After breakfast, Kent tried (and failed) to alter the gun’s programming to make the editing patch compatible again (only really succeeding in making the “target’s favorite” option work again, which he only cared about in as much as he didn’t have to manually pick a species). When that failed, he considered trying to repair the cross-universe jumper he’d built to arrive in this world, to simply find another world, one the makers of these transforming devices hadn’t already dug their claws into. Unfortunately, several key elements that had been destroyed during the jump to this world were far more difficult to locate, ironically due to the lack of the creatures the gun had been designed to make before he had modified it.
The loyal genie servants it originally produced, while not “phenomenally” or “cosmically” powerful, had been able to produce a number of materials and energy sources not native to earth. Kent briefly considered altering a human in this world into one of those genies, but he’d read far too many stories about them twisting their owner’s words to trust making one, no matter how “loyal.”
No, it looked like the only way he’d be safe was to find the owner of this world’s gun, and change him before it could be used against him.
Kent looked out to see the mailman driving by. It would be so much better for the world if such banal jobs were taken over by automatons, right? (Never mind such banal jobs were how the unskilled got work environment experience).
After Vicky Hunt had quit her job at the post-office, Jeffrey Todds had been asked to fill her position. He drove along, without any big packages to hand deliver today, he was in the routine of manually delivering the mail. Ugh! A part of him wished for some kind of release from this drudgery.
But of course Jeffrey Todds wasn't treated as a person. Because he wasn't one. Jeffrey was an object. Jeff was property. J was created to serve whatever purpose his Owner or Renter wished of him. It wasn't a slave, you needed to have free-will to have it oppressed. Drone #00072 didn't wear clothing. Instead it had the word 'post office' engraved on one arm, and its body was pale blue. Its hands and feet giving the impression of paws, with a tail (a hole existed in the seat for it) that curled slightly, with a round long muzzle ending with a little coal shape 'nose', with a pair of long ears that reached down the side of its head. Drone #00072 didn't have any openings on its rear, no belly button, and it most certainly didn't have anything as wasteful as anything between its legs. Its mouth didn't lead its insides, it didn't need to eat or sleep.
It wasn't distracted by things like feelings, or individual desires. It didn't feel joy for its purpose, and why should it need to? If Drone #00072 could feel pride, or perhaps something that, in a person, might have been arrogance, it would have been beaming with hubris, knowing the maids were obviously inherently inferior to it. Even the doll maids BEFORE they’d been cursed with individuality and personal desires, were still distracted by things like joy at a job well done, pleasure at a purpose well served, or pride at serving a worthy Master. Drone #00072, if asked, would say it was an inherently superior servant to these maids. It was so obviously the better choice. The drone didn't love Owner, why should it need to? Owner was Owner, to be obeyed above all else. Drone #00072 was free of all distractions, its purpose pure. It did not consider the other latex drones its 'family' only instruments like itself to carry out Owner's orders, and what those orders were, were of no concern to Drone #00072, only that it carry them out.
Kent looked on satisfied as the blue beagle latex drone carried out the exact same purpose as before, except now without bathroom breaks or slacking on the job.
+++++++
Kent saw a snake woman with blue scales and gradient wings, wearing a silver cross. Even Kent had to admit she had a beautiful poise about her. But that came crashing down when Kent saw that she was giving out religious pamphlets to any who'd waste their time with them. Kent snorted in disgust. He hadn’t cared for any supposed ‘gods’ before, and after discovering this gun, and considered the implications of its existence, he was certain that if there were gods, that they only saw mortals as toys at best. Supposedly creating life and instilling it with free will and all sorts of desires, only to demand that life not act on those desires? Sadists. At least when HE rendered a person a puppet, he had the decency to strip them of any conflicting thoughts or emotions. HIS creations would be incapable of suffering.
'If she wants to not think for herself then I can help her with that!' Kent took aim with the ray gun and pulled the trigger... ONLY TO GET THAT DAMN BUZZING NOISE AGAIN! Agh! Well, she was (almost) a nudist, and so far he hadn't been able to change any, so maybe he should have expected that. So instead he had some fun by zapping the people she tried to give the pamphlets to, he was obviously sparing them having to read that tripe! So he zapped everyone who reached for one.
A middle aged woman who became an orange red lemur. A teenage boy became a dark magenta turtle. Followed by a mother with her twins grade school daughters and the toddler she had in her arms... The children all grew until they were the same height as their mother, having the same build and figure, the twins becoming a pair of identical gray burros. The mother becoming a dark violet newt, and the toddler, as she grew, became a turquoise opossum (the color of her crib and her favorite stuffed animal). Their clothing vanishing into nothing. They didn't so much as look at each other as they stood by their owner.
And finally a young good looking man that Angelica thought was cute (and he thought she was pretty looking too) was turned into a dark golden-rod colored ram.
But already Kent grew tired of his game and moved on.
Angelica didn't offer the Good News to the latex drones as they passed by, even though she had been told that explaining your faith to one was actually good practicing to understanding your own beliefs. 'Explain them to the wall' as the saying went. But Angelica understood it would be like trying to convert a toaster. Faith simply didn't exist inside their context from what she gathered... And though Angelica knew it was silly, all her life she'd felt something was... 'wrong' about them, not the 'they're scary mommy' sort of way, but more like... like they were 'walking holes' if that made any sense.
"Would you like a pamphlet sir?" She asked the man who had been watching her for a while now. The man smiled, and gave her a vulgar gesture, and walked off. Angelica didn't let him see her react, she'd learned to endure such bullying (she'd say jackassery, but she didn't want to insult Danielle).
+++
Lorianne was a cute 20 year old nudist raccoon maid, working at a local convenience store (once a big name chain store, before reality alterations had made it locally owned) part time as she went through college. But, even between the job and college, she still knew her true Master would always be Master. She was annoyed at having to wear a shirt and apron while on the job, but a proper maid didn't complain about such things.
She’d recently met a new coworker, Rhett. He was polite, helpful, hardworking, not to mention good-looking. Lorianne thought it was too bad Master didn't enjoy butlers, Rhett would have made an excellent one, in her opinion. And he'd always show up early to work whenever it was her shift, and work overtime when she was present too. He was also one of the few males on the planet who admitted to liking romantic comedies!
Lorianne loved Master and her fellow maids like family, but she was beginning to feel, somehow, a bit more complete when Rhett was around. Though she did think he could do more for himself than work here, she was fine with her job (though she'd recently been promoted not once, but twice), as a proper maid should be, but he could clearly do more for himself!
A middle aged man stepped into the store. "Hello Sir, how may I serve you?" She bowed, no matter the job, she was a maid first and foremost!
He looked at her in annoyance and agitation, then he look besides her at ... at the male raccoon latex drone besides her, its cherry brown hue matching her fur.
Still ignoring her, the middle age man said, "Everything on this list," he handed it the drone, who silently obeyed.
Lorianne didn't know why her chest was clenching, was she having a heart attack? At her age? The customer just continued to ignore her as the drone did its job, giving the man a special discount of some kind, but Lorianne didn't pay attention, and felt ashamed at herself as a maid for not being able to focus. She clenched her paws. She was a maid. She had a duty. A responsibility to do her best for Master. She looked at the drone, wishing at least it could hold a friendly chat.
+++
“I guess I’d try to make music,”
That had been Wilma's answer to Master.
Since her current form was a product of Myra's magic rather than the reality distortion of the ray gun, people were aware she had not always been as she was (even if they didn’t know it was the second time she’d been changed). People KNEW she hadn't always been a living plastic doll in the shape of a chubby blue wolf, wearing a cyan colored maid uniform. They DID KNOW what she HAD BEEN:
A white Fox Girl with a busty figure and a standard maid uniform (#242). She'd known what her purpose in life was as far back she could remember, she was a maid, no distractions, no questions, no doubts, no fears, nothing existed outside of her wonderful purpose to be a prim and proper maid for Master. Then Head Maid Skyla’s grandmother, the trickster goddess Myra, had granted their wish with a trick, and changed everything. And it was all made worse by Silvey cursing them with her selfish addition to the wish; for them to be 'different, like everyone else is,' while at the same time, being freed freed from the distraction of needing to eat, sleep, and use the bathroom.
Now she was thinking, living, feeling hollow plastic, her parents were shocked at the change, but more shocked at her being cursed and robbed of what, for them, had been her normal and healthy personality of an utterly devoted and unquestioning domestic servant. Many were now wary of, or angry at, the trickster goddess, but she was so powerful, and with such an alien sense of 'right and wrong', that it was a waste and a risk to be angry with her. That left Silvey as the only remaining scapegoat, the 'nail that had stood out' among the academy maids’ perfect sense of order and calm. It was her selfish wish that had caused this mess.
But Master had ordered them that if they couldn't forgive Silvey, to at least not make her life worse. She was suffering enough, Master had said. And Wilma was still a maid dammit, no matter how much she blamed Silvey, she’d never disappoint Master!
Wilma had plenty of time to learn music, at least. And if she learned to play something Master could enjoy, too, all the better.
Braelyn, another former Blank Maid, meanwhile, had begun to try and socialize with the other estate maids, true to her words to Master that night: [i]“I’d try to become friends with some of the maids I’ve worked with at the mansion,”[/i]
And Jaana, now a petite blue jay doll, had been asking Angelica for help in finding charity work. They had more time to help than ever before after all.
These were her personal pursuits, so Wilma didn't ask for Master for money for buying instruments, though she could have simply practiced in the music room. Still, while the Academy had always provided everything she needed, Head Maid Skyla had set up an allowance for them to pursue their interests. As she walked home, Wilma passed a middle aged man who didn't give the music store a second look. And she saw his entourage of latex drones.
For some odd reason, Wilma felt MORE uncomfortable around them, where before as an academy maid, she'd never given them a second thought, anymore than Sasha's hair clip. Now however, these automatons that should have been closer to her original ideals than the flesh and blood maids... felt WRONG somehow. She should have envied them, such purity in devotion to their purpose... but... they didn't love anyone, including their Owner. For Wilma, something about that made everything the drones did feel... pointless.
+++++
Susan enjoyed her job as a bus driver, believe it or not. She knew it was what Master wished her to be doing, and she got to see interesting people. She honestly didn't mind the looks she got. Everyone knew that no matter what job she was at, she was one of Master's maids, and that gave her an aura of protection like no other. It was common knowledge how much Master cared for his maids. She could charm most into behaving. She remembered the bus driver from the famous animated movie, with all his feelings being angry ones. She could definitely see how that could have turned out. But she had Master, Kitty, Glenda, Vicky, Suzie, and Sharon, and the rest of the Sisterhood, she was stronger than that.
The nearly full bus had the regular level of noise, but nothing she couldn't handle, including a mother listening to her son crying about not getting that video game because he'd gotten an F on his report card, and an old woman carrying her cat in a pet carrier.
She occasionally made up silly stories in her head about these people she didn't know. Maybe a bit mean, but fun.
The bus came to a stop, where a middle aged man had been waiting. Unlike most men who turned into putty at the mere sight of her, this one looked actually agitated at the sight of her! Susan didn't know if she should have felt surprise or insulted. He had a couple rental drones with him. While Susan appreciated that the drones weren't expected to wear clothing anymore than she was, she found their figures... well, BORING! And it wasn't just due to her being a bomb shell. She knew Skyla, being Head Maid, was utterly in love with order, but Susan wasn't Skyla, their bodies all looked so plain to her.
The passenger seemed even more annoyed at how he had to pay. He got on the bus, he seemed incredibly agitated at all the noise and -- he took his seat, all of his of the drones sitting down next to the others that had already been on the bus, including a feline drone carrying a pet carrier with utter indifference (though she knew these drones would have treated anything, from a sack of potatoes an atomic bomb, with similar indifference) and a green male dragon drone next to a female pink swan drone, neither giving the other so much as a glance.
The owner of the drones looked rather satisfied at the total silence on the bus. Susan wondered when her bus driving had become a product transport service.
++++
Ashley and Misty were at the park, volunteering with a local program for mentally disabled adults. The two figured that since, only a few months ago, they would have been attending these events as the recipients, it was only fair that they help out in any way they could.
Plus, it was always a nice excuse to see their old friends again. Like Christopher, who had gone to school with them. He hadn’t been as into video games as they had been, but he’d always been incredibly friendly, and listened to whatever they had to say. He, meanwhile, had always had a love for animals, eagerly playing with the pets of any people he visited, always ready to go outdoors to watch the birds or squirrels, to say nothing of trips to the zoo.
For the moment, he was busy playing with some of the therapy dogs, smiling as they ran around after the sticks he threw. One of the sticks landed in front of a middle-aged man, who scoffed and shook his head.
He tossed the stick aside as the group of latex drones that had congregated in the park, one of them being yellow, and golden retriever shaped. It dropped the stick it had never had a reason to pick up, and marched toward its owner, ignoring any creature around it.
Ashley sighed as she tugged on the leashes of several dogs she and Misty had been hired to walk. It was too bad that the city, even with Curt’s financial pushes, was so neglectful of the diabled population. Sure, they said it was smaller than average, (which had sounded so wrong to her; she KNEW she had been in a class full of them when she was younger, even she couldn’t for the life of her recall any of their faces or names,) but that didn’t mean they didn’t need any help.
Misty sighed as well. Both got the feeling that something precious had been taken from them, but they simply couldn’t place what it was.
+++
These three girls would have NEVER become friends if not for the ray gun.
Patricia Lola Winthrope was nine years old and came from a well off family, (even after she, her mother, and and would have never interacted with these two girls. She'd loved all her pretty dresses, and had wanted a pony. But thanks to Master, she now WAS the pony, wearing saddles and other pretty things, and she enjoyed having her black fur combed. It matched the black wolf maid her mother had become. Though it ended up contrasting with her older sister, after she’d become a gold and silver western dragon, (who was apparently too good to wear dresses or something,) and was now cuter than her! (Not fair!) The fact that she’d seen her sister change right in front of her when seemingly nobody else had had made her feel a little lonely, and was part of what led her to the other two members of their trio.
Kelly came from a suburban family, wore a pretty red dress (despite going bare foot), and was a koala. Her transformation had become an unwitting birthday present. She was a few months younger than Patricia. Her mother was now a snow white fox with a big chest, wearing the standard, but beautiful black maid uniform, who took her job as a maid super seriously. Molly had taken to repeating her mother's oath (as children will), "I exist only to serve my Master, I am a loyal, perfect, koala maid. I will do whatever I am asked. I am ready to serve forevermore."
Molly's was the youngest of the trio, and her family owned a shop next to the beach, who had made up most of her small social circle, before she’d met Patricia and Kelly. Her father was a nudist cat man, and her mother a humpback whale maid, who managed to be the cutest whale woman ever! Molly herself was a Hippocampus, or a 'mermaid' as she continued to call herself. She had white and pink fur on her horse half, with similar pattern on her scaled half, pretty blonde mane, and a mermaid-style fin in place of legs. But she could travel as easily as anyone else by riding a ball of water made with her own newly discovered hydrokinesis.
The girls hadn't gone to the same school before, but with the estate expanding, having by this point become its own miniature gated community (469 was still an insanely small population number outside of anything other than the middle ages), more and more families were assimilating into it, with its own self-supporting community in the works as the Estate grew with each convert, a school for the young maids wouldn’t likely be too far off.
For now however, they were on a field trip to an aquarium around 30 miles from the seaside city itself and far away indeed from the maid district.
The girls wished Master had let them transform their classmates, because 1) boys were icky, 2) they would definitely be happier with an upgrade into a cuter species, 3) they could ALL be friends, and 4) The estate could always use more helpers right?
The trip to the aquarium had gone amazingly without a hitch, well, mostly. Molly had more than one wanted to get closer to the creatures in the tanks, but the teachers had stopped her each time. Also, the girls, be junior maids and proud of it, had wanted to help clean up whenever they saw a mess, but their teacher had explained it was better to let the aquarium staff do it, it was their job after all. While Patricia had wanted to run around the hallways, and buy lots of playthings while she was at it, and Kelly had wanted to climb everything, their teachers had made clear that wouldn't be polite, and the junior maids weren't about to disappoint Master or their all-mighty, all-powerful, all-seeing Mothers.
The girls were hardly the only junior maids there, but since they remembered the old world, they didn't remember the new one, so they were left confused when other junior maids acted around them like they were old friends, but went along with it anyway. This might be why they had to be told too behave more than the junior maids who had had it as their life goal as far as they could remember (well, that and being a princess-ballerina, and president of the United States).
There was however, a girl around Molly's age, a little pudgy, with long black pigtails, wearing a pig red heart shirt and blue dress and button nose.
"YOU GIRLS ARE SO COOL!" She told them after seeing their stunts. "I wish I had could have super powers like you!"
The three looked at each other, three independent minds but with a single thought.
"Really? You sure that's what you'd want?" Patricia said barely able to hold back a grin.
"You bet!" Dolly nodded eagerly.
"Well, if you wanted to help at Mr. Everson's house like we do, maybe you can get superpowers," Patiricia said.
"Really?!"
"Yes really!" Kelly said. "I got superpowers for my birthday!"
"My birthday is next month!" Dolly exclaimed.
"Well maybe we can have a little extra early," Patricia said.
"So would you wanna swim under the sea like me?"
"Or run really fast like me?"
"Or climb stuff like me?"
"ALL OF THEM!" Dolly said excited.
Kelly said, "I think that's called a kai-mer-rah..."
"Well, I'm sure it would be really fun to be one!" Dolly declared.
"Okay! When we get back, we'll see about getting you superpowers!" Molly declared.
"Yippie!"
"But you gotta keep it a secret!" Kelly said whispered.
"Oh! Okay!" Dolly nodded.
The bus trip back was full of tense excitement for the trio. They weren't quite sure what Dolly would become, but they knew it would be super cool! And she seemed like fun! The trio began discussing on introducing Dolly to their families (not realizing she'd retroactive be part of the sisterhood anyway).
Finally, in the afternoon, the bus came to a stop, with some parents already arriving to pick up their children. None paid attention to the middle aged man and his entourage of latex drones. Even fewer noticed the plastic toy ray gun he took out, and used to add to his collection.
Patricia, Kelly, and Molly, were happy to have gone to the aquarium, but didn't understand why they, and a few other Jr. maids, had to share the bus with dozens of latex dolls,(It was even being driven by one), and even being expected to obey the drones’ orders while they were on the trip! ... Seeing all those silent grown-up dolls sitting in their place, not speaking, moving... They were nice looking, but Patricia thought they were all way too plain. She wished whoever made them wasn't so cheap! Otherwise she might have asked (demanded) her mother rent her some to help clean her room
The latex drones didn't so much as look at the girls as they got off the bus. The girls wondered what the point of that had been. The drones had worked for a while at the aquarium right? So they were rented for one day or something?
The most unusual of the adult sized latex dolls was a purple female one that was a hybrid between an Alpine Ibex, a cheetah, and a dolphin. It had been sitting next to the girls. It marched along with the rest without even looking back at them.
The trio felt dizzy and confused, like they'd had all these plans for the afternoon and beyond... and suddenly forgotten all of them.
Kent looked at his newest drones, each one as hollow and obedient as the next. He was kinda reminded of a cosmic super-villain who sought a mathematical formula that proved everything was meaningless, turning any who heard it into their empty minion. Of course, these weren't people, and as far as reality itself was concerned, they'd never BEEN people. You can't enslave something that never existed.
Kent looked at a purple female who looked like a crazy mix of multiple animals. On a whim he said, "You!" He pointed. "Stay with me unless I order otherwise."
"Yes Owner," The purple chimera drone said