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Preparations for the big day are underway.

NOTE 1: The rest of Shifting Consequences, all the way up to chapter 53, is up on Tili and my patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tandz $4 a month is all it takes to see ahead in time on "The Tishen Transformation" and my stories. You get other perks too! I will still post chapters of SC weekly. It will never be a pay-only thing.

NOTE: This story is in an alternate reality with alternate politics and history.

Shifting Consequences--Chapter 47: Gathering Allies

By Zmeydros (Lucien Quinn)

After about a half-hour on the road, Zack says, "Glenn, how long till we're in Minneapolis?"

"About four to four and a half hours depending on how much we stop." Glenn pats Vale on the thigh. "You comfortable?"

Vale turns away from the window and towards Glenn. "The front seat seems a lot better than the back now that I'm taller."

"Tell me about it," Bella says. Her knees are almost touching the back of the driver's seat.

Vale looks at Bella. "We should switch when we stop. I wouldn't mind cuddling with Zack part of the way."

Bella puts her arm around Zack and leans so his shoulder is against her side. "Good idea."

Smiling at both of them, Zack says, "Yay! I get cuddles the whole way."

Glenn says, "Well, that is if I don't need you to drive."

Bella says, "As long as it's not city driving, I could drive part of the way."

"Sure, I'll let you guys know if I get sore or sleepy." Glenn glances at a mile marker.

"I'm assuming we want to meet Cher in the outskirts of town? An area without cameras?" Zack looks out the window. He's never been to Minneapolis, so he has no idea what the names of the outlying cities and towns are.

Glenn sighs as he thinks. "I think our best bet is to park in some back street in Hudson, Wisconsin."

Zack clears his throat. "Mal, please tell Cher that we'll be there in four to four and a half hours depending on whether we have to stop for food or gas or something. You can just give her directions to where we end up and figure out the timing, I assume?"

Zack's clearing of his throat gets played back in reverse before a disembodied voice says, "No need to clear your throat. I have perfect attention and hearing. I can do as you suggest easily. Leave it to me."

* * * * *

While Don and Cher are cuddling, they soon start rubbing each other sensually and start to transform. They pull off their clothes playfully and Cher rides on top of Don while he sits on the couch. Once they're tied, Don lies back on the couch with Cher on top of him and they go back to watching "House of Cards." A few minutes later, Cher's phone gets a text. She ignores it.

The phone vibrates again. Don looks at it and pauses the show. It vibrates again and again and again slowly making its way across the coffee table. "I think Mal is bored," Don says.

Cher sighs. "I guess we should answer it."

Don moans as he moves into a sitting position and hugs Cher to keep her in place. Then, he leans forward and reaches the arm that's not holding onto Cher toward the phone. He grabs it and hands it to her after he sits back down on the couch.

Cher looks at the phone and gasps in surprise.

"What does it say?" Don looks up at her concerned face.

"Zack and his friends are going to meet one of us in Hudson. He says that they are going to be very helpful." Cher puts down the phone. "Why would he bring them here?"

"I'd love to speculate, but this is Mal. I think thinking inside the box isn't even possible for him." Don shrugs.

"Well, I don't know how to keep the FBI stable with all this stuff going on. I can only hope that he has a good plan." She nips at Don's muzzle and he chuckles. "Which one of us should go meet them?"

"I guess our cars can't seat six very well... Maybe you should go since they've met you before?"

"Yeah, I can't really argue with that." Cher frowns. How can they trust her after what happened? Her mind drifts to Bella and she finds herself blushing. Damn that orca for being so sexy!

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just... I have a thing for the one that turns into a hermaphroditic orca."

"No worries, you can play with her all you like."

Cher blushes more. "I'm still getting used to the idea that both of us are so free in this relationship."

"I think it's the only relationship that makes sense when our libidos are this high and people can transform into sexy anthros. If we couldn't, it would be like being at a Ben and Jerry's and were only allowed to have strawberry ice cream."

Cher laughs.

"I can hardly wait to meet them." He grins. "Oh, and, you should probably bring them here, I don't think they'd fit at your place."

"You're a kinky little fox, aren't you? I know what you mean when you say you want to meet them." She teases him. "Of course I was going to bring them back here. I think it's the safest option."

"I can't help but be curious." Don smiles.

"'Curious,' huh?" Cher feels her tail start to go back in. It doesn't feel quite as uncomfortable this time.

He starts getting off of the couch. "Let's uncouple in the shower and get cleaned up."

As he carries her to the shower, Cher thinks about meeting Bella and Zack and the other two. Mal better be planning something helpful. She only just started trusting him today. If she had more time, she could probably come up with a way to get everything to work out, but Mallory has to be stopped asap and things at the FBI need to be contained before they fly out of control. If Mallory, Sonya, Deron, or someone else gets horny and does something like what she did when she went to Mallory's home, things could get very chaotic. That said, leaving everything in Mal's hands isn't necessary.

He said he wanted to include her, so she is going to do her best to reflect on this situation before she picks up Zack and the others. As Don starts the shower, she says, "I'm probably going to leave a bit early because I want to help with whatever Mal's planning and I think best on my own out in the middle of nowhere."

Don kisses her retreating muzzle. "That can only improve our chances and I should probably do some thinking myself. Sometimes, I come up with smart things."

"Sometimes? You're a great problem solver." Cher licks his neck playfully.

He chuckles. "Keep that up and I'm going to knot you again."

She stops licking. "As much as I'd like that, I think we better save some of our lust for tomorrow."

"True."

* * * * *

Deron works the rest of the day sharing a warm smile with Sonya whenever they cross paths. It's nice that both of them don't expect any sort of serious relationship. He should have had the same setup with his second wife. At least he didn't have children with her. Both of them were controlling, especially when they were around each other. Any children they had together would have been swept up in the conflict.

Romantic relationships are tough... Right now the non-romantic love of his life might be his friend Cory. They've been friends for ten years? No, fifteen? He's not even sure at this point. He's never been sexual with Cory except for in a couple of his dreams where he was Cory's girlfriend. Waking up after those dreams left him with a very bizarre feeling. How is he going to feel when he wakes up from whatever coma, dream, or altered state of consciousness he's in right now? Don had some convincing reasoning to say this wasn't a dream, but the things he's experienced are impossible... What would Cory think of all this? He'd probably think it was all a dream too. After tomorrow, it might be a long time until he sees Cory again.

He'll have to make an effort to relax tonight. Maybe he'll have one of those cheap cigars Cory got him as a joke--he chuckles. They had a philosophical discussion about how much people's expectations affect their experience of the world. Toward the end, Cory suggested that if they bought cheap cigars and wrote "Cuban" all over the box they would taste better. Deron laughed at his joke, but laughed even more when Cory gave him the box he has at home.

When Deron pulls into his garage, he looks at the unused tools hanging in the back. When they got company cars with full service plans, his hobby working on his car died swiftly. He was going to buy a fixer upper, but that fell through when he couldn't decide on which make and model he wanted most. He put off the decision and now it's over three years later. What did he do with all that extra time?

Hung out with Cory and his dad, gone to weekly escrima classes, and read lots of books... He gets out of the car and locks it. When he walks up to the door into his house, he pauses and hits the button to close his garage door. As the door closes, he walks into his house and shuts the door behind him.

After he sets his keys in the antique brass ashtray his father got him for Christmas, he takes off his shoes and grabs the box of cigars off of the top of the refrigerator. He walks through the house to his screened-in porch and closes the door behind him. He looks at the box after he sets it down. The black sharpie Cory used slid over the box a lot resulting in his writing looking like a crazed madman wrote it.

He grins as he thinks about the way Cory's face becomes creepy when he's really excited about something. He'd invite Cory over today, but he might not be free and Cory would probably catch on that something is wrong and there is a chance Deron would tell him. If this is a dream that would cause no harm, but if this is real, Cory might be in danger having that knowledge. He won't risk it.

Deron pulls the plastic wrapping of the box off removing Cory's writing along with it. Then he opens the top and sniffs the air. Sawdust and a hint of tobacco, the scent of cheap cigars... He takes one out and unwraps it. Then he grabs an old peanut butter jar, that's sitting on one of the horizontal wooden planks that the screen is attached to, and opens it. He dumps the contents onto the black metal mesh of the patio table. There's a grill lighter, a pocket knife, and a small-but-powerful LED flashlight.

He sits in one of the four chairs. Their seats and backs are made out of the same black mesh as the table top. Using the pocket knife, he cuts the end off of the cigar. Then he puts the end in his mouth and lights it while sucking in softly. It takes a couple tries, but eventually it's smoldering. He sucks in and then starts coughing immediately. He should have known this would happen--he can't even remember the last time he had a cigar.

For the next five minutes he tries to enjoy the cigar and fails. Holding the smoke in his mouth and then blowing it out tastes terrible. Is it the cheapness of the cigar? Has he lost his taste for tobacco? He swears the flavor is way more overwhelming than he remembers. Maybe his sense of taste and smell have changed? Or, maybe, he's not supposed to smoke in this dream. He laughs as he imagines Cory making fun of him for forgetting to bring his ashtray out here. It holds his keys nicely, but it would be good to try it out for its intended purpose.

He grabs one of the bricks he has on the floor for weighing down napkins and other things during backyard barbecues and uses it to dab out his cigar. A whiff of the smoke goes right up his nose and he sneezes only to start coughing and sputtering again. In his mind, Cory is laughing his ass off. As his coughing fit fades, he starts to cry. His eyes were already wet from coughing and now he's thinking about never seeing his dad or his friends again. He could die, he could end up running from the law for the rest of his life, or he could get caught and be incarcerated. If he's caught, they'll probably question him.

Tears fall onto the mesh and then drip to the floor. How is it possible that he is having this experience? It just seems to go on and on. Maybe he won't see anyone he loves again because he's actually in a coma. Why is he taking it on himself to deal with Mallory and the other crooked leaders? He could just lay back and let Mallory control everything. He'd probably get to keep his job, especially if he pretended to submit to Mallory's wishes.

But that wouldn't be anything like him. He would truly be another person--a person he didn't like. When he started in the FBI, it was to stop people like Mallory--people who use whatever means necessary to get what they want. The first few years were great. He even took down a mafia family in Connecticut. Then the world changed and the US became run by fear. This fear gave a lever to people who offer safety in exchange for the human rights of others. Mallory, and people like her, thrived in the new political climate. His job was switched from organized crime to security. At first, he liked the new position. He didn't have to go on long trips and he got to spend more time with his family and friends.

That was until he realized what his security position was actually about. None of the higher-ups cared about the training requirements or building lockup procedures. What they got excited about were his reports about security breaches inside the FBI. What they wanted was for him to find as many traitors as possible. He was asked to check people's backgrounds, internet traffic, emails, text messages, and voice-to-text call transcripts created by the latest speech recognition tech.

People were fired on the smallest speck of evidence against them. Most of the people fired were the ones that put up a fuss about how immoral their superiors had become. Anyone not part of the witch hunt for "traitors" or "enemy sympathizers" within their own country was undesirable in the new order. Anyone who questioned the emergency powers of the president or the ongoing wars was suspect. The data Deron found was sometimes used against friends he'd known for years. Internal affairs started to determine the mission of the FBI at large.

All this time, he did nothing about it even though he felt everything they were doing was wrong. He felt an obligation to stay in his position and limit the damage they caused as much as he could. He operated on the edge of suspicion trying his best to retain people that had morals. At the height of his career, before he was transferred, his ability to take in lots of data and solve a case was nearly as legendary as Cher's. Now he's out of practice and all he's been thinking about for the last couple years is how to disrupt the power structure.

Sometime while his mind was reflecting on the past, his tears stopped and a feeling of duty took hold of him. He must follow through with his plan whether this is a dream or reality. It has been years since he thought things needed to change. He's overdue for action. Disrupting the power structure may just give the fear mongers more ammunition. That's fine because this disruption will give Cher, Don, her friends, and Sonya time to get away. If it was only Cher who got free, he'd still do it. She's easily the most brilliant and most moral person he's ever met. She doesn't deserve to be caught.

In the best case scenario, everyone including himself will be free. Maybe this FBI office would change in structure and start being a nice place to work again. If the witch hunt ends, there will be camaraderie again. The only amoral thing about his plan is that he's going to have to accuse Mallory of something she hasn't actually done. Maybe he should just tell the people at the meeting that Mallory has been looking for Zack, but she has a conflict of interest because she herself can transform. That would be a fine way to start.

Can he really honestly hope for the best case scenario? There's so many ways this could get screwed up. All he can do is make contingency plans and be willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. He has always identified with the old tales of captains going down with their ships. If he makes a plan and it fails, he should take responsibility.

He sits staring through the screen at his well-maintained backyard. If he gets through all this, he's going to need to find someone that can enjoy the effort he puts into maintaining his home--and his amazing new transformation abilities. He feels a bit of warmth spread across his chest and down his stomach as he recalls what happened only a few hours ago. This dreamlike reality better not be a nightmare in disguise. Maybe it's actually reality? Maybe he can actually turn into an anthropomorphic rhino...

He walks inside and takes off his clothes, walking toward the bedroom thinking about the anthro form he experienced earlier today and he starts getting hard. As he strokes his cock, he feels it start to shift in his hands. This is going to be fun!