You walked back from the kiosk in the otherwise empty lot, toward the car you had arrived in, the letter, the title to the lot and kiosk, and the penlight in your hands. You kinda wanted to test it as soon as you could, just to have the tension of knowing if this is a big prank or not lifted, but at the same time, when you couldn’t go back on what kind of creature you’ll be making, you had to think about it carefully. Toons would fit well in a lot of theme parks, in a way robots might not quite… but on the other hand, robots were cool. On the OTHER other hand, if you WERE to get to the point that you converted every person in the universe into one of your employees, it might be a little lonely being the only sapient flesh and blood creature left, and it’d probably be the only option where you could have a chance of starting a family, if you wanted to, later. But the other side of that was that those you changed could eventually die. Then again, if death was supposed to be a natural part of life like some religions said, would you be denying whoever you changed a chance at the pearly gates or reincarnation, or whatever else came next?
Wait, if you could expand the park beyond the planet, was that implying aliens were real? Would THEY be affected by this thing?
You shook your head, and tried to halt your rushing thoughts. You stepped up to the car door, and got in on the passenger side.
In the driver’s seat was Connor Simmons, your roommate. His face was thin, not-quite-properly shaven, with brown hair. His baggy green eyes glanced up at you over the manga he had been reading while waiting. He was pretty quite most of the time, but he’d been a great organizer; whenever you needed something sorted, whether it was a room, your taxes, or a day-plan, he could find a way to get the most out of whatever you had. Though his own plans to try and move up in the corporate world never seemed to pan out nearly as smooth, to his annoyance. He also happened to share an interest in anthros, a pleasant surprise you’d accidentally found out a few months after he’d moved in.
He’d insisted on coming with you to watch for shady characters after you’d received an email telling you to come here to discuss your park plans. An offer you appreciated both for the concern it showed, and for the fact that you really didn’t like driving around in this city.
“So, did whoever was in that kiosk there tell you what the deal was?” He asked.
“Sort of.” You handed him the letter.
He shook a bit of sleep from his eyes, and looked at the letter. He blinked a couple times, and looked over the first paragraph again.
“Wait… did you seriously?” He looked back to you with a sour expression. “Please, PLEASE tell me you didn’t finally get a meeting with some suits, and just straight up told them you wanted to make a furry-girl-based theme park?”
“Well…”
“These things require tact, man!” He massaged his temples. “I wish you’d told me, I probably coulda written up a sales pitch that was technically completely honest about your vision, while also sounding like everything they wanted to hear.”
“They’d have figured it out eventually.”
“Yeah, maybe, but even then, if you wanted to be honest, you could have considered toning it down a bit. Start small, so they don’t question things, and maybe you can ‘boil the frog’ as the saying goes, (even if it’s not accurate).”
“I thought I could go with something big and crazy, and they’d want to compromise it down to something ‘reasonable.’”
“And how’d that work out for you?”
“... Look, just read the rest of the letter.”
He picked it up again, and read through it, then glanced at the title deed. “Sorry you got dragged out here for some joke. Well, the deed to this place looks legit, at least. Don’t know what we can do with it yet… we’d need a bit more capital to start building anything here. Hope the guy who gave it to you wasn’t wasn’t using it as part of some tax scheme…”
“I kinda want to test it before dismissing it,” you said.
“Seriously?” He raised an eyebrow. “Look, it’d be fun if it was real. But it’s obviously a joke.”
“I don’t see any harm in trying.”
“Well, if the letter’s telling the truth, then it’s as easy as pushing a button. Why don’t you test it on me, and get it over with?” He paused, then muttered in a quieter, more hopeful voice, “You know what my favorite animals are, after all.”
He might make for a good confidant, you mused. “I’m just having trouble choosing. I mean, I only get one shot at picking the general theme, after all.”
“Look, if that thing is capable of all the letter says it is, I don’t think it’ll let any of those options be straight-up inferior.” Connor’s optimistic tone had left again, getting more than a hint of sarcasm. “Just fire, and let your heart decide.”
Let your heart decide, eh? Well, maybe he was right, maybe it couldn’t hurt. The letter did say the device would change things based on your preferences and the target’s, so maybe it’d know what you wanted more than you consciously did.
You lifted up the pen, and let its light shine on Connor.
Within moments, Connor’s shirt vanished, and red scales appeared on his skin starting from the side of his torso where the light had first touched him and spreading from there. Thicker, horizontal scutes in a pale white color appeared over his chest and belly, running up to the underside of his chin.
He looked over himself in surprise. “What the- It WORKS?” His whole torso began to stretch taller and barrel out, his spine was becoming far more flexible if the way he was bending down to look at himself was any indication. His hips widened with a sudden snap, and his pants vanished, though by this point, his torso had been completely converted, and scutes covered anything he… or probably she, now, would have wanted hidden.
SHe hesitantly ran his fingers along the scales on his sides, then the scutes, before they finally made their way down her arms and legs, and soon covered her hands as well. “Holy...this is actually happening.” She gasped at the deep, but feminine tone of her own voice. “It feels so weird… but so natural…”
You noticed his arms and legs all slimming and taking a slight feminine curve. There was also a pair of slow, but steady growths in her chest, gradually rising and rounding out. At the same time, her nails vanished, and curved claws poked through the end of each finger and toe instead. Oddly, while her hands didn’t change shape drastically, her feet seemed to shrink, extra mass seemingly being pressed into making longer toes, the smallest toe shifting to the back of the foot to become a dewclaw.
It vaguely occurs to you that despite growing at least a foot taller, she hasn’t hit her head on the roof of the car yet. At first, you brushed it off as her bending her new, flexible body to accommodate, but as you look around, it seems like the car has changed, as well, the roof getting higher, and holes appearing in the back of each seat, the whole thing becoming a roomier SUV. As you look behind you, you see a thick tail poke out through the whole in the back of her seat, growing longer and longer by the second, stopping only when it nearly reaches the length of the rest of her body. She looks back at it in surprise as well, her still-mostly human face grinning as she flexes it and slides it about the floor in the rear of the vehicle.
Her face twitched slightly. “Oh, here it comes!” She adjusted the rear view mirror to look at her face, as her jaws began to quickly expand, into a large snout with flaring nostrils, her teeth all becoming wider and sharper. Her ears became slightly longer, with rounded tips, like those of a dear. Two bony nubs popped out the back of her head, then quickly jutted out into horns that split and branched midway up, like antlers. Finally, her hair grew thicker and longer, turning pure white. A pair of white whiskers grew from the sides of her snout, while the mane that her hair had become trailed down her spine, all the way to a large tuft on the tip of her tail.
The new eastern dragon grinned down at you with a wide, fanged smile. “This. Is. AWESOME!” She bent over and hugged you. “You wouldn’t need any of the letter’s fancy loyalty stuff to get me to go along with your plans after a result like this!”
“You’re taking the ‘being turned into a woman’ part of this pretty well.” You noted when the hug ended.
“Well, if you want to reach your dreams, there are some prices worth paying.” She glanced in the mirror again. “Besides, I look absolutely majestic, now.” She paused and stroked her chin. “Though, if I knew this would actually work I would have suggested you go with robots for practical reasons, but we can still work with this.”
She looked down, and saw a belt around her waist, with pouches for her wallet, car keys, and other items. Curiously, she reached in and pulled up her wallet, opening it up.
“Hah, handy!” She held it down to let you see what she was talking about: the driver’s license now showed a picture of her new body, her sex was listed as “F” and her name was listed as “Connie Simmons.” “Looks like this system takes care of all the paperwork for us too.” She looked around. “Not to mention the car…”
However, you noticed something a little off in one of the other pictures, a family photo from when Connor was a kid, that still displayed him as a human male.
“Wait, why didn’t that one change too?” You ask, pointing at the photo.
“If I dyed my mane green, do you think all my old pictures of me would change to reflect that,” she said almost too quick and dismissively. She shook her head, and blinked a few times. “I guess it’s just changing whatever we need to get by to better fit our new selves, and keeping everyone from thinking too hard about it, rather than altering history, or something.”
You smile. “Well, if this really works, we’re finally gonna do it! We’re gonna make our own theme park!”
“Speaking of,” Connie said, glancing out the window. “It looks like some of it’s underway already.”
Turning, you see that where the kiosk had been was now a small brick “Welcome Center” building, with a sign noting it was closed during construction.
Well, time to get started.