“Fuck…what do we do now?” inquired Terry as he looked at the phone which had locked back up again so it was next to useless until someone called.
“I don’t know, wait until they call back.” Offered Jack
They didn’t have to wait long but it wasn’t a call but instead the door to the shower/locker room opening up.
Instead of a human walking in, in came basically a forklift about the size of a shopping cart with a long cable at the end and behind it came rolling in. Mostly likely by some humans two large containment vessels which looked like giant tubes with open tops that could be closed. They were made of some kind of plastic and looked able to bend, they had to or there was no way they could have gotten into the room.
Each one had to be between 12 and 15 feet long and they were half filled with water.
CDC containment vessel was written on the side in bold blue letters while the whole thing was painted a bright neon yellow.
“Please remain calm…we are going to transport you to a center for treatment.” Said a voice from the robot forklift as it moved toward Jack. He, she was closest to the door. “Identify yourself.”
Jack gave his name and some information, age, original gender, height and weight and then with care the forklift moved forward. Instead of metal forks they where plastic and spread out extremely far, far enough to get to about Jack’s lower back and where his knees would have been. His tail being so flexible that didn’t matter but it still made some sense.
With great care the robot, lifted Jack up and moved back toward the 1st containment pod. It tilted up a bit and let Jack roll into the pod before the pod shut.
Once done men, in CDC hazmat suits came in and sprayed down the containment pod with something which smelled horrible, likely a decontaminant before wheeling out the pod.
Then it was his turn.
It was a repeat of the what happened to Jack.
Terry was lifted up in the air and he held onto the robot like a wife hanging on a husband as he carried her across the room toward the bedroom.
Weight…332 pounds.” Said the robot as Terry blinked…how in the hell could he weigh that amount, if he saw a normal woman who had his top half he would have guessed her weight to be under a 100 pounds. Then he looked at the tail, the long tail which was thick with muscle, almost 200 pounds worth of muscle.
The robot lowered him down into the pod which was closed and he was isolated as the water came up to about the half way point. He could feel the top his head hitting the very end of end of the tank while his tail actually had to bend a bit to fit in the tank. It was an extremely long tail. The view outside was horrible but good enough to see the figures come in, clean off the tank before it started to move. The tank bent around corners with amazing easy and after a One really sharp turn he was back in the park and could see some of what was going on.
There where a lot of tanks like the one he was in and most of them where filled. He couldn’t make out much beyond a certain point but he did see a few people getting into tanks that still looked mostly human. He lied there for a while, not moving and just looking out the windows at the world, the sky had turned dark and while far away he though the clock on a desk read 10 or possibly 11. Considering he had come in at 930 am this morning meant he had been at the park for a long time.
“Tanker 5.” Yelled a voice as Terry began to move again, this time toward one of the tankers. Each tanker had a small lift which could host up said containment vessel and empty them into the larger truck.
It wasn’t fun, as he was dumped into the tank, falling a few feet into the water doing basically a mermaid belly flop.
“Fuck.” Cursed Terry, not realizing he hadn’t returned to the surface line and was actually speaking and breathing under water.
“No kidding.” Added Jack who was already in the tank but so far no one else was with them in the massive tank capable of holding 80 to 120 merpeople. The tanks had windows as well and they could see more containment vessels heading there way.
“I wonder who is about to join us?” inquired Jack