Joe adjusted the shoulder of the black dress, which rose into a peaked puff sleeve. “Are you sure I have to wear all of this?” The entire outfit was… demeaning. That was the only word for it. He’d realized he had no choice but to pass as a servant, of course. He hadn’t expected feeling like a sausage, his body stuffed into a frilly dress that emphasized his curves.

Reshy was pacing around, inspecting her sullen companion’s new style. “How should I know? We have to test it on the shades, but why not dress the complete part? Unless you’d rather get tased and tossed for a fourth time.”

Joe’s face fell. They’d stolen one of the maids’ dresses, but only after yet another failed attempt to sneak past the shades. The gardeners fetched equipment and spare clothing from the shed the two of them stood in. The maids, however, came in and out of an outbuilding attached to the manor itself—and the manor was well-guarded. They’d slipped inside at one point, only to be confronted by a patrol coming through the back door. Before being shocked unconscious, Joe’s body had sustained even more damage.

Reshy keeps telling me that the body’s regenerative powers might kick in if I turn the dial again, he thought as he fumbled with the ties of a white, ruffled apron. She’s been right about most everything so far, and it might also keep me from feeling so nauseous and disoriented in this body. So why am I so reluctant?

Reshy’s little button eyes him unflinchingly. “Whatcha thinking about, Craigan? Not ready for a maid’s life?”

I still don’t trust her, he realized. But is that my hangup, or something I sense about her? I never trust easily, but how do you even know if you can trust a talking sack doll?

“I can’t get used to this.” Joe didn’t know if he was talking to himself or Reshy. “And I don’t want to.” Like all the dresses worn by the shades, it exposed ample cleavage—but this dress was too small for his body. Joe had barely stuffed his breasts into the tight bodice, and still felt like the fleshy orbs might pop out at any moment. The dress cinched his waist tightly, then flared at the hips; he didn’t dare turn around and inspect how tightly the fabric hugged his rounded ass.

They’d finally grabbed this dress by waiting in the bushes until one maid separated from the others; she went to sweep a small stone plaza centered on a brass sundial. Reshy distracted the shade by running circles around it, proving herself useful for something beyond warnings and advice. Joe grabbed the maid from behind, dragging her into a stand of trees and driving his heel into her belly until her whole body disintegrated into dust. It was just a matter of inflicting enough damage, he’d realized. Smash them, and the things fell apart, though they always seemed to be replaced by new shades—or perhaps the same shades reformed? Whatever the case, they’d high-tailed it back to the garden shed.

“Hopefully you won’t have to get used to it,” Reshy was in the middle of saying. “If we can sneak inside the manor, we can look for the lab. Maybe even find you a fresh change of clothes, if you’re under less scrutiny in there. What do you usually wear, anyway? You said you’re a private investigator—is that like, a trench-coat and fedora kind of gig?”

Joe crouched down, feeling the skirt ride up his thighs but less than eager to finish dressing. “You watch too many old movies. I wear a suit when I’m meeting with clients, and dress to blend in whenever I’m scouting. Jeans, leather jacket. Sometimes wear an urban camo jacket if I feel it might come in handy.”

“Just a regular guy, I guess?” Reshy tilted her head, giving the sack doll a startlingly lifelike sympathetic attitude. “I can’t imagine how weird this must be for you.”

“Stop reminding me. The less I think about it, the better. I just want to… get on with it, you know?”

Reshy shook her head. “It’s good for us to talk about our lives when we were human—I mean, our human lives. We’re still human! Especially since you’re synchronized; it’s been useful, but you don’t want to lose touch with what makes you who you are, you know?”

Joe put one elbow on his soft knee and rested his chin on his hand. “No chance of me forgetting, kid. Haven’t survived as long as I have without knowing who I am. I’ve made it through war and black ops assignments and all the recent magic bullshit since Portal Day. To be a survivor, you gotta grit your teeth and do what needs to be done.”

“What’s your mother’s name?” Reshy put a blobby little hand to the place her chin ought to be.

“Huh? Sally Craigan. Salt of the earth. Why, you think I’m losing my memory?”

“Just a test. Who was your first girlfriend, the first one you ever dated seriously?”

He frowned. “Hold on now, that’s… man, I gotta think back. Jo?”

Reshy shook her head. “No, you’re Joe. What was her name?”

“Come on, stop trying to confuse me. I know who I am, but she was also called Jo, I think…. Josie, or Josephine. Joanna?” Reshy said nothing, just staring at him. He scowled back. “Enough with the quizzes. Let’s get on with this. How the hell do I get this corset on?” He held up the small, boned garment.

“First, you big dummy, it was supposed to go on before you got into the dress. Second… well, I don’t think I could lace it for you, and it’s probably tightened to the size of that shade, and she was smaller than you… at least in the bust and hips.” Reshy peered at him, causing a fresh wave of discomfort to wash over him.

“Forget it,” he said. “I’ll just put the socks on, then this headband.”

“Stockings,” Reshy corrected. “And don’t forget the choker.”

Joe bit back a curse and began struggling into the rest of the garments. The headdress would have been more than enough to send him shame-faced into hiding; it was basically a lace doily sticking up from the top of his skull like a white sunburst. But with the stockings, the pantaloon-like drawers, and the red bow around his neck, he knew the effect was complete: a serving girl. He would be damned if anyone would catch him curtsying, though.

As a last indignity, he discovered Reshy was still making eyes at him, but not letting him evade her gaze for a moment. “I guess you’ll pass,” she said, “but I wish you’d reconsider turning the dial. You look pretty beat up.”

Joe steeled himself to look at his reflection in the dusty panes of glass as windows for the shed. A pale figure stared back at him with red eyes, her sweep of blue hair falling neatly under the ridiculous headband. The dress fit too tightly; her flesh bulged out at the bust and below the waist, her breasts pressed together like they were trying to escape the fabric. I wouldn’t mind that look… on a stripper,Joe thought. I’d bury my face between those two luscious orbs and—but the valley of cleavage was his own.

Reshy was right about one thing: the girl staring at him looked like she’d been in a fight with a lawnmower. She had scratches and gouges visible on her wrists and breasts, with a huge abrasion under one glassy red eye. He pulled the front of the dress up, trying to cover a little more of the injuries, not to mention the swell of flesh, but only felt the dress pinch him at the waist. What do I expect, squeezing into some other girl’s tailored garment…

“Shit,” he said. “A maid with open wounds is bound to be suspicious. And I’m not healing at all anymore.” The doll body’s skin was no longer oozing over the gashes to form the bubbled, cracked surface that had covered the injuries inflicted by Diji. The new lacerations dealt by shades just looked bloody and raw.

“I’m not going to badger you again to turn the dial.” The little sack doll leaned against one linen-stockinged foot. “But if I may ask… what are you afraid of?”

“That it will get worse than it already is? I had no idea that powering up would make this body so damn feminine, so sensitive to touch.” He gave a last tug and held the dress up to see the effect. The girl in the mirror still looked like she’d been in a street fight, but there was a sadness in her eyes: his own sense of loss. He dropped her expression into a grim frown, and the effect vanished. “Let’s get out of here.”

Reshy patted his slender foot. “Don’t forget the boots. You can walk in heels, I hope?”

***

Walking in high heels turned out to be both easier and more discomfiting than Joe had imagined. The boots laced up above his ankles, giving some support, but the heel was a couple inches—making the doll body’s legs look even more feminine and shapely. If he thought too hard about how to put one foot in front of the other, his steps wobbled like a newborn fawn. But when he relaxed and let the body walk on its own, rather than trying to control it, he seemed to glide across the floor like it was floating. When he let the body do the walking, he felt his hips sway and his ass cheeks bounce slightly with each step; the fabric of the skirt restrained the doll’s flesh, but the soft white drawers he wore beneath did not.

“What am I doing?” he whispered to himself. “This is nuts! I can’t… pretend to be a French maid, or whatever I’m supposed to look like.”They were walking through the garden, looking for a group of maids as a test. At least the serving-girl shades were less of a threat than the burly guards.

“You’re not alone,” came Reshy’s voice from his shoulder, tucked close to his choker. “It’s not like I ever trained in… comportment, or fine manners, or whatever they’re playing at here. But maybe I can offer you the perspective of a girl?”

He wasn’t sure how to respond. “I’ll be fine,” he said finally, feeling resigned. “How hard can it be?”

“Depends,” she said cryptically. “Hey, look over there.” A replica of the first group of maids they’d seen in these gardens stood around a wrought-iron table. One of them—a short brunette with pigtails—looked up at them; the others didn’t seem to notice their approach.

“Excuse me,” he started in what he hoped was a demure voice. “I’d like to—”

“Ooh, look at her.” The maid in pigtails cut her off, and Joe tensed to run. Were the clothes still wrong? “First day in her new position and she’s all tarted up, isn’t she!” Rather than accusing Joe, the shade cocked her head, seeming to address the nearly identical blonde maid next to her.

The second maid tittered. “They must feed the girls plenty of milk where they raised her, wouldn’t you say? She’s quite a sight. Do you think she’s hoping for a husband with a display like that… or just a roll in the hay?” They both tittered.

Joe stared at the maids, feeling bile rise in his throat. Not literally, since he doubted he possessed a biological throat or a gall bladder—but he knew this sensation. If he’d been in his own body, with blood rushing to his cheeks and head, he might have taken a swing at someone talking about him like that. Fighting words aimed at Joe Craigan meant you were spoiling for a bar brawl or a slap upside the head.

“Listen, if you can direct me towards some place I can get better-fitting clothes…” he began.

“Oh, she wants new clothes now, does she? A social climber. What task does the new girl have on the rotation, Mildred?”

A shorter maid with a tight bun leaned forward, seeming to peer at Joe. “I’d say this one looks strong enough to shovel the stables. After all, stable boy’s sick and we need someone. Even a trollop.”

“Bitches!” Reshy hissed from near Joe’s ear. What a useful female perspective, he thought.

“I don’t want any trouble,” he continued. “I can work if that is what’s required of me…” One maid reached out and pinched him on the arm. “Hey!” he yelled. The pinch hadn’t hurt—this body still couldn’t feel pain—but the indignity of being poked and prodded was nothing like what Joe was used to. Again, he had to fight off the urge to defend himself, slap the hand away, or retaliate.

“Ooh, yes,” said the maid in pigtails. “She’s feisty and needs some breaking in. Not a real girl yet.” Joe narrowed his eyes at her. “Follow me, new girl,” she continued, and moved away towards the manor building.

As Joe turned to follow her, he felt a smack on his ass. Reacting on instinct, he swiveled on one heel and caught the wrist of the blonde maid, which froze in a curious posture, gazing at him with its eyeless head tilted.

“Don’t like that, little miss? You’d better get used to it if you walk about like that.” Joe clenched his other hand and let the shade’s wrist drop. It’s a trap, he thought, trying to get me to react. He stalked away down the path after the first shade.

“I don’t know what kind of bullshit test this is,” whispered Reshy. “But do you really think you can put up with that kind of treatment? We need to get past the walls, inside the manor, or under it.”

Joe gritted his teeth, hearing the ceramic surfaces clack against each other. “I want my own body back. I’m going to have to.”

***

The shades put Joe to work.

His first job involved carrying water buckets from the well to the manor and emptying them into jugs—awkward, unpleasant and repetitive work. As soon as he finished emptying his first bucket full of water into the jars outside the kitchen door, the cook appeared and shoved a second empty bucket at him. “You can manage two,” the burly shade huffed.

He managed. The puppet body was fairly strong, but its endurance was even more remarkable. No fatigue toxins, he figured. When he came around the side of the manor with two full buckets, one of the side doors was open, and Joe could hear voices inside. When he peeked around the edge of the door, a tall shade stepped out and grabbed him by the arm before pushing him out. Joe didn’t have time to react. He stumbled back and dropped both buckets, spilling the contents onto the ground.

“You aren’t permitted in here.” The shade’s tone was as imperious as its embroidered uniform, with a matching red waistcoat and jacket. “Servant’s wing only. Clean this up, immediately.”

“I, uh… milady requested I attend to her inside—” Joe began, trying to come up with an excuse.

The shade simply scoffed. “You are not allowed inside. Lie again and I’ll have you thrashed. Now get busy cleaning up that mess.”

“Yes sir,” Joe mumbled, and went to find some rags.

Other tasks were no less demeaning. He wasn’t permitted to interact with the higher-ranking shades, serve or wait upon them; they relegated Joe to cleaning up messes and carrying loads. “They’re treating you like Cinderella,” Reshy complained, “And we still have to get inside somehow.”

Joe scowled. “If this is a test, there must be some way to pass it. Maybe after enough manual labor… is it possible this is a test of the body’s ability to work and obey?”

Reshy just shrugged, so Joe hoisted the bundle of firewood he was transporting back up to his shoulder. One of the protruding branches poked him in the breast, and he winced at the reminder of his body’s soft, fleshy bits. The feelings of dysphoria hadn’t gotten any better. If anything, moving around and working all the time had made the wrenching sensation of wrongness worse, but increasingly familiar—just part of existing.

The unpleasantness of being stuck in a curvaceous female form only intensified when the shades began sexually harassing him.

“Why hello, little trollop,” said one maid in pigtails as she passed by the spot where Joe was scrubbing a tiled wall. “What a luscious, dirty little peach you are!” She ran her fingers over his cheek; he jerked away from her touch. Passing a few feet ahead, she looked back at him and giggled.

The male-shaped shades were more aggressive, grabbing his buttocks or pulling his arms behind his head for no apparent reason. If he resisted, they would forcefully shove him to the ground, then laugh and walk away. So far, he’d resisted the urge to lash out, remembering the incapacitating current that had knocked him out more than once. So far, the groping hadn’t escalated beyond bullying.

Still, the fury kept Joe off-balance and feeling like he was constantly in enemy territory. He wasn’t used to being treated this way, with endless disrespect and no concern for his personal space or bodily autonomy. I’m used to being in charge, he thought. Heck, I’ve commanded special ops squads. People take one look at me… or at least what I used to look like… and knew not to mess with me.Now it felt like he was just a punching bag and a scapegoat.

Curiosity kept him going, along with the occasional encouragement from Reshy. There was something strange about this manor—well, beyond the fact that it teemed with bizarre faceless mannequins and hung motionless in outer space. Joe sensed some puzzle or mystery he was meant to be solving. Perhaps that was wishful thinking, since the alternative was pure drudgery, but the area around the hedge maze was unusual.

At each corner of the maze’s outermost hedge, a sundial stood in a small plaza. The dim light seemed to come from everywhere—perhaps just from the brilliance of the star field hanging overhead. There were no shadows to tell time by. With no sun, what the heck is a sundial even for?

Nearby, the sounds of laughter and applause drifted from a large courtyard at the main entrance to the maze. The square teemed with shade partygoers in formal wear and masks; a line of servants walked between them carrying trays laden with food, but they had forbidden Joe to get too close.

Then he saw a kid run by, at the far side of the courtyard. Not just a small shade, but a child with nut-brown skin and actual human features, though Joe couldn’t see him clearly at a distance. He dropped a pile of rags and raced after whoever it was, operating on instinct. A moment later, his thoughts caught up. Could that be the boy I’m trying to find? Or is this another part of the test? The youthful figure vanished around the far corner of the maze.

“Did you see that?” Joe kept moving, trying to avoid the shades in red livery who were overseeing the garden party. “Someone just ran by. A boy. Maybe the kid… the Jayakody kid?” His thoughts felt fuzzy. He’d come here looking for a child, hadn’t he? Someone else’s child, for a job.

“I didn’t notice,” said Reshy. “Wait, are you sure it wasn’t a shade? I haven’t seen any on the small side. They’re all cast in the same mold.”

“No. It was definitely… Romesh Jayakody. I’ve seen pictures, photos. It must be him.” Joe elbowed his way past a group of shades smoking cigars, causing a minor commotion.

“Hold on, Joe!” Reshy was trying to climb towards his body’s ear, yelling at him. “Think about what you’re saying… a young human boy, lost in this place?”

Another one of the tall shades in a red uniform loomed in Joe’s path. “Stop this at once! You’re disrupting the party. Get back to your tasks, wench!”

“Back to your tasks,” echoed another red-clad shade, approaching from Joe’s flank. He winced—two of them cornering him already. If they grabbed him, they’d shock him into unconsciousness again, and there was no point in that save pain. He raised his hands and backed away, trying to avoid curious partygoers in frocks and suits. He backed directly into a third shade wearing the same uniform, who grabbed his arm roughly.

In his former life, or even at the moment he’d first stepped into this bizarre garden, Joe Craigan would have retaliated immediately. He’d turn a grab into a throw or lock a finger to break it. Now, in a disorienting turn of the tables, he found himself hesitant to retaliate.

The shade shoved him roughly to the ground and kicked him. Joe rolled away, trying to put some distance between him and the aggressive, red-jacketed guards. One of them paced swiftly forwards, hauled him up by the collar of his dress, then reached around to squeeze his right breast. In shock, Joe could barely react enough to open his mouth before the guard shoved him again. The push sent his scarred and torn body sprawling into a cobbled path leading away from the courtyard.

“Stay out if you know what’s good for you, wench!” A gob of spittle, produced from who knows what orifice of the shade’s body, landed on Joe’s cheek, and he reeled away, crawling along the ground. He felt hot behind the eyes. I might cry right now, he thought, if this body could cry.

***

“I couldn’t do anything to help you. Sorry.” Reshy sounded disconsolate.

Joe rolled his gaze down towards the diminutive figure on his skirt. “What were you supposed to do? Slap at their toes with your arms? You can help in other ways… like figuring out how we can get inside, with all these assholes pushing me around.”

They slumped in a secluded corner of the gardens, at one side of the maze’s outer hedge, which stretched above them. Joe rubbed his forehead. How could this be happening to him? His thoughts felt scrambled, confused. Reshy was still talking, always talking.

“I don’t think that could have been the boy you’re looking for, Joe. If you ask me, this place is designed to confuse and disorient you.”

Joe nodded slowly. “You’re probably right,” he admitted. “But I can’t ignore the possibility. If there’s a kid trapped in here, a human kid… we have to get him out before the same thing happens to him that happened to us. Or to those shades, if what you said is accurate.” The teeth of his doll body clacked and ground together. “I need to search the garden. And get into that manor.” He tried to get to his feet, and Reshy ended up on the ground.

“What are you going to do, Joe?” The little cartoony voice was plaintive. “You can barely stand up. Those tears in your synthetic skin are getting bigger; I can see your muscles and joints. You keep getting beat up and… I don’t know how long that body will last!”

He rounded on her, leaning down with a furious expression, red eyes blazing. “Then tell me how to fix it, or how we can find some armaments to take down those damn creatures. There must be guns here somewhere, or even a spear. If I could keep them at a distance, instead of grappling.”

Joe sank down onto the grass. With one part of his strangely filtered awareness, he noted that the grass was soft and slightly damp, that his hands were surprisingly sensitive. He pounded his hands on the lawn, growling in frustration. As he did so, he felt the soft flesh of the doll’s chest and rear sway once more.

“Fuck this,” he snarled. “I can’t stand feeling like this anymore. I’m turning the dial the other direction, then I’m going back to find something I can use to take these blank-faced shots out.” He reached for the dial on his hip, but paused with his hand on it when Reshy wailed.

“Joe, no! Think about what you’re doing. The bad feelings might go away, but the body won’t regenerate that way! If anything, it might fall apart, now that you’ve sustained more damage that isn’t healing. Listen, your best bet is to move forward, not back. Keep going, don’t give up, and take the risk. You can get over the dysphoria and get your body working again.”

Joe stared at the little doll. There was something nagging at the back of his consciousness, but his thoughts remained too scrambled to think it through. He felt like shit. He wanted the power back, the power that had let him crush that centipede’s skull; an agile, regenerating body without pain. He couldn’t go on if he was stuck in this humiliating, god-awful situation, stripped of dignity and the ability to fight back. There was no choice.

Joe turned the dial clockwise, hearing it click. Immediately, a readout filled his vision once more, obscuring his view of the grass below him.

::: SYNCHRONY USER ELEVATION

::: …INVOKED/SYNC LEVEL :: 4

─ AUTOREGEN REBOOT.INIT

─ FLESH-TEMPLATE 3346: DEFAULT.PROFILE NEUT.SERVICE INVOKE/TEMP-DURATION.9999

─ DYSPH.OVERRIDE :: 25% >> 75% --SUPPRESS

─ COMPLIANCE :: 15% >> 75%

A wave of nausea hit Joe as his skin—the doll-body’s skin—writhed and reconfigured around his frame. His vision blurring, Joe felt flesh slide across bone—or plastic and metal, whatever this body had in its core—first sagging loose, then constricting. Something crawled across his face; either that, or his face was crawling, moving. His vision blacked out, leaving only the glow of the readout letters.

Reshy watched in fascination as Joe’s body changed and re-knitted itself. Limbs screwed in more snugly, tears closed and sealed, and the muscles and ample curves around the frame reconfigured and shifted. She’d never seen this particular process before.

Joe’s new form didn’t resemble the original model, nor the inert prototypes that had hung in the workshop where she’d first met Joe. This one didn’t have full breasts or wide hips; its shape was slim like a boy, or perhaps an androgynous young woman, with a nearly flat chest that bore just a hint of feminine curves. Its limbs were long and graceful, but the overall impression was petite—someone who’d been sickly as a child, then barely grown to adulthood. A waif, she thought. Was that the right word?

It wasn’t exactly what she imagined when she thought of a doll body—not a voluptuous mannequin or a lithe puppet girl. It was still a pretty enough doll, just frail-looking. Fortunately, all the injuries and damage to the synthetic skin had repaired.

The body sat up and opened its eyes, then turned to look at Reshy with a calm but curious gaze.

“Hey! Are you all right?” She approached cautiously; something was different.

“I’m just fine, Reshy. Why do you ask?” Joe smiled and tilted the doll’s head just slightly.

“Joe… do you remember why we’re here? We have to find our bodies.”

“Of course, Reshy. I’m happy to help. I’m… I am…” The words emerged hesitantly for a moment, but the voice remained placid and pleasant as ever. “My name is Joey, and I’m here to serve.”