You cock an eyebrow at Keith’s request for you to transform him again, you look down at the keys in your hand.
“I dunno Keith, this seems dangerous....” you grimace “...it was weird enough to see you morph into that mobster guy, I don’t wanna erase you permanently or something...”
Keith rolls his eyes “Again; you won’t!” he looks at you “Trust me on this, you’ll always be able to change me back.”
You sigh “Alright, how long do you want to stay transformed?”
Keith scratches his chin, then a grin spreads over his face “Let’s leave that decision to whoever I become,” he chuckles, “...you know....just not permanently....”
“Right...let’s just hope you won’t try to shoot me again.” You point the keys at Keith, press the “unlock” button and...
...Keith freezes in place for a second and then goes up in a huge puff of smoke. No, not smoke, but fog, heavy, white plumes of fog that just continue to emerge from the spot Keith had stood.
Seemingly endless quantities of fog are produced and settle all around, covering the whole parking lot. The fog is thick enough to reduce the parameter of your vision to a couple of feet and to totally obscure the sun, making a eerie darkness settle around. I addition to that the fog is ice cold, causing you to shiver in your light summer clothes. As you look around you find it hard to believe that just moments ago it was a bright, scorching hot summer day, rather it now appears to be a dreary autumn night.
You look down at the keys again, were those things powerful enough to change the weather? The time? Climate? Locales? What were the limits of their power? What decided the kind of transformation that would be triggered? All you tried was morphing Keith into....
You gasp as you remember Keith....you had been so surprised by the sudden change in your surroundings that you had forgotten about him! What had become of him? Had he really turned into this fog?
Something deep inside you cramps up as you realise that the fog not only had already begun to settle on your clothes, hair and skin, but that you were breathing it in..... that moist film on your hands and face....the breath of air in your lungs....was that Keith? Your friend? Converted into water particles in the air?
No! You refuse to believe that! The keys had, so far never, completely changed the consistency of anything. Your new car was a great improvement over your old one, but they were both still cars, Vinnie had been different from Keith as to people can be, but they were both still human males. The keys had never changed the basic substance of anything.
“Keith?” you call out into the fog as you look around wildly “Keith?”
As if to answer your call, one of the nearby streetlights flickers on, casting a cone of dirty, yellow light through the fog. Now by the lamp’s light you can see a tall, broad shouldered man leaning leisurely against the lamppost.
The man is dressed like a stereotypical private eye; a crummy suit topped by a huge trench coat and a fedora drawn low to obscure his face.
Watching the guy lean there, with his hands dug into his coat, bits of fog around him you feel your pants tighten again. You always had a thing for the “hardboiled detective” stereotype and, being a inhabitant of the new millennium, you have never actually seen anybody dressing and acting the part like that guy did in real life. You bite your lip, damn, this was like someone had made one of your fantasies come true...
You shake your head, you still had to determine whether this guy was Keith, there’d be time for everything else later.
You walk towards the man “Keith? Is that you?”
The guy shifts his weight, with a hand encased in a tight, brown leather glove he pushes the brim of his fedora up,, revealing the face of a handsome, if grizzled man in his late thirties or early forties. H has a broad mouth, flanked by a pair of prominent deep wrinkles along his cheeks, rough beard stubbles, but piercing grey eyes under dark, bushy eyebrows. He draws his broad mouth into a crooked smirk and winks at you in a way that makes your knees wobbly.
“In a way,” he says, his voice deep and marked by heavy, frequent consumption of whiskey “I’m what became of the little drip if that’s what ya mean...”
He stands up and takes off his hat, revealing, short neatly pomaded hair of an almost black colour shot through with streaks of dark silver and walks towards you. Soon standing close enough for you to smell his scent of whiskey and cheap cologne.
“The name’s Rex Pike, so you’ll call me Pike, I don’t do first names, capiche?” He tells you, fixing you with his bright grey eyes.
So close to this man all you can do in answer is nodding. Oh man, you were already liking this transformation much better than Vinnie!
Pike gives you another crooked smirk, puts his hat back on with a suave movement and then nudges your cheek with his leather gloved hand.
“Good,” he says, “looks like this is the start of a long and wonderful friendship then, doll.”
He walks past you towards your car “It’s jake with you if I drive, right?”
You still have to find your composure after your close encounter with Pike, but that that question you turn around to him.
“No,” you tell him “sorry but I’d rather hang on to the keys....” it is only know that you realize that your hand is empty. You gasp, what happened to them? Had you dropped them while under Pike’s spell? You look at the ground, but don’t see the keys lying anywhere. Had they dematerialized? You started to panic, if you didn’t get the keys back, you’d never be able to transform Pike back into Keith and no matter how hot he was, you’d rather have your friend than a hardboiled detective!
“Looking for these?” Pike mocks and laughs, you look up to see your keys dangling in Pike’s gloved hand, he must have swiped them off you!