Note: Well, this story seems to have fired a few synapses in my head. I have the first 7 chapters in the can, with the later few of those still needing a little editing. I am trying to stay ahead of the story so I can post it without huge delays between chapters. I will try, but I can't make any promises. For those of you who think they know what the title is implying, you are probably right, but I don't like giving spoilers. Heck, I have already made one MAJOR plot revision and a few minor plot revisions. So, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if I end up having to change the title. hehe. --- Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi for his almost daily feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

<* Chapter 2 *>

As Greg entered the booth’s opening, Hector watched anxiously from what he felt would be optimal effective firing range for his shotgun.  Close enough to aim and fire at whatever might try exiting the thing and not hit Greg at the same time, maybe. He didn’t feel entirely comfortable using the shotgun in this situation, but he felt it was the most effective weapon for dealing with a possible alien invasion.  Due to the old Murphy’s Law of Combat rule #23, ‘Friendly fire, isn’t’; Hector didn’t have his shotgun aimed directly at Greg or the machine, but he was ready to bring it to bear on anything that might jump out.

He had to admit, his friend was one crazy gringo because there was no way he would have been brave and/or dumb enough to try it.  He volunteered once to join the Army and that was all the ignorant volunteering a man needed to do in his lifetime.  Yeah, the Drill Sergeants thought it was pretty funny when, on the first day of BASIC, they asked for volunteers for a very important job.  A job that turned out to be cleaning out an old equipment room.  Never volunteer without first understanding what it is you are volunteering for was a good lesson to learn.

Unlike the horror movie situation this resembled, nothing happened to Greg when he stepped fully into the booth. No blades sliced Greg into pieces or laser beams disintegrated him, but Hector thought it was a little strange that Greg had not banged his big ass Klingon sword thing against the booth’s walls. Greg looked slightly disappointed that the booth was empty when he turned back to Hector. “Nothing in here, man. Should I try touching this crystal thing in here?”

Hector noncommittally shrugged his shoulders, but did not think it was a good idea to mess with the strange device any further. “Beats the fuck outta me man. What if it transports you to some other planet or the door closes and locks you in?”

That reality check finally made Greg realize just how crazy stupid what he was doing, might be.  Hector tried to step forward to help his buddy out of the machine, but Greg stumbled and fell backwards, against the other purple crystal.

[Whoosh!]

The doorway instantly vanished, trapping his friend inside.  Shifting his shotgun to his left hand, Hector banged on the door with his right in the hope that the machine would open up and release Greg.

He had no sooner thought that, when the doorway reappeared and inside the booth was an alien chick who was most definitely, not his friend. Instead of Greg, standing inside the machine was the blue skinned, cat eyed and disturbingly hot alien Avatar chick. She looked down at him and her face shifted from blind panic, to relief at seeing him and finally, blind desperation in a blink of an eye. Her face was very expressive and easy to read for an alien.

She followed that up with an eerie, panicked wail as she smoothly jumped out of the booth, her large alien body glancing against his chest, casually brushing his 230 lb body aside and almost knocking him on his ass.

He recovered and spun around, automatically tracking her with his shotgun as she banged her head off the hanging fluorescent lights. The light fixture swung crazily back and forth, but luckily it did not fall and none of the delicate bulbs broke from her impact. It was crazy, the fixture was easily eight or nine feet off the floor, yet she still banged her head off of it.

“Ow!” She said as she clumsily dropped to the floor while still sliding toward the closed garage doors.  Hector felt surprised that she knew English, or maybe ‘Ow’ was some universal way to express pain.

Feet out, she first touched, then used her incredibly long legs against the garage door like a spring to absorb and stop her forward momentum. Once she stopped, she lithely sprung back up to one knee and into a firing position, facing the closed booth. Her massive long bow held in a strange four fingered grip with a giant size arrow nocked and ready to fire at the machine, or with a slight shift, at Hector.

She glanced over to Hector and hissed at him, cat-like, when she noticed that he was pointing his shotgun at her. “Damn it Hector! What the fu-” She halted in mid-sentence and a look of extreme confusion came over her face. She looked down at the bow in her hands and seemingly surprised by its presence, instantly dropped it like it had turned into a snake or had burned her hands.

Her tail lashed back and forth expressing her agitation. She ignored an even more stunned, confused and still armed Hector as she quickly twisted around to look at her own tail, as if surprised to see it attached to her body and moving in response to her emotions. “What the!?”

She looked back at Hector, a thousand questions dancing in her expressive cat eyes before she tentatively looked down at her mostly naked, primitively clad, blue tiger striped body.  Her own hands caught her attention and she incredulously held them both up, in front of her face as she rapidly turned them over, front to back as if she was both missing something and surprised they belonged to her.  With a look of shock and horror, she looked back up at Hector, almost pleading for him to help her before her eyes rolled back into her head and she bonelessly collapsed to the floor.

Hector’s protective instincts overcame his caution and he quickly, yet carefully, set his shotgun on the workbench and rushed to her side. What if she could not breathe our atmosphere?  He vaguely recalled how the humans in the movie could not breathe her planet’s air.

With that in mind, he kneeled down beside her and carefully turned her over and onto her back. Her skin felt warm to the touch and velvety soft and smooth. He was not sure what he expected her skin to feel like, but it was nice that it was not cold and slimy like they portrayed some aliens on TV.

“Wow! She’s heavy...” Hector had to use a lot more of his strength than he expected.

Once she was on her back, he leaned over her face to check her breathing. With his ear to her nose and looking down her face, towards her almost bare chest, he felt and heard her breath as she exhaled normally through her nose. He also witnessed the rise and fall of her chest.  Good, she was breathing and did not appear to be having trouble with that.  Maybe the blue aliens could breathe Earth’s atmosphere?

Okay, so she passed out. Emergency first, admiring her body second.

Maybe she had gone into shock?  Shock, he knew how to treat.  Treating shock was one of the first lessons he learned during BASIC training.  Okay, confirm that her airway is clear, check! Turn her head to the side in case she puked, done!  Elevate her legs; he grabbed an empty beer cooler and propped her legs up on it. Loosen restrictive clothing, umm; there was none because Hector could not imagine some chest beads and a loin cloth as restrictive.  She did have a nice and perky pair of breasts though.

“Focus man! Focus!” Hector berated himself. “Okay, next step, make her comfortable...” He desperately searched the garage shelves for something to rest her head on, something softer than the garage floor. He also needed something to cover her body, both to keep her warm and provide her some extra modesty.  She was probably used to wearing next to nothing, but outside of the beach or bedroom, Hector was not used to seeing a woman wearing so little and especially not an alien woman.

He considered moving her into the house, but as large as she was, he was not sure if he could safely lift and carry her without hurting or dropping her, or injuring his back in the process. She had to be at least eight feet tall, maybe even nine feet, it was hard for him to tell exactly because he could not remember the last time someone had made him feel so small. He did not feel it was important enough to grab his tape measure to definitively answer the question. It was easy enough to just say she was tall, very tall.

Aside from her height, blue skin, muzzle shaped nose, cat ears, cat eyes, tail and four fingered hands, she looked surprisingly human and very much female with a trim and athletic figure. However; based on his difficulty with getting her turned over, he felt pretty certain she weighed at least 250 pounds, if not more.  Not that he would be foolish enough to mention that to her if she asked him why he did not move her when she woke up.

He found a sleeping bag and his riding jacket. He folded the jacket up like a pillow and carefully lifted her head up and onto it.  Finally, he unzipped and placed the opened sleeping bag over her chest like a blanket.  She was so tall, the adult sized sleeping bag looked more like a baby’s blanket on her. It just covered her upper body and her upper thighs, but due to her elevated legs, the sleeping bag pooled against her hips, leaving her long, shapely and exotic blue tiger-striped legs exposed.

Hector sighed with defeat. He knew it would be ungentlemanly of him to sneak a peek at her body, but he couldn’t help it. She was hot and how many times does a man get a chance to see a hot alien chick? He decided that while she was out, it was probably better for him to look and get it out of his system because when she woke up, he wanted to bring his A-game so he could figure out what happened to Greg.  She obviously knew who he was and since she was here, she would know how to get him back to Earth.

Under the guise of checking on her condition, he carefully lifted the sleeping bag from her chest and folded it down and over her stomach.  Her slightly iridescent skin coloration captivated him and once again, his eyes were drawn to her mostly exposed, pert breasts. For an alien, her small breasts looked amazing to him.  Not because he had never seen a woman’s breasts before, but because he had never seen an alien woman’s breasts.

“Okay, if she opens her eyes right now, what is my excuse for staring at her chest?” Hector furiously asked himself. “Oh yeah, checking her heartbeat!”  With that, he leaned over and placed his ear to her chest.

[Thump, thump...thump, thump]

Yep, she had a heartbeat, but Hector could not tell if it was beating normally. She was an alien, but he felt somewhat reassured by the fact she even had a heartbeat to hear.

“Uhhhhnngg...” She softly moaned and Hector quickly folded the sleeping bag back over her chest as he looked anxiously at her face so see if she had caught him peeking at her breasts.

Her eyes fluttered once, twice, and then her beautiful green, amber flaked cat-like eyes opened wide with alarm.  “Hector! The box! What...happ-ened?” She asked, her voice fading at the end as she turned to look up at him with an expression of utter surprise and confusion.

“Oh my god! My voice! Why do I sound like a chick?” What she said did not immediately register with Hector because when she abruptly propped herself up with her elbows, it reminded Hector of how big and physically intimidating she was and two, it caused the blanket to slide off her chest.

The blanket sliding down also caught her attention and caused her to reflexively look down at her own chest, quickly followed by the sight of her raised and exposed legs. Once again, she panicked and Hector quickly realized that if this alien chick was a human woman who woke up in that position and state of undress, she would probably be a little pissed and upset at the man sitting next to her.

Hector watched with alarm as she casually kicked the cooler, causing it to fly into the garage door, making a nice dent in the thin sheet metal.  The alien chick was strong and he did not want her accidently or purposely hitting him.  He jumped away from her and grabbed his shotgun off the workbench as she rose to her feet, once again banging her head against the light fixture.

“Damn it!” She yelled with frustration before she turned to face him.

~o~O~o~

Greg remembered jumping out of the booth and somehow banging his head on the lights.  Everything after that was kind of confusing to him.  Did he really imagine that he was one of those Na’vi from Avatar and even worse, a chick?  He felt the cool concrete floor of the garage on his back with his head resting on something soft, perhaps a pillow. He felt the air on his chest, but the weight of a blanket around his stomach. He also noticed that his legs were propped up, but they were also exposed to the open air. What happened to his pants and why was he lying on the garage floor? Did the alien box try to suffocate him?

“Uhhhhnngg...” Greg moaned with confusion as he slowly tried to open his eyes. He felt the blanket being placed over his chest, but he was forced to blink a few times before his eye adjusted to the incredibly bright light.  He spotted Hector resting on his knees next to him and instantly felt concerned about his friend. Did the box emit some gas or something that could have hurt Hector?

“Hector! The box! What...happ-ened?” Confused by the sound of his own voice, Greg trailed off as he glanced up at Hector.  He looked extremely confused and nervous about something.

“Oh my god! My voice!” Every word from his mouth sounded completely wrong and shocking to his ears. “Why do I sound like a chick?”

It was at that moment Greg started to realize something was very wrong with his body.  He felt extremely exposed with his legs up in the air, but when he levered himself up to see why his legs were propped up, two observations immediately hit him. One, his legs were blue and two, when the blanket Hector had apparently covered him with fell off his chest, he realized that not only were his legs blue, but so was his naked chest and he had boobs. As boobs go, they were not very large boobs, or breasts to be less crude since they appeared to be attached to him, but definitely breasts, female breasts.

He had to get off the floor!  Greg kicked the cooler out from under his legs and was surprised by his own strength when the cooler flew into the garage door with a loud bang.  He had only meant to move it, not kick it hard enough to score a field goal.  His body felt all wrong and curiously stretched out.  Not painfully stretched, he simply felt like everything on his body was further away than it should be. It was like he had suddenly grown three feet taller.

He rolled to his feet and immediately confirmed that thought by banging his head against the light fixture, again. “Damn it!”

Greg turned back to Hector and discovered his friend pointing the shotgun at him like he was an alien invader or something.  He reacted by crouching down to make himself a smaller target and hissing at Hector.  “Damn it Hector! Why in the hell are you pointing that thing at me?!?!”

Hector looked very confused, but he did start to slowly lower the shotgun.

Greg did not know what was going on with himself or why his friend decided to point his shotgun at him, but his own reaction surprised him too.  “Did I just hiss at you like a cat?” Greg asked as he subconsciously tilted his head at an angle, feeling his ears twitch and  turn to capture every sound.

Yes, his voice definitely sounded female and yes, he was definitely much taller than before and yes, his skin was most definitely blue.  Based on those plainly evident and highly disturbing facts, Greg concluded that the machine had somehow turned him into a Na’vi. His tail twitched and he felt it move.  Yes, he was most definitely not human any more, but even worse from his point of view, he was no longer even male.

Greg’s question broke the ice, causing Hector to nervously chuckle at the situation. “Umm, yes, but who are you? What did you do with Greg?”

Greg briefly, very briefly debated telling Hector that he was Neytiri and he or she, had been sent from the future to warn humanity about a war that would cause the extinction of the human race, but Hector was looking a little stressed out right now.  The idea still made him smile and for the first time since he stepped out of that box, feel a little bit more relaxed.  If he managed to change back to himself, maybe, in 20 years, the two of them would look back at this moment and laugh their asses off.  “Dude, I’m Greg.”

Hector looked skeptical and Greg could not blame him because he was having trouble reconciling his voice as belonging to him.  Speaking of that, he wondered how in the hell he was even breathing. He thought the Na’vi and Humans couldn’t breathe the same air.

“Really!” Greg winced. “I know it sounds freaky, because I am kind of freaked out myself right now, but I’m really Greg.”

“No. Fucking. Way. Not possible, lady. Try telling me something else. You know, like the truth...” Hector surprised Greg by actually appearing angry at him, like Hector blamed him for kidnapping his friend and he was worried about him. Greg did not realize Hector cared so much about him.

Feeling his legs beginning to cramp, Greg straightened to his full height, this time he managed to avoid the light fixture, but he was still uncomfortably close to the garage’s exposed rafters. Belatedly, Greg realized that him standing while being so freakishly tall probably did not help Hector feel any more comfortable, but it felt good to stretch his legs.

Hector clutched his shotgun tighter and even began to raise it once again.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop! Sorry, but I had to stand. My legs were starting to cramp, but dude, I’m telling you the truth ya bloody ditch digger, I’m really Greg. I don’t know how it did it, but it somehow changed me into...” Greg glanced meaningfully over at the booth before looking back and gesturing down to his body. “...well, this. Neytiri from Avatar, I think.”

Hector slowly lowered his shotgun and he appeared like he wanted to believe Greg, but still was not sure.

“Fuck dude, you’re the one with the Captain Kirk complex who suggested this chick, remember?” Greg pointedly reminded him; hand on his hip as his tail lashed back and forth with agitation.

Hector finally believed Greg. Looking stunned, he fully lowered his shotgun, carefully placed it on safe and set it on the workbench before he said a single word.  “How in the...”  Hector looked at a now very relieved and smiling Greg and then, back to the machine and then, back to Greg.  “Dude, you’re hot.”

“Ha ha, that is wrong on so many levels.” Greg crouched back down so he could be closer to eye level with Hector.

Hector tentatively reached out like he wanted to touch Greg’s arm to confirm he was real. “Umm, so, how does it feel? Is it a costume or what?”

Greg laughed and held out his arm for Hector to touch, but it sounded more like a giggle with his feminine voice. “Go ahead, you can touch me, but I am guessing you already copped a feel while I was out, right?”

Uncharacteristically, Hector blushed. “Well, I had to flip you over and administer first aid. For a chick, you’re pretty damn heavy.”  Hector glanced away from Greg’s eyes and down to his chest. “Plus, those are kind of hard to miss...if you know what I mean.”

Now it was Greg’s turn to blush, or turn more purple.  He kind of forgot he now had a pair of breasts and was wearing next to nothing because being nine feet tail, having long dreadlock style hair, four fingers on each hand, and a girl’s voice was extremely distracting.  If he now looked and sounded like a female Na’vi princess, what happened to his manhood?

With that thought, Greg hastily reached between his legs and after some frantic searching with not only his hands and his eyes; he found nothing but a loincloth covering some more nothing of the female variety.

“Oh crap...” He glanced back up at a very interested Hector and realized that he was putting on a show for his horndog roommate. “Dude!  You didn’t have to watch me!”

Hector grinned and chuckled. “Yeah I did, besides you looked like you had bigger things, or should I say, nothing to worry about, right?”

Greg straightened up to his full height, careful to not bang his head again, and crossed his arms with annoyance. He tried to ignore the sensation of his arms pushing against his breasts. “Not funny dude. What if I am stuck like this, then what?”

Hector shrugged his shoulders. “Damned if I know, but maybe you could work on the next Avatar movie or something?”

Feeling a little scared by the very real possibility that he might be stuck like this, Greg reached over, grabbed the cooler and gingerly sat down on it, careful to not sit on his tail.  As freakishly tall as he now was and with the tail poking into his spine, he had to lean slightly forward and sit cross legged to get comfortable.  He wasn’t worried about exposing his new parts to Hector. The loincloth did a pretty good job of covering that and even if he did accidentally expose himself, so what?  He had much bigger things to worry about right now.

Hector dragged a folding camp chair over and sat down opposite Greg. “Dude, look, I know this is freaking you out and you’re worried.” He collapsed back into his chair and sighed with frustration.  “Fuck dude, it’s freaking me out too, but whatever happens...” He leaned forward and looked intently into Greg’s eyes. “I got your back. Okay?”

Overcome by emotions and not trusting his voice as his eyes grew uncharacteristically moist, Greg simply nodded once before he glanced down in an effort to keep Hector from seeing him cry. Of course, Hector easily saw his friend was about to start crying, but was obviously conflicted about how to handle the situation. If Greg really was a woman, Hector might have tried giving him a gentle hug to show her that he cared, but ‘she’ was really Greg.

“Well, all this excitement almost scared the piss outta me.” He stood and hesitantly placed his hand on Greg’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back...need anything from the house?”

Greg looked up and over at Hector. He looked so worried about him. He sniffed once and then, thought about the sheer absurdity of the situation and accidently giggled at Hector as he wiped his eyes.  “Yeah, it’s kinda dusty in here. Maybe a roll of paper towels to blow my giant size nose?”

Hector smiled and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Sure, be right back.”

With Hector out of the room, Greg gave his new body a little more attention. It really was incredible to both see and feel. His skin felt so soft and his breasts felt very alien on his chest, both literally and figuratively. He gingerly touched one and lightly pressed down on it. Hmm, that actually felt kind of nice. Not orgasmic like the women in the pornos try to make it look like, but mildly pleasant.  Not at all like it felt touching his own male chest.  There seemed to be a few extra nerve endings on his Na’vi chest.

He did not want to waste too much time on his breasts because it was the noticeable lack of stuff between his legs that demanded his attention. He was ashamed to admit it, but he thought it felt kind of, well, nice to not have his penis and balls feeling almost constantly smashed and constricted. Smashed and constricted was probably putting it too strongly because the sensation was not something he had consciously noticed before. It just was. The only times it really became noticeable were the many times he was randomly made painfully and sometimes embarrassingly aware of his penis from, well, just about anything having to do with an attractive member of the opposite sex.

“Okay, I might as well get it over with. After all, it’s not like I haven’t seen one before...” Greg softly muttered.

With a combination of dread and wonder, he looked down, carefully moved his loin cloth to the side and slid his primitive appearing bikini down so he could get a better look his new equipment. His groin was flat and had a small, well groomed rectangular landing patch of dark fur above his vagina. It looked exactly like how his previous girlfriend groomed herself and he felt amazed at how much his vagina looked like a human woman’s vagina. His mind spun around a few times from that observation, but after the world righted itself, he struggled to understand why he felt a general warming sensation from deep inside his groin area. When he realized he must be feeling aroused, the warm sensation was followed by a quick twitch of a never before felt muscle group.

It felt disturbing, but kind of good at the same time and those conflicting sensations made him even more curious. He was about to try touching it, but he heard Hector purposely making an excessive amount of noise to warn Greg that he was returning. Feeling both ashamed and slightly frustrated, he quickly pulled his bikini thing back into place and dropped his loincloth back down; smoothing it to ensure it provided maximum coverage.

Hector rejoined him, pretending to not know what Greg had probably done in his absence. “Still need these?” He held out a roll of paper towels.

“Ha!  Too funny, no, but thanks...” Greg looked back down at the floor, once again feeling slightly embarrassed by the situation. “Well, umm, I should see if I can change back because this is really starting to get weird...”

Hector snorted and shook his head with wonder. “Starting?”

Greg couldn’t help it, he laughed and they both ended up laughing so hard they both had to stop for air. “Oh man, that’s funny. Well...” Greg glanced around, then back down to his new body with some regret. “...I guess I should try and change back now.”  His own feelings surprised him, but this experience was a once in a lifetime chance. More like, never because how often in your life can you be someone or in his case, something else?

“So, umm, before you do...” Hector glanced down, looking unsure of himself.

Greg had never seen Hector look so hesitant before. “Yeah?”

“What’s it feel like?”  Hector blushed, but refused to back down. “I mean, you know?” He gestured at Greg’s body.

Greg closed his eyes, focused on how he felt and how he might try to describe it, but how do you describe color to a blind man?  “I dunno, it’s weird and scary, but at the same time, it’s not. I feel good, but it’s well, confusing the hell outta me...”

“Oh, umm, you look exactly like I remember her looking, but where is your tentacle thing?” Hector leaned off to the side in an effort to inspect the back of Greg’s head.

Greg felt confused. “My what?”

“You know, that tentacle thing they used to hook themselves up to the bird thing, and, umm, have sex.” Hector pointed to the back of Greg’s head.

Initially confused, Greg hesitantly reached back, but he only felt a thick mane of tiny braided dreadlocks with beads and feather adornments; not the single long thick braid thing he just now started to remember with Hector’s reminder. “Umm, I dunno. I guess I forgot about it when I was trying to remember how she looked.”

“Oh, well, I guess it’s not important. So, should you try changing back now?” Hector glanced over at the booth.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea...” Greg nodded, then carefully ducked down to avoid hitting anything on his way to the machine.  He felt extremely nervous as he placed his, no, her four fingered hand against the red alien hand print.  What if it didn’t work?

Now that he was an alien himself, he kind of felt a kinship with the strange builders of this device, but he was relieved when the display came to life, showing him a holographic image of his male, human self.  He pictured himself wearing exactly what he wore before his change, complete with his bat’leth. Except he imagined his bat’leth as being real and not a replica.  He changed his watch to be a Rolex.

“Dude, what’s taking you so long?” Hector looked over his shoulder.

“Sorry...it’s just, well, harder than I expected to remember myself and I wanted to see if it was possible to make a few upgrades.” Greg sighed as he made the final touches on his old body by giving himself a set of six pack abs and a stronger, less flabby chest.

His image complete, he gingerly touched the purple crystal and felt relief when the door magically appeared again. “Hehe, I guess it’s not broken...”

Greg took one last, appreciative look down at his strange body and stepped into the booth.  Amazingly, he somehow fit without touching either the ceiling or the walls.  “Daaamn, this thing is interdimensional or something.”

“What?” Hector asked, sounded distracted.

He glanced over his shoulder at Hector and noticed he was staring appreciatively at his ass. “Dude! Eyes up here!” Greg pointed to his eyes. “And, I said it’s bigger on the inside than on the outside, geez!”

“Oh, sorry, nice tail.” Hector grinned unrepentantly.

Greg sighed with frustration, but Hector’s remark also felt, well, nice. He had never had anyone, besides his Mom, compliment him on his looks before.  Maybe, if his improvements worked, he might have more luck with the ladies the next time the two of them went clubbing.  Greg touched the inner crystal and this time, when the door disappeared and the red light hit him, he did not panic. Well, not as much.  The nagging thought of, “What if this doesn’t work?” did cross his mind though.

Before he could blink, the door reappeared and Hector hollered. “Greg! You’re back! That was you, right?”

Greg nodded his head. “Yes, I was the blue alien chick whose boobs and ‘tail’ you liked to stare at, thank you very much.”  He laughed when Hector’s face turned beet red with embarrassment when he stepped out of the machine.

The first thing he did after stepping back on terra firma was check his groin, just to make sure he manhood was back and pat his chest to verify that he no longer had breasts. Reassured on both counts, he felt deeply relieved by the solid, muscular feel of his chest, but still had parts to check. He quickly counted his fingers. Yep, five fingers on each hand, everything is normal there.  Skin is not blue, check. Height appears normal. Face feels like it always has and after a quick glance at his butt, no tail.

“Phew! It worked.” Greg felt relieved.

With the important stuff out of the way, he checked his new and improved bat’leth. It looked a lot more real and the balance felt much better.  He was not sure if that was all in his imagination or not, but the heavy Rolex on his wrist and the tight, muscular feeling of his abs and chest told him the truth.  His enhancements worked!  This machine was fucking awesome!

“My turn!” Hector said, rushing over to the control pad.

Greg held his hand up. “Wait! We should do some research first.” Hector stopped, looking disappointed. “I know, I wanna play with it some more too, but what if something happens and you can’t change back? What if I was just lucky?” Greg asked.

Hector paused as he chewed it over. “Yeah, you’re probably right, but if it checks out...I have first dibs on the next change!”

Greg did not see a problem with that. After all, it was only fair. “If anyone else has ever found one of these before, there should be something on the web about them. Let’s go check.”

Hector hesitated before replying. “Umm, you go ahead. I wanna re-read a few of my old comics, you know, just in case. I want my memory to be fresh for the character I want to be.”

“Wolverine, right?” Greg grinned at his friend’s transparency.

“Yeah, well, you know. He is my fav and it would be pretty damn cool to have some of his powers...snikt!” Hector mimed claws coming out of his fist.

While Greg powered up his PC, Hector retreated into his room and dug out his old comic book collection.

Instead of the old standby, Google, Greg decided to start with the new search engine, The Collective.  The Collective was less than a year old, but it was already stealing market share from both Google in the search engine market and Microsoft in the OS market.  No one knew how they did it, but their software was nothing short of revolutionary. He wanted to upgrade his PC to the new Collective OS, but hadn’t had the time to do so. Plus, he was a little worried by the warning about the Collective OS not allowing dual boot or alternate OS loads.  He was not ready to cut the Windows cord just yet, but he did like The Collective’s sense of humor for adopting a Star Trek inspired name for their company. Hell, they even had a Borg cube for a logo. How they got that past the lawyers was anyone’s guess.

“Okay now, let’s see what The Collective has on our little box...” Greg typed in ‘what is a silver metal box with alien writing on the side?’ and surprisingly, The Collective seemed to get stuck. That was strange because the last few times he had tried them, they returned results before he had finished typing his question.

[] Sorry, your search failed to return any matches...did you mean to type, “What is a Morphic Adaptation Unit, Mark 5?”

“Well, that’s strange...” Greg muttered to himself as he moved his mouse to click on the underlined text to execute The Collective’s suggested search.

[] Sorry, your search failed to return any matches...you are requested to immediately email mau5.info@thecollective if you believe this message to be in error or feel you have data that would assist The Collective with our mission to provide the best search tool to humanity.

Greg felt a chill. Something was not right.  Their ‘error message’ was just a little too knowledgeable and forceful to be a simple, “Sorry, no matches found...” message. They knew something, but he was not about to send them an email about it.  He almost decided to turn off his PC, unplug the network cable, call the entire search off and tell Hector it was too dangerous, but he decided to give the old Google a try.

Greg duplicated his original search on Google and was immediately given 5.3 million useless results. He quickly paged through the first ten pages of conspiracy theories regarding UFO’s and alien abductions stories. Not a hint about this Morphic Adaptation Unit.  He decided to try the search The Collective suggested.

>820,000 results...

“Well, that’s better...I think?” Greg noticed the first page had results that initially looked promising, but after ensuring his java  script blocker and AV suite were active, he clicked on a few of the suggested URLs and got nothing but conspiracy theories, urban legends about Men in Black or Agents with dark sunglasses, pleas for help if one is found. “Please, please, please, my husband is stuck as a centaur!” Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, wait, one of the links actually described the box in both its collapsed and expanded state quite well, but it’s information was rather blunt and uninformative. “Warning! If found, do not attempt to use! May result in irreversible harm! Call 1-800-xxx-xxxx immediately!”

Okay, they seemed to know something, but Greg knew the changes were hardly irreversible. He was living proof if that. The owners of the site probably just wanted one for their own use. Greg closed that site and clicked through another 10 or 15 sites, but they all pretty much said the same thing. “If you use it, the Men in Black will come take you away...”

Yeah, right.  He was about to just say, ‘fuck it!’ and give up when he came across something that actually looked informative. The standard conspiracy stuff was there, but the owners of this site let slip that there was a pattern.  The machine was either stolen, lost or quit working after anywhere from two to five days.  Not very useful or trustworthy.

Greg had all the nut job conspiracy theory crap he could take. Besides, all this reading was getting in the way of playing with the device.  Before entering Hector’s room, he politely knocked on his partially open door. He found Hector sitting in his bed with his full collection of Wolverine, X-Men and G.I. Joe comics spread out in front of him. He currently had a Wolverine origins comic open and he set it down when Greg entered.  “Well, find anything?” Hector asked, glancing up.

Greg sighed with frustration. “Yes and no. A lot of UFO conspiracy theory crap out there about Men in Black and all kinds of other crazy shit, but the general trend appeared to hint that ‘if’ and I say, ‘if’ you had a Morphic Adaption Units, as they called it; you wanted to be VERY careful not to lose it.  There were also some hints about a time limit, but none of the sites could agree on that point. Again, big if, but ‘if’ there is a time limit, it could be anywhere from three to five days.”

Hector checked his watch, nodded once and jumped off his bed. “Great! So, my turn, right?!”

~o~O~o~