✅ Softlocked

Part 1

This bonus story is dedicated to Dewayne.

Sorry for the lack of a proper cover. This story was written for NaptimeDaytime's short story contest on FurAffinity, and I only decided at the last minute to post it here too.

On the day he had the idea, Bock was lying in a box about an inch longer than his height, and with the same amount of space in front of his nose. The box was colloquially known as a steel coffin, for obvious reasons. There were more than enough identical boxes in the world, coming close to half a trillion now, and almost everyone alive knew what they were for; although only a tiny minority had ever seen one with their own eyes. In fact, a vanishingly small fraction of the population had ever seen anything with their own eyes, and Bock would soon be joining that unique club.

Bock wasn't thinking about that at all this morning. Instead, he was leaning over a railing watching some of the greatest athletes in the world prepare to attempt a thousand metre sprint. Most of the audience had their eyes on three competitors, two of whom were cheetahs. Of course they were the fastest sprinters, it was a natural advantage. There was no way a ferret could possibly keep up with either of them, not least because her legs were so much shorter, but one particular individual just wouldn't give up. And it was this mystery that the commentators were discussing yet again as the athletes focused on their breathing and stretches.

The ferret had an incredibly long name, derived from some ethnic group that her ancestors had once belonged to back when they were human. But the sports magazines and the press all just called her Jix, and it was the only name that really mattered now. The commentators were talking about the prize money she had won in the last three years, and the estimated value of sponsorship deals. If she really wanted to be the fastest sprinter in the world, they were sure that she could have upgraded to be a cheetah, increasing her stride length by an order of magnitude immediately. But Jix didn't want to change, she wanted to push the body she already had to its limits. Stacking up the maximum possible benefit from all her feats and boons, practising until her reflexes were top notch, and pouring every single experience point and evolution shard into maximising her straight-line dash.

Bock admired her tenacity, and kind of wished he had the patience to focus so well. Not in sprinting, running in a straight line had always seemed too simple to him. But he wished that he'd had the focus to put all of his effort into one field when he was younger. If he'd tried harder, and not wasted points on gambling skills and girth upgrades when he was younger, he might have been able to remain in the professional leagues. He still loved to work out, and to do the best he could with his body, but he'd never been the best. And without the prizes he could have won as a pup, he would never be strong or fast enough to reach the pro leagues.

He'd told his parents that he was taking volleyball seriously when he decided to be a mink. Sure, a lithe body made the sport easier, but it probably hadn't been the best choice. Better than a bulldog, almost certainly, but so was just about anything. His parents had said that a giraffe would be a better choice, but he hadn't been rich enough to afford that, and he didn't want to wait. That was ancient history now, ten years later, and he wasn't any closer to affording another upgrade. In fact, his meagre winnings in semi-pro games were barely enough to keep up with payments on his current body, and he'd reached the postmodern hell of dreading the day he could no longer service his contract.

"What do you think?" Noelle asked, putting one hand gently on his wrist. Bock didn't answer for a moment, but then he turned his head slightly and looked up at her perpetual eager grin. Of course she was excited, this was Noelle. She was the eternal optimist. He wanted to cheer along with her, but when Bock tried to think of something to say he quickly realised that he didn't have any idea what she had been talking about.