"I noticed you missed a few humans both at the beach and at the theater." Ashley pushed her rubber scaly lips together.
"I guess they either didn't have a favorite animal, or their favorite animal was outside the kind that the ring can create."
"So why didn't you just pick one for them?"
"Because . . . it felt like cheating."
Ashley nearly threw her hands up. "But we're improving people aren't we? You said that's part of why you're doing this! Make everyone be just a tiny bit nicer! You're denying then that just because their favorite animal happens to be a jellyfish?"
"Ashley . . . you aren't prejudice against humans are you?"
"Whatever gave you THAT idea?! You've known for me years now Casper! I'm just saying that if you consider this change a gift, why deny it to people?"
"I'm not denying. Remember what you said? Variety was the spice of life?"
" . . . I did say that didn't I? . . . I guess I just feel in love with the idea of a city of just Synthetics."
" . . . Was it that you fell in love with?"
"Not in my memories. And I like YOU Casper, I just also like the VISION you had. Don't start having second thoughts and let yourself be all restrained NOW! Not when we're so close."
"Ashley, don't worry, I'm going to see this through to the end, don't worry."
Casper thought of the couple making out in the movie theater. He had really imagined the Synthetics as better than that, not slaves to their baser impulses, and able to always make the right choice and to always act civilized to one another.
Maybe an ideal world would always remain that, an ideal.
-MEANWHILE IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE-
"By unanimous consent, I herby declare world peace!" Shouted a little girl in a white dress with wings and a halo.
Hugs and kisses had proven stronger than bullets and atomic bombs.
Little cherubs of every race and ethnic group cheered.
"All international conflicts will now be settled with a game of tiddlywinks!" She added, adding to even more cheer.
-BACK IN CASPER's UNIVERSE-
Caser was VERY surprised the rubber mole girl kept her glasses .. . it didn't suit the world he hoped for at all . . . hopefully they'd become something she wore just for appearances.
He shotted a young lad in a wheelchair with a women behind him pushing coming out of one of the other threaters. Casper didn't even hesitate. The wheel chair simply vanished along with the woman and lad's clothes.
The lad became bright blue, standing on his own two legs. His body hollowed and became air. His skin was rubber. Mold lines formed around his body. The nozzle formed from his belly button. And the space between his legs now contained only an shapeless bulge. His rear having no opening, but a barcode clearly visible. His hands and feet shifted into dark blue claws, like his rubber skin became like down almost, and his arms stretched into 'feathery' rubbery wings. He turned baled and his nipples were no more and his ears followed suit. His face pushed into a dark blue beak. A set of tail feathers grew from his rear and his belly became white rubber down.
He took off the moment the transformation was finished, flying and doing loop-de-loops in the air, maybe some part of him remembering being trapped and a prisoner through no fault of his own.
The woman who was with him, changed similarly, but light blue where he was dark blue, and white where he was light blue. If anything her breasts actually got much SMALLER than they had been before, and between her legs was just flat smooth rubber. She flew after him, her barcode showing underneath her tale feathers.
Their rubber wings flapping in the night air.
426.
Casper wondered if they'd taken a wrong turn or ended up in the bad part of the neighborhood, because he saw a police officer talking with a woman whose profession was not of the homely sort.
Casper used his ring, and there were now five Synthetics on the city's police force. A husky girl, a horse, a wolf, a cougar, and now a fox sage. Like his fellows he was blue, had 'police' on his back, and his nozzle had a plastic patch over it.
The woman meanwhile . . . seemed to de-age ten or twenty years, she had so much make-up on it was hard to tell. Her body became a wild dazzling mix of eye-catching sparkling colors as her clothes vanished. Her clawed feet taking on the hues of the sunset, and the rest of her body became different shades of greens and blues mixing together. Her tail was huge, like a giant fan, matching the one on her head. She was a peacock. Her breasts of course would get bigger. Her cigarette vanished.
For less than a nano second, he saw something connected to her nozzle, like an extension meant so she could intake multiple partners at once . . . but then it vanished out of existence. Then she seemed to blur herself. Like reality itself wasn't done.
She seemed to walk away at high speed like a video tape being sped up as she blurred.
"That woman . . ." Ashley gasped. "She's . . . she's a teacher aid in one of my classes now."
The ring fed him the information. "As a Synthetic . . . her cost of living was lower . . . and she ended up having more self respect . . . she didn't give up on herself . . . "
430.
Wait.
"Does she have any children?" Casper asked.
"Yes. Two of them. They're peacocks like her, a girl and a boy. Her husband is human. But . . . whao. I'm pretty sure they DIDN'T exist before!"
"Maybe they did . . . but weren't given a chance . . . " Casper thought.
The deep navy blue fox sage cop tip his hat to them.
" . . . So . . Wanna get a bite to eat?"
"Not really hungry at all. But if it's with you, I don't mind."
"Me or the ring?"
Ashley lowered her head. "Sorry."
The two went into the nearest fast food place.
The register didn't have a scanner for Synthetics, but Casper figured he had a way that would change that.
A second later the server lass was a pink rubber mouse only wearing her shirt and name tag. The lad working the other register became a pink poodle girl.
432.
The couple ordered a box of Styrofoam puff balls to split between them.
Casper saw two young ladies in the next booth over, debating the merits of classical verses electronic music. The debate didn't change or stop in the least, even when the basket of fries became a box of stripped squishy foam blocks.
Casper was actually surprised a bit both became naked rubber horse people.
He guessed given the status of popular culture, he shouldn't have been TOO surprised. He was honestly surprised he hadn't seen more turtles yet.
One became white with a dark and light blue mane, still wearing her colored sunglasses. And the other became gray with a black mane and had the same collar and bow tie she had been wearing before.
The gray rubber pony girl took some more 'fries' from the box between them.
"Don't put so many away, you'll get fat." Her white and blue friend teased.
The other girl shrugged.
434.
"Casper . . . sorry, it's just . . . this is the most exciting and new things that's ever happened to me. Having humans left over just makes it feel . . . a job half done . . . incomplete."
He knew the ring would agree with her, but that was because the ring had a vested in interest in growing and maturing the more he used it.
"I set up a rule. And if the animal they like doesn't match with what the ring can give them, or they don't have a favorite animal. I should go around and change the rules again."
"I don't blame you for changing me. For all I know, the human me HATED lizards . . . but I wouldn't want to change what I am now for anything. In particular since it's with you."
"Granted Ashley. But I just don't want to go toying with people's souls. That's why I HAVEN'T tried to see if the ring can change people's jobs or outlooks, pasts, or future by my own command. What happened with the woman out there, that was part of her getting a better deal in life, but everything that happened was still her own choices. I've changed their form, but every choice they've made is still the future they've made for themselves."
Ashley sighed. "I get it. Maybe we should just go home for the night and cool off. Just make sure I'm present for when we hit number 500. I want to witness it."
435.
"Huh? But I didn't do anything."
"Eh?"
"Number just went up."
"What the heck? Can you ask the ring?"
" . . . a Synthetic just got pregnant."
" . . . Well, you DID CHANGE a whole ton of couples . . . and it is late at night . . . I guess it was bound to happen eventually."
Casper couldn't help but think of himself as a father as well somehow. Would that new life even exist now without him? He had no way of knowing what two Synthetics had become the happy couple, and the ring wasn't telling him. If Synthetics if either gender could breed, it was a perfectly likely possibility!
"Yeah. Maybe we should just go home for the evening. See you tomorrow?"
"Of course." She nodded and the two hugged.
"Get a room." The white rubber anthro horse laughed. Her gray companion knocked some sense into her.
The two left the fast food place.