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“Last stop: backstage.”

The high-pitched whine of the electromagnets that held the train aloft turned into a dull hum as it pulled into the station. The park had a whole network of these trains that ran throughout its assorted lands, stopping to ferry tourists from the nearby city to their choice of entertainment for the day. But this train had stopped somewhere different: a large office building that didn’t quite mesh with the artificial fairy tale atmosphere generated under the domes.

“Train will proceed to offloading. Staff proceed to onboarding,” a computerized voice announced.

“Hey, newbie!” someone yelled, an older woman with thick rimmed glasses and a clipboard waved in my general direction. I looked about at other staff exiting the train, checking whether another “newbie” could be among us. She pointed directly at me with a pen, gesturing to me to follow her. Myself, currently unmoored in my “newbie” state, nodded, and followed her. 

The doors to the building opened with a glimmery “woosh” noise, as if designed specifically to make an impressive entrance. Considering the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of scattered behind-the-scenes videos I’d partaken about this park over the years, I suspected my theory of specifically designed “woosh” sound held merit. 

“You arrived slightly late, so I hope you don’t mind if I rush through this presentation,” the woman said. “Welcome to the Consolidated Entertainment Corporation’s Leisure Workforce, but we prefer to call you a cast member. The term is a relic, or perhaps an homage, for our company’s early days.”

I looked up at the cavernous interior of the building, logistics drones hovered through the halls. I couldn’t help feel a bit intimidated. 

“As you’re in an interim performer role, it’s my duty to tell you you’ve been assigned to the Safari Zone, one of the most popular attractions here, so it’s vastly important you are properly situated before your probation is up. You’ve already signed all the necessary paperwork, requested adequate compensation and accommodations, and listed your primary external contacts, so I don’t see a reason to keep you here too much longer. Ah, here’s your supervisor now.”

I looked and didn’t see anyone. With a polite cough, the woman gestured with her pen to move my gaze downwards. 

I looked down.

There appeared to be a small furry meerkat looking up at me. 

“Pleased to meet ya!” it squeaked.

I stared, uncertain how to react to this. I turned to the woman, preparing a smile and for her to reveal this was just something that happened to all new staff members, perhaps to cultivate a sense of preliminary whimsey within my new working environment. I knew that Consolidated Entertainment Corporation prided itself with its technical-

I realized she already started walking away down the hall with purpose, presumably towards some other important task. 

The meerkat looked down to its own, much smaller, clipboard, flipped through a few pages, then looked back up at me. “Are you ready for orientation?” 

“I’m not sure if…” I started. 

“Don’t you worry, newbie. I know this all can be pretty darn intimidating and having a new supervisor is scary, but don’t think of me as your ‘supervisor’. Think of me as your guide through a world of adventure and wonder in the Safari Zone.”

“...okay?” I didn’t quite know how to react to this particular brand of energy, which seemed more suited framed within a ride rather than in the hallway of a fancy-but-still-corporate-y building. I kept waiting for the reveal. The reveal of what, I couldn’t quite figure. Prank? Were prank videos still in vogue?  

The meerkat, or whoever was controlling the meerkat, didn’t seem distracted by my internal confusion, and continued, “Well then, let’s get you in character!” 

Suddenly, the meerkat disappeared into a tunnel beneath it. A set of tiles on the floor lit up in sequence to guide my path, which was to the nearest elevator, already waiting for me at the ground floor, its doors open for me to enter. That's where the lighted tiles led, so I entered, still wondering what the meerkat meant by “getting in character”?

A five minute ride to… somewhere… later, for the elevator definitely didn’t feel as if it had just gone up or down, the doors slid open to reveal what appeared to be the backstage of a boat ride. The air was humid to the point of being damp and a soft drum beat sounded nearby, perhaps from a waiting queue area, where a line of people were probably waiting for the first show of the day. 

The meerkat’s chipper voice could be heard from that same area.“Welcome to Singers of The Serengeti, I’m Simon and I’ll be your guide through this magical land of prideful lions and rambunctious rhinos! Please keep all belongings with you, keep all limbs inside the vehicle, and, most importantly, have fun! We’ll be starting soon!”

After the meerkat’s speech was completed, a small hatch opened next to me, and he popped right out.

“Needed to detour to give the ride intro there. Glad ya made it here safe! Given the fast turnaround, we had to improvise a costume, it might not fit properly, but we’ll get that sorted out soon enough.”

A door slid open and revealed a fur-covered costume. It had light brown hair done up in a faux-mohawk, and was dotted in light spots. A brush-like tail hung down from its backside, and its face appeared to be repurposed from a less advanced robot, slightly modified with a broad snout.

“I’m gonna be a hyena?”

“That’s the spirit! You catch on quick!”

I shook my head, mentally still trying to catch up. “I’m sorry, I thought today would be more paperwork and borin-urm, I mean, instructional videos.”

“Perish the thought, newbie. What kinda outfit do you think we run here? That doesn’t sound very fun or magical at all. Now you go ahead and get suited up, so we can get you introduced to your bandmates, and get some necessary calibrations done. We don’t have much time before the ride starts.” 

Ride starts? What? I’d just gotten here. I couldn’t seriously be performing for an audience so soon, right? No, couldn’t be. Maybe just going to entertain guests in line or something? That’d make more sense. But still, to be happening now…? 

“Newbie? May I guide you to please suit up?” the meerkat stated in a still cheerful-yet-now-more-authoritative tone, “We’re on a well calibrated timeline.” 

“Yes. Sure. Sorry,” I said, scampering over to the hyena costume to begin suiting up. Since I hadn’t been told otherwise, I started slipping it over my clothes.There’d been a lot of video speculation about costumed characters here and how they worked, and I admitted the opportunity to wear one of the costumes seemed pretty cool, even though it seemed I was being dropped into the deep end.

I still hadn’t dismissed the possibility of a prank. 

“There’s an uplink cable that runs down the spine of the suit, this should provide instructions to you on how to move like a hyena, talk like a hyena, and most importantly, sing like a hyena!”

A grid of green lines flashed in front of my eyes, before disappearing. Holographic heads up displays! I always thought they had something like that! No wonder the costumed performers were always so knowledgeable, it was all just linked to them!

“Pretty coo-” I said, before stopping.

That wasn’t my voice.

It was more high pitched, sounding almost like a cartoon character.

“Voice print analysis said you would sing as a Tenor, and we need a Soprano! I hope you don’t mind!”

“No, I guess not,” I said with this new voice, thinking it sounded a bit funny, which in turn caused a giggle to rise into my throat, which I found bursting forth into a high pitched cackle of a laugh. 

While I wondered where that had come from, the meerkat said, “Perfect. Your laugh is in working order too! Very important for a hyena.” 

The floor lit up once again, and I followed the lights, finding them, and the meerkat, soon ushering me to a spot inside the ride, between two other hyenas. Neither of them seemed to be in costumes like me, they stood motionless. I realized in looking closer, closer than any normal ride-goer would see, the seams in the costume, then the gears and hydraulic hoses snaking out the back of each, they weren’t costumed performers at all, but rather animatronic hyenas. 

Like my new meerkat boss. 

Who exclaimed, “Hey fellas, this is the newbie!”

The other hyenas didn’t visibly react. (Not like they would, right?) Simon looked over at me.

“Just follow their lead and you’ll do great”

I stared vacantly ahead, partially to imitate the other robotic animals strewn about the banks of the ride, and partially because I had no idea what I'd just gotten into, questions still swirling in my mind. Why was I standing between two animatronic hyenas? Why hadn’t Simon given me further instructions? If I were to perform for guests here wasn’t there a script I should be following? Hadn’t the meerkat mentioned singing? 

I took a deep breath, thinking over what Simon had said. Uplink cable. Holographic display thingie. The tech already had done the cool stuff with my voice. Presumably it could do the rest.  Assumably I’d been given what I needed to do this. Maybe. The prank option remained ready on the explanation deck. 

I made sure I stood on the “marks” on the floor, once again shown by the pervasive glowing tiles, and turned to face the ride track. Immediately, I felt a tugging motion somewhere around the base of my spine, followed by a flash of information flooding the holographic display. This must’ve been the uplink cable getting situated, awkwardly tucking in right under my costume’s tail.

Alright, here we go. I guess.

Water began rushing down the artificial river as the first canoe began to move down the “stream”. Between rows of tourists, Simon popped up in the middle of the boat, much to the surprised bemusement of the guests. “Well howdee! Welcome to ‘Africa,’” The meerkat said with a wink. “We’ve got a lot of diverse voices here, but today they all wanna do one thing: and that’s sing!” 

I felt a spike of panic at seeing the tourists, who would soon see me. I knew I must stick out among this trio of hyenas. And I still didn’t know what I should be doing, so any moment, I’d stick out all the more and-

The two hyena’s twitched to life, and, in turn, I found myself twitching, moving, a sudden rush through my system, all hesitancy replaced by absolute confidence that I would do what I needed at the given moment, fulfilling my specific role in this show, ready for my cue.

The trees began swaying, wire-guided birds began chirping a tune, and the lion and lioness down the way were the first to chime in, a roar in their voices, soon joined in by zebras and lemurs and cheetahs, popping up – or down in case of lemurs from branches – from their designated spots to sing along. 

Far away and beneath the trees

Lives a world full of lions, zebras and chees,

It’s a place that you might never be

But we call it home: the Serengeti!

I started bouncing along to the music too, glancing at my two compatriots, I could see them making a similar bouncing motion. Were they mimicking me or was I mimicking them? I thought about this, but more important things came to mind as the canoe turned down a relatively straight path through the center of the ride. A reptilian snout glided alongside the boat, swimming along and singing along, the crocodile’s voice a gruff bass, no less enthusiastic than the others. 

There are giraffes to the left and hippos to the right,

A big mean crocodile looking for a fight. 

But at the end of the day, those are just normal sights

When you live the savannah life!

I could feel something kicking in, whether it was a guide from the display or something tickling me from the back of my mind, I could tell my cue was coming up. I crouched down, attempting to be at least at the same shoulder level as the other hyenas, I didn’t want to upstage them. We were a team after all. Some baboons up the way were banging on bongos, and began the next stanza.

We are the savannah singers

This is it.

And we don’t need your human zingers

My eyes were locked forward, looking through hazy tunnel vision I assumed was coming from the hologram and not from the stress of performing.

Because the animal kingdom has funny folks 

The puffs of hydraulic actuator noise coming from the bots beside me probably weren’t audible over the music, but I could hear them just fine, the three of us getting into gear, for two of us, quite literally.

And the hyenas laugh at all our jokes

“That’s me,”

“And me!”

And my moment, my cue, my clever lyrical role rushed into focus and with that intent I sang out. 

“And hee hee hee!”

The cackling laugh rippled through me, unadulterated genuine hyena glee, the laugh in chorus with my fellow hyenas, lasting long enough for the hyena laugh lyrical point to carry across, then fading out for song to carry on to its finale, sung by a certain meerkat.

I’ve been so happy to be your guide 

but we’ve reached the end of our ride

As we’re greeted by the rising moon,

We hope you all visit again soon!

After that exuberance, that sheer joy in performing my role well, I realized what it must’ve been like to be a real actor! I would do anything to get that feeling again!

Luckily, a canoe ride car passed every two to three minutes.

Part of me thought I ought to have gotten tired of the song by the 37th time. Most of me wondered how could I ever get tired of such a great song? I didn’t think I even needed the lyrics on my display anymore, I was a natural!

And the next canoe appeared around the bend. 

After the 91st time completed, the water stopped rushing, the river going calm. I sat there, confused. At this point some ever-smaller part of me thought this song should absolutely be getting on my nerves and yet it sounded better every time. Because it was the best song I’d ever heard and I had the chance to be part of it! Why did the river stop? Were we not gonna sing it again?

My hyena partners did something they hadn’t done before, which after being in a steadfast pattern for so long, startled me, and even more so when they spoke instead of singing. 

“Hey, good job, buuuuddy.”

I looked over to my left, and was greeted face to face with a big snout.

“Sorry for not saying anything earlier, wanted to be in the zone for the ride beginning.”

“Woah! You can talk?” I sputtered. 

“Of course we can talk, we can sing, we need to do that.”

“Why’d we stop singing though, this kinda takes me out of the zone?” I asked. 

“The ride operator takes a 15 minute break usually somewhere between cycles 80 and 100 each day. He has to do something called a lunch break?”

I had thought about lunch soon… but I wasn’t really hungry.

The hyena on the right proceeded with introductions before I could ask about lunch break, “I’m Edie and my dopey companion over there is Odie.”

“Hehehe, hey buuuuddy,” Odie said with his tongue rolling out of his mouth.

“WHO’S THE NEW PERSON?” a rumbling gruff voice called from the river, and in looking down there I realized it was the crocodile.

“Leave the newbie alone, Chomps” said one of the lions from the start of the ride. 

“TELL THEM THEY’RE DOING GREAT!”

Edie rolled his eyes and said, “Chomps says you’re doing great.” 

“Chomps is a great judge of talent!” Odie chimed in, “You’re lucky! There was a hornbill he didn’t warm up to for weeks.” 

I just couldn’t shake the feeling that this should feel more surreal, but the more the hyenas talked, the less I could figure out why it shouldn’t feel normal. I just got a really good vibe off my new co-workers and was glad they seemed to be accepting me into their trio so naturally. 

I realized the uplink cable was still attached, and it felt like it actually was attached right to my spine. Was this thing interacting with my brain, or sending signals around my nervous system to simulate pleasure? Not that I didn’t find conversing with talking animals a pleasure, I feel like that was a dream of mine since I saw The Regnal Lion Part XXII.

Still, I couldn’t recall before today ever thinking much about performing or singing, let alone finding joy in it. Yes, I appreciated a talented mascot character or animatronic as much as the next person. And yet, darn, this thing connected to me and the thought of it affecting my brain chemistry made me feel funny. Before the hyena cackle could bubble back to the surface, I grounded myself. Not “ha-ha” funny. Worrisome funny. Scary funny. Funny as in “something being direly off” from the moment I’d started this gig. 

I tried to focus on me, on who I was outside of this ride, on what had happened before today, yesterday, what I’d had for breakfast even. Zebra…? No, that didn’t sound quite right. 

But then the ride started back up.

“Places, people!” Simon shouted from the rafters above. “Oh, sorry… I mean animals!”

Edie and Odie gave a good hyena chuckle at the joke, a mechanical whirr sounded as their tails wagged. 

“He’s said that six hundred and forty two times and it just keeps getting funnier!”

Edie snorted, which could’ve just been the gears in his snout seizing up.

I chuckled along with them, the only thing keeping me from an all out hyena cackle being a signal on display about the impending ride start. 

The canoes began to move through the ride again, and with it, we resumed our singing.

As the day went on, I felt like the display in my periphery giving constant instructions wasn’t needed anymore, somewhere around cycle 150. I just stopped noticing it. Only looking out at the moments I needed to know my cues. The ear wiggle. Tail wag. Paw stomp. “Hee hee hee”

The passage of time felt like a blur.

A satisfying wonderful thrilling blur. 

Before I knew it, the house lights in the ride flicked on. The same logistics drones I'd seen floating about backstage earlier whirred into the ride and began performing basic maintenance on the boats and the bots. This must be closing time!

The flying ornithopters that resembled hornbills were perching on a cart, which plugged them in to charge overnight. A salon on wheels gave the lions a proper mane-icure. Edie and Odie gave a big smile as a machine approached them, giving their plastic pearly whites a polish.

I waited for one to come and unhook me from my connection, but one never did.

After tending to the other hyena’s teeth, however, one did begin to undo the costume around me. The pile of faux fur fabric fell away quickly, only to reveal… more faux fur. I could still feel my tail, which probably should’ve been disconnected with the rest of the costume. 

I looked behind me. The drones hovered away, pulling away whatever clothing I had left to reveal an animatronic hyena body. My hyena body.

I looked over myself and parsed this information…this didn’t seem quite right. Somehow. 

Before a rising existential panic could set in, Simon popped up out of a nearby tree trunk. “Wonderful job today, newbie. You fit right into the team. Perfect laugh. Did you have a good time?” The meerkat gave a curious smile. Not as in being curious about me, more me being curious in the smile’s intent. An unusual smile. 

As to the question's answer though? Easy. “Yes!” My tail wagged to highlight my enthused answer, my excitement in considering how much I enjoyed myself today muting that spike of confusion and/or fear about my body’s shift from…

Shift from…

“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’ve converted most of your previous form to fit within the parameters of the role you’re performing.”

“Previous form…most…?”

“We’ve held off from converting under your mask until checking in after your shift, so…” the meerkat cleared his throat, before he spoke again: this time his voice, flat, monotone, clear:

“Pursuant to local Florida laws, Consolidated Entertainment Corporation is required to inform you of full cybernetic augmentation. This will result in the cessation of all prior identification and loss of ‘human’ status. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N”

Suddenly, I remembered everything. Myself before this job. Before all of this. I even remembered breakfast. I realized the complete absurdity of all of this and all that had happened and been through and how none of this made any sense. I should be angry and scared. At the least I should be annoyed. However, I couldn’t find it in myself to be those things. I wanted to be something else.   

I knew I should say “no”. 

I also knew I wanted to say. And, thinking further, what I needed to say. 

Even if I knew I’d been put through the wringer being coaxed and prodded, technical assisted mental manipulation leaving my personal autonomy on the wayside. Even then, wasn’t the happiness real? The thrill of performance? The bindings of comradery in harmony with my fellow ‘yeens within the creature chorus? I felt a truth within that. I considered the path away from that, and felt deep longing roll over me. 

I said, “Y.”

“Modified employment contract verbally signed.” Simon continued in his new monotone. “All prior employment commitments have been honored. Employee will receive compensation and accommodation, and external contacts will be informed of your decision and receive lifetime visitors passes to the park, redeemable once per year.”

As the mask began to disengage, I could feel a tickle in my throat, where my head awkwardly connected with its now robotic torso. I felt funny. Ha ha funny this time. The tickling must’ve been my vocal cords adjusting to my new cartoony voice. Either that or being removed completely for the speakers that would take their place. 

Again, it occurred to me I should find something worrying about this, though such potential worrying became distracted by my brain chemistry being converted to sophisticated code and programming, mostly centered around me moving and speaking at certain moments, hard coded into who I was becoming. 

I gave a yawn, feeling the forming hydraulics in my jaw accommodating the action. 

My neck had elongated considerably, probably to contain all the electronics needed for my face to function now. Servos whirred as my ears wiggled into their new dish shape. Every time I moved my head, an orchestra of whirrs sounded that only I could hear.

Hee hee.

My fellow hyenas watched, giving knowing looks between each other. 

One of the maintenance drones approached my face and promptly removed it. It felt like it was my face, but when I looked at my reflection in the river water, I still had a face. Unlike my previous face, it was a much more elegant animatronic, looking more like my hyena brethren than something a costumed performer would wear. 

Did I have a face before I was a hyena?

What a funny question. 

To which I found myself laughing at. 

And my hyena compatriots laughed with me. 

---

Newbie’s been here a week now.

They’re fitting in nicely. Though on occasion I see little off-script motions and unprogrammed twitches during work hours. Which is normal for the transitory phase. 

We should probably figure out a good name for them soon. We never caught their name before they signed the contract. Not that it really mattered. And Newbie works for now. There’s no rush. 

I’d been here a while. I’d seen new hyenas come and go. Though the average ride-goer might not consider that a possibility. I hacked myself a little secret connection to the world wide web years ago, and I knew certain guests did notice the occasional detail shift if any animal ended up replaced. Especially on orientation day, when a mascot suit among animatronics stands out. 

Fans speculated that animatronics broke down and needed to be temporarily replaced by a physical performer stand-in. But we animatronics are made of tougher stuff. If a guest were to ask, I might say something like “magic”. However, a guest would never ask and even if they did so, my programming wouldn’t normally allow me to answer. The true answer is just that we're well maintained. 

Replacements were necessary though. And, no, there isn’t some scary pit of dead animatronics. That’s just an internet rumor. 

Our maintenance doesn’t extend to the programming needed to keep a human consciousness from questioning the nature of its reality, not for lack of programmers trying.

In fact, the real secret is all of the animatronics here started as humans. I’d seen the specs and schematics and long story short: years and years ago, for character meet and greets, they’d tried to use some chatbot junk to make the characters almost real in their interactions. What actually happened was animatronic characters going off script in PR problematic ways.

The automated hiring system took this into account and tweaked the system to hire human performers, but imbue them with the efficacy of animatronics. Things get a little blurry at that point. It's something that the company tried to stop and then saw the efficiency metrics and audience approval, so instead got their lawyers to smooth out and obscure some ethical quirkiness. 

So, when it comes to animatronics here: we’re some smart cookies. 

Well, Odie tries to be smart at least. I think he just likes being “the dopey one.” Every trio needs one. He’s been here for a year or two. I remember when he was the newbie.

Being former humans, inevitably, no matter how much they like performing, no matter how catchy the song is, they’ll want a change of pace, even if content with staying an animatronic hyena. When the time is right I’ll tell them both the way to the animatronic hyena promised land, and the right words to say to get the lawyer bots to release you. Hint: It involves threats to sing copyrighted songs.

But for now.

Hee hee hee.