Experience It

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

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

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

“But it’s broken!” Alfred protested.

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

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

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

Genius (Part 1)

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

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

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

Enhanced

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

“I don’t plan to,” He said.

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

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

“But I don’t want to be you!”

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

Good News. Bad News.

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

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

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

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

“A...what...infection!?”

Crimes (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Crimes.

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

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

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

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