Tony sighed again. "Don't be stupid Mark. You don't have any idea what'll happen"
"Exactly. That's the rush of it. I could become anything. From me to-to who knows what it a few seconds" said Mark with a grin.
"But you could become a zebra about to be hunted down by a lion"
"Or a mouse that a neighborhood cat will kill" added Jack.
But the more Tony and his friends tried to talk Jack out of trying a random change, the more he dug in his heels.
What could be more repellent, Mark reasoned to himself, than being sodomized had seemed before changing my orientation to gay? And yet, after I changed my profile to completely gay, it was great to have hot guys ramming me. Physical safety, sure, that's a real concern, but these guys are overdoing it looking out for the little bro. Well, I've got more guts about using this than any of them. They've got their set things, dogs or a pack of wolves or eagles and that's pretty much it for them. Not me. I want to see more of this world from more different eyes.
Mark just smiled confidently back at Tony and his friends. "Sock it to me, Jeff"
Jeff sighed. "Alright". But first Jeff went through everything again. Mark would spend 48 hours, till 8 pm Sunday as some random species chosen by the chronivac. The only setting they chose was to set Mark's gender as male to avoid any possible issues with pregnancy and restoration to his 13 year old boy's body. If the randomly chosen species was not appropriate for Tony's bedroom, where the change was to take place, the chronivac would apparently put him in the appropriate location. Jeff read through all the warnings again and again asked Mark if he wanted to do this. But the warnings, the danger were a large part of why Mark wanted to try it. Mark nodded enthusiastically.
Reluctantly, Jeff agreed. Mark stripped naked in just a few seconds and nodded to Jeff. After a long slow exhale, Jeff hit the enter button.
Mark immediately felt bewildering change wash over him. This was unlike anything else he'd done. His senses were being so completely rewired it was hard for him to make sense of anything. He had a vague sense that he was shrinking and his nose felt as though he was Pinocchio and had told a lie. But his vision was hopelessly jumbled and his whole body felt incomprehensibly bizarre. Something was happening at his back and he felt like he had a tail, no, maybe two extra limbs. What the hell was this?!
With a body slamming impact, Mark hit the floor. He groaned and tried to make a joke to his brother and friends but heard only a weird high pitched warble from his mouth. He tried to gather himself and look at himself, but his vision was like looking through a windshield that had just been struck by a rock and cracked in a hundred places. He thought he could discern what were his arms. They were black with a hard, coarse looking texture to them. Mark tried to look under himself and see the rest of his new body but hit his nose on the floor. What the . . ? What am I, an anteater or something? But now, Mark's vision was starting to function correctly and he could see Tony, Jack, Jeff and Eric. "They-they're skyscrapers!" thought Mark. Anteaters aren't that small. Then came the answer.
"You turned my little brother into a fucking fly!" said the Tony skyscraper.
"Oh shit!" thought Mark and in his panic at this fate, his new wings immediately started to flutter and then lift him off the ground. Awkwardly at first, but with gradually increasing control, Mark managed to control his flight. He had just one goal, to get to the keyboard and get out of this. With great effort, he flew up to the top of Tony's desk and then onto a flat surface of Jeff's computer next to the keyboard.
"Hey, we don't know that that's Mark", argued Jack. Mark could be a blue whale at the aquarium right now and this is just a fly that flew into your room around the time that Mark morphed"
Four faces leaned in toward the laptop. To Mark, it was like when the family had visited Mount Rushmore.
"If you're my little brother, then jump onto the space bar" said Tony.
Mark turned his fly head trying to make sure he judged the distance right through the many lenses of his new insect eyes. With a leap and a little flutter of his wings, Mark jumped onto the space key. His gargantuan brother and friends recoiled in shock at the truth of the situation. But Tony quickly leaned forward with an admonishment. "This is what you get for wanting to be a daredevil, Mark. You're a fucking insect now"
Great, thought Mark. I fucked up. Now, how about a little help, huh? This supremely sucks. While Mark the tiny insect watched and listened, Tony and Jeff argued. Tony wanted them to override the program and restore Mark now. Jeff wasn't so sure. He remembered what a risk taker Mark had been and how willing he was to ride it out no matter what. Eric suggested that they leave it up to Mark, himself.
All four faces leaned in close to the keyboard where gently buzzing Mark still perched atop the space bar.
"Okay" said Jeff. "Here it is. If you want us to change you back, then jump onto the 'B' key. If you want to remain the way you are till 8 pm Sunday, then jump over to the 'R' key"
Mark was too tiny to see the letters painted on each key, but knew the qwerty keyboard well enough to know that the "B" was a short jump away but that the "R" was a couple rows away and a couple keys to the side. Mark jumped for the "B". But he completely miscalculated his jump. When he'd jumped from the flat surface of the laptop to the space bar, he'd been sort of winded from his first flight up to the desk. Now, a full strength fly, Mark tried to make a short jump for the "B" key but accidentally came down at the corner where the "R", "F" and "T" all met on the laptop keyboard.
"That settles that" sighed Jeff.
"No! NO! That was an accident! I don't want to be an insect!" Mark tried to shout to his brobdingnagian brother and friends but only emitted a faint buzz.
"He's got a lot of guts, I'll give him that much" offered Jack.
In short order, Tony's friends got up and left. Mark flew around them frantically trying to somehow signal to them or Tony that he didn't want this, feeling like a helicopter flying around 70 story skyscrapers. But nothing he did had any effect. Tony talked with Jeff for a while about what Mark would require, as a fly. Mark listened intently, as he had no idea even though he was, himself, a fly. Jeff said that, as a male, Mark wouldn't be trying to bite Tony, that he wanted sugar and water and scat. Tony asked, hesitantly if scat was what he thought it was. Jeff nodded. Mark let out a sort of groan. Just the thought of it repelled him and yet made him experience the fly equivalent of his mouth watering.
No. This was too much. As Jeff left the room, Tony flew back to the keyboard. There it was below him, the "B". He'd camp there on the "B". Tony had wanted to turn him back all along. He'd camp there on the "B" and Tony would get the message. Tony was even following him back to the laptop. "This will be over in just a minute", thought Mark. But just as he started to descend, a breeze through an open window in Cindy's room swept into Tony's room. A veteran fly would have been able to overcome it, but newly minted insect Mark had no experience in adjusting for air currents and came down heavily, body slamming right on top of the "R" button.
No! Not again!
And to Mark's horror, Tony said "Okay, Mark, I get the point. But jump off the keyboard now so I can hide the laptop and emitter from the folks"
No. Don't put it away! Mark jumped again, wanting to land on the "B" but a stronger current passed over the keyboard and fly Mark only ended up being neatly lifted out of the way. Mark wanted to cry watching Tony fold up the laptop and store it in the special compartment he'd made under the desk.
"I'll be right back, Mark" said Tony and he left the room leaving his insect brother perched on a shelf over his bed. In just a minute Tony returned with a cup of water and the sugar bowl. He cleared off half his desk and poured water in a small circle then a mound of sugar partly in the circle of water, partly out. While Tony returned the cup and bowl to the kitchen, Mark flew down to try it. He sucked water and a sugary syrup up through his floor scraping, long fly nose until he was full. He wished he had a way to thank his brother. Tony read for a while, something by Kafka was all Mark could tell, glancing at Mark every so often, then stripped and went to bed. He looked over at his insect little brother on the shelf and said goodnight before turning out the light. Mark dozed off almost immediately, but awakened when the headlights of a car making the turn up the street swept across the shelf. Mark looked down at Tony. He was more out of the covers than under them at this point. Mark powered up and jumped off the shelf to the huge surfaces of his brother below, landing in the valley that was the dimple of Tony's muscular buttock. Just touching the warm body of his brother felt good. But after only a few moments, Tony moaned softly and turned. The horizontal surface became a vertical plane leading atop the huge mound that was Tony's left buttock. Mark hopped atop it, marveling at the mass of his brother's rear. But not for long, as a moment later, a giant hand reflexively swatted slowly across the surface, much too slowly to hit Mark who was airborne in a split second. Given the way Tony was flopped naked atop his bed, Mark figured that Tony's left shoulder was an ideal spot. He couldn't easily be swatted there. So, he landed on the soft skin of Tony's square, muscular shoulder. He spent almost an hour there, feeling lilliputian next to his brother's head, occasionaly having to brace himself against the wind that was actually only Tony's exhale. Eventually, Tony rolled again and Mark returned to the shelf.
Come morning, he followed Tony to the upstairs bathroom that only he and Tony used. Cindy shared the downstairs one with their parents. He watched Tony shower and then squeeze out what seemed like a tanker truck sized turd. To Mark's humiliation, it looked pretty good. It didn't matter, though, because a moment later Tony had wiped and was flushing. Mark followed him back to his room. There, Tony profusely apologized to his insect bro but told him that he had to go. He was meeting a new girl, Claire whom he'd met at the library. Tony was very excited about her. She was very smart and pretty and he sighed at just the thought of her. He apologized some more for leaving Mark and told Mark to stay in the room.
Tony wasn't gone 5 minutes before the door to the room swung open and in walked Cindy. "The little bitch!" thought Mark. She makes up these paranoid fantasies that we go in her room when we never do and here she is sneaking around in Tony's! But she didn't sneak around for long. She locked onto him, onto her own brother, now an insect at the corner of the desk. Mark had jumped down intending to have a sort of breakfast, but hadn't had anything to eat yet when his own sister came running across the room slamming a fashion magazine down on the desk where he crouched on his 6 tiny legs. Mark was just able to jump back and out of the way. Cindy swatted at him in mid air three times, always narrowly missing, before Mark dove and found a safe spot on the floor beside the desk. "Mom!" she shouted. There's flies all over Tony's room". In a moment insect Mark's human mother entered with a disgusted look on her face. "Well, it's no wonder when he leaves messes like that on the desk" she grumbled. Then she left but returned a minute later. All the while, he could see Cindy looking around for him with magazine in hand. To his consternation, his mother returned with a rag and wiped Tony's desk clean, removing Mark's only source of food. "He thinks being a pretty boy is supposed to excuse everything" said their mother with a harrumph. A moment later they were gone and the door closed behind them.
Mark now had hours alone. He flew around some. He stared in fascination at his insect reflection in a mirror, horrified but fascinated. He looked out the window some and he parked his little fly self on Tony's desk where the sugar had been. There were some tiny traces left, but even after sucking those up through his vacuum line nose, he was still hungry. Eventually, he considered flying down to find the sugar bowl but remembered hearing his mother grumble something in the hallway about a can of Raid. Yikes. He made his way across the room and there was easily enough space below the door to fly through, but he felt so tired that the prospect of flying all the way to the kitchen and facing a Raid wielding mother or sister seemed daunting. Then he detected another option. The smell seemed sweet to him with his insect senses. It was coming from the bathroom. Mark flew past the ajar door and made his way straight for the bowl. A part of him resisted, but his hunger was so powerful it overrode his squeamishness and feelings of humiliation. There, floating in the clear water, the last blue Vanish drop in hadn't been replaced for a month, was his gargantuan brother's turd. Mark flew down and landed atop it. His brother's giant waste product barely moved with Mark's additional mass. He instinctively jammed his vacuum tube nose into a particularly promising spot and started sucking Tony's shit into himself. In a minute, he was full and felt reinvigorated. He flew up and out of the bathroom back to Tony's room making his way back to the shelf. There, he let the full humiliation of having dined on his brother's shit sink in.
As if to make the contrast of his predicament to his brother's condition even greater, Tony returned to the room with Claire and they kissed and groped for a half hour. She was dazzlingly pretty, brunette with almond shaped eyes, even prettier than Tony had described but also an intellectual match for Tony and quite sweet as well. They talked for a while, Mark heard some of it. And even an insect could tell that there was an immediate connection there. Their conversation was so smooth and easy, finishing each other's sentences. They looked ready for some more kissing or perhaps more when Mark heard Cindy come in the house. Claire and Tony said their goodbyes and she left.
As soon as the door was closed, Tony looked for Mark, finding him in the usual spot on the shelf.
"How's it going there, little guy?" whispered Tony. Mark tried to shake his head to say not well. Tony sniffed the air. "Hey."
He left the room and Mark heard a flush. "Damn old toilet. Why didn't they have that one worked on at the same time as they fixed the downstairs one?" muttered Tony as he came back into the room and took a seat at the desk. Then he turned to Mark on the shelf.
"Hey, I don't want to seem like I'm hectoring you or anything, but I, well, I just don't understand how you can enjoy being like that. Maybe I'm wrong, but I-I've gotta ask you again."
Tony laid both his forearms on the desk palms up.
"If you want to stay like that till 8 tomorrow, then fly onto my left hand. If you want to be changed back, then fly onto my right hand"
Mark surged with energy. He flew straight for Tony's right hand. This time, there was no breeze. He dropped down right in the middle of Tony's palm.
"Are you sure?"
Mark jumped into the air and flew a short circle before landing, again, in the palm of Tony's right hand.
"You got it" said Tony. In a minute, he had Jeff's laptop and the emitter out from the hiding place and was typing away at the computer. In just a few seconds, a fly on the corner of the desk became his brother Mark, naked and crouching on all fours atop some papers. Mark stepped down and thanked Tony with a hug. Mark told him every humiliating thing he'd experienced.
"See?" said Tony "You can't treat this thing like a toy"
"You're right. No more random. I can come up with all the good ideas I need myself. I've got a bunch of great ideas"
Tony reacted with a sigh.