OBJECTIVE- Infiltrate enemy rendezvous at Zoonotics Corporation Headquarters in order to gather information concerning Radical Animal Transformation (codename: R.A.T.)

It seemed easy enough; suit and tie New Year’s Eve party, walk in, mingle, wait for someone to get drunk and say too much, walk out. Something so straight forward hardly seemed to need a man of my special capabilities; especially at the rates I charged. Still, I had been a spy long enough to know that no mission should be taken too lightly. If this party was at Zoonotics Headquarters- the leading pharmaceutical corporation in the country- then you could guarantee that the information I was going to gather would play a part in some higher plan too important to screw up. Probably it was just some rival drug company trying to get the dirt on Zoonotics and put them out of business. Then again, for all I knew, it was some South American drug lord planning to destroy the world. I didn’t know- when you get paid as much as I do, the only questions you ask are those they pay you to ask.

I walked into the party without arousing any suspicion. Maybe they thought their remote location would be enough to ward off unwanted visitors. There were no guards, and no one asked me for an invitation. I straightened my tie, fortunate that I had entered the soirée seemingly undetected. I still didn't let my guard down; a company this rich could afford unimaginably high-tech security, and for any mission to run smoothly, I had to be ready for anything.

As the party continued, I made myself invisible by heading toward the most crowded place, which also happened to be the best for gathering information. Even though the room was huge and largely unnavigable due to the crowds of people, I found my destination with little difficulty. The trick to finding a bar in any party is to pick the loudest, most undesirable person in the room and follow them to the place where they’ll bother the most people. They’ll either beeline to a microphone or else to the place where most other people run to make sure that person is less loud and less undesirable.

The large man I chose to trail already reeked of booze by the time I found him coming out of the bathroom. His booming laugh scraped on my every last nerve and his stained tux fit him tightly in several uncomfortable places that he enjoyed scratching. I followed two or three steps behind this sweaty creature (whom several people reluctantly greeted as “James” before remembering something important they had to do and literally running away) led me to the right place. I waited to put a few more unlucky souls between myself and James’s odor before sauntering up to the counter and ordering a Coke; I had to keep a clear head if I wanted to complete this mission successfully.

I sipped on my soda and kept my ears open. It wasn’t long before the conversations got interesting.

“They say that this party isn’t going to be dull like last year’s; rumor has it, quite a few surprises are planned, and the best one will be revealed at midnight. You know anything?”

“Well…”

“You DO know something then, eh?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then you’re not held to secrecy. C’mon- what does the company have planned?”

Suddenly, James’s thunderous voice resonated over the crowd, and several people, including those I was listening to, turned to see what the problem was. Irritated, I looked to see what the disturbance was, only to find that he, in all his crass, disgusting glory, had grown a pair of what seemed to be… I shook my head in disbelief. They stood a full foot above his head, and seemed about as dirty as he was. Donkey ears? Maybe my Coke was spiked. I tossed it into a potted plant to be on the safe side. The more I listened, the more I realized he wasn't yelling- he was laughing.

“Oh! They got me, they got me. Ha ha- they got me good!” he yelled. “I s’pose after how boring this piece of shit party was last year, they had to do something to give it a kick, eh? Ha Ha Ha! Must be the booze! Ha ha! You know, I was the one to develop the water-soluble form of the virus. To think- my very own project used against me! What do you think? Are they my color? Do these ears make me look fat? HA HA HA!”

He carried on and on, making an ass of himself appropriately enough. Several people, after he coaxed them until they didn't have a choice, even braved his body odor and touched them. They were definitely real; real donkey ears on something that appeared to be a human, even if it smelled like an animal. I was shocked, but not as shocked as you would think; after all, being shocked isn’t what they pay you for, and seeing something strange in my line of work wasn’t infrequent. I leaned back and ordered an extra dry martini to help me sort things out. A man with donkey ears was still not the kind of thing I wanted to process sober.

After awhile, a voice came over the microphone and called for everyone’s attention.

“Hello and Happy New Year! Is everybody enjoying the party?” People applauded. “And has anyone found any of our… surprises?” A few more people cheered, and strangely, there were a few barks, meows, bleats, grunts- “Well don’t worry- our little presents SHOULD wear off by morning. What you're experiencing is just an early version of the virus." Some people actually seemed disappointed, and I heard a few boos. "Just a TEENSY joke we decided to play on our employees, I hope you don’t mind. In fact, the biggest surprise will be at midnight, so hang around, and please… have some more to drink! Ha Ha! Enjoy the night.”

Apparently, James hadn’t been the only the one to be “surprised”. As I left the bar, it became apparent that quite a few people had various new features. Cats came in numerous shapes and species. From leopard, to tiger, to domestic; ears, tails, noses, paws, whiskers; every combination of feline features on humans could found within the room. More than a couple of women were sporting, quite proudly, cat ears or tails, and quite a few men to.

Every breed of canine also seemed to be present. One woman pressed herself provocatively against a man whose dog ears flipped up eagerly as she wrapped her own fox tail around the both of them. Even a few employee children ran around pretending to be puppies with legitimate paws and ears and teeth to match. It was almost cute, if it wasn't so freakish.

Some unusual and exotic species were also on the floor. I saw one woman blush as a beautiful peacock display lifted her dress and revealed her underwear to a drunken man with goat hooves watching her eagerly. She smiled lustily at me as I passed, but I knew it was only male peacocks who had beautiful feather displays and I decided it was best to keep walking and leave it to the man eying "her" greedily.

Everywhere I looked people were in various states of change. Some had hooves, some had paws; elephant trunks and pig snouts, scales and fur and feathers surrounded me wherever I went. It was discontenting, and I knew that the party would only get weirder by midnight. Just as I polished off my third extra, extra dry martini (normalcy in a glass) I felt my own pants start to fill with an unfamiliar pressure. I quickly loosened my belt, and dropped them a few inches below the bottom of my backbone. Not astonishingly, my own tail began to grow, quickly taking on the distinctive look of a raccoon. I let it fan out behind me, trying to keep my mind on business and not be distracted by the unique novelty of having a tail. However, it was a difficult task, and once or twice I found myself turning around to touch the twitching thing that was so alien to my body. It was soft, and only awkward because of my pants, but other than that felt very natural. I was actually fond of the thing; so fond, I began to caress it and lose track of time and the objective.

Slowly, the noise of the party began to die down. I reluctantly let go of my tail and quickly resumed my professional demeanor. I had been so preoccupied with the thing, midnight wasn't much further away. Never had I been less alert while working, and I tried to overcompensate now, even though I knew those minutes lost could have been the most crucial of all. The man from earlier tapped the microphone, and the whole room went silent. The only thing that I could see I missed was something covered by a large velvet cloth being wheeled out on stage with the man. He tapped the microphone again, but it wasn’t really necessary; the whole room’s attention was focused on him and the large covered object. I held my breath and waited.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, the New Year is upon us in a little less than fifteen minutes! On the east coast, people are already starting over; waving goodbye to last year, and entering the next. I can speak for the entirety of Zoonotics Corporation when I say that because of our hard work, your hard work, those people on the coast will be having a very different year from last- very different indeed, and it’s all thanks to your time, effort, and brilliance! Congratulate yourself, because you are the celebrities of tomorrow! Science is about to be changed…forever.”

James hooted loudly, and several other people mumbled politely, but the noise was deafened by the thick curiosity that hung around the room like a fog. “I’ll keep this short. All last year, everyone in this room had a hand developing some part of the final product that is beneath this drape.” He gestured to the velvet covered something with his palm. “Whether you are a scientist, veterinarian, or just a janitor- even if you are simply related to someone who works for the noble company of Zoonotics, you will be written in the great book of history for the crowning achievement I am about to unveil! I give you…” I watched as he pulled off the cloth with a dramatic swoop, “… the horse girl.”

I did watch, and what I saw horrified me. As the man pressed a button, the “horse girl” came to life. Her thin body was nude under a thin hospital gown, and her small Asian face was crinkled with the pain and drowsiness of pain medicine wearing off. She didn’t resemble a horse in the least bit, but I knew that was about to change. She groaned, and I saw her hair yield and part to two small fleshy lumps growing out on the side of her head. To make it even more humiliating, the emcee casually narrated the whole event.

“As you can see, this is a woman from our rival company, known commonly as Doc’s Laboratory. She was sent here to retrieve information, and her own clumsiness and inaptitude as a secret agent got her snared in one of our traps.” He chuckled, I gulped. “The time-released serum has been slow-cooking in her system all day, preparing her for the beautiful display you are about to see. While your own transformations will wear off by morning, hers will not. This is not Alpha, folks. This is the final version of project R.A.T. that you have so diligently contributed to over the past year in one way or another.” Her ears inched their way up to the top of her head, taking on a glossy black color and shaping themselves into fully-functioning, swiveling horse ears. She groaned, her face becoming darker as her nostrils flared- getting larger, and larger until…

“Her face is pushing out into a snout. As you can see, her nose is growing wider, losing its human shape, and gradually shifting into the horse form that we have now perfected.” He smiled, she moaned; a not-quite-human noise that scared me coming from that once human face. "Funny enough, we probed her for information before condemning her to her fate. As it turns out, Doc's Lab has also done some experimenting recently- most of which has been unsuccessful, especially in the reindeer variety." I watched as her ankles took on a darker skin color, her toes merging into two separate masses. The dark the skin crept up her legs, not looking unlike a panty-hose. "Strange- our process is absolutely perfect. Ho hum- does that make us the best? I'll let you decide, but if you asked my opinion, I'd say- probably." He smirked.

“She spins her wrists like that as her body test-drives its new functions. This is merely her flesh changing- the internal changes, the real challenging part of making transformation work, should be happening…” The Asian woman fell suddenly to the cage floor. With a howl louder and more terrible than anything James had done all night, her back cracked in a horrible, spine-altering way. Her eyes shot open, just in time for the engrossed audience to watch as her pupils dilated bigger, her irises became softer, and the actual shape of her eyes became rounder. She tried to mouth something, or maybe plea with the stupefied people watching, but got tongue-tied either from the drugs in her system or the size of her new block-like teeth. The noises she made were so horsey that I could barely distinguish them as once being made by a human. A huge tongue flopped around in her mouth as her palate grew to accommodate it's growing size.

I felt like crying. This woman was in pain, and there was nothing I could do to help. I watched pathetically as the hospital gown ripped easily like paper as she quickly gained body mass, rolling over onto her back as her thighs expanded and became covered with the same glossy black coat as her ears and face. The dark skin on her legs and arms sprouted fur, and her feet merged into hooves that didn't resemble human feet at all. She rolled onto her stomach, attempting to stand by pulling herself up using the cage bars, but her hands slipped off as they to became hard dark mounds of bone. Her arms stretched, and as her standing posture reverted to all fours, I could see muscles writhing beneath the skin, shifting into strong animal hamstrings that could be used for running and jumping or pulling carts filled with fruit. Her neck grew outwards, thick and heavy, and her head bulged and swelled, human hair appearing to grow rapidly back into her skull. Soon, what stood before me was a full-grown horse, and as far as anyone could ever prove, had always been a horse and would always be a horse. A tail smacked between her new horse buttocks, and with human anger, she delivered a frustrated horse kick to the bars that signified her horse captivity. I felt sick.

“What you have witnessed before you, ladies and gentlemen, is the future. The practical and impractical applications of Project R.A.T are limitless. Science has no boundaries and I think this young…” he smirked, “...woman has clearly illustrated my point.”

I tried not to look at the should-be girl, now laying down and obviously feeling confused and sorry for herself. With a slight shiver, I felt my own tail recede into my spine. Was that it? Did he just expect us to go home and forget what we had seen? You just saw a woman shape-shift into a horse, thank you, have a nice life?

“Ah- I see you party animals are returning to your normal state.” He chuckled at his own joke; a pompous and ugly noise that made my head spin. “It's must nearly be midnight, then. But before I bid you fare-well, I have one last important thing to say-” Blood pounded through my ears. I must not forget the mission- that woman is gone- forget her- she's expendable- they don't pay you to feel, remember? Remember the mission- don't think about that woman- don't think about that horse...

“To any spies who may be attending the party tonight-” I froze, completely terrified and unable to move. “To any spies who may be hearing this… it’s too late. There's nothing you can do. No information that you could deliver, no mission that you could undertake, can ever stop us now. Have a Happy New Year."