Metamorphosis Project (Beluga)

Vivenne arrived with the others in a National Work Placement van. They waited for only a few minutes before being led into a small theatre. The holovid told Vivienne nothing that she didn’t already know. The current government policies on unemployables was strict and, as a result, there were no homeless left anywhere and a job was a right and, hence a requirement.

After the holovid, a small huddle of human lawyers appeared from a side door and, one by one, they took each of the people in the holovid theatre into separate alcoves. Here, they explained in great and unnecessary detail the requirements for work and the person was presented a touch pad to place their hand upon. Technically, of course, they could refuse the offering but it made no sense to do so. The computers had pre-selected each of the unemployed based upon their known preferences. Second and third choices would likely be less appealing than the first one.

“And that’s the last of it, Ms. Brodeur,” said the lawyer as she took Vivienne’s the touch pad she had just placed her palm print upon and handed it to one of the ubiquitous robots. It scurried off to upload it someplace. It was those robots that had left Vivienne unemployed. She’d never enjoyed school and had quit early. Some managed to establish themselves quickly enough by starting a business or working with a relative. Vivienne wasn’t that type. She really didn’t feel motivated to do any work that the government mandated as useful and lacked the artistic skill to make her way in that vocation either. With the cleaning of the streets in the late 2050s, the homeless were scooped up and ‘treated’. Those that could rejoin society were allowed to. Those that could not or would not, were given useful tasks to perform for society. There were just too many people on Earth to allow for unproductive members (according to the current ruling party).

So that left Vivienne in her current predicament. One of the jobs that no one wanted but could not (as yet) be taught to a robot was this one. Though zoos had been banned in the late 2080s except as research and conservation centres, this one promised something different. She didn’t know how someone with no education past high school could help out at a zoo but the alternatives were few and it would likely be more interesting than some of the others options she had facing her.

She arrived the next day at the entrance to the zoo, her small bag in hand. Like most of the “sweepings”, she had little. She knew better than to try to run. The security cameras and ever watching computers would have her captured and brought here in less than an hour anyway. The robot that met her at the zoo’s security station led her across the yard and into a long building. It led her quietly down a long corridor with blackened wall-sized windows at intervals. Beside each window was a large metal door with a huge wheel at its centre. Clearly there was something in the room that could not be released. After what seemed an impossibly long time and after having passed more of the strange rooms than she could count, the robot stopped in front of an open door. She followed it inside and discovered a strange bed at the room’s centre. The bed looked like some kind of hospital bed but it was longer than any bed she’d ever seen. The room looked sterile in a way that was slightly scary.

A trio of robots stood by the bed and the robot that led her into the room turned and left. Behind her the door clanged shut with a noise like the submarine hatches on the warfare movies her dad had loved to watch before he’d died. She turned her head to watch as the wheel spun several times and then stopped. She was sealed in the room with the robots.

She waited.

One of the robots, after several minutes, rolled over and grabbed both her wrists. She had no choice but to follow. It and a second of the robots lifted her onto the bed and shackled her in place. Despite her protests, the robots soon had her trussed, hands, legs and waist, unable to move at all. Without a word, the robots stripped her by the simple expedient of cutting her dress and undergarments in shreds. She heard the whirr of at least two of the cleaning robots pick up the clothing shreds. The third robot that Vivienne recognised as a medical robot efficiently inserted a needle in her arm and connected her to some kind of fluid bag. A clear fluid began to drip into a line into her arm. A second smaller bag was attached to a branch in the line and Vivienne watched as a strange bluish fluid flowed down the line and into her arm.

What had she gotten herself in for? She was supposed to be working at a zoo. What was all this about? How could lying, trussed up on a bed and naked, have anything to do with that? She tried to thrash about but discovered the bed was now emitting some kind of field that prevented her from moving more than her head and neck. She heard two of the robots returned to alcoves in the wall while the medical robot one stayed close, monitoring her for who knew what.

After the bluish fluid had finished flowing, the medical robot switched it for a line coming from the ceiling. She watched as the main line switched from a clear fluid to a dark opaque fluid. A strange warmth spread throughout her body. Overhead, a device dropped from the ceiling until it was a meter above her. A series of red lines began to pass over her at regular intervals from head to toe. After several minutes, she felt a twisting in her hips and it felt like something at the base of her spine had broken or popped free. Over the next few minutes, she felt a strange appendage snake its way between her legs. The odd thing was that she could not only feel the appendage where it touched the legs. There was the confusing sensation of feeling her legs from the appendage itself. Finally the thing, whatever it was, stopped growing. It was now longer than her legs by a meter. Finally the penny dropped in her mind. She’d just grown a tail. She wondered if she could move the thing but the field prevented any movement.

After a few minutes, she felt the thing start to expand like a slowly inflating balloon between her legs. After a minute or so, she felt the shackles on her ankles and thighs release as her legs were forced apart by the grown of the tail. She lifted her head to investigate but couldn’t see anything. After a few minutes more, she tried again and discovered a whitish tail between her legs. She couldn’t be sure but she felt her legs were shrinking. That couldn’t be happening, could it? She laid back again as there was no way she could keep her head at that uncomfortable angle long. The strange sensations from her hips, legs and her new tail continued.

After several minutes to let the muscles in her neck relax, she lifted her head again. Her legs were now free of the shackles but hung uselessly to her sides. In the centre, the whitish tail was now nearly as wide as her hips and longer than her legs had original been. The tail was clearly part of her but she had no idea what the purpose of the thing might be. She watched it closely but it didn’t appear to change while she watched. Once again she let her head drop down onto the bed.

The next time she looked, her legs were little more than stubs and her feet seemed to be flattening and widening. The white tail was now considerably wider than her hips and looked blubbery. The tip was slightly darker in colour and was starting to widen. What were they doing to her?

The next time she checked, there could be no doubt. Her feet were now flippers at the sides of a huge body. The tail was considerably wider than her hips had been and she definitely had a tail fluke. Since it was flat, she decided it was some kind of dolphin tail rather than a fish tail. So they’d made her into a mermaid of some sort. No wonder she didn’t need any special education for the position. She wasn’t a keeper, or even an assistant. She was the exhibit!

Before she could check again, the medical robot rolled up and disconnected the lines from her arm. It moved back slightly and let the scanning lines move along her entire body several times.

“Excellent, Ms. Brodeur,” a voice came from a wall speaker. “You’ve made the metamorphosis successfully.”

“I don’t understand,” she protested, still unable to move anything more than her head.

“Zoos for viewing have been banned. People still want to see animals so we are giving them those animals in a new way. You’ve become a mermaid of sorts. Your tail is a Delphinapterus leucas and you’ll be joining our Arctic exhibit as soon as you are trained.”

“A what?”

“Beluga whale. A species of dolphin actually.”

“But I’ll freeze!” she protested.

“We’ve made changes throughout your body to prevent that. I’ll get the porters to move you to the training centre.”

“But …”

A click announced the connection had been dropped. Sides came up on the bed until they were about a meter high. The shackles that held her arms and waist disconnected and slid into receptacles at the side of the bed. A stream of cold water came from the ceiling until she found herself floating. It tasted salty. She still couldn’t move her body but was now getting some feeling back in her arms. The pair of robots that had lashed her to the bed now connected to the front and back of the bed. She found herself moved along another corridor. Several minutes later they arrived in a huge building. The bed was driven down a ramp and Vivienne found herself floating off the bed. Once she was free of the bed, the porter robots pulled the bed from the water and left the area. Vivienne rolled over and discovered she was in some kind of pool. Within minutes, the feeling returned to her body and tail. She moved the tail listlessly. She was strangely tired and partially beached herself on the ramp and slept without thinking about the fact that she could use an appendage she’d not been born with so easily.

In the morning, she was met by a man with a tray of food. He was in some kind of uniform with an animal patch. Clearly, a zookeeper. She found herself extremely hungry and finished in half her usual time.

“You’re eating for a much larger body now,” he commented as he returned with a second tray. “We have to keep your diet balanced for your new form.”

It was only then she noticed that the food wasn’t anything she recognised. The flavour, now that she thought about it, was slightly fishy. She frowned.

“You’re intestinal tract is more familiar with fish and seafood than human food. You’ll get used to your new fare.”

She was beginning to regret not following her Dad’s advice to get a trade instead of skipping school. She wondered what had happened to the others in her group that had spent many afternoons in the park or harassing people instead of in classrooms. She decided that she’d best learn this new body. They weren’t going to change her back any time soon (if at all). Her tail felt stiff and didn’t work very well. It took several days before she had full control over it. She began to swim the lengths of the pool as fast as she could to build stamina. She’d never been one for physical activity either. Something now drove her, a motivation that had been implanted along with the change of body. Her new body wasn’t really designed for speed. The blubber that protected her from the cold water (it still amazed her that the wall thermometer read 4º C) made swimming at high speed exhausting. Though she could swim far faster than anyone on land could walk or run, it was only for short distances. She could swim for hours, though, faster than most people could walk. The pool she was in was fairly deep (at least 10 meters) and she found she enjoyed swimming around at depth for 15 minutes at a time. She tried to stay down as long as she could and discovered she could stay underwater for 25 minutes!

She discovered she could make all kinds of sounds underwater, too. For several days, she amused herself by singing underwater. One day, she heard a low rumbling from across the pool. Since this was something new, she quickly swam over to investigate. She discovered an opening in the wall maybe 2 meters wide. Curiosity warred with caution in her mind. In the end, she decided to explore. After all, they weren’t going to harm her after having made her into a fat little mermaid for their zoo.

The tube ended on the side of huge aquarium. She couldn’t see the far side of it and even the echolocation she’d discovered while singing underwater couldn’t resolve the opposite side. As soon as she moved from the end of the tube an iris noisily closed the opening. She explored the aquarium. Several fish and other marine creatures made their homes a hundred meters down. She was alone in this huge space. A thought came to her mind. “What exactly was she to do in here?”

She spent several days exploring and getting used to the aquarium. She discovered that there were slight differences in the texture of the glass walls of the aquarium. Where the glass of the sides was smooth, she discovered a viewport. By shadowing the surface, she could get a view of the outside. There were rows of seating and, beyond, dimly lit corridors. Obviously, it was a viewing area for the aquarium. She was on display and completely nude! She blushed as well as her new body allowed. She couldn’t just swim about this way, could she? She needed to find clothes or something! There was nothing in the aquarium that could be used. She tried to find a place to hide but because the tank was a huge cylinder, there was no side that didn’t hold one or more of the viewing areas.

Mentally sighing, she decided that she could do nothing so she contented herself with swimming about. A few days later, another somewhat confused young woman joined her. She showed Caroline around and they soon developed a language of sorts to communicate underwater. Every few days, another beluga mermaid or merman would join the pod. Vivienne and her pod mates soon tired of just swimming and began to perform tricks for the unseen visitors in the viewing galleries. At least it was something to do besides simply being bored and swimming about. Vivienne discovered a talent for composing whale song and was soon leading underwater choruses with her pod mates. She felt an overwhelming sadness for a few days. Too bad she hadn’t realised she had this talent in school. She might have been a composer or musician. They were always in demand to entertain people.

The mood passed in a few days, though. After all, a mere composer or musician wouldn’t have had the range she and her pod mates could produce with their voices. Perhaps being a beluga mermaid wasn’t so bad after all.

Woman: Chaos Stock
Beluga: Ceta-Stock