David stood in the yard of her new house as her family's belongings were brought in. There was a fleet of moving vans as an army of men worked to get every house set up.
The neighborhood was quite large, and would be filled by volunteers at the swap facility. Her eyes glanced over at various neighbors arriving and giving the men directions. It was an awkward feeling knowing she couldn't trust her eyes. While the families appear to be one way, she knew that those appearances were a lie. How many people here were like her, in a completely new body? How many were like her parents, still in their original bodies. None of what she saw could be trusted to be the true nature of the families.
While she surveyed the apear, a girl who appeared her own age, wearing a pink skirt and pigtails walked up to her. The serious look on her face contradicted the playful kitten on her shirt. "Hi, I'm Kyle Wallace, marketing expert." She paused and grimaced. "Former marketing expert. Now I'm a little girl."
"David, former high-school student. I was about to start my senior year actually." She informed her.
Kyle nodded, neither seemed to want to comment on how they both had boys names. "Well, one of the girls is trying to arrange a slumber party. She is going to make the rounds to all of the parents to get girls our age together this weekend. Apparently, Algha'ia was one of the therapist designing the experiments until she resigned to be a participant instead."
"So she arranged for herself to be turned into a child?" David asked.
Kyle shook her head. "No, she says she entered and had a random chance to be placed in any body just like us. Apparently, she was placed with a child to see if has a regression or loss of knowledge for the more complex parts of how the human mind worked."
A shiver ran down my spine. "Scary. My four year old brother is now seventeen and his speaking skills advanced a lot quicker than I thought."
Kyle shrugged. "I guess that doesn't bode well for our skills now that we have undeveloped brains. If anything, I hope it's just how well we comprehend the knowledge and not our memories themselves we lose." Kyle reached for the edge of her skirt only to fine that their were no pockets and sighed. "I wish I could have a smoke. My new parents would freak."
"New parents?" David asked. "I live with my same family."
Kyle shrugged. "Well, I was 37, and didn't live with my parents so I was assigned to my new bodies family. My old body is staying with us and is now my 'uncle'." Kyle did air quotes for uncle. "He apparently will be working at the swap facility while getting schooling."
Imagining suddenly going from kid to working adult, David considered that maybe she didn't receive the worst deal. "So, how many girls will be at the party?" David asked.
"How about I introduce you to them. They are at Algha'ia's house."
David took a moment to tell her dad where she was going and then went off to join the others. There were five girls already there. Kyle pointed at a black girl next to a white girl. "That's Susie and Anna. They swapped with each other." Kyle continued before David could ask which was which.
Next Kyle pointed at a girl with glasses and a red braid. "That's Johnny. Johnny swapped bodies with a girl who was born within three weeks of her original birth. They wanted to see how people would respond to swapping sex but not age. I heard that there were a few swaps like that for high-school and adults."
The girl looked up from a coloring book. "I'm Jenny now." She announced.
"Yeah, the lab wants us to get used to our new names, which means I probably should have introduced myself as Kylie instead of Kyle."
Next up was a brunette girl. "Lydia used to be a high-school student like you." Lydia's face let up hearing that. "Unlike you, she was always a girl." Lydia seemed somewhat disappointed by that. She was probably hoping for someone she could relate to better than the others.
Finally Kylie pointed at a blonde girl. "Then we have our former 60 something Arabic therapist. Algha'ia. Now blonde hair, blue eye, and kid."
The blonde girl approached David. "Please, call me Algie. So, you are?"
"David, former 17 year old boy."
Algie smiled. "Have you picked a new name?"
"My parents left that to me but I can't think of something."
Lydia spoke with a soft voice. "May I suggest...Darby?"
Darby? There was something about the name she liked. She smiled. "Okay, I'll be Darby." Darby hoped things would go well with her new friends.