Posts Tagged Scott
[scrap] Scott.
May 3
Found this scrap in an old black notebook—don’t think I’ve posted it anywhere before. Might just come into the story later.
On my third week studying body-modification formulas, I knew I was getting close to my second breakthrough. The first one was a warmup, really; just a basic modification of a regeneration potion to grow extra body parts. It takes a couple days to get used to an extra pair of arms, but once you do get the hang of it, working in the lab is so much easier.
I made a couple of other, intimate, changes as well, which I figured Toby would like. But this second project was for Toby himself.
I wanted to ask him to live with me.
But he’s human.
Humans don’t live in this world.
Traditional transformation formulas are kind of random. You can reliably change, say, into a fox, but it won’t be any fox in particular: fur and eye color, height and weight all may vary. Normally this is a feature—several people can use the same potion and not look like a clone army—but I wanted to make Toby an identity for this world, without taking umpteen different shapechanging drinks, which wouldn’t be healthy anyway.
Scott the Alchemist 3.
Nov 28
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We sat quiet for a while. Arky calmed down some, recovered his composure, dried his eyes, blew his nose.
“I could tell Flair,” he said, “About the humans, I mean. You know he’d get into it. And then, we could—“
“Well, sure he’d like it. He’s taken everything else I’ve thrown at him. But would he be able to keep quiet about it?”
“He wouldn’t have to! We don’t have to tell him you’ve been importing humans from… wherever it is you get them from… just that you’ve got a thing for them. It’d fit neat with that fib of yours about the gorillas, and he’ll be able to lord it over them shaven human-wannabes who hang out at the mall.”
I tried to suppress a bad memory.
“But… what about Toby?” I said.
“Who?”
“The… imported human.”
Arky made an exasperated grunt and stormed into the kitchen. I didn’t follow him; I knew him well enough by then to know when he needs time to himself. So I went and put my sweats on while he made angry sandwiches. I lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling and thinking. I was torn between wanting not to hurt my best friend on the one paw, and the feeling that I might be—I didn’t want to think it—settling for less on the other paw. I half felt like turning to stone for a year to avoid the problem. No, that wouldn’t help. Maybe a big tattoo of shame dyed across my forehead. “BAD TIGER.” I was trying to figure out what typeface best conveyed horrible shame when Arky came back out.