Day Thirty - The End
I invite you all to read the end of Faceless. I must say, I’m pleased. And incredibly proud of myself for finishing. It ended at 80k, just like I thought it would. I didn’t try to end it at 80k; it just naturally did. I sat down today and did not ask myself to write to 80k. I asked myself to write until I finished the story. And it ended at 80k. Damn, I’m psychic.
Thank you all for reading and supporting me, if you did. I truly appreciate it. Now, let’s all wish me luck in aiming for publication!
Final Word Count: 80,545
Carpenter did not return. In moments he doubted whether or not he had even seen her, but he could not focus on this. There was no time to focus on this. He was becoming tired, yet did not know what time of day it was. Reedy was looking intently at him, wondering why Walters was about to collapse, even though he himself was on the brink of life itself. They must have kept Reedy in here far longer than Walters. He showed signs of having been in this building at least another week more.
Walters was about to drift off to sleep, assuming that nobody was in sight. Nobody was coming to the cell, so he could easily drift off, forget everything… yet, there were footsteps. The footsteps of his mind he could see, trotting forward. He could see the horizon, a distant and yet ever close line at infinity, beckoning him come. It beckoned to his new body, “O come, Walters! Take you and your precious mind with you!” As it called out, Walters walked near and nearer, reaching the point of oblivion. He was about to touch the horizon, to step over the odd line at infinity but fell short, relapsing into sleep.
He was rudely awoken in no less than an hour. Reedy, too, received a rude awakening, but it was only Walters whom they had come for. There was a man who should have been one of the security guards at the door, but he was not. He was dressed in white, looking like a doctor, but a doctor of what Walters could not be sure.
He was asked to leave the cell. The barred walls of the cell burst open, leaving a path that any of the three men could have escaped to. The pseudo-Walters leapt to his feet, however, prepared to leave this wretched building, but it was not he that the man was looking for. He beckoned the original Walters, who came crawling out of desperate fear. The man held up a razor, and asked Walters to follow him.
They were led up to the white wards again, into a room so white that Walters felt he might be blinded. He was seated in a chair, and the large man began to work on him, moving Walters’s hair back, grabbing a bucket of water and an odd foam substance. Fighting back, Walters moved from the chair, but he was politely asked to stay, or force would be used to keep him there.
The man held Walters’s head to the back of the chair forcibly, not allowing it to move without Walters breaking it. He took the foam and spread it across Walters’s face. He was shaving him.
Walters did not know why this man was shaving him – he was perfectly capable of shaving himself. He felt it awkward that in a place so disturbing there should be a barber at the ready. It was the last thing he had thought would happen to him, and it was the least he cares about. What did it matter if he was clean-shaven? They were not shaving his head and shipping him off to the military. They were shaving his beard that had grown in the time he’d been imprisoned, but this could not possibly be the extent of their torture. It was unacceptable. Walters had gathered the spirit to fight back; he was not going to waste it on a barber.
And yet, there was nothing else to waste it on.
After he was shaven, he was taken to another room. This room, also blindingly white, had a gurney in the center. Was he going to get a checkup now? Ridiculous.
It was not a checkup. The same man who had shaved him was not preparing a serum and placing the strange liquid into a syringe. Walters was not fond of shots, but was not afraid of them. He had reason to fear this shot – it could be poison, it could be something to drive him insane, it could simply be a drug that he did not want ingested in his body. He began to fight back as he had before with what little he could do. He refused to get on the gurney, but this was no effective argument. The man held him down again as though Walters were a mere kicking and screaming child, and injected the solution into him.
Immediately, the white serum rushed through his body, providing a tranquil, healing feeling, but it was not a substance to knock him out. His headaches disappeared in moments, his eyes became glazed, and he once again saw, in his daydreams, the horizon that he had so just barely reached.
He was led back to the cell, but was not paying attention to the walk. He was only paying attention to the walls, and how they moved along beside him, against him. It angered him that they should move against him, but it made him happy that they should move further past him to allow him to walk by them faster. His mind was at calming peace now, left in its own personal limbo, just waiting for the moment when it could decide between heaven and hell – an old Walters, or a new Walters.
Reedy was approached next, and carried off. He had hardly he strength to stand, and was extremely malnourished. It was as though Walters had been given special treatment, and that may very well have been so. Reedy did not return. Not in an hour, not in two, and not for the entire night. He was gone, taken somewhere else, or dead. Perhaps he had finally collapsed and given out, but he was killed without reason. His living state was superpositioned against his dying state, transforming him into a modern Schrödinger’s Cat, but Walters did not wish to know the truth if he had indeed perished sometime during his absence.
It was he and his other self in the cell now. He realized why he had been shaven now – it was to tell the difference between himself and the pseudo-him, to make comfortable the people who might come by to examine him, to rip him apart like a lab mouse. He now saw his cage for what it was – he was a trapped experimental human, unwillingly taken in the GSS. He, however, could not determine this. It was not confirmed until he heard more footsteps – not the footsteps in his mind, but real footsteps, of a live person, walking toward him. It was another man, a nameless man whose only job was to lead him to yet another room.
In this room there was nothing, and yet everything he needed to see. The door behind him was locked. In front of him were the trapezoidal walls of a barred prison cell. He reached out through the bars, trying to grasp the outside, to break free and enter the room. There was nobody in the room! What was the point of keeping him locked in here, as opposed to locked up somewhere else?
The doorknob on the opposite side of the rectangular room began to turn. In walked Carpenter.
He looked at her, his glazed eyes merely seeing the first layer of who she truly was.
His body still trusted her, and so did his mind. As she walked closer to him, looking utterly perfect as always, he could not shake the overwhelming trust he had in her; that she would break him free. But she just stood there in front of him, looking at his miserable self. There was nothing about him worth admiring or freeing. She loved what he despised, or half-despised or perhaps did not despise at all.
What did he think anymore?
He could no longer explore his own thoughts and opinions. His mind was a landslide, every thought tumbling under and over and in-between itself, until at last they were all indistinguishable from one another and he had to cease being distracted by them and look steadfastly at Katrina, who stood now only a few feet away from him.
He tried to look away, perhaps examine the room. There were objects he hadn’t seen. How did he miss them? The room was full of equipment, useful equipment that could be used in a laboratory. Items rested on desks, and yet the room remained bleach white. Despite all of the research material around, all of the machines, the ATC’s, the fridges, the beakers, the granite countertops, the room maintained a sterility and cleanliness that was unsurpassed by any other room he’d encountered. And here, in front of this magnificent display, was the person he’d so longed to see.
“Hello, Greg,” she said. It was an inhuman greeting.
Walters was prepared to bombard her with questions, but she stopped him. “You know where you are,” she said to him, beckoning he look at the ceiling. On the ceiling was not a simple roof, but a logo, an insignia, of the GSS. At the bottom of it all read the words, “WORLD HEADQUARTERS.”
“Quite a headquarters,” Walters chocked out.
“It’s far more impressive than what you’ve seen, I assure you. The true size of this building is far beyond the numerous rooms you have been transferred into, beyond your reasonable comprehension. You aren’t – or weren’t – willing to accept how large this building is. Do you know what the first thing I’m going to do is?” A smirk appeared on her face, replacing the menacing and yet expressionless mouth of the past.
“I couldn’t imagine, but I assume you want to experiment on me,” Walters said. It was in an add tone, however – almost enthusiastic did he say those words. In his mind he imagined himself being tested, he imagined all of the things they could turn him into. While he tried to repress it, he smiled. Katrina caught the smile and retaliated.
“Wrong. Completely wrong – you have no clue of why you are here! The experimentation is done. You cannot realize it, but it has been done for quite a while. What you cannot accept, however, we will make you accept.” She held up his lapel pin Genome.
“Where did you get that?” he shouted, grasping the bars, reaching out of the bars once again to grab a hold of the pin he needed so badly. He did not remember ever losing it, but now that he had seen it in her hands at this moment, he realized that he had never had the pin. For these weeks he had been absolutely without a Genome. That was why he had such pounding headaches. That was why they had administered the tranquilizer.
“My dear, don’t you remember the day you arrived here?” He didn’t remember. As far as he knew, he had woken in a white room, locked inside, and remained there until recently. “You don’t, do you? Allow me to refresh your memory. Please take this – and I know you will.”
He did indeed take the pin. His arms involuntarily raced for the pin against time, grasping it with fury exceeding a lion’s. It was only moments after did Walters feel a sensation run through his body. It was not euphoric, nor was it painful. It was a feeling of nothingness, but had the taste of knowledge. Memories were flooding into him of his arrival day. He felt his mind warp and twist around itself, changing, shapeshifting. His mind was changing! He had to prevent this, but he did not want to prevent it. There was no way to prevent this impossible feat, this previous impossible feat that only the GSS itself could imagine.
It was not an epiphany. The memories did not flash before him one by one. Merely he awoke a moment later, feeling the same and yet completely different, able to answer questions in a different way. “I remember,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I remember?” But he had not fully explored his memories. When he looked back on them, he saw what they had done to him – stripped him of his clothes, his Genome, all personal items, and placed him in simple scrub-like garments. He saw them give him the pin back but only momentarily. He remembered only up until that point. Beyond that was unrecoverable.
The GSS forces had taken him out of the car and forcefully dragged him into the headquarters. He saw the insignia – he had known where he was. They tore it all away from him, as if by magic, by using his own lapel pin Genome. It was the same feeling he had just received in getting the memories back, but only before they were being taken away, so as to make sure he did not know the cruelty in how he was brought there. He shuddered. Katrina again saw this; her smirk changed to a grin.
The white of the room returned in his eyes, and he looked at a whitewashed Katrina. He felt different not only in memory, but in something else entirely unexplainable. He wanted to protest what had gone on, but something would not let him. Something else had changed within him, something horrid had since passed. He no longer gave in to his hatred of shapeshifting. Instead, he embraced his memories, and embraced his position inside the jail cell. He could see now. It was as though he was seeing the room’s true whiteness and purity.
But it was not yet heaven.
Nothing here was heaven yet. Part of him was still unconvinced, and it spoke. Katrina’s smile disappeared. She would have to use more forceful applications of controlling him, but that was out of her parameters. She was not to go further than what she had in the room. It was a job, and she was simply a lackey. She was not the enemy. At the same time, she would not play the part of the innocent person trapped between two people. She did not mind interrogating Walters.
Instead, she forced herself to take delight in it. She held up something else for Walters to see, but Walters ignored it. He paid more attention to his current prevailing thoughts, still trying to hold his previous personality together. As long as he and the pin were united, his personality began to change. He became who he was not through the pin’s continued miracles.
Through his mind, he kept repeating that it shouldn’t have been possible, that none of this was possible – but he had been in the same position so long ago when shapeshifting made its debut to the world. It did not seem like a plausible concept, and its name was very misleading, for it was no superpower, but it was all so farfetched that none could have dreamt to see it real. And now he was telling himself that they could not simply change one’s personality, one’s entire identity as a person with a simple pin? Nonsense! They could do anything. His mind told him that they could do anything.
“Where is Jenna?” Walters asked impatiently, the thought having just entered his brain. He wanted to find out where she was – she had been missing for a long enough time for him to have the right to know.
“Don’t worry, she’s safe. She’s not with us at the present, but I believe she’s being held at another station. If she were nearby you, there might be dire consequences, you see.” She continued. “Nobody can be with you. It is impossible for you to interact with others in your current state, in our defined state for you. Your wife would only be and interference, a bump in the road of progress. But don’t despair; she is worthless to you now. You have something far greater. You know of it, you hold it right now in your hands, and when it is not in your hands it resides in your pocket. That, my friend, is why you are here. You are here not because we need to experiment further, but because we have finished experimenting with you.”
The “we” that she used so freely – it was not like her. Carpenter would not have addressed herself as the embodiment of the GSS. She may have made use of her connections, or perhaps bragged about them slightly, but there had never been any “we” in the operation. As far as Walters knew, she had always worked alone. Her store was run by morons in suits; her business by her intellectuality. There was no reason for her to so quickly become tied with the GSS in work and in spirit.
Although it did not make sense, it made perfect sense, because he himself was changing. As he was not himself, she could not be herself, or else she was herself and had not been herself previously. No matter what the case, somebody was a different person – everybody was a different person. His thoughts made way to words, but did not come out. He wanted to say that he, too, had changed, but could not recall ever changing. He had always supported what he supported. He had always disliked the conservative people who fought shapeshifting. He did not recall correctly, but something also told him that this was not his first time being shapeshifted. And yet he would not give in willingly! He could not help but awaken a silent protester within him, and fight what he may have supported but knew in his heart was truly abominable.
“You’re different… you’re changed, like me. I have been changed. At least, I think I have.” His words were timid, but striking. Katrina, however, was not fazed. She had prepared an expression for ever statement he could make. She had personally prepared herself for this event. She had everything she needed to continue her job, to continue on with the interrogation, the mental torturing.
Walters stood there, perplexed as to her expressionless nature. She had changed herself, there was no doubt. But perhaps he could be convinced that she had not done so. He needed to sense an ounce of humanity within her, to see any sign of something from her past. The GSS could have used her as a test subject, just like they were doing with him. Just like they were probably doing with Reedy and his wife Jenna. There was no escape from it – it surrounded him. Shapeshifting surrounded him. Society and culture as a whole surrounded him, trapping him within a circle of coldness and ice.
She spoke. “I am not changed. It is you who has changed, I will confirm this much for you. You have been far too disoriented to realize what has been going on around you. When you first approached me and showed me that lapel pin – I hope you still, at least, have this memory in you – I knew how I was supposed to deal with you. It was not simply coincidence. There are no coincidences, Walters, merely fate – fate and the GSS. The two combined have the ultimate power at their disposal, but not for that sole purpose. Do not think for one minute that this organization is so full of its own pride, engulfed in hubris, simply because they’ve managed to sway a person such as yourself! You – the you who existed in the past exists no longer. There is none of him left inside you but the frail, timid body of the new man you are. Soon you will have no recollection of your past existence, only of your present condition. It will consume you, trap you, leave you helpless.”
“This can’t be how you treat your test subjects. Mike Rainer, he was one of your subjects in the past. You weren’t even alive for him. He wasn’t killed purposely – it was an accident. There’s no possible way they could have planned it unless the technology was already functional. It couldn’t have been functional; there would have been no point in calling forth test subjects. If it were functional, they would have begun their monopoly much sooner. Don’t preach to me false information.” He was breaking free of the lapel pin, which was constantly altering his personality. With the passing of time he felt more and more helpless, more and more a different person. He begged himself to last just a bit longer, to maintain a firm grip on his now-humbled opinions about shapeshifting so he could keep up the argument with Katrina.
But Katrina did not move, nor say anything. In fact, her looks became more stern, her expression serious and solemn, but not one of mourning. It was one of revenge, of the sweet feeling of victory and complete superiority. She was a higher up; she did not need him. She did not need his words or his feelings. She just needed him to sit there and rot away, become another person and then be quietly disposed of. It did not matter how this was done. He could be cast back into society as someone else – someone even more intricately designed than his current persona – or as the same person, cleaned out of his memories.
However, Katrina wanted to continue. She wanted to restore more of his memories, to bring back things to make him realize the true power she had over his form and his mind – the power that the GSS wanted to have over the whole of society. They did not want to control its people, but simply monopolize. If they came across as just another corporation, they would not sell product. They needed to sell product, and therefore must appeal to their customers. But with people such as Katrina running stores, Walters did not know what to think about the owners, except that they must all have had this extra technology for quite some time. He wondered why it hadn’t been leaked out by accident somehow.
He recalled the past again. It had been leaked out by accident. Or was it on purpose? He did not know the different, and it did not matter.
The lapel pin had been dropped by the thieves he had encountered at the very beginning of it all. They couldn’t have dropped it on purpose. It was too much of a coincidence, and as Katrina had said, there were no coincidences. Only fate and the GSS existed in this situation. And it was clear, then, that the GSS had arranged the entire event. The pin dropping, the meeting of a person on the road. It was all controlled by the center authority to find test subjects for their newer technology. They could not find any volunteers who wanted to alter their personality, so they did the only thing they could - force people to do it.
But then there was a problem in the logic – who was Katrina?
The thieves did exist; he knew it now for sure. They were the very owners of the store “affiliated” with the GSS. They were everybody and everything; they were ambiguous. The rock next to him could have been someone from the GSS, stalking him with complete lifelessness. They could have been the trees; they could have been their own workers. They probably were.
“Just who are you?” he said, with some of the last bit of his remaining old personality, determined to question Katrina as long as it could.
Katrina became more alert to Walters than ever, as though she had been waiting for him to ask this question the entire time. It was as though she’d choreographed the whole event within her mind, step by step, playing it out hundreds of times over. And now it was finally curtain call.
“The question should not be asked who I am,” she said gloriously, “but who you are. And the answer is simple: You are nothingness. In the same way, you are me, and I am you. We are all who we want to be, and what we want to be. There is no difference between the matter within me and the matter that makes up the entire universe. If there was enough matter, I could become my own universe. I could become all of the inhabitants within it. It does not matter how many I am, or how many you are, or how many anybody is. It simply matters that they are. Human beings are incredibly malleable creatures, you see,” she walked over to the full-body ATC’s not too far away and grabbed a small, pin-sized object, then opened the door of the ATC. She pressed a button and stepped inside. There was a rumble, a whirr, and then silence. A moment later she stepped out, only this time she was not a she – she was a he, and he was Marcus Reedy. “And our physical form is entirely independent of our minds,” the new voice of Reedy said. “What the GSS discovered, however, is that it also works the other way around. Why are our minds not also independent of their bodies? What of our consciousness? Should we be so limited to our old forms, our own selves, when we could simply become an entirely different person at will? What you see now is that in wonderful effect, the changing and manipulation of a race made entirely of clay – the building blocks of the universe, at our disposal. It should be our duty to change ourselves, to grasp life with every force that we can. Why not should I change myself in old age to a younger form? It may not cause eternal life, but I would rather spend my final days as something regrettable, rather than resting in peace an ancient vegetable. This is not the limit of its applications. Soon it will be marketed throughout the world, gaining popularity, all thanks to this one experiment. Finally will the process of shapeshifting truly be one hundred percent potent. People will not just change their bodies, but their personalities, their minds – if one wanted to change himself, he would be able to. I could just as easily become Marcus Reedy right now should I choose to do so, but that would not aid me in dealing with you. You see, Walters, we are all faceless creatures in this world, and any object or living being in your visual vicinity – and even that which is not – is your mask to wear.”
Walters understood, for the first time, who she truly was. She was not Katrina Carpenter, nor had she ever been. The perfect form which he had seen for so long was merely a costume, a gimmick. She had never been herself. Reedy may not have been himself. There was no possible way of telling who had been who, leaving his mind tangled in knots that weren’t already existent. As though he needed more knots! Not only was his glorious spire in shards, his mind in knots, his body disobeying him, but now nobody was anybody, and even his wife may not have been his wife at all. Had she really come home from the three week business trip?
No, no – she must have. Nobody would dare impersonate her, he thought. But then he recalled the early morning in which he had set forth to discover the ambiguous thieves, and remembered seeing his wife there. He also saw Reedy, and Carpenter, and all of the store owners and workers in abundance. And suddenly, he did not know who Katrina was once again.
Struck with slight fear, Walters spoke again, “Your real self. The original form you were born with. Who were you then?”
“Irrelevant,” Reedy said. “I am who I am now.”
“No, you’re not. There’s always something left of you after a procedure like that – there must be. Nobody can create a flawless procedure. Even if you became somebody else, there would be some advanced and complicated way of tracing your transformations without the use of records. There would be a way, some organic artifact left over from your old days as someone you now are not.”
Reedy’s face smiled. “There is no trace. Accept it - you will never know who I was. If you do not accept this now it will eat at you, consume you utterly just as the lapel pin continues to do now. Speaking of which, there is even more for you to see. If I’m correct, you’ve been quite perplexed as to why you trust me so much.” She flipped a switch, and the bars of the cage become full-blown walls as sheets of metal slid out from between them.
“You are now inside one of the largest Alteration-Transformation Chambers, Walters. How does it feel? I hope it feels glorious, because so few ever actually use this room.” He flipped a switch, and it turned on. Walters doubled over inside the machine, writhing in pain that shot up and down his spine, into his hands, causing them to quiver and shake. They went numb. Then, as soon as it had begun, it was over. Incredible enough, the process had been completed in only about ten seconds. This was the progress of shapeshifting – and it was not stopping. It would never stop. It would continue to evolve until finally the human race would become so specialized and differentiated that they themselves would split into separate species, each as intelligent as the next. There would be no conservative humans left in the world.
When he awoke he felt the same as he had the first two times being shapeshifted through memory. It was as though the memory had always existed, as though it had not been implanted nor recovered. And yet there was the feeling that it had been recovered, because the memories of not remembering were also still present. Thus Walters’s jaw dropped when he recalled the memory of the one night stand he shared with Carpenter. She had used him that night, used it to gain his trust. She knew about the pin all along. She must have known about the group of thieves and where they were. She had known about everything for all of this time, and toyed with Walters. She had taken him to see himself – the man, the pseudo-Walters, may not have truly been an old test subject who willingly accepted the pin’s transformation. It may have been any random person – even Carpenter herself, somehow acting as this man, literally believing they were this man.
It was a glittering generality that had won his trust. As soon as she had finished with him that night, she wiped his memory of it, leaving only the feeling of trust and excitement he felt with her, but not the mental picture that went along with it.
The metal sheets resumed their positions inside the bars, leaving Reedy open to view, as well as Walters inside of the giant ATC, sprawling on the floor. He pushed himself upward, panting.
“The documents,” he said. “You showed me documents, of who this person I was being shapeshifted into–”
“You have been shapeshifted into nobody, but as long as you live, you will never know about the person within the documents. Both of them, in fact. That information is the intellectual property of the GSS, and it intends to stay that way.”
“And the thieves? The ambiguous people we’d spent time searching for?”
“As you perceive them, so they are. Perhaps they exist, perhaps they do not – it depends on your own definition of existence. They exist only as forms of other people. They are common copiers, mimickers who pleasure in using other’s forms to do wrong. If such a being is worthy of acknowledging, even if they may be ten thousand different people in their lifetime, then yes, they do exist.”
Walters felt a twinge of pain once again, and doubled over. It was the final part of the transformation. He could feel his current mind slipping; pseudo-Reedy was watching the entire spectacle as though it were a movie, ever-intent on seeing its glorious ending. He would awaken a new person, with a new personality, a new mind, and the body that fit him. It was what the GSS had looked for in him since the very first day, and what they continued to look for in the various Genomes scattered throughout the world. There was no way to count how many humans, at this moment, were at this strange Genome’s mercy just as Walter was.
He writhed in pain yet again as the Genome finally consumed his mind completely. With it came ultimate understanding. As it ended, he knew now the motives of the GSS. He knew how it all worked. He knew why so many people supported shapeshifting, and he, too, supported it. He had always supported it since the day he knew of it. He had dreamt of getting his first shapeshift as a sign of freedom. Mike Rainer’s death, while tragic, was just a step forward. He had sacrificed himself to better the planet, to move forward the planet. He was a martyr for the new age, and so was Walters. It was so entirely clear why one should support the system! The system was flawless and incredible. It enabled all people to come closer, to obtain anything, to be anything. How was it that only now he had realized the true potential of shapeshifting? He saw one person controlling two bodies, one person controlling five bodies; ATC’s that could fit literally anywhere and shapeshift literally anything with the right amount of matter, making any job possible – visions of the future, of progress. He wanted so desperately to be part of this progress, too, and he knew then that he already was, and what he could do to continue to be part of that progress.
He stood up. Strength had returned to him as a new man. He faced Carpenter, and diligently pleaded to be part of the progress, of the new Reform that would shape the world and everybody in it. And the Reform should be grand and powerful, one that sweeps across the heavens and grasps it. The room now appeared whiter than ever, more similar to the cloudy paradise than it had since he’d arrived. He pleaded once again to Reedy, who he knew was really Reedy, as long as he wanted to be. The real Reedy had not gone missing, because he was right in front of him. Where Reedy’s consciousness was, Reedy was. The mind was independent of the body.
Walters looked at Reedy, and Reedy looked back, and smiled. “Of course you can help,” he said kindly, and opened the door of the prison to let Walters out. “In fact, we’d be happy to have your aid. Come, step into this machine…”
Walters exited the cell and timidly walked over to the ATC that not too long ago Katrina Carpenter, if she had ever existed, had stepped into. He walked into the machine, following the example set forth by Reedy. Reedy, standing outside of the ATC, pressed the button to begin the operation.
There was no Genome inserted in the cylinder. Reedy smiled and waved to Walters, then walked out the back door of the room and locked it. Walters simply stood, unaware as the blinding white light of the room consumed him. It did not matter, however, that Reedy had left. He was happy.
* * * * * * *
It was a cloudless day on the pedestrian road nearby the NSGR. Various people had been purchasing genomes that day, especially from the center store. It may have been run by idiots, but the former owner and manager Katrina Carpenter set a fine example and reputation for the store, securing it for life. Multitudes of people rushed by the store, and even more multitudes of people bought Genomes from that special place with such close ties to the GSS itself. It seemed that in the past few years its connections had only grown stronger. Rumors spread that it was able to create custom Genomes for free for its customers as part of a new project called “the Reform,” an attempt to spread awareness about shapeshifting and its benefits. It was a grand success so far.
The shops had flourished since the new release of personality-shifters. It most greatly influenced those who would be changing themselves to find out what a new body was like. When getting a new body just wasn’t genuine enough, one could not pick from a selection of matching personalities and instincts for their selected body. If one didn’t exist, a market for custom personalities now lived specifically to create this for people.
Average time for a shapeshift was around five seconds. The average cost to be shapeshifted in a hospital was close to nothing. Nobody shapeshifted in hospitals anymore unless they were lower class and could not afford their own ATC. The Hospiten had ceased to be a hospital, and was reduced to somewhat of a free clinic. The doctors of the Hospiten were hard at work re-learning the biomedical skills that would allow them to reopen the hospital as a normal institution for the first time in decades.
Several workers were giving reports of odd figures running through the walls of the Hospiten. Some suspected it was their coworkers performing the act to scare them. Similar claims were coming from Carpenter’s store. The figures were swift and merciless, and always carried goods with them. They were a grand group of thieving lunatics who took advantage of the availability of shapeshifting. They had nobody but their own kind’s respect. They were widely known as a group of troublemakers, and parents advised their children not to mingle with this odd group of shapeshifters.
The coworkers at the store suspected their fellow coworkers. The doctors at the hospital suspected the doctors. They had no proof of anything, and they had no idea of how they came to appear. There was no evidence that they were any sort of person, or had ever been a person at all. And yet their form kept on changing, continuing to cause mischief in the world despite opposition from the public.
The inhabitants of the pedestrian road kept a sharp eye out for these thieves. Every once in a while they would find a small, odd object nearby a suspected site of thievery. Some would immediately accuse those in the surrounding area of being one of the thieves, to which they would respond that they were not. Everyone would always respond that they were not one of the thieves.
But then again, it was hard to tell who was who.
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