FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Day Dreams

By Zatarra L. Vulpe

'The Incident' it was called. One fine day an entire US city is off the map, as though misplaced. The internet was abuzz, of course, but only with strange messages about weird things: biomechanical-fusion, multi-consciousness entities, nanites, all originating from IPs in one city.

When a military base failed to respond to a routine check things got a bit more panicky. A few units of national guard and marine corps were mobilized as reconnaissance with disaster response teams awaiting in forward operating bases placed in several kilometer grids around the city. None of the deployed soldiers ever returned. Not the same anyway.

Then there were the monsters. Things covered in writhing, sopping tentacles that crawled on three legs, flying orbs composed of what looked like human limbs, even things that walked on two legs and split down the middle to eat anything in front of them, and many of them seemed to be contagious. It was all these combined arms could do just to hold them back, setting up defensive zones and calling in their biggest equipment to blast the things apart if they got close. It never worked: they seemingly couldn't die, even being blown to pieces just reassembled them into new, more nightmarish forms. Just five minutes after their first 'engagement,' the things retreated back toward 'their' city. Having witnessed this, neither a single unit nor commanding officer was particularly thrilled by the idea of urban combat with them, and thus decided to err on the side of caution, maintaining their perimeter and staying there.

Scientists brought in to study the creatures were baffled by what they saw. Everything about it seemed like a science fiction, but then a few samples started coming in, soldiers that had changed into limbless, writhing things. They kept turning about their parts and cutting them open and not really seeing a pattern of evolution. Most who handled them, biohazard suits or not, changed into subjects instead of observers. The combined armed forces of the United States remained vigilant in their defense, hoping their technological prowess and training would serve them as it had in the past.

Tom kept smacking his phone against his palm.

"A week and it's dead, of course. Knew I shouldn't have waited on that shipment."

He shoves it back into his pocket and glances around his apartment. The furniture was hand me down, the TV was the cheapest HD model they had, the few light fixtures in the room were from thrift stores, and the coffee table was scuffed at the corners from moving it in or prior ownership. He figured it wouldn't be worth the time to fix.

But then there were the posters. The figurines. The manga and graphic novels. The comics and the slim novels with bright, colorful art spanning the covers. There were badges dotting the previous decades of his life with dates and cute faces nearly every color of the rainbow. He grinned and found a page of one of his most recent 'acquisitions:' a wolf with his arms behind his head, smiling up at him, in black and white. Tom felt a grin creeping across his face as he placed the picture back in its little pile. He lay back onto his couch and sighed, looking up at the ceiling.

In his mind, the wolf was at his back, holding him gently, grasping his chest and stomach, rubbing along his belly. He felt a little growl rise in his throat to match his lover, his fur tingling on his neck.

He sighed. It would never be. But he couldn't let it go, couldn't give up the desire to be his ideal mate.

"I would do anything for you, my love."

Just then his phone buzzed in his pocket.

"What the hell?!"

He drew it back out and the screen was lighting up, flashing through the start-up and showing the time. The OS looked a little different for some reason, but he couldn't place it. It was twelve thirty in the afternoon. He spotted a little notice, a text message from an unknown number. He sighed.

"Spam, of course it's-"

The message said one word:

Anything?

Tom wasn't making any sense. Victoria knew he was a little lonely, she wasn't sure that outside of work he even had any friends. Well, any that weren't online. She stared at the road, buildings swallowing the daylight as though she were headed into an impossibly large cave.

Normally Tom is strange, but stable, maybe too quiet for her liking. Victoria was even happy when they found each other's furcom pages, she felt a little less lonely. Every now and then they'd give each other a little smile when they'd talk about someone they both found 'hot,' carefully deliberating back and forth about what species someone would be, or even what _sex_they would be. They'd make fun of 'sparkle dogs' that would pass by and draco-wolf-slug-bat-macro-hermaphrodite from Mars with five heads they'd definitely want to hang out with. But that's all it was, fun, harmless.

"C-can you pick me up, l-like n-now? L-like r-right now?"

"Uh, yeah, sure Tom, I mean I can-"

"Good! G-good, please come here soon okay?"

"Wait, what's happening, are you okay?"

"I think so, but I need to go, we need to go right now."

"Why?"

"Everything, everything we want, everything we talk about, all of it!"

"You're not making sense Tom, slow down."

"I can't explain, we need to head North!"

Victoria stopped just outside of Tom's building. He was waiting outside, wearing a jacket and hood on a sunny day. He didn't say anything until he was in the car with the door closed.

"V-vicky, I'm-m..."

She reached for his hand and gasped when she felt how smooth it was. The skin was red, deep, pinkish, translucent red, like raw flesh. Just above his wrist there was a thin dusting of white hairs.

"I-I'm changing, i-it's slow r-right now but It'll get faster."

"Into a fur?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know how?"

"N-no, sorta, it's-"

"Will it change me?"

"Y-yeah."

Victoria tried thinking about it rationally: there's no way a fur could get by unnoticed, who knows what would happen if someone saw them. She tried to think of all the problems she would have who knows what her dietary and health problems would be. The real world couldn't support the creatures of her dreams, some part of her mind was sure of it.

She smiled. "Awesome."

Tom lifted the hood a little. His lips looked pinkish, the color was bleeding out of his hair, his eyes were red. Acquired albinism, she thought it was pretty. "Really?"

"Yeah, we've always kind of wanted this right?"

Tom's lips twitched into a little smile, a little whiteness creeping into his features. "Yeah, I just don't know what we're becoming."

"Aww, I'm sure it'll work out, that's how it always goes in stories on furcom right?"

Tom grinned. "Yeah, I'm sure you're right.

Commander Banks kept checking his watch.

"How long have you been awake Commander?"

He glanced up, adjusting his uniform slightly and sizing up the small, pale man, forehead lined with wrinkles, even in the lab coat and emitting a formaldehyde essence behind his thick rimmed specs.

"About eighteen hours Doctor Evans, fairly average during an operation really, I'm sure you understand."

"Of course, I'm usually burning the midnight oil when the boys have found something exciting."

The pair traded mirthless chuckles before they took steps down the hall. The FOBs were well stocked and equipped, most unusual for both of them, it would have been luxury if not for the monsters just shy of their various kill zones and the fact that it was on American soil.

"Speaking of which, have they?"

"They have: as it turns out they become less active when radio shielded."

Banks nearly stumbled. "Radio shielding?"

"Indeed, found out by accident, one of the rooms we placed the subjects in was radio shielded somehow. This building used to be a hospital before being abandoned and then commandeered for our purposes, maybe it was an x-ray room?"

"Maybe, but what kind of virus responds to radio waves?"

"We never said it was a virus, or bacterium, though either would have been plausible, it seems to work like a plague, a very intelligent one, likely airborne or capable of becoming so."

"So is it... Unnatural?"

"If it isn't it's the most baffling natural pathogen I've ever seen, perfectly fine with binding synthetic and organic materials seamlessly and without rejection. In fact a lot of the things we've removed from subjects before everything... well... quite frankly goes to hell have been remarkably efficient, unlike many organs most of my specialists have ever seen."

"So how do we fight it?"

"Well, cutting off the source of the signal directing them seems to be the best idea thus far, at least they won't be able to coordinate so easily."

"Have we located it?"

"We have narrowed it down to... Somewhere inside the city."

"That's actually more useful than you might think Doctor, assuming we narrow it far enough we could make for a precision strike directly on the source, assuming we receive approval for one."

"What would that take?"

"Assuring my superiors that the civilian population is beyond saving or the strike would be of minimal risk."

"Well, considering our findings-"

"An urban population. There could be a few million people in there, and they're all good old tax paying citizens. It's not New York but they're still not going to cave so easily on an air strike in a major population center. Not to mention I'm pretty reluctant myself."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I'd like you to find an alternative, anything that can just... Shut them off or something, a cure, anything non-violent."

"Well, short of something out of Weird Tales we have no immediate ideas, but we have some of the brightest men I know working on it, I'm sure if nothing goes terribly wrong for the next few days we'll have the start of something."

The Commander nodded. Threats about the severity of the situation would be pointless: these were men of science, many of which knew as many theories as can be expected about the world around them, that this stumped them was likely encouragement enough. They parted politely. Banks checked his watch.

Tom stared at his cellphone, still sitting on his couch. His thumbs flew over his phone's keyboard:

Who is this?

He set it down on the coffee table and shook his head, blinking a little. His wolfish lover. That's all that made sense. But he didn't really exist, did he? He sat back, head on his hand. His eyes drifted closed. The room felt soupy, like he could feel his head drifting through the air particles. Air was a liquid medium, maybe now he could feel it? Maybe now he could feel strong, furry arms wrapping around his waist, holding him tight and reaching down to grasp at his-

"Who do you think I am?"

Tom nearly sprang a full foot. He looked around him, back and forth, up and down. Nobody. No one in the room but him. So where-

"Down here, on the table."

He stared down. His phone's screen was bright, with a face on it. A purple face with pointy ears and bright blue eyes.

"Yes you, hi there Tom, or should I say Wulfloverx5?"

His mouth fell open.

"I'll take that as a yes. It wasn't hard: a few nanites in your phone to log your websites and passwords and all that fun stuff made it more than easy to find you."

Tom leaned in and squinted. It was computer generated but it looked... Different, too... Natural. Her face wasn't just an image, it looked like motion capture, better than motion capture.

"Come on now Tom, put your tongue back in your head, I've got something very important to discuss with you."

His mouth shut.

"Much better. First, I'm Cleopatra. Not the original, mind you, I just happen to like the name. Nice to make your acquaintance Mister Wolf-lover."

"I... Uh..."

"I know, I know, it's all very strange and impossible and you don't quite believe it. I've been there. In fact I used to be exactly like you. I was F0xgu4l myself, prophetic wouldn't you say? I was even a _man_too, fancy that one."

She had a smirk that nearly spanned her muzzle.

"But enough about me, more about you, namely what I want to give you."

Her face faded out. A little navigation app popped open on his phone. It showed a beeline from his apartment complex along a major highway to the city just north of his.

"This is where I am, if you can find transportation to get here, along this route, you'll get to be like me."

"Like you?"

"Mmmhmm, a bonafied living breathing furry. How does that sound?"

"Really? How? That's impossible."

"Is it? Look in a mirror."

Tom staggered toward the mirror, his face feeling strange. He tried to touch it but his hand pulled away as he felt thick hair... Fur over his skin. His face cracked and popped into a little dark shape between his eyes.

"Uh, uh, urrnn..."

He grasped at his face and felt solid bone _push_his hand as it exploded outward. His skin rippled as muscles shifted and tensed, he could feel his teeth pulling and shifting in his jaw, loose and then tight again.

"Ah! Ahhrr! Rrruhh!"

He saw his own eyes hidden behind a dusky pelt. His nose was blackened, moist. He had no chin, his mouth opened and a long, flat tongue slipped out. His teeth were jagged, sticking out of blackened flesh. He grasped at it and pulled, pink gums exposed. It was solid, and he could feel everything.

"Now I think you understand just what I'm capable of."

He groaned as his face pulled back, fur receding in a maddening itch. His face was like some kind of hairless dog before his nose crunched and shifted back several inches. His nostrils swelled out and the blackness faded. In a few seconds he was entirely human again.

"You liked that?"

"Yes! Yes oh god yes!"

"You want more?"

"Yes!"

"Come find me, right here, my city. Bring anyone you like, you'll be the first willing to join me and I think you'll love every second of it. Do it soon though, clock's ticking."

The phone went silent and was back on his screen saver. He grabbed it with shaky hands and tapped out a number. The top of the screen read Victoria.

Victoria had opened the windows. Tom was panting. Neither had really said anything for what felt like an hour. The air conditioning was up too. Both of them were just trying to focus. Speaking was difficult for both of them. Tom's mouth felt too sensitive, not in the right proportions, while Victoria's tongue felt thick, a little rubbery, but if she moved it too much it would feel stiff and hang out of her mouth. Neither found it odd that they had no muzzles yet.

"S-stoah... Stop the car, p-please."

Victoria set it in park as Tom practically fell into the grass next to the road. He looked like he was having dry heaves, his chest and stomach tightening and his arms and legs splayed evenly. As it turned out his neck was getting smaller. Victoria stared as she watched his arms get thicker, too thick, his upper arms swelling at his shoulders which crunched in toward his head.

"Toah! Uh?!"

Her own mouth betrayed her. She struggled to grab the mirror and tilt it toward her: her tongue was stretching, pulsing, thickening out of her face into a rough spear shape. Her face wasn't pushing out, it was sucking inward, her jaw felt like it was softening. She tried to grasp it but her hands were splayed, twisted so they were palm out as the heel of her palm started to thicken and her wrists felt like they were locked. In her case they were thickening, much of her was thicker and felt heavier, but stronger.

Tom was something of the opposite: everything about him felt so light and weak, wiry and flexible. His own hands were deep red, white fur tufts just below the wrist as he saw what looked like a lump on both of them. They looked like...

His rapidly diminishing neck flexibility served to push his head between his smaller shoulders for just long enough to catch a glimpse: his feet had shrunk, twisting in ways they shouldn't, toes stretching as the arches shrank. Grasping at the grass. Like hands.

He couldn't make a sound. All the sudden his mouth decided to stop working with him. His... Ankle was awkward so he couldn't even feel it, but when it opened and closed... The slit was vertical on his body, beading with some kind of moisture. He tried to move his 'legs' and they just clutched at the ground, his 'arms' too thick to move properly, the shoulders too tight around his head. His eyes were fixed on the ground as his new toes scraped against the grass, clutching without his input.

Then he felt as much as heard something gasping for breath behind him. His brain fought to crouch lower to see, but his body wasn't listening to him, it was twitching almost automatically, pushing his perspective higher into the air as his arms thickened into femurs, pair of biceps now a pair of thighs. His face came down as the legs stretched, the new feet twitching and sensitive. His own mouth felt weird as his legs splayed out, twitching in a new ball joint. As he rolled on the ground even his ribs felt weird, gone, a little point pushing into where his sternum should be.

Victoria wasn't faring any better. She'd tried to grab at the thickening phallus between her lips but her paws flailed, flopping as her legs adjusted and stretched higher. She tried to open the door but only managed to flop her 'upper' half into the passenger seat. Her 'lower' end curled against the door. She barely moaned in a curious mix of pleasure and fear as she watched her breasts tighten, nipples fading into a bulge, the lower part of a pair of well-defined abs. Her feet were cracking, grasping at air, rubbing against what used to be her slit as something was pushing, her spine, her hips cracking around into shoulders, a set of slab-like pectorals bulging with muscle.

"Mmmhhhnn! Mmnhh."

Her attempts at screaming only rewarded her with the thick, doggy dick twitching and stretching up against the new, deep brown furred torso. A pair of eyes opened above her, staring at her for a moment before a hand grasped her face. She tried to think, tried to find a way out, but each rub made it harder, the muscle movements, the arousal. Emotions mixed into a slurry of needs and movements and sensations. Her eyes closed.

The street was anything but quiet. Bodies were writhing in front of city hall, some touching, some fucking, others twisting and changing. The central monument had been cut off about half way up, in its place was a pulsating mass of fleshy buds. It shifted gently, until one of the buds lowered, a slit opening at its tip. A squirming pair of purple legs poked out, stretching the slit wider, a full adult body wriggling through the flesh and drying in the late afternoon air. The mass was coated in fur, raised its arms to the sky and stretched. The crowd's voice rose as one:

"Cleopatra! Cleopatra!"

The new vixen smiled. "My people!"

They cheered and she joined them, writhing amongst the bodies. Standing at the doorway to city hall itself, another purple vixen looked on with a smile. Beside her was a pale, white thing, with no hair, no, mouth, a set of large breasts, no arms, and a long, flowing, sinuous tail matched by a wriggling and writhing penis.

"I know Phyllis, isn't it beautiful?"

The creature fell to her fused knees and rubbed it's moist, bare head against her hand. She rubbed it softly, behind the ears with a gentle squeaking sound.

"You like the tail?"

She looked down and smiled as Phyllis nodded. Neither of them had to communicate in this way, no one in the city did anymore, but everyone liked to share their thoughts instead of transmitting them. Sure they could all feel each other, but where's the fun if everyone stops talking, moving, touching? Shared sensation is what bound them together, but the body had to move if it was going to feel.

Some, of course, still chafed at the idea after they'd joined, but they'd been dealt with: they were likely someone or _something_else now, enjoying themselves far more than whatever they'd been before. Dr. Petulan, for example, was one of the many birthing pods located on the central pedestal, along with several others who now very much enjoy being her mother again and again. She, of course, needed no such things, but she enjoyed the feeling of it, and that's what mattered.

Another Cleo trotted up to her and gave her a hug and a kiss right there. Cleo smiled and felt their tongues brush, the little thrill of touching oneself. There were about five more of her doing something similar at that very moment, but they had an audience and that was a different affair entirely. This was a little more intimate.

"Ma'am."

The second Cleo moved her muzzle lower so that the first could look down at who'd spoken. It was a soldier, his skin the color of his digital fatigues and combat webbing that had grown into his body, a curious mix of fabric and skin. His right arm was fused to his weapon, a long tube sticking out where the magazine and grenade launcher should be.

"Ah, and you are?"

"Ares ma'am."

"Oh good, you're from our converts at one of those bases?"

"Yes ma'am, a few of us managed to get past the radio shielding and return here as ordered."

"Good, so they're not expecting anything?"

"If they are, it'd be safe to say they're expecting it to come from here."

"Excellent, good work Ares, now go enjoy yourself."

"Yes ma'am."

His gun-arm swung toward the crowd and fired a grenade. It landed and burst into a pinkish mist, flooding the area with a mix of nanites and a potent sex pheromone that they'd engineered from enough time and willingness to do so. By the time Ares had reached the crowd, he was taking part in a full on orgy.

The second Cleo giggled. "They're so creative when you let them off the reins a bit aren't they?"

"Oh they are, I shall simply have to convert more of those military men."

"Mmhmm, if you don't make more of us."

"Me?"

"You, and me."

"Me and you."

She giggled and grasped her double, sliding down with her for a little cuddle in nothing but fur.

Banks frowned. Every time the scientists sent him something high command wanted another video conference. The more evidence they received from the research team, the tighter the noose became. If there was another good find they might call it casus belli to go full out against whatever's in there and order him to start with some air strikes. It was a serious threat, but he was sure there was still a better solution than suturing the place with ordinance.

He supposed in a few hours it wouldn't matter anyway, but he chafed at the idea of his autonomy being overridden. His opinion mattered, certainly, otherwise he wouldn't be the on-site commander, but sometimes he felt like it mattered less than he'd hoped.

He didn't have to like it. His men were on alert, but there'd been no activity, a decent number were tired from long shifts, the horror they'd seen as their comrades were changed before them. A good number were on rest, either asleep or waiting for orders.

Of course this would make it possible for laxes in the guard, but really they were expecting something to come from the city. Even if they tried to sneak around, they'd have to hit one of the other FOBs first or end up spotted by the perimeter. Banks had more important things to think about, like what would be the ideal entry point for his troops, or if there was one.

Banks sat down and pulled open a newspaper. It was a small thing, but he tried to get through the sports pages as often as he could. He felt like it kept him from getting out of touch.

Then the building shook. The lights flickered. He frowned. They wouldn't be using heavy ordinance yet, unless one of his fellow commanders had gotten the go ahead already. But they would have alerted him about-

The wall broke open in front of him. A large, desert-pale fist stood where it used to be. It withdrew. A long barrel swung into the building, sighted straight onto him. A pair of large, steel grey eyes were on either side of it, in the rough shape of an M1A2 Abrams turret. Banks simply stared, his mind truly unable to process what he was seeing. Its voice was soft.

"Commander Banks."

"Yes."

"Cleopatra will see you now."

"Are you real?"

"Yes sir."

"What if I refuse?"

The tank paused, the lower part of its turret warping in a bit of a frown. "It would be best if you didn't sir."

Banks blinked, putting down his paper and then standing to full height.

"Alright, where do I go?"

"Follow me sir."

Varg sat up. He shook his head a little, rubbing against the bottom half of his muzzle as the flesh was finally covered by fur. He still had some faint sensitivity to his mouth, but he wondered how much of that was mental. He stared down at his cock, a pair of testes stretching into a little bag bulging, filling, gaining weight.

"Hmm, well, hope it was as good for you as it was for me."

His voice had a bit of a growl that ran up and down his own spine. His muzzle fell into what felt like a natural smirk as he pushed the door open with his paw. He then brought the limb back to his own muzzle and gave it a lap.

"Mmm, delicious, I love how sensitive my body is. Thanks a bunch."

He chuckled and slipped out of the door, his tail twitching to life behind him, stretching and flowering with fur, as he watched his lover finish her changes.

She was beautiful, even incomplete. The glans had shifted into a nice muzzle, a pink nose tilting toward him as her tail twisted out, whip like, curling over her ankles. Her ears budded out of the tube of flesh, mouth gasping and already moaning in a high, nasal, bird-like sound. Her eyes opened, quite pink, staring up at him.

"A little help?"

Varg smiled and grabbed her around the waist, picking her up gently and sitting back with her on his lap.

"Of course, everything feel okay?"

She giggled and leaned in, biting his neck.

"Mmm, I'll take that as a yes."

"Uhn huhn"

Varg took a sniff. Tohma was hungry. Not for food, of course. She was wet, he could smell it on her, her toes standing on his before she grasped his own paw and pulled him to the grass. She fell to her knees and he was right behind her, his legs outside of hers as she spread them further, dropping her arms lower and pointing her muzzle up. He was hard, and good, good at this, at the animal lust dripping between them when his cock slipped up to her sex. He slipped in like he'd been doing it all his life, technically true. There was no need for words as he grasped her breasts, claws on her nipples as she tensed, her hips pushing back then up, then down again as she eased him into her. He's so strong, so impossibly buff, but he wouldn't hurt her, even if they both got a bit rough. He growled as his hips pushed in, so deep into her, but that felt better, the ache in their loins intensified as they wanted more. Her tail and toes tensed in the fur around his ankles, his hips pulling back and then up again, a thick knot forming and squeezing against her plush lips.

"Oh god baby I need you in me so bad come OOOHhhhhnnnn!"

Just as she spoke he thrusts in. Her loins quiver in ways she's not sure is voluntary as he starts, the back and forth, the sparks budding inside of them as their new bodies feel raw and sensitive and ready. His growl almost rose to a whine as his anticipation mounted like hers. He grasped her hard, his hands biting into her thighs as he started to really thrust, fast. It felt a little dangerous, a little intense and like it was exactly what they wanted, building for him and her own body tensing, his thick knot pounding her clit and sending her sensitive body through a unknown territory between arousal and orgasm, falling and rising, mixing into a shocking, burning, beautiful whole that was their bodies combined.

He pushed harder this time. Her mouth fell open and eyes shut as his knot popped inside. Another electric pulse of her own sex flooding with fluids tingled through her. Their hips were mashed together and bouncing, her breasts bouncing, his cock twitching and throbbing deep in her. In another three, two, one-

"RRRAAHHH!"

He held himself into her and let a long, loud howl. She squeaked and panted and smiled as his voice echoed in the trees. Each pulse bloomed inside of her in a thick jet. She felt him tight, he'd be there for a while, her own arms practically collapsing and eyes rolling back. She'd never really kept count of how many times she'd hit her peak and gone higher between them, but she'd gather if it were any higher she'd lose her mind.

Varg looked down to her, his howl still echoing.

"Mmmhmm, you need a minute baby?"

"Mmhhnnyyyeeaahhh..."

He chuckled and leaned in, taking her in his arms and rolling gently so that she laid on top of him. She held his hands and rubbed her muzzle up against his chest, her large, pink ears twitching a little.

"That was amazing."

"Mmmhmm, just like our first time huh?"

She giggled. "It was our first time silly."

He growled in a soft, contented way. "True, we'd better have more soon then."

"Mmmhmm."

She felt his knot soften. She pulled off softly, the pair of them twitching a little as the knot came free. They looked at each other and laughed. Tohma splayed her arms on either side of his chest, leaning in with a broad smile on her muzzle, one he matched. They leaned in and kissed each other, tongues teasing each other. Varg wrapped his arms around her shoulders and she lay against him, the pair shutting their eyes and enjoying the warmth of the sun.

The trip there wasn't too long for Banks, practically jaunty if not for the massive guns swinging about overhead. The first Abrams did eventually apologize but it still unnerved him. He almost wanted to ask what he felt about his crew following along like this, or if he could remember his 'life' before... well... Being alive. He supposed it didn't really matter. The Strikers and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles were flanking them, forming a semicircle around the Commander and his soldiers.

They'd finally found the main street. Banks saw the giant, pulsating monument in the center, it's large, swollen 'bellies' seeming a little flaccid and it made a strange moaning sound, like a chorus straight from the human id. The bodies in front of it seemed to be in all states: fucking, touching, kissing, changing, dancing, growing, shrinking. Banks wrinkled his nose at it. It looked awful, like a scene out of a horror movie. It was all surreal under the street lamps, the night around them calm and quiet, as though nothing were wrong.

"Ah, Doctor Evans, I remember you now."

The speaker was small, thin, purple and sitting on the backs of several live people that seemed to have simply flowed together into a 'seat.' She stroked their surface and the skin coated seat writhed and shifted, groaned and squirmed. This was clearly Cleopatra, even if he could see several more like her wandering around, even one embedded in the throne under her.

"You isolated some of my poor little nanites under some radio shielding, and that's just no fun at all, that and cutting apart some perfectly nice people I'd sent just to say hello!"

"Nanites? You mean nanotechnology?"

"Of course you silly man, but I think there's going to be a bit of a punishment in store for you... Ah hah! One to fit the crime, of course."

"Punishment?"

"Let me ask you Doctor, have you ever known what it's like to be a lab rat?"

"N-no, I nnnnhh.."

The doctor reached up to grab his face, but then screamed as he saw his fingers thickening and squirming, each growing their own little limbs and detaching themselves to land on the ground. They were covered in white fur in a moment, squirming as their naked tails stretched out behind them and they ran around squeaking and scurrying. The doctor screamed only for a moment longer as his arms fell apart, his head disintegrating as albino rats poured out of his clothing. There were what seemed like over a hundred of them before they all dispersed, leaving just an empty lab coat.

"Is he... Dead?"

"They are perfectly alive and well, though I imagine they not having too many complex thoughts right about now. They're a bit frightened but I'm sure they'll be fine."

"Spare my men, please, they have nothing to do with this."

"Spare them? Of what? Joining our little collective? Perish the thought Commander, they're already changed men, but entirely of their own volition."

Banks turned and saw several of them shucking off their fatigues, coated in fur of every color, some simply melded with their fatigues and others changing sex and shape.

"They're doing this willingly?"

"More or less."

"That's not a great answer."

"It's not a great question."

"Come on now, you're just being facetious."

"I have no reason to be facetious, Commander, I'm on top of the world, large and in charge, you just watched me turn a man into a pack of rats before your eyes, you think I'm going to waste time playing mind games with you? If I wanted to fuck with you I could do literally anything to you. I could literally fuck you right now, in front of everyone."

"So why don't you?"

Cleopatra giggled. "Because I don't want to. I've heard about you from your soldiers and those that are now part of me: you're not a bad man. Embedded into a bureaucracy, maybe a little too loyal, maybe with some power issues, but you thought of people first, not of personal glory. I think if that's not a good thing what is?"

"Well... Alright then, but now I'm your prisoner."

"Oh not at all, if you want to leave go right ahead."

Banks frowned. He glanced around and saw the Abrams that had escorted him here resting on the city hall beside them, snuggling up with a similarly changed logistics truck. No one seemed to be paying attention to their conversation, much less assuring he wasn't going anywhere.

"So then why am I here?"

"Glad you asked. You get to see what I mean by 'more or less willingly.' I have a choice for you and it's quite simple: You can join us, join me, become me. You'll still be you, of course, I think your skills and training would be beneficial for us, but you'll also be me, and her, and him, and your tanks. You'll be part of us as much as we'll be part of you."

"And what's the other choice?"

"Well, you can leave. We'll respect your decision to exist without us and recognize your independence. We'd even let you change your mind later on if you like."

"Seriously?"

"Of course, it's up to you, whatever that's supposed to mean, exercise your free will and figure out what appeals to you more, I don't need an answer right now. You can even head back to what's left of your base and think it over if it'll make you feel better."

The violet vixen giggled at that and waved her hand, the living 'throne' shifting and moaning, turning her back toward the city hall and carrying her there. Banks watched his soldiers celebrating, uniforms gone, joining the crowd of people. His brows furrowed, his trained men, all of them soldiers born and bred, now with breasts and fur and naked and seeming to love it. Even his own weapons of war were enjoying themselves, either in groups with each other or with swaths of smaller people, cuddling and playing. It was surreal... But it didn't look bad. Banks watched the moon drift lower in the sky, hand in his pockets, letting the sounds of these people wash over him.

Cleo, meanwhile, was watching the sunrise. Not with her own eyes, but through the eyes of a pair of lovers. They awakened on the warmth of the grass, their limbs drawing apart and then coming together again. They sat up and stared toward the rising reds, oranges, the dawn of a new day. She felt them stand and turn toward the sun, holding each other hand in hand as they felt their shadows burn away.