"Look who it is!"

  A familiar voice greeted me as I situated myself in the bag chair and banced my keyboard ay p. Eventually I'd get a board or something to hold everything, but there was o go all out from the get-go.

  "Yeah… Hi guys, it's been a while."

  I smiled as my voice was met with the expected stunned silence.

  "Is my mic w?"

  Max was the first to recover. "Yeah, yeah we hear you. Did you uh… get a new mic?"

  "No, same headset. New puter though." I felt a giddy rush as I strung them along. "However, I don't think that's ged anything about how I sound."

  I pulled up the text el associated with the voice chat.

  Ellen: MADDIE?!???!?

  I ughed. "Hi Ellen, I missed you."

  Ellen: I missed you too, but WHY DO YOU SOUND SO CUTE?

  Max chuckled. "I think her caps lock is on the fritz."

  Ellen: the FUCK it is don't pretend I'm overreag!

  "So." I fidgeted in my seat, I wao bounce my k I had to settle for a little sideways wiggle instead. "I promise this is relevant, but I got a job a few months back."

  "It must be pretty fug lucrative if I'm right about where yoing with this."

  "Mmmmm. Yes and no."

  "What's that supposed to mean? You're making a bunoney but spent it all? Who did you sell your soul to?"

  "For all you know I might have sold my body." I chuckled at Ellen's unintelligible keysmash. "Anyways, I uh… I got a job on a dairy farm."

  "Oh." Max seemed beyond fused. "Is it a rge operation?"

  A devious idea formed in my mind. "No, only a couple dozen folks here."

  "What's your job?"

  A notification for a direct message popped up on the sidebar. Ellen was ecstatically asking for pictures.

  "Sorry one sed, uh…" I took a quick selfie and DMed it to her. After a couple seds the keysmashes were ba the text chat with a vengeance. "So I'm in produ, I do a bit of 3D modeling and printing for the odd solution that they might need, and I've been pitg in on things like book keeping and such but… yeah. Just dairy farm stuff."

  "What, like milking the cows?"

  "Hah, yeah, that's pretty much every day but sometimes one of my girlfriends might do it for me."

  "Girlfriends? Plural?"

  "Oh, yeah I'm also in a bit of a polycule now. It's super nice."

  I g the DM again and she was raving about the colr now.

  "Is there some subtext I'm missing here? Elleo be absolutely feral about this."

  "Sorry, I'm having a bit of fun. Ask me how many cows there are."

  Max was silent for a long moment and then he sighed heavily. "How many of you are there?"

  "Maaaaaax you rui" I whined.

  "I bme Ellen, clearly she didn't approve of you holding me in suspense."

  "Ellen!"

  Ellen: I'm sorry!

  "Ugh. Brat. Anyways, that's the big reveal. I've been gene modding."

  "Do you like it?"

  "Yes. Just… so much. I've never been this happy."

  "Hah, maybe I should send an application."

  I paused. There was something very familiar about the way he said it, the casual way he threw out the idea, as though if he held on too tight it would drag him overboard.

  "It's not like the farm is exclusively looking for people to mod." I tried to pick my words with care. "I also probably pull a string out two to give you both a tour of you'd like. It's been… gosh, four years since we had a meetup."

  I re-opehe DM with Ellen.

  Maddie: Is Max giving you a vibe? The application 'joke' sounded like a bit of a "ha ha jk… unless?"

  Ellen: Oh for sure.

  Max had been silent for a moment so I decided that maybe we could circle back to the meetup pns.

  "What game are you pying right now?"

  "Still the space wizards with guns." He chuckled. "New update just came out where they released a co-op area that prevents health regeion."

  "They nerfed healing?! I'll never five them for this."

  "No, no. There's just no passive regen so if you get hurt then the only way to get health back is with enemy drops. Self-healing got a nerf."

  "So nen well? No spsh health potions?"

  "Yeah, those were hit the hardest. Vampire builds still work, but I think they want everyoo use the healing guns."

  "That's absurd."

  "e try it out with us. The story is actually pretty iing."

  "Okay, okay. I did reinstall the game so I'll load it up." I skipped through menu music, ematics, and update notifications as I reacquainted myself with the old system. "You have spa the team for me?"

  "For sure. Ellen and I were just doing the two of us because there's limited revives and we didn't want a stranger blowing them all."

  I frowned as I cycled through my gear. I'd collected pretty much everything there was to get back six months ago, but it would be anrind to catch up to the current power level.

  "Phosphorez still works." Max chimed in.

  There were a handful of damage boosting or deferipping ons in the game, but Phosphorez was unique in that it also did a small healing burst. I put together a build for it, sing out etics to lean into the fire aesthetic as I loaded into their game.

  "Thaaaats a lot of tentacles and eyes."

  "Oh yeah, try not to look. If you hit ten stacks of insanity you just die."

  "So realistic. Wow."

  I was rewarded with a keysmash in the game chat from Ellen.

  Ellen and I had both cracked s around the same time, but even though she started hormones and I didn't, she still picked up a habit of not speaking in public chats anymore. I missed when we could just talk with her, but I wasn't about to pressure her into speaking.

  I found a er to hide and tabbed back to the chat app to DM,

  Maddie: Have you gotten in with a gene modder? I assumed it would be covered for you.

  Ellen: Not yet. Area is a bit too red for that.

  I frowned and tabbed back to the game. True to Max's warnings I was steadily losing the battle of attrition, but at least I could keep Max and Ellen alive. It seemed a bit too on the nose for a self-destrug support style, but Elle some healing my way with one of the neons occasionally. We settled into a fortable silence as we explored and collected shiny goodies.

  "Soooo which airlines should I be booking you guys tickets for?"

  Max ughed "You're serious? What would we even do there?"

  "Well." I tabbed bad forth to see if Ellen was messaging. "The nefarious plot to indoate you mostly hinges on a favorable tour, but there's a pretty nice lounge area where we could py bames, watch a movie, or even put together a couple diogether."

  "Oh? You still eat normal food?"

  "Oats, barley, and clover are normal foods, thank you very much, but if you must know I also partake in the odd hot meal as well. I'm just a little bit vegetarian now."

  "A little bit?"

  "pletely. Don't split hairs."

  I tabbed bad sent a pleading emoji to Ellen.

  Max seemed to debate for a long moment. "Sure, if Ellen es I'll visit as well."

  I so desperately wao try aie or both of them into making it a one way trip, but I khat would require even more ht from Deyha to make sure nobody got stranded anywhere. Despite Carolyn's jokes, it would o be done by a bit more of a process than I went through.

  "So it is just milk?"

  "Mostly. Probably a couple dozen bottles a day depending on how everyone is feeling. Everything is done super so it keeps pretty well for shipping. Besides that it's just eggs and we're sidering expanding to honey."

  "Honey? Like from bees? How is that going to work?"

  "No clue. I'd have to ask Carolyn to expin it for the tour."

  "I'd be very ied in seeing how that works, like, is it like the old horror movie but with a bee instead of a fly?"

  I ughed and Ellen made a vaguely exasperated keysmash in the chat. "Well it's definitely nothing like that. They study other animals, isoting geo find what code causes what, and then they do simutions to recreate the results. She needs a pretty big sample size but apparently she's been prepping a bunRI ss of bees and other pollinators to correte with their DNA and see what they have in on. The puter basically spits out a report that says "These samples look the same in these pces, and also their DNA matches in these spots."

  "So what would a human/bee hybrid look like?"

  I shrugged even though he wouldn't be able to see it. "Whatever you'd want it to look like, I figure."

  "Oh, that's a good point, what do you look like?-- if it's okay for me to ask."

  "I'm tempted to be an asshole and say 'fly out here and find out' but yeah, I send you some hoof pid such."

  Ellen once again key smashed in-game.

  "Wow." Max deadpanned. "Way to make it weird."

  "That's what made it weird? We breezed past weird at higheeds several miles back."

  "You know? Fair. It's a good joke I suppose but I feel I have to refrain from ughing on principle."

  I debated taking a new picture to send to Max but I ended up just sending him the one I sent to Ellen. I also took a moment to grab a picture of the tip of my tail alongside my new "hooves". The shiny bck ft cws hadn't pletely e in, but there was enough there to kinda get the impression of hooves regardless. The fur was still embarrassingly patchy looking too, but I didn't want to hold them in suspense, especially if this could be the thing that vihem to fly out. I also sent the new pictures to Ellen.

  "Okay, I sent you a few pictures. I'm trying out a ype of fur so it hasn't pletely e i. Simirly, the hooves aren't finished."

  "Oh wow." Max's tone had lost the fident sass. "Those are really well done, I holy didn't even think that ossible."

  "Thanks! I'll forward your praise to Carolyn. If her ego bees too much, it's officially your fault."

  "Are yirlfriends also modded?"

  "Yeah, the three of us are probably the heaviest modded folks iristate area. Carolyn has geous green snake-skin style scales with white scaled horns and itty bitty matg spikes along her jaw. And Deyha is currently also sing some mods. She used to have a really thick reddish brown fur on her legs with hooves, a scorpion tail, and pte-like scales on her shoulders and back, but she's sed to a blood-red lion tail and legs. The feet are actually gonna be sick, because it's the same style fur and cws as a lion, but with the arra of a hawk, so like, three cws forward and one back so that she could grasp stuff with her feet if she wanted."

  "Oh, so like, the mods don't even have to be something that exists in nature?"

  "Nope! But it probably helps if it does. Everyone here is a little spoiled by Carolyn's skill because she's the authority on animal characteristic mods. She'd write the book if she wasn't so damn busy making the farm profitable."

  "And… you said the farm is looking for more people?"

  "Absolutely! Carolyn specifically told me to lure my online friends out here to kidnap them. So, ued question, when would you like to e for a tour?"

  Max ughed. "Okay, okay. I take a week off if I give about a month's notice. So whatever week works for Ellen works for me."

  There was a small blip of a mimuting "I didn't say I was ing." Ellen spoke at st.

  "Pleeeeeease? I'll give you free milk for a year if you e."

  "Gods." Ellen grumbled. "Fine, but only because you asked nicely, not because you offered me milk."

  "So you don't want a year of free milk?"

  There was a suspiciously long pause.

  "I didn't say that."

  Max and I busted out ughing, but Ellen tinued as if she couldn't hear us. "A month from now works. I'll message you my address and I'll let you schedule whatever is the most cost effective way to get me there."

  "Perfect!" I kicked my hooves and wiggled in my seat to work out some of my excited energy "What about you, Max?"

  He sighed. "Yeah, I'll drop you my address as well."

  "Sweet. I'm just gon Deyha and Carolyn know before that information just drops off the edge of my brain."

  I debated telling Carolyn that Max was giving off egg vibes, but given how indelicate she had been with me, I figured it retty reasoo expect Max would get the same treatment. Though, she would probably assume Ellen and Max were both girls just based on the names and the fact that they were ing to the farm. Carolyainly did not seem above sledgehammering eggshells to facilitate modding. Still, it was hard tue that the tactic wouldn't be effective, I just knew I had to prioritize Max's safety over Carolyn's fun, regardless of eai value for the rest of us.

  "Well, aside from all the kinky stuff, what else is new?" Max spoke with poorly tained mirth, much to Ellen's amusement.

  "Nothing. Absolutely nothing else. It is literally all kink. You saw the picture I sent right? I don't know how 'don't bully me, I'll cum' could be any more clear about the state of my life right now."

  "You're right, that is pretty clear. I 't say that I know what to make of the new and improved horny-on-main Maddie."

  "It's simple, you call me cute, dispense headpats, and with enough flirting you unlock sexual favors."

  Ellen cackled "Easy Maddie, yonna traumatize poor Max over there."

  "Right, right. Sorry Max, fal reasons that was a joke."

  "All good, and in your defense, You've always beey unapologetically weird. I'm just gd that you're fy and happy."

  "Thank you! I really, really am." I finished sending off the good o my group chat with Carolyn and Deyha before tabbing bato the game we were pying. "Ah, crap, sorry for wasting a revive, I thought I was safe to tab out there."

  "All good, Max and I are on the final boss for the area if you wanna join us." Ellen's keyboard tapping briefly came through her microphone as she spoke.

  "Fuck, okay, on my way."

  ForeverEgg