This work is fiction. The work has no relationship with any person existing at any time anywhere whether real or imaginary or copy written. Everything in this work is mea culpa.
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Choices
The alarm blared and the young woman blearily slapped at it. Sitting up, she rubbed her eyes and spared a glare for a robin that was singing outside her open window. “I’ve got a final in world history today and you have no reason to be so chipper when my life hangs in the balance.” She slipped out of bed and padded for the bathroom.
Her walk became a run and she dropped to her knees in front of the toilet just before she vomited noisily. She remained there for several minutes, until her stomach was completely empty.
As she washed her face, the mirror revealed a cloud of tousled brown hair around her face, framing her green eyes. Carefully she felt her forehead. “I don’t have a fever. I thought that fish tasted a bit odd, maybe that’s what happened.” She sighed and grabbed a bottle out of the medicine cabinet. “I’ll just take this to school in case it happens again.”
Her mother looked up from her cereal when she came down the stairs. “I know that sound from your father’s taming days when he was hung over. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just think some of dinner didn’t agree with me.”
Her mother’s eyes widened and her lips pursed. “If you’re sick, why don’t you stay home today?”
“I’ve got a world history final this afternoon and there’s no way I can miss it.”
“Morwen Davies, your health is much more important than any grade. You can retake the final.”
“Sorry, mom,” Morwen shook her head, “but the makeup tests are always a lot harder than the originals. Honest, I’m fine.”
The ingénue watched her daughter evenly for a moment before nodding. “I’ll let your father know what happened and we’ll throw out the leftovers. Do you want breakfast?”
“Thanks, but my stomach is still too tender. I’ll take a snack in case I get hungry before lunch.” Morwen grabbed her pack and a handful of toast. “Bye mom.”
Her mother grabbed her arm and kissed her on the cheek. “You don’t feel warm, but be careful. Your health is more important than any test.”
Her daughter rolled her eyes. “Yes, mother.” Then she slipped out the door and was gone.
***
“You’ll have to do better than that when you’re in the wilderness or some pokegirl’s going to turn you into lunch, young mistress. Run faster next time.” The phys-ed instructor’s cheetit turned away to harass someone else as Morwen collapsed on a bench and grabbed a towel. “Carrie, why doesn’t she yell at you?”
Her best friend grinned. “I’m fast enough to satisfy her.”
Morwen didn’t stop mopping the sweat from her body. “I don’t think she likes girls.”
Carrie giggled. “I don’t want a cheetit anyway. I’m going to specialize in plant pokegirls. Have you changed your mind?”
“No, I haven’t. I don’t need a pokegirl to be an architect. If I did want one, I’d want someone with artistic talent to help my ideas be attractive as well as functional. No kitty can do that.” Morwen looked up when the instructor blew a whistle. “Oh, good, time for a quick shower before lunch.” She hopped to her feet and promptly fell. “Oww.”
Carrie grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Are you ok?”
“Yeah.” She brushed gravel from her clothes and knees. “I tripped.”
Carrie looked around. “On what?”
Morwen shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I fell because I’m still tired from running for the last half hour.” She gingerly put her weight on her right foot. “At least it’s not twisted.”
“Race you to the showers!” Carrie sprinted off.
“Sometimes I hate you,” Morwen muttered as she fell into a trot and gave chase.
***
The sun was still below the horizon when Morwen stirred and sat up slowly. She gingerly felt her stomach and smiled when nothing happened. “Good.” A quick look at her clock and her smile spread. “And I’ve got three hours before school. I can work on my drawing of the church.” She grabbed her clothes and headed for the bathroom.
Weather permitting; Morwen went out four days a week to draw. She’d find a building here in London that had something which called to her blood and she’d spend a week or two sketching it in exacting detail. It was her only hobby and her obsession and her parents indulged her as long as her grades stayed good, even if they didn’t understand it.
More than once, her father had joked that his little girl must have some artits blood. Her mother had quietly pointed out that human beings had artistic abilities of their own before buying her daughter the supplies she needed to pursue her art, thus ensuring her eternal presence in a special place in her daughter’s heart.
Her father, well, sometimes he was a jerk, but it was from him being a tamer and seeing all young girls as somewhat retarded. It didn’t help that most of his life he’d only dealt with pokegirls of one stripe or another. He’d been stunned when his alpha had produced a human child and Morwen wasn’t sure if he’d ever really gotten over it. She still loved him, and because of that love she made allowances for who he was.
She was busy thinking about where she’d sit and how the light would be hitting the building when she looked in the mirror.
Looking back at her was a young woman with one green and one brown eye.
Morwen stared at the mirror before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “It was just my imagination. I’m going to open my eyes and everything will be fine.” She opened her eyes and looked.
Her right eye was brown.
Morwen stared at her reflection until she realized that the whining noise she heard was coming from her and that the only reason she wasn’t screaming was because she was biting down on a knuckle. She forced herself to stop, even as her heart pounded in her chest so hard she was surprised it didn’t burst free.
“Oh, goddess, no, please no.” Morwen dropped to her knees and opened the cabinet under the sink. She reached into the very back and pulled out the box her mother had bought for her four years ago, right after she turned ten.
Her father had no idea it was in the house.
The young woman trembled as she tore off the plastic and opened it. She pulled out the instructions and read them twice before putting a towel down on the counter and emptying the box.
Inside it was three narrow plastic trays, along with a couple of lancets. Each tray was divided into twenty small squares and inside each square was a piece of what looked like cardboard with a circle in the middle of it.
She took the lancet and pricked her finger with it, then carefully squeezed a drop of blood from her finger into the first circle. She had to prick her finger several more times to get enough blood for all three trays, but finally she was done.
She checked the instructions again and set the alarm on her watch. Then she settled to the floor and finally allowed herself to weep, using the towel to muffle the noise.
When the alarm chirped, she dried her face and took a deep breath before getting up. She quickly scanned the trays until she found the one square that had turned a bright green, indicating that the blood had reacted to the antigens soaked into the cardboard square. She double checked to make sure that there weren’t any other positives in the trays and noted the number of the square before picking up the lid of the box and looking at the chart inside.
The test was only about eighty percent accurate in determining what kind of pokegirl someone was turning into, and it didn’t cover anything close to the number of known pokegirls. There was a test that would cover all of them, but it required a laboratory and her mother had wanted to keep this as private as possible, so this was the best available.
But this time it had an answer and when Morwen read it, she began quietly sobbing again. After a couple of minutes she wiped her face and put everything back into the box, dressed, and took the box when she went to her room.
***
Thirty minutes later, Morwen pulled her bike to a halt in an alley. She pulled the box and a bottle from her backpack and carefully poured the contents of the bottle into the box before closing the lid and dumping both items into a dumpster. The bleach would destroy all the evidence of her DNA and she needed that if her plan was to work. Then she pedaled on.
She halted in front of a nice two story home and wheeled her bike around to the side entrance. She left her bike inside the gate and rang the bell.
The door was opened by a tall, slender woman with long black hair wearing an elegant sapphire blue dress. She cocked an eyebrow at the sight on her doorstep. “Who might you be?”
“I’m Morwen Davies.”
“I do not believe you have an appointment with me. Nonetheless, I have an opening right now, so please come in.”
She guided Morwen into a nicely decorated parlor and motioned her to sit. Settling into an overstuffed chair, she offered her guest tea before folding her hands in her lap. “I must ask how old you are before we can discuss anything else. It’s distasteful to begin a discussion this way, but the law is quite specific.”
Morwen stared at the floor. “I’m not here to have sex with you, but I do want to purchase your services.” She opened her pack and pulled out credit chips. “I’ve looked at your website and I have enough for your full package, so it should be enough for what I want to buy.” She looked up to find the woman still watching her calmly. “Um, I’m fourteen.”
The woman nodded. “My name is Renee, and I think you need to explain why you are here and what it is that you think you can purchase here.”
“I know that you are a free pokegirl and that you work as a licensed consort, providing taming access to people who don’t have one of your species.” Morwen grimaced. “It’s pretty common from what I could discover.”
Renee poured herself a cup from a pitcher that sat next to the teapot. “Few pokegirls have what are considered marketable skills and I am not suited for a life of working behind a store counter. In addition, my job allows me to keep from going feral and I am able to pick and choose my clients.”
Morwen nodded. “I’m entering threshold and I need your help.”
“Threshold. What do you expect me to do about it? Threshold cannot be stopped.” Renee gave a fatalistic shrug. “I don’t see where I could help you. You are going to become a pokegirl and you need to get used to that idea.”
Morwen stared at the ornate carpet. “My mother is a threshold case and so I’ve always had to consider that I might become a pokegirl. I wanted to go to college and become an architect.” She looked up at Renee. “I accept that fact that I won’t, but I do not accept the fact that I am going to become a bunnygirl. I ran a test this morning and that’s what it said I was turning into. I’m going to get stupid and clumsy and that I refuse to accept.”
“I don’t see where I can help you.”
“You can change that.” Morwen held up her money. “That’s what I want to purchase, the chance to stay intelligent.”
“Change that? I do not understa…” Renee’s eyes went wide and the color slowly drained from her face. “I cannot. If a hint that I ever considered such a thing got to the league authorities, at best I would be killed.” She shivered. “I am sorry, but I cannot help you.” She looked up to see tears running down the young woman’s face. “Stop that.”
“I’m sorry,” Morwen sobbed as she got to her feet. She headed blindly for the door.
“Wait.” Morwen turned around as Renee got to her feet. “Sit down. I cannot help you, but there may be someone who can. I will have to contact them and see if they are willing to give you the aid you seek.” She waited until Morwen was seated once more before leaving the room.
Renee was gone for nearly half an hour before returning. “I have printed out a map for you. Follow it exactly and when you arrive at your destination, wait. Someone will be along within ten minutes of your arrival. If she does not, then leave and forget about your idea.”
Morwen took the map and looked it over. “Thank you.”
“You were never here. You are never to return here,” Renee said coldly. "No matter what happens, you and I have never met, and I will deny your presence until the day I die. Now go.”
An hour later, Morwen turned her bike into the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse on London’s north side. She was already late for school, but since she knew that her teachers would take one look at her and send for the authorities to take her home, that fact distressed her not at all.
A door opened ahead of her and a whisper echoed around her. “Ride through the doorway and stop your bike.”
Morwen was braking her bike when the door shut, leaving her in darkness. A match flared and moved to light a candle, revealing a pretty black haired woman wearing a dark brown jumpsuit. “You are Morwen Davies?”
“I am. Who are you?”
“That isn’t important right now.” The woman leaned down to peer into Morwen’s eyes. “You are thresholding. You think you are becoming a bunnygirl?”
“I ran a blood antigen test. My blood has rabbit factors in it. My mother is an ingénue who evolved from a threshold bunnygirl.”
The woman moved to lean against a wall. “When did you come up with this plan?”
“I thought of it a couple of years ago.” Morwen bit back a sob. “I’ve been terrified of losing my mind by becoming a bunnygirl and it terrifies my mother too. She told me stories of what she remembers, of being human and then again after she evolved to ingénue.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Does she know you are doing this?”
Morwen shook her head. “No, she doesn’t know where I am and when the school calls to find out why I’m not there, she’s going to panic.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m sorry that she’s going to be hurt by my decision, but it’s the last one I get to make and this is what I choose.”
“You’ve managed to impress me.” The woman looked thoughtful for a moment. “I suspect you are aware of what will change in your life, but you have no idea what you are asking for. Being a bunnygirl may not be the worst choice you could make.” She waved a hand when Morwen started to speak. “I’m not going to take this choice away from you, because you’re right. It is the last decision you’ll likely be able to make for yourself, especially if you get a bad tamer.”
Morwen’s fists clenched at the word “tamer”. “I know,” she whispered.
The woman pushed away from the wall. “I will help you.”
***
Morwen sat on the bed and stared around her room at all of the things that used to be hers while downstairs her father was talking with the man that had purchased her and would be taking her away.
Her father looked at the man sitting across from him. “You understand that she has special needs, right?”
The blond man smiled confidently. “Yes. I’ve had experience with them before.”
“After you called, I looked you up in the tamer database. You’re not listed.” John Davies frowned. “What do you do?”
“I’m in the tradesman listings. I do specialized investigative work that I’m not at liberty to get into.”
John nodded. “What interested you in Morwen,” he paused. “That’s not really her name anymore, now that she’s a pokegirl.” His shoulders rolled in a shrug. “What interested you in her? I had a lot of good bids, but yours was easily the highest I’ve seen for such an inexperienced pokegirl, even considering her rarity.”
“A friend of mine recommended that I add to my harem. When she comes of age, she’ll be a valuable contributor to it and since she’s never had a combat tamer, I don’t have a lot of bad habits that I have to break her of and in the meantime my alpha can be helping her to learn how things run with us.” He shrugged. “As for the money, I think that in the long run I’ll get more than my money back.” He glanced at his watch. “I don’t suppose I could take custody of her now, could I?”
“Of course. It’s just been a long time since I’ve had to talk through a sale.” He gave an uneasy smile. “And up until a week ago, she was my daughter.”
The blond clapped him on the shoulder as they stood up. “It’s ok if you are uncomfortable with what’s going on. I’d be that way too.” He stared into the distance for a moment. “I know that when I start having children, every daughter is going to be a special nightmare just because of the potential for threshold.”
“Thanks. I know she’s not a person anymore, but still…” John shook himself out of his reverie. “I’ll go get her.”
He went upstairs and opened Morwen’s door. “It’s time to go.”
Morwen silently got up and headed out of the room. She wasn’t sure who was more surprised when he suddenly gave her a rough hug before letting her go. His eyes were bright as he looked into hers for a moment and then without a word he stood aside and let her go down the stairs.
The blond man was still in the living room and he bowed slightly at Morwen as she entered the room. She was surprised when he kept her gaze and didn’t examine her like his next conquest.
She’d noticed it when her father had done it over the last couple of days.
John pushed her gently in the tradesman’s direction. “Here she is.”
The man nodded and addressed the new pokekit. “Do you have anything that they’re allowing you to take that you need to get?”
Morwen shook her head. “Master Davies says that I need to make a clean break. He says it will be easier.”
Something flashed in the tradesman’s eyes and he nodded slowly. “I see. Then you’re almost ready to go.” He offered her a gold pin with an emerald in the center of it. A gold ribbon hung from the pin and on it was a pokeball with an X across it. “This will denote your status as a pokekit until you turn fifteen in six months.” He gave a wry smile. “It may keep challenges for you to a minimum, but there are always the stupid tamers to deal with.”
Morwen pinned it on her shirt. “Yes, sir,” she said carefully. Her father had been quick to correct her when her protocol lapsed and had warned her that most tamers would be more severe than he was. She didn’t want to start her new life with beatings, so she would be cautious.
The tradesman shook John’s hand as she pinned the badge on. “Thank you.” He turned to Morwen. “You need to stay at my side as we travel through London. Tamers who scan you will be very interested and I don’t want you stolen, since I’d have to do something about that and it would reflect poorly on us all.”
She nodded. “Yes, sir, I will. I don’t want to be stolen either. Anyone who would steal me would treat me like garbage, sir.”
The tradesman nodded. “That is very true. Good day, Mr. Davies.”
“Good day, Mr. Tomlinson.”
Tomlinson led her down the street and into a quiet park. “We need to find someplace secluded.” He smiled when Morwen looked concerned. “No, I’m not planning to rape you, Morwen. You won’t come to my bed until you are ready and only if you decide you want me as your male.” His smile grew. “And that only after you are of age, young lady.”
They ended up in a quiet glade where a tamer was putting on his clothing while a nude pidgette watched with a satisfied expression. Tomlinson nodded to them both. “If you’re quite done, I need this place now.”
The tamer looked him and Morwen over. “Cool. Want to battle when you’re finished with her?”
Tomlinson shook his head. “I’m a tradesman and don’t battle.”
“Oh. Fine, be that way.” The tamer finished dressing and he and his pokegirl quickly left.
Morwen watched as her new owner pulled a pokeball from his belt and activated it. An attractive black haired woman appeared. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a Metallica t-shirt. The pokekit’s eyes widened. “You!”
The woman chuckled throatily. “Hello, Morwen. It’s good to see you again.” She looked at Tomlinson. “How did it go?”
He shrugged. “About like I thought it would. Her mother started to have a breakdown while we were finalizing things and John pokeballed her. Bastard.”
The pokegirl sighed. “I’m glad Renee called Devon and he contacted me. I’m also glad that the intelligence network was kept in one piece. Remind me to thank Devon, should I see him again.”
Tomlinson nodded. “Well, the plan to rescue new pokegirls from this world is a good idea and catching them this early will keep the carryover of habits we don’t want to an absolute minimum.” He frowned. “I just wish I’d thought of it, instead of Svetlana and Dorothea. Still, I’m glad someone thought of it.”
Elizabeth turned to a thoroughly confused Morwen. “My name is Elizabeth and I hope that you and I can be friends, at least presuming that he,” she jerked a thumb in Tomlinson’s direction, “will bring you by regularly.”
“I will. She needs to learn a lot about being a vampire and since you turned her; it is only fair that you teach her. We’ll have to remember that as a cure for becoming a bunnygirl or some of the other stupider thresholds.” He flashed a grin at Morwen. “That was a very bright thing to do. If we catch it early enough, vampires are far better suited for what we want in an independent population of pokegirls, even with their dietary issues.” He turned and waved a hand. A blue circle appeared in the air.
Morwen tried to focus on what her father said was important and thereby ignore the weirdness that glowed several meters from them. “Master, what is your name?”
Elizabeth smiled. “You’ll find out that you don’t have to call him master, and as for his name, it’s Kerrik.” She glanced at the man, who was now standing with his hands clasped behind him and humming as he waited for her to finish. “He’s in disguise, but I can promise you that you’re a very lucky girl.”
Morwen gave her a nervous look. “If you say so.”