The hitchhiker had mixed feelings about the compact car that pulled over to let him in. It wasn't an easy change like the trucker had been. The driver looked pretty nerdy, though. Maybe he was on his way to a business meeting? That would certainly be the next-best case. Anything but someone returning home.
The hitchhiker tossed his duffle into the driver's backseat and got in the passenger side. The driver seemed a little intimidated by the hitchhiker, but he still flashed what he seemed to think was a confident smile. The hitchhiker returned with a smile of his own.
"Thanks for picking me up," the hitchhiker said. The driver seemed a little more at ease.
"Sure thing. Where are you headed?" the driver asked.
"Dallas, Texas," the hitchhiker said. The driver furrowed his brow a little.
"Well," he said. "I can take you a little further than Albuquerque, but I need to turn off of I-40 a little before the Texan border."
"That's fine," the hitchhiker said.
It wasn't fine. He had time, though. With almost 4 hours before he was ejected, he had more than enough time to learn enough about this nerdy dude and change his destination.
"So, on your way there or your way back?" the hitchhiker asked, pretending to only be marginally interested.
"Huh?" the driver grunted.
"Are you traveling to somewhere new or on your way home?" the hitchhiker clarified.
"Oh, I'm on my way home," the driver said. The hitchhiker cringed but quickly recovered. He had to change where this guy lived. This was going to be a big one. The driver was being pretty cagey. It might be a little hard to extract their hometown. It wasn't impossible to change a person without it, but it certainly helped.
"Yeah, I'm from Des Moines, Iowa. I was on a business trip to Phoenix, Arizona, and I thought it was a good idea to drive all the way there," the driver rambled.
Or maybe not, the hitchhiker mused. If he kept sharing his life story like this, it would be a piece of cake to make him bound for Texas instead.
"I knew it was hot in Phoenix, but... well, my car literally melted," the driver said with a frown. The hitchhiker was about to steer him back into talking about himself, but that last bit gave him pause.
"...'Literally'?" the hitchhiker asked.
"Yep. Check it out," the driver said, pointing to the plastic console between them. It was malformed and warped in spots. The harder plastic looked fine, but the softer plastic looked like it had been dripping earlier. The hitchhiker prodded it softly with his fingers, which came back slightly blackened. He rubbed it off on his pants.
"No kidding..." the hitchhiker said.
"Yeah, it doesn't get this hot up in Iowa. It gets cold. I guess they don't sell heat-friendly cars there. Well, it was fine enough until I made this trip. I never really liked the heat anyway. You can always put on more layers, but you can't take them off, right?"
"Yeah, I know what you mean," the hitchhiker said.
The driver continued to talk about the cold and snow for far longer than the hitchhiker expected him to. He seemed to simultaneously love and hate it. His rambling changed to his friends, his job, all sorts of things. He spoke for hours, but there wasn't a whole lot he could use. His changes worked best when he could work in some familiar characteristics, but all of what he was saying seemed to be mutually exclusive with living in Texas. This would be one of the most difficult changes yet, but he needed this ride. He took a calming breath.
"You need to drive to Texas," the hitchhiker said, taking his biggest risk so far.
"Huh? Why?" the driver asked.
"Because that's where you live," the hitchhiker replied, putting all of his will into making it so.
"No, I don't. I live in... Iowa," the driver said, but he seemed perplexed. The hitchhiker's power was working, but it was too big of a change. He'd have to start smaller.
"Earlier you told me about growing up in Texas," the hitchhiker said, starting to sweat with both effort and nervousness.
"No, I... did I?" the driver said, confusion washing across his face. He looked like he wanted to turn to the hitchhiker, but his gaze was focused on the road.
"You told me about how your father took you to..." the hitchhiker broke off. What did they have in Texas? Cowboys? Line dancing? Churches? "...the rodeo," the hitchhiker finished lamely. The driver seemed unconvinced, but remained silent. Too late, he remembered the Alamo. How could he forget? Well, he already committed to the rodeo.
"You said it was the highlight of your childhood. Highlights, since he took you there so often."
"The... the bull riders were my favorite," the driver said, furrowing his brow. His words were lilting into each other a little. The hitchhiker wasn't sure if it was disorientation or the beginnings of an accent.
The hitchhiker almost didn't notice the driver's stubble come in. Unexpected, but not a bad sign.
"It was pretty impressive, wasn't it?" the hitchhiker prompted.
"Yeah, I..." the driver said, his expression flickering as if in pain. "...I thought they were so cool, all athletic and..."
The hitchhiker focused his power as the driver spoke. A concept that the driver came up with was a lot easier to use than a new one the hitchhiker tried to force onto him.
"...and that's why I always wanted to be a cowboy when I grew up..."
Uh oh. Too far. Too much!
"What... what in Sam Hill... wait, what?" the driver said, his voice now a light Texan accent with such a major change.
"I don't say... why does my voice... I didn't want to be a..."
The hitchhiker was losing him. He needed to get back on track before the driver figured out what was happening and kicked him out.
"...What are you doing to me?" the driver said, turning to face the passenger.
"Eyes on the road," the hitchhiker squeaked. He knew he shouldn't be a backseat driver when hitchhiking, but then again, he supposed he also shouldn't be transforming strangers to get a ride. Luckily for him, the driver turned back to face the road.
"I'm not doing anything," he lied. "You put everything into becoming one, training on horses at a young age. Your dad helped you every step of the way." As he spoke, he spotted the driver's legs spreading outwards as he developed some bowlegs. Whether that was a natural consequence of too much riding or just what he expected, the hitchhiker didn't know, but it worked.
At first the hitchhiker thought that the driver was tensing, but as his muscles thickened and roped around his arms, he realized that it was one of his changes. The driver was looking meatier by the second. His soft jawline sharpened, which was accented even more by his thickening stubble. The hair on his arms was thickening as well, though the hitchhiker had no idea why.
He didn't remember if the driver was wearing jeans when he first pulled over, but that huge belt buckle was certainly new.
The fabric of his white work shirt became blurry, and a moment later, it snapped back into focus, only this time it was a plain gray t-shirt. Oddly enough, the driver seemed to notice.
"What am I wearing?!" he whimpered. His new Texan accent came out even stronger as he got upset.
"You were wearing that when you picked me up," the hitchhiker said.
"No, I... I wasn't! I was wearing..." he tried.
"Think back to when you woke up tonight. That's what you put on," the hitchhiker said, a little too forcefully.
"I... I have a memory of that, but I know it's not right! Are you doing this? How?"
The hitchhiker said nothing.
"How do you know all about my past? How I grew up watching the rodeo? How I trained to be a bullrider all my life? I never said any of that; how do you know?"
The hitchhiker remained silent, working his magic on what the driver was saying. He was digging himself deeper and didn't even realize it.
"But... it's not real, is it?" the driver said in a daze. "I'm... I'm a Texan bullrider?"
That did it. It wasn't certain, but it was enough. The driver's muscles grew even larger, shifting under his increasingly tight shirt. He could see abs forming under the shirt, and his pectorals strained the shirt to capacity. His previously pasty skin darkened from years under the Texan sun. A cowboy hat had appeared on the driver's head when the hitchhiker wasn't looking.
A dangerous groan warned them of a larger change.
The compact car bent around them. The hitchhiker gripped his seat for dear life. It wasn't often that he changed someone so drastically that their car changed while they were driving it. The engine made terrifying garbling noises as it changed shape while running.
The whole layout of the car changed. The seats rose and the armrest fell while the rest of the door slid upwards. The electronic window button vanished, and a manual arm crank appeared near his feet. The melting console became blurry and faded and returned... not quite fully restored. It looked scuffed and used, but still functional, albeit with a completely different layout. The transmission changed from automatic to manual, and a glance to the driver's feet confirmed that a third pedal had appeared. He also saw a pair of dusty cowboy boots on the driver's feet. Well, at least he could pull them off.
Something pressed against the back of his seat. He whirled around to see the back of the car slide into place, and his seat fused onto it. His luggage! He looked back further to see the bed of a pickup truck behind them. His duffle was safely inside. He let out a sigh of relief. He turned back to the front to see that it had changed while he wasn't looking. The mirrors and hood were squarer, and the whole pickup was taller than the compact car it had been. The engine was still rumbling loudly, but it wasn't the choked thunking it made before. It seemed healthy, for a truck.
"Okay, you saw that, right?" the driver said, his tanned skin losing so much blood that he almost looked as pale as he began.
"My car just turned into a truck, but I also remember buying this truck. I remember being an executive assistant in Iowa, but now that feels like a dream. I know that being a bullrider isn't real, but it feels more real than my old life. It's like... like I went amnesiac and suddenly remembered my past life, but... it's not my life anymore. Oh, hell, what's going on?"
The hitchhiker lost some of that through the driver's thick Texan accent, but he got the gist of it.
He wasn't sure what to do. People sometimes remembered their old lives, but not this...vocally. This was a new perspective he hadn't heard before.
The driver seemed to gather his bearings and turned to the hitchhiker.
"You. I know you did this. You turned me into a Texan, somehow. Why?" the driver demanded. His voice didn't quite sound aggressive, though. More... curious? Maybe it was just desperation for answers in the worst confusion of his life.
"...I really need a ride to Dallas," the hitchhiker said somewhat sheepishly.
"And you didn't think to ask around in Albuquerque?" the driver said. His brow was furrowed, but his tone was surprisingly neutral.
The hitchhiker opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.
"...Right. So you just go around erasing whole lives so they can give you a ride?" the Texan asked.
"Your life wasn't erased," the hitchhiker said. "Your memories of Texas are real. All that stuff happened to you. It just... hadn't happened until just now, but it had happened in the past, retroactively. Your life in Texas exists. Your life isn't erased, just changed."
"Eloquent," the driver deadpanned. "But I think I get what you mean. And all my friends in Iowa. Do they all forget me? And my friends in Texas, are they real? Did someone just make an old friend in the span of a few minutes and not notice because their past changed?"
"...I don't know," the hitchhiker admitted. "I don't exactly keep in touch with the people I change. I know I changed you. Your friends, I... I just don't know."
The driver gripped his scuffed steering wheel tighter, but he looked more nervous than angry.
They crossed the border into Texas, and the hitchhiker realized that the driver had missed his turn to Iowa. They were on their way to Dallas.