It was like a war flashback, the helicopter coming down, the lights, and blood, Rad was "tripping balls" he thought to himself.

He stopped for a minute to breath. Remember to breath.

Rad watched all the first responders exfiltrate.

A few of them offered him rides.

He declined them all, sitting there on his bicycle.

Waiting for them to leave.

He'd figured it all out on the way up the mountain.

He could cut the hide out, into a big bag, then fillet the hog. Put it's meat into it's own hide, in a four wheeled cart. Then wheel it out.

Rad had almost finished his cart. Right now he had just two wheel drive, using two engine starters off of Chevy 350 engines to power two wheels on a go-cart. He had two more powered wheels ready to go, they would fit right on the current rack and pinion, but not yet assembled. Once assembled, he would have a four wheel power go-cart! All solar recharged using fold out panels. Just needed to be bolted together.

It had plenty of torque for carrying heavy loads up a mountain.

Downhill was never a problem.

He began to think of all the people he knew, that had freezers. There was no way to cook or sell that much meat before it went bad.

His mouth was watering, thinking of all the prime meat just waiting to be harvested. And set on fire. "Mhhh, mhhh, good." Rad muttered. He swallow his watering mouth, then came back to his senses, planted both of his feet on the ground and tried to maintain his balance. After a moment he had it again. He looked around to get his bearings, then peddled off towards his shop. "I can't wait!"

I started writing this years ago, the thought of watching a world wide "pandemic" play out before my eyes never crossed my mind.

(I forgot Alex's Wife's name, have to go back and read to find it.)

The first clue she noticed was her breasts were starting to hurt. Not just from getting bigger, but the skin of her breasts had goose bumps that wouldn't go away. Then she began to notice the hundreds, then thousands of short, and almost microscopic red hairs. Then she noticed her whole body had begun to grows tiny red hairs. A little internet research showed that humans had more hairs per square inch than apes. Turn a nurse loose with google and watch the fun. It was an old joke in the profession. Hypochondriac much?

So she went to her doctor and had her get a lab for hormone balance. Labs came back normal. Her doctor was perplexed as well. The hairs had begun to be visible all over her body by the time Alex noticed. He thought it was "kind of hot", but she was not amused. Becoming a real life furry was not her idea of fun, or funny. They talked it over for a bit, he swore he would lover her forever, even if she became a werewolf.

"Werewolf?!?!" she exclaimed.

Then she almost smacked him when he pointed to the window and said "There wolf!"

When he mentioned she should buy a cosmetic tail that was held in place by an unspeakable method she really did smack him.

He should know by now to not mess with a hormonal, pregnant, red head nurse who loves horses.

That's when the baby started wanting to get out. Like, right then. And how.

The next clue that "something odd was happening" was when her fingernails had ripped 4 long gashes though the bed, about 4 pushes from the end of labor.  She didn't even break a nail. Nurses exchanged glances. The doctor was too busy getting ready to catch a baby to notice. Alex was too busy nursing his hand to notice, she had squeezed so hard he was pretty sure she had broken something. His own nanites began to heal the injury immediately.

"You did this to me!" was the last thing she screamed, right before the baby shot out in a splash of blood and mucous. Everybody in the room, except for the nursing student in the corner trying to figure out how to the put gloves on, got at least one droplet on them, most got splashed.

By that point she was drifting in between order and chaos, logic and insanity. Her entire body was wracked with pain, and the damn nurses wouldn't even give her a sip of water.

Her vagina felt like Mike Tyson's punching bag must feel, and she was starting to ponder whether opioids really were the devil, and whether or not medical marijuana would be worse or better than that devil. It wasn't called "Devil's Lettuce" for no reason, and after listening to jazz played on Burbon Street, for one night, she knew why.  

The room had gone dead silent, except for the incessant beeping of the cardiac monitor, and the rustle of scrubs as nurses began cleaning the blood and mucous off the baby.

She heard the doctor smack the little baby boy's bottom, once, twice, tree times a maydy. And a pitiful little mewling began. Another smack and it became a full fledged balling.

A couple of plastic clips and a quick snip and the cord was cut.

"Work those little lungs, baby!" she began to cry as the little bundle was placed into her arms.  

"Human warrior, strength one, intellect one, wisdom one, dexterity one, constitution one, charisma eighteen! He's perfect!" Doctor Song exclaimed. "Gratz!  

"Ah shucks, I was hoping for a Bard." Alex feigned disappointment.

"Guess you'll just have roll another one!" Doctor Song called out over her shoulder, as she walked out of the room and on to the next delivery.

The charge nurse, Linda, ran out the door right behind Doctor Song. "Excuse me doctor, did you notice the bed..." her voice trailed off as she followed Doctor Song out of the room.

The others in the room began to clean up, but nobody was saying anything. They exchanged nervous glances. Those gashes in the bed were not something that could be easily explained.

The nursing student finally figured out how to put her gloves on. "What happened to the bed?" she asked ditzily as she walked up with a towel, trying awkwardly to help clean up the mess. The new parents seemed to not even notice, too busy cooing over their new baby, and the others in the room were too nervous to say anything. Everybody seemed to be pretending to not notice.

Nurse Linda walked back into the room just then, grabbed a towel and covered up the gashes before the new parents noticed them. "Move along everybody, nothing to see here. I'll take it from here. Y'all go get cleaned up, on to the next one. I'll take care of cleaning up the mess, and his wife and baby." She shooed everyone out of the room.

Her nursing instincts already kicking into overdrive, she began to take note of every detail. "Can I hold your hand dear? You did a great job!" And as she held the hand, Linda carefully noted it appeared to be normal at first. The nails didn't appear to be overly sharp, but they had a peculiar sheen to them on the underside. It wasn't noticeable from above because of the fingernail polish. The skin seemed to be a bit thicker and tougher than normal too, but not much, lots of people had tough hands from physical labor. But these were not hands that saw lots of manual labor.

Linda had read about the anomalous hair growth in the chart. It was hard to see, but as she leaned close there were even hairs visible on her face. And as the new mother smiled Linda noticed the canines seemed to be a little longer and sharper than normal. Goose bumps raised and a tingle shot up her spine. Linda had rarely met a long time nurse that didn't have at least one strange story to tell. Haunted equipment, ghosts in elevators, most stuff could be explained away by overworked and over stressed nurses. But here was something truly strange. And for the first time in her life, Linda began to question whether she was hallucinating or not. But feeling the rips in the bed, under the towel, reaffirmed reality. "You did a great job dear, we'll get you moved to a new bed in a few minutes and get you all cleaned up." Security was on the way, for whatever good a mall cop without a gun could do to keep everyone safe from whatever the hell was happening here. There didn't seem to be any apparent danger. But the feeling of otherworldlyness wouldn't go away.

Linda let go of the hand and went back to cleaning up the mess. "Your new bed will be here in a few minutes. We've got a private room just opened up on two west. It's nice and quiet." The new parents seemed totally oblivious. "Doctor Song said you can have something to eat and drink if you want."

"I'll take a cold beer, Nurse Ratchet!" Alex quipped.

Linda scowled at him. "It's Ratched! And it's for her. You were welcome to go get one at any time, and bring me one while you are at it. I'm off shift in 30 minutes and could use one after tonight." Linda jabbed him in the arm with her index finger, a little too hard. "Hurry up! We've got some girl talk to do while you go get my colebeer" She had spoken "cold beer" as if it was one word. Linda winked at him to soften the edge.

Linda went back to work cleaning up the mess as Alex retreated then turned and walked off rapidly, the word "cold beer" resonating in his mind, it had been a rough night, he didn't know how much more he could take. It was hard work watching that baby get born, and his hand was still hurting. The squeaking of poorly lubricated wheels could be heard approaching down the hallway, as the new bed arrived, followed by the ancient and unarmed security guard.

"Ed."

"Alex." The guard nodded back and they passed each other in the long, cold hallway of the hospital.  

***

"I'm ravenous, I feel like I could eat a whole cow."

The third cheese burger had just disappeared. Alex had made two trips to get food already. Linda had said to take it easy, but his wife wouldn't take "no" for an answer and had threatened to walk out and get one herself. And appeared to be strong enough to do so, and besides, Linda didn't have to go home with her. Besides, she seemed to be fine. The afterbirth had been expelled and there wasn't any bleeding. She was feeling hot to the touch, but said she felt fine. So he kept bringing the food. Baby John was already suckling, he was so strong is was amazing. When he got mad his little legs were strong enough to hold himself up standing, as long as he was stabilized.

The new nurse had come in and drawn blood a couple times for, as she said, routine tests.

Doctor Song had visited a few more times, asked some odd questions, listened with a stethoscope. Then, strangest of all, pulled out a jeweler's loupe and examined her fingers for a few minutes. Then asked for permission to get a finger nail clipping "to test for protein deficiency", then failed to get one, blaming it on dull clippers.

"When was the last time you cut your fingernails?"

"I've been growing them out since I quit working here. I usually file them down a little every few days with a nail file. It's such a shame everything's made in China these days, they can't make anything right, even nail files. I've been using my diamond knife sharpening stone lately because the cheap nail files wear out too fast anymore."

Doctor Song quirked her head sideways, like a German Shepard Dog seeing something new, then left.

"You need to tell the doctor what's been happening, Honey."

"No Alex, I told you I already looked it up on the internet. It's normal for pregnant women to get weird cravings, and raw deer meat is way cleaner than what's in Wal-Mart. I won't eat that crap, it tastes like cardboard."

"You do realize that poaching deer is still illegal, even though I'm an Officer of the Law? And most poachers kill them with a 22 and a light, not chase them down and cut their throat with a knife?" He paused for a moment. "While 8 months pregnant?"

"Yes dear. I'm going going to pass out for a bit, see you when I get back." Her eyes slowly closed as she whispered,  "Good night sweet prince."

She lay her head on the pillow, and passed out.

Little baby Mike seemed to be in the same mood, his mouth slowly opened up and the nipple popped out of his mouth. He closed his eyes and fell to sleep as well.

Alex reclined his chair, still puzzled by this awkward Lay-Z-Boy wannabe thing the hospital had in the room. He still hadn't figured out a way to fall to sleep in it. It was going to be a long night.

In the year 2776 AD, remnants of a stealth artificial satellite carrying 8,711 kilograms of dehydrated baby diapers smashed into Mars.

Increasingly strict and convoluted environmental regulations of the 23rd century United States government had caused it to quietly launch a centuries old cache of hazardous waste material from a top secret military experiment into the system sun, Sol, for destruction. Multiple malfunctions cause the hazardous waste barge to almost hit it's intended target, almost. It unknowingly ended up in a stable long period orbit, completely invisible to radar and all other standard tracking systems for space debris.

Nobody could have foreseen the rogue asteroid that eventually knocked the unknown stealth ship off course, or that the glancing blow of the tiny asteroid would cause Mars to get showered in a dust cloud of long dead self-replicating microscopic robots and still viable freeze dried bacteria.

By the time the contamination was noticed and tracked down it was far too late to do anything about it. The terraforming taking place was unstoppable, fecal bacteria had already worked their way deep into the planet's underground aquifers and began a runaway greenhouse effect. The steadily increasing release of Methane, Carbon Dioxide and Water Vapor was projected to make Mars habitable with nothing but radiation shielding and an Oxygen face mask within a decade.  Several different right wing groups were accused of Eco-terrorism, but none were convicted.

In the end it didn't matter.

After centuries of debate Mars was finally open to tourism, but it smelled like shit.