MFS - 4 (Patreon)

After Emily finished eating some carrots, blueberries, and strawberries, she fell into a deep sleep. I remained at her bedside, bringing another chair up so I could somewhat stretch out. It felt like I had just dropped to sleep when Emily woke up and gripped her head tightly.

"Oooh, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts!" she exclaimed. Some kind of glowing energy surrounded her, a soft yellow that increased in intensity. The alarms on her vital signs suddenly started pinging and ringing, and several of the hospital staff darted into the room to see what was going on.

"She's crashing!" one attendant said as Emily slumped over. I could hear a sound then, like bones shifting, grinding together.

Emily screamed.

"Mr Anderson, you'll need to come with me," her nurse said and pulled me away from Emily's side.

"What's going on, what's happening?" I asked.

Someone wheeled in a crash cart, and they pulled Emily's gown down. I could see her body shifting, rearranging, aligning into a different configuration as she moaned and her heart fluttered like a hummingbird.

"Someone page Bennet!" another doctor said, darting into the room. "And get him out of here!" He pointed at me, and the nurse tugged at my arm. "Please Mr Anderson, you really must not be in here."

I allowed myself to be pulled away, and one of the nurses pulled the curtain on Emily's room, blocking my view.

The nurse took me to the original waiting room. "They'll come get you when she's out of danger."

I sat in the waiting room and watched the clock tick the minutes then hours away. I could hear the commotion in Emily's room as Dr Bennet arrived and started dictating orders. Through it all, I could hear Emily's wails as whatever was happening to her continued to happen.

Hours later, a different nurse gently jostled me and said Emily was out of danger, for now. I nodded and walked back to her room.

She slept soundly as I sat down in the chair next to her. Dr Bennet studied some kind of image in front of him.

Emily had changed more. Her nose had continued to flatten, with the nostrils angling up and over. Her mouth had pushed out more, and her brow ridges became more distinct. Her body also had suffered, with her feet protruding out and the toe separating farther along the rim of the foot.

As she slept, she began to snore, which was also a new condition. I sighed and stroked her hair throughout the rest of the night.

Sunlight awoke me what seemed like minutes later. Emily wasn't in the bed, and I sat up, alarmed, but then I heard the toilet flush and felt relieved.

She walked in, a smile etched across her changed features. "Looks like I've advanced further."

I nodded. "Yeah, you had quite the night."

"Wanna see something fun?"

I smiled. "Of course."

She came over to me and spread her hospital johnnie so I could see her backside. Above her derriere, a patch of coarse black hair had sprouted.

"Ahh," I said.

"I'm growing fur!"

I smiled. "You sound happy about that."

She giggled and plopped into my lap, pulling my arms around her. "Can you still love a monkey-girl?"

"Of course, I can."

She snuggled back into me, wiggling her butt.

"God, I'm so frisky, too. Do you think it's just being home or this new—whatever the fuck this is."

"Well, it has been a long time...for both of us."

She nodded, and turned to me. Luckily her cornflower blue eyes were the exact same shade as I fell in love with.

"John, I know this is all so strange, sudden, and abrupt, but..."

"But what, love?"

"Can we go home?"

I nodded, kissing her changed mouth softly. "Of course we can."

"I mean, it doesn't look like they're being able to do anything about any of this," she said. "And if it's going to happen, I'd rather be at home instead of stuck here in this...fishbowl, with everyone watching me."

"You sorta had a major event last night. Your heart raced out of control, and they had to shock you with paddles."

"That's because her heart was changing," Dr. Bennet said in a loud voice, walking into the room.

Startled, we both looked up as if we'd been caught by the principal. Emily hopped out of my lap, and I saw her lips draw away from her teeth—which had separated a bit inside her mouth.

"Sorry to intrude, but I wanted to show you why last night was so dramatic."

He pulled in a large vid-screen monitor.

"This scan was taken yesterday after the ceremony."

It showed a human heart beating, the image somewhat blurry and in black and white.

"And this was taken after your event last night."

He pulled up another vid, showing a smaller heart beating. It was more compact and looked similar to the other heart but distinctly different.

"It feels like it's beating faster," Emily said, holding a hand to her chest.

"It should. It's a chimpanzee heart, not a human heart," he explained. He pulled up another image. "And you've got the lungs to match."

"Oh, John!" she turned to me, throwing her arms around my neck. "I really am turning into a chimp!"

She started crying, and I held her tight, her face in the hollow between my shoulder and neck.

"What can we do about this, Doctor?" I said.

He frowned. "Well, about all I can say is we try to keep her as comfortable as possible throughout the process. I doubt there'll be another incident like last night, since from every angle I can see, your heart is strong, healthy, and functioning appropriately now."

"Appropriate for a chimp," Emily said.

He gave a small shrug. "We've taken blood tests, multiple times. The reality of the situation is, your genetic makeup is already along the lines of Pan-Troglodytes. It's your body that's just catching up."

"So, I'm not even human anymore?"

He gave a solemn shake of his head. "We've even tried injecting bio material from your blood tests back before the flight. The human genome is literally attacked by whatever this is that is changing you."

He pulled up another display on the screen.

"What are those little black dots?" I asked. A drop of blood was placed in the center of a slide, and the little black dots swarmed in, around, and through the blood until it took on a different consistency.

"We don't know. Those 'black dots' appear in Emily's blood and in Koko's blood. No one else is showing any symptoms of any kind of infection."

"So it is an infection."

He nodded. "That's the best way to describe it, I guess."

"Is it contagious?" Emily's voice rose, and she released me, as if touching me might communicate the contagion to me. I had to admit, it was a little unsettling.

"No, we've attempted to introduce other blood samples from other people." On the screen, he showed another drop of blood being placed on a slide. "But the particles do not multiply and fall dormant in any other body chemistry."

"I just don't understand this," I said. "Why did this happen to her? Why is it chimpanzee related? Was it because of her close contact with Koko?"

Again he gave a small shrug. "All very good questions, and without answers at this point, I'm afraid."

"Is Koko transforming into a...human?" Emily said in a soft voice.

Dr. Bennet shook his head. "No, but his capacity for reasoning and other skills appear to have improved. He's actually communicating with us on a tablet device."

He put up a screen with Koko in some kind of enclosure like you'd see at a zoo. He had a ruggedized tablet in front of him, and he was pressing large buttons for 'yes' and 'no' after a woman asked him questions. She was older, mid-fifties, with graying brown hair. Koko was able to respond to many of the yes or no questions.

"That's incredible," Emily said. "I knew he was a smart chimp, but this is off the scale!"

"He can even form simple sentences," another voice said, entering the room. I recognized the woman from the video.

"Emily, I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Elaine Davis. She runs the Houston Primate Institute, and I've called her in to assist with yours and Koko's case."

"Hello, Dr. and Mr. Anderson," Dr. Davis said, coming over and giving us a warm handshake. "I'm happy to meet you."

Emily stood, and I couldn't help but notice her shoulders were slumping even more. It appeared her arms had grown too; they extended quite a ways from the hospital johnnie.

"Please call me Emily," Emily said.

"I know you have a million questions," Dr. Davis said. "And I wish I could give you some answers, but I'm afraid you know about as much as we do at this point."

"Doctor," I said. "Will Emily retain her intelligence throughout this process?"

Dr. Bennet glanced over at Dr. Davis. "We just can't know what the future holds. As you can see, Koko is extremely intelligent and appears to be growing more so with each day."

"Unfortunately," Dr. Bennet said. "As your body takes on the form of a chimpanzee, the cranial space and brain matter just aren't the same as a human. I'm afraid it will result in...well, it's hard to speculate."

"If you had to speculate?" Emily said.

He sighed. "Well, the prefrontal lobe handles things like prediction, anticipation, impulse control, emotional reactions, planning for the future, those kinds of things."

On the screen, Koko gave an exclamation and hooted and screeched as he jumped about.

"Broca's area..." Dr. Davis said.

"What is that?" I asked.

Dr. Davis glanced up at the screen. "Language development and production."

Koko, as if in answer, peeled his lips back from his teeth, shaking his head and screeching into the camera.