“Yup, I got your guy,” Farnsworth said. “You can have this back now.”

The old man took the phone. “I’m surprised it took you that long.”

You ungrateful bastard! I’m a world class hacker and you have me on fucking stalking duty! And then you have the gall to show up eleven minutes late to our last appointment. The lock codes change on a timer you absolute plesiosaur! Least you could do is understand that it took that long because we had to reschedule. I’m a busy man, of course I had the next month booked out!

For context, most of his clients had dropped out in that intervening month. Also, he’d forgotten to bring a lunch that day.

I hope your stalkee answers the door with a rifle and uses it!

Farnsworth smiled disingenuously. “These things happen.”

The old man’s eyes were tracking higher on the other’s face. Last time they’d met Farnsworth lived behind a thick pair of spectacles. This time he had no such thing and, though it was harder to notice, his teeth were straighter.

“That app you were tracing, did you happen to use it?”

“Hmm? No,” he lied.

Maybe putting it in front of some people was a wrong move. “No matter. You say you found the one who created it?”

“Yes.” Farnsworth produced a paper and slid it over. “Name’s Oswald.”

The paper had a summary of the app designer’s name, online accounts, and home address. Among these was text copied from a discord profile reading “Alex (he/him/his 🏳️‍⚧️)”.

“Alex Oswald… Didn’t you say an IP wasn’t an address?”

And just when I thought that chapter of my life was over. “Yes, I had to use other means.”

“Like what?”

Farnsworth had located the app on social media and found Alex’s account through connections to that. From there, he’d used outdated school websites to identify a hometown and narrowed down an apartment by cross referencing instagram photos with google maps street view. That is to say Farnsworth got lucky with a perfect storm of tiny infosec failures.

“Trade secrets,” Farnsworth answered, mysteriously.

“Right. Looks like he lives in England…”

“Sounds like you’ll need a plane ticket.”

“Why?”

“Sorry, I assumed you were going to go meet this person.”

“I am, that’s the plan.”

“Well, the Atlantic ocean says you’ll need a ticket, right? Plane or boat?”

“You only need such things if you aren’t already there.”

“Well duh you seni- Ahem! Sorry, just clearing my throat. As I was saying, do you see that we aren’t already there?”

“Ah yes, of course,” the old man nodded.

Then his phone buzzed. Walter had found something. The old man replied that he’d be right there soon.

The whole display puzzled Farnsworth a bit. Of all people you have two phones?

“Now, I believe I owe you some money?”

Farnsworth happily accepted the topic change.

While they spent a couple dozen more minutes setting up an elaborate untraceable payment method, the old man met up with Walter elsewhere at a bus stop.

How do you always show up so fast? “In the neighborhood again?”

The old man nodded. “Of course. Now what have you found?”

Walter gestured toward a bench. “See for yourself.”

He pulled out a lens and looked through it. Sitting on that bench, invisible to the naked eye, was the dark gray silhouette of a person frozen in time.

The old man shook his head. “One of the bad ones.”

“What do you mean?”

“A bad wish. When people are given power they don’t always make apps or protect buildings. In this case somebody thought to themselves ‘I wish this person were gone’ and it came true. That’s what it looks like anyway.”

Walter often hoped for a bit more of a reaction whenever he found something. “Is this, like, normal for you?”

“I see a lot of these cases. Ideally, as long as I see them nobody else has to. This one’s a good example, I can hardly leave anyone like this.”

“Well, I mean you could…”

Walter went silent when he realized what the old man was doing. Out from a pocket came what looked like some sort of hinged clip. Walter’s eyes were fixed on it to see how it worked. The old man pointed the object at the bench and squeezed to open the hinge. A moment later the invisible gray had dissipated and a rough looking bearded man appeared on the bench.

At first the bearded man didn’t seem to notice anything had happened. Then he frowned and looked up at the sky.

“That’s weird,” he observed. “Hey yous! Either a ya got the time?”

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

Sam stared up at the ceiling with three thoughts orbiting her head.

First, the movie was still gnawing away at her. It ended happily for Arthur, but after what Helen said Sam couldn’t unsee Artemis’ perspective. She spent years getting closer to the woman she loved only to be betrayed and dragged away the moment she was truly seen.

Why did Helen pick that?

Second, she’d passed an old photo on the wall after dinner. A little boy and his parents smiling at the aquarium. She remembered that day but at the same time she couldn’t quite see herself in the boy. It was like when she first pulled the sex slider only backward and weirder.

For the third, the biggest event of that day had finally sunk in.

I fucking died. Helen brought me back, but before she did that I was gone. There was no me. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

She got up, went to a mirror, and loaded a save of her old male body.

I died. This isn’t me anymore. He used to be me but now he’s gone and I’ve replaced him. Sam is dead. Who am I?

She touched the mirror. It was cold.

That person in the photo wasn’t me. Or… no, they were me but now my body’s different. Or… that’s not it either. That was years ago, my body was different anyway. I changed who I am, so who am I now?

Sam returned to lying on the bed. She switched back to the feminine form because it was more comfortable at the moment, if not without burden.

I erased myself for… for what? For love?

Her mind went to the hug Helen had given her in the hospital. It was a warm memory. She’d been moved by the movie and then woken up to Helen’s embrace. It was a closeness just like she’d wanted, but she couldn’t let it be.

I died. She only hugged me because I died. She was scared, she’d be scared for anyone if they died in front of her.

Scrolling through the app, an idea came to mind. After a quick search Sam found a slider labeled “happy”.

If I just pushed a button I wouldn’t need to worry anymore…

A chill ran up her spine. Another search turned up a slider that told her she was afraid. She could almost feel the pull of a shining moon goddess begging to take over.

She tossed the phone aside and covered her face.

I’m Sam. I’m Ben. I’m Cyborg. I’m Helen. I’m my doctor. I’m my parents. I’m an athlete. I’m a girl. I’m everything.

I’m nothing.

I’m nothing.

I’m nothing.

With a burst of energy she grabbed the phone and closed the app. Then it hit her. She held her hands close to her heart.

One touch and you turn on. A fingerprint sensor. No matter who I am now, that stupid app didn’t change my fingerprints.

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

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: hey Sam it’s Helen, I got your contact from Cyborg

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: I was thinking about what you said earlier

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: the thing about clothes n stuff

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: if you wanna update your wardrobe we could go shopping, there’s a pretty good place in the mall from yesterday

⠀⠀⠀⠀Helen: I’ll invite Cyborg too, it’ll be fun

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

Cyborg squinted. “Think that’s Sam over by the bus stop?”

Helen followed where she was looking. “Um… could be? Maybe? Op, looks like she’s coming this way, that’s probably her.”

It was. The moment they agreed to meet Sam had thrown herself into clothes and out the door.

Running and waving, Sam shouted, “Hey guys!”

Helen waved back and, when Sam was closer, answered. “Did you see? She can walk now!”

Sam nodded, catching her breath. “Yeah, same app.”

Cyborg nodded. “I told her.”

“Yeah! And then I was like ‘Are you okay?’ because when I tried healing you that way I didn’t quite get all the way.”

“And I said I was fine and she was all ‘are you sure?’ as though it were unbelievable that a good thing could just happen. So I said ‘Yeah, I’ve got legs that can walk out of Omelas but no reason to leave.’”

Helen turned to her. “You never really explained what that means.”

“Anyway, how you doing Sam?”

“Did she mention that I died yesterday?”

“Whaaat?” Cyborg chuckled. “You don’t look dead.”

“Well, I got better.”

They started moving indoors.

“So what’s this all about?” Cyborg asked.

“Well, you know, I need girl clothes now.”

“Ah,” she said, “that tracks.”

Then she frowned. If Sam was starting at girl 101, clothes may be the least of her issues. Cyborg shook her head. She can ask her mom for the hard stuff. But then another thought came to mind.

“I guess you’ll need a new swimsuit too.”

“Ah yeah, hadn’t thought of that. Gotta give back that spare one obviously.”

Helen drifted back into the conversation. “Spare swimsuit?”

“Yeah, we’ve got swimming class together.”

“Swimming… So will you be changing with the girls now?”

This question froze Sam in place. “Hadn’t… thought… of that… either…” Going in after most had already changed and left was already a heavy experience, repeating that with half a class’s worth of her undressed peers felt like it would require an unfathomable power.

“Well, you are a girl now, right?”

“The app says so, yeah. Though changing seems kinda… like diving into the deep end, you know?”

Cyborg poked Helen. “Hey, remember when we had PE back in middle school?”

“Yeah?”

“And we had to change into gym clothes for that?”

“Obviously?”

“Were you gay back the-”

“Careful!” Helen looked around and then whispered forcefully. “It’s not weird, okay? I’m into girls but not, like, all of them!”

Cyborg smirked. “Your locker was next to mine last year, right?”

“I- I… Now you’re making it weird! That’s totally platonic, you’re my friend!”

“But if it had been someone else, then you’d-”

Sam interrupted the teasing. “What’s up with these sizes?”

The other two went over to assist in the reading of labels. Since Sam had never really ever picked, or even worn, anything female-fitted, the numbers were all basically meaningless. Worse, this problem recurred in each category of clothes.

T-shirts are probably the simplest example. Despite the fact that the app seemed to view long hair as essential to the female sex, it usually avoided making unrequested changes to the body’s dimensions whenever possible. In particular, Sam’s torso was about the same length from neck to hip as it was back when she was a boy. So one may assume the correct t-shirt would be the one with the same size, right?

Wrong. Sam had shown up in a men’s medium that day and it fit decently. However, when she picked up a women’s medium she noticed that it was smaller. This is a strange side-effect of statistics: the “medium” man is larger than the “medium” woman. So even though the labels are the same, Sam would need to relearn her size in the context of women’s wear.

Thus for the first few garments the trio selected, they also picked out a few of the same design in different sizes to test which one would fit better. The same went for things like underwear, some sorts of which had no equivalents in the world of men. It all made for a packed shopping cart.

“Is it just me or is this a lot?” Sam asked.

Cyborg took this one. “It’ll look like less after we get your sizes.”

“Sure, but I mean the price. This is a lot more than… say, movie tickets.”

Shrugging, “Yeah, clothes are expensive.”

“Hmm… It’s just, I only brought a couple 20s. I’m not sure I’ll be able to afford-”

Helen jumped in. “Right! I almost forgot. Remember yesterday when you copied my coat with that app?”

Sam immediately followed this lead down into the wallet in her pocket. She made a save, pulled out the wallet, and then loaded said save. Sure enough there was now a wallet in her pocket and a wallet outside it, both of which held money. The dollars duplicated. After repeating this a few times, it was much thicker with green.

“Helen. You are a genius. If either of you want anything, it’s on me. I’ve got free money.”

The three parked by the changing rooms. Sam went in to test sizes and Cyborg pulled Helen aside.

“So, that little trick was just on your mind?”

“Yup,” Helen nodded excitedly. “It’s pretty cool, right?”

“...that’s not why you invited Sam is it?”

“Wha- no! How could you think that?”

“Just curious.”

“Sam told me she doesn’t have any bras and I figured that wasn’t the only clothes she’d need. The money thing is completely separate!”

“Right, I was just wondering is all. And… well, this is a little thing. Probably nothing, but it’s been bothering me. I seem to remember you saying something like if someone changed themselves into whatever you wanted they’d be more like a doll than a person. But you’re saying you invited Sam as a person so it’s probably fine.”

Helen just stared. “I… uh…” She tried to think of something to say but ominous wheels were turning in her head and she didn’t quite like their suggestions for her mouth.

Sam emerged. “I think these are the ones that fit.”

Helen welcomed the distraction. “Yeah, you look great. Now we can go find more.”

Back among the shelves, they began assembling outfits to try on. Sam thought the shift in focus from individual clothes to outfits was interesting. She was used to just picking a shirt, picking pants, and layering for weather as needed. Apparently this was not the only way.

“It makes sense that there’d be a difference,” Cyborg mused. “If you put on a dress then that’s basically an entire outfit in one thing. Historically that was basically our only option.”

On that signal Sam picked out a couple dresses she wanted to try on. After that they drifted over to the swimsuits. Sam grabbed one to try on for school and a couple more which looked interesting but didn’t fit the dress code. Helen also picked one to try on.

Before Sam made it back into a changing room, Helen tapped her on the shoulder.

“I noticed Cyborg looking at something a while back. It’s fine if we add it to the cart, right?”

“Of course,” Sam was pleased to say. “I’ve got infinite money today so there’s no reason to hold back.”

Cyborg objected, “Wait, I-”

“We’ll go look at it,” Helen said. “We’ll be back when you’re done changing.”

Helen pulled Cyborg over to a shelf.

“I noticed you were looking at this sweater earlier. It was… this one, right?”

“…I was… It’s pretty soft and the weather’s been cold lately, but…”

Cyborg was torn. On the one hand she wanted it. On the other she had mixed feelings ethically about putting the purchase on Sam, really on the app. On another, third, more obvious hand Sam had literally just told her not to hold back.

“I think it’d be cute on you,” Helen encouraged.

The tie broke and the sweater landed in the cart.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Sam emerged in a dress held on by a zipper on the front. She seemed a little dubious about the thing.

“It’s weird, if somebody just pulled this then I’d basically be naked.”

“Does that matter?” Cyborg asked. “It’s not like there are a bunch of serial unzippers running around.”

“I guess. Just feels weird that opportunity exists.”

Sam was in and out of the room. Some outfits survived, some were discarded and returned to their shelves.

She opened the door wearing one of the dress code defying swimsuits: a bikini distinguished by a back tied top and a side tied bottom. Stepping out of the changing room seemed a bit less private than desirable. Besides that, she didn’t get a chance to do so before

“Hey, Sam, you’re gonna need tighter knots.”

“I tried a couple times but couldn’t get it better than this.”

Helen stepped forward and shut the door. “It needs to be real secure. You wouldn’t want to be in the water and then come up stripped by a wave or something.”

She undid Sam’s knot and redid it tighter. The tugging of the garments and the occasional brush of fingers against bare skin sent Sam’s head spinning.

Toward the end of the haul, Sam tried on a shirt that happened to be rather low cut. Moreover, the fabric was elastic enough that one pull on the neckline would violate public exposure laws. This one wound up back on a shelf.

“You two ever notice a lot of girl clothes are weirdly, I don’t know, defenseless?”

The other two just shrugged.

After Sam was done, Helen went in to try on her swimsuit.

Cyborg turned to Sam. “Are you sure the money thing is a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I dunno. Suppose the duped bills set off a counterfeit sensor or something.”

“Maybe… actually, no. They aren’t fake. If you had a real dollar and duped it then you’d just have two real dollars, not a real one and a fake one. I think it’ll be fine. I think you of all people can imagine that a good thing could just happen, right?”

Helen opened the changing room door. “There’s only one mirror. I can’t get a good view of my back about here.” She turned around and tapped on the spot on her upper back just below the neck. In that spot the swimsuit had a criss-cross pattern and she wanted to know “Is it, like, okay?”

Sam stood up. “I have an idea.” She got up and went into the changing room while poking at her phone.

“What is it?”

“Press here.”

“Okay?”

Sam turned into Helen.

“Woah. Ok.” It was more than a little shocking. “Didn’t know it could do… that.”

Sam turned around to give her a view of the mystery region. Helen held her shoulders and repositioned her to get the light at a good angle. The suit left the shoulders bare, so Sam got the full sensation of contact. It was odd, though.

She’s holding me, but only to look at herself.

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

“I’ll show them,” Rex muttered to himself. “I’ll show them all.”

He’d become the kind of person you go around on the sidewalk, the type that makes you double check that you’re in a place with a lot of witnesses. Part of that was the muttering, part of that was how much body he’d piled onto himself with the app. Passing dogs barked at him. Pedestrians reminded themselves not to call animal control.

Also, Rex had a gun. He did not, however, have bullets. When he got mugged the guy fired the last round so there were none left. Thus he entered a cheap-looking building simply labeled “GUNS”.

The shop had the layout of a jewelry store (but for deadly weapons) and the vibe of a gas station. It even had some snacks by the checkout desk. One of these snacks was a pistol shaped lollipop holder which seemed morbidly age inappropriate.

Bullets, though. Rex found the aisle housing them and stuck a pack into his pocket. He’d used the save/load feature in the app enough to notice that sometimes things disappeared (some trouble had been had accidently loading his shower saves in public) and he had a decent grasp on how to control it. Thus he saved the bullets in his pocket and loaded another so that the theft alarm wouldn’t get tripped when he left.

While he was walking away from “GUNS”, a man tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey there, I think you forgot something.”

Rex checked his pockets. “What was it?”

“Come, I’ll show you.”

The man led him into the store and then into an employees-only type office at the side. He gestured to a chair at the desk of a computer screen.

“Sit here. See, this is security cam footage. You know who that is?”

Rex nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“Right, and you know what you’re holding there?”

“Some bullets.”

“And then you see they go right into your pocket?”

“Yup.”

“Right, well if we just let it play, you can see that you then immediately leave.”

“...”

“You forgot to pay.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“What? We just saw the footage.”

“Must be a deepfake.” Rex turned his pockets inside out. “See? Nothing.”

The store owner shrugged. “Maybe you stashed it outside somewhere. Look, I don’t want any hassle. Just give me the pack or pay and we’ll be a-okay.”

While Rex knew he could use saves to make things disappear, he hadn’t realized that things could reappear multiple times. Thus he thought he couldn’t pay.

“I didn’t do it, you’ve got to believe me.”

“Look,” he sighed. “I don’t and nobody will. Just give it up.”

Rex caved and got out his phone, an act which puzzled the gun seller. He loaded the save with the bullets and put them on the desk.

“There, happy now?”

“That’s… an interesting choice. What kind of gun do you have?”

He pulled the gun out of another save where he had it “stored”.

“Huh… right. These are two big, they wouldn’t even fit the barrel.”

Rex left bulletless and seethed. Stupid gun. Stupid guy I took it from. He even had a gun and I took him down. Stupid there being more than one kind of bullet. I don’t need ‘em. The image of his hands up came back to mind, though. When he couldn’t get to his phone he was powerless. The memory demanded a solution.

I’m never putting this phone down again.

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

“Just imagine it: you take your client’s most loyal man, turn him into their strongest bodyguard, and then collect a regular subscription fee forever. It lines up with your business model but it isn’t bottlenecked by number of employees.”

Walter was meeting with a businessman who looked like he could arm wrestle the hulk.

He wasn’t impressed. “You interrupted my lunch break to tell me a fairy tail?”

Walter had gotten the muscle dealer’s contact from a drug dealer he knew and wasn’t going to let the opportunity slide.

“It’s no fairy tail, Bod.io is as real as the air we breathe.”

Walter pulled out the lens the old man had given him.

Still not impressed. “A red marble?”

“Not just. Look through it.”

“Everything looks… red. As though that’s the marble’s color, dipshit. What’s your point?”

“Well, when you look through there, the app appears pink.”

“Great, let’s see the app then.”

“Well, I don’t have it right now.”

“Of course you don’t, because it’s obviously bullshit. You’d have to be stupid to believe such a thing could exist. In order to get investments you’d need to give lobotomies, kid. That said, I’ll entertain your dumb hypothetical for fun. Obviously it never occurred to you that this’d put all my boys out of business.”

“You wouldn’t need them anymore.”

“That’s the problem. I came up muscle and I’m muscle today, even if I push more papers than punks. My men are my ship and if they go down then I’m going down with ‘em.”

“But collecting fees off the app and not paying anyone gets you more money.”

“Now listen kid, I make money for them, that’s how I see it. We deal with some pretty nasty folks and my boys wouldn’t do it if they didn’t need the cash. Let me tell you, just the other day I sent a couple men over to the guys who run bets on horse racing.”

“Horses? That doesn’t sound too nasty.”

“Not until they start flinging TNT at each other.”

“The fuck? Bombings over horse bets?”

“Well, that’s admittedly more about territory. And more of a last century thing. But these guys are serious business. I’ve run guards for brothels, organ harvesters, drug dens, sand smugglers, you name it.”

“Huh. That’s… interesting.”

The two talked a bit longer but the businessman’s lunch break ran out and they parted ways. Walter checked his watch, got on a bus, and then took a spot lurking outside an unsuspecting house.

In the previous few days he’d gotten a good hit with his phone-lens gadget. He’d found a guy using the app with a briefcase that suggested travel either to or from work. It turned out to be the latter after Walter followed him home.

Over the intervening days, Walter had found out a bit more. The guy was married and his wife had the app too. That made two opportunities for theft. Thus staking out the house and looking for a safe opening for phone swiping had become a regular part of his schedule.

As a side effect, though, he’d found out a little too much information. That brings us back to the present. Walter nested himself under a window and waited for the guy to come home.

When he did, he embraced his wife and the two made terrible love. Walter knew better than to look at them, but from the sounds alone he knew the two were very creative in their use of the app. At the end of a round, the woman burst out laughing.

“Heh- Honey, no! You… huhu… that’s not what your face looked like!”

“Hmm? Is it not?” Presumably he looked in the mirror. “Oh yeah, it’s not!” He laughed too. “How’d my nose get up there? Guess I’ll just load my body again…”

The whole situation was demoralizing for Walter. These two gave the strong impression that they clung to their phones like they clung to other things that Walter had no interest in grabbing. He couldn’t call the old man, though, because that would halt this golden opportunity.

“Wanna go again?”

Walter put his hands over his face. Maybe I should just leave them be. Maybe that’s better for all of us.

“Sure thing baby. Anything special in mind?”

Walter got up and started tiptoeing away. Yeah, that’s it. Live and let live. I can find a copy of the app somewhere else.

“How about we make ourselves younger?”

“Hmm… like this?”

“No, younger… younger… like, real small.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it too.”

“Heh, you look like a grade schooler!”

“Yeah, it’s hot right?”

What was it that guy said? You’d have to be stupid to believe such a thing could exist? Walter messaged the old man. Maybe these two need reminding.

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

After school on Monday, Sam volunteered to help Ben with yard work. This was partially because he was complaining about this big hole he needed to dig, but also partially because she had an idea she wanted to test out.

“Alright, I think that’s everything.” Sam handed Ben her phone. “Now press the button that says ‘update’.”

“This isn’t gonna like give me a goofy mustache or something right?”

“Nope, just push it.”

He pushed it. She grew a few inches and bulked up.

“Great, I was pretty sure it worked like that. So now I’m built for hole-digging. Let me see that.” She took her phone, found a slider, and handed it back. “Exhaustion! I’m gonna start digging. Whenever that thing gets high, I want you to turn it down and press ‘update’ to refuel my energy.”

Wait, so I don’t have to dig? “You can count on me!”

Thus Ben sat off to the side while Sam dug. When her exhaustion went up, he turned it back down. Occasionally he was told to adjust another slider when, for instance, her arms started aching. At one point she asked him to get a hair tie, long hair being a new thing for her.

Sam enjoyed the sensation of digging this way. She’d increased her strength, so the individual scoops weren’t that hard. With her endurance also taken care of, she felt completely unstoppable.

Ben, for his part, also felt a certain kind of power. There he was doing very little while his chore got done faster than he could’ve imagined. The whole situation was a dream come true, in more ways than one.

His mother popped out the door. “I see you kids are working hard, so here’s some lemonade.”

“Thanks, it’s pretty hot,” Ben said without taking his eyes off Sam.

Sam stopped shoveling to take the drink. While on break, she lifted her shirt a bit to wipe the sweat off her forehead, revealing a well toned set of abs courtesy of the app.

Ben nodded to himself. Complaining about chores was a good decision.

After a bit more work, Ben announced a notification from the phone. “Looks like you’ve got a message… wait, is that from Helen?”

“Gimme! It looks like…” It was an invitation over to Helen’s house, address and all. “…like I gotta go fast!”

Sam increased her power level and absolutely obliterated all the dirt between herself and the bottom of the hole. Then, using the increase in speed from the app, she booked it over to Helen’s. Once there, she saved the digger body and loaded another from earlier, which also took care of the dirt and sweat. She messaged her arrival, walked up to the door, and knocked.

A distant “I’ll get it” came from inside. A girl with a blonde ponytail answered the door.

“Who’re you?”

Two thoughts entered Sam’s head. First was the sudden worry that she’d knocked on the wrong door. She checked and, nope, same house number. Second was a foreboding feeling of deja vu.

“I- I… um… Sam. I am Sam. Sam is me. Yes. Hello.”

Footsteps came from inside. “Who is i- oh!” It was Helen. “You got here quick. Uh, Sam this is Sasha, Sasha this is Sam.”

Sasha turned to Helen. “What’s going on?”

“I said I invited someone else over, right?” Back to Sam. “Remember when I said I had a friend who’s a big fan of your team? That’s Sasha and now I’ve introduced you two.”

Sam gave a nervous smile and a wave, trying to remember where she’d seen this person.

Ponytail was not impressed. “I feel like I’m missing some context.”

“Sam was on the basketball team back when she was a boy.”

Imagine the “what just happened?” silence that comes after someone drops and shatters a plate.

“Now come in,” Helen said while dragging the other two along.

On the way in, Sam locked eyes with a cat. The cat then scurried away. Understandable, Sam thought. They wound their way down a hall and then into a bedroom, after which Helen shut the door behind them. This bedroom housed a fourth girl.

The fourth squinted, “Have I seen you somewhere before?”

By way of an answer, Sam whipped out her phone and loaded her last save of the boy body. After the other two were frozen staring, she switched back.

Helen, though, was used to it. “Becky, Sam. Sam, Becky.”

Becky’s eyes went from person to person looking for answers to questions she couldn’t express.

When they landed on Sasha, she shot up her hands. “Don’t ask me, I don’t know!”

Back to Sam, back to Helen. Becky leaned back. “Wow, you really went and did it.” Back to Sam. “I sincerely apologize for calling you short.” Back to Helen. “I did it, happy now?”

Sasha wasn’t following at all. “Do you two know each other?”

“You were there, idiot.” Back to Sam. “How’d you do that thing just now?”

Sam explained the app and did the dark hair ↔ light hair trick.

Sasha and Becky were showing error messages on their faces. Helen managed to herd them all into sitting in a circle on the floor. More demonstrations were asked for. Sam obliged. The more evidence of the app they received, the more perplexed Sasha and Becky got.

Helen put a stop to it. “...and it’s because of the app that Sam’s a girl now, see?”

Sasha tilted her head. “So you’re, like, trans?”

Sam shook her head. “Not in the usual way, it’s complicated.”

“...and since she’s a girl now,” Helen continued as if they hadn’t said anything, “I figured we could try on some stuff and see what fits her.”

Sam thought she understood at that point: they’d be trying on clothes like an extension of the previous day. This impression was shattered when Helen left the room and came back with what looked like an art supply kit. It turned out she meant makeup.

Sasha and Helen began discussing what seemed like some sort of strategy. Sam knew words like “foundation” and “blush” but here they became terms of art with hidden meanings from a foreign science. Becky retreated into her phone during this discussion. At one point she leaned over to Sam and wordlessly showed her a video of a nervous looking cat at a cash register swatting a client’s bottle. It got an honest chuckle out of her.

Decisions were made. Helen tied Sam’s hair back and Sasha began painting her face. With Helen freed up, Becky turned to her.

“So are you two dating now or what?”

Sam and Helen both froze at this question, leaving only Sasha to answer.

“The hell you talking about?”

“I assume that’s why Sam’s a girl now.”

“What, do girls have better chances with girls these days?”

“Better chances with this one.”

Helen thawed a bit. “B- B- B- Becky!”

Sasha ignored her. “What makes you say that?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed where she tends to stare.”

“I’m right here guys!”

Sasha paused pigment application. “Wait, Helen, are you actually gay?”

Helen was blushing up a storm. “Well… I… uh…”

“Oh shit, you are, aren’t you? That’s why you weren’t into those hunks on the team.”

“Hey,” Becky objected, “she doesn’t need to swing that way to not have your type.”

Sam had realized the references to her basketball stint but didn’t want to bring it up.

Sasha shook her head. “You told her before me?”

“She didn’t tell me, I figured it out.”

“You didn’t tell either of us? Helen, we’re your friends. Also it’s, like, current year, what were you afraid of?”

Sasha and Helen’s eyes met. Helen looked away. Sasha was puzzled but she just shrugged and went back to painting Sam.

That left Becky. “So Sam, this magic app thing turned you into a girl?”

“Yup.”

“You acclimating well?”

Sam felt like a boat without an anchor, but she obviously wasn’t going to say that. “Well, it feels a little different. Like, a couple days ago I got this weird cramp and had to fix it with the app.”

“The app can fix that kind of thing?”

“It can fix most things.”

“Huh. Damn. Unfair.”

Sasha leaned back and retrieved a mirror. “How is it?”

The effect was subtle. Sam’s skin looked different in a way she couldn’t quite place. Softer maybe? And her eyes seemed bigger. She wasn’t entirely sure how that was possible.

She asked about this. The response was a detailed, jargon-laced account of brands, techniques, and youtube how-to authors. Sam nodded along while simply making a save with the makeup applied.

Helen recognized what she was doing. “Ah, that reminds me.” She stood up and retrieved an outfit from a closet. “Hey Sash, remember this?”

It was an elaborate yellow themed outfit made of three garments (shirt, skirt, corset) and a number of accessories. Sam marveled at the kind of hanger it would take to display that many clothes.

Sasha nodded. “You think I can’t remember back a couple weeks?” She turned to Sam to explain, “Helen’s brother made us Madoka costumes for a con a couple years ago.” Back to Helen. “What of it?”

“Remember last time you tried to put it on?”

Sasha grimaced. “Time takes things from us all.”

“Well, I think I found a solution. Sam, do the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The thing from the other day.”

“The money thing?”

“No, the thing where… um… so I wanted to see a place on my back…”

“Oh, that thing.”

“Yeah, but with Sasha.”

This exchange was largely unintelligible to the other two.

Sam turned to Sasha and said “press here.” Naturally, a moment later, Sam was wearing Sasha’s face. Maybe “naturally” is the wrong word there.

Helen pulled Sam into an adjoining bathroom and helped her into the costume. The costume was from long enough ago that it was undersized now, especially in certain areas. This was no problem, though, as Sam simply made her Sasha body smaller to fit.

“Ta da! Look, you fit again.”

Sam stepped out. The other two were impressed. Sam made a save and then returned the Sasha body’s original proportions.

This even shocked Helen. “Wh- what did you just do?”

“The app changes the clothes you’re wearing to fit your body. So now the boots are bigger,” she tapped her feet, “these socks are probably a bit longer,” her hands drifted up the legs, “this corset’s grown just a little,” hands on her stomach, “and the shirt’s bigger, but still a bit tight.”

“Hey,” Sasha said. “Hands off.”

Everyone in the room recognized the implications of this technique. Helen pulled more clothes from the closet and Sam wound up with Becky’s body on her phone. For a fairly long-feeling while, Sam became a sort of dress-up doll for the other three.

At some point Helen brought up the duplication trick. At that point, Sam’s duties increased. Some costumes were just resized, some also copied, and some copied in multiple sizes.

The quartet were pretty caught up in the whole thing. After enough were modified and duplicated, Sam wasn’t the only one in costume. The frenzy peaked with a couple group photos.

In the end they were back on the floor laughing about the whole thing. Then Sasha turned to Sam.

“Hey, can I see that app of yours?”

“Sure.” Sam figured she wanted to delete her bodies off the phone.

She was wrong. “Knew it, there you are!” Sasha pressed “update”.

Sam was transformed into a basketballer wearing pajamas.

Sasha crawled over. “Oh nice.” She poked at Sam’s arm. “Helen said it earlier but I was a pretty big fan of your playing.” She leaned on the male body. “You made this with the app?”

Sam scooched away. “Yes, but there was more to it.”

Becky came forward. “Hey, can I see that?” She got the phone and bonked Sasha on the head with it.

She then switched Sam back to the body she’d arrived in. Sasha started to object but then Helen pointed out the time. The three guests gathered their things to head out, but Sam was the last to the door.

She turned to Helen after the other two left. “You never answered her question.”

“What question?”

“Are we dating now?”

Helen sat on a chair near the door. “Well, we’ve done some stuff together, so we’re… at least friends…”

Sam took a seat next to her. “Just friends?”

Helen looked her in the eyes. “Well, I don’t know you that well…”

Sam took her hand. “What do you want to know?”

Leaning away, “I… uh… I don’t know…”

“Please? I could make you more money, more clothes, more anything. I just want to be with you.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I need all that. Being friends is fine, right?”

“I… is there no chance we could be more?”

She pulled her hand away but didn’t answer.

Sam got up and knelt in front of her. She switched to the athlete body and looked up at Helen. No response. She switched to the digger body. Helen looked down at her but didn’t say anything. Sam switched to Sasha’s body from before the costumes. She ran her hand across Helen’s cheek.

Without changing back, Sam returned to her seat. “Is that it? I saw the way you looked at her. Are you… taken?”

Helen shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s my friend too but… I don’t know.” She sighed. “Why me?”

Sam looked away, generally toward the ceiling. “I guess I don’t know either. You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re dependable, but that can’t be it because lots of people are those things. Really, most lists of things probably have lots of people. All I know is I… like…” She sighed. Somehow the truest things can be the hardest to say. “...being close to you.”

Helen leaned over and hugged her. “Like this?”

Sam nodded, smiling. She snuggled in toward Helen and put an arm around her. Sam felt the warmth of her body, her hair touching her cheek. She turned and kissed Helen on the forehead.

Helen looked up. Her face took up Sam’s entire field of view. “Is this… what you meant?”

A moment, perfect in every detail, passed like an eternity. And then came the next.

Sam’s free hand went up to Helen’s face. She leaned those last couple inches closer to kiss but then remembered she was still wearing Sasha’s body.

A wry chuckle. I guess I’m Artemis.

She pulled away just enough to retrieve her phone from her pocket. With a quickness she’d never before managed, she found her body and put it on.

Helen’s eyes… did they change?

Sam leaned in and their lips met. It was complete closeness. And yet… there was no balance. Somehow that was clear. The kiss ended. Out of the corner of her eye, Sam spotted Helen’s cat. When she looked, the cat fled. Then the two bodies parted.

They sat in silence for some time. It was evening then. Sam would need to leave soon.

“Sorry,” Sam said, “for suddenly kissing you like that.”

“It’s fine,” Helen said, “it’s fine.”

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

Sam stared at the ceiling of her own bedroom. She knew she had lost.

Why can’t she just fucking say no and be done with it?

It was frustrating, but at the same time not unclear. Their feelings didn’t match and that was that. Sam half wished Helen was less honest with her feelings.

What, am I not pretty enough to lie to?

Sam pulled up her phone’s front-facing camera. She loaded the save in makeup to compare. Neither aroused much in her. Then she pulled up Helen’s face and sighed.

No matter what I do, I’m just looking at myself.

She got up and walked to the mirror. This body was the one in the swimsuit from the day before. Sam was wearing a perfect Helen-shaped clone whose body she controlled.

I should delete this. It isn’t mine.

The others’ bodies from earlier that day were then deleted in sequence. She even went back and deleted the save of Cyborg from the practice date and the save of the doctor. In the end, it was a list of just herselves.

Which of these is the real one?

She considered deleting her old male bodies. But… she couldn’t bring herself to. As she was, she felt a disconnect from them but at the same time felt oddly alien in herself as well.

He wasn’t me, in a sense. He doesn’t exist anymore. If I went back would I not exist?

The feeling of Helen’s lips appeared in her mind. The feeling of… everything.

Sam sighed.

Do I want to start from square one? I don’t really know anything about being a girl.

She loaded a save, updated a mental slider, and put his phone down. Sam didn’t delete any of his other bodies, though. They merely slept with him, in the phone on the table beside his bed.