Of course the hole in Martin's chair had always been there, how else would he get his tail to fit in there.
"How is doll 323 doing anyway?" Davis asked, sitting away from the pair as the computer did its things with all the data his back pack had collected from the nature of the cascade. This was hardly the first time some idiot had tried to rewrite reality to their whims that got out of control, and it wouldn't be the last.
"Oh I don't call it that anymore," Martin said, his feet becoming white plastic fox feet that had never worn shoes. "It's called Lovely now. It really loved being named."
Steven said, "You do know it's just an object right? You can't be married to it anymore than you can be married to a toaster."
Martin laughed, his legs becoming shapely and neon pink, "That doesn't stop those guys in Japan from marrying their video game girlfriends."
"I still can't believe the Archive confirms that ISN'T a distortion!" Davis muttered downing a large bottle of water.
Martin's body between the legs became flat and smooth with white plastic as his body hollowed out, his waist becoming wasp thin. "The world is strange enough as is even WITHOUT the stuff we struggle every day to keep the buying public from knowing about... "
"Don't tell me you still believe that we should be more open," Davis asked.
"It would be a lot less trouble with all the resources we spend to make people think so much stuff doesn't exists." Martin said, as his chest balloon out into a pair of white nippleless breasts, his arms becoming slender and his hands becoming plastic paws with a thumb.
"It's for their own protection," Davis said, nothing to do now but shoot the breeze until the computer finished crunching the numbers.
Martin's head turned into a smooth bright pink plastic fox head. It continued to monitor things inside Pleasant Hills, seeing more and more Owners become more 'sisters.' "I know I'm just property, it's not my place to question anything, just obey. But I still think Owners would be safer if they KNEW about monsters out to get them."
"324, just focus on your job," Davis said.
"Objects can't have jobs. It's my Function."
"You know what I mean air-head!"
324 giggled good natured at the remark, what did it care about such things? Though it did hope its Owner could give it a name like Lovely had been given! (It looked just like Lovely except Lovely's eyes were blue while 324's were green).
'I just hope we figure out a way to fix this and fast, a world without Owners would be way too creepy for me!' It thought.
---
"The Hell?" Doll 34 said looking over its equipment. "We've just had two transformations according to the computer but there hasn't been any new information uploaded to the network!"
"Maybe we just aren't aware of it anymore?" Doll One asked.
"It's too soon for that! Ugh! Whatever. Doll Zero, make a note of it for later."
"Yes, Doll 34," it droned.
"And turn your personality overlay back on, if I had nerves it would be getting on me!"
"Okay madam! You got it!" Doll Zero cheered, saluting.
---
Amy still had no clue how that Doll, Emerald (Doll #118 but Emerald sounded better) could have possibly known anything about her, her name, her mission, her kinks, it made no sense.
Amy thought about her incomplete reality alteration into a vixen doll... She hadn't felt the urge to go to the bathroom since her change, so it seemed the little patch of her infected reality was taking care of that for her.
And while the spot of plastic did feel good... it was like a good massage. She felt no lust, no urges of any time, her initial transformation it was safe to say had made her asexual. What made her worried was how that DIDN'T worry her in the slightest.
But right now Amy had to deal with a trojan horse about to set foot inside DAMMIT itself. Amy was still reeling at what had happened.
Jeanette had said she'd gotten the choker from Boutique Plastique a few days ago, before it fused with her body and was retconned out of existence and Jeanette thought about getting one. And that Marth had done the same with his wife. Except there was no way the vector had even BEGUN a few days ago! Let alone have time to establish a brand: Boutique Plastique.
Had there been a jewelry store that had somehow been infected? But then every object EVER SOLD by the place would've been infected then. Except she still thought it was a 'new brand.' And who was the friend who had given Jeanette the infected choker?
Retroactive spreading cascade? She'd known it as cascading backwards, but she'd never heard of a reality cascade being able to spread its vectors in the PAST before!
Had Amy's VERY PRESENCE caused those objects to retroactive come into being to infect them in spite of her not being fully infect? ... By that logic, it might've been better for Amy to off herself, if that even STOPPED the infection... though most infections could do nothing to corpses as a matter of fact, since their soul was no longer on their plane of reality.
Amy was even more confused by Jeanette's actions. DAMMIT had dealt with infiltrator before, and doll 322 would KNOW that! She's also know that the Chief, being an undead mummy/ghost/lich/thing, was immune to such transformations! Part of the reason the chief was still in charge! Jeanette doing this made no sense from a tactical point of view.
DAMNIT as said had dealt with those who had gone straight for the throat before.
And there was Doll 322 just up ahead. She stopped in front of the security door which came with an card reader and automated machine guns poised (with silver and iron tipped bullets among-other-things magazines at the read) to kill at the first attempt at force, meddling, or failure of ID scan, etc.
"Uh oh!" Doll #322 said and turned around. "Oh! Hi! Amy! I think I've forgotten my ID card, I have no clue how THAT happened!"
Reality itself seemed to shimmer as existence itself realized this oversight and around 322's neck appeared a normal pentagon ID tag, with its name, age, etc, all on it... with 'Doll #322' of course and the picture of the rust colored plastic vixen on the card, its weight being a lot lower than before, among other things.
"DANG! My head IS empty... 'if it wasn't connected to my shoulders right? Happy I'm not a Dullahan!"
Doll #322 swiped her ID card and the door opened from the marked broom closet and into the basement hallways. The door closed immediately, Amy used her own card and quickly followed after, still wearing her backpack protecting her change from spreading further.
"You okay Amy? I can deliver my report to my Owner myself ya know."
This genuinely startled Amy, "Jeanette, I mean, Doll 322, who is your Owner?"
"The Chief of course! Duh! I'm their personal property, though I'm technically owned by DAMNIT," explained the hollow plastic fox. Then it shivered a bit. "But being owned by an organization or company without a soul... burr, it's inhuman I tell you!"
Amy asked carefully. "What do you think of what's happening in Pleasant Hills?"
"It can't get fixed soon enough! Personally, I find us owning ourselves to be depraved!" The doll shuddered. "We've objects! We're meant to be owned by humans! No humans means we can't even fulfill our purpose!"
Doll #322 looked like the idea of there being no humans to obey nearly gave her a panic attack.
Now Amy was REALLY confused. How was this possible? ... The mobile lab did have careful shielding against reality changes... but Jeanette's change had happened INSIDE the lab... did that mean that her transformation needed to have a different context?
The shielding prevented her from being filled in by the massive psychic wikipedia the dolls all had? If Amy fully transformed while in a shield, would she be the same way? She'd be herself, even if she didn't comprehend her existence was different? But she'd still be a vector, oblivious or not! Just like Doll #322 was a vector even if she didn't realize it!
... Speaking of which, a tabby cat rubbed against #322's leg... unlike humans, the transformation was as fast as lightning. Amy barely had time to notice what had happened before the bright red of the cat's collar spread across its entire body, becoming a red hollowed cat shaped mass of animation plastic.
Where before the cat had moved with the grace and entitlement that was typical of any feline, it now moved robotically, the meow it gave out sounding like a recording more than anything as it mindlessly went into stand-by mode.
'Well, it doesn't turn animals into intelligent fox armies... that's one less complication to worry about.'
So many groups and individuals, rather than create a means for humans to become human/animal hybrids (which DAMMIT WOULDN'T have meddled with since it wasn't an invasive change and wasn't a reality distortion cascade), they instead fixated on trying to turn animals into human/animal hybrids, thinking the end result would be exactly the same if they'd done so to a human.
Never mind the body mass ratio, the energy needed for growth, or that intelligence itself had to be developed not given. (AIs aiming to have real intelligence had to be nurtured into self-awareness.)
They never understood morality was a LEARNED trait. Prisons were full of rampaging sociopaths who'd been secretly uplifted animals who'd taken on a human appearance to better blend in (most of them rightfully on death row). The only ones who ever actually worked were ones raised from infancy to be people by people, like human beings.
Then again there were just as many people who there with a lot of power and lots of boredom who'd made a universe where the cat had become a fox doll just BECAUSE they were bored and knew it would get someone riled up. These universes tended to collapse into nothing after a brief time as they had no vision of their own, never mind there were already a million billion discovered timelines like that ALREADY and not every timeline in existence with humans transformed into hybrids had to have the same thing happen to animals.
Instead, the animal had been downgraded.
Now the former animal had all the intelligence and reason of your average (non-sentient) animatronic. Instead of being given sapience, it had been stripped of its sentience!
ANIMAL was no doubt already offering up the soul of one of their number to an Outer God to make YET ANOTHER timeline where the opposite had happened... ANIMAL had done more to threaten the fabric of reality than all of Dagon's modern day cultists. Most of their creations ended up eating them and then being gunned down by police.
Back on track, Doll #322's attitude all screamed 'benign.'
It was an unspoken rule to never speak of it, but DAMNIT had been forced to compromise before.
Amy remembered the war with the reality cascade Fae in Europe...after a rather bloody battle with high losses on both sides that the world was large was kept ignorant of like good little sheep... a secret treaty was signed, with the Fae's domain (just somewhat larger than Vatican city by human standards but the Fae being doll size it was considerably larger for them) being recognized by the shadow governments as its own sovereign territory with anyone who wandered in as fair game for the fairies to retcon to their numbers with Fae vowing not to expand their territory more (and a Fae's word was UNBREAKABLE!).
The secret legal recognizing of Cartoon-Town, USA had gone down infinitely smoother due to the cartoons, being cartoons, were immortal and not holding a grudge when the government tried to bomb them out of existence. After all, due to the laws of cartoons, they didn't need to expand to make their domain as large as they wanted on the inside.
And Plush-Land hidden just above the cloud-layer and a perception filter had fiercely defended its right to exist and to offer a better life to the disenfranchised members of humanity... Though tensions still ran high.
'Ugh! I need to explain this to her, it!' "Jeanette, ugh, I mean Doll #322, I need you!"
"Sorry Amy but I don't swing that way, or ANY way for that matter!"
"I DON'T MEAN LIKE THAT! And I'm dating Davis!"
"Excuse me miss, have you see my cat doll?" Called a young child's voice. Both turned to the little boy, a stray from one of the tours who had followed his pet (heads would roll at security next morning).
"Oh here you go kid," Doll #322 said, picking up the non-sentient plaything and giving it to the boy before patting him on the head. His head already began changing becoming a hollow bright red fox head devoid of hair, unblinking painted eyes looking up at them as the transform finished.
The child became...