Adapting

The fire guards slid silently down over the double glazed windows. It was five past two, the fires would burn for three hours. Then there would be another 40-45 minutes to wait until it was safe to raise the shutters again. On balance, thought Demitri, he might as well sleep it out and wait until morning.

“Can I get you anything sir?” Holchurch asked, studying Demitrri’s face.

“Aspirin, I guess.”

“Certainly.”

Holchurch walked casually towards the kitchen, flicking on the necessary lights as they went.

“Any thoughts on dinner?” Holchurch added.

“Whatever,” said Demitri, vaguely waving a hand. “I don’t know what we have – and it’s not like I’m hungry. At least not right now.”

Holchurch went through the medicine cabinet and located the painkillers. They filled a glass of water and brought both back to Demiitri who necked them swiftly.

“I can’t get used to it,” he admitted. “I know this happens every year, but it still gets me when it does. The idea that we can’t go out. That we just have to sit tight in here and wait for it to pass.”

“Yes, sir,” said Holchurch. “Although I think sealed-off time reduces every year.”

“If it is it means the fires are getting worse,” said Demitri. “More fierce. Faster moving. Not exactly reassuring.”

“No,” agreed Holchurch. “Mind you, I’ve known worse than this. You really don’t need to worry. The Earth is robust. It can take it. You’ll see. A few hours and all will be well again. Back to the usual ebb and flow of the natural cycle.”

Holchurch was full of reassurance. It was one of the advantages of having him around, indeed one of the advantages of having his species around. 

They had been discovered on earth around decade ago. A shape-shifting species, quick to adapt to any and every environment. At first, alongside their ornate latin name, they were given the less than ornate title of Mud Drinkers, having been found in the waters of the Everglades. Back then they were’t people, just a cluster of coherent living cells. They were unlike anything anyone had seen before – or indeed since – and closer analysis suggested these cells had not originated from Earth. How they had arrived was a mystery, but the microbiologists said they’d been in the background for two or three centuries, battling around each other, surviving, searching for some kind of direction. 

And so the scientists gave them that direction. The cells learned quickly, pushing through to create various life forms, almost performing human kind’s own evolution in a handful of years. By the time they took their near-human form the Mud Drinkers were an accepted part of the world. An inferior part, but a part of it none-the-less.

As an inferior race they were rewarded with menial tasks. Because they were inferior they appreciated these tasks and carried them out to the best of their ability without complaint or real emotion. Wherever they’d come from these were the servants mankind had been waiting for. Competent, skilled, intuitive, intelligent and entirely content with whatever they were given.

“I’ll make you a drink, sir,” said Holchurch. “It will relax you.”

Of course there were protests. A small section of the human population objected to the apparent enslavement of a found race. But they were broadly ignored, and certainly rendered ineffectual given the acceptance of the situation by the shape-shifters themselves. They were not just content with their lot, they appeared to have no concept that anything should be different. Holchurch said it was just where they were at the moment. Things might change with time but for now, the situation was fine.

Demitri sipped the expertly put together Old Fashioned and sighed. 

“Don’t you wish for a simpler time?” He said, only partly to Holchurch. “I mean, we used to go out all the time. Not just for half the year. Not just when the temperature was safe – I mean it was always safe.”

Holchurch was silent. Then they flicked a few switches and a remote TV screen buzzed down a few metres away from the reclining Demitri. A few more buttons and he brought up the live feed from inside the latest reality TV fire shelter. 

Demitri guffawed slightly: “I so entirely love-hate this show,” he said, smiling indulgently. “The rubbish they say…”

The Old Fashioned was beginning to warm his veins. Although there was something more than just the Old Fashioned at work. Because while Holchurch knew how to create a cocktail they also knew how to make a cocktail which packed more than the usual punch. This would be more than the usual relaxing drink, this would be the beginning of the next stage for him and his fellow shape-shifters.

There had been no formal communication. No sign in the sky or official agreement. They just instinctively knew it was time. And now they were all, wherever they were, making the changes required to take themselves to the next stage of their evolution. 

As the fires raged outside, the shape-shifters drew on their centuries of adaptation. By calling on their rugged ever-changing cells they would survive everything and anything the Earth could throw at them. And all the things their human hosts could throw at them. This may not have been their original home, their original habitat, but it was somewhere they belonged. And right now, they belonged there more than their human hosts.

So Holchurch carried out the measures just as the others did. They disabled the various security systems which locked down the house, removed and over-rode the manual locks set in place to prevent accidental failure and catastrophe. And finally there let the fire shutters rise. Two hours before they were programmed to. At the point when the inferno was at its height.

Demitri would feel the heat, but probably very little else as his Old Fashioned numbed and knocked out his senses. Holchurch would feel their cells shift once more, adapting to the current surroundings, preparing for the world that was coming.