FSE

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Even as the plethora of machines and displays flashed, flickered and blinked, Grossman's finger stopped just short of pressing the button to commit the change.

"Dr. Malcom, right?" He asked as he stopped and turned toward the almost grandfatherly man that had tended to Ann for almost a decade. His jaw was slack, ivory teeth standing in sharp contrast to his wrinkled, brown skin. "You never saw this before, did you, doc?" Grossman walked closer as their eyes met and Malcolm nodded.

"It's...I don't know." His eyes betrayed the conflict in his mind, the idea of genomic control that had just happened before his eyes fighting against the old, Southern Baptist piety and restraint that had underlay so much of his choices in life.

"I'll take that as a no." Grossman's grin faded as he saw the conflict behind his compatriot's eyes. "You're wondering if we just bit into the apple, aren't you?"

"Or opened Pandora's box, but yes." He answered as Grossman sighed.

"I don't know," he breathed and shrugged. "But all we can do is ride it out. How does our patient look?"

"I don't know." The doctor shrugged, one hand fidgeting with the cuff of his scrubs as he looked over the theater in front of the control room. "I've been working for Mrs. Reese since before fangers even existed. I wouldn't have the first clue as to what is even normal."

"What does your gut tell you, doctor?" Grossman gestured toward the panel in the center of the control room before a small smirk crossed his lips. "I guess that means that Andy here will be your first."

"Well, she....He's perfusing much better than Ann was. Oxygen content required to keep him at full saturation has plummeted," He stated matter of factly as he looked on the readouts on the display. "Wait...It's nineteen percent." He looked to Grossman in alarm.

"It's still more than adequate," Grossman replied. "The system cues off his blood gasses to keep him at an almost comatose state." He pointed toward the readout in the corner of the screen. "We're currently also piggybacking a standard illness panel through the system which will drop that a bit as well."

"You're targeting the immune system." The doctor replied, the possibilities that the procedure would allow flashing across his mind.

"With these nanobots to prevent any damage, we can flood him with pathogens to jump-start his immune system, yes." Grossman smiled at the surprised doctor. "I expect that to be the first widespread use of the technology. No more shots. No more one in a million sicknesses. Just immunity. But take a look at his heartbeat and all of his biochemical markers."

"Ann is-" Dr. Malcolm, the man who had pretty much committed Ann Reese's medical history to memory was shocked. Every single number on the screen was at least three-quarters of what it had been even on her best day since he had started seeing her.

"Andy is healthier than any single one of us in here." Grossman cut him off, smiling as he pressed the screen once more. "And he deserves a voice in what's going to happen to him." He decided as he turned toward the screen.

"Ann, If you can understand me, try giving me a thumbs up,"

From within the stainless and glass coffin, his voice boomed through hidden speakers as the sedative pumping into her body through the IV lines slowed as Grossman's fingers played across the display. The tube that had been buried deep in the new shepherd's airway pulled back and dissolved as the nanites hungrily searched for any foreign bodies within his changed form. His lungs took over, sending his chest up and out. With each breath, that small spark of life buried deep inside his mind grew again and again.

"Ann, can you give me a thumbs up?" Grossman asked again, a seed of worry buried deep inside him as he repeated his request. The first time he had done this, it had taken no time at all for his subjects, no, his patients he corrected himself, had come around quickly.

On the third try, Grossman saw the paw of the form inside the chamber twitching. Hope swarmed through his mind as he asked once more.

This time, a clawed thumb flexed as the remainder of that bestial paw clenched into a fist.

As Grossman let out the breath that he hadn't even realized that he was holding, he could see two green eyes flash open, quickly focusing and contracting in fear.

"It's all right, Ann. You're at InGen. We've..." Grossman's throat clenched as he searched for the right word to calm the figure inside the glass and steel coffin. "We had to make some changes, but we've fixed you." He could hear the snicker from behind him as the inaccuracy of the statement dawned on him, his hand quickly releasing the microphone button connecting his voice to the chamber before the owner of that titter spoke.

"Doc, I think you've done the opposite from fixing. Healing, maybe." The female tech snarked from behind him as he could tell there was one particular organ that she was referring to.

A wry smile crossed Dr. Gossman's face as he caught just what the tech meant. "I guess healed is the better term." He drawled into the microphone as he choked back a chuckle. "The system is still finishing up the changes, getting you ready to come back into the world of the living. But we can get the paperwork garbage started at least." He slowed down for just a moment. "Give me one finger for yes."

A meager movement of the tip of one paw caught his eyes as he smiled.

"Good." Grossman smiled as he saw that Andy had at least enough strength and fortitude to not only move an appendage but to respond to commands. "There was some trouble with getting anything customized for you, I'm sorry. I used Jethro's as the base, and it works, but I don't have any of the details built into the system so we can get you an identity. I have the profile Jethro wanted for himself. Would you like to hear it?" Grossman asked as he let out the breath he had been holding.

Another clawed finger flexed. And Grossman smiled as he saw the motion and sighed in relief.

"First I'm going to show you what you look like now. We've healed your body, but it's more complicated than just a reset button. These are the changes that I was referring to earlier. This part can't go back, admittedly." The scientist lisped as his hands fluttered across the keyboard. Screens moved and shifted under his hands as one flickered to life above the trapped form in front of all of them.

Ann's mind shuddered as it worked to make sense to the cacophony of sights that had covered his new vision. That shudder coursed through his body and made itself apparent through the shudder that flooded across his body. Eyes tried to focus on the letters and symbols in front of them, but it still tooka few moments for the adapting canine mind of the new man to wrap itself around the reality floating before and within it.

The changed heiress knew she had become different even from the moment that she had regained consciousness, even before opening her eyes. Whirring fans dozens of feet away down the convoluted series of tubes and heat exchangers sounded as if they were right next to her head while the stale scent of antiseptic tinged recycled air nearly slapped her in the face with each breath. Dulled nerve endings still fired, letting her mind slowly acclimate to the feeling of something twitching on her head, of the fan powered breeze filtering through new fur and the new weightiness of form. The underlying strength of his new body suffused the new shepherd as he gave a short huff before the screen flickered and lit up.

A pair of canine eyes opened wide in shock as they passed the vision in front of them into her still malleable mind. Kelly green eyes scanned back and forth, up and down the form being projectedin front of them.

The sight of a canine staring back at her was enough of a shock to have sent anyone for a loop. As if they had been waiting for her to see them, the first sensation she felt from her new ears was them folding back in surprise. Her tongue flopped around in her mouth, tracing along the fang-filled maw that had replaced her crowns and dentures. With an errant thought an unbidden growl built in her chest, baring her new fangs to the world.

Even her flattened ears could hear the deep, rumbling emissions from her chest. But even as her eyes traced the hard lines of the chestnut and black fur that had coated her changed form, something caught her eyes.

Or rather, the lack of something.

The sight of the thick arms and broad shoulders was only the first sign of the radical changes that remade her formerly elderly, female form. But even more than that, the shape of the two mounds on her chest caught her attention. Even if she had gone back to her twenties or teens, she had had a rack even then, honestly a much more attractive one. The thick, muscular chest that greeted her eyes was almost precisely the opposite of what she had expected to see.

But as those eyes wandered farther south, even more new territory was revealed, sending the lower half of her newfound muzzle to the rhetorical floor. The thick sheath now centered in hergaze, proudly and prominently sitting on her groin, proved to her just how much of an understatement the doc had made. More than just "some changes" that had been wrought upon her form.

The signals flashing across the banks of monitors in the control room shot up as Ann's mind wrapped itself around just what had happened. Her pulse, her breathing, even her blood pressure jumped at the fact that she had recognized just what the millions of nanomachines still coursing through her blood had done to her.

"Take it easy, Ann." Dr. Grossman's voice thundered into her newly sensitive ears, sending the vulnerable cups flat against the new canine skull as they tried to shut out as much of the noise as they could. A quiet, simpering whimper was picked up by the microphones within the chamber as the monitors spiked. "Let me talk to you."

Grossman was almost begging into the communications between the chamber and the control room before he saw a flicker of movement on the view screens in front of him.

The monitor covered the entirety of the canine figure trapped within the chamber in the center of the stainless cavern that they were looking over. Short jerks and twitches continued to shudder down the form of the canine they were all watching. But the clenching of his fist and downward jerk of his extended thumb was a pretty universal sign. One that almost anyone could have understood.

Too loud.

Dialing back the microphone, Grossman tried again. "Sorry 'bout that. It'll get better, Ann. Your mind is being rewired to take advantage of those ears, nose, and everything else. Is this volume better?" The shepherd nodded slightly, ears perking up just a little bit from their defensive posture as the numbers on all the monitors slowly trended down. "I know this isn't what you expected."

"Duh....Diiii..." The shepherd coughed out, ears twitching at the unexpected deepness and roughness of his new voice. "Dick."

"That wasn't what I expected to hear" Grossman mused, letting up on the talk switch on the microphone. "I know you're surprised. I didn't know what else I could do." He wasn't entirely sure how Ann was going to take all this. "Prep a sedative, Malcolm. I don't want him hurting himself."

A growl rose in Ann's new chest, the baritone rumbling surprising even her as Grossman realized that he hadn't released the button for the microphone.

"Ann. Ann," Grossman pleaded. "Take it easy. Let me explain. Your body may feel like it's healed, but it's not complete yet. You could blow an artery or give yourself a stroke." Grossman could remember the first time he had a test succeed, only for him to rupture almost every vessel in his body as the stress blew apart the changing walls. He just never wanted to see those sights again, even in his memory. "Will you let me explain? Please"

The form trapped within the chamber nodded, the plaintive tone evident in the doctor's words. Grossman sighed with a modicum of relief, its breathing and heartbeat plateauing along with her blood pressure.

"With the complete degradation of your body, we had to do a complete reprofile. I told you that, remember? You told me to do whatever, just to make it happen." He released the button and gave the most fleeting facsimile of a smile as he saw the form in the mechanical womb in front of him nod before he continued. "I couldn't get anything I created just for you to work in the simulation. The best bad outcome was that you would come out malnourished and mentally ...challenged at best. The worst, believe me, neither of us really wants to think about. I took a shot in the dark with a profile Jethro had built himself in jest years ago."

The eyes of the supine form in front of the gathered crowd just stared at where their master expected the camera to be as Grossman paused to collect his thoughts.

"I wanted to try and run more tests. To find out why the system wouldn't work. But it was too late." Grossman sighed before delivering the final takeaway. "It was either this or die." Grossman's voice trailed off as he watched flittering ears of the shepherd in front of him as Ann's changing mind processed the words.

"Di....Die?" Ann croaked out.

"Yes, die. When you got here, you had maybe an hour before you would die. So I went with what I had tested on the sim and threw a Hail Mary pass."

The canid's ears drooped unconsciously, falling to his head as the words echoed through his head. Death. Mortality. Eternity. The newly canine matron had cheated it. She had beaten the reaper, but at what cost?

"I've got one more item for you to think about, Ann." Grossman smiled as those ears perked at the sound of that name, the unconscious motion fitting properly with what he expected to see. "Jethro had designed an entirely new life for himself. A new identity, abilities, even some interests. We used it to prototype some of the introductory sequences in the trials. Mind if I show you?"

The dog nodded slowly, the implications running through his head. But before he even finished nodding the screen in front of him shifted, the video mirror of him in the tube quickly replacedby a rotating, three dimensional anthropomorphic German Shepherd, obviously the form that now lay in the chamber. New eyes drank in the sight of the young male, hard lines and strength evident in his form. For a moment, those new eyes could swear that those of the computer-generated shepherd had looked straight into them. But as fast as the image had come up, another simulated image took its place. For almost five minutes, myriad scenes flashed before the dog's eyes. Of nights at frat parties, chugging beer or vodka with other guys. The thoughts of fear and nervousness as he sweat out the answers to a macrogenomics test in class, a pencil clasped in a furry paw, the tip bouncing between bacteriophage and bacterium. Of slamming into a body, forcing it against the boards on what could only be a hockey rink. Even memories of tackling some other kid back in pee wee football.

The screen faded to black, only two words in heavy, white block lettering making themselves known as they appeared in front of him.

Andrew "Andy" Michael Ryan. 4/21. 21 yo.

The dog's jaw dropped just a bit as his brain struggled to process just what was going on. His mind fought to rationalize and understand not only the scenes that had been shownin front of him, but also the juxtaposed memories and thoughts of the new persona that were slowly making their presence known. But even as he philosophically struggled, his nerves took on an altogether different and more physical task. Moment by moment, his mind started to react to and accept the new sensations starting to flow through his body as the nanites slowly gave up their grip on his nerves and let him have control of his new body.

A short titter echoed through the silent control room as the same images played across one control screen, a live image of their patient remaining on the other. The cause of that titter was obviously the emergence of a thin cone of crimson flesh that had slid from the dog's sheath. Even Dr. Grossman bit back a smirk as he saw the autonomic response from the canine. Shushing the room, he keyed the mike as silence settled over the room. "I've been combing through the data, trying to see just how much of his knowledge Jethro had transferred into the system. It looks like you'll be quite the prodigy in genetics and biology." He definitelywasn't lying about that. The IQ of the new mind and identity that the system had set for the shepherd in front of him was over 140. Jethro had not only set up a new form, but he had tapped into his brain scans from the theoretical testing to pass it along to himself. "So you don't need to worry about classes. Is there anything you want to change, Ann? Just say or think it."

"New life?" That voice croaked, breaking much later than before. "Remember...ta...no...check."

"Just enough that you have the knowledge you need for life, Ann." Grossman wracked his brain, trying to think of just how to explain what the new male would be feeling. "We're not going to erase you, Ann," Grossman replied, falling back on the canned response honed by dozens of uses on redlungminers, even if this application had taken the modification from simply modifying mannerisms and muscle memory to completely rebuilding a person. "Well, other than that Ann Reese died today. But you are you. Nothing there changes, you should remember everything. But with all the changes, we need to give you a past." Grossman shrugged, oblivious to the fact that his patient obviously couldn't respond to his body language. "In a way, you get to not only survive Ann Reese's death but bring at least some of Jethro back by using his daydream. Looks like he may have wanted the chance to be a bit of a jock." He chuckled. "Don't say I can blame him. The body he defined definitely looks amazing. I'm almost a little jealous."

Grossman was slowly increasing the volume of the speaker in the chamber as he spoke, grinning as he saw no reaction from the new canine. "He, or rather you're a trust fund....I guess pup, of course." Grossman laughed, eliciting a rough chuckle from the canine in front of him, letting him drop his guard just a little bit. "Ann Reese's will shall be updated to give you three-quarters of her liquidated estate. Hundred thousand plus tuition until doctorate. After that one fifty thou. Even at no gains that gives you almost two decades. That's two thirds. The rest goes to the Lazarus program." The human gulped as he was unsure just how the dog was going to react to that part of Jethro's stored will. "This one." He quickly qualified. "We are hoping to further refine and strengthen the process before we release it to the public.

His breath hitched in his throat as he saw the dog shake his head in the negative.

"You'd be a primary stakeholder, of course."

But once again he saw the dog's head shake, his paw splaying before clenching into a fist.

"5 percent?" Grossman exclaimed into the mike before he saw the dog shake his head, once again negative. His paw repeated the motion, five fingers splaying wide and a fist looking like he was knocking on an imaginary door.

"Fifty?" Half to the program, half to you?" Grossman gulped, hope and fear fighting within his mind as his eyes watched intently on the canine form in front of him.

The canine simply nodded yes, his paw simultaneously twisting into a thumbs up, the movements becoming increasingly fluid as the nanites finished their work, the displays showing the nanite activity plummeting. But as soon as that motion finished, that index finger popped up, as if chiding the onlookers whose minds were just now wrapping around what the reborn maven had said.

"Haa- Haaalf now," The dog's raspy voice was slowly strengthening and growing more typical and assertive. "Rest when I'm satisfied."

"I...I....Thank you, ma'am." Grossman stuttered, not even realizing his mistake with the honorific, so dumbfounded was he as he punched the changes into the software that was going to let loose the lawyers. "I'll have to have you sign with your...I guess Ann's password once we're done. But thank you. Thank you."

The canine simply nodded and repeated his thumbs up gesture before his grumbly, baritone voice echoed through the chamber, and via the microphones, into the control room. "But I don't know any of that stuff you showed me."

"We can teach you. The nanites can, I mean." Grossman croaked into the microphone, still trying to wrap his head around what had just happened. "During the testing, as you can guess, Jethro was the first person to try it all out." 'Idiot' The scientist thought to himself, fighting to reacquire a façade of neutrality as the thoughts fought their way through his mind before he began again. "There's enough in the system to make sure you knew enough to pass at the top of your class if you apply yourself a bit."

There had always been fears that the human mind would be unable to accept and adapt to the new, bestial form that it was now charged with. Fears of men gone feral and psychotic had plagued the program, inspiring dozens of choices that were made. Instead of just dropping the mind into a new physical form, the same nanites that reshaped the physical body were programmed to mold and refit the neural pathways. They not only reversed the rigors of time and age but they also made sure that the new connections to control new limbs were there, as well as ensuring the reactions to stimuli like noise or being startled were not only safe, but both proportional and appropriate.

Even as he calmed the nerves of his new canine charge, Grossman's mind was racing. He had been prepared to fight to get twenty percent, but half? The process could be more than perfected with that influx of money. Vaccines and illness could be made a matter of the past. Even death conquered. Visions of Stockholm danced in front of his eyes as he activated the nanites programming, releasing their programs to mold the malleable grey matter in the canine's skull into what Jethro had desired.

"Get ready for a crash course, Andy." He smiled as the program wound its way up. "This'll be a quick little taste of what we can give you."

The shepherd's eyes dilated wide as a curated lifetime of knowledge flooded his mind. Thoughts of calculus and cells, hours of studying and gnawed pencils pressing in. Hygiene and sports that would have taken a lifetime to learn and get used to took their rightful place. Thoughts that Ann had accumulated throughout a lifetime, like how to do makeup or how to handle a period, quietly slipped to the back of the newly male mind. But just as Goodman had promised, they weren't destroyed. The nanites merely shunted them to an area of the mind akin to a computer's backup memory section. Visions of both his former 'real' life as well as the new one being created flashed by his eyes as the microscopic machines did their job.

A smile flashed across that thick muzzle, baring a mawful of gleaming fangs as the memory of making the winning touchdown for regionals his senior years played through his mind as it was added to his history. Even the feeling of being hoisted onto the body of his team had passed into his memory. But it only continued as he remembered giving the valedictorian's address before he walked across the stage for his high school diploma, growling under his breath at the chafing robe.

But within seconds of that feeling of pride spreading across the new shepherd's mind, tears were swallowed down. The sight of going to the door, seeing the two state troopers, one even with his hat in hand, standing on the porch reverberated through his new mind. The dog remembered the death of his parents. Anger flooded him with the flashing wish that he could get his paws around the throat of the high fuckwad that had decided that his partying was more important than anyone else.

But it was quickly surpassed by the feeling of, not really peacefulness but acceptance as he saw the third plastic covered body in that morgue that horrible day. He could remember breaking down on his grandmother's shoulder, Grammy Reese patting his back and scratching his ears just right as she swallowed her own sadness and bitterness to help her grandson. Her quiet voice whispering in his ears and the comforting scent of that horrid perfume she always wore calming him, reminding him of when he was a puppy and she had doted on her daughter's adopted son.

Although the memory of chasing the frisbee she threw was a bit embarrassing. Damned prey drive.

Months of practice and repetition made their way inside as the thousands of suicides, drills, and practices that he had poured into hockey after being passed over for a football scholarship, the burn and heat of the energy of the ice spreading across him as quickly as the new memories did. Relief graced him as he remembered Dr. Grossman seeing much more than just some jock dog and giving him the sponsorship he needed to get into Bastian University. Envy had filled some of his classmates as he admitted he had been awarded a full ride to the premier university for the biosciences.

Letters of green flew by Grossman's vision as they completed the synthesization of the myriad memories forcing their way into the shepherd's changing mind. Transferring more than just the most superficial memories was something entirely new for the doctor and the technique as a whole. They had never needed to do this for any of the test subjects. But the addition and modification of memories were moving forward not only rapidly, but without any red flags. Grossman knew that something had to go wrong. There was never a perfect first trial, and it sent another shudder down his spine as he just waited for the process to go wrong. For the first red letters to flash in front of his eyes, flagging some clusterfuck that he'd need to deal with.

But in the absence of those red letters, the sights and sounds of a completely new life finally started slowing down as they finished filling in the sophomore year of the shepherd's collegiate experience. Uncertainty and nervousness were answered with not only a 4.0 GPA but an internship with InGen industries in the bioreconstruction division, the holy grail of his entire department.

The green letters in front of the doctor finally slowed, going from a blur down to a pace where they were actually readable. The screen claimed that the requested knowledge transfer had completed and the next line denoted a powerful sedative being fed into the new canine, preparing him for several days of recuperation before he could regain consciousness.

Grossman let out a sigh of relief as he saw the monitors stay green, their inputs all making the software extremely happy. As the system went into maintenance mode, the doctor turned to the assembled group. "I...That went orders of magnitude better than expected."

The stunned expressions apparent on the faces of the gathered crowd were more than enough to telegraph just how impressive the scene that had just transpired was. The science behind anthropomorphic individuals, 'fangers' as the colloquialism went, was still in its infancy. Just enough information out there to make people's ears figuratively perk up when they saw them and not run in fear like most people bodies wanted to. Dr. Malcolm was the first of the mute trio to speak up.

"She's...She's a dog." He stammered out, the sight something he had never before dealt with in his history.

"Ya, he is," Grossman replied nonchalantly. "It's a function of how the resequencing works. Just using human DNA fails in ways you don't want to think about." It was no lie or oversimplification. The first attempts at using human DNA to splice had resulted in H.R. Giegerian forms that not so much as died as explosively rejected living. "But Andy's body, senses, and mind are far and above both her body and that of her husband for whom it was defined. For as much as it sounds like a cop out, she's better. Much better."

"But I don't know anything..." The doctor sputtered, obviously worried for his job.

"Don't worry." Grossman replied quickly. "We can get you up to speed pretty quick. Other than hearing and smell, canine fangers are very close to us." He smiled at the elderly physician. "At the absolute minimum you'll be assigned to the institute. I want to have a chat with you later as well. I'd have to clear it with, I guess Andy now since he's the current order giver, but I'll need more, forgive the term, test subjects." Grossman's expression was contrite as he locked his gaze upon the physician. "Someone that has lived through as much as you deserves a chance not only to do it all over at his speed but to share his knowledge of what these kids would see as ancient history."

Grossman's eyes locked on Dr. Malcolm. "Even if Master Ryan does not wish to sponsor you, I will do so personally, doctor. Not many still alive marched with Dr. King." Grossman nodded at the elderly physician. "Even if it was in a stroller." The geneticist could see the gears turning behind the elderly doctor's eyes, what ifs and why nots making their way through his mind as he marveled at the near miracle still highlighted on the monitors in front of him. A frail, elderly woman who not even an hour before had been knocking on death's door had been quickly replaced by a powerful, virile young stud.

"Let me think about it, Mr. Grossman." The doctor's response spoke of uncertainty, but the timbre of his voice was one suggesting that there was no question as to whether he would follow his former patient down the path of rejuvenation.

"But since Andy's off in the land of the sandman, I think we're all set here. I told you I would pay all of you," Grossman started as he turned toward the coterie of astonished faces that had witnessed the same miracle as he had. He didn't even bother attempting to hide the glee that his technique had succeeded marvelously. "Let me get the checkbook, but I need to get all of your information. May need to talk to you again. I think I'll double that all if everything doesn't go sideways in the next few weeks.

As his eyes scanned across the multitudinous readouts and scans, he let himself breathe a sigh of relief that things had gone, if not to plan, at least well.