Casper recited as the ring 'spoke' to him again this time unbidden.
"Should a person who has sired children be transformed in such a way that their gender is changed, then those spouse or mates will transform into a Synthetic as well, switching genders as well."
"Well, that could make things interesting really fast." Ashley said, herself sound a tiny bit intimidated, when in her own way she was normally more excited at the ring's use than Casper.
Casper realized that if the ring was used on someone who had . . . really gotten around . . . that the results would be a cascades. After all, if a woman had had children by two different men in her life, this would mean BOTH men would need to change in order to balance out the needed number of parents. But at the same time that would change the genetics of whoever had been the children of those people he transformed, changing who had been related to who, and whose family name they had inherited! (He also realized he had never asked Ashley for her surname and she had never asked for his). He could accidentally rewrite entire family trees!!!
"Okay. I am going to have be very careful with that 'option'." He also doubted (or least hoped so) that the ring wouldn't let him regress a person who had had children to before child bearing age, or their children would logical not exist, or at least not being born until their parent REACHED child bearing age again.
Not to mention the opposite, aging a child past the age of their own parent would logically age their parent as well, though something in Casper seriously doubted the rubber anthros aged quite like that anymore.
For the first time. Casper honestly felt a little SCARED of the ring. He wasn't going to give up his 'quest.' But now he felt a little intimidated by it. If the ring had other features, he felt like he REALLY didn't want to know them, least he got power mad or something. (He was technically transforming the human race without their consent or knowledge, so maybe he was power mad from the start, but still . . .).
If he could say turn a prostitute into an rubber actress, what was to keep him from turning a police officer giving him a ticket into a rubber street walker? Ugh! Maybe it was best he DIDN'T test out that sort of thing after all.
Maybe it was also for the better if he didn't try to revise people after changing them the first time to fit into the new world Casper was creating, maybe just for the sake of consistency, and for the sake of his sanity.
At least he had Ashley with him, it made this entire business a little less . . . well, 'lonely.' She made good company if nothing else.
The bulge itself he saw on the male rubber anthros itself, Casper thought, seemed to be just that, a bulge, with no real reproductive purpose, from a mathematical standpoint no different than the breasts on the lady anthros, like its only REAL purpose was just to show that this rubber anthro was to be considered 'male.' Casper had the odd mental image of creating a rubber anthro that had neither, effectively creating one who didn't have a gender, hopefully the ring had safety featured to halt that sort of thing least he wipe out children from existence.
A dreaded thought appeared in Casper's head. What if he accidentally used this ring on a woman who was PREGNANT!? That one sent a shiver down his spine. He didn't know if the rubber creatures could reproduce like that since their sexual traits seemed to be mostly for show. The idea of ending a random innocent life without even realizing it made him sweat a little.
"You okay Casper?"
"Just thinking about how easy it is to screw up with this ring. I'm REALLY hoping the wizard installed some safety features in this thing." Who was he kidding? Mysterious wizards who owned magic shops NEVER included safety features for their buyers, he remembered what had happened to Lana and Tommy, or rather what they had told him. The wizard likely sat back and laughed at their mistake, just as Casper suspected the wizard would laugh at any mistakes Casper made.
"Well, you haven't seemed to have screwed up so far. The universe hadn't exploded, and you aren't turning people into your personal love doll harem."
"Thanks Ashley."
"Welcome."
"You know . . . when I changed the coach, his son became the same 'species' as rubber anthro as him . . . but when I changed two children into a monkey and a cat (it was to save her life), their parents stayed human, and the ring didn't have any trouble with me changing into rubber kangaroos."
"Hmmm." Ashley thought. "Maybe it has to do with how Synthetics are born, made, created, engineered, whatever?"
"Any help in that department?" I asked.
"Sorry no. It's not like YOU Have any child on how you were born. You could likely solve this by going to a hospital and changing a woman giving birth."
"Uh. I'd rather NOT try that. Thank you very much!"
"Just a suggestion." Ashley shrugged. "You know it's funny, I almost feel like . . . well, like the whole WORLD is in flux, ya know, in a transitional stage. Like some ground rules haven't been set yet. Ya know Casper, if you DID manage to somehow turn everyone in the world into Synthetics . . . would they still be anything special?"
"I think I'll die of old age before I get that far."
"Maybe not if you become a Synthetic yourself, I'm not sure if we die from old age or not yet." Ashley admitted.
"You don't have memories of that sort of thing?"
"No. LIke I said, I REMEMBER things, and they're internally consistent, don't worry about that, but like I said, I feel like there ARE details that haven't been filled in quite yet. Like the more people we fix-up into Synthetics, the more the world fills in the rules for them."
Casper knew he was shooting himself in the foot maybe, but he felt like the grim realizing he had had, that he wanted to know. "Ashley, do you wonder what it's like to taste a good hamburger or milkshake, or cereal, or pizza, or pasta?"
"Well, I doubt plastic, rubber, foam, etceteras, would taste all that good to YOU until you fix yourself up. I enjoy the taste of those things, so I figure it's an even trade."
Casper nodded.
It wasn't ceasing to amaze him how calmly accepting even after being told the truth that Ashley was at being, and see others being turned into glorified balloons. But what Ashley said made Casper wonder if from her point of view, humans could have been considered glorified monkeys. It would be fitting with everything he had seen so far.
Casper realized that even though he had the POWER to change people's ages and genders around, he was beginning to have a new appreciation for how CONNECTED everything in the world was. He decided that like changing multiple people at once, he was REALLY going to have to show digression with it unless the situation called for it. While he KNEW he was aiming to basically rewrite society and humanity, he didn't want those he changed to completely lose what they had been.
Then again, the Blonski certainly looked as happy as ever, maybe even more so.
"Mama! Mama!" Came a happy voice.
Ashley and Casper saw them first. A three rubber anthros running up to the female rainbow zebra, and the purple and silver spotted leopard man.
One tripped, skidded on their knees and face, giggled and got up without a mark on her, and caught up with the other two.
Without hesitation or reserve the rainbow zebra knelt down and scooped them up into her arms, hugging them against her breasts.
"Oh little ones, don't fall so behind next time, your father and I were beginning to worry." The rainbow zebra said motherly.
"Sorry Mama," said the one who had spoken before.
The youngest one looked like they were only recently out of diapers (if such a thing could even apply to rubber anthros). The oldest couldn't be more than seven at most.
Then again, Ashley DID SAY that she now remembered going to classes with them, so that made sense.
The one boy was a zebra like his mother, but his rainbow pattern was inverted, red on top, and changing as it went down, and stopped at his shinny hooves as they began to turn yellow. Maybe more colors would come in as he got 'older.'
The other two were girls and were inflated leopards like their father. The older had gold marks rather than silver, but the younger took more after her father. They they were both also slightly different shades of purple from their father. They had their mother's eye color.
They swung their tails happily as they returned their mother's hug, their barcoded butts visible for all to see, using the same contrast to make them visible as their parents had. The sound of inflated rubber against inflated rubber clear and audible. The little sister actually pushed her big sister's ears into her big sister's air filled head which got her a playful swap away, and both giggled.
Since they didn't have lungs, and clearly weren't deflating air as they spoke, this made Casper think again that the rubber anthros, did seem to have some inherent magic in themselves.
The zebra put her children down. She took the hands of the two purple leopard girls, while the leopard took the hand of the little zebra boy (who had his mother's eye's eye color). They happily walked down the street, waving at Casper as they passed, who remembered to politely wave back.
Casper remembered with relief that their children hadn't married in the old reality. But now, any friends they had made, they hadn't made, any lives they had effected, they hadn't now, now they would make NEW friends, and affect NEW lives as they lived.
'Each reality is as legitimate as the one before or after.' The thought popped into Casper's head unbidden. They were happy, and they had a future, and it would be the future they made for themselves as much as the old one had been.
The family of naked rubber animal people walked down the street, just another day of their lives. Casper spotted another of the otter boys with their parents working in their front yard. Another moment, and the two naked adult rubber otters helped their sun trim up the yard, the sharp branches and cuttings not even leaving marks as they worked.
He asked Ashley. "Still no memories on where little rubber anthros come from? Whether you're born from your parents, made in a factory (would explain the numbered barcodes), grow up naturally, or are frozen at the age you're 'born' at unless you eat up to increase your mass?"
"Sorry. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. I've got nothin'," Ashley said apologetically. "Hey, if reality changes with the ring's power, does that mean if we went back in time, we'd see myself as a little baby Synthetic?"
"THAT . . . is a good question. Have a time machine by chance?"
"No. And pretty sure no one in the world does."
"Maybe for the better. Things are complicated enough."
"Thanks by the way."
"For what?"
"For when you created us, for not making us some happy little zombie slave race."
Hopefully THAT would NOT change as there got to be enough of Ashley's kind to support a work force. "You're welcome. Just warn me if I accidentally make a twenty year old, a five year old, who had been a witness in putting away a psychopath ten years ago."
"Don't worry, I'll warn ya if any of my memories change to something like that! Enough doom and gloom, you're still human, so hungry?"