A Bitchy Day

Galiena was a little hard to get along with at times.  She knew it and her husband knew it.  But it didn't really matter because she held the purse strings.  It was her house, her company and, most importantly, her money.  Even after she died, she had written a will so air tight that he'd only get a small annuity instead of everything. She had no idea in the slightest (nor would she have cared if the thought had occurred to her) that it was putting a strain on their marriage.  She let him have anything reasonable and bedamned to anything more than that.

The previous night had been fun -- the house staff would be quietly putting things to rights.  It had been quite the party.  Galiena lay on the bed, her eyes closed, feeling to her right for her husband.  Instead of feeling a warm body, she felt the unexpected edge of a bed.  Her eyes, still blurry from too much alcohol and other substances, were a while in focussing. 

When she could finally see straight again, she looked around the room only to discover that it wasn’t her room.  She was in some kind of small hotel apartment of sorts with no memory of where she was and of getting there.  It had been quite the party, for sure.

She rolled out of the bed and made her way into the next room expecting a kitchenette.  Instead there was nothing save a small computer and monitor on a desk and a single table and chair against the wall.  What kind of cheap dive was this?

She hunted for her clothes for several minutes only to discover she had none.  She’d been dumped by someone in this dive.  Well, she would fix that soon enough!  Wrapping herself in the bed sheet, she returned to the computer.  Only after several minutes did she realize that the computer was severely restricted -- not because it was poor quality or anything like that.  It was one of the latest.  Someone was blocking every attempt she made to communicate with the outside world.

Still wrapped in the sheet, she headed for the door, only to discover it was locked with one of the best electronic locks.  Galiena began to get worried.  This was looking less and less like a dumping and more and more like a kidnapping!

“Hello!” she shouted banging on the door.  “Is anyone there?”
“Ah, good morning, Galiena,” an unfamiliar male voice stated over an intercom.
“What is the meaning of this outrage?” she demanded.
“A little favour I’m doing for your husband,” the voice calmly stated.
“Favour?”
“As it happens, I owed him for setting up my original research lab many years ago.  It seems he made a number of bad decisions.  You are one of them.  He knew of my work and wondered what it would cost to make you disappear long enough to get a multi-million dollar ransom.”
“You’re mafia or something?” she began to get anxious.  The voice was just too calm.
“No.  A scientist interested in biological structures.”
“But this room?”
“One of my holding cells.”
“Holding cells?”
“I create chimeras, for want of a better term.  It’s possible to fuse the DNA of any creature provided they’re not too far apart.”
“But this room?”
“We’ve had great success lately.  I’ve a couple of mermaids in my private zoo, a drider, a few harpies.  This room is where I’ve kept them while they undergo their changes.”
“Changes?  What in hell do you mean?”
“You’ve made a lot of enemies besides your trophy husband.”
“So what?  You get me out of here.  I can pay!”
“Money is not something I’ve had to worry about in quite a while.”
“But my husband can’t possible --”
“Afford anything.  True enough.  But, as I said, I owe him for a favour from years before he met you.”
“I demand --”
“You have no power now.  In fact, the eMail demanding 100 million dollars for you should have arrived.  Your husband, of course, will pay it.  To his own account offshore.”
“And me?”
“That’s where the beauty comes in.  You are going to undergo a few changes and be returned to him.”
“Changes?  What do you mean changes?”  Galiena was so angry her makeshift clothing slipped of her shoulder.
“That is something you will be experiencing over the next few days.”

The intercom clicked off and a strange hissing came in its place.  At first Galiena was confused and then scared and finally terrified.  She was starting to feel dizzy and had realised the hissing was some kind of gas.  They were going to kill her and dump her somewhere.

She couldn’t have been more startled when a man entered through some kind of airlock wearing a breathing mask.  She struggled to her feet in an attempt to grab the mask from his face but never made it.  Her legs collapsed under her.  She found herself looking up the man as he pressed a gas injector to her arm.  She felt the sting of what ever he injected her with.  Then he turned and left.  A few minutes later, the deep thrum of blowers announced that the knock gas was being withdrawn.

Galiena shouted at the walls, pounded on the glass wall (some kind of observation wall), made demands, threats and offers.  Whoever the man was, he was clearly not interested in what she was saying.  She returned to the computer.  No security could be so tight that there wasn’t some way out.  But try as she might for the rest of the morning, she found nothing.  The computer security was tight, far tighter than anything her company had ever managed.

Four hours later, she began to notice she was hungry.  The anger induced adrenalin surge had long since passed.  A clunk announced the arrival of some kind of food tray.  She lifted the lid.  Standard cafeteria fare.  How could anyone eat that slop?  She glowered at the door, at the walls, at the slot that had delivered the food.  Finally she decided she’d better keep her strength up and forced the peasant fare past her lips.  It was then she noticed a fine reddish hair or fur covering her arms.  It looked a lot like her original hair colour -- red auburn.  Of course, hair dyes covered that ridiculous colour on her head years ago and every few weeks kept it at bay.  Now here it was again, growing on her arms.  She thought a second or two and then stripped the sheet.  The fur covered her from just below her breasts to her feet.  Fur!  What was in that gas injector?

Over the next few hours, as she tried to lose herself in a movie, she discovered other changes.  The seat by the computer was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.  It felt like she was sitting on a pipe.  The pipe proved something far more alarming.  She was growing a tail!  Covered by the horrible red auburn fur!  Once again she shouted at the insensate walls to no avail.  He said something about combining animals.  She’d assumed it had been like cats and dogs or something.  Not people and some other horrid creature!

Supper proved to be slightly more interesting.  Despite the fact it wasn’t the kind of supper she was used to, it was filling and for some reason smelled unusually good.  She continued to watch the entertainment channels between attempts to find a way to get a message out of the room.  Finally, some hours after the meal, she decided she might as well go to bed.  The bed, still a mess from the morning, needed tended to.  Damn the man?  Did he actually think she would demean herself to doing her bed up?  That was the work of servants for God’s sake.  Still, it was make up her own bed or lie in the mess she’d created that morning.

She curled up on the bed and wondered whether the place was advanced enough to have voice command appliances.

“Lights off,” she stated.  

The lights clicked off.  Well, at least that was something.

The next morning, she felt distinctly odd.  She pealed back the covers and took stock of her situation.  The first thing she noticed was that her spine had lengthened over night and her hips were now farther away from her arms than she remembered.  Her legs, too, were subtly altered in shape.  They were shorter and the feet were longer and thinner.  The fine auburn fur now covered her lower body densely.  It become shorter at her waist and vanished entirely by her breasts.  The fur on her arms was now long, at least 10 cm long.  Her tail was considerably longer.  It had developed longer fur of its own.  She sat on the edge of the bed wondering what was happening to her.

She heard (and smelled) the arrival of breakfast.  That was odd.  Her sense of smell had never been terribly good and years of drug abuse as a teen had destroyed whatever sense of smell she’d once possessed.  Now everything had a unique smell.  She discovered as she walked unsteadily to the food tray that she could close her eyes and the smell of the place would tell her exactly where she was.  She turned the chair to let the inconvenient tail hang over the edge instead of curling under her body.

With no way to get a message out, Galiena spent the rest of the morning watching entertainment programs of various sorts.  Halfway through the morning, in the middle of a comedy, she discovered that her tail mirrored her moods.  When she was feeling happy, it wagged.  When she was afraid, it hung limply or curled in under the chair she was sitting upon.  Great!  How was she going to close any kind of deal with a tail that gave away her innermost feelings?

By lunch, when she pushed herself away from the monitor, she made another unwelcome discovery.  Her body was now so long and her legs so short, she could barely walk upright.  It took all her concentration to stay upright for the few meters it took to get to her food tray.

The afternoon shows were stupid in her opinion but she watched them anyway.  What else was there to do?  By evening, she was bored and looking forward to the meal, whatever it was. She tried to push herself upright but there was no way to do it.  It was as if someone had stuck another whole body between her hips and her waist.  Which, as she thought about it, was exactly what had happened.

As she ate, she spilled something and wiped it off the fur at her waist.  There were a pair of bumps growing there!  Bumps for what?  New bumps were the last thing she needed.  She needed some way to get around.  Her legs weren’t able to hold her upright and she was far too long in her furred body to balance anyway.  By bedtime, she did her best to drag herself from the monitor to the bed.  She decided to do a once over of what they were doing to her.

Auburn fur, stubby animal legs at the back, a pair of bumps that were growing longer at her front, a tail, unbelievable sense of smell.  That added up to something she didn’t want to think about.  This maniac was making her into some kind of dog!  But why only her bottom half?  She lay on the messy bed staring up at the ceiling lights.  What more could happen to her?

The next morning, she discovered her feet were nearly gone.  Her legs now looked like a dog’s hind legs complete with paws.  The little bumps were now nearly as long as her back legs and it was clear what she was becoming.  She was going to have a dog’s body from the waist down.  The meal tray arrived and she struggle to slide her body along the ground by pushing from the rear.  It took all her strength to push herself up on the chair to get to the tray.  She was hot and all the fur was holding the heat in.  She found herself panting, a long moist tongue hanging from her mouth.  As it slid in and out, her tongue slid across teeth, pointed teeth not her carefully and expensively made ones.  She howled her anger at the walls.  Not her teeth, too.  No one, not even that worthless husband who’d gotten her into this, would want her now.

She had had enough.  There had to be a way!  Some way to let the world know.  She slid from the chair and discovered that the front legs, though weak, would support her weight.  Distracted by the discovery, she forgot her original purpose.  She slowly taught herself to walk on four legs and by lunch was reasonably good at it.  She walked the length of the small apartment, getting used to her new body.  That maniac would get the shock of his life if he ever tried to come in here again.  By supper, she was practicing short sprints and gallops (though it was hard to get up to speed and even harder to stop on the slippery floor).

“Well done, Galiena,” a familiar voice came over the intercom.  Her lying and cheating husband.  “You sure this will work?” Clearly to someone else and not Galiena. 
“Of course,” the voice of the maniac who’d changed her replied.
“Sit!” commanded her husband.

She felt confused.  Her anger was fading, evaporating like water on a hot day.  How could this be?  She needed to obey.

“Sit!” commanded her husband again.  

Galiena sat on her haunches like any good little dog.  A click at the door announced they were coming into the room.  She felt her anger rise.  She’d get them --

“Down!  Stay!” commanded her husband.  She felt confused and felt herself complying.
“Domestic breeds have had thousands of years to become the way they are,” the second man stated.  “Her brain is now partially that of the dog.  You’ll have to be her pack leader now.”
“Pack Leader!” growled Galiena.
“Enough!” her husband ordered.  Galiena found she had no ability but to comply.
“It was easy enough to have the nanites rewire her cognitive functions while they rebuilt her body.  Here, you’ll need this,” he handed her husband a leash and collar.
“I will not --”
“Enough,” her husband commanded.  “Put this on,” he handed her the collar.  

She took the collar from his hand, looking at the metal tag that hung from it.

Subject: XTD-279
Species: H. Sapiens Canidae
TF Date: 2095-01-08

“Now let’s go home.  Clip on.” 

He handed her the leash and she found herself calmly clicking the end of the lead to her new collar.

“Now heel!” he ordered.

Galiena found herself walking at his heel, her tail wagging.  This was impossible but she knew this was now her life.  She had a master now and was no longer in control.