-= The Rendering Pit=-
[[A PATREON series. This story was posted 12 months ago on Patreon, subscribe now to see this arc, AND THE NEXT for as little as 2.50! Currently the 4 part epilogue of Chapter 29 has been posted on Patreon]]
Table of Contents

He had been warned. Samuel finds the consequences of his decisions weighing down on him, quite literally, as he swells practically overnight into a lard laden blimp. But though his head is groggy with new sensations and new signals, he finds he will be of some use to the university, for quite some time.

This chapter written by rabidbadger and illustrated by myself

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Samuel felt distinctly groggy upon waking, and finding himself not where he remembered being. It was a few seconds before just where came to him – one of the maintenance access corridors – or rather the door to it near the university’s medical offices. He was sprawled out, back against the edge of the access port, with the mouse who had been following him around and dragging him into these indiscretions curled up at his side, lazily tracing her finger over the dome of his belly.

The fact that he was picking up stray feelings from the gesture, a kind of bizarre mixture of loyalty, love, and conquest all in a purely conceptual form.

“You stayed.”

It was barely a statement, but it got the desired effect. The little thing looked up at him – sort of, her eyes weren’t visible, but it was still clear enough. The voice Samuel heard from over his left shoulder on the other hand startled him quite a bit.

“She did. Told us where to find you, too. Really, outstanding initiative for a drone. Half inclined to see if we shouldn’t invent some kind of promotion.”

Samuel turned his head, or tried to – his neck was getting in the way he found. Still, the voice was far too familiar to miss.

“Professor Reginald! I, uhm- did, did I miss class?”

The pudgy Siamese’s hand made the badger flinch when it settled onto his head. It felt a little too much like a gavel dropping in judgment.

“Yes, though that’s really not the important part of this situation. Can you help me get him up, at least briefly, my dear?”

A brief, confused grunt from the badger managed to work its way up before the mouse dug herself underneath his arm, and the professor did the same.

“H-hey! I can, I can do this, I- ungh…”

The effort Samuel found himself putting into standing, even with the extra help, seemed to be at odds with his assessment. Pressing against the wall, and the floor, with two other people, he felt himself rising inch by sluggish inch. The fact that it took several of those inches before he actually felt his ass stop contacting the deck was chilling in its own way – but quite a lot of things were at the moment.

They did eventually get him up, but as Reginald stepped back he immediately felt his knees wobbling. Something the mouse helped with, readily, but the point remained as he looked down at himself – or tried to. Every direction he looked the world ended in a pastel purple horizon that he was acutely aware was more of him. Significantly more still than there had been even the previous day.

“I’d say you’ve put on at least… a hundred kilos in the last twelve hours? Granted, that’s due to your altered physiology and the generous feeding by your new family. Brings you up to about three hundred total – not a bad start for an egg vector.”

Samuel couldn’t quite parse all of that – he stared over his shoulder (much as he was able) at the cat and blinked slowly. There were other things to latch onto – and he did – like the large cargo hover cart Reginald was hanging onto. Also the fact that he could feel his ass hanging down, overlapping onto his thighs – much like his gut was doing to his knees. Mostly though, it was the cart.

“A h-hundred, overnight – that… wait, what were those other things you said? I don’t…”
Reginald swung the floating platform around near to the badger, who was still visibly struggling to stay upright.

“Sit.”

The badger shook his head – there was just too much still. Too many questions, terms that sounded damningly final, ones he almost recognized. He could swear the mouse had squeezed his arm when the words ‘egg vector’ slipped out into the hall.

“That, Professor – I uhm, I have questions first, I think – and I can stand. I just have to-“

As he was speaking, Samuel watched (well, felt – there was a lot of himself he just couldn’t see) as his body from the moobs down gradually eased itself onto the hovering cart, scooting back against the grips. As soon as he was stable on it he felt a rush of relief all through his bones, and a curious sense of satisfaction. That, and a rush of fresh confusion doused in fear – he had very expressly not told his legs and ass to do that – in fact he was pretty sure he’d been focusing on the opposite.

“…Why the hell did I just-“

Reginald’s voice took on a tone that was just as familiar as his usual, liquid rumble – but a bit blunter. The cat could be very persuasive, talk you into things without ever bringing the subject up – and he could also batter a thought into you forever like a hammer, if it pleased him. Which it clearly did.

“Your ass is quicker on the uptake than your head, is what happened.”

A tiny kernel of anger sparked up in Samuel’s mind, and it managed to burn away a few of the floating cobwebs the confusion had left in the way.

“What!? What are y-“

“Quiet, please. I have need of you, and I’ll explain in the process. You too, dear.”

The mouse hadn’t been going anywhere – in fact the thing was practically bouncing in place and still hanging onto Samuel’s arm (which was shaking like a sack full of pudding).

“You, Samuel, are what we call an egg vector. Uniquely susceptible to the conversion process the custodial drones here undergo.”

The moment the words had hit his ears – quiet – his mouth had stopped in place and Samuel had been left beached, silent, obedient – unable to do anything but listen like he was told. Though he did manage to look around, and distressingly enough he saw a couple of fist sized, pastel, latex eggs right about where he’d been sitting.

“It’s pretty rare, the station only has a couple active at any given time. It’s also why your face hasn’t been assimilated – it’s much easier to feed you like this, and you’re going to need it. Enjoy having articulated limb movement while you’ve still got it.”

Samuel tried to let out another outburst of ‘what’ at that, which immediately failed. He could think it, but his body refused to play along. It didn’t even make his jaw tense.

“Anyhow, as I was saying – we need something. You’re a lucky find for us – unlike other drones, and yes, you legally qualify as one now – you can still talk. To us, and to them. Something happened in those corridors while you were passed out, gorging, being ‘initiated’ into the herd – we think the drones might’ve seen it but communicating with them is difficult at best. You can talk now.”

The badger didn’t jump right into it, even with the permission. The questions had dwindled, yes – but they left the sense of damning wonder behind them just the same.

“So, I’m one of… what, how do I help with this – what the heck are we looking for, sir?”

Reginald paced around to Samuel’s side, the pudgy cat caressing his cheek almost tenderly.

“You’re a drone, technically speaking. You’re school property now. That’s not important. What is, is that we found a cobbled together wireless access port meant to intercept directed signals from outside the station, and we know someone from the station put it there. We also know what they were doing with it – contacting an off-station artificial intelligence. The drones are closed systems outside of physical contact with each other, or auditory orders, so they aren’t susceptible to being compromised – but they damn well might have seen who the student who put it there was while they spent the whole night cultivating your giant ass like gardeners with a prized pumpkin.”

The word property in particular sent a rush through Samuel’s spine, one which he was busy yelling at for refusing to listen to him about not enjoying it. About not feeling ‘right’. The rest of it though, that was reasonable, right? Plus, if a Professor needed help…

“H-how do I, uhm… how do I ask?”

Reginald raised an eyebrow slowly.

“You really were rather doomed, weren’t you? She’s already touching you, just think it at her, as simply and clearly as you can. Grab her tit if it helps you concentrate.”

Samuel felt the heat rush into his cheeks, and did not grab the mouse’s tit. He did take her hand though, and there came that rush again as soon as he did.

Source. Family. Mine.

That was about the gist of it, he surmised. Concepts, if specific ones. Not so much words. Samuel looked down over at himself, at the huge shelf of blubber his belly had become, which lay overtop of his legs, forcing them apart as much as they would go and yet still not satisfied with it. He quickly swallowed, and looked back to the mouse. Trying to gather together some of the right words to use took a few moments.

Broken wall. Near nest. Students touched? Describe? Ask others.

Samuel hoped as he looked on and saw her head tilt gently, the nod once before she ran off, little butt shaking – which he had a hard time not staring at – that he’d gotten that right. Or at least, close enough.

Reginald gave him a quick smack in the side, which Samuel watched set off a wave of purple rippling back and forth in morbid fascination.

“That looks encouraging. We’ll wait here until she’s back, and I suppose you can ask me those questions now if you really must.”

***

Sebastian felt something a bit off, as he wandered the corridors. Putting his finger on it was proving more difficult though. It was an unpleasant little burr in the back of his perception. It wasn’t the only thing back there, there was that much more pleasant buzzing he could feel thrumming all through the nanite infrastructure he had, not to mention in the comfortable coating of pudge.

The cat couldn’t quite help but reach down and grab hold of a little, two handfuls of belly, each one stuffed full of that voice that was the sole reason he hadn’t failed his last two exams. She’d been a little quiet since last night too, but he still felt her inside – the only thing that had eased his terror about the penalties of failure here. Even that wasn’t completely doing it today.

He looked down at his own hands, blue fur wringing itself about as he turned to and fro again, trying to figure out why he felt so anxious.

“There’s something wrong here…”

It was like a rush of cold water that kept circling around under his skin, crawling over his back and the back of his arms. He could ask her, but disturbing her too often felt wrong – like he was imposing. Besides, it might be nothing. Everything looked normal as he turned about, surveying the halls. He knew he’d done well on the exam in his spatial manipulation courses, so it wasn’t that either.

Another turn, and Sebastian felt the rush of fear and adrenaline going stale. All he saw were students roaming the halls, and the occasional drone – but they were everywhere. Ubiquitous enough one barely noticed most of the time – either out in the halls or roaming around the back corridors to stay out of sight and keep the internal systems running. Most people didn’t even know that much. Sebastian had primarily learned about them in the process of being terrified of becoming one.

Taking a deep breath, the feline stepped out into the halls again. He had a class to get to.

***

It was some time before Reginald and Samuel saw any real turn around in their initial plan, but eventually the mouse returned. She emerged from the same tunnels they had been in, walking proudly forward and carrying something in her hands. Two somethings. Samuel tried to shift about where he sat, finding himself unable to manage it – he could try, this wasn’t something where he was ‘disobeying orders’, but his body was just so unwieldy and heavy now that without leverage it was beyond him. He was still trying by the time the girl strode up and took his hand, then placed it squarely on her right breast, while she held out two carefully balanced eggs toward Reginald. One blue, one white.

The word struck Samuel in the head like a stone.

Student.

He couldn’t quite help the shudder – or the gentle squeeze of his hand.

“S-she said ‘student’ there, uhm. P-professor. I, that-“

Reginald turned the eggs over in his fingers slowly, then looked straight at the mouse.

“Drones who are actively converted for academic failure often take on the coloring of the egg cores inserted into them. I think she’s saying these are the primary colors of some student the drone community saw in proximity to the device we’re concerned with.”

The mouse looked back and forth between Samuel and Reginald, head tilting slowly, her hands kneading at the flabby bulk of Sam’s wrist. She pulled one hand off though, pointing to the blue egg, then gesturing her fingers wide. The white egg followed, with her fingers squeezing down to a pinch.

“So… more blue than white. Well! That was an excellent success. Thank you, both. You’ve been a great help to the university.”

Samuel let out a nervous chuckle at that.

“S-so, you’ll uhm, you’ll maybe take me to the nurse over this instead? I mean, since I – I mean I’m still all here, so.”

Reginald’s laughter after that was the most chilling sound Samuel had ever heard, which was entirely wrapped up in context because to anyone else’s ears the cat just sounded like he’d heard a truly fantastic joke.

“Hah! Oh, goodness – hah. No, my boy that’s your job now. Helping the university. Remember when I said you’re actually, literally a drone now? You just haven’t got the head covering because it takes too much effort to get the sheer volume of nutrients in through the coating that’s needed to fuel the colossal latex and lard landmasses you vectors become. For the time being you’re still ‘normal’ enough to talk to both us and them is all. No, we might come to you for help a little more while this is going on yet, while it’s still feasible.”

Samuel’s arms and legs wiggled a little as the cart started moving, with Reginald’s voice behind it.

“But the only place you’re going is the rookery. We’re going to go fit you into your laying chamber, which will be comfortable – I promise. We’re not savages after all. If you’re going to sit in one place and grow for the rest of your life we at least want it to be a pleasant experience.”

The wiggling grew far more intense, very briefly.

“And you’ll be quiet, and hold still, for the ride.”

The badger’s arms and legs stilled themselves, and his mouth hovered half open in the birth stages of an outburst that would never happen. His mind was still doing a fair bit of thrashing about, though when the cart rocked a little as the weight on it shifted – the result of the mouse drone crawling her way up and plastering herself awkwardly against his belly, hugging as much of it as she could – its activity collapsed rapidly. Instead he was just left staring down where she nuzzled at the horizon of his own bloated body, feeling that rush of raw, wordless closeness again.

He was good and proper helpless now, but at least, Samuel thought – he was in good hands, and good company.