This had been Tiffany's first week of shooting. It was fun, but also very demanding. And that was as it should be. After all,Tiffany was making history—just like Nichelle Nichols had as Lt. Uhura on
Star Trek
. She was actually appearing on TV
as
a Changed—though her fellow actors and most of the production crew still saw her human ghost-image. Not that this was an entirely new thing; most actors were used to the idea of human actors standing in for CGI characters.What was new was that, in this case, the "CGI" was done "in-camera". The shoot crew had somehow managed to borrow avery special polarized camera lens that, like the Secret Service sunglasses Judith had used, was able to see her as she reallywas. Just how special was emphasized by the way it was watched over at all times by three plainclothes security detectives,who kept getting in the way of the production crew. When not in use, it went into a special locked strongbox.The story was presented in a pretty clever way, Tiffany thought. (
As if they require your approval, you silly actress,
shereminded herself.) They used the special lens so that she showed up as her tigress self to viewers, but she still looked humanto all the other characters in the soap. They'd emphasized this by doing some superimposes and intercut shots from other characters' perspectives, showing them talking to a human stand-in. (The stand-in didn't even look much like Tiffany's realghost—but since Tiffany's real ghost wouldn't ever appear on screen, she supposed that was all right.) That it was natural for the other actors to talk to her neck (since that was where the face they could see was) only made it feel more authentic.The plot was drawn from the accounts of Changed who had gone public with their stories—dramatizing how they had tohide their differences, their uncertainty over whether and how to tell their families about the "new them". Sometimes it was played for laughs, other times for pathos. Tiffany's favorite scene so far had been the one where she had saved JoeyBuchanan from being mugged. It had been tricky to film—even clipped, her claws could still be dangerous—but workingwith the bags of fake blood had been fun, and the bit where Joey started to figure out there was something not quite normalabout "Felice Hunter" was the kind of scene every actor dreams of.And Nathan Fillion had been a joy to work with, too—not at all the egotistical lout from the
Dr. Horrible
musicalcommentary track. He was fascinated by her furry self, and was trying to find a way to see her "real" self without needing towatch monitor playback. She wondered if he was working up his nerve to ask her out.The hallway outside Tiffany's apartment was dim, but that was all right with Tiffany's tiger eyes. As she made her waytoward the door and fumbled in her trenchcoat pocket for her keys, her nose wrinkled and she frowned. She knew the scentsof all the neighbors on her floor. But there was a scent of someone else here…someone recent. Did she have a stalker or something?Tiffany was just starting to reach for the cellphone in her pocket when the first tranquilizer dart hit her.A pounding headache. That was the first thing Tiffany felt. It was all she felt. It was all she
was
. Then gradually other sensations began to separate themselves out. She had a body. That ached, too.And she had a stomach, and everything inside of it wanted badly to come out. Tiffany rolled over on her side, gagged,retched, and vomited onto the floor."There, there. It's all right. Just take it easy," a calm female voice said next to her, soothingly. "The tranquilizers take us allthat way, when they wear off."Tiffany jerked her head upright, ears twitching. "What—who—?" she sputtered. "Gack." She spat, trying to get the taste of her own bile out of her mouth. She sneezed at the acrid odor of it.
Why did puke never smell this bad before I Changed?
"Here." A pair of white-furred hands brought a metal cup into Tiffany's field of vision. It was full of water. Tiffany took itgratefully, rinsed, and spat. Then she turned to face the person who'd given it to her. It was a snow leopardess Changed,kneeling by the makeshift cot where Tiffany was lying. She had deep ice-blue eyes, long silvery hair, and fluffy grey-and-white fur. She was also completely naked—and so, Tiffany realized a moment later, was she."What the hell's going on?" Tiffany growled.
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I wish I could replace the "dumbquotes" in the story proper with properly curly quotes. But OpenOffice autoformat just isn't doing it, and I didn't feel like S&R'ing everything.