Peter finished signing the huge stack of wavers and releases, turned them in, and shook out the cramp in his hand. This definitely wasn't the sort of thing he was expecting to get into when he started looking for a way to pay tuition, but two months participating in this trial they were running and he'd be set for the next four years. The place was called TF Park North America, and the pitch was pretty out there. Apparently, these people had just finished developing... something. It was all kinds of proprietary, they wouldn't go into any details, but the idea was, there's a booth, you step in, it "scans you," and then it does... something, and you walk out as some sort of anthropomorphic animal. Peter wouldn't have believed for a second anything like that was really possible, but they brought in a guy at the initial orientation who was just a straight up humanoid husky, and that was pretty hard to argue with.
Fortunately, this wasn't really the EARLIEST testing Peter was signing up for. They'd apparently done some animal testing (well, this here was still "animal testing" in a sense for a few months, and every form the booth was programmed with had been tested on at least one actual human to make sure that it didn't just straight up kill people or turn their brains to mush or anything. That was all apparently totally sorted out. The goals here, apparently, before they opened the park to the general public, were to make sure they had enough test subjects to be sure it didn't have weird side effects on people with certain blood types or whatever, and "long term stability." They were a little vague on that, but basically it sounded like they wanted to make sure conditions in the park were livable, like fur being enough to shrug off rain, having the right sorts of plants or game animals to eat, stuff like that, and there wasn't any weird stuff that only happened to you after you'd been a deer or whatever for a couple weeks that they didn't know about yet.
It did still seem a bit risky, and Peter was having second thoughts filling out the paperwork, but... the pay was REALLY good, and he needed the money. Seemed like that was the case for all the other guys signing up too. Which made sense. Either you needed a lot of cash or you were a real hardcore furry for this sort of thing. Too late to back out now in any case. Peter stepped into the little changing room, took off all his clothes, put everything he had with him in a suitcase he'd get back when this was over, took a deep breath, and stepped into the booth proper. It seemed like just two doors and a touch screen. He'd been thinking all day about what sort of animal he was going to turn into, but looking at the screen, it seemed like he didn't have a choice.
ONCE THE PARK IS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, VISITORS WILL BE ABLE TO SELECT ANY SPECIES AND GENDER THEY WISH FOR THE DURATION OF THEIR STAY. TO ENSURE A PROPER BALANCE OF MEN AND WOMEN FOR SPECIES HOWEVER, FOR THIS TEST ALL FORMS ARE PREDETERMINED. TOUCH ANYWHERE TO BEGIN.
That bit wasn't covered in the orientation. Peter didn't really have any super strong opinions on what he wanted to be, but figured they could have at least had a sign up form to claim slots. As is, it seemed to just be luck of the draw. Peter shrugged and pressed the button.
For some reason he'd assumed everything would just be instantaneous, but it took a few minutes. There was no pain, but it was still a bit disconcerting as his bones and muscles started to rearrange themselves, and his body started to grow a full coat of fur. Shame there was no mirror to really keep track of things, he'd just have to work out what he was becoming from looking down and feeling around. The way the booth was designed though, there was no going back regardless. Unless something went seriously wrong, from here he had no choice but to let the process finish, and step through the door to the human-free park interior were he'd spend the next two months as a...