humans except for the media’s filming and officially-supervised interviews en-route. Sign-reading was permitted- one could hardly avoid the things, after all. And water and shelter were where you found them, natural or otherwise. Mostly, however, racers were forbidden from utilizing any human-built infrastructure. The race was meant to be all about we competitors and the forms we’d chosen versus time, distance and the local ecology, pretty much the standard package on the transmutational circuit these days. We weren’t even allowed to speak; if we used our vocal implants for anything but sanctioned interviews we’d be disqualified.
This particular competition was relatively open in regard to permissible forms. We could compete as any mammal, reptile, or flightless bird known to be extant in the year 1900. I smiled at this last requirement, or would’ve were a jackrabbit’s face designed that way. Last year I’d taken advantage of the “any reptile” loophole to become a pteranodon with a forty-foot wingspan and win the event in an easy glide. But it wasn’t going to be so easy this time around. Try as I might, I couldn’t a way to cheat the system. Sighing quietly—hares habitually sigh in near silence, lest they become something’s dinner—I turned off the computer and laid down on the carpet. Reading the screen through jackrabbit eyes was giving me a headache, and I wasn’t learning anything new.
In transmutational racing form selection is everything. Species choice is the key to both winning and making boatloads of money alike. Everything else is secondary, driven by this most vital of all decisions. A competitor has to be able to easily find nourishment and avoid danger, all the while moving as quickly as possible through the various terrains and biomes. But this event was unique in that there were so many biomes! First there came the East Coast suburbs, then the Appalachians, the cornfields of the Midwest, the plains, the Rockies… It was awesome to contemplate. A competitor could easily (and sometimes did) end up starving, being eaten, falling off a cliff, drowning, getting shot, or even end up as road kill. And weighing these risks was just the first step—after that, it was time to think about winning!
Personally, I always worried more about river crossings than anything else. We carried an internal electric shocker-thingie that—usually at least— deterred predators, though using it meant automatic disqualification. But you can’t shock an angry river into submission! This particular event featured far too many oversized waterways for my taste. The only way to avoid major crossings was to select a far-north routing and do an end-around of the entire Mississippi Valley. Most of my competitors would probably end up doing exactly that. It was also a pretty safe bet that almost everyone else would choose some long-legged deer or equine or perhaps even antelope form to compete in. That way, finding food would be relatively simple and long-distance running would come naturally. Which in turn meant that these obvious options were closed to me. I had a reputation for originality to maintain, after all!
A cougar, perhaps? No, predators never worked out. Hunting took too long.
I sat back and gnawed at my pencil some more. Hmm…
A buffalo? I’d have no predation worries, plus the advantage of being in historically-correct natural habitat practically all the way. And a good ol’ American Bison could make pretty decent time. I’d have to avoid the river crossings like everyone else, though…
Then I scowled. It just wasn’t original enough. Let the also-rans take that route. True victory—profitable victory!—would lie in figuring out a way to both take the most direct route and be different while doing it.
What about that Chinese water buffalo I’d once read about—the kind that was bred long ago to pull small barges in canals by swimming in front of them? The species could handle the river crossings sure enough, but would be slow, slow, slow over land…
It was really too bad about those rivers. If it weren’t for them I’d have been half tempted to remain a jackrabbit. I was well adapted to being a hare; the form suited me, particularly well in psychological terms. It’d also save me time in the tank, freeing me up for more extensive route research than any of the other competitors would be able to manage. The individuals I was most worried about were all still camels at the moment and would certainly spend weeks changing forms in order to meet the demands of North America. Jackrabbits were surprisingly capable of covering ground, and easy to feed as well. Even in the heart of the Australian desert I’d eaten almost every single day. Since the race was being held in summer, the form could survive easily anywhere on the continent…
…except in the rivers. I shivered at the very thought of facing all that water as a hare. There were limits to the risk-level that even someone as crazy as me could accept, and swimming the Mississippi as a bunny rabbit was well off the chart. We competitors were equipped with built-in panic buttons and tracers, of course. But one could drown awfully fast…
I sighed again and put the hare-brained idea aside. Permanently.
Then I had another thought. Perhaps I had my priorities backwards? Raccoons could swim. And they were native almost everywhere along the way too. I just might manage the Big Muddy as a 'coon. But could I cover the rest of the distance quickly enough? I had a deadline to beat, one set by galloping horses and swift deer…
No. I’d still be far too slow, even with the others traveling so much further. Damnit!
Well, then! Perhaps I could use all that water to my advantage? What if I took some sort of otter form? Then I’d swim most of the way; the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri would become highways instead of barriers. And that wasn’t even considering the minor streams that might allow me to work my way even closer to my goal. After all, the western slope of the Rockies was pretty wet—probably the only long stretch I’d have to walk would be over the Divide itself, plus a few other little portages here and there. I could fish as I traveled, live predator free, and let the current help me along a good part of the way…
…while also having the same current work against me for even more miles, I realized suddenly. Plus, I’d also have to travel all the curves of the rivers instead of taking a straight shot.
Hell and damnation!! This was tough!
Last year’s contest had been so much easier. Before the race ever began I’d mapped out a series of cliffs and river bluffs to overnight on. In the mornings I simply let the warming air lift me effortlessly to altitude. Then I’d glide effortlessly west to my next roost, expending little to no energy along the way. My reptilian metabolism was extremely efficient, though I was forced to hunt a bit from time to time. A couple deer, along with some carrion here and there, proved plenty enough to see me through. (Fortunately, carrion tasted just fine while I was a pteranodon.) The rivers had been nothing, no trouble at all…
Which was precisely why the officials had ensured there’d be no flying forms this time around. They didn’t like it when people thought outside of their little boxes.
Then I blinked, and a little light bulb lit up just above my long ears.
I switched my machine back on and carefully looked over the rules again. No species extinct before 1900. Avian forms allowable, but must be flightless. Reptiles were also legal. As well as all mammals…
I stood up on all fours and kicked my hind legs over and over again in sheer joy, then frolicked to and fro about my apartment as I poured out my feelings in hare-bodied fashion. I had them, I had them, I had them! I was going to win again, and nothing could stop me! They’d left another loophole!
After kicking the air one last time for the sheer joy of it, I headed back to the study. Though my panting would make keyboarding even more difficult than usual, I settled in to do some serious research. It was all so much fun!
What kind of bat I was going to be? I couldn’t wait to find out!