Jacob looked up from his phone and was almost taken aback from what he saw. The towering shelves filled with ill fitting and creepy items which were spilling into the aisles gave the feeling of claustrophobia to Jacob as he peered into the SRU store. Even the smell was heavy and choking as someone passed and he got a wiff of the musty incense laden aroma. All of this was sharply contrasted by the equally foreboding but exactly opposing nature of the store next to it. The H.R.U. store was brightly lit, with an open floor plan such that everything could be seen and identified from the cashier island in the center of the store, low shelves kept visibility unhindered, and the whole place smelled of lemony cleaning solution.
Jacob glanced at his phone, another hour till his dad would come to pick him up. Being 14 this was the first time his parents let him go to the mall alone and for four hours at that! He didn't want to ruin it by being late for the pickup.
Glancing back and forth, he sighed heavily. He had already seen the rest of the mall and didn't want to sit any longer on the bench. Or, more accurately, he had zero interest in 95% of the stores, had spent time bouncing around in the "cool" stores, ate something and was left with checking out Macy's or one of these two stores.
Jacob stepped toward the shadow filled SRU store and something inside him screamed. Jacob paused confused by his sudden sense of dread, its as though something was telling him, "This store is not for you." without missing a beat his feet kept walking toward the HRU store almost by themselves.
As Jacob stood before the immense doors the voice inside him asked, "Are you sure?" Jacob looked around an felt a familiar sense as though it was the GNC that his dad took him to a couple times. Without realizing it Jacob had crossed the threshold and was in.
"Hey, there buddy! What are you looking for today?" A friendly man behind the register asked as he came to greet Jacob. The man was probably in his late 20's and was wearing a "Markus" name tag he was an inch or two above Jacob putting him around 5' 7'', He had a thick chinstrap beard and was clearly muscular. Although his hair was blonde, there was clearly stubble in the non-chinstrap parts of his beard.
"Hi Markus, I'm Jake. I have never seen this place and have no idea what I want, if anything." Jake said extending his hand for a handshake. As soon as the words left his mouth, Jake noted that that was more congenial of him than usual, normally he would say, "I'm just looking and look away, only to scurry past as soon as he could."
"Well, Thank You for stopping in today!" Markus said stressing the thanking in a way that was only slightly awkward. "And you can call me Mark if you'd like, corporate asked for my full name at hire and its haunted everything since!" Mark chuckled but saw that Jake had no frame of reference and wasn't laughing. "So, I can show you around, we can talk, and maybe I can help you today. If not today, then you will know what we have for later. Sound good?"
Jacob was watching Mark as he was talking, His eyes were a striking light blue, his teeth were perfect and brilliantly white, he was gregarious and engaging. 'Why isn't he a personal trainer, a manager somewhere, or maybe even an action star?' Jake asked himself looking over the man's physique again. Mark was asking him something, "Yeah sure." Jake getting the gist that a tour was about to begin.
Markus turned and began, "Lets get the first and biggest question out of the way are you a girl trapped in a boys body?"
Jake pondered, "No? I don't know. I don't think so. How could I tell?"
Mark spun around with a huge grin, "I don't know either kid. I've never thought being a girl would make me feel better, so I can't tell you what it feels like." He said stroking his beard. "Well, unless you change your mind we can skip this section."
"Here is hair..." Mark said spreading his wingspan wide. "These will change the color your body produces, these will change thickness, over here is density, growth rate, this column is style, wavy, curly, straight and whatnot." Markus turned to Jacob, "This is one of our most popular sections, and as our first stop, I should tell you, we have two types of products, some which temporarily activate your hormone secretion system and some which permanently change what your personal normal is which we always advise to use with extreme caution."
Jacob nodded beginning to understand what this store was claiming. "But, permanent means genetic, but science... " Jacob would have remembered if his bio teacher would have mentioned he could permanently change his traits with a targeted gene altering pill. "This isn't possible yet."
Markus smiled sadly pulling a picture from his pocket, "I don't like showing this to people, I'm not proud of it. but since you need proof, I'm it." He handed the picture to Jacob. "This was me 2 years ago."
Jake looked and saw an overweight version of Marcus looking to be somewhere in his 30's. the lighting was bad in the picture, the man was sitting back with a video game controller in his hand. next to him was pop and a bag of chips. His mostly receded hair line and spotty beard made him look old and young at the same time. And his hair was browner... he looked... bad.
Jacob looked up and down between the man in front of him and the picture. It couldn't possibly be the same person. Marcus smiled sadly, "I'm a success case, not everyone is. Go ahead, point out the differences, Ill tell you what helped me change it."
"Hair" Jake said. "Color, thickness, density, growth rate, I probably already need a ..." he touched his cheek, "yep, I shaved around 9:30. Also, the bald-away, not to be confused with the balder-yay product. heh heh. Those products and more are in the male section. If you don't have thinning hair in your family, I'd recommend Bushy Face Bearderizer to target just that." Jake checked his phone it was 3:08.
"Your age looks different." Jake mentioned not knowing what to make of all this. Markus gave a puzzled look, "Hmm, I didn't change my age, but I did mess with the characteristics that people associate with maturation. The thicker beard, and bigger muscles probably make me look older, while the hairline makes me look younger." Markus grinned, "I'm guessing that's why you said different, you couldn't pinpoint up or down after factoring in the 2 years difference I gave you. Either way, if you wanted to mature yourself to pass for 18, 21, 25, 30 or so on, we could do that for you, easily. We could also make your body think it is any of those ages, though that would stop your natural maturation process, and could come with side effects that teens wouldn't normally need to deal with. We could attempt to youthen you back to 13 or even 12 but once puberty has started its really hard to stop. We could more easily take a 35 year old back to 25."
Jake pondered that for a second and then looked from the picture to the man. "Your um... build?" Markus smirked, "Most people ask me about that first, but not you... huh? Well, its my own special blend I call the Gaston-ifier. Obviously it is built off a bunch of the male products, however, the emotional side of it is super important too. Boosting confidence, charisma, ambition, a minor tweak in the risk reward centers of the brain, And suddenly, the risk of being sore for a week in order to have a great body faster, seems worth it. Once I decided to give it a try, the ambition boost helped to keep me going. I used to be unbelievably lazy. well, actually, you saw."
Jake looked around the store, "So lets see, we covered female, hair, male, emotions. What's that? Eye color?"
"Yes, Good.... wait for it... eye!" Markus seemed to amuse himself.
"And that?" Jake asked pointing to the last section in the store.
"That's actually our 'other' section, which covers fixing some specific maladies like hyper or hypothyroidism, suppressing or activating hunger, making your body odor smell like cologne, that kind of stuff. The very end is our adult section which can change the types of people and ways that, um, get you going. Or we could stop you going... but that's for people who want to go too much. Or not enough... But anyway, that section is specifically for 21 or older, or younger with a consenting adult. I'm not consenting for you so bring in a parent or agree to become an adult."
"Huh, that's interesting. I don't understand why this technology isn't all over the news." Jake said feeling a little light headed.
"Oh that's because it's not." Markus replied moving behind the counter.
Jacob followed along to the front of the counter. "Wait, I'm confused, its not what?"
"Technology." Markus said flatly, staring at his computer. "Huh? Oh, yeah sorry, its not technology, It's magic. Yeah, its magic mixed with hormones in varying concentrations. Some of these mixes are set to duplicate the hormones for a certain amount of time, or make it reach a certain concentration for x weeks." He pointed to the Beard growth mixture. "Some of these rewrite the protiens you make..." pointing to the hair and eye colors, "or change what your body thinks is 'normal' production." pointing to the male section. "If you want it, you could literally have this body in about a month and if you say the words, nobody would think its any different from normal. If I'm being completely honest, the system choose this appearance for you as your most likely desire and I simply mimic it."
Markus smiled, "So, what do you want?"