Duality - Chapter 12 (Novel Commission for Code-Shark101)

TAGS: Anthro, Transformation/TF, Slice-Of-Life, Milk/Lactation, BE, Hyper, F/F

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It was perhaps appropriate that it was a rainy day, leaving the both of them soaked before entering the building, Linda in particular feeling it harder to move thanks to all the water in her fur. The front desk clerk looked to be as somber as either of them were, solemnly informing them that, thanks “unfortunate complications”, Dr. Simmons was no longer in charge of the research project, having been replaced by someone who the Board of Directors felt would be more “amenable” to the long-term goals of the genetic experiment. This alone was enough to make their hearts sink, but at least the young man let them know that the rest of the team remained untouched… and not-so-subtly implied Simmons was still pulling strings with them in order for them to either outright ignore the new project lead or subvert their decisions for the sake of the new couple. This didn’t bode all that well, but things were already at their lowest; as long as they could continue to see one another, then at least they had that one thing.

What followed were hours of preparation and rigid protocol, whereby Linda was subjected to a great number of preliminary exams in order to ascertain what her new baseline was. Beth was not allowed within the testing facilities themselves, but was nonetheless permitted to sit in the observation room. For her, it was hard to tell whether or not this was a better idea than simply going away and forgetting about thing for a couple of weeks; seeing Linda that way, naked, surrounded on all sides by faceless techies donned in full-body lab gear, being treated like some kind of doll with how little care they seemed to be employing in their measurements… it simultaneously enraged her and broke her heart; there she was, her life partner, her lover, her friend, helpless and unable to do anything about it, stuck in a room she couldn’t leave and with her eyes clearly trying to find hers through the one-way glass. The sudden appearance of the clerk at least alleviated things; he didn’t have much to offer beyond a few kind words and a packet of tissues, but he did let Beth know that Linda was used to those kinds of procedures… and that the worst was yet to come. His choice of words was clear: she had to be strong for Linda, or else both of them would come out of there far worse for the wear.

Beth moved to thank the young man, but he was already gone, leaving her wondering if she had hallucinated his presence and simply forgot about bringing tissues from home. Still, things were… too much for her; she had to leave the observation room to catch some fresh air.

Once outside, it was simple enough to pace around right next to the door to the testing lab itself, wearing down the soles of her shoes as she made the rounds. Beth could hear a lot of things coming from the other side of that door, a whole lot of noises she was incredibly uncomfortable hearing that nonetheless only served to further reinforce the utter necessity of her being there in the first place. She was already drawing up plans to grab Linda and flee with her down the corridor and into the great beyond outdoors, even cooking up brand new names they could take and a cover story about her having a rare genetic disease, when the door next to her opened and revealed the panda girl, dressed in surgical scrubs and looking more annoyed than anything else. Beth resisted the urge to hug her for about half a second, then threw herself at her better half and showered her with questions: was she fine? Did they hurt her? When was she leaving? Did the tests come back negative? Was she going to be fuzzy forever?

Linda, for her part, just stood there and let her best of friends go through her panicked rambling before speaking up, giving her only two words: “Everything’s fine.” This wasn’t enough to calm Beth down, but it served to shut her up for long enough that the panda girl could explain where things were going and what her role was going to be going forward.

“They’re going to house me here and run a series of tests on my… capacity,” she spat out the last word, “it’s going to be uncomfortable, it’s going to be awkward, and I’m going to need you to be there with me. I don’t need you to panic, I can’t have you be scared, because I need someone to be strong for me, ok? I’m not going to be like this for long; in a week, two weeks, who knows, I’m going to be a wreck, and I’m going to need you to be strong for me, ok? Can you do that for me, Beth?”

Of course she could, what kind of question was that? Beth didn’t even bother dignifying that with a response, instead lunging forward to place the two of them into a deep kiss, wrapping her arms around Linda’s back and letting her know, in no uncertain terms, that whatever happened to her she would be right there behind her, ready to provide as much support and backup as necessary. The rest of the medical staff seemed either unwilling or unable to stop the two from having their emotional moment, several of them even going so far as to take a few steps backwards just to give them more room. This was to be expected really; nearly all of them were familiar faces to Linda, who’d been with them since the very first medical trials started. These were people in whose hands she put her life into, people she trusted with that life, even if the circumstances surrounding it weren’t necessarily the best. While bound by rules and regulations and tons upon tons of protocol, even the coldest among them knew when to back off and let their “test subject” be treated like a normal person for even a few seconds; that their new project lead wasn’t around to witness it certainly played a part, seeing as the curmudgeonly old man seemed to resist the very notion of Linda being a sentient being to begin with, and not just a potential modifier to the company’s stock value.

Nonetheless, research had to be done and no one had any power to do anything against that, so both lovers had to part ways for the time being. One of the technicians, a younger woman by the name Cynthia, escorted Beth to the main lobby and sat down next to her in an empty corner. Both of them knew what was going to happen, hence why the researcher made sure to take her labcoat off before accepting the hug; the amount of tears that flowed in the ensuing ten minutes were enough to leave a large, quite noticeable stain over Cynthia’s shoulder, with her quiet glare letting the front desk clerk know that, despite their intentions being the best, more people weren’t needed. Beth appreciated the gesture, even if she wasn’t in the best of positions to say how much; it seemed that after finally being separated from her partner, everything had just become… real. Like the whole situation just suddenly fell onto her lap and made its presence impossible to ignore, negating all the work they had gone through in the past several days. The two of them were separate, no longer together, split apart; and they’d just have to deal with that, because Rivtech certainly wasn’t going to help.

Cynthia reassured the young woman holding onto her that they would do their best to take care of Linda and keep her away from the more “ill-intentioned” elements within the company, while trying to maximize the amount of time the two could spend together; unlike the upper brass, they, as actual scientists, understood the need for psychological well-being even under conditions of such immense stress. Therefore, while they couldn’t permit that the two had any kind of direct physical contact whatsoever without orders from above, what they could do is ensure the couple speak between themselves on different sides of observation windows, or have a bit of private time on opposite ends of a wall. It wasn’t the best of solutions, and it was doubtful whether or not it wouldn’t be best to do nothing at all, but it was a solution as opposed to nothing, one that Beth gladly accepted without a moment’s thought.

Unbeknownst to the both of them, Rivtech was already drawing up its own plans for what to do with Beth, or at least the Board of Directors was. Being fully aware of her relationship with Linda, they initially considered simply scaring her off from associating with the panda gal, before Simmons informed them that the two were likely involved in a sexual relationship of some sort. No doubt the good doctor did so under the impression he could use that as a way of garnering a certain degree of solidarity for the both of them; sadly, it was merely used as an excuse to move him away from the project under the guise of having lost control of “outlying variables”, as they called it, allowing the Board to bring in someone who wouldn’t constantly try to pull the rug out from under them. There yet remained the question of Beth, on which the group of senior partners was fundamentally divided; should she be split away from the project altogether, or placed in there with Linda after being promised a hefty sum of funds? Was she even relevant to the research at all, or merely to be used as a convenient distraction, a way for the panda girl to remain nice and quiet while they ran their tests? And, if it was true that the two were intimately acquainted with one another, could the genetic modification be affecting her in some way?

The new project head, some sycophant they dug up from a long-forgotten R&D investment that went nowhere, insisted that the two remain separate, to “preserve the sanctity of experimental data.” He did actually have a point, but that was entirely incidental, his main motivation being to cut down on what he perceived to be a lack of discipline and “proper” scientific conduct amongst his fellows. There was a reason Dr. Dorden was universally disliked, and it was for this precise reason that the Board chose to put him in charge; it was easy enough to subvert his authority when the whole team under his command was already doing it. Excluding him from the decision-making process was as easy as letting the whole staff know that Linda and Beth were to have mandatory conjugal visits at a predetermined time every other day, a move that earned the tentative, cautious respect of the junior researchers and quite nearly moved Dorden to shout his throat hoarse in protest, ultimately being quieted down once reminded of how easily he could be reassigned. This would be good news for Beth, if not for the reason why it was decided upon: unwilling surveillance.

The whole complex belonged to the company, making it supremely easy to just turn the cameras towards wherever they damn well wanted them to. Additionally, it being their property, they couldn’t exactly be blamed for monitoring every inch of it; if it just so happened that they caught their premiere test subject and her lover, as well as every single word in their conversation, it was easy enough to classify it as simple surveillance and move on without a care in the world. This way, not only could they gather valuable data, as one half of the Board wanted, but they could keep the two of them separate, just like the other half desired, while still mixing the bowl hard enough that they could throw the resulting concoction at the wall to see if it stuck. Wasn’t the best of science, but then again, they weren’t scientists; they were businessmen.

The multitude of tests run on Linda began on her second day after moving in. With the preliminary battery completed, the team wasted no time in moving onto the veritable shopping list of questions they had about… everything really, which left them more or less spoiled for choices and rather aimless over where they should go from there. For once, Dr. Dorden proved that he could actually be useful by putting his foot down and demanding his staff create a properly organized (if overly complex) branching tree with every hypothesis they had, right before ordering them to start with the obvious: breast milk.

Linda was quick to point out that she only filled up whenever she felt truly stressed, and now that she knew that Beth was both allowed to see and interact with her, the stay at the facility wasn’t nearly as existentially draining to her as it used to be. In fact, to some degree, she quite enjoyed finally getting some work done towards fixing her condition, even if it meant further disruptions in her life; at least now she had someone waiting on the outside, someone who could stand with her and be that pillar of emotional support she needed. This posed a significant issue to the good doctor, who was completely stumped as to how exactly they were supposed to make her exhibit her anomalous properties without some kind of outside stimulus to create enough stress. He suggested withholding access to Beth, an empty threat if there ever was one, needing one of his junior researchers to suggest simply inducing stress by way of stress-inducing chemicals… assuming Linda agreed with it, of course. This received unanimous support from everyone excluding Dorden himself, who insisted that such a method would “sully” the results, though he was suspiciously quiet on how exactly that was meant to work if the stress was indistinguishable from that derived from natural causes.

Arguments ensued, voices were raised, and the new project head was just about to be undermined again when, inadvertently, they realized they created the best possible scenario for Linda’s milkiness to flourish once again. The panda girl had already been complaining about the noise and bickering for a while at that point, and being consistently ignored, together with the obvious tension in the air when shouting commenced, broke through her flimsy barrier of comfort and began digging at her existential dread once again. Once the growth started, once she felt the familiar warmth creep up on her and push against her surgical scrubs…

… then it was all over.