General Frank Lee Muhdeer held the View Master disc between his fingers, twirling it back and forth silently. He sat at his desk and looked at Bjorn sitting across from him, then looked back at the disc as it moved around his hand.

The General's office was situated in the sub-basement of the Saint Paul General Mail Facility. One could say it was slightly nicer than the Boston General Mail Facility, but both were comprised of grey cinder block windowless rooms of varying rectangular shapes. It is considered to be in the architectural style of American Warehouse Nouveau.

"So son, you're saying you could actually read this?" said the General breaking the dead silence in the room.

"Ya" said Bjorn slightly confused, "Why wouldn't I be able to read it?"

"Because its' a bona fide reptilian alien language son. It was first discovered by the famed magician John Dee in the 16th century. One day while staring into his Obsidian Scrying Mirror, he had a vision of an entire reptilian language. But nobody believed him,that is until Roswell. Since then a select few have been able to use and understand this language. The thing is, we never programmed you for that. Aye say, that's mighty peculiar ... strange that is!"

"What was that?" said Bjorn staring off into space. "I wasn't listening."

Muhdeer removed a lighter from his pocket, it had the 'Mr. Zip' mascot emblazoned on the side, and set fire to the disc. He then tossed it across the room into a nearby trashcan.

"Whoa, what the hell!" yelled Bjorn. "That had information about a bunch of very guilty people who were genetically splicing human DNA into American cattle supplies!"

"I see where you're coming from ... I really do, but those men, well they are all dead now aren't they? Releasing this information would only hurt their companies, which in turn would only hurt their investors. You know how many average Americans that could affect? Plus frankly it's none of your business. You work for us."

"Ya about that, I was wondering how much money I could still possibly owe at this point? My college debts must be paid off by now."

"Well funny you bring that up son. This was your last mission. You're free to go. Of course we would love to have you stay. You are now officially a full time agent and all."

"I am going to have to say no, unless this is one those situations where I say no and get killed or have my brain erased."

General Muhdeer let loose a deep belly laugh. It was a contractual impossibility to erase the mind of a full time agent. Back in the early 90's the Union of Service Agents were fairly upset by the hiring of drone workers, as it took away their overtime. In order to come to a settlement, The Service begrudgingly agreed to never again erase the minds of any full time agents. This really hurt management because their overall plan was to erase the agent's mind in order to avoid having to pay their salary.

"Aye say, Aye say, I am very disappointed to hear that. The Invisible President, well she was very interested in this mission and thought you'd make a great full time agent. But hey it's your life." The General leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "Well as per contract we do give you a parting gift, a free weeks' vacation anywhere in the world."

Bjorn thought of all the places that he could go on vacation, maybe India to train under the Maharishi or to Tibet to learn with the Dali Lama.

The phone on the General's desk started buzzing. He nodded to Bjorn letting him know that he needed to take the call. He put the phone to his ear and listened, occasionally letting out a grunt of agreement. Hanging up, he looked intensely towards Bjorn.

"Well son, you can't leave at quiet this moment. Sorry. It seems that the entire building is surrounded by a hundred head of cattle and they mean business."

The cattle were in the parking lot knocking over and trampling several cars. They forced their way into the postal building crushing a hand full of guards. The local police had already attempted to shoot them down, but the massive bovines just absorbed the bullets like they were rain drops. It looked like they would need to call in the heavy duty SWAT team guys for this job. A few cows had already made it down into the basement.

"I think I might have a plan," said Bjorn to the General.

Walking down a hallway was a very large bull; so far no one had tried to stop it. I guess they must have seen the security camera footage showing a herd of cattle eating one of the agents as he screamed for mercy. In the background, other agents could be seen getting trampled under the group's massive hooves. A door at the end of the hallway opened up and the curious bull walked directly towards it. As he entered the dark room, the door slammed shut behind him.

The lights turned on with a flash! Standing before him was Bjorn, who was now holding his tweed jacket out to his side.

"Toro Toro Toro!" he yelled, shaking the jacket.

If a bull could smirk ... than this bull was smirking. He stamped his front foot and charged towards Bjorn (well charged as fast as he could in a small room). With an "Ole" Bjorn spun around and flipped his jacket over the bull's face. For the bull's part, he slide on the linoleum floor and hit the wall knocking over some expensive looking technical equipment. Bjorn hoped that they weren't going to add that on to his debt ... he just finished paying it off!

"Come on you stupid cow." Bjorn shook his jacket again, taunting the mighty animal. The bull snorted and stamped his foot. It charged as hard as it could, but this time Bjorn didn't move his jacket and the bull's horns gored the tweed like it was a rodeo clown. The jacket now covered the bulls face so that he couldn't see a thing. Shaking his head around violently, the animal started to eat the entire jacket until there was nothing left. It slowly trotted towards Bjorn, forcing him against the wall. Bjorn was going to suffer. Moving in for the killing blow, the bull's eyes began to go very blurry and roll back into its head. The thousand pound bull fell over and passed out. A door opened up and in walked Muhdeer along with two lab coat wearing technicians.

"Well boy, I wouldn't recommend this, but hey it's your brain," said the General. "The Invisible President wants us to find out how to kill these cow bastards. We need to get into their minds, literally. Looks like you ain't free yet boy."

"These cows are almost human, we have no right to kill them just because some scientist wanted to make fatter cattle," said Bjorn as one of the lab techs measured his head, while the other tech measured that of the bull. Bjorn's plan up to this point worked well enough. But now he was going to be mind merged with a maniacal animal.

This room was where The Service hooked up and copied agent's brain waves, just like they did to Abe. The technicians grabbed something that could only be described as a green gas mask with a large tube attached to the back and pulled it tightly over Bjorn's face. He looked over as they attempted to do the same thing to the unconscious bull. The large tubes from these 'gas masks' went out of the door and down the hall towards a super-computer that hummed methodically with activity.

"See ya on the other side boy," the General said with a wink. He then gave the signal to flip the switch on. Bjorn experienced a bright flash of light, some extreme pain and then he blacked out as 10,000 volts shot through his brain (this is one of the reasons why they usually drug the person before doing this).

Bjorn opened his eyes and saw nothing but inky blackness all around. He looked down at his hand to make sure that his eyes were really opened. Now wearing an old NASA flight suit with a sword hilt on his hide, Bjorn floated through space towards nowhere in particular.

He started to worry a bit. Where was that bull? Was this new existence just a copy of the real Bjorn, placed into the skull of some dumb cow? Will he float forever in the emptiness of a bovine's subconscious?

Before Bjorn had a chance to ponder such questions, he saw a little spark of light. He wasn't sure if it was really small or really far away. The spark grew bigger and bigger, changing shape constantly until it formed into the vague shape of a cow. The light shone so bright that he had to block his eyes from it. The cow of light undulated and pulsated with confusion, unsure of how to actually look like a proper bull. Bjorn put his hands out and touched the brilliance. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the image. The light formed into a very close approximation of an actual, regular, everyday brown bull.

"Interesting, the bull must have had no concept of self, so he couldn't create a body on this plane," Bjorn said to no one in particular.

The bull just looked at Bjorn in a very bull-like way. Bjorn tried saying hello and even tried shaking the hoof, but the bull just stood there blank faced in the darkness, following Bjorn with his big brown eyes. Bjorn walked curiously around the bovine, sat down cross-legged in the lotus position and started meditating. Now it was the bull's chance to observe Bjorn. After going around him one full rotation, the bull sat up and somehow crossed his hind legs, joining Bjorn in meditating (despite the fact that a cow shouldn't be able to fold his legs like that).

They sat in silence next to each other for what felt like an eternity, time had no meaning in this state. Then Bjorn heard a thought, not a syllable but a pure thought beyond anything that can be expressed in words.

An earth shattering "Where?" echoed in Bjorn's skull. It wasn't so much a word but more of an idea. "You're inside your own mind, your inner self," said Bjorn.

The meditating bull responded with silence, the words meant nothing to him. Bjorn started to feel a bit uncomfortable, like he should say something, but he couldn't think of how to explain what was going on.

"There is no self, there is only the herd," thought the bull very loudly, breaking the silence.

Bjorn didn't hear what the bull was saying; he wasn't saying anything in fact. He was communicating in pure thought sent like a cannon straight into Bjorn's brain. He had never felt anything like this before; then again it was a pretty weird day.

"Can't you see that you are yourself and not just part of some herd?" questioned Bjorn.

He won't understand

Bjorn opened his eyes in shock, he saw before him floating in the nothingness ... Abe Adguy. He was wearing the green military uniform of Lord Nothing from 'Don Quixote in Space'. Bjorn wondered what he was doing here, the bull however didn't seem to care all that much.

"Are you a ghost?" Bjorn asked.

"What is a ghost but the memory of a man? I am the echo of a life lived."

This wasn't very helpful. If Bjorn had to guess, he figured it was just the remnants of Abe's memories that he still had etched onto his own cerebral cortex. Hooking up to the bull's brain must have unlocked his old programming.

"Come unto me to leave your old life behind and learn the truth."

With that, Abe put his hands over his chest and opened his jacket revealing inside a swirling vortex of many incompressible colors, that of which no one had ever seen before. Bjorn and the bull felt drawn towards the vortex, their bodies pulled and stretched like so much taffy. Must enter through.

They found themselves in a well-lit hallway. The floor was a dark red carpet and on the walls was nothing but mirrors, on both sides. Bjorn looked to his left and saw infinite versions of himself reflected back, and to his right infinite versions of the bull. In front of him walked Abe in a long green cape that flowed from his slim shoulders; he cast no reflection upon the mirrors. They came to a circular room; in the center was a withered old tree upon which hung a single red apple. From the ground arose a lizard in the shape of a man, with green scales and yellow elongated pupils. His long delicate fingers reached up and plucked the final apple from the tree. Appearing from nowhere was a tall nude woman with large breasts and big round hips. She took the apple and bit into it. Blood ran down from her mouth, down over her chest and down to her hairy vagina. Abe turned to Bjorn and smiled.

"What you once where, they are. What you are, they will become."

The walls around the room started to pulsate rhythmically, like they were alive and breathing. Bjorn and the bull backed away slightly not sure if they should run or not. Nowhere to run anyway. The blood soaked Eve started laughing and the walls began to thunder as if a thousand hands were banging on the other side trying to break through.

Bjorn looked at the bull and they both decided to run back down the hallway. The walls of the room exploded inward as a swarm of men in black suits entered. These men were all wearing cheap cow Halloween masks. They took out long machetes and gave chase. One of the suited men caught up to Bjorn and raised his machete high. Bjorn put his hand out, attempting to block the blow, but the machete cut his hand clean in half. He grabbed his hand and let out a cry, but the yell was cut short as another blow came at his neck. Bjorn and the bull fell down, the group of masked men started to chop them up and eat their flesh.

Bjorn awoke to find himself back together in one piece. He was lying on a green field of grass. It was a bright sunny day. He was alone ... no bull, no Abe and thankfully no masked men in suits eating him. Bjorn felt his body to make sure everything was still there, it seemed fine until he got up to his face. He had the head of a cow! He got up and ran over to a small pond and looked at his reflection and saw that he had the bull's head as his own. Not a mask but the real thing.

"Well this is weirder, than I expected," Bjorn said aloud.

"Ya tell me about it," came a voice out of nowhere.

Bjorn-Bull (Bulljorn?) looked up surprised and saw Abe standing in front of him. He was back to wearing his normal black suit, no longer wearing the green uniform from 'Don Quixote in Space'.

"Can you explain what the hell is going on?" Bjorn asked.

"Well I am actually only a figment of your subconscious, but maybe," Abe said in return.

"What did I just see?"

Bjorn sat down on the lush grass, next to the blue pond, in the bright sunshine.

"Well, it was your memory."

"That seems unlikely, to be honest."

"It was your mind trying to comprehend racial memory of your earliest ancestors. You see, these memories are encoded into all human DNA but we mostly can't understand them. Hooking your brain up to the bull unlocked that, because his brain was as primitive as early man. Humans were once all psychic."

Bjorn looked at Abe and nodded his head. This was all very confusing to him but he figured he should just listen. This was all just a dream anyway. Right?

"Many mythologies talk about how man used to live in a paradise and how we have degenerated over time. In your mind you see this as the Garden of Eden. Man technically never lived in any kind of Paradise, they just didn't know any better. Life and death, sickness and hunger were largely meaningless terms to our ancestors, because all people were psychic. There was no individuality. If one person died, it didn't matter. The human race continued."

"So this is what happened to the cows when Fauxsanto genetically spliced human DNA into them?"

"Yes, my guess is that it was an unforeseen side effect. They just wanted the cows to get as fat as possible. These cows became psychic, just like early humans. And much like these humans, they too had no sense of individuality. They only thought as a singular herd."

"That explains why they didn't care about being eaten. If anything, the more that people ate them ... the more cattle they would breed." Bjorn considered.

"The basic drive of all life is to make more copies of itself. To these advanced cows, this drive was represented in their goal to get as many people as possible to consume them."

"Is that what happened to the G.O.Y.I.M?"

"My guess is that they weren't in control. They wanted everyone to eat more of these cows and become addicted just like they were. The more meat you'd eat the more control of your brain the herd would get," Abe answered as he hovered a few inches above the ground

"Well that makes sense. You are what you eat. The more cow meat you'd eat, the more that the cows could control you," said Bjorn through his bull head.

"The cows weren't evil, they were simply following their natural drive to create more copies of themselves. The more people who ate them, the more they would reproduce."

"Well, I suppose that's logical. I know about the psychic phone and how it uses mans primitive psychic ability. But how did humans stop being psychic?"

"The invention of language. Humans had no language before. They were psychic. They had no need for it. Language is a virus from a higher dimension. It infects the brain and the part used for telepathy withers away from nonuse. A cold can be spread by sneezing, language is spread by talking to another person. It's a living organism that spreads and changes ...evolves over time. The first thing we do to children is infect them with the language virus. I suppose that's what the apple symbolized ... not so sure what the lizard guy was all about ... that was weird. Maybe he represented a realm beyond our own. I mean, how else could humans have evolved the use of language? It had to come from outside of our natural world" Abe continued.

If a baby doesn't learn a language by a certain age, it never can. That explains feral children who are never taught to speak growing up. They can never be taught after a certain point. How could the first human to speak ever have learned it, if the person before him had to teach him? If a human doesn't learn a language early in life they become mentally disabled. It's because over the years, the language virus has destroyed our brain. However, without language humans would be nothing but dumb hive-mind primitives banging two sticks together in some damp cave. Individuality is what pushed man from the cave and created the great works of history."

"That's interesting I guess." Bjorn was too tired to listen to this. "Hey before I forget ... who the hell is Richard Hoagie?"

"Ha, haven't heard that name in a long time. It's who I was before becoming a secret agent. I was a roadie for the band the Walking Blueberries. They were pretty big in the 80's," said Abe, as he slowly faded away into nothingness.

The green field around Bull-headed Bjorn started to wash away, until he was all alone floating in the blackness of space.

Bjorn slowly awoke, on the linoleum floor of the lab in the sub-basement of the Saint Paul General Mail Facility. The two lab tech's pulled off the green mask. On the floor next to him laid the bull, which was now looking a bit groggy. The bull slowly got to his feat and gazed dreamily down at Bjorn.

"Thank you," he said in a weird cow accent. The bull seemed a bit weak on its legs but still managed to walk to the doorway. He was still psychic (as it takes awhile for the language virus to weaken that part of the brain) and this new idea of language began to spread from him to every genetically altered cow at the speed of thought. They gave up on attacking the post office and peacefully walked back to their farm. They had a lot to discuss, these new