Part 10 - If You Want It Done Wright

After a few more twirls, she stopped and faced Dee. Slowly, her head bowed and revealed a contrite expression. With earnest words, she said, “I am so sorry. I was a mean man. I didn’t mean to yell at you. That was bad. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

Squeezing her hands together, the young girl poured out every apology she could imagine. She apologized to Korri and Bruce and the man with the cell phone. 

Once that all flowed out, she pressed her hands together and softly said, “I hate being a mean old man. I want to be cute. I want to laugh. I want to make other people laugh. Please…before it wears off…do something to make this permanent. I don’t ever want to go back. I want to stay this way….please PLEASE!” Her eyes begged Dee and they searched Korri.

Dee held firm even as Korri glanced at the return bin. He nudged his chair to block Korri’s line of sight to it.

With a sigh and a firm look, Dee declared, “No. I’m not going to do that.”

With a little girl whimper, the customer asked, “Why not?”

“It’s not my job.” He folded his arms like a mountain and sat there.

The girl begged him over and over until something caught in her throat and she belched again. She doubled over and tried to clasp her mouth shut. With another long belch, her entire body swelled out into her former shape, balding head and all.

Hargrove stood there for a dazed moment before yelling, “You tricked me!!” Dee did his best to avoid plugging his ears. He reminded the customer what he’d just said. 

The customer leaned way over the counter and intoned, “I’ll go over your head, you little shit! I’ll go right to your boss. I will make you pay!”

Dee looked perfectly relaxed as he inserted his words between the venom, “You really don’t want to do that.” Korri nodded. Dee stretched one of his arms above his head.

Hargrove looked ready to vault over the counter. “WHY NOT?!”

Dee noted, “She’s quirky.”

Again, Hargrove looked dazed. Dee sighed and leaned forward. “Trust me. I know her. I am the person you want to deal with.”

Hargrove shook his head and glared down Dee. “No. You don’t mean shit…”

Dee coolly looked back. “You can find her office in the back of the store. Follow the red strip.” Korri gulped.

The customer gathered up everything of his and stomped out.

Dee shook his head and said to the seated man, “Next, please…”

Bruce remarked to Korri, “This boss of yours sounds totally fierce.”

Korri smiled politely. “It’s not that. She’s just uh…that guy’s attitude won’t go over well around her.”

Dee reiterated, “Sure won’t.”

Korri laid her hands across her area. In her thoughts, she came back to Bruce’s question. She dug her fingers into the material of the desk as the moments passed. 

Bruce stretched his shoulders and asked, “You mind if I hang back for a few?”

“Sure…I mean...Go ahead.”

With the air filter tucked under his arm, Bruce settled into one of the chairs. The other customer gingerly laid his cell phone on the counter and took a sideways step. He gave his mustache one more quick brush before he spoke.

“I’m having a bit of a problem with this phone.” He rustled around in his slacks for his folded receipt. Dee glanced at the cell phone and cautiously used his tongs to look at the receipt. The customer name was given as “Jared Andrews”. 

Before Dee could address the customer, a ringtone blared on the phone. Korri thought the tone sounded familiar, in a pop tune sort of way. The customer gave a jerk but his hand automatically reached over to grab the cell phone and bring it to his ear.

As soon as the phone touched his ear, a change rushed over his body. His mustache vanished from his face and his hair turned long and deeply dark. Two dense locks landed on his chest. His bushy eyebrows became slender and thick. His lips, accented by his a narrow, soft face, pouted out.

The customer’s size dwindled but his clothes clung tightly to him. The hand gripping the phone narrowed. One of his slender arms rested at his hip. His clothes transformed as well. The slacks slid up his legs, becoming a pair of black cotton short-shorts that clung and only reached a hand’s length down her thigh.

The checkered shirt shifted to a sky blue top with a low neckline. The sleeves ended high on her arms and clung to her body. She shifted to her left leg, which accented the girlish slope of her hip. Her chest showed a prominent bump as hoop earrings hung from her ears and a fashionable hat appeared on her head. 

[https://i.imgur.com/eKYMFKp.jpg]

The customer’s skin tone became a tanned shade darker. With her shoulders slightly drooping, she spoke into her phone and said, without enthusiasm, “Hello?”

She listened and everyone in the room watched. The customer answered, “Yes. I made it. Yes…I’m going to deal with it now. Okay? Honey? Yeah. You did call it. So…yeah. No nooo…I’m not saying it’s your fault. It’s not Bridgy’s fault either. Honey?....And I can’t deal when you go off on tangents and…But I’m taking care of it. It’s fine. Okay…okay. And I’ll pick up some toothpaste and…products…sure. I’m really looking forward to that….” She gave a quick little roll of her eyes. “I know…I know. It was all my idea. Tell Bridgy I love her….yeah. Okay…that’s not helping. Hanging up now…” She clicked the phone with a blue, glossy-nailed finger then sighed. 

The customer squeezed her waist. Bruce looked on from his seat with wide eyes. Korri found herself not as surprised as she expected. Dee folded his hands below his mouth as he said, “I assume what just happened is part of your problem.”

The customer fussed with her hair and nodded. “Part of it. I mean I knew that buying this phone would turn me into a teenage girl. That was the point. My step-daughter Bridget always says I don’t understand her so I wanted to…ya know…kinda put myself in her shoes. I picked a very basic plan for the phone and set everything up. I then used it to turn into a girl about Bridget’s age.”

Korri passed the catalog back to Dee, who made a few notes and prepared himself by flipping to the phones section of the catalog. He noted the model number etched on the side of the phone. Korri and Bruce both edged closer.  

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The customer leaned her elbows on the counter and continued, “I used it just once but it was really informative. Bridget and Donna, my wife, were not very into it. But then Bridget called me on the phone and something went wrong. I turned into a different teenage girl. Then my business line started getting routed to the phone as well. Now, every single call I get turns me into a different girl until I enter a code on the cell to undo it. And I totally get like a hundred calls a day…” 

Korri automatically winced. Dee nodded and searched a page of the catalog with his finger. After a moment, he said, “Did you try pulling the battery?”

The customer nodded. “I thought it worked at first too. But it didn’t. It’s become sooo crazy.”

Dee tapped his teeth with his fingers and mulled, “That’s peculiar…”

The customer clutched her arms and asked, “Yeah…but is there like a way to fix it?”

Dee waited a moment before asking, “Do you remember which plan you picked for the phone?” The customer bowed her head and her hair slipped down around her face. She asked, “Isn’t it on the receipt?”

Scratching his cheek, Dee carefully looked over the receipt. The plan for the phone was not given. He returned to the catalog and even poked open his black book. After several moments of poking, he shook his head and admitted, “I’m at a loss. I’ve recently read the information packets for cell phones. They’re locked into a single unit. And if you can undo it then it is working correctly….the problem has got to be in the programming.”

The customer looked over at the cell phone and asked, “Single unit?”

Dee nodded and skimmed over the back pages of the catalog. “It’s a hardware thing. All nanites are constructed with three absolute rules in place. One, they can only copy themselves a generous but limited number of times. Two, they can only operate in a limited set of criteria….which I also think is too generous… Three, they may never harm a living thing. It’s physically-crafted into every nanite ever made. Even rogue nanites that float around with confusing instructions.  It’s why the planet hasn’t collapsed into a pile of goo. Your phone is programmed with nanites that only operate with your phone. If the phone is damaged…they die off. If the phone is deactivated…they die off. They need this phone to operate. But…” Dee paused and skipped back a few pages. 

His eyes blazed over the text, until they stopped in one place. He looked up at the customer and asked, “You said you have a business line…how many lines do you have overall?”

The customer quickly said, “Three. We have like the family line for all normal calls. We have a line for my daughter. And…then there’s the business line.”

Dee clutched his mouth with his hand as Korri watched him work. She’d only seen him on the job a handful of times but had never seen him this focused. She felt a bit of concern by osmosis.

Then, in a moment, Dee’s eyes relaxed. He calmly asked, “How many lines did you get these transforming calls from…I mean…did you transform when you used the family phone or your daughter’s line?”

The teenage girl furrowed her brow and sighed. Dee watched her intently. After a moment, she shook her head and announced, “You know what…it was only on the business line. I didn’t use the house phone at all and my daughter would never let me use her line.”

All the tension passed from Dee as he answered, “Whoever registered your phone messed up…or the registration was incomplete. Did you give your business number for the registration?”

The girl quickly nodded. All the pieces were coming together for Dee. He continued, “The phone saw your number listed the same as your business line, so that tells the nanites it's okay to jump onto that one, even for energy. It’s a messy loophole in rule two and it represents a lot of my problems in one big pile.”

Dee was back in control. He guided the customer through registering the phone. This time she was given a provisional number for the line. Dee added, “Now, you can set a particular form instead of getting a demo each time.”

When it was all done, even Bruce nodded his head. The customer entered the undo command and swiftly reverted to his older, original body. 

Dee folded his hands and looked up at the customer, who set the phone down and asked, “Does this mean the nanites on my business line will die off?”

With a shift in his chair, Dee noted, “The nanites transferred to the other phone when you were near. Now they should only keep to this phone.”

The customer looked down at the phone, sighed, and inquired, “Is there a way I can just return it?”

Dee looked over at the phone and nodded. “I can assure you the phone will work correctly now but, if you feel that way…I can refund you the cost of the phone. For the minutes used and the plan, you’ll need to speak with the company that holds your service plan.”

The customer pushed the phone away and said, “I have been hundreds of young women in the last few days. It was disconcerting…No. Disconcerting doesn’t even begin to describe it. And I’m feeling quite tired of it. Each made me feel a different way. Mostly self-conscious. I have a fair sense of what Bridget has to go through. I get the idea. Now, I need to be her dad again.”

Dee picked the phone up with the tongs. Carefully, he took the battery out. He then tossed the phone into the returns bin.

Once Dee had completed everything for the refund, the customer quietly left. 

Bruce looked like he was slowly drifting in his chair. Dee cocked an eye at him and asked, “Did you need something else?” He then turned a gaze to Korri, who looked reflective.

Bruce set his air filter down and answered, “Well, I was speaking to your most-awesome cohort and I was thinking about how it would feel to turn from male to female.”

Dee pressed his lips together and announced, “Gotcha. Feel free to continue that conversation.”

Bruce leaned forward. “You are most welcome to offer your wisdom as well. I’m absorbing it all. My only real experience comes from the usual places and from some dreams I've had and self-interpreted.”

Korri’s eyes widened. “You can interpret dreams?” Dee gave a long and curious look in Korri’s direction.