Kaylid Chronicles Bundled Set

by Mel Todd

  "No, I will not admit defeat." she muttered. It sounded weak even to her, but she stripped out of her night-shirt and underwear, determined to power through. "Shower will help."

  She stared at her pale face in the mirror, her pale skin appeared gray, almost pasty today. A wave of dizziness gripped her. Cass grabbed onto the sink trying to shake it off. Her body felt like someone had aimed a flame thrower at her. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she froze, eyes locked on the being looking back at her. Her eyes weren't her eyes, they had changed shape and color. Knees buckled without her consent and Cass fell to the ground as pain exploded through her body and the world short circuited out of awareness.

  Her eyes flicked open, she lay there frozen, even as her chest heaved to bring in oxygen. Everything looked odd. Off somehow. The colors and brightness not quite right. The pretty fleur-de-lis pattern on the tile of her shower should be visible from where she lay, but the pattern seemed blurred for some reason.

  Oh god, did I smack my head and damage my ocular nerve?

  The thought rippled through and she jerked her hand up to feel the back of her head and a huge paw with six-inch-long claws lifted towards her face.

  She shrieked and tried to scramble backwards, but the sound that reverberated in the bathroom freaked her out. She flipped over trying to see who could have made that sound. The claws moved also, clattering against the tile floor as her body twisted in a motion that she shouldn’t have been able to make, shoving her against the glass shower door. Cass scanned every inch of the bathroom trying to focus her eyes, but it still seemed blurry any more than a few feet away. No matter how hard she looked no one was there.

  "Okay, take a deep breath." She muttered, or she mean to mutter all that came out were weird growls and chirps and she froze again. Her heart beat in her chest so hard she could see it pulsing in her vision then she fought a wave of dizziness.

  Forcing a lump of fear and stress down she swallowed then closed her eyes and listened. The only sound her own harsh, rapid breathing and a heart that she suspected would explode any second.

  Deep breath.

  She inhaled slowly through her nose and instantly began choking as scents assaulted her sensitive nose like burr weeds. Cass had always had a sensitive nose, it was one of the reasons she excelled at her job. She could smell differences, recognized chemical compounds, and often let that sense help her make decisions in a lab where one drop could be one drop too many. But that sensitivity had been magnified a thousand times; bleach, coconut, lavender, antiseptic, sweat, mint toothpaste, and urine all battered their way into her mind and she freaked.

  Panting, she raced out of the bathroom, part of her noting she was too low, nothing made sense, but all she could do was try to get away. Running from room to room, trying to find a way out, unable to even think about how doors worked; she found herself under her bed, the darkness, the subtle scents of sweat and dust surrounding, her calmed her heart and mind. She lay her head on the floor eyes closed and just breathed.

  Cassandra Elizabeth Borden, use your mind and think. You’re a scientist use your brain and quit reacting like a hormone addled idiot.

  Her mental voice sounded like her mom when she did that and perversely it made her feel a little bit better. Another deep breath then she opened her eyes. The darkness under the bed didn’t seem as dark as it should have.

  Why am I laying on my belly?

  That thought filtered to the top as she registered her odd pose. The dust made her nose itch and she reached up to itch it and froze as claws came into her field of vision. Her heart rate accelerated a bit, but this time she kept a hold of herself and slowly wiggled her finger. The first most index claw went up and down and now that she paid attention, because you didn’t normally pay attention to what it felt like to move your fingers you just did it, she could feel her claw move.

  I have claws.

  The thought lay stark, like a fact in the lab, something you couldn’t avoid. Facts like that made her feel better. This one didn’t. With slow meticulous precision, a tendency that made her so good in the lab, her gaze traveled up her arm. Well, paw and forearm. Rather than being slightly tan with faint blond hairs, it was covered with dark brown shaggy fur. Experimentally she moved the entire leg.

  Yep, I have a paw and am covered with fur.

  That fact also lay there, but this time it didn’t seem so awful. More like an interesting fact she’d never encountered before that might change everything. Cass ran her tongue over her teeth – sharp, long teeth in a narrow mouth – and her tongue slipped out to lick her nose, a skill she’d never possessed.

  Okay, that implies a lot.

  With slow interest, cataloging everything, she went over her whole body; arms, legs, ears, and to her both surprise and not surprise, a tail. By the time she got that far, she’d rather expected the tail, but expecting a tail and having a tail were two different things.

  Either I hit my head and this is all a dream the likes of which could fund research papers for years, or I’ve turned into an animal. Badger or wolverine or something like that.

  Only one way to know for sure.

  Conflicting thoughts urged her back into the safety of the dark space under the bed and forward into discovery. An eternity that was mere seconds later, she gazed, mouth ajar and brain absolutely quiet for the first time in a long time. A wolverine reflected back at her in the mirror.

  Wolverines don’t normally get above thirty pounds or so.

  Her thought seemed abstract, distant, and she slumped down, unable to take her gaze off the dark brown creature with pale stripe along its ribs and across its forehead.

  Breathe, you can’t do anything if you’re running around like an idiot.

  Again the internal voice came across like her mother stood behind her. It had the effect of putting some starch into her spine.

  Data, I need data. I can’t do anything without data.

  That thought helped push back the gibbering thought that this couldn’t be possible and Cass started doing what any good scientist did, she gathered data. Weighing herself required her to stand on her hind legs and bend to see the numbers.

  Weight 158 pounds. Huh, I lost two pounds since last week. Yay me.

  She checked her height as best she could, though she didn't expect to be the same height in this form as in human; on her hind legs she stood five feet, a good five inches shorter. The claws were long, strong, and extremely dexterous.

  I'll need to research wolverines when this is done.

  Her nose twitched and she realized she was ignoring valuable data. She started to sniff and inspect herself, the wolverine body was flexible in a way that only Olympic athletes normally were. She could smell a strange scent, not unpleasant but slightly musky. It reminded her of what her nose had caught when she'd walked in on a college roommate having sex - rich, sharp, and screaming femininity. This scent had the same base but was more subtle, yet stronger at the same time.

  Huh. Better hope I don't run into any male wolverines.

  All the data collected, she fretted about not being able to write it down. Sighing, she faced what her initial panic and then fascination had allowed her to push to the back of her mind.

  I need my notebook. But I guess the question is why am I a wolverine? Why did I turn into one?

  That question burned bright, but she couldn't come up with an idea. Even if she added in mad scientists, weird experiments, and a lab accident gone wrong, of which she didn't know any.

  There hadn't been any experiments and nothing had gone wrong in her lab. She didn't know of any way this could work, at least not without magic. And she didn't believe in magic, no matter how much she wanted to on some days.

  Rising up on her hind legs she peered at the clock and sighed.

  Chuck is going to throw a fit and make my life hell. Not only am I hours late, I didn't call. Dammit. Bright side, if I never change back, I never have to deal with Chuck again.

  The idea made her
snort. She'd never be that lucky. Chuck Werner acted as her lab director. He had two PhD's and yet couldn't get a slide set up properly. The perfect example of promoted to his highest level of incompetence, and she figured he hated her. One PhD and glowing reviews from everyone, two patents to her name in the last year, and people always asked what project she had going. He'd use this to make her look bad.

  And I have three lichen cultures I need to process to see if what I'm hoping for is there. If I miss more than another day I'll lose my window in their growth cycle.

  Those samples were important, but it had an odd distance to it that made her more stressed.

  What if I never turn back? What if I'm stuck as a wolverine?

  The idea made her heart race and a weird sound slipped out as she slumped to her belly. After a while boredom set in, something she didn't handle well. She needed a book or something to do, her knitting or macramé right now would be nice. Cass went over to her e-reader, but while she could get it open, it wouldn't recognize her claws or pads trying to turn pages. Frustrated she sank to the floor grumbling.

  I'm ready to be human again. Who would have thought a lack of paper books would be a drawback?

  Aftermath

  There are reports of animals wandering around and most of them make little sense. As none of the zoos in the area are reporting any animal escapes, people are asked to stay calm and verify what they are seeing. The odds of cheetah’s, tiger’s, and wolves all invading the Sacramento valley today are slim. This might just be a solar flare driven madness, but it is causing issues with the 911 system. ~KWAK News

  Cass thought about her hands, her body and had to laugh at how much she'd taken for granted. Like open doors and cans. Even as the memories surface she felt something – a pulling, stretching – painful but nothing like what it had been. Before her mind could wrap around what happened, she realized she lay on the floor of her bedroom, naked, in human form.

  "I'm human?" She pushed herself up, glanced at the mirror, and sighed as a human face looked back at her. Cass turned and checked out her ass and couldn't decide if the emotion rippling through her was relief or disappointment at proof she turned back to fully human.

  A quick check and her head didn't ache, no more bloodshot eyes, back to normal as if it had never happened.

  "Huh. Data, gotta record the data." She headed for her desk, grabbed a notebook, to scribble everything down she had measured and recorded. She wasn’t sure what to do with it, but you never dismissed data. Writing it down made it both more real and less and she didn't know how to feel. It'd taken too long to still have any panic running through her system.

  As she set the notebook down, still turning over the idea in head and needing to see if she could figure out if this was random, signified a change in scope, or had been a one off to never happen again, she saw the time on her atomic clock – ten forty-five am.

  "Shit! Chuck will have a field day! He might certify my experiments as abandoned."

  She sprung for the shower and raced through her process, pulling on clothes with reckless hurry, the thought of Chuck tossing out her lichen driving her. As she headed out the door, she grabbed her phone and purse and tried to come up with a good reason for her lateness. Chuck would make her pay for this and she wanted to scream. She wanted time to think over the idea that she'd turned into a wolverine. No not an idea, a fact. For the first time ever, she wished she had cameras in her apartment so she could watch it over and over and see if she could figure out what had happened.

  Traffic seemed awfully heavy for this time of the morning and she hated to drive in the first place. One of the reasons she lived where she did was most of the time she could walk to work. Driving stressed her out and made everything that much more stressful. But given the day she was having, Cass had to drive. Walking would take thirty-five minutes, and at this point she already would face Chuck berating her. With a growl of frustration Cass flipped on the radio. The regular ads were interspersed with rumors of a zoo losing some animals and an intense solar flare hitting the planet over the last day or so.

  I can’t tell anyone, well maybe Helena. She’d believe me, right? I mean, I don’t tell weird stories like that. But, no. Only Helena—if anyone else found out they’d lock me up, perform experiments on me. Thanks, but no thanks, I prefer to be the scientist. I’ll tell Helena and no one else. I wonder if I can repeat it? Wait does this mean it happened to other people?

  The thought struck her dumb for the rest of the drive as she thought about that idea. Pulling into the parking lot, she shut the car off and looked at the clock. The number gleaming at her chased all thoughts away about the weirdness leaving only panic.

  "Dear god, it's almost noon. Okay, come up with a good excuse. Flat tire and forgot my phone. That will have to do."

  Cass hated lying telling but telling Chuck she'd over slept and turned into a wolverine seemed fraught with danger.

  Pulling into the parking lot she took a deep breath, centered herself, and pushed back the quiver of panic that rode at the back of her mind.

  "Really." she muttered, "you turned into a freaking animal, and after the initial panic you think it's fascinating, but you are scared to go in and deal with the man who runs your lab? You should have turned into a mouse. Get a hold of yourself."

  Honestly, the animal thing caused less stress than Chuck ever did. I'm so getting a bottle of wine on the way home today. I've totally earned it. Shit, I forgot to get lunch. I'll grab something at the vending machine as I head to the lab.

  Food had never been a big deal to her, she was usually too involved in research to remember most meals. Getting out of the car she grabbed her badge and headed in. She badged in and headed to the small vending area, grabbing a bunch of nuts and dried fruit from the limited selection.

  Maybe I'll be lucky, and Chuck hasn't noticed.

  Walking towards her lab, she ripped open the bag and dumped them into her mouth. The salt and oil from the nuts hit her tongue and her knees almost buckled as hunger swamped her. She rarely ate breakfast and because of being late hadn't even grabbed any tea to drink on the way in.

  "What in the world?" She muttered and realized she shook with hunger. In a single move Cass pivoted and headed back to the vending machine. She slid in her credit card and spent thirty dollars on food she'd normally not eat but right now she'd eat anything to get her body to quit screaming at her.

  "Binge eating, Borden? Think you can make yourself sick and get out of explaining why you are almost four hours late?"

  Chuck's nasal Northern accent voice sounded directly behind her. Normally, Cass might have squeaked or something. Right now she needed more food. Fighting to swallow and not shove more food down her mouth, she turned and looked at him.

  As always, he had a supercilious sneer on his face, and his scraggly mustache over thin lips, no chin, and a hawk-like nose made him seem like an odd vulture you'd see on a nature special. He had a long lean body but he always stooped a bit; she resisted telling him to stand up straight.

  "I wafh," she mumbled, the words coming out a mishmash. Cass ducked her head, blushing as he loomed over her, too close.

  "Please, Borden. Don't talk with your mouth full. I don't need to be exposed to masticated food as well as dealing with an employee that doesn't know how to show up to work on time."

  Oooh, that man. This is only the second time in two years I've been late. Usually I'm here an hour before everyone else.

  Cass chewed and swallowed, upset and aggravated, but she needed the job. He could make her life even more unpleasant by making it harder for her to get access to the machines she needed and by lowering her priority in processing samples. Or even worse, he could end her processing early for a 'higher priority' request.

  With the last swallow, even though her stomach clamored for more food, she forced a smile. "I'm headed that way. Rough morning." Her smile had no more sincerity than his matching one.

  "And what can justify missing so much of your d
ay?" His tone had her hackles rising, and that idea of her having hackles almost distracted her from her annoyance.

  "Just life, traffic, alarm didn't go off, flat tire. It happens. Besides, I'm on salary and I work late more often than not, so I'm sure I'm still on the plus side."

  He sneered at her but couldn't say anything, especially since she knew how often he left at noon on Mondays and Fridays.

  "Fine, but you better get to work. Otherwise I'll have to bump your orders for someone else that did bother to show up and put their requests in." With that he turned and slouched away, leaving her dumping another bag of peanuts in her mouth as she glared at his back.

  And this is why I talk to myself, it is better than talking to idiots. But what the hell is up with this hunger?

  Cass hated not understanding things. Knowledge formed the basis of her world – she investigated and understood everything. It also contributed to why most men didn't date her. She didn't go into obsessive-compulsive behaviors, but she needed to know why, and most men got frustrated with her need to figure out why they did things in a certain way.

  The shakes had stopped, so she headed to her lab, stopping in the little ante room. They all had lockers there, all four of them, well Chuck had one too, but he rarely stepped foot in the lab if he could help it. Usually only if requests for processing from an outside source came in. Then he'd go in and set up the machines for the samples and tests requested. But for the most part he acted as an administrator, not a scientist.

  Her lab jacket hung in her locker and she pulled it out, slipping it on with relief. She bound her hair up in a cap and grabbed her safety glasses, pausing a moment to dump the last of the peanut M&M's in her mouth. The rules said no food or drink in the lab, which made sense, and for the first time she regretted the rule. Hunger still nipped at her mind. She pulled out her research notebook, the main reason she had a real padlock on her locker. All her notes theories and experiments were in here. At the end of each week she typed everything up and uploaded it to her password protected cloud storage provided by the company. Of course, they didn't know she also mailed a copy to herself every week and also took home all the week’s filed sheets. While risking losing data would make most people nervous, it made her sick.