Patrick made a show of thought, after which he said, “Hmmm...I’m not sure...you have any ideas?”
“Why do you think I was asssking what you wanted to do?” asked Jack, smirking slightly. He thought about some of the possibilities before asking, “Hey...can thisss thing do hybridization?” His best friend swiveled his chair around to check the program. After a bit of searching, Patrick found a button that said “Hybrid Changes” and turned back around. “Yeah, it can,” Pat said, blinking up a couple of times. “What’d you have in mind?”
“Well,” Jack said, “I really want to tessst the- oh, God dammit, Pat could I pleassse have my normal mouth back? Thissss hisssssing is sssstarting to drive me nutssss.” Pat smirked and turned to face the computer again. He pulled up Jack’s virtual model and clicked on the button next to it that said “undo previous changes”. A list of the changes he had done to Jack appeared on the screen. He undid the forked tongue and the fangs, but kept the ability for Jack to unhinge his jaw.
When all that was done, he clicked the “save changes” button. Pat swivels his head back towards his friend and says, “There, that should do it.” Jack nodded, examining his now (almost) normal mouth in the mirror on the back of Patrick’s door. “Yeah, that did do it. Thanks. Now...where was I?”
“You wanted to test something?”
“Oh yeah,” Jack said. “What I was saying was that I really wanted to test the limits of this thing, so I came up with a ‘go big or go home’ kind of transformation.” He walked over to his friend’s computer. “Could you get out of the chair for a second?” Jack asked his tailed friend. Pat got up and Jack sat in the recently vacated seat. He clicked the hybrid changes button and up popped a screen with two drop-down lists and a slider bar on the right side of the screen and his virtual model on the left. Currently, both drop-down menus said “SELECT FORM”. He assumed that the two drop-down menus were the two forms he wanted to fuse and the slider bar, which was, at the moment, grayed out, determined the percentage of each. “Seems easy enough,” he thought.
He clicked on the arrow of the first drop down menu and was met with an immeasurable list of options. It was alphabetized except for the “current form” option, which was at the top of the list. He clicked it and then moved the cursor to the other menu. He clicked on that menu’s arrow and was met with the same infinite list of options. He scrolled through the options, a few catching his momentary interest, but he quickly moved on from them due to either a desire to find something crazier or how messy the hybridization might be. after a couple of minutes, he finally settled upon the “plant” option. After clicking that, a third drop-down menu appeared. This one said “CHOOSE SPECIES”. Jack thought a moment and then clicked in the text box and typed “Gelsemium sempervirens”. He selected the field and then the slider bar became usable. “Yellow Jessamine?” Pat asked, looking over Jack’s shoulder. “You want to fuse yourself with a plant, and you choose a poisonous one?” Jack nodded. “Interesting,” Patrick said.
Jack chuckled and focused his attention on the slider bar. the text just below it read “100% CURRENT - 0% G. sempervirens” and the slider was all the way to the left. He moved it to the middle. The text below the bar now read “50% CURRENT - 50% G. sempervirens”. Jack looked at his virtual model and saw something he found really cool: Its body was a dark, leafy green color and was about 8’1” in height. He took a quick glance above him and saw that Pat had 10 foot ceilings, so he’d be okay when the transformation finished. He returned his attention to his virtual model. It had dreadlock-like tendrils growing from the top of its head lined with red-tipped leaves and terminated in yellow flowers that looked a little like daffodils. The eyes were black and shiny, but didn’t seem to have any emotion behind them. Its nose was now gone and its mouth was devoid of lips. Its muscular arms were long and ended in 4-fingered hands. Its equipment had turned into a flower: the shaft was the stem and the end had blossomed into one of the flowers on the end of its dreads. Also, its anal orifice was sealed up, as he would no longer need to consume human food. Its legs were normal, but its feet were far from it. They looked like boots that one of Santa’s elves would’ve worn. Instead of toes, there was a long tendril that was curled up into a tight spiral about 2 and a half inches in diameter. Jack guessed that these would be his root system.
Satisfied with what he saw, he went back to the main screen and clicked on Pat’s tab. Jack swiveled the chair around and said to his best friend as he gets out of the chair, “your turn, bro.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Pat said, taking the vacant seat. He turned the chair towards the computer and clicked the hybrid changes button. He selected “CURRENT FORM” on the first menu and “PLANT” on the second. When the sub-menu popped up, he typed in “Helianthus annus” and selected it from the menu. “A sunflower?” Jack asked his best friend. Pat nodded as he slid the bar to “45% Current - 55% H. annus”. The virtual model changed accordingly and he inspected the result. The feet were the same as Jack’s chosen form, as well as its body being the same shade of green, but the similarities ended there. Just above its sealed rear end, there was a long, dexterous stem lined with leaves that ended in a sunflower, which is what its tail had become. Its equipment had turned into a stem about the same length as Jack's model's that ended in another small sunflower. Its torso and neck had turned into a 2-meter-long stem about 12 inches around that culminated in a large sunflower about 15 inches in diameter, inside of which was its face. Like Jack’s model, its eyes were shiny and black and it lacked both a nose and lips. It was ringed with large, bright yellow petals. At the other end, the stem split into two, and these stems ended in the christmas-elf-boot-like feet that Jack’s model had. Its arms were flat and leaf-like, ending in four-fingered hands (3 fingers and a thumb) that were also flat and leaf-like. It looked to be roughly 9 feet tall.
Liking what he saw, he clicked into a textbox that said “ADDITIONAL PARAMETERS” and wrote:
Upon transformation, My house will turn into a special biome for plant people. It will be kept at the perfect temperature for us and the right amount of humidity. Also, every single light fixture will turn into a sun lamp. The floors will turn into nutrient rich soil, so we can extend our roots whenever we feel like it. At 4 hour intervals, a sprinkler system throughout the house will spray a fine mist for about ten minutes. Also, Carbon Dioxide will be piped in through the ventilation system and oxygen will be pumped out. And now for us. As plant people, we will have a new set of instincts so that we will know how to use our new forms. We will want to spread planthood to others and as such can produce special spores to hypnotize and then transform them into smaller plant people that are 100% loyal to us. When we speak, it will be in our own unique language, be very sing-songy and just above a whisper, and the undertone of leaves rustling in the wind will pervade our voices. If the lights are turned off, we will fall asleep very quickly. If the lights are on, we can stay awake indefinitely. If we so desire, Jack and I can pollinate each other. When he feels threatened, Jack and exude his incredibly deadly sap from the palm of his hand and throw it at the offender. When I feel threatened, my arms and fingers sharpen into blade-like appendages that can cut through almost anything with ease. Jack's name will change to Jacobus and mine will change to Pax.
Pat looked over what he had written, nodding in satisfaction. Jack read the information over his best friend’s shoulder. “I like it. Save all changes,” he said. “Yes sir,” said Pat. He set the awareness so that only he and Jack would be aware of the changes and set the duration for 2 weeks before he clicked the button at the bottom of the screen that read “SAVE ALL CHANGES”.