The lieutenant glanced back at the strange woman, who was sitting in mid-air and looking around the room. "Are you sure we want to just let her go, sir?" she asked. "She was at the scene, and we still have only a basic idea as to her involvement..."
The grizzly captain shrugged. "I just don't see a point in detaining her any further," he said. "I admit that as far as we've found out, this Anderson Collins doesn't seem likeable, but the only evidence we do have in regards to her suggests that she was performing a public service."
The harpy nodded. "Yeah, but some of the people in the area thought they saw her heading towards the school beforehand...have you considered that she planted it and then got cold feet?"
"I thought of it, yes. But I can't understand what she would have against this school in the first place, and if she were just trying to make some kind of post-transformation statement, there are a lot more obvious targets closer to her home. I can't think of any motive that would make much sense."
"I guess so," the lieutenant said. "Still...what was she even doing here? That's what I still don't get."
"You've got me there," the captain replied. "But there's nothing illegal about being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Besides, the bomb squad says that whatever that thing's made of, it repels body oil like nothing they've ever seen - which means no fingerprints. I just don't think we have enough evidence to justify holding her."
"You're right," the harpy sighed. "It's just...she's the only lead we have on this thing."
"Don't I know it," the bear-man moaned, his voice rumbling out from his chest like seismic activity. "I'm just hoping some other story comes up, or we're going to be seeing 'police department fails to track down school bomber' all over the news for the next month. We'll keep an eye on her, at any rate."
She frowned. "If we don't have enough evidence to hold her...how are you going to justify surveillance?"
He laughed. "Now, now, Lieutenant. 'Keeping an eye on someone' doesn't always have to mean spying. I'm going to see if there isn't someone we can get to work with her on breaking the language barrier - so we can get testimony."
The harpy smiled. "Of course. Who are you going to send?"
"Someone we can spare," he said. "Probably a desk worker - we need everybody on duty that we can get, what with having to split shifts. And we can't really spare the budget to bring in a professional...I'll find someone. Would you tell her she can leave, please?"
The lieutenant had that uncomfortable feeling that office utility players get when their boss starts talking in vague-specific terms about a job that needs doing, but she nodded and went over to the strange woman.
Anneza looked curiously at the bird-woman as she approached. She wondered whether she could fly - hers would be real flight, wouldn't it? She wouldn't just be using some sort of physics cheat. Then again, was that possible? She was hardly an aerodynamics engineer, but she'd never seen a bird that size...could they even fly if they were that big?
The harpy was saying something to her now, and gestured with one wing, indicating that she was supposed to move. Anneza drifted over in the direction she was indicating, then waited. The harpy gestured again and nodded towards the door. Was she free to go? She looked towards the enormous bear, but he made no move to stop her. She backed out of the office, watching warily, but as soon as she was out in the hall she made a beeline for the door of the school.
Anneza didn't understand it. Didn't they know what had happened? They'd found her at the scene, they'd held her in their makeshift headquarters...and now they were just letting her go? It...it wasn't that she wanted to be in trouble, but it felt so strange to have done something wrong and get off just like that...
Still, she wasn't going to object. She had been getting pretty uneasy, being among so many changed...the harpy wasn't rude or anything, but it was unnerving to watch her go about her business with her talons as if having no hands were nothing were out of the ordinary...and that grizzly-man was just plain frightening, looking less like a bear who'd been a man and more like someone who had really been this great hulk all along, and the sun just brought it outward.
She thought that might be what unnerved her most, the way nobody she'd seen seemed to be making a big deal out of their changes. It would be one thing if they showed any sign of realizing how freakish they were, but...how could they just be getting on with life? Didn't they know what they had lost?
And...what did that imply for her? Anneza didn't think of herself as one of the changed, not at all - but she knew that these transformations could affect the brain on a fundamental level, or she'd still be speaking...the other language. What if it could affect her in other ways...what if it could make her start accepting what had happened to her?
What if she just stopped being Anneza Ka...no! That wasn't her name, she knew that, but just as with yesterday, she couldn't think of what it had been. What if it was already starting? But if it was...wouldn't she know? She knew about her name, so there was that, and she knew she wasn't comfortable with this body...
This was all so confusing. And with nobody to help her understand it...oh, that was the worst part, that she was left entirely by herself. Nobody to comfort her, nobody to help her...she wondered, if she'd had someone to help her deal with this, would she have been so desperate that she would have accepted the mysterious entity's offer unthinkingly?
Or...somewhere inside her a small voice wondered if she wouldn't have done that anyway. If she hadn't been exposed to the sun, if the strange entity had come to her when she was still a man and not a freak woman, if it had offered a million dollars...wouldn't she have gone along just as easily?
She reminded herself of the saying that every man has his price. She was hardly alone in that...but that didn't make her feel less sick at the thought. She wanted nothing more than to get back to being her real self...but what relief could there be if she found she just didn't like her real self?
No! No, that was nonsense. She'd had a hell of a week, what with the trial and then the past eighteen or so hours - obviously she wasn't thinking very straight. There would have to be a way out of this, and seh'd find it, and everything would be better.
...right?
Running felt good - it really did. Alex hadn't realized until now that her changed body was such a powerhouse. Certainly, despite the sturdy build, she didn't look that out of the ordinary. She didn't feel super-strong, at least not in a comic-book sense, nor was she running much faster than normal...but the there was so much energy within her, and it felt very good to let it out.
And coupled with Sally's infectious cheer...that was kind of a surprise, too. Somehow or other, while Sally's competitive streak remained, it had become a friendly, playful kind of competition, and not the jealous, can't-be-upstaged combativeness she'd displayed before. Was it because Alex was no longer the older sibling? Was it because they were...sisters?
That still sounded a little strange to her. Of course she thought of Sally as her sister, but to realize that she herself was now Sally's...that was going to take a little getting used to.
That, of course, touched on the bigger issue, that she was now a girl. Alex was still surprised by the fact that she wasn't really distressed by it. Oh, it definitely felt strange, the way her hair brushed against her neck and back, the little motions in her developing breasts, the lack of anything between her legs (besides her tail...) And the thought itself was strange...to think that she was a boy, but was now a girl...not a thought that she had ever expected.
But that it didn't really bother her...that was what confused her. She wasn't bothered by the fact that she wasn't bothered, but she was surprised by it. Granted, she didn't really know any changed people, aside from the students she'd talked to today, but she'd thought that people would be distressed by a change like hers. Certainly some of the students had been reluctant to talk about their changes...
Alex didn't think this was something that she'd ever wanted - she'd never felt wrong or unhappy as a boy. In fact, she didn't think the notion had ever crossed her mind. Yet somehow she was more or less okay with this...how strange.
But these thoughts slid off into the back of her mind for the moment. There would be time to think about all this later...right now, she was just having a good time. Sally was still ahead of her, but she was closing the distance. Without really thinking about what she was doing, she spread her wings...
There was a brief jolt of resistance, and suddenly Alex found herself in the air. She was...she was flying! She could do that? She grinned and angled upward, then dove down towards her sister.
