Uncanny Shift
The hollow sockets stare from bleached bone, teeth a wicked grin. A shiver runs down my back, although it could just be my hide shirking flies. I replace the skull and sprinkle the old leaves back over it, their dried husks crackling beneath the pinch of my trunk.
‘What are those?’
It takes me a moment to connect the high-pitched voice with the hulk of the bull elephant standing next to me. Her pre-set has the flatness of Russell’s but it’s most definitely feminine. I’m not sure what to think of the fact that they’ve prioritised programming gender vocals when they’ve not yet bothered with the intonation. At least, I assume Britta is female, we’ve never met in our Original Bodies.
‘A funeral wreath,’ I say. ‘At least, that’s the closest comparison.’
Britta’s small eyes regard the bones in silence. Pitch-like ichor weeps through the skin of her cheeks and my own are stiff with the seepage. It’s as sticky as tar and smells as bad. Although it’s been days since I last touched it, a cake of dust clings to the tip of my trunk where it’s still tacky with the stuff; its dark pungency lurks behind each breath.
I’ve never experienced musth before; as elephant studies tend to focus on social dynamics they mostly use female Ressies to enter the matriarchy. Yet even the Tourism board could see that people won’t have the expertise or manners to pass off as part of a herd. Solitary bulls are much more practical but it creates the problem of musth. though Bios reduced the testosterone levels by nearly half, they’ve failed to eliminate the cycle of aggression completely.
I swat away the crust of flies that have gathered on my left eye.
‘Let’s go.’
Where to is less obvious. Mr Hughes recently added the task of formulating activities and tours to my prep for each body but I’m yet to grasp what tourists expect of each ‘experience’. As a tiger, it was easy enough to lead a hunt but what is the essence of an elephant? To a human it might seem like one thing but actually being an elephant is another. Yes, an elephant is large in comparison to a human but inRessy your body always feels normal-sized, and in this vast landscape it’s hard not to feel small. What else? Elephants are known for never forgetting but mental qualities are the tourist’s own. At least the trunk is distinctly elephantine, I suppose, though these projections aren’t nearly long enough for tourists to get to grips with something so complex. Once Britta gained her feet, she spent half an hour swinging hers around like a propeller. Now it hangs from her face like dead meat, occasionally almost tripping her.
To the elephant, the elephant is just everyday life. And like any other body, its life is eating, sleeping, mating, surviving, but apparently these aren’t ‘experiences’ enough for the Tourism. Or, as Mr Hughes is fond of saying, ‘Where’s the Wow?’
The beta tourists haven’t been keen to engage with the banality of their bodies, as if defecating degrades them, despite carrying it out daily as humans. Misled by buzzwords and marketing, they really seem to believe that there is an ‘animal experience’ separable from the flesh.
I glance at Britta, pacing alongside me in a creak of dried skin. At least she seems more reasonable than Russell, but her seven tons of elephant feels more of a wall than a window.
The heat isn’t helping. Every footstep raises a haze of dust that chalks the inside of my trunk. Grass has all but turned to ash and leaves are small mean things that scratch the inside of my mouth. In my Original Body I would have long since collapsed but even inRessy my skin feels baked and my joints are as stiff as if I were wearing leathers several sizes too small. I’m not exactly light-headed, not in a body this strong, but my steps are clumsier than I’m used to.
Water taunts from just over the horizon. I savour the smell by curling my trunk up to touch the roof of my mouth. The scent of water is easily the one I miss most as a human. Sweet is the only word I can think to give it, though it’s not sweet at all. Even Britta’s trunk has stirred inquisitively. Though Buckley has muted her thirst and hunger, a trip to the watering hole will be something to do even if she doesn’t want to drink. I turn towards the scent, though the shimmering flatness ahead looks no different from our previous course.
Britta makes no comment at the change of direction; it’s hard to tell if she’s bored, awestruck or just loath to speak. So we walk in silence until dull thunder wakes beneath our feet once more. Britta gives me a quizzical look, at least I assume that’s what it means.
I rock onto toes and the vibration clarifies. Maybe six or seven elephants, one small, maybe young. Although seismic sound can travel many miles, to be this loud, they must be close.
‘A female herd,’ I say. ‘Can’t tell if it’s the same as earlier. Maybe a mile or so off.’
‘Can we go to them?’
‘Safest not. Bull elephants aren’t always welcomed.’
She tosses her head and though it’s a distinctive elephant gesture, knowing she’s human, it’s hard not to read it as disappointment.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘The waterhole isn’t far now.’
The beat of sun is becoming almost physical. I’m glad for the ripening of the air as we draw close. The watering hole unfolds from the shimmer of horizon like a pool of polished metal. The musk of previous visitors lingers in invisible threat, some of them so strong that we must have missed their owners by minutes. I snort the scents: giraffe, some kind of large cat and a menagerie of others unidentifiable in their stampede. Whatever they are, as elephants there isn’t much cause for us to worry.
Reaching the pool, I wade in. The earth is hard and slick, only turning to mud near the centre. When I kneel, my skin almost seems to sigh. I suck water up my trunk, the pressure bulging there as if I had a cold, then heft the weight over a shoulder to sneeze over my back. The stifle of my hide loosens almost immediately.
Britta stands on the side, eyeing the muddy water.
‘Sure you don’t want to come in?’ I say but she makes no sign of hearing.
Even with the inputs turned down, the tightness of her skin must be getting uncomfortable. You have to ask, at what point will the tourist experience become one of total numbness.
I siphon the next few trunkfuls into my mouth with greedy gulps. Sun plays across the pool, a cool murmur in my ears. Buckley is talking to Britta. I let his melodic voice wash over me as my eyelids sink under the softness of sleep.
I open my eyes to see Britta knuckling the mallet of her skull against a tree. The desiccated trunk is already starting to groan. Keep this up and she’ll actually push it over.
I trudge out.
‘Hey, Britta. Leave it, OK.’
She keeps shoving.
‘You’ve seen how few trees there are, no need to kill another.’
Her only response is to shove harder. I curl my trunk around a tusk and pull. She roars and I only just manage to stumble from her swipe. Her small eyes are slightly mad. The thick ichor glistens on her cheeks. Bio was clearly not as successful at dampening musth as they thought.
‘Easy, OK.’ Buckley keeps his voice light. ‘Are you feeling angry?’
Her head tosses, mouth opening on a wordless rumble. Whether she’s failing to sub-vocalise or has moved beyond speech altogether is not clear.
‘It’s natural to be feeling angry. Your Ressy is in a natural state of arousal and—’
Britta rushes at me. I try to dodge but the tip of a tusk catches my cheek. I seize her trunk and lean the weight of my body into the shove. A beat starts in my temple.
‘Calm down!’ Buckley says. ‘Everyone, please.’
But I’m not letting some tourist get the better of me. Who does she think she is? I add my tusks to the push and grind my feet against earth. Her face is so close to mine I can count the lashes.
‘WILL EVERYONE PLEASE CALM DOWN!’
At Buckley’s shout I jerk back.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Kit, don’t be pigheaded. Britta, I’m sorry you’re frustrated but you have to understand that your feelings are being compounded by the ResExtenda. Sometimes what seems like anger can really just be the unfamiliar sensation of having a stronger heartbeat.’
Rage still hunches in her posture but at least she doesn’t charge.
‘I’m going to decrease your inputs a little,’ he continues. ‘You’ll feel a little numb but more calm.’
At the patter of fingers, she starts to droop.
‘Now, let’s go find that female herd,’ he says. ‘It won’t hurt to take a quick look.’
Though I vowed not to let the tourists near, Britta’s posture is slack enough to almost be vacant. If we keep our distance, it can hardly hurt.
We follow the earth’s thunder until their shapes grow on the horizon. Even at a good hundred metres away, the matriarch lifts her ears uncertainly, no doubt worrying about the safety of the baby between its legs. The baby swings its trunk as if trying to dislodge something stuck to its face.
Under the matriarch’s stare I feel almost naked. How can I feel so alien amongst humans, yet irredeemably human at a time like this?
One of the females has to be in heat. The seductive scent is hard to ignore, as is the stiffness between my back legs. I sit to try and quash the arousal but it’s just really painful. The matriarch shakes her head, the crack of ears like a gunshot.
Which is when I realise that I’m on my own.
‘Britta!’
If she hears she doesn’t stop, the scent must have been too much for her. I stumble after, wincing as my penis is bashed between my back legs.
The elephants reel around to block her charge but Britta doesn’t even slow. It wouldn’t help for me to barge in too, but what else can I do?
Buckley joins his shout to mine.
The matriarch meets her with a trumpet, only for Britta to blunder past. I rock on my toes, caught between making things worse and doing nothing.
Tusks flash under the baked sun. Elephants roar and stamp. Britta’s hide is striped brown with blood but with her inputs turned down she might not even feel it.
‘Buckley, get her out of there!’
‘But the Ressy—’
If it drops on the spot they might stampede it but it’s wounded as it is. I take a step forwards but an elephant at the edge of the tussle tosses her head – back off.
‘Stop numbing her pain,’ I say.
‘If she feels it she might not have the strength to get out of there.’
Britta charges again, reeling almost drunkenly from their tusks, her back legs tangling.
The moment lasts longer than it should. The trajectory of her fall sears into my retinas even as she starts to tip. The calf is trapped behind her by a cluster of legs – the seven tonnes of falling elephant have nowhere else to go.
The smack replays in my ears long after the dust has settled.
The calf stays still when Britta stumbles back up. As the elephants turn on her, she doesn’t try to stop them.
I rise through the feathered edges of awareness. Surface into a strange pool of calm.
The anger of minutes ago has flattened. It feels as if my consciousness has been cut and pasted back together like an old film reel.
I sit up and unravel BodySupport. Buckley appears at my side, a hand on my shoulder, but he has no jokes today.
Once I’ve swallowed the dizziness, he leads me down the corridor to a cubicle where Mr Hughes stands, arms crossed, watching the woman on the pallet.
Britta, for that must be who this woman is, is still in her JumpPyjamas, a blanket over her shoulders. At another time she might be called pretty, but right now she looks haunted, her straw hair faintly greasy. I glare, squashing the flicker of doubt that this body, this person, could be the same as the killer of the elephant. As she looks up, her eyes widen in a moment of similar non-recognition and realisation.
Mr Hughes has to steady her as she pushes herself up.
‘It’s? Is it—’
I have to look away from the desperation in her eyes.
‘The baby is dead,’ Buckley says eventually. ‘We should be able to retrieve your ResExtenda but we’re not yet sure whether it will be usable.’
‘I’m not sure what came over me.’
Elephant testosterone. The impulses of an unfamiliar body. But that doesn’t mean she had to give in to them. I try to bite down on the building fury.
She rushes to fill my silence. ‘You don’t know how sorry I am. You have to believe me. I’ll pay for damages. I’ll pay for all of it.’ She dives for her handbag beneath the JumpPallet and extends a wallet towards me. At my look, Mr Hughes nods.
Calm descends, an ocean stilling after the storm. I take the trembling hand in mine and drive my teeth into her thumb.
Flesh parts more easily than I’d imagined it would with human teeth. It takes two whole seconds before she screams.
Then everything descends into chaos. I’m grabbed from behind, lifted. Red bubbles from the wound. Only now do I taste the blood, sitting on my tongue like old pennies. Britta holds the hand out as if it weren’t part of herself but something unsavoury, something other. No use denying your body now! I kick my legs and laugh, though it’s not all that funny.
Mr Hughes swings around, his mouth ripped open in rage and it hits me – this is his true face. All that glib posturing and smiling only ever hid disdain. He hates me.
And in that moment, I know. Know that he’s behind my watchers. The fox, the tiger, the bat; all him.
But Buckley is dragging me from the room, down the corridor, back into our cubicle.
With the door shut, I try to slip free but he won’t let go of my forearm.
‘Look at me. LOOK AT ME.’
His eyes are too terrible to meet.
‘What in god’s name were you thinking?’
I can’t force the explanation the distance to my tongue. My head is still reeling from the fury in Mr Hughes’s face.
The fox: he must have distracted me so I’d be hit. That way they could force me to take the Tourism job. As for the tiger and bat? A change of tactics? When it became clear I wouldn’t play ball he must have decided to scare me away instead. After all, who needs the world’s longest-serving phenomenaut when you have a Ressy copy?
Buckley lets go of me in disgust, starts to pace. I have to tell him what’s going on but it’s clear he’s not going to listen until he’s calmed down.
‘How did you think biting her would make anything better? Did you even stop to think? If this gets out, the publicity . . .’
As if that’s what’s important right now. Maybe I should bite him too.
But at my snarl, he swings back. ‘And us? Did you ever think what this means for us?’
At his anguish, I almost wish I could take it back, but I can’t – that’s the whole point. Money can’t undo everything.
He sags into his chair, face in his hands. I sweep up my wash bag and race from the cubicle.
By the time I reach the changing room, my whole body is shaking, but it stills at the sight of the darkened blood on my mouth. I pull back lips to find my teeth tinged with pink saliva. No one would mess with that girl in the mirror, so why is everything going so very wrong for me?
I press my hands to the chill glass, trying to reach through to her, to myself.