From: Plonq Subject: Test Date: May 16, 1999 18:27 I am slime, and so are my friends. The sooner you can wrap your head around that on more than a conceptual level, the better it will be for both of us. This makes me no better or worse than any other person living in these fucked-up times of ours. As for my friends - well, I hesitate in using that word to describe them, but it's the closest match I can find. They're just a group of people who I hang with because they may prove useful to me someday. We laugh at each other's jokes, get high together, and share a mutual disdain for the rest of the world. Mike "Metalhead" Damato is something of a special case. I think that I probably owe him my life - but more on that later. I have stuck close by him because he has a lot of connections that could be profitable someday, and he has stayed with me because he says that I give the best blowjobs - though my new set of vulpine jaws and teeth have temporarily dampened his enthusiasm. I compliment him on his good taste. He earned the nickname "Metalhead" because he has so many cybernetic implants, we're not sure how much of him remains human. This guy has enough hardware in his head that he could nuke a burrito just by thinking about it. I asked him once if he had any original parts left, and he honestly doesn't know. I mentioned that he saved my life? There's this death-metal band that somebody put me onto awhile back. Don't bother to ask me their name; they've dissolved and reformed enough times under different guises that it wouldn't mean anything to you anyway. They do one of those "jack in and let us pound your brain with a sledgehammer of screaming music and total sensory overload" bands that are popular with the younger crowd. Being the fuckwit that I am, I paid my credits for the concert and plugged in with the filters disabled. God... what a show! Describing it would be like trying to explain sight to a man who was born blind (and was too cheap to spring for disposable implants). They played every sense, every emotion: light and sound, pleasure and pain, fear, joy, lust... Imagine if Jesus himself descended from heaven and told you that you were the Chosen One, and then juiced you up with the most kick-ass designer euphoric ever made. Next he starts sucking you off while you watch your mother screaming and writhing in agony on the floor as cancer eats her bones. Now multiply that by ten. It was... too much. Apparently a few dozen teens blew their brains out after the show, so I guess I should consider myself fortunate. Metal came looking for me a couple of days later when I missed a lunch date with the gang and wouldn't answer his calls. He let himself in (I don't know how he bypassed my apartment's security - sometimes it pays not to ask) and found me curled up in a little foetal ball of catatonia and bodily wastes. He threw me into the shower and hit me a shot of something that made my heart feel like it was going to claw its way through the walls of my chest. I don't know what he gave me, but I doubt that it was legal. I had dermal bruising for a week after, and I still get an occasional twinge from it. I suspect that it did permanent damage that I should get checked out sometime. He's done me another turn now. Remember that company from which I purchased the morph kit sometime back? It seems they'd pulled a morphing act of their own. I was not surprised, in fact I had been expecting it. A company like that often has questionable quality control, and nothing defeats a lawsuit like disappearing into the night with your assets in tow. The faster you run, however, the deeper the footprints you leave. A good tracker can follow every twist and dodge that a departing corporation makes, if he can get onto the trail soon enough. I am not a good tracker, but Metal knows one. Even better, this guy works cheap. Cheap is good when you're broke. That damned morph kit tapped me to the extreme. "This dude can help you," Metal said, "but I gotta warn you, he's got a few quirks." Coming from somebody like Metal, that's a pretty scary appraisal. The old adage of the pot calling the kettle black comes to mind, so if Metal thinks this guy is a bit weird, he must be some kind of fucking freak! All I knew about him was that he preferred to be called by the name "Dragonwrath", he lived in a little cracker-box apartment on thirty-ninth street, and he was expecting me at exactly sixteen o'clock the next day. As soon as I met him, I thought, "Dragonwrath - puh! Pigwrath is more like it." Dragonwrath was as slovenly an example of a forty-something man as I had ever met. Long straggly brown hair dangled sloppily from his balding pate, and his copious gut overhung the front of his stained sweatpants. Tangled in with his hair were the ends of implants that he couldn't be bothered to unplug when he wasn't jacked into the net. His house was equally unkempt: a shrine to empty wrappers and processed food containers. To his credit, as much as he looked like somebody who regarded soap as his personal Kryptonite, he didn't smell too bad. Many cyber-jockeys regard personal hygiene with something less than indifference, and my nose still stings at the memory of one of Metal's megageek friends whose body odour could dissolve paint. I suspect that Dragonwrath, unlike many in his trade, got out once in awhile. "Whoa, vixen babe," he said as his eyes peeled back layers of clothes and fur. "Come in. I've been expecting you." It's not often that I have to watch my step when I visit somebody's place, but his carpet literally crunched underfoot! In stark contrast to mess, the walls were lined with more electronics than I have ever seen outside of a trade show. If you can picture the cockpit of a futuristic starship, you'll have a reasonable idea of what I saw when I stepped into his high-tech sanctuary. I guess my face must have projected my thoughts, because he waved graciously and said, "Welcome to my lair. Can I offer you anything? Coffee? Tea? A couple of field mice? Soylent Green? Oral sex?" "Apparently nobody has told you to go fuck yourself today," I replied darkly. "Okay," he said with an apologetic shrug, "I'm sorry for that quip about the field mice. We'll just skip the food, hm?" I fixed him with what I hoped was an intimidating, baleful glare. "I'm here on business. Let's just cut to the deal and be done with, okay?" "Ah," he said with a dopey grin, "but I AM talking business." I reached out and grabbed his chin with my hand, tilting his head back a few degrees. "Keep your eyes where I can see them," I growled. "Look at the fox, not the blocks. Last time I checked, my breasts didn't have eyes." I hadn't meant to grasp him as tightly as I had, but I'm pretty sure my black nails were going to leave lasting marks on his stubbled jowls. "Ooooh, touchy," he tsked, brushing my hand away. "Here's how it works. I'll name a price, and you can either agree or go on your way. I'm cheap and you're desperate. Let's just remember who needs who, love. I've been doing a bit of research, and a certain little foxy is up to her little vixen elbows in the company coffers, isn't she?" Erf - so much for covering my tracks. If he could trace my movements that easily, I wondered anyone else had done it already. "The deal is this," I said, "I'll get you into my company and you take what you want. You find the morph kit that has the antidote for this," I waved a hand down the length of my body for emphasis, "and we go our separate, happy ways. Does that work for you?" "What makes you think I need you to take what I want?" he asked languidly. "Because you'd have already taken it if you didn't," I hedged. It's possible that what he said was true, but I had my doubts. His services came pretty cheap for a reason. "Here is my counter-offer," he said, "You get me into your company net, I take what I want. I find your morph kit for you - assuming I haven't found it already." He grinned lewdly and continued. "You give me a few hours of physical pleasure, and I might even erase the evidence of your bilking. Don't think I'm the only one who's going to find it. You're a very clumsy little fox." Ah, so now he put his cards on the table. "Here is my counter-offer to your counter-offer," I mrred sweetly. "You wrap both your sweaty palms around a nice, splintery two-metre pole and shove it way up your unlubed anus. I walk out the door and hire someone else." Dragonwrath nodded solemnly and rubbed his chin as if in thought. "Your idea has some merit," he agreed, "but there ARE a couple of minor caveats that you should consider." He flipped up his index finger dramatically and said, "Primus: you, my fluffy-tailed little friend, are barely solvent. In less than a month you will have creditors busting down your door and seizing your assets. You couldn't afford to hire anyone else, even if you sold your soul." He flipped up another finger. "Secundus: I am only doing this for you at the behest of our mutual friend. He pulled in a couple of old favours to persuade me to do this for you, and I shall consider the deed fulfilled, whether you agree to my terms or not." "Oh," he added, almost as an afterthought. "If you DO walk out the door, my offer here still stands if you decide to come back - but the price will increase. Each time you walk out, the price will go up again. My time is too valuable to waste on a vixen who can't make up her mind." Bilious indignation rose in the back of my throat, and I began to understand how a fox in one of those ancient foxhunts must have felt when it was cornered. "And why do you need me to whore myself to you for this?" I asked tightly. "Surely you can get something better than me in cyber." Dragonwrath shrugged. "Call me old fashioned," he said. "Look, it's not like you don't play the slut for Metal. Hell, do you have ANY idea where he's been dipping that wick that you take in your mouth? Hey, are you blushing under that fur of yours?" Damn, I was learning to hate this guy. He had me treed, and he knew it. The mere sight of his flabby body sent shivers of revulsion through me, but I really had no choice, did I? "I'm not into any of that kinky shit," I said tersely. "Let's get it over with now, and then get on with the deal." "Let's not rush things," he said, holding up a palm quickly. "We haven't even started into the foreplay yet. We have a whole afternoon of planning to do first. Let's go get something to eat - my treat - and we'll start our planning session. We'll do a couple of dry runs this evening, and then you'll spend the night here. Tomorrow we'll hit the net. Afterward you'll walk out of here a happy little vixen, if perhaps a little sore in the tail." I agreed, of course. Pretty hard not to when he had all of the aces in his hand. While Dragonwrath left to get ready for dinner, I wandered around his apartment, familiarising myself with some of his equipment. I recognised most of it - and was pretty impressed too. For somebody who worked on the cheap, he didn't cut any corners on equipping himself. I assumed that the devices I couldn't identify - many of them appearing homemade - were contraband bypass filters and jammers. I eased myself into one of the leather chairs by his main console (I was starting to get used dealing with a tail) and jacked into the local news while I waited for him to return. "Like my set-up, eh?" he said when he emerged from the bedroom an hour later. "God knows I'd hate to see what my electric bill would be if I ever paid one." Dragonwrath managed to impress me again. In the mere space of an hour, he had managed to transform himself from a slovenly pig into something that almost resembled a human. The stubble was gone, and his freshly washed hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail. He had donned a loose-fitting, collared shirt that he had tucked into a matching pair of Khakis. He completed the ensemble with sandals, and a pair of round, Lennon-style glasses. In short, he looked and smelled presentable. I wondered about the glasses, though. Corrective implants were almost embarrassingly cheap these days, but the lenses definitely looked prescription. Ah well, Metal had warned me that this guy was quirky. The dry runs later that evening were, well, about as exciting as a dry run of anything can be. Dragonwrath constantly railed on me for my clumsiness on-line, and pained endlessly over what I considered insignificant details. I got so frustrated a couple of times that I almost bit him. Later that night I DID bite him a couple of times, though he didn't seem to mind. But that's none of your business. An item of note, and an image that will stick with me for a long time I think, was how he portrayed himself in cyberspace. I have always projected myself as a reasonable facsimile of my human form. Yes, I know that I can commission one of those art houses to do me up as just about anything I want, but it's never been a bit deal to me how people see me in the cyber world. Dragonwrath was... breathtaking. In cyberspace, this frowsy bag of human flesh was transformed into a glorious white dragon surrounded by a cyan nimbus of faerie light. He had liquid green eyes, and fair white skin that seemed to change every time you looked at it. At first glance it might look like parchment, at other times porcelain, and sometimes it resembled nothing less than bleached elephant hide. The membrane of his enormous wings scintillated like a soap film when they moved, and he had even programmed the red tips of his razor-sharp claws to leave marks in the virtual landscape. I've no doubt that he was showing off for my benefit. I was suitably impressed. We jacked in together the next morning and, as per our plan of the evening before, he wrapped himself around my finger as a dragon-head pinkie-ring on my left hand. I don't know how he did that, but he's the professional. All I had to do was get him past the company's Dobermans, and he assured me that he would take it from there. I would get him in, and it was up to him to get himself out again. I logged into the company system and waited for the security system to inspect me. "Good afternoon Mr. Darvin," said the firewall in its usual neutral, bordering-on-amiable monotone. "You are not logged in from one of your usual terminals." "No," I replied, swallowing hard to hide my nervousness. We had run through this a number of times during the dry run, but this was the critical moment. "I have an active account that I need to monitor. I'll only be here for a few minutes." Somebody had designed the guard software to appear as a pulsating, translucent eyeball. They had intended for it to look intimidating. It was. "You are wearing a new ring. May I examine it?" "Of course," I said, thrusting forward my virtual hand. If I had been a religious fox, I'd have been praying to whatever deity I held dear. Mostly I prayed that it had been our in-house programmers who designed the security software. I knew from experience that our own people were sloppy coders. The guardbot coalesced into a tight ball and surrounded my outstretched fist. There usually isn't any physical sensation in company space, but I could swear that I felt my hand tingling. I wondered what kind of algorithms and counter-algorithms were at play here. The ball was in Dragonwrath's court now; if we failed, it was not through any failing of mine. "You are cleared to enter, Mr. Darvin," it announced dryly as it withdrew from my hand. "Please remember to log your activities before you leave." I passed the guard software without further comment and entered the inner sanctum of the corporation. I suppose I experienced a remote feeling of guilt for betraying the company, but it wasn't the first time I had done so. I don't expect that it will be the last time, either. As Dragonwrath had rather poignantly pointed out, I was up to my elbows in their coffers. I glanced at my hand and noticed that he was gone. Ah well, let him have his fun. Part of me wondered what he was after in our system, but my pragmatic side assured me that I probably didn't want to know. I gave a virtual shrug and wandered off to check on the account that I'd mentioned to the guard. I left his flat later that morning with a hand-written menu card bearing a name and address and, as promised a very sore tail. This little vixen body had aches in places where muscles shouldn't rightly be. He'd learned that stuff from cybersex? I had been avoiding the whole cyber scene, but now I was beginning to wonder what I had been missing. I guess he must have enjoyed himself the night before, because I found a nice little bonus in my personal account the next day. The address on the card was for a place down in Atlanta. Could have been worse - at least it was on the same continent. Some girl named Alycia Thurston had bought the morph kit that matched mine. Her model was called - get this - "Vixen in a Vial". Cute name. I wanted to puke. I booked myself on a shuttle to Atlanta the next morning. I did a bit of digging on my own to find out when and where she worked - not hard to find if you know how to look. I planned my arrival to coincide with her absence. A very practical lady; she had purchased an apartment very close to the transit line. Even better, she lived in an older building, which made it easier to get in undetected. It makes me wonder why some people even bother with security in their homes. If someone like me could get in so easily, how did she hope to deter a real professional? You can be excused for wondering why I didn't just call her and explain the situation. I am not a nice person. If she had called me looking to trade vials I'd have extorted her. I could not afford the possibility that she was too much like me. She probably was; most people are. One thing confused me, though. I KNOW how much this morph kit cost, and I don't understand how somebody living in an apartment like this could have afforded one. Hell, it nearly broke me, and I'm living in a palace compared to her dump. I expect she paid for hers the same way I paid for mine. I just hope she's a bit better at erasing her tracks. I am not entirely without conscience, and I admit that I felt a bit sleazier than usual for breaking into her home. I justified it to myself by reasoning that she'd have done the same thing to me if she had thought of it first. I say "she", but perhaps I'd be a bit more accurate in saying "he", as given evidence by the smell, and copious amounts of orange fur strewn about the place. If I could have grinned, I'd have done so at the sight of all that fur - my place looked eerily similar. I wasn't pressed for time, but I wanted to take care of what I had come to do and leave. Dirty business is best done quick. I stood in the middle of her cramped living room and looked around, scratching my muzzle in thought. If I had a half-used morph kit, where would I leave it? Just to beg the question a bit, if I could figure out where she left it, would I ever FIND it in this disaster? Yeesh - and I thought that I kept a messy place! Fortunately I hit gold on my first try: the bedroom. The familiar black box lay in the middle of a clutter of feminine paraphernalia on her dresser. A few weeks ago, many of the items on her dresser would have been a mystery to me, but my recent gender change had forced me to do a bit of research and shopping - right after I'd spoiled one of my favourite sets of bed sheets. A sizable dent in the middle of the box's lid suggested that its owner had been less than happy about something. The sight of that dent brought a lump to my throat. Christ, if she's broken the vial... I pounced on the box and flipped open its lid to check the contents. I nearly soiled myself in relief when I found the "undo" module still intact and plugged into the applicator. I lifted the mechanism out of the box and held it up to the light for inspection. Seeing no outward damage, I asked, "Do you still work?" "You are not my registered owner," it replied with a touch of reproach in its machine monotone. "Fuck you," I said happily. I carefully removed the tiny blue bottle from the back of the applicator and held it up to my muzzle for a closer look. As near as I could tell, the bottle's contents were undisturbed. I grasped the applicator in my other hand and demanded, "is it okay to run you under hot water?" I wanted to clean away whatever nanobots were clinging to its intake valve, but I suspected that she, like I, had used the last of the sterile swabs that had come with the module. "That is not recommended," replied the device. "Recommended or not, will it do any harm?" I persisted. "This device was not designed to operate under water," said the device stubbornly. "Immersing this device in water will void your warranty." Fuck the warranty. It's not like it was any good since the manufacturer had pulled up stakes. I ran it under hot water anyway - heck, not like I was risking my own applicator - and gave it a vigorous shake dry. I paused as a thought struck me. "Do you have any sensitive moving parts that might get damaged by having me shake you around like this?" I asked hesitantly. "Would it stop you if I said yes?" buzzed the machine with a creditable air of longsuffering. "Hey, you're not planning to do that to me, are you?" came a muffled machine voice from inside my own morph kit. I withheld comment and used her hair dryer on the "air" setting to finish the drying process. It almost frightens me sometimes how well they are designing machine intelligence these days. They're still as dumb as sticks, but they are getting very adept at simulating genuine emotion. I removed my own module from its box I and carefully wrested the blue vial from its input housing. I wish she had kept her original morph vial so that I could match serial numbers, but plugging it in was the surest test. Besides, the vial I had removed from her applicator matched the empty one I had in my carrying case (thank you Dragonwrath!) so I was all right. I snapped the vial into place in her applicator and waited patiently. "Well?" I prompted when the machine remained silent, "are you going to work or aren't you?" "Module accepted," it droned, "but you are still not my registered owner. This undo module will not work for you." I hope this device's owner doesn't mind vixen slobber on it, because I gave it a big wet smooch. I repeated the process for my own applicator - minus the shaking - and it worked equally well. My knees almost buckled with relief as I gently lay the device back in its box and closed the lid again. I was going to leave then, but curiosity got the better of me, and I confess that I dug around a bit more before I left. I found a picture out her out in the kitchen posing with, what I assume are, her parents. Not a bad looking girl, if a bit on the young side. I had no doubt that she probably made for a pretty yiffy little fox. In a moment of perverseness, I tore a sheet of paper off the notepad I found in her kitchen and scrawled a little note on it. No harm in leaving a calling card - not like she wouldn't know that I was here anyway. She'd smell my presence the moment she came in the door. "Happy birthday, Alycia," I wrote sardonically. A week late for her birthday, but I think I mentioned that I'd done a bit of research. "If you want to tie one on before you change back, look me up." I wandered back to her bedroom and stuck the note under the corner of the box. I didn't bother to leave a name or address - Hell, I found her easily enough, she could find me if she really wanted to. I kind of hope she does - could be... interesting. It's been a couple of weeks now, and perhaps you've noticed, but I haven't changed myself back yet. I am starting to get used to being a vixen. I've bought some new clothes, and now that I know that I can change back any time, I'm quite enjoying it. I suppose I'll change back eventually - the batteries can't last forever in that applicator. Although being a busty little vixen doesn't ALWAYS get me the attention that I'd like, sometimes it does. But that's none of your business.