Josh darted up from the sofa as a bulky man barrelled through the door, stopping short when he saw Josh. "Who the fuck are you?" Josh asked, feeling weirdly invaded in the apartment he only discovered an hour ago. "Eh, who the fuck are you," the man replied, "and what the fuck are you doing in my apartment?" In the following silence, the two men eyed each other up and Josh realised just how similar this stranger looked to his new form. The same dark complexion and dazzling eyes were framed with thick black hair like his, albeit with a thicker beard and a more trimmed hair style. He was wearing worksman trousers and a thick jacket, but Josh could nonetheless he had a muscular build - definitely bulkier than José but maybe on the shorter side - and his strikingly familiar face looked a little more weathered, with a few more lines. But the resemblance was uncanny, they could almost be related.
The man, probably coming to the same realisation, relaxed a bit and dropped his bag to the floor, closing the apartment door behind him. Still staring at Josh, he uttered I'm a gruff voice "it's like looking in a weird circus mirror... Let me guess, you got TaskRaccoon Premium?" Josh nodded as the man approached. "Well, Iets get introductions out of the way - I'm Miguel. I guess I can also go by Michael, but it's Miguel these days." Miguel stretched his hand out and Josh took it, receiving a firm but friendly handshake. "I'm José... Josh! Sorry, I meant to say Josh."
Miguel responded to this with a wry, knowing smile. "So I guess you're new to this then? I wonder what we are to each. We're definitely related. Brothers, maybe cousins? It'll come to us eventually." Miguel grabbed himself a beer from the fridge and pointed to Josh; Josh wordlessly nodded and soon they were both sat on the sofa beers in hand. Josh couldn't get over how natural it all felt. "Are you freaking out?" he asked Miguel. "Why are you freaking out to find some brand new family member in your apartment, drinking you beer. Why aren't I freaking out more?" Miguel chuckled and took a bit swig of his beer. "You really must be new to it. You get used it, somehow. The new life just morphs around you and it all just... makes sense. For example, have you even clocked that we've been speaking Spanish this whole time?" Josh reflected back on their whole conversation and like glass shattering realised that yes, of course they'd been speaking Spanish. Miguel continued in English, José now hearing for the first time his thick accent "or if you want to feel even more messed up, I bet you didn't notice this is now a two bedroom place?" José scanned the apartment, and Miguel was right. The living space was a little bigger, a little busier with stuff. A little tidier even - it wasn't just a one-man bachelor pad anymore but a shared apartment.
José turned back to Miguel as he was taking his jacket off, revealing a tight and sweaty t-shirt underneath that showed off his thick, hairy arms and muscular torso. José could tell that his thick frame wasn't just earned in the gym, but earned by labour. But was that instinct or some new knowledge creeping into his memories? "I'm guess we're roomies now bro" Miguel said, then paused. "Huh. Bro. Brothers it is then."
José stood, panic rising within him. Having to make a conscious effort to speak in English and not slip into Spanish - apparently now his native tongue - he exclaimed "okay, this has been bizarre but now it's too much. The walls around us are literally changing and now we're brothers!? I'm cancelling this Premium bullshit and getting back to my life." He picked up his phone and readied himself to push the "cancellation" button, before finding the phone being yanked out of his hands and Miguel using his superior strength to push him to the sofa.
"Ok, easy there bro. You can go ahead and cancel if you want, but not if you want to be stuck like this." Miguel relaxed and handed José his phone back. "There is no going back to your old life, at least not by cancelling. You cancel, you get stuck in this life, you become José - my brother - for good." José looked at his phone, at the innocuous looking app that had done so much. No way back? "Is that what happened to you?" he asked.
Miguel sighed, sat down, and finished off his beer. "Three months ago, I was some 19 year old guy called Michael who had just moved to the city and needed some cash to pay for rent. I found the TaskRaccoon app and did odd jobs for a while - the usual moving crap, assembling crap, shopping for crap - and getting crap pay to do it. I saw the TaskRaccoon Premium offer and the payday that came with it and I thought, fuck it. It "randomly" gave me "I need someone to help at the construction site." Me! I was 19 year old stick thin twink who had never lifted a hammer in his life, and the app wanted me to go to a construction site? I thought it was some joke. But, I went anyway, and did my shift. A full shift, where I could do everything the other guys could do. And they just accepted me. By the time the shift finished, I look down and saw my the gloves covered these massive, hairy forearms, that I had a thick beard dosed in sweat, and that some of the other guys were joking and chatting with me in Spanish. I wasn't Michael, the young gay twink any more, I was Miguel."
"Wait", José interrupted, "you were gay?" Miguel laughed, "yeah man, gay and proud. But this new body just didn't have that inclination, now I'm straight as an arrow. No idea why, maybe the app thought it would help me get along with the other guys on the crew? Same reason I guess that it made me hispanic - half those guys are. The app - it doesn't just change your body, it changes who you are? Like - I don't know why, but I love the gym now. Not just cause I've got the body for it, "Miguel continued, pausing to flex his impressive biceps, "but I love it. And all that gym time makes me a better worker. I can bench more than anyone on that crew, and I dunno why but that feels really fucking good."
Miguel rose to grab more beers and continued on. "Anyway, that first shift ended but the guys were going for beers, and I felt like I couldn't say no. There was such camraderie I guess? A few drinks later, I checked the app and the timer had past. Identity erased. I completely missed it, and in my drunken stupeor I figured I'd cancel and... well, that was three months ago." Miguel handed José the beer, and José asked "do you remember? Who you were before." Miguel paused, clearly thinking on it. "Yeh, I do remember. But it feels more like the life of someone I watched in a movie or in a book I read, not that I've got much time for reading anymore. The details are there, but... I have to search for them. Going from some lean white twink to a burly straight Latino stud was a trip for sure and it's not all been bad. Hell, most of it is pretty good to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I miss my family and my old friends, but this life has it perks. And now apparently comes with a family of its own."
"Anyway, what job did you sign up to to become you?" José rolled his eyes. "A pool cleaner. This app has a pretty old fashioned view of demographics and jobs in America." Miguel eyed José up "well that explains why it made you a lanky fucker, and not as strong as me", playfully punching José in the arm in a suspiciously brotherly move. "And young too. Going from 19 to a 33 year old who lifts shit 5 days a week was a bit of a fucker to be honest." José looked at Miguel and is hit with a tinge of familiarity. Not just some stranger, but something more. He thinks back to his parents - his parents he only saw an hour or two ago - and they already feel a bit more distant, a bit more opaque.
José looks at his phone again. "So that's it? I'm José for good now." Miguel got up, "I dunno bro. You've not cancelled so you've got options. You can try other jobs, bounce around different lives until you find something closer to home? Or you can stay, and become my brother for real. Let me ask you something, when you think of yourself now, of your name - is it Josh, or José? What feels right?" José realised that even "Josh" felt foreign, felt like someone else. "Anyway, I'm still stinking of the worksite" Miguel continued "so I'm gonna grab a long ass shower. Maybe if you're still here when I'm done we can grab some drinks in town. And if not, best of luck with it bro." They clinked bottles and Miguel headed off, leaving José alone with his thoughts.