Who?

The weird light felt like being punched in the head, stomach, and face all at the same time. Zach went down to the concrete ground hard. And yet, he woke up on a soft white carpet. A television was on with some sort of exercise video with a woman doing yoga. Zach wondered where the heck he was; perhaps a better question would be WHO the heck he was.

Like most of the world, he was caught up in the Great Shift. And like about 60% of the male population, he was now in the body of a woman. No one could explain the phenomenon, nor could anyone account for why people were slightly more likely to swap with a person of a different gender.

Zach tried not to let it bother him, for the most part. He knew there wasn’t much he could do about it anyway. He just had to go on with his life.

Urban Legend

Vinny had often heard an urban legend about a so-called “magic taxi” that ran through the City and swapped people’s bodies. He always avoided the traditional yellow cabs as a result. He was just superstitious in that way.

He never would’ve suspected the magic taxi was actually a black gypsy cab! When he swapped into the driver’s body, he was freaking out. He wanted to drive the damned thing into the East River. But he calmed himself. He could just use the cab to steal someone else’s body. There were some sort of magic words right? What did the driver say to him? Why couldn’t he seem to remember?

It was several rides before it came to him. He didn’t remember when driving; he just blurted out as a fare was leaving, “Have a nice day,” he told the woman. The instant he realized what he said, he knew he had said it. He found himself on the street in the young woman’s body. He was holding his new head as it throbbed in pain before he pulled out $50 worth of cash and gave it to the body that had been his these past few days.

As he stumbled in the heels on the feet of new feminine form, he told himself that he should have known better and that he should have been more careful. Once the cursed taxi had him, there was no way he was going to escape with the body of his choosing. It never worked like that -- or so the legend went -- and now he was stuck like this! As a woman!

The Bug

Alec was super hyped that his team had just finished work on their latest invention. It was essentially an attribute slider, you’d place the device on your arm and them slide up and down attributes you wished to change about yourself. While there were basic functions on the arm piece itself, you could also change more advanced things with the desktop app.

The first thing Alec did was change his gender, then make himself a little shorter, push up his cuteness, alter his race, and finally change his outfit. His body changed in a matter of seconds, and it was all 100% real. It wasn’t just an illusion, his body had actually changed.

“Ya done?” His co-worker Chong questioned, “Some of the rest of us want a chance!”

“Oh, yeah, no problem,” Alec replied, “Just let me revert the changes.”

He tried hitting reset; he tried undo; he even tried just changing the settings back one-by-one. It seemed that once something changed, it couldn’t be changed back.

“Uh, guys,” Alec addressed the room, “Everyone else can try using it, but I should probably point out that I think I found a bug...”

Goblin Princess (Part 3)

View Part 1 of Goblin Princess.
View Part 2 of Goblin Princess.

While the adventurer quested for the ring, Ryan’s mind became clearer once more. He knew who he really was, and he knew (as far as he could tell) he was trapped in this RPG and stuck in this body. But he figured if he was stuck this, there was one thing goblins were known for -- a good party!

As Ryan feasted on spirits and raw meat, he learned more about the princess he now was. The illigitimate daughter of the tribe’s previous Goblin King and a human woman, she was never expected to take the throne or even be found. She had been sent to an orphanage at birth and found herself always teased for being too much of a goblin for humans yet far too human for goblins.

Her fate changed dramatically one night when the king’s family was slaughtered, and the remaining tribe sought her out as the last remaining heir. She didn’t know much about being a goblin -- she took the title of “princess” instead of “queen” because she thought “it sounded cuter,” which the other goblins just didn’t understand, for instance. She longed for continue her bloodline without understanding it; she yearned for acceptance and love after a lonely and sad childhood. While the tribe respected her, none of the goblin males wanted a half human wife. The frustration and sadness lead to weird quirks -- the aggressive pursuit of traveller’s love and an entire wardrobe comprising nothing but various wedding dresses.

The whole story was enough to make Ryan feel a little bad about killing her on his own playthrough after she spouted a mere three words.

Experience It

Alfred thought he was pretty lucky to stumble upon a slot machine in Vegas that seemed to be completely free. It didn’t seem to have a way to even take money, so he casually pressed one of the buttons to spin. The symbols on the screen lit up, but in the same way there was no way to insert money, there didn’t seem to be a way to get any out either. He decided to press the button a few more times. At one point, he noticed his hands seem to get thinner. With each spin, his body changed more and more.

It was some time later when Alfred became worried as the machine stopped working. If he couldn’t keep changing, he’d be stuck like this! No, he had to keep pressing to get his body back! He didn’t want to be the petite Asian woman he had become, but his continued pressing did nothing. Eventually a large man approached.

“You need to get off this machine and let others use it,” The man said.

“But it’s broken!” Alfred protested.

“We disabled it. You’ve hit your limit.”

“But this slot machine transformed me! I need to keep going to change back to normal.”

“That ain’t a slot machine. It’s more like...an attraction. And it changes people at random. That’s what it does; that’s what it’s designed to do. And you need to give other people a chance to experience it.”

Genius (Part 1)

Martin had always been a genius. He took the SATs in the fifth grade and got a perfect score. He graduated college by the time he was fourteen. By the time he was twenty, he was inventing things straight out of science fiction books. Despite his genius, he was socially awkward and lived with his parents. Instead of presenting his new creations to venture capitalists, he’d often show them to his mom.

His latest was a device that could swap two people’s brains. He begged his mom to try it out with him. She seemed hesitant, but he told her that if she swapped with him, she could be young again. She be able to go out for a night on the town, and that maybe she’d be able to help him make some friends while she was in his body. She saw a chance to help her son out, so she agreed.

The device was oddly simple and quick, and Martin and his mom soon found themselves in each other’s bodies. Martin was extremely excited that it had worked and gave a big grin, telling his mom to enjoy her night out. She tried to suggest they swap back immediately, but Martin was insistent that she take the night to enjoy herself. As she left, Martin sat back on the couch and smiled even wider; he couldn’t believe his latest device had worked! He couldn’t wait to go over the data, but decided he should change out of his mom’s work clothes first. They were so uncomfortable.

Enhanced

“Jack! Jack! You can’t leave me trapped like this!” Dr. Anne Kim yelled from inside the chamber, shocked that Jack was on the outside wearing her labcoat and glasses.

“I don’t plan to,” He said.

“Well, what are you going to do to me?”

“Two weeks ago, you put me in that chamber and used it to transform me into your exact double. You forced me to deal with your personal and family life while you spent extra time here in the lab. But I wasn’t your exact double, you see. Intentional or not, you enhanced certain aspects of yourself. Your intelligence, your desires -- all of those were enhanced in me. I was trendier, more popular, and smarter than you. I was a better Anne than you ever coule be. And you even enhanced how much I enjoyed being Anne. I realized there couldn’t be too Annes running around, and I knew I had to eliminate the inferior one. But don’t worry, I’m not killing you. I still have my old DNA on file. I am going to use this machine to turn you into me.”

“But I don’t want to be you!”

“You won’t be me. You’ll be an enhanced me, a better me. And just like what you did to me, you may be fighting it now, but I will enhance how much you will enjoy being Jack. You’ll be thanking me when it’s done. And who knows? Maybe these changes will make us perfect for each other.”

Good News. Bad News.

“I need some advice here,” Jonah said nervously as he entered his bosses office, “Do we have any clue how long it’s going to be until we all swap back to our own bodies? I’m nervous to walk around or touch anything because, well -- this!” He gestured to the fact that he now had Andrea’s body.

“Well, I suppose the good news is that you don’t need to walk on eggshells.” His boss replied, “Just act in Andrea’s body as you normally would in your own body.”

“Well, that’s good news because I think I really need to go to the bathroom, and I was really uncomfortable with that! I still don’t want to. Is there any chance we’ll get back to our own bodies any time soon?”

“And that’s the bad news. This wasn’t an incident just at this company or this office. We’ve checked. We also have been hearing news reports starting to come out. The body swapping event is a world wide phenomenon. It’s affecting everyone. Not just here in this office or even in this city, but it’s hitting all across the globe. That means you’ll probably have to get used to being in Andrea’s body for a while. I wouldn’t hold it in or you might give yourself a urinary tract infection.”

“A...what...infection!?”

Crimes (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Crimes.

After a close call where he woke up in the hospital after one of old lady’s he swapped bodies with had a heart attack, Jim decided he needed a different approach. He needed an even quicker way to grab cash and he needed to choose younger bodies, ultimately settling on robbing convenience stores with the bodies of middle aged suburban moms.

He first pick was a woman coming out of the gym. He was sure she was healthy. After stealing her body, he picked up a fake gun he left nearby. Pointing it at the clerk, he demanded all the money in the register.

The clerk stammered, “Yeah, yeah, sure. But there’s only like $50 in there. The rest is in a dropsafe in back! I...I don’t have the key to that or anything. And, and, there’s a camera right there. If I’m short $50, the police will come. But if you walk away right now, they won’t even check that video.”

“I don’t care about the video,” Jim said staring straight at the camera. But maybe the clerk was right. It wasn’t worth it; he needed a bigger score. He sighed as he tucked the gun into his yoga pants and walked away.

In the Warehouse

I wrote a second part to this that is up exclusively on my Patreon.

Raymond was working as a night security guard in a large research lab on the outskirts of town. There were plenty of doors he was often instructed not to enter. Yet one night he heard a noise and screams for help behind one of those forbidden doors. When he entered, he saw a tank with a mermaid inside.

“Help me,” She said softly, “Free me from this tank!”

Raymond nodded, “What do I do?”

She pointed him to a machine next to the tank and gave him a series of steps, which he followed word-for-word. The final step was simply pressing a final button.

After doing so, Raymond felt quite strange. His face was now pressed up against the glass and on the other side was...himself? He looked down to see a tail. The machine had freed the mermaid by swapping their bodies! He was her and stuck inside the tank.

“Thanks for freeing me,” She said, “I’m sorry this was the only way to do so.”

As she left, Raymond flipped his tail. He couldn’t believe it; he was a mermaid...and probably subject to whatever sorts of weird experiments they were doing to in this lab.

Cycle D

“Please awaken, #1370-D,” The voice inside Ben’s head said.

“D?” Ben muttered, “So it’s a new cycle?” Ben noticed something about his voice. It was much higher pitch than he expected. Sure, a little bit was expected. After all, a new cycle meant he was 20 years old again. That was just how it worked.

At the start of the first cycle, several thousand volunteers were shot into space to reach the nearest inhabitable planet. Due to the long journey, they would be in statis for most of the time and only awoken for a single day each year to prevent brain deterioration. When their bodies hit fifty years of age, their memories would be transplanted into the next generation of twenty year old bodies that had been grown on the ship. Each new body was considered a new cycle.

New cycles were always difficult as it took some time for the brain to adjust to a new body. But it was different this time for Ben. Everything was feeling very weird. And as he started to regain his senses, he realized why...he was a woman!

“Computer? What the heck is going on here? Why am I a woman?” He demanded.

The voice in his head replied, “#1370 and #0045 merged genetic codes for cycle D. No male offspring were viable. Overall gender balanced on ship maintained.”

“Sh*t,” Ben muttered. He didn’t want to be in a woman’s body. But he also knew he would only have to do this for thirty days before the next cycle began again, so maybe it wouldn’t be too bad.

Prelude

Desmond was worried about the fact that his experiment was presently unattended. Describing what happened when he activated was difficult. Were he not a man of science, he might say his soul or spirit was ejected from his body. Then that soul traveled some distance before attaching itself to a new form. Now Desmond found himself inside the body of a young woman. But it wasn’t being in the wrong body that made him nervous, it was his experiment. If it continued unchecked, it would likely swap more and more people. If he couldn’t get to it in time, it might even implode and swap everyone in the world.

He needed to shut it down, but there was a problem. In his current form, there was no way he would get by the personnel checkpoints. Even if he did, his lab had biometric security limiting access to only a few people. He arrived at the perimeter still without a plan. He sat by the fence trying to think. Ultimately, he knew he couldn’t just sit here all day; he had to try something. And that’s when the bright light same shooting out of the lab...

The Tiki

Kelsey was trying to wrap her head around what was going on. All morning her boyfriend had been telling her that he was actually her best friend, Allison. A few hours later, Allison shows up with a weird tiki statue and says she is actually her boyfriend Marc.

“So, you’re saying, that he is,” Kelsey said addressing Allison’s body while pointing to Marc, “Or that she is? That she is actually Allison. And you’re actually Marc.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all morning!” Allison said from Marc’s body, “And I told Marc to bring the tiki, because I think it’s responsible for all this.”

“Well, how do I know that thing is not going to swap MY body with one of you two?”

“That’s why you should probably get out of here.”

“If it’s going to swap her, it may already be too late,” Marc in Allison’s suggested, “We didn’t swap bodies after touching this thing until we went to bed. You and I should probably try touching it again. But we’re probably not going to know anything until we fall asleep again.”

“So I could wind up in HIS body?” Kelsey said pointing to Marc again, “I love you, Hon, but I don’t want to BE you.”

“I don’t want to be him either!” Allison added.

“And I don’t want to be you!” Marc added, “So let’s just touch this thing and hope for the best!”

Grabbing a Beer

Bill didn’t have explanation for what was happening. All he knew was that seemed to be in a rather nice house, and his brain or soul or whatever now seemed to be inside a woman’s body. Maybe he was dreaming; maybe it was all in his head; he decided not to dwell on it. Instead he just went to the fridge and grabbed a beer.

With a cold one in his hands, his plopped his now bubble butt on the couch cushions. Then he proceeded to turn on the televison, where a news report was playing.

“Authorities have not figured out a cause of the massive body swapping and have suggested no way to reverse it will be forthcoming anytime soon,” The talking head on the television said.

“Well, shoot,” Bill said as he took a swig of his beer. He was crossing his legs in a feminine manner without even noticing. As the reporter continued to describe more details about what he was calling “The Great Shift,” Bill kept drinking more and more. He got through a whole six-pack before he realized this wasn’t a dream, and he was going to be stuck like this. Finally, he decided he better figure out who he was now, and picked up a purse on the floor. He set it beside himself on the couch for a few minutes before digging in to look for identification.

The Farmhouse (Part 5)

View Part 1 of The Farmhouse.
View Part 2 of The Farmhouse.
View Part 3 of The Farmhouse.
View Part 4 of The Farmhouse.

After a day or two, my sister came to me and told me she had found someone. They’d be coming over this weekend. I smiled and asked to see a picture. Technically, the weekend was a little less than a week, but I could tell my sister desperately wanted her body back, so I agreed.

“Does she know that she is coming over to be swapped into my body?” I said.

My sister took a long pause before answering, “No...What are we going to do once she’s actually in your body?”

“It’s not like anyone is going to believe her. We’ll just tell Mom not to let her in...me in...you know what I mean.”

“Still, it’s kind of cruel to steal someone’s body...”

“I can stay in yours, if you’d prefer that?”

My sister gave me a cold look, “I think that’s exactly my point, assshole.”

Still Alive

“Am I going to die, Doc?” David asked.

“It’s a miracle that you’re still alive,” The doctor replied, “Obviously, transplanting your brain into a new body was highly risky and experimental.”

“You’ve told me I’m a woman, but I can’t feel it. I can’t look down and see it. Even when looking in a mirror, I can’t reach out to confirm the reflection is truly me. Even the voice I hear when I speak, I have to tell myself it’s really different. My head hears it as my own.”

“You need to be parient. The stem cells and nanobots are still repairing the various pathways from your brain and spine to the rest of your body. They prioritized the vital systems like your heart and your lungs. You’ve only been able to speak since yesterday.”

“What if they stop working?”

“You shouldn’t lose your current functions, but you wouldn’t gain any new ones.”

“And whose body do I have? Who was she?”

“We don’t know. She fried her brain on a drug overdose, but she was otherwise healthy except for a few minor injuries that the nanobots are also repairing...”

Experiment #341-B

Taylor had entered the lab looking for her boyfriend, Walter. She wasn’t into science stuff, but she knew he was often here doing this or that. Instead she found some of his notes, and began reading.

“April 11, 2024: Subject exposed to Experiment #341-B was a success. Gender of subject has completely changed from male to female. Subject seems unaware of previous gender.

“April 12, 2024: Subject’s new mental state is highly suggestable at present time. Managed to convince subject of an entire backstory of a fabricated life and decreased intelligence.

“April 13, 2024: Subject’s mindset is solidifying. Added some additional backstory but faced some resistance. Took some added work to convince subject she and I are dating.

“April 14, 2024: Subject is resistant to advances; still holds onto former straight male mindset. Exposing Subject to Experiment #53-C to heighten feminine desires.”

Taylor was horrified as she realized she was the “Subject” in question. She wasn’t Walter’s girlfriend; she wasn’t even a she! She was a guy subject to all sorts of experiments that had transformed her into...this -- a woman with a strong libido especially attracted to Walter. But now that she knew? It changed everything...

Elven Magic

Things had just gotten worse ever since Rick had found the magic spell book. He was certainly capable of doing magic; he just wasn’t very good at it. The first thing he managed to do was accidentally give himself large elf ears. It wasn’t his intention, but he was impressed with himself, so he showed his girlfriend.

She was convinced it was just some elaborate cosplay and told him to stop goofing off. Convinced he could prove her wrong, he tried another spell that would up turning her into a pigeon. He chased after her once she flew out the window.

On the street, he hoped the bird he found was actually his girlfriend, but another screwed up spell and he turned himself into a woman instead of his girlfriend-turned-bird. He told himself he could fix this; he tried another spell.

This time it was Rick’s mind that was glossed over. He wasn’t Rick; she was Ricci. She was a poweful elven mage; this bird was her familiar. She now knew everything she needed to know about magic, but she had no desire to return things to “normal,” as this was her normal.

Change

“I told you!” The crazy old homeless man shouted, “I told you that if you didn’t give me change that I would give you change! And I gave you change! I gave you so much change!”

Brad and Moniqa could only stare at each other for several minutes as the homeless man continued to gloat. They were both walking by as he asked for change, and they both ignored him. He cast some sort of magic spell to swap their bodies, and now they were both trying to figure out what to do.

“Dude,” Brad asked, “If we give you change, would you swap us back?”

“Oh, no, it’s much too late for that,” The old man replied, “What is changed cannot be unchanged!”

“If we gave you cash, would you at least shut up?” Moniqa suggested.

“For a bit...perhaps.”

Moniqa took $10 from Brad’s wallet and gave it to the man; he soon quieted down. She turned to Brad, “Why didn’t you just give him money in the first place? You’re clearly loaded. I’m dead ass broke!”

“Well, I didn’t think he’d cast some spell to swap my body with someone else! It’s not like I can give money to every homeless guy I come across.”

“Well, maybe now that you’re me, you’ll learn what it’s like to struggle. By the way, my name is Moniqa, with a Q! I guess it’s your name now.”

“And maybe now that you’re Brad instead of me being Brad, you’ll learn being rich isn’t so easy either! Speaking of which, you’re lunch break is over in five minutes, and you have a pretty important meeting. I hope you don’t screw it up, for both of our sake’s.”

The Body Swap Machine

Jason woke up sitting in a chair. He felt strange and could feel a weird helmet on his head that was distorting his vision. He could barely make out another person sitting in a similar chair and a strange machine. It seemed only logical to lift the helmet. As he did so, he was in for a shock, the other person seemed to look exactly like him -- and also seemed to be taking a helmet off at the same time.

“Why am I sitting over there?” The other person asked.

“Holy crap! You even sound like me,” Jason said before noticing his own voice, “But why does mine sound so strange?”

“I think we...swapped bodies!”

“Swapped...” Jason took a moment to look down, realizing the other person didn’t simply LOOK like him, they WERE him; and he was a woman! “...bodies?”

“It must be this machine. Do you know how it works?”

“I don’t even remember how I got here! I think I was at a party? Maybe I passed out? Maybe I was drugged? Oh, God, I passed out and woke up in the body of a girl!”

“A woman!” Jason’s body corrected him, “’Girl’ is offensive and belittling. And I’m a guy!”

“And guy is...well, actually, guy is fine. Yeah, you’re a guy. Maybe we should put these helmets back on and try to fiddle with these knobs?”

“I can’t understand them now, and with this helmet on I can’t see a thing. Do you really want to risk frying our brains with this thing?”

Work at the Museum (Part 1)

“What the hell just happened?” Suki’s voice trembled as she realized she was now inside the body of the museum’s curator, Vic.

“When the orb was discovered, there was no record of it swapping people’s bodies. Of course, there was no record of the orb glowing like that either,” Vic tried his best to sound authoritative, despite being in Suki’s small body and speaking with her high pithced voice. It wasn’t just he and Suki that had swapped bodies. All the graduate students he had hired to catalog the museum’s collection in the basement did as well.

“It’s still glowing,” Kelly suggested while in Terrance’s body, “Maybe if we just wait, it will swap us again, and we’ll swap back to normal.”

And that’s just what they did. And the orb continued to swap their bodies around every thirty minutes or so. But it never seemed to swap any body back to their original body.

After a few swaps, Suki realized she swapping quite frequently into Vic’s body. She began to worry that she may get stuck in an older male body, so when she found herself in Kelly’s body, she decided it was close enough and ran upstairs and out of the museum. The other’s looked at each other nervously, realizing they too might all have to settle for a body that wasn’t their own.

Kinda Stupid

Kenneth had always considered things like yoga and meditation to be “kinda stupid,” but he seemed to have more than a natural ability at it. In fact, after attending a single session he was able to manage astral projection, which he previously would’ve scoffed at. Yet his experience was quite undeniable. It also seemed as he approached a body other than his own, they would fall asleep. He began to wonder why.

As he approached his girlfriend’s body, she too fell asleep. And then he got a little too close and began to be sucked in. Her body began to awaken, but it was Kenneth’s spirit not inside. He wished he hadn’t gotten so close! He didn’t want to be a woman! He tried to get back into his astral state, but he was having trouble concentrating. Had it just been beginner’s luck the first time?

Meanwhile, his own body lay lifeless and the rest of the yoga class was getting concerned. The instructor stopped the class and called an ambulance. Kenneth was now extremely worried. If he wasn’t getting guidance from the instructor, how could he ever hope to achieve that same higher state? He’d never get back to astral form, and he’d be stuck in his girlfriend’s body for good!

Tuesday

It had been a normal Tuesday morning, and Elliot had been walking to the bus stop when it happened. His suit suddenly felt huge, and it was like he was tripping over his own feet. One of his shoes slipped off, and he noticed how small his foot had become. His whole body seemed smaller, and with a little more exploration he discovered he had become a woman.

He couldn’t go to work like this! He’d have to send an email to call in sick, but in order to do that, he’d need to go home in order to connect his work laptop to the company VPN. But he realized he couldn’t let his wife see him like this either! He’d have to wait until she left for the day. So he nervously waited just a few houses down before slipping back inside.

Once he did, he was finally able to see his new reflection. He still looked a lot like himself -- except smaller and more feminine -- almost like what a sister of his would’ve looked like if he had one or if he had been born a woman instead of a man. He sent the email to work, hoping this would all work itself out over the course of the next day. Then he looked for different clothes to wear. All of his were much too big for his small frame, so he had to opt for some of his wife’s wardrobe. Only things like dresses didn’t seem to pinch him, even if a dress was the last thing he wanted to wear. And after that, it was a matter of hoping and praying he’d return to normal.

First Semester (Part 5)

View Part 1 of First Semester.
View Part 2 of First Semester.
View Part 3 of First Semester.
View Part 4 of First Semester.

Josh trudged to another early morning Swap Class and slouched down. He really wished he could skip, and all he could think about was how he was glad this semester was finally almost over. His final presentation was next week, and then he was scheduled to swap back to his own body two days after.

Then he could finally actually start a normal college life! Being trapped in a teacher’s body was the worst! He honestly couldn’t wait. That being said, he was pretty sure he was going to give the best presentation in the class; he certainly had a lot to talk about...

Fairy

Evan couldn’t believe that he had found a legit magic book! Magic was real! Of course, the first spell he cast had also unfortunately transformed him into a small, feminine fairy, but he was sure he could undo that. After all, he had a magic book!

However, being the size of a fairy proved to be quite difficult. The book, for instance, proved far too heavy to carry anywhere, so he decided he would have to stay close. Even the front cover was massive for his small form, but it was at least possible to open and shut. And while the book contained many spells for transforming humans into magical creatures, it didn’t seem to contain a single one for changing magical creatures back into humans.

But that gave him another idea. Maybe he didn’t need the magic book at all anymore. After all, wasn’t a fairy inherently magical? Shouldn’t he have magic just sort of coursing through his veins now? He fluttered up toward a web and magically made the spider speak. Evan was excited that his fairy magic had worked. Of course, all the spider seemed to want to talk about was her web and tempting Evan to come closer. Was she trying to trap Evan and eat him? Evan was small, but he wasn’t that small! Being a fairy sure came with a lot of interesting dangers in the world.

An Experiment

“The machine has successfully swapped the two subjects’ brains,” Dr. White explained to his colleagues, “Now we will return the two volunteers to their homes. The hidden cameras in their homes and implants in their heads will transmit data to us back here in the lab that we can analyze to see how they adapt to their new bodies.”

“But isn’t the experimented tainted by the fact that they’ve volunteers who knowingly agreed to swap bodies with someone of the opposite sex?” Dr. Park asked.

“Ah-ha, but they don’t know they agreed!” Dr. White smiled, “When we swapped their brains, we were able to pluck out their thoughts and memories about agreeing to this experiment and really anything about the experiment completely. As far as either of them will be aware, they are simply waking up in a different body with no context of this, which was of course part of the agreement that they don’t remember. The memories will be returned to them once we have concluded and placed them back in their own bodies, of course, but it should be fascinating to see how the two subjects deal with being in a different body, particularly as this is our first pairing of two people of different genders. It should be quite fascinating.”

In the Right Hands

Neil had to admit that he had outdone himself with his latest invention. With what he had created anyone could make themselves look like anyone else. But it wasn’t a mere illusion, more like a transformation. He simply adjusted the settings and his body morphed from a 5’11” male weighing 200 pounds to a 5’4” woman at just a little over half that weight. Anyone touching him would only feel his now soft feminine skin. And even his own body would feel and react as if this was his actual body.

The potential for this technology was limitless. In the wrong hands, it could be used for criminal activities or to impersonate celebrities. In the right hands, it could treat gender dysphoria or used as a welcome vacation from one self.

But for now? Well, for now the invention was all in Neil’s hands. And it was time for him to test some limits and maybe have a little fun.

Atypical

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis, please know you can reach out to the Suicide Prevention Hotline. <3

Stephanie absolutely hated the new law that required all cybertronic hybrids to have one obvious part exposed. She hated the day they removed the skin from one of her arms for the sake of “compliance;” she longed for the days when she just looked like a typical girl.

She no longer blended in; she was almost always bombarded with questions. She either wouldn’t answer, or she’d lie. Sometimes it was blatent. She’s say she was an AI or that it was just her arm. Sometimes she would start with the truth -- explaining that she had died, and her brain was transplanted into a cybertronic body. What she’d never share is that she had actually attempted suicide, or that she had once a guy named Stephen.

For the former Stephen, her brain inside a cybertronic body that looked like a woman was an instant dream come true. Everything felt right with the world, and she was truly the person she was meant to be. And then that stupid law passed. She felt so dehumanized by being forced to reveal a robotic piece of herself. It was why she switched to a pre-law major at her college. She was going to fight this for the rest of her life -- and the life expectancy of a human brain inside a cybertronic body was very likely going to be a very long life.

Just the Way New York City Is

It didn’t take long for Elizabeth to find her body after the Great Shift; it was sitting in the same spot she had been prior to the massive body swap event. She didn’t know quite how to introduce herself.

“So, did we...” Elizabeth cleared her thought after hearing her new masculine voice for the first time, “Did we swap with each other?”

“If I have your face, then I guess we did. Because you certainly have mine.” Theo replied.

“You’re really calm about suddenly being a woman. Everyone actually seems really calm about this whole thing. I would’ve expected massive freak outs.”

“Oh, people are. I was reading news reports about it on your phone. But New York City is just...different. We’re all just used to weird stuff, I suppose.”

“But switching bodies? That’s like really weird. Even for New York.”

“It’s not like either of us are freaking out about it. At least not outwardly so; we’re still able to talk about it calmly like human beings. And speaking of which, I guess we have a lot of things to talk about...”

Bad News

Megan and Ryan had been dating for a few years. They were in their mid-30s and often talked about getting married. Megan was sure Ryan was going to ask any day now. When the Great Shift happened, and Megan ended up in the body of a 59-year-old woman, she was sure it would accelerate their plans. After all, she wasn’t getting any younger! And one day when Ryan asked to sit down with her in their apartment, she was sure this was it. The bad news blindsided her.

Despite Ryan now being in the body of a 19-year-old woman, he rarely acted like it. But in this situation, he was fumbling his words as he explained why he was breaking up with Megan. He touched on their age difference; he mentioned how he was finding himself attracted to guys; he talked about how he labored over the decision.

Megan didn’t say much. She just listened as Ryan drifted from point to point; she also knew he was right. She could just feel it was doomed in her heart. The only reason she had wanted it to work was because of how nice it had been before the Shift, but with their new bodies, they were absolutely growing apart. She finally told him to stop speaking, and simply said it was all okay and that she accepted it.