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Trust Machines - Swim Meet

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Trust Machines - Swim Meet

“Well, that wraps up the awards for today’s National Championships in swimming.  Unsurprisingly, George Kevins took home the most medals, he was the favourite going into this.”

“Yes, George is perhaps the best natural swimmer of this generation, and we’re looking forward to his run at the Olympics.  The formal competition may be over, Bob, but we’re not done yet.  Next up is the event that everyone’s been waiting for, the unlimited class 3200 meter sprint.  While they’re setting up the modified launch platforms, here’s Kerry with some background on the event.”

The video feed cut over to a cute woman in a tight-cut blazer.  “Thanks Jim.  Over the past year, there have been a lot of controversies over Venn Machine derived swimming forms.  It started with a few competitors adding webbing between their fingers and toes, but didn’t end there.  Soon, the national swimming council banned all Venn Machine modified forms from formal competition, and started using iris scanners to make sure people hadn’t been changed.”

The video feed changed to a line of swimmers walking past an iris scan station, looking much like the lines in every airport in the world.

“Especially at the university level, there was a great degree of dissatisfaction with the directive, so many local groups staged ‘no rules’ races after the main events.”  The video now showed clips from various smaller swimming venues, with visibly modified racers competing or standing on the medal platform.  Some had gills, some had scales, almost all had fins along their arms and legs, and a few had dorsal fins as well.

“These events became so popular that public sentiment led the national council to sanction a similar event at the national events.  Today’s National Championships were moved to a venue closer to a Venn Machine just to make this possible.  Here’s the scene earlier this afternoon.”

The video now showed a suburban mall, and the familiar sight of a Venn Machine. Two cute college-age women wavde at the camera and hopped inside.  There was a quick jump cut, and the doors vanished to reveal that one had become a burly man.  He walked around to pick the other up in his arms, revealing why she cannot walk on her own – she had a silver-scaled tail where her legs used to be.  Her top half looked mostly the same, other than webbing on her hands and a dorsal fin running most the length of her back, also in silver-grey.

Another pair of women entered the machine, red-heads looking alike enough to be sisters.  When they emerged, they were met by wheelchairs, as they had become identical green-tailed mermaids, with shell-themed bikini tops.

“That was Tammy and Kelly Zharus, sisters who have both placed well in the early competitions.  Unlike most teams, they both compete, rather than having one designer and one swimmer.”

“Thanks Kelly.  It looks like the competitors are coming out now, let’s go back to the main pool.”

“Right you are Bob.  And what a show they’re putting on!  This looks more like a beauty pageant than a swimming competition.”

The first competitor was flexing and preening a wheelchair done up in competition colours.  She had a silvery tail reminiscent of a salmon, with speckles along her flank and a darker patch down her back under the dorsal fin.

The next overshadowed her, despite having a very similar body shape.  She was much more colourful, with wide blushes of pink down her sides.

“It looks like our first two competitors have used king and pink salmon respectively as their models.  I’d love to land one of those the next time I go fishing.”

The other announcer chuckled.  “Your wife might object, Jim.  And here comes one who looks like she’s used a lemon shark as her model.”

The pageant of mermaids continued with several more sharks – a bluetip, a spotted catshark, a nurse shark, and finally one with a miniature version of a great white’s tail.  These were followed by more fish-themed tails, starting with four angelfish in various colours.  These were followed by a very pretty pink betta-girl, who’d carried the scales all the way up to her neck.  Her arms had lacy fins falling from them, looking almost like a robe.  Both the commentators agreed that her fins looked far too delicate to actually race.

More mermaids styled after aquarium fish followed.  There was a dark-haired girl with the blue-spotted tail of a blue gourami, followed by two blondes with the electric blue and red stripes of neon tetras.

“It looks like those two didn’t coordinate their outfits, Jim.  They don’t look happy.”

“Bad enough to wear the same dress, but the same body?  Oh good, it looks like they’re separating them.”

A swimmer with a black tail and a bright red fin was already being wheeled in, and next came one in bright red, with long trailing fins, based on a long-tailed swordfish.

“Will you look at this one, Bob.  Is that an X-ray fish?  I can see her skeleton.  Creepy.”

“It does go well with her black lipstick and skull-patterned top.”

The next three had fishlike bodies, but their colour patterns weren’t natural.  One had tiger stripes, and the second the spots of a clouded leopard.  The third was a uniform pale blue below her breasts, with bright rainbow stripes running down each flank.  She even had rainbow-coloured hair to match.

“Someone’s showing their pride today.”

“I don’t know Bob, my grandkids watch this show...  Never mind.”

The next mermaid was a dead ringer for Darryl Hannah in Splash, followed by the sisters with red hair and green tails.

“Does Hollywood know about this, Bob?”

“Apparently we have a blanket permission for purposes of competition only.  But even if they win, sponsorship deals will be out of the question.”

There were another pair of similar mermaids after the sisters, two friends who often swam in the ocean in the forms they were wearing today, gold-scaled bodies with built-in bikini tops of the same design.  After them came a series of simpler, monochromatic tails, in pink, orange, purple, red, yellow and blue.  They were followed by one with a shiny black latex tail that looked more like fetish wear, and got some colourful comments.

“Oh, now we’ve got something interesting.  This next one looks like she’s based on a... squid?  How’s that going to work?”

“Squids can jet themselves around really quickly, Bob. It will be interesting to see how this gamble works.”

A girl with a moray eel’s body followed next.  She didn’t even have arms.  Right on her tail was another eel, this time in bright red latex.  Next were two rays, one rounded one that was based on a torpedo ray, and a dappled leopard ray.

“And saving the prettiest for last, here comes Blake Webb.”

The mermaid being wheeled out was a vision in orange-gold and white.  Her brilliant scales covered her entire body, and even her face was particoloured.  In addition to the to the webbed fingers and arm-fins that most of the mermaids sported, she had three pairs of fins along her body, and a shallow dorsal fin buried in her long black hair.

All the mermaids were set up side side by side at the edge of the pool for a photo opportunity.  While that was going on, the announcers discussed the race format.  They had 39 contestants, so there would be 5 preliminary races.  The winners of each and the fastest three of the others would match off for the finals.

While all this had been going on, the starting platforms had been removed and replaced with some newly designed ones.  Each of the eight platforms looked like a section of water-slide, suspended by an arrangement of metal arms.  They lowered down to the ground to let the contestants on, then scissored up to the usual height.

Just as the first set of racers were in place and lifting up, another wheelchair emerged, this one shrouded in a large towel.

“Hey, Bob, it looks like we have our final contestant.  I wonder why they’re staying covered up?”

A race official met the new contestant at the line and there was some gesticulating between him and the man pushing the wheelchair.  Just as Kelly was walking up to find out what was going on, the official yanked the towel off.

“A dolphin?” he yelled.  “You can’t enter a dolphin in the race.”

“Sure we can,” said the man.  “This is George Kevins, I Venned him not ten minutes ago.  Your official camera was still running.”

Someone in the production room was on their toes, and a few seconds later the footage of the Venn Machine came up, showing the winner of five of the earlier races getting into a Venn Machine, and moments later falling out of it gracelessly in the finned form now sitting beside the pool.  After more arguments about the meaning of ‘Unlimited class’ and pointing out that there were, in fact, no restrictions on the forms that could be used as long as it stayed within its lane, the dolphin was allowed to join the lineup.

Everyone else looked quite upset, though some were looking more as if they wished they’d thought of it first.  The official stormed off to talk with his superiors, and another advanced to the line.  He stood beside the first starting stand, hand on a large red button.  

“Ready, set, race!”  He pressed the button, and the purpose of the new stands became obvious.  They all tilted as one, sliding their occupants into the water.  The race was on!  Water churned as all the racers accelerated off the line.  Most stayed fully submerged, with at best the tip of a dorsal or tail fin showing.  Moments later, the leaders were at the far end of the pool, bursting up in a froth of spray for the turn, and then vanishing into the water once more.  The flash of a tail at each turn made it fairly easy to tell which swimmer was which, and soon it was obvious that the bluetip shark and the king salmon were the contenders for first.  In the end the shark won, but by less than a body-length.

Soon the next heat was set up, launching three angelfish, the pretty betta, the blue gourami and both of the neon tetras separated by the red-tailed shark.  As the commentators had expected, the betta’s feathery fins were no match for the other competitors, and by the time the tetras had come in first and second, she was barely half done.

The next race was handily won by the blue mermaid with the rainbow stripes, though the clouded leopard patterned one gave her a good run for her money, posting the second best time for a non-winner, after the second tetra.

Unfortunately, the race among the golden mermaids and the six mono-coloured ones was not as exciting, as their ‘classic’ mermaid designs proved only a little faster than a normal human in the water.  One of the golden-scaled mermaids won, but it was obvious she’d not be even remotely competitive in the final heat.

“And here we are folks, the last preliminary round.  We have a squid, two mermaids that look like they’re out of some fetish-wear catalog, a moray eel, two rays, the gorgeous Blake in her koi-patterned body, and... a dolphin.  I hope this will be a good race, but dolphins are amazingly fast when they put their minds to it.”

The ramps tilted, and the race began.  Blake lept out to an early lead as the dolphin flailed, slowly getting used to his body.  Soon the dolphin surged forward, trailing a wake that left everyone but the squid and the koi looking like they were treading water.  In the end, he managed to edge out the squid, but lost to Blake by a quarter-length.

“Well.  I guess dolphins aren’t quite as superior as we thought.  Blake has had the advantage of a lot of training in her chosen form, and it showed today.”

“The race isn’t over, Jim.   And it looks like George has just made the cutoff for getting into the final round.  So we’ll see how he fares with more experience under his belt.”

Before long, the water was churning once again.  Blake and George spent the entire run matching each other stroke for stroke, and at every turn it was as if their tails were flashing out of the water with perfect synchronization.  Neither gave ground, neither flagged as they left the rest of the pool struggling in their wakes.

“It’s coming down to the wire, and the koi versus dolphin race is still anyone’s... there they are!  I have no idea who won, they were dead even to the very last.  We’re waiting on the photo finish...”

Both the koi and the dolphin were hauled up out of the water by their handlers, and as Kelly was approaching to interview them the final results were flashed up on the screen.  Blake Webb: 5:58.42.  George Kevins: 5:58.41.

“George wins yet another title!” cheered Kelly, “And he has posted the fastest swimming speed in any competition, ever.  How does it feel, George?”

Her answer was a long squeak followed by three chirps.  Kelly shook her head, and walked over to Blake.  “Well.  I guess we’re not getting much out of him.  How does it feel, Blake?  I see several of the sponsorship scouts are already licking their jowls.  Are you ready to spend days on end in this body?”

Blake looked sweetly confused.  “But,” she panted, “I didn’t win...”

Kelly shrugged.  “What good is a spokesperson... spokesfish that can’t speak?  Besides, George has plenty of sponsors.  I know there were more than a few here looking for an attractive, victorious mermaid, and that would appear to be you.”

Blake looked over at the suited men, who nodded in unison.  They then fell to arguing about who would get to make the first offer while the interview continued.  “I... wow.  That’s going to be...” she paused to get another lungful of air, “something else.  Fun.”

“I hope you enjoy the limelight.  So I have to ask... why koi?”

Blake smiled, and looked off into the distance as she pantingly told a rambling story of growing up on her parents farm, and loving the pond there.  How her father had won her some koi at a county fair, and she’d raised them until they were big enough she could imagine riding them.

Kelly cut her off before she was done, “And I’m afraid that’s all the time we have.  I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of Blake in the future, right?”  Blake’s huge grin was the last image before the feed cut to the news.

* * *

In addition to several lucrative sponsorships, Blake graced the cover of Swimsuit Illustrated, wearing an entirely redundant but beautiful golden bikini top.  The neon tetras briefly returned to the public eye when they did a double shoot as ‘Playfish of the Month’ for Playboy.  Janine, the betta mermaid, gained a niche following among aquarium enthusiasts.  She became a regular sight at trade shows occupying a giant fish tank, more often than not as a human-sized betta.
Something a bit fluffier than usual even for Trust Machines, based on comments by Blake741 and SirKev66 on JMD1961's story Wand 13.

Is 39 mermaids enough for you guys?
© 2014 - 2024 dkfenger
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SirKev66's avatar
Wow, I'm almost speechless.  This was a great story and lots of fun to read.  Your imagination knows no bounds to come up with all those different combinations.

While there is always room for one more, I am more than satisfied reading about 39 different mermaids and even a merman thrown in for good measure!

Thanks so much dk! :D