A story for Shark Week! \O/
Owing money to the loan sharks can be bad news, and when you become too sick to do your job then it becomes even worse...

I hope you all enjoy, and I would love to hear what you all think! ^_^

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Outside the futuristic world rushed as robots flew around to do their owners’ bidding, and cars flew high in the sky over the sky walks. Inside of a small apartment a phone started ringing, it was the phone call that Lou had been had been both expecting, and dreading. Lou picked up the phone and with a small voice he answered. “Hello?”

“Lou, I have to talk to you about something,” the voice answered, and Lou knew who it was immediately. It was his boss, and as of late Lou had been very sick with a virus that wouldn’t clear up with however much medicine the bots had been giving him.

“Yeah boss?” Lou coughed, his heart thumping hard in his chest. He’d been out of work for three months because of this stupid virus, and no matter how hard he tried it wouldn’t clear up, and though his boss understood he’d been essentially getting pay for three months for doing nothing but lie in bed sick.

There was a sigh on the other side of the phone, and Lou found himself biting his cheek. “Lou, I know that you’re sick, and I hate to do this to you. We’ve got to let go of some of our workers as it’s been hard with it being summer, and as you’ve been sick for three months…”

Tears flowed down Lou’s cheeks, and he was thankful that he hadn’t done a video call. “You’re letting me go,” he said, the words a statement rather than a question.

“Yeah, but we won’t leave you completely dry. As you’ve been sick we can’t just say that you’re a bad worker as you’ve proven to us that you’re very dedicated, so we’ll be giving you eight hundred to help you for a little while. We’re sorry we can’t do more,” his boss said, and after a moment’s goodbye he hung up.

Lou was happy that his boss had left him some money, but it wouldn’t matter since he owed a lot of money to the loan sharks. As Lou sat up he expected the usual dizziness that he’d been feeling for three months, but it didn’t happen. He blinked in confusion as he stood up and walked over to a mirror, and saw that his pale face had suddenly filled with life. “What in the…?” he asked, confusion running through him.

The man was completely crushed that he’d been fired, but his body instead of staying in the sick shape it had been had spontaneously become better. “Med Robot, can you come over here?” he asked, and from the wall a panel slid down and revealed a medical robot that had been taking care of him for three months straight.

“Yes sir?” it asked, the synthesized voice was a constant sympathetic tone, but that was for the sick person to feel better thinking that someone was there who cared, but the robot cared as much as one could expect from a robot.

“Give me a checkup,” Lou said, panic reaching into him as the robot floated around him and quickly gave him a scan. Could it be that the loan sharks… no… why would they do something to him to have them lose out on money? He’d borrowed the money as a way to get his current apartment as he had started off with very little credit, and as such he hadn’t been able to get an ordinary loan,

“Sir, wonderful news. You are now free of the infection that has been keeping you sick for the last three months,” the robot said, its voice slightly perking up into a cheerful one even though Lou knew it was just programmed in.

“As soon as I lost my job… it went away?” Lou asked, walking over to his bed he fell back onto it with his head in hands. “I can’t keep paying the sharks if I don’t have income… what… what am I going to do?”

The phone started to ring again, and with a numbness encroaching into his limbs Lou was able to barely pick up the phone. “Lou, my pal. I was wonderin’ if you had my money for this month,” Jimmy’s voice came over the phone, Lou clenched the small phone tightly nearly shattering the transparent phone.

“Y… yeah, of course I do Jimmy. Fi… five hundred, right?” Lou asked, happy that his boss had given him a hefty amount of money for the service he’d done in the past.

He heard a hiss of air between teeth from Jimmy. “I thought I told ya, Lou old pal. We had to raise the price this month on account of recent money concerns, so we actually need a thousand from ya,” Jimmy said, and Lou dropped the phone to the floor as he realized what it meant. “Lou, ya there?” he heard Jimmy’s voice, but didn’t reply as he felt his body suddenly rush with adrenaline as he knew that he had to get out of his place now and run.

With a sudden stomp of his foot, Lou stomped on the phone shattering it before sprinting into his closet and pulling out some clothes and emptying out his trash bag of garbage and stuffing it full of clothes. He didn’t care about all of the stuff in his house, all he cared about was getting out before the sharks made it to his place. “O… out the window,” he said to himself, he couldn’t afford being spotted by anybody on the way out.

Sliding his window open, Lou slipped out and hopped onto the fire escape nearly to be blown away by nearby flying cars. “Forgot how windy it is up here…” Lou said, and with a quick tug on the bag’s drawstrings he closed it up knowing that with the mesh material it could take a beating. “Okay, gotta go now,” he said, and with quick movements he went down the ladder. He had to say this about the virus, he was glad that it had cleared up so quickly rather than having a slow turn off.

The city was bustling even at night, and Lou was careful as he landed on the ground not to alert too many people to his presence. Though truth be told since they had installed the upper sidewalks that connected from building top to building top not many people used the ground anymore, but Lou wasn’t complaining. Sprinting from shadow to shadow Lou thought over his options, he could likely get out if he used the tram system as they were a bit outdated and the loaners were prone to using cars.

“I’ve got plenty of money for a ticket,” Lou reassured himself, thinking of ways to get rid of his current identity and making a new one were springing to mind as he sprinted towards the tram station. As he walked in he tried to look calm as he slid his card over the ticket scanner, but as he waited for the ticket it rang with a declined tone.

“We’re sorry, but your card currently has no money. Please try with another, or pay with cash,” the machine stated in a cold, but oddly satisfied tone.

Lou felt his heart stop as he remembered that he had patched his account to automatically transfer the funds to the loaners whenever it was time for payment. “Oh no…” he whispered, and smashed his hand into the machine causing it to ring with annoyance.

“Please step away from the machine as he won’t approve of violence towards the mechanical populace of the city, and if you injure this machine again we will have to resort to…” The words were lost on Lou though as he was already out of the tram station running towards the police. If he couldn’t pay them back then he’d much rather prefer incarceration for protection instead of being beaten, or even killed by them.

Running into the office he panted heavily as the woman at the desk looked up at him with a disgusted grunt. “Excuse me sir, is there something I can do for you?” she asked, looking up and down his disheveled form with ire.

“I… I’m being chased by the loaners… I… I need help… please,” he begged, the woman waited for a moment before nodding slowly.

“Alright, please follow me, Lou,” she said, and he followed behind thankful that she was being so helpful.

“Thank you soooo much, officer. I’ve been paying them back as much as I could, but… but…” He slowed down as he realized something. “Hey… how did you know my name?” he asked, but he didn’t get an answer as he felt something poke against his neck and volts were sent through his system knocking him unconscious.

***

Waking up Lou felt his body tingle slightly as he tried to open his eyes, but everything was unfocused as he tried to look around. “Ughhh…” he groaned, trying to form words was hard as it felt like the words trying to reach his mouth didn’t quite make it.

“Oh look who’s awake,” a voice said from behind him, a heavy hand patting him on the arm as he tried to see who it was, but his eyes wouldn’t focus so everything looked like a big blur. “Sorry if you can’t say much, or see much for that matter bud, but with that neuro scrambler it messes with all of your brain’s functions,” the voice chuckled, and though Lou could understand it his head hurt just understanding the words.

“Ugh?” Lou groaned, wondering what had happened.

“You weren’t very smart running like that, Lou. Breaking your phone was a sure sign that you were running, and it’s a dang good thing that we have plants everywhere,” the voice chuckled, and Lou could only groan as his head ached. The scrambler was doing a number on him as even moving his fingers or head was an effort as the signals were disjointed so his movements were erratic. “Now I’m sure you know that you owe us quite a bit of money, Lou.”

Lou nodded his head slightly, though it came out far more jerky than he intended. “Blussy…” he murmured, an attempt at an apology but from the deep chuckling of the gangster it was obvious that he wasn’t exactly angry about the situation.

Gripping Lou’s arm with surprisingly sharp fingernails the gangster’s chuckling grew into an almost manic laugh. “Oh Lou, I’m sure you’ve figured it out, but we intended for this to be how it all turned out.”

“Ugh?” Lou asked, the thought had crossed his mind but it still didn’t make sense to him why they would purposely lose out on money.

“You see my dear friend, we’re an enterprise of Loan Sharks, and to get more money we need more Sharks,” the gangster chuckled, and Lou felt a growing anxiety as he tried to tug away from the grip, but as he heard the fabric of his shirt get ripped he realized that the man must have pulled a knife and had cut through his shirt. “When I say Sharks, you probably think just pushy loaners, but I mean it quite literally my friend,” the man said, and confusion rushed through Lou as he felt something on the back of his neck get pulled off and suddenly the world was flushed with clarity.

“Wh… what…?” Lou asked, his body finally coming back under his control. Stepping in front of him was a anthro shark, and if that wasn’t weird enough on his eyes appeared to be a pair of glowing goggles with headsets that seemed to fuse right into the sides of his head. “What are you?”

“I’m Jimmy, as I’m sure you know. Though I look a bit different than you would’ve imagined I’m sure,” he chuckled, his teeth glinting in the blue light of the room. Through the transparent lenses of the goggles he could see the shark creature’s eyes, but they seemed to spiral with a hypnotic ring. “Now Lou, you haven’t paid your money, and as you tried to run and you have no job well… I guess you’re going to have to repay us through becoming a loan shark.”

“No!” Lou shouted, trying to pull his arms up but they were tightly strapped down to the metal chair, and the bands were a special polymer that were near impossible to break unless you happened to be superman. “Jimmy, let me go. I swear to God I’ll pay you back,” he begged, hoping that the shark would listen to him.

The pleading didn’t though as the shark turned around and opened up a briefcase holding a pair of goggles similar to the shark’s own. “Lou, welcome to the business,” Jimmy chuckled, and slipped the transparent goggles over Lou’s eyes until the headphones latched right onto his ears and with a painful snap he felt needles push into his skin and sucked the goggles onto his head permanently.

At first nothing happened until some words crossed across the screen. “Welcome to the Loan Sharks,” it read, and suddenly the screen lit up into a bright spiral of colors as inside of the headphones something injected into his ear and Lou felt his body go rigid as his muscles tensed and his skin started to flake away to reveal black smooth skin similar to Jimmy’s own. Lou couldn’t see that though as he tried to look away from the glowing of the goggles, but as the goggles stretched from ear to ear fitting perfectly to his face there was no escaping the glow. “Get these off of me,” he said, but his words were muffled to him through the earpieces.

His muscles rippled and more and more human skin flaked off as the human started to change into another shark, and though he couldn’t see Lou gasped in pain as his teeth started to push out of his gums until they popped out with a sickening squirt and he felt new much sharper teeth take their place. Jimmy took a seat on the counter as he watched the human become the newest recruit, and relaxed in the cool breeze of the room. The Loan Sharks opted not to wear anything but shirts as they felt far more in the touch with their shark halves like this, and soon Lou would be another savage shark with a taste for money.

The serum injected into Lou was fast acting as his clothes ripped right off of him, and even his wrists grew as the polymer rope had to extend to fit around them. Gripping the chair’s arms tightly, his fingernails fell out to be replaced by sharp black claws that dug into the metal scraping off filings of the strong material. Inside of the headphones new words were coming as Lou’s eyes grew into spiraling circles as Jimmy’s were. “Loan Sharks love money, Loan Sharks love power, Loan Sharks stick to their own,” the voice said, and though Lou resisted slightly he felt himself giving in to the words as he imagined himself with his big shark family taking over the city with their wealth.

From behind him the chair had been designed specifically with a hole in it as his tail pushed through the tatters of his pants, and slapped against the floor with a sharp smack. Jimmy smiled to himself as he saw Lou mouthing the words repeated through his goggles as he fell under the trance, and he knew that it was done for the young man. “I... am.. a Loan Shark...” Lou muttered, the words now repeating again and again to brainwash the transforming man, and it worked as his hair fell out and his head grew wider but the goggles stayed on with their shape bending function.

His eyes continued to spiral and glow until the goggles turned to a dim glow rather than the bright spirals, but they continued to spiral as he grinned and flexed his large arms easily snapping the bindings. “Heya, Jimmy,” he said, his voice deep and dimmer than it had been before. As he stretched out he realized that he had grown, and as a fin grew out of his back he groaned slightly as he reached back and touched it gently. His senses were supersensitive as he took a deep breath, and realized that he could smell far more than he could as a simple human.

“Lou, we got your new uniform waitin’ for ya,” Jimmy said, slapping the shark on the shoulder as his clothes were left behind for some chum to clean up. Lou was going to be taught the ways of the mob.