FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

First story in the 'bio-morph' universe. Protagonist comes home to a small retrofitted hotel room that he shares with his single retired mother from an unsuccessful job hunt. The building has been changed from a large hotel complex into 'free' government house for those in the unemployable segment of the human population.

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I am not in the best of moods as ride the over used and a little unmaintained elevator to the floor I live on.

The metal walls are adorned with scratched on and sprayed on graffiti and any wood trim that remains on the walls are similarly marred.

This wasn't always an apartment building, it was once mid range hotel attached to a decent sized convention center that many decades ago was a hub of events for various people.

It must have been nice before it was purchased by the government after the hotel chain failed to be used for the growing homeless and unemployable population.

A population that got that way because of the first major invention of the twenty-first century, the Bio-morph.

They swept through the economy like a flu sweeps through an office block.

When one company purchases them to replace their low end workers, all the surrounding ones follow suit just to compete.

Just like those around a sick person get sick themselves weather they want to or not.

For those displaced by them its just been one extremely long and soul crushing effort to find someone, anyone who is willing to hire them.

A lurch and a ding announces that the elevator has reach my desired floor being so used to the old elevator I don't even reach out to brace myself as it wobbles up and down after stopping.

I idly wipe my hands on the best pair of pants and shirt that I own they could roughly be described as dress pants and a collared t-shirt and I bet it would have looked nice when new but that was ages ago.

Now they are worn in places and show some obvious yet well meaning mending of holes and tears, but at least they repaired the one in the pocket before handing it off to me.

When I get a job first thing I will do is purchase brand new clothes to replace every single one of these stupid hand me downs and burn the old ones in a fire.

Possibly while dancing around it naked while chanting nonsense, or well something cathartic like that.

The doors lurch and screech a little as they slide open slowly revealing the poorly maintained lobby for the floor in all its lack luster glory.

It might of once had healthy looking plants in stylish pots sitting next to the large window looking out to parking lot at one time.

But now it has a pair of tacky fake plants with planters half filled with real dirt and trash, and any stylish molding or other room accents have long since been removed or stolen.

Carpet covering the floor has seen better days but thankfully it is better maintained than the walls which are covered in graffiti running from highly stylized lettering that nearly boarders on art to the simple gang tag signs.

They at least try to remove the stains of blood and other bodily fluids from the carpeting which I am at least thankful for but they stopped trying to paint over the walls and doors years ago when it became clear they would have to do it every week.

The place on the wall that used to have embossed signs indicating which room numbers are down which hallway has long since been replaced with a mesh box with listings indicating who lives in each room.

My home lays off to the right and I have to navigate a hallway littered with trash for pickup and some people passed out drunk on the floor.

Hell it was at one time a possibility for people like me to find jobs working in the very place we live before the government themselves started to use bio-morphs to cut costs as well.

As I stop in front of the door to where me and my mother live now I realize I have yet to come up with a reason to console her that I have not found a job yet.

I don't want to tell her its just been another day with a bunch of empty promises of 'we will get in touch with you later' or 'We have not made our decision yet but we will tell you when we do'.

Bullshit, everyone knows that once you declare yourself a resident of one of these compounds your persona non grata to the majority of employers.

It doesn't mater if you were a kid when did move in and otherwise had a good education or if you were just someone down on your luck.

Once you did it would take almost nothing short of a miracle to work your way out and I will be damned if I let myself end it the way many others have.

We call what they do a shortcut to the ground because they wanted out of here so badly they opened the window and walked out.

"Not that thinking like this is helping me any right now. I have to stay positive, maybe tomorrow their will be an open posting on the boards." I think to myself as I reach for the handle on the graffiti covered door, unlocking it, and opening it.

With a slow and loud creak the front door closes behind me before I turn and activate the deadbolt in the door locking it shut with a satisfying click.

Not that these old doors offer much protection from anyone who wants what is inside.

Which would be just about anything that is brand-new and not from some second or third hand source.

Visible from the door are the two twin beds in this single room hotel room that was made into our apartment.

Oh and before you start I am 'not' one of those people who sit here wallowing in their own lack of self worth.

No I try to get a job, its just that because my mother and I had to move in here in the mid 2020's.

She had to retire early because the company she was working for restructured in the process of becoming the latest in the long line of companies adopting Bio-morphs to replace people.

It also did not help that when she was younger she lost her arm in a car accident back when cars were not computer controlled making her somewhat disabled.

If people living in this building are top on the list of people employers wish not to hire, then those who are handicapped and or disabled have a permanent spot in the number two slot of that list.

Sure it says on the books that they can not disqualify someone because of a physical or mental disability, but it's not enforced anymore since very few have the will or the capital to go through a long legal fight that is required to get the law applied.

Assuming of course someone in the company did something dumb and out right told the candidate they were not picked for the job because of the disability.

"How did the interview go hun?" My mother asks as she is doing her best to clean the carpet in here, and while her effort makes it look better than the carpet outside it still screams former hotel room.

I let out a frustrated sigh as I walk on over to one of the two beds that take up most of the floor space inside the room and collapse upon it.

She will want an answer even though I know that she knows what it is, the same answer I have had for the past several years.

The 'exact' same answer I have been given for every job I have applied for out of high school.

"The same thing I keep getting at every interview mom. Some half bullshit excuse to politely end the interview so they can go onto someone who doesn't live here." Answering her as I push my shoes off and stretch out on the bed, its near flattened springs offer little more than the minimal amount of comfort needed to fall asleep.

She just walks on over and picks up my shoes. "Just keep trying, someone will eventually say yes and hire you so you can help yourself and get out of this place." Followed by going to place them on the short bit of tile just inside the room's only bathroom.

It would be easier to take off my shirt if I was sitting up, but I just rather lay down right now. "You keep saying that yet their answers don't seem to change, I swear if it wasn't illegal to lie about your location of residence I would have been out of here a long while ago." After removing my shirt I crawl over to the pillows and lay my head down on them.

Mother lightly grabs my shirt and walks on over to the laundry bin to deposit it there. "You know as well as I do Jack that there are open jobs here in this city, they are just harder to get. Eventually one of them will hire you, if not tomorrow then maybe next week, or next month. And you also know they can't discriminate on location of residence either." She then stores the vacuum and walks over to her twin bed that sits next to mine before removing her prosthetic arm.

She leans it against the nightstand in the same place she always does without even looking. "I know there are jobs mother, but you know as well as I do there are hundreds if not thousands applying for every open position. I admit I am lucky to get to the interview stage but to be honest I think it is just to humor me." I pull the light covers over myself as I counter my mother's optimism with the realism I face every day.

I don't think she realizes how the world is out their right now, mainly because she has not looked for work in years.

All I get in return is a sigh as she shuts off the only remaining lights in the room. It wasn't that late but I did not complain, a long nights sleep might help lift my mood.

It did to an extent, I woke up about nine in the morning feeling not as deep in the pit of despair as I was when I went to bed.

Mom was not awake by the time I was awoken by the sunlight streaming in through the window, so I quietly get up and get dressed in clean clothes that are my second nicest set.

On my trip downstairs to the convention center part of the hotel which has sense been partially converted to a cafeteria I notice that sometime during the night someone, most likely the bio-morphs, have removed the drunkards.

The trash has also been removed and the carpets seem to have had a fresh vacuuming.

I don't linger much since the cafeteria is first come first serve so I quickly head to the elevator and when it arrives I push the lobby button.

Well to tell you the truth the whole convention area wasn't converted, only some of the larger meeting rooms with the smaller ones converted to kitchens and food storage.

The rest of them became either overflow beds or the only recreation provided by the government for the residents.

At one time the lobby would have been an inviting place with all the fancy decorations, live plants, comfortable seating, and drink bar for the guests.

Now it is rather depressing, all the live plants were removed and the walls have been painted over with a beige like color.

Or I think it is beige under all the current graffiti plastered on the walls.

Those nice comfortable chairs and couches were replaced with barely cushioned chairs that would better fit a subway car than a lobby, and that wonderful bar was just completely removed for more space for chairs.

I shouldn't linger too long around here in the lobby since meals are first come first serve.

If I don't get in line I don't get a chance to eat till lunch and I rather not go hungry this morning.

The line for breakfast has already begun to spill out into the large hallway just outside of the converted conference room.

I am at least thankful that many people consider it a good idea to get dressed before coming down here to get food since very few people here, and I do mean a very small amount people that live here are half way pleasant to look at without clothes.

The line moves in silence with no one bothering to talk as there is nothing to talk about, everyone is to focused on their own little world.

Their own problems and their own fears about having to stay here for the rest of their lives just stun them into silence.

Suddenly feeling a hand on my shoulder I know who it is before I even turn to look at the person. "Hey jack. I take it since you're standing in line the interviews yesterday did not go so well?" I must have been too engrossed in my thoughts to hear him walk up to me.

"Just the same old song and dance with everyone Patrick." My reply just brings back the bad mood I was in last night while I let him stand with me in line, no one around me protests him doing so either.

In our short little conversation our place in line has moved inside the cafeteria proper but the other end of the line has doubled as well, seems I got here just in time. "I know what you're going to say Pat. But ever since they mandated all websites and computer programs be officially registered a few years ago no one wants to contract an independent coder due to the insurance liabilities." I have known Patrick for years, he like me has lived here since childhood when his family's income dried up.

At first it was a friendship out of convenience. Two white average looking boys living in a neighborhood made up of mainly non-white residents, my slightly unkempt brown hair contrasting his well combed blond hair.

Yet as time went on, and the demographics changed due to more and more people being crushed under the new seismic shift in the economy, we became close friends.

During high-school both of us came up with a plan on how to get out of here and live like we viewed normal humans should.

Taking an interest in computers, and being able to get my hands on many systems thrown in the dumpster due to being 'too old' led me into computer programing and some light web design.

I admit I made a decent amount of money as the neighborhood tech that everyone knew, but all that went crashing down right before I graduated.

With the rise of the use of Bio-morphs many people even found the cheap digital distribution methods of content too expensive when they lost their jobs, it came to either a movie or food for the day for many. And people did not want to give up their entertainment.

The underground network that sprang up to serve these needs was crushed almost as soon as it sprung up.

The result was the authorized network communication act of twenty forty, coders and code had to be officially certified as to not allow the unauthorized use of 'trusted' content. Certification cost thousands.

Websites got harsher treatment, no one was allowed to run a website unregistered and the website coders had to be certified with the act.

Everyone who could not afford the certification or were disqualified suddenly found themselves out of a job. And my way out was closed off along with their jobs.

Patrick has had a slightly better time than I had for trying to get out of here, even if it is going at a glacial pace.

While I dug out old computers to work with and refine my skills, he refurbished and fixed what ever he could get his hands on.

He has gotten so good at it he is one of 'the' people you need to go to fix anything that breaks down here in the complex.

But as he got older the field he has become skilled in has seen the rise of national chains catering to the same need, the need of repairing what you have rather than replacing it with something new.

His income has slowed down to a near glacial pace trapping him here just like me, albeit with better prospects for the future.

He doesn't reply till we pick up our trays. "Well you can always help me. I occasionally get an old computer to be fixed now and again and my skills in repairing them are nothing compared to yours. Not to mention I can keep my ears open for actual job leads outside of here when I have to get parts or dropping something off." I go over his points in my mind as we get our breakfast served to us by the Bio-morph server for the mornings. An average looking gray fox model decked out in fur nets from head to waist.

I only pay enough attention to him so I know when to move on in the line.

Todays breakfast? A stack of four tasteless yet filling pancakes topped with generic syrup, still no butter because it's bad to give us frills. Next to it a couple of low fat and low taste sausage links to give us some protein.

For a drink we get either one or two pint cartons of two percent milk left over from school lunches.

The food is bland but it is better than going hungry as it is filling and keeps you healthy more or less.

The food is the least interesting thing I have on my plate this morning, that goes to Patrick's suggestion. "What do you mean keeping an ear out for job openings? No one outside surrounding low incoming housing around this place has ever asked for your services before." We grab recyclable plastic utensils from the bins at the end of the line and head for the nearest empty table to sit down and eat.

We find a small empty rectangular table somewhere in the center section of the seating area.

The sound of us putting our trays on the table and sitting down to eat is easily drowned out by the drone of the conversations going on in the room."If you asked me that a few weeks ago Jack I would have agreed with you. But then some poor lower level upper class schmuck had his old pure combustion ninja style bike break down not to far from here." As Patrick starts his explanation I move my pancakes around in the syrup so they will soak it up, and have a taste as a result.

He starts on the sausage links, not even bothering to dip them in the obviously low calorie and low taste maple syrup imitation. "Turns out the bike shop he took it too last time substituted genuine replacement Yamaha spark plugs that he had purchased from the shop with used up ones that were cleaned up to look like new. You know the old saying, 'a fool and his money are soon parted'. Well he did not check the workmanship of the tune up and the shop basically got off scott free. And of course as luck would have it I had some used Yamaha spark plugs I personally refurbished." Of course I knew of those spark plugs. He wouldn't shut up about how much cash he was going to get selling them to local shops after finding them in dumped bike engines.

A large rattling crash and loud yowl coming from a couple of isles over interrupts our conversation and Patrick's story.

I already know what I am going to see before I turn my head and glance on over at the source of the disturbance, a calico patterned house-cat bio-morph hastily gathering up all the trays and dishes he dropped.

And to the side the amused looks and laughter of a table filled by just barely teenage boys, boys that just so happened to be watching at the right time to catch what I suspect is a not so accidental fall.

His ears are flat against his head and his tail twitching like mad as he re-stacks the trays he dropped and places the broken plates back into the large container he was carrying on top of the trays.

If I hadn't known better the poor thing was a hairs' breath away from clawing those kids eyes out as they joke at the expense of the creature they just tripped.

Thats the thing with Bio-morphs, they are just smart enough to be taught tasks and are at the same time not smart enough to talk or have emotions.

A fantastic feat and a testimony to the technological wonders of the age when it comes to the life sciences.

With the distraction over Patrick and I return to our conversation, and lack luster meals. "Anyway, as I was saying I just so happen to have the spark plugs he happened to be needing at that very moment. Not to mention I was feeling kind of sorry for him, well a bit more for that spotless and almost show room worthy bike than the guy riding it. Still I walk up to him, inform him of who I am and what I do, and then tell him that I can get him some replacements for a fraction of what he payed that bastard mechanic. He's skeptical but then again what choice does he have? Tow trucks won't come near here without charging an arm and a leg." Yea I can't blame them. Many here turn to robbery as a way to earn enough cash to not have to depend on the limited cafeteria food.

Finishing my pancakes I turn to the sausage and my milk as Patrick starts on his pancakes. "I would've expected him to be gone by the time you returned with your tools and the parts, but you would not be telling me this story if he was right?" I point the sausage link on my fork at him as I pose my question before moving to eat it.

Patrick cringes at the taste of the pancakes but eats them none the less. "Yup waiting right where I left him, nervous as a shaking leaf and jumping at the noise of the few people who were walking by but still waiting for me. I calmed him down and as I changed his spark plugs I explain to him how to do this himself and how he got ripped off. Needless to say his fear was soon replaced by anger at the shop with promises of lawsuits and junk that he was going to direct at the place when he gets back. Lucky for him there was no damage to the engine from the bad spark plugs so after a simple swap out and test I had the machine purring like a kitten. After the guy pays me, in CASH no less, he hands me a plastic business card and whats on it floors me." I opted for two cartons of milk and I eagerly go after them to wash out the taste of the rest of the food.

He looks at my two cartons with a bit of envy as he only quickly grabbed one. " So who was he or where did he work?" Eh, Patrick hates the food here more than I do so I just push the second carton over to him.

With a smile and a nod he thanks me before answering. "One of the local bio-morph contractor companies!" He fishes the business card out of his pants pocket and places it face up on the table before sliding it over to me for me to look at it.

Picking it up I look it over for the holographic marks that indicate a genuine article and not some off the street forgery. "You know the one that owns that huge office tower in the center of the city? He's some middle management type in that building but he told me if I or a friend of mine wanted a job that I send him over there with that card." After seeing that it is genuine I place it back down on the table.

Patrick finishes his breakfast after I do but we look at each other. "And this is one of those 'job leads' you mentioned earlier?" As I speak I place my empty plate and carton of milk onto the tray.

He follows suit with his dishes. "Yup. I figured you could use the lead more than I could at the moment as I am having a bit of a high point so far in business. So go ahead take the card and hop the first bus over to downtown, I'll bet you by the end of the day you will have a job and you and your mother can finally move out of this god forsaken place." I pick up the card and pocket it.

By the time we stand and push in our chairs I have already decided to go visit this place, everything else can wait till later in the day. "Thanks Pat, I am going to head on over their and see if they have any openings. Hopefully the guy who gave you this card has not changed his mind." We quickly make our way out of the cafeteria and back outside into the large hallway.

Just in time to see the Bio-morphs close the doors on the entrance side of the room causing everyone standing there to weakly groan or protest.

I reach to embrace Patrick in a friendly hug once we leave the crowd behind. "Thanks for the lead bud, I'll try my hardest to make it work." He hugs me back for a second before letting me go.

Patrick nods. "I knew you would be interested. Anyway I get to get going, I have a couple of repairs to do today. An old generator and dishwasher from some time before the turn of the century, both are going to take a few hours each." We part ways when we get back to the lobby, Patrick heads over to the elevators so he can get his tools from his apartment while I head out of the front door since I am already dressed as nice as I can get.

The area in front of the hotel turned 'free' housing has not been spared the neglect and abuse that the rest of the place has experienced.

Graffiti murals cover any bare concrete or brick surface within reach while the parking lot in front of the place is fenced off and home to rows of the bio-morph housing units, which are little more that re-purposed cargo containers.

There are two rows of three stacked two high with the fronts facing out inside the sectioned off area with all the utility pipes and cords running from the backs of the containers into the ground and under the rest of the parking lot to the building proper where they draw power and water from.

Attached to the front sections are minimally styled gantry ways allowing the residents of the top containers the ability to get to the ground safely.

It's obvious these workers were bought by the government as everyone else seems to opt for option to paint the re-purposed cargo containers something a little more pleasant to the eye than the bare anti-rust coating they got when they shipped stuff like cars.

These are the other half of the bio-morph product, a self contained shelter for the artificial organism.

One container per worker and each container provides shelter from weather, water, and a place to sleep for them.

I don't know what options are available for those who order bio-morphs to customize the inside, but from what I can see as I pass by they again chose the bare minimum.

A cot hanging off the wall with some padding makes up what could be called a bed for them. I wouldn't call it one.

Then again would you give one of those top of the line foam beds to tiger? Giving a full bed to one of these things would be the same thing.

The rest of the inside is obscured by one of the door as I continue on out of the parking lot and out into the neighborhood.

Being a nice day out I did not mind having to walk to the city center rather than taking the bus, not that it was even an option to use it.

It costs money per ride and with no income I have no money to spend on it, not that it's any safer to ride it than walking.

Still it was a nice relaxing walk, once I left the run down and low income neighborhood surrounding the no income housing I live in.

Until then I had to keep an eye out for people waiting in the alleyways and the gangs lounging about.

Though once you learn to read the art and tag signs they leave on any flat vertical surface you can learn what street it's safe to walk on and were you are risking your life to do so.

Once the higher class housing and storefronts start to appear I finally notice the presence of the city's police force.

Their pure electric and high speed patrol cars make regular rounds down the street, passing by every thirty to forty five minutes.

No one says it but everyone knows they don't care about anyone other than the more well to do citizens in the city, and the only reason you ever see them in the poorer areas is to arrest someone.

Needless to say I am not a fan of them but they give me no trouble if I am dressed well enough while I am in these higher end districts.

And just like before they don't stop to give me any trouble as I enter the city center.

I can't miss the building I am heading too, it's the largest building here towering over all the other buildings in the city.

Other than that it looks just like every other sky scraper you would see elsewhere, sheer glass sides starting from the second floor all the way up to the top floor.

Only the lobby doors on the building shows any sort of personalization and the only other indication of who owns the building besides the name of the street in front of it.

Each one has for a handle a model of the company logo with a cartoon styled double helix laying on top of it giving it a cute kind of look but that simple logo tells you exactly what they do.

The lobby is your standard high end corporate setting with the fancy new age chairs and tables in the corners, even the windows are made of those new self polarizing glass, so you are never blinded by the sunlight coming in.

My shoes squeak on the tile floor as I walk up to the largest object in the lobby, the reception desk, which is a set of two rectangular glass desk tops in an L shape with the typical eye candy receptionist sitting behind it in a business skirt and blouse.

Annoyed with the noise my shoes are making she glances at me with a scowl as I walk up to the visitor's side of her desk.

I guess she thought I did not notice her facial expression because as soon as I stand next to the counter she dons that fake cheery smile that receptionists are trained to have. "May I help you sir?" She also stops working on what ever she was doing on her desktop computer.

With a nod I take out the business card and place it on an empty spot on the desk. "Yes I am here to see this person for a job he offered me?" She barely even glances down as she grabs it and sticks it into a device attached to the side of her computer, as she does so a light on it blinks green before she hands it back to me.

I take it back and put it in my pocket. "Take the elevator and go to the thirty fifth floor, his office is at the end of the main hallway." She points off to the side of the lobby where the elevators are located.

With a nod I head on over to the elevators, all the while my shoes still squeak as I walk.

I also swear I hear the receptionist curse me as I walk away.

Why is it all the call buttons for elevators ding? Can't they play a jingle, or nothing at all?

And while I wait in front of the mirror finished stainless steel elevator doors I glance back over at the reception desk when I think she may be staring at me.

Self consciously I check my hair, my clothes and even my breath thinking that one of them is cause of her repeated gazing in my direction.

The ding of the elevator arriving in the lobby sends a wave of relief through me as I no longer have to endure the staring, once inside I hit the button for thirty fifth floor followed by the door closing button.

The inside of the elevator is all immaculate stainless steel, from the walls to the hand grip bars, even the panel that holds the buttons is stainless steel as well.

The floor is covered in utilitarian carpet as compared to the tile in the lobby and just by the feeling of it though my shoes I can tell it's of better quality than the stuff back in the free housing complex.

It's a much faster elevator than back home so I arrive at the destination floor just about when I finish looking around and it makes another ding as the door opens.

I step out onto the thirty fifth floor landing which is a much smaller and compact version of the main lobby.

It has the same tile floor, but only around the elevators and the large flat screen on the opposite wall which displays the floors directory, indicating the offices and the people who work their, and the lab names.

According to the same directory the office I am looking for is at the end of the main hallway just as the receptionist said it was.

So with my shoe's again squeaking on the tile I leave the floor landing and head into the carpeted hallway while idly glancing at the doors as I pass by them to the office at the end of the hall.

Some are offices and some are labs and both of them lack any kind of windows on the doors to allow you to see inside them.

With practiced forceful calm to hide my nervousness as I reach up and knock on the door of the office which I was directed too.

In the short time it takes between me knocking on the door and the person inside answering have already straightened up my outfit at least once. "Come in." A young but commanding male voice invites me inside so I enter the office and close the door behind me.

The office is decorated in the new style of the time for executive offices, which is still an unusual concept to me since I figured they would be more utilitarian.

Stained oak panels cover the wall with decorative oak molding frame the outside of each panel, about waist high a uniform railing like molding separates the top from the bottom panels.

The staining and liquor coating on them almost gives the wood a mirror like quality which helps reflect the light from the l.e.d. wall lamps which are made to look like the old gas lamps of the era the decor is imitating.

Also upon stepping into the office I notice that the floor is of a high quality wold tile which upon contact from my nicest pair of sneakers results in scuff marks, I hope this doesn't count against me.

In the center of the office and place in between the door and the window is an ornate oriental floor rug upon which stands a two post oak desk with a green felt top.

Trimmed, stained, and liquored in the exact same fashion so it would match the walls each of the two posts of the desk also serve as cabinets for drawers.

Sitting on top of the desk next to another l.e.d. lamp built to look like an old oil lamp is something completely alien to the decor theme, one of the brand new holographic displays And visible through is a young man who doesn't look too much older than I am.

The executive chair he is sitting in and chairs in front of his desk are the only things that don't fit with the rest of the room, all three are made of metal, possibly titanium which are shaped and padded to provide the more ergonomic experience possible.

Which basically means they don't look at all comfortable even if the one he is sitting in has a larger back rest then the other two.

The nicely pressed slate blue power business suit he has on barely wrinkles as he stands and presents his hand for me to shake it. "Hello there, I was expecting Patrick." I grasp his hand and give him a firm handshake hoping it will impress him.

He gestures for me to sit down in one of the two chairs in front of his desk as he sits in his. "Patrick is my friend, but he thought I would benefit more from the offer than he would." I take the business card out of my pocket and place it onto the felt covered desk.

The young man picks up the card after pulling out a similar device to the one I saw in the lobby, he then sticks the card into it and this one too turns green as well. "The name is Joe Snyder, and the card is of course real. But I had to check anyway because you would not believe the amount of fakes we receive. We do have a few positions open but I would like to hear about your skills first Mr?" He hands the card back to me and I just place it back into my pocket.

"Jack Strader." I answer before going on to explain where I went to school and my experience in the hardware and programing fields, well of course before the authorized computer and network services act was passed.

It surprised me though when I did not get a reaction upon informing him that I was not certified under the lay yet.

All the while he sat there patiently listening while using the keyboard in front of the hollow screen to type a few things.

I couldn't tell what exactly he was doing since those things only give a solid picture to those sitting directly in front of it, any other angle resulted in a blurred illegible mess.

As I wrap up my explanation Joe leans to the side and I hear the distinct sound of a drawer being opened followed by the hum of a small fridge. "While you don't have a formal education in the field I do find your informal credentials exemplary and almost exactly what we are looking for to fill the one tech position we do have open. Oh and by the way I do try to keep these kinds of things as informal as possible, despite the decor of this room which I have been planning on getting removed. So want anything to drink? I keep some soda's and energy drinks here, got to have something to keep myself awake through all the paperwork." He comments and then asks me while I hear the sound of bottles and cans being moved about.

It's kind of refreshing to hear that and it is also nice of him to ask if I would like something to drink, long interviews sometimes my mouth does go dry. "A soda sounds fine, coke if you have it but pepsi or an off brand will be fine too." He nods at my reply before I hear the distinct hiss of a couple soda cans being opened.

Joe rights himself and then places an open can of coke in front of me before sipping his own. I take a quick sip after picking it up before holding it in my hands on my lap. "Of course we will have to at least get you registered and certified as per the law demands, but I don't see any problems with footing the bill in that regard. As for your duties, they will mainly consist of both acting as tech support for the building and working on programing the interfaces for the Bio-Morph's control systems. They should be somewhat similar to the older systems you have worked on in capabilities but of course with the required act compatible hardware." I must be more thirsty than I thought. Because my mouth soon goes dry again, which results in me nearly finishing the soda by the time he has explained the position to me.

He gently moves the holographic display so I may see it. On one half of the visible part of the display is an image on the said control system, and on the other is a single page standard contract for employment which includes a salary that surprises me. "So I take it I'm hired then?" I finish off the coke before he hands me the keyboard and uses the mouse to put the cursor in the digital signature box.

"As long as the drug tests come out clean I don't foresee any problems." In my excitement and eagerness to put my name in my box I barely notice that my hands are shaking or that the room feels a bit colder than it was when I entered it without the sound of the climate control system turning on.

As soon as I enter my name Joe gently takes the keyboard back and moves his monitor to face him once again. "Good, well this seems to be in order. How about I take you to see your work area and you can come back tomorrow for your first day?" I nod and we both stand before he walks around his desk to escort me to the door, only my legs crumple under me as soon as I take a step away from his desk.

My confusion as to what is going on lasts only till he opens his mouth. "Sorry about that. I had to guess your weight and I must have over estimated it by a little. You should have been like this after reaching the elevator whereupon you would have been escorted to one of our labs. But I guess I can do that myself." He drugged me? Why! Whats going on here?

I try to ask and push him away but my voice and any strength in my arms fail me as soon as I try. "You see, while we do hire people from the public. We don't do so with anyone from those housing complexes. Too much of a risk to employ them in the typical jobs, however, we have found a more 'useful' purpose for them and people like you. And it is so easy too, no one reads all the contract we present to them, they all stop at the salary. And that card I gave your friend? Marvelous piece of technology that is. A passive D.N.A. sensor. When the reader glows red the person is incompatible and we just send them away telling them their card is fake. But if it glows green like yours.. Well that means you're lucky and we do have a 'position' for you." I can feel Joe lifting me up by the shoulders and dragging me to the door of his office as he monologues to me. Next I hear the door open, but I don't hear it click closed as I succumb to the drug he placed in my soda.

<chapter 1 end>

Floating and parasthesia greets my first conscious moments outside the blanket of darkness that hit me after being drugged.

I hate that feeling, yet before I can even try to move even a finger a clunking sound reverberates through what ever I am floating in followed by it being drained out from under me.

'Oh good, I still have legs' The thought enters my mind as soon as I feel them touch the bottom of what ever I am in as that pins and needles sensation starts to fade, but they feel off, weird, not exactly how I remember them.

And then I feel a third limb touch the floor and I finally open my eyes in shock as that I 'know' that third one was not there before.

The feeling of it coming into contact with the bottom of cylinder seems to shoot up my spine and it shocks me by its mere presence.

More importantly what is this silver to gray fur covered thing at the bottom edge of my vision just barely in my sight with a tube attached to it?

Reaching up to touch it or move it out-of-the-way brings my hands in front of my eyes I stop and they too covered in fur, only mostly white with some splotches of gray and silver.

Not only that but they seem smaller, more petite? And the tips of the fingers have claws rather than nails.

As I stare at my hands and then my arms I barely even notice the metal cylinder around me starting to lower with a hiss.

Another wave of panic hits me as someone grabs my head from behind completely surprising me, this person's blue gloved hand grabs the clear tube and pulls.

I can't help gagging and coughing as I feel it being pulled out, I feel the end of it exit my stomach and travel all the way up and out of my mouth along with the taste of bile.

That same person then removes something from the top of my head and I wince and whine at the sudden influx of sound, wait I whined?

Yet before I could make sense of it he walks around me and stands in front of me, I can't see his face as it is covered in a surgical mask.

The rest of his body is in white bunny suit scrubs with a hair net and thick blue surgical gloves but his eyes are the most disturbing, they have the look of boredom, of someone just working and trying to get through the day.

He grabs me by the muzzle, wait I have a muzzle? Is that what was in my sight? It has to be it because when he does grab it my eyes cross to look at his hand and I see it.

There is a click and then I am blinded in one eye for a moment followed by the other. "Eye dilation is normal." I try to fight but lose the battle to prevent him from turning my head from side to side with my hands before he sticks something in my right ear followed by my left. "Ear structure looks normal."

As my vision slowly returns I can feel him using one hand to force my jaw open and with the other feel around in my mouth. "Tooth and gum formation is.." he pauses as I feel his fingers reach all the way to the back of my mouth. "Wait, rear molars still in place but they look similar to the recessive trait in naturals. Shouldn't need to pull them." I snap my mouth shut at his retreating hand but he doesn't seem to care, I guess he has dealt with it before.

The original person motions for someone across the room to come over, looking over I see it's another man dressed in protective surgical gear only shorter and rounder.

I'll call him fat man, the fat man grabs me by the shoulders while the other one grabs me by the legs and I can barely keep my head up to see how strange they look.

But something clicks in my mind when I see them, I have seen feet like this before on canine and canine like Bio-Morphs.

But now they are 'MY' feet, I know they are mine because I can feel these bastards touching them.

Correction, they are Fox Bio-Morph feet considering that big bushy tail I see as I am placed on an unpadded examination table.

I try to sit up but my arms give out before I am even able to get up on my elbows.

Turning my head I watch as fat man picks up and removes a syringe from a sterile packaging, he then roughly grabs my arm feeling for something.

But it's obvious what he is looking for, a vein, and he finds one shortly before sticking the needle in and filling the empty syringe with my blood.

The other bastard busies himself by strapping my legs into some sort of contraption that forces them apart.

I can feel my tail, oh god this is real I have a tail, the white tipped appendage swishes around as I try to close my legs but I can't pull myself from the restraints. Its silver gray fur reduced to a blur as it moves.

"Blood work has been drawn, How's the primary sexual characteristic?" Wait, primary what? No wait I remember! Health class in high school the primary sexual characteristic is your...

I growl, whine, and then scream as I feel cold fingers touching and then pulling open a spot between my legs. "Checking now. Hmm, outer and inner structure seems well developed, same with all the surrounding tissue." It's not my asshole that bastard is playing with, I can feel 'that' clenching just a bit lower than where he is touching.

But then his fingers touch something a bit higher up and I feel my back arch and my lower body jerk upwards upon contact, the bastard looks up and to the fat guy behind me. "Normal external stimulus reaction, thats good. These conversions are sometimes non functional." Please no, being a damned fox I can deal with. Just not 'that'!

I'm panting but it's not because I am hot, I feel very, very scared. And that goes up a notch as I watch the fat man hand a plastic container with a sterile and extremely long q-tip over my head to the bastard between my legs.

The fat man then grips my shoulders and holds me down. "Good, don't let go. I'm going to take the fertility sample now and I don't want a repeat of the last time. I have no idea how that one broke through the strap." The sterile container opens with a pop and he pulls out the q-tip and the smell of sterile liquid hits my nose.

All my doubt about what happened to me is removed as I feel his hand opening up that same spot again between my legs, followed by inserting that q-tip with medical precision.

The feeling of it being pushed into a section of my lower belly and then stroking something drives home the fact that not only am I no longer human, I am no longer male either.

As that bastard does this I squirm and try to break free of the fat man's grip, but I am too weak to do so, what ever they had me on while I was unconscious seems to still be in my system.

I try cussing them out with the worst language I know, but every time I try to speak only yips, gruffs, whines, and barks flow out of my mouth.

If looks could kill then the icy stare I give them as my only recourse to their actions would.

After the bastard places the q-tip back into its container closing it in the process, he hands it to the fat man still holding me down while he frees my legs and quickly steps out of range of a kick.

"When you finish taking this convert to a holding cell head over to the lab and process the samples, I have to check on the batch of naturals upstairs." I am hoisted up by the shoulders and then onto my feet by the fat man.

He then grips a spot on my neck and I feel the flesh there pinch up, this is followed by a feeling of weakness in my limbs on top of everything else. "Isolated or with the rest of the vixens?" He asks as I try to grab his hand on the scruff of my neck but he bats it away with his free one.

The bastard looks at me for a second and then replies. "Isolated, from here it looks like some of the secondary characteristics have not fully developed yet. The mature vixens may attack, that would bring this one's price down and force us to put down the attacking vixen." I can hear the movement of the fat man's head indicating a nod before he basically drags me on my feet to the lab door.

The glass door slides open as he approaches and strong jets of air blasts through my fur, at the same time I feel my feet being dragged through some liquid.

Looking down I recognize it as a sanitizing fluid, it oddly comforts and scares me at the same time.

Simply put this being here means that not only is this a serious and professional operation, but it is also an ongoing one in which I am just the latest person.

The fat man only stands in it as long as it takes to clean the bottom of his shoes before I am dragged down the nondescript hallway.

Every once in a while I try to get this fat bastard's hand to let me go as he drags me only, only to get mine hit or batted away.

We come to a stop in front of another set of sliding glass doors, only this one has a keypad on the door frame and the glass is frosted instead of clear.

Okay so I can't get the fat bastard to let go of me with my hands but since he stopped to enter in the code to open the door I try to hit him in the leg with my feet, maybe the new claws on it will come to some use.

His grunt in response to my foot making contact with his lower calf is the most delightful music to my ears. But it doesn't work.

I'm still too weak and it only causes him to tighten his grip on the nape of my neck drawing a whine from my mouth.

When he finishes entering the code the box beeps and the door slides open reveling a large kennel like room.

As I am dragged in I see other Bio-Morphs in the various pens through the chain link fence fronts, each pen is about five feet wide and maybe eight or nine feet deep while the walls dividing each pen are made of cement blocks that reach the ceiling.

Other foxes, dogs, wolves, felines, and even a scaled mammal like thing stare at me as I am dragged to an empty pen in the corner.

Come on, all I need is a bit more strength. If I don't successfully resist now I am going to be trapped in here like the rest of these animals!

While I reach up to try to get my new blunt claws to do something, anything, to his arm to force him to let me go I also try to kick his leg again hoping for the same result.

He grunts and opens the door to the kennel. "Heh, just like the rest of the converts. As soon as you see the kennel you freak out. But this is for your own good, even if you don't understand it. If we put you in the general holding pens you would get hurt as you are obviously too weak to do anything right now." the fat bastard dangles me inside the pen and closes the door just short of the arm that is holding me.

And with a quick motion he lets go and pulls his arm out allowing him to close and lock the kennel door before I even have the time to turn around and try to lunge for him.

Which only results in me collapsing onto my side as I trip over my new feet as I have no idea on how to use them.

By the time I manage to sit up and not sit on my new tail, fat man has slid two weighted bowls under the kennel door.

One is obviously filled with water and I can tell from here by this new sense of smell that it is clean, but the other one.

The 'other' bowl though is filled with tan pea sized kibble, they took my humanity, they took my gender, I am sure as hell am NOT going to let them take my dignity and be forced to eat like an animal!

I crawl over and try my hand at drinking the water with this new muzzle and tongue, which only ends up drenching my front more than I get in my mouth.

Once I finish I try to push the bowls back under the chain link door only to not have it budge an inch.

"You may not want to eat it now, but give it a few hours when the rest of the coma drug is flushed out of your system. You will be licking the bowl clean in no time." The fat bastard laughs and comments before I look up at his grinning face, he has removed that bunny suit which he was wearing to show a nondescript navy blue uniform.

I growl at him as he heads back out the way he dragged me in here, when the door closes behind him the lights dim to a lower level but I am surprised I am still able to see even if the colors are a muted gray now.

With a whine I turn away from the bowls and I am surprised as I get woofs, yips, and other sounds in response. Is it just me or did they sound different from they did before this?

I ignore them and turn my attention to the kennel I am in, well if you can call it that.

A smooth cement floor is only broken up by a plastic coated cot sized mattress laying against one wall, obvious this is going to be my bed for the time being, and in the far right corner is a sunken grate.

It's kind of obvious what 'that' is there for, and I am surprised that they would be able to still take some dignity from me considering I thought I did not have any left.

And thats all thats in here, other than me, and this new tail of mine. The thing that is flopping about out of my control and making what I feel from it extremely weird.

So I stare at this white and silver-gray appendage while feeling the muscles at the base of my spine pulling on it causing it to move.

With some focus I find I can get it to slow down, but not totally stop all together, yet all of my concentration goes out the window when the tail flips up and lands in my lap.

When the bushy appendage moves away from my lap I get my first look at what lays between my legs.

While that exam from those bastards brought home the fact that I am now a woman, it seems to only fully hit me 'now' when I see what makes me one with my own eyes.

Yet another whine escapes my throat, but this one is long and drawn out as I curl up and start to cry.

Considering everything else they have taken from me, I find little comfort in the fact that I can still cry knowing that the animal that this new body of mine was based on cannot.

There are no windows in here to the outside so I don't even know how long I laid there bawling my eyes out, when no more tears would come out I crawl over to that small bed, flip it flat on the floor and lay down on it.

The mental and physical exhaustion pushes me into a restless sleep upon the hardest mattress I have ever felt.

It's a lucid nightmare, I know I am dreaming but I can't wake up. It won't let me for some reason no matter how much I try.

I find myself walking back into the former hotel room that serves as home for my mom and I, but instead of my mother kindly greeting me and asking for any success in my endless job search.

She just yells at me. 'I raised a son! Not a furred bitch of a daughter that can't even speak!'

I try, honest to god I try to say at least mom and when that only comes out as a bunch of bestial sounds I try mother and mommy.

Each attempt seems to make this version of my mother even more disgusted and she taunts me. 'Fox got your tongue? I raised my son with just my one arm better than to speak to his mother like some flea bitten animal. You're not my son, you are just some vixen with a screwed up head! Out! Get out of here!'

At which point she picks up her prosthetic arm and chases me out of the room by trying to hit me with it, I don't stop running even when I fall to all fours and dash down the stairwell.

Not even pausing to think as to why the door is absent and it's closer to our apartment than I remember it ever being.

Even though I don't feel exhausted I still pant and loll my tongue out of my muzzle in the lobby looking around wide eyed.

It's there I spot Patrick with some of the other people who live here that are about our age, I know I am far from his only friend but I 'am' his closest one.

He has got to understand, oh please god let him understand.

Collecting my self enough that my tongue no longer hangs out and I am no longer out of breath I walk on over to him.

I can't help noticing that not only am I walking on my toes while at the same time feeling a slight sway in my hips with a swishing of my tail, on top of that I feel a jiggling sensation on my chest too.

'NO' I think to myself pushing those feelings away as I walk up to him. Their idle chatter stops cold as I stand before my friend.

Okay this is it. I summon all my mental will and try to forcefully make my mouth say three little words, 'Patrick, help me.'

But dread fills me as what comes out of my mouth is an animal like huff and two different pitched yips.

Patrick's face is a portrait of confusion as my tail and ears droop uncontrollably with my mood. 'Dude, I think that bio-morph vixen is hitting on you!' I feel my tail bottle brushing for a second at the comment from the person next to him.

Someone with an unidentifiable face chips in from the other side of Patrick who stands in stark relief to the rest of them. 'It must be in heat. Hey pat if you don't want to can I have it instead? Its been awhile since I have gotten laid.'

My ears go flat back against my skull at that comment as I growl while backing up. A third person speaks who is no more than a vague shape of a person rather than a human being. 'Quiet you two, the thing looks like it only wants pat here. Lucky dog.' He slaps Patrick's shoulder and pushes him forward to keep us at equal distance, arms length.

As my fear spikes everyone and everything else other than Patrick and me vanish, his face changes from a look of confusion to a knowing smile. This causes my to fear vanish and be replaced with an up-swell of hope!

I know that smile! He understands, by god he understood what I said! He is going to help me...

My train of thought is completely and utterly derailed as he pulls me against himself, draping one arm over my shoulders and then grabbing my left breast with his right hand.

The alien electric sensation from the action travels directly down my spine, through my tail causing it to bottle brush again, before traveling back up and settling in a spot in my lower belly and between my legs.

With his left hand Patrick reaches down and actually inserts a finger into my new womanhood between my legs!

That breaks the dream and I wake up screaming! Which results in a chorus of other sounds from the other kennels which oddly sound sympathetic??

When I stop screaming I notice two things, first that while the situation in the dream was fake, the sensations were real.

One of my hands rests on my chest feeling up a barely noticeable lump that is unmistakably a breast, while the other one is between my legs.

As I shakily remove my hands from my own body while also noticing the one between my legs is a little damp.

The other thing is that I feel the deepest sensation of hunger I have ever felt in my life accompanied by the loudest growl from my stomach I have ever heard.

I focus on my hunger, thats familiar, something I know how to deal with and not alien.

It's only then do I smell something very appealing coming from within my kennel, so I sit up and look about before my eyes fall upon the bowl of kibble.

While it makes me happy that I no longer feel tired or weak I sure as hell am not going to make that fat bastard happy and eat one piece of that shit.

And then another hunger pang hits me as if to tell me that I am going to have to eat it to live.

So I slump back down and lay there staring at the bowl as it taunts me with its wonderful smell, a scent that eats away at my humanity.

My attention is then drawn to the kennel across from me, the bio-morph in it is a wolf model and he is avidly watching me in return.

He is just sitting there by the door, his eyes glance at my bowl of that stupid doggy kibble and then back at me.

You want that food? I'll be glad to give it to you if I could, but I can't reach all the way over there while pushing it.

I try to look elsewhere for a place to just veg out and stare but when I do so that wolf growls and shakes his kennel door cage drawing my eyes back to him.

What is it you want? Oh I get it, you must've enjoyed the show while I slept. Well fuck you?...

As I look back over at him he is pointing at my bowl of food, he then mimics reaching down and taking a handful of food and bringing it up to his muzzle before doing some exaggerated chewing motions.

Okay, what the hell! It's almost as if he is concerned about my well being, like he has human emotions? But they aren't supposed to have those.

My stomach complains again and my attention turns to the bowl of kibble while my water bowl is nearly empty.

Maybe just a hand full? Just enough to get my insides to stop complaining about being empty? Would that make me one of them or could I still call myself human?

I crawl off the mattress and over to the kibble and water bowl, sitting on my rear carefully so I don't crush my tail, I look down at it and then back over at that wolf.

He looks over at me before nodding and looking elsewhere with his ears splayed, and as I glance at the bowls I notice that I am sitting spread eagled in front of the dishes.

I clumsily move to sit cross legged before I hesitantly reach down and grab a hold of a few little pieces of kibble to bring up to my nose and sniff.

His attention returns to me after he hears me change sitting positions, this wolf then mimes eating the kibble again before nodding his head slowly.

Before what they did to my body stuff like this did not have a scent, and it was generally unappealing visually.

Now though it smells like steak, chicken, and pork all rolled into one, simply smelling it closely makes me salivate with hunger.

Okay, just one taste. I can do this and then when they return hopefully they will give me 'real' food.

I swallow and lick my lips before I open my mouth and pop just one into my mouth which results in a happy bark from the wolf across the way.

It feels like a dried out and hard coco puff. Yet as I crunch down on it the scents I smelled explode on my tongue as a rich flavor.

Glancing over at the wolf Bio-morph he nods enthusiastically and smiles as much as one can with a muzzle.

Oh why the fuck not, I'm starving and this crap smells and tastes better than I thought it would, and against all reason should.

Grabbing up a handful of the kibble I stuff it into my muzzle followed by another after chewing and swallowing the first.

And before long I realize I am doing 'exactly' what that fat bastard said I would be doing, licking the food bowl clean of every morsel I can get my hands on to sate my hunger.

I growl, a deep and low toned growl when I realize this and in anger I grab the food bowl and throw it across my kennel enclosure with all my strength.

It dully thuds against the wall and lands on the floor next to the back wall and in response the wolf across the way from me scoots back fearfully.

Good! Go away and stop staring at me. It makes me feel weird, especially since I used to have the same equipment as you do before waking up to this living nightmare.

Speaking of nightmares, I am not going to go back to sleep after that freaky dream. Which leaves me nothing to do.

Well correction, it does leave me with one thing to do and it is something I should learn if I want even a small ray of hope to escape.

That is learning how to walk again with these weird legs and feet. The large toes and the fact my ankle is bent like a reverse knee just freaks me out.

So first thing is first I grab a hold of the chain link door and pull myself up onto my new feet to first try to get a feeling of how to stand.

This was a lot easier in the dream, that much is readily apparent.

Oh man, this is so freaking weird seeing my legs bend like this and NOT be broken. I lift my left leg a little to get a good look at my knee joint.

Only to hear the same bark of encouragement again from that wolf across the way who is now standing in front of his own cage door. His tail slowly swishing from side to side while his ears are up and focused on me.

I feel my ears go flat against my head as I let out a deep growl at him hoping he gets the point that I do not want to deal with him right now!

Letting out a stern woof he folds his arms across his chest and turns his back to me. Almost like I made him mad.

Again with him acting like he has human emotions and feelings similar to a real person even though he should not have them. Not to mention I don't need him anyway.

This shouldn't be to different from walking before right? So I turn my back to the chain link door while holding myself up with my hands griping the wire mesh.

I'll let go on three and see if I can keep myself standing without falling first. Then and only then will I take a step forward.

Okay, one. Two. THREE! I let go of the chain link door while slightly pushing myself into a standing position while keeping my legs perfectly straight.

And my legs hold for a minute or so before I feel my knees and ankles starting to strain then give out entirely causing me to fall backwards. I bunch up my tail and hit my back on the chain link door but I grab onto it before I start to slide down it.

And the response to my attempt? What sounds like laughter and other sounds of amusement coming from the wolf.

I turn around and let out another deep growl at him and a few barks that have a yip like tone to them as well.

His laughter like sounds grow louder at my protest so I just stare at him with my ears back while my tail thrashes about in annoyance.

It's so odd to have my emotions so visible by my body parts, but in comparison to everything 'else' it's pretty minor.

When he stops laughing the wolf Bio-morph takes a step back and points at his legs. I never really payed too much attention to the legs of these creatures but as he points at his own legs I notice that while he stands not only is his knee a little bent, so is his ankle.

He then looks at me and nods his head up and down, he then stands how 'I' tried to stand long enough for him to shake his head from side to side before he goes back to standing normally.

Okay then, I might as well give it a try like that if you're going to show me how.

So while holding onto the door I take a small step back and relax my legs so they go from straight to bent like his legs, only a bit more curvy than my liking.

A quick glance at him shows that he is watching me, as helpful as he has been I still don't like him staring at me.

Taking a deep breath I prepare myself before letting go of the chain link door, standing like this does feel more natural and to my surprise my tail quickly moves to counter balance my body

It still feels too freaking weird to stand on my toes and get a similar feeling as I would get standing flat footed when I was normal and not this freak of a body.

A happy bark is his response to seeing me stand without falling to the floor, I just look at him not knowing what to do about how he is acting.

Good, I'm standing which is the first step, now for actually taking my first step with these weird legs.

The lights in this room blind me as they are switched on the second I try to lift my leg to take my first step, this is followed by the sound of someone entering the code to enter the room.

Surprisingly I am able to stay standing so I turn to face my door and I notice my 'admirer' across the way is a red wolf bio-morph, one of the smaller wolf breeds and he is looking in the direction of the door into the kennel room.

It's also only now that I notice that his kennel door, unlike mine, has a sheet of paper in some kind of laminated cover that is clipped onto the chain link door.

It has a string of letters and numbers above a bar-code then bellow that are his statistics such as; height, weight, age, gender, training, and finally the company or person that owns them.

The poor guy is owned by the popular chain of outdoor and hunting equipment stores, yet it doesn't show what his job is there.

Well not job really since he isn't paid or anything.

The sound of the doors opening stops my examination of it and makes me look to see who it is that is entering. I swear to god if it's that fat guy I am going to bite him!

No such luck sadly, the footfalls are lighter and quicker. Then the person comes into view and it is a young woman wearing a veterinarian's uniform.

And while her uniform is not skin tight on her body. Neither is it loose enough to leave her features undefined, possibly to prevent us from grabbing onto her.

Her appearance disturbs me all of a sudden and my ears splay as I suddenly realize why. I look at her body's attributes and find the distinct 'lack' reactionary mental effects that I grew up with.

Instead it's more of a rational reaction to how this person looks rather than any sort of attraction.

This out right frightens me from the pure implications of this. No I don't want to think about this just yet, or at all if I can help it!

I turn my attention to what she has in her hands and what she is doing in here rather than how she looks.

In one hand she has a bar-code scanner and on the opposite fore arm she has small tablet mounted.

She walks up to each kennel door, scans the bar-code, then pokes at the tablet for a few second in between observing the occupant of the kennel.

Down the row she goes doing the same thing on each kennel and then she comes up to mine where she halts.

With nothing to scan all she does is look at the tablet confused before looking down at me as I notice that I am a bit shorter than her. "Oh, you're new. Must have come in late yesterday after my last set of rounds. Hm you're also a convert, that would explain the under developed appearance. No worries, with the right diet I think I can help you grow into one heck of a looker of a vixen even if you're the less desirable platinum silver coloration." She purses her lips at that last comment as I put my ears back at the comment of being called a 'looker vixen'. But at least I have a name for the fur coloration I have.

She glances at the bowl in the back of my kennel and then back at me. "Well thats a good thing that you actually have had something to eat. This should help the body recover from the conversion and stop your body raiding your fat stores to finish up the changes. Now be a good little girl for me and bring your food dish next to the door and I will fill it back up with yummy food again." She then gives me a smile before turning and continuing her routine with that red wolf across the way as he moves his food and water dish next to the chain link door where she can grab them if she wants.

Alright, just for that young lady I here by call you 'the bitch'. No one and I mean no one is going to treat me like a pet. My ears fold flat on my head and may tail bristles as I pull my lips back in a snarl she obviously won't see because her back is turned to me.

Yet on the other hand I do not want to see what they will do to me if I refuse to eat, and if what I just did earlier is any indication my hunger will force me to want to eat anyway as I seem to lack the will power to starve myself.

As the bitch moves on around the corner to continue the morning rounds I debate this mentally as my emotions fight each other causing my ears to move back and forth from splayed to flat and then back again.

Another woof from across the way grabs my attention forcing me to notice the red wolf's sympathetic glare and body language.

He then points to where I threw my food bowl and then the door to my kennel, he obviously wants me to comply with what the bitch said.

To be fair by the time he does this I have basically realized that I fear what they will do to 'force' me to eat more than how eating that stuff makes me seem more like an animal than a human.

So I turn around again and without hesitation try to take a step forward to where my food dish lies on the floor.

My first step with these legs doesn't result in me planting this new muzzle into the concrete floor and when I feel safe about my balance I take a second step, followed by a third.

He celebrates my ability to walk by letting out a happy bark even though I do wobble and almost fall over as I kneel down to pick up the food bowl.

It's heavy, and that surprises me as it doesn't look like it should weigh any more than fifteen pounds. This makes the walk back even slower.

Upon placing the empty food bowl next to the empty water bowl in front of the chain link door I feel that I have this walking thing down with these funny legs.

I can hear that bitch off somewhere in another part of this room doing something, possibly moving something heavy from the sounds of it.

Other than that the room is quiet and devoid of the noises from before and even the red wolf across from me is quiet. Even though he is 'still' looking at me and I rather he didn't.

Letting out a mild barking yip I turn around, walk over to the excuse they gave us for a bed and lay down on it in such a way I can either look at the wall or myself. And I opt for myself as a source of entertainment.

But I quickly change my mind to stare at the wall as from this angle I can clearly see the little mounds of my new female form that lay upon my chest and everything female that lays bellow that.

Before I know it my intense visual inspection of each pit and defect of the concrete wall is interrupted by the sound of a cart being stopped in front of the door to my kennel.

Turning my head I watch the bitch pull the food and water bowls out. She then with two scoops from a mostly unmarked bag fills my food bowl with the same kibble as I ate earlier.

What she does next surprises me. The bitch then takes a powder and applies it to the kibble turning the tan little balls to mostly white before mixing up the food so each ball has some of the powder on it. With that finished she places it on the ground and pushes it into my kennel.

Followed by a full bowl of water a minute or so later without anything additional put into it.

I then watch as she removes a similar sheet of paper to the one on the red wolf's door and attaches it to mine.

Her task seems to be done when it comes to taking care of me because I watch her repeat what she did for me only this time for the red wolf Bio-morph.

The only difference is that she does not add that powder to his meal, no instead he walks up to the door and presses his arm against the chain link door.

I watch in fascination as she removes one of those new needless injectors out of the lower section of the cart and with a loud hiss injects its payload into his arm.

This private kennel is actually the care ward for the veterinarians of what ever this place is.

So my fear of being force fed if I refuse to eat is entirely grounded in reality as I know vets do that with animals that their 'owners' want to have them save.

I sigh and put my hand over my muzzle and go back to staring at nothing in particular as that bitch continues her rounds.

She then walks by again only this time pushing a mostly empty cart so I guess she completed her rounds. "Since all you guy's were so cooperative this morning I am going to let you all listen to the radio for the rest of the morning." I hear her voice over the room's public announcement system that I did not even know was even part of the room.

This is followed by a few clicks and then the radio announcer identifying the station before playing some song from the nineteen nineties.

And from then on I am left here with only that red wolf morph across the way for company, other than myself of course.

At some point I get curious and head on over to the door and manages to move that laminated piece of paper so I can see it.

No name, just like the red wolf's one. The 'F' in the gender part still irks me, and my new height being barely five feet tall stuns me. I was just over six feet before this happened.

But what stands out in the date of birth portion of the piece of paper.

I am in my mid to upper twenties! The date on this sheet of paper makes me sixteen! I don't even care or bother to look at the rest of it, in a fit of anger I manage to get it off my cage door and pull it through to the inside.

From there I use my hands and teeth to tear it up into pieces to release my anger on it. I barely even notice the red wolf across the way frowning and shaking his head at this.

<chapter 2 end>

My little cathartic exercise cost the room music and treats after the lunch time appearance of that bitch.

The angry noises that filled the room afterwards made me feel even worse.

And with that I learned the rules more or less through the next week and a half as my new body continued to finish up it's changes.

Those barely noticeable lumps on my chest, the ones that no sane person would call breasts? They grew into large fleshy orbs, If I had to guess C-cups but with my smaller size over all they look like D's.

At the same time my rear and hips rounded out and I fully developed into an adult woman's curvy figure.

Even my fur changed, it grew thicker and softer even though I would wish it would just come off every night before I fell asleep.

I hated it, I really did. Every day I woke up and my body had changed while I slept and felt just a little more of myself had slipped away.

My data sheet as I had come to think of it was replaced the day after my exercise in futility, but it had one little change from before.

The field on the red wolf's sheet that indicated who owned him which was empty on mine. It wasn't empty anymore.

From that day on until today I also wrestled with the fact that I was now a piece of property to be owned and used up.

My 'owner' is Mauri's, by the fact it's just a single word for a name it is reasonable to assume this may be a company or some kind of establishment.

At least that is what I have convinced myself of who it belongs to, but my thoughts are interrupted by the surrounding reality when the fat man and the bitch approach my kennel door not to long after the mid day meal.

I watch them walk up to the chain link kennel door, the bitch is wearing some heavier clothes while at the same time wearing some thick shoulder length gloves over her arms. "Thats a good girl, today is a happy day. Yes it is! You are going to be taken to your new owner who is going to take good care of you." The bitch speaks to me in a nice friendly and happy tone of voice which makes me feel anything but.

Oh, hell no. I know that tone of voice, you're not going to grab me and put me in that muzzle I can see in the hands of the fat bastard behind you.

She opens my kennel door slowly keeping a nice friendly tone of voice and smile on her face, I look between her and the fat man as I tense up.

I have yet to learn how to control my ears and tail from showing my emotion because my ears lay flat and my tail twitches as I decide to try to run for it.

Why? When I was put in here I was still weak from the change and the coma drugs, Over the past week and a half while my body filled out I also felt myself get stronger.

I bet I can break out of their grip now if they tried to grab me or at least hurt them considering what the bitch is wearing.

And for once I can't see what that red wolf across from me is reacting to this as the fat man's girth blocks my view.

As the bitch steps slightly to the side so she can grab me by the neck without reaching over my head and risk me biting her, because I will try too, I thrust my legs against the mattress I am laying on as I propel myself to the kennel door.

On all fours I dash under the fat bastard, if I wasn't trying to escape I would find it rather comical as the fat bastard tries and fails to reach bellow his gut while he is standing, possibly for the first time in years to grab a hold of me.

I slide a little on the square tile floor outside of my kennel but I gain my footing faster than those two as the bitch is trying to push the fat man out-of-the-way while at the same time he is trying to turn around and chase after me.

All the other bio-morphs just look at me through their kennel doors in utter surprise at what I did while I just had my eyes on my goal.

I ignore everything else, the jiggling of those still too new breasts of mine as I run on all fours, the various noises of encouragement from all the bio-morphs in their kennels, even the yelling demands for me to stop from the bitch and fat man.

If I can just get to the door and out of this room I can get away, thats all I could think about as I ran.

Before I knew it I was at the door and it did not open to my presence. I had heard it open for that bitch and the fat man.

I quickly stand and try to push the sliding doors open as it says on them to do in an emergency, well this certainly counts as one in my book! But they refuse to budge.

They are laughing, the bitch and the fat man are laughing as they walk up behind me as I whine and hit my shoulder against the door in another attempt to force it open.

The bitch grabs the nape of my neck with one hand and my arms with the other before holding them behind my back. "We lock the doors when we plan on opening the kennels for stuff like this to prevent escape. Nice try though, and you proved my point that my co-worker needs to go on a diet." She pulls me back from the door and back towards the work area in the back of the room.

As she pushes me forward and my feet slide on the floor the fat bastard slips the muzzle over my head and tightens it to just short of cutting off blood flow. "Oh bite me, it's a genetic condition." The bitch releases the nape of my neck after the muzzle is secured, but I can practically hear her roll her eyes at the fat bastard's comment. I have to agree with the bitch on this one, put down the long johns fat boy!

I struggle in her grasp and it takes both of them to lift me up and place me face down on the cold exam table in the back of the kennel room. Thankfully this one doesn't have those leg restraints. "Time for your ID chip and vaccinations. Don't want you to get sick and have to be rushed back here or to one of our sister facilities for treatment. Strap her in chubby." She comments and then commands the fat man who grumbles and quickly affixes leather straps to hold down my legs, torso, and arms.

The tightness of the restraints is almost a good distraction from the feeling of the cold metal on the god damned breasts I have.

My tail is loose though and I make full use of it by hitting the fat bastard in the face with it. He just casually bats it out of his face.

When the bitch lets go to allow the fat bastard to restrain me I turn my head to watch her retrieve a per-filled syringe, then one of those needless injectors and several little flasks. "This will be over before you know it. Be a nice little girl and we may even give your ID to the owners of that red wolf Bio-morph you have been watching while you were here. I am sure they wouldn't mind studding him out for you have your first few kits." I answer her suggestion in the only way I can and frankly the only way I feel about it, a 'loud' angry growl directed at her with my ears pinned flat.

Which was cut short when I feel her jab the needle into the muscle of my back where I and they know I can't reach. "Oh she didn't like that suggestion." The fat bastard comments after the bitch hands him the spent syringe for disposal.

The bitch then readies the needless injector for my first vaccine. I have always wondered what it felt like to have one of those used on me.

Needless to say the clinics I went to before this happened were too poor to afford one. "Wait till her owner lets her go into heat, she will be practically humping the door to get at him or any other male. Rabies vaccine first." She presses the injector against my neck and I just feel a cooling and stinging sensation on my skin.

The empty flask is replaced with another one and she places the business end against my arm. "The canine immunodeficiency disorder vaccine is next." With that one injected she preps it again with the next flask.

As she walks around in front of me she gently pats my head and I just glare at her as she continues on to my other side and presses the device to my other arm. "This one is a complex one. A combination flu, measles, mumps, and chicken pox vaccine. Yes your still human enough to catch those and being a convert made you vulnerable to them again. Can't have you catching them and passing them on to patrons." This one lasts longer and stings more than the last one, my arm even tingles when she finishes.

The bitch then replaces the that flask with the last one. But she doesn't inject me yet, she just stands there and lightly petting me along my back and it very much creeps me out. "This last one is a heat suppressant. It was early spring when you were put into the conversion tank, as of yesterday we had the fall equinox, so without this you would be going into heat soon. Your owner has stated they did not want you bred before delivery, so you're getting this injection." With that the bitch injects it into my ass cheek and I start to feel just a little queasy afterwards.

The bitch hands off the shoulder length gloves off to the fat man who in turn puts them on and when the bitchy vet opens my restraints on my arms he grabs them and holds them behind my back.

As much as I want to resist and try to break away the effects of the last injection makes me feel a bit sick and thus I am easy to man handle by him.

So as soon as the bitch opens the restraints on my legs he pulls me off the table and holds me up by my arms behind my back as he walks back through the kennel.

I notice that the expressions on the other Bio-Morphs in the other kennel's range from pity to happiness and I don't know why, the only one with a neutral expression was that red wolf across the way from me.

The fat man unlocks the door with a smirk at me as if he was amused at my attempted escape before dragging me into the hallway. "I think you're going to like your new owner, I had a meal there on my way down here after I first got this job. A nice Amerasian restaurant with good food and great service. A vixen in a kimono will do good for their image." He takes me through a series of corridors and hallways while passing by other frosted glass doors which I suspect are other rooms full of kennels.

After a short elevator ride down a couple floors he takes me through a much more utilitarian hallway as compared to the semi medical look of the ones we were in earlier.

I pin my ears back against my head as I start to hear the drone of electric forklifts and the sounds semi trucks with trailers backing up and leaving, the noise is near deafening as we approach some ribboned plastic hanging from the ceiling that acts as a sort of air barrier between the hallway and whats beyond.

The fat bastard doesn't even stop as he walks through, and on the other side my fur poofs up and bristles at sudden temperature spike between the environments.

I am stunned into silence at what I see now. Laying out in front of me is a gigantic double sided loading dock with the far end barely visible.

It sits a good one hundred feet wide with rows of semi trailer loading docks running along the walls on either side from here all the way to the back, Some of the doors are closed, others open with no trailer, and some have trailers backed up and open.

The biggest feature in front of us is a set of chain link fenced pens.

Each of these pens are twenty feet long by twenty feet wide by eight feet tall with about four feet of space set between each one.

As for the way to get inside of these pens? Other than being dropped over the railing from the gang way's running over the pens, you have to enter through the lock out gates on either side of the pens that face the loading docks.

Then I notice whats inside, each one of the pens holds a Bio-morph of a singular species and gender, the one in front of me? Male Cougar, each one a good foot taller than I am with bodies of pure muscle.

Some look scared, others calm and indifferent, some try to hide behind others, none of them are spared though.

As the fat man looks for someone to talk too while restraining me I get the pleasure of watching the employees here work to fill orders.

Someone climbs up a stairway and onto the gangway over the pen, he takes out a small device from his belt and waves it over the huddled group of bio-morphs. It beeps when it's over a particular individual and only that one.

The Bio-Morph in question panics and tries to push himself into the group of the others but they mostly disperse away from him upon hearing the beep.

The man points him out as another heads up the stairs to the gangway with a long pole that has a gripper on the end of it.

As he takes up position the first man walks down the gangway and to the lock out gate to the left, he pulls a cord to open the inner gate.

The man on the gangway reaches down with the pole and grabs onto the neck of the poor cougar bio-morph and with leverage drags him over to the open lock out gate, when in front of it he lets go and jabs him into it.

As the other guy drops the gate closed the first one walks down the stairs and over to the other side of the lockout gate, he then takes out that device again and runs it over the bio-morph.

It beeps again and he nods before putting it away, next he picks up a choke lasso from a nearby rack and attaches the working end around the neck of the cougar bio-morph.

The first man opens the gate and secures the cord before rushing over to help the other person pull and drag the poor bio-morph to an open and waiting container truck. Which I imagine is also his housing unit.

Once inside they close the doors, release him, and pull out the choke lasso pole in one fluid well rehearsed movement so that he can't escape. Once the door is closed and locked the truck pulls away leaving an open loading gate.

One of the two men walks over to the fat man finally noticing him while the other walks off further down the shipping area to another holding pen. "Sorry sir but if that vixen is aggressive we can't put her in the Vixen holding pen." He points to the muzzle on my head, and if I was going to be aggressive it would be to this fat bastard now that my stomach has settled.

The fat bastard shakes his head. "She's only been aggressive to me and the vet, the muzzle was so she would not bite her or me while we vaccinated and chipped her. Is her housing container ready for shipment to Mauri's? If it isn't then I can remove the muzzle and she can mingle with the rest of the vixens." The shipper takes that device off his belt again and up close now I can see it's a long range RFID reader and tablet combination in a rigid rubber housing.

After tapping a few places on the screen he waves it over me and it emits a loud beep. "Oh your in luck, it just pulled up and is ready for her. Follow me please." Oh god, this guy needs to lose weight, I can already 'smell' the sweat on him and we have barely even moved since we entered this warm shipping dock.

He then leads the fat bastard and me further down the shipping area and past various pens; house-cat, wolves, canines, mice, tigers, male foxes, and finally the vixens.

Only the tods and the vixens pay any attention to me and once we reach that section of the loading dock the shipping employee grabs a choke lasso rod from the waiting rack of them, and then slips the business end around my neck.

I let out a surprise yip at the feeling of it closing down on my neck constricting it a little, but not enough to choke me, only enough to provide mild discomfort if I tried to move where he did not want me too.

Once secure the fat bastard, now profusely sweating, removes my muzzle from my face and pockets it, I half heartedly try to remove his fingers for the action.

I get jerked back via the choke rod. "I see what you mean sir. Are you sure she isn't too aggressive to be sold to a customer service company?" He and the fat man use the rod to push and direct me towards my new home, one of those re-purposed shipping containers. From here I can see mine at least has a few more options than the ones used by the bio-morphs back home.

Home.. As much as I hated living in that re-purposed hotel with mom, it was home. I wish I could see it and her again.

Outside of my occasional nightmares where she chases me out of the room like an animal of course. "Totally sure." As soon as I enter the container I feel the temperature rise again but only a little when compared to the shipping dock.

The fat bastard holds me in place using the choke pole while the shipping employee closes the doors, as soon as it gets close to the pole I feel it suddenly slacken and pulled over my head.

In the time it takes me to turn around and take only a single step they have the pole retracted and the doors closed leaving me in total darkness as I hear the latch close and a lock snap shut.

Part of me is happy to be away from that bastard, the rest starts to worry if I will ever get out of this situation.

With the rumble of the diesel electric engine on the semi a couple of lights flicker on giving me my first up close look at this home and prison in one.

To my left is that single cot like bed hanging from the wall by chains on the front and back, the padding appears to be just a little better than the ones I saw in the containers outside of my former home.

On my right is some storage space that lacks any kind of coverings for the front of small shelves and bolted to the side of the container through the insulation is a touch only terminal.

The poor thing is sluggishly walking through its boot up routine, but I should be grateful it works and they chose it as an option.

It means I might be able to keep myself both warm in the winter and cool in the summer, assuming the rest of the stuff works.

I walk forward deeper into my new home, wobbling a little as the semi takes a rather steep turn, to look at the back of my new home.

Just past the flimsy plastic privacy barrier is a combination sink and toilet, I kind of feel like weeping at the sight of an actual toilet having to squat over a drain for the past week and a half!

The faucet raises high enough so that I can stick my head under it to take a drink of water if I wanted to.

A flat metal wall welded in place is only broken by a two by two foot square door with a lever like handle, opening it reveals a barely working fridge, I guess this is where I get to keep food.

Oh god I hope they allow me to eat something other than that kibble stuff, it tasted wonderful at first but I got tired of it by the fourth day in that kennel.

On my way back to the cot I glance up at the ceiling which confirms the fact they opted for climate control as I see a single metal grate bolted to a sakura flower patterned plastic ceiling.

In fact looking closely I find the wall's and my cot have the exact same pattern on them, I would've preferred them to be blank.

I may have a female body now but I will NOT start liking female decorations if I can help it!

A chime indicates the console has booted up and as I suspected it controls the climate system and the lights.

That can be right? It feels just a little hot in here but it's reading only seventy-eight degrees while the outside is seventy.

I tap the over sized blue down arrow under the inside temperature till it matches the outside temp, a second or two later I hear the click and whirling sound of a fan turning on somewhere.

As I lay down on my back on the cot I start to feel and smell the outside air blowing in and with it the smells of the open road.

My tail flops into my lap and I idly move to stroke it while my ears twitch at the hum of the wheels bellow me moving at freeway speeds, the noise slowly lulls me to sleep like one of those white noise generators.

The squealing of the brakes on the semi wakes me up with a yawn, I glance on over to the terminal and notice that the temperature has dropped outside to sub sixty degrees while the system seems to have kicked the heat on to keep it at seventy.

And then silence after hearing the door slam closed on the cab of the semi truck, I sit up on the cot and stretch all my limbs including my tail which I have to admit has been growing on me.

So fluffy and warm to hold and it sends pleasant feelings up the tail and my spine when I pet it or comb it.

I occupy myself with doing this until I hear someone opening a small slat on one of the doors of this housing unit, looking over I see the driver sliding in a tray of what looks like fast food.

If I my nose is not failing me it has to be from one of the larger burger chains and the smell of even the low quality meat causes me to salivate.

As soon as the slat closes I hop off the cot and pick up the tray before sitting back down onto the cot, from there I just rip off the wrapper of the burger and just sigh in delight at the scent.

I almost literally inhale the burger, I was that starved for real meat for the longest while.

It's only then I notice that the driver also included in the meal some fries and a soda, I feel like I have died and gone to heaven after that kibble for so long.

But I soon realize that eating it was a mistake as I have a ton of energy and no way to get rid of it other than pacing back and forth in here.

Also, how do women put up with these things! Each step I take they jiggle and move about and when I lean down they move forward and get in the way of what ever task I am leaning down for.

I hate this, I hate being stuck inside this container, I hate having this body, I HATE what happened to me!

But what frustrates me even more is the fact that I can't do anything about it, I can't speak anymore and everyone around me treats me like an animal.

Like an animal. My ass hits the floor as soon as I think of that, my mind running over every time I acted and talked to a bio-morph like an animal. Every time I thought of them as such, every, single, fucking, time!

I can still think like I used to, I still have my memories of being human. So I can't be an unthinking animal like I considered 'them' to be.

And then there is that red wolf bio-morph, the one in the kennel across from me and how he acted to me, how he encouraged me to eat and helped me learn to walk again.

No dumb animal would do such a thing for another of their kind, especially if they had a better use for them like mating.

I look down at my paw like hands, my bushy tail, my weird looking feet and legs and wonder if I was wrong about what 'they' were and what it says about what 'I' am now.

I am not Jack Strader anymore, well physically anyway. I was male then and not some big breasted vixen bio-morph.

But I will be damned before I give the name up! I am still 'me' even if that me has body that would give my friend a hard on if it wasn't covered in fur.

As long as I hold onto my name and memories I should be able to survive this until I can find a way to escape.

But what about the rest of these bio-morphs? Oh god, did I degrade some poor soul of a person stuck in the same situation I am in right now only because they also could not talk and looked like an upright standing animal?

And that red wolf bio-morph, what did he think of me? Every time he helped me all he got was a growl in return.

If it wasn't for him forcing me to pay attention to him I might have let myself starve to death. If it wasn't for him showing me by demonstration I might not have learned how to walk upright, or at least sparing me the nightmare of having that fat bastard or the bitch try to teach me.

On top of that he even tried to respect my modesty since to be frank if the I was still male and I was across from a naked chick I would stare if she was sitting like I was in front of those bowls before I ate.

If I ever see him again I am going to properly thank him somehow, I owe him a lot.

With a whine and my ears and tail drooping I crawl over to the cot and climb up onto it to lay down, I hold my tail in my hands while idly stroking it.

But that still leaves me right back to the same question, what am I? And what are they really?

I know from the fact sheets in High-school when we learned about them that forty percent or less of the D.N.A., depending on the model, is human. The rest is of the animal they closely resemble.

So in a few short months they robbed me of well over half of my humanity and replaced it with that of a vulpine vixen.

So does that make me Vixen Jack? God that makes me sound like some sort of heroine.

Yet it is a very descriptive name for me now, I'm still Jack Strader but I am also a vixen now, no matter how much I want to deny the fact that I have the parts to be one.

Petting my tail has calmed me down a little. I am still amazed at how the sensations of doing this can feel so good.

Yet I am to worked up to actually fall asleep after that meal. Which just leaves me with my thoughts.

I end up staring at the terminal and it makes me wonder if I can get it to do something else? I'll check that idea out later, for now I get back up and pace a bit more slowly simply to burn off energy and try to make myself tired enough to fall asleep.

After a while I notice that the construction of this converted container is not as good as it first appeared.

The shelving unit they put in seems to be that cheap pressed saw dust into laminated boards which are in turn screwed together to make them, and in turn the whole unit is bolted onto the container in the same way as the terminal.

The lamination is not that good on the bottom left shelf, laying on the floor and reaching in I can get my new claws under the lamination and carefully pull it off. This makes me smile.

I can use this! So I make a mental note of it for later and continue my investigations.

All the fixtures and limited furnishings are securely bolted with absolutely no give or way to get a good grip with anything other than a proper tool.

The terminal in turn seems to be in a thermo sealed clamshell plastic case with a small capacitive touch screen display inlay, constructed in such a way that I can't get anything under it nor any vents to gain access.

I have opened similar things to this but back then I had the proper tools allowing me to open it without breaking the case, without those any tampering would be obvious.

Power comes from a cord running inside the wall of the container, so to get at it from outside of the terminal I would have to rip open the walls.

A more through examination of the back of the container yields a little more than I noticed earlier, the plastic divider is more flimsy than I thought and seems to be the type of plastic that gets brittle with age.

The faucet and sink are a single piece of metal bolted to the wall and floor so other than making me feel more civilized they hold no interest. Yet the largest thing I find is in the fridge.

Its shelves can be removed giving me access to the back door, which I assume is used to supply it with food without walking in the front door and around the bio-worker.

Maybe if I can find something flat and thin I could stick it through the insulation strip and trip the latch to gain access to whats on the other side of the metal wall.

I put the shelves back into the fridge and walk back over to the cot as it's the only thing left in here.

A square metal tube frame with a solid piece of sheet metal welded onto it, both the eyelets that the chain connects to on the cot are also welded on.

But the padding is only kept on with adhesive and that said adhesive is a little thin on the side of the padding next to the wall, I also take note of this as I yawn.

I don't know if it is from boredom or fatigue, it doesn't really mater as I take it as a sign to try to sleep.

So I lay down on the padding laying my head on one of my arms as my other draws up my legs and tail before closing my eyes. Sleep soon overtakes me.

Once again I am awakened by a loud noises, only this time it sounds like something is being attached to the storage container I am in.

The noise comes from one corner before I hear someone walking to another corner and repeating the process with the other two corners.

I must be at my new owner's because it sounds like they are about to lift this off the semi trailer truck.

With the complete loss of power that plunges me into darkness comes the confirmation of my theory shortly before I feel the whole container being lifted.

It doesn't last long as I hear the clang as it is set down on something, so I get up and walk on over to the door to see if It has been unlocked. It hasn't.

A second later I ear the sound of pneumatic impact hammers bolting my housing container in place along with something else by the sounds of it.

My ears swivel towards the sound of someone, no multiple people walking up metal stairs followed by approaching my door on what sounds like a metal gangway.

Instinctively, and quite surprisingly to myself I fluff out my fur and take a few steps back upon hearing someone removing the lock on the outside of my door.

Daylight nearly blinds me as someone opens my housing container's door fully while also allowing crisp fall air to rush inside. Boy do I miss my clothes.

"Oh she's perfect. The pictures didn't do her coat coloration justice, she'll be a good replacement for our former Kitsune Waitress." As my eyes adjust to the bright sunlight I see the person who just said that is an elderly Japanese man in a business suit, the slate blue color looks closer to black when contrasted against the bright sunlight behind him. White and gray hairs top his head in a short and loose hairstyle.

It's his face I don't like, the smiles is that of someone looking pleased at seeing a newly bought expensive sports car and not looking at a thinking person. Then again, I was no better till recently.

To his right stands a much younger man of a more western looking decent, yet with traces of general Japanese features. The old man's son maybe?

His suit is a tan color, and it looks of equal quality compared to the old man's suit.

Raven black hair with some hints of brown lay combed flat on his head from front to back and ending in a small ponytail.

This man's look makes my fur bristle a little, it's not the look of a happy man, it is a more calculating gaze and I watch as he examines me from head to toe from where he is standing.

He has not even said a word and I already dislike this person.

And on the left of the old man is what I can only describe as the perfect example of a red fox Bio-morph male.

Nearly as tall as the younger human which puts him about a foot taller than I am, he stands there with an air of confidence and authority that I have not seen exhibited by a Bio-morph before.

Most of his head is covered in deep rust red fur that looks thick glossy, a snow white patch of fur runs from his chin and down his through and I would assume down to his belly if he was not wearing clothes.

Which is a full kimono with stylized waterfalls printed onto the fabric in a repeating pattern. But standing in stark contrast to it is a metallic gray half in thick bracelet loosely attached around one of his wrists.

He looks over at the old and younger man with his coal black tipped ears erect and focused on them.

Apparently the young man soon tires of examining me from a distance and leaves the other two without a word as he walks back down the gangway without saying a word to them even as the old man glances over as I listen to the sounds of the young man walking over to the stairs and then down them at a reasonable pace.

Shaking his head with a sigh he looks back at the bio-morph next to him.

He smiles and places his hand on the shoulder of the male fox. "I leave her in your care, get her dressed and show her how to put a kimono on. Then take her to the other waitresses and have them start to train her. I expect her to be waiting tables by tomorrow, and then ready for private services by the end of the week." The old man speaks calmly but with a tone of authority to the red fox bio-morph male who in turn makes a short and quick bark as an answer.

With that he lets go and goes to follow the younger man, as soon as he is out of sight the red fox bio-morph approaches me.

His steps determined, and his gaze indifferent his advancement on my position causes me to back up reflexively but I don't have anywhere to go.

Soon I have my back against the metal wall and my tail curled up between my legs covering my crotch as my ears lay flat back.

He doesn't care though, he just looks down at me and his eyes and face structure just screams authority before his hand shoots out and grabs me by the upper right arm and starts to drag me out of the shipping container.

I grab onto his arm to try to make him let me go, the second my hand makes contact with his forearm he stops dead in his tracks and looks back at me.

His ears are now flat back with a snarl on his face and a growl growing in his throat, yet his tail only shows a tiny bit of expression by barely even twitching.

Before I even get a chance to return the growl he hits me across my snout with the back of his other hand which surprises me, but what frightens me is that I am then pushed up against the wall as he bares his teeth closing down on my neck.

<chapter 3 end>

The thought that he is going to kill me runs through my mind before I realize that his teeth have not broken any skin, he is just clamping his jaws down with just enough pressure to be painful but not damaging.

I struggle to get a good grip on him by grabbing at what ever body part I can reach but he just puts his whole body into pinning me against the wall, and I soon realize he has raised me off the floor thus preventing me from struggling any further.

He just growls at me all through this and after a few minutes I feel the urge to whimper and whine, and as much as I don't want to do it a high pitched whine escapes from my throat along with a feeling that I must submit.

His jaw slackens and releases my throat after I let it out and he lets me fall to my feet resulting in me standing naked with my back to the wall while a larger red fox bio-morph male stands mere inches away staring me down.

I guess I have to call him something and bastard is taken by one of the people back at where ever I was changed, red maybe? He's a red fox bio-morph so it fits doesn't it?

Red's gaze screams to me. 'Don't test me. I'm in charge, not you' while his ears stand upright and focused on me.

I meet his gaze with my own while my ears are half cocked and tail twitching wildly, it takes a lot of effort on my part to keep myself from snarling or growling at him. Actions that seem to be coming more easily to me day by day when ever I get angry.

This simple fact makes me wonder that while the physical changes have finished, maybe the mental ones have not. It scares me more than this guy's jaws on my neck did.

He points to the exit of my shipping container residence before letting out a yip and a bark, both a different pitch and tone.

The pointing makes it obvious what he wants yet I am still curious as to what the sounds mean, Bio-morphs can't speak any human languages. The mouth and throat structures aren't shaped for it.

And there is no evidence suggesting that they have formed their own language either.

Yet that certainty goes out the window when red makes another yip and bark with the exact same pitches and tones as last time.

I watch his face as I take a gamble. I want to know if what I suspect is true, can they actually speak but not with human words and sounds. A language of animal calls and bestial sounds instead?

So I stand my ground so to speak by looking at him as I tilt my head to the side a little with my ears forward and facing him while keeping my tail still. He drops his hand and then looks at me almost mirroring the look.

What comes next helps to shatter my education on the mater as well as what the public has been told about them. Red makes very slow yips, barks, murls, and a single whine while pointing at me, then himself, then the door.

If I had to guess he just asked me if I understood that he wanted me to go outside, but I don't move. I only continue to look at him with my head tilted.

His eyes go wide as I think he realizes I can't understand him, I hope thats what he thinks, instead of thinking I am some brain dead bimbo.

I watch as red runs a hand through the fur on his head before quickly looking outside of my container. Once he seems satisfied about what ever he is checking on he walks back over to me while pulling something out of a pocket inside his kimono.

He holds in his hands a small pad of paper and pencil, both look more suited for jotting down a small note rather than anything else.

The only reason why he has that is if he knows how to write. I didn't know you could teach them how.

But write he does, with deliberate speed he scribbles something on one page before holding it in front of my face, it simply asks, 'Can you read this?' in nicer hand writing than I would expect a bio-morph to have.

I nod in reply as I mirror his earlier surprised look. He huffs though, flips the page, and then scribbles more down before showing it to me again.

'Follow me please, you must do what he says' Red quickly pockets the pad and pencil before walking out of my container, I follow a few feet behind him sensing that drawing this out longer may not be the best idea.

The gangway looks like a larger version of those old style fire escapes with the wrought iron mesh for the floor and the post n rail railing.

My feet's pads easily fit in the holes in the mesh making walking on it only slightly uncomfortable if I am not careful in where I place my feet.

Looking around I see that all the residential containers are set up in a stack six wide and two high, mine sits on the end of the top row.

Red leads me all the way to the other end of the row and then down the stairs to the blacktop surface.

Like most companies that purchase Bio-morphs the entire back area of the business has been fenced off to create an enclosed area for them to live in.

The fence consisting of thick chain link wire runs from the stack of residential containers to the side of the building on either side forming an open courtyard of a dozen yards if I had to guess.

Lining the top of the fence is your typical razor wire coils preventing a simple escape from climbing over.

I also notice that where ever this place is, it is in the middle of a city of reasonable size considering the average size of the buildings surrounding it.

As for the condition of those buildings, it seems the one directly behind the one we are heading too is in the middle of being renovated while the ones to the sides are occupied with offices.

Speaking of buildings, the one that we are heading too seems to look a bit out-of-place compared to the rest of them.

A three story traditional styled Japanese building with each higher floor slightly smaller than the one bellow it.

The jade green tiled roof on each level is set at a sloping angle while the corners are upturned making the building seem like an artifact from ancient japan.

But the similarities with those old buildings end there, modern square multi-story construction can be seen peeking through here and there between the fake red and white lacquered wood paneling on the walls and around the standard tempered glass windows. The sheet metal door we are approaching doesn't help with the style either.

That door is the only entrance into the building inside the fenced in area and it isn't even painted to match the theme of the building.

After crossing the court yard red presses a buzzer on the door frame before a click is heard. He just pushes the door open with his other hand.

Makes sense that there is no door handle on this side as you could break it and then get access to the door latch mechanism.

He holds the door open for me and waves me inside the establishment, not that I needed any encouragement. Thick fur or not it's a bit chilly outside and I rather be somewhere warmer.

Once inside red lets the door close behind him, inside is a stark contrast to the outside.

While the outside tried to look like an old style Japanese building, just on the other side of the door is a modern restaurant kitchen, pantry, and walk in refrigerators.

I don't have time to linger and look about, red barks lightly to get my attention before nearly pulling me through the kitchen and around the human cooks to where the wait staff are congregating before the day starts.

That area being a sparsely decorated room off to the side of the kitchen area and out of sight of the front area.

The simple metal door swings open on self closing hinges from a simple push by red as he stands aside to allow me to enter first. Once through, he lets the door swing shut behind him.

All the bio-morphs this place owns are either sitting on simple benches or dressing themselves with no dividers between the genders, even though its obvious females are on one side and males are on another.

All along the walls are what looks like lockers with the doors removed where the bio-morphs are retrieving or storing their work clothes.

Red walks past me and up to a different red fox Bio-morph female that is almost the same size as he is and I quickly realize that she must be the alpha female.

Her fur is similarly patterned to red, except the white fur area's are larger. Coming up to just under her eyes on her head.

Instead of rust shade of red for the rest of her fur she has more of an orange red coloration, and just like red she too is dressed in a kimono. Only hers has Chery blossoms on it.

As they talk in what I figure is a type of language for the bio-morphs only, a language consisting various animal sounds in various pitches I take some liberty to glance around.

We are not the only fox bio-morphs here, ten out of the twelve owned by this place are vulpine based with the remaining two are a Siamese cat based one and a brown rat. Both are male.

The foxes are more diverse, five including me are female, the other five including Red are male.

Each of the males are red fox bio-morphs but they are at least a half a head smaller than red, and they are dressed in more of an ancient samurai style of clothing.

As for the females, I am the only gray-platinum Silver in the group. There is one gray fox bio-morph female but personally I don't think gray fits because even they have bits of red fur.

The other two are completely black and white respectively and each of them are more interested in putting on kimono's in a similar style to the alpha female than me.

It hits me that the only ones in here that are not dressing up in traditional Japanese garb other than me are the feline and the rat.

The rat seems to be taking off a full body overall that seems stained while the feline seems to be putting on a clean one, I think they may be used as janitors and the rat seems to be getting off of his shift.

A sudden and more feminine yip grabs my attention, looking at the source I see it is the Alpha Female and wait, is that a look of sympathy on her face?

I don't have time to dwell on it as red walks on over to pull me out of in front of the doorway and over to him and her. It's then I notice next to the Alpha Female is a box with a folded kimono and an open tracking bracelet similar to the ones the rest of them wear.

The Alpha Female picks it up and hands it to me while Red barks out at the other males in the room. The Siamese cat has already walked past and out the door.

So I am supposed to put this on myself and willingly trap myself here? You know I can just toss this across the room and make a run for it.

Either she is psychic or had a good guess as to what I was thinking, because before I know it the Alpha Female grabs it and my arm and slaps it closed around my right wrist causing it to activate.

I yank my arm away from her loose grasp and try to tug or otherwise remove it while everyone else files out of the room behind me other than Red and the Alpha Female.

Red stands in front of the door blocking my path out of the room while the Alpha Female gives me a sympathetic look before saying something in yips and light barks pointing at herself.

She then points at Red and makes some barking noises before looking at me as if she is expecting me to say something. After a few minutes she looks at Red with a surprised look to which he only nods.

Okay I now get it, that was a test. Red must have told her I can't understand their language and she did not believe it.

Still it doesn't require me to understand their language to know we are on a time limit and they both have to have me out and learning my new 'life' so to speak.

To this point Red taps me on my shoulder and when I turn to look at him he shows me the notepad again. 'We can teach you later, let my mate dress you so we can train you before the masters get angry.'

Yea I am still having trouble grasping the fact I have a master that completely owns me now, the thought makes my ears and tail droop, and yet they are right.

No need to get them in trouble for 'my' problems, so I walk back over to the Alpha Female and nod to her before turning around and holding my arms out from my sides.

I have to say I know nothing about putting on such a garment and it shows because the Alpha Female gently pushes my hands down and hands me some undergarments, panties and a tube style sports bra.

Both of which I quickly put on although the latter I had to have help from her, during which I feel as if another part of my former self dying. Another nail in the coffin of my masculinity.

Putting on clothing with tail holes is also an interesting experience in its self.

As for the kimono it's actually a lot simpler than I expected when I first saw it, though on second though it makes sense as I know ornate ones can cost thousands of dollars and why would you spend that money on a slave?

Other than folding some parts of it the piece of clothing is almost as simple as putting on a robe and tyeing a cloth belt around my still disturbingly curvy waist.

Red exits the room while the Alpha Female does some minor adjustments to the kimono, once finished she holds out her hand in such a manner that she wants me to grasp it.

When I do so she gives me a vulpine smile and gently leads me out of the room and back into the kitchen area and back into the sounds of a busy morning for a restaurant.

The noise and the smells are almost overwhelming to my new senses, the clanging pans, the running faucets, the cooking food and the yelling of the cooks to each other. And as for the food, other than a few Asian dishes I can't recognize it looks pretty standard for breakfast food.

As we walk through the kitchen to the front area she picks up a couple wrist mounted touch screen systems and places one on her empty forearm while helping me secure the other on my forearm.

Stepping outside of the kitchen is almost like stepping back in time, the decor changes modern stainless steel and glass into a large room taken almost directly out of ancient japan.

It's divided into two sections by a wall made up of wood and rice paper along with rice paper doors allowing access between the sections from the front of the room and the back.

In the section we are standing in booths line the walls with lacquered wood dividers between them depicting exquisite artwork. And each booth has the traditional low standing table and cushions instead of chairs.

The tables set out in neat rows in the middle of the room are also of the same height but instead of cushions they have low sitting chairs that I can't tell if they are made out of ebony or a wood stained to look like it.

The only normal hight furniture that I see is on the other side of the rice paper wall along with signs indicating it's the disabled seating area. Guess that makes sense as a person in a wheel chair or with prosthetic legs would not find it easy or even possible to sit in the traditional Japanese manner.

I also notice that the front entrance to this building is in this section and it seems that Red is manning the station and directing the rest of the wait staff to seat and take care of the customers.

The Alpha Female gently guides me through the room, weaving us around the other wait staff and morning customers up to Red and the podium he is standing behind. He just gives a single nod when he sees me.

All my experience up to this point with humans in this new body has been limited to either the bastards that changed me, the veterinarian that took care of me, or the shipper who stuck me in my residential container.

Now I get to serve them while the Alpha Female shows me how to do the job I was bought for and learn first hand how the upper society treats bio-morphs.

Dread starts to well up as I stand there with the Alpha Female, dread that I did not realize I was feeling until now as Red hands off harder and larger groups of customers to the others along with menus, all the while waiting for an easy one to arrive to serve as my training.

I realize that as he enters the building, and before Red hands him off to me and the Alpha Female for my training that my first customer in my new life would be this slightly past middle aged business man in an office suit with the look of morning fog still on his face.

The surreal feeling of the entire situation causes me to blindly follow and watch as the Alpha Female demonstrates the proper way to guide the customer to a free table.

'This really can't be happening' is the only thing I can think of as the part of me who is still Jack Strader speaks up in my mind, and as I think this I watch that part of this new life will be to physically help the customer into the seat. If they can't manage it on their own.

I am also not so blind as to not notice the man using the closeness to the Alpha Female to feel her up either.

She doesn't even flick an ear in response, If it was me I would barely be able to contain my rage at the idiot.

After seating him and while he looks through the menu the Alpha Female points to the wrist mounted touch screen on my arm and then to the menu and the person sitting there.

I do so and without a sound the touch screen turns on displaying rows and columns of images depicting the various dishes that can be ordered at this time, as well as an image from the vantage point of the device of the person I am serving.

So this is how it's done, seems like an overly complex system simply because people don't want literate bio-morphs.

But the Alpha Female is not done, she then gently takes my arm and moves it so the device also takes a picture of my new face, which shows up next to the customer's.

If I had to guess it would be for the cooks to know who to give the completed order too since none of us have names either, well officially anyway. Wait, that would only work for the waitresses. The male wait staff look very similar so how would they tell them apart?

As for the customer, when he is ready to order he points to the picture next to the written description of the meal and I press the matching picture on the wrist mounted device before the Alpha Female shows me that step.

The screen on it goes blank except for my picture and the number one sitting next to it.

If it wasn't for the business man feeling up Alpha as I think I should call her now for short, then what he does next would have shocked and surprised me.

He gently takes her hand and guides her, without her protesting, to sit on his lap. It reminds me of paying a lap dancer to do the same thing. Only Alpha is not moving at all and allowing the guy to touch her head and back freely.

Alpha shakes her head at me and it's only then I notice that my ears are flat against my head from what this guy is doing. So I have to force them back up despite my mood. So it's just like when humans did this, a false face of happiness is required.

Only failure to do so carries more serious consequences than simply loosing a job for me.

And then the device starts to vibrate strongly on my arm causing me to jump letting out a yip as my tail bristles. And in response the businessman and Alpha laugh and yip amusedly respectively.

Alpha gracefully stands and directs me back into the kitchen and through the way we entered the front room.

"Hey you, number twenty! Order up!" A cook yells at both of us over the kitchen noise and slides the plate of food down the counter and in front of Alpha and me.

Not that it is hard to mistake him for anyone else than the cook, A middle aged Hispanic man decked out in a white food stained apron with a hair-net and disposable plastic gloves.

His face is clean shaved but covered in sweat from working over hot burners and around hot ovens. The way he looks at me screams that he thinks of me more an object than a person.

Alpha then picks up a tray from the nearby stack of them and hands it to me to put the plate on.

No need for directions on this part, I just have to take the food to the customer and then go off to do something else hopefully.

So I place the warm plate onto the tray and carefully take it over to the businessman with a fake look and attitude of happiness, not that he noticed anyway as he doesn't even look at me as I place the plate on the table.

But I was mistaken, Alpha as soon as the businessman was served took me back to the front podium where red was still greeting customers and handing them off to the other bio-morphs.

And with Red handing over the next set of customers to me, an elderly rich couple, my day moved on. They were by far the nicest people I have met in the day, they looked at me and talked to me like I was a real person and even though I could not talk back they were patient.

By about the fifth customer Alpha stopped shadowing me so I guess I am working to her and the place's satisfaction. Curiously, just about after noon I watch while waiting for another customer to server that Alpha leads a group of businessmen in power suits, no not the mechanical kind, through the handicapped section and up a set of stairs.

The only times I see her again until nightfall are to come down and get food, or lead the now mostly drunk businessmen back down in a semi disheveled state.

I am curious to find out what went on, yet dreading the fact that I am going to get the answer sooner rather than later via a first hand experience.

According to the clock quiting time for the bio-morph day crew, and I still don't like calling myself 'that', ends up being about ten at night with what I guess is a sunrise start of about eight or so the next morning.

I have never been so tired in my entire life, my feet are nearly numb and my second knee joint which was my ankle when I was human is sore.

We all shuffle back into that room and I find that I have my own little door-less locker with my picture above it.

Without a grumble of protest about this even mentally I just slip off the kimono along with the undergarments and hang them up. As touchscreen device? I just pull it off and hang it up as well.

From there its just following the rest back to the residential containers, I do notice that the Red and Alpha seem to share the same one. Wonder what is in the spare one?

Thats not my priority though, my main one is to get into my own container, turn the heat up a little, and lay down on the cot because I NEED to get off my feet.

I ignore and pass by the rest of the others as I go up the stairs and over to the end where my door seems to have been closed by someone during the day.

It's unlocked of course because none of them 'have' locks. No right to privacy of course, after all we are just animals right?

I pull the door shut behind me and limp over to the controls to bring the inside into the seventies. Then with a short hope I collapse onto the padded bunk that is my bed.

The sigh I let out when I get off my feet escapes me with no resistance as I pull my legs up and rub my lower knee joint and my feet. I am either not used to the exertion or my legs haven't gotten used to even standing for so long.

All I know is that tomorrow is going to be even harder if I am in any sort of pain come morning.

Once my hands rub feeling back into my feet I decide to see if they put anything into my fridge during the day.

When I open it my ears and tail droop. What I see is better than that dry kibble, but not by much.

Bottled water and plastic containers that with some examination of the label and a quick sniff seem to contain a wet version of that damned kibble.

If it wasn't for the fact that this will be the only food I will be getting while I am here I would throw all this out the door and try to get back into the restaurant to have some of the food in there.

So I grab a bottle and one of the containers before limping back over to the cot to sit down and eat my meager meal.

What can I say about the water bottle? It's some off brand bottle water from some supermarket chain, the food though tastes as it smells and looks. A moist and more low quality meat taste than the dry stuff.

At least they give me enough water to wash the taste of the food out of my mouth.

A single carton is enough to sate my hunger but not make me feel full and satisfied. Yet what it does do is help ease my soreness and help me relax enough to at least sleep lightly.

I wake up to the sound of my door opening and as I look sit up and look to see who it is I notice it's Red and Alpha, They close the door behind them before quickly turning on the lights.

Neither of them are dressed putting me in a more nervous mood especially when I can't really help but notice the equipment red has that was taken from me. So I try to not look down their.

Sitting up on my cot I lean back against the wall it is attached too allowing Alpha a place to sit next to me. Red moves to sit cross legged on the floor.

Alpha places something in my lap and I look down to see what it is, it's a pad and paper similar to what Red had earlier.

I did not even notice her carrying it, I must have been too distracted by how this new body is wired so to speak.

Picking it up I look over at Alpha and Red, Alpha nods once while Red points to it and pantomimes writing.

So you want me to write something so we can communicate? Okay. I write down 'Why are you here?' in shaky and barely legible script, then I show it to them.

They both reach for it but Alpha gently pushes Red's hand away and takes the pad, she flips the page and writes on the back of the one I wrote.

I watch her write clearly and cleanly, better than even my handwriting when I was human.

Alpha then turns the pad so I can read it 'You are not the first converted to arrive here, but they are rare. We know what ever happened to you to change you was traumatic, we came to help you. Teach you how to speak again and help you adjust to this new life.'

By the time I am done reading it my tail is twitching wildly and my ears are flat back while I am starting to form a snarl. Neither of them react in any way to this other than just watching me.

Traumatic! Ha! You Bitch, you don't know the half of it! I was tricked, I was drugged.

My gender was taken from me. My body was irreversibly altered against my will!

Worst of all I have been treated like some animal, so don't you try to downplay this as just being a 'traumatic', it has been almost absolute hell!

If I could write better with these half paw, half hand things I would put that down for them to read.

Instead I put down in the limited space on the pad with my poor script. 'Not traumatic, Hell. Not female, MALE. Don't want to be here!'

Writing that down forced me to concentrate and in the process calm down enough to only have my ears pined against my head in anger. As for the pad? I toss it and the pencil on the floor between the two not caring who picks it up.

Red manages to get it before Alpha and I watch as his ears and tail go from calm, too surprised, too sadness. Before handing it over to Alpha he moves his tail to cover his visible sheath. Yea I didn't want to lose that either.

Alpha upon reading keeps her shocked expression as she looks at it, then at me, before flipping the page and scrawling more words down at a more frantic pace than before.

Alpha then holds the pad out for me to read. 'Are you serious? You were male before they changed you?' I just nod while keeping my ears flat. If I ever meet Joe Snyder again I am going to rip his balls off and see how he likes it!

As I play the mental image of me, while still in this form, slowly removing Joe's family jewels with newly sharpened claws. Alpha speaks with Red.

Their quite lively chat is only broken up by one or the other looking at me.

Finally Alpha hands the pad and pencil over to Red who writes something down and then shows me. 'That is the first time we have heard of this happening when someone is converted. I understand now why you acted the way you did earlier, I thought you were merely someone who did not understand they were no longer on top of a pack. Do you accept my apology?'

Glancing up at his face I just look at him blankly as I consider nodding in acceptance.

On the one hand he severally scared me by bitting down on my neck, I thought he was going to rip it out and I was going to die right then and there.

But on the other hand I know most bio-morphs operate in a pack like structure by design to make them easier to handle, and I definitely felt an instinctual urge to submit when he did that. An urge that scares me when thinking about it.

Will I do that despite my will every time someone grabs my neck in such a way?

In the end I just sigh and give him a short nod, as soon as I do I hear him and Alpha let out a breath I did not know they were holding.

Red hands the pad to Alpha who takes a slower and more thoughtful approach to what she writes down. What she has to say takes most of the page.

'This is worse than we thought. We had planned on just having to spend early mornings like this to teach you to speak the tongue, our language, but the change in your gender complicates things. You may be serving food only right now, but yesterday was a Monday. By Saturday our masters will want you also serving customer's special needs. What you saw yesterday morning with your first customer was the most mild thing you will be expected to do upon request. When you are selected for a private service, either for a group or a single customer, they are allowed to do what they want with you short of actually mating you with their member or causing physical injury. It's awkward enough to teach those who aren't changed like you to accept it, for you I don't know what to say or do.'

Alpha then hands it to me, my hands act without thought and take the pad and pencil as my mind catches up with what I read.

When it does I bring my knees up to my chest and wrap my tail around my feet, when I thought things were bad enough they just get worse.

Wait, what if I refuse to do that? Maybe I can just wait tables and sit in perverts laps and leave the rest of that stuff to the others?

I write those exact thoughts down on the pad. My pride gets a bit of a boost as I notice my writing becoming cleaner with such short practice, I guess you never really forget how to ride a bike so to speak.

When finished I hold out the pad in front of me in such a way that they both can see what I wrote down.

Red just looks away as Alpha frowns as much as the vulpine muzzle allows as she takes the pad and rapidly dulling pencil quickly out of my hands.

Not even wanting to watch Alpha write her reply I just stick my muzzle down between my knees and whine as I get a face full of my bosom.

An annoyed bark makes me raise my head back up a few minutes later allowing me to see her reply.

'As much as we would like to make that arrangement until you are confident enough in your new body to withstand such, intrusions. That is not our decision to make, if you do not comply then our masters will try to 'make' you comply. If you harm the customers then you just disappear, we do not know what happens with them.'

Yea, thats what I suspected but did not want to believe. But there is nothing like staring at the cold hearted truth written in graphite on lined paper.

Alpha tries to pass the note pad to Red but he shakes his head, Alpha writes some more and lets me see it.

'I don't know how to make you comfortable enough in your own fur to survive what you are going to have to go through. I have no idea what you're going through either, I was born female, Mauri was born male. I have no clue as to how it would feel to suddenly be like him and I would guess he would act like you if he became like me. The one thing I can do is help you with any questions, and show you how to handle your new body. Stuff like controlling your ears and tail so they don't automatically broadcast your mood. As well as teaching you to speak so we don't have to waste time like this.'

Mauri? Who's that? After she hands me the pad and pencil I write exactly that, Alpha's only answer is to point to Red.

So that's his name, wait who gives bio-morphs a name? Sigh, it doesn't matter, I am still going to call him Red.

Still I wonder why he has the same name as this place.

She writes some more down on another blank sheet, then slides the pad and pencil next to me. I look at it and it is a simple question.

'What was your name before all of this? I don't want to call you Twenty. Your better than a number.' If I could still smile, I would.

I just take the pad and paper and write 'Jack Strader' in as neat of a script as I can manage right now with my hand. Alpha takes it and nods after reading it over.

The first two words they teach me in their language is my name.

Red glances over at the control console and then lets out a yip, he suddenly stands and points at the clock on it before quickly heading out of my residential container.

As he opens the door sunlight streams in like yesterday, Alpha glances at the time as well before gently trying to get me to stand.

When I refuse too she quickly takes the pad and pencil from my grasp and jots down. 'We are going to be late if we do not hurry!'

The thought of what happens to a disobeying bio-morph is just enough for me to get to my feet and allow myself to be dragged by Alpha into the restaurant.

This is going to be a rough day. Not only am I hungry since I did not have a chance to eat, but I am also filled with dread at what I am supposed to do.

I have not even worked up the courage to explore my new body and now I am going to have to get used to others manhandling it.

And I doubt the scant few days until they expect me to do it at the end of the week I will be anywhere near ready.

<chapter 4 end>

Once inside I follow the others and Alpha to the dressing room and quickly get myself into the uniform, the bra is easier to put on this time.

The wrist mounted touch screen easily slips back onto my forearm, though if you asked me what it felt like I would say it felt like a shackle.

With it on I step out of the kitchen and into the restaurant proper, easily following the rest of Bio-Morphs to the front podium where red is already dressed and greeting the first customers.

As I am waiting my turn I get this distinct feeling that someone is staring at me, I can't tell from who or where so I glance around the room.

None of the few customers already in the building are looking at me, neither are the old man and the younger one who I recognize as my 'owners' as they sit in a booth talking. Wonder what they are talking about.

Only when I look at our little group of bio-morphs and notice it is one of the male waiters just standing their watching me.

The kimono checks out as I double check to see if I put it on right, same with the underwear.

If I smell there is nothing I can really do about it as my residence container lacks a shower and I did not have time to even use the sink to try to clean anything.

No, what he was looking at was my figure and how the cheap kimono shows it off, I finally realize that as I find nothing wrong with anything that can cause someone to stare at me.

Shivering, thats what I feel like doing now as I still feel his gaze on me as I pick up my first customer's for the day.

To be frank I am glad for it to be my turn as it stops him from ogling me, but at least I now know what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

Also as luck would have it the nearest free table I am able to sit the customer, a twenty-something trust fund kid, is right next to the old man and the young man that are my 'owners' as well as the restaurant's.

As I take the rich snob's order I tilt an ear in their direction to listen in. Heh, I guess there are some upsides to this body.

"Look dad, I don't care if you feel emotionally attached to some of them, they are not pets. They are animal's with just enough intelligence to be taught a few things and to follow commands. You got lucky that you bought one that could be taught to write a few simple phrases, but just because Mauri can do it doesn't make him smart. You just have something similar to those sign language gorillas from fifty years ago."

So it was the old man who taught Red how to write, and then Red taught alpha maybe? Amazing.

Just a few short months ago I would've agreed with his son, now I want to punch him.

Dammit this guy is taking a long time to decide what he wants for breakfast. Happy thoughts, must think happy thoughts if I get angry at a customer with the owners right over their I am finished.

"Now look here Christopher, I raised him just like I raised you. So I know full well what he can and can't do. He has been working this position for years and is one of the best I have ever had doing it, yes even better than some of the human workers I had before this whole bio-worker craze hit. You have no chance to replace him while I still own the place, and even when I retire the agreement you signed forbids you from replacing him unless he is injured or he dies."

So the younger owner is named Christopher, and he doesn't like Red while the old man does? This is interesting but I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing to know.

Yet if Christopher gets his way who is he going to replace Red with?

Wait, that's what you want? You were about to order that but then told me to hold on for a second you trust fund low life! I mentally sigh as I enter his order into the device as well as my picture before waiting for the device to buzz to tell me to get his food.

Lucky for me both father and son are talking loud enough that I can pick them up while I wait for another customer to serve as my first customer's food is cooked.

"Dad you have to admit I nearly doubled the amount of customers served when I convinced you to ditch the hand writing note system and use the state of the art Bio-morph food ordering system. As it stands right now Mauri is the bottleneck in the new system, he takes far too long to assign people to workers and customers to tables." He sighs and pauses for a few minutes. "How about you take Mauri with you? You payed off the financing on him years ago, just take him and have him help take care of you and mom at that nice log cabin you bought in Colorado. Sixteen is mature enough to look nice and handsome in that uniform, not to mention with a modern id reader installed in the doorway the building's computer can handle everything, allowing him to stand there and look pretty. Nothing for him to mess up."

So thats what this is all about. It's a fight over the restaurant between a father who is about to retire, and a son who is wanting to take over.

And yet, I feel a bit scared at the prospect of Red being taken away. He seems nice after what I learned this morning. And if he goes I suspect he will want to take Alpha with him.

I wonder which one of the males is sixteen as the device vibrates and I go to pick up the trust fund yuppie's food.

When I place it on the table for him I consciously take a route so I can continue to listen in on the two.

"Replacing Mauri with Sixteen for that job would promote Sixteen to Alpha status in the eyes of the pack. By doing this you will cause chaos among the rest of the bio-morphs here, making them harder to control. Because not one of them will listen to Sixteen as they will view that he has not earned the position since Mauri did not give it to him. I also don't get why you are so dead set on removing him, we got him when you were still in grade school so you would grow up with him. He wasn't just some animal in your eyes when you were younger, but a close family pet. You two were inseparable."

And here I was thinking maybe the old man only had us because it was the only way to compete.

Being treated like a family pet would feel to me just as bad as being treated like an animal, the only difference is you have a human who coddles you like they would a child when even like this I can take care of myself.

They glance over at me as I pass by as I resist the urge to make eye contact.

"Dad that is because I learned more about Bio-Morphs when I went to college with the wealth of information they had on them." I do notice that Christopher glances at me as I pass by.

"As for who would be Alpha, I don't think it would be a wise idea to give any of them that kind of authority. I will be their Alpha as far as they should be concerned, they can just follow my orders."

The old mad does something I did not expect him to do as I pass by, he reaches over and gently taps my arm to grab my attention.

This stops me in my tracks and I turn to look at the old man curiously. What does he want?

"Number twenty, answer me a simple question. Would you be willing to follow my son Christopher and consider him an Alpha?"

He points to his son as he asks me. My response is fast and deceive, I just put my ears back and growl at him.

From what Red and Alpha told me about him being the one to enforce us to do our job I get the impression he is not to kind to Bio-morphs.

His cringing and backing up into his seat at my reaction makes me feel rather proud at how intimidating I can make myself now, go fangs and meat eating teeth!

"There is your answer son. No way you're going to keep this place running so well if you do that. Other than this silly idea of yours I do think you are doing an excellent job so far in running most of the day to day tasks. Keep it up and I might be able to retire soon." The old man glances back at me. "Thank you number twenty."

He gently waves me away and I take that opportunity to get away from the two and do something else, even if that means continuing to help customers as a slave to this place.

Other than that the rest of the day blended together into a homogeneous mass of customer after customer and retrieving food for them.

Gladly I was not expected to do anything else, yet I could not shake the feeling that it would happen sooner rather than later.

When I finally was able to get back to my residential container I scarfed down two of those cartons of wet feed along with another bottle of water as I sit on my cot and look about.

I do kind of see the appeal of this kind of work for people back before bio-morphs were doing it, meeting new people every day and all that.

Yet being forced to do it simply because of 'what' I am now makes it more humiliating than anyone can imagine, it's like looking into a posh house that used to be yours from the cold dark night outside.

Knowing what you had, you can never have again. And what you have now is nothing compared to that.

The thought makes me furious as my hackles raise and I growl while I throw the cartons against the wall followed by my fist.

I'm a person dammit! Not some eye candy vixen and I will do what ever it takes to at least regain a portion of person hood.

But first I need to get out of this place which is easier said than done and that requires both tools I don't have, and can't smuggle in bare fur, as well as knowing exactly where I am.

I am still in the United States, thats for sure. So the only way I can even remotely be considered a person is somehow head north to Canada.

They gave person-hood to Bio-morphs, which at the time when it passed I thought was silly. Right now, not so much.

If I am only a few states away from the northern boarder, then it's just a simple matter to get out of the city and stay away from populated areas until I cross it.

If I am closer to the Mexican boarder than the Canadian one, then I am pretty much shit out of luck.

I am getting ahead of myself. I can worry about where I am when I have the means to get out of this place.

And that means smuggling some knives so I can make the flaws I noticed into proper hiding places as well as working to get the other side of the fridge opened.

I have a feeling the container door on the other side is easy to unlock and open from the inside.

The bracelet shifts and the changed weight reminds me of its presence. Oh yes, that, I am going to have to figure out how to remove it.

Otherwise no matter where I run they will find me. I wonder how accurate it is though? Consumer grade tracking systems have error ranges in the tens if not hundreds of feet.

That could get me some leeway to explore the nearby buildings for other things of use, maybe something to open the case on the control console here?

Sighing I lay down on my cot after shutting off the lights, no real use getting so worked up mentally and physically this late.

Especially since I know Red and Alpha are going to visit me in the morning to try to teach me a few things.

Sleep doesn't come easy but I do eventually drift off into dreamland, only to be woken up again by someone opening the door to my residential container.

Upon opening my eyes I see it is actually only Alpha who is here with that same pad of paper and a pencil.

When she closes the door my lessons for Wednesday morning began over a breakfast of that crappy wet food.

And it passes by quicker than I would like when Red shows up later to inform us it's time to get started for the day work wise.

Still I took my first steps in learning how to speak what they call 'the tongue' past my own name, and I at least learned a couple of their words. One for help, and a greeting, giving me a starting point at least.

Other than that the day proceeds like the previous two. I help customers to their tables, take their orders, and bring their food.

By the end of the day I find that I feel less tired than I did the first day and yet still as hungry, so I guess I am getting used to the workload.

Yet I am happy, because I overheard in the process of serving customers the weather report.

An aggressive fall cold front is going to hit tomorrow with the distinct possibility of snow with it, which means we might be able to keep our uniforms on all the way back into our residential containers to keep us warm. Winter coat fur isn't the best protection despite how fluffy it is.

Which makes me wonder how bad I will shed when spring comes around. I guess I will find out when that time of year comes around.

Dinner is again the bland, carton based, wet food that so reminds me of the cheap canned food you could feed a dog or cat.

It is at least filling so I force myself to eat it as I just stare blankly at the wall. Funny how I sit here and miss stuff like television or the radio when I would just lay in my bed and be just as bored as I am now but with it on.

Great, only three days in and I am already getting bored and whining in my head about lacking the ability to watch TV!

I'm a freaking slave, I should have better things to worry about. My mind must be as messed up as my body.

Or the past three days in here has started to drive me crazy, which might be worse actually.

This night though I have a really good time sleeping. In fact I barely even remember when I did fall asleep, I just closed my eyes and the next thing I knew Red enters along with Alpha for Thursday's lessons.

Yet I can tell there is a difference from before, they have a more reserved look on their faces that makes me curious as I sit up and stretch.

I greet them in the tongue to practice the word, they greet me in turn before Alpha hands me what looks like a new pad of paper and sharpened pencil.

Written upon it are words that make my blood run cold. 'The owners, and especially the young son expects you to start handling the mild requests allowed on the first floor. Tomorrow and Saturday I will be teaching you to handle the private room sessions on the second and third floors.'

As that sets in Alpha sits down next to me on the cot while Red takes a place on the floor and covers his lap with his tail again.

We do our lessons today by either Alpha or Red writing a word on the pad and pointing at it while they speak it. Today's lesson? Pronouns, or what their language has of it.

They have more than just He or She, there are also versions in which you have to use when talking about someone of an Alpha rank.

When Alpha takes the pad next I realize the language lessons have ended for the day when she writes. 'Go sit on Mauri's lap Jack, I want to see your reaction to sitting on a male's lap and your reaction to what happens to him. Keep in mind that he is not going to touch you or do anything that the customer's will otherwise he won't be getting any for a week. I hope you can handle this because I can't always be there to help you.'

She places the pad and pencil on the cot between us, then with a loving touch of a mother she runs a hand-paw through my head fur and onto my back before gently encouraging me to stand.

I numbly do so as I loose all feeling in my legs out of fear of this simple act, I take the short few steps over to Red.

He looks at me with pity and compassion as I know for a fact that my face has the look of fear on it.

If it wasn't for him and Alpha gently guiding me to sit down I would've collapsed onto him as my legs give out.

Every possibility flashes through my mind from him just sitting there doing nothing, to Red grabbing me and showing just how much of a female I am now.

To Red's credit he does nothing, other than what would've happened to me if back when I was human male and a woman with my current proportions sat on my lap.

But I am that woman now, and 'feeling' that reaction freaks me out as I sit there. I last all of a few seconds before I bolt for the safety of the cot.

I don't notice that Alpha is glaring at Red who looking embarrassed as he covers his erect reaction to me sitting on his lap. My world has shrunk to my mind and body and how the latter reacted to it without the formers' permission.

This is weird, too weird. That shouldn't have felt good because I was sitting on another man's lap, only this is not a man's body anymore. The large mounds on my chest proudly display that fact to all who would look at me.

It's only when Alpha gently touches my shoulder do I become aware of the rest of the room again and that I am panting from what happened.

She then gently draws me into a hug that reminds me of my mother hugging me, she holds me there until I calm down. When she finally lets go she picks up the pad and uses it to tell me to try it again.

I want to say no. I want to flat out refuse to do this!

They can't understand how much I 'don't' want to do this. Yet I know I have to or something even worse will happen and I don't want to find out what that is.

So I stand up and again go to sit on Red's lap, and of course he has the exact same reaction. Only with a small whine.

Poor Red, I must be giving him one hell of a case of blue balls. I can sympathize with his pain even though I now posses the receiving version of that equipment.

And my body has the same 'weird to me' reaction to sitting there, a warmth and a tingling in the waist and lower area.

But I control myself better this time round by pushing down the urge to panic, and the longer I manage to do this the easier it gets.

Those physical feelings subside too, but it takes longer than the feeling of panic did.

And yet, the damage is done I think. That feeling I had as my body reacted to feeling Red's erection is stuck in my mind and makes me wonder.

Am I attracted to men now? Oh god I hope not! I can clearly remember being male and how it felt, and how I looked and.. The weird feelings return with a vengeance and the sheer panic of my fear of loosing myself drives me back to the cot.

And into a loose ball of whining and crying fur and flesh that is slowly drawn up into another calming hug from Alpha.

When I finally calm down enough to look around I find that Red is standing by the door, and Alpha is smiling at me while holding out the pad. 'You did about as well as I could have hoped by your second attempt Jack. Just do what you did to stay calm on Marui's lap before your second freak out and you should make it through the day alright. When our shift ends I would also like to talk to you about what caused you to freak out. It could help me deal with others who arrive in the state.'

With that Alpha helps me stand and by the time we enter the restaurant proper I'm physically back to normal, but mentally I am still in shock.

Did I just turn myself on by thinking about I used to look when I was human and male?

No, I'm not going to think about this. I am NOT attracted to men, I am STILL a guy in my head and I will be DAMNED if I will let this new body of mine rule my mind.

As I dress myself, and ignoring the looks from that one male Bio-morph, I make a realization.

If I make it through the day today with little to no reaction I can safely say that I am not attracted to men.

That what they did to my body has not, and will not, touch my mind and change who I was into this big breasted vixen!

When I finish dressing myself in the kimono uniform I head for the podium and stand behind Red with the rest of the wait staff waiting for the first few customers of the day.

Customers slowly trickle in due to the combination of the turning weather and the time of day, I have noticed that mornings are slow while dinners are hectic so far.

Maybe I can luck out and end up only serving a few people before the brunt of the weather hits turning off the small trickle of people.

And then a semi familiar face walks through the door, the person I had as my first customer on Monday.

Please give him to someone else, anyone else so I don't have to sit on his lap like Alpha did. I give a pleading look to Red.

But no, he assigns him to me and directs me to take him to a nearby empty booth. Glancing over to Alpha only shows that she has her attention elsewhere.

The slightly past middle aged businessman who I now realize is a regular orders the same meal he did last time he was here. I enter it in by habit now having done this part of the job so often.

It's what he wants next that nearly builds my panic to a crescendo as my dreading of this moment causes my blood to nearly run ice cold.

He motions for me to sit on his lap after expressing that he has payed for this service of the wait staff.

I could run right? Just run right out the front door and into the street. Glancing over shows I most likely won't make it past Red or the others.

With a more impatient tone the guy asks for me to sit on his lap and I have no choice but to comply with it.

Maybe if I just try to think of something else I can basically ignore his bodily reaction? Its worth a try I think.

I comply with his request fast enough that it doesn't raise any kind of issue with Red or my owners over my behavior.

Oh my god, he was already hard. This guy is a complete and utterly perverted, he was getting himself off even before my ass touched his lap.

No, I can do this. Just think about something else, anything else. So I start to think about home and enjoying my time in that small room.

Only for it to be shattered and my body going completely still as I feel him petting the back of my head gently with one of his hands while the other closes the menu on the table.

The only saving grace is that buzz and vibration that indicates his food is ready saves me from out right panicking.

So with shaky legs I extract myself from his perverse grasp and quickly make my way to the kitchen to get his food using the dividers along the way for support.

If it wasn't for what I was wearing my tail would be between my legs and it feels like moving boulders to keep my ears from showing my mood.

Upon entering the kitchen for his food I notice that none of the other wait staff are here, and the cooks have their attention elsewhere.

It occurs to me that this would be a perfect opportunity to procure at least one of the utensils and hide them on my person somewhere, possibly in my waistband as they are not allowed to touch down there yet.

This simple fact does wonder's in bolstering my mood, it's like some sort of karmic payment in my favor for going through that humiliating experience.

I grab the butter knife off the plate and stick it on my hip, under my waist band of the undergarment in such a way that it doesn't stick out. Or poke me when I move.

As for the customer's food? I make an annoyed yip at the cooks and point to now missing dull cutting utensil. The same one that yelled that my order was up on my first day walks up and notices why I made that noise.

With an annoyed grunt he tosses another butter knife on the plate and shoos me away to deliver it.

As I carry his meal over to him my mind entertains itself by imagining that I can get away with spitting in it or throwing it in his face. In fact the way he looks at me as I place it on the table almost makes me throw it in his face.

From there business dies down, and by the time lunch rolls around its dead due to the cold front bringing an unusual fall blizzard with it.

Yea, anyone stupid enough to be out in this weather on the roads or on the sidewalks have other things on their minds than going to a restaurant like this and stuffing their faces.

This leaves the majority of the staff with nothing to do, the Siamese cat Bio-morph has already cleaned the place, the cooks won't let us into the kitchen to do anything, and of course with no customers to serve we just sit or stand around.

So I find myself in one of the private booths sitting at the table with Alpha. Red is staying by his station just in case while the rest of the waiters and waitresses stay close by.

I expect to be asked about my reactions this morning when she had me sit on Red's lap, no, instead we continue our language lessons and due to the length of the storm. I end up learning just enough to ask a simple question or two by the time someone actually braves or foolishly ignores the snowstorm outside to get a meal here.

We let others handle it while Red and the other males go out and clear the sidewalk of the snow that has accumulated to about four inches deep during the wait.

Less than a fifth of the normal people show up for the dinner rush compared to the last couple of days, yet there is enough demand for help that I have to go back to handling them along with Alpha.

Two more people requested that I sit on their laps while they wait for their food, one was even in full view of his wife sitting across from him and she did not even care!

This just adds a whole new layer of self esteem crushing, world view crumbling reality of my new role in life as long as I stay here. Something I intend to change!

And change rather soon as well considering what is currently resting against my hip at the moment, thats if they don't force us to go out in the snow unclothed as we head back to our residential containers.

Snow stops falling long after the dinner rush has ended and we have taken care of the few late night stragglers coming in for warm food and drink, it is also getting a bit hard to resist the temptation to grab bits of the customer's food to snack on by this time in the day.

Our only meals are what we can scarf down in the mornings after we wake up and in the evenings after we drag ourselves back to our containers outside in the back. They rather throw out unused food at the end of the day rather than let us eat it, it's almost maddening to watch.

Even though I am getting used to the routine I am still nearly dead on my poor feet as I walk to the back door, hoping and praying that we get to keep the clothes tonight so that my acquisition is not found.

Red's barking of 'Stop' in the tongue before I reach the door surprises the hell out of me. Spontaneous surprise in this manner is not something I have had much experience in with this body.

It has a peculiar feeling and reaction, it feels like I get goosebumps all over my body but I notice that instead all my fur puffs out including my tail which now has a bottle brush kind of look to it.

Does he know? Or was I wrong in assuming that we get to keep the clothes? Either way I am done for. I flatten my fur as he walks up to me and to my surprise, he just grabs my arm gently and removes the wrist touch screen device off of me. That's what he was stopping me for?

Relief makes me weak in the knees and I almost collapse right there but I keep myself together while following the rest of them outside. Let me tell you something, fur does 'nothing' for this kind of cold.

The low quality kimono helps a little, yet to keep from freezing we all make a run for our containers. Once inside the lights actually 'dim' from the load of everyone, including me, turning up the heat. Yet until the inside warms up I am left shivering on the cold cot.

I am about to take off the clothes when I hear someone working the door on my residential container. No don't open the door! The place 'just' got warm enough for me to disrobe!

When the door opens a rush of cold air drops the temperature in here but the person who enters is Alpha who quickly slams the door shut and heads directly to the heat vent, which starts spewing warm air as soon as she opened the door.

Later, when she has warmed up and I have stopped shivering again she joins me on the cot while taking out the pad and pencil. She hands it to me calmly and I notice that Alpha has already written something on it before coming in here.

'Jack, would you like to talk to me about this morning? I will understand if you do not.'

You know I could just tell her to go back to Red and leave me alone, and a part of me wants too due to everything that has happened. But I don't have the heart too.

I simply write down that I mentally am not attracted to men but I am physically, even thinking about how I looked like before this even evokes a reaction down there now unlike it used to. I also mention it makes me fear I am loosing myself as well.

Alpha's reaction is to be expected, her ears lower and gives me a sympathetic look. Her next reaction is not what I expect, she puts her arm around me and draws me into a hug.

The hug lasts for a few seconds and when she lets go her attention goes directly to the pad to write a reply down. This time though she takes her time for some reason. Writing a few words down and then pausing to look at me or idly tap the pencil to the paper as she seems to think.

While she writes I nervously rub a hand against my hip near where I have the knife stashed, I want to get it out of there and into one of my discovered hiding places! Every time I have physical contact with someone I fear that they will notice it.

Once Alpha finishes she hands it to me. 'That must be very distressing for you to experience arousal and desire sexually for your former gender, considering that you were straight before your conversion from what I can gather. Pleasant or unpleasant, it is not within my status of Alpha female of this pack to be able to keep you safe from situations that evoke this feeling, even Mauri can't do that. I know it will sound harsh and rather impolite, but I think due to the lack of anything else to use to help you with this right now. You are the first conversion with a flipped gender we have had. My advice is to come to terms with your new orientation as soon as possible. If you do not, what you will be required to do by Saturday will be a rather traumatic.'

I flip the page to continue reading, but to be honest I am rather appalled at her suggestion even though logically I 'know' she is right.

'I can send Mauri in here after I leave to help if you want, otherwise I suggest you use tonight before you sleep and tomorrow morning to familiarize yourself with your body. Better for your first experience to be by your own hands than the hands of drunkards and humans who think we are mindless animals! Once you start serving the private rooms you will be groped, your breasts will be played with and sucked on, and they will be allowed to play with your slit as well. They just can't have intercourse with you or physically harm you. You will be their entertainment and their servant for the entire time they have rented the room out.'

I am almost visibly shaking by the time I reach that point in what she wrote down. This place is just short of being a brothel! And I am on the fucking menu! I am about to put the pad down but Alpha motions for me to read on.

'Also, I do not know why you stole that knife. I don't want to know why you want it. But if it is for hurting yourself, or others, I will have to do something to prevent that from happening.'

With that I put the pad down and look at Alpha just in time to see and feel her reach into my kimono and pull out the smuggled knife, only for her to tilt her head and look at the dull butter knife.

Obviously she expected it to be a sharp steak or similar knife, I don't let her hold onto it for long as I grab it out of her hands followed by grabbing the pad and pencil.

My writing is a little sloppy while holding onto the knife as well as the pad and pencil but I simply put that it is not for hurting myself or anyone, but I tell her that I will not let her know why I have it other than I do not plan on hurting anyone. I also write that I would like to be alone right now as well.

With that I toss the pad and the pencil onto her lap before clutching the butter knife in my hands to prevent Alpha from trying to take it away from me.

Alpha glares at me with a disappointed look on her face after she reads it but otherwise gives me a small nod before taking the pad and pencil with her back out into the cold, the heating system again clicks on when she opens the door to leave before quickly shutting it.

As the temperature rises again in here I disrobe and toss the clothing onto one of the shelves, I don't even fold the damn thing up.

Instead I immediately get to work using the knife to pry and scrape the glue up and off where it is thinest between the padding and the metal base, it's harder to do than I thought it would be. Yet I persist because the knife is not sharp enough to dig into particle board.

Slowly I work an opening up that is about as large as both my laid flat next to each other, this allows me to access the unglued center area and provides me with a large area to hide things in.

So for the night this is where I leave the knife, after checking that doing so doesn't cause the padding to bulge suspiciously. So I guess I will have to only keep flat stuff in there.

With that finished I gather up all the glue shavings, and the bits of padding that came off with them in my hands and walk on over to the toilet to flush the evidence a few pieces at a time down the drain.

No use clogging the toilet, by doing so it would alert my new 'owners' to what I am doing. A half a dozen flushes later and all the evidence of my deeds is down the drain leaving me free to do other stuff till I fall asleep.

Like hell I am going to 'play' with myself, this isn't me, and this isn't my body. Once I get out of here I am sure there is something that can be done, so I decide to use my remaining time awake having a meal of that bland food before laying down to allow sleep to take me.

My dreams show that my subconscious mind though thinks differently and I am bombarded with the mental image of being 'taken' by red. So needless to say while I got what sleep I needed to be rested, it wasn't a pleasant experience.

<Chapter 5 end>

Friday morning starts like every other morning so far. I am woken up for lessons and I greet both Red and Alpha this morning. At least by this point I can do so verbally.

Alpha for her part doesn't mention nor act any different this morning. This surprises me a little because I expected the relationship to change dramatically because of what she now knows, maybe being more cold rather than loving.

As for the lesson, todays is easier than the day before. New words are becoming easier and faster to learn, and because of this I also start to understand the underpinnings of the language.

If people knew about this they would be amazed at the complexity derived from such simple noises strung together. Our lesson ends all to soon again in my opinion.

Red and Alpha are already dressed for work so they wait for me by the door as I put on my undergarments and the kimono, once I am finished all three of us brave the cold morning to get into the restaurant.

Can't they give us some kind of shoes and a winter coat? This fur while better than bare skin, doesn't keep out all the cold. Or how about putting in some kind of covering between the residential containers and the main building?

I guess they can't be bothered.

Once inside I grab the touch screen device and put it on before following the rest of the Bio-morphs to our appropriate positions behind Red in the front of the restaurant. Waiting for the first customers of the day.

One of the males moves from his position and tries to make room between me and one of the other Vixens so he can stand next to me, it's only when I look over after he does this that I notice it is the same one that has been staring at me for the past couple of days. It is also then I notice a scent that I have not before, it's not a bad scent but it gives me a weird feeling when I take deep breaths. Still I don't like him this close to me.

I just give him a 'leave me alone' look before going to the end of the line, only for him to switch his place with another bio-morph to get closer to me again.

What is with him? Why is he doing this? Wait, is he 'attracted' to me? No, I don't want this, I will never want some guy lusting after me because I know all too well why he wants me and there is no way hell I want to do THAT.

And like hell I am going to let him do that to me.

The first customers of the day cut short any more of that his antics, not to mention red motions for him to take the first customer and for me to take the second.

Which just so happens to be a young couple with a son around the age of six or so. Their clothes obviously show they belong here as I have not seen anyone come in that is not wearing expensive clothes.

I take them to an empty table for four, sitting the husband on one side and the wife with the son on the other facing him. I wasn't even thinking or mentally preparing for my extra duties so it comes as a large shock when the husband adds to the order my services until the food is ready.

Neither was his wife who shoots him an icy glare when she sees me adding it to their order. Hey if it was my choice you rich bitch I would not be on the menu!

I have enough trouble with how this body feels and my mind showing me having sex in my dreams.

Of course with their orders entered I have little choice but to comply and perform the service he ordered. So I hesitantly sit on his lap, though from their point of view my speed might have looked more erotic.

It certainly isn't winning me any favors with his wife who is both scowling at him while covering the eyes of their son. If you want to be mad at anyone, be mad at this place woman.

As I sit on the husband's lap I feel his obvious reaction to me and my nervously swishing tail, yet there is something added to it. A scent as well, kind of similar to the one I smelled just a little while ago with the male bio-morph.

Wait, that means. No, I am not going to think about this at the moment.

The kid speaks up first. "Mom, why are you doing that? Dad is just having the foxy sit on his lap like he does at work." Even I have to smile at the naivety of youth at times.

"Why did you have to order that? It's bad enough he's seen you at work with the animal's there." The wife plainly asks the pervert that I am sitting on in a tone of voice that is laced with venom breaking the impromptu silent stand off between the two. At the same time their son tries to remove the mother's hand from his eyes as she struggles to keep covering them.

I know for a fact from having had my mother do something similar when I was his age or younger than she won't win the fight to keep his eyes covered.

You know what lady, you and I are in complete agreement on that front. I would say as such if I could still speak English. I don't like being on the menu any more than you like him ordering me for such a thing.

"Oh I'm sorry, did you want one too? They have male waiters as well." He answers her in a tone that smacks anyone of saying 'yea so? What are you going to do about it.'

She stops trying to hide the scene from the young boy and moves to aggressively point a finger at him, or it would be him if I was not sitting on his lap.

My eyes go cross eyed as I look at her large fingernail tipped finger over my muzzle. "Don't you give me that tone! I know what you do with the bio-workers at your office!" She gets up and waltzes over to the side of the table this horn dog is sitting on, in response he gently pushes me off his lap.

Thank you for small favors at least. When I slide off his lap he stands to face his wife as they get into a heated argument, but what surprises me is I feel a tug on one of the sleeves of the kimono a minute later. Glancing down I see it's their son.

"Can I pet you?" He smiles at me in child like innocence completely ignoring the fighting parents who in turn are drawing the attention of the other patrons.

Why not? I have a nice fur coat if I say so myself. So I kneel down and tip my head allowing him to pet me, and pet me he does.

Yes it is in such a way that someone pets a cat or a dog, but I can't blame the kid for it. To him I must look like a giant walking animal of course, but he doesn't know better and to be frank. He needs something to distract himself from his parents so I just stay there and let him pet and rub my fur all he wants.

Not that it lasts long anyway, after his parents create a scene that draws the attention of everyone in the dinning area Red and the owner's son soon break it up and he is taken with them. As they leave, or more aptly kicked out, the child waves goodbye to me so I wave goodbye back to him.

The kid is nice and I hope his parents treat him better, all kids deserve better.

The sad thing is that I get no respite from my duties after that incident, its just on to the next customer. I wish I could at least have some of what they ordered rather than it going to waste by being thrown out.

Ah well, at least my next customer is completely normal, just wants his food quick and hot. Followed by many more non perverted ones, so many that I almost forget that today is the day that I will be made to do the rest of the 'special duties' they bought me for.

Yet I as soon as I see Alpha approach me only a few minutes after the lunch hour do I realize that it is time for me to have my first 'private' group of customers. That group being a small party of four businessmen in power suits that just entered, none looking older than their mid thirties. Each one giving the other high fives in celebration of something. Of what, I have no clue as the noise of the other customers drowns out what they are saying.

She gently touches my shoulder and guides me to back over to the front lobby where said businessmen are waiting, another vixen quickly takes my place serving some of the other customers.

My arrival stops their celebration as their attention is drawn to me. "So this is the their new vixen, what a looker. Love the nice platinum silver-gray coat and bright eyes." One of them comments upon my form. Their gaze makes me feel ill and I want to be anywhere else but here.

I barely am able to shift my weight on my feet before Alpha tightens her grip on my shoulder. Basically signaling 'you better not even think of running' to me.

Alpha leads them, and me, through the main dinning area to the stairs in the back that lead up to the second floor. "I was certainly getting tired of that one there." He points to Alpha "The rest of their vixens were not that reactive either, I hope this one is better." One of them comments.

Attentive in what way? I am not going to do anything to you if I am not physically forced to do it you know.

Once up the stairs and onto the second floor the entire decor takes no compromises in keeping with the theme of the restaurant. The entire floor looks like someone just up and transplanted a traditional Japanese multi room house interior here.

The paneling, the floor, the authentic rice paper walls on the sliding frames. The ones that can be moved to either section off a room to create smaller ones or opened up to make one larger room.

Alpha quickly and quietly with trained grace moves the walls to close off a square area for the assembled customers, she with my enlisted help sets in place a table and the cushions for them to sit on in the traditional manner in the center of the new room on top of a traditional mat.

Following that we seat each of them, two on opposing sides of the table and from there it's very similar to serving the customers downstairs. We take their orders in the same way, only the 'extras' on the menus are different from downstairs.

And they flat out order the most expensive meals, wine, and options with us making my heart sink to a new level. So much for them just getting drunk off their asses while Alpha and I stand quietly in the sidelines.

"Hey easy on the cash." One of them comments upon seeing what the man next to him orders.

"This is a celebration! We crushed the South Dakota nurses and health care union, cracking open the entire market for our medically trained Bio-Morphs. We are going to be rich once our stock price shoots through the roof!" Is that where I am? South Dakota? The news of where I am completely overshadows the fact that I am about to be molested by the people who possibly just cost thousands of people their jobs to slaves like I am now.

Well if they aren't tricked into a similar situation I am in now, transformed into a Bio-Morph and forced to work.

I have to stop my hackles from bristling at the thought of what they did to me. I can't show signs of anger or aggression here, finding out what they do to violent or disobedient Bio-Morphs is not on my list of things to learn right now.

"Fine. I guess we can live a little, but I get first dibs on their new item." Says the penny pinching complainer as he motions for me to approach him and sit on his lap.

Glancing to Alpha shows a stoic face before I reluctantly walk on over and sit on his lap, forcing myself to give an appearance via body language that I am more willing to do this than I actually am. Or at least I attempt too.

Either way he either doesn't care or doesn't notice. Once my ass touches his lap he has his hands all over me, one hand makes its way down my belly to the flat area just above my crotch, I am still finding it odd how smooth it is. And another goes up under the sports bra and gropes my right breast.

The knowledge of him touching these parts of my body, no, these are the parts of a body I was forced into. I am not a woman! I am a man! Yet the pleasureful jolt of sensation I feel when one of his hands pinches my nipple between his forefinger and thumb is completely and utterly alien to what it was like when I was human.

The goose-bumpy feeling, but in a good way, cascades over my skin and then through my spine down to a place between my legs. The gasp I let out at this is followed by a low growl, I CAN'T be feeling this way at the touch of a guy!

He ignores the growl and my mind suddenly becomes sharply focused along with the whole room as I feel his other hand start to inch lower through my fur and under my clothing.

On the other side of the table Alpha is getting a similar treatment, but, something seems off about how she is moving and acting. Is she faking it? How can you FAKE this? This body is acting on its own!

Then he touches what I think is the clitoris and my world shrinks to just my body and him touching it. The jolt of pleasure shoots up my spine and down my tail causing my fur to fluff and me to let out a not so male moaning whine.

'Oh god, this isn't happening. I'm a man, I'm a man!' I repeat in my mind as he rubs this little nub causing the waves of unrelenting pleasure to flow through my squirming body and causing me to feel weird just bellow it. A warmth and dampness along with a sens of emptiness?

And then it ends as soon as I feel the vibration and hear the buzz of the device on my arm.

"Aw, she seemed to be enjoying that. And now I have to stop so she can get our food." The man who's lap I am sitting on says with a regretful tone as he lets me go.

I take the opportunity to scramble away, or as best as I can as my legs don't seem to want to move very well. While at the same time the parts of the body he molested ache in a good way, seeming to demanding to be touched more.

And this feeling shakes me, in fact I seem to be shivering as Alpha helps me out of the room and glares at me. The look on her face says what would say if she could.

'You did not take my advice did you?' I just look away while she huffs in an annoyed tone at me. What? You expect me to 'like' this body? It isn't ME.

She makes no other noises, or says anything in the language she has been teaching me as we enter the kitchen and pick up the trays of food and drink for the private party we are serving.

Not that I know enough in their language to make any meaningful conversation while we do this. As we carry their meals back upstairs I glance over at Alpha and wonder how long she has had to do this?

Maybe she was faking it because her body has become so desensitized from being played with so often she has to act or the customer gets angry?

I have got to get out of here, and get changed back to normal. I don't want to end up in the same state, let alone becoming comfortable with this body!

When we re-enter the room instead of placing the plates in front of the patrons like we would do downstairs, Alpha sits down on one of the empty spots of the table and places the tray in front of herself. She then motions for me to do the same on the other end of the table.

I do so with some hesitation as it puts me withing grabbing range of the man who was playing with me only minutes before. Alpha then carefully sets the plates of food next to the customers to her left and right. She keeps the serving plate in front of herself.

She then places silverware next to them, obviously a modern convenience allowed here since I doubt many of the people here know how to use chopsticks. This is followed by empty glasses.

Carefully with practiced skill she then opens their very expensive wine bottle, which gives a resounding pop as soon as the cork is removed before filling their glasses. With that finished she then takes the two cloth napkins and drapes them over their laps before looking at me.

I take it I am supposed to do the same thing as she did right? Can't I just take the wine bottle and bash them over the head? Considering how Alpha is looking at me and waiting for me to do the same, I guess not.

Placing the food and the empty glasses is easy enough, same with the silverware, but when it comes to pouring the drink I almost spill it onto the table not expecting the wight of the bottle of wine.

It's the placing of the napkins that took me the longest mainly because of my own nervousness of touching 'that' area of the anatomy I used to have and how this body reacts to it.

Once I finish they start eating while talking about their families, or lack there of. What they plan to do during the weekend, and lastly what they think of my body.

So this is what women meant by saying they felt like a slab of meat on a plate? Well, when I get myself changed back to normal I will make sure I never treat them in this way.

When they empty their plates we have to serve them more, and when they empty their glasses, we pour more wine. And by their second glass of wine they appear to be mildly tipsy.

I feel the fur on my tail bristle when the one on my right suddenly gropes me out of the blue before squeezing them. He then lets go and they all start laughing while I fix the kimono I am wearing. If I had been paying attention maybe I would've gotten the joke.

Then again, they are drunk. I remember the last time I was drunk, just about anything becomes funny. Even if it made no sense at all.

Still, time moves slowly. And it feels like an eternity by the time they finish the bottle of wine they purchased long after all the food was eaten.

Turns out that they drank so much we have to almost carry them downstairs and the owners have to summon an automated cab for them, which is a luxury I have never seen before. So I stick around the window for a short while before following Alpha back upstairs.

I still need something to get into the casing of the control system in my residential container, and this may be my chance to do so.

Alpha is busy putting the wall panel's back into their storage locations while I gather all the plates and utensils. So I clean off one of the sharp knifes, wrap it in one of the clean napkins, and quickly stuff it inconspicuous spot inside my kimono.

Only to turn around and find Alpha staring at me. Oh fuck, so she noticed me swiping the knife. She already knows I have the other one so she may not be so forgiving this time.

When I try to turn away she grabs me by the shoulders and keeps me there facing her until I stop moving. Once she lets go I am bombarded with her speaking rapidly in the language she has been teaching me.

I am only able to pick up bits and pieces of what she is saying due to my limited knowledge of the vocabulary, but I get the general idea of what she is asking and what she is worried about. A point that becomes all too clear when she makes the motion of slicing open wrists.

So I shake my head in reply several times and slowly tell her with my limited words that I am not going to harm myself. In response Alpha just tilts her head a little and speaks some more.

Only this time she makes a stabbing motion to something or someone in the air, to which I again shake my head. If I was going to do that, the only person I would want to do it too was that bastard who drugged me in the first place. Joe Snyder, If anyone deserves a knife in his back or his balls cut off it is him.

Alpha tilts her head the other way and all body language of concern is replaced with confusion, I doubt she would understand what I wanted it for even if I knew the words to say it to her in their. No the Bio-Morph language.

As much as it pains me to admit to it, I have to realize 'I' am a Bio-Morph now until I can get out of here and get this reversed. Somehow.

Alpha doesn't get in my way again as we finish cleaning up the remains of the private party. Once finished we carry the dishes down to the kitchen, fix up or underwear and kimono's, then go back to serving regular customers for the rest of the day.

None of them asking for anything other than food thankfully for me as after an hour serving regular customers I find that the cloth is 'not' doing a good job protecting me. The knife is starting to poke me through the cloth, but thankfully when I get a private moment to check it is not cutting skin and drawing blood.

Yet this is the least of my concerns, what happened during that private party weighs heavily on my mind to the point I almost grab the wrong food for the wrong order.

The feeling of being touched in those places, the way my. No 'this', body reacted to it. Thinking about it still causes tingles and dampness between my legs and a hardness on the tips of the breasts. Both very odd feelings.

By the time we are allowed to go back to our containers, thankfully fully clothed again, I am about ready to go on my knees and 'praise' whoever will listen for the fact. In fact I am nearly running to the my container, I only register that walking like this has become so second nature only 'after' I close the door.

I throw off the kimono again as soon as the residential container warms enough to allow me to do so, only this time in less of a careless heap.

Out comes the hidden knife before I slowly remove my underwear, which I do more slowly. Why? The scent mostly, it has an acrid spice to it and I stand there with my mouth slightly open while breathing in huffs before it hits me.

This is my scent, this is what I smell like to the others. In anger I throw them against the wall while growling. This is NOT what I am!

But my anger fades as I stare at my platinum silver-gray fur covered arm with the hand like paw at the end along with the neatly trimmed claws points.

So small, so lithe, so feminine. I move my arm and it moves the way I want it to, I try to imagine my old arm in its place.

The large late 20's too early 30 year old male's hand. Slightly callused from working on old computer systems and their sharp edges and points. The tanned white skin, the thick but not fur thick hair, the defined but yet not 'ripped' muscles under the skin.

I see it and yet it fades just as quickly as soon as I move my arm to the side.

No, I can't dwell on this! If I do I might just do what I said to Alpha I would not do.

So I take the sharp knife and check if it's edge can get into the joining point in the plastic of the control panel, and smile when it does. I don't go any further considering I don't have time. Hopefully I will soon so I quickly place it with the other knife underneath the padding on the cot.

I then get myself some of that rubbish that is called food, but really isn't and lay myself down on the cot.

When I get myself out of here the very first thing I am going to do is purchase a big dinner of burgers, maybe enough for two people, and eat it all myself.

Just to try to erase the memory of the taste of this junk. Until then I guess water will have to do for getting the taste out of my mouth.

Flipping the lights off after I am finished eating reminds me of something that I do like about this new body, and that is the better night vision.

The entire interior is still more or less visible with the lights off, albeit with most of the colors muted. The strange thing is I never really noticed having it until now.

If I had the time to explore using it I would, but I don't, I have more lessons in the morning and then a full day being a 'slave' to the place that bought me.

Saturday starts like the rest of the week, being woken up by Alpha and Red as they enter my Residential container. Well in this case the blast of cold air beats them before they can shake me awake gently.

Once the heater warms the place back up to the way I like it we start the morning lessons. By the end I know a few more words and I feel confident that I can say some simple phrases to the both of them, enough to talk to them. At least like a child.

As we prepare to brave the cold morning so we can head into work I decide to ask them something that I have been hoping.

The cooks are human, which means they have normal jobs. They must have days off. So I hope that there is at least a day we do not work.

If so that is the day I plan on doing some major personal work done in here.

~Work all days?~ I ask them after spending more time than I would like to admit formulating how to say those words. Hopefully the more I use the language, the easier it will become.

Alpha stops what she is doing and looks over at me with a smile, while I don't get all of what she says. I do get that the answer is no, and tomorrow we will have a day off.

As red prepares to open the door Alpha asks me if I would like to spend all of tomorrow working on my vocabulary but I shake my head.

~Have plans.~ This causes her head to tip to one side showing that she is curious as to what I am planning to do with my free time tomorrow. Even if I knew the words to tell her in their language I would not.

I doubt she would react well to me saying that I plan on finding a way to the back of my residential container and out of our little penned in area behind the place that owns us. I just have to hope no one is outside their own containers tomorrow to see what I am doing.

And with that I finish dressing and follow them out into the cold morning, man I wish they gave us more to keep warm out here.

Still I can be glad it is only a short walk from my residential container to the back entrance of the restaurant.

When I walk in I half expect to be spending all day on the second or even third floor tending to private parties. Only to be completely wrong on that assumption.

First off some rich bitch is getting married and she rented out those two floors for a whole day bachelorette party, and because of this 'all' the male fox Bio-Morphs are being rented by them expect for Red.

Somehow I envy them. I think it may because they are going to get more action today than I did in a year back when I was still human, and male. No I am 'STILL' male in my mind despite what they did to my fucking body!

And secondly, Saturdays are their busiest and I end up spending all day running around like a chicken with my head cut off putting in orders and delivering them.

It was so busy during lunch and dinner rushes that special options were limited to only a few slots, the rest of the time was spent taking orders for several tables in a row. Then having to remember the order of them as the food was ready mostly at the same time.

At least with all the males on the upper floors I don't have to deal with that one that seems to be, attracted to me. I mentally gag at the thought of that though.

As for the customer's, I have to admit I did not get 'every' order right. I gave one or two orders to the wrong people, yet considering the short amount of staff and the large amount of customers I wasn't alone in doing so.

By the end of the day I don't even know how I got the energy, but I somehow was able to make my way up to my residential container without any assistance. Some of the male fox Bio-Morphs were not so lucky, must have been one hell of a party.

I'm too tired to eat, so I just set the controls to keep the place warm and collapse on the bunk. My world falls into darkness as soon as my head hits the padding.

<chapter 6 end>

For the first time since arriving here I wake up in the morning under my volition. Not by the sound of the door opening, and definitely not by the cold air rushing in from the outside.

A small luxury and possibly the only one I have here. Sometime during the night I curled up to the point that the tip of my tail is sitting in front of my muzzle. I bet I look like some over-sized dog sleeping.

I yawn and uncurl myself with a stretch before hunger makes it's self known. Oh yea, didn't eat last night. One carton of that crap later settles my stomach and fully wakes me up. It's only then that I notice that it's barely even ten in the morning yet.

I smile, at most I have twelve hours to myself here. Where to start though? I can start carving a hole into the particle board under the loose laminate, or I can try to get the back door of the fridge open.

After some thought the latter would be the best choice. Doing the former would require me to use the toilet suspiciously often to get rid of the evidence, if I do it during the week I can get rid of the evidence as I carve it out.

So I retrieve the dull knife from under the padding of my cot and make my way over to the fridge after dressing myself in the work kimono sans underwear as they smell a bit ripe. As I start to remove the food and the shelfing carefully so I can put them back in so it won't be so obvious where I went off to, or how I got out. Just in case anyone enters my container while I am gone.

Once the shelving is carefully placed just off to the side where I can get at them once I open up the other side I crawl inside the now open space and examine the seal on the back door for any indication of where the latch would be. Its not on the top and the once I find that the hinges seem to be on the left side I focus my attention on the right.

And it only takes a short amount of time to lever the mechanism open with the butter knife. The door slowly swings open reveling an open and unlit space.

The lights in the space switch on with an audible hum as soon as I crawl through the fridge and into the space. To my left is a service cabinet marked 'cellular equipment', and to my right is obviously the heating and air conditioning unit for my residential container, behind that is a simple terminal much like the one on the other side of the wall.

But instead of temperature controls it lists; food, water, and other resource levels for the container.

Before doing anything else I go back through the fridge and grab the shelfs and put them back into the fridge, I then close the inside door in such a way that the latch doesn't completely close so I am not locked out. Now no one will know I am in here if they enter my residential container from the front.

I was expecting more to be back here than this, but it is better than nothing really. Looking at the Hvac unit more closely shows that there is a vent grill I can open bare handed and use the inside space to hide larger items.

Which is about the extent of what I can access on it without tools. Looking over the service cabinet puts a happy grin on my face.

It's what I was hoping for. No I don't plan on calling anyone since I can't speak anymore, I also don't know if I can get onto the Internet with that terminal since it might not have the required hardware. What I 'can' access is the bulletin board system. Technically it predates the Internet but it has seen a full on revival after T.A.N.C. passed. Apparently using the plain old telephone system is old enough to not register on the government's radar.

Its unlocked and looking inside shows it uses standard telecommunication equipment, not to mention what is inside is fully documented on the inside panel of the cabinet door. And it has the tools needed to work on it inside as well.

A wire termination tool, a wire cutter / stripper / and crimper combo tool, a cheap multimeter, and a cheap cold tip solder iron. Sure it's only good for a quick and dirty circuit or wire repair once or twice, but it can be very useful even with that.

This is not everything I need to modify the terminal, yet it is still enough to have me dancing on the spot in joy as 'something' seems to be going my way in this entire cluster fuck.

I also learn in that same instant why women wear bras, ow.

Closing the cabinet door I turn my attention to the rear door, it looks exactly like the front one with one exception. It has a lock on it, one that I can disengage from in here.

Walking up to it I am both nervous and excited, which does odd things to the fur covering my body, making it bristle and then poof up, an odd feeling really. I shake myself and force my fur to go back to normal, my fur.

I need to get back to normal, I am starting to think of this body as my own again.

The mechanism for opening the rear door is pretty simple, a spring driven latch is used to unlock the door and from there its like opening the front door.

All it takes is opening the door by a little crack and the cold air rushes in to replace what little heat is on this side of the wall. I don't even try to suppress the shiver that flows through me. I have half a mind to just close the door and go back and curl up in the warmth under the vent.

No I have to do this. So I push the door fully open and I am greeted by the sight of a small service road just outside and beyond that a small parking lot before one of the many boarded up entrances of the building connected to said parking lot.

Renovations? No like a complete gutting of the building. You don't board up the windows and doors unless you are removing the said windows and doors as well as everything inside.

Carefully I climb down and onto the road, oh dear god thats cold! My feet land into the slush of snow and road salt that covers the curb.

I dash across the road and then the small parking lot, dodging slush puddles and piles of snow along the way to avoid stepping into them. My feet are already very cold and wet and I rather not make it worse.

When I reach the building I scurry from one boarded up door or window to another until I finally come upon an open one. It's a plywood door temporally installed in place of the normal door while the building is undergoing gutting and renovation, it swings open with a rusty squeak.

While also cold inside the building, it is warmer than it is outside giving me and my feet a bit of a respite. I quickly shut the door behind me so it doesn't get any colder.

If I was still human I would be blind as a bat in here. But with this damned body I have to admit that the better low light vision that I now have allows me to actually look around just inside the building.

If this place wasn't gutted to the metal posts, insulation, and concrete foundation, I would be in the main lobby of the building.

Set up in various places in this room are some work lights that are either standing on tripods or hanging off the steel studs by hooks. The tripod ones seem to be placed in the corners to cast the most light throughout the room when on and I see several of the hook types placed around in somewhat random locations.

I wonder if there is power? I don't see a generator anywhere around or outside, so maybe the place is still serviced by mains? Only one way to find out.

Carefully I walk up to one of the hanging lights, while my new low light vision allows me to see better than a human in here. Color is muted and fine details that can hide obstacles are hard to determine, so I do hope there is power because I need light.

Picking up one of the hooked lamps I fumble around the handle until I find the on switch and flip it, only for it not to turn on. I flip it a few more times until I notice it is not plugged in.

I am an idiot, lights have to be plugged in to work of course. So I fumble around and eventually find the power cord to hook it up to. Once plugged in and the switch flipped I have a very bright light.

With the light on I can see that this place is not as stripped to the bone as I thought. Yes the walls are down to the insulation and the studs but there are piles of sheet rock and wood paneling placed here and there to be installed. Similarly the floor is not entirely bare foundational concrete either, it has some portions covered with marble tile.

Other than that though the room is pretty much just empty space and basically contains nothing I can use like network cords, copper wires, and if I am real lucky computer parts. The power cord does look long enough to go to other rooms so I head further in. As a good side effect the lamp starts to put off some decent heat, so as I walk I huddle close to it.

There are two hallways going opposite directions from where I assume the receptionist's desk will go, neither are furnished enough to allow me to determine which one will prove more fruitful in my search. So it's down to randomly choosing.

Looking back and forth I just up and choose the left path. Why? Hell if I know, I just felt like going in that direction and luckily for me the cord that I plugged the light into is long enough to reach so far.

It doesn't take me long to reach the point in which the insulation stops and the only thing separating the rooms are the bare metal studs. But that is not this area that holds my attention.

An area that does is down near the end of the hallway. Piles of the original furnishings, walls, and insulation. Seems they were not completely finished stripping the floor and cleaning out the junk yet. Well one person's trash is another's treasure.

And then the cord goes taut mere yards away from the pile. Well I guess everything couldn't go my way today. So I place the lamp down pointing at the pile regretfully, both because it is my only source of light but warmth as well.

Yet from here I don't see anything useful on top, meaning I have to move some of the stuff around to get at anything good, if there is anything good under it.

A shiver rolls through me as I leave the light and the little warmth it gives to approach the pile for the chance that it contains what I want. My shadow is cast over it causing me to pause.

The shape of my body is still so unfamiliar to me that for just a moment, I think it's someone else. Alpha, or some other female fox bio-morph possibly following me. But no, it's just my shadow of this perverse body I was forced into.

I don't dwell on it for I have more important things to do. And I get right to work shifting chunks of dry-wall, pieces of insulation, and other random junk.

Half way through the pile I find some stuff I can use, a length of network cord. From the markings on the plastic coating date it and the previous interior of the building to the early twenty-first century over a decade before I was born. Its very long, if I had to guess it is longer than my residential container.

Yet it is well within the maximum length dictated by the hardware at the time. I roll the length up into a secure loop and place it near the light before going back to work.

While the physical exertion warms me up, I also find it a bit aggravating at the lack of strength I have now. Still further digging yields more useful things.

I find a much shorter bit of plain old voice telephone wire in the pile and keyboard someone possibly forgot to throw out with any of the other computer equipment that once was in here. I wish it was actually a full on computer, possibly with a modem.

That would make it a lot easier in doing what I plan to but I should be happy for what I have found.

I am about to take a second look through all the stuff I shifted about just in case I missed something when the sound of a door opening and closing in a distant part of the building reaches my ears.

Back when I was human I have had to run from people who had, or claimed to have had ownership over a pile of unwanted computer parts and other items. And I learned that running as soon as you hear them coming is a good reaction to have.

That lesson seems to have been erased in my conversion. Instead I stare in the direction of the sound with my ears up and erect and my eyes straining to see who it is before I even register the thought of running from here.

The sound of multiple muted footfalls and my sense of smell tips me off that the beings who entered are not a human but are Bio-Morphs. Obviously the ones that are here to do the whole renovation.

I pick up and put my head and one arm through the hole in the loop of network and telephone wire coil, this lets it rest on my shoulder and chest without me holding it. Yes it is a bit uncomfortable but it frees up my hands for the keyboard and the light.

The sound of their footfalls are coming closer as I pick up the keyboard in one hand and grab the light with the other before taking off in a dash down the hallway towards the lobby. As I retrace my steps in a full on sprint my mind works just as fast going over the possibilities of what will happen to me if they catch me.

None of them at all pleasant considering what I am now and the fact I have technically escaped from my owner, well at least from my owner's property.

Upon reaching the lobby I discard the light as I decide I don't need it anymore and I feel that the attached power cord is slowing me down. I don't even bother turning it off I just throw it to the side and the bulb shatters upon impact with the concrete floor.

I'm panting by this point and when I reach the door I can hear them entering the lobby as well. I don't dare look back even as I hear all of them talking in 'the language' with each other, and at me.

The only things I can make out is 'stop', 'who' and 'female', but it is enough for my mind to give me several unpalatable possibilities.

Slamming the door open with my shoulder I make a mad dash back to my residential container. I don't even care as I run through slush puddles and snow piles causing my feet to go dumb from the cold.

On pure adrenaline I leap up and grab the lip of the maintenance area floor on my residential container with my free hand as soon as I cross the service road. This is followed by my feet scrambling for purchase I pull myself up and back into my residential container with just that arm.

I am sure the Bio-Morph who lives in the one bellow mine heard me and is wondering what the hell is going on, but I fail to give it a second thought. I just drop the keyboard and pull the doors shut and scrambling to re-lock it as if a single second delay will cost me my life.

The only thing I can do for the next few minutes is panting and listening to my own heart pounding in my chest as I stand there trying to calm down. Long enough in fact that the motion sensor for the light back here shuts it off from lack of activity.

Which turns itself back on when I walk over to the wall to sit down. I have heard of the term fight or flight for moments of survival, but I have never experienced it till this.

And I don't even know why I was so scared either! Surely I could've talked to them like the rational being I think I still am? I mean if I am sitting here and having rational thoughts surely they would be capable of doing the same.

Dropping the loop of cable onto the keyboard as I roll this over in my mind, I come up with absolutely nothing that would give a rational explanation to the fear I had.

The only thing I can come up with is the instinctual sense of territory and the subconscious thought that I was purposefully intruding on their territory. But that would mean I am more animal than human right? No I am still human up there, the rest of the body can go straight to hell for what I care.

Once my heart rate slows and I stop panting I work on opening the fridge and moving everything over to the warmer side of my home here.

As I do so I sigh when I realize that in the legal sense I was trespassing and stealing, but the fact it took me this long to even realize this means that it wasn't the cause.

After the fridge is closed and the butter knife is in place so I can go back to the other side I walk on over to the vent and let out a sigh as I let the warm air flow warm me.

A half hour or so later I stretch and retrieve the sharp knife from under the padding of my cot and turn my attention to the case that holds the temperature control system.

I don't expect to find a full modern small form factor computer in there connected to the touchscreen, what I 'hope' for is something made within the last twenty years or so.

What I 'know' I will find is at least a modem of some sort if the state of the cellular telecommunications cabinet in the back is any indication of the set up. So with deliberate caution I take the blade tip and start to work it into the overlapping seam of the case.

If the clock is anything to go by it takes me well over an hour to work through the glue and undo the clips on one side, granted every few minutes I look over at the door after hearing sounds from the residential containers beside and bellow mine.

By mid afternoon I finish with the last side of the case and slowly I lift the front half off the rear half. I did not expect to see what was inside.

Instead of a custom system board I find your standard small form factor computer board with a decent sized heat-sink and a couple expansion boards, yet that is not the weirdest thing. By the date codes on the few visible chips the thing was made before I was even born!

The damn thing dates back to two thousand and twelve, no wonder it took so long to boot up the first time. Carefully I set the top half on top of the case and move to look at the expansion boards.

One of course is obvious in function, It powers the display as the flat flex wires protruding from it run into this card. The other is at least what I had hoped for, a modem. Freedom here I come!

I just need to find a way to attach the keyboard and then get it to dial to a known bbs system that does push installs. From there it's a simple message or two to the right system and this 'whole' thing that the bastard did to me will be fixed by the proper people.

After peeling off some of the RF-shielding I see that not only is it older than I am, but it is a commercial board as well. It has the old ATX style rear input / output panel.

I am about to turn and pick up the keyboard when I hear someone walking on the walkway outside, and I panic. This is exactly what I feared happening. Someone walking in when I am doing something like this because there is NO DAMN LOCK on the front door!

With careful haste I put the top back on only just enough that at casual glance would not spot anything wrong, I then quickly pick up and nearly toss the keyboard and wire loop just behind the minor privacy wall in front of the bathroom area.

By that time I already hear someone grabbing the handle I barely have enough time to grab the knife and quickly stick it under the padding as I get on my cot so they will find me laying down.

The door opens quickly and just enough to let the person in before being closed shut quickly, just long enough to drop the temperature enough that the heater kicks back in.

Looking over I do relax a little as it is actually Alpha who has interrupted me, she actually looks relieved for some reason. Even if I think she is absolutely nuts to be outside with nothing on except her fur. And by luck my body is blocking her from seeing where my hand is and where I have the knife. So slowly I let it go and remove my hand before sitting up.

~Why here?~ I ask her, or try to. She corrects me on the word here.

~To see if you were alright Jack. I am concerned about your well being.~ Alpha responds as she walks on over and sits down next to me on the cot. It takes me a few minutes to get all that she said but when I do I just nod lightly.

~I am okay. Bored.~ And from there our conversation leads into an impromptu lesson as she corrects me on my grammar.

All the while I am wondering if she notices the difference in how the control box looks, or I expect her to get up to use the bathroom and thus she will find what I got next door. And of course the fact I found a way to get over there.

So what I guess was going to be a short visit somehow turned into a lesson in 'the language' and I am pretty damn proud of the progress I am making.

Sure I would like to be able to speak in English like I was when I was human, but any sense of progress in this situation boosts my mood considerably.

Yet as the lesson drags on into the mid afternoon I notice that something is off with how Alpha looks. No, not with how Alpha looks, because she looks mostly the same as she did last night when I last saw her.

It is just that she seems a little less attractive to me right now, though after some thought I just dismiss it as her fur is more of a mess than it normally is and thus hiding the curves of her body.

When the clock reads nearly five in the evening Alpha decides to call my the lesson over for the day with a smile.

~Your progress has been amazing so far.~ Alpha states as she stands and stretches, her tail flicks back and forth a few times as she does so.

~I'm happy to be..a..able to speak again.~ Stating while struggling with a word or two. Alpha just nods in response to it while I stand up next to her, I do hope she just leaves from here though.

I try to gently guide her to the door, attempting to get her to leave so I can get to working on my means of escape. But she catches on, not that I was hiding my intention.

~I take it you want me to leave, why? Are you hiding something?~ Alpha turns and looks at me frankly with her ears forward and tail swishing. It is hard to meet her gaze, a feeling in the back of my mind tells me she is my Alpha and I should submit to her. I fight that down.

~No, would like to be Alone.~ Alpha raises a hand and wiggles a finger back and forth.

~Its, no 'I' would like to be alone, Jack. And I think you are hiding something. Don't make me make you tell me.~ We move back and forth as Alpha tries to side step me to get behind me and I move to get in her way. Alpha stops trying after a few tries though.

~First you take the knives and now you prevent me from going back there. Why? I bet you have a plan on escaping don't you?~ Well I knew I could not completely hide it what I am doing, it isn't even possible to do so. But by blocking her like this I guess I have all but admitted to her what I am doing.

~You do not need to know.~ I state flatly, but her response was immediate. Alpha flat out growls at me with her ears going flat and her tail bristling.

~As the Alpha female 'I' get punished for failing to keep you and the other females in line! This happens wither you succeed or fail in any escape attempts. So I do have a right to know! So as an order from 'your' Alpha, SHOW me what is back there Jack!~

That feeling in the back of my mind is not so little anymore. It feels more like the urge to scratch something and the more I resist it defiantly by staring right back at her with my own growl the worse it gets.

With a large blow to my pride and my humanity, I end up before I can even stop it, moving to take a submissive stance in front of her and presenting part of my neck.

Alpha bends down and lightly nips my neck and soothing that mental itch. When she lets go I can only whimper and scramble to my cot, once on it I curl up nose to tail tip. Alpha just glances at me while she walks past me and the privacy wall.

She returns and drops the keyboard and loop of network and phone cable in front of me. Alpha has a look I do not expect, yes there is some anger in her face and stance. But there is also 'what the hell is this stuff' kind of look.

~What is this?~ Alpha asks. I look at it and try to keep quiet but that same itch returns. I have to answer her, I have no choice.

~Trying to get in.. con.. contact with my family.~ I struggle to say words I barely know in 'the language' while giving her a minor lie. Hoping that she accepts it and this mental itch goes away.

My plan was to drop a message or two on some BBS servers that are known to be watched by or have connections to law enforcement. And if I had any time left before they discover my modifications I would send one to Patrick to get word to my mother that I am alive and okay. Well more or less okay.

Alpha looks at me, then the my 'contraband', and then all around herself before looking back at me.

~I have seen humans use these devices on box like things. I assume you 'found' one of them when you got out of here earlier in the day. Yes I saw you leave through the back.~ She sighs and visibly relaxes her posture which in turn makes that itch go away, or at least settle down to a very minor thing that I can push to the back of my mind again.

~I will let you keep them, for now. BUT if you get caught, and after our punishments from the masters you will have the lowest rank of the females until I decide otherwise. You will no longer have any discretion on which customers, nor any privileges on days off like today. Jack, I order you as Alpha female to say 'yes Alpha' if you accept this.~

Now that is just plain not fair! As soon as she says that last bit the mental itch is just plain overwhelming.

~Yes Alpha. Yes Alpha! I accept!~ I am driven to say while presenting my neck again. Alpha has to nip my neck again to make it go away. Still I can 'guess' what one of the privileges is on days off like this considering there is a female for every male here other than the janitor Bio-Morphs.

Once Alpha seems satisfied she shows herself out of my residential container leaving me here on the cot curled up.

And there I lay for about twenty minutes before I manage to gather the energy to move. What the hell happened there? I was acting like a damn animal there, I am a human not an animal!

This shouldn't be happening, but the only way to get it to stop is to get the hell out of here. I push the memories of what happened down and focus on the task at hand.

That is modifying that terminal to get some sort of word out, so someone can rescue me from this nightmare.

Picking up the keyboard I see it's usb, or sort of looks like an older version of it. Can't really tell from just looking at it as it's just the normal aluminum shielding surrounding a black plastic bit with the power and data pins inlaid in it. I just hope the cord is good, otherwise I will have to spend time fixing that first.

Taking it I walk the few steps over to the terminal and gently take the top off again. It is only now that I realize that the input output panel is blocked by the case and to get the keyboard to plug into it I would have to modify the case in such an obvious way I will be caught by the next person who enters.

Frantic searching over the board reveals headers labeled usb two, of course twenty plus year old computer has such an old standard. I can only hope the keyboard is old enough to work with it.

Placing the keyboard down on the floor I make a quick trip to the back of my residential container to grab the tools in the cellular communications cabinet, mainly the wire strippers, the multi-meter, and the soldering iron.

I know of a trick I learned years ago. The computer needed a device connected to the usb bus, but none of the external ports were functional. The fuses on all of them were tripped.

I had to wire usb cord onto one of the internal headers, I am going to have to do this here. Only this time the wires can't be soldered onto the board.

I am going to have to painstakingly attach it each and every time I need it. A small price to pay if it earns me my freedom.

So I sit down on the shelving and start stripping and attaching wires, preparing the keyboard to be attached to the internal header. With that done it's just a matter of connecting the wires in such a manner to not short out the system. I also move the display so I can keep an eye on it.

My eyes are glued to the leds on the keyboard and the display of the terminal, the display is not frozen and after a few seconds the led lights on the keyboard go from all solid on to all off. If it crashed the system they would be blinking.

Another small victory, another mood and moral boost despite what happened earlier. Now it's just a matter of seeing what operating system this is and using the modem.

Alt and tab doesn't bring up any other windows, I don't dare use any of the combos like alt and function four or; control, alt, and delete. Mainly because I don't want to close the control screen and not be able to bring it back up. Hell I don't even know if I can reboot the system to bring it back up.

The first shortcut that does anything on the display is the alt and space bar keys being pressed at the same time. The system menu appears for the control panel that is taking up the entire screen. Tapping the 'minimize' brings up a basic task bar and blank background.

If the age of the machine wasn't enough of a hint this thing wasn't running any modern operating system, the user interface I see now cinches it. Not to mention that the programs I see on the menu like 'terminal emulator' shows it as well.

Unix based operating systems and the like kind of went mostly extinct right after T.A.N.C. for general use, yet logically it would be the only thing that could run on such ancient hardware.

I poke around the files using this 'terminal emulator' and find out a sad fact, my new claw tipped fingers and this keyboard don't mix. Or any human styled keyboard come to think of it.

So it takes awhile to get anything done, but I do gather some information. The system is set up to dial specific number, I try to change it and call up the modem program. Only for it to fail for no carrier, I try it again with another number I know with the same result. Something is wrong.

After checking all the wires here I head on over to the communications cabinet after popping my head out the front door just to check to see if anyone is coming only to get a face full of early evening sun.

No one is, so I head straight back to the service area and poke my head into the cellular cabinet there. It's then I realize I am a fucking idiot.

The computer up front is like home automation, why does it even NEED the ability to dial out? All it as to have is a way for someone to connect, in this case dial in, and boom you can control it directly.

Tracing the wires shows that the line it is connected to is set up exactly this way going by the standard wiring reference printed on the inside panel of the access door.

Yet there is another line on the reference wire chart, but it has the ability to dial out along with receiving calls. But it is connected to the more simple panel here rather than the computer up front. It is also the only thing here that uses the cellular data link as well.

Hmm, why would that device need two connections of vastly varying speeds? Unless one is the main link and the other is the backup link.

If that is the case it means the dial out line must be the backup as no one would ever use that for a primary link due to its archaic speed. So I look over the wring and see that I can patch the wiring for the dial-in only line to connect to the dial-out line, but that alone won't activate it.

Can it really be that simple? Disable the data link and force the panel back here to use the dial-out line and then use the modem on the computer on the inside of my residential container to dial-out.

The question is how to do it. Well the obvious way is smashing the cellular stuff, but that is a sure fire way of saying 'hey look at me! I'm a smart one!'.

No it has to be more subtle so if anyone examines this, it will look like a hardware fault. Shorting it out maybe?

I go grab the multi-meter and start probing about the circuitry and logic board components, mentally mapping out the traces. I eventually find a location that I can modify to short out the logic board that contains the first through fifth generation cellular transmitter.

Damage a couple of the grounding pins and the voltage on it does the job for me. The short out is nearly instant causing a loud beep from the panel back here.

Looking over I see that the display now has a big warning window, 'Cellular data connection lost, trying to activate backup data line.' followed by 'Error; server phone number not set up. Enter phone number.'.

Really? They have it set up to use the dial-up line as a backup and they don't even configure it! Well their incompetence is my gain I guess.

So I spend the next hour patching the line that the simple display panel uses to the line that the computer up front is connected to with the wires I snagged from next door, all the while the panel occasionally beeps and continues to display the phone configuration prompt. I would whistle happily if I still had the lips to do so.

When the work inside the cabinet is finished I use the remaining wires and supplies from said cabinet to run a line from it behind some pipes, over to the vent back here and through the vent to the other side.

Before going back through the fridge I enter in the phone number for one of the push install bbs servers I know. Once in the normal section of the residential container I unplug the inbound only line and plug in the one for the patched out-bound one.

Practically in a giddy mood I move the display so I can see it and plop down on the floor before grabbing the keyboard. I don't even bother to stop my tail from swishing back and forth happily.

I call up the dialing program again and let it run, my container fills with the sound of an analog modem dialing and connecting. Followed by the noise from link negotiation.

Once that is finished the all I have to do is wait for the server to push the client onto this machine via the ancient telnet push command.

And you know what? It's fucking boring to watch.

Still I can use the time to write what I want to post in a text file using one of the many built in unix file editors while I wait. So I switch virtual terminals and get to writing.

< end of chapter 7>

The time it takes me to actually write anything is much longer thank I would like due to these claw tips. Still I look over the intended message I want to post while taking an occasional glance at the progress of the client download and the time.

' My name is Jack Strader. I used to live in a jobless housing center in northern California with my mother.

She and I moved in when my father left her, due to her being disabled she was unable to find work and it was that place or the streets.

I say used to because something bad happened, and I need some help. What I am about to say sounds like one of those conspiracy theories, but it's absolutely true.

What happened started after I accepted an open interview invitation from my friend who got it from one Joe Snyder. He works for a larger sub contractor in the Bio-Morph industry.

At the time I thought things were looking up, especially when he presented documents that I could sign and get employment. This was the opportunity I was looking for to get mother and me out of that depressing center.

And then I fall unconscious because when he offered me a drink, I had missed the fact that he had spiked it with something.

When I wake up I find myself floating in liquid as it drains out of the tank was in. The bastard had not only stuck me in some kind of tank, but had used it to radically change my body!

I went in a human male, and I came out a female Platinum silver-gray fox Bio-Morph. Yes thats right, they can and did convert someone. It's not some moon-bat crazy notion.

I can no longer talk, and I thank any higher being that I have the majority of my mental facilities intact too. Otherwise I would not of been able to modify this computer terminal inside my residential container to post this.

As I sit here I am a bought piece of property by a restaurant called Mauri's somewhere in South Dakota, forced to serve customers food and 'other' needs.

Fed nothing but something that can barely be considered 'meat' or even 'food' in the short time between dawn and late night when we are not 'working'.

What I need is someone to come and break me out of here by removing this DAMN bracelet, serve this place with kidnapping charges as well as the low life that drugged me as well as that sub contractor. Then reverse what ever they did to me, because god help me that this 'body' is starting to feel 'normal'.'

Glancing at the clock I see that it is getting relatively late considering the fact I need to be up just before dawn. Thankfully the client has finished downloading despite a couple of disconnections roughly an hour apart.

It might be something to do with how the system is set up, possibly because it's not getting a response it wants from the number I put in. Whatever the cause is, it still dials and connects to the number 'I' want and thats all that matters.

An account on the server proper is quick and simple to set up taking all but a few minutes with no verification system. Which is the norm for these services as anonymity is greatly desired due to the loss of it on the internet proper. A seized BBS server with your email on it could lead to jail time.

Got to love how people want something after they willingly give it away.

Not that I want to hide, quite the opposite really. I want to draw attention to myself so I use my name as my user name and post my message as soon as my account is created by copying and pasting it from the command line editor I was using to write it.

The fact remains I am basically out of time here, I wish I could stay up and check every so often for a reply. Maybe even get a chat with an system operator and hopefully convince them I am the real deal.

Yet I need to put everything back and then eat and get some sleep. Lucky for me it only takes a few minutes to make everything look like it should.

I push the wire up into the vent so it can't be seen, but I can reach up and pull it out. The cover of the computer terminal attaches back onto its base, not as secure as before but to the naked eye it looks like it hasn't been tampered with. The interface itself comes back up with a simple tap of the task bar icon showing no signs of ever being minimized.

After that I go on over to the maintenance side to put away the tools and hide the keyboard inside the vent, as well as triple checking to make sure the wire I ran is well hidden amongst the other wires and pipes.

With the fridge returned to normal I grab a box of that so called food and eat it before stowing the knives under the padding on my cot. When my meal is finished I just toss the carton to the side to be thrown away later, I then switch the lights off so I can get some sleep.

It wasn't an exaggeration when I typed in my message that I fear this body of mine is starting to feel normal. My memories of how I used to look and feel are starting to become a bit distant, like it was someone else instead of me. I don't even stop myself from curling up tail tip to nose anymore when I lay down rather than trying to lay in the fetal position or on my back.

Don't get me wrong, all three positions felt just as comfortable on this uncomfortable cot. This particular position though just feels, right, for some reason.

I don't even realize I have fallen asleep until I am awakened by the sound of my front door opening, the rush of cold air and morning light into my residential container, and Alpha's scent filling my nose.

It's the typical wake up call for me more or less for the past week.

With a yawn I look over to her and watch as she closes the door quickly behind herself. Alpha quickly walks over to the vent to warm herself back up, don't blame her either, its freaking cold out.

She hogs the warm air as I yawn again and stretch out the kinks in my various limbs. By the time I finish she is standing next to me but something is off about the situation.

She doesn't look as friendly as she has normally been on the morning lessons, and she hasn't sat down on the bunk next to me either. Are we finished with them?

No, that can't be the case as the grammar seems to be more complex than English.

~I have decided to end our lessons. You speak well enough in our language to be able to communicate with us.~ She pauses for a moment. ~And due to your other activities, I rather not associate with you outside of our tasks.~

Wait, what? No more lessons?

~Is this because of what I found?~ I ask slowly tripping over the words, but I eventually get them out properly. Alpha just nods in response before slowly walking for the door.

~So you're scared of what will happen to you if you continue to help me?~ Speaking up before she reaches the door, Alpha freezes in place as soon as I ask that.

~I don't want to be seen associating with you if you continue on this idea of escaping here. It is not possible, and those who try are either punished or disappear. I don't want either to happen to me because I would lose Mauri.~ She doesn't even look at me while speaking, showing more of her attitude towards me via her body language rather than her words.

I'm shocked. But after a few seconds of thought I realize that I shouldn't be too surprised at her decision. After all she barely knows me and doesn't have much of an emotional attachment as she does with Red. If I was in her position I would do the same, still it doesn't stop it from hurting any less.

I don't even try to stop Alpha leaving my residential container upon finishing her explanation. Instead I stand and start to get dressed for work while eating more of that so called food.

After all my 'owners' won't want me to be late and I don't want to draw attention to myself. Especially with being so close to getting out of here.

I just hope my message reached the right people and I will soon be free, along with being changed back to normal. I also hope it will put the owners of this place AND that bastard Joe Snyder away for a long time.

And I would 'love' a front row seat as a judge throws the book at him for kidnapping. A glance at the clock reminds me that I can't indulge in revenge fantasies all morning, so I finish up making myself look presentable and exit my residential container.

While it might have gotten a little warmer since last night, it's still to damn cold. Okay, first thing I will do when I escape will be to get something to cover my feet. Walking barefoot on cold metal and pavement sucks.

Once inside the building I follow the rest of the Bio-Morphs to the dressing room to pick up the wrist mounted touch screen device we all use to enter orders, then it's off to the podium in the front of the restaurant with the rest of the bio-morphs to wait for the first customers of the day.

All of us stand in an ordered line behind Red who himself stands behind said podium. Males on one side, females on the other and thankfully this time sixteen just stares rather than try to move closer.

On the other hand though Alpha looks away from me when ever I look at her and Red seems to be ignoring my gaze altogether. Guess they both agree to distancing themselves.

Still think they are cowards for doing so. Makes me wonder about Bio-morphs in general, if they all are as intelligent as humans. Then why put up with all of this? Certainly they all can't be cowards?

I ponder this while fiddling with the tracking and identification bracelet. Though my train of thought is interrupted by the first few customers entering and causing me to fall into the routine I developed so far.

Eventually my mind starts to wander while I serve customers food as well as in other ways. Like once I get out of here, with help or otherwise, how am I going to remove the bracelet?

You need to use a special tool to remove them otherwise it will set off an alarm at the tracking service, and blast open dye packets to stain the fur making escapees easy to spot.

Morning soon turns to the lunch rush as I fail to come up with solutions that I think may work. The only one I can half-way bet on working is somehow covering the arm under the bracelet before cutting it off to avoid the dye stain.

As I mentally work through what I would need to do this I fail to pay attention to where I am placing my feet, and the fact three rich teenagers sitting at a table I am passing by stick their legs out to try to trip me.

Which they succeed at. I am sent muzzle first to the floor with them laughing all the while. I drop the food I am carrying to catch myself before my muzzle hits the floor.

I end up on my side with my hands flat on the floor preventing my head from hitting it. Food is scattered around me as well as broken dishes while they continue to laugh it up.

While the scene causes everyone else to stop what they are doing and watch, I can't help dredging up a recent memory. Patrick and I sitting in the cafeteria of the Jobless and homeless center as a male feline Bio-Morph is tripped by some of the local teenagers.

"Aww and I wanted her to land on her face." One of them comments right after tripping me.

"Looks like you owe me twenty bucks." The one sitting across from him points out followed by the one who tripped me handing over a twenty dollar bill.

Just like the memory no one is heading over to help me, but unlike the memory the commotion draws the attention of Red and Alpha. Guess it helps that they caused me to drop someone else's food in their little prank.

As I move into a sitting position I realize all of their eyes are still mostly on me as well as the trouble makers. This combined with the fact that Patrick an I did the 'exact' same thing with that feline bio-morph hits me the hardest. I start to cry as I feel ashamed at myself for staring and not helping.

God damn it! Is this whole cluster fuck I am in some sort of divine karma for my earlier indifference? Who would I have to apologize too to get this all to go back to normal?

It's neither Red nor Alpha that helps me back onto my feet, but one of the other vixen bio-morphs. The gray one with bits of red fur in her pelt. If she had a name or if I knew what number they gave her I would thank her verbally.

~Are you hurt number Twenty?~ She asks, other than a sore hip and hands from hitting the floor I am not really injured physically.

~I'm okay, just sore.And the name is Jack NOT Twenty.~ I reply before walking on over to an empty table on wobbly legs to lean against. She nods and goes back to work.

Christopher, the son of the old man soon appears. Most likely summoned by Red. He walks up to the table with the three teenagers who are still talking about what they did along with an occasional joke.

"Gentlemen, I think it is time for you three to leave." Christopher addresses them, only for the three to ignore him. After a few seconds pass he calls over Red and Alpha and he finally gets their attention.

"Are you going to get us our food? I mean seriously is your service this bad that your 'help' trips themselves up?" One of them looks over to the younger of my two owners with a serious face while the other two can barely contain their laughter at the comment.

Christopher for his part seems to be able to keep some air of professionalism in that he doesn't show any outward signs of annoyance at the three teenagers. Red on the other hand lets his ears and tail do the talking, his ears go flat on his head in annoyance and his tail lashes about. The teenager who just spoke smiles at the fact that he at least pushed the buttons of one them.

I can barely keep myself from growling out loud at the comment, mainly because I want to punch that rich bastard teenager for tripping me.

"No. Frankly I think it is about time you leave and not come back. You can make fun of my wait staff all you want but physically harming them and disrupting their duty to serve other customers crosses the line." Christopher replies as he points to the front door of the establishment.

"You can't throw us out. We already ordered and payed for our food, by law your supposed to serve it to us not just take our money and kick us out!" The one who tripped me protests.

"Yea. I know the law, my dad's a lawyer. I have him sue this place into the ground if you don't give us our food AND a refund. It's not our fault your help is barely smart enough to not trip over their own feet!" One of the others joins angrily protesting Christopher's decision. Some of the other patrons murmur and pull out phones to either record or call the police. Or at least I hope some of them are because I have enough street sense to know this is going to end up in a fight.

"Which is all null and void when I show your 'daddy' the tape of you three 'assaulting' my property along with all these eye witnesses around us." Christopher points to one of the cameras used to watch over the dining area as well as gesturing to the surrounding people.

This is enough to shut the three teenagers up and boy do they look pissed at the fact they failed to notice at least the security cameras, I on the other hand am just glad they don't have them in the kitchen area.

Still it doesn't take my now better hearing and sense of smell to tell what is coming next. I stand and quickly head for the edge of the dinning area along with all the other Bio-morphs except Red and a torn Alpha. She is unable to decide if she wants to stand by Red or flee to safety.

All three of the teenagers stand while one of them stares down Christopher, who for his part doesn't react or flinch. The teenager turns and acts like he is going to leave with his friend only for him to quickly turn and sucker punch Christopher.

Not really expecting to be punched he is unable to dodge or block it and is knocked flat on his ass. Which would be amusing if it wasn't for the fact that he is technically defending us.

Red reacts an instant later. With teeth bared while growling he pounces the offending teenager knocking him flat on his back and scaring the ever loving shit out of him when he realizes the wicked set of teeth Red posses.

It seems that while Christopher may have changed his opinion on him, Red on the other hand seems to still have a strong attachment to Christopher.

Then it just all goes to hell from there. The other two teenagers pile into Red for this before one of them are decked to the floor by Christopher after he gets back up.

Alpha pounces on one of the remaining teenager just as police sirens can be heard approaching. Seems I was right in thinking some of the other patrons called them.

Still I have no love for them as for all my life they practically ignored the area I grew up in, only when say a murder was fucking obvious did they even show up on the same day.

Four police officers and two men dressed like animal control officers break up the fight as soon as they enter the building. All in all the teenagers got the worst of it.

Two of them are badly clawed up and I am personally surprised both Red and Alpha were able to cause that kind of damage with their claws if they are as blunted as mine are.

The third one has a black eye, a bloody nose and many bruises from beating that Christopher delivered to him. Yet all he got out of it was a black eye and a busted tooth.

But Red faired a worse, the teenagers bruised his ribs, one of his eyes is swelled shut and he has a dislocated shoulder. Alpha on the other hand only has a few bruises that are barely noticeable through her fur.

As three of the police officers escort the teenagers outside to a waiting ambulance the two animal control officers wisely subdue Alpha and Red as gently as possible. I guess it helps when the entire pack is here staring them down, even I feel the need to protect them and it makes me worry a little more about my mental state that I do.

Before being taken to one of the back offices by the remaining police officer for questioning Christopher orders all of us to help put all the other patron's food into Styrofoam containers and escort them out of the establishment. Guess that means we are closed for the rest of the day.

Wait, aren't these called 'doggy bags' in the industry? I can't help giggling at the fact that canines are delivering them. Yes we are technically vulpine but we look so much like canines that I think it's still funny.

Even after all the customers are escorted out and the cooks go home we are not allowed to go back to what goes for our own homes, no we have to wait here while Christopher talks to the police. So I go and sit down at the nearest table to wait, the other bio-morphs here do similar but try to stay close to Red and Alpha.

At least the two animal control officers go from restraining Alpha and red to treating their injuries in the following hour or so. I just sit here tapping my claw tips against the table bored and rather wanting to be in my residential container to check up on my little post.

Eventually Christopher returns with the police officer following him, they shake hands and he along with the animal control officers exit the building.

He then turns to us, though he does look at Red for a few seconds longer than the rest. Is that regret I see in his eyes? No I must be seeing things, someone like him would not have such an emotion for us considering what I have seen about his attitude.

"Well we are going to be closed for the rest of the day, so you can call go back to your containers. Be back in here tomorrow morning at the usual time unless you're told otherwise." He sighs and gently rubs his black eye before heading for the front door. On the way he pauses in front of Red, looking at him for a few moments while red stares back at him with almost a puppy like expression. Christopher then sighs. "Come Mauri, lets get you to dad and see if we can't at least make you a little more comfortable." Followed by 'thank you' that is uttered so softly I could barely hear it but Red perks up the second he says it.

He then helps Red up and they both head on over to, and out through the front door. Leaving the rest of us to shut everything off and lock everything up. Well at least some of us.

I just make straight for my residential container as fast as I can without running or looking suspicious. At least I remember to leave the wrist mounted device in the charger on the wall in the kitchen.

While waiting to make sure no one followed me, especially Alpha, I lay under the hot air coming out of the vent in my residential container to warm back up. Not to mention doing so also feels really good and nicely fluffs up this fur of mine.

No it's not my fur, it's this body's fur. I am just stuck in it till I can get this reversed. You know this is starting to get annoying how I keep slipping up and thinking of this perverse body as 'mine'. It's not and never will be if I can help it.

After warming up I go about grabbing the keyboard from where I hid it in the maintenance area and attach it to the computer inside the living area, then I pull down through the vent the patched phone line for the modem and connect it.

I am almost giddy while it connects to the BBS server while imagining the various positive replies I may have gotten. This eagerness I have to see them is tempered by the fact that once I connect I have to carefully poke and prod the keyboard due to my claws or face hitting more than the intended keys.

I enter in my created user name and password only to find the system won't log me in. What the hell? So I try again being very careful this time and only using a single claw tip to type the information in.

The system refuses my given credentials. What is going on? I enter in the guest account information next and go hunting for what I posted.

Upon loading it up I wish I hadn't. The very first reply comments on how 'creative' this troll is because 'everyone' knows no bio-morph is smart enough to know how to work a computer.

I am almost livid at reading this, it's not what I expected to see. I am NOT doing this for shits and giggles, this is my life I am trying to save here and this idiot thinks I am just yanking their chain for fun!

The next one replies to the first with some information from some studies done in countries that have declared Bio-Morphs equal to humans and given them full rights that show they are just as intelligent.

The first commenter replies with even more studies done within the united states, and of course paid for by the Bio-Morph industry saying the exact opposite.

From there things degrade into a full on flame war that even one of the system operators gets into by posting the information of the connection used to post the opening post. The fact that he states that he finds it curious that it came from a block of numbers purchased by a Bio-Morph industry sub contractor makes me feel better.

Yet the thread is closed and locked with the next post by another system operator, no reason is given other than the group of system operators have decided that the person who started the thread did so to purposefully incite the resulting flame war.

I just stare at the screen in shock long enough that the modem disconnects and then reconnects, the noise brings me out of my shock.

My only chance of escape, gone, finished. No one believed me, no one even cared! All they did was debate the abstract notion of intelligence and if Bio-Morphs actually had enough of it.

Creating another account wouldn't work, the system operators would just block the number as another post saying basically the same thing would cement it in their minds that I am a troll.

The fur over my back bristles along with my tail as it whips back and forth. In a fit of rage I grab the keyboard, yank it from the system, and hurl it across the living quarters of my residential container!

Keys scatter about and it cracks as it hits the floor before sliding to a stop in front of the fridge.

I don't know what makes me angrier. The fact they did not belove me, or that I am now basically trapped here. Oh sure I can try to run, escape through the maintenance section. Use the tools in the building renovation next door to cut off the bracelet. But then what?

I would have the fur all over that arm and other parts of me stained with dye practically screaming that I escaped to EVERYONE who saw me, stuck in the middle of a city where using any major traffic or pedestrian walkway will result in the damn rfid chip giving me away as well.

Being so livid and distracted I don't even notice that the door to my residential container opens and closes as someone enters. The only thing that clues me in is the sudden temperature change.

What I expect to see when I look over is Alpha, what I get is a sight I did not want to see. It's sixteen, and he is wearing one of Red's kimono's which looks rather loose and baggy on his smaller frame. What is he doing here wearing that?

~Why are you in here? Get out!~ I growl at him, ears back and tail still lashing about. I am in no mood to deal with him. Not to mention the fact he walked in while all my modifications are out in the open.

~Mauri is injured and gone. The young master said that once that happens he would make me the Alpha male of this pack, I have come to make you mine and Alpha female of the pack.~ Wait what? Does that mean? No, no, no, I don't want that! Sixteen just smiles as best as a Bio-Morph is able to and quickly removes the kimono showing he is fully 'armed' and 'ready'.

<end chapter 8>

~I said get out!~ I back up slowly as he approaches. Sure he is smaller than Red but still bigger than I am and I don't want him anywhere NEAR me if he intends to use my former anatomy in its intended purpose on my new anatomy. He just tilts his head back and forth grinning.

~Oh I get it, it's that shit they give the females when they sold. Makes them think they don't want it while their body screams for it this time of year.~ My back touches the metal divider between the living area and the maintenance area of my residential container. Sixteen doesn't stop approaching me and once he is an arm lengths away he reaches out to grab me.

Only I duck to the side and try to run for the door, I don't make it. Faster than I can react, or expecting him to move, he turns and pounces me.

His body weight pins me to the floor in a rather uncomfortable position causing my breasts to be smashed against the cold and rough floor rather painfully. I try to push myself up and knock him off but he knocks my arms out from under me with his own as he breaths against the back of my neck.

~Your scent is wonderful. I liked it the second I first scented it when you arrived. Your fur, your curves, you will make a much better Alpha female than the one Mauri chose.~ He breathes deep while pressing his nose to the back of my neck causing me to shiver in fear. I have to get out from under him otherwise.. I don't even 'want' to think of that!

~NO! Get the fuck off of me!~ I growl loudly at him and try to get up and get him off of me. Once I get my arms under myself I try to push up and kick him off.

This time it works as my leg hits him in the upper thigh and he has to get off of me to hold it. I also hear the sound of plastic snapping and something hitting the floor but I don't take any sort of risk to look back and see what broke. I just make a scramble for the door and possible safety by going into Alpha's residential container.

I don't make it. He pounces me again, landing on top of me roughly and only a few feet from the door and quickly pins my legs down with his own.

~I like spirit in my Alpha. Too bad your desire is clouded by that stuff they inject females with. You may say no, but I can smell that you want it.~ Like hell I want it! If I wasn't so focused on trying to get out from under him, even as he then proceeds to pin my arms behind my back with only one of his, I would have to laugh at the near stereotypical things he is saying.

~Please don't, I'm a guy!~ He laughs and uses his free hand to rub my slit, the sensation just causes me to freeze in place like when the customers do it.

~I am not that stupid! No male has this.~ He says as he rubs it roughly with his fingers. The sensations start to sap my strength allowing him to more easily restrain me. Once he finds and then starts to rub my clitoris I can't control the fact my hips buck back at him.

I'm crying, I am actually crying. I don't want this, I don't want to have sex. But these feelings and how my body is reacting is saying something else entirely.

His breath blows over my neck before I feel him gently biting down on the scruff of my neck and when he does so any of my remaining strength drains from me. Sensing this he lets go of my arms and grabs my hips with both hands.

Shit, shit, shit! I need to move, I need to move NOW. Come on you fucking arms and legs. Push me up and kick this guy! Only my muscles don't respond like they should.

My legs touch his but without any strength behind it. So while I intended to kick him, I end up just rubbing his legs with feet. My arms on the other hand splay out as I try to push myself up.

Then I feel it. The tip of his member rubbing against my new gender, then with no ceremony he thrusts it inside. My mind blanks for a moment with the sudden rush of sensations that I have never felt before and never expected to feel.

It may sound corny but it feels like the opposite of what I used to have, the most sensitive part are the lips like the tip of my former member. And as he thrusts inwards it causes a feeling similar to rubbing the shaft of my former member all the way down to the base.

Which right now seems to be some kind of inner barrier that his tip barely touches.

And yet it's still a bit different. Combined with that feeling is the sensation of a warm, stiff, rod being inserted and you are wrapped around it.

Then he pulls out and the tugging sensation of these new inner most parts causes me to see stars. All of this is undeniably feminine and beats down what ever is left that is male.

I moan while sobbing as he thrusts it back inside as I can't deny one simple fact. While I hate him for rapping me, I can't deny that it actually feels good to be female. Hell, it feels better than when I was male. And I can't deny that I am female now.

Several more thrusts and I find myself actually humping back at him and giving off moans of pleasure dispute how much I don't want to. This body, no it's my body, doesn't want to listen.

I actually find myself trying to focus on anything ELSE than the pleasure that is racing through me every times he thrusts in and the feeling of something that is a little larger being pushed against me once he is all the way in.

The wall I am staring at becomes surreal in its clarity from trying to focus on it, rather than the growing familiar and at the same time strangely foreign pleasurable tension building in my crotch.

So much so that I don't even take notice of the feeling of his member being yanked out suddenly as someone grabs Sixteen and hurls him across the floor. No I don't even notice he is gone for a half a minute as I continue to hump the air SO freaking close to what I think was release.

When I finally come down enough to realize what is going on around me the first thing I see and hear is Alpha beating the ever loving shit out of Sixteen as he lies on the floor curled into a fetal position.

The pleasure helps me realize that I have been deluding myself, I lost what I was as soon as I woke up as a Bio-Moprh. The fact is Jack Strader died as soon as he was placed into that conversion vat. What I have been doing up until now is hold onto the memories of a dead person.

There is nothing left here other than the Platinum and Silver-gray female vulpine Bio-Morph with only a number for a name.

I curl up into a fetal position myself sobbing loudly, Alpha on the other hand half throws and half drags Sixteen out of my residential container in full view of all the other Bio-Morphs who are braving the cold to see what the heck the noise is about.

She ignores their curious gaze and closes the door after evicting Sixteen. I don't hear her move but the next thing I feel is her picking me up in a gentle hug.

If it wasn't for her scent I would have panicked and lashed out, instead I latch onto her and soak her fur with my tears as she gently pets my head and the back of my neck.

~It's going to be okay Jack. Once our owners hear what happened and Mauri returns, they will properly punish him.~ Alpha continues to hold onto me as I cry, though when I hear her say this I manage to squeak out a reply between my sobs.

~Jack's dead, he died when I woke up like this. As for Christopher, he wanted Sixteen to be the Alpha male so Red isn't returning.~ I say with my voice low and lacking any emotion behind it.

Alpha's reaction though is fast and immediate. She slaps me, lightly, across my muzzle causing a sharp stinging sensation in its wake.

~Stop that right now! I have seen where that path leads with other converts and I will not let it happen again! Yes they took your body, your gender, your voice, and Sixteen just took your dignity, but you are 'still' you. You have your memories and you have your mind, no one can ever take those away from you.~ She grabs me by the shoulders and holds me in front of her as she says this before pulling me into a tight hug.

Yet after a minute or so she lets go and looks at me again. ~Wait, who's Christopher?~

Thats all well and nice to say, but your not the one who just realized that what has been happening over the past few days has been the gradual take over of my mind by the instincts of my new body.

The ease of use of the ears and tail for emotional display, the multiple times I have referred to it as mine before having to remind myself otherwise. Not to mention how I acted the other night, taking orders and acting submissive like a good little pack member.

Add to it the fact that I now realize why Alpha has started to look different to me, I am female. I can't deny that now. And when I was male I was straight, so it stands to reason that now that I am female I am still straight.

And that means being attracted to men and not women like Alpha. I can't deny that now, as much as I want to I can't deny it.

I look back at Alpha with every bit of a submissive look as I can and explain to her how I know the young owner's name.

~He is the young owner of us. I am sorry my Alpha I overheard him and the older owner talking about how they want to run the place. Christopher wants the older owner to retire and take Mauri with him so he can put Sixteen up front as a showpiece Alpha male. Please don't punish me, I know I wasn't supposed to listen in.~ When I finish I look away from her and bare my neck submissively. Yes this is right, I should act like this. It's what I am now.

As for Alpha, she looks rather shocked. I can't tell if it is because of how I am acting, or the news. This is how I am supposed to act right?

~Are you sure you heard them right?~ Alpha asks with a bit of desperation in her voice and I nod. Alpha grumbles and looks around as if my residential container held the answers, I follow her gaze and see the damage that my struggle caused.

Mainly it has destroyed the computer terminal up here, it has been snapped off from the wall and the case and screen have broken apart upon impact on the floor.

The keyboard I smashed is also scattered across the floor and the patched line dangles from the vent. Why did I even think anyone would even help someone like me? As Alpha lets go of me I head for my cot to lay down and curl up nose to tail tip.

Yet what happens next surprises me a little, Alpha actually moves to put the cord back into its hiding space inside the vent. Then goes about picking up the keyboard and scattered keys.

~Here, I don't know where you hide this. Go put it back quickly.~ She hands me the keyboard and I move to hold it. I look at it and then look at her. Why should I? Its not like it will help me anymore, no one listened to me when I posted. But my lack of an answer makes her impatient.

~Look I don't want to do this, but if Christopher finds this stuff you will be disappear. Possibly along with me. I order you to hide this where you normally do.~ Yea I should have expected her to do this. But I comply with my alpha's orders. I have too, thats what I am now. Nothing more than a lower class female bio-morph. Unable to resist her Alpha's orders.

Balancing the keyboard with one hand I reach into the pocket I made under the padding to retrieve the butter knife. I then take it and the keyboard to the fridge.

Setting the keyboard down gently I open the fridge, take out the innards and then unlatch the door that makes up the back wall.

Once open I crawl through, turn around in the maintenance area and then pull the keyboard through. I then open the vent cover on this side of the wall and stick the keyboard and all it's parts into the vent.

Looking down I see Alpha's head staring up at me with a look of surprise as I screw the vent cover back in place.

~I did not know you could do that.~ Alpha states softly before she backs up to allow me to crawl back through, I quickly close the door and put the innards of the fridge back inside.

After I close the front door of the fridge I turn to look at Alpha. She though is busy double checking everything so I go back to the bunk and curl up.

Once she finishes making sure nothing else but the broken computer and my modifications inside of it she turns her attention back to me.

~Okay, now that is taken care of I can focus on 'your' new attitude Jack. Look, I know what happened was traumatic in the most extreme sense.~ Alpha moves to sit next to me on the cot and lightly pets my head, I just look away. ~Well, maybe more than that considering your history.~ She continues despite my wishes.

~While yes I feel violated from what he did to me, I have to state that it has opened my eyes to the fact that I was wrong. I was holding onto the idea I am someone who died when I was converted. Whats left is what you see, a vixen too smart for her own good.~ As I speak I just stare at the wall where the computer used to be attached to via a small plastic arm.

There really is nothing left of Jack, not after feeling and experiencing what I did. There is just no other explanation that I can think of.

As I ponder this I just hear Alpha sigh lightly.

~I think I get it, your finally realizing that your human self is gone and is not coming back. BUT! Your still Jack. You will always BE jack. Just Jack the vixen instead of Jack the human. Yet I also realize you just went through something very traumatic so I am not going to push this any further.~ She then moves to lay down on the cot with me, moving to curl around me like a mother does a kit. ~Yet I have to apologize myself. If I had not stopped our language lessons, I would have been in here when Sixteen decided to enter. I also should've known Sixteen was going to do this as well. I failed at my job of Alpha female to protect those under me.~ As she speaks I am gently petted and nuzzled by her.

If her intent was to help me relax, its working. Tension and stress that I did not know I was holding onto starts to melt away, but only for a moment as this also helps to lessen the shock I am in.

Suddenly I start to panic at the feeling of someone holding me like this thinking what Sixteen just did is happening again. So I start to whine and try to kick her off of me.

Alpha for her part doesn't seem to flinch when I hit her, she just holds me a bit tighter and continues to try to sooth me. And as quickly as it came on, the panic soon drains away and I am left panting.

I move to look at Alpha but before I can say anything I hear the tale tell noises of someone walking up the metal gangway stairs outside which means they must be coming here. No need to guess who it is though.

Indeed the footsteps get louder until they reach my front door and then stop, then a few seconds later the door opens revealing Christopher, the older owner, and a still injured Red. Though red seems to have been treated for his injuries considering the bandages, his arm stuck in a sling, and the cold compress attached to his eye to keep the swelling down.

Both Christopher and his father do not look pleased at all, Christopher walks over and picks up the busted computer terminal while the old man looks to Red and nods.

~What happened Alpha?~ Red asks her a little slurred from possible pain medication. Alpha lets go of me and sits up before answering.

~Sixteen barged in here wearing one of your kimono's. Claiming he is Alpha now before proceeding to violate Jack as he wants her as his Alpha female.~ Violate is a nicer term I guess. It was still rape, but I don't have the authority to correct them. After all I am a low class vixen, about to be the lowest considering Christopher is looking rather surprised and angry at the modified state the terminal is in despite its damage.

~I see.~ Red growls under his breath, then takes out a pad and pencil. He writes down something on it taking his time do to the fact one of his arms is in a sling. Red then shows Christopher's father who reacts how I expected him to on the news.

He scowls and then walks right on over to his son who is picking at my modifications on the computer to bop him on the back of the head.

"You idiot! This is the result of your little idea. Sixteen must have overheard what you wanted to do and when you took Mauri home with you injured he thought he had been promoted. The bastard then raped our newest investment and if it wasn't for the shear luck of us buying the heat blocker this time we would have to deal with all the breeding paperwork and fees! Now we are down TWO workers for the foreseeable future. Sixteen rightfully got his ass beaten by Alpha and Twenty will be too traumatized for a while to do anything but serve food! And she was getting some 'very' good reviews on our site too! And this is on top of the little brawl you were in today, even IF it was in self defense it was in poor behavior for someone of your social class to do." He doesn't raise his voice to his son, but it still carries the dripping undertone of anger. In short the son don goofed.

"Dad I know I screwed up. You made that abundantly clear on the ride up here when we got the alarm raised by one of the other Bio-Morphs. But look at this." He shows him the computer terminal. "The insides are supposed to be sealed and unaccessible to the bio-morphs. Twenty somehow got it open in such a way as to not damage it but modify it somehow. She isn't supposed to be that intelligent, Yakeru Bio-tech stated as such." The old man's anger is deflected by this as he takes the terminal in his hands and looks it over. He eyes the wires still attached to the USB header from when I violently pulled out the keyboard complete with bits of solder.

He then looks at me followed by looking at Alpha and red.

"Solder. There is a solder patch kit in the communications cabinet inside the maintenance bay of each of the containers right? How did she get back there to get it let alone know how to use it." He both speaks to himself and everyone in here. I just curl up a little tighter, not good. This is not good at all. Alpha quickly looks over at Red as soon as the old man is finished speaking.

~Mauri show them your way out please! Jack knows of a better and quicker way to go outside of the fence.~ Red nods and then taps the shoulder of the old man and holds up one finger.

Both Christopher and his father wait for as long as it takes for him to write down an explanation.

"Well the fence is a bit old. But would the service people really leave the back door unlocked?" Christopher muses out loud before his father hands him the terminal.

"Go check it out, I'll go get an appointment scheduled to have Twenty's container repaired, and more throughly secured. Also, unlike you I see intelligence in them as an asset. When it's properly guided of course. I just hope your screw up did not damage her too badly. At least we can get a decent amount for Sixteen when we sell him off. He has proven to be too much of a danger for our kind of work so he will be restricted to his container until we find a buyer." The old man orders Christopher who takes Mauri with him back outside. Part of me is curious as to see how Red has been getting out, but it's too cold and I rather not move from where I am at.

He then approaches both Alpha and I before patting Alpha on the head. "Good work in protecting your newest charge." And then me. "Don't worry, you won't see Sixteen ever again." With a nod he turns and exits the residential container as well.

If it wasn't for the fact that the loss of the computer terminal has made the heat come on and stay on, the residential container would be freezing.

Alpha lays back down and curls around me again, she resumes petting me as well and I have to admit it feels good and calms my nerves. Nerves that are poked again upon hearing a few minutes later the sound of Christopher, opening the maintenance section of my residential container and climbing inside.

Well thats just great. More than likely he is going to find the wire I ran from the communications cabinet to the computer out here. He already knows I am smarter than the average bio-morph. It will just require him to add two and two together.

~Jack, did you succeed in what you were planning with that stuff?~ Alpha asks me as soon as I start to tense up from hearing the noise Christopher is making over there. She obviously wants to distract me, but she doesn't know that I am still angry over that event.

~No, they thought I was faking to just get a reaction out of them.~ I hiss out between clenched teeth. Even though I have come to terms with the fact that this is what 'I' am, it still is infuriating to be considered a troll when everything I posted was true.

I didn't even get a chance to get a message sent out to my friend and my mother. My human mother, can I even call her that anymore?

The Jack she gave life to died in that conversion tank, I don't I have even enough human D.N.A. in me to even be able to be related anymore.

Alpha's response thankfully cuts short my journey down that dark pit of a hole.

~Why would they think you were faking? Humans don't fake stuff as serious as that. Do they?~ Alpha asks curiously and my ears go straight up in surprise before I force them back down.

If it wasn't for all that has recently happened, I would be giddy at having someone completely new to the old style Internet that lives on in the BBS network. But that giddiness dies when I remind myself it is to be expected considering the fact that Bio-Morphs like us aren't taught to use them except in the most limited of circumstances.

~You would be surprised on what a human would do just for a laugh Alpha.~ I move to look at Alpha's face as I say this. Her puzzled and curious expression tells me all I need to know about her naive view of how humans treat each other. Humans are generally a nasty bunch, Especially on the Internet. And right now I don't know if I should be happy or sad that I am not one of them anymore.

Though to be fair, I am not thinking to highly of Bio-Morphs either right now. Mainly due to Sixteen sexually assaulting me like that.

~Thats odd. It's not the impression I get from interacting with humans.~ She glances over in the direction of the maintenance bay as it sounds like Christopher is closing things up followed by climbing out and closing the door.

~Alpha, how many humans have you met? Other than the customers we serve of course.~ I ask her. Both because I am curious and I want to bring home the point that she doesn't know that much.

~Counting Christopher and his father.~ She starts to count out fingers on her hands. Not surprised, I doubt she has even had a proper education. ~Six people.~ Alpha looks at me with her ears up as if that is a good amount. I just shake my head.

~Where I sent my message for help it possibly ten times as many people were on at the same time to look to see who sent what.~ As I speak I move to lay my head back down on my hands and in front of my tail tip.

One good side to admitting that this is what I am now, I can freely admit that laying like this is actually comfortable and relaxing.

~That is a lot of humans.~ Alpha merely states out loud before falling silent, I don't say anything else either having no interest in talking anymore.

But alpha has no intention of letting me off that easy, she gently moves so that her face remains in my field of view.

~So tell me how you know how to do all of that? I know not all humans know how to do it.~ Alpha asks me with her ears up an her eyes showing a curiousness I have not seen except in the eyes of child.

Any other time I would gladly tell her how what I was learned how to do it, but that part of my life is gone and is never coming back. All I have now is this mute body and being fucked both by humans here and other Bio-Morphs. At least the latter might feel good if I do it willingly.

Alpha waits patiently for me to answer as she stares at me, but it's obvious by her body language that she starts to become annoyed by my lack of an answer. She soon speaks up again.

~Fine, don't answer. I won't force you to. But if you think going quiet will make me go away then you are wrong. As long as that sharp knife sits underneath us I won't leave you alone until I can trust you. So we can either spend the rest of the day and the night laying here in silence, or we can get to know each other a little better. Personally I would like to know who Jack the human was so I can help you, Jack the vixen.~ You know that thought did not really cross my mind until Alpha flat out insinuates that I would do such a thing.

Considering no one will come to save me, and I am going to be living the rest of my life like this the idea 'is' rather tempting.

I glance down to my wrist as I think it over, hell I imagine myself slicing it open. The pain from the cut, and the warmth from my blood spilling out slowly draining my life away.

Only to whine and shudder, NO. Any hope of becoming human again may be gone, but I will sure as hell NOT give up like that. Or live the rest of my life owned like a piece of property.

~I am not going to kill myself Alpha. I would still rather be alone though.~ I turn my head and look at her as I say this. I hope I put enough into my body language and tone that she believes it and actually 'does' leave.