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Caoimhe had tried to run from the National Work Placement. She’d thought that she’d be able to make it in the wilds somehow. Unfortunately, in an overcrowded world, there just weren’t any real “wilds” any longer. The back country of the Rockies was as heavily patrolled by the surveillance bots as any city. It was only a few weeks before she was scooped up by a patrol and deposited in a holding cell. Since she was now deemed a flight risk, it was determined she’d have to stay in the cell until the next transport to the centre.

Caoimhe found herself in the spartan rear of the van with a collection of others who’d neglected their education and now, in a world that demanded everyone have job, was to be assigned a permanent task. The van emptied its contents at the entrance to a strange building. The gateway looked like some kind of zoo but Caoimhe knew that was impossible. There were no zoos any longer. Just conservation parks and ecological research centres. The group was quickly and efficiently herded into a holovid theatre and shown a presentation that Caoimhe did her best to ignore.

Finally, with the holovid over, she found herself facing a human lawyer (yes such things still existed in this over-roboticized world). With little preamble, the lawyer, who didn’t even introduce himself, presented an electronic tablet. Without reading the contract, she let it scan her palm. After all, she had no choice anyway.

A robot detached itself from a small collection of similar robots. It was clearly a security robot and Caoimhe, having dealt with them before, knew better than to attempt escape. A long boring march down a corridor with black glass windows interleaved with huge metal doors seemed to take forever. The robot stopped by an open door and Caoimhe entered the room. Behind her, the huge door swung shut and she heard the wheel in its centre turn several times. Ahead of her a trio of robots stood by some kind of hospital bed. Nothing like the ones she’d spent days in after being rescued from the wilds, this one had all kinds of attachments.

A pair of the trio rolled over to her, silently grabbed her her arms and legs and lifted her bodily onto the bed. Several clamps quickly pinned her to the bed by arms, wrists, legs and ankles. Her clothes were efficiently removed by cutters leaving her naked and unable to move. A tingle from the bed left her unable to move save for her head and neck. The third robot, clearly a medical robot, hooked her arms to IV lines. Both began to drip a clear fluid. From holovids, Caoimhe decided it was probably nothing more than saline. A small pouch was connected to a Y-port and soon a bluish fluid joined the saline into her left arm.

Another line from the ceiling was connected to a second Y-port on the IV line and a dark, opaque fluid was soon dripping into her right arm. Her entire body felt warm and oddly limp. Overhead some kind of scanner dropped from the ceiling and a series of red lines began to sweep her from head to foot and side to side. She tried to focus on the scanning pattern but it was dizzying and she soon gave up.

After only a few moments, she felt her hips shift. It felt odd, as if her hips had fallen apart or something. She felt an odd worm-like something thread it’s way between her legs. She wondered what could possibly have been attached to the base of her spine. Lifting her head, she discovered a greyish “worm” now lay between her legs. It was growing quickly. Within a few minutes it had grown from near her knees to practically her ankles. She had no idea what the strange “thing” was and she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know. In stubborn determination, she watched it grow.

Soon she realised her legs were feeling weak. Despite the field she attempted to move her right leg but, as expected, it couldn’t be moved. After ten minutes, though, Caoimhe was sure of it. Her legs were definitely shrinking. Thinner and definitely shorter, Caoimhe wished she’d watched the holovid instead of stubbornly looking away. Perhaps it had explained what was happening.

The strange worm stopped growing eventually and began to enlarge. After an hour or so, there was no doubt. It was some kind of fish. But no fish Caoimhe had ever caught or even seen. Huge armour-like scales covered the fish. It had strange lobes with the fins attached. Even stranger was that there were two pairs of these lobbed fins beneath her body. If they’d have been legs, she’d have been some kind of centaur instead of a strange mermaid. Her tail fin was strange as well. She’d seen and eaten enough fish to know what a fish tail ought to look like. This was a strangely divided appendage, though. A tiny fin in the centre with a huge scaled lobe on either side supporting more fins.

In fact, Caoimhe realised, all her fins had a muscular lobe that attached to her body. No fish could possibly look like this, she decided. So what kind of strange monster was she becoming? She’d given up watching the process after a while and only checked on the progress of her transformation periodically. She was startled when the medical robot rolled over and disconnected the IV lines.

She was finished, it seemed. Some kind of mermaid, definitely. The scanning lines continued for several more minutes then they, too, ceased.

“Ms. Dogherty,” a voice announced from a wall speaker. “You have completed your transformation.”
“But what am I?” she demanded.
“A living fossil, of sorts. A Coelacanth.”
“A what?”
“You didn’t take biology or ecology in high school then?”
“Shit’s boring. Why bother?”
“Regardless, you’ll be part of the oceanic exhibit soon enough.”
“Exhibit?”
“Yes. You and several like you have been assigned to a very special zoo. Visitors will come from all over to see you. Or more correctly, see the creatures you have been metamorphosed into.”
“But that’s illegal! There are no zoos."
“No zoos with animals but you are no animal.”

The bed’s sides slid upward and she found herself floating in salt water. She though to thrash about to protest but realised that might’t be a great idea because fish needed water. Glowering in her bed/tank she allowed herself to be rolled away by a pair of transport robots. These soon deposited her in a salt water pool. It wasn’t as deep as she’d have though.

“Are you hungry?” asked a woman’s voice.
“No!” Caoimhe groused. Then thought second. “Uh, yes actually”

The woman, clearly a zookeeper, walked over to a pail and carried it over to the water. It was full of all kinds of things, uncooked things. Squid, octopus, small fish.

“I can’t eat that!” Protested Caoimhe.
“Your new body requires it. You’d best get used to it.

It surprised Caoimhe to discover that her tastes had shifted along with her change in form. The food was delicious even if it was slimy and raw. She soon finished off the pail and felt tired. She swam inexpertly to the centre of the pool and tried to flip over onto her back. This proved more difficult than she thought it was. Her new body had a decided preference for what was up but she couldn’t breathe underwater could she?

“You have gills as well as lungs,” came the woman’s voice. “You’ll do fine underwater.”

Caoimhe gulped water, expecting to have to cough it out, but her lungs now had flaps that reflexively clamped shut. The water passed the length of her chest and exited at her hips. She was a fish, she decided. A real fish. She paddled about a bit and, suddenly overcome by tiredness, fell asleep still breathing the water.

The next days were spent learning her new body. She had more limbs now and they were part of the swimming process. Eventually, though, her coordination improved but her speed didn’t. She was definitely not a fast mermaid. It was far easier to just drift along and not worry about much of anything. After a week or so, she watched and heard as an iris in the side of her tank opened. Clearly she was to swim into it so she swam over and entered the tube. It was fairly long and turned several times. Finally, she arrived at a second open iris and swam into a huge tank. Warm seawater filled the tank and she couldn’t see the far side. There were others there, too. None quite like her but all mermaids and mermen. Each was different so clearly they didn’t want any hanky-panky and the resulting progeny. The little group grew day by day as another mermaid or merman with a brightly coloured tail was released through the iris.

Caoimhe, though, didn’t enjoy their company much. For some reason, she preferred to be alone much of the time. She’d never been much of a people person before her transformation and this definitely hadn’t changed. Just about the only time she joined the others was at feeding time when the keeper tossed her the food in her bucket. The rest of the time, she just drifted, not thinking a great deal, just being …

Woman: Creative Commons: Holger Wirth
Fish: Creative Commons: Daniel Jolivet

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