Dalton pondered his options. The Wonder Trade seemed to be the most likely one to get rid of his extra weight, assuming somebody else didn't just throw their weight at him. Still, it was worth a try. And maybe Landry and his friends were right; it might be fun.
"Let's try the Wonder Trade thing." Dalton cleared his throat, still not used to his deeper, more mature tone of voice.
A grin broke across Jake's bearded face. "I like it! The rest of you guys in?"
Landry nodded and Linda leaned into Jake, caressing his wide shoulders. Steve shrugged and nodded, glancing at Landry nervously.
"That sounds like a yes. I think it was this way."
After some searching, the group found the Wonder Trade building. It was short and round, with a large, cartoonish sign declaring the building's name to all passersby. Dalton couldn't help but groan when he saw the size of the line. The last thing he wanted to do was stand around in the hot, afternoon sun. He'd tried to pull his morphsuit's hood up to keep the sunlight from burning his scalp, but the dark material merely absorbed the heat and transferred it to his skin.
Landry turned and grinned at Dalton. "Nothing to worry about." He held up his wrist, displaying a green, elastic wrist band that Dalton had failed to notice before. Looking around, he noticed all of Landry's friends had one of these bands.
"What are those supposed to be?"
Jake tugged at his wrist band, letting it snap against his forearm. "Fast passes. We paid extra for these, but damn if they don't save us from waiting around."
Dalton scowled, the expression deepening the lines on his face. "That's great, but I don't have one of those."
Linda shrugged, tugging hers off and handing it to Dalton. "That's okay, you can have mine."
Jake frowned. "You don't want to join us, Linda?"
She shrugged. "I think Dalton here needs it more than I do right now. Besides, I saw this jewelry place over there that I want to check out. You boys have fun." She leaned in, giving Jake a peck on his fuzzy cheek, before separating from the group.
Dalton looked over the wristband she had given him. It was simple, green elastic, with the words "TF FAIR FAST PASS" in block, white letters. Looking closely, he could make out a small, flexible patch of circuitry on the inside. He slipped it over his chubby hand and around his thick wrist.
Jake led the group to the fast pass line, which was only about a third as long as the main line. From what Dalton could tell, they were taking a few people from each line to enter the building. Hopefully now things wouldn't take as long. He couldn't wait to get out of this old, fat body. Though, oddly enough, he had sort of grown used to it.
"Landry, stop..."
Dalton glanced behind himself to see Landry had his arm around the shorter Steve, and seemed to be attempting to pull him closer. At first, Dalton thought they were horsing around, but there was something about their expressions and body language that told a different story.
Landry chuckled, rubbing his stubbly chin on Steve's ear, making him wince. "What's the matter? I thought you liked to cuddle."
The pair didn't seem to notice Dalton was watching.
Steve tried to subtly struggle out of Landry's grip, but he wasn't strong enough to do so without drawing attention to the two of them. "Not right now. People are going to think I'm gay!"
Landry, still grinning, rolled his eyes. "So what if they do?"
Steve's face reddened as he glared at the ground, embarrassed. "But I'm not gay. You know I'm not."
Landry leaned in and planted a smooch above Steve's cheek. "What if I don't?"
Steve turned a deep shade of red. Dalton couldn't tell if it was from anger or embarrassment, or perhaps both. "This was easier before you became a guy."
Landry's jovial expression dropped. For a second, he looked hurt. He face was suddenly masked by a neutral expression. He pulled away from Steve, releasing him. He looked away from Steve, and the pair stood in awkward silence.
"Ahem!"
Dalton turned around to see Jake watching him expectantly. They were being ushered into the building by the young woman manning the doors. "Next, please."
Inside, the group was guided to a large room containing a large, circular mechanism. About a couple dozen or so chairs were arranged in a circle in the center of the room. Each chair seemed to have a small computer screen attached via a flexible arm. The chairs were all facing toward the center of the circle, in which sat a large, clear container full of what looked like glass ping pong balls. Hanging from the ceiling were far too many long, robotic arms. They were hanging limply, awaiting input from whatever CPU they took their orders from.
A pretty young woman with long hair stepped before the new group that was entering the room. She seemed to be dressed as a stereotypical airline stewardess. She smiled politely at the crowd, displaying her perfect, white teeth. "Hello, and welcome to the Wonder Trade. If I could ask everybody to take a seat, we shall begin shortly." She gestured to the arranged seats, which spun around to face outside of the circle.
Dalton hefted himself into a seat between Jake and Landry. As soon as everybody was seated, all the seats turned to face into the circle again, toward the large container of balls. The computer screens attached to the chairs swiveled inward, in front of their passengers' faces. The screens flickered before they each showed the face of the stewardess from before.
"Hello. And, again, welcome to Wonder Trade. I'll make this quick, as we have many people still waiting to try Wonder Trade for themselves. How this works is simple. When prompted, each of you will input to the computer what aspect of yourself you wish to trade away. It can be anything, really. Is long as it's something measurable, such as your height, hair length, weight, age, etc., and not something subjective, beauty, ugliness, etc., then it can be traded. If you find yourself having problems with this stage of the Wonder Trade, please ask an associate for help.
"After the donation is made, your donated aspect will be transferred into one of our Wonder Spheres."
Dalton glanced up at the large container of glass balls.
"The Wonder Spheres will then be mixed together, and handed out to each of you at random. You will then receive the donated aspect from said sphere. Should you receive your own sphere, don't you worry. Our automated system will switch the sphere with the passenger to your right. Now, without further ado, let's Wonder Trade!"
The spheres in the container began to shift, being churned by some unseen apparatus. One by one, the mechanical arms reached in and plucked out a sphere, holding them aloft over the people below.
In the meantime, Dalton's computer screen flickered. There was now a heading reading "Please Enter What You Wish to Trade." Below, there was a flashing cursor and an on screen keyboard.
Dalton glanced down at his large gut. He really wanted to get rid of this weight. Though, he didn't really want to be middle-aged anymore, either. He grimaced as he rubbed his sagging, lined face and across his harshly receded hairline. Perhaps if he lost this weight, things would be more bearable. He might be able to stand being older if he wasn't quite so fat.
He tapped on his computer screen. "Lose 100 pounds."
He hit Enter without hesitation. There was a small, swirling blue circle in the bottom corner of the screen. There was a ding as the circle morphed into a green check mark and the words "Donation Accepted" appeared on his screen. One of the mechanical hands holding a sphere quickly lowered down toward Dalton. It plugged the sphere into the side of the screen.
Dalton suddenly felt a tingling sensation. He had the oddest feeling that he was deflating, like a leaky air mattress. Indeed, his large stomach was shrinking down and he felt less compressed in his seat. Dalton sighed with relief as he felt the weight coming off. "Finally."
His screen flickered again as the built-in camera activated. Dalton saw the face of an overweight man in his forties appear on his screen. The man's graying hair was receded and he had a short, graying beard. He also looked fairly confused. It took Dalton a moment to realize the face was his own. As his large gut shrank, his chest began to firm up, losing him his moobs. His soft arms and thighs also decreased in size, just as his second chin shrank away, giving him his neck back. Before long, the changes slowed and came to a stop.
Dalton experimentally touched his own face, watching his image on the computer. He could still see himself in his face, but there were more lines and simultaneously more and less hair than he was used to. The flesh under his chin still sagged a bit, and his face still had a bit of roundness. Looking down, he could tell he had a bit of a paunch. Still, it was a far cry better than what he had been before. Maybe now he could at least stop sweating so much.
The Wonder Sphere in the side of his computer screen had turned a dark blue with flecks of white, matching his morphsuit. The mechanical arm removed the sphere and returned it to the large container, along with the other, now highly varied and brightly colored assortment of Wonder Spheres.
"The Wonder Machine will now mix and randomly assign each of you your trades. Good luck."
Indeed, the unseen force was once again churning all the balls. Dalton felt a nervous knot in his stomach as he wondered just what he was going to get. He knew he couldn't get his own, but he couldn't help but wonder if there was somebody else who had donated their excess weight. All there was left to do now was to wait and see.