Change, Escape, Adjust

Change, Escape, Adjust  (Entry for TFtales Summer 2012 contest)

“Uhnnnn…” ‘Where am I?’

Paul awoke to find himself not in his own bed, but in what appeared to be a high-tech jail cell, complete with energy-field cell door. Having no clue as to how he got there, he decided to ransack his memories for any clue as to what may have happened last night, hoping to find something that could help him. As time went on, he became so engrossed in his search that he failed to notice the field vanish and a hovering drone enter the room. Until the drone zapped him, that is. *BZZZAAP!!!*

“EYAARGH!” The strength of the shock resulted in Paul lying on the floor, stunned.

“Subject 727-B, you are to come with me.”

Not wanting another shock, Paul did his best to stand up and follow the drone outside the cell, where he was promptly surrounded by three more of the drones.  In his surprise, Paul forgot to start walking until he was “motivated” by a relatively gentler shock to the rear. “OW!! Alright, I’m going, I’m going!”

As he was herded through a vast network of hallways, Paul grew antsy. ‘What do they want with me? Oh #$%@ – they’re probably planning on dissecting me in some sort of twisted science experiment…’ Eventually, they reached their apparent destination: a pair of high-tech double doors, which slid open to reveal a massive cylindrical chamber, easily over two stories tall.  

Paul was unceremoniously shoved into the chamber, having little time to get his bearings before the doors closed behind him. ‘Ho boy – now I’m stuck in here.’

Without warning, the room suddenly started filling with a noxious gas. *cough**cough* “What is this stuff?” His question appeared to be answered when his skin started turning red and black in apparently random places. ‘Oh no – it’s poison. I am so dead...’

Things got weird quick, though, when Paul felt the discolored skin. ‘What the…’ “Scales?!” The discoloring soon started to resemble a camouflage pattern as his spine slowly lengthened, taking his torso and neck along for the ride. Black armor plate began forming on his stomach and back as his legs started moving up his sides to the center of his torso. “N-n-no way…” The resulting shift of balance sent him onto the ground, causing Paul’s panic levels to spike – and it only got worse once his arms began shriveling up.

His five toes merged into two wide, flat ones as more of the armor plates appeared on his thighs and shins. His pants – which were mutilated already from the movement of his legs – were obliterated by the growth of a short, stubby tail from his rear and the expansion of his torso.

Paul was shivering from fear, slipping into absolute panic as his arms disappeared and his tail finished forming. “Th-this can’t be happening…” Reality begged to differ, as his shirt tore to shreds from the growth of his torso and the armor plates sprouted on his short, stubby tail. “N-N-No wa...blach” His tongue chose that moment to suddenly undergo a growth spurt, growing to about five times its original length and obliterating Paul’s capability for human speech. “blah…aldbah…obublah”

As his tongue turned cylindrical, thickening and growing three finger-like protrusions at the tip, Paul noticed the room was shrinking – fast. ‘Am I growing?’ Looking down, Paul saw that the remnants of his clothing were able to fit under one of his now flat, wide feet – he was growing alright.

Speaking of growing, his neck soon began growing fatter and more cylindrical as his head began stretching in all four directions. ’What on Earth is happening to me?’ Paul’s eyes moved to the sides of his head as the scales began assaulting it, a black armor plate forming above his nose and forehead. As his human head grew out into a large, broad reptilian muzzle, Paul’s fully-transmuted tongue slowly reeled itself back into his maw, fitting inside perfectly.

 His insides underwent an overhaul as he slowly stopped growing, leaving Paul (in his current position) about half as high as the room. Once the queasiness stopped, Paul waited for a few tense seconds for the next changes to occur, only for nothing to happen.  

However, before he could regain his bearings a larger pair of doors slid open, letting a pair of larger, more menacing drones enter the room. “Subject 727-B, you are to come with us.”

Paul soon found himself hoisted up by the drones, each holding one of his legs. Still panicking and unable to talk, the ex-human simply closed his eyes and assumed what could only be called a mockery of the fetal position. ‘Thisisnthappeningthisisn’thappeningthisisn’thappening…”

*sssss…..POIT!*

A sudden shake brought Paul out of his internal muttering, and as he looked in the direction of the sound he saw that the drone holding his left leg was being…’Dissolved?’

Looking past the drone, Paul saw a pair of creatures similar to himself enter the room and engage the remaining drone. Well, only one creature engaged the drone: the green-and-black creature simply spit a glob of greenish-gray goop at the drone, causing the drone to be knocked back. Not much later, the drone fell to the ground as the goop began eating away at its structure and processors: the “goop” was acid.

The other, black-and-blue creature “ran” over to Paul, using its head to try and help him up. “Come on, we’ve gotta get out of here!” Paul was stunned that he interpreted the stream of gibberish issuing from the creature’s muzzle as a relatively feminine voice speaking plain English. He was so stunned, that he didn’t even think about trying to stand up until he heard a new, commando-esque voice.

“!$#%$...We got more drones! Armed ones, too!” Two heads swiveled to look down the hallway, only to see that "armed" was an understatement: they were greeted by view of multiple tank-like drones, each armed to the teeth with futuristic blasters and cannons.

Paul’s eyes widened, understanding what the other creature had said: they had to bail. Now. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get up: his body was just too unfamiliar.

“Well, then get your tail over here and help me get this guy up! We can’t just leave him to be re-programmed!” The other creature came as quickly as it could, and soon Paul found himself on both feet.

He had no time to gather his wits before he found himself gently squeezed by the pair of creatures, who began speed-walking out the hole and down the hall. Paul’s legs moved on their own, trying to keep up with the creatures on each side of their owner: not that Paul minded, seeing as he had yet to get any clue how to walk in this body.

As they ambled along the halls, they were assaulted by various drones – most of who were disabled with an acidic glob spit by one of the creatures flanking Paul. Knowing that he was now one of these creatures, Paul’s curiosity was piqued. ’Can I do that?’

Before he got a chance to try, there was a noticeable transition in the design of the hallways, and not long afterwards the trio reached a rather large bridge room. Paul was left agape at the view – a view of stars, planets, and galaxies. They were in space…

“We’ve got the new kid.” There was the feminine voice again, which sounded more authoritative than before.

“Alright, then: let’s break off and get outta here!” As a *bsssh* sounded off in the background, Paul considered the fact that the new voice sounded like it would have come from your stereotypical “crazy driver”. The sudden jolt reinforced the idea that the speaker – likely the pilot of this ship - was part of this group.

After Paul shook off the dizziness, he saw that the view had altered to what one would see if watching Star Wars whenever a ship went to light-speed. He then saw that yet another of the creatures was hooked up to some sort of weird flashy helmet, and when the creature spoke up Paul realized that it was the pilot. “We’re out of enemy territory now…heading back to Camp Sparta.”

“You do know the only reason I let you use that ridiculous nickname for our temporary home planet is because it’s a good code-word in case we get bugged, right?” There was the lady again.

“Wee-ell, it’s not like I can help the fact that there’s absolutely no TV, internet, or phone service there. You’d think such a ‘technologically advanced’ civilization would’ve cooked up interstellar networking by now.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, Josh: They have interstellar networks, they just don’t have them hooked up to Earthen networks because they haven’t got any of their men there yet.”

This kick-started the gears in Paul’s head. ‘Wait…are these guys from Earth?’  Looking at his “rescuers”, he found this notion hard to believe.

Taking a look at one of the creatures who helped him escape, he saw that it was about the same size as himself: unfortunately, he had no idea how large that was due to his new size, although he wagered it was roughly 2 stories tall. It had an oval body-shape with what looked to be a short, stubby tail, although it was hard to tell where the tail ended and the torso began, partially because of the lack of any limbs barring two large, thick legs positioned at the center of its body. Both legs had thick armor plating on the shins and thighs, and ended in wide, flat, two-toed feet that appeared to be only useful for stability purposes. The armor plates were also present on its top and bottom, with the ones up top at more of an angle to the body. Its head was a thick, wide reptilian muzzle which went from right in-between its nostrils to the top of its forehead. All in all, Paul found it hard to believe that such a creature could be an Earthling like himself, but the recent conversation pointed the other way. Then he realized something: 'Wait. I was turned into one of these…things. Then…’ A look of horror appeared on Paul’s new muzzle as it hit him. ‘Does that mean...’ “Y-You guys were humans once, too?”

All eyes were on Paul as he made this startling inquiry, and his own eyes widened as he realized that he could actually speak with this unfamiliar mouth.  The black-and-clue creature looked slightly despondent, letting out a *sigh* before responding: “Yes. And unfortunately, there are others like us…and not all of them were lucky enough to have escaped before being re-programmed.”

“Re-programmed? What do you mean by that?”

The creature (although the term didn’t seem right now, seeing as it was a former human) moved in front of Paul, who stumbled slightly at the loss of support.

 “It’ll be easiest for me to start from the top. The beings that made us like this are, as far as we can tell, some sort of synthetic intelligence. They can only care for themselves, and as a result, these intelligences – or “Intels”– have no qualm with abducting people from other races to convert into their bio-weapons. They often abduct humans for their purposes, if only because we seem to have a more malleable genetic structure than any other race they’ve encountered. As a result, it’s much easier for them to make us into things like what we are now: Kannen.”

“Kannen…” Paul slowly parroted, taking in the name of his new species.

Without skipping a beat, the black-and-blue (and apparently female) Kannen continued: “Yes. We are but a droplet compared to the sheer ocean of people that the Intels have mutated over the years in their quest for interstellar dominance. However, their first specimens were not as…cooperative…as the Intels had hoped.”

“Well, that makes sense. No-body’s going to be willing to be treated as little more than a living weapon.”

“Exactly…and as a result the Intels developed the ‘Re-programmer’. It takes a person’s mind and practically eradicates their memories…their personalities…their free will. It obliterates the victim’s original self, replacing it with a mind that is completely and utterly subservient to the Intels. It…it pretty much kills the person they once were.” Paul let out an audible *gasp* at hearing this, knowing that if this group of Kannen hadn’t saved him, he would have been subject to that horrid fate. “Luckily for some of us, the Intels managed to make enemies out of their creators with their complete disregard for any living organism. Eventually, their creators devised ways to retrieve victims before they were re-programmed as well as develop specialized technology to aid in both rescue and daily life.”

Paul noticed that she hadn’t mentioned a means to reverse the transformation. “Wait…am I….stuck like this?”

The green-and-black Kannen that was still by Paul’s side answered Paul’s question for him: “’Fraid so, boy.”

This revelation devastated the recently transformed Kannen, causing him to curl up in a ball and start muttering to himself. “No…This can’t be…I can’t be stuck like this…”

*nudge**nudge* Noticing the nudges, Paul turned toward their source: the female from before. “Keep your chin up, kiddo. We’ll help you adjust to your new life. It’ll be hard at first, I will admit, but for now, just let us guide you through it.”

Paul slowly glanced around at the others in the room, taking in the feelings of camaraderie among them: feelings they were extending towards him. With everyone looking on, he slowly got back into a shaky standing position, having made up his mind. “In that case…what’s first?”