Duality - Chapter 1 (Novel Commission for Code-Shark101)

TAGS: Anthro, Transformation/TF, Slice-Of-Life (ish)

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It was bad enough that her species was altered so drastically and every single plan she had for her life was turned upside-down. It was worse when she was told the preliminary screenings indicated that there might be some “genetic instability” mounting inside of her body. So for Linda to receive a letter from the research center telling her to present herself for “review and renegotiation procedures”, the panda gal just about had it with Rivtech all-but completely ruining her life.

Truth be told, not everything was that bad, or it wouldn’t be if not for the obligatory protocols having to be met. Her college tuition was basically paid in full , and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel a million times more adorable than ever before; not having been anything special before the transformation, to suddenly have so many people comment on how “fluffy” or “snuggable” she was brought so much colour to her face that the panda gal was happy her fur covered up most of her features. Still, to suddenly have to halt her academic progression just so she could be kept in near-constant observation, not to mention having to submit to whatever random whims the research team had in terms of data collection was not the best.

They started off pretty innocuously, probably as a means of preparing her for what they’d eventually become: regular temperature readings and genetic scans at first when she was still housed in their facilities, moving on to bodily measurements and blood exams to ensure hormone levels were stable. It didn’t stop once she was released back to her own home, being told to keep a logbook detailing how much fur she was shedding, how much did she grow (if at all), possible lactation, a whole host of variables that left Linda feeling increasingly paranoid about what changes might be coming her way. That most of the presumed ill affects never came to pass didn’t do much to assuage her fears, leaving her instead ever more worried about what kind of damage the transformation would do to her in the future. The fact that her portable gene-testing kit consistently reported high levels of instability in her DNA didn’t help either, even if it didn’t translate at all into the physical world.

It was a love-hate relationship in the early days of testing, but both sides recognized that, without any way for Linda to be turned back into a human in the near future, it was a boat they were all stuck on. The damage done to the now-panda at her most basic genetic level was simply too severe to attempt any kind of “fix”, at least until her body stabilized and the company was certain they could go for a reversal. If she wanted to, she could have sued them all for malpractice, while they, in turn, could very well drag her into a court battle that would bankrupt her several times over. That said, if they all worked together and tried their best to see the experiment to its end, the odds of it all ending up as a net positive could be something other than zero.

At least until that letter came around.

“Review and renegotiation” was almost always technical jargon for “something bad happened and we need to cover our asses legally,” leaving a sour taste in Linda’s mouth as she read through the heavy heaping of legalese foisted upon her by the company’s lawyers. Most of it was indecipherable to anyone that hadn’t gone through law school, and even the bits that weren’t still needed her to read through at least five or six times before figuring out what they were supposed to mean. At the end of the day, it was obvious they needed her to come over as soon as possible after receiving the letter, so the first thing Linda did was put it back in the envelope, rush to the bus, and try not to scowl too hard at the passing employees after arriving at the laboratory.

She was expecting a complete reversal of her life yet again… however, for Rivtech to send a letter rather than something simpler like a phone call made it hard to ascertain just what exactly was going on, or how serious it might be. Maybe her genetic code was going to disintegrate, or perhaps the lawyers had found some dreadful loophole that would make it impossible for her to ever get out from under their grasp. Perhaps, heavens forbid, she was going to be transformed into a completely different animal, this time for good!

Instead, Linda was pleasantly surprised to find out that, contrary to what would be expected, she was merely entering into a third stage of her observation, something the company running the experiment conveniently forgot to warn her about when she signed the papers, which Linda kicked herself mentally for not reading as thoroughly as she could have or asking for further clarification. This involved the specialists ensuring that her life retained a certain level of normality, with the panda gal being expected to enter into a job provided by the company so they could keep her close at hand in a semi-controlled environment. For a few brief seconds, Linda thought that maybe that was her big break; maybe, even if her nursing degree was on pause, she could get some valuable work experience that would help her in her studies, and even later in her attempts to get a real job!

But no, she was going to be a waitress.

The revelation was dumped onto her with so little ceremony that Linda could do very little but stare at the company rep and silently demand an explanation for why her dreams were being crushed so hard. She’d managed to avoid the stereotype for so long, admittedly courtesy of the very same people forcing it upon her, and now she was being told she would work as a waitress or all of the perks associated with the experiment would be terminated, such as, worryingly enough, her tuition payments and insurance coverage. There was no choice as far as the research team was concerned; Linda was to start working at a very specific diner close to one of their off-site buildings, so they could keep a close eye on her at all times, and despite Linda’s protests to the situation, their decision was final.

Though it was a heavy blow, both to her pride and to her free time, Linda had to admit she didn’t exactly have much  else to do, what with her degree being on hold and no one being willing to hire her due to her “condition”. And while it’d be painful to let go of that relative freedom, maybe having to adhere to a schedule would help get her life back in order. Linda just hated the fact that it’d be working as a waitress of all things; having heard horror stories from her ex-college roommate, the last thing she wanted to do was dive into that world when her emotions were already riding high on a regular basis. To make matters worse, she didn’t even have a car of her own; being in a college town with everything within walking distance of her rented apartment made owning her own vehicle seem like a waste of money. The sudden change in plans now forced her to use public transport in order to get to her new job, and being as unique as she was, this meant that every day was going to be a constant struggle against leery eyes, disdainful scoffing and, at times, outright hostility. At least most people were polite enough not to stare at her, and a few even commented on how cute she looked.

An odd turn of events, to be sure.

It would be no use trying to convince the researcher relaying all of this to her, so biting her tongue and holding back a torrential downpour of curse words, Linda nodded, signed the required papers and immediately left, not even bothering to look if the documents she signed contained any kind of fine print or responsibility waiver; Linda was far too grumpy to care, especially after being told that she was supposed to “report for duty” two days from then.

Two days to grump about and try to find an excuse not to go to the diner, before finally convincing herself of the inevitability, and dragging her tired self over to her new workplace. It was... disappointingly mundane, especially when contrasted with the  buildings that stood on the other side of the road. Linda expected something gimmicky, like double helixes all over the walls or punny names for the menu options. But no, even the menu itself was as bland as the building was, featuring nothing that caught her eye other than the few fattening milkshakes that seemed to dominate the desert menu.

At least the staff seemed to be pleasant enough, even if her boss looked at her with an uncomfortable amount of suspicion. The fact that everyone else on the wait staff was human might have something to do with that little problem, and her suspicions were confirmed when her new boss began referring to her by a name that would get anyone else fired or heavily disciplined by the non-existent HR department, but oddly enough only when he thought she was out of ear shot. Not wanting to make waves at her new job, Linda decided to ignore it, as it was best left out of her mind; too many things to worry about already.

The verbal barbs didn’t affect Linda nearly as much as she thought they would; having been a panda hybrid for about five months at that point, she had encountered more than her fair share of people who were quick to judge and apply labels to what was effectively a medical condition. Still, it was enough for her to get a bead on what kind of person she was going to be working under.  The rest of the waitstaff  were at least courteous enough to not make a big deal about her form… most of them, anyway. Despite their smiles and level courtesy, Linda had a sinking feeling that she was in for one hell of a ride from the first day forward, even if the people around her tried to convince her that wasn’t the case.

Mercifully, the clientele was nothing like her boss, or at least not as openly vocal about her appearance. She’d be lying if she said there weren’t the occasional jackasses who looked at her like she was some kind of circus freak, but, to her surprise, most customers either didn’t really care or actively complimented her on her looks; her fuzzy ears in particular drew most of the attention, with some of the children who came in clearly eager to touch them in order to “pet the fuzzies”, with a few more respectable customers instead choosing to comment on her fur, its consistency and smoothness, not to mention dazzlingly beautiful pattern. Shocked, and more than a little confused, Linda accepted their words with as much grace as she could as, after all, she did take a modicum of pride on how good she looked; and not just because of the drastic changes her body had undergone, but also due to the amount of effort that went into keeping her new self pristine and clean.

Linda had spent a good two weeks researching how best to take care of her new body, her fur coat especially, finally settling on a set of specialized shampoos and lotions,which to her surprise and pleasure had worked marvelously to give her coat a kind of lustre that she had never experienced in life. It was vain and somewhat unlike her, but looking pretty made her feel better about herself, and after the chaos that had surrounded her after the transformation, she needed a win. She just hoped that Rivtech would accept the bill as a needed commodity in regards to her new existence.

Perhaps the oddest and most distressingly alluring part of her transformation had come when one of her coworkers spent a whole afternoon showing her the wonderful world of furries, what with having nothing better to do during a particularly slow day; Linda knew of the term, but was only tangentially aware of what the fandom was supposed to be about… leading to a whole bunch of misconceptions that her friend did her best to try and demystify.

“Don’t they like to f-” were Linda’s first words, to which Beth immediately shushed her.

“Don’t even! It’s not like that… mostly,” she added, looking away embarrassed, “there’s a lot of porn, not gonna lie, but it’s the internet, there’s porn for everything if you look for more than five seconds. Trust me, it’ll be fine.”

And for the most part, it kind of was; Beth didn’t shy away from showing her new coworker just what depths of depravity some people sunk to, even those whose species were shared with her new one, but most of the experience was a surprisingly pleasant dive into the more cutesy, family-friendly side of it all, leading to both women spending hours upon hours cooing at expertly-drawn pictures of absurdly cute anthros in various wholesome situations. It was just like browsing for memes, except more heartwarming and less filled with toxicity, even if the thought of all the porn still bugged Linda.

“Hey, uh…” she started, after a point, “do you think we could… you know?”

“What?” Beth teased, sticking her tongue out, “Wanna go back to searching for the NSFW tags?”

Linda’s next words didn’t come easily. The panda gal didn’t exactly want to admit it, but some of the more risqué stuff was legitimately well-drawn, and she didn’t really know whether it was her new biology or something she always had within her but never got explored… but she did want to see more of it. Her expression probably told Beth exactly that, because her coworker began laughing like a lunatic before handing Linda her phone, leaving the real anthro blushing furiously as she browsed through some of the more “out there” galleries.

“Oh my god, how much of it is there… and why is everyone so big?!” the panda exclaimed, having to wrap her head around assets of such immense size that they bordered on the unreasonable… and yet oddly arousing, “Is this what people like?”

“If they didn’t like it, then they wouldn’t draw it, now would they?” Beth pointed out the obvious, “Trust me, you haven’t seen anything yet. Here, lemme show you a few tags…”

The rest of that afternoon was spent looking through the kind of lurid, lewd imagery that would probably leave a younger version of herself so flustered as to be unable to say anything at all, reduced to staring ahead and shrinking back into a mental shell. But her new self, the one whose body had been transformed into the very thing some people fantasized about, found it easier than normal to accept the kind of kinks that she once might’ve denounced as ridiculous. In fact, it became easier and easier to picture herself with the kind of proportions she saw in those pictures, even if the practical implications were… daunting, to say the least.

Hyper, they called it. It was a catch-all term, it seemed, for larger-than-large sizes. There didn’t seem to be any gold standard, no cut-off point beyond which something was “normal”, “big” or fitting into that super-category, and in fact some of the discussions she saw in the comment sections were enough to leave her nauseous at the amount of pointless arguing over exact proportions. What mattered was that “hyper” was supposed to invoke imagery of unrealistic sizes, of breasts and butts and thighs and pudge that exceeded that which would be feasible in real life, and yet offered no impediment to whoever was carrying those things around… most of the time. It made for a wonderful mental image, of herself being the same lithe, stick-like girl as always, except her tits were absolutely gigantic and stuffed with milk… at least until she shook her head and threw those thoughts out, wisely deciding that it’d be best not to think too hard about them; they might just manifest into reality.

Some of the other stuff she saw on those many websites was… less than pleasant, and the moment she reached some of the more questionable stuff was when she handed the phone back to Bethany.

“So what, people like… this?” Linda asked of her, pointed at her furred self.

“Hun, there are millions of people out there who would kill to give you a headscritch. Not even fuck you, just pat your head and ruffle your fur,” her coworker stated matter-of-factly, “and I include myself in that category~”

Beth’s tone of voice was enough to deepen the shades of crimson that had been stuck on Linda’s face since they began looking at those images. It was clear what she wanted to do, and while the panda girl had promised herself not to let people take advantage of her new body… the concept of headscritches did sound nice, and Beth had been one of the friendliest coworkers around. As such, after making sure her boss wasn’t looking, Linda leaned closer onto her, and the two spent a happy ten minutes nuzzling against one another; it was amazing how good it felt to have someone she trusted just pat her head like a teddy bear, even if it become uncomfortably hot after a while.

And not just literally. As it turned out, her ears were remarkably sensitive for being such a small part of her, enough that an incidental brush of them on Beth’s part was enough to leave Linda trembling, quietly and bashfully asking for “another one, please…” much to her own consternation. Thankfully, her coworker was perfectly happy remaining silent, helping to lessen the awkwardness inherent in suddenly finding the panda gal had two big flashing red buttons to press whenever she needed to feel aroused.

It was enough to get Linda to ignore certain… rules. Courtesies, really, such as not leaning in onto your coworkers during work hours, not moaning softly into their necks, not nuzzling and hugging them as her libido began to knock at the door. Certainly not offer a kiss, bringing the two together in such a way that it became impossible for them to disentangle from one another. All of those rules and more were evidently not on either of their minds from the moment their lips met, their fingers intertwined and their bodies pressed against one another, leaving them unable to think about anything that wasn’t one another’s presence. For Linda, it was such a new experience that she was screaming internally at the absurdity and danger of going through her first time at work of all places, but her instincts were simply too powerful for her to ignore.

Sadly, they weren’t yet powerful enough to bend the laws of physics, so their completely unlocked staff room was still just a place anyone working there could go in. Cue Ruth, another coworker, barging in at the worst possible moment, clearing her throat loud and clear so Linda could go through an incredibly potent moment of panic, scramble to her feet, and bolt out the door as quickly as possible. Poor thing didn’t even think about what she was going to do when back in the main dining area, nor how insulted Beth must’ve been that she broke contact like that; the mere thought of being caught in the act was so embarrassing that Linda would rather suffer through a million other indignities before that one, leaving her to spend her time cleaning the tables in the hopes of forgetting that ever happened..

Especially the ones that had already been cleaned.