Ryan mulled over his choices. He couldn't really tell what any of them did as they all looked like standard wet-suits, just in different colors. Ryan eventually settled on a dark blue wet-suit with a hood, long sleeves, and built in flippers.
"Alright this is the one." He said as he brought it back over to Bill.
"Ah yes, this is a fun one, very complex too."
"It doesn't look that complicated." Ryan replied.
"Trust me, you'll be in for a show." Bill responded. "So why don't you suit up and head on over to the water. Just don't pull the hood on yet."
Ryan did as instructed as he stripped down to his underwear and stepped into the pants of the wet-suit, sliding his feet into the flippers. He then proceeded to pull the top of the suit up over his shoulders and sliding his arms into place and zipping the front closed. Ryan then waddled over to the group discussing near the shore line. It was difficult to walk what with the flippers but not cumbersome.
"Alright I'm ready!"
"Good! Here take this." One of the members, named Kevin, handed Kyle an earpiece. "Just so we can keep in touch when you go under. It's got a microphone built into it and everything, and it should merge into the suit when you transform." Ryan did not like the sound of that "should".
"Alright, well that should be everything. Remember we are testing longevity, so you might be out there for a couple of hours. Good luck and most importantly have fun."
Ryan nodded and waded out into the ocean, he made it to about waist deep water then turned around. "So how am I supposed to go about this transformation?"
Bill yelled back to him, "You want to be in deeper water, to about where you can't touch anymore, then pull your hood over!"
Ryan turned back facing the horizon and began paddling and kicking his way towards less shallow ground. A few minutes later Ryan heard a ringing in his ear, "Check check, Ryan do you copy?'
He stopped paddling, noticing that he could no longer feel the bottom of the ocean floor and was treading water. Even with the added length of the flippers he couldn't feel anything. "Yeah I copy." He said back.
"Just doing a mic check, are you deep enough yet?"
"Yeah I should be." Ryan responded.
"Alright, let the test begin!"
Ryan pulled the hood over his scalp as he dove deep into the water and immediately felt energy surge through his body. The hood covered his whole head with the exception of the face. The first thing Ryan noticed was the suit seemed to be crawling up his hands and over his fingertips. The suit was doing a similar action to his face, but he could not see this. The suit seemed to be becoming more and more bearable, far more comfortable. Ryan went to pinch a piece of the suit only to find that it felt just like skin, and he could feel through the suit; his hand, the water rushing around him, it was as if the surface of the suit become one with his skin.
Which is exactly what happened, though far stranger changes where occurring underneath the surface. "This is pretty freaky guys." Ryan said. "It's never not weird the first time.", the radio responded back. Though the voice sounded like it was coming from within Ryan's head. He reached a hand up to his ear where the earpiece sat only to find that where his ears had once been had been smoothed over completely, earpiece included. His short brown hair also seemed nonexistent, he had a perfectly smoothed-over dark blue scalp. Though Ryan could not see it, his whole head had been embraced by the dark blue of the wet-suit. He appeared to have dark blue skin all over his body.
As Ryan was examining his head he noticed everything began getting brighter, the ocean seemed to be loosing it's dark and murky qualities. Ryan looked around and noticed he was suspended about half way in about 25 feet deep water, this is also when he realized he was breathing under water without any trouble. Seemingly still breathing through the nose and mouth. "I can see a lot better now guys." Ryan noted. "Good to hear." The voice inside his head replied."Your eyes must have just changed to fit a more aquatic environment, everything is working as planned." They where right, the whites of Ryan's eyes had darkened severely while the irises had lost their brown hue and opted for a far more iridescent blue color, one that stood out like headlights amid his dark navy-blue body.
The next change Ryan noticed was that the flippers on his feet appeared to have enlarged quite a bit. Over double there original size. Upon closer inspection Ryan realized that the flippers had entirely replaced his feet, as they where pointing straight down and seemed to be on their own joint. There was no feet hiding inside them, they where the ends of Ryan's legs, flesh, blood, and bone. Ryan's legs and arms where also undergoing a strange transformation. The bones inside them seemed to begin to disintegrate. While this was true for his arms, his legs where just becoming vertebrate like the tail of aquatic mammals or fish. Flesh began forming between Ryan's fingers, giving them a webbed appearance as the bones in his fingers too, seemingly vanished.
The fleshy leaves that where once Ryan's hands grew a bit in size, while still maintaining a coherent shape with his increasingly more flexible arms. Ryan's legs where also becomingly more and more flexible, but more interestingly the separation between his two legs seemed to be slowly disappearing, as if the gap was closing from the top down like a zipper. Ryan watched in awe as his once two separate legs merged into one. The legs where still stiff as the bones had yet to fuse completely together down the middle, though they where still separated below where Ryan's knee's used to be. The fins at the end of his appendages also appeared to each look like half of a mermaid tail.
"How are things going down there Ryan?" The radio chimed in, this time a new voice, Steven, one of the other grad students.
"Oh, It's pretty good. I was kind of expecting to have two legs when this was over given the suit I grabbed but, that's not what I got." He said trying to hide the excitement of having such a strange and different transformation.
"Oh yeah, what did you end up with? Mermaid tail? Tentacles? Jellyfish lower half?", Steven replied.
"Mermaid tail I assume. You guys seriously have those as options too?" Ryan responded surprised.
"Oh yeah, we've got a couple more than that too. Different modes of propulsion need to be tested."
"I mean I guess..." Ryan paused,"What the hell?"
"Hm?" The radio replied back.
Ryan noticed as he was looking down at his changing legs a subtle change occurring in his chest. He watched closely as his chest began to fill out and expand. Ryan attempted to move one of his "arms" to touch the new mass, but they proved too cumbersome to control so acutely. The arms at this point seemed more like tentacles with flat fins on the end. Great for propelling through water, not so great for using them as grasping appendages. Ryan managed to contort the tentacles in a specific manner where he could push the chest flesh inward. He discovered that there where two distinct spherical masses attached to his bust, much like women's breasts.
"Ryan, what is it? Steven belted. Ryan couldn't tell if he had been ignoring his voice for the last few seconds or if he hadn't said anything.
"Is there any reason why i'm growing breasts?" Ryan asked.
"Oh we don't have a lot of those suits. We ended up having to add those to some of the suits as a ballast, so we could keep a good diving equilibrium. That or it was for our...", He paused. "Ryan can you describe the suit you're wearing to me for a second."
"Um lets see. Dark blue in color, mermaid tail bottom. The arms are kind of like really long flexible fins themselves. No sign of gills or anything, like i'm breathing in through my nose normally. Decently sized breasts floating right in front of me." He said that last part passive aggressively.
"Ok what about head features?" Steven replied in a rushed manner.
"I don't think there are any head feat-", Ryan said as he brushed one of his elongated fins above his head, only to discover that he did in fact have head features now. "I don't know when these appeared, but I seem to have a fin running down the middle of my scalp and fins where my ears used to be."
"Just one moment Ryan." He heard the sound of a headset being taken off of one's head and set down. Now Ryan was along again in the deep with only his thoughts and an ever changing body. By now the basic shape of his tail had formed and seemed to be about five feet long. Still a little stiff from from the bones not finished fusing. The fins on the tail where also quite big, adding about another two feet of length. The arms had thinned down quite a bit and also grew to a fairly long length. Almost five feet long if they where laid out straight, though they floated leisurely at the sides of Ryan's body. The breasts had also reached quite an amicable size. Ryan couldn't tell if it was just the buoyancy in the water or if they where just big. But nonetheless, he would be impressed, if they weren't attached to his body.
Just then Ryan heard the communication headset being picked back up. "Ok Ryan, I'm back." Steven's voice echoed through Ryan's head. "So I have some news. It's not necessarily good or bad news, so I'll just get into it. With the description you gave me and from process of elimination on which suits aren't still up here, It appears you took our Aquatica-527RF model. Which has features specifically designed to research one thing." He paused. "Fish reproduction." Steven paused again.
"Sooooooo?", Ryan replied idly.
"This is one of the suits we've designed that alters the wearers 23rd chromosome in order to study fish reproduction up close and personal we have a male variant as well with a working reproductive system. You just happened to grab the wrong one."
"Wh-", Ryan began to reply before he was cut off by Steven, "Now I know what your thinking, no you're not going to stay female once you take the suit off... That being said, until the test is over you are technically genetically female."
"Why the hell would you make a suit for studying fish sex!?" Ryan replied.
"Oh don't give me that bull. You would agree it would be legitimate research if you weren't forced into that situation. Now I've got a couple of other things for note. Let us know if there are any other transformational developments in regards to your gender. We've never tested this suit out on members of the opposite sex before."
"I thought Bill said he used this one, he referenced it personally when I picked it out."
"We where all under the impression you picked the male variation of the suit. None of us thought we brought the female variant. When you said you where growing breasts that was cause for red alarm up here since the male variant doesn't have those. Anyways we need you to report in any other gender specific transformations or if you have the need to give into any feminine urges. I believe I've already noticed your voice was higher pitch."
"I-" Ryan heard it too, the slight pitch increase. "Copy over and out." The radio remained silent afterword. Ryan looked down at his, or more accurately her alien body.
I can't believe this. I can't believe they made a suit specifically for this purpose, and I can't believe that i'm wearing it. Ryan thought. It's so hard to tell, or more accurately, to notice the minute changes that come with changing sexes when your whole body is already completely different. But man if this suit wasn't already the strangest experience I've ever felt, now I'm female. What a rush!
For someone like Ryan who relished in the thought of such transformations, the gender switch was really only an added bonus, the icing on the cake.
God, is it weird that the whole gender thing is only making me enjoy this more. I mean, I can't even notice any differences, except for the breasts obviously, but just the fact that I know that is really... Wait, this couldn't be the "feminine urges" they where talking about. Could it? I'll need to take my mind off of that subject then. Um, well It seems that my transformation is more or less finished. I could probably start heading for deeper water. I just need to figure out how this body is supposed to move.
"Hey I'm-" Ryan was cut off short. Man, it feels like there's a frog in my throat. "I'm goin-" Ryan paused again. What the hell is that.
"Hey Ryan, you sound like a girl." It was Bill on the other end of the radio.
"Well apparently I am one.", replied Ryan in a newly acquired voice.
"Yeah I'm sorry about that. I shouldn't have been secretive with the effects of the suits, I just wanted to surprise you. I had no idea the suit you grabbed was that suit. So I guess I really did end up surprising you."
"Yeah, It's fine, I guess."
"So what's up, you called in?"
"Right. Yes. I think the transformation is complete, and I'm going to begin heading for deeper water." The feminine voice replied.
"Alright, sounds good. We'll jot down the transformation timestamp up here. Just remember Ryan your arm flipper things are pretty powerful. Don't neglect them. They're pretty useful for turning and propelling yourself with breast-strokes. Use the tail for most of your movement though. It's not like legs with a one-way joint half way down, it's much more fluid so it's going to take some getting used to."
"I'll try my best." Ryan responded as she aligned herself parallel with the ocean floor and gave one good thrust with her "arms" sending her forward at a decent speed. She began gyrating her tail in a very fluid and graceful manner causing her to gain speed and fly across the ocean floor.
Ryan could feel the water rush in and around her fins as her tentacles lay at her sides, held back by the oncoming current. This is amazing! I have the whole of the Ocean to explore with no limitations but how far I'm willing to go. I have an amazing body to explore with, one that feels totally alien to me. If only I was getting paid to do this.
Ryan must've swam out for a good twenty minutes before the radio chimed in.