Slave Swap (Part 1)

Maybe it was neoliberalism run amok. That’s what the protesters and activists said, when the industry was fledgling. How could you put a price tag on freedom or autonomy? But jobs weren’t coming back with rapid automation, and even with a guaranteed income, people didn’t want to simply exist and do nothing with themselves. They were consenting, they were aware of the risks. There were regulations and safeguards, and everyone involved needed to be vetted and approved. Soon enough, it was widely regarded as safe, legitimate, and most importantly, legal. Within a decade, submitting yourself to a human bondage contract for five years was a ticket to wealth–or at least, that’s what Cameron thought.

He’d grown up as poor as you could be, in this world, but it was enough to know that he wanted more. But even as poor as he’d been, he knew he had other things going for him–looks and charm in particular–and they’d served him well in his youth. Now, at 25–the legal age required to indenture yourself–he decided to put himself on the market, and see what came up. There were a few modest offers, looking for modest trade offs. Mostly older men and women with wealth, interested in a sex slave. A few were more extreme, looking for live in help, with greater return at the end of the contract, and then there was one offer, and his eyes nearly popped when he saw how many zeros were attached. The conditions? Complete submission. Five year minimum, with optional renewal at five year intervals at the master’s discretion. The slave would only receives right to exit after fifteen years. Payment amount compounds with each five year term of service. Yes, it was risky, but he could effectively retire at 40, with three times the amount there on his screen! He accepted the offer for consideration–he could always back out of things got too strange.

He was vetted for psychological competence and sanity. He was required to review his potential master’s psychological profile. They met for an interview, and he seemed…so normal. Older, probably in his fifties, but with a face and a body that seemed…inappropriate for his wealth. At least, all the wealthy people on TV that Cameron saw opted to pay for the appearance of youth, but this man–still unnamed and anonymous–had opted to display his age. Thick beard, balding head, sizable figure. Hardly attractive to Cameron, who was straight anyway–though he was certain the Master would change that if he wanted. After all, complete submission meant giving the Master total control, allowing for behavior and bodily modification. Still, Cameron could handle anything for 15 years, and afterwards, he’ll be so wealthy he could look however he wanted. The required waiting period elapsed slowly, and they signed the contract together. Cameron received his control chip, and Master led him away into a new life.

As Cameron expected, his orientation was the first thing to flip, and that first night, he begged his Master to fuck his hole–and the man was all too happy to oblige him. He’d expected further changes in the weeks after that, assuming the man would want to groom him into his ideal human property, but beyond making him a fuck hungry bottom, Master did relatively little. He provided Cameron with a decent paying job in his company as his personal assistant, and beyond that, allowed Cameron to live a relatively independent life. He couldn’t quite believe he’d gotten so lucky; if this was all the man was asking of him, then he was wasting his money.

Still, Cameron was well aware that he had a job to do, and so he made sure his body was in peak condition for his Master’s enjoyment. He worked out five days a week, and with his generous allowance, purchased a new, flattering wardrobe–both for in and out of the bedroom–and fixed up a few…features which he’d always found rather unflattering about himself. Master was appreciative, but didn’t seem particularly impressed by Cameron’s efforts. He went out of his way to try and figure out what his Master wanted from him, and why he’d demanded such control over him if he was giving Cameron such latitude as his slave. Master revealed nothing, however, but Cameron could sense that there was a larger picture in all of this that he couldn’t see.

This continued for a year. Cameron was in the best shape of his life, and unable to believe how lucky he’d gotten in this deal. Still, Master had…grown a bit distant over the previous few months. He still used Cameron plenty, but he could sense that he’d grown a bit bored with him, which concerned Cameron to some extent, but if Master wouldn’t tell him what he needed, then there was only so much he could do, right?

Rather unexpectedly, Master told him he was scheduled for an upgrade to his control chip. They went to the doctor to have it replaced, and the entire time the procedure was taking place, Master seemed both agitated, and very horny. Cameron tried to service him in the car afterward, but Master pushed him away, telling him there would be plenty of time for that later. Back at home, they went straight into the bedroom, Cameron stripped and assumed Master’s favorite position, but he shook his head, and brought out something that looked like a black rubber sleeping bag.

“It’s time for you to really enter your true service, slave,” Master said, “Get in here.”

Cameron was reluctant, but couldn’t disobey any order. He climbed into the tight fitting rubber sack, and then Master zipped him up into it, stopping at his hips, and brought out some medical tubes and a mask connected to an air tank. When he tried to ask what all of this was for, Master just smiled wide. “You’ll see very soon. Now relax. I wouldn’t anything bad to happen to your body during your trip.”

Cameron tried to ask what he meant, but Master told him to be quiet. He put the IV into Cameron’s arm, slid a catheter into his cock, and then secured the mask over his face, before zipping the rubber sack up the rest of the way, and locking it. Cameron started to hyperventilate immediately, but Master told him to sleep, and he immediately passed out. He could never tell how much time passed when Master put him in sleep mode–it always seemed like an instant later. Master woke him up, and he was still in the sack, but he felt very out of sorts–it was obvious some time had passed, but how much? Were they somewhere new? He couldn’t ask anything through the mask, but Master unlocked the padlock, and cracked the zipper on the suit.

“Count backwards from 100 slowly, Slave,” he said, “and then you may force your way out. Take a look at yourself, and then come find me at the computer.”

The Facility (Part 4)

Kerry glared at him, growling a bit, and then gestured at his whole body, as a way of demanding an explanation, and the doctor sighed. “Yes, I was getting to that. It’s…a long story, however, so it would be best for us to proceed with your treatment in the meantime. X-9, please restrain the patient, while I prepare to administer Serum B.”

Kerry let out a growl as the robot approached him, slashing at its prehensile appendages with his now clawlike nails, but the robot shrugged off his attacks and wrapped him up, hauling his immobilized body off the ground and laying him back on the exam table, while Dr. Sondew prepared a syringe.

“Serum A, which you’ve already been administered, is more of a…transitional form, you might say.” the doctor said, while Kerry struggled, “X-9, perhaps a minor sedative?”

“Yes doctor,” X-9 said, and Kerry felt a needle slide into his neck, his body immediately going numb and relaxed, though he was still acutely aware of his surroundings.

“Thank you, that’s much easier,” Dr. Sondew said, shaved a small portion of Kerry’s arm, and began searching for a vein. “As I was saying, the first serum merely…shall we say, scrambles the recipient’s genome. The results are a bit difficult to predict, but what has happened is that the building blocks of your body have been broken apart and jumbled up with a multitude of others–the one which arose in you was canine, but other subjects display different results. For me, I looked like a proper minotaur, when they caught me and forced me to take it.” He slid the needle into the vein, and despite Kerry’s whines, he shot the second serum into his bloodstream. “Now this second serum–now that we have your standard form broken up, we can begin tailoring your body to particular specifications. They weren’t quite at that point with me–they were still trying to figure out what was going on, when things went south.”

Kerry’s arm felt like it was on fire again, and it was spreading to the rest of his body. He wanted to vomit, but there was nothing in his stomach. He growled and tried to lash out, but the sedative reduced his protests to meek grumbles.

“I was told we’d be doing good work, curing disease, unlocking the secrets of our species. Instead, I found a laboratory full of…victims. Illegal human trials, some of them so…twisted, and it was obvious the entire goal was aimed not at medical application, but new, disturbing forms of warfare. I tried to leak it to the press, and so they made me one of their subjects. Still, it was only a matter of time before things went awry, and I was ready, when it did. The lab had a failsafe, a pathogen released into the air, which killed everyone indiscriminately–I only survived barely, but no one else did. I hid down here in the basement labs, refining their research in the meantime on myself, and now they’re back to pick up where they left off, and I can’t let them do that. I realize…I’m doing to you exactly what they did to me, but I’ve already compromised myself. This is more important than me or you. This company has to be stopped, and you’re going to help me do it.”

The heat had spread further now, but was still most intense in the arm which had been injected. Kerry was able to lift his head and he could see that the muscles in his arm were spasming, but he couldn’t feel them do so through the sedative in his system. Already his arm was thicker and stronger than his other one, the burning crossing into his chest, running up the side of his neck to his face, as well as down his torso towards his belly, groin and legs.

“I’d feel more sorry for you, to be honest, but you’re working for them too. You know what you clean up, I know you’ve seen things that don’t seem right, but you’re just doing your job, right?” Doctor Sondew snorted, “Fucking banal. No–better you help me than help them. Not like it will matter much to you anyway, soon enough. I don’t need you feeling mercy, or doubt, so we’re going to be getting rid of most of those higher order mental functions. By the end of this serum, you won’t have ego left–just blind obedience to me. You’ll do whatever I command, and we’re going to get revenge on those fucks together–they’re never going to even see it coming.”

The serum had reached his face, and was beginning to penetrate his skull. Kerry renewed his struggle as best he could, as weakly as he could, but the robot’s arms held him too tight, he was too weak. His first arm was changing more now, especially around his hand, looking less and less like a paw and more like a hand, though the skin was leathery and tough–more like a gorilla’s. At the same time, his chest was filling out, his fur growing longer and shaggy, even as he packed on pounds and pounds of muscle and fat, nearly screaming as the bones of his spine thickened and grew, stretching his body to a taller height. His body had been missing a tail, but what burst out above his ass was by no means canine–it was thick, covered with scale and spikes, corded with muscle. It wormed it’s way out from beneath him as his awareness started to fade, moment by moment.

“You’re going to be my vengeance. You are going to put those monsters in their rightful place, and make sure that they never hurt anyone ever again.”

His snout was pushing out further, teeth longer and sharper, but retained its basic shape–now the face of a true wolf, shaggy grey fur covering his jaw, cheeks and head, eyes twitching until they turned yellow, with black pupils, the humanity fading from them as the serum began shutting down portions of Kerry’s mind. He could hear the doctor continue speaking, but suddenly he couldn’t understand anything that he was saying. He tried to hold onto himself, but it wasn’t long before the beast was all that remained. Kerry was gone–and he would never be coming back.

The Facility (Part 3)

When he next woke, it was with some relief–the pain and discomfort he’d felt the last time he’d woken before was gone for the most part. No, not woken–what he’d dreamt, of course. Certainly it had been a dream–nothing like what he’d seen could have been possible…so it had to be some odd coincidence that he was now awake in the same room where he’d fallen from his bed and had his second encounter with that odd robotic monster. Maybe…maybe it was a hallucination? Something drug induced? The company which was employing him had its fingers in any number of industries, including pharmaceuticals and genetics. Some strange vision fueled by a drug addled mind–it was the easiest explanation.

What it did not explain, was the fact that his hands, which he saw when he sat up on the edge of the bed, weren’t not, in fact, human.

“Don’t panic. Don’t…fucking panic,” he thought to himself, “Just…just a hallucination still, that’s all.”

“The patient is advised,” the robotic voice said behind him, by the door, “That he may have free use of the room and facilities within, but may not leave without being restrained and sedated. Doctor Sondew has been alerted that the patient is awake, and will be meeting with the patient soon.” He looked over his shoulder at the strange robot standing there, and then looked away.

All Kerry wanted, however, was a mirror. The room, now that he was clearer eyed, resembled a standard hospital room, and off to the side was a door which was ajar, and within, a small bathroom. He got off the bed, nearly falling over because of the strange form of his feet–he had a hard time wrapping his head around them, but the looked like…paws. What it felt like, was that he was being forced to walk on the balls of his feet, his ankles and heels lifted off the ground by force of tendon and flesh. Carefully, using bits of equipment to help him balance on the slick tile, he made his way into the small side room, and found the mirror there, and a strange, howling and moaning cry erupted from his throat, at the sight of his new face.

It wasn’t human. He wasn’t human. He didn’t know what he was, exactly, though the word “werewolf” came to mind, or perhaps more accurate, “Weredog.” He had a snout, tipped with a black nose, floppy, hairy ears on either side of his head, and without really noticing, he had been panting, a long tongue hanging out slightly. The rest of his body–he’d lost weight, which he supposed was one fact for the pro column in all of this. He’d had quite the gut before, but now he was quite lean, the black and brown hair running all over his chest, abs and back. His torso seemed largely human still, as did his arms–though his hands. He still had thumbs…sort of. He’d be able to, say, open a door–but anything more complicated, like holding a pen, would be out of the question. He was naked, and so he saw his genitals had changed as well–his cock no longer hanging out, but pulled back into a furry sheath, with two similarly sized, but furry, balls hanging below. His legs were muscular, and the joints seemed all out of place from what he was used to, but walking and standing was easy enough, now that he’d gotten used to the sensation.

“The doctor will be arriving in two minutes. The patient is advised that any violence or attempt to escape will be met with restraint and sedation.”

Kerry hadn’t seen the doctor during his brief period of waking before, but he had heard him speak, and something had seemed odd–or had seemed odd to him, but he’d been in the thick of this…transformation, so who knew what he’d heard exactly. Still–regardless of what the robot had said, he needed to get out of this insane place. Maybe, if he could find his workmates Quinn and Holden, he’d be able to convince them that inside this strange body, he was Kerry. That, or they’d probably kill him, which would almost be a relief, in some ways. He had no idea if he’d be able to change back after all…and hadn’t the doctor mentioned another serum? If it came to that…no, he’d worry about that if it came to that.

The door opened, and then closed again. “Greetings, Doctor Sondew. Subject Eta One is in the restroom.”

“Looking at yourself then?” the doctor said. It was strange–garbled somehow. “Come on out, when you’re ready, and we can chat. Or I can talk at least–I don’t think you have much ability to speak.”

Kerry emerged from the small room, keeping distance between him and both the doctor and the robot, trying not to gawk at the man’s face, and body. Indeed, Doctor Sondew’s speech was garbled by two large tusks jutting from the man’s lower jaw. Perhaps man was the wrong word, in fact, but he was as much a man as Kerry was, at this moment. Still, the doctor’s body seemed like a mismatch of various animals–the tusks were paired with a short pig’s snout, but the rest of his head looked more like a black bear, with the two rounded ears on top, as did the top of his torso. His arms were thick and corded, with short fur on a thick hide, his fingers more like hooves, and about as useless as Kerry’s new hands. The bottom half of his body was similar, but with different colored hair, the thighs thicker, and distinctly equine hooves where his feet should be. He wasn’t naked, however, wearing a set of loose fitting scrubs over his body.

“Hello there–I would ask you your name, but I don’t think–”

“Kerroo,” he tried to say, but while it was close, it frustrated him that he couldn’t even get his name across.

“Here,” the doctor said, placing a piece of plastic with the alphabet printed on it, along with the numbers zero through nine. “Use this. I’ll try to keep my questions to yes and no.”

Kerry pointed to the letters of his name, and the doctor nodded along.

“Kerry? That’s your name?”

He nodded.

“Good! You understand.”

The Facility (Part 2)

He wasn’t certain how much time had passed, when he came awake again. He ached, from head to toe, and he was lying somewhere, and that somewhere wasn’t particularly comfortable. He let out a groan and opened his eyes, looking around at the sterile room he was lying in, trying to piece together what he could remember. The generators. The robot. Something about test subjects. What in the world had the company been doing in this place? He was lying on a bed with just a sheet and a hard mattress, and he felt sick. He assumed that was just the sedative wearing off of him, but the more conscious he became, the worse he felt. It was a difficult sensation to describe–at some moments it felt like pins and needles all over his skin–and also inside his skin, somehow, like they were trying to poke their way out of him. Other places was a deep ache, centered in his bones, a pain he’d never experienced anything like before, and which mostly made him nauseous. He couldn’t see very clearly–the entire room seemed…muted, somehow. Like someone had sucked the color out of the room, leaving it a dingy grey, with bits of green and blue. He could make out the robot against the wall, but it appeared to be off, at least. Carefully, keeping his eyes on the thing which had dragged him down here, he pulled the sheet off his body, tried to swing his body up and off the bed as quietly as he could, but his body wasn’t working like he was used to, and he crashed to the floor instead.

That sent a long howl from his mouth–he’d tried to scream, but the sound he’d made hadn’t sounded like something that should–or even could–come from a human throat. His vision was blurry, but looking down at his hands, where he landed, something was wrong with them, or rather, one of them. They didn’t match. One, when he focused on it, looked…normal, he thought. But the other one didn’t…it didn’t even look human. He raised it closer to his face, trying to puzzle out what he was looking at. His eyes didn’t seem to have the detail they’d been capable of before, but he could see the hair, the back of his hand running up the arm, and when he flipped it over, his palm and even the underside of his fingers were covered with rough pads. With his other hand he felt them, and the dark claws at the tips of his fingers which had replaced his nails, but before he could do anything else, he felt something metallic wrap its way around his leg, rolling up his entire leg and yanking him backwards.

“Test Subject E1 has been displaced. E1 will be returned to bed and sedated.”

Kerry rolled over onto his back and saw that the robot had awakened. He tried to speak, tried to tell it to stop, but nothing close to human speech would come from his mouth. His head…ached. It didn’t feel right at all, and in a reflective cabinet along the wall, he could see why, as he fought with the robot. It was…the face of a dog, looking back at him. The face and head of a dog attached to his body somehow, or what was rapidly becoming not his body. One of his legs, the one the robot had wrapped up, had changed similarly to his arm, while his other leg was still human…but he could see the hair was thicker across the surface, his human foot…contorting somehow, that deep ache in his bones. He clawed and bit at the robot’s tendrils, but he was immobilized in a matter of moments, hefted up into the air, and put back on the bed. “Administering sedative,” the robot said, and again he felt the sharp pain of an injection, the same drowsiness flooding his system until he could barely move, the tendrils relaxing away from him, the robot retreating back to its corner as Kerry fought to remain awake. He heard a door open and then close nearby, but he couldn’t quite open his eyes to see who, or what, it was.

“How is the patient, X-9?” a male voice said, but there was something…strange in the words, like the mouth speaking wasn’t quite a human one, “I received an alert?”

“Good evening, Dr. Sondew,” the robot speaking, “There was a minor incident. The patient was displaced from his resting position. Cause was due to the subject regaining consciousness. The patient was returned to resting position and sedated again 98 seconds ago.”

“I see,” the voice said, and the sound of heavy footsteps coming closer. “Do try and relax, if you can still hear me. Trust me when I say that this is all for the greater good.” the footsteps receded, “How long until Serum A’s effects are complete?”

“Approximately seven hours and fifteen minutes.”

“Keep the subject sedated until then, but make a note that I will be present before and while serum B is administered. The poor thing should at least have the courtesy of someone explaining this to him, I think.”

“Noted.”

The voice spoke to the robot for a few more minutes, but Kerry had already stopped being able to understand their words, and had fallen back into a restless, aching sleep.

The Facility (Part 1)

“It has to be around here somewhere,” Kerry muttered to himself, lodging the flashlight in his mouth so he could get a better look at the blueprints he was using as a reference–but which must be wrong. The first couple of floors had been close enough to the paper, but down here in the basement–everything was all off. Had the company sent him a print of a different building’s basement or something? He took the flashlight back in his hand and shone it around the pitch black space surrounding him. They hadn’t told him, or the rest of his team, what was up with this facility–all they’d said was that they needed the power back online as soon as possible. The place seemed fairly new…but also neglected somehow, and in a few rooms, he’d nearly gagged at the strong scent of bleach hanging in the air. Someone had already come through the building, cleaning something–but what? Still, he might be the team leader, but he was still just some flunkie contractor as far as the company was concerned. Still–the blueprint might be wrong, but why wouldn’t the generators be down here somewhere? They certainly hadn’t been anywhere else he’d looked already.

He was alone inside–Quinn and Holden were outside, checking the ground lines together, while Kerry found the generators and saw if the problem was with them. He checked a few more rooms, occasionally checking back with the mostly wrong blueprint, but finally he found the generators. He poked around for a few minutes, and the problem was definitely internal–half of the control panel had been mashed to bits, with what looked like a club of some kind. That wasn’t too much of an issue, though. He found the system outputs and inputs, hooked them up to the laptop he’d brought along in his backpack, and he was able to run a basic system check if nothing else. He breathed a sigh of relief when he got the result back–there was nothing wrong them them physically, it seemed. Someone had just run an emergency shutdown, and then smashed the panel after the fact–but why?

The company had been tight lipped about the project, tighter than normal. They hadn’t even been told where they were going–just flown into some town, where the company had a small camp established, and then brought them here by truck to get their work done. He was a bit surprised he wasn’t under armed guard or anything, from the way they’d been acting, which was a bit of a relief–they wouldn’t let him in if there was anything to worry about, certainly. He got the system to reboot, and waited a few minutes, listening to the machinery around him start to come back to life, slowly. He expected a mechanical error or two, and sure enough, they were there–he went and fixed the relatively minor issues, and soon enough the place was humming back to life, lights on, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Last time he’d gone on one of these contracts, he’d had to spend months in the field, laying wire to fucking nowhere. It would take a few days to get a new control panel hooked in, but if there was nothing more than that, he’d be home in another couple of days.

He spent a few minutes with the system, making sure everything was running smoothly, helping it get back to it’s proper capacity. He’d have to leave the laptop down here for the meantime, but he plugged it into a nearby socket–and he heard the noises for the first time. A hiss of hydraulics, the odd clank of metal on metal–but it was distant and muffled by the sound of the turbines beside him–he just assumed it was the system, and hoped it wasn’t a major issue he’d have to fix. Still, he should radio in and let them know things were working. “Ground crew, this is Generator,” he said into his walkie talkie, “Got the place lit up again–obviously not a cable. Come on–” but that was as far as he got, before the radio squealed back at him, unleashed a burst of static and went silent as it landed on the floor, and he backed away from it.

The noise again, except this time, he heard it clearer, both because he was away from the generator, and because it was coming closer. He looked back towards the door, and through it came some odd, squat robot. It had a wide flat head with a few sensors, and it stood on three jointed legs which met at a small body below the head. It swiveled towards him, and a dull voice said, “Unknown personnel. Scanning. Unauthorized entry. Secure and sedate.”

The thing started towards him, and Kerry ran towards it, planning to shove it over and run past, but three tendrils shot out as he got close, wrapping their way around his body and neck, one puncturing right into his vein and administering a shot which made him feel almost instantly woozy. He fought for a moment, but the thing was holding him much too tight, and he started to droop, holding onto consciousness as best he could. The thing wrapped him up further and then lifted him off the ground, carrying him horizontally off the ground, and backtracked out of the doorway and headed down the hall–until it stopped and froze in place for a few, long, seconds.

Kerry didn’t know what to make of it’s sudden hesitation, but it hadn’t loosened it’s grip on him in anyway. His vision was beginning to tunnel too, and it was too much effort to even hold up his head. “Unauthorized personnel has been reclassified as test subject Eta One. Will proceed to testing level, and continue with testing.”

It turned around and went back the other direction, heading for a working elevator against one wall, and stepping inside. Kerry couldn’t…see anymore. His eyes wouldn’t open. He expected to go up–but instead, his gut shifted uncomfortably and they dropped. The blueprint hadn’t mentioned a sub basement. Make that, sub basements, as they descended even further, and Kerry passed out as he sank into the earth.