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  Perc frowned at that, something clicking in his mind, but before he could follow up on up on it, the muttering in the room pulled his attention away. There were quite a few players in the room that ducked their heads, sheepish looks on their faces as they had starred in multiple YouTube videos displaying animal antics.

  Thank god that was the only vid of me, and it was damn obvious it took me by surprise.

  "If they can pressure us, make it seem that something is risky about shifting, it creates a power imbalance. She thinks it might fall under racism, but if they can prove it is a risk, they'll be lauded as heroes for protecting us from the evil shifters. Her big fear is if we sit quietly and wait, they will win because they'll have time the time to spread the message that shifters as players are both at risk and risky. She did suggest we check and see if any of the actors that have come out have lost contracts. That might give us another angle. Basically, this is the 'coming out of the closet' for our generation."

  Brian sat back down as the room erupted into discussions and Perc poured himself a very stiff drink. This would be a long day.

  3

  Your Ride

  Scientists are classifying the aspect to Shifters blood as a virus. While not one they have seen before, and they admit the structure is unusually exact, it still has the same characteristics though they are not sure why some people have the virus and others don't. But to date, all shifters who agreed to blood testing have the virus but interestingly if you take it out of the body it does not attack any cells from other subjects. Instead, it remains quiet and doesn't interact at all. ~TNN Science Adviser

  "Hey, can I share your ride with you, my house ain't too far away." The slurred voice of Rick Shatton, a second-string quarterback for the San Francisco team though he lived in Sacramento, came from his right.

  Perc turned and tried to focus on the quarterback. He'd had more alcohol than he should have, but right now they didn't know what else to do. Drinking had seemed like a valid option. Talks had gone until the wee hours of the morning. Everyone agreed they needed to file injunctions. Needed to let people know it wasn't their choice. They would refuse to go quietly. Ideas and arguments abounded, and by the end, they agreed they needed to do something but the 'what' was unknown. No one had any idea who was driving this forward and all the people on their side were just as in the dark as they were. At this point, they didn't have anyone to rally around. To most people, this would look like rich guys whining about not getting money. So, they were suspended for a few days, who cares, would be the public opinion.

  By the time he'd called it quits, most of the alcohol had disappeared and everyone had been exhausted and frustrated. Some people were crashing at the hotel, and he remained grateful he'd decided not to drive, just because of this situation. He'd paid, wincing at the bill, but in the long run, it would be worth it, if they kept their careers.

  Ride-sharing apps were his saving grace some days. Not that he made a habit of this but going out with other athletes always seemed to end up with them drinking. Perc refused to drink and drive.

  "Sure." The car would be pulling up any minute. A beep from his phone caused him to glance down, and he frowned. He swore a minute ago it had said Shirley in a white Lexus, now it said John in a blue Honda who was five minutes out. He shrugged and struggled to focus on Rick.

  "You make any plans as to what to do?"

  Rick snorted. "Drink more and beat my head against the wall? Hell if I know, man. How do I fight something when even my agents aren't getting anywhere with why or how to fight it? I mean I thought our contracts were supposed to protect us from stuff like this."

  That idea niggled something in Perc's brain. What did his contract say about suspension and medical testing?

  "And Linda is just going to be pissed. She likes a quiet life. All of this is just going to add more pressure."

  Perc had to think a minute, then it snapped into place. Rick had gotten married about a year ago. He couldn't remember much more besides that. He knew Rick but that about covered it.

  "How's that going? The marriage thing I mean."

  A smile lit up the man's face and Perc blinked as he all but radiated happiness.

  "It's awesome. She makes me look forward to going home, and waking up next to her each morning is the best thing in the world. I think she's more worried at how upset I'll be if this stands and my contract gets pulled. But she's already started making contingency plans." His smile held a level of dopey happiness that Perc envied.

  A car pulled up before Perc could respond or get anything about the contract to finish solidifying. He'd have to pull out his contract when he got home and look at it.

  He slid into the car, nodding at the driver, a nondescript young man.

  "Hey, ready to go?"

  Perc nodded and closed his eyes.

  "Yeah, drop off Rick here first. Rick, you'll have to give him the address, I've got no idea."

  Rick rattled off the address, yawning as he did so.

  "Damn, I might have drank more than I should. I'm exhausted. But I still don't know the right thing to do. Surprises me they're stonewalling the agents."

  "Yeah, but Alicia said she's heard of this before, just not in this century." Perc's voice was dry, as the closest example, they discovered harkened back to the 1950's. Then accusing someone of being a commie would ruin a career. Surely that couldn't be what the goal of this was.

  He yawned, glaring at Rick, then closed his eyes.

  "Stop it, I really need to do some more stuff when I get home."

  "Don't blame me for yawning, it's not like I can stop it," Rick muttered.

  Perc forced his eyes open looking down at his phone, it had been a long stressful day. Dealing with that many egos, mixed with booze and money stress, had pushed his temper to the limit. He'd finally started counting to ten in Chinese, and he didn't know Chinese, so he had to look up each of the numbers.

  "You look hot, let me turn on the AC."

  It took a minute to register the drivers' words. Perc's attention on typing up an email to Alicia when the words kept misspelling themselves.

  Why does his voice sound so funny, it didn't sound like that when we got in, did it?

  After another frustrated snarl at his phone, Perc looked up to glance at the driver who had stopped for a red light. Their driver had placed something over his face and pointed a canister towards them.

  Huh? What? Do we stink that badly?

  White mist hissed out of the canister.

  "What the hell?" Perc jerked upright, heart kicking into overtime, the terror pulling at the animal in him. He fought it back down, trying to figure out what the mist was. It trickled into down his throat into his lungs before he could think to hold his breath.

  "Whaz wrong?" Rick slurred sitting up a bit, his eyes glassy as he looked around.

  Perc tried to talk, but the spurt of adrenaline slowed, and he fought to lunge forward and grab the canister, even as he felt Rick slumping back against him, body slack.

  "No, stop… this…" he trailed off as his head nodded, and eyes started to close, the movement of the car adding extra bobbling, and his eyes closed all the way down.

  He couldn't get them back open, and everything went away.

  4

  Waking Up

  It has been seven days since the kids and cop were taken right under the noses of the police. How can we lose so many children in this country? Why hasn't the FBI been brought in? Surely when we are being watched always by big brother, they should know where these kids are. Maybe that is the answer, they are watching and have their own plans for these innocent children. ~ Harvey Klein Talk Show Host

  Cold seeped into his bones and his head pounded like someone played the bongo drums on his skull. Aching in his shoulders and wrists seeped into his awareness but the smell of blood and antiseptic reached the furthest, pulling him to consciousness. Perc cracked his eyes open, trying to figure out where he'd ended up. He only saw dark shapes that didn't
make sense.

  Squeezing his eyes shut, he inhaled slowly through his nose, and then quietly out through his mouth. His head hurt so bad that getting mad might kill him. He controlled his breathing for another few minutes then looked again, his eyes pulling in more light this time as he paid attention to his situation.

  A double shot of shock and fear kicked his heart rate up and increased the pounding in his brain as what he felt actively registered. His arms were above him, chained with handcuffs to a pipe. The cold concrete wall leeched all the heat from his naked body.

  At least I'm standing. Better than my shoulders and wrists bearing all my weight.

  Perc had never served in the military, or even been into war games or gaming but he had no doubt he was in danger. But why?

  Ransom? That makes no sense. I'm not big enough of a star.

  A moan pulled his attention away from himself and he squinted. The room lay shrouded in darkness with a thin light shining in a rectangle around what he assumed must be a door.

  There are other people in here with me. What the hell is going on?

  A rattle came from the area of the light and his attention snapped to it. The door swung open and light flooded the room with a click of a switch.

  Perc squeezed his eyes shut in reaction but also with a deep feeling that anyone he could trust wouldn't be walking into that room.

  It would help if I could think clearly.

  Every thought seemed to take forever, his mind fuzzy and undirected. Alcohol had never affected him like this, it must be something else.

  That strange spray. Knockout gas I guess. Odd, always thought it was a movie creation.

  Keeping his eyes mostly shut, he took in what the light revealed. Three other people were chained against the wall, a woman, and two men. On what looked like a stainless-steel table in the middle of the room lay Rick, unbound, but not moving.

  Motion pulled his eyes back to the door and he tried to focus on the person standing there. He didn't recognize him, not even as the driver. Middle-aged, going bald on top, and an odd expression on his face.

  He went to one of the cabinets against the wall and pulled out a vial and a big syringe. Filling the syringe, he walked over to Rick and began slapping his face. Not light slaps but hard ones that made cracking sounds in the otherwise silent room.

  What is he doing? Maybe he needs us awake?

  Even to himself, it didn't make sense. He couldn't imagine what all of this meant. Why were they here? Chained up? His stomach twisted into a tight little ball as he froze, not wanting to draw any attention to himself.

  "Wake up, wake up. I need you to change. Shift into animal form." His voice was low—cajoling, hypnotic, oddly matching the pattern of the slaps.

  "Huh, wha?" Rick muttered trying to move away from the slaps, but his arms didn't move right.

  "Change for me, go into your animal."

  "Kay," Rick muttered and Perc found himself frozen and mute, like he watched a horror movie but couldn't move or make a sound. It all seemed so unreal.

  With an odd ripple Rick shifted and where a naked man had lain a moment ago, a large wolf now lay there, his eyes snapped open. Perc swore he could see comprehension and rage. Other than the videos, Perc had never seen anyone change. The act in person had a visceral quality that movies or documentaries didn't convey. He rooted for the wolf but still couldn't move, trapped in his own body and mind.

  In a smooth move, the bald man shoved the large syringe into the wolf's neck and depressed the plunger. The wolf arched up as if trying to attack, but legs floundered, scraping against metal and it slumped back down, body going slack.

  "Damn, another wolf. I hope one of these others is an exotic. Wolf pelts are cheap."

  Perc's mind tried to make sense of the comment as the man walked back over to the cabinets. His mind pulling up odd trivia at the remark.

  Wait didn't a report say that wolves make up at least 25% of all reported shifters, and that cats were the most represented at 50%, but with a variety of types?

  His mind chased the minutiae even as he fought to get his body to do anything. Not sure what to do. With confusion he watched the man come back over to Rick, something silver in his hand.

  "Oh well, at least they are easy to skin." With a motion that looked practiced, he slit the neck, angling the body, so the blood flowed down the drain at the end of the table.

  Perc's body locked up, frozen in horror. His eyes were wide as he focused on the blood running out of the man he had known, an almost friend. His lungs wouldn't inhale, and his heart double thumped in his chest as everything in him shivered in reaction.

  He felt trapped in a dream as the man slit Rick open from neck to anus and removed his pelt without a single hesitation. Then he grabbed the pelt and headed out the door, leaving the dead wolf laying on the table.

  The sound of the door clanging snapped him out of the fugue state of shock and fear and rage blossomed. He didn't care about the headache anymore and welcomed his anger.

  "Oh hell no." The words echoed in the room, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Struggling to focus he called his beast to him. While feline, cat didn't cover what he turned into. He would qualify as an exotic and had no intention of following Rick down that path.

  He called the beast, at least that is how he thought of it and it flowed up changing him into something he wasn't. His first instinct was to resist but the image of Rick overrode his reluctance. Even before he finished, the flexible paws slipped out of the handcuffs and he landed with a thud on the floor.

  This isn't as bad as I thought. It's almost neat, if not for why.

  The shift chased away the last remnants of the drugs and his mind started to put everything together. Turning his head, he inhaled but all he could smell was fear and blood and the faint scent of sharp things he identified as drugs.

  He stalked around the room, sniffing the other three occupants. They were all alive but smelled funny, drugged. When he reached the door, his head reached the level of the handle. As an experiment he lifted his dinner plate sized paw and pulled on it but it didn't move, locked from the other side.

  I'll need to be human to get them down and wait for someone to come back in. I can't let anyone else die.

  The image of Rick's blood flowing down the table etched on his brain in bright bold colors and scents to the point he knew he'd have nightmares about them. The desire to do anything to prevent that from ever happening again drove him, his failure lashing him like lightning.

  With reluctance, the beast feeling safer than his frail human flesh, he moved back into human. Looking around, he saw keys on the counter and moved to get them. The key worked to unlock the chains and he took the time to lower the people onto the ground. They were all still beyond any hint of consciousness.

  So why did I wake up? Why haven't they?

  He looked around and it dawned on him.

  I must mass three times what the rest of them do. I bet the dosage wasn't calculated for me. Next time anyone bitches about my weight, I'm so telling them to fuck off.

  Lowering everyone and trying to make them comfortable, he worried about the coldness of the floor, unable to find blankets or clothes anywhere. With a silent wince, he put them all together, so at least they could share body heat.

  He didn't find any weapons besides scalpels and drugs and he'd never learned to fight with a knife. Nothing in the room presented itself as a weapon and he swallowed hard.

  What the hell do I do?

  The sound of voices and feet down the hall took away his time to trying to figure anything out.

  I need to fight. I can't let anyone else die. I won't let anyone else die, not like that, no matter what it takes to stop them. They can't do this to people, to anyone.

  The need to protect others, to make sure he didn't have to see any more deaths, to not feel useless, swarmed at him and he shifted. The beast swirled into him but not in its normal form, instead, it moved, forcing his body into a different
shape.

  Standing on hind legs, his center of balance felt off, lower. Glancing down he had to fight back a shriek of surprise as he saw claws jutting out of sandy colored furred hands. He ran his eyes up his body seeing a humanoid shape with fur and muscles and long-fingered hands that ended in two-inch claws.

  Perc grinned and felt his muzzle pull back in a snarl that felt perfect. Information filtered in, making him crouch and wait just outside the arc of the door opening.

  "Come on, Larry, let's get move this body. They said another shipment would be coming in this afternoon and I can't hurry the process to get the curing done to sell them to our buyers."

  "Yeah, yeah. You aren't the one trying to get them to shift, then get them knocked out before they rip your throat, so I don't want to hear it."

  The door swung open and pushed by instinct, both animal and the ones he honed on the football field, he launched himself at them claws out. One of them, the one who had killed Rick, shrieked as Perc's claws opened him up from left to right, the bright red blood brilliant against his white t-shirt. The other stumbled backwards away from the strike but Perc's claws snagged on his jeans, pulling him forward. Without actual thought, acting on instinct he didn't understand, he lunged forward and sank his fangs into the man's neck, severing the spine with the bite.

  The man went limp in his grasp. Perc dropped him, even as he swallowed the rich blood that poured down his throat. With a snarl, he turned to the other man, who squeaked and looked at him as he scrambled to try and get away, as blood covered his body from red lacerations across his chest. Adrenaline pounded through Perc's body as he rotated and swiped his left hand across the man's neck. The fountain of blood as the jugular ruptured under his claws pleased him.