Errors flashed on the screen in quick succession as the computer tried to reconcile its input. Most of the problems that had been causing teleportation failure in living subjects had already been corrected, but teleporting two medium-sized mammals simultaneously was still going to be a gargantuan task for the experimental hardware and software.
*****
DEMATERIALIZATION SEQUENCE COMPLETE!
ANALYZING CHAMBER 1 PARTICLE DATA...
ERROR! FAILURE TO CREATE COHERENT MATTER-ENERGY PATTERN FOR SUBJECT.
DIAGNOSING... DIAGNOSING...
CONFLICTING SUBJECT IDENTIFICATION DATA IRRECONCILABLE:
--> PROFILE 1225, OPTION 1: HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS, DIMINUTIVE, FEMALE, YOUNG ADULT
--> PROFILE 1225, OPTION 2: CANIS LUPUS FAMILIARIS, LARGE, MALE, YOUNG ADULT
PRESS F1 OR F2 TO MANUALLY SELECT THE CORRECT OPTION OR ESC TO CANCEL (WITHIN 60 SEC):
WARNING, ONLY 20 SECONDS LEFT, PRESS F1, F2 OR ESC:
TIMEOUT! NO MANUAL INPUT AVAILABLE. REATTEMPTING PATTERN RECOVERY... FAILED!
* AUTO-SELECTING OPTION 1 --> READY!
PREPARING TO REASSEMBLE SPECIMEN (H. SAPIENS)... UNABLE! EXTRANEOUS MASS DETECTED.
* FALLBACK: AUTO-SELECTING OPTION 2 --> READY!
PREPARING TO REASSEMBLE SPECIMEN (C. LUPUS)... UNABLE! EXTRANEOUS MASS DETECTED.
*****
The failure to confidently rematerialize either a human or a dog in the exit chamber was, figuratively, messing with the computer's mind. It was a lot like the time when Shelly had tried to teleport a petunia while a piece of leftover cat-hair was still in the chamber. Usually, slight differences in subject data are assumed to be errors and averaged out to produce an intermediate pattern which will hopefully be close enough, but this is understandably unreliable with entirely different patterns from two different species. The cat-hair/petunia incident had produced a pile of hairy leaves with no detectable cellular activity. After that, the intermediate pattern generator had been buried under extra self-correction process to be left as a last resort. Fortunately, this time, the computer had access to heuristics to predict possibly fatal anatomical errors within a proposed reassembly pattern.
*****
PATTERN RECOVERY, FINAL ATTEMPT: INTERMEDIATE PATTERN CONSTRUCTED:
--> PROFILE 1225: UNKNOWN MAMMAL, BIPEDAL, 1.72 METERS, HERMAPHRODITIC
PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE OR ESC TO FREE RESOURCES AND EXIT (WITHIN 60 SEC):
TIMEOUT! NO MANUAL INPUT AVAILABLE. PROCEEDING TO REASSEMBLY (DEFAULT).
PREPARING TO REASSEMBLE SPECIMEN (UNKNOWN SPECIES)...
WARNING! ANATOMICAL DEFECTS DETECTED. RECONFIGURING PATTERN... DONE!
PREPARING TO REASSEMBLE SPECIMEN (UNKNOWN SPECIES)... SUCCESS!
THANK YOU FOR USING "SHELPORT" TRANSFER SYSTEM, VERSION 0.9.83142
TO NOTATE CHANGES FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT, PRESS F5. OTHERWISE, PRESS ESC.
*****
A loud groan emerged from Chamber 2. A mysterious being stood up off the floor, rubbing its aching head with its clawed, furry hands.
"Ooohhh, what in the world was that? Where am I? Who am I?"
A bunch of memories started entering the creature's mind.
"Oh yeah, I was trying to get away from that horrible woman who caged me up so I could go back to my master and we could find more of those smells that bad guys try to hide from me. Then she locked us both in that horrible chamber! I'm a ... cop of some sort? Wait, no. I'm a scientist, right? I was doing something with a large dog I borrowed from my boyfriend's job... *gasp* The teleporter!"
The creature burst through the chamber door and ran on its two rear paws to the computer console. Seeing that reassembly had been a success, the creature started to wag its tail.
"Yes! It worked! I'm a genius! I'm alive. But what happened to the woman? I mean, what happened to the dog? After all, I am the... I mean, what am I?"
The creature looked over its strange body, examining its thumbs, its claws, its beautiful black-and-brown coat, it's vaguely human-like legs, and last but definitely not least, it's prized possession, its tail. "It's a good thing I didn't lose that in transport!" the creature said, wagging it. Everything seemed to be in order, and yet almost everything about this body felt out-of-place somehow. Looking over the transport logs, the creature flattened its ears at it finally realized what happened.
"I ... I'm a fusion. The creature averaged out my pattern with the dog, I mean, with the woman, I mean--the computer fused Shelly and the police dog, so I'm both of them! And we actually survived that?!"
Remembering that it had been male as a dog and female as Shelly, the creature opened its labcoat and undid its pants to try to figure out which sex it was now. It touched its sheathed penis, partially thankful that it had retained its familiar genitalia, and partially disgusted that it had a dog's penis attached to its body. Wondering what else might be down there, it rubbed lower and found its human vagina.
"I'm a herm?! ... Oh yeah, here's where the computer said it was making me a herm now."
The hermaphroditic being covered its dual genitals and made its way to the door. It had to get back to Officer Rico Sanchez, because both Shelly and the dog knew it belonged with him. The hard part was going to be explaining to Rico that his K-9 partner and his genius girlfriend were now a single being.