User:JonBuck/Open Secrets

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Remember, as WIP, the whole text is in flux. --Buck 03:21, 25 February 2008 (EST)

{{#ifeq: User |User| Open Secrets | Open Secrets}}[[Title::{{#ifeq: User |User| Open Secrets | Open Secrets}}| ]]
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August 17, 2008

Holly snarled at the gas pump as she filled the tank on her Honda Odyssey minivan. "Four effing thirty a gallon! That's outrageous!" She thought that all those oil discoveries and that new wastewater process was supposed to make gasoline cheaper! So what the hell is this?

OPEC had panicked, cutting oil production so much that it drove prices close to $150 per barrel, trying to milk it for all it was worth before the new American and Canadian cheap stuff hit the streets. At the speed new wells and renewable bacterial gasoline facilities were being built, gasoline would be back under two dollars next summer. But the vixen felt like rending those sheiks limb-from-limb! She drummed her claws on the rear window, covering her muzzle to keep out the stinging reek of the gasoline from her sensitive nose.

Holly yawned, checking her watch. Barely six in the morning, but summer traffic in the Monterey area could become a slow gridlock on Highway 1. From her home in Carmel Valley her first stop was all the way in Gilroy, the so-called Garlic Capital of the World, to visit another fur for a needed checkup. Once the tank was full she checked to ensure the ultrasound equipment was still secure behind the rearmost seat, before a mewing cry made her yank the tailgate closed. The vixen moved swiftly, opening and closing the sliding side door behind her.

It was only a moment, but her three-month old baby had woken. Dr. Holly West double-checked to make sure nobody was looking, then uncovered the child in her secured bassinet made for vehicles. "And how is my little kitten?" she cooed, sniffing. At least she didn't need changing.

The infant anthropomorphic cheetah regarded her mother with a studious feline smugness. She took after her father, as far as species was concerned. She had that fuzzy kitten look to boot, with the dark tracks down her cute little muzzle. She was pudgy like a human baby, but those little claws were quite sharp and needed frequent clipping. There was not a hint of fox in her, but Holly was so relieved just to have a healthy baby she didn't care. There was only one problem.

Unlike her mother, little Roxanne had no human past. Her human ghost was tenuous at best, confirmed by some of the non-furry Friends she had. While the image of a human infant was there, anybody who touched her felt the fur, the tail, the muzzle, and the ears. They saw human, but felt the cheetah. So just in case, Holly kept her out of sight out in public.

Unfortunately leaving her at home for this trip was not an option. The baby needed nursing, formula was an unknown, and she couldn’t pump enough milk to keep her fed for the ten days she'd allotted for this trip to Seattle to check up on other pregnant furs in small towns up the coast, and in some cases other babies. She'd already postponed the trip several times, but even though Change Day was here it could no longer wait.

She checked her iPhone. She'd rushed out the door so fast there were quite a few emails on the PregFurs list she hadn't yet read. It'd just have to wait for the next stop. Holly nuzzled her snoozing baby one last time, hopped in the driver's seat, then headed northward.

Traffic moved at a sedate pace in the ever-present early morning fog, but she got to Highway 68 to Salinas at a decent speed. She reached Highway 101 at about the time the Change had hit her two years ago. Holly started looking at the other drivers around her on the off chance one of them...

"Oh, crap!" Holly swore. The highway was nearly empty, and in the mist she watched an old Ford Escort go off into the dry grass and only miss running into a highway sign by sheer luck. The red vixen stopped as quickly as she dared, but on a hunch, didn't call it in just yet. She reached the car only ninety seconds after the accident.

Frightened doe eyes looked back. She was right in the middle of the "American Werewolf" change, as someone had called it years ago. The special effects in that movie had turned out prescient. Watching someone get a muzzle of any kind was a strange sight indeed. Holly double-checked to make sure this wasn't one of those gender-changed victims. But there was no sign of antlers, and she was obviously not wearing anything unisex. Not in that top.

"Muwaooow!" she bleated in panic, fumbling for the door handle with fusing fingers. "Holy shit!"

"Calm down! Don't panic!" Holly said. The doe-woman scooted across the center console to the passenger seat, torn between her own transformation and the predatory apparition in the fog. "You're fine! Just go with it."

She was hyperventilating, putting herself into even more of a panic. Holly didn't care about species at the moment, but knew the first few hours for new deer tended to be anxious ones. Rodents and lapines were even worse.

She finally decided that her own changes were more important than the vixen outside. She stared at her hands, wiggling her cloven hoof-like fingers, an expression of surreal disbelief on her face. In that pool of calm beyond panic. "Oh. Oh my! Oh my God! My face! My hands! My hands!"

"I'm Holly West," she said. "Can I open the door?"

"Elise... um... Elise Rosenberg," she stammered. Her shoes had vanished, and now she was staring at her feet sticking out from under her skirt. "Am I some kind of demon?"

"Hardly," Holly replied with a chuckle. She flicked her ears back, listening to see if the baby had awakened. "You're a deer of some kind. Are you feeling okay? You're not injured?"

"If you can call this okay!" she exclaimed, panic rising again. But the post-Change endorphin rush put a lid on it. For a lot of new furs it was impossible to feel bad the first few hours. Going from being so sick to suddenly being so well was quite an unnatural high. The doe folded her ears back. "Open the door if you'd like, um, Holly. The passenger side. I think I've wedged my behind in a bad spot. Is that a tail I feel?"

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It took half an hour for the tow truck to come, and during that time Holly filled Elise in on all the basics, interrupted only by Roxanne's hungry bawling. The baby made Elise stare even more than the changes to herself. "I don't understand this at all," the doe said, unable to keep her altered hands off of her changed anatomy.

Holly draped a nursing blanket over her shoulder, then pulled up her top. She wasn't wearing more than a token bra, just enough to absorb any milk she might be leaking. It was time to feed the baby anyway. She shifted in the minivan's empty back seat opposite the highway as Roxanne found her nipple and started suckling. She draped the blanket over the infant's head for some privacy, bushy tail through a hole that had been skillfully cut in the back by her husband. "Get used to it. A million more today, two million next year. Things are starting to accelerate..."

Despite having been told about the RDF over and over again, Elise still hid from the tow truck driver when he arrived. She only poked her ears out of the minivan after it was obvious he didn't see anything amiss. "She's a little skittish after the accident. I think she ran through a patch of oil or something," Holly explained.

The tow tuck driver was a clean-shaven man in his mid-twenties. As always, he looked at her with obvious attraction, despite having her having gained ten pounds after her pregnancy. "Can't blame her. I think she knocked something loose after she went off the highway, too. See that oil slick?" He pointed out a long, black smear that started at the highway's edge and went all the way to where the Escort had come to a stop. "You knocked off your oil pan. You hurt, Miss?"

"I'm fine! I'm just... out of sorts," Elise replied, looking askance at Holly. "Dr. West here checked me out. I'm... I'm fine."

"If you say so. I'll pull the car out. Only take a few minutes with a winch. Let me get your insurance card."

As the man made good on his word, the doe sidled up to the vixen. Roxanne was sleeping now, her spotty tail swishing lazily beneath her mother's forearm. "You're right. He can't see us at all," Elise said.

"Right. So, before you were interrupted, where were you headed? Perhaps I can help?"

Now the new doe started getting upset again. "Portland. I'm... supposed to be a bridesmaid. It's my younger sister's wedding, you see. And I'm already leaving a day later than I planned. Damned flu! And that car was on its last legs anyway. I don't have the time to get it fixed, or the money for a flight. Even at these outrageous gas prices."

The vixen carefully scratched her muzzle thoughtfully, switching sides so Roxanne got fed from both breasts. Next time, it was the lowers' turn. I could do without having four tits, thank you. The lower set of breastlets had only become slightly swollen after she gave birth, more like a normal vixen's milk glands would. But the uppers were essentially human-normal. I barely know this woman. But I'm not going to leave her in the lurch.

"Don't worry, Elise. I have a proposal for you."

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Salinas was only ten miles back, and Elise's home was on the outskirts of town, in a new development surrounded by fields of lettuce. The tow truck driver dropped the old Escort at her driveway, doffed his hat to both women, then went on to his next job. "You'll have to pardon me for a few minutes, Dr. West. I need to check on something really fast..." the doe said, with that distracted expression of the newly Changed.

Holly decided not to rush her and called her patient in Gilroy, letting her know she'd be late.

When Elise came out again a half hour later, the vixen had transferred her luggage to the minivan and nursed Roxanne a second time. The speechless woman climbed into the passenger seat, and said nothing until they were halfway to Gilroy. "Um... I just can't believe it. Anything, really. I feel better than I've felt since I was sixteen, and even then I couldn't hope to have the body I have now. Is this some kind of sick cosmic joke? I'm a hot chick, but now I've got ears like these?" she tugged on them. "And this damned tail? And what about my face? Lord in Heaven, I'm a deer!"

"I'd say the strangest part is looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking: 'yes, that's me.' About three quarters of us go through a phase of disassociation, but it passes quickly," Holly explained.

"I'm up two whole cup sizes!" she complained. "I was an A-cup and I liked it that way!"

Holly checked the clock on the dashboard. Already pushing nine, but it was only another fifteen minutes to Gilroy. "How quickly do you need to be in Portland?"

"The wedding isn't until Thursday, I'd planned on spending a few days with my sister. Batchelorette party and all that beforehand." She looked at her hands, ears vibrating a little.

It was Sunday now. "There are a few patients I absolutely need to visit before we get there, Elise. About four pregnant furs and two toddlers I need to examine. And another five on the way back down from Portland. I can afford to fly you home from there, if you like..."

"Oh, no! Not like this!" the doe said. "I can't fly..." She blinked at the vixen's questioning look. "I'm on vacation anyway, and I hate flying to begin with. More, since they started making you take your shoes off."

Holly snorted, nodding. "I agree with you there, Elise. If you don't mind traveling with a veterinarian getting a crash course in anthropomorphic anatomy." She chuckled, thinking at what her professors at UC Davis would need to re-learn over the next few years, if they didn't have some idea already. "See, I normally doctor horses and the occasional wildlife."

The doe flicked one of her ears and snorted, looking at her hands again. "I guess that makes what?"

"Two million of us."

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Gilroy was famous for its Garlic Festival in July, which most furries avoided like the plague. Patricia professed to love the odor, though there were times when Holly doubted her honesty. Detectable even to a human nose from miles away, to a vixen and a doe the next few hours were going to be a trial. "Patty's the only one I'm able to check up on regularly," Holly explained.

Elise covered her wide, black nose, eyes watering. "My sense of smell is shutting down."

"Good! That'll make it a little easier. How are you holding up, otherwise?"

"As well as can be expected, I guess. It's a lot to absorb."

"So don't think about it too hard. Just do what comes naturally. What kind of deer are you?" Holly cocked her head as she got near Patty's driveway. There were two more cars parked out front than the previous checkup a month before. Aside from her ratty husband, the two of them were pretty solitary.

"I really have no idea, and I really don't care right now. What are we here for?"

"We're going to make sure that furs are giving birth to healthy babies." Roxanne belched a little as her mother parked next to Patricia's Chevy pickup in the driveway. It was a modest bungalow, painted white, not the most cushy place to live. The air was already getting hot. The air conditioners were already running full blast. To the vixen's surprise, an older woman came outside, husband in tow, with the gravid red panda right behind. "You really shouldn't be moving around in your condition, Patty."

"If I don't get at least a little exercise I'm going to go crazy," the red panda replied, arms around her belly. She was dressed in some used maternity clothes. The fact that she had once been physically male didn't make her situation less enjoyable. In fact, Holly had never seen a woman so happy to be pregnant. The most important thing by far that as a human she had been a transsexual.

"You're Dr. West? You weren't a man too, were you?" the older woman said.

"No, mother. She was born a woman, just like you," Patricia said. "I've tried explaining that only a tiny fraction of us change gender, too. But..."

"She knows?" Holly asked warily, opening the door to get the bassinet out.

"My whole family knows, Holly. When I got preggers my human ghost went female, even to them," Patricia said, delighted. She cocked her head at the vixen's obvious confusion. "I'm a woman to everyone now. Even my birth certificate. Even my high school yearbook--you should see me in my prom dress. It's so cute! I never told you?"

"No. That's the first I've heard of that. That's sort of important information."

"Why, I assumed you knew. I told the PregFurs list back in March."

"And I finally joined in April, Patty. But never mind. Just make sure everybody knows." Patricia was the first transgendered fur anyone knew of who had gotten pregnant. Which was amazing, given their numbers and how some of them played around. She looked at Elise, who was almost hiding behind the other side of the van, so quietly that the humans hadn't noticed her yet. As quiet as a doe already. "Come here, Elise. Let me introduce you to Mrs. Jones, here."

"Newbie?" the pregnant red panda asked.

Holly hefted the handle of her baby's bassinet. "Just a couple hours ago. Let's get started, shall we? We'll stay long enough for lunch, then move north. If your husband would be so kind to carefully get the equipment out of the back, this won't take long."

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It wasn't an empty house. Two kids, ten and twelve, sat in front of the small LCD TV, watching the Summer Olympics. Next to them was another woman in her early thirties who bore a strong resemblance to Patricia's mother, had come back inside with her waddling daughter. The news crawl at the bottom of the screen told of the cancellation of several events due to illness from the participating athletes. Elise, still feeling uncharacteristically skittish, walked into the cooled air inside the living room. Every window had a humming air conditioner.

It smelled like rat and red panda musk, but it was much better than the redolent, cloying reek of garlic.

The girl, a bored-looking ten year old, looked at Elise's feet. "Are you one of those furry people? You're not wearing any shoes."

"Well... um..." she stammered. From the dining room table, Holly's half-human baby started crying. It was a strange mewling sound, something that certainly didn't come out of a human throat. Elise folded her ears back.

"Oh, dear! I'll get her," Patricia's mother said. She happened to be closest.

"No, wait..." Holly said, torn between her child and her heavy ultrasound equipment.

To her credit, the gray-haired woman didn't drop the baby. The fuzzy little cheetah stopped crying, smacking her lips together. She started purring. Loud kitten purrs, the kind that rumbled through your hand if you were petting them. This was only the second time Elise had seen her, and she was nearly as floored as Patricia's mother. "Oh, Lord in Heaven. Give me strength in the years ahead," she whispered.

"Watch her claws, Mrs. Dale," the vixen said gently. She and the rat had put the equipment down on the floor. "They get sharp quick."

Mrs. Dale handed the baby back to her mother. Patricia had come in behind them, closing the door. The pregnant woman waddled towards a worn easy chair. "I told you, mother, that I didn't just become a true female physically. There's more to it than that. I've have a rather long tail, too."

"I just thought... the Lord saw fit to correct my error of praying for a boy, and that was it," she said. "I heard you, Patty. And you know I always supported your transition. And... and... I need to go lay down for a while."

The woman Elise had taken as Patricia's sister looked concerned and got to her feet. "I'll help you, Mom."

Holly put her baby back in her bassinet, then opened her bag, removing an electric razor. "Let's get started, shall we?"

Patricia grimaced, pulling up her top to reveal a somewhat bare belly. "I hate this part. It's barely grown back from the last time."

"Thirty-seven weeks, Patty. You're almost finished," Holly reassured.

"The midwife is coming down tomorrow, and you can imagine this is why my family is here," she replied as Holly shaved the short fur off her stomach, while her niece and nephew watched in fascination as black fur fell to the floor. "To tell the truth, I think everyone's just a little loopy today."

Elise snorted. "Loopy."

"I'm sorry, where are my manners?" Holly said. "Patricia Jones, Elise, um..."

"Rosenberg," the doe said. All the conversation from the past ten minutes clicked into place. "You were a man?" she sputtered. Somehow, that seemed even stranger than becoming part animal.

Patricia's expression hardened. "No matter my accident of birth, I was never a man. You heard my mother. She prayed for a boy, but got a boy with a girl's brain. But that mistake was corrected. If you want the whole story, Holly knows. Who is this woman anyway, Holly?"

The vixen finished with the razor, then started to spread clear gel on the newly bare skin. "Go easy on her, Patty. She just Changed today. I met her on the road and we happened to be going the same direction. We're traveling together." She flicked on a few switches, and the wand began to hum. Adjusting her laptop so the screen faced the two women, she started the exam. "Let's see how that little ratboy of yours is coming along."

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The new doe's discomfiture created a long silence after they left Patricia's modest home. The next stop was north of San Francisco, in a tiny town called Inverness. With Roxanne sleeping soundly in her bassinet, with only the occasional purr to give her away, Holly tried to make conversation. "So, what do you do for a living?"

"I'm a Special Education teacher," she replied in a disinterested voice, as if reciting by rote. "I teach kids with Downs Syndrome, Autism, and the like. It's a good job. I enjoy myself." She looked at her hands and flexed her fingers in a pattern, and bleated a little. "I'm sorry, I'm just not a good conversationalist today.

"Holly--do you mind if I call you that? Holly, that was the most uncomfortable three hours of my entire life! That... that woman was a man?"

The vixen grimaced. People always reacted more strongly to transgendered furs than they did to their own changes, oddly enough. "If you overheard, it's more of a correction, honestly. It's nice to see a happy ending for one of them."

Elise now looked at herself. "And does that mean that I could have ended up a man today?"

Holly remained silent, not sure what to say. She didn't want Elise to completely lose it. "There was a slim chance. One in a hundred."

Strangely, she didn't seem all that horrified. "You know, I'd rather deal with having a penis than these." She tugged on her ears, which flicked when she touched them. "I honestly have no idea where I stand now. I don't know anything about being a deer!"

Holly fished her iPhone out of her purse and handed it to her passenger. "Here, find some Web references. We're not really animals. Well, not where it counts, in my view. It's like the animal bits are just tacked on, though we do have some instincts to deal with as well. There's some bookmarks you should check out, too."

Somewhere north of San Rafael, both the reception and the battery ran out, and Elise wasn't mollified. She only had more questions. "You're a vixen? And your baby is a cheetah?"

"My husband is a cheetah. Eric's such a sweetie," Holly said. "We married soon after we both Changed in '06. We're both Veterinarians. He does cats and dogs, me horses. But with this thing that's happening we're both studying human anatomy, too. A whole new education, basically."

"I hate to say this, but I don't look like food to you, do I?" Elise asked half-jokingly.

"You have nothing to worry about," Holly reassured. "We're not going to allow ourselves to degenerate into that kind of society."

"Heh. That's nice to hear. I was looking up my exact species on the web before the battery died. I think I'm a blacktail. I checked myself out in the mirror before I left home."

Holly raised her ears. "Never heard of that one."

"They're more common in California and the Pacific Northwest. I'm from Portland, originally. Longer tails and smaller ears than mule deer, but they lack whitetails' distinctive feature. Um... I still really have no idea how this is going to affect my life. I mean, if everyone other than people like you still see me as a human..."

The vixen mother let the new doe ramble as she drove up the narrow highway towards Inverness. There was always a period of self discovery post-Change, as people started reading about their new species and tried to fit it into their new sense of self. There were a number of Changed psychologists who were still trying to make sense of just how quickly this integration happened. Some "got it" within weeks, others still struggled to this day, even if they'd Changed when there were only a few thousand others in the world.

Holly liked to think she was one of the former. But being a red fox had its own baggage. The very first furry was supposedly a vixen. They had a bad reputation of being promiscuous in the human "fandom" that had formed around the Veil-protected real anthropomorphics. The fact that she was a married woman hadn't stopped a few boors from asking her for a quick yiff on Second Life, IRC, or on pure-text MUCKs. So much so that she kept to the PregFurs mailing list almost exclusively these days.

"I'll put you in touch with Tara Slater, Elise. She's not a local, and she's a whitetail, but she's been a doe for a year now herself. She can give you all kinds of advice," Holly said.

"I'd like that," Elise said. She rolled down the window and took a deep breath. The air smelled of pine and seasalt. Inverness sat at the head of Tomales Bay, formed by a long, narrow gap between two ridges along the San Andreas Fault. "Who's next on your list?"

"A rather unusual case, even as we furs go," Holly explained. "They had an infant who Changed when he was just over a year old. Very, very fortunate they were in San Francisco at the time. One of us caught them before they went into hysterics, though they did that anyway out of public view. You see, the parents aren't Changed yet. Although..."

"Maybe one of them Changed today?" Elise wondered. "They probably would have called you."

"Maybe, maybe not. They've gone reclusive and they're wealthy enough to wait until their child grows up enough to have a stronger Veil. But we're almost there anyway. Just keep yourself from nibbling on their garden, and we'll be just fine." Holly lolled her tongue.

Elise folded her arms. "Oh, ha ha."

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When Holly parked the minivan into the driveway, the Hoskins' dog immediately started barking loudly behind the fence. Her angry snarls made Elise quiver in fright and grasp her seat tightly, ears raised high. "Be back in just a minute. They should know we're here now, at last."

The Doberman barked all the more when the vixen approached the fence. She was downwind of the animal, so the dog hadn't smelled her yet. In response, Holly yipped, then snarled viciously. The guard dog shut up and immediately started whining. "She's just a big softy, Elise. No worries." She rotated her ears, expecting to hear the front door open. When that didn't happen, she strained for other noises, and heard the sound of one... no... two otters behind the house. The house itself fronted on the Bay.

"I'm going to stay here until they at least put that dog on a leash, Holly," Elise said.

"That's okay with me. I'm going to paw it out back and see what's going on. Keep your nose on Roxy if you please?"

"My pleasure. And don't you mean my eyes?"

"Your nose is a better asset now. Trust me. Back in a few."

With the Doberman barking and trying to lick her muzzle, Holly walked out behind the modest home the high fence surrounded. The sound of otters got louder, as she expected. But as she broke into a jog, she found exactly what she expected. Young father Roy Hoskins was sitting on a lounge chair next to a tidal pool behind their property, watching not one, but two anthro otters. One was clearly his wife, and the other, a little boy just over two years old, their son. He had a wistful expression on his face. Holly coughed politely.

Roy didn't look up. "Michi changed this morning. They haven't been out of the water since," he said. There was a wetsuit over a low branch of a young redwood, still dripping. "Too cold for me for very long. Perfect for them. With my luck I'll end up a camel."

Michi floated belly-up in the water, wearing a bikini, with the otter toddler sitting on her belly. "Oh, look! Your Aunt Holly is here!" she said, waving. Young Roy Jr. waved as well.

Holly waved back. "Hey there! Any way we can persuade you out of the saltwater?"

"This fur is wonderful! I don't feel the cold at all!" she replied. "And we're so fast in the water! I love it!"

"Don't rub it in," Roy muttered. "I'm going to need a better wet suit, and a jet ski."

Michi Hoskins was now long in the body, with shorter legs, and a long, thick tail. Her fur was a deep brown on her back, lighter on her belly. And like most other Changed, her chest had filled out considerably. She picked up a hose and started to wash the salt water off herself and her son. "God, what a relief! I was afraid I'd end up a cat."

"I have someone I need to introduce to you two," Holly said. "If you wouldn't mind putting your dog away... Well, she's a deer."

"Oh? Oh! Sure, Holly," Roy said. "I'll take care of it." He walked away.

Michi twitched her whiskers. "He's gone all distant on me."

"Give him time. Let's head inside, shall we?"

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This visit wasn't any more comfortable for Elise than the first one, but it was made all the worse by the baby grand Piano that took up most of their living room, and the slippery hardwood floors. And the whole house smelled like a mixture of dog and otter. Then there was little Roxy, who needed changing.

"We're lucky they have bare bottoms for the first couple years," the vixen vetinarian said, finishing up a diaper change.

"Don't even talk to me about potty training," Roy said with a disgusted look on his face. He was a fit man, mostly from trying to keep up with his energetic son. The toddler could swim long before he could walk. "They need a quick bath every time."

Elise sat on the couch, one eye on the piano, and the other on the toddling otterboy. It was just a checkup, and wouldn't take long. But the more time the doe spent near the piano, the more she was tempted to see just how bad losing a finger actually was. She stared at her hands. The middle fingers were larger, the tips mostly covered by thick black, pointed nails that were annoying to keep filed down, according to the information she'd read on the iPhone. And the pinky and thumb resembled dewclaws. A deer's cloven forehoof remapped to human proportions.

She flexed them carefully. Her brain had also been remapped. An important question weighed heavily on her mind. With everyone focused on the Hoskins' toddler, Elise walked over towards the piano.

Dare I? I should know for sure, she thought, opening the keyboard cover. Then she nervously placed her fingers on the keys, and tried to play a chord. Her thickened middle fingers pressed down several keys at once, let alone the missing finger. "Oh..." she stopped herself from swearing. "Oh no."

"What's wrong?" Holly asked, looking up from her physical exam of the otter child. "Elise?"

"Oh... just. Just thinking. Listening, really. These keys sound different."

"Our hearing is much better than humans'. Yours is probably better than mine with those ears, actually. I could do some tests once we return home. I have an office in Carmel Valley..."

The doe plinked a few keys, trying to do chopsticks. She only partly succeeded. She folded her ears back, frustrated. "Oh, I couldn't afford..."

"No cost, my dear deer. We're still trying to establish some baselines."

"Speaking of baselines, how's my little otta?" Michi asked.

"He's fine and dandy, Mrs. Hoskins, though you should probably think of breastfeeding if you haven't already. You found some formula, but I think you should try and do what comes naturally now," the doctor suggested.

The newly Changed otter woman sighed. "I don't know if I can get any milk. I've fed him on occasion, but..."

"Well, the Change might have corrected that. Do try, Michi. And eat more shellfish."

The woman smiled. She had a cute face, almost cartoon-like in its human expressiveness. "Oh, I will. But right now I feel like a sandwich. Are either of you hungry?"

"I could use a bit of salad," Elise asked, feeling a little queasy. She'd read that she was a ruminant, and wasn't looking forward to the "unswallow" that the other deer furs had termed it. She hadn't eaten much at Patty's house, mostly because nothing smelled right. This house smelled a little of varnish from the piano, and the otter musk was more pleasant than the red panda and rat.

"We can offer you two a room for the night," Michi offered.

"I'm afraid we have to move on," Holly said. "I have to get Elise to Portland by Wednesday, which means we need to hit Eureka by tomorrow afternoon. I have some patients in out-of-the-way places. I want to make some time before dark today."

Michi's ears drooped. "Oh. Pity, Holly. We have so few visitors."

"Because that's the way it has to be," her husband said. "We can't risk..."

Michi's eyes narrowed. "Maybe it's time to reconsider. This is a great little town. It's time we got to know the neighbors."

Holly coughed. "Let me just do a quick exam on you, Michi. I'm sure you're the picture of health, but I'd like to get a few observations down before we go."

The ridge on the western end of Tomales Bay, casting its shadow across the water when Holly and Elise left the two-thirds Changed family to figure out what to do next.

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The vetinarian's iPhone beeped at her the second she plugged it in at the Best Western. The touchscreen surface would only work if she used the pads on her fingertips, and her claws could score the surface if she wasn't careful. Holly lolled her canine tongue at the High Priority message on the main MedFur list. "Welcome to the land of fur at last, Ed."

"Ed who?" Elise asked.

"Dr. Edward Frasier. He wasn't sure if he had just a run-of-the-mill summer flu, or the Change Flu. As it turned out, he's now some kind of weasel, I think." She looked at the photo attachments. Brown fur overall, with darker belly, paws, and tail. "Hm... now he wants us to identify the species. He doesn't look like a mink. They're more uniform..."

"Marten," Elise said. "Look at his ears. They're taller and larger. I saw a few of them growing up in Portland. They made a home under our deck at one point."

Holly lolled more, and answered the "guess-the-species" email, and informing him that she'd be in Seattle about a week ahead of schedule. At the end of the email were more pics of him with his daughter, who was a vixen herself and called her "Aunt Holly" because they were such a good match. She sent a congratulatory message to Annette as well. The eighteen year old was due to start college at Reed next week, and this was a great gift from the universe for her. Though the young vixen had voiced her hope that her father would end up a fox as well.

"Don't... don't turn on the news," Elise said. "It's all bad these days."

Holly puzzled over an email from a Thomas Janssen. I don't know a... wait a second. She opened the message.

You're not going to believe this, Holly. It's me, Tara. Jerome and I traded places this morning. Poor Jerry--Janice, now--is at a conference in Baltimore and was sitting in the audience at a panel discussion. She managed to slip out before anyone noticed, thank God. Believe it or not, the role reversal isn't the strange part.

No. You're not going to believe this. Poor Janice is even lactating! From what she told me it's like she actually had the baby instead of me. There are even stretch marks on her belly under her fur! She ended up in one of my outfits, too. Apparently ROB simply exchanged our wardrobes in her suitcase, including what she was wearing at the time. At least we don't need to buy new clothes. Well... suffice to say that 'Janice' is on her way home as fast as she can. Our son is hungry.

More later, okay? I'm a little freaked out myself right now.

TJ--Thomas Janssen

"Oh my God," Holly gasped. This was new. Their little buck was no older than Roxanne. She sent a quick reply of support to TJ, then picked up her own baby to give her another feeding.

"I'm going to go to that Denny's across the street and get something to eat," the doe said. She looked exhausted, drained. The post-Change endorphins were probably starting to wear off, and the enormity of what had happened to her was written in every twitch of her ears. "Can I bring you anything?"

"We'll be along shortly, Elise," the vixen replied. I'd hate to be 'Janice' right now. Sore breasts filled with milk, and no pump, were no fun. And given what had happened to Patty's ghost, there was a strong likelihood that the newly-minted Thomas and Janice would be seen that way by everyone, too. Family, friends, and co-workers alike. What a mess! "Take your time."

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August 18, 2008

Gas at a station in Santa Rosa was $5.20 the next morning. The chaos spreading across Africa had shut down all the oil production in Nigeria. The news said that there were already a hundred thousand barrels online from our own new oil fields, but it wasn't enough in the short term. The President had authorized use of the Strategic Oil Reserve to make up the difference for a couple of months.

"All bad news. All of it," Elise said morosely, flexing her thick fingers. "Ever since the first of the year. Just gets worse and worse..."

Holly could relate. Even in wealthy Carmel Valley there were abandoned houses. The bankruptcy of a few large financial institutions was causing a sharp recession, and the Dollar Crash wasn't helping matters either. There's going to be some major oil shortages... the vixen thought. Despite the new oil fields, production simply couldn't be brought online fast enough. And the prospect of cheap oil coming back to the market within two years was making commodity prices fluctuate wildly across the board.

"You'll get no argument from me about that," Holly replied, happy to be finally out of the choking fumes from the gas station. I wonder if we've reached some kind of critical mass? The furry sites were abuzz with an explosion of traffic. Almost half of the new furs seemed to be Known, or family members, or a combination of both.

"Who's next on your roster?" the doe asked.

Holly got on the Highway 101 North onramp and tapped the navigation screen on the dashboard. "Going to be a long drive today. Eureka, and right up my alley. Or my stable, you could say. A pair of horses with a six-month old filly. If you think the little otter-boy was a handful, wait until you meet them."

Elise pulled on her top that looked two sizes too small. "We're going to have to stop, Holly. I need some new clothes. My bras don't fit any more. This top is killing me."

"No problem, Elise. We have time. Find a Target on my iPhone and give me the directions."

The doe did so, and ten minutes later they were at the big box store. Holly spent the next hour waiting while Elise found what she liked, and actually fit, before she was finished. But the doe blanched as the bill ran up over $75. "I can't pay for that."

The vixen pulled out her debit card. Paying for all the gas on this trip was going to strain her own budget, but this just felt like the right thing to do. "I'll take care of it. Here..."

"You don't have to..."

"Oh, I believe I do. It's what friends do for one another, so hush," she chided gently. Her iPhone beeped at her while they were walking out to the minivan. From the sound she knew it was a business call. She pulled it out of her purse. "Dr. West speaking."

"Um... er... Is this Dr. West?" a voice on the other end stammered. It was deep and guttural. Horse-like, but still feminine. "Um..."

"Did someone give you my number, ma'am? Someone... special?"

"Please tell me there's a cure for this!" the woman nickered. "Dear God!"

"We don't even know what's causing it," Holly replied calmly. "Are you in the Monterey area?"

"Morgan Hill," she replied. It was a town they had passed through between Salinas and San Jose, so she wasn't terribly distant. "I'm... I'm a freaking mare!"

"If you were just an animal, you couldn't hold the phone. I regret that I'm not in my office right now, Ma'am. I'm traveling right now and I won't be back until next Tuesday at the earliest. Can you keep yourself together until then?"

The voice on the other end wavered between anger, panic and shock. "Let me emphasize something. I'm a mare. As in, female? My name is Gerald. Except there's this woman's picture on my license now and it's called me 'Geraldine'. I mean, holy Jesus fuck! I have breasts and everything! And there's a tail... and and..."

I just can't cope with this right now. Nope... not at all, the vixen thought, gritting her teeth. "Well, I'm going to give you the number of another fur who lives in Gilroy. I'm really sorry I can't do anything for you, Gerald. But you're far from alone. Here's Patty's contact info..."

With that over, Elise stared at her. "Just how many of them are there?"

"Them? Oh, transgendered. Well, since the numbers are doubling every year, there'd be... hmm..." She did the math in her head. "About ten thousand new ones on top of the ten thousand there are already. Perhaps more, come to think of it. Some of us change again the next year, like Thomas and Janice--Tara and Jerome, that is. Nobody has any firm numbers because it's hard to get them to come forward, and after what happened to them last year..."

"Don't... tell me. I've heard enough, thank you. I'm just happy I stayed female," the doe said. "Maybe being glad there's someone out there worse off makes me an awful person, but..."

"Is there something else wrong?" Holly asked.

Elise sighed and held out her hands, palms down. She wiggled her finger-hooves. "I was supposed to play piano at my sister's wedding, you see. Now it's impossible. I can't hit the right keys! Can't play chords! And I hit more than one. What am I going to do?"

The vixen didn't have an answer for her right away. She picked up her baby and secured the carrier in the Honda. "I'm a doctor, Elise. I can put a bandage on your hand and explain the accident injured you."

"I gave my word!" the doe-woman wailed.

"And there are extenuating circumstances. A lot of things are going to have to change in this world. Lots to adapt. Ergonomics are going to be a nightmare. Calm yourself, and we'll think of something."

Sighing, Elise looked like she was about to cry. Holly gave her a sisterly hug. "Look at me. I have to wear a full body suit now to do any surgery, lest I shed fur and it gets into an open wound. Do you think they make any suits for vixens? Poor Doc Frasier is a surgeon in a big hospital. How is he going to explain his needs to his staff?"

"Why don't we just go public with this? I'm really unclear why we haven't."

Holly knew the answer to that one. She opened the driver's side door. "Mostly internal politics, frankly. We're just scared what's going to happen when--and it's a certainty--people find out. Could be this year, could be five years from now. But it's going to happen. There's just too many of us, and too many who already know to some degree or another."

"I think it should be this year," the doe opined. "It's wrong to keep people in the dark about this. It's just too important."

She's been one of us a day, and she already has her own ideas, Holly thought. "Try posting that to one of the Changed message boards and see what kind of flame war you stoke. I really have no opinion one way or the other. We should really get going..."

"I'm not kidding. We should go public with this, soon." With the breeze ruffling her headfur, Elise came back around and got into the passenger seat, a resolved expression replacing the self pity from just a few minutes before. Holly just shrugged and decided to change the subject.

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