Janace does the laundry

This follows the last entry of this character set, by about a day. Janace escaped with Carl from an R&D facility, found that the rest of their party had disappeared in their absence. After making contact, Carl and Janace start traveling to where the party is. This happens along the way.

Carl and Janace trek into a village. 

The first place they go to is the bar.  Here they learn about where they can get lodging and just where in the world they are.  Once their need for information is satisfied, they have dinner.  Everybody in the place leaves them alone.

They check into a hotel, and decide to just get one room to conserve money.  They have to specifically order separate beds.

In the room there are some awkward moments.  The seals on the suits are on back.  While the suits are self-contained, they only have about a week’s limit to this.  They then require some cleaning out.

Janace walked in, and threw her bag on the bed closest the restroom.  She then striped out of her cape.  She unloaded her vest/cape, spilling all its various pockets onto the bed.  She then hung this up. Carl tossed his bag on his bed.   Carl just removed his harness and LB-vest and dropped it on the floor with his gun and sword still in their holsters.  He then hung his cape up, and turned as Janace opened the upper seal of her suit, and pulled the neck piece over her head, to get at the main seal that ran down the back.  Her back was to Carl and he walked past, and deliberately pushed her off balance.

She had grabbed the draw cord that opened the suit and was pulling it to open the armor down the spine when Carl bumped her.  She took a step to catch her balance, and realized why he did that.

“Sorry.”  She gathered her toiletries and towel out of her bag, and went into the bathroom closing the door behind her.

She finished pulling the seal open, and then crossing her arms she pulled it off either shoulder and pealed it off her torso.   She then pulled her arms out of it.  The inner most layer was slightly sticky and clingy, but came off easily.  It also showed salt stains where that layer of the suit had not yet processed her sweat.  Janace pushed the suit from her waist over her hips and bottom, and sat down on the closed commode and peeled the suit off her legs, turning it inside out in the process.  Fully thus, she could see where it had connected to her cyber-muscles through her skin and drawn excess heat out.  She dropped the suit in the tub.

Fortunately the door had a full-length mirror.  Janace looked herself over for the first time since getting body-switched.  She was more trim than she had been, and showing considerably better tone for both skin and muscle.  Otherwise there were no major changes.  The cut on her pinky had closed and was healing quickly.  Her hair was a rat’s nest.  One last thing she noticed was that her face was slightly different.  Her cheeks bones slightly more pronounced, and her jaw slightly more narrow.  Janace shrugged her shoulders, noting that her bust did not look as old as it had, and got into the shower, and commenced to run it completely out of hot water.

First she pushed the suit aside so as not to stand on it, and washed her hair, and then the rest of her.  She noticed that her body was not just firmer in look, but had much less softness to her muscles.  As if they were always flexing.  This made her legs a bit more shapely, but was of no other real concern.  Once done with herself, she picked up the suit and rinsed it off, washing the sweat and other body residue off of it.  The material let moisture right through it, not holding any, and soon the suit was waterlogged.  But this helped to rinse it out.  Janace opened the drink tube and let the water drain from it.  Next she opened the pouches at the groin and thighs.  These she rinsed thoroughly, dumping the solid matter down the toilet.  Once it was completely free of any residue she dropped it on a bath mat, and then let the water just run over her, as she rinsed out her hair, and worked to untangle it.

Finally she got out, and toweled off.  She then picked the suit from its puddle and let it drip in the tub while she finished toweling her hair.  Once done, she wrapped her hair in a towel, and another around her.  She then took the suit and left the room.  She placed the last dry towel under the suit and hung it to drip dry.

Carl was asleep on his bed, having just lay down on top of the blankets, not having removed his suit.  He stirred as she finished with her suit.  She noticed as she began going through her bag.

“I used all the hot water.  You may want to wait.”

Carl nodded vaguely and settled back down.  His breathing evened, and he was soon completely gone to the world.

Janace found what she wanted in her bag.  Her last clean underwear and her flannel nightgown.  She put the underwear on, and the gown, discarding the towels as she did.  She put the one up to dry, and left the other around her shoulders as she brushed her hair out.  Finished, she turned down the covers and then knelt in prayer.  As she lay down, she spread the towel on the pillow, and then spread her damp hair across it to dry as she slept.

Carl showered in the morning.  He was only slightly surprised that he was still on top of the blankets when he awoke.  His disorientation passed quickly.  He rinsed out his suit then washed himself off.  He also took some time to look himself over in the mirror and see just what had been changed.  He came out clad in fresh underwear to find that every other bit of clothing, both his and Janace’s, was gone.  As was Janace.  Carl hung up his inside-out suit next to Janace’s and then sat down at the foot of his bed and began to sort through his vest and equipment and make a shopping list.

Janace had woke up to the sound of the shower and decided that now was as good a time as any.  So she gathered all her dirty clothes into her cape, then did likewise with Carl’s, and carried both bundles to the laundry next to the hotel.  She had on only her nightgown and underwear, and was not disposed to look for trouble.  But some tried to find her in the guise of some local punks at the laundry.

She divided the clothes into two sets and ran four loads.  His and hers under things and towels, and outer things.  As she sorts the clothes and starts the loads, the punks take notice of her.  One of them makes a loud comment about the old lady in her nightgown.  Janace thought briefly about tossing it and her briefs in with her other underwear, but decided not to.  The punks would be nothing compared to official trouble.

As she moved the clothes into the dryers, the punks got more boisterous about the old lady washing the old mans clothes.  Janace still let their insolence pass.  As the first load stopped, they got in her way before she could fold them.

“What’s the matter?  No washer at home?”  For some reason the rest of the youths thought this was funny.

Janace just looked at him.  “Go away child.  You bother me.”  Her expression and tone steeled as she spoke.

They all mockingly cowered.

“Ooh.  Is that a threat?”

Janace put her hand on the shoulder of the one in her way, and pushed him firmly aside.

“No.  It’s a friendly warning.”

Janace combined this with a psionic impression on the wisdom of leaving her alone, marbling this with contained danger.  She squeezed his shoulder a bit too firm to reinforce this, feeling his bones move slightly.

She pulled her laundry out and turned to put it on the folding table.  This load being her under things.  She opened her senses to the whole group.  As she did the one she had touched finally backed off. 

“Let’s go.”  He started to head for the door as the most vocal of the group began pressing harder.  Needing to massage his pride.

“You afraid of a little old woman?”  He came and stood right next to her.  “I’m not scared of you.”

Janace just kept sorting her pile, folding things as she did.

The punk crowded closer.  “You scared of me?”

Janace continued to ignore him, hoping he might be different than the many barflies’ she had swatted for similar behavior.  He proved it a vain hope.

She turned her back to his as the next dryer stopped, and he moved after the laundry she had folded.  He never got there.

She turned back, and grabbed his wrist.  In an instant crushing pain focused his universe to his wrist, as Janace squeezed the bones together.  He being slightly taller than her she reached up with her other hand and pulled his ear, and head down to her eye level.  The pain in his eyes was mixed with anger.

“Go away, before you injure yourself.”  Janace looked him in the eye as she said this.  She spared him any psionics, not wanting to bother.  She then let go of his ear, and pulled him as she spun and sent him moving toward the door.  He got a few steps before loosing his footing and falling on his face.  He yelped as he landed on his bruised wrist.

The rest just stood for a moment, the fun of tormenting having just disappeared.

Janace just turned back to her laundry.

The leader decided this was enough.  He picked up the one from the floor, and they left, all but two of them following.  These two were actually doing their own laundry.  They gave Janace a wide birth as they finished theirs.

When done, she repacked everything into the capes and carried these back to the hotel.  In the room she gave Carl back his clothes, neatly folded in his cape.  She then carried her bundle into the bathroom and dressed there, in her street clothes.

She came out, Carl having likewise dressed in street clothes, and they packed, stripped the beds, and checked out.  They walked to the bus station, and purchased tickets to the town where Yory was in the hospital.

Janace gets annoyed

Part of how this story came about is I wondered what it would be like to wear a T-1000 (liquid terminator) as an armor. Drawing on the further Terminator movies, this would be like the guy who got made into a cyborg in the forth movie wearing the liquid one from the second movie as armor. Except the narrative character is a woman, with psionic-mind powers, and is a practicing sorceress.

Janace came to, dressed in armor, with an amulet in her right hand. Unlike Yory’s armor, this was more like a padded diving suit or a muscle suit than hard plate.  It was fitted properly so that she had full range of movement.  As a sorceress she never wore powered armor to avoid mixing energy fields.  The feel of the head piece was comfortable, but almost constricting, as it covered her head in concentric tiara-like waves letting her hair come through them to billow free.  The head piece hugged her cheeks and wrapped around her chin and brow leaving only her face uncovered.  Her fingers were the only other part uncovered.  The armor was at full activation, the pads stiff to absorb impact, chrome blades and spikes reflected the stadium lights, and the shield causing slight distortion where it formed right angles.

She stood in a large room with only one way in or out that she could see.  She faced it from two thirds of the way across the sand-covered floor.  As she focused, the morphing adjusted to her attention.  She had never realized how reactive the armor was to mood and focus when watching anybody else wear it.  As she focused, the blades and spikes flowed a bit more in that direction, piercing the shield, leaving a thinner layer of the stuff texturing the opposite side of her body with much smaller spikes and blades.

The door opened and five Monsters and two Beasts came in.  Upon seeing her, they charged.  A monster arrived first.  Seeing them, Janace tossed the amulet aside, and primed her psionic shields. And went to a slight crouch.

Janace did not attack the front monster first.  Instead she mind blasted the two beasts at the back, stunning them.  She then turned her attention to the monster.  Large sickle blades formed off her forearms and fists.  She slashed both of these into its ribcage from both sides, under its outstretched arms.  The Monster being much larger than Janace the killing blows were not hard for her to make.  She then pulled the blades back out, and jumped back as the carcass fell in front of her, almost on her.  She then gave a telekinetic push to the other four, and knocked them over.

The blades retracted, and she raised her magic shields.  These came up at a lesser power than she expected.  She would worry about ‘why’ later.  She then sent heat and cold blasts at the closer Beast.  This combination had always been effective before, but was not nearly so now.

The singed Beast had frost on the ends of its fur.

The other Beast threw a psionic blast at her.  Her psionic shields held, but the related force knocked her from her feet.

‘Come on, Janace.  You’re better than this,’ she muttered to herself as she came back to herself.  The four monsters had picked her up, one at each limb, to physically tear her apart.  Stupid Monsters.  She sent a psionic blast in all directions, stunning them as the armor rippled spikes and blades in sympathy to her doings.  This tore their paws up some, but it was the blades that formed and stabbed out from each limb through the monsters that killed them.  Very quickly they were so much dead tissue.  And it all fell on her. “Stupid me.”

She pulled herself free in time to catch another psi-blast.  It collapsed her outer mental defenses.  She tried more magic, not wanting to get into a full psi-fight, yet.

The lightening crackled across her armor and at the beast.

It staggered, and collapsed as its cardio and nervous systems received a power surge.

The other Beast came leaping over the bodies of the fallen monsters.  Janace caused more spikes and blades to form as it came.  It backed her into the wall, and started to pummel her telekinetically, bypassing her armor and its shield.

This amazed Janace, as she felt the blows, but was only stunned by them, and not really hurt.

It sensed this and switched tactics.

They both attacked simultaneously.  She repeated her first physical attack, slicing several large blades through its lungs and heart most of the way to its breastbone.  It brought its fists down on her head in a combination physical and psionic blow that should have broken her neck as she collapsed to the floor.

The Beast tried psionically to close its wounds.  But as it shifted its attention to itself, Janace psionically blew its head to its constituent cells.

The headless body toppled onto her as she tried to get out of the way.

Janace was not normally strong enough to move a beast’s body by main force.  But she found that she was strong enough and then some.  She pushed the corpse aside and looked at the arena.

Seven in.  Six down, one in convulsions.

Janace hated to see anything suffer long.  Extending a blade, she stabbed the thing in the heart, and got showered in blood for her efforts.

As the blade retracted, she looked herself over.  The mirrored chrome was now covered with blood and gore.  Many of the spikes and blades relaxed and the armor thickened in spots.

She felt a probe of her mind distract her from self-examination.  But it lacked the feel of a living thing.  More like a machine trying to talk past her mind.

But it could not penetrate her psionic defenses.  She reinforced them, and inspected her body and memory.  Her time sense said several days had passed since she was last awake.  Her last memory was being hit by Carl.  Her scan of her body almost caused her to let her shields slip.

All her organs were there, but only part of her skeleton.  Some of her ribs, and a small bit else.  Most of her muscles were likewise gone.  An inorganic skeleton and muscle set had been somehow put in their place.  She had lost a good percentage of her organic body mass, so she had less to channel power through.  That was why her magic power was lessened.

She formed a blade around her right index finger, and slit her left pinky to the bone, to see for her self that it was not bone.  She then closed the cut and had the armor hold it closed to heal.  Her temper flared.  As it did, so did the spikes.

Someone was going to pay.

Janace crossed to the bars, and extending a blade, cut through them twice to make an opening.  She held on to one of the bar pieces, and went to the door at the end of this chamber.

The static in her head got louder as something tried to breach her psionic defenses.  She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes in concentration.  “One at a time,” she mumbled to her self.  She sensed the signal that was trying to take over her mind, and traced this back to its transmission source.  From there she followed it to its origin.  Here she sensed several minds, frustrated and excited both.  The frustrated ones were afraid of her.  The excited ones finally had a challenge, in breaking her.  And not a psionic shield among them.  The machine was just a plodding probe trying to pierce her psionic defenses. 

They were to far away for a psi-bomb.  But not a psi-burn.  First the excited ones, then the frustrated ones.  They all reacted as if physically stunned.  But this did not stop the machine.  Psionics never worked well on electronics.  At least not as well as magic did.  Janace had to strain to cast that far away, but… A little heat, a shock wave, and then just clean up the trash.

The equipment in the room flashed to ash in less than a second as they briefly superheated.  Then a shock wave blew everything to dust.  Everything had been reduced to its constituent elements in powdered form, creating a respiratory nightmare for the people in the room, and for the ventilation system.

And the probe on Janace’s mind stopped.  She returned to her self.  Throwing magic and psionics around an enemy base usually provoked certain reactions.  Either there were no further problems because there was nobody left that was willing to intervene.  Or the problems got worse because people were willing to up the stakes.  So it was time to make the most of her free moments.

First Janace scanned herself to find the transceiver that the probe had been trying to activate.  Until it was gone she was vulnerable.  And as dangerous as Carl.  She found the circuitry quickly enough.  But had no idea what part to fry.  Or what it would do.  So she just drew some strength from the world around her and redoubled her psionic and magic shields.

She looked at the door, expanding her senses as she did.  Metal door in reinforced frame.  Hydraulic mechanism.  Blast resistant.  There’s the valve.  Open-says-me.

The door opened into the pens for the Monsters and Beasts.  Never one to waste much time she ran down the length of the pens, bashing the keepers as they noticed her.  The next door she wanted led her into the complex.  As she ran through, several beasts tried to get her psionically.  But Janace was too focused to pay any heed.  She got to the door into the rest of the place and ripped it open, having left the bar behind somewhere.

On the other side of the wall, all the static from the beasts stopped.  Janace was able to clear her mind again, and focus on finding Carl.  If he was here.  She extended her senses, sensing the layout of the place, and found Carl.  She was in a basement; he was in a far wing, 4 floors up.

Janace set out; running like she never had before.  With almost no fatigue, she took a round-about course to the room he was in.  As she went, the armor sent small extrusions into her body, hooking to her mechanical body and acting like a heat sink.  Blades and ridges extruded as she went.

As she went, the generally token resistance she encountered did not surprise her.  This seamed to be an R&D facility.  So the guard compliment would be small.  But generally effective.  However she was worried that she evaded so easily, and only had to hit three people.  Then she crashed through the wall into Carl’s room.

He threw down on her as she came in.  Carl’s mind again not in control.  So she changed the rules, lifting him telekinetically, and oriented him away from her so he could not attack her.  His armor spiked out so that she could not easily approach him.  She scanned his body and quickly found the transceiver.  Not having time to be delicate, she found the power lines to it and severed them.  He went limp, his armor going to ridges and small spikes.

All the alarms in the place sounded at that point.

Janace released Carl telekinetically and tossed him over her shoulders.

“Nice to see you, too, Janace.”  Carl couldn’t move, but he was still in possession of his faculties.

Janace thought about trying to leave on foot, and decided not to.  She instead fixed an image firmly in her mind, and teleported to the clearing the group had been camping at.

More from Janace, Yori, and Carl.

Two days later.

Carl was out in the field, planting some fresh furrows when he heard a commotion from the orchard.  The dogs had something in there.  A returning snarl stopped him cold.

Carl dropped the seeds there, and taking the hoe as a weapon started across the fields toward the house.

As he nears the orchard, he sees his oldest daughter running through the orchard toward the house.  Her bow in her hand.  The five adult hounds are making fighting noises from farther in the orchard than Carl can see at the moment.  There were more snarls, not from the hounds.

He changes his course to intercept his girl.  He gets her and picks her up, and can then see down the rows of the orchard.  The five hounds were worrying a monster, which had two arrows in it.  They are all showing wounds from the thing.

Carl all but tossed his daughter over his shoulder and took off full tilt for the house.  When he got close enough he began yelling for Yory.

Yory came out the door with a battle rifle in hand.

Carl traded Yory, the gun for the girl, and turned back to face the orchard.  He then called the hounds to come.  They cleared the trees just ahead of the monster.  Carl stood his ground, and once the monster was clear of the orchard he fired three shots into its torso.  It took a few steps, and fell on its face.  Carl put one more shot into the Monster's head, finishing it off.

The hounds alerted to other monsters and were about to charge off when Yory called them to the porch.  She had a second battle rifle in her hands, the children gone inside.

“Where’s Boy?”

“Over at the neighbors.”

Carl traded guns and called the oldest hound and took off for the barn.  There he grabbed his bridle.  Out the back he went to the stockyard, and whistled for his horse.  They were all gathered at the far end of the yard, away from the orchard.

His horse came cantering up, still very nervous.  The hound was mulling about and alerting toward the orchard.  Carl slung the rifle and reached out to calm the horse.

Carl knew that he had to ride through, the orchard being between the stockyard and the road.  He slipped the bridle over the horse’s nose and ears.  Then gathered the reins, and vaulted onto the bare back.  The hound alerted at this.  He dug his heals into the flanks and headed across the yard, toward the fence of the orchard, the hound at the horses heals.  The horse tried to shy away but he pulled its head back and urged it harder.  This horse was used to mostly domestic duties, but it still had instinct.  It gathered and jumped the fence into the orchard.  The hound jumped between the rails, keeping pace.

They turned some to cut across the orchard diagonally.  They spotted the monster running to cut them off.   The horse tried to shy away again, but Carl refused to let it.  He pulled the gun around, and let fly, blowing the Monster's hip to a bloody mist.  He left it there, and called the hound to keep up, as it went to investigate the felled creature.

They jumped the other fence to the orchard and were on the narrows of the irrigation easement when Carl turned fully toward the neighbors.  He spurred the horse on to go faster.  One more monster tried to lunge out at them.  Carl put a shot in it and galloped on as it fell.

They jumped one last fence into the neighbor’s yard, and galloped across the grass to the house.  Carl reigned the horse in and vaulted from it and through the front door, adjusting the rifle as he went.  The hound ran around the side of the house.

A commotion was coming from the back of the house.  Carl ran to the great room to find one monster to his right tossing furniture aside and another on the left advancing on the kitchen through a steady hail of assorted dishes.  The one going toward the kitchen got a small ball of lightening in its back that stunned it thoroughly.

Carl then brought the gun up as a shield to block the paw of the other monster as it swung at him.  The claws missed, but the force knocked him through the end table and against the bookshelf.

Carl recovered in time to blast this monster at point blank, stunning it.  He thumbed the selector switch, and pumped two flichette rounds into it.  As it collapsed, Carl turned to the first and put a round into it, finishing it.

Neighbor wife is almost hysteric, and was about to throw a plate at Carl before realizing who he is.

Boy called out from the hall, where the one monster had been going.  Carl moved around the carcass and knelt to embrace his son as he and his friend came into the room.

Just then the horse started raising a fuss, as did the hound, from right out side the kitchen.

Carl let go of his son and turned to the damage and neighbor wife.

“Get into one room, and bar the door.”

She grabbed the biggest knife she had in the kitchen, and herded the children back into the master bedroom.

Carl went out the opening the monsters had made in the glass wall, and around the side of the house.

The horse was dancing back and forth and rearing at another monster, the hound was getting back on his feet after having been swatted across the yard.

This monsters fur had different coloring.

Carl could not immediately remember why that scared him.

So he brought the gun up and let fly at the head.

The flichette round hit a psionic shield and puffed to powder.

Now Carl remembered why these scared him.

He switched the gun back to energy and let fly again.  An unseen force knocked him on his back to slide twice his own length.  He shook his head to clear it as he fought to get air back into his lungs.

The beast was almost to him as Carl got the gun up and emptied it at the thing, nearly point blank.

The electrical discharge wreathed the beast, shorting out its nervous system.  It collapsed in a fit of spasms.

Carl switched back and put the last two flichette rounds into that beast, ending it.

The horse settled down at the end of the beast.  The hound came over, and sniffed and nipped at it.  It did not respond, so it was there after ignored.

Carl took a deep breath.  “I hope that’s the last of them.”

He set the gun’s power pack to ambient recharge, and shouldered it.  He then went in to the house, the hound following.  He knocked at the door of the master bedroom, and almost got shot for his effort to identify himself.

Yori and Janage don't argue over lunch.

This is another fragment from another story in my files. The world is approximately post-industrial Fantasy, about early twentieth century technology level and dispersion, with some schizo-tech areas closer to late twenty first century.

Yory was busy getting lunch put together.  Then came the knock at the door.  She put down the sandwich she was assembling and went to the door, wiping her hands on her apron.  At the door was one of the last people she expected to see.

Yory just stood there looking for a moment.  Janace was road dirty, but otherwise virtually unchanged by the ten years it had been.  Finally Yory’s mind got back into gear, sort of.

“Come in.”

Yory turned and walked away leaving the door open.

Janace took her shawl off and gave it a shake, then stepped in and closed the door.  She sat down on the bench and removed her boots.  Leaving her things in the front hall, she followed her nose to the kitchen.  She knew she was unexpected, and had not parted on the best of terms, but had not expected so cool a reception.

Yory kept a clean house, and Janace was too much the good guest to wantonly dirty a place.  But she still felt that she was trailing road grime.  Janace sat in the chair at the table closest to where Yory was working.

“Hello Yory.  How have you been?”

Yory was busy assembling a new sandwich.  At that moment a boy came blustering through the side door.  Stopping only long enough in the mudroom to remove his muddy boots, then bee lined for the food.  Yory stopped him with a look.

“Go back out and tell your father that we have company.”

“I want something to eat.”

“Fine.  After you tell your father that we have company.”

The boy looked ready to argue, but instead grabbed a piece of fruit and all but ran back out the door, stepping into his boots almost without breaking stride.

Yory continued to make lunch.  In silence.

Janace tried to start the conversation again.

“I’m fine, Yory.  Thanks for asking.  Sure, lunch will be fine. Let me wash up and I will give you a hand.”

At that Janace stood, went to the sink and washed her hands.  She then pulled a bag from her belt and dumped the fruit from it into the sink and washed them.  Yory set a bowl by the sink, and Janace put the fruit into it and set it on the table with the other stuff.

Yory then handed her the other bowl of fruit and a plate with a brick of cheese and a knife.  Last was a container of fruit juice.  Yory brought the plate of sandwiches and bowls of soup.  All the place settings were already there.

They sat, and Yory selected some fruit and cheese, said grace for herself.  She then just started in, paying little heed to Janace.

For her part, Janace was getting a bit flustered at this behavior.  But a quick glance at Yory psionically brought a sharp rebuff.  But it did finally provoke a reaction.

“You could have picked a better time, and let us know that you were coming to visit, Janace.”

As if on cue, a baby in another room began crying and fussing, having just woke up.  Yory put down her half eaten sandwich and left after the baby.

Janace was sitting politely when the boy came back in, grabbed a sandwich and a hand full of fruit and left again.  She was watching his progress toward the orchard through the window, when a little girl and a toddler of unknown sex came into the room.  Both were carrying toys, which were dropped when the food was spotted.  They got half way to the table when they spotted Janace.

They were about to turn and flee when a heavy set of boots tramped on the porch outside.  The sound of much mud being kicked off continued for a short time, then the door opened and Carl came into the mudroom.

“Whose horse is out…”

He stopped upon seeing Janace sitting at the table.  He took a moment, and then turned to removing his boots and overalls.

His daughters, as soon as the overalls were hung, both ran onto his outstretched arms as he greeted them.  They told him they loved him as he carried them to wash their hands in the sink, and then set them on the bench against the wall.  They scrambled to their places and sat down.  Carl sat in his chair at the head of the table and helped his older daughter say grace.

Janace bowed her head for this.

Once the prayer was done, the kids attacked the fruit and sandwich on their plates.

Carl helped himself to one of the larger sandwiches, and alternated between it and his stew.  Janace followed his lead.

After finishing half a sandwich, he felt fortified enough to deal with Janace.

“So, what brings you to our home, Janace?”

“So solicitous.  I’m fine, thank you.  (Bad guy) is back.  Or someone using the same methods.”

Carl was unmoved by this.  Janace continued.

“I was attacked by one of his beasts a few days ago.  If he can find me, he can find you and the others.  I thought you should be warned.”  She took a bite and after swallowing, “This is a good sandwich.”

Yory entered the room, a sated infant on her shoulder clutching at a burp rag.  She sat down to her food, around the corner from Carl, and began again at her own lunch.

Carl reached across the table and briefly took her hand.

Carl finished his second sandwich before speaking more.

“If (bad guy) is back, what is that to us?  We retired 12 years ago.”

“He’s going to want revenge on those who stopped him 15 years ago.”  Janace was finishing her stew, and ready to go after the fruit she had brought with her.

Yory and Carl glanced at each other, dubious.

Janace snapped at this.  “Why don’t you want to believe me, or take me seriously?”

Carl looked again at Yory, who just shrugged and kept eating.  He grunted a sigh.

“Walk with me, Janace.”

He got up and got his boots from the mudroom, and took them to the front entry, and put them on.  Janace put hers on, and they went out.  He then untied her horse from the hitching post, and led it around the house to the trough in front of the barn, and tied it there while Janace loosened the saddle.  Carl then led Janace to the orchard.

They were several trees into it when Carl finished the second fruit, and spoke again.

“Janace, we saw him dead.  Jochquin pulled his sword out of him.  Magic users are hard to kill, and I know you don’t lie.  But I do find it hard to believe he’s back.  Especially with his amulet broken up.”

“I don’t think it is him.  But somebody is following his pattern.”

“Yory and I can handle anything that comes.  But we aren’t going looking for trouble anymore.”

“I didn’t expect you would.”

They walked for a while before Janace spoke again.  “Is your thinking that I would try to drag you off on some crusade why the two of you are treating me so coldly?”

“No.  The truth there is that you are a chaos maker.  Always causing trouble and never solving it.  Yory and I decided a long time ago that while we value you as a friend, we are not going to allow you to cause anymore trouble for us, or our children.”

Janace thought about this, and liked it as much at having a drink thrown in her face, thought it hurt worse than any drink ever did.

The fruit trees were in bud, but not yet blossoms.  They walked out of the orchard, and started along the fence line between the stockyard and the garden.  The garden was sectioned with a few bits still fallow, most of it showing small buds.  The stockyard was populated by several horses and a small population of cattle, and other interspersed stock animals.

As she looked over the farm, Janace found little to fault.

“You have done well here.  Looks like a good place to raise children.  How would you defend it from a Monster?”

Carl smiled, and whistled loud.

Within a few moments five large hounds were bounding over the fields toward them, with several smaller ones in pursuit.  To Janace’s initial surprise, they seamed to run down the row, or across them, and never hit a plant in their travel.  They even jumped the irrigation ditch as they came.  The pack stopped short at seeing Janace with Carl, and was unsure what to do.

Carl knelt and called the leader.  He came and buried his head in Carl's hands, then carefully padded over and sniffed Janace.

Janace had never felt very intimidated by animals, but was ever cautious about them, especially in obvious packs.  After the hound was content, he wondered back to Carl, putting his head under Carl’s hand.  The rest of the pack alternately sniffed and ignored Janace and began to disperse.  One of the puppies started back across the garden, when one of the adults started after it, and chased it off the field.

“I taught the older ones to respect the furrows, and they are slowly teaching the pups to do the same.”

He dismissed the hounds, and they went bounding into the stockyard, and began chasing around.

Janace watched them.  “Impressive hounds.”

“They are enough to trouble anyone that tries to trespass.  Anything they can’t handle, they can slow down enough to allow a weapon to be brought to bear.”

She had noticed weapons of some sort on virtually every wall, above toddler reach.  “I figured them to be at least partially decoration, as well as functional.”

They finished the circuit, and were back at the hedge separating the farm from the back yard.

Janace looked at her watch and the sun.  Then stopped and looked at Carl.

“You can and will do as you want.  I just came by to warn you.  Something is brewing.  I don’t know what or how, but it is.  Watch yourself.  I would hate to think something happened to you because of my inaction.”

“I will consider that.  Please don’t be a stranger.  Just leave your troubles at the road.”

They walked around to the barn and Janace’s horse.  It had cleared the grass it could reach and was trying to get at more.

Janace watched for a moment.  Then turned to Carl and asked about lodging in town.  Carl told her the best places to go.  And where the best watering holes were.

Janace gathered her horse, and walked it to the front gate where she tightened the saddle again.

Carl went with, and watched her ride down the road.

Yory joined him there, the girls chasing around the yard with puppies as big as they were.

part 8

After drying off, he went out to the terminals, and started doing some other searches in the programs. He sat on the chair, leaving the stool to Tanya, and typed in ‘pheromone.’ Of the thousands of commands, he found several dozen relating. Most of them in the maintenance programs, rather than the transformational one. He scanned and tried to digest this, while keeping it to himself.

Tanya brought a cup of water over to him, and started her own research. “The thing I can’t figure is the reason why. Why do these changes to us? What’s the motive?”

“I haven’t thought much about that yet. I have been trying to figure out the what’s and how’s.”

“Form follows function is an old design maxim. If I knew what they intended our function to be, then I could better understand our form.”

They spent part of the day working at the monitors, mostly just sitting and reading, and sharing things. They discovered that their skeletons had been changed for greater durability, and strength, while lightening them some. Also their muscles as well. Their senses had been worked over. Their eyes especially, but all of them.

Each of them had preexisting medical conditions taken care of. His benign cancer had been removed. Her near-sightedness corrected. The maintenance program seemed to say that any biological planned obsolesce had been eradicated, thought her fertility would go the course of any female. As a result they seemed practically immortal. Then he checked on the capacities of the repair/healing and correction/immunity systems. He decided he would have to try it to see.

About lunchtime, they both got up.

To test something, he went over to the build-out wall, and climbed it, digging in with his talons and claws. Then taking a deep breath, he let go and threw himself backward off. He later remembered hearing Tanya shriek at this. The bonk on his head knocked him out for a bit.

Jim came too with some warm, wet towels covering him, and two under his head. He had a splitting headache. He wiggled his toes and fingers and then put his hands to his head. His hair was wet, as was the towel under it. He probed and found a tender spot, and felt the flesh give some.

“Oh, good, you’re awake. How many fingers do you see?” Tanya came into view over top of him, and held up three fingers.

“Three.” He licked his dry mouth. And put his hands down. “How long?”

“Just long enough to get the towels, and cover you, and a little longer. Do you feel nausea, or vertigo?”

Jim considered. “No.” He started to sit up, and felt his back complain a bit as the soft tissue stretched and the hard tissue bulged against the bruising beginning to form. Then his stomach signaled a willingness to start nausea. Jim braced himself on his arms, without sitting full up.

“Was there much blood? Or should I look?”

Tanya knelt beside him. “Actually, no, there wasn’t. I bet they closed the wound up in record time. I got back with the towels, and while the bleeding had not stopped, the opening was visibly closing. I think you have a concussion. You did fall most of two stories, to land flat. Now lay still. I think they gave us some fruit juice. If so I will make some and be right back.”

Jim watched her scurry away, walking, and then turned his head to look up and spread his wings as he lay there. They did not ache appreciably, but the right joint did some, and Jim figured he landed on that side first. Tanya stepped around his wing, and knelt, with water. There was no juice.

“No know you are walking, without any support?”

Tanya helped him carefully sit up, his stomach warned, but did nothing. He sipped the water.

“Yes. It’s similar to walking in high heels. But the wings and tail still are hard to consciously think about, so I try not to. From all the blood you let out, you are going to need a lot of water, and a good meal. Lets get you up and over to the table.”

He curled his feet around under his body, and Tanya got his right arm across her shoulder, and grabbed his left wing at its root.

“Let me know if this hurts.” Tanya pulled his weight onto her shoulder and he got a grasp of how strong and balanced she was. But they still toppled into the wall, and he braced against it before hitting it. She put him in the chair at the table, and brought the other one over. He drained his cup dry and another as she made them sandwiches.

Tanya had always had fresh food with her, and she and Leslie had competed informally over diet, with Leslie being nearly vegetarian eating only fish meat, while Tanya rotated through just about every kind available. Now Tanya showed her culinary skills in making them both large sandwiches quickly.

Part 7, Morning of Day Two.

This picks up right where the last one left off.

He looked at her, and smelt her. She did not have the towel wrapped around her, so was effectively naked under the fur, as he was. Again he had to use all his self-control not to come on to her. Briefly he wondered why not. Just as quick he told himself she was his coworker, not someone to have a dalliance with.

“We need to talk. About a bunch of things.” Jim left the chair for her, as he started to move the groceries from the table to the cabinets and fridge.

She sat down, and watched. “I think I heard them come in not long before dawn. But I’m not sure. I looked it over in the dark, before I started my morning workout.”

Jim looked up at the skylight, and realized that it showed an early dawn hue.

“We seem to have better balance already.” Tanya watched him shift his weight from the table to the counter, without moving his feet, as he put the food away.

“What would you like for breakfast, steak or eggs?” Jim held up the bulk package of meat and motioned at the dozen eggs. On cue, his stomach growled.

Tanya tilted her head toward the weights. “Lets go a few rounds over there, then come back and have both.”

They carefully moved to the weights, as he followed this time. Leering all the way, except when he paused to look over at the tubes and the equipment. Then he stopped.

“Where are the tubes?” Jim carefully stepped over to the rack of equipment that attached to the stasis tubes, and he balanced at its end.

Tanya had kept going. “I noticed that too. They took the tubes and all the support hardware, but left the computers and monitors. I also noticed that there was a slight odor in the room when I woke. My best guess is we got gassed to keep us asleep while they worked.” She was to the weights.

He pushed against the corner of the rack and turned it, watching its cords to be sure not to foul them. Then he staggered over to the rack from his tube and pulled it around, so that both racks were inline, and side by side. Then he staggered most of the way to the weight setup, crawling the last ways.

Tanya had him go through the same routine she did. As she coached him, she explained this was a variant on a routine she did every other week, to see how she was progressing. They covered every station on the frame. Then the barbell. This was especially hard for him, as she stood above his head, and she smelled good.

One thing he noticed was she did not change the weights from his test lifting to hers. When he called her on this, she explained that he should be stronger, but she had been doing this for years, and knew the techniques and was this strong. In time, if he kept this up, he would be proportionally stronger than her, and probably should be quickly considering what they had found in the program.

They were both sweaty and sore from exertion when she called it good. Then she gathered his blanket and pillow, and they went back to make breakfast. Jim noticed that she smelled the blanket as she carried it, and lingered for him to go first.

Tanya then went in to shower as Jim cooked their food. He found the scents to be delicious, and wished that he had some spices, which he named, while looking at the camera that was stationed in the upper corner of the wall, looking down on this area. He also wished for an apron. She brought him a towel to wipe his hands with, and the dish soap when she came back. She did not smell so heavy, and had a hint of soap on her. Her hair was damp, and wrapped in a towel. They ate breakfast of steak and eggs, with some toast and sautéed vegetables. As she cleaned up what little he had not, he went and showered and cleaned himself. He noticed that the pile of dirty towels was gone, and fresh ones had been put in their place. He also was able to mostly stand without support. He still slipped on the slick surface.

Part 6: Jim and Tanya

As elsewhere, I am posting smaller chunks, to keep this easier to read. Also it is still somewhat disjointed having been written closer to stream of consciousness, and not yet really edited.

“The company must have had a program running parallel to ours, and feeding it our progress. That is the only way I can think of for them to have done this to us.”

The light from the skylights had long since dimmed by the time we stopped exploring the programs that evening. We had concluded that whoever had done this had access to our work. I also found it increasingly hard to concentrate on anything but Tanya, the longer we sat there. We noticed that the locker room lights had shut off on a timer. When we finally got up, I left the chair there and pushed Tanya on the rolling stool over to the table. She got up and took herself into the restroom, and I got a drink of water. Until the lights from the restroom triggered, the warehouse was nearly dark, yet I could see clearly.

Using the stool for a brace I went back across the room to the rubber pad and picked a spot to lie down. I then did my best to relax. I listened to Tanya wash her hands and leave the restroom, then settle on the mattress. I listened to her breathing from across the room, as my mind cataloged all that I had learned this day. Heightened senses, changed physiology, wings and tail, a male and a female. I shortly crossed to the restroom and back myself, and then succumbed to sleep, at least partially from exhaustion. My stomach grumbling was the last thing I remember.

The scent of female perspiration woke me up; it was coupled with the sound of effort. I opened my eyes, and turned my head to see Tanya sitting at the far end of the frame, using a part of it she had not explained, doing leg exercises. She had a considerable part of the stack going up and down in rhythm, extending her legs at her knees, pushing the padded bar up and lowering it down again.

I watched her for a moment, before realizing I needed to get up quickly. Without thinking about it, I was half way across the room before loosing my balance and catching himself, then crawled the rest of the way to the toilet. After that, as I washed my hands, I noticed that we had had visitors during the night. A tooth brush and toothpaste were on the counter, with an unopened second brush next to it, which I opened and used. As I brushed my teeth, the door behind me was a presence looming over my shoulder.

Finished with my teeth, I staggered across to the locked door, and noticed some fresh scratch marks on it and in the frame around it, spaced for Tanya’s hands. This was a larger than normal single door, like would be on a corridor. It did not have a doorknob or push plate, just a deadbolt lock. After considering this, I went out the domestic side and found some food was on the table.

Tanya came shuffling along the wall.

“Was I that scary? I never had anyone run out on me before.”

Part 5 of Jim and Tanya become furries.

We spent some time going through the files on her terminal. When my knees had complained I had gone over and retrieved a chair from the table and using it as a walker had brought it back. I then confirmed that my terminal had all the same general information, and a lot of the same specific information as hers did. We decided that there was too much information to process in one sitting.

Tanya had let her hair down, and was sitting on that towel. I got up and used the chair for a walker and went around to her.

“Time for a rest and tour, Tanya.”

Pushing her on the stool again, I wheeled her over to the table and showed her all I had previously discovered. She stood up both to stretch, and to not be dependent on the stool. At the sink, Tanya and I each had several cups of water, and like I had previously she wretched the first one out then was able to hold the rest down.

Tanya took a long look at the sleeping arrangements. I jokingly suggested using the tubes, but she did not like that at all. In more serious tone I volunteered to take one of the blankets and pillows to the far end of the room and sleep there.

Our next concern was food. But with nothing to do I showed Tanya to the far end of the room, taking one of the blankets and a pillow with me. I led. We leaned against the wall as we walked, but out feet were a bit tender when we got there.

I started to point things out, but Tanya already understood the equipment just looking at it. She went to a gym regularly and was able to coach me on it over the next while. But at this point she just pointed out what the various stations were. Then she hobbled over to the end of the frame to two horizontal handles at about elbow height.

Tanya jumped slightly to get her arms straight and her body over the handles. She bent her knees and bent her arms and extended them again, doing several of these in quick succession. As her muscles in her back flexed with her shoulders the towel that had been wrapped around her fell to the floor. Tanya put her feet down then reached up to a pull up bar above her head, and did several of these. She stopped and switched from an underhand grip to an overhand one without touching the floor and did a few more. She put her feet down and stood there balancing against the frame for a moment. As she stood there, she felt the muscles in her arms, shoulders, and down her side and back.

“What’s got your attention,” I asked.

“Before, those were always the hard exercises. Now I hardly feel them, and felt I could continue for some time. Also the tissues themselves feel denser, less give. Not just the armor plate, but the muscle underneath.” Tanya probed a bit more, feeling the line where her arm muscles interlaced with her wing muscles on her side.

I found it hard to not just watch her and actually listen to what she was saying as she moved around demonstrating the various stations, and working the muscles in her body. Suddenly she stopped and moved for the wall and bracing against it she headed back along the wall. I recognized this as that she had a mental breakthrough and needed to record or act on it. I leered at her as she went along ahead of me.

I stopped leering as I guessed that by the change in her movements she was feeling the same call that had just hit me. She passed the counter and table and went straight through the door into the far end of the built area. I was about three steps behind her.

To the right was just a wall, to the left was a pair of sinks, and some industrial bathroom stalls. Tanya had gone into the first one. I skipped one and went in and used the third. Without realizing, I let out a large sigh from release of the built up pressure. We both giggling for a bit from this then settled back down as our bodies drained. Shortly we stood at the sinks, washing our hands.

There were no towels here, so we went to where we knew there had been. The lockers were past the stalls. We opened all of them up and after the towels we found some janitorial supplies, and bulk soap. I wondered whether Tanya was put out for not finding any feminine supplies, hair care supplies, or even tooth brushes. Gentility kept me from asking.

Opposite the door we had entered was a large door with no handle, only a deadbolt lock. For whatever reason, we ignored it for now.

Tanya led out and back to the table, where the stool had been left, and claimed it. I had to stagger a few steps, and then go on all fours to get to the chair I had left by her station. She quickly opened and explored the actual code of the program for the nanites. She would pause at certain sections to keep track of where she was then would continue on. Finally she found the section she was looking for. She split the window in half, and left the top static as she scrolled through the bottom. I read the remarks paragraph for this section, mumbling as I went.

I read it again, parsing it. “Change the muscle structure to a more durable form… using this chemical formula… increase strength… contraction time… reflex action… healing… interesting.”

I read the code, and reread it. “Carl and Leslie cannot have written this. Well, not the chemistry of it. It’s way outside of their fields. And here. Last I heard, that idea was only theory. Changing the base element of a tissue, to increase the capacities of it. Adaptive evolution selected for certain things. There must be a subroutine or another program that has the nanites working with the bodies automatic functions to keep things in balance and good health.”

part 4

This picks up about where the last left off. I need to go through what I have written and recompile and  put the overlapping parts together and distill the story a bit.

This is from the latest third-person narrative.

“This is curious.”

“What is?” Jim moved from his computer over to Tanya’s side.

She smacked his thigh with her fist. Jim collapsed as the force of the blow knocked him off balance.

“Ow. That hurt.” Jim cradled and massaged his leg, and shortly got back up to his knees, still rubbing his thigh.

Tanya rubbed her hand and shook it. “That did hurt. I just cut my own palm up.” She had four small slits on her palm where her talons had poked in.

Once they were able to pay attention, she pointed at some code on her screen.

“This coding: it’s changed us, seriously. Have you ever seen what happens when you put say, corn starch into water? Not just for food. I once saw a demonstration. The water was over saturated, almost to a paste. Then a man walked quickly across the top of the stuff.”

Jim nodded, as memories connected for him. “I’ve never seen it but have heard of it. Long chain molecules in a fluid; apply a sudden energy like walking or running and they tangle and harden. Stand still and you sink. I understand that impact resistant fabrics are similar to this.”

“This code, the cells in our skin and fat layers are impregnated with long chain molecules. Your thigh had almost no give.” Tanya rubbed her hand again.

A prurient thought about Tanya’s breasts jumped through Jim’s mind. He bit his tongue to keep from saying it.

“I wonder where else they put them?” Tanya continued. “I wish I had a code editor on this machine. Then I could scan better. What other parts of our bodies have been redesigned to be impact resistant?”

“I once read a fiction story about a martial artist that had this done in the characters brain, to keep from getting concussed. This was done so that hits to the head would not slow the character down.”