FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

*

Continued commission for Aaron Blackpaw - do enjoy!

*

The access into Treatment Chamber 2 was through a large pair of doors with code locks on them, beyond which there was a long room, lit with UV lamps and ending in a large shiny stainless steel door. it was marked with numerous biohazard symbols and various warning stickers.

WARNING - BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE MATERIALS AHEAD!

UV HAZARD!

PREGNANT WOMEN MAY NOT PROCEED PAST THIS POINT!

TRANSGENIC PATHOGENS PRESENT!

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

HIGH BIOLOGICAL RISK PRESENT!

MUTAGENIC HAZARD

BLOODBORNE VECTOR HAZARD

PROCEED ONLY WITH PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT

Andy was pushed in on a gurney covered in a kind of a plastic bubble that contained him, sleeping softly after having a dose of sedative that'd knocked him right out. The orderlies wore protective suits of blue, smooth plastic clinging to their bodies. They were both sweating profusely as they waited for the air pressure to stabilize, before the large, foreboding door into the inner area was opened.

It was a large room, shaped mostly like a slice of a pizza. The door entered from one of the long sides, and gave a view of the stainless steel cylinder at the middle. The long flat end was dominated by a glass wall that separated the treatment chamber from its control area, populated by staff wearing similar outfits as the orderlies. The largest of them was Doctor Ambergris, tall and imposing, and looking uncomfortable in the hood-like garment that covered his mane and his ears, pressing them flat.

"Place the patient into the pod," one of the technicians announced into a PA microphone swinging out of the edge of a computer console.

The wordless orderlies moved their sleeping patient off the gurney and onto the open pod. the inside was padded in white and seemed otherwise mostly featureless but for strips of light that illuminated the contents. The door, which was hinged, and sturdy, was covered in the same material. The capsule overall was a heavy construction, looking it it could withstand great forces if needed. Some of the staff members were reminded of those deep sea diving submersibles, created for the express purpose of taking such weight upon itself.

"Insert the IV and attach the pads."

The sleeping man was unaware of tubes being attached to his IV catheters on his wrists, while elastic rings about his neck, wrists and legs measured his vital signs, muscle tension, and other body functions. Pads placed over his shaved head provided them with an EEG monitor, a row of bizarre saw's edge patterns across screen the on-call neurologist observed curiously.

"Close the pod."

The staff assisted with the door, which was pneumatically powered and took a full minute to swing into its closed position. Latches slid into place with audible 'thunks' and sealed the capsule and its occupant within. He seemed awfully small inside it, as if it was designed for someone much larger than the man lying with his head in a somewhat awkward angle.

"Begin the barbiturate infusion," ordered Doctor Ambergris.

Old-fashioned medication flowed into Andy's veins and put him into a deep, comatose sleep. Further medication reduced muscle tension, while still maintaining his ability to breathe, shallowly, but it was as much as needed. The atmosphere of the capsule was slowly being changed from the normal room air to be especially rich in oxygen and raised to a higher pressure as well.

They sought counsel with the EEG monitor, the mysterious green, bouncing lines that offered an arcane look into the function of a true human mind. Currently the ebbs and falls and rises were becoming more uniform...shallow...

"Deeply comatose state," the neurologist declared. "Brain activity has been minimized."

"Good," Doctor Ambergris mused, mildly. They had been going at it for two hours at that point, and they were simply doing preparations yet. A sense of excited tension had filled everyone, veterans of this medical miracle or not, they were not immune. The doctor's long tail swished from side to side, even if it was contained within a sock-like protector that made a strange noise when it happened to touch the floor.

"Increase the dosage of the metabolic stimulants, and make sure the temperature is stable."

Further substances were infused, to prepare the body for the stresses ahead. Fluids, stimulants, stuff to jumpstart the body that had been increasingly feeble over the past few years. Those days were to end now, and in a spectacular fashion, these scientists hoped.

"Doctor Lister to the chamber," the lion spoke up.

The young doctor was summoned, entering through another door and carrying a metal cylinder with him. He appeared somewhat nervous, even, staying next to the buzzing, hissing pod.

"Infuse the agent," the lion gave the final order.

Doctor Lister attached the vial containing his 6.1 strain of Andrew C. Laurie's transmutagenic pathogen into a part on the side of the pod, an ingenious system that flushed the virus in a little bolus of saline and then added it into the IVs still taking fluids into the sleeping man's bloodstream.

"Infusion took place at 4.27 PM," someone noted the exact time.

"Now we wait," Doctor Ambergris noted.

After only an hour, the periodic blood samples taken from within the pod told them that the virus was replicating rapidly, unimpeded by the patient's immune system. It had infected a number of white blood cells and was whisked around the entire body. Slowly but surely, and with an increasing pace, every cell of the body received its own unexpected visitor. The virus, once entering a cell, employed a few of its proteins to attack the ribosomes, the protein factories that produced everything a cell needed to function. Their production of innocent amino acids was interrupted by proteins that invaded this process, forcing these factories to start churning out copies of themselves.

In this case, the produce of the ribosomes was not new copies of the virus, but of DNA the scientists wanted to put into the patient's cells, to repair damaged sections. The rapidly replicating viral segments entered into the nucleus of the cells, finding the chromosomes, snip-snipping into the coils of proteins, seeking places their mechanical programming told them to do. The cell was alive, but the delivery boy, the virus, it only did what it knew to do given its orders, and it followed orders mindlessly like the biological robot a virus was. Give it a task, and it would do it until it was destroyed by the immune system or the environment.

Give nutrients to a cell, give it the right orders for protein synthesis, and it would keep protecting itself, feeding itself, and eventually, copying itself, perfectly, to create its natural offspring.

In the cellular city, new administration had just stepped in, and had plans for a new, renewed city plan that was immediately put into action.

Muscle cells multiplied. Some even changed shape, becoming different. Legs twisted by disuse for years at a time trembled, when countless new capillaries, tiny blood vessels, surged when cells rushed at a breakneck speed to build little tunnels to supply newly active cells with oxygen.

The lungs, hunched and constrained by poorly functioned muscles, expanded rapidly, enjoying big gulps of the enriched air that not only brought oxygen, but a mist that carried micro-nutrients the body screamed in demand for. Calcium, phosphorus, zinc, selenium, arcane words on the side of a can of dietary supplement pills, now rising massively in demand.

Bones re-arranging themselves, the marrow in them slithering, teeming with energy, baby cells oozing into all directions. Body cavities full of fleshy, blood-pumping organs, fighting for their share of this strange new situation, when everyone in the body was shouting at once. More, more, more! Now! Now! Now!

He developed an erection, errand nerve impulses, over-excited blood vessels, a heavily beating heart.

Bizarre noises were made by a throat, the air flowing rapidly through a larynx that was reshaping. Jaw, pushing forward, changing the previous lines of the mild-mannered man into chiselled, elongated forms.

Teeth shining with fresh enamel, white as snow.

The doctors and technicians in front of their monitors watched live video feeds, blood tests results from the automatic analysis. Doctor Ambergris had left after what he considered was the most critical phase was over. The fresh DNA had settled in and was now being rewritten into the makeup of every cell, and every cell knew what they were supposed to do in the new order of things. Later on, the lion received a call from a worried Brandon Collier, who was told that everything was proceeding according to their timetable, that he should go home and have a little nap, perhaps.

In his dreamless sleep, Andrew Laurie was slowly turning into something else. His chest expanded, his hips broadened, the bones growing so quickly the skin was stretched tight before the pale, white, almost translucent new dermal layer could catch up. All of it was covered in microvillus, tiny little hair that slowly started to take a darker tone with the time passing by.

A change of shift occurred, new sweating scientists taking the place of their colleagues. In the sarcophagus, natural miracles took part with the DNA making sure that everything was slowly forming into shape. Teeth continued to take their new shapes along the new jawbone. The once vestigial tailbone had grown over a foot and occasionally flew about against the padding of the capsule when nerve impulses surged along new pathways from the sleeping brain. Connections were re-written, new systems created, fusing with the pre-existing ones in symbiosis, in synergy. This was not to wipe away the mind of the man, simply to preserve and integrate it with whatever his new body decided to add.

The outcome was not entirely predictable, but he would make do, the doctors knew from experience. They had a team of multidisciplinary experts for that, to help with the adjustment to things like a newly grown tail or nose that seemed to be thousand times more sensitive than before. The brain had to learn to process all that new information, and to make sense of it, to learn a whole new experience of life.

The brain was busy at work now, integrating the wolf into the man, in the soil as much as in the physical form.

Doctor Peter Cho, in charge of the late shift, quietly complained about the lack of coffee in his mind, and continued staring at the monitor charting the effects of the transformation, how glands were invaded, their hormones tweaked, soon surging in the body through the bloodstream. Nails, long and firm, replacing the thin keratinous layers that'd been there before, more a nuisance to holding a pencil than anything else. Fur growth reporting one inch in length uniforms all over the subject's body, and with an ever-increasing hair follicle stimulation. Adrenaline, neurotransmitters, oxytocin, pumped by a strong heart.

*

Doctor Cornelius Ambergris had been dreaming of a sunny savannah in his solitary bed, when the phone on his bedside rang at 11:21 PM. He'd been asleep for only half an hour or so after a nice glass of warm milk, a couple of cookies, brushing his teeth, combing his mane and slipping on his sleeping socks.

The pajama-wearing lion knew that having a phone call at that hour from that number could not mean well.

"What is it?" the lion answered the phone. Over the line he could hear the frantic breathing of someone in distress, and beyond that, shouts, and shrill alarms, yells, wailing of both human and mechanical kind.

"This is Doctor Cho," the man spoke on the phone, "we've got a problem here!"

"I'll be on my way," the Doctor replied, already on the move.

"Sir, we're going to need everyone for this one - I mean, everyone! Doctors, lawyers, the lab - hell, maybe a priest!" the man spoke desperately on the other end of the line.

_ _

*

Thank you for reading! I hope you had a good time ,and I look forward to your feedback!