He had participated in the infamous Corrida de la Muerte massacre in Madrid during the first part of '31. He had helped slag the board of directors of Hedonics Plus, the greedy human prokes, at their annual meeting in Geneva. He had been trapped in a shootout with the Brazz branch of the IMF police in the Jibaro maximall, barely escaping with his life. He had even assisted the CLF's leader, the legendary Bad

Splice, Krazy Kat, in Chicago, as they sought to turn the Big Eaters against the municipality.

In short, Peter had lived a full life in the past two years. The things he had seen and done had made him a hardened rabbit.

Yet now, contemplating the notion of facing McGregor again, remnants of his old factory conditioning surfaced, nearly rendering him helpless as a kit.

He had asked for this assignment. But that didn't mean he had to relish it.

Peter reached inside the pocket of his tarnished-brass-buttoned blue coat for a dose of angst-banger and swallowed it dry. Tugging at a whisker, he sought to focus his mind on the task at hand. As the renegade splice watched, the big holosign outside the epcot winked out, and the last tourbus skimmed off.

Now the only human (mere 51 percenter that he was, he still legally merited that status) left in the Garden was McGregor.

Now McGregor would begin to indulge in the "perks" of his position.

Now the splices had cause to fear.

Peter repressed his anger at the thought of what would be starting down in the Garden at this moment. The blocker was kicking in, and it helped him to be calm. He could not enter the Garden until McGregor retired for the night, some hours from now. Till then, there was nothing to do but wait.

Peter lit up another cigarette.

Filthy human habit.

But he would never live long enough to get cancer.

McGregor leaned on his cane, waving to the departing tour-bus in his creaky, lovable-irascible, old farmer way. When it had rounded the curve, he verbed off the holosign.

Then he straightened.

Standing erect, McGregor no longer radiated an air of cantankerous decrepitude. He seemed to bulk out, filling his suit of simulated brown homespun with limbs and torso powerful as one of the Deere-Goldstar autoharvesters that reaped the surrounding fields. The big white beard cascading to his shirtfront looked completely incongruous now, as did his spectacles and cane.

Of a sudden, with an uncanny howl, McGregor tossed his cane skyward. It soared higher than the chimney pots on Hill Top Farmhouse. Off came the glasses and beard, as well as the clothes and hat. (The animatronic beard crawled a few inches, then halted.)

Revealed was a body whose torso was plated ventrally and dorsally with tough overlapping armadillo-like scales. McGregor's arms and legs were wrapped with muscle, like those of a dock-ape. His skull was hairless; silicrobe patterns pulsated just under the scalp, synced electro-myographically with his extra cortical matter. His genitals, retractable, were hidden.

McGregor spun to face the darkened barn.

"Your act died today!"

There was no sound from the barn. Only a subliminal emotional quivering seemed to emanate in cold waves from the structure.

McGregor stalked to the splices' after-hours residence.

He banged the big door open.

The inside of the old-fashioned structure, which was not part of the tour, was one large open space walled and floored with seamless arbo-poly, for easy cleaning. D-compoz waste units stood out in the open in one corner. Cots were placed dormitory-style along the walls, each with a small footlocker for whatever personal possessions the splices had been allowed to accumulate: curry combs and liniment; sweets from the Ginger and Pickles concession stand, tossed to them by the patrons; a change of clothes.

By each cot stood its occupant, at full attention.

The smallest of the transgenics-the mice, the frogs, the squirrels-stood on their altered hindlegs as tall as McGregor's waist. The next largest-the rabbits, the dogs, the cats-came as high as his shoulder.

McGregor let the property sweat for a whole minute. Then he whirled and pointed a finger at Pigling Bland.

"You!"

Tears began to well from the pig's eyes, runnelling to either side of his snout. He dabbed at them with the sleeve of his brown frock coat.

"Please, sir, my pig license is all in order… "

But McGregor had already rounded on another victim.

"Puddleduck!"

Jemima's beak opened and closed several times in stupefaction, before she could finally clumsily articulate, "My bonnet is tied, my shawl is neat. My bonnet is tied, my shawl-"

At last McGregor settled on his real targets.

"Tom! Hunca! Front and center!"

Tom Thumb and his mate Hunca Munca came shakily forward. The two mice hung their heads wearily, knowing full well what was to come and the futility of resistance.

At this moment a fox appeared in the doorway. Fully as tall as McGregor, the Garden's second-in-command wore a brown suitcoat, vest, and cravat. He carried McGregor's cane.

Mr. Tod, the fox, smiled now, showing sharp teeth.

With the mice a foot or two from McGregor, he assailed them. "When you wrecked the dollhouse at the three o'clock show, you broke a dish!"

Tom Thumb looked at Hunca Munca, and she looked at him. Their relatively small and shiny brown eyes caught the light from the ceiling fixtures. Then the male mouse spoke.

"We are supposed to break a dish. We discover that the ham is plaster. We chitter angrily. I pick up the tongs. I hit the ham-"

"You broke the wrong dish! You broke an empty dish!"

"No, I am sure I hit only the ham-"

"Enough! Give me the cane!"

The fox, his bushy tail held stiffly erect, his claws clicking on the floor, crossed to McGregor and handed him the cane.

McGregor twisted the cane's top to Setting Eleven.

He began to beat the mice. The lightest touch of the cane sufficed.

They squealed and cried. Others among the watching splices began to weep too. But it was no use. The blows were unrelenting.

Hunca Munca had collapsed to the floor. Trying to keep her head low, she raised her scut high.

McGregor's genitals began to emerge.

Gestation Jest

McGregor's mum was a limited's crick,

And her solo son was a pro's best trick!

She ran his specs on a micro-fab,

And bent her egg in the company's lab!

A few months later the lad emerged,

Stylish toy of the maternal urge!

Paraparenting

Her smart card toted megamiles on the Suborbital Express,

As she did thirty minutes' work, Bangkok to Baltiscandia,

Leaving once again, Mum spared McGregor one thought– less brief caress,

Before passing him to a Ciba-Geigy nurse-much handier!

A Song of Youth

Nurse was a cocktail of 'possum and' roo,

Attentive, loving, and sweet.

McGregor spent hours out of view,

Pouched and on a teat.

When older, his mum began to feel

His education must begin.

Tropes and boosters and Digireal

All were funneled in.

One day he was living virtually,

When something happened unheard-erous.

The digiverse was suddenly, hurtfully

Amok and truly murderous!

Electron fangs and claws raked the lad,

As the cuddly characters, all beasts,

Picked up crosstalk from a channel bad,

Where kingfans held their gory feasts.

By the time he ripped away the set,

McGregor was a neural wreck.