Ninth chapter

Sam felt hazy as he started coming back to consciousness.  They must have given him some potent drugs if he felt this doped up.  It was starting to clear up though and a few aches and pains were making themselves known.  He opened his eyes and noticed immediately that he was lying down in a big tube that had no windows.  No ambient lighting either.  He felt around and pushed on the tube with no effect so he tried hitting it.  He heard a nasty crack but nothing else.  That crack would probably alert anyone outside of the tube so he did a quick check over his body to see how injured he was.  He got hit a dozen times with bullets and that one blast to his chest that hurtled him up into the air.  It had hurt worse than anything he had felt before.  He was also pretty sure most of his ribs had broken.  It didn’t feel like that anymore though.

Light spilled in from a crack in the outside of the tube.  Apparently it was a glass tube with a steel cover wrapped around it.  With the doors slowly separating he started to hear voices.  People were arguing about the condition of the “beast” in the tube.  He felt rather offended by that comment.  He may not have looked human but beast was a bit rude.  He could see now the crack he put in the tube.  It was only about a foot long in three directions but the glass looked to be at least an inch thick.  Sam knew he could punch out of the glass should he really want to.  He had only hit at about half strength.

Finally the doors were open all the way open.  It was difficult to see through the glass though since it looked to be frosted.  At best he could tell there was a crowd of militia right outside the tube.  They were a moving amorphous blob that had some different colors to it.  Eventually Sam heard Terry silence them with his commanding voice again.

“Enough!  Sam is not a Vey’Ral!  The DNA tests proved that.  It’s true, we don’t know exactly what she is, but someone in the higher ups does.  It is classified information that even I do not have access to.  Besides, Vey’Ral are not immune to my abilities and the scan does not come back as classified for them.”

There was a grumbling from the crowd but most of it dispersed.  A few remained, that Sam hoped were friendly, and stood guard outside of the tube.  Sam gave a hard knock on the tube again to see if he could get anyone’s attention.  Sure enough, the guards started looking around to figure out where the sound came from.  Sam gave the tube another series of knocks and they finally looked his way.  One walked closer and the frost on the tube faded to clear glass.  Well that was cool.  He got a good look around and saw that the back of one of the trucks had been opened up and the tube was resting sideways in there.

Terry walked over and pushed a button on the panel next to the tube, “good morning Sam, how are you feeling?”

Sam jerked to cover his ears, cringing from the volume.  He really was not ready for the speaker inside the tube, “Jesus fucking Christ!  Shut off the speaker!  I can hear you fine without it!”

This time Terry didn’t press the button, “sorry, didn’t realize your hearing was so sensitive.  How are you feeling?”

“A little sore but otherwise not too bad.  I can breathe fine so I think my ribs healed.  How long have I been in here?”

“It’s been about 36 hours.  We injected some healing nanites into your blood when we put you into that tube. The oxygen level was set high so you healed faster as well.”

“Healing nanites? Didn’t realize we had that technology yet.  Sounds cool. Hope I get a chance to see one.”

“Earth does not have that tech yet.  Just my department.  We are technically funded by aliens after all.”

“Aliens, huh?  I should probably be surprised but then I looked in a mirror not too long ago so there is that.  If you guys are supposed to be sending aliens off world then why are you funded by them?”

“Well that’s an interesting story but not one we have time for right now.  I hear it dates back to the first “lost”.  That is about 15,000 years ago but only recently reached this world.  Anyways, let’s get you out of that tube and give you a physical.”

Sam groaned but stayed relatively still as the glass moved away.  A couple people in white doctor suits came walking over with a few instruments and he suddenly felt nervous.  Sam was never very fond of doctors, particularly ones that he couldn’t look up the credentials on.  The first one walked up and pressed a device to his arm that burned.  Sam reached out and grabbed him by the throat with a snarl and everyone stood still.

Terry walked over and out his hand on Sam’s arm, “calm down, Sam.  This will just take a moment.”

“Yeah well a little bedside manner goes a long way.  Even the quip of “this may sting a little” is appreciated instead of pressing a hot poker to my arm.”

“That isn’t supposed to do that.  You shouldn’t have felt anything. It was the nanite extractor.”  Terry looked at the extractor and raised an eyebrow, “it only extracted 3 percent of what was injected.  Where did they all go?  You two, finish the exam, I need to get the scanner out.”

Sam growled lightly and let go of the one doctor as they got back to work, more carefully this time.  They still said nothing and went about their business giving an in depth physical, moving and lifting what they needed to do what was necessary.  

They were packing up when Terry walked back over with a larger piece of equipment in his hands.  Wordlessly he set it down and set it up next to Sam.  He pulled out a corded device that looked like a scanner from Star Trek but didn’t make all of the sound effects.  He seemed to be moving it around everywhere Sam had had injuries but just frowned the whole time.  He finally gave up and dropped his hand in frustration, and suddenly perked up.  He scanned lower into Sam’s stomach and found the clump of nanites in his lower abdomen.  A little playing with the device and he frowned again.

“Hey Sam?  Do you by chance feel the urge to use the restroom?”

“That’s a rather… strange question.  The answer is yes but I don’t see how this is relevant.”

“Well the relevance is that it appears that the nanites are currently bunched up in your lower intestine and seem to be ready to be, well, expelled.  How this is possible I’m not sure, but your body seems to have contained them and sent them on their way out.”

“Well that is strange.  So what do you want me to do then?”

“Think you can aim for a glass beaker?  I’d offer a bed pan but we don’t have any and I doubt they would work with your tail anyways.”

Sam just pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.  This was not how he wanted to start his day.  Then again, something else just came to mind, “do you have to be so crude?  Actually, I just thought of something. I haven’t had to use the bathroom since these changes started.  At all.  Either side.  Is that normal?”

“Are you sure?  If so, no, absolutely not normal.  But we don’t know what you are so technically we can’t make a judgement on what is normal for you or not.”

“Great. Alright, give me the beaker. Let’s see if I can do this.”

Sam snatched the beaker from Terry’s hand and stalked off to the tree line.  At least it was a large beaker with a six inch opening at the top.  That would make aiming easier.  He hadn’t really looked at his new equipment in great detail either so he wasn’t even sure where the placement was of his butt hole or anything for that matter.

At least he knew he needed to go.  He could feel the urge just as he had as a human.  That hadn’t changed at least.  But practically everything else had.  Sam figured giving a quick palpation of the area would make things easier so he squatted down, moving his tail to the side, and hiked up his skirt.  He moved his hand over the semi familiar territory of his new vagina and got shivers from how sensitive it still was and moved further back.  When he got to where his taint should have been his hand ran into tail.  A little more feeling around the area confirmed his vagina ended and actually went down his tail base about a half inch.  But where was his anus?

Sam was not used to the thought of needing to look for something on his body since he had always been so heavy that option had been negated quite often.  Now though he found himself craning to get a better look at his groin.  Oddly though he didn’t feel like he was straining to move like this and tried bending forward farther, being rewarded with a face full of groin.  He couldn’t believe it, he could actually bend in half he was so flexible.  Oh that’s where his anus was.  It’s a few inches down his tail.  That’s a weird spot for it.

Now that he knew where he was aiming from, it was just a matter of lining up and giving a push.  He’d never felt squeamish before but the thought that he was crapping out metal was weird to him.  At least he thought it was metal.  What plopped down into the beaker was definitely not metallic in nature.  It looked like a tumor more than anything.  He wanted to poke it so bad but seeing as where it had just come from, he decided against it.  

Sam straightened up, fixed his skirt, and headed back towards Terry with his tumor in hand, well, jar.  Terry was just walking back into the open after putting away his scanner.  Sam thrust the beaker into Terry’s hands, “that’s what came out.  Looks more like a tumor than an amount of nanites.  No idea what you’re going to do with it.”

“Hang on.”  Terry walked back over to the vehicle he had just come over from and Sam followed.  There were dozens of crates lined up in this vehicle with presumably medical equipment since this was also the one the “doctors” had come out of.  Terry grabbed a crate and opened it up, showing something that Sam was not expecting.  It actually looked like a set of laser surgical tools.  Sam wasn’t too sure what was going to be done with those.

Terry answered Sam’s thoughts by placing the beaker in the middle of the crate and grabbing one of the laser ends.  Holding it like a pencil, he placed it against the tumor and pressed a button.  There was a little smoke but nothing really seemed to be happening.  Terry moved the device a little and still nothing.

“Well it would seem whatever this thing is made of, it’s the same material that makes you virtually bulletproof.  So basically we need to take this down to a lab to be analyzed and we need to try to extract those nanites because that is about 40 million dollars in this sack.”

“Sack? It looks like a tumor. I can’t believe that came out of me.  I find that more disturbing than a turd full of nanites.  For that matter, any progress on figuring out what I am?”

“I tried contacting headquarters.  They were very surprised with your birthing and transformation but your DNA couldn’t be denied.  They said they’re sending a representative to speak with you and asses a few things but that is all they told me. Almost to the word. Other than that I have no idea what is going on.”

“Okay so what happens now?”

They started walking towards the truck in the middle where Ananda had her pants rolled up and was putting a couple bandaids on.  At least it was just a few scrapes from the tree, “well, we need to wait for the representative to get here. I’m not sure how long they will take but it shouldn’t be more than a couple days.  After that it’s likely you will be given a care package and sent off world to your planet of origin and guided to live your life from there.  You are young and were human until recently so you’re not likely a felon on the run so the likeliness you’ll be processed and executed is practically non existent.”

“So wait, I’m going to be sent to some planet I’ve never heard of to live a life I’ve never led.  What is the suicide rate for this?”

“For those who came from those planets, maybe 1%.  For those who are hybrid or born here on earth, almost 15%.”

“You’re telling me it sucks that bad off planet?  You know what?  Fuck this.”

Faster than Terry could react, Sam jumped into the air and started flying off.  He tried to concentrate on compelling Sam back but he couldn’t do it.  Turning to Ananda he gave her a pleading look.  She aimed her hand and started chanting but whatever she tried casting just rolled off Sam and she felt it do so.  She just looked to Terry with a shrug.

“Oh that’s not good.  Admin is going to have my ass for this.”