Zoe giggled to herself, the idea of Clay being crowned by a bunch of monkeys like he was royalty was hilarious to her. She left Clay's area of zoo work and moved towards the aquatic centre. Zoe enjoyed working at the zoo, yet her favourite thing to do was work with the otters in the aquatic den. They seemed so peaceful, swimming together, it felt so spiritual for Zoe to experience them just doing what they usually do. The sound of her footsteps started to echo as she confidently wanders into the aquatic den. There was something about the aquatic den that Zoe couldn't help but love. It could have been anything, the sounds of water echoing through the hallways, the reflection of the water against the walls, or it could have been that the aquatic den was the only place in the zoo, maybe even the whole of the dome, that was painted a different colour than white. Nerva believed that design was key to keeping all the people inside the dome to feel even more posh than they were already. They went for something sleek and sophisticated, something clean and bright, so they could hide their dirty intentions with their consumers. Consumers were basically feeding from the machine, being nurtured by them while the other half try to survive being tortured by Nerva, creating their machines and nanobots. While the torturing has happened, the other half didn't know about it, including Zoe. She couldn't care less, she found a place with a different colour other than white, that's what really mattered to her at the moment.
Going past all the exhibits at the aquatic den, she looked at all the aquatic life swimming around, enjoying their surroundings while viewing people through the strongest glass casings so it doesn't break. Sometimes she felt like she was in her own little exhibit for the creatures that watched her through the glass every day that she had worked there. The sounds of her footsteps echoing through the hallways mixed in with the sounds of the water being playfully splashed around in the exhibits was so relaxing for Zoe. She eventually made it to the otter section of the aquatic den.
The otters were just swimming, just minding their own business. It seemed all too peaceful, just swimming around. Zoe crouched down to see the otters more clearly. They seemed so happy being with each other. Zoe really only felt peaceful around them. "Why do I feel peaceful around here? Is it because of the otters? *sigh* I don't know... If only I was one of the otters" Zoe thought. "One of the otters... one of the otters... one of the otters..." Those four words repeated in her mind. The nanobots picked up on this and glitched inside of Zoe, rewriting themselves and, while inside, rewriting Zoe's genetic coding.
An idea popped into Zoe's mind, an idea that she avoided out of strict rules that the zoo provided but something that she felt was right to do. She was going to have a swim with the otters. Zoe knew that this wasn't allowed, unless with strict supervision by one of the higher ups at the zoo, but something about swimming with the otters felt right, felt natural, it felt peaceful. Zoe headed off to the staff wardrobes to find a swimsuit for her to wear. The mere mention of Zoe swimming with the otters had some sort of effect on her mind, the more she focused on it, the more she wanted to just get straight into the water. Something about the water made Zoe so calm and tranquil, like she was supposed to be there, with the otters, just swimming around. Unaware to Zoe, her ears shrunk slowly, becoming smaller and smaller, and the placement of her ears moved up more, almost reaching the top of her head. Zoe made it into the wardrobes, grabbed the nearest swimsuit that fit, and ran back out to where the otte-ott-ot-oth-others were. The change in her genetic structure also affected her mind, slowly but surely, she was being changed.
Zoe reached the otter pool. Zoe smiled at the otters, showing off her newly developed, sharpened teeth. Zoe tried to put the swimsuit on. For some reason, Zoe found it harder than she ever had before. She had done it a bunch of times, why was it this confusing now? Stupid human clothes. She struggled and struggled, cursing these "humans" that she didn't understand and then later forgot who they were, but after several attempts, she couldn't get it. Annoyed by these rags that she tried to wear, she gave up even trying to put them on and instead dived straight into the water. The water felt so good on her skin, which was starting to sprout out small hairs out of her pores. The skin on her fingers started to merge together with the skin connecting them together. This didn't bother Zoe at all, she always had webbed fingers. Fingers? Finger-Fing-Fi-p-p-pa-paws. That's right. Paws. Webbed paws. Not... whatever the word... what was I... thinking of...? Zoe's nose darkened, becoming a jet black textured nose. Her face jutted out a bit, her eyes sinking in as her jaw stretched out, pushing out new whiskers on either side of her face. Her feet and hands started to push out pads on the ends of their fingers and toes. Zoe's confusion on what she was talking about left as soon as the other otters joined her. Soon, everything became a little clearer to her. Why she was here, what she was doing, it all made sense. She was here with her cousins. Something was pushing against her drenched clothing, trying to break out of the fabric. Her spine extended and was trying to escape from the remains of her human clothing. This annoyed Zoe as she ended up trying to rip off the clothing with her new darkened fingernails, which continued to sharpen themselves into claws. Finally, Zoe's brand new tail ripped through her work pants, as all her clothing slowly fell to the otter's pool floor. The hairs became fur and covered any and every part of Zoe's once human skin. Zoe's brain struggled to keep her humanity as her body shrunk to the average size of a female otter.
Zoe was happy. She was just swimming with her cousins. All peaceful. All tranquil. Minding her own business.
Another member of the zoo had fallen under the nanobot's "glitch", and soon others will follow. Who was next to change?