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IN AN AGE OF RADICAL cosmetology when the unusual had become the norm and the outrageous common it took a particularly exceptional meld to attract attention. For many that was reason enough to undergo melds that could be classified as extreme. “Look at me!” was the cry; sometimes strident, sometimes subdued, sometimes desperate, that had accompanied the first radical melds. Nowadays such once drastic manips were sufficiently widespread so as to rarely draw interest.

In the same way that three-meter-tall guards and three-hundred-kilo linemen had spelled the end of professional basketball and gridiron football (along with most other organized sports), so too had outlandish cosmetics performed purely for the sake of reckless narcissism fallen rapidly by the wayside. They had given way to melding carried out for more practical reasons. Better long-range vision for enthusiastic bird-spotters, larger hands for chefs, enhanced lungs for singers and specialized lips for all manner of brass and woodwind players, curved thighbones for enthusiastic bicycle riders, and greater sensitivity to changes in pressure for airline pilots.

Hobbyists were able to indulge in melds that allowed them to immerse themselves more completely in their favorite activities. With the advent of off-loadable organic storage banks capable of holding millions of old memories, brain melds proved not only impracticable but unnecessary. Then there were the melds that could be applied to pets as effectively as to their owners.

And as with all progressive leaps in technology, sex was forever in the forefront of new developments. Thanks to continuing advances in melding nearly anything that could be imagined became attainable.

Notwithstanding all of this, the complete face and body melding that had over a period of more than a decade completely remade Luther Heeley Calloway of Boudreux Island still marked him as something special among the melded masses. For one thing, no one had called him Luther or Calloway for a long time.

He was simply the Alligator Man.

“Why?” was inevitably the first question asked as to why he had chosen to undergo such an elemental transformation. The Alligator Man’s reply was as uncomplicated as it was sufficient.

“I like gators. Always have. Admired ’em, respected ’em, used ’em, and et ’em. Always thought it would be great to look like ’em. Found out I could. Did.”

Whispr knew about the Alligator Man. As did anyone who prowled even occasionally among the underworld of Greater Savannah. But he had never met him. Making his way downriver under cover of darkness, changing at the last minute from one commuter ferry to the next to throw off any possible police tail whether automated or human, he finally reached the low-lying complex of islets known collectively as Boudreux Island just after seven in the evening.

The Alligator Man did not greet him. The five-meter-long reptile that did raise its head behind the transparent autodoor caused Whispr to involuntarily jump backward half a meter. His newly enhanced and not yet entirely healed leg tendons protested at the sudden exertion required of them.

The loglike crocodilian yawned, displaying a toothy gape that was a perfectly primeval threat. “State your selfness.” The demand issued not from the depths of the enormous maw but from a speechbox that had been melded to the monster’s back just aft of the weighty skull.

“My name is—I’m called Whispr. I can show ident. Prior to today I resided at …”

The synth voice cut him off. “You are recognized, Whispr. Our files are extensive.” Lumbering aside on four clawed legs, the security pet made room for the visitor to enter as the portcullis door whirred upward. “Please come in. And don’t mind Lucius. He’s well trained, completely under control, and less inclined to gnaw on the legs of visitors than your average starving fried-chicken aficionado.”

Despite this dubious reassurance Whispr knew he had not traveled all this winding way to be dissuaded by a melded reptile no