The Department Of Keeping It Real - Chapters 4-5 free porn video

Below are chapters 4-5 of my novella, Keeping it Real! If you like what you see, check out my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/OvidLemma) for unpublished chapters, release announcements, and Patron-only stories. Thanks for reading! THE DEPARTMENT OF KEEPING IT REAL VOLUME I: KEEPING IT REAL by OVID LEMMA CHAPTER FOUR: HEADQUARTERS All of them had changed, but none nearly so much as Trevor. Olivia was tall and definitively in the 'cute' camp now - and probably encroaching on the 'hot' camp if Trevor was being honest. Even in her sleep clothes - loose aquamarine gym shorts and a gray athletic shirt - it was pretty obvious she'd become toned and lean and was probably a few inches taller than the substantially-reduced Trevor. The Bailey parents were younger and firmer - still believable as their parents, but as ones who'd had kids in their early 20s instead of early 30s and who'd taken very good care of themselves since then. And now Trevor was a tomboy of no special note beyond being androgynous-cute with great hair. "So... I've been great," he said sarcastically. "How's everybody else been this morning? Super?" "Trevor, honey," Meghan said. She reached for his arm, but he dodged and sat next to Olivia on the opposite side of the sectional couch - tan suede and very comfy, he had to admit. His younger sister was definitely bigger than him now... that was vaguely embarrassing. As excited as he'd been to learn about the Ministry of Reality Enforcement and their incipient shift across realities, the actual business was turning out to be a big, embarrassing disappointment. "This is a big, embarrassing disappointment," he stated eventually. "What are we doing to fix it?" "I've got a meeting with some bigwigs and tech people at three o'clock," Meghan said. "We might be able to get an in-person meeting today... more probably, it'll be after tomorrow's shift. But they know about the situation..." "We should probably update them on this newest... development," Michael said, gesturing toward Trevor. "Yeah, let's do that," Trevor said. "And while you're at that, I'm going to visit my boyfriend, apparently. Bryce. He's having some kind of major freak out about I-don't-know-what. Any idea what that's about?" Michael and Meghan exchanged an uneasy look. "Madison changed genders also? But she's still Madison personality-wise?" Michael said. "Do you know what's wrong with him, Trev?" Trevor shrugged. "No idea. I'm going to go find out. Oh..." he pulled out his driver's license. "It's Alyssa now, apparently. FYI. Do you mind if 'Alyssa' borrows your car to visit 'Bryce'?" Meghan nodded. "Please keep me updated on what's happening. Are you... Trev... are you okay? I'm sure this is a lot to process - even more than it usually is. Do you need to talk?" "I haven't decided yet." +++++ In a morning of unpleasant discoveries, Trevor consoled himself in the facts that 1) he had an honest-to-god art studio, and 2) the Baileys now had a 2015 4Runner as their 'old' car for the kids to borrow and a 2018 WRX that mom and dad liked to zip around in (not for the kids). The art studio was a converted walk-in closet on the other side of his ensuite bathroom - maybe only eight by ten feet, all things told, but 'Alyssa' kept the place tidy, made good use of the space, and still needed a chunk of bedroom to store her finished projects. As for the car, Trevor was excited to drive a new-ish 4Runner, even if its interior seemed huge to his now-diminished frame. He got out to Gordon Avenue before realizing that, not only was he not sure where 'Bryce' lived, there was no Gordon Avenue to get there, either. Now there was Warmath Road a few blocks further down and going in a vaguely similar direction to the old avenue. A quick integration with his ARM told Trevor that he only vaguely remembered where Pam Gables lived... Bryce lived with his father now on the other side of Fort Ruth. Trevor used his phone's GPS to navigate him to the right address and he drove around until some spark of recognition in his wisp of a memory told him this was the house - a broad, blue ranch-style house with a small second-story addition facing the Dominion Greens golf course. Unlike his own one-way trajectory up the middle-class social strata, Madison seemed to be zig-zagging back and forth, from their stately colonial style, to a cramped condo, to an almost-nice ranch style with a great view. As Trevor walked to the front door, he was self-aware, worried he'd look strange or out-of-place. What would the neighbors think? Easy. They'd think a cute but slightly frumpy girl was walking to the Gables household. Really, Alyssa didn't dress so differently from how Trevor had - jeans and cons and a paint-spattered t-shirt. Alyssa was also a fan of the flannel, but it was way too warm outside for such modesty. He knocked and Karl Gables answered in short order... or at least who Trevor took to be Bryce's father. He was a slighter man than Karl had been but had the same look: mostly-bookish with silver-framed eyeglasses perched upon a pursed-lipped face and the same unstylish dark hair. "Alyssa..." he said. "Bryce isn't feeling well..." He made a worried glance over his shoulder. "I know," Trevor said. His voice went up half a pitch when he was nervous - he really did sound like a girl now. He cleared his throat. "He told me, but I thought I'd stop in to talk with him... he said not to, but I think he needs to talk with a friend." He. Madison... Bryce... it was odd to think about, but Trevor needed to talk to him to help them both figure things out. "Please do," Karl said softly. "I think he really needs a friend right now... you know the way back." Trevor nodded. He didn't, but he could figure it out. He could usually connect the dots. He wandered to the back of the house and up the small staircase, picking the last door along the little upstairs hallway. Why? A green 'Bryce Ave.' sign was posted above the door. Below that was a well- done drawing of a disgustingly cute anime couple, vaguely recognizable as Alyssa and a similarly-androgynous anime male. The picture was signed by Anton Park, of course. A-Park, rather. Trevor knocked on the door. "I'm not hungry," a boy within mumbled. "It's not your dad. It's me..." Trevor said. He couldn't quite bring it upon himself to announce himself as Alyssa. "I told you not to come," Bryce said, but he opened the door. Trevor stepped inside. Like Madison's room yesterday, Bryce's aimed for dim concealment - but didn't entirely succeed on account of the golden rays of morning light streaming through the east-facing window. Bryce was slim and average height, which still gave him a good five inches on Alyssa, and probably thirty pounds in weight. He had an androgynous handsomeness - very much like Trevor had possessed yesterday. Anton's drawing represented that bit perfectly - narrow chin, high cheekbones, thin eyebrows, but definitely a shade or two across the masculine side of the border. He was barefoot in rumpled jeans and a tank top, the latter showing off a lean and wiry frame. "I know you said not to come," Trevor said. He sat in the little rolling chair at Bryce's study desk while Bryce hopped onto his bed and sat cross- legged. Bryce glanced to Trevor, took him in for a moment, and then turned to stare out the window. A Cessna from Fort Ruth Regional Airport eased across the sky. "So I suppose my father told you I was crazy?" he asked. "He didn't say anything," Trevor said. "I just know you're in a bad place and I think I can help." Bryce snorted. "Is that so, 'Alyssa'?" "That's what it says on my driver's license," Trevor confirmed. "But I've got a hunch. Why don't you indulge me? What would you think if I said the names 'Madison' or 'Trevor'?" Bryce turned to look at Trevor, tears suddenly welling in his eyes. He scooted forward on the bed and cocked his head, staring at Trevor for a long, silent moment. "You... you know?" he whispered. "I know," Trevor said. "I'm not supposed to tell anybody about it... but I know about it. This must be why you were so... you know... distant yesterday, too. You knew that something happened, but nobody else noticed it. The whole world went-" Bryce slid from the bed and wrapped Trevor in a big bear hug, sobbing into his shoulder. Trevor patted Bryce on the shoulder and waited for him to calm down. Eventually, the boy took in a big sigh of breath and pulled back. "I can't believe it," he said. "I thought I was losing it. After yesterday and then today, and nobody else noticed it at all. You sent me that text yesterday and then it just disappeared... and our names changed. What the hell is this, Trev?" "It's... it's rally complicated," Trevor said. He proceeded to give Bryce the 2-minute version that, with Bryce's questions, ended up being closer to five minutes. "So... this is your parents' fault?" Bryce asked eventually. "No, not exactly. But they work for the people who fucked up the reality shift. You weren't even supposed to know about it because you haven't got one of these..." Trevor pulled his ARM out of his backpack - it wouldn't fit into any of his girl's jeans pockets. "Or maybe that isn't quite right. Maybe the neural interface for it does something different. It's... really, really complicated." He showed Bryce some of the ARM's options - it could do plenty, even if most of the advanced options were still locked out. "So I guess we should talk to my parents and let them know that the screw-up is even worse than whatever's happening to me. It's happening to you, too." "Happening? As in still going on?" Bryce asked. Trevor nodded. "We've still got two more days. So we'll both keep on going in the different 'trajectories' that we've been changing along. I assume you've got..." he gestured toward Bryce's groin. Bryce grinned sheepishly and stepped out of his jeans. He was wearing boxers but was tenting them pretty obviously. "It's kind of hard to ignore this guy," he said. "But only when he's, like, begging for attention. The rest of the time, I've just been feeling awful for myself and hardly notice anything but self-pity. What about you? Have you..." "Tried out these parts? No, I barely just got them," Trevor said, blushing. Why was he blushing? "Do you want to?" Trevor discovered, much to his surprise, that he did. He undressed - first his t-shirt, leaving his slim, peach-pale upper body bare, his small breasts perky. Then came his other clothes - cons first, and socks, then jeans and boy shorts. Trevor's body didn't shout 'feminine' - not yet, anyway - but it was definitely female. Overall, he was slim and not unpleasant to look upon. Or so Bryce clearly thought. He, himself, was visibly masculine beyond his modest erection - also slender, but with taut muscles, trim hips, and angular shoulders. They lay next to one another on Bryce's bed, running their hands over one another. They didn't have sex, but they got plenty exploratory. Trevor thought he'd be grossed out - as far as he could remember, he'd never had a bi-curious thought - but he found the situation utterly unobjectionable. He ran his fingers down Bryce's chest and over his jutting erection, pretending at first that it was his own cock, and then realizing that he didn't much mind just knowing it was Bryce, who had been Madison. Bryce must have felt the same way, too, because he was plenty interested in exploring Trevor's body - they kissed, and Bryce's lips were hot against Trevor's, and the boy ran his thumbs over Trevor's nipples and eased his palms into his small breasts. His hand ran down a smooth abdomen, past the little brown curls of Trevor's mons, and explored between his legs until Trevor let out a little breath and an unbidden moan. Then he groped Trevor's butt, his fingers firm against the yielding flesh, and Trevor loved the sensation of skin against skin, of yielding to the assault on his senses. And, as his own fingers coaxed along Bryce's shaft, the boy grunted and suddenly there was a lot of hot and sticky fluid pulsing out. Trevor laughed - no, he giggled, at the amazed, confused, ecstatic look on Bryce's face. "Ew! You should've warned me..." Trevor said, wiping his hand on Bryce's discarded tank top. "I..." Bryce caught his breath. "I wasn't expecting that. Wow... that was a first... Literally. I can see what the big deal is." "I guess I'll have to wait to find out," Trevor said. Bryce bit his lip. "Do... do you want me to? To, you know, help you along?" Trevor shrugged. The moment had passed. "Maybe later," he said. "We should talk to my parents." +++++ Meghan Bailey was out on MORE-related business, but Michael was working from home. He sat at the dining room table with his laptop, perusing news reports and submitting gleaned tidbits of information through some online server. When Trevor and Bryce came in, he frantically hid his work screens like a teenager caught with porn (Trevor had some experience with this). "Tr- Alyssa!" he said. "Alyssa, you've brought somebody home. What a surprise!" He stood suddenly enough that he nearly knocked his chair over and then offered a hand to Bryce. Bryce shook it in a very non-dude way, coming in straight with fingers together and pointed slightly down. "Dad, I believe you've met Madison," Trevor said. Michael's fake cheer dropped. "What?" He looked between the two of them. "Look, I don't know what Alyssa's told you, but..." "She remembers, dad. She remembers everything." Michael said nothing. He pulled out his ARM and tapped on the screen. "Okay, 'Madison', tell me: what would you say after 1226?" Bryce scratched his head. "You mean my address? 1226 Juniper Street?" "Jesus," Michael said. "This shouldn't be possible... I have to call this in... only people in the household at the time of the first ordinance shift should have been marked for preservation." "Um... Madison was in the house. She was in my room..." Trevor said. Michael cursed. "Why didn't you tell us? Why would you keep that secret?" "We thought you'd get mad?" Bryce said. "I mean... I was sleeping on his bed. Sorry not sorry." "Why would Meghan or I care?" he laughed. "Fucking Americans and their puritanism. You know, where I come from originally. nobody would bat an eyelash. Starting at fourteen or fifteen, teenagers have their 'love friends' over with parental blessings. It's the best way to keep things safe and under some supervision. But Americans..." "You're not American?" Bryce asked. Michael sighed. "No point in keeping mum now, eh? Technically, yes, I'm American. Check my passport. But in the reality Meghan and I are from, everything north of Monterrey is called Nordland and Amerigo Vespucci never existed to name the continents after himself." That actually explained a lot. Trevor clearly recalled, at a young age, his parents sometimes cursing and sometimes speaking in a language that wasn't English, usually when they thought he couldn't hear. They stopped sometime after he started repeating words and sentences back, but a vague memory still remained recessed in his mind. It also explained how he could somehow pick up every few words in Norwegian from the foreign exchange student at school. Well... at his former-former school two realities ago. "I'm sorry, dad," Trevor said. "I had to tell her... him?" "Him," Bryce confirmed. That was a bit odd - Trevor didn't quite feel like a 'she'... but definitely had a host of conflicting emotions about it. It was like there was pressure building on a series of switches deep in the mammalian core of his brain, that some of them had already been flipped and others were damn close. After all, he'd basically given Bryce a handjob without any internal opposition, something he'd never have done as Trevor, regardless of who Bryce used to be. But there was also some part of his changed and changing self that he resented, that he couldn't bring to identify as part of him/herself. "Trev, are you listening?" Michael said. "Sorry, I was just thinking," he said. "What?" "I've just been recalled into the MORE. I'm taking the two of you in. They'll flip their shit since it's an unauthorized visit and we haven't got an appointment, but it's a hell of a lot better than a containment breach, which we've technically got. I want you both to know that neither of you is in trouble, but that there may be some explaining to do to people not used to hearing bad news." "I can't believe this isn't a dream," Bryce muttered. "Better than being crazy," Trevor said. +++++ The three of them got into the Bailey parents' WRX and headed out to the Ministry of Reality Enforcement's local field office. They drove out of Fort Ruth and along the interstate for a few miles, pulling off onto the one-lane state route leading toward Shenandoah and up into the hills. In all, they drove for about forty minutes, pulling off at a little campus in the middle of nowhere, past a sign labeled Spielman EPA Survey Center and up to some heavily-armed guards, who scanned Michael's and Trevor's ARM units and attached a little band around Bryce's upper arm. "Don't leave the facility until you get that band removed," Michael said. "Why?" Bryce asked, picking at the blue elastic of the thing. "What happens if I do?" "Just don't." The facility was only a few small buildings and a parking lot, but as soon as they got out of the car and walked to the little bungalow-looking site station, it was clear that most of the complex was deep underground. Given how long the elevator ride took - at least two minutes at a fairly decent clip - they must have gone hundreds of feet down. The elevator stopped with an anticlimactic ding and opened into a broad hangar area bustling with personnel, floating drones, and what looked like flying confetti - probably very small drones. Michael summoned one of the mid-sized drones using his ARM and spoke into its little camera: "I've got a containment breach, level 1, and a program error, level 2. I'm requesting immediate technical intervention." "I'm definitely dreaming," Bryce said. Trevor squeezed his hand. The drone's light blinked from yellow to blue and a moment later a little cloud of confetti approached them. Upon close inspection, Trevor could see that they were drones, each one between the size of a postage stamp and about half that, flitting about through means that weren't entirely clear. They followed the undulating cloud down a long hallway, past banks of computers and technicians, some of them sporting what looked like cybernetic enhancements, some of them poring over hologrammatic diagrams and data readouts. After a moment, the three of them reached an open door, inside which a single man sat in front of a wall-spanning screen with another readout-filled display spread across his lap. "We're here for a tech assist," Michael said. The man at the desk stood up and, with a wave of his hand, dismissed the cloud of confetti drones. He was tall - significantly taller even than Michael, who had to be around 6'2" - and pale with a wild red beard and wilder hair. "Michael Bailey, Alyssa Bailey, and Bryce Gables?" the man asked, mildly mispronouncing almost all of the names. "Yes, that's right. My partner messaged earlier for tech assist, but that was before the containment breach." The technician nodded, examining Bryce. "Accidental breach to a friendly civilian known to the agents?" "Yes. He was in the target zone for shift ordinance. She, actually. She and my son, Trevor - not Alyssa - have been gender-shifted due to some kind of program foul-up..." "My programs don't 'foul up'," the technician stated. His accent sounded almost Scandinavian. "They work exactly as they're designed to... so the question is why did they not get the right programs." He interfaced with his full-wall display through a series of rapid hand gestures. "You and agent Meghan Bailey got the pre-specified agent customization package. That's normal. Sydney Bailey as an under-fifteen got the marginal stasis to keep as much intact as possible while integrating with the new assignment. And... oh my... that's not good." "What isn't good?" "Five 'carte blanche' programs. Those automatically bypass all level one and level two security features, both physical and mental. So... five CBs. That's your daughter... er, son, his friend, and who else?" "My daughter Olivia... though she seems to be getting the basic package." "Well she's not. Maybe it's close, but the carte blanche won't complete until the recipient signs off on it. With late night switches, that probably means it happened unconsciously in a dream. Which means these other two got whatever changes were designated through an interface within a dream." Trevor almost fainted. Instead, he just braced himself against Bryce. He thought back to the details of his erotic dream, how he'd seen a strange reticule within it... and what had he picked? He'd picked some changes to himself beyond whatever the basic package had suggested, and thereafter proceeded to make... he only half-remembered. Some kind of very attractive woman for his dream. Which meant... "I was having an... um... a sex dream," he said, blushing. "When the little thing came up, I just figured it was part of the dream. I think I made two selections..." Bryce gasped. "Does that mean what I think it does?" The technician stroked his beard and nodded. "Yes, I think so. Since you were the only one without an ARM interface in direct proximity with Trevor, he would have been prompted for both changes. It looks like he offloaded the first one to you... the one meant for himself. The other one... I suppose it was a woman." "Hold on," Michael said. "You said five. These two and my daughter are three... who else is left?" "Whoever injected the malicious code, most likely. I'll have to look into it further, but my guess is it's almost certainly CoReS. Two CoReS agents with carte blanche. I'm afraid that will have to take precedence over getting these two patched over... but I wouldn't bet on them wanting to get things fixed." "Why the hell is that?" Trevor huffed. The technician licked his lips and nodded diplomatically. "Because you two got fantasy bodies. By the time we get to the bottom of this CoReS problem, you won't want to change back..." "Why the hell is that?" Michael echoed, his jaw tensing. There was more than a little familial resemblance in how he said it, too. "Again, they're fantasy bodies, Agent Bailey. Nobody ever gives those up. Not ever." +++++ The technician dismissed them before Trevor had a chance to appeal his case or ask any of the dozens of questions now bubbling to the fore of his mind. It amazed him that such a large complex, even an underground one, had somehow completely escaped notice. There must have been hundreds of people at work in the MORE facility... that, despite there only being about five cars in the little parking lot. Strange, that. Michael Bailey led them down a corridor and to a little room with a blue light blinking over the door. It looked to be a little conference room, albeit with the same sort of full-wall display that the technician's office had been equipped with. He mumbled into his arm and tapped the screen a few times. "I'm going to go find site management. Hold on for just a minute," he said. He ducked out, the door clicking shut behind him. "This is pretty crazy, right?" Bryce said. "I'm not having, like, a complete psychotic break, am I? All this is real?" Trevor pinched Bryce's arm. "Does that feel real? Yes, it's fucking crazy, but it's real... or sort-of real. I mean, it's the department of reality enforcement, right? So 'real' is negotiable, and it seems like they take shortcuts." Bryce pursed his lips in a very Madison way. "What do you mean?" "I mean the parking lot. How many cars were out there? How many people are in here? I bet this place is like three guys and a handful of rooms most of the time and they zapped all this other stuff in during the ordinance shift. This is all hands on deck for the shift they're doing. I guess what I'm saying is that this is exactly as big of a deal as it looks and feels like..." "It feels pretty fucking big," Bryce said. "Exactly." Michael came back a minute later, clearly unhappy. Things hadn't gone well, and he said as much. He sighed. "The ony way we can get your issue addressed is if we can take care of the CoReS threat first. Until then, there's zero flex room for secondary shifts outside of program." "That asshole technician..." "Lars." Trevor shrugged. "That asshole Lars mentioned CoReS before. What, exactly, is that? Bad guys?" Michael nodded. "Pretty much. The Coalition of Reality Syndicates. A minor but persistent problem. As best as we can tell, they were a breakaway faction from the Ministry in the early days after the Event - an event that destabilized the multiverse. Stabilization is the whole reason the MORE exists to begin with. Well, the Coalition of Reality Syndicates - CoReS - took an early version of our technology called a 'probability flexor' and went about establishing fiefdoms in many of the timelines, setting themselves up as emperors and gods in a host of realities. They've never stolen modern MORE technology, thank goodness." "Why not?" Bryce asked. "It seems like they'd be able to pull that off with something that can alter reality, even if it's not as good as whatever you've got." "That's a good question - let me correct myself. We can infer that they've stolen our 'good tech' a couple dozen times already, and whenever they do that reality collapses, so it's a dead end and never spreads beyond that. They destabilize things enough with what they've got, but once they get real reality-warping technology, they go hog wild and end up imploding the universe they've done it in." "That sounds bad," Trevor said. "Yes," his father agreed. "That's bad. If they've got an active operation and have managed to implant malicious code into our headquarters, it might just mean they're trying to set themselves up as rulers of the Earth... small potatoes. Or it might mean they're trying to zero in on our multiverse tensor to steal it." "Which would collapse our reality." "And some of the neighboring ones. Neither we nor anybody like us will exist anymore. It will be as if we'd never existed as far as the multiverse is concerned." Trevor thought back to his painting the day before, to the great gash in the universe he'd drawn, a huge section of the night sky completely expunged. It wasn't exactly the same as a whole swath of realities disappearing - presumably, every star in every galaxy in the whole universe would be annihilated - but it was a close metaphor to somebody not used to dealing in such mind-boggling scales. "That makes our problems seem pretty insignificant," Trevor said eventually. "Yeah," Bryce agreed. "So you understand the MORE's rationale, then. We can't do anything that might aid CoReS, even a little. In fact, I have to get out there as soon as possible to find whatever little edits they've already managed and hope we can stop them before they exacerbate things in the next shift." "Well... we tried." Bryce shrugged. "That was a waste of a morning, eh?" "Not entirely. I've got you an ARM device, courtesy MORE management. This is a limited locked version of the device, since you haven't got a neural interface or security clearance, but it still has plenty of options for looking up information about the new realities you find yourself in, especially for things about your new life with each shift." Michael handed Bryce a modified ARM - slightly smaller than the ones that he and Trevor had, but otherwise very similar-looking. And with similar capabilities. The moment that Bryce touched the screen with his thumb, he winced and his hand trembled for a minute or so before the ARM let him disengage. [Partial sync complete], the screen said. [Implant neural interface and select resync to finalize sync]. "Welcome to the club?" Trevor said. CHAPTER FIVE: STRANGER DANGER As horrible as the possibility of a world-ending collapse, Trevor and Bryce both had things to do. Having been debriefed about the ins and outs of reality-shifting, Bryce was determined to track down his mother and, if possible, a handful of other people. Interacting with them enough would bring them into the orbit of his reality momentum and help them change less profoundly with the shifts. Failure to do so would often cause people to change beyond recognition or disappear altogether. This was evidenced by their online galleries of friends and followers, far more of them strangers than not. This effect certainly explained why neither of the Bailey parents had any close relatives. They'd shifted far enough and often enough from their own timeline that none of the people they were related to existed anymore. On this Earth they'd never been. That was a pretty heavy price to pay for the ability to shift into a better body or a more affluent life now and again. It was, in Trevor's opinion, too high a cost... and he wasn't even getting the perks for that toll, given the massive foul-up in his shift 'program'. At least he still had Madison and Anton as friends, even if they were now Bryce and... Ana? A quick search of his social media soon confirmed that, for whatever reason, Anton's change had proceeded along the same gender-shifting lines as his own. Maybe it was to keep them best friends? And Ana Park now had a whole host of online art profiles - enough to make Trevor jealous. They weren't particularly better than Anton's not-quite-professional anime sketches from yesterday, but the characters were almost all original, and now she was drawing them into well-structured comics. After Trevor and his father dropped Bryce off and returned home, he headed over to Anton's on his bike - no longer the same 'Phantom Traveler' brand bike, unfortunately, but not nearly so different as most things were. It was still a dark-blue 21-speed hybrid bike of acceptable quality but, out of necessity, had a smaller overall frame and slightly different styling to be consistent with Alyssa's smaller overall frame and slightly different 'styling'. [Is it cool if I head over?], he messaged Ana. [Sure!], she replied. [Did u see latest comix?] [We'll talk at my place!] [Pizza?] Trevor messaged back: [Sounds good] The Park residence was the same cape cod as before - the neighborhood, for whatever reason, seemed as close to a fixed point in reality as you could get. The house was a different shade of blue and had rose bushes instead of azaleas - hardly a monumental change. The neighbors even had the same sanded-down classic-Mustang-in-progress jacked up in their open garage. Before going inside, Trevor whipped out out his drawing pad and sketched the front of the Park house under the noonday sun, the rose blushes bright and blooming in the light, a little statue of St. Joseph looking over the herb garden to the side, the neighbor's garage and Mustang barely visible in the background. Trevor again intercepted the pizza girl (a different one, obviously) and paid for the extra large 'Mexican taco' pizza, giving her a $25 tip and noting that the portrait on the $25 was unfamiliar... as was the fact that there even were $25 bills. Strange, but not the strangest change thus far. Emilia Park saw Trevor inside, accepting her customary tithe: one slice of taco pizza. She was substantially changed from the day before, slimmer and slighter, clearer of complexion and more feminine in her purple summer dress... and less overtly religious. True, there was a little painting of the Virgin Mary on the bookshelf but no wall with two dozen crucifixes, nor a gaudy golden cross upon her necklace. Those, presumably, had been a reaction to her son being trans... which was no longer an issue. "Are you and Ana doing more of your comics?" she asked. "No, Mrs. Park," Trevor said. "I don't really do comics..." he held out his sketchbook for her to peruse. Most of the sketches, of course, had been done by Alyssa before Trevor was her (if that made any sense), though the style and skill was similar to Trevor's own practiced hand. She was more into clean lines and less into impressionist scribbles, but Trevor was fine with both styles and could work pretty well with either. "These are very nice, Alyssa. Maybe you and Ana should do an exhibit?" "Maybe," Trevor said hopefully. Who knew what Ana would be into by the time the shift was over. He saw himself back to Ana's room, only to find that it was now Lukas's room and that Lukas was not the scrawny 12 year-old he'd remembered. Lukas looked to be close to his and Ana's age - 15 or 16 perhaps - and certainly larger than Trevor himself was. "Sorry! I forgot this wasn't Ana's room," he said. Lukas smirked. "Hoping for a peek, eh?" He pulled up his shirt to reveal a flat belly with almost-there abs and a sparse dusting of hair. "Ew! No!" Trevor said, a bit surprised at the vehemence of his own reaction. "Idiot..." Ana didn't answer the door after the third knock, so Trevor unlocked the door with a hairpin he'd found in his back pocket. Ana was bent over her drafting table - smaller than Trevor's but adequate for solo pieces - headphones on and immersed in her work. Trevor lifted up an earphone, the sounds of a K-pop band buzzing out of the little speaker. "Pizza's here!" he said. "Hey, amiga!" Ana chirped. She spun around in her chair to face him, pulling her earphones down to hang around her neck. Ana was a cutie, only vaguely resembling Anton, and more closely resembling the Korean Mr. Park, albeit with the darker caramel skin tone of her mother. Her dark hair was dyed purple at the tips and she had the excited expression - thin, dark eyebrows way up, beyond-lively chocolate-brown eyes brimming - of a teenager very much involved in her work. Some of her older pieces were on the walls, along with a few more modest of old-Anton's schoolgirl waifus. There were also a few pictures of footballers, including a prominent poster of a blonde-tipped Neymar leaping through the air mid- kick. Ana bit her lip. "Hey, you wanna help me panel and do lettering on some of my latest comics?" It looked like Ana had most of the inking done on a series of individual pieces, but wanted to do the paneling and lettering separately for digitization - she'd keep all of the original art intact as standalone pieces and overlay the text and frames to scan and add in digitally. Trevor looked to the game console, still in the corner of the room with a 'PARK' soccer jersey half-draped over the screen. "What, no Kingdom Diamonds?" "Sure, we can play that if you want. Or FIFA '18." "No, I'd rather do art." Ana nodded sagely. "Yeah, exactly." They ate pizza while working on Ana's comic (holding the pizza with triple- layered napkins, of course, to keep from getting grease prints everywhere). Trevor was pretty fair at calligraphy and so took the lettering. Ana had already written out the script in her little notebook, so it was just a matter of figuring out how to arrange the text, how big to make the letters, and where to use more expressive fonts for KRAKs and WHOOSHes. He'd apparently done the lettering for a few of Ana's other comics, and a quick 'integration' with his ARM told Trevor most of what he needed to know about what lettering styles to do. A few times, Ana corrected him, but always good-naturedly and without any indication of foolish shortcoming on Trevor's part. "What do you think about the plot?" "About Cardona turning into a girl in a summoning ritual and getting sent to a boarding school for ghost-whisperers? Do all of your plots involve boys turning into girls?" Trevor asked - he'd looked over some of Ana's online posts earlier. She shrugged. "Most of 'em, I guess. Why does it matter? I like what I like, ya know? We can't all draw self-serious da Vinci shit, hermana." "I am not self-serious." Ana tapped at the sketch pad strapped to the side of Trevor's aquamarine backpack. "Ok, then show me one funny picture in there." Trevor flipped through and found that Alyssa was every bit as serious as himself when it came to art. About the closest he could do was a sketch of three hipsters slumming around the front of a gas station. He took his pencil out and sketched over the front of the gas station convenience store. 'Gluten-free organic gasoline, NOW with CBD oil - $19.99/gal' "Okay, now it's funny, Mrs. Serious," Ana said. She put an arm around Trevor and flipped through the sketch pad with him. They were almost exactly the same size, though Ana was a bit more toned - that soccer jersey was clearly more than just show. Her hair smelled like floral shampoo and the indigo fabric of her shirt was soft. A barely noticeable warmth pulsed subtly between his legs, and Trevor realized with a start that he... that Alyssa was getting turned on by Ana... Actually, that made sense. Ana was a cute girl and she smelled good. Cute girls still did something for him, apparently. Then he looked to some of the footballers on Ana's wall and realized that cute guys did something, as well. Was he bi now? He decided it wasn't worth worrying about. He put his arm around Ana and watched her flip through the sketchbook. K-pop was still chirping out from her earphones, a synth beat booming on top of a string section, all of it made tinny by the headphones. Lukas knocked on the door, taking a moment to smirk at the girls so completely engrossed in their artwork. "Hey, nerds," he said. "Pendejo!" Ana spat. She threw a pencil at him and they both laughed - all in good fun, apparently. "What is it?" "You gonna finish that pizza?" Ana and Trevor had only eaten four pieces between the two of them, leaving a whole half of a pie left. "Go for it," Ana said. Lukas gestured toward the window with a slice of pizza. "Do you know anything about the new neighbors? They're putting in a big fucking satellite dish and I kinda thought it looked shady AF." +++++ The neighbors across the street did look shady as fuck. They were installing a satellite dish on the western edge of their lawn. It was cobalt-blue, twelve feet wide, and angled toward the western sky in almost exactly the direction of the MORE headquarters. Trevor pulled out his ARM. "Yo, what the hell is that?" Ana asked, pointing to the device. "Um... a thing from my mom's consumer report thing?" Trevor said. Ana seemed to buy it. "I thought I could see if it was a commercial dish?" He took a picture of the dish and tapped the 'submit anomalous item report' button. It asked him to rate the priority on a scale of one to four, with four being the highest. He picked a sensible two stars. [This locked version of the ARM report program can only submit Priority 1 reports. Continue Y/N?] He chose 'yes' and continued to watch out the window for a minute. Two coverall-clad maintenance guys were busy assembling the dish, bringing out parts from a freight truck and attaching parts with power tools and an acetylene torch. Every few minutes, a muscular guy in khakis and a yellow polo shirt would come out of the house, look at the dish-in-progress, and hand a piece of paper or bit of electronics to the maintenance guys. Trevor sent a text to his parents asking what he should do: [Just saw something weird] [Should I check it out?] "We should check it out," he said to the Park siblings. "You said they're new neighbors?" "Yeah," Ana said. "They came in super early this morning and have been doing crap like this all day." "I bet they're mining cryptocurrency," Lukas said. "You don't need a satellite dish to mine cryptocurrency," Trevor observed. "They'd be running all kinds of power cables in... they'd have a server farm in the basement and a fuckton of ventilation to get rid of heat waste." "No, they'd definitely need a satellite dish," Lukas stated. Trevor didn't bother to correct him a second time. "I bet that's not it. But let's go check it out. If it's cryptocurrency mining, I'll give you... I dunno... the rest of the pizza." "There's only one piece left," Lukas said. He'd, however improbably, already devoured four pieces and was reaching for that last one. Trevor slapped at his hand. Lukas scowled. "Ow! How about this, miss know-it-all," he said. "We'll check it out, but if it's cryptocurrency, you owe me a kiss." "First off, we're not in middle school," Trevor said. "And secondly, I have a boyfriend." Lukas shrugged. "I guess we'll never know who's right then..." "Fuck it, fine," Trevor stomped his foot. "Just because you're wrong. But you're all coming with, okay?" Lukas and Ana were both fine with that. As soon as Lukas finished the last slice, which took no time at all, they headed out. At Trevor's suggestion, they strolled down the street, crossed at the corner and then headed back toward the neighbors'. This way, they'd be approaching from behind the dish and nobody was likely to see them coming. Sure enough, they walked right up to the thing, the afternoon sun to their backs. The satellite dish loomed before them, clearly (in Trevor's inexpert opinion) too large to be a residential installation. He ran a finger along the thing. It was smooth and cool and felt quite solid. Not at all like the cheap, easily-warped metal of consumer satellite TV dishes. The metal itself was a slightly shimmering blue and not from a coat of cheap spray paint. This was definitely high-end and definitely suspicious. "I'm gonna check out the house," Lukas said. "Yeah," Ana said. The Park siblings sidled across the shrubs and toward the house, leaving Trevor alone on one side of the dish with the two coveralled workers banging and welding stuff on the other side mere inches away. Trevor crept down to the base of the dish and looked at the mountings securing it to the ground. They looked sturdy, like some pylon there was driven deep into the earth. A little circuit box down there had a tag with a corporate logo ('CES Industries') and a serial number. Trevor was hoping to see some unambiguous CoReS identification, but there was nothing more there. He took a picture of the little equipment tag and then another shot of the maintenance guys' truck (a windowless, dark blue CES Industries van), submitting them both as Priority 1 reports. Then he snuck around to the edge of the dish, spotting Ana and Lukas peeking through windows - Lukas through a little basement window well and Ana through what looked to be a kitchen window. Then he took a picture of the coveralls guys - they were too focused on welding a big four-pronged receiver to the dish to notice Trevor peeping around. Then khakis guy came out. Shit! Trevor took a slightly blurry picture of the muscular blond man before ducking back around the dish. Hopefully, the thing was close enough to the ground that khakis guy couldn't see him cowering behind it. "Here's a 535 to put into the receiver," khakis guy said. "I'm printing out the altered transmitter now... be ready to fit it in, in maybe thirty minutes." "Sure... Jesus, it's as hot as a witch's tit," coveralls guy 1 said. "The saying is 'cold as a witch's tit', idiot," coveralls guy 2 said. "How the fuck should I know? Fine, it's as hot as hades. Happy? Can you get us some of that Coke stuff?" "Just water for me," coveralls guy 2 said. "I'm not your fucking servant," khakis guy said. "Do you want us to be ready in thirty minutes or not?" coveralls guy 1 said. "Um..." coveralls guy 2 said. "Two kids are looking into your windows..." "Guys! Run!" It took Trevor a second to realize that the girl who'd just warned Lukas and Ana had been him. Shit. He bolted just as khakis guy darted around the dish to check the source of the shouting. One of the maintenance guys fell off the dish, cursing loudly about his back. "Fuck!" Lukas dashed past Trevor, followed by Ana, who grabbed the still- accelerating Trevor and pulled him along. "Come back here!" khakis guy shouted. They tore off down the street and down two more blocks, Trevor's shorter, slimmer legs working double-time to keep up with the longer-legged Lukas and the soccer-conditioned Ana. His little unrestrained boobs reminded him of their presence with every footfall, wobbling with with little jolts of acceleration and a lot of chafing. Finally, the three of them stopped, gasping and laughing in a copse at the public park down the street from the Parks' residence. "Fuck, I thought that guy was gonna catch us," Ana laughed, poking Trevor. "You need to do futbol or track or something, slowpoke." "Maybe so," Trevor said, wondering if he'd have been able to keep up more easily when he'd been a guy. Status: undecided. "What did you guys see?" "Yeah, about that," Lukas said, smirking. "I saw, like, lots of servers inside. Yeah. Definitely servers and ventilation. And some, um, cryptocurrency mining screens." "You're lying," Trevor said. He looked to Ana. She shrugged noncommittally. Lukas shrugged, too. "So prove I'm wrong." Trevor padded to the edge of the copse and looked for khakis guy, shaking his head: coast clear. They crossed the street and started back toward Ana and Lukas's house. "Prove it's not cryptocurrency? How am I supposed to do that?" "I dunno," Lukas said. "You have that special consumer thing from your mom. Go take a picture and prove I'm wrong?" "He has a point," Ana said. "I can't believe you're taking his side over mine," Trevor huffed. They crossed through the yard of the Parks' backyard neighbors, climbed the fence, and entered through the back basement door, proceeding up the stairs and past a confused Emilia Park. "Prove I'm wrong," Lukas said again. Trevor peeked out the front window. "They're watching the neighborhood like fucking hawks now. There's no way I'm getting close." "You're just trying to back out of our bet." "You know what? Fine. I'll give you your goddamn kiss." He frowned at Ana. "I'm going to remember this, hermana." Of course, he reflected, Ana probably wouldn't. Back in Lukas's room, Ana's (only slightly) younger brother sat on his bed and beckoned Trevor in. Trevor sat next to him, annoyed at how a few days' shifting had reversed their discrepancy in size. If he'd been a guy and Lukas a (presumably straight) twelve-year-old boy, it would have never come to this. He blushed, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek. Just a little peck. "Oh, come on, Alyssa." Lukas rolled his eyes. "It has to be on the lips. That's the whole point. I kiss my abuela on the cheek." Ana was peeking in from the hallway. Grinning. His friend was enjoying this. Oh well - it would probably all be forgotten tomorrow. "Fine. Jesus," he said. Blushing furiously now, he leaned over, put a slim hand against Lukas's cheek, and leaned in, pressing his lips against Lukas's. The boy's lips were soft and he had an almost-pleasant musk about him. It wasn't the worst kiss ever. He opened his eyes and saw Lukas's dark gaze looking into his... his tongue started to move past Trevor's lips. A hand slid up Trevor's side and squeezed a small breast. "What the fuck, Lukas?" Trevor said. He stood, wound up, and smacked the boy upside the face. Lukas looked confused and brought a hand against his stinging cheek. "I...um..." "We said a kiss, not a grope fest!" He stormed out of Lukas's room, turning back to give Ana a testy look. "Y tu, puta!" "You don't know Spanish," Ana laughed. "Lo tom? durante cuatro malditos a?os y recib? mejores grados que t?," Trevor said - translation: 'I took it for four damn years and got better grades than you'. "Really? I don't remember that at all..." Trevor stomped back into Ana's room, scowled with a huff, and sat on the bed, knees together and staring furiously at the floor. He'd have left then and there, but one glance through the shades showed that khakis guy was still out front, his vigilant eyes shifting up and down the street. Ana approached the bed, biting her lip, and then sat next to Trevor. She left a good three or four inches between them. "Did you really see server stuff in there?" Trevor asked eventually. "Maybe? There was a lot of technology stuff in the kitchen... I didn't really get a good look in the basement, but there was a lot of machine noise down there. I just, you know, thought I'd do Lucas a solid and assume he was telling the truth. I'm really sorry, Alyssa." Trevor put an arm around Ana and pulled her against his shoulder. "It's okay. It's not your fault your brother's a gropey asshole. Not a bad kisser, though." "Not as good as his sister," Ana said hopefully. Trevor pulled back and gave Ana a serious look, trying to determine whether she was fucking with him. She bit her lip again... Ana Park was seriously cute, and it was driving Trevor wild, from her dark come-hither eyes to the vivid violet tips of her hair. He ran a hand along her cheek... "I... I can't cheat on Bryce," he said softly. "I... I need to go see him before tonight. I'm..." "Pinche mierda... I'm sorry," Ana said, looking away. "I'm sorry, Alyssa. Do you want to, like, work on comics? Until that blond pendejo goes away?" "Yeah." Trevor sighed and pulled Ana back again, and they just held one another for a minute. Then they went to Ana's drafting table and Trevor showed her tips on drawing more realistic eyes and lips, if that was something she was interested in. She was, and not another word passed between them on the subjects of kissing, khakis guy, or the big, weird, cobalt-blue satellite dish in khakis guy's yard. +++++ Trevor stayed at Ana's past dinnertime - khakis guy was still outside until 8 pm or so, and he couldn't retrieve his bike until the guy went inside for more than a minute. Eventually, around half an hour before sunset, the coveralls guys finished their work on the dish and all three of the men across the street did some tests on the dish. Then the coveralls guys packed up their CES Industries van and drove off and khakis guy plopped a GoPro on a tripod in front of the dish and headed inside. "Good luck!" Ana whispered, and kissed his cheek. Was that romantic or just a thing that intimate female friends did? Trevor had no idea. He turned the foyer light off, creaked the door open, and dashed out to his bike. Then he tore off down the street in the general direction of the Dominion Greens Golf Course & Country Club. A car pulled out from somewhere near khaki guy's house, and Trevor spent a good five minutes turning through side roads and park paths in the dying light before he was satisfied he wasn't being followed. Along his ride, Trevor vaguely wondered whether he should even be biking by himself at night. He'd done it all the time since he was about 14, but knew that it was supposedly less safe for women. He hated that he even had to think about it... fuming about the unfairness of it all gave him the energy to power his way to Bryce's. It wasn't until he was dismounting his bike outside of Karl Gables's ranch house that Trevor noticed he'd received a text during his ride. [Where was this?], his dad had finally texted back. [Did you get any pictures of the guys?] [Across from Ana's], Trevor replied. [Aston's] [ANton's] [Doesn't this ARM have like GPS or something?] [I already sent a Priority 1 report w/pics of them] [My fcking ARM won't let me send higher priority] [You sent pics?], his dad Messaged back almost immediately. [Are you sure?] [I don't see anything.] [It would really help.] [Trev?] Trevor smacked himself on the forehead. He'd never sent a report with the pictures of the coveralls guys or khakis guy. He'd been too busy running, sneaking back, and doing... other things. [I'm in front of Bryce's] [Sorry... not a spy] [Submitting pics now] Trevor brought up the first picture on his ARM - a pretty good picture of the coveralls guys - and submitted a Priority 1 report. Then he loaded the close-up picture of khakis guy and found it was a lot less blurry than he'd thought. The ARM had a hell of a camera. As his thumb hovered over send, Trevor felt something. That something was a stillness in the air, as if some force had sapped all the quivering static out of the air and turned the whole world silent. That lasted for a split second, and then the flash washed over him. This was, he realized, a reality shift. An unexpected, disastrously early reality shift. Trevor felt himself being pulled, perhaps physically and definitely mentally, in many directions. He felt other selves impinging their individuality upon his mind, duplicate and quadruplicate memories blurring across his awareness - was he Trevor, Alyssa, someone else, or perhaps he'd never even been born? He screamed but had no mouth to do so. His whole body painfully - and which he, paradoxically, also did not have - was pulled in myriad directions, growing, contracting, compressing, and exploding. And then, in a single great snap, all of that awareness was pulled through an infinite panoply of possible realities and focused into a single, infinitesimally tiny point in space and time. And, as that point suffused into an awareness - a proper mind in proper space-time - Trevor felt the ground fall up to meet him just as consciousness left his new body.