The doors closed behind him.
Adrian noticed.
He turned his head and watched the glass panels meet, then separate again when someone approached from outside.
Automatic.
Not locked.
He looked forward.
Bruno had already moved several steps ahead, but stopped as soon as he realized Adrian wasn't following.
He didn't call him.
He simply waited.
Adrian started walking again.
The reception area was smaller than it had looked through the doors. Four chairs stood against one wall beneath a display showing regional transit information, portal advisories and several rotating CSA notices. A water dispenser hummed quietly beside a rack of pamphlets.
The receptionist looked up as they passed.
She smiled.
Not brightly. Not in the strained way people smiled when they were trying very hard to look harmless.
Just enough to acknowledge him.
“Morning.”
Adrian managed a small nod.
She didn't ask anything.
Bruno led him past the desk and down a short corridor.
There were offices on one side, doors with names and job titles beside them. On the other were two interview rooms with narrow glass panels, a washroom and a larger door marked STAFF ONLY.
Bruno passed the interview rooms.
Adrian noticed that too.
Instead, he opened a door near the end of the corridor.
“This one's free.”
Adrian stopped at the threshold.
It looked more like a break room than anything official.
There was a small sofa against one wall, two armchairs, a low table and a kitchenette with a kettle and microwave. A window looked onto the side of the building and the street beyond. Someone had left a potted plant on the sill that appeared to be losing a prolonged argument with death.
There were two doors.
The one behind him.
Another near the kitchenette.
Adrian looked at it.
“Washroom,” Bruno said.
Adrian glanced up.
Bruno was still standing outside.
“You can close this one if you want.”
Adrian looked at the door Bruno was holding.
There was a lock on the inside.
He entered.
Bruno let the door go but didn't follow immediately.
“Would you rather I stay out here?”
The question caught Adrian off guard.
He looked around the room again.
Then at Bruno.
“No.”
His voice still sounded wrong.
Higher. Softer.
He hated how quickly he was beginning to recognize it.
Bruno entered and left the door open.
Adrian sat on the sofa.
Or tried to.
His tail made the decision more complicated.
He stopped halfway down, shifted, moved the tail to one side and finally lowered himself carefully.
His ribs hurt.
His ankle hurt.
Everything else seemed to have settled into a general background ache.
Bruno remained standing.
That made Adrian look up.
The bear seemed to realize the problem.
“Right.”
He chose the armchair farthest away.
The chair creaked.
Bruno looked down at it.
For the first time, Adrian saw something almost like embarrassment cross the broad bear face.
“It holds me.”
Adrian stared at him.
Bruno settled very carefully.
The chair creaked again.
Apparently it did.
Adrian looked away.
Something in his chest had loosened by a fraction.
“Water?”
“Yes.”
Bruno stood again.
Adrian's eyes followed him automatically.
He hated that too.
Bruno filled a glass at the kitchenette, placed it on the low table and stepped away before Adrian reached for it.
Adrian drank half of it at once.
He hadn't realized how thirsty he was.
Bruno waited until he lowered the glass.
“Food?”
Adrian's stomach answered before he could.
Loudly.
He looked down.
Bruno's ears twitched.
“Yes,” Adrian said.
“Allergies?”
“No.”
“Anything you don't eat?”
Adrian almost said no again.
Then stopped.
He had no idea.
Not anymore.
“I don't know.”
Bruno nodded as if that were a perfectly ordinary answer.
“I'll keep it simple.”
He left.
Adrian watched him go.
The door remained open.
Voices drifted through the corridor. A telephone rang somewhere. Someone laughed in another office.
Ordinary sounds.
Adrian drank the rest of the water.
He looked through the window.
People walked along the street outside.
A delivery vehicle stopped across the road. A man carried two boxes into a shop. Someone cycled past.
He could leave.
The thought arrived suddenly.
There was nothing between him and the door.
Nothing stopping him from standing, walking down the corridor and going outside.
Nobody had taken the blanket.
Nobody had searched him.
Nobody had even asked his name.
He stared at the open doorway.
His pulse slowed.
Bruno returned carrying a tray.
Bread. Something that looked like cheese. Fruit. A bowl of soup. Another glass of water.
Nothing complicated.
Nothing Adrian needed to identify before eating it.
Bruno set the tray down.
“I can leave you alone.”
Adrian looked at the food.
Then at the open door.
“Stay.”
The word came out before he had considered it.
Bruno paused.
“All right.”
He returned to the chair.
Adrian picked up the spoon.
The soup was warm.
That was all he registered at first.
Then salt. Vegetables. Something herbal.
He took another spoonful.
And another.
By the time he noticed how quickly he was eating, half the bowl was gone.
He slowed down.
His stomach objected.
Adrian ignored it for approximately four seconds.
Then gave up and continued.
Bruno said nothing.
The soup disappeared.
Then most of the bread.
Then the cheese.
Adrian reached for a piece of fruit, stopped and stared at the tray.
He had eaten dinner late plenty of times. Skipped lunch. Worked through breakfast.
He knew hunger.
This felt different.
Hollow in a way that seemed to extend through his entire body.
He ate the fruit.
Only then did the sensation begin to ease.
Bruno had been watching the window.
Not him.
Adrian appreciated the pretence.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Silence returned.
Adrian drank some water.
He knew what came next.
It had to.
Bruno folded his hands loosely over his stomach.
The claws made the gesture look more dangerous than it was.
“I need to ask you a few things.”
There it was.
Adrian set the glass down.
“But they can wait if you need them to.”
He looked at Bruno.
The bear's expression remained difficult to read.
Adrian shook his head.
“Okay.”
“Do you know your name?”
Adrian's fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket.
Of course he did.
The answer came immediately.
Adrian Voss.
Thirty-eight years old.
He knew his address.
His employee number.
His parents' names.
His sister's birthday.
He knew which cupboard held the coffee in his apartment and which drawer Jonas always opened first despite having been told repeatedly that the bottle opener wasn't in there.
He knew exactly who Adrian Voss was.
He looked at the hand holding the blanket.
Small.
Pale.
Thin scratches crossed the skin.
White hair had fallen over his wrist.
One of his ears moved at a sound in the corridor.
He felt it move.
Adrian opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Bruno waited.
Adrian looked away.
After several seconds, Bruno nodded.
“All right.”
That was all.
No repetition.
No encouragement.
No *try.*
Adrian swallowed.
“Do you know where you came from?”
That answer should have been easier.
Home.
But Bruno wasn't asking that.
He was asking where Adrian had come from before the forest.
“I don't know.”
“Do you know how you got into the forest?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Were you being held somewhere?”
Adrian looked at him.
“Yes.”
Bruno became very still.
Adrian noticed because until then the bear had made tiny movements almost constantly. An ear turning toward a sound. Fingers shifting. His broad chest rising beneath the uniform.
Now nothing moved.
“Could you leave?”
“No.”
“Were you restrained?”
Metal around his wrists.
His ankles.
The table.
The chamber.
“Yes.”
Bruno's gaze dropped briefly to Adrian's wrists.
There were still marks there.
Adrian pulled the blanket farther over his hands.
Bruno looked away.
“Did someone hurt you?”
The question should have been simple.
Adrian saw Subject Seventeen on the floor.
The older researcher bleeding against the wall.
Black and blue inside the carrier.
His own reflection.
“Yes.”
Bruno inhaled slowly through his nose.
“Are any of those people nearby?”
“I don't know.”
“Do you think they know where you are?”
Adrian hadn't considered that.
His stomach tightened.
The facility.
The alarm.
The evacuation.
Whatever had been loose in the corridors.
Had anyone survived?
Were they looking for him?
“I don't know.”
Bruno nodded.
He reached toward his pocket.
Adrian's body tensed.
Bruno stopped.
“Notebook.”
Adrian stared at the pocket.
“Oh.”
Bruno removed it slowly.
A small paper notebook.
No scanner.
No device.
He wrote something down.
“I'm not contacting anyone yet.”
Adrian looked up.
“Why?”
“Because I don't know who I'm contacting.”
Bruno closed the notebook.
“And because you've had enough questions for now.”
Adrian blinked.
“That’s it?”
“For now.”
There were dozens more.
Adrian could see them waiting.
Bruno must have had them too.
Where?
How many people?
Descriptions?
How long?
What had they done?
Why?
Instead Bruno put the notebook away.
“You're injured.”
“I'm fine.”
Bruno looked at his bare feet.
Then at the dried blood on his shin.
Then back at him.
Adrian exhaled.
“Mostly.”
“We should have someone look at you.”
His shoulders tightened.
Bruno saw it immediately.
“Not now.”
Adrian said nothing.
“And not without asking you first.”
Some of the tension remained.
But not all of it.
Bruno stood.
The chair gave a relieved creak.
“There’s a shower room down the hall. Private. Locks from the inside.”
Adrian looked down at himself.
The laboratory coat had once been white.
Mostly.
The blanket wasn't much better anymore.
Dirt streaked his legs. Dried blood darkened one knee and his hands. He could smell the forest on himself.
And something else.
Chemical.
Faint now.
But still there.
“Yes.”
“I'll get you some clothes.”
Adrian hesitated.
Bruno waited.
“Do you have…”
He stopped.
“Have what?”
Adrian looked down at the tail disappearing beneath the blanket.
Bruno followed his gaze.
“Tail fit?”
Adrian nodded.
“We keep basics.”
Of course they did.
CSA.
Crossworld Services Authority.
If any government office kept emergency trousers for people with tails, it would be this one.
Bruno looked him over briefly.
Not lingering.
“I'm guessing small.”
Adrian almost objected.
Then remembered the forest worker.
And Bruno.
And his own hands.
“Probably.”
“I'll find something.”
Bruno led him back into the corridor.
Adrian walked slowly.
The receptionist glanced up again but said nothing.
The shower room was farther down, behind a heavier door Adrian hadn't noticed before.
Bruno opened it.
Inside was a small changing area with a bench, hooks and shelves. Beyond another door stood a shower, sink and toilet. Everything was larger than a normal public bathroom and fitted with rails at several heights.
There was even a low opening beneath the shower controls Adrian suspected existed for species considerably shorter than humans.
Clean towels sat folded on a shelf.
Basic toiletries were sealed in small packages.
Bruno pointed to the lock.
“Turn that. Nobody can open it from outside unless there's an emergency.”
Adrian touched it.
Solid.
“I'll leave the clothes outside.”
“Okay.”
“Take as long as you need.”
Bruno started to leave.
Adrian looked at him.
“Bruno.”
The bear stopped.
It was the first time Adrian had used his name.
“Thank you.”
Bruno's ears shifted slightly.
“You're welcome.”
Then he left.
The door closed.
Adrian locked it.
Click.
He stood still.
Looked at the lock.
Then tested the handle.
Nothing.
Locked.
He tested it again.
Still locked.
Nobody could come in.
For the first time since the van, Adrian stood in a room where the door was locked because **he** had locked it.
His forehead touched the wood.
He closed his eyes.
Just for a moment.
Then he stepped away.
The room was silent except for the ventilation.
Adrian put the blanket on the bench.
Cold air touched his legs.
He immediately wanted it back.
Instead he reached for the laboratory coat.
His fingers found the fastening.
Stopped.
There had been no reason to hesitate in the laboratory.
He had been trying to survive.
There had been no privacy to lose.
No time to think.
Now there was.
He undid the first fastening.
Then the second.
The coat opened.
Adrian stared straight ahead.
There was a mirror above the sink.
He could avoid it.
He considered doing exactly that.
Then he pulled the coat off.
It slid down his shoulders and dropped onto the bench.
The room felt colder.
Adrian looked.
Not at the mirror.
Down.
He had already seen most of it.
The reflection in the laboratory had shown enough. The forest had added more. The truck had made certain changes impossible to ignore.
But those had been fragments.
Emergencies.
This was different.
There was nowhere to run.
His shoulders were narrower.
His arms thinner than they should have been, the muscles shaped differently beneath pale skin. His waist drew inward before widening again at the hips. His legs looked longer relative to the rest of him than he expected.
Bruises marked one thigh.
There were punctures along his arm.
A dark patch covered his ribs where he'd hit the floor.
His chest—
Adrian stopped there.
He had known.
Obviously.
Knowing did not make looking easier.
He looked farther down.
And stopped again.
For several seconds, his mind simply refused to provide commentary.
There was no ambiguity.
No hidden qualification.
No part of the transformation had stopped halfway.
The body standing in the bathroom was female.
Completely.
Adrian swallowed.
Something should have been there.
That was the strangest part.
Not what was.
What wasn't.
Thirty-eight years of knowing where his own body began and ended insisted on something that no longer existed.
His hand moved before he had decided whether he wanted it to.
Stopped.
Then continued.
A brief, clinical check.
Nothing more.
He pulled his hand away.
“Okay.”
His voice sounded too high in the small room.
Adrian stared at the wall.
It was not okay.
He knew that.
Apparently saying the word didn't help.
He looked into the mirror.
The woman from the laboratory looked back.
No.
Not a woman.
Him.
Maybe.
Long white hair hung tangled past his shoulders. The ears on top of his head were flattened slightly backward. His face looked exhausted. Dirt streaked one cheek. There was dried blood near his hairline.
His eyes were still wrong.
Amber.
Vertical pupils.
His gaze dropped.
The reflection followed.
Adrian turned away.
Shower.
He could do a shower.
A shower had rules.
Water. Soap. Shampoo.
Simple.
He stepped beneath the spray and turned it on.
Cold water hit him.
Adrian jerked sideways with a noise that was dangerously close to a yelp.
His tail exploded outward.
He slapped at the controls.
Warm.
Warm was good.
He stood beneath it.
For several seconds, he did nothing.
Water ran through his hair and over his shoulders.
Dirt spiralled toward the drain.
Pink followed it from one of the cuts on his leg before fading clear.
Adrian closed his eyes.
The water was warm.
Nothing held him down.
Nobody watched through glass.
Nobody told him not to move.
His breathing hitched.
He put one hand against the wall.
Warm water continued to fall.
Eventually he opened his eyes.
He washed.
Carefully at first.
The cuts stung.
His ribs complained when he lifted one arm too high.
The hair was a disaster.
He used far too much shampoo, discovered that washing hair this long required actual planning, then spent several minutes trying to rinse all of it out.
His ears presented another problem.
Water ran over one.
The ear flattened instantly.
Adrian froze.
He could feel every drop moving through the fine hair inside it.
“No.”
He tilted his head.
Water entered from the other side.
Both ears flattened.
Adrian stared at the tiles.
Apparently showers had become technically demanding.
He adjusted the spray lower.
Better.
Then he turned and his tail swung directly into the water.
It collapsed.
Adrian looked over his shoulder.
The enormous white plume that had followed him through the forest was suddenly a narrow, soaked rope of fur hanging toward the floor.
He picked it up.
Water poured from it.
It was heavy.
Adrian let go.
It slapped wetly against his leg.
He closed his eyes.
One problem at a time.
He washed it too.
By the time he turned the shower off, the hot water had begun to fade.
Adrian reached for a towel.
Then another.
The first went around his body.
The second went around his hair.
The tail required its own.
Of course it did.
He sat on the bench and carefully squeezed water from it.
His ears were still damp.
His hair was everywhere.
But he was clean.
Actually clean.
The chemical smell was gone.
So was the forest.
Most of the blood.
Adrian looked down at his knee.
Something bothered him.
He frowned.
Turned his leg.
There.
Or rather—
Not there.
Adrian leaned forward.
His fingers touched the skin just below the knee.
Smooth.
He rubbed it.
Nothing.
He had fallen off a bicycle when he was eleven.
Not dramatically.
Not heroically.
He'd tried to take a corner too fast because Jonas had been ahead of him and Adrian had refused to brake first.
Gravel had done the rest.
His mother had spent the evening picking tiny stones out of his knee while he insisted he was fine.
The scar had remained.
Small.
Uneven.
Pale.
For twenty-seven years.
Adrian knew exactly where it was.
Where it had been.
He searched again.
Wrong knee?
No.
He checked the other anyway.
Nothing.
Adrian sat very still.
The bathroom suddenly felt colder.
He looked at his hands.
There should have been another scar near the base of his thumb.
A kitchen knife.
Twenty-three.
Trying to separate two frozen burger patties with significantly more confidence than intelligence.
He searched.
Nothing.
Adrian stood.
The towel nearly slipped.
He caught it and moved closer to the mirror.
His face.
No marks he recognized.
His shoulder.
Nothing.
His skin wasn't repaired.
It wasn't healed Adrian.
It had never been injured.
His heart began beating faster.
He looked down again.
At the narrow shoulders.
The chest.
The waist.
The legs.
The tail.
This wasn't—
Adrian stopped.
He gripped the edge of the sink.
He had thought of it as his body because he was inside it.
Because when he moved his hand, the hand moved.
When something hurt, he felt it.
When the tail hit something, somehow that was his problem too.
But what if—
He looked into the mirror.
“What did you do?”
The woman in the mirror asked the same question.
No answer came.
A knock sounded at the outer door.
Adrian jumped.
His claws snapped out.
He stared at them.
Five narrow points extended from his fingertips.
His breathing stopped.
“Adrian?”
No.
Not Adrian.
Bruno hadn't used a name.
“It's Bruno.”
Adrian stared at the door.
“I left the clothes outside. I'm going back to the office.”
The claws slowly withdrew.
Adrian watched them disappear.
“You don't need to come out until you're ready.”
Footsteps moved away.
Adrian waited until he could no longer hear them.
That took longer than it should have.
His ears followed Bruno halfway down the corridor.
Adrian looked at the mirror again.
Then away.
Enough.
He dried himself.
It took longer than expected.
Much longer.
The tail was still damp when he finally gave up on it.
His hair wasn't much better.
He wrapped the blanket around himself again and unlocked the door.
The corridor was empty.
A folded stack of clothes sat on a chair outside.
Adrian picked it up and immediately retreated into the bathroom.
Lock.
Click.
He put the clothes on the bench.
Socks.
Underwear.
Dark trousers.
A simple grey shirt.
A soft zip-up jacket.
Everything looked new.
The trousers had an opening at the back with overlapping fabric and fastenings around it.
Tail.
Adrian touched it.
Someone had thought about this.
There was something strangely comforting about that.
He picked up the underwear.
Stopped.
Looked at it.
Put it down.
Picked up the trousers instead.
No.
That order wasn't going to work.
Adrian rubbed both hands over his face.
Fine.
He dressed.
The underwear felt wrong.
Not uncomfortable.
That might have been easier.
It fit.
That was worse.
His body settled into it as if this were completely ordinary.
As if it had been wearing clothes like this for years.
The trousers were another challenge.
Getting the tail through the opening required reaching behind himself, controlling a limb he still barely understood and discovering that the tail did not particularly enjoy being pushed through fabric.
Eventually he managed it.
The trousers fit.
Small.
Bruno had been right.
Adrian chose not to think about that.
He reached for the shirt.
Something white remained beneath it.
Adrian stopped.
He moved the shirt aside.
A bra.
Simple.
Soft.
No lace.
No decoration.
Just a practical piece of clothing.
Adrian stared at it.
He knew what a bra was.
Obviously.
He had been in relationships.
He had removed them before.
Occasionally with competence.
That was an entirely different skill set from whatever was expected of him now.
Adrian picked it up.
Turned it over.
Found the clasp.
He looked down at himself.
Then back at the bra.
“No.”
He put it on the bench.
The shirt went on instead.
He pulled it down.
Better.
Normal enough.
He reached for the jacket.
Then took one step toward the mirror.
His chest moved beneath the shirt.
Adrian stopped.
He took another step.
There it was again.
Not painful.
Just noticeable.
He remembered the truck.
The pothole.
The blanket pulled tight across his chest because pressure had helped.
Adrian slowly looked back at the bench.
The bra remained exactly where he'd left it.
He stared at it.
Of all the problems waiting for him outside that door, this should not have ranked particularly high.