"In other news, city police safely tranquilized and captured an escaped gorilla that was terrorizing the residents of old town late last night. Residents reported that the animal was first spotted –"

"Boooring," Syd complained. Picking up the remote off the coffee table, she stabbed the mute button, then turned to Ryan with an expectant look. "Can we watch something else? There's this great anime that came out a few years ago about a bunch of kids living in an orphanage, but it's secretly being run by monsters who want to eat them..."

Ryan paused with a spoonful of cereal halfway to his mouth. Two more bowls sat next to his on the kitchen table, both already empty, as well as the last pizza box and an open bottle of aspirin.

"I'm pretty sure I read that one before I got captured," he told her. "Doesn't it get bad after the first volume...?" Before she could reply, he shook his head. "...wait, I mean, no. We should, uh, probably leave that for some other time. Gotta save the world first. As soon as we're done with breakfast... or lunch, I guess, there's a whole lot of work waiting for us."

Grinning impishly, she replied, "Aww, fine. We'll add it to your tab, then. After all, you already owe me –"

The apartment door opened, and Amy walked in wearing her navy-blue police uniform.

"He owes you what?" she asked as she hung the peaked cap she'd been wearing on a rack beside the door and loosened her necktie.

"Nothing. Don't worry about it." Syd held her chin cupped in one hand and was working it experimentally from side to side. "Jeez, my mouth is killing me. Hey, is it possible to pull a muscle in your jaw?" she wondered aloud.

"I think so," Amy replied, giving her an odd look. "Why, did you stuff your face with too much pizza last night or something?"

"Or something." Syd's self-satisfied smirk immediately turned into a wince. "Ow! Fuck."

"Syd..." Amy sighed, then stepped over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup. Ryan could see the dark circles under her eyes as she passed. "Are you two really just getting out of bed?"

Ryan avoided her gaze. At least she'd only heard the tail end of their last discussion.

"I'm, uh, recuperating," he said lamely, pointing at his side, then at the remains of his meal on the table. "Need rest and calories."

"Right." She dropped a bundle of papers on top of the empty pizza box. "I pulled all your available records that I had access to, and I made some inquiries, discreetly. As far as the NCIC database is concerned, you're still alive and well in Washington state. No missing persons report, no manhunts, nothing like that... you do owe five years of back taxes, though."

"That's it?" Flipping through the stack, he withdrew a printout with a blurry picture of his face in the top-left corner. They'd used his college ID, he noted, which wasn't the most flattering photograph anyone had ever taken of him. Below that, the sheet listed his date of birth, his height and weight, and a variety of other personal information. "None of my roommates said anything? My professors, my academic advisor, my boss? From their perspective, I just randomly disappeared one day. It's hard to believe that none of them ever wondered what happened to me."

Amy shrugged, making the gold sergeant's chevrons on her collar glitter as they caught the light.

"If they did, I suppose that they must not have thought it was important enough to get the authorities involved."

Setting the pages off to one side, Ryan picked up the fresh copy of his driver's license that had fallen out onto the table.

"I don't even want to know how you were able to make this happen," he told Amy, flipping it over. The back side listed a renewal date of just a few weeks ago, he noted, and it was good for another two years. Shooting her a grateful smile, he slid the card into his pocket. "Thanks. That's another one I owe you."

"You can thank me by not getting into any accidents," she replied tartly. "It's been at least five years since the last time you drove a car, hasn't it?"

Sauntering over to join them at the table, Syd leaned across his chair and grabbed a sheet from the top of the pile.

"Known Aliases: None. Criminal Record: None," she read off the page, then pouted. "Well, that's lame."

"Sorry." He laughed. "Before I got abducted, my life was pretty boring."

"Hang on a sec. Ryan, it says here that you're five feet, eleven inches tall, and that you weigh a hundred and fifty-five pounds." With a puzzled expression, Syd glanced from the page in her hands to Ryan's face, then back again. "That's way off. And what's up with this picture? It doesn't look anything like you. Did you hit a super late growth spurt or something?"

"Or something," he agreed, repeating her earlier evasion back to her with a faint grin.

"Wow, I didn't even notice," Amy said, plucking the document away from Syd in passing. "The haircut is different, and those glasses... but still, I can hardly tell this is supposed to be a photo of you. What happened?"

"When you're in War-Form, the Changer enhances your body's innate physical capabilities – your Attributes." Ryan placed his forearm on the tabletop, palm up. As he spoke, he slowly opened and closed his hand, causing the muscles and tendons to pop out in stark relief. "Higher baseline Attributes make for a stronger War-Form. It's why the Zorvax pick animals like gorillas and tigers to turn into their Brute shock-troops, rather than bugs."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He glanced up, his expression distant.

"The training that Enforcer candidates go through is brutal, but training can only change your body so much. Elite Enforcers, the ones they send on high-priority missions, are given more... substantial improvements. That's what happened to me."

"Are you telling us that you're not human anymore?" Amy asked.

"I'm still one-hundred-percent Homo sapiens," Ryan reassured them. "Uh, as far as I know, anyway. They sedated me, then stuck me in a tank for what they called an enzymatic anatomical reconstruction procedure. Apparently, it rebuilt my whole body at the cellular level, to," he made air quotes with his fingers, "achieve the maximum potential permitted by my genetic makeup... whatever that means. When I came out, this was how I looked. Didn't need my glasses after that, which was kind of nice, but I bump my head on things a lot more now. Bit of a trade-off."

"Whoa. So you're, like, some kind of alien super soldier now? That's totally a superhero origin story!" Syd helpfully informed him. "Think you can hook us up?" She considered it for a moment, then waved her hand dismissively. "Actually, nevermind. I wouldn't look as good with beefcake shoulders as you do."

Ryan remembered pulling Keira out of the enzyme bath. His actions had interrupted the process when it was only partially complete, but still, he was barely able to recognize the powerfully-built amazon in his hands as the same slender redhead that he'd once called a friend.

"It would take some getting used to," he conceded.

Amy finished her second cup of coffee, then stood up to refill her mug again.

She really does look exhausted, he observed, although he decided to keep that comment to himself. Did she have trouble getting to sleep last night?

"Anyway, I ran those other names you mentioned, too," she told him once she'd returned to the table. "All of them were the same as you, not officially missing or dead, but with some indications that they weren't around anymore. A few have popped back onto the grid within the past year, though. One was even updating his social media profiles today while I was checking on him."

"That... doesn't sound right," Ryan said slowly. "The Zorvax don't just let people go. You know that."

"Maybe there's something we're missing," Amy suggested. "I'll do some more digging, pull their files for us to look over." Gesturing towards the papers, she continued, "In the meantime, you should be able to rejoin society now. Hopefully, you've been thinking about what our next step should be while you were... recuperating."

"I have, actually. In the short term, the way I see it, there's three main things we need to accomplish." Ryan held up the appropriate number of fingers, then dropped one for each item as he listed them off. "First, practice. For you, Amy, we'll mostly be working on how to move and fight while transformed. Syd, you're going to get some of that as well, but I want to focus on tactical training –"

"Shooting guns?" she interrupted in an excited tone.

" – which means you'll be learning how to follow orders, communications discipline, proper military terminology, formations..." He sighed, watching her expression fall further with every word. "...and use of firearms, yes."

"Aww yeah!" Syd pumped her fist triumphantly. "Hey, hey, what kind of gun am I going to get? My Class is Assassin, so it's got to be a sniper rifle, right? Oooh, we should look for an AWP, I'm really good with those!"

"How much will she be able to learn in, what, a day and a half?" Amy asked him, giving the ongoing celebratory dance a skeptical side-eye.

"The Zorvax think that a Changer is all a soldier needs. They hate issuing extra equipment to their troops, and they'd never even consider arming an Enforcer with a crude, low-tech human weapon. If you two have guns, that could give you an advantage in a close fight... against low-Level opponents, anyway."

"Hm." Amy made a noncommittal sound in reply. "What's item two?"

"We've got to get out of the city before the next attack. As long as the Zorvax can track our Changers, they're going to keep on coming after us. I'd prefer to make sure any future fights happen away from population centers. We've been lucky so far, but this whole area is packed full of civilians, and I don't want to risk any of them getting caught in the crossfire."

"That's a good idea." Amy nodded. "We should be able to take care of both goals at the same time. Way outside the city limits, there's a little gun store I like to visit sometimes. They have a big outdoor range, and it's nothing but state game lands for miles around. I'll give you the address, and call ahead to let the owner know you're coming. My shift is over in four hours, then we can meet up there."

"Sounds like a plan. That brings us to our last priority. We need a lot of stuff."

"Like guns," Syd agreed eagerly, "and beer."

Ryan rolled his eyes.

"I was thinking more along the lines of renting a bigger car, something that we can take offroad, and buying tents, preserved food, sleeping bags, that sort of thing. Preparation is important, if we're planning to be spending a lot of time out in the middle of nowhere."

Amy's phone vibrated. She turned it over to glance at the screen, then made a face.

"That was for you, Syd. Adam says that he's waiting outside, and he," her voice took on a stuffy, formal tone, "requests Mistress Eleanor's presence at her earliest convenience."

"Eugh." She stuck her tongue out like she'd just bitten into a lemon. "Seriously, how many times do I have to tell him to stop calling me that?" A beat later, her expression brightened. "Perfect timing, though. Let's head downstairs, Ryan. Once I'm done we can take care of your shopping list."

"You want to take him with you? Why?"

Taking a seat on the corner of the table next to him, Syd kicked her feet and flashed him a dazzling smile.

"He's my emotional support hunk," she replied.

Amy looked her up and down, then asked, "And you're going out dressed like that?"

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know how Adam gets, Syd."

Surreptitiously, he gave Syd a once-over. Her curly hair had been pulled up into a loose ponytail, and she was wearing a tight, midriff-baring tank top over a pair of black capri leggings. She looked fine to him. Better than fine, in fact. Of course, she's pretty enough that just about anything would look good on her.

Thinking back on everything that had happened between them last night, he found himself wondering once again at his incredible good fortune.

Although...

Using his spoon, he pointed at the design on the front of her shirt, a glowing golden triangle perched atop two black ones.

"...isn't that one the bad guy's symbol?"

She pushed her modest chest out towards him, and her smile widened.

"Hell yeah it is," Syd said. After a pause, she added, "...nerd." Hopping back down, she walked over to the door and held out a hand towards him. "C'mon, let's go. There's somebody I want you to meet."