Shifting Worlds - Claude Outline

Chapter 1

Julian Mostel leaned back in his chair and sighed - his heart wasn't really in his side project of playing with steganography, the technique of hiding messages in plain sight. His boyfriend of 4 years had found a less geeky and more compliant golden retriever shifter to receive his affections - it wasn't really a surprise: a doberman was just a little to staid for a playful otter and the relationship really hadn't been working. At 32, Julian wasn't really old, but his motto was "I may be getting older, but I refuse to grow up!". It didn't help that the old washable cover on his chair was getting a little threadbare and needed to be replaced - his bare skin deserved something softer and more comfortable. He knew there were some oddballs out there who actually wore clothes regularly, and *liked* it, but like most people, for him, clothes were an uncomfortable nuisance only worn when absolutely necessary. Aside from that, he liked to shift on a whim and didn't want to have to deal with them when doing so.

Spock's voice interrupted his malaise with the classic "Fascinating", which indicated that his program searching for signs of embedded steganography in public social media had found something. He hadn't actually expected to find anything, basically just testing the basic program before turning it loose in more likely locations. Though as he thought about it, pubic social media was the perfect location for hiding something in plain sight - he remembered when he'd first played with the technology as a teen, hiding messages to his closeted boyfriend in memes they'd "innocently" exchanged as "just friends".

Looking at what the program had found, he saw a classic picture of Mt Hood as seen from the Rose Garden in Portland, Oregon. He'd been up there many times and new the view well. Julian pulled up a second program that would try a variety of algorithms and passwords to see if it could crack the embedded message (steganographic messages were almost always encrypted as well - the steganography was merely a way of trying to hide the fact that there was a message in the first place). This would run for hours, even on the large server farm he had available at the hosting facility he was a security consultant for, and he decided to go grab a bite the Rookery, a gay bar that had decent pub grub off the east end of the Burnside bridge.

As usual, it was raining, so he shifted to his otter form, which didn't care, for the few blocks over to the pub. Just outside, he shook off as much of the water as he could, then shifted and stepped inside where he grabbed a towel from the stack, wiped himself off a bit, found a free table, and sat on the towel. The server, who Julian knew was a Portland State University graphic arts student on their wrestling team, took his order for a local cider with a carefully orchestrated turn - while few shifters were out of shape due to the metabolism of shifting (the two shifts he'd completed just getting there consumed 2000 calories all by themselves), some were definitely better looking than others and got better tips when they took advantage of it without being obnoxious about it.

Although Julian knew the menu pretty well, he looked it over and decided on a pair of double burgers with all the trimmings - he needed to fuel up for both the shifts coming over, and the ones going back, as well as being his normal dinner. After making his decision, he leaned back and looked around to check out the scene. Although it was mid-week, there was the usual assortment of bodies hanging out - some who clearly worked out and others not so much, but all had some padding to provide an energy buffer for the expense of shifting. Trying to shift without it was not only difficult, but could be dangerous if there wasn't enough extra fuel for it - the energy had to come from somewhere, and you didn't want it to come from something important to living. There were admirable bodies to be sure, but the assortment overall was pretty typical. Then he saw the bartender. The bar hid his lower half, but the top half really caught Julian's eye: sandy blonde, chiseled jaw, not enough padding to hide those pecs, nicely defined biceps, long eyelashes to match the slender fingers pulling taps. He was the total package.

The server came back with Julian's cider and took his burger order, though Julian barely noticed as he watched the bartender competently pull drafts and mix drinks. Occasionally, the bartender would look back and give Julian a quick wink, a smirk, or a seductive wiggle, before moving on to his next order. They silently flirted while Julian ate his meal, but when he finished, he wanted to check on the mysterious message he'd found and headed back to his office.

Theo Kessler watched as the attractive, mildly furry, guy he'd been flirting with at a distance finished his meal, paid, and walked out. At 30, he had been bartending now for a few years, having decided that he much preferred that to the MBA he'd almost finished, but had only recently moved back to Portland and the job at the Rookery. He'd seen a lot of attractive guys in those years, and slept with many of them, but this one grabbed his attention more than most - enough that his inner deer wanted to come out and show off his rack, despite it being late spring and the rack hadn't grown much yet. He hoped the guy was a regular and would be back, maybe they could explore Forest Park, the Columbia Gorge, and Mt Hood together.

Chapter 2

When Julian got back to his office, to his surprise, the message had been cracked - the sender had barely encrypted the message at all, with a simple "rot13" cipher of all things! The message read:

Rookery test run setup - genetic coding for the deer shifter fag in place. Any predators in the club should take care of him quickly Friday night!

Julian raced back to the Rookery to see if he could find out what the message was talking about - it definitely didn't sound like the test should be allowed to proceed!