Chelsea and I stared at each other for a second before I asked, "Were you expecting anyone?"
"No," she shook her head. "You?"
"Me neither," I replied. Then I cringed as whoever was at our door rang the bell again.
She gestured, "You better go see who it is."
"What?" I half yelped. "Why me?!"
Chels rolled her eyes then gestured at herself, "Because I'm not dressed yet Lisa. I'm not answering the door in nothing but sexy lingerie. You're the one who's fully clothed."
I couldn't help blushing at that. Although it left me wondering why she was putting on sexy lingerie if she wasn't expecting anyone and there was nobody here but the two of us.
It took a full second for that thought to jump to the next impossible conclusion and my cheeks got even brighter. I quickly backed away from her room as I mumbled, "Right. I'll go see who it is."
I could swear I heard some naughty giggling from Chelsea's room as I hurried back down the stairs then over to the front door. I paused for a deep breath to try and calm myself down, then unlocked it and swung it open.
My eyes widened as I found myself looking up at my best friend, which was a strange sensation on so many levels. We used to be the same height, now he was almost twenty centimetres taller than me. And from the look on his face I could tell he was just as surprised to be looking down at a cute pink-haired girl.
"Grey!" I gasped. "What are you doing here?"
His expression shifted from surprise to outright shock, "Holy crap! Is that you? Dude what the heck happened? Why are you a girl? Why are you so short? And why are you so hot?!"
My cheeks were burning again as I stepped back and gestured, "Get in here please? I don't want to talk about this stuff in front of the whole neighbourhood."
As soon as he was inside I closed the door behind him. Then before either of us could say anything else Chelsea called to me from upstairs, "Lisa? Who was it? Is everything ok?"
I called back, "It's fine Chels. It's my friend, Grey McFarne."
His name wasn't actually Grey, but it's what everyone called him. He hated his real name as much as I hated mine. Grey was more of a nickname, he always used it online and for all his game characters and stuff like that.
"Lisa?!" my best friend gave me another shocked look. Then his eyes widened as he lowered his voice, "Holy crap are you trans? How did you do this?!"
I was still blushing like crazy as I shook my head, "I'm not trans. It's just, it's complicated ok? This was an accident."
His expression fell for a second as he frowned at me. Then his eyebrows crept back up as he asked, "Ok how the hell did you 'accidentally' turn yourself into a hot cute girl? And since when does the evil from hell care if you're ok? And why's she calling you Lisa?!"
"Like I said it's complicated," I sighed. "Look let's go downstairs alright? I'll try to expin -"
An embarrassingly loud grumble from my tummy cut off that train of thought, and I cringed slightly. Then I suggested, "How about we order a pizza while I fill you in?"
Grey nodded, "Pizza's fine, but I'm dying to find out what the heck's going on here."
"Same," I sighed. Then as we started for the basement stairs I called up to Chelsea, "Hey Chels we're going to order a pizza. Do you want in on that?"
"Oh yes please! I'll be downstairs in a few minutes," she shouted back.
That exchange earned me another confused look from my best friend, which I totally understood. Up until this evening there's no way in the world I'd have invited Chelsea to join us for dinner. And no way she'd have accepted, either.
Down the basement we got as far as my bedroom door before Grey stopped in his tracks and stared once again in wide-eyed shock. "What. The. Hell?! How is this possible? How's any of this possible?"
I sighed as I moved past him and sat down on my new big comfy bed. I picked up the little pink ptop and replied, "It's this thing, some crazy second-hand ptop I got at Frank's pce this afternoon. I thought it was just an old netbook or something? Like maybe a prototype or a custom build? Turns out it's something else entirely. I don't even know how to describe it, and I have no idea how it works. But this computer can actually change reality."
Grey slowly made his way into my room, looking around this way and that. He gawked at my new computer set-up with all the screens and everything. Then he almost drooled at the huge TV and the new game consoles.
He finally took off his grey hoodie and dumped it on the foot of the bed, then sat down next to me. He looked at the little ptop in my hands and asked, "Seriously? That little thing somehow turned you into that? And did all this to your room?"
"Seriously," I nodded.
A moment ter I got an idea, "Actually I can prove it to you. Now that you're here you should come up on the character search."
It took a couple seconds to fire up the character editor, and Grey watched as I did the fingerprint thing to get past the security. Then I selected the search function, and that blue LED flickered a few times. Sure enough three names came up on the screen. There was myself at the top and Chelsea was the third name, but the one in the middle wasn't Grey. It wasn't his real name either.
"That's weird," I frowned. "Who's Gwyneth?"
Meanwhile my friend looked uncomfortable as he asked, "Where did it get that name from? And is that 'Lisa' on there supposed to be you?"
I sighed, "I'm pretty sure Lisa was the original owner. When I started using it the ptop assumed I was her, then somehow accidentally um, turned me into her?"
He frowned at me, "And now Chelsea's calling you Lisa? Do you want me to start calling you Lisa too? Should I start using she/her pronouns for you?"
"Um," I blushed yet again. "I guess? It fits better than my real name, at least for as long as I'm stuck like this."
"Are you sure you're not trans?" Grey asked as he gave me a suspicious look.
I shrugged and mumbled, "Pretty sure? I don't know. Anyways I thought this thing would list your name since you're here? Like either as Grey or as your real name. I don't know who this Gwyneth person is, but you can check out her character sheet if you want."
"Just don't save any changes if it asks," I warned as I handed him the ptop. Then I got up and added, "I'm going to order dinner."
Grey frowned at me for a few more seconds, but he took the ptop from me then started examining that new character while I searched around for my phone. It took me a minute or two before I finally found it, mostly because it was hidden in the purse I didn't realize I now owned.
It was a bck canvas bag with a shoulder strap, two side pockets and a couple interior sections. The phone was tucked in one of the pockets, and it was nothing like I remembered.
My new phone was a brand new top of the line model, in bck with a bck geometric patterned protective case. The facial recognition thing worked instantly with my new looks, and the phone had all my old apps and data and everything else in it. The only difference was my name and other information, which now listed me as Lisa.
Then I was distracted as my best friend excimed, "This is crazy! How does this thing know all this stuff?!"
I sighed, "Yeah it's pretty wild. Just be careful though ok? Like I said, that thing can change reality and we have no idea who Gwyneth is? So please don't save any changes."
"Yeah yeah I get it," Grey mumbled as he tapped at the little keyboard.
A moment ter he frowned, "Why's the css list so limited? I type in 'mage' and it auto-corrects to 'maid'. And the only species avaible is 'human'? That sucks."
"I don't know," I shook my head. "I only got it a couple hours ago, I haven't had a chance to figure out how it works or what half that stuff means. And I haven't looked into the css settings at all."
This time Grey didn't answer, it looked like he was too busy exploring all the character options.
After watching him for another couple seconds my attention turned back to my phone. I opened up the delivery app and picked out my usual pizza pce, then put together an order. I figured with the three of us I should get two pizzas, and maybe some extras. I didn't actually know what Chelsea liked, but I knew what Grey and I usually got.
So I ordered us a rge Hawaiian and a rge Canadian, plus a box of onion rings and a side of veggie sticks and dip. A six-pack of one-litre bottles of co rounded out the order, then I put it through. That's when I noticed even my delivery account was updated with my new name. Except it wasn't just my first name there. According to that my st name had changed too.
After staring at that for a second or two my attention turned back to my purse. I dug through it until I found a wallet. It was shiny fake bck leather with a pink polka-dot pattern printed on it. And inside that I found all my ID cards. They'd been updated too, and my new legal name was almost as big of a shock as turning myself into a girl in the first pce.
According to my drivers license, my health card, even my student card and bank card, my legal name was now Annalise Summernd. Apparently Lisa was just my nickname or something. And while I wasn't entirely sure I liked being called Lisa at least it was better than 'Annalise'. And it was a thousand times better than my guy name.
The cards that had my photo all showed my new face and everything, and the ones that indicated gender now listed me as a girl. Which led to some more confusing happy feelings fluttering around inside.
Eventually I stuffed the cards back in my wallet, and that's when I noticed the next surprise. After buying that ptop from Frank I had thirty-five dolrs left on me, but there was a whole lot more than that in there now. I quickly thumbed through the stack of tens and twenties and found it added up to just under three hundred dolrs.
My eyebrows shot up as I stared at the money for a few seconds, before yet another thought occurred.
The cash all went back in the wallet and I tucked that away in my purse, then picked up my phone once again. I opened up my banking app and sure enough there was another surprise waiting for me in there. Instead of my one sad savings account with barely enough money to cover next semester's tuition at community college, I found a chequing account and a savings account, both of which had more money in them than I'd seen before in my life.
It left me wondering just what kind of part-job Lisa scored. Because whatever it was, it looked like it was working out pretty damn good for her. Or for me? I had no idea how that worked, or if some job I'd never heard of before would be expecting me to show up at some point for a shift I wasn't aware of.
That line of thought came to an abrupt end when my best friend gasped in surprise, "What the -"
His voice was garbled and distorted, and when I looked up I saw his pixelted body ying across my bed. He'd already dropped the ptop, it ended up on the thick shag carpet by his feet.
"Damn it Grey," I grumbled as I moved forward to pick up the little pink computer. "I told you not to save any changes."
Sure enough there was an alert on the screen that indicated it was updating Gwyneth's character, so I watched and waited while the progress bar filled up. After another ten seconds it was done, and my best friend's body was different.
"So does this mean that you're actually Gwyneth?" I asked once Grey's eyes flickered open. "Do you want me to start using she-her pronouns for you?"
My best friend blinked a few times then sat bolt-upright and looked down at himself. Or herself, if I was right about the pronouns.
"Holy crap it worked!" they gasped in a new femme voice. "I don't believe it!"
I nodded slowly, "It's pretty crazy. So should I start calling you Gwyneth? And what about your pronouns?"
Grey blushed as they continued staring down at themselves for another few seconds before responding, "Yeah. Gwyneth, or Gwen for short. And um, she-her pronouns please miss."
That st word caught me off guard, but before I could question it I was distracted by the next thing she said.
"Incase you haven't already guessed I'm trans," Gwen added quietly. "I wasn't out to anyone though. And I'd never told anyone my new name either. It was um, I've wanted this for years."
My eyebrows crept up as that all sank in. I had no idea she was trans, she'd obviously kept it very well hidden. Or maybe I was just an idiot who never noticed any clues or signs.
Meanwhile Gwen got to her feet as she continued looking down at herself. After a couple seconds she asked, "Do you still have a mirror in your closet?"
"It's in the bathroom now," I replied as I gestured.
"Holy crap," she mumbled as she stumbled towards my new ensuite.
She had to hold her pants up by hand, while she ended up leaving her shoes behind as they slipped off her smaller feet. Although from what I could see she hadn't shrunk anywhere near as much as me.
She was still at least fifteen centimetres taller than me, and her figure seemed slim. Other than her chest and hips that is. There was no ignoring the way her t-shirt was stretched tight, or how her jeans fit all wrong.
Her hair was now jet bck and hung straight down past her shoulders, and her eyes had gone from hazel to a bright sparkling green. Her face was attractive, her skin fair and perfect, without any trace of the acne scars she'd had for the st couple years.
"Oh my gosh!" Gwen gasped as soon as she saw herself in the bathroom mirror. The joy in her voice was unmistakable as she added, "Lisa this is incredible!"
I smiled, "I'm gd you're happy."
"I'm more than happy, I'm ecstatic!" she excimed. There was a huge grin on her pretty face as she shuffled back out of the washroom, but that faltered as she added, "Too bad it didn't change my clothes though. How'd you get the new wardrobe?"
Just as I started to answer Chelsea finally joined us.
She wandered into my bedroom barefoot but wearing a sexy little bck dress, then paused as she looked wide-eyed at my new fancy bedroom. "Wow Lisa I love your new room!"
"Oh!" she added as she stopped and stared at my best friend. Who was also staring at her.
And at the exact same moment both of them gasped as if they were in sync, "The ptop changed you too?!"
PurpleCatGirl