Elsewhere, in a city center, in a media building, back behind a stage with an elaborate system of lights and cameras, a man sat on a bench waiting to be called to sit on a couch. A late-night talk show wasn’t his first choice for publicity but it was the one he managed to swing.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. Alright, just a few more minutes and it’s all sneetches and Benjamins! Using an app on his phone, he deleted and recreated his pinky finger to make sure everything was still working.

An old man sat on the bench beside him. “That’s quite the trick you’ve got there.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that,” he chuckled. “It’s meant to be a surprise for later.”

“What’s done is done.” A moment of silence passed, then he continued “Though, I am curious how you managed it. That seemed a bit more elaborate than the old detached thumb trick.”

“Hmm…” Should I tell this guy? It’s not like there’s any harm in it. “Yeah, sure. It’s no trick, see, I pull out this app here and it lets me do anything.” He made his skin blue for a moment and then changed it back. “See?”

“Yes, I think I do,” the old man sighed. “So you’re going to show that on tv then?”

“Of course I am! This thing’s important. It’s a bit of software, infinitely replicable, which can give anyone the ability to… to… well, the question is more in what it can’t do! Any wish that ends just above the surface of your skin can be granted, this thing’s like a genie in miniature.”

You’re not far off. “You don’t think that sounds a little dangerous?”

“I suppose there are some dangers, but if someone hurts themselves with this thing it’s easy to just switch back.”

“Not quite. Suppose someone made their body into a large critical mass of uranium. Then it’s the people around them facing the heat.”

“Huh, I’ve never thought about it like that,” he said thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll make some changes to block that kind of thing. It’ll only be a minor setback, though. I wouldn't want to stifle progress. Or should I say evolution? And it’s not like it’s my problem anyw-”

“Wait, what was that? Changes?”

“Well, yeah, I’ve still got time to change the code before launch.” He leaned back and smiled. “Think of it. People will finally be able to be whatever they want for the low price of one hundred dollars per update. My app is unlike anything the world has ever seen, you could even make yourself young again.”

“That I could do.” There was a coldness in his tone. “You’re telling me this is a really novel idea, then?”

“Of course it is?” Why would he ask that? How much does this guy know? “Say, I don’t think I got your name.”

The old man stood up. “I don’t think you did, no.”

“Wait, I’m not done-”

A voice came from stageward. “Sir, you’re on in five, we need you in position.”

“What was that?” He looked over and then back toward where the old man was. Or rather used to be, as he was nowhere to be found. He turned back to the crewmember. “There was another guy right here, did you see where he went?”

“Nope. Come with me, please.”

The entrepreneur obliged, though there was a pit in his stomach. Once they had him in position, he pulled out his phone one last time. His app was gone. The effort of decrypting and modifying Bod.io had vanished without a trace. He was so petrified he could barely hear the world around him. A voice made it to his ears.

“What was that?” he said.

“You’re on.”

----------------------------------------

Sam’s eyes jumped up and down the message list. First stop was his question:

⠀⠀⠀⠀Sam: Could you ask Helen why she’s not into me?

After that some scrolling turned up the answer:

⠀⠀⠀⠀Cyborg: turns out she’s not into guys

⠀⠀⠀⠀Cyborg: better luck next time

At which point he scrolled back up again to make sure he was looking at the right messages.

He put the phone down and began doing largely the same thing on a longer timescale. This put a lot of their interactions into perspective. “Would you be into an athletic guy?” “That’s not really my thing.” Sam had spent so long contemplating the issue with “athletic” that he never considered “guy”.

She’s gay, that explains everything.

This revelation certainly simplified matters for him. Instead of staring down an uncountable multitude of dude options, he was now led to a single slider in his phone. Without too much searching he found one simply labeled “sex” ranging from male to female.

It occurred to him that he didn’t actually know what specifically this would change. Genitalia were the most obvious but what about voice or height? This ambiguity wasn’t exactly new, after all he’d changed his height without knowing specifically what it would do to leg vs torso length. Here, though, the slider stood a chance of interfering with his goals. After all, statistically speaking, most girls are not into girls.

Sam went into the advanced settings. The warning under “Mental Settings” specified “personality, sexuality, and gender” as the kinds of traits it would allow changing. He disabled these figuring this would stop it from changing whether or not he liked Helen. Then he went back to the sex slider and hovered his finger over it for a moment before doubt crept back into his mind.

If it can’t change sexuality does that mean “is into girls” is fixed or “is straight” is fixed?

His first search revealed “into girls” isn’t a slider. “Is straight” wasn’t one either, which clued him in that this was because he’d disabled mental settings. Reenabling these, “into girls” was still apparently not clear enough for the app. A bit of googling revealed that “gynosexual” was a word that meant what he wanted, especially because it was a slider.

To experiment, he pushed the sex slider over to female and checked the hetero- and gynosexual sliders to see which would change.

Okay, so it figures you want to keep loving who you love even if that means you’re gay now. I guess that makes sense.

Fully satisfied, he saved a backup of his body and made himself female.

The first thing he noticed was the hair. Apparently the app thought “female” implies longer hair.

The second thing he noticed was his torso. While reaching up to touch his hair, he noticed his pajama shirt felt slightly different moving along the contours of his body. When he’d turned into Cyborg a couple days ago it was probably also like this, but this time he was more focused on those kinds of differences.

The third thing, though, grabbed his attention completely. While shifting his sitting position he was reminded of the most obvious thing this particular slider would change. He leapt up, ran to the nearest mirror, and disrobed.

Sure enough a lifetime companion had left him. In the battle for Helen’s heart he’d lost a helmeted warrior. Having lived until then as an outie he would need to learn the way of an innie. No longer would the “banana in your pocket” joke make sense. He was, in a word, de-D-ed.

Most striking about this, though, was how utterly wrong it looked to him. In terms of overall shape this had done less than his months as an athlete, but never during that time had he felt so strongly that the person in the mirror wasn’t him. His face was wrong in a way he couldn’t place. His build belonged to somebody else. His legs were used to brushing up against more than just each other, but now…

Where the fuck is my dick?

It was a question with an obvious answer. He grabbed his phone and swapped back to a male member without changing anything else. This was done without thinking, though, and once he’d done it a new problem presented itself. The person in the mirror hadn’t read as himself but it had at least read as a her. His altered organ complicated that impression for him.

If she’s mainly into girls, would she be into someone who’s only mostly a girl?

Sam was aware that genitalia are an overly advanced romantic consideration for his age, but he was in no mood to take half measures. Thus he removed the rod again.

He looked back into the mirror. This is a mirror. I can open this mouth, it’s my mouth. I can move these arms, they’re my arms. I can touch my- oh, wow, that’s different. I feel it, though, this is all me. So what’s not lining up here?

It was at this point that he thought to pull up another slider. Apparently even though the app went as far as to alter his hair length in switching to a female body, it had completely neglected to alter the mental side of things. Sam had only an impression of the nuance around sex and gender, but knowing the terms was about all he needed to find the latter’s slider.

He adjusted it, pressed update, and went to check on herself in the mirror.

----------------------------------------

The next day Jerry got a knock on his office door. Behind the door he found a girl looking up at him with an embarrassed expression. As the male swimming instructor, Jerry’s office was in the boys’ locker room connected to the pool. To repeat, that’s the boys’ locker room. This was no boy.

“Woah, hey, you can’t be in… wait… SAM?!” The volume with which he blurted this out turned the heads of about a dozen half-naked teenage boys. “Is that you?”

“I…” she trailed off, unused to her new voice, before giving a “yup” and nodding.

Jerry hurried her out to the hall and tried to collect himself. That must be how he shrunk!

“Hormone therapy is crazy,” Jerry mumbled.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. You… I feel like you skipped a few steps.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I could swear just two days ago you were… actually never mind, maybe that’s insensitive. Anyway, there was something you wanted?”

“Well my locker’s in there and-”

“Oh fuck! Whoops, language, forget I said that. But oh wow! That’s a tough one. I think we’ve got procedures for this kind of thing, but usually there’s more than just, like, a couple minutes to prepare. Hmmm… right, so I guess I can herd all the guys out so you have space to change. But I guess you’ll need to move lockers pretty soon… Really, some warning would’ve been nice. Wait out here, I’ll come get you.”

Jerry started back to the lockers but she stopped him.

“I was thinking,” she said, “my swimsuit may not… cover everything it ought-”

His eyes widened. “O- oh. You… uh… got… um…”

Sam’s hands went to her chest to double check.

“Woah, hey, no! I believe you, I did not need to see that. Right… I think there may be a spare swimsuit in the other office.”

They both looked over at the girls’ locker room.

“You mean I have to go in there?”

“Well, yeah, we keep things near where they’d be needed.”

“But… I’ve only ever gone in here, isn’t that kind of a big change?”

“Yes but that’s just how it works.”

Jerry returned to his corner of the world. Sam just looked around.

Well if I need to go in…

She took a step.

…and I’m a girl now anyway…

She touched the handle.

…then this is fine, right?

She opened the door and took a step in. The feel and sound of the air changed around her. This was no man’s land. The door closed behind her as she rounded a corner into the room proper. She held her breath in suspense.

It was… a locker room. Basically just the boys’ room but mirrored and with slightly different bathroom accommodations. The main difference was the occupants. Most had already gone to the pool, but not all. It took one glimpse of a straggler to glue Sam’s blushing eyes to the office wall. She knocked on the door.

The woman who answered happened to be Sam’s coach from basketball. “Hello, how can I help you?” She didn’t seem to recognize.

“Yeah, I heard you may have a spare swimsuit in there?”

“Probably do,” she answered while turning away to check. “I take it, you need one?”

Sam stepped into the office to keep talking. “Yeah, for this period.”

“Yeesh, you should’ve asked sooner. Now, where do we…” She moved to a different spot. “So what happened? Leave it at home? Tear it on something? Aha,” she found it.

“I… er, really it just doesn’t fit any more.”

The coach returned with a one-piece. She frowned. “Hmm, well this is all we have. Would it fit any better? It looks kinda big on you.”

“Could I try it on?”

Sam took the swimsuit and ducked into a stall. After stripping down, she found it was actually too big. This wasn’t a problem, though. During the basketball days clothes needed to be made larger and after that they needed to be made smaller. This was no different. Using the app, Sam grew her body to fit the swimsuit, put it on, and then shrunk back down to normal size.

Returning to the office, “I think it fits.”

The coach looked over. “Yes, it does. I could’ve sworn that thing was bigger. Weird.”

“Thanks.”

Sam started out to the pool, but realized she didn’t have a place to store her things. She saw no better option than bringing them with her, so she lugged her bag out and locked eyes with Jerry, who immediately came over to her.

“The boys are all cleared out. Go store your stuff now. What class do you have after this?”

“Lunch.”

“Good, we’ll have time to move your locker.”

----------------------------------------

Sure enough, Sam was late to lunch. By the time she was walking her tray over to the table, Ben and Cyborg were already settled.

“You know what,” Ben said, “I think the school’s pizza is actually pretty good.”

Cyborg wasn’t especially interested, but she played along. “Did you not like it before?”

“Well, it’s not bad but I thought it was, like, a really mid pizza. But now I’m thinking that it’s really consistent. I know exactly how this thing’s gonna taste before I take a bite and that’s kinda comforthing, right? It’s like-”

The talk stopped when Sam sat next to Ben. There was an awkward how-do-we-tell-this-stranger-that-this-seat-is-taken-type pause before Ben realized that the stranger was actually

“SAM?!” The volume with which he blurted this out turned the heads of… well, nobody. It’s a lunch room, loud talk happens.

A chill ran up Cyborg’s spine. Did he figure out that Helen is… She pulled out her phone to reread the message she sent.

Meanwhile, Ben had completely forgotten about pizza discourse. “Wow, you’re a girl. Must be the app, right?”

Sam nodded while chewing.

“I hadn’t thought to use the app for, like, gender affirmation or whatever but that tracks.”

“What?”

“What?”

“You said use the app for gender what?”

“Well, like, transition, you know? Let me tell you, I guess I must’ve missed signs ‘cuz I never would’ve guessed you were a girl.”

“I wasn’t, I switched last night.”

“Sure, I meant like internally or whatever.”

“That too, I had to find a separate slider for that one.” Sam’s answer got a puzzled silence from both her friends. “What? I wasn’t a girl, now I am. It’s not complicated.”

“But… why?”

“Well after I switched to a girl body it would be weird if I were still walking around as a guy inside, right?”

Ben shook his head. “No, I mean, why make the first change if you weren’t…?”

“Well, I was talking to Cyborg and-”

“HEY,” Cyborg interjected, “can we go talk over there real quick?”

“What? Why-”

“Yeah, just over there real quiet, alone, discreet like.”

Sam went along with it.

Cyborg put her hands on Sam’s shoulders and glared. “This a Helen thing?”

“Uhh… yeess? Like… last night you said-”

“Last night I said she wasn’t into guys.”

“Right, so now I’m not a guy.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t say she was into girls now did I? You’re over extrapolating.”

“Is she into girls?”

“Well yes but-” Cyborg’s hands traveled over to her face with a thwap. Muffled, “oh now i’ve gone and said it.” Dragging them down her cheeks, she locked eyes with Sam. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. But now you know and I don’t have an excuse and Helen…”

Sam put a hand on her shoulder and attempted comfort. “I could just not tell her.”

“Well, but, look at yourself. You don’t think she’ll connect the dots?”

“Maybe I made a lucky guess. I promised not to pull you into this again, right?”

“…right.” Cyborg nodded and seemed to calm down.

By the time they returned to the table, Ben had basically forgotten where they left off. “So what should we call you now?”

“I’m still Sam,” she said, shrugging.

“Heh, you’re more of a Samantha then a Samuel now, eh?”

“I’ve never been Samuel, just Sam.”

“Oh. That’s convenient.”

----------------------------------------

Sam’s mother sipped a spoon of soup and nodded. “Yeah, that’s it.” She turned. “Honey, dinner’s ready, could you go tell Sam?”

“On it.” The father went about halfway up the stairs and then shouted “Dinner’s ready!” before coming back down the stairs.

The mother handed him a bowl. “Could you bring this to the table?”

“Yeah, sure.” He seemed oddly puzzled.

“Is something wrong?”

“Not sure. Did you hear Sam’s response just now?”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“No?”

“Well, he sounded kinda… I dunno, it’s probably nothing.”

The parents took the soups to their seats and sat. It’s a good thing they were sitting given that a daughter emerged from the stairs instead of a son.

“SA-”

Sam was prepared this time. “I know how it looks but hear me out. Yes I am a girl now. I wasn’t a girl yesterday, I switched last night. I talked it over with my friends earlier and I’m pretty sure I’m not technically trans, though I might’ve accidentally been for a couple minutes last night. This isn’t anything y’all need to worry about. I didn’t use any drugs or anything, just this phone app I tried to tell you about after I quit basketball. Now, you didn’t believe me back then, which is fair, so I figured I’d demonstrate how it works really quick.”

----------------------------------------

Sam started the next day with a trip to the doctor’s office instead of school. The ride over had been a lot of “Mom, I’m telling you it’s safe” followed by “Oh yeah? Then tell me how it works” buffered occasionally by a car horn. Her mother wasn’t a bad driver per se, it’s just that drowsy driving and drunk driving can swap name tags without most people noticing.

While her mother dealt with the front desk, Sam noticed a surprisingly familiar face in the lobby.

“Hey, Cyborg.”

She looked up. “Oh hey.”

“What’re you in for?”

“Parents noticed I was walking around without crutches. You?”

“Parents noticed I’m a girl. Didn’t you get the app like last Tuesday?”

“Yeah, but there weren’t any openings until today.”

Sam sat next to her. “I guess there were a lot of openings today, eh?”

Sam’s mother walked over. “What a coincidence, it’s you… um…” She was bad with names. “Cyn-”

“Cyborg,” said Cyborg.

“Right, right. Here for a checkup?”

The younger two locked eyes and nodded. Cyborg stood up, walked a full circle around Sam’s mother, and returned to her seat with the air of an esteemed artisan.

“Um… ah…” she yawned, “okay?”

“It’s the app, mom. Usually she’s on crutches, remember? I’m corrupting my fellow youths.”

A door opened and a nurse popped out. “Cynthia?”

“Coming mom!” Cyborg hurried away.

Sam’s mother took Cyborg’s open seat. “Sounds like that app’s pretty popular at school?”

“Nah, it’s mostly just me and her.” And Rex. I guess I know two other people with the app. That’s not a lot, but it’s weird that I know both of them.

Eventually Sam was similarly called in. She and her mother were placed in a room and were joined by a doctor before too long. He came in wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh necktie that Sam found a bit condescending.

“Hello Sam, long time no… see…” The doctor checked his notes and then turned to the mother. “This is Sam?”

“Yes, that’s why we’re here.”

Sam nodded. “I’m a girl now, you see. She’s worried because that’s impossible.”

“Ah, I see.” This doctor happened to pride himself on being able to address the needs of a wide diversity of clients. “You see Mrs. Saxon, for a good while now we’ve had the technology to-”

Sam interjected. “For the record, I wasn’t a girl two days ago.”

This threw him off. “What?”

She pulled out her phone. “I used an app to modify myself in this way. That’s impossible so here’s a demonstration.” She flashed her hair dark and light. The increased length gave her a view of the effect, which was neat.

The doctor didn’t quite know how to process this. “...is this some kind of joke?”

Sam sighed and held out her phone. “Could you press this button real quick?”

“Okay?”

A bit of tapping later the doctor was sitting face to face with himself, Pooh and all. Sam’s mother was petrified.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

The doctor excused himself for a moment and sought out peers to consult with. Unfortunately none of the other medical staff believed him. One nurse recalled seeing some youtube clip of a guy embarrassing himself on late night tv and asked if the doctor was making a joke about that. He got as far as “Do I look-” before suddenly understanding the kind of situation Sam was in.

After a bit more thought, he returned to the mother-daughter pair. By this point Sam had returned to looking like herself.

“Alright, I’ve thought it over and I have a few questions. First I just want to double check that this was an instantaneous change like what you just showed me. In particular there were no hormones or other traditional treatments involved.”

“Yup, it’s all the app.”

He scribbled down a note. “Before using the app… when did you say it was?”

“Last Wednesday night.”

“Okay, before then did you ever have any sense of discomfort in your body with regards to, say, sexed characteristics?”

“Nope.”

“Do you have any discomfort with your current body? Any feeling that it doesn’t align with yourself in some way?”

“Nope.”

“Since using the app have you felt anything like aches or pains, or had any difficulty controlling your new body?”

“Nope. If I did, I would just fix it with the app.”

The doctor chuckled. You say that like it’s normal. “Alrighty then, it sounds like you’re okay. Since you’re in a new body we’ll give you a physical as though you were a new patient and then you can get back to school.”

----------------------------------------

Helen came to english a bit apprehensive. Something about the whole telling Cyborg something personal when asked what to tell Sam and then telling her not to tell him that particular personal thing. She trusted Cyborg but the precariousness of the situation weighed on her. The suspense of Sam showing up a couple minutes late didn’t exactly help with this either.

And when Sam arrived showing obvious signs of having been told that particular personal thing, that also didn’t help. Mrs. Doenitz also noticed this while taking attendance.

“Sam.”

“Here.”

“You grow your hair out or something?”

“You could say that, yeah.”

Oh god he doesn’t even sound like himself, Helen thought, not yet having processed that Sam was currently a herself. Oh Cyborg, what have you done?

The actual class they were in presented an obstacle to getting this question answered. Helen worked up such a sweat worrying about this that she had to shed a layer of jacket. When class ended she tapped Sam on the shoulder.

“Hey, can we talk?”

Sam’s eyes widened. Dang, becoming a girl really was all I needed to do! “Sure. What’s up?”

“Er… I was thinking somewhere more private. Like an empty hallway or something.”

“YES! I mean, uh, yeah. Yeah, we can do that. My schedule is open.”

The two of them found a corner table outside the classroom and waited for the student body to dissipate.

Helen leaned over to Sam and whispered with intensity. “What exactly did Cyborg tell you?”

“Oh, uh,” Sam was a bit disappointed. “Last Wednesday you mean?”

“Yes. She told me what you told her to ask me so what did she say I said?”

Remember the promise. “Well, I couldn’t really tell, she was kinda vague about it. I had a guess, though. Did… I guess right?”

“You…” Helen leaned back and frowned. “Sam, what ‘vague’ thing could she have said that had you doing…” she gestured, “this?”

Sam sighed. “I can read you the message, but I want you to know that I think there was a misunderstanding.” She pulled out her phone. “Cyborg writes ‘turns out she’s not into guys, better luck next time’. I don’t think she quite got what she was saying there. She wasn’t trying to out you or anything.”

Helen thought for a moment and then nodded. “She did seem a bit… fuzzy on that point when we talked.”

A silent moment passed between the two of them.

Sam broke it. “So is this not enough?”

“What?”

“Well, I think you know how I feel about you. I’ve tried being whatever way I could to see if you would see me how I see you. Now that I think about it, I’m guessing looking a different way probably isn’t enough to bridge that gap…” Sam buried her face in her hands. After another silent moment she looked up at Helen. “I guess what I want to say is, like, um…” She sighed. “Do you want to go, like, see a movie or something sometime?”

Helen wasn’t quite ready for this change of topic. “Before that, the thing Cyborg half told you and which you figured out… could you not tell anyone about that?”

“My lips are sealed.” She made a mouth zipping motion.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Sam then waited for an answer.

Helen began thinking. Like she told Cyborg, the whole app thing seemed really weird to her. It also felt weird to get asked out during this particular worry-fueled conversation. Secrets were also an issue. Would Sam keep hers if she got turned down?

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Sam said, trying to make her more comfortable.

“Right, thanks.”

That settled, why not? It’s just a movie. Sam was clearly putting in a lot of effort here, so would rejection just be cruel at this point?

“Did you have a movie in mind?”

Sam shrugged. “Not really. If there’s something you want to see I could pay for tickets.”

I could give the date a chance and then we’d be on the same page at the end of it.

“Well, how about Saturday.’

It took Sam a moment to process the words. “You mean, like, this Saturday? Like tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I figure I’m free Saturday so-”

“Tomorrow is good.” Her eyes sparkled. “I can do tomorrow.”

----------------------------------------

“Hey mom, could I borrow some clothes for today?”

Half opening her eyes, “Hmmwhatsat?”

“Could I borrow an outfit? I’m going out today and I want to look the part.”

“Ssurejusdonturnonthelight,” she rolled over.

“Thanks.” I hope you realize what you just agreed to.

Sam quietly went over to her mother’s closet and looked through using the flashlight on her phone. It took a solid hour to put together an outfit she liked. In the end this was only made possible by taking clothes from the three wardrobes in the house and then resizing. Fashion wasn’t really something she’d ever given much thought, but wanting to look good for someone changes a person.

An hour is an hour, though, and by the time Sam felt ready to leave she also knew she needed to in order to arrive when they’d agreed. The weather was fairly cold so the majority of her outfit got covered up by a coat anyway.

The theater they’d agreed on was embedded in a strip mall a short walk away from a bus stop. This was essential for access by a pair who, by age, could not even get permits to learn.

It was an odd bus ride. As a girl, Sam had been to exactly three places: home, school, and the doctor’s office. All of these places were insulated in a certain sense. Home is home and everyone at school/doctors had something else to do. On the bus, though, everybody just sits and waits.

The bus got more crowded as it approached the mall. Sam didn’t notice this too much, though, as she’d gotten tied up in something like stagefright. She’d spent so long aiming for Helen that she wasn’t ready when a shot actually landed. The cope at the moment was scrolling through Bod.io sliders, not touching any of them, and thinking.

What if I should change something before I get there? What if I mess something up? What if I can’t be a girl correctly?

“Hey, is this seat taken?”

Sam was so startled she almost dropped her phone. The spoken question had come from a tired looking college age guy standing just next to the seat she was in. Looking around, almost every other inch of the bus was occupied.

“I guess not, no.”

“Thanks.” The man sat down. “Awfully crowded today. I guess everyone’s going to the mall.”

“Yeah.” Sam leaned toward the window and returned to scrolling.

“Hey, I know that app.”

Sam turned. “You do?”

“That’s the one that changes your body, right? I know all about it. Here, let me show you a trick.” He put his hand out.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you, just hand it over.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Trust me, that thing can do some neat stuff. Now if you’ll just…” He leaned over and reached for the phone.

She turned off the screen and pulled it to her chest. “No, really, don’t!”

The volume with which she said this stopped the man effectively. He pulled away and looked around at the other passengers nervously.

“Sorry, sorry, I got a little carried away there. It’s just… a rare thing to see is all. I got excited.”

Sam nodded, recalling when she found out Rex had the app. “...what’s the trick?”

“Oh! Uh…” His face went blank for a moment. “Yeah, it has to do with that save/load feature. If someone else pushes the button it saves their body so you can turn into them.”

Sam’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, I realized that a little over a week ago.”

“You… already knew about that?”

“Mhm, it’s pretty crazy though. Rough that it copies clothes. I actually lost a shirt and pants last week when I turned into a friend of mine.”

“Right, because it overwrote your clothes?”

“Yeah, and my last save was…” She laughed, “It was in my pajamas actually.”

He laughed too and took the opportunity to scooch back a little closer to her. “You know, it doesn’t just remember clothes. I’m pretty sure it also saves what you’ve got in your pockets, so if you wanted someone’s wallet you could just make a copy of it, take it out, and switch back to yourself.”

Sam pulled away. She’d just warmed up to him a bit but being reminded of the weird “give me your phone” thing put her off again.

The man read her face. “Not that anyone should do that. That’s more of a thing to be careful of.”

“Yeah… I guess. You… really know a lot about this thing, don’t you?”

“You could say that. I’ve seen the code the app runs on and everything.” A thought occurred to him. “Actually, tell you what…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen and a scrap of paper. “...if you ever need help with that thing…” He wrote something on the paper and returned the pen to his pocket. “...you can go ahead and shoot me a text.”

She took the paper. It had a name and a phone number.

“Oops, I forgot to introduce myself.” He put out a hand to shake. “I’m Walter.”

----------------------------------------

Helen had arrived about half an hour before Sam. This was partially to buffer traffic (she had less faith in the buses consistency-wise) and partially to look over the movie lineup. She was on selection duty after all. By that point she’d seen a couple of them, so she was making an informed decision. One in particular stood out for good timing. She put in her earbuds and watched some clips to double check that it went the way she remembered.

She was sitting like this at a table in the lobby when Sam arrived. As she came in, Sam made sure to take off her coat before approaching Helen. The outfit was an open red flannel over a knit white tank top and well fitted jeans.

Huh, not bad. Helen had expected Sam to show up dressed like more of a thoughtless dude. “Hey, I like your outfit.”

“Oh thanks, you too.”

Helen had on a lightly frilled blue dress over a striped shirt. Sam had considered one of her mother’s dresses but that seemed a little advanced for a first attempt.

Sam continued, “It was a little hard actually. All my clothes were kinda… made for someone else in a way.”

“I can imagine… I wasn’t going to mention it but… did you, like, forget a bra?”

Looking down, Sam found evidence of the cold weather. She buttoned her overshirt and blushed. “Didn’t think of that.”

Helen chuckled, “It’s fine, it’s fine.”

“I actually don’t think I own any.” Or any tank tops, this is Dad’s. “Anyways, what’re we seeing?”

“Well, have you seen ‘The Moon is Beautiful’?”

“No, sounds like… a romance? What’s it about?”

“I dunno, but the director’s other stuff was pretty good. It’s also starting in like 20 minutes so the timing works out.”

“The moon it is.” She went over and bought tickets. “What one?”

“You can hang on to them. So… an app huh?”

Helen did a good job leading the conversation for the next 20 minutes. Sam showed her the app and how it worked, Helen asked how she felt about it. The topic of Sam’s stint as a basketballer came up and she gave an evasive "I used the app", "it wasn't for me" story which dodged admitting her original motive. Helen gave that a “huh” and, seeing how Sam felt about it, didn’t push too hard on that topic.

Inevitably the onward march of time relocated them into a room with a large screen. While trailers ran, Helen got up and brought back a couple waters from the lobby.

Sam leaned over and asked, “Want any popcorn?”

“Not really.”

“Ah, okay. Me neither.” This was true, she’d only asked because she liked the idea of the whole hands touching in the bucket thing.

The lights dimmed, the movie began. The audience was introduced to a farm boy called Arthur and his friend Lisa. A few minutes were spent establishing their relationship before Lisa’s father got a job in the city and she had to leave. It was a sad moment, the town wasn’t that big so Arthur didn’t know very many other kids his age.

A quick time skip sequence later the film threw its first curveball. Once Arthur and Lisa were all grown up it cut to the moon, in space, where the goddess Artemis was looking down from. This was enough of a surprise that Sam looked over at Helen wondering what her reaction was. She was just watching the movie.

It lived up to its name. Artemis and her home on the moon positively glowed. The whole place had a bright white elegance and a number of rabbits hopping around gave it a whimsical vibe.

Artemis looked down at the earth and, spotting Lisa, fell in love with her on sight.

Helen leaned over and whispered, “This isn’t myth-accurate but roll with it.”

Lisa happened to visit the town where she grew up, but since the film was set around the late 70s / early 80s she wasn’t able to tell Arthur she was coming. Then Artemis hatched a scheme. She appeared to Arthur as an old woman and directed him toward a cafe where Lisa was having lunch. The two met up and reconnected. Lisa offered to bring him to the city with her but he said he had to stay behind because the farm was struggling. Thus the two were separated once again.

Later that night, Artemis appeared to Arthur as a shining light and offered him a deal. She would make his crops grow and his animals multiply, but in return his body would be hers every full moon.

The rest of the film had Sam absolutely gripped. On the one hand the goddess gave Arthur the freedom to get closer to Lisa. On the other hand, every full moon Artemis would take Arthur’s body and get pushy with Lisa, taking intimate time away and damaging his relationship.

Artemis also invaded on the business end. Arthur found his body making strange connections in the agriculture world, getting close to people neither he nor Lisa would have approved of. He went along with it because the goddess said he’d have more time with Lisa, but by then he was getting sick of the intrusions.

At one point Arthur had a fight with Lisa. This ended with her slapping him and saying he only cared about sex and money. Sam was on the edge of her seat during this scene. No, you don’t understand! It’s all for you!

After that Arthur came clean to Lisa about what he’d done. She realized that the tender, human man she loved wasn’t the one tearing them apart. Then they hatched a plot to ditch Artemis.

During a full moon, when Artemis was controlling Arthur’s body, Lisa confessed that she’d known the goddess was there all along and that she wished Arthur didn’t have to come between the two of them. Artemis then broke her promise with Arthur and showed her shining self to Lisa, who then revealed that the confession was a trick.

Enraged, Artemis grew giant vines from the earth tearing apart their house. She withered the fields and started killing Arthur’s livestock, intending to kill him afterward. Before she could, though, Zeus Horkios, king of the gods and enforcer of oaths, emerged from above and removed her from the earth.

The couple stood in the rubble. Arthur’s business was all but gone. He turned to Lisa, clearly distraught.

“Will you still have me?”

She nodded and kissed him. “The moon is beautiful but you’re enough for me.”

The credits rolled over Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are”. Sam cried at the opening line. Light returned to the theater.

Helen turned to Sam. “How’d you like it?”

“It’s-” she sniffed, still in tears, “it’s really good.”

“Glad you liked it. I thought they did a good job with the visuals, the director has a really unique style.”

Once Sam had calmed down, the two left the theater. They’d timed it so that the movie would end at around lunch time so they could go straight from one thing to the other. The restaurant they settled on happened to be on the other side of the strip mall parking lot, so the two coated up and started walking over while discussing the movie.

Walking between a pair of cars, Sam wound up behind Helen.

“...I think you’ve gotta feel a little bad for Artemis though,” Helen was saying.

“How so?”

“Well, she didn’t really have a shot with Lisa to begin with.”

A puzzle piece shifted into place inside Sam’s head. She turned herself into someone Lisa would love and it still didn’t work out! She’d identified more with Arthur’s struggle but this additional perspective threw another curveball right into her head. The sheer amount of new thoughts slowed her walking considerably and she wound up scrolling through the app like she had been on the bus. I guess I don’t think of it as possession, but if this thing gives me a body that isn’t mine then that’s not that different from in the movie. But at the same time I’m using this powerful thing to try to get closer to someone I like. So which one of them am-

After Helen spoke she’d heard Sam’s footsteps slow down. She’d also heard the scuffling sound when they stopped. And the car horn. And the short sound of stopping tires.

“Sam?”

When Helen turned around, she saw a girl lying in a growing puddle of blood next to a stopped car and a dropped phone.

“SAM!”

She ran over. Sam was unconscious. She shook her a bit.

“Sam, wake up!”

This did not work. Then she noticed the phone screen was on. She recognized Bod.io from earlier. Thinking quickly, she tapped the screen to keep it from falling asleep. More blood crawled away.

People emerged from the car, “Oh my god is she okay?”

Helen pointed at the driver. “You, call 911!”

She turned back to the app and searched up the slider marked “alive”. According to the app, Sam was not alive. She turned it up and pressed update.

Sam’s eyes opened up abruptly. She took a sharp breath in, groaned, and then the slider reverted in the app.

Fuck no why.

Helen looked back at the driver and made sure 911 was being called. Then, back to Sam, she tried to figure out what just happened.

If you bring someone back to life without fixing anything they just die again. Fuck.

More sliders. Broken bones? It said Sam had some, so Helen fixed them. Bleeding? The app recognized the obvious, so Helen fixed it. Alive? She tried again.

Life returned to Sam’s body again. Then her brow furrowed, her eyes closed, and her hands went up.

“Ahgh, my head.”

Seeing her obviously in pain, Helen scrambled to find a slider that would put Sam to sleep. After that she sought one labeled “concussion” and, sure enough, found something that needed fixing.

Thus instead of getting lunch, Helen wound up frantically scrolling through a phone app looking for labeled numbers which looked unhealthy.

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Sam woke up under the covers of a hospital bed with Helen beside her. Looking down, she found that her carefully put together outfit had been replaced by a hospital gown.

“Did I miss somethi-”

“YOU’RE AWAKE!” Helen leaped and hugged. “Oh my god I was so worried! The app literally said you were dead!”

Sam still ached in some spots but was in no rush to reject this particular hug. “Huh. I guess I was dead then.”

“Yeah and I tried to bring you back but you died again so I tried fixing some things but then it looked like it hurt to come back and I mean it really looked like it hurt like there was blood everywhere and… and…” Now Helen was the one crying.

Sam held her tighter and rubbed her back. “It’s okay, I’m here now. Sounds like you really saved me.” A thought occurred to her. “Say, would you happen to have my phone on you?”

“Oh,” sniff, “yeah, sure.” Helen pulled away and retrieved it from her coat pocket. Wiping a tear from her face, she handed it to Sam.

“Right now watch- Wait, I probably shouldn’t overwrite this thing.” Sam pulled up the sheets for better coverage and began disrobing.

“What… what’re you-”

“Just gimme a moment. Alright.” She dropped the hospital gown beside the bed. “Now, as I was saying, watch this!”

Sam loaded her most recent body save. Most of the change happened under the covers, but the head was visible and obvious. In an instant, as though the universe cut from one shot to the next, a mess of blood tangled hair was replaced with, well, just normal hair.

“Ta da, all better now. See the app lets you take save states of your body and load them later. This one is from this morning so whatever happened basically hasn’t happened anymore.”

“Huh. So you’re saying I could’ve just done that?”

“Well, you didn’t know. I appreciate what you did do, though, it sounds like you literally brought me back from the dead.”

Sam sat up and let the covers slide off. Now, this particular save had been made so that Sam could return her parents’ clothes to their normal size without fussing with the app too much. This means that the tank top was now a fair bit too big and, as a result, significantly more revealing. That’s all to say that Sam buttoned the flannel again.

“Sorry, I think I just flashed you.”

Helen laughed, “It’s fine Sam, I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Hmm… since I’m not hurt or anything, do you think they’ll let us go? Actually, I guess I should probably get my clothes.”

“Those are your clothes.”

“Hmm? No, these are copies, the app doesn’t, like, teleport stuff. But you’re right that I have them all… Ah, but it’s still cold outside so I’ll need a coat. Hey, can I borrow yours for a second?”

“Sure?”

Sam put on the coat, made a save, removed the coat, and then loaded the save. The removed coat stayed around and a new one appeared on her shoulders.

“Great,” Sam said, beaming. “Now we both have coats!”

“Um… I meant those behind you.”

The originals of Sam’s clothes were piled on a table on the side of the bed opposite Helen.

She was a bit deflated by this. “Right, good to know.”

The copied coat left Helen with a lot to think about.

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Elsewhere, Rex did not have a coat. Using the app he could prevent himself from dying of exposure but that didn’t stop the cold from feeling cold. One may think this would be a good argument for returning to his house, but that didn’t occur to him.

Having not found a blanket, he hopped back out of the dumpster. He’d heard somewhere that if it’s cold you need to keep moving to stay warm, so he left the alleyway and walked out toward the next. Then he stopped for a moment on the sidewalk.

Wait, wasn’t that about sharks or something?

There wasn’t anyone around to ask about it, so he shrugged and returned to walking. In the next alley, though, he wasn’t alone.

“Put your hands up!”

A shadowy figure had a gun pointed out of the alleyway. Out of strong habits, Rex started reaching for his phone.

“FUCKING UP I SAID!” The guy cocked the gun.

It was a compelling argument. Rex’s hands went up.

“Now give me your wallet!”

“...like while I’ve got my hands up or-”

“FUCK you, I’ll do it myself!”

The man walked toward Rex. This guy had a coat.

“Tell me which pocket it’s in!”

“Why?”

“Cus I DON’T want to TOUCH your DICK! Now TELL me!”

“...on the left.”

The man reached in, grabbed the wallet, and ran. Rex reached into the other pocket, increased his strength and speed, and chased. The man shot his leg. Rex stopped for a moment and used the app to un-shoot his leg. Before long, he caught up with the thief.

With superhuman strength, Rex knocked the man onto the ground. He took the wallet. He took the gun. He took the coat.

He didn’t even need to look at the stretched out scrawl on his arm to follow it.

Rex leaned forward and screamed into the man’s ear.

“Listen here idiot! The name’s Rex, you got that?!”