Rosalind

Changing Vera this time was entirely unlike the previous time. It was frantic and not at all sexy. When I was done, Vera appeared to be a nice looking fit blonde lady in her early thirties. She made some faces in the bathroom mirror and then left with me to find Javi wiping at his eyes. I wanted to comfort him but we didn’t have the luxury of that at the moment.

Javi got up and we returned to the parking lot where we got all of our things out of the truck. Vera pushed the buttons on the key fob until she heard the beep and we found a boring beige sedan, perfect for setting out on the run. We placed our luggage in the trunk of the car. “Vera, you drive.” I said as I slid into the passenger seat. I figured Javi might want a little time by himself in the back seat.

“What? I barely know how.”

“You have the face that matches the ID that this car is registered to.” I told her.

“Fine. But you can be the soccer mom tomorrow.” Vera got into the driver’s seat and reached over to open the glove compartment. Inside was a little purse with the lady’s ID and a few loose bills.

“I don’t know if we should still have this car tomorrow. Also, you’d didn’t happen to get her PIN number while you were in her head, did you?” I asked hopefully.

“No, it doesn’t work like that.” And then she started the car up. “Where are we going anyway?”

“That’s a good question. We’ll discuss it on the way though. Let’s get out of here before that lady finds us hanging out in her car.” I said.

After a couple jerky starts and stops, Vera pulled out of the parking lot. “Head for the freeway.” I told her. “Okay, so I guess our options are to try to make it to Annares and then find a way inside the dome, or just flee the country and hope for the best. I’m guessing they will think that we’re going to Annares or Mexico so moving east or south might be more dangerous. What do you guys think?”

“I want to go north first.” Vera said “It’s unexpected. And I kind of want to do something in Denver before I leave my family behind forever.”

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Well, I want you to do something, actually.” Vera admitted. “Remember that cousin I told you about? I started messaging with her after we spoke because I wanted more of an idea about the whole trans thing, and she’s not doing well. And I thought about what you could do for her and it would mean a lot, Rosalind.”

“You told her!?”

“Not exactly. Just said that I might know someone that could help but I wouldn’t say more than that. Not that it matters now. So, will you do it?”

“Roz, it’s not a bad idea. No one would expect us to go that way. And after everything that happened today, it would be nice to use these powers for something good.” Javi spoke up from the back seat and I had to admit that it was a fair point.

“Wait, just what did you guys do this morning?” Vera asked.

“We kinda killed the two cops who came to Javi's house and administered the Test on me.” I admitted so that Javi wouldn’t have to.

“You killed them? On purpose?” Vera wouldn’t leave it alone though.

“Not really, I mean, kinda. They had my mom and they had guns, I just reacted in the moment.” Javi said, slumped down now in the back seat.

“Fuck. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that it had gone like that. So, what was the Test then?”

“It was like a device that pulls your power out and forces you to use it. It’s run on a shard.” I explained to her and to Javi who hadn’t been in the room at the time.

“Really? That’s good to know.” Vera said with a smirk.

“What?” I asked.

“I brought our shard. It’s in my bags. I couldn’t leave it in the house where it might incriminate my dad. Thought it might help us get entry into Annares if we decided to go there.”

“Good call.” I said. “We got the Agent’s shard too.”

“We did?” Javi asked.

“Yeah, it was in that little case I got right before we left. Maybe we should experiment with them a little. I wonder what else they can do after their charges are spent.”

Vera slowly merged onto the freeway heading north. I briefly considered asking her to stop off so we could change bodies and I could drive as she was clearly unused to being at the wheel. The practice might be worth it though; there was probably a lot of driving ahead of us.

While we were moving through the unending desert landscape, I tried to take stock of things. The government didn’t actually know that much about us. They would be able to assume from Javi and Vera’s disappearance that they too had been empowered by the shard, but they wouldn’t have any idea as to what Vera’s powers might be. If Javi’s and my moms gave me up, which I fully expected them to do, then the authorities would be aware that my abilities were vaguely shape-changey in nature, but wouldn’t know that I could change other people necessarily. They might be able to ascertain that Javi killed the two men in his house, but not exactly how. My guess from what Javi had said was that he effectively gave them a heart attack.

Vera turned some music on and we sat in silence for most of the day. Each of us turning thoughts over in our head about our futures. I knew it was probably terrible for both of them. They’d lost family that they cared about, and Javi seemed to be struggling with the guilt over what he had done to those men. For my part though, it was hard to tamp down the thrill of excitement.

I had contended with losing my family already, and now after they had betrayed me in the worst possible way; I was free of them entirely. Not only that, I hadn’t had to wear the Teddy shape in hours. I might never have to do it again. And with all the abilities we had at our disposal, we could do just about anything we wanted. I felt bad about stealing that lady’s car, but she probably had insurance. And if we do end up using these powers for good, maybe all these bad things we’re doing now will be worth it. The future seemed brighter to me then than it ever had before.

We stopped for gas at some little roadside exit populated only by the station we were at and a run-down motel. “Where are we going to stay tonight?” Javi asked.

“In the car, I guess” said Vera. I wished that I had had enough presence of mind to bring our tents and things. Three people cannot comfortably sleep in a car. “We definitely can’t get a hotel room. This lady” and here, Vera gestured at herself “will definitely have reported all her stuff stolen by now. In fact, we should maybe be thinking about switching cars again.”

“Let’s stop off at the nearest outdoor supply store. I think we have enough money for some supplies and sleeping bags. And we’ll probably need them too. I doubt there will ever be a point we can use a hotel.” I rationalized.

“So, we’re going to keep doing what we did this morning? Stealing cars and wallets?” asked Javi.

“Do you have a better idea?” I didn’t want to sound like I was antagonizing him, but I genuinely wanted to know if he could think of a better solution.

“What if we just like, snuck into an empty room at a motel? I could probably electrify the door open.” Javi posited.

I enumerated the problems with that on my fingers “How will we know the room is empty? What if there are cameras? What if the staff notice that a room is in use when it’s not supposed to be? It’s too dangerous right now, Javi. Maybe when we put a little more time and distance between ourselves and the law; we will be able to afford to do something like that, but we’re not there yet.”

“I guess we should just take turns driving then?” Vera asked.

“At least until Denver.” I answered.

“Okay, I’ll drive us a bit farther and we can switch cars again, and you can shapeshift yourself into the driver this time. I keep catching sight of myself in the mirror and it’s freaking me out being this old.”

We bundled back into the car and continued heading north. I got in a nap, and a few hours later we pulled over again in a somewhat larger town. We picked a strip mall that had an outdoor supply shop and a place to get dinner. While eating at a nondescript chain restaurant, we had planned to have Vera go shadowing around for someone who’s car we could steal. There was no real moral way to go about it, but we thought it would be less bad if we sought out someone who Vera could discern was kind of a dick.

The restaurant was too dimly lit though for Vera to cast a shadow so we went to the outdoor supply place for sleeping bags and stuff as well as a high beam light for her. The sun was already setting and it had already proved itself too fickle an ally to rely upon anyway.

Once we had our camping supplies, I got into the back seat with Vera and shone a light on her. She did her thing while we waited. Javi was keeping a lookout because this was by all accounts, an extremely weird tableau.

“Remember, you can’t pick someone who’s mass greatly differs from mine. I can’t shapeshift into a fat lady or a child… or a man. That one, just because I don’t want to.” I told Vera.

“I know, I wasn’t going to make you be a dude again.” Vera said, and then started giggling.

“What?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

A few moments later a woman who appeared to be in her mid-forties with a ‘Karen’ style haircut approached the car. “Fancy taking a ride in this?” she said and gyrated her hips lasciviously.

“Vera, no.”

“Vera, yes.” Javi said, and it was the first time I’d seen him laugh all day.

“Look, we’re not going to find better right now. This place has nearly cleared out for the evening.” Vera said “Also, this lady disowned her kid for being gay so you know, we don’t have to feel too bad about stealing her shit.”

“Oh my god, I hate you guys.” I said and handed the light to Javi so that I could get into the back seat and start shaping myself into Karen or whatever her name was. It took way longer than I was used to, wrinkles were entirely new to me and we’re somewhat difficult to shape into the skin. When I felt I had got a good enough approximation of this lady to pass for the picture on her ID, Vera sent her back to wherever she plucked her from and we set off to find our new car.

A few minutes later, and we were packed into a minivan already loaded with groceries. I’d guess we caught “Stephanie” (as her ID specified) in the midst of a day’s errands. Vera and Javi had a great deal of fun at my expense, constantly calling me ‘mom’ and complaining that the drive was taking too long.

Eventually, they both fell asleep and I was left to my own thoughts once again as I drove up into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. My thoughts turned to the city of Annares and what it might hold. I worried that it might not even be there any longer. The media rarely reported on it aside from those times when the government had a new light show to display by attempting to blast apart the dome that protected the city. The city and its inhabitants were easy scapegoats for anything that went wrong. Anytime time there seemed like there might be civil unrest, the government trotted out the line that anarchist terrorist mages and witches were inciting riots and that served as reason enough for the draconian measures taken by the military and police.

I’d never really put much thought to it all. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be a political dissident as well as whatever else I already was. What if our admission to the city came with too high a price? Or maybe it was all just so much state propaganda? Maybe we’d be better off if we just took off to Canada or Europe.

There were a number of scenic stops before we got into the mountains proper and it was at one of these that I decided to stop for the rest of the night. I didn’t want to risk driving through that pass at night while it was still early enough in the year to snow at this elevation. Especially, while running on almost no sleep.  Javi woke up while I was going through the bags of groceries in the trunk.

“Can you fix me, Roz? I can’t sleep with these titties. They’re just too much.” I gave him an amused laugh and nodded. We walked into the ladies’ bathroom, and found it empty this time of night.

“So what do you want?” I asked, trying not to make it sound like it was a big deal but I was genuinely curious where Javi was going with all this. His alterations had been trending pretty feminine and I was wondering if he was in the same sort of situation that I was.

“Less boobs, for sure. But like not no boobs, either. Can you maybe take off a little more weight too?”

“I can, but you know, once that mass is gone; it’s gone. I can’t shape you into a form of that size again without you putting on weight the normal way.”

“Yeah, I know. Look, I kinda just want to try things out but I don’t think I will want to be this big again. This is an opportunity that no one ever gets, to just try on bodies like new pairs of pants. So, I want to see what my options are.”

“Do you still want to stick with being a umm… lady-type person?” I didn’t know how else to phrase it. I didn’t want to push him… them into any particular box. “I mean, you can be whatever, I think? I mean, if you want cat ears, that might be kinda hard, not to mention incredibly suspect. I’d probably need to feel around an actual cat first, to make sure that I understood how that whole thing is structured.”

Javi cut off my musing. “That sounds cool and all, but maybe worry about that when we get where we’re going. For now, how about we just see how it goes?”

I nodded and started in on the body. After a lot of smooshing belly and other parts, I had three good-sized Javi balls for lack of a better term. The little bundles of skin and fat might be a problem to dispose of. Once I finished that, Javi directed me towards making more delicate facial features. I added soft lips in a little cupid’s bow; sanded down the chin and the nose.

“Roz, I know this is going to be super weird to ask, especially with you looking like that.” He gestured down at my work-casual blouse and slacks. “But can you maybe give me an inny?”

“I was just working on your belly, you already have… oh. That kind of inny.” I wanted to point out that if you wanted a vagina, you should probably be able to say it without euphemisms, but Javi was in a vulnerable enough position as it was and I didn’t want to make things worse.

“Umm… can I ask, where are you at with regards to pronouns and a name?” I asked after the pants were pulled down and I got to work on the parts therein. Was I making things worse by talking while doing this?

“I guess she/her. At least for now. Definitely makes sense for this body anyway. Fuck, that feels weird.” I’d just sort of smashed the cock into the mass of her body. I didn’t want to look up and see her expression though because I already maxxed out the amount of strange I could take for one day. I could only imagine a bystander walking in on us just now; an older woman pushing a cock out of existence on a much younger woman in a bathroom stall of a rest stop somewhere in Utah.

“And the name?” I asked, reaching in with my fingers to shape the inner workings. I mostly wanted her to focus on something else while I was doing this. She was plenty attractive right now, but this was neither the time or the place to explore anything else.

“How about Olivia?”

“Sounds good to me, keeps the ‘v’ sound and lets me return fire for you always calling me ‘Roz’.” I took a couple more minutes to finish up, and Olivia looked at herself in the mirror bearing an expression that I remembered very well from my first time at seeing a mirror show me the truth only a month ago. “How’s that work, Liv?” I asked, trying out the new name.

“I guess I had that coming.” She said, offhandedly, still struck agape at her reflection.

“What are you two d…?” a voice intoned from the bathroom door. Vera walked in and took in Olivia standing in front of the sink at the mirror and me standing behind looking like a proud mother. “Nice, Javi.” She said after a moment.

“Olivia, actually.” She said.

“Olivia. Okay. I guess we’re changing pronouns too?”

Liv nodded and I turned back to Vera. “I guess you want some changes too? No reason to keep being that blonde lady whose car we stole this morning.”

“I don’t suppose that I can go back to being myself right now, can I?” She asked.

“Might not be a great idea. I can make you look like a relative though, not too different. Make you look a few years younger?”

“Yeah, I guess that works.” Olivia collected the balls of weight I’d separated from her body and went back outside to keep watch while I worked on Vera, something I probably should have thought of before. Again, this alteration was without intimacy. My current body was just not compatible with Vera’s, especially now that I had her looking like a 15-year-old.

Other than myself, the small group that left that rest stop after we'd slept into the morning looked almost completely different from the group that had entered it the night before.