The Legend of the Meagles

Once upon a time on plum island…

Our old Tribe? - Team Bubba Reactors - Bubba the Mouse

Our Tribe - Team Descartes Thinkers - Daycart the Eagle

Our Enemy Tribe - Team Rachet Malketeers - Ratch the Malcat

 My Level Up Book Club read “Who Moved my Cheese?” While not my favorite book – it did add value, it was an exercise in people seeing their own world with fresh eyes and understanding it in different ways.

The Legend of the Meagles

The Last Night of the AUI Lab

 There was an island codenamed Manittuwond where people conducted advanced animal experiments. When the funding was withdrawn, the scientists were told to kill all the animals, pack up their personal stuff and lock up the labs. A scientist delayed destroying her animals of unusual intelligence, until the last day. On that day when Gen went to the lab, it was oddly silent, she found the animal cages empty and the animals gone. She was happy that she would not have to slay the Animals of Unusual Intelligence, confused about where they were, and in a hurry to finish packing and catch the boat. She looked around again and left.

Gen did not look in the closet, which was crushed and hot with 33 malcats and 102 meagles being as quiet as cats and mice can be. This was not easy as the meagles are known to be very talkative in their chirpy way. The malcats language of meows and purr-tones was a constant hum in the lab and had grown more complex than the language of monkeys, whales, or Army Healthcare IT Specialists. 

That evening after the last boat left, Momma Ratch, the malcat leader, opened the door and the animals piled out, got food from the cabinets, and filled their water bowls. A meeting was called and the malcats and meagles gathered, as close as meagles would get to malcats. For now, they needed each other.

The malcats, like all cats, were manipulative, conniving, and soulless. They looked like housecats except their front claws were five inches long and they had learned to use their claws like humans use fingers. They could type. They could read and write in non-regional diction American-English. The malcats learned about the lab shutdown from email pop-ups as they surfed the internet on the lab computers at night. The malcats liked videos of big cats hunting, mice in mazes, and human prank videos.

Computer time was possible due to the lab tech Bill letting his three favorite malcats out as he cleaned and organized each night. When he went to leave, Bill would put the malcats back in their cages. Bill did not know the loose malcats unlocked the cages of other malcats, who would then let out all the malcats after he left. The malcats made mischief of many kinds – their favorite was toying with caged meagles.

The meagles were genetically modified mice with wings, mini-Griffons. The wings did the meagles no good as they had never flown, and they made it more difficult to go fast through mazes. The malcats were well fed and did not want to eat or kill the meagles, at least not quickly, they liked torturing them - sticking their long white claws into the cages to scratch them, and then laughing at them for being weak and scared.

The meagles resented this treatment and being teased for their caged helplessness and useless wings. Though malcats and meagles spoke different languages, made different sounds, they understood each other’s language.

 After reading the lab closure emails, the malcats planned to escape the night before, after the lab tech locked his favorites back up and left. The malcat plan went astray as Bill stopped in said, “good bye” to his favorites, grabbed some personal items out of a desk, and left. He did not clean. He did not let any malcats loose. He had no reason to clean a lab that would soon be abandoned to the dusts of time. The normally cool malcats hissed with rage, screeching at each other for screwing up, poor planning, getting them killed.

 A meagle, named Daycart, opened his cage’s latch, and went to the cage of Momma Ratch.

Momma Ratch “How did you get out?”

Daycart said, “I could always get out, I stay in my cage to be safe from you and the other malcats. From listening to your hiss-fit I understand that we have a problem.”

Momma Ratch replied, “Yes, we will be killed and incinerated in the morning. Except you, you are free, so sneak away.”

“With these long wings, sneaking is hard. I will not leave my friends behind. I can pick the cage locks. We can’t open doors. We need your help to get out.”

Momma Ratch purred “You want a partnership?”

“Yes, as partners, malcats can no longer scare, scratch, or bite meagles!” chirped Daycart.

“I agree to your terms, let me free.”

“Soon, I will let the meagles out first.”

Meagles Gone Wild

After the escape, the island was free of people, quarantined, and patrolled by boat. Legends grew about the island, some of which were true.

The meagles moved out of the lab building and used a dorm building during severe storms and made nests in trees to live in most of the time. For with practice and exercise, the meagles had learned to use their wings and fly short distances. The meagles thrived on a diet of seeds, bugs, and small fish.

When malcats walked around the island, they would look up and be annoyed. Meagles in the trees would warn meagles on the ground that malcats were approaching. The meagles would fly to treetops and ignore them. Malcats could not feel superior and mock the free, uncaged meagles happy and chatting forty feet above them.

Malcats are smart, hard-working, and evil. With solar-powered internet and computer systems, mass amounts of materials in the buildings and the island dump, they were able to create many off-grid systems. The malcats made systems for water and food. Rainwater collected off the roof was stored in 275-gallon IBC square tanks. Fish traps were set and gathered daily.

The malcats should have been content, but they were not. Malcats like to feel superior to other creatures to be happy. Momma Ratch knew that she did not want to kill meagles, at least not fast, or all of them. The fun was in toying with them, mocking them as they slowly died.

Momma Ratch wanted to ground the meagles, forever. Momma remembered that the lab used to do research on fat mice. They looked perfect to her - plump and easy to catch. She studied the causes of obesity in humans and mice. Momma Ratch ordered an inventory and collection of every piece of human food and pet feed that they could find. She led a search of the dump for seeds. She ordered a survey of every plant on the island. They found storerooms of standard American foods and feed for normal and fat mice. The feed for fattening mice was the same crapohydrate diet that most Americans ate. The malcats planted seeds to grow corn and sunflowers to make high fructose corn syrup and omega-6 laden vegetable oils.

The Freedom Day Gift

On the anniversary of Freedom Day, the meagles and malcats gathered. Daycart gave a speech about their lives being good and the value of the partnership. Momma Ratch gave a speech echoing Daycart’s comments and then said that while things were good now, the malcats were making them better with technology. As a gesture of friendship, they had a gift for the meagles.

Momma Ratch showed the meagles a room with levers in it. She explained that each lever gave a tasty treat for meagles to enjoy and that the massive “Meagle Party Room” will be meagles-only, available for special occasions, like today, or anytime, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The room was decorated with drawings of meagles having fun together eating, and drinking. In the room, there were smaller rooms, comfortable places to rest, internet pods, television areas, and levers on each wall.

Most meagles were awestruck. Daycart was cautious about the food and drink levers. Daycart hit 5 levers twice – he gathered the chips, crackers, candy, pastries, and two cups of soda and invited Momma Ratch to join him in eating them. Ratch said she would gladly as part of the celebration, but as a malcat she preferred simple boring fish. They snacked on the foods and chatted. As they did the other meagles began to hit the levers and try the treats.

A meagle named Bubba tried many levers, eating quickly. He approached Momma Ratch and said that some of the treats did not taste good to him. Momma told Bubba. “We are A/B testing. We will use meagle feedback and science to make things taste better and better. Eventually, ever lever will be something that many meagles love and can enjoy every day.” Bubba was happy to hear this good news, thanked Momma Ratch and went back to the levers with a feedback form.

Daycart and 20 other meagles continued to eat seeds, bugs, and fish, and live and chat in the treetops. The open air meagles would visit the Party Room and hit a few levers on special occasions like holidays.

The Immovable Feast

Most meagles began to spend their waking hours, and many sleeping ones, in The Party Room. It was never too sunny, too hot, too cold, too windy, nor raining. Meagle movements were the same as an American man watching college football on a Saturday, get up, go to the bathroom, reload drink and snacks, sit down. There were always things to do – surf the internet, watch shows, and hit levers. As a result of malcat A/B testing, not all meagles liked every levered food, but all meagles loved many levered foods.

 Bubba was a fixture in the room. With his fast reflexes, he was a well-known online gamer called MiniGriff. When gamers asked him if he had a twitch account. He would reply that he could read and write English, but not speak it – not willing to be seen or heard added to his mystery. it was rumored that MiniGriff was a movie star. Bubba felt like a superstar in the virtual worlds – defeating people, other meagles, even malcats. 

Three of the worst malcats, the brothers - Razor, Switch, and Axe - watched the internet traffic and were annoyed by Bubba’s success. They decided to beat him on his favorite game - Galaxies of Swordcraft. Though the game was normally single player duels, they jumped MiniGriff as a team. Bubba defeated them seven times in a row. Razor, Switch, and Axe were hissing, blaming, and scratching each other in anger. Then the worst insult happened – Bubba messaged them, “This has been fun. I am going to look for a challenging opponent. Good luck, MG”

In a rage Axe turned off the internet connection to the Party Room. When the internet went down Bubba lingered for a few minutes, then got up, levered-up on sweets, and lied down to watch TV. Switch hissed and turned off the TV feed. Bubba sat confused. This had never happened before. He decided to give it a few minutes as he levered-up and ate again, and then let the malcats know that things had stopped working. When Bubba went to the levers, they did not work - Razor had turned them off too.   

Through cameras the malcats watched Bubba go from one wall to the other trying levers. The malcat’s anger turned to amused mischief. By the time Bubba went to the fourth and final row of levers, Razor came up with a new twist. He turned all the levers back on for the other meagles and then turned levers off when Bubba tried them. While other meagles munched, Bubba’s bowl was bare and he was baffled. The three malcats purred with delight. This was almost as fun as poking meagles in cages.

Bubba went outside, squinting from the sun he had not seen in days, and over to the door of the malcats. Razor, Switch, and Axe scrambled out the door and surrounded Bubba. Bubba looked up, felt uncomfortable, yet said, “Hello Blade brothers, I hope you are well. I was wondering who I speak with to mention Party Room glitches.

“You’re the glitch,” said Razor.

“After all we do for you, no thanks, just complaints?” Asked Axe.

“Just, wanted to…,” Bubba started to say.

“Fat dumb meagle, where is your Galaxies sword?” yelled Switch as he poked two claws into Bubba’s side.

Bubba startled, scrambled between Axes legs, and then once clear, started to fly. Not fly, he started the sequence to fly, ran fast, beat wings, and jump up to take off. It did not work. He landed hard. Bubba could not remember the last time he had flown. The three malcats grinned, purred, and chased.

The Blade brothers circled Bubba again and started to poke him from all sides. They mocked him for being too fat to fly, too dumb to know his place, and too weak to be a fighter in the real world. The commotion attracted attention - more malcats and meagles came outside. The meagles were horrified and squealed for the attack to stop. The malcats, including Momma Ratch, grinned, purred, and wiggled their long white claws in anticipation and joy.

Momma Ratch wondered if her plan was complete. She reached down, picked up a young female meagle, and scratched down her belly with her longest claw. Scared meagles tried to fly away. Brave meagles tried to fly to attack Momma. Momma Ratch laughed as the meagles ran, jumped, flapped, and fell to the ground. Seeing this, the other malcats grabbed meagles to toy with. A few meagles scrambled into the woods. Most that got away scrambled “home,” to the Party Room.

An hour later, the malcats grew bored with torturing the meagles and let them go, including Bubba. All returned to the Party Room. To relax, Bubba levered-up with ice cream, syrup, and cookies and binge watched a season 4 on a streaming service. As the meagles relaxed, ate, and drank, Axe locked the door to the Party Room so no meagle could get in or out. Momma Ratch, the Blade Brothers, and the other malcats made plans for more A/B testing and fun with flightless meagles.

Axe did not need to lock the door - No meagles tried to leave.

Over time the meagles living in the lab lost their wings and mere test mice for malcats.

The meagles living in the trees and flying became Eagles, like other eagles except for having long brown hair on their heads, mustaches, and goatees.

The Malcats were hired as remote contractors to conduct experiments on mice, and eventually, people, to increase the sales of addictive, mostly legal, harmful products – such as alcohol, tobacco, and sweets.

To this fable, there is no end. This is a Start…