"I think you girls have already done a good job of identifying what sorts of challenges lie ahead," dad said as he gave us all a thoughtful look. "And from the sound of it money and ID are the biggest hurdles all three of you are facing."

He looked to me as he continued, "You said you've got another week of vacation, right hon? When exactly do you go back? Or are you still planning to return to your old job?"

"And Soneya," he said as he turned towards our wolfgirl, "You've made the point that you can't safely cross the border to return home. Is that something you want to do, are you hoping to return to the States at some point?"

He didn't have any big questions for Lia, or at least not yet, but our small sister didn't seem to mind. She was quiet and looked happy now that she'd had her fill of cheese and crackers. And mom wasn't around for this part of the conversation, she'd excused herself to tidy up after the snacks then she stayed in the kitchen to start some of the preparations for dinner.

As for the questions dad asked, I noticed our pack leader's expression had settled into a thoughtful frown. It looked like she was going down a mental rabbit-hole while she considered what my dad just asked her, so while she was doing that I went ahead and responded to the question he had for me.

"First-level tech support isn't exactly the most fulfilling career," I said as I made a bit of a face, "But both my manager and my boss have been super supportive of me all along. Ever since I first came out as trans, they've backed me up all the way. So yeah, I'd like to keep that job. And the pay's decent too, for that kind of work?"

I added, "I'm not due back into the office until October fourth, so a week from tomorrow. The original plan would have had me leaving the park this Wednesday, and we'd be back here in Toronto by Friday, the first? So I'd have the weekend to get ready before heading back to work on the following Monday."

Dad nodded, "All right hon, then here's what I suggest. Since you're on good terms with your manager I'd reach out to him tomorrow, or Tuesday at the latest. Send him an email and let him know you've had some unexpected changes in your life. You don't have to tell him what exactly, not right away. But maybe make the suggestion that you meet with him later in the week? Or better still, after the email maybe you can follow up with a video call?"

He quickly elaborated, "What I'm thinking is, rather than just show up a week from tomorrow and surprise all your coworkers with your new look, ease your manager into it the same way you did with your mom and I. You want to establish a couple things. First, make sure he knows you're you and you're still able to do the job same as before. Second, you need to know that he's comfortable with your new appearance, so you'll be comfortable with him when you head back into the office. Get him on your side up front, and I'm sure things will go a lot easier when you're there in person next week."

"Oh," I grimaced as I got a sinking feeling in my gut. "That's actually going to be an issue dad. I can't use a normal headset anymore, that's going to make using the phone at work impossible..."

That actually made dad smile, "That sounds like a challenge I can help with. It might take me an evening or two, but I'm sure I can put something together that'll work just fine."

"Really?" Soneya asked in surprise. "How, what are you thinking of?"

"My dad's into electronics," I explained with a grin. "He's pretty handy with a soldering iron and he knows how to build and fix all sorts of stuff."

The wolfgirl seemed impressed as she responded, "Huh. That's pretty neat."

"It's a hobby, but it keeps me out of trouble," dad joked. Then he got serious again and asked, "Soneya have you thought about what you want to do, or what your goals are?"

She nodded slowly, "Yeah. It's complicated, but right now I really want to stay here, I want to stay with Tori and Lia. Maybe when things get back to normal I'll be able to go back home, at least to visit? Even that'll depend though, on how things go with my parents. But for now I'm staying here."

My dad replied, "All right, so you're probably going to need to find a job, and that means ID is also going to be an issue for you too. Maybe immigration as well, but we can worry about that later."

He paused there for a moment, then his expression became more thoughtful. He looked at the three of us again and asked, "So I hope this doesn't come across as too naive, and I don't want to be offensive or insensitive, but have any of you girls tried to use magic to change your ID? Considering all three of you have had some fairly significant changes to your bodies, maybe there's other things you can do with that power?"

I shook my head, "I don't know if we control it dad? I mean, I can do some cool tricks with with water, but I'm still just figuring that out. And I don't think there's anything water-based about ID is there? They're basically just plastic cards."

Soneya looked thoughtful too as she commented, "Maybe not, but I don't think any of us have tried. I have a feeling out of all three of us, the one who's most likely to have a shot at doing something like that is going to be Lia."

"That's a good point," I agreed as I turned to look at our small sister. "You did illusion or light-based magic first, then you were trying to do another illusion to make yourself look like a foxgirl. Only instead of an illusion you accidentally made it real. Do you think you could do something like that again, but with our ID?"

Lia shrugged, "I don't know, maybe? What's an ID?"

"Right," Soneya almost laughed. "Maybe we can work on this back at your place later Tori? We can take some time tomorrow to teach her about ID and stuff."

I smiled as I pulled Lia into a hug, "Our pack leader has a good point little sister. We'll teach you about ID tomorrow."

"I see some smiling faces," mom commented as she finally rejoined us. "I hope that means there's good news?"

Soneya nodded, "Yes ma'am. Or at least, I think we're making some progress anyways."

"We are," my dad agreed. "We're working on solving some of their immediate problems."

I asked mom, "How'd it go in the kitchen? Sorry I didn't come and help, I got involved in the discussion here."

She shook her head, "That's fine Tori, this is more important than dinner. Which will be ready in about an hour."

"It's just a chicken and pasta casserole," mom added. "I hope you girls all like cheese because I use four different kinds."

I smiled, "Sounds great mom!"

"Yeah, it sounds delicious," Soneya agreed.

And even though we could all guess what Lia thought about it, our small sister still made sure to let us all know how much she was looking forward to it. Even if she didn't know what pasta was she was definitely excited about both chicken and more cheese.

Then dad took a few moments to recap our earlier conversation for mom, he told her how he was going to build me a phone headset that would fit my fox ears and told her that we were going to look into using magic to fix our ID and stuff. That just left the question of Soneya finding work, which was the topic of discussion for the next several minutes.

"Even if we can update my ID with magic I still couldn't get a job," the wolfgirl pointed out. "I don't have a work visa, I'm only in the country as a tourist."

My dad looked thoughtful again, "There's probably other options. I know there's some places that will pay cash under the table. Or maybe you can find work online, something you can do from home over the internet?"

Mom gave dad a bit of a look as she pointed out, "That doesn't sound entirely legal Trevor. Don't you go getting these girls into trouble, don't tell them to start breaking laws."

"It's more of a grey area I think?" dad protested. "Thanks to the internet everything's global. It doesn't matter what country you're in when you can work from anywhere."

Our wolfgirl pointed out, "The problem is my bank account is in the States, and it's under the wrong name. Even if we can update my plastic cards that's not going to change the actual banking details."

"Right," my dad frowned. "Well these are just additional hurdles, we'll figure it out. One step at a time. The bottom line is this is a unique situation, I think it's safe to say nobody else has faced anything quite like it before. And like we said, Andrea and I are here to help, we'll back you girls up any way we can."

That made me smile, "Thanks dad. And mom, thank you both."

Soneya was about to say something when her phone suddenly buzzed with a couple texts. She pulled it out to check it, and over the next ten seconds or so her expression shifted to a frown, then finally an anxious-looking grimace.

"Oh shit," she sighed. "This is really bad."

"What's wrong?" I asked as I gave her a worried look.

"I just got a text from my friend Michael," Soneya explained. "Warning us to be careful and watch our backs. He included a couple screenshots and a link to a social media thread, from a guy in Hopkinsville Kentucky. That guy was relaying texts he got from a friend of his in Grand Rivers."

"According to the timestamp this started about ninety minutes ago," she added, before she started reading out the first couple posts on the thread.

"Getting the message out ASAP because they've already started on the cover-up. U.S. military shot and killed a 'monster person' just south of Grand Rivers Kentucky. The victim was attempting to leave the restricted zone the military set up a few days ago around the Land Between the Lakes Recreation Area."

Soneya continued, "According to this guy's friend who witnessed the shooting, the 'monster person' was mostly human but with 'animalistic mutations', as in ears and a tail. The victim spoke in clear English and claimed to be a US citizen. In fact they said they lived in Cincinnati. They claimed they were only visiting south-western Kentucky for a camping holiday, and they got trapped in the recreational area when the earthquake struck last week."

"A number of other civilians witnessed the shooting," she stated as she read the next part of the thread, "Along with a few members of the press. The military immediately began confiscating cameras and phones and everything else, then moved everyone back away from the Barkley Canal where the shooting took place. None of the local press have reported on the event, and the military have yet to issue any form of statement."

The wolfgirl stopped there and looked up from her phone as she sighed, "This is our worst nightmare. Other people have changed like us, and they're being shot on sight."

"I think this also confirms some of the other things we've been speculating about," she said as she turned towards me and Lia. "We already know there's another one of those mountains there near the Kentucky Tennessee border, and now we've got confirmation that someone there was changed the same way we were. I think we can take that as proof that the thing with the water is probably happening there same as it was at the Gaspésie."

She frowned as she added, "The Land Between the Lakes is bordered by two man-made lakes, made by damming the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. Both of them flow into the Ohio River, which in turn flows into the Mississippi. So like we were talking about a few days ago, this could eventually impact almost the entire south-east and mid-west United States."

I grimaced, "And if it's happening in both Gaspésie and south-western Kentucky, it's probably happening everywhere one of those mountains appeared. So now the only question is how fast will it spread?"

"Going upstream was a lot slower," Soneya reminded me. "We saw that outside Petit Sault, when you were checking that river there. But going downstream should flow at the same speed as the river, right? That means it's going to reach places like Memphis, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans in just days. Assuming it hasn't already got that far."

She continued, "Going upriver it'll take longer but it's going to start hitting other major cities that way too. Going up the Ohio River it'll hit Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. Upstream on the Mississippi is St. Louis and Minneapolis, plus a thousand other tributaries."

I sighed, "The Gaspésie is basically going to empty straight into the St. Lawrence, but going upriver it'll eventually work its way back to the entire Great Lakes area. It might take a while though. We'll have to keep an eye on the news for any strange reports."

The wolfgirl nodded, "Memphis is the first big city downstream, and Nashville might be the first big one upstream? That's on the Cumberland River, which is one of the two rivers that flow into the Land Between the Lakes."

At that point we both went quiet, as we sort of processed the news and the big picture. That's when my dad finally spoke up, which suddenly reminded me where we were and that my parents had been listening to that whole conversation.

"Uh, girls?" my dad asked as he looked back and forth between me and Soneya. "What's the 'water thing' all about? I get the feeling it's something dangerous?"

Soneya and I both cringed as we looked at each other. We'd completely forgotten to keep quiet about that in front of my folks, now it looked like we might have to tell them everything.

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