Basic

The thing about Emily was that she was pretty ordinary. I didn’t know anything about her before swapping into her body, but it didn’t seem to matter; I could just sort of fake it with a lot of bland cliches about twenty-something year old women.

Her style seemed basic and unoriginal. When I saw another woman on the street -- I wasn’t sure if she was a friend of Emily’s or not -- but I just sad some things about Taylor Swift and Pilates, and then we both went about our day.

If I had known it would be so easy to be a woman, I think I would’ve stolen the body of one years ago. Then again, maybe it wasn’t all women who were so simple....maybe it was just Emily.

Patience

Maura watched her former body walk by. It was predictable at this point. It was same time every day, and she wanted to jump out and scream at it. She wanted to demand her body back, or at least get an explanation about why it was stolen from her in the first place. But she had chickened out so far usually after looking in the mirror or down at her current hands.

She now had the body of a rather large and burly man, and she knew exactly what shouting at her former body would look like to anyone else in the neighborhood. They’d call the police.

So she needed to wait until her body was walking here when no one else was around. It was a game of patience. And so far she had been good about it, but it was hard to hold back. She really needed to know why her body was stolen.

At the Door

The doorbell rang in the apartment, then it rang again. When it rang a third time, Shannon finally checked to see who was there. It was her. Or rather, it was the body she used to have. But it didn’t make any sense. When she had stolen Peter’s body, she had removed every memory of who he once was. There was no way he could remember he slightest notion of ever being Peter, let alone a detail like where he used to live.

“I know you’re home,” Shannon heard her own voice say from the other side of the door. “I’m not leaving. You owe me answers.”

Shannon looked back out the peephole again. Her former body looked exhausted. Whatever Peter had done to regain his memory likely wore him out. But she was still too afraid to answer the door, and certainly too afraid to answer for what she had done.

Break In

Alec didn’t like breaking the rules. Heck, he took the job at the CIA because he loved the rules so much. But he wasn’t exactly in a position to stand on his morals right now.

Selene Dragova had broken into this very facility last night and used some sort of body switcher to steal his body, leaving him stuck in hers. When she called in his own colleagues, he had no choice but to flee. There was no way to explain who he really was.

But he needed his body back! He couldn’t be stuck in Selene’s body! Not by a long shot! She was a criminal spy! Fortunately, he knew the agencies tricks and traps, even if navigating them in her body was a challenge.

He needed to find Selene is his body and just hope she still had the body switcher still with her!

Agency

The rumors were swirling online that Sun Moon was planning on leaving the popular K-pop girl group while they were on the top of her game. She was called to the agency where she confirmed those plans. The agents didn’t take it well. Splitting off a group into solo careers were often expensive and often never worked out. They pressured Sun to reconsider, but her mind was made up. The agency decided on more extreme measures.

An hour later, Jason stepped into the elevator. He was new to the agency, a very recent hire after a year long internship. Without any clients of his own yet, he was perfect for this task. He winked for a quick selfie that he posted to socials to ensure everyone the online rumors were false. Sun planned to stay as a group for years to come.

Meanwhile, back upstairs in the agency’s office, Sun was now inside Jason’s body, furious at the body swap they had forced upon her.

Dr. Wong

With their marriage on the rocks, Alan and Mei had gone to the therapist to try to patch things up. Dr. Wong had suggested a radical hyponsis therapy that would swap their bodies.

It sounded strange, and they were both skeptical, but sure enough, they both went under and Mei had awoken in her husband’s body. Alan, however, was shocked to find that he was now inside Dr. Wong.

He surmised that it wasn’t actually any sort of therapy at all -- just a trick by the doctor to steal the body of his beautiful wife. He tried to explain it all.

To his surprise, Mei chimed in first. “Is this part of the therapy?” She asked.

Meanwhile, Dr. Wong (now inside of Mei’s body) did her best to convince Mei that she was actually Alan, and that Alan inside of Dr. Wong’s body must surely be “acting for some sort of a reason.”

It was hugely frustrating for Alan that his wife couldn’t figure out which body was really him!

Pink!

“Christine would never wear anything like this,” Benjamin said we a smile as he looked in the mirror, “But Christine isn’t in control of this body anymore.”

He was certainly enjoying being a woman and living it up to the fullest. Whereas Christine had been the type to often wear jeans and a sweatshirt, he was happy to put on a cute pink dress.

But he could take this further, right? Doll himself up even more? Gosh, he could look so cute!

Thought Through

“So, you caught me,” Chet said flatly to Fiona with handcuffs on his wrists, “But what -- exactly -- is your plan now? I can’t imagine you have a body swapper to switch us back, and I’m not going to tell you where mine is. Plus, consider that you are in the body of a male criminal who has a young woman handcuffed at a cafe on the street. If I start shouting, how well do you think this is going to turn out for you?”

“Then why haven’t you shouted?” Fiona asked.

“Because I have an insane curiosity about wondering just how far you thought this all through.”

In all honesty, she hadn’t. All she knew was that Chet had stolen her body. Catching him was as far as her plan went, but she had to have some way to force him to swap back with her; she had to figure out some way, right?

Let Me Show You

Ralph wondered why Bill was leading him down to their friend Gene’s basement. Where was Gene? Why were they doing this without him? It didn’t feel right. When Ralph saw Gene’s body passed out on a table, and a scared Asian woman strapped into a strange chair with sci-fi stuff attached, he was nearly ready to dart upstairs and call the cops.

“Before you panic, let me explain,” Bill said, “Or, better yet, let me show you.”

Bill attached something to his own head, then typed a few things into the computer. The machines in the basement made a loud noise, and Bill’s body collapsed to the ground.

“What the hell?” Ralph said trying to attend to his passed out friend’s body.

“It’s okay; I’m here.” The Asian woman now said, “I’m Bill. In this body. Isn’t it wild?”

The Asian woman pressed a few buttons on the armrest that freed her from the restraints.

“It’s an invention Gene made.” Bill continued explaining, “It lets you become anyone. Gene’s this hunky guy who can bench like more than 200 pounds. We can lure someone else down here so you can be whoever you want too!”

“I don’t want to be someone else! What about your original bodies just sort of lying down here? What about the people whose bodies you’ve taken on a joyride!?”

“Stop worrying and have some fun! It’s fine!”

The Truth (Part 3)

View Part 1 of The Truth.
View Part 2 of The Truth.

At it turned out, Mrs. Wong wasn’t exactly eager to swap back into her own body. When Erika brought out the medallion, she told Kyle to take it from her, triggering a swap between them -- this put Erika into Mrs. Wong’s body while Kyle was now in Erika’s body. In the resulting panic, the medallion was dropped to the floor, which Mrs. Wong quickly snatched up and ran away with.

---

A few months later, Erika and Kyle had moved in together and were developing plans to find Mrs. Wong.

“It took me years to track her down last time,” Kyle explained, “But now I know her tricks.”

“She’ll probably change them.” Erika tried to reason.

“There’s only so much you can do to hide your tracks. Plus, there’s two of us this time. It’ll at least be twice as fast.”

“I hope so! I hate being menopausal.”

“I preferred it to periods...”

Not Wrong

‘Oh, she’s angry,’ Larry thought as he took a selfie of himself and noticed his former body in the background shaking a fist while wheezing and coughing. On the one hand, he was impressed. After stealing this young woman’s body, he had run around the block, and she had still managed to follow. His former body wasn’t in great shape, and he would’ve expected it to pass out from a heart attack or something. On the other hand, she was probably going to be an annoying pest, yelling about how he had stolen her body.

She wasn’t wrong, but what could she really do about it? She had no idea how he did it. There was no way for her to undo it. Anyone listening would think she was just a crazy old man harassing a poor, helpless young woman. It really wouldn’t matter in the long run, but it just would’ve been easier if she had accepted that her body was his. Now he had to do this the hard way and find a cop.

The Truth (Part 2)

View Part 1 of The Truth.

Erika was shocked to hear about the body swap, and that her husband Kyle was actually an Asian woman named Theresa Wong. Meanwhile, Mrs. Wong was actually Kyle. Though they had swapped bodies long before Erika had even met Kyle -- or who she thought of as Kyle but was actually Mrs. Wong. It was making her head hurt.

And then there was the issue of the medallion, which she guessed was the cause of all this. She had simply found it one day when cleaning, which made her husband think it had gone missing. Apparently, it could resolve this mess.

But that would mean she’d be married to a man she didn’t even know, who had literally just threatened to kill her moments ago. Though given what he had gone through, she couldn’t totally blame him for being so crazy. Plus, she wasn’t exactly feeling too fond of the man she had married -- he had been lying about who he really was the entire time; even down to the fact that he wasn’t a man at all!

None of these felt like great solutions to her, but she knew she was the one who was ultimately going to decide. After all, she was the only one who knew where the medallion was. After considering the facts, she decided it wasn’t fair that Kyle was stuck in the wrong body. But she’d be expecting very fair terms in the divorce, which Kyle immediately agreed to.

The Truth

It was probably the last thing Erika expected to see upon coming home. The middle aged Asian woman was pointing a gun straight at her.

“Where’s your husband?” The Asian woman asked.

“He should be here in just a minute.” A terrified Erika replied.

And sure enough, a man walked in a moment later, and the Asian woman reaimed the gun at him. The man just scoffed, “Are you really going to shoot yourself? I doubt it.”

“No,” The Asian woman sighed before once again pointing the gun at Erika, “But I can shoot her unless you switch us back.”

“What’s she talking about Kyle!?” Erika screamed.

“This is Mrs. Wong. I used to live downstairs from her before we met.”

Erika screamed as she felt the breeze of a warning shot from the Asian woman’s gun zoom passed her head. “Stop the crap,” The Asian woman warned.

“Okay, fine. Fine.” Erika’s husband confessed to Erika, “I’m Mrs. Wong, and that’s Kyle. I stole his body years ago. I never thought he’d track me down.” Then he turned to his former body, “But you have to believe me when I tell you I don’t have a way to swap us back to normal. I lost the medallion years ago.”

“The medallion? That old thing?” Erika asked.

Think of the Profit

“Your problem is that you never wanted to monetize anything you ever made. You could’ve been a millionaire...maybe even a billionaire. And now that I’m the one in your body, you will be...or I will be, at least,” A smug Marilyn Liu proclaimed from inside Professor Newton’s body.

“It’s all too unethical to be sold! You’ll never figure out how most of it works anyway! That’s all still inside my brain, no matter what body that brain is now in!” Newton protested while tied up and inside Liu’s body.

“Now, now. I figured out your body swapper machine, didn’t I? That alone should be quite profitable. And one must ask if these ethical concerns exist in the first place, why invent something like that at all?”

“You think I’m the only one to invent body swapping tech? The government came to me with a problem; I built them a solution. But the problem is more out there than you might think.”

“Oh, blah, blah, blah. Luckily, you won’t have to bore me for much longer. The cops should be here soon. There’s plenty of evidence of YOU breaking into MY lab. And I’m sure they’ll be glad I apprehended you myself. Good luck trying to invent anything in prison.”

“I might be more resourceful than you think...” Newton muttered under his breath.

Medic

“You’re never going to get away with this,” Tanya said weakly from inside the elderly man’s body. It had been three days since he had recited some sort of magical spell causing them to swap bodies, leaving her stuck near death’s door. It had been the first time since it happened that he dared to see her face-to-face. And yet, Tanya saw that her body seemed legitimately shocked by the accusations.

“Look, Pops, chillax, okay? I didn’t ask for this. I was minding my own business on the street when this chick steals my body and dashes off. I’m just lucky I know how to do this nurse stuff from my time as a medic in the army.” Tanya’s body replied.

“That’s my body!” Tanya protested, “Give it back!”

“I would, Old Man, but do you think I have any idea how she did this? You think I want to be a woman? Though I have no idea why she’d want to be a homeless man.”

Tanya paused to think before answering. “Because you won’t be missed if you disappear. And he wants to be a man again -- any man, I suppose. But if he doesn’t like it, he can always swap again.”

“He?”

“This was originally his body.”

The man in Tanya’s body didn’t quite know what to say, but he certainly knew there was nothing he could do to help aside from the general duties of a nurse that he was performing...

End the Cycle

Roland awoke in a strange, unfamiliar room. The most dramatic change was the fact that he was now in a woman’s body, but it soon became the least interesting thing about the whole experience. Among the dusty equipment was a pristine notebook, which outlined that all the electronic equipment was a tool for stealing someone else’s body. Presumably, this was why he was now this woman; though he questioned why anyone would steal his body of all people! The notebook further outlined how to use the mouse and keyboard as a click and point way to cycle through cameras and select a target to swap with -- which was an option now open to him. And that would explain why the keyboard, mouse, and main screen lacked the same dust as everything else. Of course, there was another option. He could simple leave. This woman’s body would then become his, and, sure, someone would likely find this room and start the cycle all over again, but it was still a very tempting option...

Blind Date

Lance felt like his blind date wasn’t going all that well. Sure, Kelly was cute, but it felt like the two had nothing in common. He wondered why his friend Scott had ever set this date up in the first place. He got the feeling Kelly didn’t think it was going well either; she offered to go get drinks to help them both loosen up. She returned with two glasses of pink fizzy liquid.

“What the heck is that?” Lance asked.

“A magical drink,” She replied, “We both down these at the same time, and we’ll switch bodies.”

Lance looked at her like she was crazy. He was into a science, and Kelly was now talking about magical drinks that could swap people’s bodies? He was pretty sure this just went from ‘nothing in common’ to ‘no way in hell.’

She could tell he was skeptical. “If you don’t believe in magic,” She replied, “Then there’s no harm in having the drink, right?”

Lance was quite confident in his belief that magic was pure bullsh*t, so he downed one of the drinks while Kelly took a few sips. Everything went black.

---

“Hey, Dude, wake up,” Lance heard his own voice say.

Lance had briefly passed out at the bar after having the weird drink, and he was shocked to find out it actually worked! He was in Kelly’s body, and that meant she must be in his! Yet as he looked at his body and it’s mannerisms, something seemed off.

“Look, I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not actually Kelly.” It was weird for Lance to watch his own body talk, “A week ago, this b*tch tricked me into drinking these things and stole my body. She wouldn’t swap back, but she gave me the formula. So I emailed you to set you up on this blind date, so I could take your body. I’m so sorry, Dude! But she’s like two days from having her period.”

“Scott?” Lance asked, “YOU stole my body!? What the hell, man!?”

Mirror, Mirror

Nancy couldn’t help shake the feeling that something was wrong that morning. Nothing seemed to be working quite right, people looked somewhat off in a way that she couldn’t place, and when her printer started to print out a document with the letters reversed, she realized she needed a break.

She went to the restroom to splash some water on her face, and things got even weirder. She noticed her reflection wasn’t quite matching hers. Then suddenly it all made sense; she was the one trapped in the mirror.

“Get me out of here!” She screamed.

Her own body on the other side of the mirror laughed back, “I’m sorry. There was nowhere else to put you when I stole your body. You had to go somewhere. But don’t worry; it’s nearly identical in there, just in reverse.”

“So, are you, like, my evil twin from inside the mirror?”

“What? No. I’m Jim...from the shipping department.”

Nancy just stared.

“That’s the problem,” Jim replied, “You were our supervisor and you don’t know who any of us are! You don’t care about what we need or our problems; you just cared about the bottom line. That’s why I took your body, Nancy; to be a better Nancy than you could ever be! To treat everyone in the departments you manage with kindness and respect. You deserve to be trapped in that mirror!”

Dissociative

“You’re in serious trouble. You know that right, Mr. Paulding,” Officer Diaz said to the woman sitting on the bed in the jail cell.

The woman on the bed remained silent.

Officer Diaz continued, “We know all about the murders, the robbery, and the body swapping. And we have the evidence to prove it.”

Sam Paulding spoke from the woman’s body with a flat tone like the psychopath he was. “Let’s say you do. Did you know body swapping isn’t a crime in this state? The laws haven’t even kept up with body swapping technology. Even if I was that person you think I am, legally it wouldn’t matter; either way I am Marilyn Spitz, an innocent woman. There’s certainly no blood on my hands. There’s no way you can lock me up without putting an innocent woman behind bars.”

Officer Diaz smirked, “Then why are you already here?”

“Awaiting my lawyer.”

“Oh, that’s the good news. He’s already been called. We’re already working out a plea.”

“But you can’t prove anything!”

“It’s true that we can’t prove you committed any crime. But we can prove you’re crazy and a danger to yourself or others. Our psychologist collected enough data, and your lawyer agreed, that you have clear dissociative disorder. And I think you’d agree that you do have a certain detachment from yourself, wouldn’t you?”

Enjoy It!

Sitting in the park and watching the women jog by was one of Ed’s favorite activities. While he usually kept his rude thoughts to himself, every once and a while something would slip out like a catcall or a whistle. Most of the time, the women wouldn’t even give him a look; at worst, they’d shoot him the evil eye.

But after one of his unintentional comments one day, the woman jogging by just stopped. She turned toward him and walked up. She pulled him from his seated position and leaned in. For a moment, Ed thought she was going to kiss him; briefly thinking his rude comment would actually have been a plus. But then she started to exhale a pink smoke straight into his mouth.

“What are you doing?” He said meekly, realizing he wasn’t able to move on his own as he kept inhaling more and more of the smoke.

“I’m having my soul enter your body,” She said by moving his lips and speaking with his voice.

“Then...what happens to me?” He asked with the sound of his voice already cluing him into the answer.

“There isn’t enough room in a single body for two souls. You’re being pushed out to the nearest uninhabited vessel, which just happens to be mine. I hope you enjoy wearing tight yoga pants and exercising for jerks in the park to make crude comments as you run by. I hope you enjoy monthly visitors and lower pay. And I hope you enjoy riding on the train or bus and having men that grab you ‘pretend’ that it’s an accident. Really -- Ed, is it? -- I hope you enjoy being a woman.”