Mermaid Metamorphosis

Sarah felt the vibration on her watch as the alarm went off. She slowly stretched out her contorted body and slipped the lid off the trashcan. After spending three hours in the trash can, the bright light blinded her. She blinked rapidly and climbed out into a sterile room. Sarah went to work on the keycard reader that kept the large industrial laundry room locked up. Sarah felt vulnerable as she focused on the reader with her tools, not helping but looking behind her every few seconds. She felt stupid standing under the camera that she would normally avoid at all costs, but Jasmine had been able to set it on a loop for 45 seconds. The old electronic lock opened with seconds to spare.

Sarah put a strip of high-strength tape to hold the door's lock and moved deeper into the service area of the casino. She was dressed in the same outfit as the other cleaning staff members. She was nervous when she passed the first pair of workers, but they didn't even look at her or the fake employee badge they had made. Sarah made it to a service elevator. This one had a much more secure lock and two cameras overlooking it. Sarah hung back around the corner of the hallway.

"I'm in position," Sarah said into the small burner communicator she wore around her wrist.

"Just a moment, Go!" Anna said. Sarah knew that the cameras were now on a loop, but this time she had even less time to hack into the keycard reader. Sarah took a deep breath. She had practiced this hundreds of times. With seconds to spare, the doors slid open, and she jumped inside. "I'm in," Sarah said as the elevator doors opened. Her accomplices, Mariah and Jasmine, rushed down the hallway to catch up with Sarah before the cameras could resume their live feed.

When they got to the sub-level where the casino's money was stored before being put into the vault, Anna hit the system that turned off all of the power. It had cost them a lot of money, but their night vision contacts worked perfectly in the dark. They could see the guards stumbling around in the dark. They made quick work of them using the electroguns they bought off the black market. This was the most violent that they ever got on a job. Sarah's heart was beating franticly as they dropped guard after guard. Sarah knew that they could lose more than just their freedom if they were not careful.

They made it to the money counting room and filled their duffle bags. They had a tiny window of time to load up the money. Sarah wanted to grab all the money, but she knew they would get caught if they took their time. Once their bags were full, they retreated to the elevator. Anna turned back on the power to the elevator, and they went back up to the ground floor. They made their way through the service hallways on constant guard for anyone to try and stop them.

They escaped down the narrow alley between the casino and one of its nearby restaurants. Mariah pulled ahead of Sarah and Jasmine. She ran as if she wasn't weighed down by all the money they were all carrying. Mariah made it past a 'T' junction, but a squad car blocked their way before Sarah and Jasmine could make it. Sarah and Jasmine backed into the restaurant as the police officers drew their guns and yelled at them to stop. When they pushed through the kitchen door, they could see the red and blue lights reflecting off the kitchen's metallic surfaces.

The kitchen was massive and crowded with staff. They had to shove their way through the workers. Sounds of workers protesting and metal pots clanging on the ground echoed in the kitchen. They were halfway to the double doors that exited into the dining area when Sarah heard the alley door thrown open as the cops followed them. The cops shouted at them to stop. Like that was going to happen, Sarah thought.

They burst through the kitchen doors and collided with a busboy carrying a huge stack of dirty dishes. They fell to the ground in a jumble of limbs and shattering plates. Sarah was able to free herself first. As she stood, she could see through the windows in the double doors that the cops were almost to them. Jasmine was still jumbled up with the busboy. Sarah had a split second to think. The cops were almost on them. She didn't think she and Jasmine would have enough time to get away if she took the time to help Jasmine out. She thought of just running, but she couldn't do that to Jasmine, her best friend for the last five years.

Sarah roughly pulled the busboy away from Jasmine and helped her to her feet. It took an extra moment because Jasmine was weighed down by her bag, and Sarah's fell over her shoulder, making her lose her balance.

Sarah looked through the window again and saw that the cops were about to make it to the doors. We are not going to make it. Sarah pulled her bag off, thrust it into Jasmine's arms, and braced herself against the doors. "Go meet up with the others!" Sarah yelled. Jasmine's eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth to protest, but then she saw through the window and came to the same realization as Sarah. Jasmine nodded as she turned and took off into the dining area, her long legs pumping as she escaped.

A few seconds later, the first officer slammed into the door. Sarah was almost knocked to the ground, but she managed to dig in her feet to the nonslip floor. The first cop slammed against the door repeatedly, but he was kept at bay. The second cop arrived, this one was heavyset, and together, they were able to slam through the door. Sarah was thrown back. As she fell, she got a glance at Jasmine as she ran out the front door. Sarah smiled as she hit the ground. The cops were on top of her before she could even get up.

*****

Sarah was fuming in her holding cell; she couldn't believe that she had let herself get caught. She wondered if the other girls had gotten away, especially Jasmine. She had promised herself in juvie for shoplifting that she wouldn't get caught again. She had close calls after that, but she always prioritized her self-preservation. If Jasmine got caught after Sarah got arrested, she would be here for nothing.

Sarah sat in an interrogation room for twenty minutes. They were trying to make her nervous by leaving her alone. She used that time to rehearse what she was going to make sure she didn't say.

The detectives came in hot. There was no good cop bad cop routine. They told Sarah how they got them on camera outside of the casino, how they had all their faces, and that it was only a matter of time before they found her accomplices. If she wanted to reduce her sentence, she better say where the others were now. Sarah knew this was a bluff; they had cased the area for over a month, marking down all the cameras in the area, knowing which ones Anna had to hack into and which ones they could leave alone. Over the last couple of months, they had knocked out the cameras for every business one by one around the casino. As a bonus, they positioned themselves as the repair company to fix the cameras, getting paid to fix what they had broken while also setting up for the heist. Sarah smiled; that had been a great idea that had kept them living comfortably while nearly all their time was spent planning and executing their plan.

They interrogated her for hours, but Sarah didn't crack. Compared to the monsters of the underworld, these two detectives were amateurs in intimidation. Sarah stayed quiet, despite how much the detectives tried to put pressure on her. When she could tell they were getting frustrated with her after hours, she finally said what she could have the whole time. Still, she had to admit that it was fun getting them riled up and wasting their time while her friends went into hiding.

"I want my lawyer," Sarah said smugly. The detectives got pissed at that, but if they didn't give in, Sarah knew it could help her in court.

Sarah called her lawyer, a sleazy man who was a frequent customer of the hidden brothels throughout the city. The man was a mess, but when he was in the courtroom, he seemed to revert to his former self before whatever happened to drive him to booze and hookers.

Sarah's lawyer arrived forty-five minutes later. She knew he would eat up a huge chunk of her nest egg. Still, she didn't trust any public defenders to represent her. Sarah talked with Sal, laying out what happened without giving any information away. Sal was a pro, and he could piece together the real story without her having to tell him all the details. He said he would do his best for her, but they had caught her fleeing the scene of the crime, but since no one had been hurt would help her case considerably.

Sarah gave Sal a phone number to get ahold of Jasmine later. He promised he would relay her message the next time he saw her.

The detectives gave up on questioning her, and she was taken to processing and booking.

Sarah hated how they ordered her around and forced her to strip in front of them. Sarah had to suppress her rage and shame so she didn't try and do something stupid. She struggled to hold back. Sarah couldn't stand how they looked at her and treated her like a wild animal.

After being processed, Sarah was placed into a holding cell full of other women waiting to be moved into the jails. Sarah sat in the back corner of the room, positioning herself to see the door and everyone around her. The women in the holding cell were more her people than the guards, but just because they were familiar to her, that didn't make them safe. She knew just how volatile some of them could be. Several women in the crowded room looked like they were on hard drugs and already suffering from withdrawal; Sarah watched these women the most.

After hours of waiting, Sarah was pulled out of the holding room with five other women. Two of them looked like the most drugged out of all the women. They were walked out of the jail's processing area and into the pod holding them.

*****

Sarah sat in the courtroom, ready to finally get this trial out of the way. Sarah had to give it to Sal, he did a great job defending her, but the prosecutor laid out a strong case against her. Each piece of evidence he presented made Sarah see her chances of getting off slipping further and further away. In a way, Sarah hated Sal's competency because he gave her a pricey chance at hope that most likely wouldn't end well for her. If she had been saddled down with a crappy public defender, then at least she could resign herself to having to serve hard time.

Sal met with her a couple of days before the end of the trial. "Look, they have enough evidence that you will be guilty no matter what. I advise you to take the plea deal they are offering you."

"I don't want it," Sarah said. Accepting a plea deal sounded like giving up.

"If you don't do it, you will go to prison for around twenty years, working off what you and your friends stole. If you take this deal, you can earn enough money to buy back your freedom in the next two years, maybe three. I had to do a lot of work to put this together, work that your hard-earned money paid for, so it's up to you if you take the plea. If you're not going to listen to me, why did you hire me?"

Sarah squeezed her hand into a fist. He was right. If there was something that she could do to reduce her prison time so drastically, then she had to go for it. "Tell me about the deal," Sarah said.

"You will be kept off prison grounds in your own room and working for the casino you stole from. You will do whatever job they ask of you," Sal said. Sarah groaned at the thought of such a mundane job.

"Wait, they aren't going to try and make me a hooker or anything, right?" Sarah asked.

"What? No. This is going to be a legal contract. They wouldn't be able to do that."

"Why would they offer this deal if they have so much evidence against me?" Sarah asked, suspicious of such good terms.

"There is a condition," he said.

Sarah sighed, "Of course there is."

"Have you heard of Gene Inc?"

"Of course I have," Sarah said. Gene Inc had one of the biggest buildings in the city. Thanks to them, the city received such high development so quickly.

"They have had a breakthrough in their gene-splicing procedures."

"So what, I am supposed to be a guinea pig?"

"Yes and no. They have already done the testing for it. They want to slowly introduce it to the world. They are invested in the casino, and they approached me with this deal," Sal said. I wonder how much money they gave you.

"What do they want me to do?" Sarah asked.

Sarah looked over the papers with the lawyer, not understanding half of it because it was written in lawyer and the other half because it was full of science. She signed the papers, effectively making her the property of the corporation and the casino until she paid off the price of the heist. Just undergoing the gene-splicing alone put a decent chunk towards the mountain of money that she needed to earn.

After pleading guilty, Sarah was surprised when she was taken to the release center instead of being led back into the jail. She hadn't been expecting to go right into the deal. She was given a big plastic bag with her belongings and was given privacy to get changed. Sarah had had so little privacy in the last month; having a room to herself seemed like an extravagant luxury.

Putting back on her clothes from the day of the heist made her feel like herself again. When she walked out of the room, Sal was waiting for her. A pair of large men wore white uniforms with Gene Inc's logo over their hearts. Sarah thought about running once they left the jail, but these men looked like they meant business. She had heard about what happened when people skipped out on Gene Inc deals. They were more efficient and better funded than the cops. People in the underground would avoid anyone who had a Gene Inc bounty on their head unless they were trying to cash in on that bounty themselves.

They drove her through the city, passing through the wealthiest downtown area, where amongst giant corporate buildings, Gene Inc's facility dominated the skyline. Sarah took in the wealth around her, not appreciating it for the aesthetics of the items or the brand names attached to them. Instead, she thought about how much money she could sell them for and how long she could live off each stolen item.

The van drove into the vast underground parking complex connected to Gene Inc and all the other buildings in the area. The van pulled up in front of an elevator two large men were standing in front of. They opened the door, and three more large men in suits emerged from the elevator to escort her. Sarah was surprised when Sal didn't get out of the van with her. "This is as far as I can go. Good luck."

Sarah followed the men, knowing her chances of getting away would disappear once she got in the elevator. Sarah felt trapped again as the elevator doors closed in front of her.

The men led her to a part of the building that seemed to get more security measures with each checkpoint. They dropped her off in a room that looked like a doctor's office. A nurse stepped in and instructed Sarah to strip down and put on the gown provided. The gown was too small for her and left her ass nearly hanging out.

Sarah was given a physical exam and a multitude of tests. After what felt like hours and being dragged about several different rooms, she was taken into a much more high-tech-looking one.

They had Sarah undress fully and sat her in a weird-looking chair. They hooked Sarah up to several electrodes, needles, and tubes throughout her body. There was a screen attached to the chair. A scientist sat at a monitor across the room and started to type.

He would look up at Sarah every now and then, and his gaze would linger on her body. "Enjoying the view? Have some fucking workplace courtesy," Sarah said.

The scientist got flustered, and he went back to work. Sarah smiled that she could distract him so much with her body, but more so that she knew how to put him in his place for being such a creep.

"Look to the screen," he said gruffly. On the screen was an image of Sarah's naked body standing up. They must have made a perfect digital image of her when they scanned her body. Great, now I will have to ask Sal to look into the contract and make sure they don't use my likeness for one of those virtual sex games.

"We have already injected you with the nanomachines, which will be the primary catalyst for your physical change. They will change your DNA to build new organs and functions within your body. This will take a lot of energy and proteins, so we have that tank where the transformation will occur. Right now, I am just coding the changes."

"Are there going to be any side effects?" Sarah asked.

"It is going to feel like you are going through puberty again, only this time all in an hour, so your whole body will go through intense growing pains. Afterward, you will be constantly hungry as your body will require extra food to keep the changes permanent. All done."

A mousy-looking female assistant moved Sarah to the large tank of water. She attached her to many wires and tubes and helped Sarah into the cold water.

There was a big screen in front of the tank. Sarah watched the screen as her whole body started to tingle. Her legs began to get wrapped up in a scale-like web that grew out of her skin. Sarah's wrapped up legs began to elongate. Where her feet had been, her mermaid tail started to grow out in its shape. Sarah's hips and ass became fuller as her bottom half became that of a mermaid. Sarah couldn't believe that this was happening. The cocoon wrapped around her lower half stopped looking as translucent as her mermaid tail became more refined. She couldn't help but be awed by the beauty of it as the scales took on their color and started to shine. The scales were a mix of greens, blues, and purples.

The change hurt some, but it mostly felt strangely itchy as Sarah's legs fused and became thicker. Sarah tried to look down, but her head was restrained by her breathing mask. She could barely crane her neck downward to make out the swish of her tail as she moved it. She felt the water part ways as her strong tail sliced through it.

"Good, it looks like the mermaid tail developed perfectly. Next..." The scientist said, and then he started to trail off. Sarah saw on the screen parallel slits began to appear on her neck. This itched even more than when her tail grew. Sarah reached over to her neck and felt the slits on her neck. She panicked as she felt and saw on the monitor her skin separate. Sarah held her breath in fear, and when she finally exhaled, she was surprised when half of her breath went out the sides of her neck.

"Go ahead and remove your breathing mask," The scientist said. Sarah slowly did as he said. After a moment, she inhaled. She felt the rush of water move in and out of her gills as she breathed in the protein-enriched water. "You can breathe, ok?" Sarah held up a thumbs up. "Ok perfect, and now..." The scientist trialed off and started typing. Sarah thought that this was all the changes they were going to make, so when she felt her breasts begin to itch in the same way that the rest of her body had when it changed, she got perplexed. Sarah looked down and pressed her hands to her breasts. To her surprise, she could feel her A-cup breasts starting to grow bigger. Sarah didn't think this was part of the changes she was supposed to go through.

Sarah pressed her hands down against her tits, trying to stop them from growing. Her breasts increased, moving from A cups to B and then C in just a few minutes. The bigger her breasts got, the more sensitive they became. She pressed her hands against them and felt her nipples harden under her touch. The strange itchy feeling in her body growing became a sexual itch. Her breasts continued to grow. Sarah stared into her ample cleavage, not recognizing that part of her body anymore. Her breasts had to at least be double E's by the time the growth finally stopped.