E.V.T.

+

I know a place, a place of warm sun, endless beaches and eternal youth, a place of perfect fruit eaten seconds from the vine, of buttery fish, enchanting wine and limitless tranquility, a place free from pests, disease, clothes and trash, a place without politics, breaking news, social media, annoying neighbours, tax forms or pollution. Long-winged seabirds float like a bride's dreams over warm water, white sand and graceful palms, flowers of every hue infuse the air with a carnival of gentle scents, and the grass is soft enough to render superfluous the very thought of beds with silken sheets.

It is but a heartbeat away, on the other side of the galaxy, not quite beyond your imagination. It is open to all who dream it.

At a cost.

+

"No argue!" the Talk-Talk whispered.

Meera stared at him, anger and frustration on her face.

"Just say it!" she hissed.

"Bad! Badbadbad! No argue with Poloid!"

A withering glance from the girl made the creature sag, but it looked up obediently towards the billowing Poloid.

The Talk-Talk's eyes opened wide; its face went into that dull rigidity characteristic of its trance communication. In a few moments, its face relaxed. It turned away from Meera, apparently unwilling to face her.

"Oh-oh!" it whispered. "Badbad. Too badbad!"

Despite the presence of its hulking co-species bearer-sib beside them, the Talk-Talk was clearly terrified.

Meera, not for the first time, wished there was some way to communicate directly with the massive alien drifting slowly inside the drafty godown. Or, she thought, at least translators more capable of expressing emotions and meanings than the sullen, monkey-like Talk-Talks.

The balloon-skin of the Poloid rippled, waves of emotion flowing over its surface. Meera stared up at it, trying to keep her face emotionless. She'd read somewhere that the Poloids respected courage.

"I insist," she said. "I came all this way. We have an agreement."

She stared first at the giant, weightless Poloid above her, then at the quivering Talk-Talk.

"Tell him that."

Again, the trance-stare, a short one. The wizened creature relaxed, turned to her. It

shrugged, almost a human gesture.

"Poloid says time is money. Asks if you have money."

"Three thousand Stars," Meera confirmed. "What was agreed upon. Not five thousand - three!"

It was her life savings.

The Talk-Talk trembled, its face rigid again, then turned to Meera before shrugging in an almost human gesture.

"Poloid begins now."

+

The young woman shivered as she stripped down to enter the EVT tank.

Normal viruses evolved to hijack an individual's cellular processes, producing dozens, hundreds more viruses within an infected cell. Their explosive growth killing the host cell, its rupture releases them to infect other healthy cells in their turn.

Engineered Virus Therapy turned the concept on its head, turning disease into a positive process, one of cure and improvement.

Every cell in an organism contains in essence a complete genetic plan for the individual. Specific alterations to that blueprint could result in tailored changes to the individual in question. The genetic code for, say, brown hair could, with proper guidance and stimulus, be changed to that for blonde hair.

A Poloid-engineered virus released into a human body would not lead to explosive or damaging reproduction. Instead, on infecting a host cell, it would merely make the specified change to the human DNA and produce a couple of replicas of itself. The cell would live normally, but carry - in this case - genes for blonde hair. When the cell naturally died and was replaced in seven to ten years, it would in the process release further tailored viruses, 'infecting' more human cells with blonde genes. In due course, the former brunette would become blonde.

It wasn't quite that simple, of course, but close enough. Brunette to blonde. A slow metabolism to a faster one, thus lowering weight and boosting energy. Taller. Shorter. Boob jobs with no implants. Bigger willies.

It was, to be sure, a slow process, but the Poloids embodied patience. And they were masters of genetic engineering.

The second part of the Poloid genius was the Tank. Engineered Viral Therapy could be done without it, but not nearly as quickly. In the tank, tailored viruses flourished in a stimulating environment, reducing cellular replacement times to days instead of years.

One could enter a tank short and pudgy and emerge tall and muscular in only days.

When the first Poloid ship fell into orbit around Earth, the Poloids were unaware of human vanity. Their initial negotiations mentioned only the rapid eradication of things like Down's syndrome, sickle cell anemia, haemophilia, cystic fibrosis and a host of cancers.

Such cures were of immense benefit to humanity, of course, yet even those clear benefits were barely enough to halt a nascent state jihad against the Poloids once governments and power centres realized the further, unstated potential of EVT.

Higher IQ.

Extraordinary strength, leopard-like speed.

Immortality.

The very real possibility of populations comprised of immortal superhumans had shaken human governments to the bone. Policy was, after all, being set by those most likely to be rendered obsolete - and who wants to be on the wrong side of the bell curve?

And, for once, governments found themselves fully supported by the radical egalitarian parts of their populations. It was 'all of none' - either everybody  should have everlasting life or nobody  should.

An uneasy agreement developed - as so often in the face of revolutionary technology - by trial and error. EVT was legal, but was closely regulated and limited to officially-authorized medical treatments.

Toleration emphatically wasn't universal. Clients receiving unsanctioned optimizations were forever banned from Old Earth, with instant culling awaiting those even suspected of dodging - not including, of course, EVT done very quietly, in very special clinics, for very privileged clients.

Only in the Fringes was unlimited EVT available.

+

Meera looked at herself in the hand mirror. It shivered and clattered on the floor when she dropped it in horror.

Graduating as an accountant, Meera had seen the mind-numbing future awaiting her in a world filled with overqualified people. She had saved her money, ordered the enhanced memory and computational ability which would give her an edge in her field. While she was at it, she'd also ordered some striking but not particular difficult cosmetic enhancements.

Short-to-tall, dumpy-to-slender, mousy-brown-brunette-to-stunning-redhead, Meera had expected - and paid for - exceptional beauty. She had spent hours scrolling through the catalogue of nose shapes alone.

Ability and beauty combined were to be her ticket, her edge, even if exiled to the Fringes.

And she was now beautiful, to be sure.

For a given value of 'beauty'.

Her features were amazing - an olive-shaped face with high cheekbones, her chosen nose, emerald come-hither eyes, all framed in precisely the shade of red hair she had contracted for.

That much was perfect.

Instead of large, shapely, firm breasts however, Meera was now carrying enormous  boobs. If anybody here on this Fringe planet cared or knew about Earth measurements, they would be a 42J set. Pretty enough, to be sure, but overwhelming to the now-slender girl.

More importantly to her, the term 'girl' no longer applied.

Instead of legs, her eyes beheld a lengthy and sinuous tail ending in a broad fish tail. Fine scales began on at her waist, running all the way down to her fins in slowly-changing bands of colour - golds, greens and rich browns predominating.

The sleek symmetry of her stomach was broken by a genital slit where her navel had once been. She traced its length with one finger. Her labia were small, almost imperceptible, but the sensation of her touch was... normal? How odd for it to not be odd.

Picking up the mirror again, she turned her head this way and that, examining herself. The irritated Poloid had met her expectations in every regard. but one.

As mermaids go, she was pretty spectacular.

+

"T'ree day," the TalkTalk said, flatly.

"What?"

The creature pointed with a dirty finger at the bathcart Meera lay in.

"T'ree day. Paid. Now on day two. Pay more to keep."

Of course, the girl thought. Somebody had had to provide the cart. No doubt the first three days had been included in the EVT fee.

"How much?" she asked.

"T'ree hundred Star."

"I haven't got that much," she protested.

"T'ree day. Pay tomorrow."

"What happens if I can't pay?"

The creature looked at her. There was not a shred of compassion in its eyes.

"Canal or fish market." It stared at her a moment longer, then, "Best pay tomorrow."

Meera reeled in horror. The canal, the only canal here, was the settlement's foetid sewage system. As for the 'fish market', well, there was one, but...

The implications of that left her shaking.

With apparently nothing more to say, the Talk-Talk turned to its massive attendant-sib. Ignoring Meera entirely, the latter gathered up the Talk-Talk into its arms with as much tenderness as any Madonna statue before shambling off.

+

The lawyer, at least, was human. Which is to say, she was of the human species, for there was precious little humanity in her eyes as she leaned back.

"If I have it right," she said flatly, "you came all the way out here to the Fringes to get an EVT makeover in hopes of dodging government regulations back on Earth. Instead, you got into a foolish dispute with the Poloid, who was angry enough to turn you into..." The woman waved impatiently at Meera in her bathcart.

"Yes."

"And now the Poloid has left the system."

"Yes."

"And you want me to sue it for you."

"Yes. Yes, of course. I want what I paid for."

Expressionless, the woman turned to the screen over her desk, wiggled her fingers towards it to enter a query.

"Well," she said in a few seconds, "the only Poloid ship in the system left outbound a week ago, while you were still in the tank."

"So?"

"So, there's no reciprocity, no extradition treaty between humanity as a group and the Poloids. Nor is there one from this planet..." here she shrugged in apathy, "... and their home planet. The sailing notice doesn't even give a destination."

"Isn't there anything we can do?"

"Certainly. You can go back 10 days and resolve to keep your mouth shut around aliens with the power to change your life."

"Be serious."

"I am. There's not much else by way of options, I'm afraid." The woman looked at her ringwatch, a not-overly-subtle reminder that the time granted for a 'free initial consult' was over.

"I've heard that there are, like, detectives out here," Meera ventured.

"There are," the attorney confirmed. "They're very colorful on the Tri-D vids, to be sure. They're also expensive. And, once in a while, you can find a sober one. The only one I could possibly recommend would, I suspect, ask for a five thousand Star retainer. After that it starts to gets expensive."

Meera had perhaps five Stars in her pouch.

"What about the Talk-Talk?" she asked.

"What about it?" the woman replied. "I could file a suit against it if you insist - and if you have my retainer - but I'll be frank. You hired the creature to translate. It did so. It even went so far as to advise you against arguing with the Poloid. I wouldn't give much for your chances in arbitration."

"That's it, then?" Meera asked softly.

"That's it," the woman confirmed. "And now, if you'll excuse me, our time's up."

"I don't want to die," Meera whispered.

The woman stared at her. She called up something on her screen, picked up a stylus and wrote down something on a scrap of paper before handing it to Meera.

"Here's the only thing I can suggest," she said. "It's an employment agency which - sometimes - finds jobs in odd places."

With that, she gestured again and the door opened behind Meera in dismissal.

The employment agency - and it actually did have that painted on its door in long-obsolete hand-lettering - was in a truly dodgy part of town. Meera could feel eyes on her the entire trip down rutted and unswept streets, eyes from half a dozen species and a lot of trans-species individuals as well. It appeared, for instance, that being tankturned into a giant rooster had been a popular fad recently; colourful, man-sized birds strutted around the area as if they owned it.

In the eyes of the bystanders there was little empathy for her, she thought. All of them, she was aware, viewed her as either prey or competition.

The man behind the desk inside set off a host of alarm bells in her mind as her bathcart waddled through the entrance, water slopping over its rim. He was certainly dressed well enough and looked cleaner than many of those she had passed on her way here, but there was something about him which made her uneasy. His oleaginous smile, for starters.

"How may I help the lovely creature?" he said. She shivered as his eyes failed to ignore her massive bosom. That, in the absence of proper clothing, she has only been able to drape a cheap towel over herself only made things worse.

"My name's Meera," she said. To her amazement, it was becoming hard to simply say the words. Every word was becoming a musical note, every sentence a song.

The man's smile grew broader.

"How lucky we both are," he said. "I take it you are looking for employment?"

"Yes." She proceeded to briefly outline her plight, her words butterflies. "I came here a tenday ago for EVT amplification, but the Poloid did this to me instead of what I ordered. Now I need to build up a stake to get myself back."

"Ah. Difficult customers, the gasbags. How much do you need and what are your skills? What do I to present to my customers?"

From his remark, Meera realized she was not to be accorded the status of 'customer'. No, she thought mournfully, she was now a mere 'commodity', something for sale.

"I'm an accountant," she said, hesitatingly.

"Not much market for t'at out here," he said dismissively. "Not many big businesses, not too many laws. Just no need, really."

Her heart sank. Numbers were her fall-back, or so she had hoped. She sagged in the tank.

"Anythin' else?" His manner was not quite as polite.

'No," she replied softly. "I guess not."

The man put his elbows on the desk in front of him, leaned forward to rest his head on his hands. He closed his eyes for a moment in thought, opened them again. Raising his head, he waved his fingers over his desk, opening his screen. He entered a query.

Meera could see the figures moving across the screen but could not read them. After a minute, the agent entered another query, then another. Waving his hand to dismiss the

screen, he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes again.

When they popped open again, Meera was chilled at his expression. If not predatory, it was at least what might expect to be found on a scavenger, one used to dining on the sick, wounded and dead.

"OK," he said, his voice flat. "I got somethin'. You might not be happy wit' it, but..."

Meera noticed a strong local accent had escaped his earlier pretences.

"But what?" she responded.

"I t'ink if you are willin', it would pay you enough to tempt another gasbag. Nots right away, o' course, but it would work, sooner or later."

"Doing what?" the mermaid asked, caution in her voice.

The man didn't respond immediately. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling.

Meera waited impatiently. She was tempted to ask again, but pushiness and insistence hadn't played out very well here so far.

The man suddenly leaned forward. "Take off the rags," he said.

"What?"

"Yer a mermaid. Whoever heard of a fishlady wearin' clothes? Off." The last word was a command.

Meera thought. She really hadn't much choice, she realized. This office was in every sense of the word the end of the line. A tear came to one eye as she swallowed her shame, plucked off the shabby towel and tossed it aside.

The man rose, came around from behind his desk. Wordlessly, without touching her, he circled the bathcart, examining the young mermaid in detail.

"Hold 'em up," he commanded. There was no doubt in her mind what he was referring to.

Blushing, Meera slid her hands under her large breasts, raised them out of the water for his inspection.

"Not bad," he pronounced, then looked her in the face. "Does the tail work?"

"I... I don't know," she sang. "I've never been out of this cart." Desperate not to lose this, her last chance, she waved her tail up out of the water. A wave of water splashed out onto the floor. The agent stepped back hurriedly, shook water off one shoe.

"Yer decorative enough," the man said softly. "I t'ink I might know a client who needs some decoration at his estate.

"He pays pretty well. You'd be havin' to add a transportation fee to yer debt, but it shouldn't be that much. Oh, an' my finder's fee."

"What... What does he want?" she asked hesitatingly, knowing as she did that there was no real option for her.

"Thas' between you and him," the agent replied flatly.

Meera gave up.

"How long before I start?" she asked.

"I'll need to get hiz OK," the agent smiled. "Half a tenday, mebbe."

"The Talk-Talk says I have to pay him 300 Stars for the cart tomorrow," she whispered. "I can't wait that long."

The agent looked at her, sized her up.

"I'll take care of it," he said.

Meera started to smile, stopped when he added, "And add 350 to your debt."

She shrugged. What choice did she have?

+

"Meeeera."

The voice was the merest whisper.

"Meeeera."

Resenting the intrusion, the young mermaid frowned in her sleep, tried to ignore the quiet persistence of the voice.

"Meeeera. Waake upp noww."

She tried to open her eyes, found that all she could perceive were blurry shapes, bright in their colours.

"Meera. You're OK. You're coming out of cold sleep. You won't be able to move or see very well for a while, but you're OK."

Meera tried to roll over, found herself floundering, felt the splash of water as her fin hit the surface of whatever pool she was lying in.

"Meera, its OK. Just relax. You'll be fine in a little while. Try not to go back to sleep if you can."

"'Kay."

She did though, awakening naturally the next time to the sound of surf. Opening her eyes, she found herself beneath a pair of tall palm trees, her head resting on a hummock of velvety grass.

"Welcome, Meera." The voice was on the deeper end of tenor.

Turning her head, she saw the speaker. Short but burly, the man had a close-cropped beard of curly reddish whiskers. He was partially bald, which surprised the mermaid, given the relative affordability of an EVT treatment for that condition. That the man had chosen to remain bald spoke to... ethics? religious or philosophical objections? legal concerns? Looking around, she was pretty sure it wasn't poverty.

Above a short kilt, his only garment, his chest was covered with a tangled mat of hair matching his beard. She wondered at that too, for male depilation was almost universal across the known worlds.

The man smiled, exposing perfectly white, even teeth. That at least was comforting.

"Hello, Meera," he said. "I'm Keeper."

"Kiefer?"

"Keeper."

Is that his name or his job description?  she wondered, her mind still a bit muzzy. For once, she had the wit not to ask openly.

"Where... I mean, I made it?"