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« on: November 26, 2012, 08:23:58 AM »
New York City's south wharf had been closed since the recession hit. Rusting boats sat tethered to moldy docks, left behind as owners lost the means to pay for them. The wrought-iron chain holding the gates shut were the only sign that someone still cared about what went on at the docks. Of course, if someone were to get around or through the lock, there were no security guards to catch them. It was a fact that three approaching teens were acutely aware of.
"You're sure we won't get caught, right?" Asked the copper-haired youth on the right. He looked anxiously over at his friends while playing nervously with a loose thread of his denim vest. Luke's family had only recently moved to New York. Growing up in southern Alberta had left him a little naieve to how things operated in the big cities. His idea of a night out was staying up till midnight hiking or watching movies-not breaking and entering.
"Even if we do, they'll probably just tell us to go home - 'sides, I don't think anyone cares about this place. Just rust and cobwebs." A brown-haired youth, only barely qualifying for being called a teenager anymore nodded. Almost 20, Ethan had lived downtown all his life and made a habit of exploring the area for inspiration to write stories and the like. A few scars told of times he'd fallen or tripped on his expeditions, but he bore them with pride.
"The worst thing you need to watch for out here is rusted screws or bolts point-up on the ground," the third added, brushing a few styled strands of his black hair from in front of his eyes and straightening out his black coat-more for looks than keeping him warm. The adventurer of the group, Dominic, had been the one to suggest this excursion. He'd cited the old wharf as a great place to 'hang out'. Whether this was merely a casual expression or a nod to his love of high-octane parkour was anyone's guess, but he'd convinced the others to come out with him either way. "You're worrying too much, Luke. Relax a bit, will ya?"
"R-right." Luke nodded as they approached the locked gate. Perhaps to show his support for the idea, he approached and tried pulling the lock off. When that unsurprisingly didn't work, he examined the chain for a weak spot. "It's on tight." He said to the others while eyeing the gate itself, which was a good three feet taller than they were. "Any plans for getting over?"
"There's probably a hole somewhere down the fence...or we could climb it. Either or."
"We'll need to climb it," Dom said, pulling a pair of gloves from his pocket and putting them on. He took off running towards a nearby cement block, leapt on top of it, leapt again to grab a beam overhead, swung off of it and landed firmly atop the fence. He hopped down onto a nearby shipping crate and tossed a hand-made rope ladder over for his friends to scale. "Or rather, you'll need to climb. I usually find my own way in."
"Oh wow." Luke blinked as he scaled the ladder. "It always gets me when you do that."
"Never gets old to watch." Ethan chuckled as he waited for Luke to finish climbing the ladder
.
"Never gets old doing it, either," Dom chuckled. "Drives my folks nuts, though. It's always 'You're gonna kill yourself one of these days', y'know?"
Ethan climbed over after Luke. There wasn't too much light, but they could see what they were doing well enough. "Yep. Remember that lecture your dad gave you last month? Thought your ear was going to fall off!"
The black-clad young man laughed. "I figured his mouth'd fall off first!"
Luke just nodded along. He was sympathetic to Dom's parents' point of view, but didn't think it was fair to openly side with them. "Well, hopefully the dangerous part is behind us. What do we do now?"
"That's the easy part. We just explore, take photos, let our imaginations run wild or-"
Dominic was about to add something when a figure walking through the shadows farther down the wharf caught his eye. He looked over, eyes registering only a long overcoat and black Fedora before the shape slipped around a corner the young man had never noticed before. "Hey... did you see that?"
Ethan blinked. He'd been looking in the same direction, but had caught only the barest hint of movement. "Saw something, yeah...looked human."
"Human, but not from around here-that coat was way too big for this weather." Luke added. He looked nervously at his friends. "We're going to follow him, aren't we?"
"Yeah. But only for a short while - if they want to be left alone, it's probably a good idea to leave them be." Ethan nodded and took off after Dom, pulling the hood of his jacket up to ward off the breeze that had kicked up.
"There's never been anyone down here before, and I wanna know why someone's around now," Dom said, eyes not leaving the corner the figure had vanished around. "Come to think of it, I've never seen that corner there before..." He started walking in the direction of the mysterious man's equally-mysterious exit.
"It's a corner of a building, how couldn't you notice it before?" Luke asked as he followed.
There was always a wall right there," Dom mused. He was keeping to the shadows as though trying to act like a spy. "Trust me, I've been down here a million times, and that corner wasn't there before."
"Well either your night vision isn't as good as you think or a wall just magically mo-bah!" Luke was startled by a strong gust of wind that blasted his face. "The frig was that?" he asked in bewilderment.
The blast of wind forced Ethan's hood down. The gust confused him, as the building should've been protecting the trio. "Wind, but....how?"
"You're asking the wrong guy," Dom muttered. He looked up at the sudden presence of car noises. "...Funny... Where's that coming from? The roads usually aren't that busy at this time of day."
Ethan quirked an eyebrow as he looked around - something seemed...off somehow."There weren't any cars going by a second ago...now it sounds like we're in Times Square or something."
"The road is in the other direction. These cars would be driving over the lake." Luke turned. "And last I checked there was open water to our left, not another wall. We're in an alleyway, guys." His voice was a mix of anxiety and confusion.
Ethan blinked in confusion - Luke was right. But how on Earth did they get into an alleyway near a busy street? It didn't make any sense.
"...got it through? Not followed?"
"'Course I did! Not a mook ain't I?"
"Someone's up ahead!" Luke whispered. He shifted into a slight crouch.
Crouching down, Ethan dropped his voice to a whisper. "I heard 'mook'. Did we just walk onto the set of a gangster flick?"
"Small production, maybe..." Dom whispered. "This is cool...!"
The alleyway led to the back door of a run-down bar. Two men-one of whom looked to be the figure the three had followed-were speaking with a large gentleman with fierce eyes. All three were either wearing pinstripe suits or trench coats and fedoras. Their object of discussion was a crate on the bar counter.
Against what little good judgment he had, Dom stood up a bit further, getting a better look at the contents of the crate. He expected bottles of bootlegged liquor or maybe a cache of weapons and ammo, but found himself way off mark. Inside the worn, reinforced wood of the crate, row upon row of clear glass syringes rested in carefully-padded racks stacked one on top of the other. This would've been strange enough, but the syringes themselves looked better suited to a sci-fi film than medicine and were filled with a clear blue-green fluid that glinted in the bar's lighting.
Unfortunately for Dom, by standing up he exposed himself to the light filtering out from the bar.
"Bulls!" Shouted the man on the left. He had turned to get something from his coat and seen the youth standing near the doorway. Three clicks sounded as each man inside pulled a gun. "Hands up. Come inside. Slowly."
"That...could've gone better..." Ethan's voice was laced with fear as he stood up, hands raised in the air. He wasn't sure if being given a chance to surrender was a good sign or not.
Luke was frozen in place. It took the sound of the guns cocking again to make him move. Visibly trembling, he stood and raised his hands.
Dom silently cursed, putting his hands in the air where the guns and their owners could see them and stepping into the room. "Sorry about this, guys," he muttered to his friends. "Don't panic, we'll be all right." In truth, he didn't quite believe that himself, but he felt it necessary to put on a brave face for now.
The gentleman in the middle frowned. "Bruno you mook! These are kids, not cops!"
The one on the left winced. "S-sorry boss."
The one in the middle jerked his head to the one on the right. "Eddie, check them."
As Luke, Dom, and Ethan were patted down, the gentleman asked, "So if you three ain't bulls, what brings you to my humble establishment?"
"Curiosity," Dom answered honestly. "We didn't mean to interrupt anything, honest."
"We're not even that familiar with the area." Ethan nodded, hoping that being honest wouldn't get them killed.
"W-we were just playing at the d-docks!" Luke blurted. His eyes were fixated on the gun.
All three of the armed men exchanged looks. "Docks? There aren't any-oh!" A sudden realization. "You three from New York?"
"Yeah...that's where we are, right?"
A sinister grin spread across the face of the gentleman. "From New York and clueless to boot. This just became a golden opportunity." He turned to the thugs. "I said I wanted to see a test run, and it looks like we got the perfect volunteers. Even if it botches, no one'll know who they are."
He gestured and Eddie withdrew three syringes from the crate.
The confident grin that had been on Dom's face promptly fled. "...Wait, what?"
Eddie grinned as he grabbed Dom's arm and injected the syringe. Without pause he dropped the empty needle and injected Ethan and Luke in turn. "Just a friendly welcome to Bellwin. Hope you enjoy your stay."
Dominic would've asked what the man had meant, but before he could even form another word his body was hit with a wave of pain that put his worst parkour injuries to shame. He crumpled to the floor, gritting his teeth in agony and struggling not to cry out.
Ethan grunted as his whole body was wracked with a pain worse than a stopped up stomach. Unlike Dom, the youth managed to get a brief, inarticulate cry of pain out before crumbling as his body began to mutate. As his chest began to expand and barrel out, he could see brown fur growing on his rapidly-muscling chest in two shades-lighter fur down the center his chest and darker fur across his limbs.
"Nononono!" Luke stammered. He tripped and fell backwards at the sight of his friends warping and twisting. "This is not happening-it's not happen-OW!"
His voice broke into a yowl of pain and a very audible *CRACK* as his face stretched and ears pulled out and flopped downwards. Luke grasped his new muzzle as if it could be pushed back in. His hands twisted and locked into a vice as muscles, tendons and bone broke apart and reformed. Fingers pulled down and nails grew out into claws while his palms thickened into leathery pads.
Through the endorphin-fueled haze, Dom could see and feel things that he knew were impossible. His chest barreled out as muscle and sinew formed from nothing under rapidly paling skin and strained the fabric of his shirt. He looked down at his rapidly-darkening hands and noted the appearance of an odd, smooth sheen. With a loud *SHRRIP* the back of his shirt ripped open to expose a growing, triangular mass of shiny black flesh to the cool air. With a similarly loud rip a thick, densely-muscled tail burst from the seat of his pants. Its ebon-skinned flukes slapped the floor as Dom clutched his head.
Ethan managed to bring a hand-much larger than his formerly lanky frame-up to his face. His nails seemed to...flow, enveloping the upper part of his fingers and looking increasingly hoof-like. His shirt and jacket-formerly comfortable-were growing tighter as a short tail poked its way out of his pants.
A short, pained gasp escaped Ethan's mouth as his legs grew more muscular. An almost sickening snapping sound marked his legs turning digitigrade. Feet and toes withered away and merged into a pair of two-toed hooves. Ethan clamped his eyes shut as his ears pulled out and twitched unconsciously at the sounds outside of the room. His face cracked and popped out into a cervine muzzle. One last jolt of pain ripped through him as a decent rack of antlers sprouted out of his skull. Mercifully, unconsciousness fell at long last.
Dominic's warping skin had become a monochromatic blend of inky black and striking white arranged in prominent, easily-recognized splotches, but still wasn't done. Dom's skin began to thicken and take on a rubbery sheen. The entire process had been mentally dizzying and physically taxing. Dom was too drained to register his new shape, but everyone else present had gotten a front-row seat for his transformation from a wiry young human to a tall, muscle-bound orca-man. His blue eyes fluttered for a moment before his energy dwindled completely, and Dom collapsed on the floor with a terrific *THUD*.
Increasingly canine yelps pierced the air when Luke's legs pulled and bent. Fire struck his back as his spine lengthened out into a tail. His legs bent and molded. Joints and bone snapped and reformed to support a digitigrade stance. His feet thinned and toes merged into canine paws. Luke lay on the floor, huddled in the fetal position, whimpering between pained breathes. Fear and sweat and blood pounded against his new nose. His body was drained and cried out for rest. The last thing Luke saw before falling unconcious was a coat of fur erupting over his body-mostly black but turning tan on his limbs. Then the darkness overwhelmed him.
VVV
Dom sat up with a gasp, looking about in a panicked frenzy. Instead of a small room with armed mobsters, his eyes beheld the dull grunge and dirt of what looked like an old drainage ditch. His head throbbed, his body ached, and as he looked down absently, he realized that he was still big, muscular and monochromatic. Dom massaged his smooth forehead-devoid of his mop of hair-and groaned, looking about for his friends.
"Etha--!" His hands flew to his thick throat. Instead of the usual smooth tenor, Dom's voice had deepened to a rumbling, resonant low baritone. "Damn it, I don't even sound like me... Ethan! Luke!"
"What...it's too early to get up....holy shit!" The deer shot up, his own voice deeper, almost smoother now. Somehow, he'd managed to retain his hair, though it seemed to have gotten longer. The smell of the ditch assaulted his new nose as he looked at his cetacean friend with shock. "I was hoping that had been a dream...or hallucination."
In a daze Luke opened his eyes. He pressed them shut when he saw the paw-like hands splayed in front of him. A canine whimper escaped his throat. He didn't want to be here. He wanted to be home and human in his bed.
"What was that stuff they gave us? How is this...even possible?" Ethan asked. Wobbling to his feet, he made his way over to his canine compatriot and patted him gently on the shoulder. "Luke...I'm sorry I got you mixed up in this. It's my fault for suggesting we go exploring on the pier..."
"And it's my fault we got caught," Dom rumbled, staggering to his feet and shedding his strained and torn jacket. His black t-shirt was stretched taut against the brilliant white flesh of his chest, but aside from the hole his dorsal fin had punched in its back it was still in one piece. His pants weren't so lucky, but he left them in place, readjusting his belt over his new tail.
The touch of Ethan's hoof-hands was impossible to ignore. Reluctantly, Luke opened his eyes again and sat up. He shifted slightly to allow his tail to hang out the back of his pants.
"Our parents," he said, not looking up at his friends, "Our parents won't know what happened to us."
"As much as it pains me to say this, but...that's the least of our worries. We have no idea where we are, or how to get home..."
"Or how to get back to normal," Dominic added.
"Police." Luke said softly. "We need to find a policeman. Or a doctor. Someone who knows something."
Ethan would nod, then examine his arm - he'd always been on the lanky side, but now he looked rather fit. "Normal...yeah. And I hope the cops don't just shoot us or something."
"They won't if we don't act aggressive." Luke pressed. He was clinging to his faith in authority.
"We're also part animal."
Another whimper.
"Sorry...it's just....I don't know what to do." The deer sighed heavily and looked out of the ditch
"There's worse things to be," Dom said, looking around. "An orca is many things, but 'bulletproof' isn't one of 'em. I'd rather be a live whale than a dead human..." He looked down at his new body with a scowl. "...Still, I'm not crazy about staying like this."
Luke stood up and took a deep breath. While the intent was to calm himself, the young bloodhound was instead met with a slick, burning scent. Alcohol and smoke and gunpowder hovered in the air like a miasma. He doubled over into a coughing fit at the assault.
"Ugh...the air's almost toxic. Where did those goons say we were again?" Ethan's face showed a look of disgust before he moved to see if Luke was going to be all right.
"Bellwin." Luke said between coughs. "I-I'm fine," he added hastily as he straightened up. "It's the scent. I can't believe how strong it is."
Between thoughts of how he was suddenly grateful to not have a nose, an idea flashed into Dominic's head. "Hey, Luke, aren't bloodhounds great trackers?"
Luke blinked. "I-I guess, but what does that--oh!"
"Son of a...you can probably lead us back into town or something!"
Luke focused, following the haze of the thug's scent. "That way." he pointed eastwards along a stretch of road above the ditch. "They brought us from that direction and went back the same way."
In the distance, one could make out the image of a city.
Letting out a low whistle, Ethan climbed out of the ditch and bent down to help Luke get out. "Let's hope we can find some help...and a place to sleep."
A nod as Luke took Ethan's hand-the hoof-like fingers felt strange against his paw pads-and hoisted himself onto the road.
Dom tried once, twice to haul his titanic body out of the ditch, which seemed about a half-ton heavier than he was used to. After falling back in, he gave up and continued along until a shallower incline presented itself. "Damn all this weight..."
"I don't think any of us are in any shape to do parkour...you're too heavy, I'd catch my antlers on something..."
Luke snickered at the mental image. "Err, sorry," he said quickly after catching himself.
Dom growled in irritation. "...Let's just get to Bellwin."
Luke stumbled more than walked for the first leg of the journey. He kept trying to set his paws back on now-nonexistent ankles and almost falling over as a result. After being helped back up for the third time, he kept a more active focus on how he walked until the reflex was under control. The scent of the thugs was fixed in his mind now that he recognized it, and was easy to find despite the myriad of other smells coming from the cars zooming past on the road. It was jarring to suddenly experience the world through such a different lens. He rubbed his muzzle absently as he pondered.
"Is it just me, or does nobody seem to be giving us so much as a second look? You'd think a trio of morphic animals would create one hell of a stir..." Ethan watched as another car, looking like it was straight out of a gangster movie, rush right by as if nothing was wrong. The driver hadn't even turned his head.
Luke looked up. "Now that you mention it... yea. Even in New York, if a humanoid orca, stag, and bloodhound were walking down a highway someone would be reacting."
Dominic had been about to agree, but the roar of a low-flying jet engine drowned out the start of his comment. He looked up and gasped in surprise when something large, metal, and definitely not a jet plane rushed over the group's heads. It might've passed for an oddly-designed cargo barge if not for the fact that it was being driven by a block of blasting combustion engines affixed to its stern. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here," he said in stunned awe, "but I don't think we're anywhere near the Big Apple..."
"I...think you're right. It's like we stepped...I dunno, backwards and to the side in time almost. This is just...wierd."
Luke nodded slowly. Animal drugs aside, there was a lot about this place they didn't understand.
"Let's just keep going. We need to find a hospital or a police station or something. Somewhere to get help. And food..."
Ethan nodded in agreement, running his tongue over his teeth. Like the rest of him, they seemed to be a mix of human and animal, causing the deer to wonder if he could still eat meat. "Food sounds like a good deal..."
Dom ran a hand over his growling stomach and a tongue over his new set of pointed, curved spears that passed for teeth. 'This is crazy,' he thought. 'Luke's a dog, Ethan's a deer... I've got a crazy amount of muscle, and nowhere near enough stamina to use them. And now it looks like we're not even on Earth anymore." In spite of their predicament, he smirked. "Well, I always did want a bit more excitement in my life, and this is pretty damn exciting."
A mental sigh permeated Ethan's mind. "What a night...get sucked into another world, experimented on by Godfather movie rejects...I'm apparently a deer, Dom's gotta have at least a couple hundred pounds of muscle or something and Luke's shnoz can track guys...still...we're alive, and that's got to count for something."
Luke couldn't stop thinking about what would happen after they got to the city. Finding the police seemed like the right thing to do, but what about after? What if whatever the thugs injected them with didn't have a cure? How could he possibly explain this back home? Luke's throat tightened as he imagined trying to tell his parents that their son was now the family dog.
From the air, the City of Bellwin looked like a large web of concrete and steel built around a large circular lake. Cars, trucks, and all manner of pedestrian zipped to and fro along the roads running through the city in a polygonal circuit, or across the bridges spanning the octet of canals stretching from the reservoir at the city's core to its edges. The large cargo ships that were built for water landings often sought harbor in the man-made lake, while the owners of the fleet of smaller barges often milling about along the canals or across the lake made a bit of extra money ferrying supplies from the ships to the shore.
Luke gazed in awe at the city. Strictly speaking, it wasn't very impressive--the architecture looked like it was from the Prohibition era--but there was something about its sheer size that took his breath away.
"This had to have taken ages to make...wow. It's like they built a city on top of some kind of canal between continents or something."
A musty scent drew Luke's attention to a sight closer to the ground. On the street corner ahead of them was a lanky mix of woman and housecat. "Look," he said, indicating the figure.
Ethan would look to where Luke was indicating and nearly gasped. The woman they were looking at was half-animal like they were - and going by how people weren't reacting to her... "I wonder...is there some kind of mix here? Humans and...anthromorphic animals."
"It'd explain why we're not getting any weird looks," Dom admitted, rubbing his bald head in bewilderment.
"We're starting to get looks now..." Luke whimpered. He was right. Bystanders human and non alike were tossing the three quick glances. Most of the faces were riddled with disgust, though some were tinged with a wafting fear. Someone hurled a can from a passing car. The hound yelped in fright as it collided with the wall just above his head.
"Off the street, lush!" the person in the car shouted as it sped away.
"I'm not some drunk...what the hell?" Ethan grumbled as he shot the speeding car a hard look.
Luke poked the tattered shirt hanging off of Dom and looked to Ethan's disfigured clothing. His own outfit was mostly intact, but baggy and still coated in mud from the ditch. "Oh, son of a...we look like beggars or something."
"I'd do something about it if I could," Dom grumbled, sorely tempted to lob the can straight back. "Trust me, I hate walking around in rags as much as the next guy."
"So, what now? I doubt any of these people'll give us the time of day." The deer snorted in disgust, not really enjoying being looked down on like this.
A screeching siren pierced the thrum of the streets. A white ambulance whizzed through the intersection and around the corner. "Follow it!" Luke exclaimed. Ambulances led to hospitals, and hospitals meant doctors and policemen and answers!
The hospital was two blocks away. Luke gagged as they entered the emergency room. The mix of blood, medicine, fur, and various bodily fluids was overpowering. Without thinking he tore a loose piece of cloth from Dominic's tattered shirt and buried his muzzle in it.
"That bad, huh?"
A whimper.
Ethan looked like he was holding himself back from throwing up for a moment. "Let's...just find the admissions desk."
A plump, angry looking woman sat behind the triage desk. She gave a cursory glance at the three as they approached. "What brings you three fine Therians to our establishment today?"
"We got mugged earlier," Dominic explained, stepping forward. "They must've drugged us, too, 'cuz when we woke up in a ditch outside of town, those two had fur and I had a dorsal fin..."
The woman didn't blink. She just wrote something down on the chartbook open on the desk. "Leave your name and you'll be called when a doctor is available."
"Thanks, m'am...it's been a rough night for us. I'm Ethan Ross."
"Luke Wright."
"And I'm Dominic Black."
Luke spent the wait with his legs pressed against his chest in the seat. He'd always thought of hospitals as clean places, but his nose was screaming otherwise. The only reason he wasn't trying to pull the others out of there was because this was the only course of action currently available. His heart leapt with joy, therefore, when an hour later a voice called out over the waiting room, "Ross, Wright, and Black."
"Thank goodness...it's been hours." Ethan and the others would be led into an examination room where a thin man with a moustache awaited them with a clipboard.
He looked the three over. "So, you claim you were mugged and woke up with fur? How long have you been using tetramorphite?"
Blank looks all around.
"You might know it as 'morph'. Overdoses tend to result in humans gaining Therian bodies for a short period of time."
"B-but those thugs injected us ages ago! It was the middle of the night!" Luke protested. It pained him to have to discard the idea that their condition was temporary.
The doctor frowned as he examined Dominic first, presumably because finding track marks would be slightly easier on bare skin. From the way he acted, it was fairly obvious he'd treated Therians before, as well as addicts. He made more than a few 'hmm'ing noises before looking at the bichromatic cetacean.
"I don't see any other marks aside from the one...and you say you were dosed in the middle of the night? Even with overdoses, tetramorphite usually wears off after 4 hours or so."
"Isn't there a treatment!?" Luke asked. The desperation in his yipping bordered on hysterical.
"Calm down, Luke," the orca said. "Panicking's not going to help..."
"Please, calm yourself...there is one, but something about your case concerns me. Your forms aside, you're lucid, don't appear to be shaking, and don't show any signs of withdrawl. Tetramorphite is extremely addictive, and even first time users crash hard. If you would like, I could call someone in, see if he can help."
The bloodhound looked like an excited puppy. "Yes! Please! Thank you so much!"
"You're welcome. You're fortunate you pulled me as your doctor...many of my collogues are more prone to snap judgements. And if you return, ask for Doctor Gerard." With a nod, the man excused himself from the room to make a phone call.
Ethan let out a relieved sigh. "Thank god he believed us...who do you think he's calling, though?"
"No idea," Dom said, rubbing his temples. "If we're lucky, it's someone who can help us get our bodies back... or maybe a tailor," he added, gesturing to his torn threads. "But if we're as lucky as we have been since yesterday..." He trailed off, not wanting to finish the pessimistic statement in front of Luke.
Doctor Gerard entered the room a moment later, bearing some garments in his arms and tossing them to the transformed trio. "My friend has agreed to meet you - said your situation was worth looking into. He'll be meeting you at Angelo's on the corner of Gristol and Tyvia. I've also taken the liberty of finding some garments from the lost and found that seemed like they would fit you."
Luke's tail wagged exuberantly at the prospect of clean clothes.
"Whew...was getting tired of people looking at me like I was something they scraped off their shoe."
"Thanks, Doc," Dom said, unfolding the shirt he'd been tossed; it wasn't his style, but it'd do until he managed to get a hold of something better.
VVV
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