Kent Bailey liked to think of himself as a simple man. He only wanted what he believed any person would want. Food. Shelter. Good health. A feeling of security and control. And, through a combination of his analytical abilities, otherworldly tech, and a little bit of luck, he could finally have it all.
A hollow, vaguely masculine humanoid husk of latex, with ears, face, tail and feet reminiscent of a rabbit walked alongside him as he took a leisurely stroll through town. The creature’s pure black skin was smooth and shiny, and a gentle squeak could be heard with every step it took. Kent had to marvel at it. It really had been the best option out of all the options his ray gun could turn people into. The creature needed no food or water, no fuel or energy of any sort, but kept moving regardless, like a perpetual motion machine. And to sweeten the deal, it was completely loyal and obedient to him. And perfectly quiet too. If there was one thing Kent disliked, it was a chatterbox. And all it took to create this wonderful object was robbing a fellow human of all emotions and agency.
He couldn’t wait to start making more.
He raised the plastic gun in his right hand, watching as a flickering hologram appeared just above it. He didn’t care who did or didn’t see. Once he was done, nobody would remember a thing, anyway. He touched the hologram, adjusting one menu after another. He flicked past options for genies, robots, anthros, humans, thinking toys, fairies, golems, and strange mishmashes of colors and shapes that made him feel queasy if he looked at them too long, before finding the “living latex” options again. Their complete lack of needs made them the ideal servants.
The mental alterations, meanwhile, were set to the 00000000 000000001 value, the base on which all other mental alteration options were formed, instilling familiarity with the new body, and simple, unquestioning obedience. From the best Kent could tell, it was never meant to be used on its own. The other, “complete” and intended options would have attempted to incorporate some of the original personality of the target, or instill certain values or personality quirks in them. Fair enough options if you could deal with a little potential drama, but Kent had long since tired of such things. Better to ease his target’s pain by relieving them of the burden of choice, memory, and thought.
The beta reality warping, and perception filter features, of course, were left on too, in spite of the many warnings. Without them, there were far, far too many questions if dozens of people suddenly vanished, and dozens of strange living dolls appeared. Even if people saw the latter without knowing the former, it would still have created so many problems without these little wonders preventing people from thinking too hard about it. It kept things running so much more smoothly.
Passing a woman on the street, he pulled the trigger. A red bolt of lightning fired from the plastic tip and arced toward her. Within moments, her skin began to turn dark blue, smoothing over into latex. Freckles, hair, scars, blemishes, any and all features were pasted over with the single uniform blue color, interrupted only by a small, black “#00002” printed on its left arm, and smoothed over. The woman’s clothes unraveled and vanished, but by this point the only real signifier of her sex were a pair of bumps on the latex creature’s chest, and a general, vaguely female shape.
Its toes inflated to a slightly larger, rounder shape, resembling paws, and it arched its feet into a digitigrade stance as it stood up straight. A short, thick tail puffed out inch by inch above its rear, and a set of triangular ears appeared at the top of its head, while its original ears smoothed over. With a popping noise, a pointed, vulpine muzzle emerged from its face.
Its body was emptied of any organs, bones, and fluid, yet it remained upright and in motion in spite of it all. And just as its body had been made hollow, it’s mind was emptied as well. It forgot details of old friends and family it barely remembered to start with. Then coworkers and acquaintances. Then friends, family, and even its own name slipped into the void. Names of continents and countries, hobbies and passions, even how to say “No,” if it wasn’t related to serving Kent Bailey, it was erased, or hidden in a vast void, where it could never interfere until the information became necessary again. It changed direction and began to walk alongside its owner.
He took aim and fired again, this time at an elderly man. The hobbling man dropped his cane, his shaky stride gaining a perfect rhythm as he stood perfectly upright. His wrinkled skin smoothed over, turning bright green. As his clothes vanished, his feet shrank, becoming a pair of hooves. His head, in contrast, grew out into the long snout of a horse, and an inflatable tail that arched to resemble the free-flowing tail of a horse blew up behind him.
Without a thought, the latex creature joined the two others in marching alongside its owner, only ready to react differently if ordered to by its owner.
Another bolt of red flew from the gun, this one striking a four-year-old boy walking alongside his mother. The child let go of his parent’s hand as his skin turned dark red. The mother didn’t even look back, her memories of having a child being erased one by one with each step she took. As the changes that had affected the others came over the boy, he began to grow, his clothing vanishing as he reached an adult size. The latex creature gained rounded the rounded ears, pointed snout, and long, thin tail of a mouse as it marched to follow its owner.
Wanting to complete the set, Kent fired at the mother next, her skin becoming white and reflective, her clothes vanishing, and her face reshaping to resemble a squirrel’s, and a giant tail of one formed from its rear end. It joined in Kent’s procession, not even giving a passing glance to the red latex mouse. And why should it have? Emotional connections served no purpose to mere items.
A police officer parked on a corner was hit, his skin turning pure navy blue save for a number marking on his left arm, and the word “police” written on the other, while he gained the face and tail of a doberman. It didn't follow Kent, but continued on its patrol route, not needing donuts breaks.
Kent smiled. All of it happened so quickly, yet nobody paid him or his servants any attention at all. He continued on his way through the quiet neighborhood, zapping anyone he felt like. Homeless beggars, blue or white collar workers, young or old, male or female. Their origins, their dreams, the people who were counting on them, none of that mattered once they ceased to exist, as far as his new reality was concerned. A dolphin creature here, a bear creature there… Kent barely even bothered to keep count.
Kent wasn’t interested in world domination, or anything like that. No, even with a completely obedient populace, that was too much hassle. All the army of servants meant for him was a life of ease and luxury. He could simply rent them out for money, and keep a few around home to have the daily necessities taken care of, and none would ever demand anything in return, meaning more resources for him.
He heard the sound of a bicycle behind him, and turned around to see a gecko woman riding his way, wearing only a cap with the logo of a pizza shop, and a backpack, presumably full of pizza boxes.
“Well, I do feel like getting some pizza,” he said under his breath, firing again. The red bolt of lightning hit the lizard squarely in the chest, and… nothing happened.
Well, “nothing” isn’t quite right. The gun DID give off a harsh buzzing sound that hurt Kent’s ears, and startled the gecko girl so badly she nearly careened right into him and his squad of unflinching latex followers.
“Ack! S-Sorry!” The gecko shouted back to Kent as she passed him, completely normal, and unaffected by his new toy in the slightest.
“What the Hell?” Kent muttered, looking down at the gun. A new message was displayed on the holographic UI.
“Error! Target already transformed. Please choose new target.”
‘Already transformed?’ Kent gazed down at the gun, confused. ‘But I’ve never seen her in my life! Not to mention she was a perfectly average woman. There wasn’t anything remotely special about her. No, it has to just be a false positive.’
His next target with a rather adorable ocelot woman in a maid dress, getting out of her car and walking toward her home. Lightning flashed again, there was another harsh buzz, and there were still no changes.
“Did this thing break?” He fired again at the next person he saw, a middle aged man mowing his lawn. The cat-like latex creature that took the man’s place, unlike the others, did not join the group, but continued the task that it had been assigned by its owner in the altered reality, pushing the mower at a steady pace.
‘So the gun is still working,’ Kent thought to himself. He picked another target again at random, and fired, this time striking a tiny green dragoness in a maid outfit, making chalk drawings on the sidewalk. She briefly looked over toward Kent only when his gun gave off a the harsh buzzing sound again, and immediately went back to her art.
The same error message as before. Kent groaned. He still couldn’t make out what caused it, but the gun worked again when zapping the dragoness’s human mother, who became a teal lizard woman. He shook his head. He’d take the changes he could get to work, for now. He ordered the latex thing that had been the dragoness’s mother to follow him, and it did so. As it left the property, the little dragoness maid felt a great deal of confusion, as if something very important to her was suddenly gone.
Her tears began to distort her drawings, and she couldn’t even figure out why she was crying.
Her father came out of the house, wondering why he'd left her out here all by herself. He saw his daughter crying, scooped her up and hugged her. "What's wrong princess?"
"I... I don't know!" She wailed, she hugged him tightly as if afraid he'd vanish into thin air. Her father hugged her too. He also began to cry, not really knowing why he was. The family portraits in the house looking strangely empty. If the little dragoness was older, she'd have talked about the feeling of someone walking over her grave. Like she was here, but she wasn't supposed to be, yet she was. It was too confusing for an adult, let alone a child. She began to do clean up on things that didn't even need cleaning, trying to bury the horrible feeling under the sense of seeing everything nice and pretty.
Kent continued his transformative mass shooting through town, changing more and more people. He had to have at least forty “servants” by now (though, he was starting to wonder if that was the best term for the lifeless things he created).
And yet, the further into the district he got, the more the error message popped up. “Target already transformed.”
He thought back to what the ‘friend’ he’d stolen the gun from had told him about it, tapping his chin as he continued down the sidewalk. ‘Wasn’t it supposed to have an edit feature too? In that case, a target already being transformed shouldn’t be a problem.’ He thought back to his initial experiments with the device, then it hit him. ‘Oh, right,’ he growled rememberer the most likely explanation. ‘The gun had several ‘upgrades’ hadn’t it? My attempt to ‘crack’ it must have made them incompatible. I’ll have to try to find a way to remake those.’ He shook his head, knowing that it was FAR easier said than done.
He came to a small shopping center at the edge of the neighborhood. The lot was filled with cars as shoppers came and went, carrying groceries, electronics, clothes, appliances, and other odds and ends. So many targets… But first things first, he needed some food.
He approached a large diner, telling his latex drones to wait outside for him. Stepping inside, he was greeted by a waitress at the door.
“Hello sir,” the redhead smiled as she greeted him. “How many in your party?”
“Just one.”
“Very well sir, if you’ll wait a moment, we’ll see if a table is-” the woman was interrupted in a flash of red.
“You will take me to a table right away. I don’t care if it’s occupied or not.”
“Yes Owner,” the red latex bird woman responded in utter monotone.
The restaurant seemed packed to the brim, with people busily chatting left and right. All blurring together into noise. Kent had always hated the noise. He was tempted to just make it all go away right now, but he didn’t want to ruin the fun of his new toy by going wild with it all at once.
The bird drone approached a table by one of the windows, where a man and a woman were eating.
“Mr. Bailey has requested your table,” the drone… droned.
The couple gave the waitress a confused, slightly angry look.
“We just got our food!” The man said, “You can’t just tell us to up and-”
In a couple flashes of red, the couple became a male pale-blue elephant (surprisingly no larger than any of the other latex creature) and a female silver badger. They immediately stood up and gave their seats to Kent, who proceeded to order his meal from the waitress.
He sat back and watched the waiters and waitresses go back and forth between tables. A couple more pulls of the trigger, and suddenly, there were no flesh and blood employees on the floor that needed to be tipped, or even treated with an ounce of respect, just a collection of animate, humanoid things, doing simple, rote tasks.
He was tempted to go into the kitchen and change the chefs, as well, make them a little more focused on his meal, over the others, but he doubted the “perception filter,” or whatever it was called, would make that normal, and he didn’t feel like changing everyone in the restaurant that could possibly object to that while eating.
‘Still,’ he thought, ‘changing a few more would certainly make things a little quieter, wouldn’t it?'
He saw a large gathering, mostly anthro women, either nude or in maid outfits of one type or another. Judging by the balloons, it was likely a birthday party or something. Perhaps he should give all of them a gift of his own. He took aim at a cat in a lavender maid uniform, with a tail that split at the tip, and fired.
BUZZ!
ANOTHER failure? Kent could barely contain his frustration as he fired at the guests around that table again and again.
A yellow, strangely cute spider girl.
BUZZ!
An athletically built panther woman.
BUZZ!
A Siamese cat.
BUZZ!
A lively donkey.
BUZZ!
A brown-coated vixen maid with five tails.
BUZZ!
The frustrated man took aim at a human male sitting at the table, but soon noticed all the stares the buzzing had attracted. It seemed everyone in that group was producing some sort of error, no point in firing again right now to see if he was an exception. Best not to call too much attention until he could figure out what was going wrong.
He sat back and waited quietly for his meal, the noisy people around him grating on him even more.
+++
“...And when you think about it, ‘I can’t even!’ is really just our generation’s ‘well I never!’” Danielle explained.
“...I hate to say it, but you’re right,” Curt said with a nod, while some of the maids around him laughed.
It was Danielle’s birthday today, and Curt and several of the maids had taken her out for dinner at her favorite diner. On hearing it was her birthday, she’d been offered a free slice of cake, and the table had been decorated by balloons. The tradition of getting the waiters to sing “Happy Birthday,” however, had not been followed due the wait “staff” being made up entirely of rental latex drones, which tended to sound creepy if they tried to sing. Well, creepier than usual.
Curt had never been much for parties, or gatherings this large. He really didn’t like trying to filter out the noise of dozens of competing conversations, but, with his ever-expanding staff, he was starting to force himself to get used to it. Still, he was looking forward to going home and enjoying a quieter moment with his friends.
Things were going pretty smoothly, all things considered, and Danielle was enjoying being the center of attention.
Then a harsh buzzing noise rang through the diner.
A couple of the maids glanced to the side, but, as it was rude to stare, most turned their attention back to the party quickly.
Then came another buzz, and another, until six had rang out. By this point, the partygoers couldn’t ignore the noise anymore, and all turned to look at its origin; a fairly ordinary looking man, quickly shoving something back in his pocket.
“That guy should probably turn down his ringtone,” Marceline said, going back to her meal.
“No kidding,” Curt mumbled.
Out of the corner of his eye, Curt saw a bathroom door swing open, pushed by a five year old boy who looked very confused. As Curt turned his attention back to the birthday girl, the little boy approached the table where the strange buzzing had come from. The boy could be faintly heard asking the man at the table questions. The man only scowled at the boy. “GET LOST!” could be heard over the rest of the chatter in the restaurant before the boy ran away crying, heading towards the exit. As he ran past the maids’ table, a lavender-furred hand reached and took his own hand.
“Shh, it’s alright, little one,” Sophie said. “No need to run away. It was rude of him to treat you like that, but your parents would get worried if you just left them without saying goodbye.” Curt and the maids turned to look as the boy took a few breaths.
“I…” The boy sniffed as he tried to wipe away his tears. “I don’t think I have any parents, miss.”
Sophie and a few of the other maids blinked, startled. “Oh dear,” Sophie continued. “I’m so sorry. Tell, me, then. Who brought you here with them, then?”
“I’m having a hard time remembering… It’s kinda fuzzy. Maybe it was them?” He pointed to the elephant and badger shaped drones standing by the rude man’s table.
“Rental drones brought him here?” Anna shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Weren’t they here the whole time anyway?” Curt asked.
“I thought they came in with that guy,” Skyla whispered.
“Well, little one,” Sophie spoke to the boy again. “My name is Sophie Myrtle. What’s your name? Maybe I can help you find your way home.”
“Dustin.”
“What’s your last name?”
“I… I don’t remember,” Dustin started crying again. “I don’t know! I don't think I have one! Something’s missing!”
Sophie turned to Curt. “Would you mind, Master, if I took young Dustin to the police to see if we could find his parents?”
Something about this situation worried Curt. “I don’t mind at all. I might even go with you,” he turned to Danielle, “If you’re alright with that, that is.”
The jenny shook her head. “No problem. I can see why you’d want to see this through. We’ll save you some cake!”
“Thanks!” Curt nodded, standing up with Sophie. Skyla and Anna followed in short order.
+++
In the town’s Police Station, a red panda officer, dressed only in her hat, badge, and utility belt, scoured through the police’s fingerprint database. It hadn’t been uncommon for the police to offer to record student’s fingerprints when they visited schools, for help in potentially locating a child if they were lost. And in a strange situation like this, it seemed like the only option to find a lead on the child’s guardian.
“Oh! Here we go!” The officer’s face brightened, instantly catching Curt, Anna, and Skyla’s attention, while Sophie continued to comfort Dustin.
Then, almost as quickly as the red panda’s smile had appeared, it vanished, replaced by confusion. “Huh… Well… Um… Good news and bad news.” She paused and shook her head. “Good news: Dustin here IS in the database. Bad news is… Well, his picture, fingerprint, and first name are ALL that’s in there.”
“What?” Curt was stunned.
“Did someone mess with the information or something?” Skyla asked, leaning over the desk to look at the monitor.
“If they did, they hid it well, there’s no record of any editing or changes to the profile since it was made.”
“Did someone just make a mistake while entering it?” Anna suggested.
“I doubt it. The system gets fussy if you so much as forget to put parenthesis around the area code in a telephone number. It shouldn’t have been able to get through without putting in a last name, even if they just put a period or a lowercase ‘a.’” She put her hand to her chin. “I’ll try to see if the tech guys can do anything about this, but I don’t think it’ll make any difference.” She looked down. “I’m sorry, Master.”
“It’s not your fault,” Curt sighed. He turned to Sophie. “What do you make of this, Sophie? You’ve been able to pick up on things I’d never notice before. Do you have any ideas?”
Sophie shook her head. “I’m sorry, Master. I have been noticing some things that were off, but not enough to form a solid picture just yet.”
“I guess we’ll need to find a place for Dustin to stay,” Anna said.
“Well, we can take him to a foster home,” The red panda said, “but it’ll take a while to get it all arranged… It’s not strictly protocol, but if you want, Master, he could spend the night at your estate. It’s one of the safest places in town, after all, and he’d be more comfortable there than cooped up in the station.”
Curt looked back at the boy, and nodded. “Sure thing.”
+++
It had taken some doing to calm poor Dustin down and set him to bed in one of the guest rooms, but after several warm glasses of milk and three bedtime stories, he finally went to a fitful sleep. Curt stepped out of the room, hoping to get a little rest himself, when he bumped into the angelic, otherworldly lioness that had agreed to be his maid.
He gasped and reeled back. “Atarah! Don’t startle me like that!”
“I apologize, Master,” the lioness gave a small bow. “But something has been going direly wrong around town. The boy you brought here… He’s suffering one of the symptoms of it.”
“What do you mean?” Curt leaned in slightly.
She put her hand to her forehead. “It’s just… Agh, how can I explain it to someone who can’t @#$#@ %^#&s?”
Curt wasn’t even sure if the last two otherworldly… sounds... to come out of the lioness’s mouth were supposed to be words, but he felt he got the jist of them. “You’re sensing something we can’t?”
“Sort of… I’ve been feeling a lot of energy much like the kind that happens when you use a ray gun to change people. I can’t get a precise enough… ‘look’ at it, for lack of a better term, to tell where the changes are coming from, or even be completely sure about what’s been affected in this timeline versus others. But… Let me put it this way:
“Our universe is like a comic book. Every time you change the world, rather than changing the art of the one panel you’re in, it’s almost like you’ve swapped out the whole issue for a new issue by the same artist and writer, that is ALMOST identical, but adds in a new character. And since it’s by the same artists and writers, the new character has been worked in carefully and precisely to fit in without making any plotholes, or even seeming out of place.”
“A bit of an unrealistic example considering how most comics are with continuity, but I get what you’re saying.”
“But the changes I’ve sensed lately, it’s like a child took a set of crayons and drew over the comic book to add in a new character, and whited out and re-wrote a few speech bubbles. Not all the dialogue matches, the choreography is all out of balance, the new character seems to pop in and out without regard to where they should be, the artstyle clashes completely with the original, and none of the original characters can even recognize how their world has been disfigured.”
“Are you saying this kid was added in, somehow?”
“No… It’s more that… Every tie to his family was whited out, to make room for new characters that would take the place of his parents. Now in every panel he’s supposed to be with them, he’s just sitting in an empty void, with barely any connection tying him to this world.”
“That sounds horrible… Do you think the ray gun is malfunctioning, somehow?”
“I don’t think it’s that, Master.”
“What could it be then?”
“Again, I cannot be certain, but I suspect that a similar force is at play; somehow, a power not meant for this world entered it, and is keeping everyone from perceiving it.” She stood up straight and at attention. “We must be vigilante, and prepare for anything in the coming days, Master.”
+++
Kent sighed as he laid back in bed. His current home, “owned” by one of his rental drones, was humble, but there were certain… benefits in the paperwork, to using it as is for now. Still, once he’d changed the right people, he’d be able to upgrade to a bigger house. His drones left him alone for the night, standing idle but ready to follow any new orders at a moment’s notice.
He thought back over his day. He was pretty sure he’d changed 70 people today, but he’d gotten so many “already transformed” errors. And try as he might, his head just hurt when he tried to figure out what they had in common that could be causing the error. He was pretty sure every target that had been a failure had been female, though he admitted he may have forgotten if any males had led to that buzz. And not only that, but he had successfully transformed numerous females already, so that couldn’t be the key deciding factor.
The nudists around town seemed to always trigger it, but plenty of people who he couldn’t change were wearing clothes, so that couldn’t quite be it either.
He shook his head. It was almost as if there was some force out there actively preventing him… from… seeing… the connection...
THAT WAS IT!
He thought that simply because he had been clever enough to see through the gun’s perception filter before he stole it in his world, that he’d be able to see through the filter of other items in any other world. That just because he was intelligent enough to decipher the functions of this otherworldly technology, and use it to escape to other universes, out from under the watchful eyes of the gun’s original creators, that he’d surpassed them.
But no, even here, he was still being toyed with.
That’s why he hadn’t seen it before. It wasn’t some flaw brought about by his altering of the gun; the targets he’d chosen had actually been transformed before, presumably by whoever received the mysterious creators’ artifact in this world, and its perception filter was holding him back.
He would need some time to work around this limitation, to find some loophole that let him understand who was changed, and the connections between them. Once he had that, he’d be able to sniff out the one who’d changed them. And since his own gun didn’t have the safety feature to prevent “masters” from being transformed, he could turn this world’s ‘master’ into his own personal servant. And who knows, from there, perhaps his command over this “master” would let him command this world’s changed population as well?
It would be a challenge, certainly, but with all the drones taking care of his every need already, Kent felt he could do with a little challenge in his life.