HOME | DD

Description
Woman: MJ Ranum
Turkey: Tommy GK

The Zoo
Silly Turkey

Merrill had wanted to fly since she was a young girl. Let the others be mermaids. She wanted wings and flight. The freedom of the air. She knew very well that such things are impossible. People just can't fly -- especially large bodied people. Thin, wiry athletic types could fly in silly contraptions but that wasn't what Merrill wanted. In her mind's eye she saw herself, a pair of wings on her back, flying low over the terrain.

She’d held a number of low paying jobs before finding one at the research park. She didn’t make a lot. Office managers didn’t. But it was interesting most of the time and paid the bills. She enjoyed her work. Office managers often know far more about an operation than management gives them credit. Sometimes, odd rumours would surface about the work being done in the high security lab. Work of people becoming mermaids or naga or driders. Merrill dismissed such rumours as silly. Why would anyone want that kind of thing?

About the tenth time the rumour resurfaced, though, Merrill began to wonder just a bit. After all, no one save the owner of the park was in the building. Everything in it was fully automated. Sure it was a class 5 containment facility but even that should need someone other than robots to keep it going. She decided that she’d try to get a transfer into the facility.

After a few attempts, she found herself still in the open facilities and no closer to the special building that had become something of an obsession with her. She wondered about the exciting things were happening in there. Finally, she discovered the eMail address of the sole non-robotic occupant of the building.

For two weeks she waffled. Should she send a message or not? Would the man get angry and fire her? Finally, her curiosity got the best of her and she sent a message expressing her interest in transferring into the lab. She waited two days for a reply and was startled by the contents. It boiled down to two things. No, he didn’t need any office help but he could use volunteers for his research.

Merrill had never been a lab volunteer but was curious. She wanted to know more details. He replied that the position paid well (more actually than her current position by quite a bit) and that it was permanent. She thought about it for a few days -- looking up what similar positions paid and had to do in other experimental studies. Most of those weren’t paid or were only paid a modest stipend. This discovery really piqued her curiosity. Finally, realizing she’d never be happy with rumour, she sent an eMail that she was interested. The special transfer request appeared by eMail about two hours later. Merrill wasn’t one to sign anything without reading it. It seemed to be the usual job offer with a listing of some of the details. It seemed he was doing genetic research and was looking for volunteers to test various nearly finished product lines on. She electronically signed the form and sent it, as requested, to human resources.

The next morning, she arrived at work to an eMail that indicated she had been transferred to the secure facility. Quickly packing up her desk, she let facilities know. They’d need to transfer her phone number and move the boxes she’d packed. She then grabbed her coat and walked the kilometre to the secure lab.
As she entered, a security robot took her into a small and very cluttered office. It was clear she was to wait there until the researcher in charge could see her. She was provided with coffee and a doughnut and some reading material. She’d barely gotten into the first article when the good doctor arrived.

“Ah, my research volunteer. So glad you decided to help me out.”
“You pay considerably better than I was making in the main labs.”
“Indeed but this is very special research. Very secret until we can complete the final studies.”
“What do you do here?”
“A bit of this and a bit of that,” he smiled. “Really, though, we do genetic changes. Everyone wants changes. Too fat, too thin, hair the wrong colour, that sort of thing. We’re working on processes that use nanites to change the basic genetic code to modify things like that. So tell me, is there any change you really want? Some wonderful fantasy?”

Merrill was about to tell him about needing to lose 20 kg and tone up a bit. In her mind, she started to do just that. Instead, something totally different came out of her mouth.

“I want to fly. Like a bird.”

She had no idea where that came from. She frowned a second, completely nonplussed. No one save her mother had ever hear her voice that particular fantasy.

“Actually, Merrill,” he looked directly at her, a serious look on his face. “We could do that.”
“What? Give me wings? Impossible.”
“No. Not so impossible. Would you really like to fly?”
“I -- uh -- I,” she stammered. “Like with wings?” That sounded lame, very lame.
“Yes. With wings.”
“But what would I do afterwards?”
“Fly, of course. I have a place where you could do that and no one would ever know.”
“But my apartment and things ...”
“If you want wings, I could arrange to have everything packed up.”
“My lease ...”
“Can be bought out.”

Merrill was shocked. Really fly? Real wings? It was a private fantasy and she might actually have it for real. She didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then she made her decision.

“Yes, I’ve always wanted wings.”
“Okay then. Let’s get started. It’ll take a day or two to make the changes.”

He led the way to a room that looked something like a small kitchenette hotel room. It wasn’t well furnished but it did have an entertainment console.

“Get comfortable here while I program the nanites.”

She found herself standing, alone, in the room. This had all been so quick. She wondered what kind of wings she’d have and where they’d be on her body. Probably not the usual place for sure. Artists had little concepts of the needs of real flight when they stuck angel wings at the shoulders of their creations. She sat down at the console and began a quick search to find pictures of winged women with the wings not at the back. It was odd just how few there were. There were lots of harpies but that wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want her arms gone. She wanted wings and her arms. The door slid open and he returned with a gas injector. Deftly he placed it against her arm and pushed the trigger. She felt the cold fluid sink into her arms.

“Where will my wings be?”
“Where they must be if you are to fly,” he replied touching her arms.
“What do you mean?” she asked to his retreating back.
“Your arms, of course. That’s where birds have them.”

She sat back on the chair. This isn’t what she wanted. Not a harpy. An angel or something like it.

“I wanted wings and arms,” she frowned at the walls.
“Perhaps once I figure it out. You can be changed more than once obviously.”

Oh. She got it. Okay. She’d signed on as a research subject. Now she was finding out exactly what that meant. She stood up and went into the bathroom. She turned sideways and shook her head. She was far too heavy to fly in her current state. She wondered what the nanites would do about the weight she needed to lose.

She needn’t have worried. The first thing that happened was that she felt her temperature rise. She felt a need to walk, run, work out. It wasn’t her idea clearly. The researcher returned and led her to a room filled with all kinds of workout equipment. She found herself cycling, swimming, rowing, a dozen different pieces of equipment. Oddly enough, she wasn’t tired in the slightest. Her muscles didn’t hurt.

After about three hours, the compulsion to exercise left her. She wandered back to her room. She wondered what she was going to do for the rest of the afternoon when a different compulsion hit her. She headed for the washroom and found herself retching up a strange yellowish fluid. It didn’t smell anything like what she’d expected, though. She’d spent enough time with hang overs to know that smell. This was different, fatty. And it didn’t even taste bad. She discovered her arms were now considerably stronger. Somehow, in just a few hours, the nanites had restructured her arms. She looked like she’d been lifting weights for years. She turned sideways in the mirror. She was thinner, too! She hunted for a scale and discovered that she’d lost nearly 10 kg. She was hungry, she decided. A clunk from outside told her of the arrival of lunch. Lunch was served back and was only a salad and fruit. She ate it, of course. Then the compulsion to exercise hit her again and she spent the next four hours in the facilities.

Her next few days were spent in the same routine. Light breakfast, exercise, retching up some kind of strange fluid, lunch, exercise, retching up the strange fluid again, supper and finally sleep. By the end of the third day, though, she began to notice some other changes. She’d shrunk far more than the 20 kg she’d wanted to lose. She had lost nearly 40 kg and only weighed 40 kg. She was also getting shorter. She’d never been overly tall, 160 cm at best. Now, she was having to use a chair to look in the mirror. She couldn’t be much more than 100 cm tall. The fourth day brought other changes. The frenzied exercise compulsion and twice daily purge had left her. She visited the gym once but only managed three quarters of an hour before she became tired. She returned to her room and turned on the computer. She watched a few of her favourite soaps but found herself increasingly uncomfortable on the chair. It didn’t take too long to find out why. She was growing a stubby tail! She wandered over to the mirror and climbed up the chair to see what was happening. Her clothes were in the way so she stripped down to see what was happening. In the mirror, she looked distorted. She definitely had a birds tail below her hips and her arms and hands seemed longer than they should be. Her legs were skinny, too. Her image reminded her of a Christmas turkey before it was cooked somehow.

That evening, as she was getting into bed, she made another discovery. Her big toe had separated from the other four and was sticking out at a strange angle. Her little toes was decidedly smaller, too. She was tired and decided to go to bed earlier than she usually did.

Morning revealed the nanites had been busy all night. She awoke to bird’s feet. Regular talons really. Three toes were long and faced forward, the final one faced backwards. The tips were graced by long sharp looking claws, too. They feet didn’t look like an eagle or hawk. They were bulkier, more massive. What’s more, they were covered by scales. The scales had spread up her much elongated feet to the middle of her calves. She pulled herself from her bed to make the second discovery of the day. Her arms were longer than they should be by quite a bit and two of her fingers had grown as well. Her thumb and the remaining two, though, were clearly shrinking.
Breakfast was difficult to eat. The long fingers and near lack of a thumb got in the way of holding a spoon. She managed but it took far longer than she usually took.

By mid morning, her legs had become decidedly avian. They looked remarkably like any other bird’s foot. Thighs and calves had shrunk and changed shape. The feet were skinny, scaled and ended in claws. She discovered it was easier to hop than walk normally. A few hours later, she began to notice an distinctly uncomfortable feeling over much of her body. She was itchy like something was growing everywhere. She hopped up on the chair in front of the mirror to discover she was covered by reddish bumps. She checked them every few minutes after that (she couldn’t help herself) and watched as her body was covered, first by a whitish down, and later by longer feathers as her feathers grew out. The feathers were satiny, brownish and patterned. The feathers covered most of her body by the end of the day and seemed somewhat familiar. She soon made another discovery. She had a huge fan of feathers for a tail. Her arms and hands, too, were starting to develop feathers. Probably she’d have her wings in a day or so, she decided.
That night, she found sleeping on her side was distinctly uncomfortable. She discovered that she was far more comfortable sitting like a bird on a nest and twisting her neck around to lie on one wing. She’d never had a neck that flexible!

Morning brought the return of the researcher. He gave her a quick but thorough inspection.

“Excellent! You’ve made your transition perfectly.”

Merrill hopped down from the bed and spread her arms (wings?). They were huge and would clearly let her fly. But not in here. The ceiling was too low and there wasn’t space. She hopped over to the chair in the bathroom and hop-flapped up onto it. What she saw took her breath away. She was feathered from head to foot quite literally. Only her feet (which were clearly those of a turkey now) and her face and breasts remained uncovered. She looked over at him a slight frown on her face.

“You wanted to be a bird and fly,” he reminded her.
“A turkey?”
“It was the only genetic sample I had available. Besides wild turkeys are good fliers. I’d like to get a complete scan of you before taking you out to my private zoo and get you some space to try your wings.”
“Okay,” was all Merrill could think to say.

He wheeled in a gurney and she flapped up onto it. Clinging to the tight fabric of the gurney, Merrill held herself upright as they left the room.

Later that day, she found herself in a large car clinging onto the seat belt (seat belts really didn’t work too well for turkeys). An hours drive brought her into a spacious farm and a huge enclosed aviary. He led her into the huge enclosed space and set her free. He attached a metal band around her leg and motioned with his arms to fly. She bent down to read (upside-down) the message on the leg band:

Subject: XTD-076
Species: H. Sapiens Meleagris
TF Date: 2095-01-09

She wondered what a Meleagris was for a moment and then flapped her wings. Soon she was airborne -- flying like she’d dreamed since she was a child!

Description
Woman: MJ Ranum
Turkey: Tommy GK

The Zoo
Silly Turkey

Merrill had wanted to fly since she was a young girl. Let the others be mermaids. She wanted wings and flight. The freedom of the air. She knew very well that such things are impossible. People just can't fly -- especially large bodied people. Thin, wiry athletic types could fly in silly contraptions but that wasn't what Merrill wanted. In her mind's eye she saw herself, a pair of wings on her back, flying low over the terrain.

She’d held a number of low paying jobs before finding one at the research park. She didn’t make a lot. Office managers didn’t. But it was interesting most of the time and paid the bills. She enjoyed her work. Office managers often know far more about an operation than management gives them credit. Sometimes, odd rumours would surface about the work being done in the high security lab. Work of people becoming mermaids or naga or driders. Merrill dismissed such rumours as silly. Why would anyone want that kind of thing?

About the tenth time the rumour resurfaced, though, Merrill began to wonder just a bit. After all, no one save the owner of the park was in the building. Everything in it was fully automated. Sure it was a class 5 containment facility but even that should need someone other than robots to keep it going. She decided that she’d try to get a transfer into the facility.

After a few attempts, she found herself still in the open facilities and no closer to the special building that had become something of an obsession with her. She wondered about the exciting things were happening in there. Finally, she discovered the eMail address of the sole non-robotic occupant of the building.

For two weeks she waffled. Should she send a message or not? Would the man get angry and fire her? Finally, her curiosity got the best of her and she sent a message expressing her interest in transferring into the lab. She waited two days for a reply and was startled by the contents. It boiled down to two things. No, he didn’t need any office help but he could use volunteers for his research.

Merrill had never been a lab volunteer but was curious. She wanted to know more details. He replied that the position paid well (more actually than her current position by quite a bit) and that it was permanent. She thought about it for a few days -- looking up what similar positions paid and had to do in other experimental studies. Most of those weren’t paid or were only paid a modest stipend. This discovery really piqued her curiosity. Finally, realizing she’d never be happy with rumour, she sent an eMail that she was interested. The special transfer request appeared by eMail about two hours later. Merrill wasn’t one to sign anything without reading it. It seemed to be the usual job offer with a listing of some of the details. It seemed he was doing genetic research and was looking for volunteers to test various nearly finished product lines on. She electronically signed the form and sent it, as requested, to human resources.

The next morning, she arrived at work to an eMail that indicated she had been transferred to the secure facility. Quickly packing up her desk, she let facilities know. They’d need to transfer her phone number and move the boxes she’d packed. She then grabbed her coat and walked the kilometre to the secure lab.
As she entered, a security robot took her into a small and very cluttered office. It was clear she was to wait there until the researcher in charge could see her. She was provided with coffee and a doughnut and some reading material. She’d barely gotten into the first article when the good doctor arrived.

“Ah, my research volunteer. So glad you decided to help me out.”
“You pay considerably better than I was making in the main labs.”
“Indeed but this is very special research. Very secret until we can complete the final studies.”
“What do you do here?”
“A bit of this and a bit of that,” he smiled. “Really, though, we do genetic changes. Everyone wants changes. Too fat, too thin, hair the wrong colour, that sort of thing. We’re working on processes that use nanites to change the basic genetic code to modify things like that. So tell me, is there any change you really want? Some wonderful fantasy?”

Merrill was about to tell him about needing to lose 20 kg and tone up a bit. In her mind, she started to do just that. Instead, something totally different came out of her mouth.

“I want to fly. Like a bird.”

She had no idea where that came from. She frowned a second, completely nonplussed. No one save her mother had ever hear her voice that particular fantasy.

“Actually, Merrill,” he looked directly at her, a serious look on his face. “We could do that.”
“What? Give me wings? Impossible.”
“No. Not so impossible. Would you really like to fly?”
“I -- uh -- I,” she stammered. “Like with wings?” That sounded lame, very lame.
“Yes. With wings.”
“But what would I do afterwards?”
“Fly, of course. I have a place where you could do that and no one would ever know.”
“But my apartment and things ...”
“If you want wings, I could arrange to have everything packed up.”
“My lease ...”
“Can be bought out.”

Merrill was shocked. Really fly? Real wings? It was a private fantasy and she might actually have it for real. She didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then she made her decision.

“Yes, I’ve always wanted wings.”
“Okay then. Let’s get started. It’ll take a day or two to make the changes.”

He led the way to a room that looked something like a small kitchenette hotel room. It wasn’t well furnished but it did have an entertainment console.

“Get comfortable here while I program the nanites.”

She found herself standing, alone, in the room. This had all been so quick. She wondered what kind of wings she’d have and where they’d be on her body. Probably not the usual place for sure. Artists had little concepts of the needs of real flight when they stuck angel wings at the shoulders of their creations. She sat down at the console and began a quick search to find pictures of winged women with the wings not at the back. It was odd just how few there were. There were lots of harpies but that wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t want her arms gone. She wanted wings and her arms. The door slid open and he returned with a gas injector. Deftly he placed it against her arm and pushed the trigger. She felt the cold fluid sink into her arms.

“Where will my wings be?”
“Where they must be if you are to fly,” he replied touching her arms.
“What do you mean?” she asked to his retreating back.
“Your arms, of course. That’s where birds have them.”

She sat back on the chair. This isn’t what she wanted. Not a harpy. An angel or something like it.

“I wanted wings and arms,” she frowned at the walls.
“Perhaps once I figure it out. You can be changed more than once obviously.”

Oh. She got it. Okay. She’d signed on as a research subject. Now she was finding out exactly what that meant. She stood up and went into the bathroom. She turned sideways and shook her head. She was far too heavy to fly in her current state. She wondered what the nanites would do about the weight she needed to lose.

She needn’t have worried. The first thing that happened was that she felt her temperature rise. She felt a need to walk, run, work out. It wasn’t her idea clearly. The researcher returned and led her to a room filled with all kinds of workout equipment. She found herself cycling, swimming, rowing, a dozen different pieces of equipment. Oddly enough, she wasn’t tired in the slightest. Her muscles didn’t hurt.

After about three hours, the compulsion to exercise left her. She wandered back to her room. She wondered what she was going to do for the rest of the afternoon when a different compulsion hit her. She headed for the washroom and found herself retching up a strange yellowish fluid. It didn’t smell anything like what she’d expected, though. She’d spent enough time with hang overs to know that smell. This was different, fatty. And it didn’t even taste bad. She discovered her arms were now considerably stronger. Somehow, in just a few hours, the nanites had restructured her arms. She looked like she’d been lifting weights for years. She turned sideways in the mirror. She was thinner, too! She hunted for a scale and discovered that she’d lost nearly 10 kg. She was hungry, she decided. A clunk from outside told her of the arrival of lunch. Lunch was served back and was only a salad and fruit. She ate it, of course. Then the compulsion to exercise hit her again and she spent the next four hours in the facilities.

Her next few days were spent in the same routine. Light breakfast, exercise, retching up some kind of strange fluid, lunch, exercise, retching up the strange fluid again, supper and finally sleep. By the end of the third day, though, she began to notice some other changes. She’d shrunk far more than the 20 kg she’d wanted to lose. She had lost nearly 40 kg and only weighed 40 kg. She was also getting shorter. She’d never been overly tall, 160 cm at best. Now, she was having to use a chair to look in the mirror. She couldn’t be much more than 100 cm tall. The fourth day brought other changes. The frenzied exercise compulsion and twice daily purge had left her. She visited the gym once but only managed three quarters of an hour before she became tired. She returned to her room and turned on the computer. She watched a few of her favourite soaps but found herself increasingly uncomfortable on the chair. It didn’t take too long to find out why. She was growing a stubby tail! She wandered over to the mirror and climbed up the chair to see what was happening. Her clothes were in the way so she stripped down to see what was happening. In the mirror, she looked distorted. She definitely had a birds tail below her hips and her arms and hands seemed longer than they should be. Her legs were skinny, too. Her image reminded her of a Christmas turkey before it was cooked somehow.

That evening, as she was getting into bed, she made another discovery. Her big toe had separated from the other four and was sticking out at a strange angle. Her little toes was decidedly smaller, too. She was tired and decided to go to bed earlier than she usually did.

Morning revealed the nanites had been busy all night. She awoke to bird’s feet. Regular talons really. Three toes were long and faced forward, the final one faced backwards. The tips were graced by long sharp looking claws, too. They feet didn’t look like an eagle or hawk. They were bulkier, more massive. What’s more, they were covered by scales. The scales had spread up her much elongated feet to the middle of her calves. She pulled herself from her bed to make the second discovery of the day. Her arms were longer than they should be by quite a bit and two of her fingers had grown as well. Her thumb and the remaining two, though, were clearly shrinking.
Breakfast was difficult to eat. The long fingers and near lack of a thumb got in the way of holding a spoon. She managed but it took far longer than she usually took.

By mid morning, her legs had become decidedly avian. They looked remarkably like any other bird’s foot. Thighs and calves had shrunk and changed shape. The feet were skinny, scaled and ended in claws. She discovered it was easier to hop than walk normally. A few hours later, she began to notice an distinctly uncomfortable feeling over much of her body. She was itchy like something was growing everywhere. She hopped up on the chair in front of the mirror to discover she was covered by reddish bumps. She checked them every few minutes after that (she couldn’t help herself) and watched as her body was covered, first by a whitish down, and later by longer feathers as her feathers grew out. The feathers were satiny, brownish and patterned. The feathers covered most of her body by the end of the day and seemed somewhat familiar. She soon made another discovery. She had a huge fan of feathers for a tail. Her arms and hands, too, were starting to develop feathers. Probably she’d have her wings in a day or so, she decided.
That night, she found sleeping on her side was distinctly uncomfortable. She discovered that she was far more comfortable sitting like a bird on a nest and twisting her neck around to lie on one wing. She’d never had a neck that flexible!

Morning brought the return of the researcher. He gave her a quick but thorough inspection.

“Excellent! You’ve made your transition perfectly.”

Merrill hopped down from the bed and spread her arms (wings?). They were huge and would clearly let her fly. But not in here. The ceiling was too low and there wasn’t space. She hopped over to the chair in the bathroom and hop-flapped up onto it. What she saw took her breath away. She was feathered from head to foot quite literally. Only her feet (which were clearly those of a turkey now) and her face and breasts remained uncovered. She looked over at him a slight frown on her face.

“You wanted to be a bird and fly,” he reminded her.
“A turkey?”
“It was the only genetic sample I had available. Besides wild turkeys are good fliers. I’d like to get a complete scan of you before taking you out to my private zoo and get you some space to try your wings.”
“Okay,” was all Merrill could think to say.

He wheeled in a gurney and she flapped up onto it. Clinging to the tight fabric of the gurney, Merrill held herself upright as they left the room.

Later that day, she found herself in a large car clinging onto the seat belt (seat belts really didn’t work too well for turkeys). An hours drive brought her into a spacious farm and a huge enclosed aviary. He led her into the huge enclosed space and set her free. He attached a metal band around her leg and motioned with his arms to fly. She bent down to read (upside-down) the message on the leg band:

Subject: XTD-076
Species: H. Sapiens Meleagris
TF Date: 2095-01-09

She wondered what a Meleagris was for a moment and then flapped her wings. Soon she was airborne -- flying like she’d dreamed since she was a child!