FSE

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The U.S. is an amalgam, in every sense of the word. This tends to happen when the majority of a country’s citizens are descended from immigrants who journeyed from all around the world to a place that offered opportunity, prosperity, and the promise of a better life. However, it isn’t just the wondrous cultures, blending together in some semblance of harmony, that give the country its moniker of “the great melting pot.” America’s cities are as diverse as its people. The ditzy, faux hippie curving streets of San Francisco. The bustling, ever-hurrying people of New York. The windy hidden alleys of Chicago.

And yet, it is the States themselves that are as diverse as they can be. The ever-shining beaches of California, where golden waves crash upon the “promised land” of the “promised land.” The snow-capped peaks of Colorado, standing like sentinels separating the East from the West. The gray skies of New England, where a stranger will always be welcomed home, even if they’d never been there. The warm humidity of the South, where pleasant smiles try their best to cover up the darkest chapters of the American story.

Then, of course, there was Utah, which is … fucking Utah.

A screech of dying metal echoed off the bare orange rock like the wail of a dying beast. Or at least an impatient one. Candice’s hooves touched the dirt mere seconds after the doors of the semi-truck’s trailer fell to the ground, their stainless steel unable to compete with the restlessness of a thirty-foot-long cramped chimera monster.

“Never again,” the beast hissed. “Never, ever fucking again am I riding in the back of a goddamn truck. If God had meant for monster-ladies to ride in semi-trucks he would have made … monster-lady-sized semi-trucks.” She shook her head like a dog trying to dry itself, her shaggy mane weakly rustling in the dry desert air. With a soft roar of relief, she turned to view the source of her captivity for the past few days, grunting in disgust as a cascade of slime escaped the confines of the container in the wake of her dramatic escape. “Ew,” she whined. “‘That’s gross, says the slime monster.’”

“Why in the shit did they cram you into the back of a semi-truck?” came a voice that would’ve been inappropriately upbeat even at a wedding reception. Three figures strode hurriedly towards the enormous creature, a trio of bipedal farm animals that would’ve made Orwell throw his typewriter out the window. In the lead was the donkey, her white labcoat pristine, three-fingered hands wrapped tightly around either side of a first aid box. To her left waddled a shorter cow-woman, tugging fruitlessly at the wide collar of a large mumu as she tried to relieve herself in some small way from the oppressive heat of the desert. To her right stood a pig-woman, lingering nervously in her baggy t-shirt and sweatpants, sweat glistening off of her hairy skin as she glanced uncertainly between the chimera and the donkey. “Are you--”

The chimera interrupted the talking ass by lifting her into the air with a pair of massive tentacles, pulling her into a hug that could’ve crushed a boulder. A rumbling pur echoed from the beast’s throat, four pairs of eyes closed tightly as she embraced an old friend. The young pig-woman, Josie, awkwardly shifted from one hoof to another as the older cow-woman, Markeshia, slid up next to her, placing a hand-hoof on her shoulder reassuringly. “Doctor, you’re gonna have to let my girlfriend go or you’re paying for the funeral.”

“Breathe?” the donkey, Haley, gasped out. It was the only word she could muster under the crushing weight.

“Two seconds,” answered Candice, purring contentedly.

In response, the donkey tried to moan out something, but was unable to force air into her lungs. Her uncloven hooves dangled a few feet off the ground, swaying frantically along with her ropey tail.

“Two seconds,” repeated Candice before she gently sat her down. Gasping for air, Haley steadied herself by leaning against Josie. For once, she was unable to offer a chipper, absent minded rambling. “Been wondering for years how to shut you up. Turns out the solution was hugs. Oh shit, hi!” Candice’s round leonine ears raised as she seemed to notice Markeshia for the first time. “We haven’t met yet! Are you a hugger or a hand-shaker?”

Markeshia smiled and held a hoof hand forward, flexing its barely functional digits awkwardly as if attempting to shake the creature’s hand. “I’m a hugger, but I kinda enjoy breathing as a recreational pastime. So I guess in this case I’m a fist-bumper.”

“Fist-bump it is,” Candice replied, bringing a large yellow paw towards the shortest of the assembled barnyard welcoming committee, claws retracted as she bumped what passed for knuckles against the proffered cloven hoof-hand. The struggling donkey patted Josie on her back appreciatively as she finally seemed to recover enough to stand under her own power. Candice turned her eyes to Josie, the youngest of the crowd, eight yellow orbs seeming to glow warmly even in the noontime sun. “Hey, kiddo! You doing--”

“Where’s your husband?” Josie blurted out, although she immediately winced at the outburst. Something was definitely off with her, almost as if she didn’t want to be a part of the conversation. Maybe it was just the heat; the poor thing looked miserable. Her clothing was soaked, and Candice tried not to notice the thick musky scent emanating from her. She knew that out of all those gathered, Josie was probably the only mutant present that definitely did not enjoy their bodies post-transformation. Other than Candice herself, of course.

Markeshia slid beside Josie, a pleasant smile on her face. “Yeah, I’d like to meet the other half of the power duo, too.” Candice got the impression that the cow-lady treated Josie as the daughter she’d never have, a protective barrier against a world that Josie didn’t feel like she had a place in. There was an air of distraction in her voice, a practiced tone that reinforced the idea that the young lady didn’t want to answer any further questions.

The chimera’s husband chose that moment to approach. The rest of the arrivals hovered around the cab of the truck, three of them because they were unfamiliar with the others, and one because she anticipated the outbreak of another World War as soon as she made her presence known.

“She wouldn’t let me ride in the back with her,” Mark answered as he hugged Haley. “Good to see you, ‘Mega-Cool Donkey.’” The donkey in question laughed. The title must have been part of an inside joke, some nickname Candice wasn’t privy to.

“No seat belts back there,” Candice offered. “We get in a crash, I’ll regenerate but you won’t grow your arm back. Or your head.” She smiled wickedly, the jagged teeth of a great white causing a few of those gathered to step back instinctually. “Or your dick. Really, your dick’s safety is my number one priority.” Mark shook his head as he stepped closer to his wife, embracing her as if they hadn’t seen each other in a long while, despite it only having been a few days of traveling. Candice purred again, but she couldn’t help noticing Josie looking away from the affectionate display, her beady eyes suddenly finding the dusty rocks of the Utah desert very interesting. Something was definitely going on with her.

And then the moment Candice had been dreading finally arrived. Now sufficiently recovered from the crushing hug, Haley’s chipper attitude had returned with a vengeance. It had almost five whole minutes of time to make up for. “OMFG!” The donkey scientist bounced on her hooves, causing loose sand to be thrown into the air in a yellow cloud that sent Josie and Markeshia into coughing fits. “Pizza party! We are totally going to have a FUCKING pizza party!” A light bulb seemed to go off behind her boxy-pupiled eyes as she inhaled in glee. “With pizzas!”

Candice’s mouth was watering. Literally. A Saint Bernard would’ve been put to shame. “And beer? Lots and lots of beer. Like, kegs and kegs of beer. Literally all of the beer.”

“I got you, homie!” The ecstatic donkey took hold of Candice’s slimy tentacle, using it to pirouette like a ballerina to the amusement of the rest of the crowd. “This is the fucking best day ever! All my favorite people are here!”

Nearby, someone cleared their throat and the happy moment ended with the suddenness of a car crash.

“Annnnnd him. He’s here, too.” Haley’s strangely graceful spinning motion stopped as the strange man approached. Candice was surprised that the donkey’s hooves seemed fairly capable of dancing. She’d have to try it out herself sometime. “Fuck,” the donkey repeated as she regarded the newcomer. “Fuck fuckity fuck. Also: Fuck.”

Mark was somewhat startled when Josie leaned towards him and whispered into his ear, “Who’s that?”

“The fun police,” came his simple response.

“Doctor Haley.” The old man nodded in greeting. While Mark seemed somewhat disheveled from the long days of sitting in the cab, their odd benefactor seemed as if he had just walked out of a midafternoon corporate meeting.

“Rogers,” Haley greeted him in response, gritting her teeth in some semblance of a smile.

Wait. Wait wait wait.

“Rogers?!” Candice and her husband exclaimed. They shared a look as they had both become suddenly awestruck.

“He has a name?” Mark asked.

“Holy fuck,” Candice whispered. “A name?!”

“Next we’ll find out he has a Social Security Number!”

“Maybe even a mother!”

“Yes, well.” The spook sighed disappointedly. “That name is classified, so I’d appreciate it if we didn’t dwell on that further. Hicks?”

The newest member of their odd group chose that moment to approach, a friendly smile on his face as he stood next to his employer. “Howdy.”

Something shifted in the air, a wet smell that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Candice glanced at Josie. The pig woman seemed to have something caught in her throat.

“Staff Sergeant Lucas Hicks,” the suddenly less-mysterious stranger added by way of introduction. “He’s under my direct supervision, and you’ll be getting to know him very well over the next …” He stopped, an infuriatingly pleasant smile on his face. “Well, we can talk about that after dinner.” He nodded towards Candice. “I also wouldn’t mind a beer.”

Haley and Markeshia seemed immediately untrusting of the newcomer, given his employer. Josie seemed to be having an altogether different opinion as her eyes traveled up and down his body.

“Doctor Haley, it’s an honor to meet you.” He extended his hand in greeting, and Haley suspiciously shook it. “I’ve been following your work for some time. And Miss Barton.” He nodded towards Markeshia. “I found your report on methods of restoring fine motor control in patients with hoof-hands very interesting. The one you submitted last year? I even understood a few of the technical terms.”

The donkey and the cow exchanged a look. They hadn’t expected someone who worked for Rogers could have been a pleasant human being. “You’re nice,” Haley observed. “Why are you nice?”

“I’m scared,” Markeshia whispered. “The niceness alarms me.”

He regarded Josie last, and his smile seemed to drift from pleasant to shy. “Miss Sung, you aren’t familiar with me but I’ve been handling your orders for a while. Couple of generals I know could use lessons from you in juggling all those logistics.”

Josie would’ve seemed less surprised if the man had suddenly revealed himself to be George Washington. Running a clinic dedicated to transporting and providing help for newly-transformed individuals required a lot of planning. Dietary requirements, living arrangements, safety measures, medicine delivery. It was a full-time job for dozens of people. Josie handled all of it entirely on her own, and she did a damn good job at it. The expression on her face indicated that she had likely never thought about just who it was that she had been submitting the orders to. “Y-You … um … hi?”

“You seem really calm,” Markeshia slowly interjected, “for someone who is currently talking to a host of talking barn animals, mister …”

“Luke,” he offered. “Just Luke is fine, ma’am. And talking barn animals are kinda nothing new for me. Learned way back in Sunday school that there were talking donkeys in the Bible. Always figured I might run into one or two, so I’ve been practicing for this moment.” He smiled warmly. “Hope I’m doing an okay job.”

At the word “Bible”, Josie seemed to frown.

Haley, however, seemed to have just made the greatest discovery of her life. “Wait. Wait wait wait. Hold the fucking phone. There’s a … wait … There’s a talking donkey in the Bible?! Oh my dear sweet fuck, I think I might have just become religious. What does the talking-Bible-donkey say?”

“Um, basically … stop hitting me with things.”

Her boxy jaw dropped, displaying surprisingly white, blocky teeth. “Holy fuck, that’s amazing! I ALSO don’t like to be hit with things!”

The arrival of the final two members of the group seemed to give Josie an excuse to bring the reminiscence to an end. “Oh, hi! I was only told to expect one new mutated person, but the more the merrier. Hello, Miss Mellick and …”

The last two members of the motley arrangement couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Leidy Mellick had been the cause for the entire gathering. Her time in captivity seemed to not have affected her body in the slightest; in fact, her muscular form towered over the entire crowd, save for Candice herself. She waved shyly, her smile endearing despite being guarded by twin 12-inch teeth that extended past her bottom lip. “Um, hi … assorted animal people. Don’t suppose you guys have a litter box.” At the confused looks that were given to her, she swiftly added, “N-Not for me! I-I can use a toilet! It’s for the cat. My cat. I mean, I’m a cat, too. But I don’t need a-a litter box or … I fucked that up entirely, didn’t I?”

Josie smiled. “Not even a little bit. I’ll see what we can scrounge up.” She turned to address the other guest, someone that Miss Sung was extremely familiar with, despite not recognizing her.

Lydia had remained in her rodentine form for the entirety of the trip, admitting that she wanted to spend as much time as a were-rat as possible. Josie and Lydia were best friends, and had been since Lydia had saved Josie’s life and brought her to the clinic after her own transformation. “Um, hi, nice to …” She flinched as Candice lightly punched her on the shoulder with her paw. “Uh … can we … talk inside for a minute?”

The look of confusion on Josie’s face was the harbinger of the argument to come, although she wasn’t yet aware of it. Her singular unibrow furrowed in a way that Candice couldn’t help but find adorable. “Yeah, o-okay … Hey, have we met before? Your voice sounds so familiar. Did you used to work at K-Mart?”

“Um … yes?”

“Holy shit! That’s a hell of a coincidence! Yeah, come on, let’s get you guys inside and in front of the air conditioner.” Josie motioned in the direction of the abandoned garage, leading the way for the strangest entourage the world had ever known.

Mark and Candice lingered behind, and Candice was surprised to find that Leidy also seemed to hesitate. After the rest of the group had passed the threshold of the open garage door, Candice whispered the word, “Three …”

“Two,” Mark added.

“One,” Leidy finished.

The profanities that emerged from the still-open door threatened to collapse the building as Josie Sung had evidently discovered the identity of the rat-woman. The majority of the cursing was incoherent, although Candice could just barely make out the words “fucking kidding me” and “the hell were you thinking.”

“Surprised it took that long, right?” Candice addressed Leidy Mellick. She could tell something was wrong, and hoped that by sharing a laugh she could cheer her up. The sabertooth seemed unphased, only glancing from the clinic to the truck they had arrived in as if she was unsure if she was welcome. “You … okay there, kitty-cat?”

“Y-Yeah,” Leidy stammered. “Yeah, I’m fine, just a little …”

Mark placed a comparatively small human hand on Leidy’s furry, muscular arm. True to her feline nature she jumped, but her fright soon gave way to a nervous laugh. “Miss Mellick … Leidy? Whatever it is, you don’t have to go through it alone. We’ve all been through what you’re going through now, we know it can be a big adjustment.”

Candice smiled. Despite never being a general practitioner, Mark had always had the bedside manner schtick down. She had come down with a cold back in the summer before her humanity had been taken from her. A cold. Not tuberculosis, just a simple cold. And still her fiance had been at her side the entire time, only retreating to his laptop when he thought she was asleep. She suspected he just wanted some alone time, but was only half surprised to find him on WebMD, scouring the endless list of symptoms, trying to convince himself she was not in fact in mortal danger from the sniffles.

“Still getting used to you not being an evil mad scientist,” Leidy nervously confessed. Finally the lioness slowly nodded, although she seemed unable to lift her eyes from the scorched ground. She tried to give a fake smile, but it lasted only a moment before a look of genuine sadness came over her. “Everything … God, this is so fucking stupid.” She sighed, steeling herself for another attempt to share what was on her mind. “Everything made sense back in the cage. Easier. The world, it’s … I was only in there for a few months, but … everything feels so much more complicated now. Bigger. Scarier.”

Candice was worried. Despite her rather intimidating new body, Leidy would bear the emotional struggles of the months spent in captivity for some time. Markeshia could certainly help her with working through her trauma. No one was better equipped to help her through any form of therapy she would need. But it would take time, work, and participation on Leidy’s part.

“You have a place here,” Mark softly offered. “For as long as you want it. People that can help get you back on your feet, decide what you want to do--whether you want to stay or try to find a place back in society or whatever you want.”

It took a moment before Leidy could reply, “I don’t think I belong here.” Her yellow eyes were full of tears as she glanced at Mark and gave a forced, sad smile. “I’m worried that I don’t belong anywhere. Not like I am now. N-Not just the cat-dinosaur stuff, but …” She sniffed, rubbing her wet nose on the back of her golden fur. “I, uh … gotta get Zorro out of the truck. He’s probably freaked out. I’ll see if I can find him something to eat.” Mark started to offer a reply before with a quick, “Excuse me,” she swiftly walked away.

A slimy tentacle slithered towards Mark’s hand and without thinking he took hold as if he were preparing for a walk in the park with his perfectly normal, human wife. “She’ll be okay,” Candice whispered. “She’s strong. It just may take her some time to realize that.”

---

The oppressive heat of the Utah desert gave way to the oppressive heat of the abandoned garage as Candice slithered inside alongside her husband. The group of misfits were each scattered to their own activities. Markeshia was dragging an assortment of sadistically uncomfortable stainless steel chairs in a rough circle, wincing now and then and shaking her hoof-hands as they no doubt were warm to the touch. Luke was alongside her, unfolding a plastic picnic table, seemingly as eager to help to do what needed doing as any good soldier should. Lydia was chattering nervously, offering explanations as to why she decided turning into a rat was a good idea to Josie, whose porcine scowl seemed hotter than the desert sun. Candice noticed with a smirk that Josie interspersed her death gaze with nervous glances at the staff sergeant. His employer--the spooky bastard--was examining a government-issued phone, likely answering the thousand emails he had received in the five minutes he had taken to stroll inside the garage. Candice had still not come to terms with the fact that the old man had a suspiciously boring name and was not, in fact, some sort of doomsday android. She doubted she ever would. And finally, Haley was …

Oh God Jesus, Candice thought. Fear welled in the pit of her stomach, fear she hadn’t felt since an insane A.I. had caused additional arms to grow from her torso, or the time she thought her husband had overdosed on drugs. Haley was like a toddler: she had to be observed at all times, lest she cause mortal injury to herself or burn the building down. In her case, the end of the universe wasn’t entirely an impossibility. Thankfully the insane donkey wandered into view, tapping her blunt hoof-fingers against an iPad. Candice hoped she wasn’t inadvertently ordering a drone strike on their location.

Instead, the mad doctor took a swig of a drink that smelled suspiciously like an orange slushy before nodding with a smile. “Okay! Twelve veggie pizzas. Candice, you only get six.” The donkey stuck out her tongue without looking at the chimera, beating her friend to the punch before Candice stuck her own long tongue out at Haley. “Drone should drop it off in an hour. If anybody doesn’t want vegetarian … fucking deal with it. I am the reincarnation of Bible-Donkey and I hath spoken.” Her eerie rectangular eyes glanced towards the garage door as Leidy quietly slipped in, hugging to her chest a large plastic carrier case containing a very confused housecat.

“Oh, shit!” Haley lowered the tablet slightly. “I forgot we have a kitty-cat … two kitty-cats! I have some frozen hamburger meat in the fridge. Or we could order something. There’s a surprisingly good Chinese place nearby that we--”

“I’m not hungry.” Leidy gave the worst fake-smile Candice had ever seen. Even without her superhuman hearing, Candice could tell she was lying. She could almost hear the sabertooth’s stomach rumbling.

For her part, Haley paid the tiger no mind as she returned her attention to the tablet, tapping a few more buttons as she absentmindedly announced, “General Tso’s it is.” Leidy started to object before the donkey shook her head without looking up. “Hush. You get chicken. Doctor Bible-Donkey prescribes chicken.”

Laughter suddenly erupted from Candice’s maw, though she stifled it as soon as the other motley crew looked in her direction. “What’s funny?” Mark inquired.

“Everything,” she answered. “Everything is funny.”

“Would you care to announce your findings, Doctor?” Mark leaned against Candice’s furry torso, his fingernails idly scratching at the shark fin perched along her spine.

Candice pointed at each member of the gathering in turn. “Donkeys, pigs, cows. Opossums, apparently. Now a saberetooth-fucking-tiger.” She turned, a goofy smile on her crocodilian lips that infectiously spread to her husband. “How does it feel knowing that we were the start of all of this insanity?”

They both turned again to look at the assortment of mutants. Lydia was attempting to show Josie the app on her phone that could change her back into a normal human. Her friend’s scowl was gradually turning into resigned acceptance as she did her best to hide her developing smile. Markeshia was trying her best to distract her donkey girlfriend from rambling on utter nonsense at Leidy, attempting to spare the recent arrival from the onslaught of random chaotic musings. Sergeant Lucas was staring at his employer, attempting to attract his attention as if to ask if he were sure he should be getting mixed up in all of this insanity. Finally the pair returned their gaze to each other as Mark finally answered simply, “Good. It feels pretty damned good.”

---

Candice was more than a little proud of herself for stopping at the fourth pizza, although she still glanced at a fifth one like a bear eyeing a leaping salmon. After the change her body required thousands of additional calories to maintain itself. The mucus secretion alone probably required as much food as a normal person would consume in a day, and Candice was anything but a normal person. She returned Haley’s shit-eating grin as the two waged a silent war over who would get to say “I told you so,” but as Candice expected she had come out the victor. Being deprived of an additional two pizzas did not dissuade her from consuming roughly her husband’s weight in shitty beer.

Throughout the entirety of the meal, the group had discussed matters of grave importance and harmless gossip in equal measure. Lydia had slowly managed to convince Josie that she was not going to have a spontaneous heart attack during her rodentine transformations. Josie avoided fucking the staff sergeant on top of the table in front of everyone--a restraint for which Candice was quite proud of her. Rogers was silent, save for a few quiet remarks to his subordinate soldier that even Candice’s advanced hearing was somehow unable to pick up on. Mark kept glancing at Leidy in concern until with a sigh of relief she began to join in on the conversation, especially when Lydia--to whom she had developed a special bond--drew her in with stories about being a “mutant taxi driver.” The sabertooth seemed to be warming to the crowd and enjoying her meal, even though she slipped as much of it to her cat as she ended up eating herself. Markeshia kept checking on her, making sure that the MSG-soaked chicken wasn’t causing her any digestive issues. And of course Haley was being Haley, rambling on in borderline incoherence to anyone who would listen, babbling to herself whenever anyone was not.

Into the maelstrom of chatter, Candice drunkenly interjected a question that had been on her mind for months now. “Are they fucking yet?” The inquiry left the crowd momentarily speechless, save for her husband’s embarrassed sighing.

The donkey sitting at the end of the table finally responded. “Is who fucking who?”

“She’s asking if Bentram and Camilla became a couple,” Mark clarified. “And doing so in the most tactful way possible.”

“Inquiring minds want to know, dear,” Candice answered. “So? Are they?”

Haley’s rabbitlike ears relaxed, shifting to a more comfortable angle. “Oh! Yeah, they ended up becoming a thing.”

“What a tremendous surprise,” Candice said offhandedly before leaning towards the table conspiratorially. “How long did it take? My goofball husband said it would be by the end of the first day they were rescued.”

Josie shifted in her seat nervously. “Ben seems like a pretty reserved person. Doesn’t like talking about himself and all, but … it was definitely after they moved in together.”

“Longer than five days?” Candice’s hooves were clopping against the bare concrete now. The anticipation was killing her.

“Yeah, defini--”

The chimera squealed with delight as she extended a paw to her husband, pads up as if expecting him to hand her something.

“Shit,” came his response.

“Pay up!”

“Fucking Price is Right.”

“Pay. Up.”

“With what?!”

Candice started to respond before Rogers interrupted the happy moment by being himself. “It’s over.” It always seemed odd to her that such a quiet voice was able to so completely capture everyone’s attention. “The contract, I mean. No more funding, no more false charges, no more people being forced to endure mutations against their will.” Whatever response he expected, he did not find. Haley, Markeshia, and Josie exchanged glances. Candice wondered sadly if they would remain together if there was no longer a job for them to carry out. Lydia slid a gnarled rat paw over Josie’s hoof, trying to smile reassuringly.

It was Markeshia who asked the question on everyone’s mind. “What does that mean for us?”

For once, Rogers didn’t seem to have all the answers. “I’m not sure. But there are other factors at play here that will become more apparent in the months to follow. Chambers’s organization was not the only one interested in turning a profit off of mutations. Things aren’t as dire as I may be making them seem, but I think there will always be a need for a clinic such as this one. The need to help future mutates doesn’t go away because the government is no longer interested in them.”

The news that they would still be able to remain a team didn’t seem to inspire Haley’s group.

“I will, however, be making some changes to how we operate.”

“Am I fired?” Haley’s ears were positively drooping now. “I’m fired, aren’t I?”

“Nobody is fired. Quite the opposite, in fact. With the groups who may misuse the technology that creates mutates being less visible, I’ll need someone to assist in infiltration, information gathering, and--if necessary--directly combating potential threats. Miss Mellick?”

Leidy almost jumped out of her seat? “Me? I? What?”

“I’m offering you a job.”

Her yellow eyes darted uncertainly around the room, searching for answers from the assortment of misfits but finding none. Finally her gaze returned to Rogers. “I get to be a secret agent dinosaur cat? I mean … Yeah, okay!”

“You sure about this, gato?” Lydia’s whiskers drooped out of concern for her friend. “Sounds dangerous.”

Rogers answered for her. “I’ll make sure she’ll be placed in as little danger as possible.” He turned to Luke. “Also, Sergeant Lucas will be working as my liaison here.”

“What?!” Haley rose to her hooves. “Why?!”

“To spy on you,” Candice muttered.

“Precisely,” agreed Rogers. “I’d like to keep closer tabs on what’s going on here, at least until the fallout of Chambers’s little scheme fades away.”

“He can stay in my room!” Josie suddenly blurted out. Her eyes gradually widened as she realized what she’d said. “I mean … the room next to mine. It’s empty since Camilla moved out. Only makes sense … to … um …”

Next to her, Markeshia buried her hands in her hooves while shaking her head.

For his part, Luke only smiled. “I, uh, have a portable BQ on the way. I’ll have it set up in the backyard.”

“Oh,” Josie muttered disappointedly. “I mean, if you ever change your mind there’s plenty of--” She was interrupted by a bovine elbow being delivered into her ribs.

---

Josie sighed as she stepped outside of her small bedroom at some ungodly hour of the night, lamenting the embarrassing display she’d made earlier. She’d have to remember to add that one to all of the others, the neverending pile of regrets for things she’d said that she had built up over the years. Life seemed to her like a constant race from one point of embarrassment to another. The incident with the religious fundamentalist pig-person had been particularly abhorrent, but she never ceased to find new ways of making herself look like a sex-obsessed moron in front of her friends and coworkers.

Also, Lydia had turned herself into a rat again. After what Josie had to go through with her transformation and the trials and tribulations of everyday life afterwards, she failed to realize how anyone would willingly turn themselves into something less than human. Perhaps it was more upsetting to her that Lydia was the only person in the world capable of changing back and forth between one form to another. Josie would kill to be able to do that, although for her it would be a one-way street back to humanity. No more banging out fanfiction on useless hooves. No more pretending not to want to jump every swinging dick that strolled by the clinic. She knew Haley would let her keep her job even if she somehow found a way to change back. Maybe someday they’d find a way to--

“Stop,” she hissed to herself as she came to a stop in the middle of the hallway. “Just stop. This is your life now. Get over it, you dumbass pig bit--”

“Josie?”

True to half of her DNA makeup, the young pig woman squealed as the voice startled her, wheeling on one hoof and nearly toppling over as she spun around to see who had been watching her. For a moment she was afraid that it was “the demon,” as impossible as the idea was. Even more terrible, what if it was the infuriatingly hot jarhead, though she wasn’t quite sure why she felt that would’ve been worse.

Instead, it was the friendly face of Doctor Mark Clark, his hands outstretched in a disarming motion, a look of regret on his face for having startled her. “Sorry! Sorry. Didn’t mean to jumpscare you like that.”

Josie exhaled as she urged her heart to stop racing. “You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing up this late?”

“Was working on something, actually.” He smiled nervously.

“Working … on something?” Josie raised one half of her uniform brow, yet another bit of grossness her body inflicted upon her. “Like … science stuff or something?” She closed her eyes, wincing internally at having used the words “science stuff.”

“Yyyyeah, something like that.” He nodded behind him towards the side door leading outside. “Wanna see?”

What the fuck was going on here? It was fairly obvious he was lying. Why did he want her to go outside? She didn’t think the man was a secret ax-murderer, although she admittedly didn’t know him all that well. “I … don’t think I’m up for that. I’m just getting some water before heading back to--”

“Two seconds. I promise.”

Josie glanced from the door back to the biologist. How many mad scientists could one abandoned garage hold? “Ooookay?”

“Perfect. I promise you’ll like it.” He turned and motioned for her to follow.

For a moment Josie wondered if this was a sex thing, some way to cheat on his wife. Mark didn’t seem the type, and he definitely wouldn’t choose the gross pig monster if he was. He’d go after the hot sabertooth lady or … anyone other than her, really. She shook her head, berating herself for having entertained the thought and, even worse, hoping that might be what was happening. Instead, Mark pushed the door open and held it for her, motioning for her to step outside. Josie hoped the shower she had taken before bed would keep him from grimacing at her smell. Whenever she passed anyone, she prayed not to hear the groan of discomfort at the thick musk she couldn’t help secreting from every pore.

Josie stepped outside into the ever-hot Utah air, squinting her eyes as she waited for them to adjust to the darkness. As she turned to ask Mark what exactly she was looking for she gave another small squeal as she watched the door close with Mark still standing inside. A small “clack” heralded that she had been locked outside.

“What … in the f--”

And then suddenly the universe flipped upside down. It took a few seconds for Josie to realize she was being lifted into the air by an unknown snare, rising foot-by-foot above the sandy ground until she was dangling above the roof.

Four sets of golden eyes blinked, a nervous giggle erupting from behind three hundred jagged fangs. “Hi?”

“What the FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!” Josie screamed at the monster. Even while being dangled upside down in the darkness it was easy to tell who it was that had captured her. “Are you fucking crazy?! Put me the fuck--”

Josie was suddenly dropped, although she landed on a bed of slimy scales as Candice sheepishly apologized. “Sorry, sometimes I take the dramatic entrance thing too far.”

With a groan of disgust, Josie rose to her feet and began attempting to wipe a patch of mucus from her pajama pants from where she had landed on the chimera. “Doctor Paul, what in the holy fuck are--”

“Girl talk,” the monster interrupted as if that answered everything. “And don’t keep backing up, the edge is like two feet behind you. Have a seat?” Her thirty foot long tail curled behind Josie’s legs, both to keep her from falling and offering the sow creature a place to sit.

“I’ll stand, thanks. What do you … mean …?” Now that Josie’s beady eyes had adjusted to the dark, she couldn’t help but shudder at just how different Candice appeared in the night compared to the fluorescent lights of the garage interior. It wasn’t just the teeth, the scythe-like insectile arms, the strong writhing tentacles. It was everything, the combination of predatory beasts that was so much more frightening than the sum of their parts. But it was the eyes that bothered her the most, four pairs of glowing orbs bisected by the thin pupils of a feline that seemed to see everything and nothing at the same time.

Candice frowned. At least, Josie assumed she was frowning. “Oh, come on. Really? That hurts, kiddo. Don’t look at me like I’m going to eat you.”

“Doctor Paul--”

“Candice.”

“Candice, the first time we met you literally acted like you were going to eat me.”

Another nervous giggle. “Shit. Yeah. Sorry about that. Bad joke. Terrible joke.”

“And now you’ve apparently pulled another one.” Now that she was reasonably sure she wasn’t going to be murdered, Josie was rapidly becoming upset. She looked over her shoulder, peering over the edge of the roof. Why had she left her bedroom? Leaving her bedroom always led to something bad happening. “You hogtied the hog. Well done. Hope it was funny.”

“I wasn’t pulling a joke. Thought you’d run inside if I just said, ‘Hi, I’m a large chimera thing on the roof, would you like to come up and have a sit?’”

Josie looked about. Maybe there was an old ladder up here or something. Anything to get her out of this conversation. “So is there a point to this or--”

“Are you okay?”

“What?! Yeah, I didn’t pull a muscle or--”

“No, I mean …” Those eight eyes that had seemed so menacing just a moment ago now seemed genuinely concerned. “Are you okay?”

The pig woman was silent, although she immediately knew what the other meant. “Oh.” With a sigh, she sank to the the roof, sitting crosslegged as she tried to gather her thoughts. She felt Candice’s long coils press against her back, a reassuring presence keeping her from getting any closer to the edge.

It was no secret to Josie’s friends that she suffered from deep depression, even before her body had been warped into something unrecognizable. Markeshia had probably mentioned something to Candice about it, though Josie wasn’t sure for what reason exactly.

“Just … one of my ‘down days.’ It’ll pass.”

Candice made a pleasant coughing noise. “You know, I always thought the two of us had a lot in common.”

“Wait … really?” Josie turned her head at an angle, to which Candice repeated the motion with her own head in the other direction. The moment broke some of the tension and they both giggled.

“Out of all the others? Yeah, totally.” Candice raised her eyes to the sky. “Fuck, never get used to that. Never knew there were that many stars.” One of the few benefits of being miles away from humanity was the lack of light pollution. The views couldn’t make up for the rest of Utah, but they certainly tried their best. “I know the change was hard on you.”

“You have no idea,” Josie mumbled.

This caused several of Candice’s eyebrows to raise. She opened her arms a bit wider, seemingly drawing attention to her udders, dangling horse genitalia, and tentacles.

“Oh,” Josie offered sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess you do.”

“The others worry about you. Haley and Markeshia. Especially Lydia. They love you to death.” Josie started to protest before Candice held up a hand. “And, no, they didn’t ask me to talk to you. They didn’t need to.”

“Oh,” Josie repeated.

“When I first changed …” Candice’s eyes seemed especially distant, as if she were staring into the past. “God, everything was so different. Took so much time to get used to. The wings and the tail and-and … all of it, y’know?”

“But your change is so cool,” Josie objected. “You’re like a god-damned superhero. The incredible Hulk. I’m just … this.” She stared down at her hoof-hands, the useless stubs that always seemed filthy no matter how much she washed them. The hair, the smell, the sweat. Josie hated every single part of her body. “None of this is right. None of it makes any sense.”

“Of course it doesn’t.” The response wasn’t mean. It was more like Candice was letting Josie in on a secret she had picked up on years ago. “Look at me, Josie. I’m a flying snake monster.”

“Exactly.” Josie smiled. “Like quetzalcoatl.”

Candice leaned closer, baring her teeth in an intentionally harmless way. “The fuck did you just call me?”

The two shared a laugh, then the moment of pleasant silence that followed.

“When I changed,” the chimera finally said. Her tone seemed far more serious given they were laughing moments ago. “I hated it. I hated … being me. I thought a lot about …” She glanced at Josie, afraid to say what they both knew she meant. “You know. What you’ve thought about doing.”

“Candice, I--”

“Don’t.”

Josie was doing her best not to cry. The word came across as an order, a command. “Why?”

“Because you’d be taking something wonderful away from the world.”

With that the battle was lost, and the tears were flowing. Josie felt two strong arms wrapping around her back and struggled to escape for a moment before she collapsed against the chimera’s chest. Whenever she tried to apologize or say anything at all, she was overruled by soft pawpads patting the back of her head.

When the hug finally ended, Josie couldn’t help but stare down at her now soaked pajamas.

“Sorry,” Candice chuckled. “You’ve got some me on you.”

Another shared laugh, and yet another silence as the pair took in the night sky, stars blazing gently over a world filled with such absurd wonders.

“Besides,” Candice finally said, “the soldier-guy thinks you’re cute.”

Josie was confused. “The soldier … guy?” It slowly dawned on her to whom she was referring. “What? Bullshit.”

“S’true.”

“How the hell do you know that?”

“Can smell it on him.”

“You can?” Josie tried to keep the eagerness out of her voice.

“Chyeah.” She motioned towards her long snout with a tentacle. “I’ve got like thirty animals’ worth of scent receptors in here.”

“But … why? Is he a furry or something?”

“Maybe. I hear the military has ‘gone woke.’” This caused Josie to groan. “Kidding, kidding.” Candice glanced at the suddenly shy pig-woman. “Oh, and you are cute.”

Josie groaned. “I’m not--”

“Yes you are, fucking deal with it.”

She didn’t agree with her new friend, but was happy that she apparently believed it.

Candice sighed and nodded as if a job was just finished. “Okay. Serious shit over.” She pointed in the distance towards a tall plateau. “I’ve been meaning to ask, what’s up there?”

It was an odd question. “I … dunno? Cactusses? Cacti? Dirt and rocks?”

“You’ve been living here … how long? And you don’t know what’s on top of the mountain thingie right next to your house?”

“I guess I don’t. Why?”

“Unacceptable.” Candice rose to her wide hooves and spread three sets of wings like she was stretching after a nap. “Let’s go find out.”

Josie slowly rose to her own much smaller set of hooves. “Wait, you’re going to … fly us up there?”

“You get airsick?”

“I don’t think so, but--”

“Then I’m going to fly us up there.” She nodded towards several other plateaus in the distance. “And there. And that one. That one too. C’mon.” She opened her arms, motioning for the pig mutant to step closer.

Slowly a smile crept across Josie’s lips. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s go find out.”