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The Other Side Of Summer

I first saw him when he came in for an interview. The secretary for our department alerted us that a potential new hire was coming through. This, in itself was not usual, because it was part to let everyone in the department know that we should be on our best behavior, and part to spread a little gossip. But this time, she was a little more cryptic than usual.

"Ted, we got a new interviewee coming through the department later on, getting the tour."

I was working on getting a rather balky hard drive to mount. "Oh?" I said, half listening to her while I fiddled with the drive sled. "Have you seem him yet? What do you think?" Even though she was "just" a secretary, she had a unusually keen sense of judging who would fit in with this motley group of IT guys.

"I can't tell..." her voice sounded a bit baffled.

That tone made me look up from my work for a bit. "Nancy, you're usually pretty good about that thing," I teased her lightly, "why not now?"

"Because can't read the new guys' expression."

"Well, what can you tell?"

Nancy became a bit evasive, "Just that he's a bit.. unusual." At that point, the phone rang on her desk. "Look, I gotta get the phone. Let the others know if you get a chance, 'kay?" She ran over to the desk to schedule another service request.

I was a bit puzzled, but then shrugged my shoulders and went back trying to get the drive to mount so that I could get data off for one of the executives.

A while later, I found out why Nancy was so cryptic.

Still trying to extract the data from the drive, I heard my boss call out to me in that booming, false hardy voice he uses when trying to impress the new hires. Once Jim is your boss, he'll treat you fair and talk in normal tones, but for some reason, he feels he has to show off like a boss from a film from the 1940s, complete with exaggerated gestures.

However, even before looking up, there seemed to be a hint of nervousness in his voice; which is unusual since he so confident. When I looked up and saw who was with him, I could see why.

Standing next to him, wearing a rather nice suit, was a six and a half foot tall cheetah.

The past summer was unusual to say the least, and it was not due to the weather. All over the world, these "anthrops" as they were dubbed began appearing. No one could tell if it was spontaneous mutations, aliens, magic, what. Some had memories of past lives as humans, others the memories were missing. There was no rhyme or reason; all different types of species were represented, some became fully animal like, others just had animal like tails and ears.

Personally, I'd never seen one of these anthrops in person. Understandably, there was nervousness and revulsion in some corners concerning the sudden appearance of a new sentient race. Countries all over the world had to decide whether or not they were citizens, and thus subject to the rights and privileges of their country. The whole notion of what constituted a "man" had unexpectedly thrown for a loop.

However, our company, for the most part, had been pretty progressive, offering benefits to all sorts of couples, for example, and having a fairly strong anti-discrimination policy. In a way, it didn't surprise me that HR would consider hiring an anthrop, but I was still startled to see one standing in the flesh.

Jim walked towards me. "Ted, this is Dave." Dave extended a hand (paw?) to shake. Apprehensively, I took the ...paw, and shook it, the leather pads on the palm and finger tips and the slight prick of claws feeling a bit strange. I looked Dave in the eyes, in a determined effort to be friendly. The black streaks down the side marking his face covered in a lightly spotted golden fur and the ears swiveled back a little were unreadable.

"Pleasure to meet you," Dave said quietly with a slightly raspy hiss. I mumbled something in reply, a bit taken aback.

"Ted here is one of top guys here, and he'd likely show you around here when you get hired."

Silently, I cursed Jim for volunteering me like that, but noted the "when" not "if". This guy must have pretty good credentials, nonetheless.

"I'll leave you to your work, Ted. Come by my office later and we'll talk a bit, okay?"

I watched the two of them walk off, before settling back to the hard drive. Jim walked a bit nervously, but Dave moved silently next to him on the concrete floor of the shop. He did not wear any shoes-- understandable, since manufactures hadn't come up with a shoe yet to fit the requirements of the anthrop foot-- but Dave's tail, poking out from under his jacket, twitched a bit nervously at the tip.

Later, after I finally was able to start the extraction of the required data from the crashed drive, I went to check to see if Jim was in his office. I found him looking over some paper work. I rapped lightly on the door frame. "You wanted to see me?"

"Oh, yeah, Ted, sit down. Close the door if you would..."

I closed the door. "Well," Jim said, "I think we're going to hire Dave, and I'd like you to train him."

I shifted a bit uncomfortably at that pronouncement. I decided to talk around the obvious. "What's his background like?"

"Very strong. He just moved into town recently, after working in for a company's IT department for years. He's got his A+ and Microsoft certifications, and can work on our Linux and Apple boxes as well. He knows his way around a computer; it'd be mainly showing him our procedures for documentation."

"But, you're still nervous,,,?" I left the question hanging.

"Of course I am, Ted!" Jim snapped. "It's still unnerving to look at him, even though intellectually I know he's as smart as I am. I have no idea how the others will react once they get past the initial shock. Then there is the trouble trying to get office equipment to accommodate his tail..." Jim seemed to deflate in resignation. "He'll probably be a good addition to the team, and I'm sure it is just as hard on him, but..."

I decided to swallow the other questions I had, like why Dave left the other job. There could have been the usual reasons; it could have been because people didn't like having a six foot tall predator in their midst. I assured Jim that I'll show him around and then went back to check on how data extraction was going.

The following Monday, Dave had his first day of work. He spent the morning finishing filling out paper work, and some basic orientation stuff like any other new hire. In the afternoon, he came down to where I was working, again accompanied by Jim.

"Dave, you've met Ted before," Jim said, seeming a bit more at ease, perhaps because he had time to get use to the notion. This time I extended my hand to Dave, and he shook it, polite but still seeming a bit reserved. "Ted here will show you around the place a bit more in detail for the next couple days so you can get into the swing on how we do documentation of jobs and whatnot while we get your desk set up."

I'll fully admit that I was a bit dubious at first. Despite assurances to the contrary, my brain could not quite process the notion that not only this creature could speak and understand human speech, but that he was quite adept at the intricacies of a computer's operating system.

But as I worked with him more, my intellectual boosting became stronger. Turned out that the documentation was not that different from what he used previously, so he quickly picked up on our own little quirks. He did know his way around a computer, as he began to work on assingments on his own. He even showed me a few tricks. The quiet voice I had mistaken for shyness earlier turned out to be his regular voice; he simply spoke in a little above a sibilant whisper. That, combined with his petrenatural light footfalls, made it easy for him to sneak up on people. I think Dave likes stalking people occasionally for fun.

It hadn't been easy, but the more I worked with Dave, the more I'd like to think that we made out the better on the other side of that summer.