Day Twenty-Two
I just want to take a moment to say to myself: Happy 50,000! I worked hard in reaching it. Now all I have to do is reach my true goal of 80-100,000 words, which will be the real end of my novel. Right now I’m still in the middle to a bit past the middle.
Word Count: 51,024
With the rather reluctant advancement of the shapeshifting Walters began to feel even further disoriented, yet did not know why. He would have liked to research, but found that Carpenter was not at the phone - it was early in the morning, but even so he expected her to be around. She was always around it seemed, willing to help him. Perhaps she had been around too much.
He didn’t want to wake up Jenna on the second night he had been up early. It would be a mistake; she would be even further convinced he was unstable, a restless spirit. It was him, alone, then, in the night. He would not call up Reedy because he knew of all people that this would only cause him discomfort. It was a shame that a brilliant man was so stubborn. If not, then this might all be solved, but the world turns in odd ways. Sometimes it should choose to turn normally, or sometimes slanted a bit too much, giving some sort of distorted ring orbital. Soon enough, space itself unravels because nothing wants to confide in its laws.
But what was there left? It had come as far as it could go. He got up without shaking the bed, looking at himself, his disgusting complexion, the face that wasn’t his, the body that had been partially his, but was changing more rapidly with each oncoming day. He spoke to the faceless man in the mirror, but it was not his voice. He jumped backwards. Yesterday it had sounded much more like his voice. This morning, all traces of his voice were gone.
He brewed some coffee to keep him awake. He didn’t want to go back to bed. He wanted to stay awake, monitor what was going on. He wanted to continue calling Carpenter until he could get some help, console in her. She was the one person through all of this madness that made him feel comfortable. Jenna only created tension, and Reedy was no help because of his huge ego, but Carpenter knew something. She had the connections. If she wanted to, she could have easily contacted the GSS about this technology and gotten word about it.
But she had not. He picked up the phone and dialed her number again. This time he got an answer, but not from Carpenter. The signal was jumbled ad scratchy, the voice a deep, sinister male’s. No, it was a woman - the signal was being tampered with. He’d heard about the government wire tapping, but not about telephone interference caused by them. Something ridiculous was happening.
Or maybe the phone line was just having problems. His mind exaggerated every event, turning it into a dire and insane happening. It was there that he found himself on that very same spire, but no - it was not a spire. In his mind he generated a floating island, surrounded by floating islands, yet smaller and more easily conquered than his own island. The islands were made of dark stone, surrounded by an ever-glowing green light. He could still not see the ground through the clouds, but it looked as though it had lowered from the last spire he’d imagined. His thoughts must be more down to Earth, but even so were on another planet entirely.
He looked out and tired to see the moon. It seemed closer.
He shook his head. He was back in his apartment, nodding off to sleep. Or waking up. Yes, he was waking up. He had fallen asleep at the kitchen table, drinking coffee. It told him how much coffee helped him to stay awake. Even hot brewed caffeine failed him in these times. His body was forcing itself to sleep, hibernating in order to complete the metamorphosis that Walters was pushing so desperately to stop.
The phone rang a few minutes later. Finally, it was Carpenter.
"Why did you call me?" were her first words. Whether she had caller ID o not, it didn’t matter. She knew only Walters would call so early in the morning.
"I need your help. Make me a Genome." His words were desperate, pleading cries.
"Can’t do, Greg. Against regulation." It sounded like a lie to him. He clasped his hand to his forehead in disbelief and sighed.
"That can’t be right," he said. "What regulations are you following? Surely the GSS must have some kind of exception. I don’t have the money, but if you–”
“Look, Greg, favors just aren’t my thing. Plus, the GSS wouldn’t like it, regardless of whether or not they have an exception. Treating a patient is one thing, and you can find that one on your medical bill. However, I can’t pass a Genome onto a patient without colleting the hundreds of dollars that goes with it – note the ‘hundreds of dollars’ that I said. When I say that, I mean, quite literally, ‘hundreds of dollars.’”
“Alright then,” he said reluctantly, “but I want to see you soon. I think you can help me, more than the others can.”
“Why me?” she said.
“I’ll let you know when I find you.” And he hung up.
Jenna woke up at about 7am to the tune of squawking city pigeons and rushing horns, children of the Doppler Effect. This rude awakening made her particularly angry, but not enough to sour Walters’s mood about seeing Carpenter. In fact, Walters practically ignored Jenna the entire morning, acted as though her three week trip was still happening. She never once questioned him because of what she thought was happening, but felt curious nonetheless. They did not eat breakfast together, brush their teeth together, nor did they even tell each other good morning. Jenna did not exist. Walters did not exist. The house was empty.
Rumors had been spreading recently that the GSS was under the development of another major technology, but the details were currently unknown. Walters had come across this and thought of asking Carpenter, but he thought that such suspicions might be over-the-top suggestions for a GSS affiliate. He couldn’t expect her to know everything – and he was right in this. She didn’t know everything, but she didn’t know nothing either. Had he asked her, she would have been able to answer his question, but with great reluctance.
They met in her shop, in the usual office in back where they had first seen each other. It was like they were meeting for the first time again, only this time it was playing out the way Walters wanted it to.
“Katrina,” he began, “I know that I’ve got some issues going on, but right now I feel like you’re the only one who can truly help me. The others don’t seem like people whom I can put my full and confident trust into, but I can’t let them know that. I can’t let anyone know that, except for you.” His expression was soft and comforting, and appealed to Carpenter in a way that it never had before.
She wanted to move closer to him, to look at his new appearance and tell him that she felt the same way, but she wouldn’t. Ethics got in the way: Walters was married. She wouldn’t get in the way of his marriage, even if he did look younger, more fit, more refined of a man than before. Inside he was the same person, and there was nothing that could change that.
“I still can’t help you as much as you think I can,” she replied, “but I can do whatever else goes as far as my jurisdiction. I’ll need the pin, though, in exchange. It’s for examination. I know – I’ve already seen the inside, but I need you to trust me, just like you say you do.” She held an outstretched hand to him, both inviting and rejecting. Walters felt rejected, but wasn’t so sure. He took the pin out of his right pocket and gave it to her. It wasn’t as tough of an action as he thought it would be. He’d expected some kind of strange opposition from his body over the top of his mind.
Carpenter was about to ask him to leave, but never released the statement officially. Instead, she remained inviting, as though this meeting had brought them closer than before, to a level that she would rather stay at than give up. It was, too, for a greater purpose, but one that she would also rather not disclose. She wanted to keep on good terms, examine him more; find out his strengths and weaknesses, where the transformation was strongest. And she wanted to send this information to more people.
Eventually Walters left, because all Carpenter had been doing was examining the contents of the pin, trying to jab at the genetic material at its core. He expected she’d get at it soon enough.
Without the pin his body felt a strange heaviness. His posture slumped, his attitude darkened, his physical strength overall weakened. It must have been a common side effect of leaving an incomplete shapeshift, except he wasn’t doing it by machine. He could have looked at it from the positive side, the entire ordeal. Perhaps it was like having a superpower. Perhaps he was someone special.
He shut that thought out. He was not special, just a poor soul caught up in something he didn’t want to be in. He found himself at the NSGR, where he would begin working his shortened hours – requested by his wife and granted, though his salary would now be much less – on the genetic material still pouring in from the launch day. One of them had a similar reaction to the pins as he was having to his, except it was a fatality in their left hand. A woman had tried to change her hand, perfect it, but upon removing it prematurely from the cylinder the hand became imp, tired, and out of shape. It was only half complete, and would need to be fixed by a doctor or a second, carefully designed shapeshifting immediately.
“Hey Greg, where’s that crazy pin you’ve been walking around with forever?” a nameless coworker asked him. The man was not a new face, but not an old one either. It was just one of the people whom Walters generally interacted with on a daily basis. This person seemed to be more common than the rest of them.
“It’s… in repair,” he said.
“Repair? How do you repair a little piece of metal?”
“Shapeshift it?” Walters said, failing to make a pun out of shapeshifting. To his surprise, the man laughed and walked off, patting him on the shoulder as he left.
It was not long before he received word from Carpenter. The genetic material could be traced back to its original owner if it was a real person’s DNA, but it would not be an easy task. She would need several days to compile genetic fingerprints and other analytical data. Walters said that he could lend a hand if he was feeling up to it. There was plenty of equipment in his own lab at the NSGR. They could work together in their off hours to compile the information and track down the owner of the DNA. He suspected that when they found this man he would look identical to Walters, at least by the time they found him. If it was to be days, then surely the process would be complete.
When Carpenter gave him the pin back that night, a surprised look struck his face. She said that she no longer needed it. Why wouldn’t she need it? Wasn’t it important – didn’t she need to find the data?
“I made a copy of the genetic material, so don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll have your person in a few days, just like I said. In the meanwhile, you can keep that thing. I know you must want to have it again.”
She couldn’t know. There was no way she could have known how badly it slowed him down, how desperate for the pin it had made him feel. He was like a ravenous dog; he chased the pin around and around in his mind. As soon as it showed itself, his body lunged forward on its own, grabbing the pin. Carpenter looked shocked. She’s never seen such an addictive property attributed to a Genome before. It was strange because Genomes were not drugs, nor were they really anything that could be consumed, so they could not cause an addiction. Somehow, this one was causing a strong addiction.
The afternoon shift was beginning. Strange characters of all different shapes and sizes would be walking into the store starting now, looking for high quality products. “You know,” Carpenter said making small talk, “I once got a customer who wanted to turn themselves into a cheetah.”
“Did they actually follow through with the procedure?” Walters asked. It would be totally useless if they didn’t.
“Oh, they most certainly did. Quite a sad story, too. He didn’t seem to understand that once you shapeshift into an animal that you can’t talk anymore. I had a chuckle out of it, but it was his decision. Actually, I think he had been a her beforehand. It’s amazing what some people are willing to do to themselves to gain self-satisfaction, don’t you think?”
“Been thinking that for forty years, and I still do,” he said. The topic didn’t very much interest him. He didn’t want to know what crazy things people were doing to themselves. It was possible to do anything to yourself with the right equipment, so hearing about someone who had turned themselves into a man, or even a cheetah, was not surprising. In fact, the number of sex changes since the release of shapeshifting technology drastically rose. It was as though all of the people who had thought about it before now decided that it was an easy task, especially with the rate that the GSS was advancing its technology.
A few years ago, the process would have taken a day or so. Now it took an hour. Soon, it would take ten minutes. It was fast, flawless, and easily reversible. It did not require anyone to consume hormones, because the hormones were already there. New developments were being brought to the technology every day – the GSS had an entire subdivision devoted to sex changes. The majority of people considered it a disgusting and immoral department, but to the minority who didn’t care, and to the even smaller minority of people who were interested, it was fascinating. No more did they have to worry about their image, because they would be the real thing. No more did they have to worry about conception, because it was possible. Everything was possible, because it was a flawless procedure. Nobody, not even the surgeons themselves without a set of shapeshift records, could detect that one person had ever been another, much less a different sex. And because it wasn’t permanent, but could be reversed or changed, it was just as appealing as ever, even to those just wondering what it was like.
In fact, that specific group of people may have been the largest group to use it.
Those who wanted to know what it was like, those simply curious about any operation, would fork over their hard earned cash to get the surgery. To get it customized was more expensive, but to have yourself become a generic avatar was dirt cheap. Patients walked into hospitals declaring they wanted “special surgery,” and that’s exactly what they received. There was a ward, in the Hospiten at least, reserved specifically for these types of patients. It was almost like a trial procedure. They would be able to “try on” shapeshifts. Rather, it was a primitive form of what was currently in massive development: Literally “trying on” Genomes with ATC’s disguised as dressing rooms. With the new technology, one could become something they were not in a mere minute. Shocking as the fact was, it was destined to be incredibly popular. Various stores selling Genomes that were making hefty profits had already injected the technology into their shops, making provisions to their stores and adding on new areas for these “dressing rooms.” Because surgeons were no longer needed for the process to be a success it was simple and logical for a person to use this “dressing room” to see what their final result would look like after it had been made. If they didn’t like it, they could try on something else.
It was almost like designing a character in a video game. A screen showed the different features of the body, and there were various customizable fields. This took from genetic data stored in the machine – not hard to accomplish, because human DNA is ninety-eight percent similar in all persons – and then used that for the fuel of a giant ATC. The person experiencing this “trying on” felt no pain or anything for that matter, and instantly saw in a mirror what they looked like. The ATC was designed to be safe to have a mirror placed inside.
As the increasing number of these try-on customers would increase, so would the depth of the technology. The time to try on a Genome would be half a minute, ten seconds, five seconds, and eventually instantaneous. It would become a natural part of everyday life, just like trying on clothes. It would be everywhere, and it would be unstoppable – because nobody in their right mind would want to stop it. It was as though the GSS had developed a perpetual motion system; an industry that constantly fed itself. Humans have always been concerned about their appearance, and they always would be. It was a system that fed on ego and the endless supply of money that citizens reeled in from their jobs. Even if it became inexpensive to use – and it already was – it would just be used even more.
This type of growth was one of the main things that the conservatives feared about the system. That it would get too big for itself. That the morals and human values everyone on Earth used to share would be separated from each culture. There may have been ethnic and cultural differences, but basic values that everybody shared as humans previously would be ripped apart, because henceforth it would not be known what human was. They thought that they had trouble debating abortion in the last century – now they faced the same problems, but magnified tenfold, debating humanity itself in front of possibly millions of viewers who had themselves been shapeshifted.
Walters looked around. This was not where he wanted to be. How had he ended up in this store, with this person? He slipped the lapel Genome into his pocket along with his right hand, and bid adieu to Carpenter, who continued to work. It was a parting that should not have been as awkward, and yet was not as awkward as it should have been all the same. Now Walters was walking through a crowd of strange human-like people. Some were buying new faces, some new appendages, some new innards, and some new bodies entirely. It was a who’s-who of who could mutilate their body more, and then another of who could like their new body the most.
Out in the pedestrian road the streets were filling up with people of, literally, all shapes and sizes. People who had chosen to be tall, short, sideways, frontways; any way conceivable was possible and seen here. If there had been a time to acknowledge minorities, this was that time, because there were certainly thousands of different races on this one strip of road alone, much less in the entire country, and possibly soon the entire globe.
He was struggling to make his way out. There was nothing more for him to do there, but he could not fight his way through the crowd, second only to the crowd he had been surrounded by on his first visit to the road. Some of the people he thought he recognized from his various visits across the road, because his visits had become so frequent. It was odd thinking that he, so conservative about visiting this place, would have become regular enough to recognize people who passed him by. At least he thought they were people he had seen – for all he knew they were just another generic Genome face or someone else who had shapeshifted into someone else, and so on and so forth.
It was his ultimate goal to tell Jenna of his little visit, but he was afraid that he might not be able to force the words out. The short conversation they had the night previous left him startled as to how much his wife was concerned about his condition and those related to it. He had never known she cared so much, even though she was his wife. It was an odd feeling: Waking up and realizing that, after forty years, someone was next to him that cared about him, and he never even knew it completely before.
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