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This is a commission for Giza.

Warning: This story contains corruption, growth, hourglass expansion and muscle growth.

Kaida the cheetah belongs to Giza.

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Radioactive Siren, by DragonMasterX.

Prologue

The bus had taken its final steep curve over the mountain road. Paterville was finally in view.

Promotional pamphlets advertised the remote locale as boasting of greenery as far as their looming mountains allowed. A lake famously known as the site for local fishing contests as well as the best damn trout one could taste was front and center in most of the region’s touristic booklets. Even those preferring the hustle and bustle of the city were welcome into Paterville’s asphalt roads, where one could find a heavily industrialized, modern paradise with every commodity and recreational facility ready to provide rest and relaxation. The pride of the country, it was called.

Sitting at the back of the mountain-descending bus, its lone passenger lowered the uplifting pamphlet she had been casually eyeing and peered out into a Paterville that contrasted with everything she had read about. Faded green as far as the encroaching mountains, with patches of oxidized red growing more numerous eastward; almost as if the canopies of certain trees had turned into rusted crowns. What little of the lake could be observed from the back of the bus showed a lifeless opaqueness which led even the eyes of an amateur conclude that the pond’s fishing days were over.

Sandy clouds seemed to have taken over Paterville’s skies, clearly intent on staying after three weeks of their initial arrival. Very little was known of its circumstances at this juncture, but following a core meltdown of the private Aster nuclear plant, the industrial paradise had transformed into a ruined hellscape.

The victim counts of the initial explosion numbered the Aster electrical company president and his two engineer sons as casualties, so while the authorities sorted how and who to shift the responsibility of this disaster to, containment and reparation had become a priority. For this task, a subsidiary of the company had been appointed by the authorities. Ground zero had been contained and an exclusion zone forty miles around it formed. The next step was the cleanup phase.

Public outcry over social media had been harsh: Leaving the company responsible for this life-threatening environmental disaster continue operating unsupervised was a non-starter, no matter how fast they had been about containing the situation and limiting its spreading. Municipal authorities had been put in charge of overseeing the project as a result.

Before the incident, Aster’s Nuclear Waste Management Department had counted with a contingent of twenty-two trained in the handling of radioactive material, disposal and decontamination. Regardless of the public’s feelings, these people knew the lay of the land best and were those who had to be counted on. Unfortunately, half the original team had been lost during the meltdown when two of the power plant’s buildings collapsed from violent shockwaves. In order to bolster their numbers, open recruitment for the decontamination effort had become an inevitability.

People with experience, people with no experience but a conscious desire to help save what remained of Paterville, and those who were mercenary; lured in by the promise of cold hard cash had come from all over to join the department. In the first two days, more than two dozen had come in to be coached, equipped and sent out with the decontamination team. The effort was well under way.

The bus bringing its sole occupant to Paterville’s outskirts was two weeks late. The cheetah girl in the back had come from far away.

Kaida had never imagined she would come to the site of a nuclear accident in her life time. But desperate times called for desperate measures. She wasn’t a scientist, and she wasn’t even a resident of the towns surrounding Paterville. The young woman was in it for the money and she was conscious of it.

When the wheels stopped moving and Kaida heard the hiss of air escaping, she was finally torn away from her phone. The driver had brought them to the foot of the mountains, five miles away from the woods and even farther away from the city.

Another hiss of air and the bus doors opened. Looking left and right, Kaida had expected to see more boarders, but there was no sign of life anywhere as far as her eyes could see. Before she could ask, the driver, a large brown bear practically jutting out of his seat grumbled out without turning around: “Last stop, lady.”

“Last…? Aren’t we going into town?” Kaida asked.

“Far as I go, I’m afraid,” the driver responded while casually lighting a cigarette in complete disregard of workplace rules, but at least he opened the window. After an awkward silence ended by a puff of smoke, the bear continued: “Told you I’d bring ya to Paterville. Not getting this handsome mug any closer to the Hellscape, though.”

Hellscape was the name of a viral picture of the site of the incident taken two days after the meltdown. Apparently, the fire had spread to nearby buildings thanks to flying flaming pieces of debris crashing through walls. Some people had taken to calling the exclusion zone Hellscape after the picture.

“It’s not on fire right now though, is it?” Kaida half-joked, already gathering her things as she stood up. She was carrying a backpack and rolling a luggage bag behind her.

“Don’t know,” the bear took another drag of his smoke, looking out wistfully at the gloomy woods far out. “Don’t care anymore. Leaving in five. Get out or we’re going back together, lady.”

Kaida’s ears flickered down as she quickly swiped over to her GPS. It was going to be a long walk to the camp.

“You uh, you ain’t one of ‘em darn kids trying to make a video of the place or something, are ya?” the bear said, gruff and annoyed in tone. Kaida, already having made it to the driver’s seat, shook her head in clear negation. “Must mean you’re here for work. Pretty late to join the party, ain’t ya?”

“I didn’t expect to be coming here, to be honest. It was a late minute…” Kaida paused, gripping the strap of her backpack a little tighter. “But the pay…” she paused again, “And they said it was safe, too. Always needing more people.”

The bear looked at Kaida’s uneasy demeanor and decided not to press for information. He didn’t particularly care. “Make this trip 3 times a week. Not sure how it is now but there’s a gas station ‘bout half a mile thattaway, ‘round the mountain. Kept seeing trucks comin’ and goin’ at the start, meeting up and driving people and stuff around. Prolly doin’ supply runs. Must have their number right?”

Kaida nodded and held her phone up. The bus driver puffed away from her face and out the window. “There ya go then. Give ‘em a call and tell them you’re waiting for pickup at ‘ol Danny’s. Might run into one of them.”

“Thank you,” Kaida said, carefully stepping off the bus. She turned to the bear laughing in his gruff voice. He had a wry smile on his face.

“Sorry. I guess there’s nothing ‘ol about Danny no more, ‘cept his bones maybe. Asshole’s been dead ‘n buried for years,” the bus driver said, “Better hope all this radioactive crap in the air don’t bring him back, ‘ey?” he laughed again. Kaida could feel cold wind caressing her spotted fur. She couldn’t even crack a smile. “Joking, lady. This ain’t a crappy sci-fi show. Now get going. Gets pretty cold at night around here; don’t wanna wait for pickup for longer than you need to.”

“Thanks again,” Kaida nodded, getting a tip of the cap from the sarcastic bear before the doors to the bus closed and air hissed again. The bear was soon driving off, leaving Kaida to walk in the direction of “thattaway”.

There was no going back for a while now. Not that she had anywhere in mind for that.

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Chapter 1: Welcome to Paterville

The walk to Danny’s abandoned gas station let Kaida see outer side of Paterville from two contrasting angles. Behind her, to the east, pine trees blanketed the area. The woods were in a sad state even though it was the onset of summer, but she noted she couldn’t see that rusty orange color she had seen from atop the winding mountain road this close. On the other side, to the west, the dirt roads sprawled in all directions from the foot of the mountain.

“Must be some sort of highway,” Kaida thought, deciding to check her phone for a map. “No service…? Crud, I guess it was just one bar when I got here…” she frowned at the on-screen troubleshooting popup. The one upside of where she used to live was internet was always available. Stashing her smartphone away, she continued along the mountain side. “Guess I can take a walk without checking online every other minute, heh.”

Fortunately, even though the sign of the gas station seemed to have fallen off a while ago, it stuck out like a sore thumb in an otherwise empty dirt road. The word “landmark” came to mind, but Kaida chuckled to herself thinking how generous she was being with the term. Looking out beyond the sprawling countryside, Kaida couldn’t see signs of civilization for miles and miles. Only if she squinted her eyes she could make out the outline of structures of uneven height beyond those plains. “Might be the city they make supply runs to,” she guessed.

Following the bus driver’s advice, Kaida pulled her phone out and stared really hard at the screen. There was still no service. “Did their towers get knocked out…?” she mumbled to herself, holding her phone out higher in a vain attempt to capture a signal off the air, “They would’ve gotten them up fast though. Ugh, I don’t wanna walk back to the mountain road…” she huffed. This would take a while.

Right before boredom managed to get Kaida to explore the decrepit gas station though, something else caught her attention. A rising cloud of dust in the distance appeared to be approaching along the dirt. The cheetah got up from the luggage she had been using as a seat and hurried to the side of the rode where she stood shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun to confirm the sighting. It was a van.

It then occurred to Kaida that she had never done the pick-me-up hand-gesture before. She had always been a city girl and never ventured out of her comfort zone until now. “What if they don’t see me though…?” she suddenly asked herself with a frown, “I’m the only one for miles. They can’t not see me!” she argued back with herself in her head. In the end, she opted for waving her arms like someone drowning at sea.

To Kaida’s relief she saw the van’s braking lights turn on, the vehicle slowing down until the driver had pulled over next to her. They had slowed down just enough that they weren’t bringing a dust storm along anymore by the time they stopped, so Kaida didn’t even have to turn around. Polarized glass windows slowly slid down to reveal a sole occupant.

The driver was an old mole lady wearing a pair of jet-black goggles. Wrinkled whiskers twitched as the driver turned her nose, tapping one of her enormous claws on the top of the steering wheel as she turned to face Kaida. “You’re not the usual guy. And I thought you wanted a direct delivery this time. You missed your ride or something, boy?”

Guy, boy, dude, lad were among some of the usual Kaida had become used to hear as a result of her androgynous appearance; the last of which she had corrected the gruff bus driver at the start of her trip to Paterville. On top of being dismissively tall at a mere 5’4” for her species, Kaida’s figure and her short dirty blonde hair didn’t particularly help people’s impression of her. Two in a row was uncommon, however.

“Hey- hi- hello, ma’am,” Kaida said with a bit of a higher pitch than usual, a bit intimidated by the driver’s furrowed brow. “Sorry,” she quickly apologized, “You see, I’m here to join the cleanup detail at Paterville, but the buses won’t go deeper than the foot of the mountain…”

“Jimmy?” the old lady interrupted, “Oh, that dumb sack of superstitious bricks. Doesn’t he follow the news? It’s not dangerous to go in anymore, not up to the camp anyway. That silly bear. Been that way even before he started driving buses…” she rambled, but caught herself with a clearing of the throat, “Anyway. Pretty late to be joining up, aren’t you, young man? Janitors have been at it for the past two- three weeks with that big ‘ol factory-sized puke.”

“Young lady, actually…” Kaida murmured, getting the mole to tilt her goggles and readjust. She offered Kaida a quick apology and nodded for her to continue, “I only found out they were still hiring yesterday, actually. Wasn’t really expecting to be told to come in after I sent my résumé to be honest with you, ma’am. But it looks like they really need the extra hands, and…” the cheetah rubbed her arm uneasily after a pause, “…I really need the money.”

The old mole stared at Kaida dubiously at first, but she just shrugged her shoulders in the end. “And you’re from the other side of the mountains, huh? That’s some trip to come work for those Paterville assholes.”

“You dislike them…?”

“I don’t like them none, sweetie, and that’s the truth,” the mole woman said, “Not the people, mind. I know nearly every face who lives in the Paterville suburbs I grew up in and they don’t got a house to go back to there anymore. Why? ‘cause of the crud-faces we’re working for.”

“But…” Kaida turned to glance at the crates of supplies at the van’s storage.

“Money made you come to this ghost town, didn’t it? Money also makes these old wheels turn,” the mole confessed, “We all gotta eat, honey.”

Kaida simply nodded.

“Git on then, whaddayawaitingfer?” the old lady smacked the passenger seat, unlocking the van’s door on the other side.

“You can bring me? Oh thank you!” Kaida celebrated, quickly running back to fetch her things before rushing up into the vehicle. “What do I owe you?”

Rolling up her window, the old mole lady dismissively waved one of those massive claws. “I have the make the trip anyway. Looks like they got everybody in the roster super busy, so they’re shelling out for full trips now. Can’t complain since I charge ‘em a premium. So let’s go, kitten.”

It was dusk by the time they arrived at the cleanup department’s encampment. It was located between the outskirts of the eastern woods and the western edge of the Paterville industrial zone, which was the furthest away from ground zero. No less than two dozen tents were surrounding a large one which led into a huge container; Kaida thought it was some sort of bunker perhaps. By the time the supplier pulled over to park by the other vehicles, many peculiarly dressed people were heading into the smaller tents.

A couple of people emerged from the larger tent to greet the old mole lady, who rolled her van’s window back down. “Brought you a new cleaner on top of your order,” she said to tallest of the two. “Hurry with the check-up. I might have late dinners, but that doesn’t mean I wanna get back home at midnight.”

The bespectacled walrus looked into the van, making Kaida shift nervously on her seat. He didn’t say anything at first, looking to his right where a wolfess holding a clipboard was checking all the goods at the back of the van. She stopped taking inventory and took her phone out, sliding and swiftly tapping on it before nodding and showing it to the walrus, who turned to look back at Kaida who was starting to feel like she was being smuggled into a different country.

“I’m Samson, that’s Rogers. We’re in charge of supplies. Heard we were expecting someone new,” the tall walrus made a come hand gesture for Kaida to off the vehicle. “Bet they didn’t expect you here this late; especially since everyone’s back from their assignments. Just in time for dinner though, aren’t you lucky?” After the cheetah had climbed out with her things in tow, Samson pointed over his shoulder at the large tent and container. “You wanna talk to Collins; he’ll hook you up with what you need. Just walk straight ‘til you see the lockers. Can’t miss ‘em.”

Noting how nobody seemed to be a fan of wasting time here, Kaida quickly nodded and got ready to leave for the main tent. She thanked the driver, who gave her a silent smile before she turned back to Samson to discuss her rates quite fervently. Something about not gas being pricy and not being their personal chauffeur. Kaida didn’t look back.

The inside of the main tent was bustling. People of all kinds and sizes were coming and going. Some looked like doctors with their white coats on. Others made her fur stand on end with their military attires. But none of those people made her eyes stare the way the peculiarly dressed personnel did.

Kaida had seen those earlier during her arrival with the courier. They had been the ones going inside the smaller tents outside. Men and women dressed in full-body black suits; tails and other appendages covered in the same glossy material. Regardless of build, it clung to their bodies like a second skin and made their figures stand out. Kaida couldn’t help but feel self-conscious for a minute; it was certainly something she felt like she was going to have to get used to in the coming days.

Her hypothesis was proven correct when she finally made it into the ‘bunker’ part of the main tent and finally made it to where two nearly endless rows of lockers were. At the start of the passage was a computer desk and a petite, bespectacled fox girl clicking away at her keyboard with a bagel half-stuck in her mouth. Her level of concentration was such that it took her a moment to notice Kaida’s presence at all. Or that’s what the cheetah thought.

The click-clacks stopped and the vixen’s right hand helped her take a bite off her snack, holding it away from her otherwise immaculate-looking desk. “Yeah?” she said without looking away from the screen, her free hand dancing on the trackpad next to the keyboard. It was impossible to see what the fox was doing across the desk.

“Oh!” Kaida flinched and hurried to introduce herself. “Hello! Didn’t want to interrupt you. I’m Kaida. Are you Ms. Collins? I’m here for um… orientation…?” she said with a nervous smile.

“Huh,” the vixen paused for just one second, moved her finger along the trackpad and quickly tapped keys one-handed as she took another bite of her bagel. “There you are, late joiner. Didn’t expect you for another day at least. You were supposed to wait for pickup at Broadshire.”

“I know things are underway already. I just really wanted to start as soon as possible,” Kaida vaguely explained.

“Works for us. Don’t expect travel reimbursement,” the tech-savvy fox said, eating the last of her bagel and finally rolling her eyes over to the cheetah, who nodded in quiet understanding. “Alright, Kaida, follow me,” she stood up to her full 5’11” height. Despite looking like a nerdy type while sitting down, that arctic vulpine was a beauty with not only fair features but also a voluptuous body barely held back by loose clothing and that white coat. It took Kaida aback how Mother Nature could be so kind with some and completely forget about others. “Your suit’s waiting. Leave your things there,” the vixen pointed vaguely at her desk.

“Suit?” Kaida repeated as she set her luggage down, then it hit her. “Those black suits… are those anti-radiation suits?”

“Last-gen Personal Anti-Radiation Shield. PARS, or just shields, if you prefer,” the fox stopped next to one of the lockers on the right side of the aisle, unlocking it via contactless approach of her phone. “Got an expansion slot free on your phone?” she asked. “Give it here.”

As Kaida turned her smartphone over, she watched the fox rapidly remove its shell and install what looked like a small SD card into it. “This is your personal locker,” the fox explained, “You’ll stash whatever personal effect you want here. The key is in your phone now, so you better set a pattern or something if you haven’t already. Also,” she turned the phone back to Kaida, “It’s got 2GB, so you can use it as storage too, I guess. I’ll be taking it back and deleting everything once your contract’s up, so be mindful of where you store your things.”

Kaida nodded, impressed at how fast the tall girl spoke despite how inalterably nonplussed her expression was.

“Here’s your shields,” the fox opened the locker and Kaida saw her extracting something black. It was the folded-up suit as well as a what looked like a gas mask and a small device on top, “Easy to put ‘em on, easy to take off,” she said while dumping the PARS on Kaida’s arms. “You’ll be wearing this all the time during assignments. What are you waiting for? Put it on.”

“Like… right now?” Kaida gasped, looking around and immediately noting the lack of changing rooms, “…here?”

“The suit was brought in based on the information you submitted; female, feline, small-to-medium build. Should stretch-to-fit, but I still have to sign this away as ‘suitable’. Can we hurry this along? I’m gonna miss out on dessert. They got lime jelly cups.”

Kaida was still a bit apprehensive as she set the mask and small device on the floor along with her phone.

“Don’t worry. Nobody comes here at this hour; they’re all bushed and just go straight to bed after eating,” the fox insisted, but in the interest of helping Kaida feel more confident she fetched a blanket from the top of the lockers and held it open behind here, creating a makeshift curtain. “Better?”

“Thanks, Ms. Collins…” Kaida nervously chuckled, and trying not to make eye contact with the grumpy-looking vixen, she unfolded and gave a good look at the PARS suit. It was black as black could be, with yellow in the form of the universal radiation hazard symbol interwoven on the side of the upper arm sleeves as well as on top of the thighs.

“Just Claire will do,” the vixen finally introduced herself, although no friendlier than before. “Arms are getting tired over here, Kaida.”

Quickly, the cheetah got her light hoodie off, but was a little more hesitant when she began to pull her shirt over her head. There was absolutely nothing atop Kaida’s smooth-furred chest. She was well in her mid-20s with nothing to show for, and the way Claire’s comparatively enormous bust stuck out prominently in her shirt wasn’t helping Kaida’s self-esteem.

Deciding to look away from Claire, Kaida let out a soft huff and stripped out down to her underwear, at which point she zipped the PARS open and climbed into it. “I thought this looked like a wet suit…” Kaida observed after even her tail had comfortably wiggled into the suit. The material felt snug and clingy at first, but it quickly molded to her body leaving no crease behind. “It even feels like one.”

“Shields are made with a variety of materials to ensure protection, comfort, durability and portability. One of those mats is neoprene, chosen for its impermeability. Suit’s gonna help keep rads off your body even if you come in contact with irradiated water,” Claire explained and pointed down at the floor, “Mask is made of the same material, and will provide fresh air for up to 6 hours per filter. You get fresh 3 filters a day, plus the one on your mask, so learn to use them,” she stopped and walked up close to Kaida. The cheetah froze when the size difference became clear. Claire had dropped the blanket she had been using as a curtain and firmly patted Kaida’s left arm. “Filters go on the hooks in this strap. That’s why there are three. Easy to remember, right?”

Kaida nodded, trying really hard not to allow her eyes to fall into Claire’s cleavage now that it was so up close.

The vixen continued unconcerned, tapping right above Kaida’s chest next, “This slot here is for your dosimeter; you left it down there next to your mask,” she took a few steps back to point at the rest of Kaida’s equipment. “You’ll be guided in its proper use tomorrow during decon orientation, but there’s a PDF in the SD/ID I put on your phone if you want something to read. Just don’t submerge it for a long while at a time and it should always work.”

“So, this is what keeps track of radiation levels?” Kaida asked, kneeling down to pick up the dosimeter, mask and her phone. “The uh… the thing that goes brrr?”

“You’re thinking of a Geiger-Müller Counter. Your dosimeter is silent. You’ll see some of your coworkers, spotters, using them to quickly sniff out nearby radioactivity, but you’ll get used to the clicking. It’s all standard stuff,” Claire nodded and turned around, starting down the aisle back to her desk. Kaida bundled everything up in her discarded clothes and followed. She had no important personal effects to stash in her locker. “I’ll check you in now. Go grab a bite and I’ll have one of your fellow decon squad-mates fetch you for bunk assignment. Hope you’re alright sleeping in those.”

Kaida’s stomach growled at the prospect of food. It had been fifteen hours since her last meal. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone out camping, but a bunk sounded better than sleeping on that long bus ride by a long shot. After signing her contract as a temp hire, thanking a screen-focused Claire once again and getting half-hearted directions to the cafeteria, Kaida was on her way. The selection was nothing remarkable, but she was so hungry Kaida was happy with a plain deli meat sandwich and water bottle to rehydrate.

Exhausted after traveling all day, the newest hire of the Aster company’s department of nuclear waste management was coming out of the large tent when she was greeted by another member of the decontamination squad. For the first time that day, Kaida met someone surprisingly happy to see her.

It was a chinchilla girl no taller than Kaida herself. Perhaps an inch or two shorter; not that it mattered. The two of them were probably the smallest in that encampment. Her name was Sandra and the first thing she did was hold Kaida’s hands in her own, leaning in with a smile.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, Kaida!” Sandra exuberantly said. “It took a while but I finally have a roomie, hehe!”

“Same,” Kaida couldn’t help but smile; Sandra’s energy quickly infecting her. “Are you alone in one of tents?” she asked.

“Mhm. Well, not anymore! C’mon, I heard you’ve been sitting on a bus all day. You must be bushed!” Sandra let go of one of Kaida’s hands, but dragged her by the other. It barely gave the cheetah enough time to fasten her backpack and quickly swipe the handle of her rolling travel bag. The chinchilla was a chatterbox!

“Not many girls signing up. And these aren’t mixed tents – thank God – so all the other gals are together.” The pretty chinchilla giggled as she and Kaida walked into their personal tent. Gauging from the number of bunks alone it was easy to tell these could comfortably hold four people. “That one’s mine!” Sandra pointed at the one bunk with a stark pink bed cover. “Pick any you like.”

Kaida was eager to just sit down and take a load off. She dragged her feet over to the bunk next to Sandra’s at the far end and hauled her backpack and travel bag over to the side. It felt good to finally find a place to leave her change of clothes behind. “Um, so do we have to do our laundry or…?”

“Oh! You can, but you’re mostly going to be using your shields all day, so don’t stress about anything that isn’t underwear,” Sandra explained, pointing over to a laundry bucket in the corner of the tent. There was a little drying rack on the side but it was empty.

“So we don’t wash the suits?” Kaida turned to look at Sandra. Sure, the PARS felt comfortable to move in and it certainly felt like it wasn’t even there, but the way Sandra was talking it almost sounded like they never took the suit off!

“No need, girlfriend! We decon them after assignments.”

“Decon?”

“Decontaminate, decontamination… you’ll get used to the jargon!”

“So, uh… do you sleep in yours?” Kaida tilted her head as she watched the chinchilla shortstack hop onto her own bed, sprawling on it and deflating like a balloon. The cheetah had already started unzipping out of her own suit.

Sandra yawned, eyelids already starting to slowly fall. “You get used to it. We spend so much of the day walking around in it that it’s almost like a second skin by now. Plus, it feels crisp during hot days and nice and warm at night… mmm…”

Kaida ran a hand over her arm and up her thigh. Sandra was right. Just like the bus driver had told her, it got pretty cold at night and the default blanket they had offered her for her bunk didn’t look awfully warm. “Can’t hurt to try it for one night…” she resolved, and zipped her PARS back up.

While finishing to organize her things in her space, Kaida noticed Sandra had already fallen asleep. She didn’t snore, but she had become contrastingly quiet in the past few minutes.

“Must be really tuckered out,” Kaida observed while also making note of how silent the encampment as a whole was. There was no music, no murmurs; everybody seemed to be asleep. Other than the idle hum of portable generators outside, the place was mute.

Kaida quickly found herself lying down on her bunk and checking her phone. It still was at over 60% battery, but at least she had two out of four possible service bars. It kept randomly falling to one bar. “Ugh, forgot to ask if there’s Wi-Fi… and where to charge my phone,” Kaida huffed, seeing no outlets anywhere inside the tent. She’d probably have to go back into the bunker, but that place was so intimidating she thought she might get shot for asking where the bathroom is. Fortunately, she didn’t have to go, but already had seen the chemical bathrooms neatly organized and in great number outside, earlier.

Unfortunately, despite how physically tired she was, Kaida’s brain was still racing. It was the first time in her life she had ever traveled so many hundreds of miles away from home. She didn’t want to think about home, however. She needed a distraction. But without reliable internet, social media was out of the question. Then she recalled the manual Claire Collins had told her about. “In the SD she installed, right…?” she mused to herself as she navigated to her phone’s files.

Kaida found more than just one PDF; the one about the dosimeter usage looked like a short manual. There was also a medical-looking document detailing the basics of first aid and specialized treatment and care with radiation sickness, as well as safety guidelines for decontamination work. She guessed presentation and orientation for all of this had happened during the first week. In a way, the cheetah felt like she was back in college, where her first day had also involved her starting late into the season.

“Might as well read it all,” Kaida mumbled, illuminated only by the light of her phone screen until the dead of night. These documents were simply written, meant to convey essential information with a handful of practical examples, simple drawings and analogies to draw on the reader’s visualization ability. Half-way into the fourth file, her eyelids grew heavy and sleep finally ensnared her.

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Morning came with a loudness Kaida didn’t expect.

“Wake up, Kaida! You’re gonna oversleep on your first day!”

The cheetah’s eyes opened fast, but she blinked slowly, groggily. “Morning already…?” she grumbled, sitting up on her bunk with a little hiss as her back complained. The thin surface of this kind of bedding was something she’d have to get used to for sure. After sliding her feet down to the floor, she glanced around to a surprising lack of natural light. Taking her phone from under the pillow, Kaida saw the clock on it read 4:42am.

And there was Sandra with all of her energy back and then some, holding two paper cups and chugging from one. Coffee, Kaida guessed. “Here, wasn’t sure if you were a coffee or tea cat so I got you a coffee! Got some sugar packets I didn’t use over here too. I take mine with three!”

“Black coffee’s fine,” Kaida said and was thankful for the cup. It wasn’t even 5 in the morning, what were they doing awake? “Is everyone else up too?” she asked.

“Finishing up breakfast, I reckon!” Sandra quickly nodded, “You better go fuel up for the day before all the good stuff’s gone!”

It was hard not to smile at Sandra’s concern. Kaida shook her head and shrugged a little, “Maybe some fruit. I’m not that big of an eater in the morning.”

“Well, I’d reconsider that, girl,” the thick chinchilla put a hand at her wide hips, taking one last sip of sweet coffee before pointing her index over the cup at Kaida, “A) You look like you’re all bones and skin; and this suit doesn’t lie!” she casually waved a hand over her ample figure. She was only slightly chubby in the middle and the form-fitting PARS definitely didn’t hide it. “And B) lunch break won’t be for another five hours. We’re gonna be out all day y’know!”

Kaida silently stared at her tent mate. Lunch break after five hours of work? Being out all day? The cheetah had been so concerned on arriving to Paterville and getting this new job that she hadn’t stopped to ask about the hours and other important details. So many new things all at once! For the time being, Kaida decided to heed her coworker’s advice; she had been longer than her at this after all.

The first thing Kaida noticed after stepping out of the tent was the sheer numbers pouring out of the main tent, some of them with paper cups in hand, others still munching their breakfast; all of them in a hurry. She noticed not one of them was dressed in anything other than the PARS, which meant they were also her coworkers just like Sandra. “If each tent can hold four people and I counted 21-22… maybe more tents…” Kaida mumbled as she tried making her way against the flow of exiting people into the main tent. It was far too early to do brain arithmetic though. She left it at “an imposing number of people”.

A couple of pancakes, some strips of bacon and the lukewarm coffee she had brought in with her later, Kaida was feeling full. She made sure to add a single banana from the practically untouched fruit bowls in the cafeteria on her way back out.

“Hey, over here!” Sandra called from a group of no less than twenty people gathered in lines. Kaida hurried over to her side. “Did you try the ‘taters? That onion garlic mix is awesome, isn’t it?”

“If I ate anymore, I wouldn’t be able to move,” Kaida giggled with a sheepish smile, ears splayed against her head. “Is this where we leave for work from?”

“Almost. We’re gearing up. Getting stuff like our filters and decon foam packs…” Sandra trailed off, staring at Kaida.

“What? Did I get something on my suit?”

“Where’s your mask? Did you forget it in the tent?”

“Oh shi-” Kaida grumbled, patting her hip out of reflex.

“Haha, here it is!” Sandra laughed, reaching around and unhooking one of the two masks hanging at one of her hip catches. “Your dosimeter, too. Gotta be careful from now on, alright? I got chewed out for it on my first day y’know! These are expensive.”

Kaida quickly nodded and equipped her dosimeter to the slot on her suit’s chest. She used what she had learned from the manual to turn it on, hearing it click a few times before it settled back down. The encampment was isolated from the exclusion zone, so while radiation levels were higher than normal, they were nowhere near concerning for them. To make sure she wouldn’t drop her mask, Kaida hooked it on her hip catch and turned to Sandra to thank her. “Maybe I should’ve had two coffees…”

Sandra giggled. Soon they were next in line.

Kaida met with the supply officers from last night. They along three others were distributing equipment. Sandra loudly reminded the supply officer Kaida was new. The cheetah felt herself shrink with embarrassment even though the excited chinchilla was giving her a thumbs up and a big grin from the lines ahead.

“Here’s your filters, rookie,” the wolfess said. Kaida recalled this one was called Rogers, or so the large walrus, Chief Samson, had called her last night. She didn’t seem concerned with their previous meeting, however. Giving Kaida three cartridges, she asked: “Do you know how to put them on?”

Kaida took her mask out and pressed on a tab on the side of the mask which ejected the filter it had come with. She soon placed it back in with a sharp click. “Is this right?” she humbly asked.

“Read the manual for that, huh?” the nonplussed wolfess simply said, “Any filter you do not use is brought back here. Do not dispose of empty or near-empty ones; they are recyclable. Got that?” Rogers asked, and Kaida nodded, taking the filters and hooking them to the strap along her left arm. Next, the wolfess turned around and received a large black boxy backpack, which she turned over to Kaida immediately. “Your decon solution pack. Hose attachments are in the personnel trucks. Remember to return to refill trucks if you’re running low; they’re the ones carrying the big cylindrical tanks. Pack’s capacity sensor will short-beep twice for low, and long-beep for empty. You got all that?”

Kaida nodded again, putting her mask away and strapping the pack to her back, huffing a little. Her legs were bending at the knees as she did her best to pull herself forwards and not fall. Pack was definitely full. She couldn’t believe everyone else was so well-poised carrying this weight at their backs! It was amazing how accustomed her coworkers were.

Soon, those dozens upon dozens of people were being loaded up in trucks. Kaida hurried to join Sandra at the back of her vehicle alongside a number of others. She ended sitting between her tent mate and one other guy, a friendly looking, tall goat.

The three spoke on their way to their assignment site, but halfway into eastern Paterville all of the cleaners were told to put their masks on, interrupting their chat. Clickers on the spotters’ counters told them they were getting closer to where exposure wasn’t deadly, but could leave to complications if unprotected.

The goat had introduced himself as Adrian. Unlike Kaida and Sandra who had come to join the effort as civilian hires, Adrian had been part of the radioactive waste management department of the company before the accident.

“So, you’re the one who joined up last night, huh? Better late than never?” Adrian playfully joked. Kaida liked how gentle his tone of voice was, and was glad he couldn’t see the blush on her face thanks to her mask. These masks had been designed to cover the entirety of the head and were as light and comfortable to wear as the PARS. A reinforced glass visor let them see clearly. Adrian could tell from the way Kaida was looking at him that she was somewhat nervous. “It’s normal to feel like the job’s overwhelming at first. You should’ve seen Sandra during her first day; quite the foamy fireworks.”

“Excuuuuse me for breaking my first hose. You didn’t tell me about the safety latch, and I thought it was just blocked or whatever!” the chinchilla defended herself, getting another laugh from the goat and prompting her to stand on her seat and smack him on the shoulder. “Dumbass.”

“Don’t worry, Kaida, I’ll coach you right,” Adrian assured, rubbing his shoulder even though Sandra’s tap hadn’t hurt him at all. “Don’t want to have two girls beating me up.”

Finally, the truck grinded to a stop and the squad was told to disembark. They were each given an attachment for their packs. Adrian showed Kaida how to properly equip and handle the hose which they would be using to spray the decontamination solution with.

The squad’s job as cleaners was to drop off in deeply contaminated sectors of the city and hose the surfaces of irradiated buildings, vehicles and other items down in order to clean them. This included the insides of all those buildings that had been exposed to nuclear fallout; the latter being the biggest reason for their masks. After the explosion in the power plant, even Paterville’s air had become polluted.

With Adrian’s quick training and initial supervision, Kaida spent her first few hours being directed to abandoned cars on the side of roads, coached on how much decon solution she should be spraying and for how long. She had no issues during execution since it was a simple action, but what exhausted her was the weight of all the gear she was carrying on her person as well as having to hold the spray for several minutes at a time per object. Now she understood why there were so many cleaners! They truly were like a guild of high-school janitors, except the entire city of Paterville had partied in the world’s deadliest prom and now it was up to them to clean the mess of catastrophic levels.

“A month ago this place was full of people just like any other city…” Kaida thought four-hours in as she followed her coworkers into one of many educational institutes. Only their steps, the Geiger counters used by spotters, and the fizzle of the cleaners’ hoses could be heard echoing through otherwise deserted halls. “…I wonder how long it’ll take for people to be able to come back home…” she wistfully thought before continuing on with her work.

The constant clicking of the Geiger counters was unnerving. Each time the clicking loudened she felt her muscles tense and she began to walk on the tip of her toes for a moment, almost as if she had been trying to hide from some ghost in the building. It didn’t help that each member was left largely alone in the rooms they were assigned to decontaminate, and would only leave after a spotter cleared them to go on to the next place they were needed at.

Although she was picking her job up fast, Kaida’s back, legs and arms were begging her to take a break already. Hosing stuff down wasn’t the only part of her job. It was also helping coworkers with moving heavy things as they salvaged what they could and marked for disposal what they could not; everything had to be loaded in transport vehicles waiting for them by the refilling tanks.

Kaida felt like she was getting a full-body workout merely walking around! It was exhausting. She arrived at lunch break with her stomach screaming for food. Sandra hadn’t been kidding about having a hearty breakfast!

Food trucks brought in sandwiches and refreshments; coffee for those that wanted it. Before they could walk in for food, the cleaners, still in their suits and masks, were each sprayed with their own decontamination solution to ensure they were clean themselves. Kaida and the rest were given twenty minutes to eat, drink and make use of the in-truck facilities if they needed to, after which the vehicles left for the other teams scattered about Paterville. Then it was back to work for another five hours.

With all the driving around between Paterville city and the encampment at the edge of the exclusion zone, it was dusk by the time everyone got back to their home away from home. Every cleaner and spotter got another blast of decontaminating solution and was told to remove their masks and return their filters and backpacks. After that, it was time to load trucks with what they had decontaminated and brought back from the city. Anything useful that could be refurbished or otherwise recycled got loaded into a salvage truck, while containment boxes loaded with radioactive waste or debris were marked for disposal and loaded in a different truck. That task was also up to Kaida and her coworkers.

“How…” Kaida panted as she helped Sandra load up their second crate into the disposal truck’s back, “…how can you do this every day, Sandra…?”

“We don’t organize every day. We’ll get some afternoons off; it all depends on how much salvage and disposal we get to arrange after decon work.” The chinchilla was looking exhausted, herself, but her chirpy smile hadn’t been brought down yet. “It’s backbreaking stuff, sure. But you get used to it! Mmmph! Heeeeave…!” the shortstack grunted, pushing up with all her arms had to give. “It helps to think of the paycheck!”

Kaida did her best to visualize fat stacks of cash that would magically solve any problem, but her imagination unfortunately wasn’t providing her arms with the necessary strength. As she began to falter, Sandra was left picking up the slack but with the lack of balance the pair started to stumble. “…ah! Sorry!”

“Kuh-Kaida, it’s slipping…!” squeaked Sandra but just as she was about to let go, the box was suddenly lifted several inches above where the two girls had been holding it. “Huh? Oh…!” the chinchilla perked up.

Kaida flinched. One moment her arms had given up and she had been about to get crushed by the heavy crate, but now it seemed weightless and suspended in the air. Looking to her right, she saw a huge hand underneath the box. It was connected to a bulging, muscle bound arm leading all the way up to a giraffe who seemed just about ready to explode out of his PARS.

He was more than a full foot of height taller than the cheetah. Kaida could swear she could see the vascular lines pushing out along the powerful male’s arm. He was so strong he wasn’t just holding that heavy-duty crate up in one palm, he was also carrying his own under his other arm!

“You two done playin’?” the giraffe scoffed and finally pushed their crate up into the back of the truck like one would shove a letter into a mailbox. “Got to keep the line moving.”

Feeling responsible and also bad for getting chewed up by someone so tall, Kaida pouted and rubbed her sore arm. “Sorry abou…”

“Why’re you apologizing to Terry?” Sandra intercepted, and glared up at the big ‘raffe, “We had that, you lump. We weren’t “playin’”!”

Terry walked forth with the imposing stride of a steamroller. Even the annoyed Sandra had to hop out of the way to let him pass so he could slide his own crate up into the back of the truck. He turned his head around and gestured with his open hand at the rest of the cleaners, who stepped close with their disposable materials so that he could take them and stash them away crate by crate all by himself.

Kaida’s eyes were practically paralyzed. She had never seen someone this big and strong back in her city, not even during the one month she had tried going to the gym! Terry made bodybuilders look bad yet he was so confident and careful with all that fast stacking. He was a heavy-duty sorting machine! Within moments, the truck was full.

“That’s havin’ it, baby,” Terry boomed out with a wipe of his brow. Circling around to the side of the truck, he loudly slapped the back of the truck before pulling down the cover. The engine sputtered to life and the driver promptly took off. He got a few cheers and a number of clapping hands by the coworkers he’d relieved from lifting their crates into the truck.

“Whatever,” Sandra huffed, both arms folded together. “And quit getting your sweat everywhere, oaf.”

“Sorry if I got a lil’ sweat on ya while making sure kitty boy here didn’t get squished, chubby cheeks,” Terry brashly said, not even looking at Kaida. There was a little laughter among those present, but everyone was so tired and hungry they were already leaving.

“She’s a girl, dumbass. Get your eyes checked,” Sandra spat while pointing back at Kaida, who was starting to get a bit of a sense of déjà vu from earlier in the morning. “And she’s new. Would it kill you to be nice to her?” The chinchilla definitely didn’t seem to have any issue putting others on the spot!

All Terry did when looking over Kaida for the second he was invested in confirming Sandra’s allegation was offer an indifferent scoff. “My mistake,” he grumbled with a shrug of his huge shoulders and proceeded to walk away in the direction of the group heading to the main tent. He stopped to address Kaida. “Learn to stay out of the way when you can’t do something by yourself, rookie. And careful with the lil’ spitfire. She’s a real pain in the ass,” he advised, and once he was done saying his piece went back on his way.

“You uh…” Kaida trailed off once Terry’s shadow had moved away from on top of her. Looking at the steaming Sandra, she asked with a sarcastic smile: “…friends with him?”

“That’s Terry,” Sandra confirmed, “We come from the same town, so we know each other. He’s always been like that. Always pushing people around. You’ll have to get used to his Tarzan attitude around here. Thinks he’s the king of the jungle or something.”

“He’s…” Kaida looked away from Sandra and at Terry walking away. He was a good four inches taller than the tallest guy among his group, and one of his arms was the equivalent of two of hers. “…a pretty big fellow,” was all she could say.

“Big meathead, all he is…” Sandra still looked annoyed. Kaida didn’t know what to say to calm her down.

Just then, they were met by Adrian who was just coming back from the salvage truck. The goat stepped in with a bit of an exhausted sigh and brushed one of his large, lopping ears back over his shoulders. “Whew!” he stood next to his fellow cleaners, hands dropping to his hips. “Organizing reclaimed items makes dinner-time come faster, but it always tuckers me out. You gals all done?”

Kaida looked at the smiling goat for a bit longer than usual. Before she knew it, she was unintentionally sizing him up after having seen such a monster of a man before his appearance. “He’s cute and marked, but that guy was a beef mountain,” the cheetah thought with her cheeks starting to flush. “But Terry’s so full of himself and Adrian helped me earlier even though I’m a newbie…” she rubbed uneasily at her arm again, tail flickering left and right. The stark difference was giving her pause.

Looking between Kaida’s miles-away stare and Sandra’s glare down at the tent, Adrian was left scratching between his horns. “Uhh, are you ladies feeling okay?”

The first to snap out of it was Kaida. “Suh-sorry, guess I’m more tired than I thought!” she said without daring to lock eyes with Adrian. “We just finished with disposal. It was tough doing that after being out all day!”

“Yeah, you don’t really know how backbreaking decon is until you get to doing it for an entire city. It’s all slow and methodical; gotta make sure we get every last spot and remove all affected items. I can’t wait to get back to bed… Anyway, let’s not stand out here when everyone’s chowing down in there. Don’t wanna sleep with an empty stomach, right? Heard they made lasagna with the ground beef they brought from the next town over, yesterday…”

“Wait, seriously?” Sandra perked up almost as by art of magic, her bright smile returning. It was as if she hadn’t been frowning for the past ten minutes! The chinchilla hopped to her feet and ran past Adrian.

An amused Adrian couldn’t help but chuckle, “That girl really likes her pasta. Same reaction every week. Ah, well. You coming, Kaida?” he thumbed back.

Placing a hand at her belly, Kaida’s thoughts turned entirely to the feast at hand. Her tired feet which at one point had felt heavy as concrete were suddenly on board with walking again. “I could go for some lasagna,” the cheetah said, and walked in with Adrian for her first proper dinner at camp.

At the end of the night, the rookie was shown to the shower stalls, which she went to after fetching her backpack from the tent. There were less than ten women in the cleaners’ squad, but they still got their own side for privacy; sharing it even with those in higher positions in the company. Kaida even saw management like Claire and even Rogers from supplies drying themselves off and getting changed outside of their stalls. Regardless of position, everybody enjoyed a warm shower after all.

It was then that Kaida realized she had spent almost twenty-four hours wearing the same clothes. “This suit is so comfy I only remembered I had it on when I put my mask on and had to switch filters earlier…” she mused as she unzipped and got out of her underwear as well. It was another cool night despite it being summer and she was able to feel the gentle breeze against her fur as she climbed into her private shower stall.

“This is what this job is going to be like, isn’t it…?” the tired cheetah ruminated, “All day, every day… Until…” she huffed a little, closing her eyes and letting hot water wash away the sweat of the day, as well as all of her immediate worries. She began purring, worried tiredness might take her and make her fall asleep in that little stall. She forced herself awake to remind herself to wash her clothes and give a small rinse to the inside of her PARS so it would be ready the next day.

Kaida didn’t even remember exchanging words with Sandra that night, simply crashing onto her bunk the second she laid her things and herself down.

And just like that, the first week of decontamination work went flying by. The days didn’t get any less tiring. Despite being relatively well taken care of, it was still a brutal routine for everybody involved. Kaida quickly realized this whole enterprise demanded more stamina than the average person had to give. Only people like Terry who were walking juggernauts and those trained for this work like Adrian were truly prepared for it; and even the latter got to the end of the day feeling half-dead!

Days quickly began to blur together for Kaida. Wake up, stuff herself with as much breakfast as she could, work herself to the bone, take a break, work herself to the bone some more, drive back to camp to organize, eat and rest. Sure, there were some days just as Sandra had told her earlier where they were dropped off and had free time between then and dinner. Some did laundry, others worked out. Most just wanted to take a load off. Kaida was in the latter group; she couldn’t believe how some of the cleaners could find the energy to lift weights! The routine was unchanging for the most part.

But they were all in it together. Whether some days they laughed together or butted heads due to exhaustion and stress, the Paterville squad was ever steadily making progress to restoration. As a result, management had decided to order a small splinter group of the decon squad to move on to a different area in the fringe zone. It was soon time to tackle the woods…

---

Chapter 2: Trapped

It was a gloomy day for a forest walk. Dense, dark clouds were gathered above Paterville, making even dawn as dark as dusk. Towering pine woods greeted Kaida and Sandra as they explored the woods, quite the change over the asphalt they had become accustomed to tread every day.

Click. Click. Click. The Geiger counter in Kaida’s hand was steady. Today, she was running the role of spotter for Sandra, who had been assigned her partner for forest side decon. With contaminated wildlife taken care of already, most of the work here involved finding stray vehicles to clean.

“Over here, Sandra,” Kaida marked as the clicks multiplied. They had found a motorcycle embedded into the right side of a car behind a thicket. “Oof. I guess this was a crash?” Kaida supposed as her partner came up behind her. “How do you crash in the woods though?”

Sandra aimed her hose at the wreckage and waited for Kaida to step back before she started spraying. “Maybe the dude in the bike was trying to get away from the police or something?”

“This doesn’t look like a police car though,” Kaida rubbed at her visor. “Oh wait, this place used to be a popular fishing spot right? Maybe this car was one of the fisherman’s.”

“Yeah, and the lake’s now one of the most contaminated spots ‘cuz of the chunk that fell in it after the explosion,” Sandra pointed out north, but with the sheer amount of trees in the way Kaida couldn’t see anything but decaying nature.

“…the power plant’s on the other end of Paterville though, isn’t it?” Kaida turned to Sandra slowly, staring in disbelief. “A chunk from it flew all the way out here?!”

“That’s what I heard anyway,” Sandra shrugged, “It was a big boom.”

“Holy shit, no wonder the lake looked weird from the mountains. And the trees… I guess the lake feeds into them,” the cheetah paused and looked at Sandra’s backpack. “I don’t suppose our decon solution can clean trees.”

“Living things are different, yeah, that’s why they had to…” Sandra stopped spraying to look around, “Well, you don’t see any wild animals around anymore.” She said and walked around the two vehicles to clean from a different angle. “Let’s quit talking about depressing stuff though! We haven’t had some alone time in a while. You fall asleep before me these days!”

Kaida giggled, “I’m just not cut out for all this physical work. What do you want to talk about?”

“Well, for starters, what were you doing before you came here? From what I heard you come from pretty far away! That’s a long trip to do something you’re not cut out for.”

Kaida’s humor waned a little at the question. “I guess I was trying to find a job, but things weren’t panning out for me.”

“C’mon,” Sandra chuckled without looking at Kaida, “You telling me someone with all that diligence couldn’t land a job? Not even at the local burger joint?”

“I got fired from that one, actually,” Kaida laughed, rubbing uneasily at her arm. “It was nice for a while, but then someone got hurt ‘cuz one of the fryers caught fire. It wasn’t even on my shift. Since I was new at the time, I got blamed for it and fired.”

“Whaaat?” Sandra stopped cold, turning back at Kaida, “That’s terrible. I would’ve sued their asses!”

“I tried, but the lawyer I got… uhh…” Kaida shrugged.

“Incompetent?”

“She made a good case of it, but later she screwed me over. Said I owed her more than the money we got. And well, an unemployed undergrad can’t really come up with that kind of cash so…” Kaida took a deep breath. “I couldn’t afford rent anymore, and I was barely scraping by with what food I had left. I was stupid and desperate so I went to a loan shark… who worked with my ex-lawyer.”

“Oh, honey,” Sandra stopped spraying, walking around to put a hand on Kaida’s arm.

“I couldn’t take it anymore, so I started looking for a way out. I knew I was just going to continue getting screwed over in that city, even though it was my home,” Kaida huffed, “I was drunk off my ass one night when I was re-reading what had happened here, and don’t ask me how I found the job listing, but I did. It was a dumb idea, but I took the first bus ride I could find. You know… start anew? Maybe don’t be so stupid this time?” she was smiling hopefully behind her mask.

“And here I thought I had guts,” Sandra said, visibly shaken by the story.

“Why are you working here?”

“I got a brother. Older,” Sandra said, “We’re from the next town over, Terry too. Remember where we get the supplies from? I wasn’t exactly the best sister. Got greedy with one of my bosses and… I shouldn’t have. Ollie paid for it. Was really bad. He might not walk again… That’s why I’m getting as much dosh as I can. I wanna pay for whatever big surgery he needs. Even if it means working in this hellscape.”

“I had no idea,” Kaida let out a soft gasp against her mask. “You seemed so energetic and everything…”

“Gotta do what you gotta do,” Sandra shrugged, “They don’t ask questions here, and you get paid the big bucks for breaking your back. Simple stuff for once.”

“Yeah, simple…” Kaida agreed. Suddenly it was really quiet, other than the clicking of Kaida’s counter.

“Boy, and I had just tried to pull us out from depressing talk. We suck haha…!” Sandra giggled, reaching up to tickle under Kaida’s forearm. “What’s it say? Are we done here yet?”

Kaida looked at the readings and then started scanning outwards to catch another signal. “Got a big one over there. It’s in the direction of the lake but not that far away. Let’s go!”

“That’s the spirit!”

Bolstered by their duty, the two partners walked deeper into the woods. That brief moment of confidentiality seemed as if it hadn’t happened at all, as soon they were talking about food and making their best Terry impressions to amuse themselves. Unseen by them, the dark skies above them were starting to flash.

Twigs and dried leaves crunching under their steps were their sole companions; almost as if this had been a Fall stroll rather than a Summer one; they were already pretty far away from all the other teams divided among the sprawling contaminated Paterville forest. The tall crowns were shielding the cleaners from incoming rain, with the loud crunching masking its sound.

Click. Click. Clickclickclickclick click.

“Whoa, what the hell?” said Kaida as she came out between two large trees, skidding to a stop as she saw a steep gully before her. But that deep ravine splitting the woods in two wasn’t the only thing that caught her attention. “You seeing this, Sandra? This is a goddamn tank!”

“Wait, what?” the chinchilla had been lagging behind due to her equipment being heavier, but once she met up with Kaida she was struck with the same level of awe. “Holy crap. It is!”

The treaded vehicle looked quite differently to what one was used to see in old war movies, but it definitely had a couple of cannons attached to the top. A black, boxy design reminiscent of their decon solution backpacks gave the huge thing a sort of futuristic look.

Clickclickclickclick.

Kaida held her measuring instrument out at the tank. “It looks like it’s what’s giving off this massive reading, here.”

“Fuck me, I gotta clean this entire thing by myself?” Sandra puffed her cheeks out, approaching the tank as if to size the vehicle up. “Hey, we should head back and get another cleaner to help. Hold on, maybe if I can get a signal…” she said, reaching back for her phone and taking it off one of the straps.

“Suh-Sandra, watch out!” Kaida pointed at her distracted partner’s right foot. The dirt at the edge was crumbling under her step.

“Wuh…? Ah!” Sandra wasn’t quick enough to step off. Her foot slipped and caused her to stumble into the trench.

“Sandra!” Kaida threw her Geiger counter away fast just as Sandra let go of her phone. They managed to join hands but between Sandra’s weight and Kaida’s flimsy arms, all they accomplished was dragging both of them into the gully.

“Aiiiee…!”

Kaida stumbled and rolled down the humid dirt, bracing herself as best as she could to protect herself from the nasty fall. When she managed to get back up to her hands and knees, she noticed Sandra close by, but she was clutching her leg. She crawled closer to her partner in pain. “Hey! Sandra, are you okay?”

“Nnnghh…” the chinchilla whimpered in pain. “Nuh-no, I don’t think so. I think I… gyah!” she shot up in pain after trying to get up, instantly falling down to the same fetal position, “…son-of-a-bitch! I landed wrong on my foot. Must’ve twisted my ankle or something!”

“Crap! Does it hurt?” Kaida asked, getting a hiss and a snap from the chinchilla.

“Geez, Kaida, does it look like I’m having a blast at Disneyland right now?!”

The cheetah backed away, her ears twitching under her mask. “Suh-sorry, I’m sorry. You’re right. Here, let me try helping you up…” Kaida said, offering an arm around Sandra and putting it under hers.

“Wuh-wait, no, don’t pull me up, don’t…!” Sandra gasped. The pain seemed like it was too great for her, so Kaida relented. “It hurts bad. Hope it’s not broken, fuck. Please tell me my suit didn’t tear…”

Kaida scrambled and crawled around to get a good look at Sandra’s leg. Fortunately, the fabric looked intact. That neoprene must’ve been something else! “Looks good to me,” Kaida reassured.

“Thank God,” Sandra sighed, then tried breathing deeply. “Sorry for snapping at you like a bitch. I know you’re just trying to help.”

“It’s okay. You’re in pain,” Kaida nodded in understanding. She looked around for a moment, carefully standing up, “This ravine is really deep. And it keeps going for a long way either way… We’re not getting out on our own.”

“Just great,” Sandra grunted before letting out a shout at the top of her lungs. “HEY! We fell down the gully! Bring a ladder! And a medic! GAH fudge-sakes it hurts…!”

“Sandra, don’t push yourself!” Kaida frowned with concern, standing close to the chinchilla, “We must’ve walked really far away from the others. Let’s do what you were saying earlier and give a call to…” her words trailed off as she patted her back. The hook she had been using to carry her phone by a strap was empty. “No… nonono!” Kaida turned around as a chill went up her spine. She threw herself at the muddy, splashing ground of the gully and started digging through desperately. “My phone! Where is it? I brought it with me! I’m sure I… Did it get launched when we fell?!”

“Fuuuuck…” Sandra whined, “…I dropped mine when I went to grab your hand. My phone’s up there, Kaida!”

Kaida dug her knees to the ground. She wanted to scream, but held it in and sank her hands into the mud. “Mud…” she murmured in confusion, “Why is it so muddy?”

Pitter patter. Kaida looked up. Rainwater was starting to filter down from above the canopies, hitting her visor as well as Sandra and their surroundings. Kaida could see water coming down both edges above, beginning to pool into the gully.

“What now?” Sandra hissed. Neither of them could ignore the sound of heavy rainfall now that it was suddenly coming down so hard. “Summer rain, really? Just what I needed…”

“We can’t stay here,” Kaida said, hurrying over to Sandra’s side, “Let me offer you my shoulder, Sandra. This gully is probably connected to the lake, right? If this rain keeps up and it overflows, it’s gonna flood.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Sandra grunted, “Storm like this the others must be headed back too. This is gonna hurt like a bitch, but no choice…”

Puckering up, Sandra allowed Kaida to help her up. The chinchilla panted out and moaned in pain with the first, second and third steps she tried taking. It was no use; she needed to lean on Kaida to walk. They pushed down the way opposite to the lake, hoping to find any place they could climb up from. With no such luck, they were soon starting to find their feet squelching against the unsteady mud. The surfaces between and below them appeared to be vibrating.

“Crap,” Kaida gasped, “Crap crap crap on a cracker, don’t tell me…” the cheetah stopped to look back. Tremors getting louder and more menacing caused every strand of fur in Kaida’s coat to stand against her skintight suit.

“Help!” Sandra yelled again. Kaida joined her this time. “Help! We’re stuck!” the two desperate girls cried out. But no one came. When the tremors reached their apex, Kaida thought they were going to get washed away by an incoming flash flood; just two mud-battered corpses to be found in the coming days.

Just as Kaida was giving up however, she saw something to her right. The ground was giving away into some sort of different pattern. With no time to waste, Kaida left Sandra and ran over to what she suspected was some sort of metal wall. She clawed away at the mud and old leaves slathered upon the wall, hoping to find an emergency ladder, some door, anything! Instead, Kaida’s haphazard touch managed to fall on hidden switch. The ground rumbled beneath her before a dark, gaping maw opened under herself and Sandra.

“What the…”

“…the fuck?!”

Both cleaners screamed as a metallic hole swallowed them. Kaida reached out with her open hand only to see the metal hatch close after them as they slid down a tunnel alongside mud and water. A small volume compared to the aggressive disaster overtaking the gully aboveground.

Kaida couldn’t see anything in the darkness, she could only hear Sandra and her own screams as well as running water. And then, after a brusque impact, only silence.

---

Gasping awake, the cheetah scrambled to her hands and knees, and pushed herself up to her feet. “What? What happened?” she asked, rapidly patting herself down to check for injuries. By some miracle, there was not a scratch on her person or even her suit. However, as soon as her hand patted down on her right shoulder Kaida felt sharp pain. “Ugh… dropped into that hole, right. Must’ve landed on my shoulder, but landed from… where exactly?”

Without looking around her surroundings, Kaida recognized the muddy water she had slid down with under her feet. She was standing on firm ground and there was a flickering light above her head which forced her to lower her face when it shone brightly in her eyes. It was when she tilted her head down that something else clicked in her racing brain. “…Sandra!” Holding her bruised shoulder still, Kaida gasped and called out again. “Sandra!” she shouted and scanned her surroundings again with only her partner in mind.

Fortunately, the space Kaida and Sandra had fallen into wasn’t that big. Kaida identified the sterile-white room as some sort of office, and as soon as she checked under one of many desks, she hit upon the unconscious chinchilla. Kaida hurried and clenched her fangs through the pain in her shoulder to pull Sandra out from under that desk, turning her around and wiping her dirty visor.

“Sandra…” Kaida knelt beside her, gently lying her head upon her lap as she checked her out for any injuries. To her immense relief, Sandra had been spared any cuts or visible harm. She was thankful for the suit being undamaged, and honestly surprised with its durability after not one but two nasty spills. “She’s breathing, thank God… Hold on, did she land on her head?” a chill went up Kaida’s spine. “What if she’s got a concussion? She shouldn’t be sleeping with a concussion! Oh God, what do I do?! …right, CPR! I can…” she stopped herself.

Kaida’s hands already had been poised to unstrap her mask and take it off. The next thing she was going to do was unmask Sandra. But then a thought occurred to her. The water they were sitting on and the mud they were covered in was likely irradiated, and with both their dosimeter screens cracked there was no way to tell just how safe the air here was to breathe.

“Ugh, if only I hadn’t had to drop the Geiger counter too…” Kaida lamented, thinking back to the accidental slip that had cost them their phones as well. Her mask and Sandra’s beeped three times, once per second. Sandra’s was a little earlier. Hurrying, Kaida swapped both of their filters.

“Must be lunch time if we just ran out,” Kaida theorized, looking up straight at the white ceiling above her. “We must’ve been out for two… three hours. Maybe a bit less…” she looked around at the dimly lit office. There wasn’t much to see other than few empty desks, one with a computer and some equipment she wasn’t familiar with, and a few empty racks here and there. It was almost like whoever had last been here had bothered to take everything with them. At least what Kaida could see.

With a racing heart, the questions started to pile on. “I don’t understand this place. Was that hole a secret entrance to come here? Why was it at the gully? Where is the hole we came in from anyway? We definitely came in with all that water…” Kaida asked herself as she was filled with both anxiety and dread.

“At least there seems to be an exit…” the member of the decon crew told herself in a bid to calm down. Very gently, she slid Sandra’s backpack off her body and rotated it horizontally so that it could be used as a provisional headrest for unconscious chinchilla while Kaida went to check things out. “Just a sec, Sandra. I’ll get us out of here,” she assured.

But the double doors didn’t budge. Kaida tugged on the door handles as hard as she could, thinking they may have been old; rusted; uncooperative yet only in need of a little elbow grease. “…or not,” Kaida puffed out, heart starting to pump with natural claustrophobic fuel. “I can’t see out,” she told herself, the pair of windows taunting her with their blurred white world outside. “Is it like an aisle out there?” she thought, idly tapping at the side which got her in contact with a device to the right of the doors. It was a traditional card reader with a keypad, but without a card of her own, or knowing the password, it was useless to Kaida. “Could this be some sort of facility?”

Finding it pointless to speculate, Kaida hurried to the opposite side of the room, checking the walls for any weird button or hidden lever or sliding panel; anything that could allow her to find the hole they had dropped in through. “Wait, the gully’s probably still flooded,” Kaida stopped, her fingers suddenly paralyzed and slowly pulling away from the wall. “Better not.”

Starting to get frustrated, Kaida grumbled as she tapped her hips. “How could I have dropped my phone too? Fuck…” she mumbled, turning away while tapping the wet floor with the bouncing balls of her feet. It was then that she recalled the computer at the desk. “If that PC’s got internet…!”

Kaida rushed to circle the desk. Fortunately, the PC tower wasn’t on the floor and it didn’t look to be in bad shape either. She had no idea where the power cords of the display and the power supply of the PC were going to after they disappeared into the floor. The strange machine’s cables besides them were also going there, so she figured it was all connected the same way. Kaida had to hope they were all getting power from the same source as the flickering light bulb above.

Licking her lips in anticipation, Kaida braved the power switch with her fingertip. “It’s powering on! Yes…!” she celebrated, rushing her hands to the keyboard and mouse ahead of her. All she had to do was send an e-mail and they’d be here in no time. But something else stood in Kaida’s way. “Password protected user…? OH SON OF A…!”

The computer had quickly become a dead end. Frustrated, Kaida tried everything that came to mind on the keyboard. “123456”, “password”, “admin”, “user”, “guest”, even a hastily typed “gofsucvkyuorself”. Nothing worked. She was only surprise by the fact she hadn’t been locked out.

“I have to do something,” she told herself, “My God, Sandra, wake up. Tell me you’re fine. I know your leg’s not, but it’s cool I’ll carry you…!” Kaida told the slowly breathing chinchilla. The cheetah was starting to be driven by fear and guilt.

“Ughh, why do I have to be so weak? If only I’d been able to pull her up in time…!”

And then inevitably anger.

“Why am I so stupid? I should’ve fastened my phone strap tighter. Who the hell puts secret tunnels in gullies in the middle of a forest anyway?!”

Turning to the double doors, Kaida rushed it and started banging on it. “Hello?!” she shouted, “Anyone on the other side? We’re stuck!” she screamed, grabbing onto the door handles and alternated between pushing and pulling with all of her might. The doors clattered but they didn’t budge whatsoever. “C’mon, let it be 1 through 4, 5, 6?” she tried the keypad next to the card reader, but each touch of the Enter key gave her a disappointing buzz. Finally, she couldn’t handle the situation anymore. She flailed her arms with all of her fury. “GAH!”

The closest thing to Kaida at that moment had been one of the largely empty racks. She wasn’t strong enough to make it move, but in her moment of anger she had hit both of her hands onto a metal fastener, finishing to loosen the last bolt keeping that metal rack up. As the bolt went flying off, Kaida flinched to the loud crash of the rack hitting the floor.

Eyes went wide under Kaida’s visor as she saw the rack falling towards Sandra. It was tall enough for the suddenly fearful cheetah to mentally picture an accidental yet gruesome end to her coworker. “No!” she cried.

Power exploded in Kaida’s leg muscles as she darted off ahead of the falling rack. She threw herself at Sandra with both hands open, managing to shove her out of the way with the momentum of her tackle. Although Kaida managed to roll out of the way to avoid being crushed by the falling rack, she failed to notice one thing.

It was something Kaida couldn’t have seen. It had been at the very top of that rack, hidden between the top shelf and the ceiling while the rack had still been bolted up. A small, fragile looking flask with a single label and yellow liquid in its confines. The fragility of which was made evident when it was lurched from the impact, hitting Kaida on the chest and exploding into a million pieces.

Glass-shattering noise made the grounded Kaida curl up in reflex, but before she knew it she was covered in the yellow substance. In spite of the impermeability of her PARS, the strange substance stubbornly clung to Kaida. As soon as she saw it, she freaked out. “What is this?!” she gasped, trying to shake off all that goopy gold. Before she could try anything else, however, her ears hurt with a loud monotone voice.

WARNING. STATION #03B: EXPERIMENTAL COMPOUND DETECTED IN AIR. SOUNDING QUARANTINE ALARM. REPEAT: EXPERIMENTAL COMPOUND DETECTED IN AIR. SOUNDING QUARANTINE ALARM.

_ _

A loud bell that reminded Kaida of a school fire drill started shaking all of the ideas off her brain at the same time. “Crap, crap, is this thing toxic?!” the cheetah thought quick and threw herself at Sandra’s pack and hose attachment. Aiming the hose at herself, she blasted her front in decontamination solution.

Soapy water showering her at full blast, Kaida didn’t so much as chance it. “Get off me. Get off me…!” she shouted under the alarm, desperately washing her chest, lower torso, legs, even her back and arms and face.

Beep, beep. Kaida didn’t care. She was desperate, convinced she would die a horrible death if she didn’t hurry. So desperate she was in fact that she didn’t realize her suit was pristine within seconds. And thus, she continued right until she heard a long beeeeeeep , which was followed by the decontaminator sputtering its last vestiges of solution.

As she dropped the useless equipment, Kaida was left panting, her lungs burning with that artificially delivered oxygen. She could feel herself getting an itch behind her neck. Real or imagined, she couldn’t tell. But she didn’t dare take her suit off.

UPDATE. STATION #03B: ERROR. ERROR. PARAMETERS OUT OF BOUND. QUARANTINE LIFTED. REPEAT…

Obnoxiously loud ringing dying off allowed Kaida to regain the ability to think clearly for a moment. She anxiously patted herself down, gradually finding relief over the lack of yellow goop on her PARS. There was no trace of the substance on the floor or anywhere else. The floor was soaked in so much soapy water even the damp muddiness had mostly been unintentionally cleaned.

Kaida slumped against one of the empty desks before landing her butt onto the ground. “What the hell was that?” she mumbled, still panting from the adrenaline of the moment. Noticing a wet piece of paper stuck on her shielded foot, she peeled it off, ready to throw it away like the garbage she thought it was. Something about it caught her eye though: “ARBA-47?” she read aloud as she picked it up. “Piece of crap is what it was…” she grunted, tearing the label apart in her grip. “This day just won’t stop getting worse…”

At this point, Kaida was exhausted. The fear, the anxiety, the physical tiredness. She was so spent she couldn’t help her eyes closing for a while. When she next opened them she found herself jumping in place as she flinched to a loud tremor. “JESUS! What now?!”

Sudden rumbling was accompanied by the slow-flickering light above Kaida finally dying out. Only the barest minimum of light provided by the PC display was letting her see. Her eyes widened in sheer shock at what she could identify as fissures appearing all over the ceiling. “A cave-in? Oh God, no…!” she shifted her eyes over to Sandra, who still was out like the ceiling light. Kaida rushed over to her side and propped her up, staring at her peacefully closed eyes. “At least you won’t be conscious…” she shut her eyes to emulate her partner, awaiting nothing but finality now.

But all Kaida got was Terry’s gruff voice yelling: “Found ‘em!” instead. With her eyes reopening and pushing Sandra gently away, she looked up to see a ladder coming down through the hole of the metal ceiling. Bits and pieces of dirt from the surface fell down around the ladder which PARS-dressed personnel began to climb down. Never in the past week had the cheetah’s heart been so elated to glad to hear that giraffe’s voice.

“Barely any rads here,” one of Kaida’s coworkers remarked as he joined the rest down into the work station, “Is this some sort of bunker…?”

“We’re gonna be fine…” Kaida was tearing behind her visor. Feeling every tensed muscle in her body relax at once, Kaida was like a deflating balloon. She wasn’t thinking of the city she had abandoned when the word “Home” appeared in her mind. She was looking forwards to those uncomfortable bunk back in camp.

Kaida was told about the miraculous rescue while she and Sandra were getting medical checkups after being stuck in that place for hours. She realized she had been out for an hour after the alarm had sounded off. By then, a search party had been formed to look for the two missing cleaners that had been lost during that terrible weather. While Kaida’s phone was never found, Sandra’s ID chip had been tracked to the edge of the gully. The alarm had been loud enough to help cleaners come to the spot above where they shoveled down to the buried bunker’s outer shell, which had to be demolished with a jackhammer.

Sandra was drifting in and out of consciousness for a while, but the medical doctors assured she would get better. She would have to wear a cast and rest, however.

Kaida gave the medics a surprise when she showed to be perfectly alright despite her account of the slips and falls. She insisted on having bruised her shoulder during the tumble down the secret slope, but they found nothing on her and she no longer felt any pain. They took a blood sample to make sure, but she was given an okay. Kaida was satisfied just knowing Sandra was going to be okay as well. All in all, they had been lucky with what could have been a situation way more horrible than what they had experienced.

Kaida was interrogated by Claire, who kept her questions brief and concise since she agreed the cheetah needed her rest. However, management was really interested in the facility the girls had stumbled into by chance. In particular, she was asked about the alarm.

“The alarm was for an experimental compound and subsequently an error in that work station. It was not active when you initially woke up in there, correct?” the vixen asked, peering into Kaida’s eyes with an icy gaze.

“Ruh-right, it only sounded off when I broke a vial and stuff spilled all over…” Kaida stopped herself, bringing her hands up, “I cleaned it all up though!”

“I see,” Claire responded, seemingly satisfied that Kaida wasn’t lying. She reclined on her chair with a sigh. From that usual lack of emotion and engagement, it was hard to tell if Claire was pensive or disappointed.

It was still nerve-wracking to speak to the tall, curvy vixen. Kaida was rubbing her arm nervously again. “Um… if I may ask, what was that place we fell into?”

“Government’s having us investigate the nature of that facility right now,” Claire responded, eyes falling on Kaida again. It was as if her gaze was telling Kaida not to ask further, but she couldn’t help it.

“But what was it doing in…”

Claire intercepted. “It’s now in the hands of the authorities, I’m afraid. They’ll tell us when they find out a way to explore in-depth and check out computer records. Nothing that concerns us, the radioactive waste management crew. I doubt they’ll find anything, though.”

“…huh?” Kaida blinked slowly. Claire straightened up and spoke after a pause.

“You were the only ones there when we found you, and that work station was empty other than the flask you broke,” Claire waved a hand dismissively, “You said the security system called it Station #03B. It’s highly likely if other work stations are there, they should be in a similar state. Abandoned, in other words. It was extremely lucky the place still had power.”

“Without power, that slope wouldn’t have swallowed us up and trapped us in there,” Kaida objected to the ‘lucky’ part.

“I’m told that flash flood was pretty powerful. It must’ve been a horrible experience inside that place, but you could’ve ended two washed-up corpses on the other side of the forest,” Claire concluded with a somber look.

Kaida didn’t appreciate the matter-of-fact tone. “You sent us off to decon to the forest in the first place. Did you know the place floods like that?! It’s a freaking hazard!”

“It’s true,” Claire nodded, “Weather patterns have been difficult to keep track of, especially in an already unpredictable summer. However, this is the first flood in decades. You must simply be more careful when nearing a steep cliff, wouldn’t you agree?”

The way Claire replied with unfazed coolness pissed Kaida off. She was finally allowing herself to be angry at someone that wasn’t herself. She had more to say, but Claire cut her off.

“You received a healthy report from your check-up,” the vixen said, glancing away from Kaida and at the papers on her desk. “Do you plan on resuming your duties as part of the decontamination crew tomorrow?”

Kaida’s puffy cheeks deflated and she closed her eyes to sigh. “Do I have the choice of leaving?”

“Not without contractual breach,” Claire said, and added: “You’re here until the company, and by extension, the supervising entity, has deemed the decontamination of the city to be complete, and thus marking the end of the job.”

“Then why even ask…?”

“I asked if you’d like to resume tomorrow. I’m prepared to authorize you to take a day off to rest and recover from your ordeal, if you need it.” Claire declared and was soon smirking, “We’re not total monsters here, Kaida.”

Kaida didn’t take the day off. She had nowhere to go. Nowhere else she wanted to be, anyway. More work was going to do her head good. Plus, she was already feeling fine. All she needed was to go to sleep.

After being dismissed, Kaida went back to her empty tent, skipping dinner. She was all ready to forget that terribly bad day.

---

Chapter 3: Infected

The following morning began as usual for Kaida. The only difference was the absence of Sandra in the tent. Her tent mate was still in the main tent’s medical wing. Kaida thought to pay her a visit, but the doctors told her she was still asleep and it would be better to let her rest. The cheetah resolved to come back after she was done with today’s assignment. At the very least, she wanted to really make sure Sandra was alright after the previous day’s series of accidents.

Kaida had been expecting to be the center of attention when she woke up. She figured she would have people flocking to her to ask about her and Sandra’s brief brush with death and the discovery of that lair. She certainly got a few extra waves from her coworkers who used to see her just as any other feline cleaner, but the only one who directly came to talk about it was Adrian.

The goat had been part of the search party, and the one who had heard the alarm in the first place. The only reason he wasn’t the one to identify her and Sandra was because he had no experience with the jackhammer that had to be used to bash through the lair’s roof.

“I guess I’m not the only one who has to work out some more, huh?” Kaida joked. Adrian smirked and took his glasses off to swap his mask on, chortling to the little jab.

“Terry can be a little rude, but he’s good with heavy-duty equipment,” Adrian admitted, watching Kaida put her mask on. They were almost to the uptown part of Paterville. “Sounds like Sandra’s gonna be out for a while.”

“Maybe we can bring her some dinner later. I doubt it’s fun being in bed all day all on her own.”

“What about you? Shouldn’t you be resting? From what you told me, you fell not once, but twice!”

“I thought I hurt my shoulder,” Kaida slowly nodded, bringing a hand to gently apply pressure. It felt just like any other time. “But I dunno. Maybe I was exaggerating the pain. Medics didn’t find anything.”

“Well, that’s good!” Adrian said, standing up after the truck stopped moving. He fastened the straps of his water pack and grabbed a hose attachment off the wall. “Honestly? We’ve never had an actual city-wide decon job – and thank God for that – but it’s way more tiring than I thought. Collins comes to me offering me a day off? I’d sleep it away for sure. You’re crazy, Kaida.”

“Nah,” the cheetah stood up, making sure her Geiger counter was working properly. She grinned, “I’m feeling well-rested already. Just got a lot of energy to burn, I guess. Let’s go.”

It was another city assignment, but Kaida was a spotter once again. Instead of spraying things down, she was leading cleaners to highly radioactive areas for them to purify. The hours went by as usual.

Kaida wasn’t sure why, but she had severely understated how well she felt. Even though she wasn’t carrying a water pack or doing any spraying, she was still walking around all those thousands of steps without complaining. In fact, every time she had to leave for another area to survey, she found herself trotting instead of walking.

It was an odd feeling. The previous night all she had wanted was to do was fall asleep to the point of ignoring dinner, so when she woke up she was understandably famished and went out of her way to eat twice as much as she did each day; but she was convinced that it couldn’t have been giving her a burst of energy that big.

Even things that normally bothered like reclaiming purified items in their assigned area weren’t a problem, today. “I must be really glad I’m not in that cramped secret lair anymore,” Kaida told herself with a smirk as she carried box after box to the trucks.

The guys who had to help Kaida lug the stuff around by herself were worried for a moment.

“That cat’s gonna throw his back if he keeps going like that…”

“…not my back. I could use a break. C’mon.”

Before Kaida knew it, she had been left alone with a loaded up reclaimed materials truck. After dusting her hands off, she found herself panting. “That’s… everything…” she said, a bit short of breath at this point. She couldn’t believe she had hauled all of that by herself. “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone that hard,” she thought, “But it felt good. Those boxes weren’t that heavy. Maybe I’m finally building a bit of muscle after doing it for a week, hehe!”

Just as Kaida was allowing herself a curl of her arms to check out her biceps though, she nearly jumped out of her fur with the truck honking. “Yuh-yeah, yeah, you can go, jeez!” the cheetah, annoyed by the scare, smacked the side of the truck before hopping up and pulling the cover down.

After asking herself where her other two partners had gone to and huffing, Kaida reached back to check the time on her phone. Except her hands groped at the air behind her. “Right. No new phone ‘til next Monday…” she groaned in annoyance. “Hmm, I guess they’re still doing containment over there,” the cheetah thought aloud, peering over the cleaners still taking care of cars in an alleyway and seeing another truck in the distance.

“Better than sitting still!” Kaida grinned, grabbing her counter and heading off to join the rest of her coworkers. Clickclickclick went her device the closer she walked to the radioactive materials being carefully sealed off in lead-lined containment boxes, but the clicking didn’t bother her anymore. It truly had become just another part of her daily life. In some strange way, she now looked forwards to it.

“All I needed was to get back to work, after all,” she said to Adrian as they spent lunch together.

Scoffing, Adrian told her: “You must’ve really hated that lab. Trust me when I say you’re the only one using that phrase.”

Smirking, Kaida took one last bite of her sandwich before slipping her hand into her bag of potato chips. “And you’ve been at it since the start. Guess you’d all be way tired than I am. At least Sandra will be able to rest, with her leg and everything.”

“Lucky her,” Adrian sarcastically said, throwing his arms up with a grunt as he stretched.

“You gonna eat that?” Kaida asked, pointing at the goat’s half-finished bologna, bell pepper and cheese. Adrian passed her the plate.

“I remember when Sandra was asking you that question a week ago,” the goat chuckled before he stood up. “Heading to the bathroom and then back out. Try not to eat everyone else’s lunch, okay Kaida? We still got five hours to go, and you’re a spotter. You won’t be able to keep up!” he joked as he left.

Kaida laughed. With the last of Adrian’s sandwich and her potato chips gone, she hastily downed the last of her soda, cleaned up and got her mask on. She didn’t feel heavy; in fact, she felt lighter than ever and ready for more work.

She cruised for the rest of the day, and the following days. Whether she had to be in town or at the forest, cleaner or spotter duty, she always seemed to be peppy and full of energy. She was getting more work than ever without getting as tired when she got back to camp every afternoon. Everybody else was too exhausted and stressed out to notice anything other than themselves. The vast majority of them, Kaida included, had underestimated just how long and arduous the decontamination of an entire city the size of Paterville could take.

One day, Kaida was feeling especially antsy on arrival to the encampment. She had been at the forest again all day. It had gotten unexpectedly rainy again, but nowhere near as bad as that flash flood from the other day. Even though she had stayed clear from the gully this time, the cheetah couldn’t help getting wet this time. However, as soon as she felt the rainfall on her person, she remembered feeling especially relaxed. It wasn’t like she could feel the moisture on her furry skin with the PARS on, but at the same time the sensation of being under a pleasant shower lingered and made her feel refreshed. Energized even!

Which was why she was so disappointed there was no sorting for her.

“Let me get this straight,” Adrian couldn’t stop chuckling, “You want to take care of sorting instead of leaving it to the guys who went to town today?”

Kaida gave him a wry smile. “I know it’s strange, but lately I feel like I got all this extra energy, and I dunno where it’s coming from.”

“I might have an idea,” Adrian closed an eye and poked his tongue out at the shorter cheetah, reaching down to poke her once in her flat stomach. “You’re eating like someone like Terry, but you’re not getting fat.”

“Have I really been eating that much?” Kaida doubtfully thought. “It’s normal for someone’s appetite to get like this when you’re working as much as we do though…” she frowned and was starting to take her mask off, ready to give her comeback before she heard someone shout.

“WHOA! Band snapped, look out!”

“Arms…! Giving…! Up…!” a lion worker grunted, his tensed muscles failing to hold the big piece of machinery up. The seal guy at the top of the truck was doing his best holding onto the fastening band of the generator like a leash, but the weight of the thin was quickly tearing it in half.

Before she knew it, Kaida left her mask on and was running in the direction of one of the trucks around the main tent, having brushed aside Adrian who was too tired to keep up with her speed. One glance at the huge portable generator sliding off the trunk of the truck was all it took to get the cheetah to spring to action.

“Huh?” the lion and seal grunted, feeling all of a sudden that the amount of effort they had to put on pushing and pulling respectively had significantly decreased. The lion looked down to see one of the cleaners, a masked feline, had joined them and was pushing from under the generator.

“Cuh-can we… Push?!” Kaida begged, starting to feel an increasing amount of crushing weight from above as her coworkers became lax. Her squeak was all they needed to start pushing and pulling, with the seal taking their combined strength to let go of the broken strap to grab the generators by its handles. This made the loading a lot easier.

“Whew! Thanks, man,” the lion said, wiping the sweat off his brow with an arm. “That would’ve been way more expensive than a maintenance trip.”

“Told you the bands weren’t secure, you dipshit,” the seal recriminated, getting the lion mad.

“Well, you should’ve fastened them yourself!” the lion roared back.

“Can you bozos be any rougher with my truck?!” the driver chewed them out, “Learn to hold back, will ya? One of you already dented the side, slapping like it’s one of your wives or something.”

Since these three were getting into it, Kaida didn’t even bother staying around and turned around to leave, bumping back into Adrian who had been one of the few who had seen her assisting the two burly males with their emergency.

“…maybe I should start double-dipping sandwiches,” the goat said, getting a nervous giggle from Kaida, who could definitely feel her biceps sore after pushing so hard. Just a few minutes ago she had been pining for more physical work to do, and now she was full of regret.

It was on the following morning that Kaida finally grew suspicious. She expected to wake up feeling especially sore after having nearly torn every muscle in her arms the previous afternoon, but all she experienced was the same ravenous hunger for breakfast which she had started feeling the day after the accident at the gully. It seemed as if as long as she ate her fill, the rest of her day would fly by with her becoming increasingly invigorated rather than tuckered out like the rest of her coworkers.

Since there was no sorting when they came back that afternoon either, Kaida finally decided to cross over to the improvised gym some of the other guys had built for themselves. The PARS was so comfy none of them were working out without it on. Unfailingly she found Terry, the giraffe, working out with a massive pair of dumbbells. Nobody else seemed to be around this time, so he was especially hard to miss.

His poise and technique seemed to be on par with an actual bodybuilder, maybe even an incredibly experienced personal trainer’s. “Maybe he was both before coming here…” Kaida thought, unable to quit staring.

“I know. Sweet bod,” Terry grunted with each curl, making Kaida jump. “What do you want, rookie?”

Kaida frowned a little. She was sure by now she was no rookie! She thought about how little time she had spent at the gym back in her home city though, and ultimately found the word applied to her here. “Sorry,” the cheetah nodded, “Um, you’re really good at that. I was wondering if you’d teach me.”

“Teach…? You want a spotter?” Terry cocked an eyebrow, finally turning around to face Kaida. His eyes seemed to be sizing her up for a second, before he finally shook his head. “I’m too tired to play coach. I’ll build you a couple of these, for someone of your size. But you’re on your own after that.”

Kaida felt a bit disappointed, but getting direction was all she really needed. She waited until Terry was done and carefully watched him assemble a significantly smaller set of dumbbells for her. They each added up to 5kg total, looking considerably smaller than the two 40kg. ones he had been working out with.

“You know how to curl, don’t you?” Terry said, flexing his right arm in a curling motion; biceps practically exploding with size. Kaida’s eyes widened as she flinched from the sight of muscles that could in all likelihood crush her head between them and Terry’s forearm. Kaida had learned how to curl dumbbells already and watching Terry do it had refreshed her memory, so she nodded. “’kay. Don’t do more than three sets of twelve. There, I warned you, little lady,” Terry rose to his feet, put a hand on his hip and snagged his towel off a chair, using it to scrub some of his sweat off. “Don’t come crying to me if you do more and break your arm, got it?”

“Got it. Thanks,” Kaida replied monotonously. She was a lot more grateful than that, but the arrogance in the bodybuilder’s words made it hard to show it.

“And don’t forget to put everything away when you’re done!” was the last thing Terry said before walking away from the makeshift gym. Kaida looked down at the two 40kg. dumbbells Terry had forgotten to disassemble with a flat stare.

“Alright, let’s see if I can tire myself out with this. Wouldn’t do me wrong to bulk up a little, either…” Kaida said, taking a seat on one of the chairs before reaching down for the first of the two 5kg. dumbbells. To her surprise, her firm grip was more than enough to lift the weight off the floor. “…is this a prank?” she thought aloud as she tossed the dumbbell a few inches in the air before catching it again. Kaida quickly turned it sideways to read the inscription on one of the plates and confirmed it. “This adds up to 5 kilos. That’s like 10 pounds, isn’t it? It should be light, but not this light!”

Suspicious, Kaida adapted the same position she remembered using at the gym all those years ago, pressing her elbow to the side of her inner thigh for the pivot point, and started pulling the dumbbell up. “One, two, three, four, five…” she was counting but couldn’t believe how little she could feel all of that weight. Before she knew it, she was at 12, so she decided to switch arms and be as careful to measure how she felt about the exercise. The dumbbell was just as light with her left arm as it had with her right.

After finishing all sets, she tried working out with them at once, imitating Terry’s standing double-curl to also do three sets of 12. “No, let’s do 15 this time,” Kaida mentally assured herself. But at the end, she wasn’t any more tired. “Are my muscles numb? Or are these weights really this light?” she asked herself before, out of the corner of her eyes, she was reminded Terry had left his weights behind.

“I guess I’ll find out pretty quickly, this way,” the cheetah thought, putting the 5kg. dumbbells down before walking over to the 40s. Her hands fell quickly to the dumbbells, but all of a sudden Terry’s words were running through her head like an echoing memory.

I’ll build you a couple of these, for someone of your size.

I warned you, little lady.

Don’t come crying to me if you do more and break your arm.

_ _

All of a sudden, Kaida was filled with determination rather than fear. A normal person would’ve heeded that studly giraffe’s warnings, but Kaida was feeling more rebellious than she had ever felt in her life. “Nnghh…” she grunted, gripping as hard as she could before she pulled with all of her might. And sure enough, both massive dumbbells ended up in the air. Not up to Kaida’s face, but well above her head.

“Holy shit,” the cheetah couldn’t stop staring at her accomplishment. It was taking all of her not to lose her balance and fall thanks to all that weight, but Kaida managed to slowly bring the weights down to her hips. Those freaking dumbbells made her hands look absolutely tiny and definitely belonged in a much larger person’s. Big, meaty hands like Terry’s.

“Why am I so strong…?” she gasped, more curious than she was scared. She tried curling one just to brush her disbelief aside, and to her surprise found herself able to complete one rep all the way without major issue. The weight was definitely more palpable than the other two tiny dumbbells. It was like lifting a couple of bricks after having been holding two pencils on her palms. Despite her questions, Kaida curled her other arm and felt every muscle in her body flaring up. It was an amazing, hot feeling on both occasions, so she repeated it over and over, losing track of time and forgetting to count.

Eventually, Kaida grew slower and more fatigued with every new curl. Inevitably, the weight had become so unbearably heavy not only her arms but also her legs began to shake like gelatin. It was at that point that she let go of both dumbbells, which hit the floor with a loud thud, and a metallic clank with one of the plates hitting the reserved plates to her left. “Eeek!” Kaida jumped away, worried she might hit her feet on those weights. “D-dumb, that was dumb…” she chastised herself after dropping the dumbbells so carelessly. But her attention immediately went back to her open, rigidly flexing fingers. “It’s burning a little… I guess I went a little hard.”

Kaida was feeling exhausted all of a sudden, as well as hungry. But she recalled what Terry had told her to do and made sure to put everything she had used in the encampment’s empty gym back where it used to be. She found out it was extremely hard to move the 20kg. plates that used to be on Terry’s dumbbells, however. “I really pushed it…” Kaida determined with an exhausted gasp. She had to use all of her body’s strength to slide the plates in place. It was incredible to her that just a few minutes ago she had been pulling two of those plates up in one hand at a time! Even having used all of her remaining stamina, she should have been strong enough to deal with a little bit of cleanup work.

Something was wrong with her. “Nothing a hot meal and a shower won’t fix, I hope…” the cheetah winced as she rubbed at her sore arms, walking back to the main tent to join her coworkers for dinner time.

After filling herself up on pasta and dropping a plate to Sandra, Kaida excused herself and went straight for the shower room. She was glad the smell of her sweat was mostly neutral, because the inside of her PARS was positively moist with it. When she had taken care of it and her underwear, Kaida stopped herself from climbing under the shower when she caught her reflection on the mirror inside of the stall.

She held both of her arms up in an attempt to flex, stopping herself again. Kaida looked left and right and sighed in relief after realizing nobody was watching. It was enough every other lady looked like… well, a lady, and she didn’t. But she didn’t want them laughing at her for pretending to be a strong woman. The truth was she definitely didn’t look like she had gained muscle mass in the slightest. With a sigh, this time disappointment, she climbed under the hot shower.

Thoughts made Kaida drift away. If she had to put that amazing feat at the gym to question, then she definitely would have to question the incident with the portable generator of the previous day. As well as all that extra energy she had been feeling burdened with, which allowed her to be way more active than the rest of her coworkers working the same hours as her.

“But just now I got tired, too. Yesterday too…” Kaida murmured as she sprayed shampoo in her hands and began to lather her short hair with it. “Somehow I get really strong while we’re out, and then… ack! Shampoo in my eye!” the cheetah mumbled, splashing water with her skipping feet as she pawed at her irritated eye to clean it with water. She quickly wiped the foggy mirror to check herself out, when she caught something on the side of her shoulder. No, both of her upper arms.

Her spots were looking off. Every cheetah was used to the arrangement of their spots, as it was impossible to change their location. That was why she blinked multiple times to make sure it wasn’t tiredness or shampoo that was playing tricks with her eyes. Her spots at the upper sides of her arms were looking awfully together, almost forming some sort of fat, misshapen downwards arrow. She rubbed at her eyes again and turned away, thinking she truly was starting to see things now.

“Haha… that’d be so stupid but…” Kaida thought about it, suddenly finding herself standing straighter than usual, completely and utterly out of it as the water hit her head. Just like the rainfall in the forest. She remembered how calming it had been. She also remembered how every time she had to work spotter, she felt the same kind of calmness and relaxation the louder the clicker sounded off.

Hadn’t the driver in charge of transporting the portable generator yelled something about someone denting the side of his truck? He was the exact same guy who had called her out for taking her sweet time all those days ago during reclaiming. Kaida could remember how upset she was when she hit the side to let him know he could go.

She was getting stronger, but only outside. Whenever she got back home, the strength seemed to leave her bit by bit until she was back to normal. But what would cause this? Looking back, she only started feeling this strangely right after…

“No way…” Kaida thought deeply, eyes practically frozen as she stared at her open hands. “It can’t be but… could it be that yellow thing?” she gasped at her own conclusion.

The chemical which had splashed over her suit while she was trapped at the lab “…I sprayed it right off. Unless… I didn’t.” She looked out at her folded PARS. “Could that thing even gotten through the neoprene? Done something to me or…” she paused her train of thought to turn things on its head, “…change the way my shields work.”

After considering how she felt every time she got closer to radioactive sources she was exposed to daily, Kaida could only arrive at one hypothesis.

Could I be getting stronger due to the radiation in Paterville…?

---

Chapter 4: Empowering Addiction

Kaida had to know. One day during a forest outing, while her coworkers spread out to find more abandoned vehicles and decontaminate cottages, she took a separate route. One that she knew well by now.

They had been having hotter days, but employees were still being told to steer clear from the gully, whose depths seemed to have increased after the flash flood a week back. Kaida didn’t care about that however. She remembered one detail from that morning.

It looks like it’s what’s giving off this massive reading, here.

Kaida recalled it clearly, and her Geiger counter was confirming it again. That peculiar looking tank was still there by the gully. And by the looks of the unaltered radioactive readings coming from it nobody had gotten close to it yet.

Clickclickclick. Kaida looked left and right, and behind her. Nobody that could report her doing something strange was around. She climbed the tank like a kid at a playground’s jungle gym. Clickclickclickclickclick. The counter was getting increasingly louder, but her dosimeter seemed indifferent. The cheetah could feel a faint tingling spreading across herself, like the gentle, toasty warmth a cold person feels when finally approaching a bonfire. And yet something felt off.

“Odd,” Kaida said, glancing down at her instrument on her chest, finding it strange that the reading of one device would differ so greatly from another. “I’m feeling better already, but I’m hardly getting any personal dosage…” she looked between dosimeter and counter.

It was almost like there was something standing between her and her proverbial bonfire. It didn’t completely stop the warmth from reaching her, but the obstacle appeared to be limiting the relieving effect. This was making Kaida feel anxiety, like someone slowly dripping water onto her tongue while she was thirsty instead of giving her the water bottle for her to drink at her own discretion.

Looking around the tank, it was hard to tell what this obstruction could be. “Now that I know what it might be, it’s almost like I can feel it calling for me,” the cheetah whispered, dragging her hand over the dirty tank’s surface and running her digits all the way up to the hatch. Something occurred to her: “Could it be… inside?” she mused, grabbing onto the tank’s upper access and grunting as she pulled the hatch open with only a minor amount of effort. Without hesitation, Kaida jumped in.

Squelch.

---

ClickclickclickclickclickCLICK.

It was dark inside. With only the lights provided by the led screens of her measuring devices, Kaida reached back for the new company-issued smartphone her employers had given her to replace her lost one and turned on the flashlight. She looked down at the damp floor she had landed on. At first she thought water had filtered in with all that rain a while ago, but her eyes followed a leak leading towards the back of the vehicle. Some sort of sealed but dripping safe was looking back at Kaida. She tensed up.

“This feels like a stupid idea,” the cheetah thought. The manuals, signs and her employers all had clearly explained that she was well past the acceptable point of exposure. The PARS was said to create a nigh-impenetrable barrier between radiation and its wearer, but even it would not protect a user from the direct handling of a deeply contaminated object. But Kaida felt it crawling up her legs. Some sort of energy she could not plainly see, yet she could sense as it penetrated her body and made her feel good.

Without thinking further, Kaida put her phone and instrument away and went down to one knee. Reaching for the safe’s door, she immediately found the obvious problem. She didn’t know the combination to the safe, and its door would not open for her simply because she was eager to see its contents. “Stupid thing…” Kaida grunted, built-up anxiety quickly transforming into anger. Her ten fingers pressed down onto the little vault’s door from opposite corners. Muscles tensed up, her arms tingling as the energy pouring from the soles of her feet climbed to her biceps, triceps, deltoids and back.

“Grrr…” the small cheetah growled, applying rapidly increasing pressure until steel began to bend. When Kaida felt her fingers start sinking in, she pulled with all of her might. “GRRRAH!” The whole tank shook with her shout, the noise of metal joints and latches tearing off filling the air. “Holy shit…” Kaida panted, looking at the extracted safe door in her hands. She had just torn a vault open! It was a small one, but she doubted even Terry would be able to pull this off!

Kaida’s surprise, however, paled in comparison to what she found. Flashing the contents with her phone, she found what seemed to be a stack of boxes inside the safe. Three in total: Two snugly pressed together at the bottom with the third knocked over above them, the same liquid she had been stepping on soaking through.

CLICKCLICKCLICKACLICKCLAKCLICKCLACK.

The Geiger counter was going haywire. Kaida’s dosimeter, which had mostly kept still, was showing a rapid increase in Rads exposure all of a sudden. Kaida had taken out and opened all three boxes at once, exposing their contents to the air, and herself.

“This is it,” Kaida said, finding herself to be purring with her tail swishing from side to side. The boxes’ sole mark was that of the radioactive hazard symbol; otherwise impossible for an inexperienced person to tell what exactly was inside. But Kaida could tell the general nature of these not just by the mark, but the awfully familiar design harkening to the disposal crates they used during reclaiming and sorting. “It’s gotta be the source of the spike. Some kind of radioactive waste…”

Kaida’s fingers wouldn’t stop trembling. Every self-preserving instinct was screaming at her to quit playing around. But this was a high she had never felt in her life and she had instantly become hooked to it now that she thought she knew how to obtain it. “C’mon, shields. Do your thing…” she murmured as she put a hand inside each of the intact boxes. The substance inside the containers was squishy, like some sort of gelatin. She could feel it squeeze through her fingers as she gripped tighter and tighter, as if she had been trying to get juice out of a pair of oranges.

As Kaida’s dosimeter set off to its maximum value, the cheetah started to feel an electrifying sensation running down her arms and spreading to the rest of her body. She suddenly felt stimulated in a similar way to how she had been feeling the previous days, but now it was happening at a much more intense rate than she had come to enjoy. She was being bombarded with so much energy that it was stimulating not only her muscles but also her pleasure receptors.

“Gah… aaah…” Kaida found herself panting all of a sudden. “It’s not just giving me strength…” she huffed, lifting her hands off the boxes to look at them. Her fingers were twitching, her body jerking involuntarily as she was wracked with pleasure blossoming from each one of her erogenous zones. “…God, it’s making me so horny…!”

In the confines of the tank, the aroused cheetah ended so overwhelmed she ended dropping to her side the moment she attempted to wrest control. Kaida flipped onto her back, tail sweeping the murky, radioactive puddle as every fiber in her suit worked to absorb and redistribute normally harmful energy into the receptor underneath it.

“Nnghhh…” Kaida flexed her limbs, feeling as if billions of ants were crawling underneath her skin. After the stretch, she withdrew, hugging herself with her arms and pressing her thighs to rub them together. Ecstasy burned through her very being, and yet she wasn’t tempted to take her PARS off once. Skintight encasement had the advantage of allowing her to feel herself up without inconvenience, allowing her to feel the ethereal infusion while rubbing all over herself.

It was fantastic. Her panties were soaked. Kaida could feel herself sweat harder than any of what these hot summer days had managed to do to her. “Ahhh, I feel it getting inside of me… Is this the radiation…?!” she bit her lips, squirming even though no one was touching her. “What did… what did that thing do to my suit…? Ah…!”

Kaida couldn’t take it anymore. Forget lying within the insides of a highly radioactive tank instead of a bed. Forget feeling safe. She was so horny her right arm slid down and over her slim form with her fingers starting to press into her neoprene covered nethers. Her free hand alternated between feeling her petite chest and her neck. Kaida’s visor was getting increasingly fogged up with her horny, steamy breath. All this stimulation was going to make her orgasm. She was so close, yet so far however.

“Not enough…!” Kaida knew what she needed. Her fingers were doing their best, but she needed something to stretch her out properly. Unfortunately for her there was no such thing inside of that tank. Anxious anger bubbling up, another eruption of rage was about to happen. With a feral growl, the little cheetah girl reached up with both of her arms and she tore out the munitions rack of the tank from the ceiling. “NNGHAAA…! Fuck yes…!” she cried out in a great lurching spasm of bliss. That sudden burst of brute strength had been a good substitute for what she had been needing. She’d have to more thoroughly clean her underwear that night.

Click. Click. Click.

Kaida panted. That orgasm had been more powerful than anything she had ever experienced in her life. And instead of feeling completely spent, she felt exceedingly full of vigor now. She sat up on the messy, destroyed tank and was surprised to find out her dosimeter was back to its nominal readings. She quickly seized her Geiger counter and quickly noticed its clicking had subsided from the crazy whirring it had achieved not too long ago.

“I was right…” Kaida gasped with a smile behind her mask. The insides of the tank had completely become scrubbed of most of its radioactivity, even with the spilled out waste. “I am absorbing radiation.” She thought to herself as she climbed out of the tank.

The forest was looking gloomy as ever, but Kaida felt different. She felt like she was a star among an otherwise empty void. Her body was brimming with power! With a grin, the excited cheetah reached down for the tank’s cannon, the biggest of two tubes, and crushed it in her grip. “Steel, or whatever this is made out of, bends like rubber, haha!” Kaida giggled as she upturned the cannon and then brought it back around, twisting it into a knot. “A rookie can’t do this. Hehe!”

Kaida stopped to look at her flexing hands. “It feels so good. Radiation makes me feel good and makes me stronger. And this place, Paterville… Even after all we’ve been doing to clean up. This place is still like a buffet.”

How much stronger can I get…?

_ _

---

Over the next few days, Kaida repeated her experiment whenever she saw an opportunity arise. When she had spotter duty it was a lot easier, as her experience as a cleaner had taught her approximately how long decontaminating a vehicle or a room would take the usual person. Especially with how tired they were, each task seemed to be taking longer these days. It gave her the perfect chance to slip out on her own excursions to find contaminated areas or items not on the current day’s route.

Kaida still couldn’t believe it. But the proof was in the pudding so to speak. The bigger of a radioactive dose infrastructure or smaller objects gave, the better she felt when she touched them. Vigor and pleasure had become interchangeable for the addicted cheetah. Chunks of contaminated debris she had been told to under no circumstance handle directly provided the biggest high. While anyone else’s PARS would’ve inevitably burned through after so much direct exposure, Kaida only felt increasingly empowered and refreshed, as if her muscles were simultaneously getting a workout and a massage.

When Kaida got back to the encampment each day, she confirmed her super strength steadily waning until she got back to normal. The first few days she noticed that it took until around dinner time for fatigue and weakness to set in, but as time went on she noticed she could go all the way up to bed time enjoying her unnatural vigor. Every day she seemed to get better at absorbing rads.

One day before lunch time, during a downtown assignment, Kaida found herself with such boundless energy she felt especially supercharged in her lower body. Sure, she could lift with more than enough strength to give a Mr. Universe contestant an identity crisis, but she hadn’t been paying attention to her legs. While her coworkers marched inside a hospital, Kaida parted ways under the excuse her Geiger counter was pointing her into the alleyway nearby. Since having more than one spotter per building was pushing it, there had been no issue.

Once she was out of sight, the cheetah looked between the tall, windowless walls on the side of the hospital as well as the contiguous building. First, she put her equipment down. “Should be in the clear…” Kaida thought to herself with a roguish smirk beneath her mask. Gently tapping the ground with each foot, she made sure to stretch her legs by crouching and standing back up straight. It looked like she was preparing herself for a run, but what she did next would certainly crush an Olympian competitor’s dreams and hopes.

Kaida jumped. But she didn’t merely hop in place. She jumped twice her height in a single bound, landing not only with grace, but a maddening, grinning giggle in her masked face. “Can I actually make it all the way up there…?” she asked herself while looking up to the rooftops, immediately dispelling any doubt by spurring herself to action.

When Kaida jumped to the wall on the building to her left, her hand and foot hit the surface with such impact the coat of paint fissured all around her. Masonry beneath paint cracked under pressure, startling Kaida who felt herself slip until she was falling. She landed on her back with a thud. “Ugh! Suh-so much for feline grace…” she groaned, rubbing at her behind as she sat up. The annoyance was more prevalent than any pain she might have felt. Taking a deep breath and dusting herself off as she stood up, Kaida told herself: “Again.”

This time, she made sure to pay attention to the level of strength she was mustering. So far all she had done was be as explosive as she could with her awesome rad-fueled strength. “Just need a little finesse, is all,” Kaida smiled to herself before launching herself into the air again. This time, she stuck to the wall ten feet above ground, pressing one hand and foot which she used to kick herself off. Unnaturally enhanced feline reflexes compounded with her focused mind, allowing Kaida to quickly repeat the same move once she had landed on the hospital wall twenty feet above ground. Like that, she continued kicking herself higher and higher until her right arm reached for the edge of the edge of the hospital’s roof.

“Muh-made it…!” Kaida gasped aloud, her heart racing as she held onto the edge with a strong but controlled grip. She glanced down at the ground floor and was immediately glad she did not have vertigo. “I must be 40ft. high…! Whoa.”

After dangling for a moment, Kaida pulled herself up over onto the rooftop. She could see a good deal of Paterville’s downtown from here, as well as the rooftops of other buildings. Her legs were still tingling. “Thought that crazy stunt would’ve been enough…” Kaida rubbed at her neoprene-clad thighs, as if massaging her legs. “Well, who says I only get one crazy stunt a day?”

With a confident smirk, she looked out at the gap between the hospital and its neighboring building. She paced back to give herself a running start and went for it. Stepping off the edge after kicking off into a dash, Kaida leapt! She heard the wind brush against her body as she flew through the air, clearing twenty feet in a single bound.

“Woo! I’m amazing!” the cheetah cheered after landing. As if to confirm what she had just experienced, she turned around, took another running start and leapt back onto the hospital rooftop. And then she came back to the neighboring building. Again and again she bounced between buildings, laughing the whole while. This was the most fun she had had in her entire life!

Paterville had literally changed her life. Kaida couldn’t see herself leaving for anything now. What truly set this experience apart from anything else in the world was just how liberated she felt, however. She felt free from that nagging thought at the back of her head, her every day companion, a voice telling her that she was a pushover. Someone underneath everybody else. Always invisible, always plain and uninteresting. The kind of person that would submit themselves to the flow of the river and get swept away like an autumn leaf. Kaida didn’t feel like that anymore. She still felt like herself, but now she was more; so much more.

When Kaida finally got back to ground level, she went to pick her sweeping device up and was about to turn back to exit the alley. “Better get back before they send someone to look for me…” she thought, turning her Geiger counter back on before she felt a tingle in her head. Kaida stopped.

“What’s…?” she was about to ask herself as she turned around, but felt that ping in her head grow more intense. As she took a step in that direction, something came over her. Awash with an ethereal sensation akin to attraction, the cheetah walked deeper and deeper into the alleyway, turning the corner of the hospital. And as she did, her Geiger counter shot up.

Clickclickclickclickclick.

---

“The hell? It’s going nuts…” Kaida looked around, using the device but also this new intuition of hers to guide her search. Among some rubble at the back of the hospital, Kaida could detect strong emissions. But it wasn’t just the counter telling her. “I was able to tell where it was coming from before it even became properly detectable...” she murmured, going down to one knee before working to clear some of the metallic debris.

It looked like some sort of casing which had obviously been torn off some bigger piece of machinery. The moment she pulled it off the ground, Kaida felt a rush of energy which sent her vibrating in pleasure, also causing something to break off and slip out of the casing and hit the floor next to her feet.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK.

---

The counter was whirring. She turned it off and set it aside. Kaida didn’t need to be told she was dangerously close to something which was extremely radioactive. She could feel it. Letting go of the broken casing whose radioactivity she had already taken into herself, Kaida reached down to pick up the rod-shaped object.

Immediately, she felt a surge of power through her hand climbing up her arm. “Aaahh…” Kaida sighed, eyes twitching alongside every muscle fiber in her body. “What the hell is this thing? Part of some machine or something?” the asked herself, surprised at the input she was getting from this object; unlike anything she had held so far, even the waste back in the tank at the forest. “It feels amazing…!”

Indeed, as Kaida absorbed the rod’s emission, she could feel her own power rising, but also her arousal. Suddenly holding it in one hand wasn’t enough for her. She took it in both of her hands with a solid yet measured grip, shivering all over as the pleasure intensified. Cheeks flushing behind her mask, the cheetah started to whimper in need. “I need more from this. Why is it taking so long to absorb it all? Does it have that much…?”

Kaida thought about how insane the whirring on her counter had gotten before she had turned it off. This thing would likely kill anybody off within minutes if they came close enough, and she was just holding it in her hands like… like…

Horny wasn’t the right word for it. Kaida was ardently concupiscent. “My pussy’s burning up…” the cheetah could feel herself sweating beneath her suit. “I need this. I need it so bad…!” she could no longer hold her desires back. Her right hand dropped to the zipper at her neck and she zipped down, exposing her furry skin to the contaminated air of Paterville’s alleys for the first time. She kept going, but didn’t intend on stripping.

The moment Kaida could reach her panties, she practically tore them off. With swollen, juicy and exposed vulva, she used two fingers to spread herself open. And then, without thinking, her left hand gripping at the radioactive rod by one of its ends, she rammed the opposite end up her ravenous womanhood.

“Nnnghh!” Kaida shot up, eyes going cross with pleasure as she felt the intimate intrusion of her new toy. “Gud-God it feels so good…!” she gasped, feeling her legs wobbling as she felt not only the physical stimulation of having her insides stretched but also the constant, unfiltered radioactive emission hitting her from within. She clearly did not have enough, for she joined her hands at the bottom of the rod and continued to shove inch after inch within herself.

The cheetah’s love tunnel had certainly not been prepared for this kind of penetration, but her biology had become so irrevocably different, and powerful, that her vaginal walls had already started to hug the rod with a crushing grip. Bending and warping before the massive pressure, Kaida kept shoving the metal tube farther in as it was accommodated into her own depths. Soon, she could feel it bumping slightly against her cervix, at which point she could also feel her fingers at her lower lips.

“Ahhh… ahhh… I pushed it all the way in…!” Kaida thought in disbelief as she panted, tongue hanging out and hitting the inside of her mask. “Fffuuuuck that feels good. I’m absorbing all of the radiation. It’s making me… It’s gonna make me…!”

But before release could be achieved, a single sound made the perverted cheetah stand up straight with her heart skipping a beat. It was a voice calling out her name.

“Kaida…?” it was Adrian’s voice. “You there?” She had failed to hear his approaching footsteps, but now that he had announced himself she knew he was closing in on her, about to turn the hospital corner. She was made! There was no time to pull that rod out of her cunt. Without thinking, she zipped right up and turned around to greet her coworker. “Hey! Thought you’d gotten lost.”

Having trouble finding her voice at first, Kaida let out an embarrassingly meek little chirp. “Yuh-yeah! I mean no! I’m alright. See? All good!” she waved both arms up and down, trying to pass for normal in a decidedly abnormal situation. Before her poor acting gave her up, she quickly dashed over to her Geiger counter and picked it off the ground. “Followed a strong signal over here, but it turned out to be a dud, I think…” she explained, turning the device back on.

CLICKclick click. Click. Click.

Kaida sighed in relief. In all of that crazed lust, she had just realized it wasn’t just her suit, but also her body absorbing radiation. It seemed like she had no worries over getting anyone exposed to massive doses. One glance at Adrian’s dosimeter told her she had nothing to worry about; his exposure was well within the acceptable threshold.

“Is it malfunctioning?” Adrian cocked his head to the side. “I can take a look!”

“Oh nnnnnooo, it’s working just fine,” Kaida nodded quickly, but in her mind all she could think about was the radioactive rod she had jammed up her girl parts, currently stimulating her so much. It was taking all of her willpower just to avoid moaning her head off.

“You uh… you seem kind agitated. Visor’s all foggy,” Adrian pointed out. “You alright?”

“I guess I’ve been tuckered out lately,” Kaida lied. But to the goat, a regular person just as exhausted as anybody else, it sounded right. “What about you?” she quickly deflected, trying to hold back her muscular spasms as she felt all that energy relentlessly electrify her loins.

“Same old,” Adrian shrugged, “Figured I’d check up on you. You’ve been going off on your own a lot. And taking on more and more work lately, too. Started getting kinda worried, y’know?”

“O-oh, yeah?” Kaida smiled a bit, “I thought I could stand to be a little more useful, that’s all.”

Adrian chuckled. “Trying to make up for Sandra being out of commission? You don’t have to work for two, y’know,” he folded his arms. “You weren’t the one who broke her leg.”

Any other day, Kaida would’ve jumped this thoughtful guy’s bones. It was in the forefront of her mind right now. The way the PARS hugged Adrian’s well-built body and accentuated certain areas was driving her crazy more so than ever. Combined with his likeable and friendly nature, Kaida couldn’t help but feel extra attracted to him. But she couldn’t just expose him to the contaminated air, much less the thing she had turned into a makeshift dildo. Paradoxically, she didn’t want Adrian worried about her right now. She just wanted him to go away.

“Thanks. I-I know,” Kaida tried to be blunt, but stammered. At the very least this wasn’t dissimilar to her usually shy way of talking. She quickly turned around and pointed at the severed chunk of machinery she had discarded earlier, “You think you can fetch some of the guys from inside there for me? I found this strange thing and it’s kinda out of place here, don’t you think?”

Looking down at the item Kaida was pointing at, Adrian didn’t have to look at it for long to identify it. “It’s out of place, yes, but not strange to find around this place after the explosion,” the goat explained, making a hand gesture that resembled him holding a large pipe. “That’s part of a fuel assembly, likely got sent out here after the reactor exploded,” he explained, tracing a trajectory from the far end of the city all the way to the ground they were stepping on. “Looks like the fuel rods are missing. Probably scattered mid-air. You’d think one or two would’ve still be around here…”

Kaida bit her lips. “Why did I tell him? UGH!” she was vibrating. She felt like she was going to explode. “Shu-shouldn’t we sweep the area for them, then…? Probably mark them for disposal.”

“Heh. You don’t just get close to those things, Kaida. Just touching one would melt through your shields, and the best thing that’d happen to you would be losing a hand. We need better protection, first. That’s why we haven’t gone deeper into ground zero just yet. But you’re right, I’ll go let the guys inside know!” Adrian nodded to her, turning around to leave.

No longer than Adrian turned the corner, Kaida rushed to the edge of the building to look at the goat trot back around. Her eyes followed his taut little butt with a hunger she didn’t remember having back in the city. Back in the city, however, she hadn’t ever attempted jabbing her cunt with a nuclear fuel rod, either. The second she saw Adrian disappearing, she flipped her back against the wall of the building and finally fell to her knees.

Kaida’s eyes rolled up into their sockets and she let out the biggest, most longing moans she had ever been able to produce. She thanked every deity out there both for being alive and there being no windows until the fourth floor on this side of the hospital. Wracked by intense pleasure, Kaida hit the best orgasm of her life, squirting all around the completely decayed item within her snatch and out into her poorly bunched up underwear. She hadn’t had time to properly slip her panties back on.

With no time to bask in the afterglow, Kaida’s trembling right hand pulled her zipper down and she immediately reached into her pussy. Her fingers slipped at first, but she eventually managed a grip on the fuel rod, extracting it with a squelching noise and another gasp of pleasure from her mouth. “Nnghhaaaa…” she panted, zipping herself back up while holding the dripping, inert piece of metal dangling from her fingers.

Standing back up to her feet, Kaida hurled the used-up toy. It disappeared into the horizon.

---

Addiction is a powerful driving force. After realizing it wasn’t just her suit but her entire body absorbing rads, regular daily exposure simply didn’t quite cut it anymore; bigger and stronger doses had become a necessity; her fix. Kaida considered herself lucky she seemed to always metabolize radiation in a way that ensured she didn’t become radioactive herself, or else she would’ve been found out quickly. That was why after her close call with Adrian back at the hospital alleyway Kaida started being a lot more careful where she indulged in her new and strange fixation. It would be troublesome if people found out she was masturbating in the job, let alone toying with potentially fatal radioactive material.

Kaida had resolved to make use of her new abilities to ensure her new appetite went satisfied. Her need for stealth had been met with a nascent attunement to radiation itself. She could now detect sources of radiation and their intensity by focusing on what she wanted. No longer needing a Geiger counter, Kaida’s vision was supplemented with an overlaying greenish hue that moved when she moved her eyes, growing stronger and more vivid the closer she was to a hotspot of radioactive emission. Like a tint outlining what she wanted to see; what she needed.

With the cleansing of Paterville still advancing, working hours and their intensity had begun reducing. One the one hand, this was starting to give everybody, Kaida included, more freedom to move around on her own. On the other, getting one’s hands on massively contaminated objects was starting to get more difficult; there was only so much they would find after all. Even with the advantage of her enhanced vision, Kaida was having problems zeroing in on those delicious morsels her body now yearned for.

That was why on the very night the encampment was left almost empty, Kaida decided to go back to the one place she no longer could ignore. The forest. More specifically, Trout Lake. From her perspective: It was green water.

Management had finally announced an outing for the squad. A small, government-approved reward for all the progress these men and women had made on helping restore this once great city. The same trucks used to transport them between the ghost town and irradiated forest would bring them back to civilization for one night of drinking and eating, with the following being a day off. The majority of the team, even those in managerial positions, joined in the revelry. Many who preferred solitude or simply weren’t into loud gatherings had decided to stay behind and do their own thing. Kaida had named herself among that latter group. Nobody had batted an eye at her decision.

As soon as she was well out of sight from camp, the cheetah began to accelerate. Her vastly improved leg muscles pumped with raw, invisible strength as she soon reached a velocity that would have made transport trucks seem sluggish.

The first pines of Paterville woods were quickly becoming visible to Kaida. She had been putting off her visit to the lake for far too long. The green hue guiding her eyes allowed her to move through the dark woods without even needing a flashlight. As soon as she came out into the lakeside, Kaida skidded to a halt, kicking dirt out into the large body of irradiated liquid. Ripples appeared on the otherwise calm waters.

Looking up at the night sky, Kaida began to remove her mask and powered-off dosimeter, setting it all carefully down by a stump. “Even with clear skies and that huge moon, this lake looks so murky,” she commented, walking close enough to the shore to dip her right foot into the lake. Kaida smiled, feeling herself tingling already. This felt just right.

After stripping down naked and setting her underwear aside however, Kaida found herself staring at her PARS with a strange fondness. “Mmm. It is basically a swimsuit, after all,” she giggled to herself before stepping back into her special suit. Even though her whole body seemed to have inherited its radioactivity-conversion properties, she saw no downsides to skipping the skinny dipping. Plus, the neoprene felt just right as well.

Walking along the edge of the lakeside, Kaida could feel her hunger for rads tickling at her anxiety. “I don’t need to find a deep part this close to do the shore, do I?” she rationalized with a big grin.

Without further preamble, the excited cheetah crouched, her feet sinking into dead grass. Explosive leg strength endowed Kaida’s jump which sent her hurtling a couple dozen feet above the lake’s surface. With great agility she picked the apex of her jump to somersault, cancelling her momentum in mid-air before diving into the radioactive Trout Lake’s center like someone jumping into a public pool. Water droplets splashed out into beautiful refraction when exposed to the full moon’s light.

Fully submerged, Kaida’s eyes remained wide open. “I can’t remember the last time I went out to a lake for a swim,” she reminisced while gently bracing herself through liquid. Thanks to her suit passively absorbing radiation, she felt warm and refreshed even though the water was as cold as it was deadly. What was deadly to others was pleasant to her now. Kaida couldn’t get over that wicked feeling, like she knew something was wrong but she couldn’t get enough.

Deeper and deeper she swam, enjoying the omnidirectional infusion of rads permeating Kaida’s deceptively powerful form. Stopping to elongate her extremities as far as they would go, she looked like a person who had just woken up from their zero-G naptime at a space station. She was the happiest cat in the world. So happy, in fact, that she couldn’t tell this right now had been the biggest exposure she’d had since the accident back at the lab.

Unbeknownst to Kaida, fallout wasn’t the only thing responsible for making Trout Lake uninhabitable for normal life. What her detection ability had become obfuscated by gallons upon gallons of irradiated water to properly see was a large chunk of waste gathering at the very bottom of the lake, some fifteen feet further below her position. Still decaying even now, the radioactive waste had made the lake especially dangerous to even approach, which meant assuredly fatal levels of radiation were getting constantly pumped into the lavishing cheetah.

But Kaida’s pleasure centers were not equipped to differentiate what was going on with her body from the steady orgasmic stimulation every nerve in her body was crying out about. As her form squirmed and twisted in pure carnal delight, so too did her proportions begin to shift.

First, Kaida’s chest which until now had been mistaken for a boy’s for as long as she could remember started enlarging. At first appearing as swells steadily pushing against her suit, each feline mound started taking on a well-defined, markedly rounder shape. Kaida now had a notable bust and she was too busy squirming in all-encompassing bliss to realize.

As fatty tissue appeared to pour within that slowly developing chest, something similar started happening in Kaida’s pelvic area. Bones silently crackled underwater as they were forced to stretch, her hips widening as a result. With Kaida’s legs moving apart ever so slightly thanks to the added new distance, muscle mass and fat began to pile at her rump, causing the latter to swell outwards and push out the lower part of her PARS into a succulently rounder shape.

Bubbles of air escaped the close-eyed swimmer’s mouth as she opened it to moan. Grabbing her tingling chest and rump with each of her hands, Kaida fondled herself to the thought of what a bright idea it had been to come out here for a soak. Nobody would get close; no one would get in her way or interfere! She could simply bask in pure radioactive relaxation.

And yet, for as much as she wished to remain in that grand source of empowerment and pleasure, her new power unfortunately did not come with the ability to hold her breath indefinitely. Kaida’s lungs were starting to burn, sufficiently distracting her brain from all the pleasure in order to yell at her to get out.

When Kaida emerged from the radioactive lake, she put dolphins to shame by leaping gorgeously through the air. Ground cratering slightly under the impact of her landing, it was soon rained upon by the water falling after Kaida who had to take a long, needy gulp of air while half-kneeling.

With her eyes closing again, a softly panting Kaida slowly got back up to her feet. Still aroused, the purring, curvaceous feline ran her dainty hands from her thighs all the way up to the top of her chest as she tossed her head back. With long strands of golden hair billowing in the night breeze, she looked exactly like a supermodel who had just climbed out of a pool for a photo-shoot.

Something immediately felt wrong to Kaida. “Huh…?” her eyes slowly opened. She had brought her right hand up to bat her hair back over the shoulder, but the very consideration of that action stopped her. “Hair?” she thought aloud, twisting a couple fingers around a lock of vibrant hair. Hair that she should not have.

Combing and proper hair maintenance had never been appealing to Kaida, so she had always opted to cut her hair often, keeping it short. She remembered it being short before dipping into the lake, but now it seemed to have grown a good two inches longer! It was just brushing atop her shoulders at the ends!

“I have…” Kaida turned around and approached the shore to confirm her reflection, but it was so murky that looking down didn’t help her at all. Or at least that’s what she thought when she noticed a more immediate blockage while peering downwards. “Tits?!” she exclaimed, letting go of her beautiful locks to bring both of her hands up to her chest. “Ohhh…! Ahh!” she practically screamed when she squeezed.

In her surprise she had squeezed with all of her might, her boulder-shattering might, on her equally pain-resisting yet not completely invulnerable breasts. The stimulation was so great she almost gave herself an orgasm standing there.

“Guuhhh…” Kaida babbled, drool trickling down her fangs as her mouth hung open and she hunched over. “Thu-they’re real, this ain’t no dream…” the cross-eyed cheetah sputtered, adjusting her strength and giving herself another, much more measured stroke. Kaida’s breasts hadn’t just finally developed after over two decades of nothing; they had gone up at least three cup sizes!

“…and that’s not all that got bigger!” Kaida huffed, cheeks growing redder by the second. The way she was hunched over, she had not been able to stop herself from hiking her noticeably upgraded behind. Remaining at the same bent angle, Kaida experimentally swished her hips, finding them to be rolling so enticingly she couldn’t fail to notice how curvy she had become.

Being careful this time, she stood up straight and gently slid a hand down her diminutive waist, spreading her touch over the flare of her hips before turning inwards to the springy buttock at the back. The firm surface retained its shape and gave as she attempted to grab. Kaida’s flesh was no less sensitive down there, and she let out a horny purr as she gave herself the lightest swat she could manage. Just enough to catch the sight of a tactile and visually pleasant jiggle.

“I’m… just…” the half-lid eyed cheetah spoke with breathy pause as she continued to feel her new curves. It was fortunate the PARS had been made with roughly a one-size-fits-all approach. “…pushing out!” Kaida finished her thought with a grin. She didn’t need a reflection. She didn’t need to see it to convince herself. No one could fake a figure like this! The figure of a real woman. A woman with seriously heightened sexual needs.

Unfortunately, Kaida wasn’t the kind of sexually aroused woman who currently had the patience to search out phallic-shaped objects. However, she knew exactly where to find something even better. The white of her eyes seemed to flush with color as they went from pale to a bright, glowing emerald green.

It was high time she treated herself to what she wanted.

---

Adrian wasn’t averse to parties, but with all of his accumulated fatigue he had been one of the few who’d rather stay behind, enjoying solace in the tent that until now he had been sharing with three other guys. The silence was great and it served to let him focus on his programming hobby. “10pm… I’ve been at it a while,” the goat rubbed under his eyes, knuckles rocking his glasses. “Better save progress.”

Hopping off his bed with a little yawn, Adrian stood up to stretch and walked out into the quiet and dark camp site. Glancing up, he smiled at the large moon hanging above. “These outskirts sure are gloomy, but you don’t get a view like this in the city or the woods…” he appreciated. Adrian debated staying up longer, but the truth was he was exhausted. They’d been at it for more than a month now! Tomorrow would officially be their first real day off.

“Starting to get cloudy again though. Hope it doesn’t rain,” Adrian huffed, feeling a little antsy as he looked out in the direction of the countryside miles away. “Should’ve asked them to bring me back some weed or something,” he mumbled. Adrian really had not been in the mood for the hustle and bustle of a night out in the city, but the truth was he still needed something to take the edge off.

Just as the wistful goat lowered his face, something caught his attention. There, behind multiple empty tents, he could see a strange light glowering through the fabric. He was so curious he couldn’t help going after it. “A firefly? That can’t be,” the goat rationalized before he eventually came out behind the edge of the encampment. At first, Adrian thought he was imagining things; a symptom of stress. “And I’m like the only one not out there drinking,” he laughed at himself, hands at his hips. He was ready to head back when the light flashed before his eyes again. Only now, he could clearly see they were two.

Among the gloomy shrubbery, the two little lights looked obfuscated. But now that he was close enough Adrian could plainly see a couple of bright, green eyes staring back at him. Not green irises as one would normally expect, but green sclera. They belonged to a familiar face in an all-too-unfamiliar body.

“We’re way past our bedtime, aren’t we, Adrian?” Kaida purred, sauntering into view with a confident strut. The way her hips were rolling with neoprene tightly hugging her was mesmerizing to look at, and she definitely seemed to be going for that effect.

Adrian couldn’t help a stammer. “Kuh-Kaida?” he smiled nervously, conflicting thoughts waging war inside of his brain. “That’s you, right? What’s… what’s all this?” the goat certainly seemed flustered and confused.

“You like it?” Kaida casually addressed him while brushing her short but noticeably longer hair back. One hand at her cocked hips, the cheetah’s green-tinted eyes appeared to sparkle with an unknown energy. Her pose contrasted with her usual meek slump, and her voice was so full of confidence one could be forgiven thinking this woman and the Kaida from two weeks ago were completely different. One glance at Adrian’s tenting bulge was all she needed for an answer; they seemed to share an opinion on how freaking good she looked now.

“I have to say it all favors me.” Kaida continued, walking right up to the goat before he could take his chance to answer. She was still merely a 5’4” to his 6’2”, not counting Adrian’s horns, and yet he was the one taking a couple steps back, arms and hands trembling.

“Kaida…” Adrian had clearly begun sweating. His glasses were starting to slide over the bridge of his nose and his half-hearted attempt to fix them in place only left them looking askew on his flustered face. “Is this a dream? Am I currently asleep?” he grinned, unable to tear his eyes away from the feline’s heaving bosom. They weren’t the biggest he’d seen, but they were a full pair of breasts that could’ve given any bombshell a run for their money. And that clinched waist curving out into those magnificent flaring hips! His suit was starting to strain at his groin area.

With a wide, giggling smile, the cheetah said: “It’s so flattering to know I appear in wet dreams. I wish you’d told me sooner!” she paused, moving her hand up to her neck. Yanking her zipper down to her waist, Kaida’s cream-white furred breasts bounced out. The smooth cheetah coat made them look like a pair of soft, fluffy clouds bouncing and jiggling with the consistency of gelatin. Whereas in their previous state her breasts had been too tiny for her nipples to be visible, they now were in plain view, capping those squishy alabaster mountains with accentuating flesh-pink.

Adrian gulped like a thirsty man before an oasis. But Kaida didn’t stop there. Just as eagerly and as sensually as she had flashed her perfect breasts at him, she continued stripping. As one arm helped the other get out of the suit, the goat’s eyes followed each bounce of those large breasts every time Kaida so much as brushed them with her elbows.

Kaida had never felt as sexy as she did now. She didn’t merely have bigger tits and a rounder ass; she had a cute, handsome and potentially hung guy like Adrian’s attention to such an extent he simply couldn’t tear his eyes away. As the back of her suit fell limply behind her, Kaida returned to unzip the last couple few inches of her suit before she finally bent forwards to start climbing out of it, her hands peeling the suit off each leg until she was cleared to step out.

And there she was. An hourglass curvy cheetah in all of her naked glory. Adrian felt like he was about to blow just from staring, so of course he felt the tightness at his groin grow uncomfortable enough for him to notice his painfully obvious bulge.

“What an adorable dork,” Kaida thought to herself with renewed endearment for the white goat and further ignited libido at the sight of that bulge. She could smell his arousal. “C’mon, Adrian,” she puckered her lips, half-lidded, glowing eyes presenting an irresistible invitation as she stepped closer and boldly put her right palm over his groin, “Even the nights are cool during summer in Paterville. You don’t want me catching a cold, do you?”

“Aahhh-guh… Nuh-no…” Adrian was quickly starting to lose his willpower and his ability to question things. For a moment, it seemed like all he wanted to do was ask Kaida what was going on with that strange glow in her eyes; why the spots on her forearms and thighs looked like the radiation hazard symbols on their PARS. And just like that, concerned thoughts melted away with the touch on his constrained member. His legs were shaking. He was losing strength. The goat eventually hit the ground next to the bushes with his ass.

Smirking down at the floored goat, Kaida thought just how odd it was for her, a cheetah whom Mother Nature had cheated out of a good three or four inches of height, to be looking down at a much taller guy for once. He was completely submitting to her, hanging onto every word coming out of her mouth. For once in her life, the cute boy was speechless from her, not the other way around. Regardless of how hard the penis she had felt in her hand was, Kaida herself couldn’t deny her swollen vulva for much longer. “I want you, Adrian,” she said, dropping to her knees and crawling over him like a predator coming onto her pray.

Muted yet with his heart racing, Adrian felt Kaida’s soft breasts pressing against his suited chest. Her thighs pushing onto his legs. Her hands firmly gliding up the side of his waist all the way up to his shoulder, keeping him still as she dragged her face against his. He didn’t even mind it when Kaida nuzzled the glasses off his face, stealing a kiss from his mouth in the process. “Aahhh…” he let out a toe-curling sigh.

“Don’t you want me too?” Kaida asked, her voice penetrating the goat’s ears and extending beyond his brain. The echo of that question reverberated in his very soul.

“Take me!” a desperate Adrian moaned out loud, hurrying to unzip his own suit all the way down. Bare-chested, white furred pectorals came into view followed by the start of nicely marked abdominals. Kaida’s eyes stopped at his strained underwear.

The horny cheetah reached down to pull Adrian’s member out to take some fresh air. It took only a couple of strokes to get that thing fully erected. Kaida licked her lips as she pulled back to see what the well-hung goat was packing. He was on the upper side of seven inches for sure. “Don’t mind if I do, stud,” she said, going down to tend to the panting goat’s throbbing cock. Her raspy tongue gave it a gentle bath, amusing herself with the way Adrian squirmed and threw his head back. He smelled good. His pre tasted even better. Between his little spurts and her saliva, it didn’t take her long to properly lubricate it.

“Guh-God…” the heavily aroused caprine sighed longingly as he stared at the slowly rising Kaida. Between her jiggling tits, fluttering bed-eyes and flawless blonde hair, he wouldn’t quit squirting pre. “You’re so hot, Kaida!”

“Hush, stud,” Kaida giggled, putting a finger to Adrian’s mouth as she mounted him properly. She couldn’t believe her own words. When had she become this much of a seductress? Meek old Kaida, teased for looking like a boy, passed over like a platter of bland rice crackers in favor of all the cake around the table. She was feeling like nothing short of a goddess, and her dear goat boy, whether consciously or not, was enabling her. “We don’t wanna wake those out there, do we…?” she said, stifling a few of her own moans as she grinded against his length.

Obedient Adrian bit down on his lips, whimpering and shutting his eyes as Kaida lifted herself at an angle until his very tip was rubbing over her labia. The cheetah’s nethers were as moist as they were hot. He felt his hands guided towards her hips as she slowly descended, penetrating herself on his turgid phallus. “Nnghh… fuuuck.”

The goat groaned, the cheetah hissing. Kaida didn’t stop lowering herself until their groins met, at which point she gripped Adrian’s hands at her hips. She made sure he was gripping her wide hips so she could relocate her own palms atop his shoulders. With support and ready to begin humping, Kaida made sure to keep a close check on her strength. Even though it had been a while since she had left the lake, there was no doubt she had absorbed deeply concentrated radiation and the last thing she wished to do was shatter every bone in that goat’s body.

And yet, she was so horny, feeling so dominant, that she remained atop her lover. Kaida rocked her hips back and forth, the excited Adrian quick to match her rhythm. They fucked, quietly moaning and groaning into each other’s face, with Kaida occasionally mewling as well. Even though she wasn’t going at it at full force, she could definitely feel her loins on fire and Adrian was doing his best to put the flames out with his hose.

Kaida found herself kneeling up, looming her chest over Adrian as she glided her hands over her breasts. They felt even better to fondle and play with without the PARS in the way. Formfitting or not, the nude body simply had comparison where tactile feedback was concerned. Soon, properly stimulated and hissing in pleasure, Kaida had her first orgasm before Adrian did, but he didn’t last much longer.

“Guhhh, gaaaaah…!” the goat’s eyes went cross all too suddenly as he shot his load deep within his partner.

“Haaah… haaaa…” Kaida panted with a big smile on her face, peering over the bushes nearby at the overcast sky. Thundering clouds seemed to be the witness to their carnal act. “Better not rain,” the cheetah huffed, feeling slightly dehydrated after pumping so hard. But she was hardly done. “Because I’m ready for round…” as she dropped her eyes in search of a complicit smile, all she found was Adrian slowly breathing, panting, his arms limp on the floor, “…two.” Kaida finished, humping the goat a few more times in a vain attempt at rousing him from his sleep. “Fucked you unconscious, but I’m still… You’re lucky you’re cute, mister.” She reached down to gently press down on Adrian’s nose, only getting a little moan of discomfort from the sleeping goat.

Kaida couldn’t hide her disappointment. She still had a lot of energy to burn. At the same time however, she felt pretty good after what she had done. And she definitely didn’t want to test her luck and end up irreversibly damaging her goat. With their coming day off, she knew she’d enjoy it to its fullest.

First however, Kaida did Adrian’s favor and after separating their privates, she took the time to dress them both before she carried him back to his tent. By now, she remembered where everybody slept. “Lucky those guys are still partying out there. Don’t think they would buy him getting drunk out here,” she grinned, easily hauling Adrian over her shoulder like he was a sack of potatoes rather than a big goat taller and significantly heavier than her.

Retiring to her own tent after leaving Adrian to rest at his own place, Kaida made sure not to disturb anyone else. “I’m so hot, huh…?” Kaida repeated in her mind as she lied down on her bunk, inspecting her nails on the back of her hand.

“Just how hot am I, really…?” she asked herself, her free hand already heading over to her crotch. She was still horny. Kaida wondered how hard it would be to seduce another guy. Maybe two, in case Adrian and another one weren’t enough.

Fingering herself to sleep on that question, Kaida had very pleasant dreams that night.

---

Chapter 5: The Siren

Morning arrived and Kaida was the only one who seemed to be up on time. “Hangover’s a hell of a thing,” she thought to herself as she walked out of her tent. Whereas camp was usually bustling at this hour, this was the first morning Paterville’s streets and the encampment were equally silent. “I’m starving. Wonder if the cooks got the morning off, too…?”

Some people’s lives are their routines. That certainly seemed to be true of two of the five cooks working the flat-tops at the cafeteria, flipping pancakes with great precision and skill even while powering through headaches.

Kaida’s stomach was growling at her, begging her to stuff the equivalent of five breakfasts inside of it. Without speaking a word, she grabbed multiple plates and stacked as many of the steaming pancakes as she could, taking a ravenous bite off the top of one of the towers as she walked off to a table to properly eat. Each tower had a generous side of bacon, but she didn’t bother asking for butter or syrup. All that food was gone in mere minutes. She was so fast the cooks, with their backs turned, did not even see her at all until she let out a belch on her way to the showers.

“Here I thought we were ahead of these –hic– drunks…” one of the cooks remarked after turning around only to see the half-empty pancake tub and a four plated mess in one of the tables at the back of the cafeteria.

After enjoying a cool morning shower, Kaida finally allowed herself a good look at her own reflection. “Damn, I look good,” was her first thought. She let out a gasp of surprise and gently tugged the skin under her eye to get a good look at her glowing green eyes. “What…? Wasn’t like this two days ago…” she stopped, looked down at her enlarged bust and pouted, “…guess these weren’t like this two days ago either. Huh?” Again, Kaida found herself confused as she looked up at the mirror only to see her eyes colored as always, not a trace of green to be seen. “It’s gone?” she repeated, blinked her eyes and squeaked when her sclera once again flooded with the emerald glow again.

“Gah!” she covered her mouth. Kaida knew she was alone but she didn’t want to chance anyone hearing her scream. Trying to calm down, she visualized the ‘green’ of her eyes being its normal white, and surely enough she saw the color gradually fade. “Did that happen because I thought about it?” she thought, tracing her eyes to anywhere else on her body that might look egregiously different.

“…I didn’t imagine it that one time. They really did move!” Kaida exclaimed inside of her head as she found perfectly symmetrical spots arranged into the shape of the radiation hazard located at the side of her upper arms and atop her thighs. Right where the actual symbols were on her PARS. It was almost like the symbols had burned into her fur.

“I gotta cover up quick,” Kaida said, fetching her towel to finish drying off before rapidly suiting up. Unable to stop staring at her at the symbol on her right upper arm though, Kaida quickly noticed how the yellow began turning lighter and lighter until it faded out into a fluorescent green.

The radioactive hazard sign of Kaida’s suit had suddenly started glowing. She slapped a hand atop it to cover it and looked left and right uneasily, ears perking up at some conversation; decidedly female voices. Kaida glared at the light pouring through her fingers, gasping when she saw the symbol on the opposite side of her start glowing green as well. “Fuck! Quit it!” she yelled. And just like that, no more glowworm light.

“Hey, you okay…?” one of the incoming girls approached to ask, but Kaida ignored her and hastily pushed her way down the girls’ showers.

“What’s the matter with her?” another asked aloud. The third and fourth girls with them only quietly stared at Kaida’s back as she left.

“Don’t think they saw anything,” Kaida puffed her cheeks out and let out a sigh as she tried her best to ignore the incoming mass of people who had woken up for breakfast. Although in a hurry, she was careful enough not to bump into anybody. And yet it was her figure that kept attracting attention, making it hard to sidestep away from guys trying to stop her to greet her, invite her to a table, even throw a compliment and a greeting her way. Eventually, she made it out and slipped back into her tent.

“Smooth and stealthy,” Kaida mentally admonished herself. She hurried to the mirror in her tent to check herself out for any other anomalies. No more off-colors. After checking outside to make sure the coast was clear, Kaida closed the tent and returned to the mirror. “Calm yourself…” she gently spoke to herself.

By focusing without pressure, Kaida found that it was indeed her thoughts that were willing those glows come and go. With enough concentration, she could turn them off one at a time or altogether, or even adjust their intensity. She could go from a rave enthusiast into a one-cheetah neon-lighthouse! But the moment she realized a flash like that might be considered as “too high-profile”, she immediately turned the intensity down.

The radiation-powered feline found herself laughing at herself. “I just…” she turned around to look out the tent at the main one again, “…I just had every eye on me back there, didn’t I? All those guys that always were too tired to give me the time of day were staring at me. Short of catcalling, they were doing everything they could to get my attention. Wanting to be with me.”

As Kaida’s thighs began to rub together from the arousing thought of being so attractive, her mind eventually went back to Adrian. She was still so horny; hornier than ever in the morning. “I have to fuck that goat, again.” She murmured, craning her head back in the direction of his tent. If her eyes weren’t lying to her and he had yet to go join everyone else for breakfast, she’d at least have time for a quickie!

The cheetah thought herself fortunate when she confirmed the tall goat’s silhouette lying inside the tent just where she had left him the previous night. His tent mates were nowhere to be found. “Hey, you…” Kaida purred as she infiltrated the tent, dropping to her knees while seductively climbing Adrian from the side.

But Adrian appeared to be snoring, his chest slowly rising and falling. Kaida couldn’t help but puff her cheeks out in annoyance. “Don’t tell me you don’t have wood, I don’t believe it,” she softly said, boldly taking her unconscious lover’s bulge in her grasp. Desperate to satisfy her urges but still measuring her strength, she got a couple of fondles in. “Definitely wood. Are you dreaming about me?” she smiled, but it was short-lived joy. “C’mon, stud,” she urged. “I don’t wanna fuck you in your sleep. I want to hear you say how hot I am.”

“You’re smoking hot, alright…” the compliments arrived, sure enough. But it wasn’t Adrian Kaida was hearing. He was still asleep.

A gasp of surprise alerted Kaida who shoved herself away and fell off Adrian’s bunk with a thud. “Oof! What the hell…?”

“Suh-sorry!” said the interloper who was standing at the entrance of the tent. Kaida didn’t recognize the male wolf peering in, but the markings under his eyes made him stand out. There was one for each eye and in the shape of blue chevrons. “Uhh, sorry! I share the tent with Adrian. Just came back to fetch my charger and…”

Kaida intercepted the nervous lupine, kneeling up and pulling him inside by the wrist. He was small, but he would have to do.

“Mmmph?!” the surprised wolf had been expecting to be chewed and kicked out without his phone charger. But instead he found himself lying on the floor of the tent with whom he had thought was Adrian’s partner, his mouth too silenced by hers for him to protest. Not that he wished to, anymore. Those voluptuous curves squishing against him even with their PARS in the way felt amazing. Breasts as soft as pillows, he found, felt more than amazing when that horny cheetah broke their kiss only to hug him to them. In his attempt to push himself up to allow himself a gulp of air, the wolf found his strength failing him and his hands slipping from her hips down to her ass.

“Mmm…” Kaida was feeling increasingly satisfied with the physical affection. “Frisky,” she said to the embarrassed canine. Her seductive smile seemed to be having a strong effect on him. His ears were already starting to drop in a submissive gesture, his tail hiding out of the way. The wolf seemed aware that her grip was inescapable. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you. All I want is for a stud to see to my needs. Adrian’s too tired from last night, so…” she trailed off poignantly.

The wolf took a gulp. He didn’t last long.

---

“Already done?”

It quickly became evident to Kaida that her libido was one other aspect of her which had become enhanced. Having gone so long without sex usually didn’t bother her, but right now it felt like an impossible task. Adrian and his tent mate had only been the first.

Those rolling hips and her bountiful chest made Kaida the perfect erection magnet, but she quickly found it went beyond physical attraction. Even if 100% of every guy in this camp was a pent-up horn dog, at least one of them should be trying to assert themselves. Even when she wasn’t being especially forceful with her seduction, both big and small men seemed to become putty in her hands. There was no resistance, no challenge. They wanted her to take control.

As the day went on, Kaida brought more and more potential mates to her tent. Some of them were successful like Adrian and the wolf, but others disappointed her. These men were tired, soft, and no amount of eagerness allowed them to match her. Eventually she had to settle for cuddling, allowing them to worship her sexy body with their hands and mouths. Despite the lack of physical performance, something about hearing how magnificent and beautiful she was still tickled her loins.

By night time, all of her admirers were contently asleep in their tents, a big, goofy smile plastered over their faces. She had made sure to help them back to their spots. Before going for her next target, Kaida had also reminded them not to ‘kiss and tell’. Yet for all the boys she had kissed that day, she was still feeling hot and in need.

“Fuck, still wide awake…” the cheetah huffed, finally alone in her tent. Between lunch and dinner, she had to have laid down with at least ten different guys, yet something was keeping her up. “Still horny. Haven’t had my fix today, either,” she remembered, looking at her hand whose fingertips seemed to sparkle with green electricity. “I absorbed all the radiation from the lake already. Will I have to go back to town…? What a pain.” She thought to herself, standing up and walking out of the tent.

Before Kaida could look in the direction of the woods however, she took note of several parked trucks nearby. Reclamation and disposal trucks. “Of course!” she said, tail swishing with excitement, “It was a day off for the truckers, too; and they went out drinking yesterday. Which means there must be a lot of contaminated material in there…” she licked her lips like a starving guest before a buffet. “Wait, are they all empty?”

Walking closer to the trucks, Kaida realized she couldn’t tell which had the radioactive material. “Lead must be getting in the way…” she huffed in annoyance. “People still getting dinner at the main tent. It’ll look weird if I start opening all the trucks. I can wait.”

And hour and a half later, camp was as hushed as usual. Even with the party the day before and the day off, people were still exhausted and knew they’d have to get back to the grind tomorrow. Kaida thought to use her phone flashlight to help guide her, but quickly abandoned the idea after seeing a faint green glow projecting out of her right hand. “Feline glowworm,” she quietly giggled to herself, shaking her hand and turning the glow off. Another shake gave her that light back.

Making sure there was no one else around, Kaida slid the covers up on the trucks, one by one. By now she could tell exactly what the containment boxes looked like after having worked with them for so long, so by the third truck, she was already climbing in to get what she wanted.

“Here we go. If I have to stay awake, it should be worth my while! Hehe,” the cheetah mischievously giggled, opening one of the boxes which had a large chunk of debris. A Geiger counter and her dosimeter would’ve spiked at that moment, but she was with neither. Her eyes, on the other hand, were already tinting her vision green. “Come to mama,” she said, touching the radioactive rubble and letting out a hiss of pleasure as she shivered all over.

Dissatisfied with the rate of absorption, Kaida moved on to the next box already. And the next. And the next. She opened every available container, leaving it open in a circle around her. Ruined pieces of equipment, medical tools, shattered fuel rods like the ones she had found not long ago. All of it marked for disposal. All of it going to waste every day instead of going to her. “This is all junk, anyway,” she grinned to herself as she felt her suit and body absorb more radiation. “It serves a better purpose when it’s mine!”

While purring, the white of Kaida’s eyes and her PARS radioactive hazard symbols began to glow green again. The intensity of that glow seemed to increase in proportion to how much radiation Kaida was taking in. Thinking herself alone she saw no reason to hide it. This right here was the closest she was getting to the orgasmic experience back in Trout Lake. Kaida was in heaven again!

“…ah! It is you!”

The cheetah’s ears twitched to the sound of a voice. When she turned around, the green flash pouring out of her eyes and suit caused what she identified as a couple of newcomers to flinch and fall down. “Crap…” Kaida thought to herself, shaking her head and body to force the light to shut off. Even though most of that waste had been sapped by now, she quickly pulled the truck cover down on her way out.

“Kaida, you were glowing…” said the other guy’s voice. In her rush, Kaida had failed to identify Adrian and his wolf tent mate. They were both finally awake again, it seemed.

“What are you two doing here?” Kaida said, sounding significantly more demanding than she had intended to. Adrian and the wolf went up to their knees, looking like their mother had caught them with their hands in the cookie jar. Looking at their equally submissive display, the cheetah couldn’t hide a smile. “…you’re here to see me, aren’t you?”

The men nodded.

“Couldn’t resist me, could you?” Kaida posed with an arm sliding under her bust and her free hand landing on her perky butt behind her before circling back to her hips. As she leaned down, she drank in the sight of those rapidly nodding heads. How could she have lived without this sense of superiority before? No wonder bullies existed. The attention, the control. “Before I reward you wonderfully obedient boys, was there anyone else coming? Did you see them?”

“No, not really,” the wolf answered first, followed by Adrian.

“We were going to your tent, but didn’t find you, and then we saw that green glow…” the goat frowned, “Yuh-you were doing something at the back of that truck, weren’t you?”

Softly smiling, Kaida responded by closing her eyes half-way and staring at Adrian’s. “It doesn’t matter now,” she reached out to grab Adrian’s hand, bringing it to her breast.

“Aaah… so soft and squishy…” the goat started groping, forgetting his concerns. Seeing him play with that curvy cheetah, the wolf began to whimper.

“You’ll get some too, puppy boy,” Kaida smirked, looking down at the wolf while pulling Adrian in to smother his snout in her soft chest. Now that she was actually paying attention to the wolf’s physique however she could tell why he was one of the guys with such poor stamina. Unlike Adrian and bigger men than he, the wolf was clearly missing some bulk.

“Please don’t call me a puppy…” the wolf mumbled, clearly embarrassed by what she had meant as an endearing term. In a way, the pitiful state of that canine reminded Kaida of herself. So small and plain looking to be part of a proud species such as a wolf. Genetics could be so cruel, she thought as she roamed her hands down to firmly grab Aidan’s ass.

As Kaida was thinking how she would’ve burned a lot more energy had all ten guys been closer to the physique of this goat in her arms, she couldn’t help but project her ideas onto the wolf. She thought of him larger and more muscular, confident in himself so that he wouldn’t feel sorry for himself anymore. When she smiled at the wolf and extended a hand to him, he began to double over.

“Wuh-what’s going on…?” Adrian asked, finally pulling his snout away from Kaida’s breasts, turning to notice his tent mate with his elbows on the ground, grunting. “Hey! You okay? Are you in pain?” He looked at Kaida with concern, but noted she seemed to be in some sort of trance, paying attention to nothing other than the shivering wolf. Adrian got his answer when all of a sudden a wave of green energy poured forth from Kaida’s open palm. It engulfed the wolf, who began to growl.

Still kneeling, the wolf’s whole body appeared to be pulsing. A loud stretching noise snapped Kaida from her trance, but by then she was left just as surprised as Adrian when they were both exposed to the same spectacle together. Before their very eyes, the wolf man’s PARS appeared to shrink, growing tighter and tighter around his limbs, the neoprene hugging the outline of his arm muscles.

Since the wolf was clenching his fists hard, it was easy to see blood rushing and pumping his biceps larger, but the swelling didn’t stop where one would expect it. Biceps grew rounder and larger still, pushing out against the suit alongside his triceps and his thickening forearms. Enlarging deltoid muscles caused the wolf to start looking wider up top, with his back muscles rapidly gaining bulk in proportion. “Grrrnnnggaaah…!” the growing canine barely stifled back a howl by clenching his sharp fangs as he finally arched back.

Kaida’s eyes widened in both surprise and lust when that sharp motion put the wolf’s pectoral and abdominal muscles in view. Whereas before there had been no indication of beef whatsoever, there now sat a powerful torso in line with a well-trained gym jock. Quads became thick with new muscle cord, hamstrings marked by the form-fitting PARS material. Holding Adrian’s hand, Kaida walked around to observe the transformation from a different angle, noticing how ripped the wolf’s back was now. The rest of his legs had grown in direct proportion to his upper legs; he had evenly grown all over! “Stand up,” the excited cheetah said.

Almost as if he had been ordered by God, the muscular wolf jumped up to his feet. The PARS was looking especially snug on those laterals, and especially his enlarged arms and chest. Despite how sure he seemed, the canine’s mouth hung open with his tongue panting out. Eyes full of lust, the wolf was even fully hard against his suit.

“Did… did you do this to him?” Adrian breathed his question out, legs still trembling. “Huh-he just put on like fifty pounds of muscle!”

“I know,” Kaida said without looking at Adrian at first. But looking between the goat and the wolf, she now had two studs instead of one. Just what she had been hoping for. With a big grin, she grabbed Adrian by the head and pulled him down for a kiss. “It gets me horny, just like you.”

“Buhh…” Adrian’s twitching hands were hanging limp all of a sudden, “Buh-but…”

“Hush. You two are coming with me to my tent,” Kaida said, interrupting the wolf who seemed to be flexing the moment he came to, and grabbed his hand too. “You are both getting some.”

---

Kaida couldn’t be happier. Things were going the way she wanted for once. All of it. The following days at work made her feel like she was the prom queen, with guys taking whatever chance they had during their assignment to come to her. It didn’t matter if they were there to flirt, plan for sex later, invite her to dinner later that day or just bring her something pretty they had found. These men were simply enamored with her. And Kaida loved them all. They gave her not only the attention she had come to crave, but also the sex to quell her intense sexual desires. And now that she could give them the chance to serve her better? She couldn’t waste the opportunity.

Every day, Kaida not only basked in male attention and worship, but she made use of her power to give them what they needed to properly satisfy her. Those too puny and small to live up to her standards could have been humiliated and forsaken, but instead she empowered them, bringing them to a level suitable for a woman of her particular needs. And thus, at night, she never was wanting for proper companionship. Big, hunky yet docile men all willing to do whatever she wanted. The dream Kaida didn’t know she wanted had come true for her.

It wasn’t long before she began to get even more attention, this time from the few women which were part of the squad. Rogers, the wolfess in charge of supplies, had become upset Kaida was skipping protocol with her simps being the ones bringing her equipment to check it back in for her. She had also noticed the cheetah was eating over twice the rations most men during dinner every night. Some of them were giving her their plates! Beyond concerning, it was irritating her.

And yet, Rogers couldn’t have been more wrong when she thought that sending Kaida to Chief Samson’s office for disciplinary action would keep that upstart’s preferential treatment in check. Rogers had been expecting Kaida to come out of that lengthy, although eerily quiet meeting with the chief looking dejected or at least pissed off. But instead, the wolfess saw the cheetah step out with a spring in her step. And the walrus inside the office? It was the first time since Rogers had started working with him that she had seen him genuinely smile.

Kaida was making the men happy to be working there, and that was pissing a good number of the girls off. The one that Kaida didn’t expect to show up at the tent one night, however, was Sandra.

“Guess whoooooo?!” the chinchilla brashly announced herself at the entrance to her tent, completely unaware that Kaida was busy with somebody else. “Oh my.” All the things she was about to say were replaced by a singular, dramatic gasp and a two-handed covering of her mouth when Sandra finally noticed the big lion atop her tent mate.

“Sandra?!” Kaida exclaimed, her fingers sinking against the burly lion’s back to pull herself up and her head above his right shoulder. The chinchilla’s tail had fluffed up considerably, and her eyes were wide with shock, but there was an obvious smile across her face. This probably was going to be hard to explain.

Leaving with a number of grumbled out swears, the blue-balled lion had made sure to zip back up as he left the tent at Kaida’s request. “I’ll see you later, Kevin!” Kaida waggled her fingers with a smile before sighing and turning around to face her giddy tent companion.

“Now I know why you quit visiting me at the medical ward. Was starting to think you had another bestie there,” Sandra had her arms folded under her big chest, foot tapping on the floor as she smirked at Kaida.

The cheetah’s eyes rolled up and closed and her face twisted into a grimace. “Suh-sorry, I know. Things have been kind of hectic and…” Kaida trailed off, feeling guilty over the realization that all this commotion with the radiation, the powers, the arousal, the boys, the amazing sex… She was struggling to find a good way to explain it all. Kaida inevitably deflected: “I see you’re walking now! Are you alright now? Congratulations!”

Sandra smiled, stepping on her foot very slightly. “Getting better. Doc still says I shouldn’t put a lot of pressure on it but that walking will help get me better faster. I can start working as a spotter tomorrow; half the hours, though. Really glad, too. They don’t pay you while you’re bedridden you know?” Before Kaida could finish thinking a way to steer the conversation that way however, Sandra sprang forth with a sudden compliment: “I love what you did with your hair, Kaida. Guess I really haven’t seen you for like 10 days, huh? I had one of the nurses help me trim my bangs. Otherwise, I’m such a mess, y’know?” she giggled, and approached the fidgeting cheetah.

For the first time in over a week, Kaida found herself shuffling back slightly from someone. “Thanks, I like it this way,” the cheetah nodded.

Sandra’s eyes were half-narrowed, focused. “Mmm… definitely took my advice to eat well to heart! Look at these hams!” she said, side-stepping and patting Kaida’s rump, making the feline jump a little.

“O-oh, yuh-yeah… I’ve definitely started eating more!” Kaida nervously grinned, walking away from Sandra. She wasn’t used being complimented by other women. Usually, pretty girls used her as a reflector to make themselves look even better by comparison. “Looks like it all went to my butt though.”

“Not just your butt, I’d say,” Sandra chuckled. “C’mon, kitty cat. People think I’m a bimbo, but I’m not that stupid. Either you’re smuggling cantaloupes under your shields or you know a really good plastic surgeon that doesn’t mind coming to this hellhole. Do you think he’d do my lips?”

Kaida was silent. It was going to be hard to argue with Sandra about her body. They had spent no less than two weeks practically living together before the accident. The others had hardly paid attention to her before her change, so it was easy to fool them or avoid the ones she knew had their eyes on her. Sandra and Kaida had seen each other both naked and in underwear. “They’re not fake,” Kaida admitted, and eliminated all suspense by unzipping half-way down, opening the top of her suit to expose her chest at the chinchilla.

“Sweet jugs of justice, girl!” Sandra hopped in place, her eyes widening again, looking down in disbelief. “No wonder Kevin was all over you. He’s always staring at everyone’s tits.”

“Not so loud!” Kaida hushed, quickly stuffing her chest back into her PARS while glaring at her overexcited tent mate.

“Speaking of which,” Sandra lowered her voice, but her curiosity didn’t abate. “He was such an obedient lil’ kitten with you. Lions are usually all gruff and rawr, and so uncompromisingly dominant,” the chinchilla seemed to shiver as she thought aloud, needing to fan herself a little. Clearly, she had been picturing every word coming out of her own mouth. “Good on you for reigning in the king of the jungle. Going for Terry, next?”

Kaida couldn’t help but scoff. “Pfft, he’s always too busy working out and talking to Claire at night. Too much of a hassle to…” she blushed and averted her gaze.

“Yeah, he really likes that tall vixen bi…” Sandra paused, seeming to hang on to Kaida’s reaction and the way she had dismissed her teasing. “Hang on. Are you actually two-timing Kevin with someone else? Since when are you such a s l o o t? What else have I missed?”

“I’ve just been really stressed, dealing with some changes,” Kaida said, rubbing her arm; her usual nervous habit. Technically she wasn’t lying, but she was seeing less options to wiggle out of this interrogation. Coupled with how horny she still was after Sandra’s untimely interruption; she was starting to lose her patience.

“I’d also be huffy if I suddenly went up three freaking cup sizes,” Sandra nodded, “Trying to find bras that fit already is a hassle as it is with these girls. What aren’t you telling me?”

Every guy Kaida had been with had been completely pacified. Explanations were unnecessary when resistance and the will to question information had been stripped by their most basic instincts. “I’m different now, Sandra,” Kaida finally said, lifting her hand up. Green energy started sparkling at the same time as her suit lit up where it usually did, the white of her eyes shining with emerald glow.

Sandra stumbled back onto her butt with a gasp of shock. The demonstration lasted only a couple of seconds and yet the chinchilla felt like she had just been through a horror house and back. “Thu… that. What was that, Kaida?”

“Radiation, I’d have to guess,” Kaida simply said.

“You guess? You guess?!” Sandra was starting to become hysterical, way more than Kaida had expected even knowing how excitable she was. “Mmpph!” The rodent’s words became muffled as Kaida rushed to cover her mouth with a hand. The way Kaida was glaring down at her was making her shake, so she tried to settle down.

“Sorry,” Kaida apologized. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I’ve been absorbing radiation ever since we were at that secret lab.”

“Guh-God! You mean you’re radioactive?!” Sandra muffledly spoke through the hand. “That’s dangerous!”

Kaida shook her head and reached for her dosimeter on the nearby counter, slotting it into her suit after turning it on. The exposure readings were nominal and she made sure Sandra saw. “I’m totally fine. You and everyone else are safe. Don’t you think spotters would’ve hit on something if I was giving off radiation, myself?”

“Guh-guess not, but Kaida, what the heck? You were lit up like a Christmas tree. That… that can’t be healthy. Is this why you got that 10/10 summer bod?”

“That’s what’s worrying you?” Kaida hunched over with a blank stare.

“I’m also worried about you. Radiation can give you cancer and stuff, can’t it? Even an 8-year-old can tell you that.”

“I’m feeling better than ever,” Kaida said, “Better than better. I’m pretty sure I’m so strong I can lift Terry while he’s benching. If I had any health issues…”

“Wait. Wait. If we’re having this conversation, that means you haven’t told the medics. And Kevin, and anyone else you’re doing… they don’t know anything, either do they?” Sandra reasoned aloud, finally deciding to push Kaida’s hand away from her mouth. “Am I the first you’ve told?”

Kaida nodded, deciding to leave out how convenient it is to waive details with coworkers like Adrian who were too busy worshipping her to question things like her stark makeover. “I’d like this to remain a secret, Sandra. Between us. Besties, right?” she asked, a bit too intently. Intent enough that her eyes glowed for a brief instant.

Sandra gulped. “Can I ask a question?” she nervously smiled. Kaida gave her the go-ahead with a gesture. “Why is it so important you keep this hush-hush?”

“It’s simpler if I can keep a low-profile,” Kaida explained with a shrug, “With the government being all over our employees, the last thing I want is them finding out I got these powers.”

“You’re still going to keep absorbing radiation, even though you can’t explain your own abilities…?” Sandra questioned.

Kaida was crude with her answer. “Been doing it for the past week and more. I know it’s harmless to me, and others, and that it feels fucking good. So, I wanna keep doing it without anyone getting in my way. You understand that, don’t you?”

Sandra sat up straighter, feeling a chill going up her spine. Where had this imposing, sharp-eyed cheetah beauty come from and what had she done with that meek and submissive kitty Sandra had met almost a month ago? “Ruh-right… yeah,” the chinchilla finally said. “Um… can I go now?”

“You’re not staying over?”

“I was here to greet you and let you know we were going to be working together tomorrow, and to get some stuff while walking my legs. Doc still says he wants to monitor stuff, so I’m still gonna sleep over back at the cots,” Sandra said, “But uh… I gotta be honest, I don’t feel very safe after what you showed me, Kaida.”

Taking a deep breath, Kaida stood up, offering her hand to Sandra. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m still the same…”

The chinchilla however pulled herself back up to her own feet. “It’s fine. I’m fine,” Sandra lifted her hands, shaking them and her head in a dismissive manner. “I have no reason to tell anybody. I’m just here for the money, remember?”

With a hand at her hips, Kaida watched Sandra go get her bag from under her bunk before she went to exit the tent. “Guess we’ll see each other tomorrow at work?” the cheetah asked, sauntering after Sandra who went to push the tent flap open only to stop.

One of Kaida’s boytoys was just waiting outside. A squirrel whose rock-solid build gave the chinchilla pause. He only briefly greeted Sandra by name before extending a burly arm to help push the tent flap higher above so that he could see. “Saw Kevin leaving earlier. I need you, please,” he said without a shred of shame, walking past Sandra as if she didn’t exist.

Kaida couldn’t help a half-lidded, proud smirk. She welcomed the buff squirrel into her arms. “Of course, baby. My friend here was just leaving.”

“Guess we’ll see each other tomorrow at work,” Sandra repeated, getting an almost infuriatingly slow wave from Kaida as the tent flaps turned the two embracing coworkers into silhouettes. Sandra ignored the way she felt she had just been passed up like salad at a buffet, and instead of stopped half-way towards the main tent to glance back at something that was bothering her.

“He knew who I was,” the chinchilla thought. Unless they had continued to hire new people after Kaida, Sandra only remembered one crew member who was a squirrel, and the last time she had checked him out he looked like pansy, not a muscle-bound hunk of beef. An unknown fear had begun to grip her heart.

---

Sandra’s concerns became founded the next day at work. In the five hours she spent spotting in abandoned Paterville again, her eyes wouldn’t stop wandering to follow where her cheetah coworker was going at all times. Their supervisors were all-too-conveniently looking the other way whenever they weren’t staring at her swaying hips or drooling at her jiggling chest.

Whenever Kaida left an area, she did so under the pretense of needing a spotter with her. It was always one of the burly, sexy types like that squirrel or Kevin. It was never one of the girls, like her. “Is it like food or something, to her…?” Sandra wondered to herself. The frightful green light she had seen last night coupled with the unnatural expansion of Kaida’s curves had lent credibility to her story. Who in their right mind would joke about being able to draw in radiation if they didn’t have a death wish?

“Why are all those guys following her, though?” the chinchilla’s curiosity seemed to be growing. Since Sandra was taking her half-day between the lunch hours, she was able to see no less than five simps offering Kaida their sandwiches, other snacks and even their drinks. All those cuties and hunks at her beck and call like the cheetah was the only woman left in the planet, making all the others like her feel invisible! “Sure, she’s hotter, but… this is unnatural. Like some sort of cult,” Sandra shivered. Every time she thought of the way guys were looking at Kaida and behaving, she felt an uneasy slosh in her stomach.

“How’s the leg, Sandra?”

Sandra heard Kaida’s voice. She was munching on a sandwich that Kevin was holding for her to eat while Adrian held her drink for her on the opposite side. The cheetah was patting an open seat inside of the food truck, motioning for her to come join her.

“C’mon, empty seat!” Kaida insisted with a smile.

“Ankle’s fine, thanks,” Sandra shook her head and thumbed back over the shoulder, “My hours are almost up though. Gonna hitch a ride back with one of the trucks!” she turned around to leave.

“Your loss! I’ll save you a seat tonight, too, if they let you wander around again,” Kaida giggled, waving Sandra off. She slurped on some soda, looking even giddier than the previous night.

Sandra glanced back with an uneasy smile before hurrying the pace as fast as her legs could carry her. On the way to her ride, she couldn’t help but continue thinking to herself. “She’s been fucking them all, hasn’t she? Does she sex them up at night too? And on top of that she works. How isn’t she tired? Must really be getting stronger from all that radiation, this is unbelievable…”

What Sandra saw that night after dinner however trumped disbelief. Her curiosity led her to stake out her tent which Kaida had so easily turned into a college dorm for her friends-with-benefits to come and go through. She could hear some growling at one point, prompting her to crawl out from behind the chemical bathrooms in the dark to see better. Sandra immediately pulled back when she saw it. A green flash had quickly and briefly illuminated the tent. What walked outside forced her to cover her mouth.

The chinchilla had been a hundred percent sure the wolf going inside that tent had looked buff before. Sandra recognized him as one of Adrian’s tent mates because of the blue chevrons under his eyes, and she also recalled much like the squirrel she had seen last night, he looked way stronger than he once had. But when he came back out, he was even more so. A stark contrast. “He’s gotta be on Terry’s level, his shields are gonna tear at that rate. Goddamn look at those arms…” It was taking all of her willpower not to moan at the bodybuilder-level canine.

And because she couldn’t take that image off her mind, Sandra became convinced that Kaida was doing more than simply slut it up, in her own mental words. “God, she’s doing something to them. If he can turn them into hunks, she could be brainwashing them too. What do I do? What if she does it to me…? She already was acting like a fucking queen with me. I’m not… I’m not some peasant she can walk over!” Sandra was growing more frustrated with every thought. But before she was found out, she decided to retire to the medical ward. And that’s where she’d be for as long as she could.

In Sandra’s mind, Kaida had become a dangerous freak.

---

Chapter 6: Negotiations

Sandra wasn’t the only person in that camp with concerns for those guys. When a few guys of typically smaller species showed up stronger from one night to another, health concerns were the minimum to check for, with unauthorized performance enhancers suspected at the very least. To avoid any undue stress among the personnel, Claire Collins and her medical staff had disguised those concerns by pushing the monthly health checkup earlier.

Bloodwork unfortunately didn’t prove any inconsistencies. These subjects were in perfect health, although a common vector was found by one of the medical researchers.

“Ms. Collins, come take a look at this,” one of the doctors said, moving away from a microscope. “Sample 7,” he said as Claire shuffled in and put her eyes over the mic. “Sample 8,” he swapped the trays. “DNA from these two patients appear to have become subtly altered from their first blood test a month ago.”

“The exact same genes…” Claire said without looking away from the microscope. “Are these the only ones?”

The doctor shook his head. “As you suspected, samples 7 through 13 exhibit the same level of… I’m sorry. I can’t even finish the sentence.”

“It’s fine. What were you going to say?” Claire encouraged.

“Genetic tampering. But that’s ridiculous, these people don’t have the necessary equipment or the knowledge to conduct gene therapy of this delicate precision. We don’t have the equipment,” the doctor laughed, “Even if we assumed they all somehow got irradiated and their DNA mutated… why only these six? And why all the same way?”

“Just the males, too,” Claire seemed to be in deep thought as she pulled away from the microscope. “Have we found any inconsistencies in the samples from the females?”

The doctor shook his head. “They all seemed to be in perfect health after the routine checkup. We’re comparing records over…” before he could finish, he was interrupted by a different researcher returning from a different corner of the medical wing.

“Ms. Collins, this is irregular,” the second doctor said. Claire immediately followed him to his side of the lab, and was shown results that made her eyes widen.

“This can’t be right. The DNA of this employee, the cells have mutated to the point they’re unrecognizable…” Claire murmured, eyes rapidly going left to right and back as she re-read the contents of the file. “And it says she wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms during her physical? Nothing like the males?”

“She looked healthy to the nurse who took her sample,” the second doctor explained, “We don’t…”

Claire interrupted him and hurried to the microscope with the sample belonging to the subject in question. “I want to see the blood sample, myself.” She ordered, and sure enough her eyes went to check on those cells within the sample. Cells which, as a high-ranking employee of the Aster company, made her heart skip a beat.

“Ms. Collins, are you okay?” the first doctor asked the near paralyzed vixen. Claire was waving a hand towards her.

“Get Winters to come here. Suspend the tests for now and clear out the lab,” Claire said, and her doctors exchanged glances.

Did I stutter?

---

Lisa Winters was an Aster physicist in charge of advising and leading the restoration effort of Paterville. Many like her had lost their positions and prestige following the nuclear disaster, but the old tigress had managed to strike a deal with the government to do supervised work for minimal salary. With 75% cleaned Paterville so far meaning good things for Winters, getting called on emergency by Collins didn’t put her in a good mood.

“This better be good, Collins,” Winters said as she walked into the lab which looked extra big with only her and the vixen inside of it. “The big office doesn’t take it kindly when I have to leave a progress report mid-call.”

“It’s not good,” Claire had had time to review the information while waiting for the tigress. She was back to her usual resting-bitch expression. Without elaborating she stood up and relinquished her stool to Winters.

The tigress wasted no time in examining the sample under the microscope. “This is fascinating. But you’re the microbiologist, so you’ll have to walk me through.”

“We were both part of the ARBA project. A scrapped project. You don’t need a walkthrough. We’ve seen it hundreds of times already.”

“ARBA was ordered to be scrapped by the board. Deigned non-viable, and demonstrated dangerous by the late president Aster and his sons,” Winters pulled back from the microscope to look at the vixen in the eyes. “It was all purged. Even the mercenaries trying to make away with it during the explosion were hunted down. Why do you have a sample of it here?”

“That’s not an ARBA sample,” Claire corrected, sauntering to the edge of the table before calmly sliding a file next to Winters. “You’re looking at an employee’s mutated leukocytes.”

Winters suddenly felt silent. Her hand shakily reached for the file simply titled Temp #32. After quickly reading through the important details of 32’s bloodwork, the tigress lowered the papers and met Claire’s gaze again. “How? This makes no sense.”

“I agree,” Claire said. “For all intents and purposes, ARBA and its documentation doesn’t exist anymore. Yet it seems to exist in one of my temp hire’s blood-stream. Isn’t that a paradox for the ages, Lisa?”

“Claire…” Winters took a small sigh, “What do you want me to say? I wasn’t in charge of disposal. I was backing you, if you recall. The president’s lack of patience was at fault. All of this mess. Our careers…”

“Save the pity-party,” Claire said, turning around and guiding Winters over to a glove box. The device was a box-shaped machine with two hands a researcher would insert their arms into the gloves within the compartment, allowing for manipulation without fear of exposure.

As Winters approached Claire from the side, she observed the vixen at work. Her gloves hands inside of the box were manipulating a test-tube marked #32 with what seemed to be a cell culture. “Haven’t seen you this serious in a while. What have you found?”

“If I’m right,” Claire started, guiding the test tube into a holder below a coil attached to the ceiling of the glove box, “Then we’re dealing with a potential new discovery. I’ll begin bombarding sample with Alpha particles,” she said, and extracted one of her arms from the glovebox before throwing a switch. The emitter coil above began glowing.

Winters observed as the Geiger counter representing the rad exposure within the glovebox chamber quickly began to rise. The old tigresses’ eyes widened as she witnessed the test tube begin to glow a steady green. Rads reading stopped rising. “You didn’t stop it, did you?”

Claire shook her head, gesturing with her head at the dial she was turning. “I’m increasing the output by minute amounts. Rad readings stabilize and then…” she paused. The counter started rapidly decreasing.

“My God…” Winters leaned in to look at the green cell culture, eyes jumping between the fluorescent glow and the rapidly decreasing counter. Claire turned the dial to zero and the coil stopped emitting. The green glowing material inside of the test tub continued to glow for a few moments before settling down. “It’s ARBA, alright,” the tigress concluded. “Your temp hire has ARBA in her blood. How did this happen, Claire?”

“A while ago, this temp accidentally found one of our secret facilities,” Claire explained the gully incident to Winters. “Until now, I had been under the impression she had found a leftover ARBA sample, but when she told me she had dropped the flask to the ground and triggered quarantine, I had assumed she had destroyed the agent with decontaminating solution. The government lapdogs sniffing out the facility certainly didn’t find anything more than half-finished solitaire games in those computers. That must’ve been the very last sample. And she had allegedly destroyed it, until now.”

“Did she lie to you?” Winters raised an eyebrow.

Claire shrugged. “Conscious or not is academic at this point. She omitted the fact she got it all over her. A fact I hadn’t considered until now.”

“Had she not been using her shields?” Winters questioned. “Could it have seeped through even with them on?”

“At this point, trying to figure out the how is a moot point,” Claire said. “Somehow, she has managed to harmonize with an agent.”

“You don’t know which one it is?” Winters asked.

“There were almost a hundred different variants. We lost all of them alongside the data which was scrubbed to protect what remains of the company,” Claire huffed, closing her eyes. “If I knew the variant it’d be easier to tell the exact properties we’re dealing with. All we know for certain is that we have an infected worker. With biology rich in potential next-gen anti-radioactive measures.”

“Just imagine the applications…” Winters put a hand to her lips, in deep thought. “With enough time and experimentation, we could develop this subject into a living, breathing decontaminator. What could it mean for the nuclear power industry? Threat levels significantly reduced. Millions saved in waste management. An entire department reduced to just one actor. This is the ARBA project’s next step, Claire. You’ve done it!”

“Still too soon to say,” Claire folded her arms under her large bust, still pensive. “Depending on designation, we’re talking about potential instability problems. If it was one of the earlier variants, it could lead to volatility with the energy byproduct. The latter versions eventually gave up… The board should know.”

Winters frowned in disapproval. “Claire, with the president gone, the company isn’t going to last after we’re done with Paterville. We’re talking about a proprietary discovery. Nobel prize stuff. The board is going to sell to make up for whatever scraps they got left. And that includes our future. They don’t deserve a penny.”

“Damnit,” Claire showed emotion with a grumble. “If only I had more samples to compare, then I could establish viability. But not knowing the ARBA numerical designation…”

“And how much would that information be worth, to you?” a third voice made the two women turn towards the side entrance of the lab. There was no one at the door, but standing at the corner of the corridor leading to the patient wing.

“Who are you?” Winters demanded, walking ahead of Claire. “You’re not cleared to be here.”

“She’s not,” Claire narrowed her eyes, “Because she’s a patient. #23, correct? You’re supposed to be doing half-days.”

“The name’s Sandra, not twenty-three,” the chinchilla said, walking into the lab, gliding her hand over one of the tables. “And I’m not looking forwards to be working with a radiation sponge.”

“You heard everything,” Winters folded her arms.

“No,” Sandra shook her head, “Just the word you kept repeating, ‘ARBA’. And the bit about the money.”

“You were with #32…” Claire corrected herself, “With Kaida, on the day you two were trapped inside that secret facility. What do you know about ARBA?”

“Not much, just that you two won’t quit talking about it like it’s going out of style,” Sandra shrugged, “And that Kaida also talked about ARBA-something while we were trapped.”

“You were reported unconscious. You said you didn’t remember anything from after you hit your head,” Claire walked over to Sandra. The height difference was so clear that Sandra was eye-level with the vixen’s chest.

“Are you going to change your version now? Extort us for money? Convenient,” Winters joined the fox woman. Both she and the tigress were tall, utterly looming over the chinchilla. But the latter didn’t seem impressed. She was smirking, even.

“I kept coming to. It’s true. I didn’t see what Kaida was doing for the most part…” Sandra explained, “…but I know what I heard. And I know what she is because she told me. You need a number, don’t you? So do I. Give and take. What do you say?”

“You’re just giving your friend up, just like that?” Winters asked.

“Friend?” Sandra scoffed. “You two high and mighty bitches are gonna lecture me now? She’s doing things to the people here, and looking pretty unhinged by the day, if you know what I mean. I want an out, and money. That’s all I need.”

Claire’s eyes seemed to freeze. “What did she tell you?”

The intent glare she was getting made Sandra break her tough girl expression. With a worried frown, she told Claire about the green glow, about Kaida wanting to continue absorbing radiation and talking about how good it felt, and also about the bigger and submissive male coworkers she had seen. But she didn’t tell her anything else.

“Remarkable. This fits with the other tests,” Claire said, hurrying over to the table and bringing back the multiple bloodwork exams for Winters to catch up. “Cell mutation. Genetic anomalies. It all fits.”

“But the others didn’t get… and ARBA shouldn’t be able to be transmitted…” Winters began, but was duly interrupted.

“Kaida isn’t just herself and the ARBA her body became infected with, Lisa. Not anymore,” Claire was joining her finger tips together, “ARBA mutated her as much as it was mutated by her. If they have truly become one, we’re not restricted to what we know about the biological agent. This is all-new territory!”

“This is bigger than we thought,” Winters seemed to fall silent for a moment. “We’re going to go down in History with this discovery.”

Sandra was looking between the two scientists with a confused stare. Soon, confusion bred frustration in her and she was raising her voice again. “How bigger? You sound like you’re thinking of Kaida like a guinea pig already.”

“Not too long ago you were thinking about her as a bag full of money, Sandra,” Claire cut back. “If you saw or heard the number designation, tell it to us. We’ll see to it that you’re well-compensated.”

Sandra looked between the vixen and tigress and was about to ask for a guarantee when suddenly the glovebox near them suddenly began to flash a bright, sulfurous yellow. Before the three could react, glass started flying everywhere as the machine exploded.

Hurling themselves to the floor, the three women narrowly missed being cut. An alarm sounded off inside of the lab. “What the fuck was that?!” Sandra demanded, scared out of her wits.

“Radiation levels are increasing, quit talking and put on your mask!” Claire ordered, reaching back for her own filtered mask and putting it on. She was followed by Sandra and Winters, who carefully sat up after engaging their filters.

“That was the glovebox with #32’s irradiated sample,” Winters mentioned as she carefully stood up, “What is going on, Claire?”

Claire was too busy rushing over to the smoking machine, ensuring it was properly shut down. The sample at the center of the chamber was gone. She quickly turned around and made gestures with her hands, “Call a decon team in here. We need to leave and quarantine the lab ASAP.”

The three women hurried outside of the medical wing with Winters already placing a call. After sealing the door into the evacuated medical wing and looking at it from the outside, Claire seemed more silent than usual.

“Claire, what’s going on?” Winters asked again.

“It’s one of the variants in the 40s, for sure,” the panting vixen said.

“Fuh-forty-seven…” Sandra finally said, still shaking. “Jesus Christ. Is she going to explode like that…? Is she a fucking atomic bomb?!”

“Not if we can convince her to submit to immediate examination,” Claire said, but her uncharacteristically shaky voice seemed to cast doubt in her confidence.

“Where is #32 right now?” Winters asked.

“Should be in one of the districts on assignment right now,” Claire confirmed after paying a glance to her phone. “We have to stop her from absorbing more radiation than she already has.”

“How are you even going to convince her to stop? That’s all she wants to do now, other than getting it on with big guys.” Sandra walked up to Claire since Winters was already arranging things with a call. “Didn’t you hear me? She’s got a bunch of beefcakes doing whatever she wants. And I don’t think you’ll be able to bully her with your mean-bitch eyes like you do with everybody else.”

Claire approached Winters and put a hand to her shoulder, nodding. “Contact security.”

---

It was almost time to be getting back to the camp. Kaida had forgotten how many hospitals she had seen marked in the GPS of her phone the first time she had checked out Paterville’s map, but there couldn’t be that many left. A pity, she thought, since the radiotherapy machines she kept finding were amazing sources of radiation for her to absorb.

As Kaida moaned from the satisfaction of another successful, energizing meal, she also prided herself over her followers so patiently observing her as she ate. Shooting them a proud smirk – she was the only one who didn’t need to be wearing her mask – Kaida admired the lineup. All those sexy, virile studs, and those who had enjoyed becoming sexy and virile just for her sake. The only one Kaida hadn’t felt the need to alter was Adrian, who was starting to look a little outsized by her peers getting small yet steady boosts. But she couldn’t help it: He was perfect as he was. Everything in her life was so perfect now.

When the doors to the ward opened and Terry came through, the glow in Kaida’s hands faded and thus did her feeding end. She had only indoctrinated the hulking giraffe into her service recently, but seeing as he wasn’t her type all he had been given so far was the job to act as her lookout. Him being there meant something was up.

“I’m sorry, mistress,” Terry apologized, falling to one knee in a respectful bow. “I know you said not to interrupt you, but there are a lot of people waiting for you outside.”

Kaida liked the way Terry was speaking to her now. Mistress had such a nice ring to it. Looking over her favorite boy toys though, she made a note to carefully select who to give the privilege of calling her by name in the future. She smiled at Adrian and the wolf boy, who was looking as big as Terry nowadays, showing favoritism over them in particular. “You did good, Terry,” Kaida finally said, turning to walk in his direction.

“Thank you!” Terry said, letting out a pleasured grunt when he felt the underside of Kaida’s finger sliding under his snout. She lifted him up to his feet by pushing against his chin. Even though he still absolutely towered over Kaida, he was quivering before her.

“Who is waiting for me outside?”

“Company people. Upper management types, mistress,” Terry answered dutifully, letting out a small moan as Kaida scratched under his chin as if he was some sort of lumbering pet. “Ms. Collins. And the other I think was called Winters. They also brought security with them. And the tiny spitfire’s also there.”

Kaida was deep in thought for a moment. “I see. I guess the jig is up,” the cheetah shrugged rather casually. “It’s pointless to grill you. I’ll go to see what they want,” she said. Even though she had been hoping to continue with her fun a little longer, Kaida felt surprisingly calm about having to deal with powerful people. No, those people didn’t know what power really was. “You can all go,” she told her followers. “Do what you want!”

“Kaida, I want to be with you,” Adrian said, and was soon followed by the others. Even Terry seemed to be fidgeting with his fingers like a flustered schoolboy. She couldn’t say no to her precious boy toys.

Knowing she no longer needed to pass for regular employee of the Aster company, Kaida left her mask behind, never intending to wear it again.

Outside the radiology lab, a large group of people numbering a dozen and a half was waiting for Kaida and her cult. Most of them were security guards outfitted with heavily-armored PARS and weapons they immediately pointed at Kaida’s unceremonious entrance.

Standing at the swinging double doors, Kaida didn’t even bother raising her hands, instead resting them at her wide hips with a cocky smirk. As whispers on the nature of the cheetah not wearing her mask in a still-contaminated environment made the rounds among the personnel, Kaida’s eyes focused on Sandra. While Kaida said nothing to the chinchilla, she still made sure she was aware Sandra was there. This made the chinchilla nervous, fidgety, prompting her to step behind one of those heavily armed guards.

As Kaida’s followers poured out and stood behind her, they formed a neat line of burly men towering over their cheetah mistress. However, none of them made a move. The air was tense.

“You must hate it here, Claire,” Kaida casually said while brushing her hair back. “It’s the first time in a month I’ve seen you step foot in Paterville. Does your office chair hurt after all that time sitting?”

“We don’t need to waste time with this pointless drivel, Kaida,” Claire replied with a glare. “We’re here to negotiate.”

Kaida quietly scanned the room from left to right. She counted twelve gun-toting guys in all. Nine automatic rifles and three pistols were pointed her way. “Clearly,” she replied with a sarcastic tone, at which Winters lowered her hand, ordering the men to stand down.

“I’m Lisa Winters. Your boss’ boss,” the tigress introduced herself. “I apologize if my men made you uncomfortable, but I hope you understand we don’t wish to waste time.”

“Why the hurry, Lisa? Got somewhere else to be?” Kaida cocked her head sideways, getting a few laughs from her subjects at her back.

“Cut the crap already,” Claire said dryly. “You’re likely not going to be dead from getting shot, but you’re definitely not going to be alive for long either way if you don’t do as I say.”

“Interesting,” Kaida began to slowly pace from side to side, looking pensive. “You come here pointing guns at me, say you want to negotiate, and immediately tell me I’m dying no matter what. Care to elaborate?”

“That laboratory you entered nearly two weeks back,” Claire said, “You became infected with an Anti-Radioactive Biological Agent. ARBA for short. As the name implies, it’s a prototype designed to absorb and neutralize radioactivity in a safe and environmentally friendly manner. ARBA wasn’t supposed to bond to any living thing, but it did so with your cells. Now they do not neutralize radioactivity, but allow your system to harmonize with it.”

“Sounds like a really good thing, if you ask me, doc,” Kaida smiled, bringing a hand up to show a sparkle of green energy swirling above her palm. “But this is nothing new. You say this is what, killing me? Awfully convenient thing for someone you’re trying to ‘negotiate’ with to say. What do you even want from me?”

“To stop doing what you’re doing,” Claire answered, not missing a beat even though Winters, Sandra and all of security had taken a step back away from the mysterious green glow atop Kaida’s hand. The cheetah shook her hand, dissipating the green energy and giving her an innocent smile with a wiggle of her fingers as if saying ‘done’. “That is the least of our concerns. I want you to stop absorbing radiation. The ARBA you bonded with has been known to be highly volatile, unpredictable, unfinished.”

“You also said it’s not supposed to bond with any living thing but,” Kaida shrugged with a giggle, as if mockingly saying: ‘Here I am!’. “Really. Did you even practice your pitch…?”

“You keep this up, you will explode,” Claire interrupted, raising her voice and quieting Kaida’s. “It will be messy. There will be collateral damage.”

Kaida seemed to be thinking about the words spoken by the scientist vixen. “I don’t believe you,” was her reply.

“It’s true!” Sandra said from behind one of the security guards. “Kaida you gotta stop this. They had your blood inside one of those glove boxes at the medical ward. It fucking went up in smoke!”

“It’s hard to believe you when being here means admitting you sold me out, ‘bestie’,” Kaida sarcastically said to Sandra, but didn’t even look at her. The chinchilla withdrew again with a barely audible squeak.

Winters was the one to speak next. “It’s not a matter of if, but when. What do you think will happen when ALL of you decides to go supercritical? Paterville already had a nuclear disaster. Do you want to be its second one?”

“Is that fancy speak for my cells melting down or something?” Kaida was having a hard time understanding the science behind it, so instead she went with her guts. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been at this for almost two weeks now. I think I would’ve blown up by now. I don’t even feel bad! Instead, all I do is get stronger the more radiation I feed off of.”

“That is due to an unforeseen consequence of your bonding with the ARBA, as well as…” Claire paused to look between Kaida’s gorgeous figure and the severely empowered males behind her, “…your multiple other abilities. You are correct. We have no way to predict how this union will ultimately behave, but I’m a microbiologist, and Lisa is a physicist. We’ve a much better chance of figuring out what you are becoming than you or any of your ‘friends’ behind you do.”

“You, with your fancy degrees and titles,” Kaida grinned. “Don’t you see, you pompous, Amazonian bitch? I’m owning this bonding thing!” she held her arms out, stretching and letting a delighted moan out. “Every second I expose myself to radiation I can feel it pour inside of me, like a full-course meal. Hell, food doesn’t do it for me anymore. It hasn’t for a good while. I need way more than any of you do just to feel satisfied. Paterville offers so much more to me,” she turned to the Adrian, smiling as he stepped to the side. Everyone’s breath quickened a little when Kaida punched a hole in the four-inch thick wall behind her followers. “All this power, all this freedom. And you want me to, what, submit to you, become a pet project for you to dissect, Claire? You would love that, wouldn’t you?”

“Think of your future, Kaida,” Winters interjected, gaining the cheetah’s attention, who turned away from the hole in the wall to face her. “Killing you now, or at an operating table, is nowhere near our optimal goal. Collaboration is better. You’re an entirely new, superior breed, capable of doing so much for everybody. Imagine using your abilities to cleanse uninhabitable regions. Gratitude, fame, monetary compensation… An honest job, even for someone of your power. Doesn’t it all sound tempting to you?”

“And why do I need you for any of that?” Kaida argued back. “Even if I wanted to go out of my way to help others, I don’t want to work for you, or anyone else. All my life I’ve felt like I’m getting swept up in a river current, unable to stop crashing into every rock in the place. I’m done getting pushed around. Now I’m the river, and you can choose to swim with , or against me.”

The lineup behind Kaida applauded, cheering for her.

“Suppose we let you go now,” Winters spoke loudly over the cheers, “What are your plans, Ms. River?”

Kaida licked her lips. “I’m surprised you even have to ask.” She looked outside the window of the third floor, and out at the city. Her enhanced vision could tell where the juiciest target was at. “Say anything you want about your persuasion technique. You’ve had us cleanse this place but good. I’m quickly running out of places to feed from. And I’m done with the appetizers so I was thinking to go for the main course already.”

“You irresponsible child. That’s the direction the power plant used to be in, that’s ground zero of…” Winters tried to explain, but her anger was getting the better of her. Claire stepped in.

“Even after all these weeks, the remains of the core continues to burn buried among all the debris. Any normal person, even wearing the PARS and additional shielding, would instantly die if exposed to that level of radiation, Kaida,” the fox scientist explained.

Kaida’s pretty face twisted into a devious, unhinged grin. “Yummy.”

“You can’t be serious!” Claire finally snapped, taking a defiant step towards the wicked cheetah. “After all you’ve heard, you plan on disregarding all manner of safety and seek only to satisfy your endless lust for power?! You. Will. Die.”

Winters added: “If you go supercritical, and you will, it won’t be like the power plant. This much radiation being unleashed will escalate rampantly and devastate a much wider area. A neutron bomb would be less destructive. You won’t just die. You will take everything, and everyone of us out along with you in the process!”

Kaida laughed, entirely too amused by the way these two haughty women were steadily losing their cool with her. “Then you’d better get on those trucks and drive away from my city, don’t you think? I promise not to run over there,” she said, and took a step forth.

All guns were suddenly trained on Kaida again. Sandra whimpered.

“I did not want it to come to this, Kaida,” Winters added, “A life is a life. Even a corrupted mind like yours is worth saving. But if you won’t listen to reason…”

“You won’t let me leave, alive?” Kaida said, taking another step forwards.

“Stop,” Claire tried. “Think about this for a second. Even with your strength, they are carrying highly perforating rounds. They will gun you down in an instant!”

“Who will?” Kaida asked, confusing three out of the fifteen people standing in front of her.

To Lisa Winters’ and Claire Collin’s absolute shock, the security team had suddenly decided to stand down on their own.

“What are you doing?” Winters turned to one of the guards next to her, “Aim at her! All of you…!”

“But she didn’t get close to them, didn’t even touch them!” Claire gasped. “Unless… was it that glow?”

“I’m so sorry! Sorry, sorry! Kaida…!” Sandra ran forth from behind the security guards. She threw herself at the cheetah’s legs, hugging tightly. “Please love me. I was wrong. I did it all for the money, but now I see…! You’re all that matters!”

“It’s not affecting just the males…?!” Winters was left with her jaw hanging open.

“Kaida!”

“My love, Kaida…!”

“I’ll follow you anywhere, do anything for you…!”

The cries between the infatuated security guards and Kaida’s followers behind her had turned the hospital hallway into an uproar of love and devotion. The curvy cheetah reached down to pat Sandra on the head. “Get off me, Sandra. You’ll have to earn your attention, just like they all did. As for you, cuties, why don’t you move out of the way?” she waved towards the guards. As Sandra pulled herself back and obediently dragged herself away, the security team split in groups of two, moving out of the way.

Calmly, Kaida sauntered past her ex-boss and ex-boss’ boss, both of which seemed to have become frozen after this this wild turn of events.

“This was doomed from the start…” Claire fell to her knees, completely defeated. “Buh-but why? Why am I not feeling hopelessly attracted to you…?”

Kaida stopped, glanced back and grinned with a beautiful, sunny disposition. “I don’t care about you or your boss.” She said, turned around and continued to saunter away with a dismissive little wave. “As for who’s going to find out what I’m becoming… I’ll take care of that, myself. Ciao!”

After the cheetah had abandoned the building with everyone but the Aster company’s higher-ups, Winters was left with a completely useless, broken Claire. Humiliated, the tigress angrily reached for her phone. “We need to do something.”

“It’s no use,” Claire said, still on her knees, refusing to budge. “We will all die. The results will be of unimaginable consequence. Either that or… or she’ll…” the words trailed off. Claire’s eyes were unfocused. Quivering. Her mind didn’t seem to be able to wrap around the concept she was trying to theorize with.

Winters, fed up with the passive approach, dialed her contact in the military. “Soldiers won’t be able to engage. It’s safe to say even a tank won’t do the job, if it even gets here on time.”

Snipers and drones, on the other hand...

_ _

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Chapter 7: Race to the finish line

The closer one got to the eastern industrial district of Paterville, the worse its streets began to look. Shockwaves from the explosion at the reactor had sent what seemed to be a spider-web of fissures along the ground, cracking the pavement. More than one edification close to the totaled building of the power plant could be seen inclined to one side or another, if not outright crumbled. Chunks and debris from destroyed or otherwise ruined equipment were strewn all over. Cars, streetlights and many other objects sitting outside seemed to be covered in pale soot.

Paterville was a ghost town. But the eastern industrial district was like a shot straight out of a post-apocalyptic film. Being this close to so much concentrated contamination was making Kaida’s dosimeter instantly jump to severe health-impacting exposure. No matter how much they wished to be with her however, Kaida had ordered her devoted followers to stay behind where she wouldn’t get irradiated beyond what they could stand. She was unhinged, but saw no reason to make her beloved pets suffer unnecessarily.

Navigating increasingly rough, contaminated terrain posed no trouble to the living radioactive sponge Kaida had become. If there was a chasm, she could jump over it. If a chasm was too wide, she could run up buildings and use them as stepping stones. Collapsed building debris was to Kaida what lifting a head-sized rock was to someone like Terry. Nothing could stand in her way towards her ultimate goal. And it was because that ultimate goal was so close that she was taking her sweet time clearing obstacles, enjoying the anxiety of being apart with her biggest meal to date like someone starving themselves to whet their appetite before a huge feast.

Kaida was standing on the rooftops of a decimated factory when she noticed something moving across the clear night sky. “A bird…?” she wondered before chuckling to herself. Wild animals were way more intelligent than people usually gave them credit. Not even wild birds would chance flying within a mile of Paterville, much less the industrial district.

Multiple flying objects descended upon Kaida, forming semi-circle in front of her. Flying drones equipped with underbelly mounted machineguns shone their lights at the cheetah. What the people manning those drones saw from the camera feed was one of the Aster company’s cleaners, wearing her eerily glowing PARS and no mask. The blonde’s sclera sparkling with mysterious emerald energy.

“Temporary hire #32 of Aster Co.’s Nuclear Waste Management department. Identified as Kaida, no last name given,” a monotonous voice echoed out from one of the drones. Kaida assumed it was the one at the center. Looking at them was hard thanks to the flashing lights. “This is Major Hopkins of the National Armed Forces.”

“Tattled on me with the big boys,” Kaida snickered while still shielding her eyes with her forearm. “Nice move, Lisa and Claire. Nice to meet you, Mr. Hopkins. Did they run out of PARS or are you that shy about meeting me in person?”

“You are currently at a heavily contaminated area; this is our only method to approach. And even then, we are fully aware of your state and capabilities. You have come in contact with an experimental compound that has turned you into a public safety hazard, ma’am. As a result, you are acting irrationally and must be considered a threat. I have been cleared to take you down if you do not comply with our demands.”

Kaida sighed, sounding bored. “This is starting to sound awfully familiar, and it hasn’t even been thirty minutes.”

“Ma’am, I must order you to turn around and make your way back to an area where our specialists might assist you. You are sick. We are the only ones equipped to…”

“Not buying what you’re selling, sweetie,” Kaida interrupted, “I’m going to the core. The only difference is whether you want me to smash your expensive toys or not before I do.”

There was no response. An abundance of clicks made Kaida’s ears twitch. Before the first bullet had exited its chamber, her legs were already carrying her over to the edge of the building past the line of firing murder drones. One of them was being carried off by Kaida like a volleyball, firing wildly into the air. As the rest of the drones turned, their cameras saw their target somersaulting off the building with her arm tossing the machine in her grasp back at them. It happened so fast the AI could not keep up with evasive maneuvers and the lobbed drone became a projectile which impacted with another, destroying them both in an explosion.

The pavement cracked as Kaida stuck the twenty-foot-deep landing, looking up at the incoming machines after her life. She felt strangely calm about being hunted down by murderous robots, of making an enemy out not just out of her employers, but also the military. Things had escalated beyond a simple conflict of interests. Those on the opposing side truly considered her a major threat now. Instead of fear, Kaida’s heart was filled with adrenaline. They really wanted to stop her!

But they couldn’t. Not anymore.

The military had been briefed on her abilities, but they hadn’t counted on her enhanced speed and reflexes. Radiation hadn’t just turned her into a beautiful bombshell with super-strength. Kaida could dodge machinegun fire and use agile acrobatics to parkour around even the ruined environment. And while the first two drones she had taken out showed this would be a one-sided confrontation, this was the first time she had been given a proper excuse to flex her powers. Kaida was enjoying herself, ironically pretending to be the mouse in this chase.

However, hubris didn’t manage to make the cheetah forget what her true goal was. Weaving and leaping through increasingly rougher alleys and streets, Kaida was making steady advance in the direction of the power plant. Even with the military sending an increasing number of drones after her, they couldn’t match her speed, always lagging behind her powerful cheetah legs.

Every so often she would stop and hide behind a corner, using uprooted street signs to bat her pursuers into one another or making buildings collapse with one punch to bury several pursuers down under rubble. Kaida was teasing them. And because the military didn’t enjoy being teased, they responded with a surprise.

Kaida had only been focused on skipping and bouncing to avoid gunfire, so she never expected a drone with something other than bullets to join the fray. While a rocket propelled grenade was something she could dodge just fine, the resulting explosion from impacting so close to her sent the cheetah careening through the air and smashing through the side of another factory.

“Guhhh…” the cheetah pushed her hands against a bunch of equipment her body had crashed through. Her ears were still ringing as she got up to her feet. “I’m really pissing them off… hehe…” she giggled, holding her forehead. “Woop!” she gasped, ducking as another RPG flew past her into the wall behind her, causing another explosion which sent her flying forwards this time. Bracing her arms, Kaida used her agility to make use of the momentum to crash through the drone inside of the rumbling building. She felt metal and circuitry shred against her body, cutting through her already damaged PARS. The rocket launching drone exploded, and she quickly hurried out of the collapsing building.

Kaida had no time to celebrate, as the murder squad was waiting for her outside with another hail of bullets and more projectiles. Now that she was aware of explosives however, she began to add long leaps to her evasive maneuvers. “I’m starting to get tired of these fancy fireworks!” Kaida huffed, finally deciding to become more active in her confrontation.

As she turned corners every block, she made sure to pay attention which drones seemed closer to her. Once she was ready to evade another RPG, this time she back-flipped fifteen feet into the air instead of leaping forwards. Bullets narrowly missing her, Kaida rolled in mid-air as she fell, snatching one of the machinegun drones while it was mid-discharge. Its bullets’ path manipulated, friendly fire took down the two launcher drones and a bunch of gunners before she lobbed her hijacked turret at the mass of flying robots to devastate the remaining ones.

“Haaa… haaah…” Kaida was left panting in the middle of the streets leading into the power plant. She was only three blocks away, and the last of the murder drones seemed to have been taken out. Even with her superior endurance, Kaida had been left with such a burdened set of lungs she could feel the burn an untrained marathon runner would. Her heart raced after finally stopping to catch her breath. “That was… haah… quite the workout-”

Bang.

A loud, booming noise echoed through the devastated eastern industrial sector. Kaida jerked back, having barely managed to side-step to avoid a hollow-point going straight through her skull. Unfortunately, the sniper’s projectile had taken a chunk of her shoulder off instead.

“Nnnghh…” Kaida clenched her fangs, “Nghhhaaaaaa…!” she screamed from the burning pain, immediately doubling over while holding her heavily bleeding right shoulder. It was such intense pain that Kaida felt like she was going to lose consciousness, but sheer grit and survival instinct made her stomp a hole in the already structurally weakened asphalt to steel herself. Before the next shot could correct the military’s mistake, Kaida dashed off to hide behind one of the many abandoned cars.

“Thu-the drones were just a distraction… they were trying to wear me down for a sniper to take me out!” Kaida groaned while squeezing at her bleeding wound. Bullets were still being fired, hitting the already totaled car she was using as cover. “This is what I get for trying to chump the military, I guess…” she began to laugh. But the pain-fueled euphoria was interrupted when her ears began to twitch at the sound of approaching drone blades. “Can’t let ‘em get me. So close,” she looked out at the remains of the power plant. The inside of her eyes were throbbing. She could almost taste that reactor core. “So hungry.”

Unwilling to compromise her ultimate goal, Kaida did away with the searing pain by using her free hand to sink her claws into her thigh until it was bleeding too. “Nnnyyaaarrrgh…!” she screamed out at the new pain, but it managed to jolt her back up to her feet. Her plan was simply to run for it at this point.

“50-50. I get gunned down or I make it,” Kaida liked her odds. She sank her powerful claws into her legs again, making her scream and finally let go for her shoulder wound. Fueled by adrenaline, the spotted cat broke into a mad dash. Explosions, asphalt-shattering sniper shots and the ever-present hail of bullets attempted to stop Kaida, but she was too fast. Covering the remaining distance to the power plant in record time, the shielding covering the machines in pursuit finally could no longer resist the devastating levels of radiation this proximate to ground zero.

Like a one-track minded battering ram, the desperate Kaida shoulder-bashed a towering hunk of debris out of her way, uncovering the burning, steaming hole her enhanced vision had led her to. The core lay within that hellscape.

While the smoke at this distance made it impossible to properly get sighting on their target, snipers couldn’t do more than take random shots. But it was too late. Kaida was already sliding down. The new drones which were barely functioning hanging out at the absolute outer ring of the power plant cast out Major Hopkin’s voice like someone speaking out of a megaphone.

“Ma’am! Kaida! You must stop! If you allow yourself to bleed out, only you need die. If you absorb the core and your body can’t take it, you will die and take us all out in the explosion!”

Kaida, who was about to pass out from all the pain, could only chuckle. “Then I’ll have gone out with one serious bang…” she said before collapsing half-way down the shaft. Her eyes closed as she rolled down, landing into the fiery pit like a victim of a volcanic sacrifice.

“She didn’t look very good,” Winters said, having observed the entire chase sequence next to Major Hopkins and his team.

“What happens if she bleeds out before she can start absorbing the core? Is there a chance we got her in time?” Hopkins demanded. The hare’s ears were lopped over his shoulders, sweat running down his forehead. “Damnit, woman! Answer the question!”

“We don’t know!” Winters screamed back, “Jesus, we had no time to run any tests. She might not need to be conscious for it, she might just die. Maybe fizzle out and melt into the core, or… or…”

“What is it?” Hopkins couldn’t bear the suspense. He slammed his fist down on the keyboard at his desk, shattering many keys as he stood up. “Winters!”

“She might ascend…” Adrian, one of the many followers that had been captured, spoke from his cell nearby. He was smiling with such sincere hope and joy one might be convinced his mind was completely gone.

Hopkins growled. “What is this nutcase talking about? Do we have any measuring equipment that can tell us what that freak’s vitals are right now?!” the hare barked out, wanting answers.

_ _

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Kaida couldn’t see. Everything was black around her. She couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed or if she had been blinded. But what she could tell for sure was that the pain in her shoulder and thigh was gone. In their place, a familiar warmth seemed to be quickly taking over her. Engulfing her. She couldn’t feel the ground below her feet. Her legs were suspended in mid-air alongside her arms.

Hands tried to feel around her, but all Kaida was able to find was something pressed against her abdomen. She tried pushing against it, but was unable to move. There was a tightness in her gut which she couldn’t quite place, but it spread around to her back. Her hand glided back only to feel the same hard surface at her back.

Kaida found out she wasn’t breathing. Her lungs were burning. When she finally opened her mouth for a long, hard gasp, she coughed up blood. Her eyes finally opened as well, and she could see the loose stacks of broken off fuel rods which were entering her body through her abdomen and coming out the other way.

“Guh…” the cheetah sputtered, unable to keep herself from letting out a tired laugh, “Didn’t drown. Didn’t burn up from sticking one of these up my cunt. Didn’t get blown up to pieces or turned to Swiss cheese by a drone. But this is what gets me? Pathetic to the very end, Kaida…” she groaned, slowly starting to close her eyes as her strength finally gave out.

The remaining fuming rods of the reactor core were starting to glow an eerie yellow.

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“Are we in the clear, or…?” the major demanded to get his answer, but the rumbling ground began to alert many measuring instruments, setting multiple alarms at once and diverting his attention. “Seismic activity…?!”

Winters held onto the table with a fearful expression in her aged eyes as she looked out into the ruins of Paterville’s power plant. With every passing moment, the intensifying quake reminded her of every decision that had led up to this instant. ARBA’s hastened development, president Aster’s impatience during testing, incomplete disposal of evidence… and their inability to control one lousy glorified janitor. It all could have been prevented.

But we were too late to stop her.

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Finale

When Kaida’s eyes opened again, they no longer had their emerald green hue. Instead, they snapped open to reveal not sclera, not an iris, not even a pupil. Like a couple of suns burning inside of her eye sockets, raw atomic energy coursing through her body was beginning to project out of them.

Able to feel everything around her vibrating and violently shaking, Kaida’s consciousness returned after her body had regained all of its functions. The aggressive jolt that woke her up made her take another long gulp of air like someone who had just resurfaced from the ocean after being about to drown. “What’s going on?” she asked, unable to process what was going on save for the intense tingling sensation roaming through her body. “I thought I was a goner but… I feel better. Better than ever! It’s like… I’m burning up! What is this wonderful feeling?!”

An orgasm wracked every nerve in Kaida’s body. Her brain had released an overwhelming amount of endorphins and she couldn’t fight it. She held the fuel rods penetrating her abdomen with crunching might, as if attempting to regain some control from her overly blissed self. However, instead of crushing the metal, Kaida felt it fade into her fingers. The casing had begun to melt, burned away by the same heat currently eating away at her damaged PARS.

Inevitably left completely in the nude, Kaida hastily palmed down the fuel rods she had been ran through during her fall, watching them continue to melt and phase into her forearms. She did the same with the other end of the bent rods, feeling more and more power flowing into her being as the pieces of the reactor fully vanished, leaving nothing behind.

Panting and looking at her hands crackling with yellow energy, the empowered cheetah found herself floating in that fiery void. She was levitating inside of the cracked reactor. Her PARS was completely gone, and so were her wounds. Bone, flesh, skin and fur had regrown on her shoulders, thighs, her abdomen and back. Pristine as if she had never suffered any injury at all.

There was little time to question anything. All those intensifying vibrations were threatening to finish collapsing the inside of the shaft. Kaida wasn’t looking forwards to spending the rest of her new life under rubble, so she hurriedly extended her glowing hands at the remains of the reactor core.

You’re mine.

Metal bent as if in command, melting off as radioactive energy flowed out of the core and into Kaida. From her fingertips to every fiber of her being, Kaida assimilated nuclear power with unprecedented efficiency. Her fur became more pristine, the patterns on her upper arms and thighs shining that golden glow. Her hair grew past her shoulders, breasts gaining another couple of cup-sizes and hips and buttocks growing considerably thicker. Even her muscles seemed to start developing into a tidy, toned build that belied the monstrous volumes of power contained within.

Kaida was ravenous as she was unstoppable. She fed on all that burning fuel, melting down anything she did not need. Inevitably, the physical changes steadied down and she growled with considerably deepened voice. She was crackling all over now. Almost like a raging thunderstorm happening all across her fur.

“ So much power…! ” Kaida cried out, helpless before her rampant, unbridled addiction. “ More, more, more…! ” she chanted, the golden glow becoming so blindingly intense that the core and her could no longer be seen from the yellow flash. Fission had restarted and accelerated upon Kaida’s command.

MOOOOOOOORE…!

_ _

The second Paterville super criticality was about to occur. There was nowhere to hide from it any longer.

_ _

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What both the panicked and hopeful onlookers near Paterville could see after the tremors seemed to settle down was a blinding flash coming from the power plant. A column of raging golden fire rose to the very heavens from the epicenter of the resulting explosion. Hell seemed to be breathing into the air. At the apex of the several hundred feet tall pillar of fire, cloudy smoke was ejected into the atmosphere, further lengthening the vertical shape until atmospheric pressure forced the plume to collapse and flatten the monolithic yellow blast into the familiar shape of a mushroom.

First, wind picked up. Next, the ground was assaulted with the impact of a brutal shockwave that even at the encampment miles away managed to knock vehicles over and even rip tents out. People scrambled to seek refuge inside of the bunker connected to the main tent, observing from within.

What they could see with ultra-magnified binoculars betrayed both fact and fiction. The gargantuan radioactive mushroom cloud suddenly dissipated, as if God had willed it to disperse. But then it began to gather with the clouds above, swirling into a strange cumulous mass.

“What is this?” one of the scientists measuring with the instruments outside reacted with confusion, “Radioactive exposure… it isn’t going up! Is… is the nuclear fallout not… falling?!”

Major Hopkins was the first to react with usual explosive ferocity. “What the hell is going on out there?! Are any of you seeing… Winters! Lisa for the love of God, are you seeing this?!”

Winters’ trembling hands were making it hard to keep a good grip on her own binoculars. But it wasn’t the gathering fallout mass that concerned her. It was the person levitating directly under it.

…Lord forgive us. She’s done it…

_ _

Kaida had made it out of the hellscape. Her glowing yellow eyes were focused on the prize above. She didn’t need all of that byproduct going to waste. Flying closer and closer to the mass of nuclear radiation storming above her, the hand keeping it from dispersing clenched into a fist. When she did, the mass contracted and changed shape. It became a misshapen cylinder which began to extend downwards, a pillar of smoke bathing her. And Kaida inhaled it like she was having cotton candy.

With every gulp, the overpowered cheetah felt her already ultra-charged body breach any and all biological restrictions it still had. The tingling sensation remained, but it was no stimulating her beyond her craziest imagination. Kaida couldn’t stop even if she wanted. She inhaled more and more of the condensed fallout, her body rumbling and swelling in order to accommodate more and more power. If a battery’s capacity won’t allow it to absorb more energy, then clearly the problem was the battery’s size. A problem easily rectified by a creature capable of enhancing physical attributes merely by thinking about it.

And thus, Kaida enlarged to fit all of that new energy. In only a few seconds, she had grown as tall as Claire, a towering woman. Her body pushed past Adrian’s height next, and quickly passed even a giant like Terry’s. But it wasn’t enough for her. The cheetah was going to be the biggest thing anyone had ever seen.

Already past seven feet and still growing, Kaida stretched her hands out and began to remotely command radiation from any and all sources in Paterville to flow into her. The joy she felt was incredible. This was pleasure she hadn’t experienced before. The pushing of her flesh against her skin, the sound of her bones cracking as they lengthened, her fur tightening and flourishing to cover more and more of her increasingly larger dimensions.

Soon, Kaida was beyond Amazonian. She pierced ten feet tall within seconds and her growth only became more explosive after that. Very quickly the distance between her feet and the ground was closing as well as the difference between her face and the clouds above disappeared. Kaida ravenously devoured radiation, cleansing Paterville not only of its artificial poison but also all technology capable of emitting it. She fused with radiation, becoming its ever larger container.

Some people watched in horror while others celebrated the birth of a goddess so physically close to the heavens that she became truly divine in their eyes. It didn’t take long for binoculars to become useless as she climbed to 30ft. tall, feet finally crushing the floor beneath her soles. The onlookers saw the giant cheetah woman reaching out with her arms, golden energy swirling and sparking all around her magnificent and alluring figure.

40ft. tall, 50, 70, 90… Kaida was utterly looming over Paterville’s industrial district, her shadow cast over the abandoned city with the light of the rising sun. Gigantic, beautiful, powerful… it was the dawn of a new God.

Finally stopping at an even 120ft. tall, the bountifully voluptuous feline who once had been nothing but a troubled young woman now stood proud and mightier than any creature on Earth.

One giant step carried Kaida a long distance away from the power plant; once the biggest goal in her life; now a mere empty hole in the ground. The weight of her feet crushed concrete and asphalt with impunity, leaving the remains of depowered murder drones to merge in the depths of a footprint. The initial shockwave of the explosion had carried with it a powerful electromagnetic charge knocking all tech out for miles.

Heavy footfalls sent the landscape trembling as Kaida strode over the industrial district. Air pushed out by her lungs was so mighty it seemed to make the regular rain clouds above her shudder, wind picking up whenever her titanic tail swished. Every action she took seemed to carry with it a consequence comparable to a force of nature now.

Like somebody walking through a city diorama, downtown Paterville was subjected to further destruction as Kaida did very little to mind her new size. Long blonde locks flowing behind her, every last strand of her fur glowing as if Sun-kissed, the patterns of her spots and her eyes still shining like an energy storm was raging on them. Kaida had found Claire’s answer for her after all:

I AM POWER!

A message that spread out for miles. A claim that was indifferent to a promise. The declaration made in the middle of the city was made even more poignant by her significantly deeper yet still feminine voice.

Her heavenly visage caused more than one man to lose their mind instantly. Those that doubted Kaida had no choice but to humble themselves before her. Those that already loved her were ready to give everything and anything for her sake.

And Kaida expected them to. Everything in Paterville belonged to her now. And very soon, she would grow hungry and decide to expand her territory. Just one city, after all, would be too small for a girl of her caliber.

The End.