He had been waiting for the CEO for hours. Leaning back in the darkened passenger seat of the stolen car, the Kid surveyed the sidewalk for the short, husky man whose physical features he had forced himself to memorize with the always dependable aid of Google Images.

The CEO should be passing this way soon. The jerk-off conference he was scheduled to speak out started in an hour.

It was 5:30 AM. Still dark, but you could see the morning light creeping into the sky. He was sure it would prove to be a beautiful day.

He gripped the gun, hidden in the front pocket of the old, grey hoodie. He had made the simple pistol himself with the 3D printer his Mom had gotten him last Christmas, using blueprints he found on a sketchy Russian website.

But it would work. He had tested it over 20 times, deep in the woods upstate, where he was confident not to run into any interlopers.

It had to work.

Christ, he was tired. That hostel was hot, and the stench had been nearly unbearable. Decades of bodily excretions of all kinds had seeped into the walls themselves, by the smell of it. Along with the excitement and anxiety he felt, it made sleep nearly impossible. But what was he going to do, rent an Air B&B? And paying for a hotel in cash would have raised too many suspicions, especially in this state.

Plus, with a hostel came the possibility of getting laid. That didn’t actually end up happening, no, but the possibility had definitely been there.

He thought he had had a chance with the cute girl with dyed pink hair and the nose ring that worked behind the front desk, and had even lowered his face mask at her playful urging to increase his chances. Suffice it to say, though, the effort hadn’t paid off. He could have really used it, too. It would have gone a long way toward claiming his nerves.

But he didn’t really like to think about it. Not just because of the disappointment, but also due to the horrible feeling he couldn’t shake that that instance of indiscretion would ultimately prove to be his downfall. The girl, after all, could prove to be a class traitor. Maybe she had aspirations of one day joining the PMC elite. Maybe she’d cooperate with the police to make it happen.

And he was well aware of the state-of-the-art facial recognition technology the State could leverage, especially in the service of capturing a dissident like him. But all he could do now was pray that the beaten-up camera he spotted behind the front desk that morning after he checked out, high up on the wall, was as nonfunctioning as it looked.

God, he wished he had moved to this city when he had the chance. It was vibrant, diverse, cultured, and, best of all, walkable. So unlike the Midwest, middle-class, conservative shithole he had been subjected to by unfortunate dent of his birth. But e he knew, even in some alternate reality where he wasn’t about to do what he was about to - what he couldn’t even stop himself from doing at this point - his time here would limited. Because before too long the water levels would rise and drown this place too, and all because of men like him.

Men like him. Men that not only were complicit in the suffering of millions, but reveled in it. Reveled in it to such an extent that they wanted to expand it, until it covered every corner of the Earth, every continent and sea. Nothing that walked or crawled would be spared. Men like him wouldn’t be satisfied until the oceans were boiling and empty, the jungles and forests burned to cinder, and the sky left a permanent inferno. No, even that wouldn’t be enough - they wanted to go even further, extend their tyranny beyond the sky and into the heavens above. The Moon would become a landfill, Mars an unending suburban sprawl, and Venus a planet-sized toilet.

Were it not for men like him, mankind could have stayed innocent. We could have continued to coexist peacefully with nature and each other, and never have known the horrors of industrialization and its Prime Mover, Capitalism. In this other, better world, racism, sexism, classism, heteronormativity - these terms would be as of an alien tongue, because the conditions they describe would never have existed at all.

His fantasies of this parallel reality had even bled into his dreams. That every night he had traveled to that hollowed plane in his restless slumber. But it didn’t have to stay that way. He could remake this world into a utopia.

There was no afterlife, no Heaven or Hell, no Nirvana or Reincarnation. So didn’t he - didn’t everybody, really - have an actual moral obligation to make this life as good as it could be?

This wouldn’t be a lone act of violence. This would be a revolution. With the help of the Internet, word of his micro slave revolt will reach far and wide. From device to device, forum to forum, and subreddit to subreddit it will spread, until everyone - everyone who matters - will know what he did. Know and be inspired by it.

Healthcare. Insurance. Media. Energy. Pharmaceuticals. Food. Tech. Titans of Industry will be struck down by ordinary folk just like him, and their bodies stacked to the sky like a modern Tower of Babel, which, like its ancient counterpart, will again serve to unite humanity, albeit now across class lines, instead of archaic tribal ones

And he dared God to strike this one down. Guess he was lucky he didn't exist. A fairy tale made up by the elites to keep the serfs and peasants from rising up and doing what was necessary to improve their material conditions.

His heart skipped a beat. His breath became shallow behind the cheap black face mask. The CEO had just passed his car. He recognized his short blonde hair and stocky build, and the douchey navy vest he wore eliminated any further doubt. It was him.

His stomach lurched as he opened the door and got out onto the sidewalk. His hands were shaking. His knees felt weak. Fortunately, getting too close wasn’t necessary - fat fuck. Probably too much McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A. Definitely Chick-fil-a. At least it made aiming for center mass easier. The burgers and chicken sandwiches would have their ultimate revenge.

He raised the gun, pulled the trigger, and…nothing. He squeezed it again. Still nothing. Fuck fuck fuck! He knew this would happen! He fucking knew this would happen!

“It’s not the gun,” the CEO said. His voice was higher pitched than he expected. “You did a pretty good job building it, actually. That’s a ghost gun, right? I listened to a podcast about them once.”

The CEO turned around. The Kid pulled the trigger again. Boom. The CEO staggered back, his face contorted in agony, his hands reaching impotently up to where the engraved bullet had entered his broad chest….

Except that’s not what happened. Nothing happened. Again. How could this have happened? Back upstate, he had shot homemade billionaire effigy after homemade billionaire effigy with it without a hitch. Bezos, Musk, Gates - the targets he had made in their likenesses were nearly unrecognizable after he had was trough with is target practice.

And yet the real oligarch before him remained woefully in-penetrated.

The CEO was now walking towards the Kid. Calmly, even leisurely, despite the silver gun still pointed at him.

Whatever, it was time for the Kid to run. He could figure out what went wrong later. He had a plan. He just had to make it to the park on foot, ditch the gun somewhere, and then…

But he couldn’t move. He was completely paralyzed below the waist, and yet, somehow, remained standing on the cracked, cold sidewalk.

What the fuck? What the actual fuck?

“Let’s see that face,” said the CEO in an oddly cheery tone, considering he was talking to someone who just tried to kill him.

The mask dropped. On its own. Impossible. Just as impossible as the Kid’s sudden and immediate paralysis.

“Hmmm, Italian, right? Interesting…”

What the fuck did that mean? Why had his mask slipped, why couldn’t he move, why wouldn’t the gun fire…

“Before we begin, I just want to know: why?” asked the CEO

The Kid didn’t have to tell this asshole shit. The handwritten manifesto in his pocket, scrawled in and ripped out of a notebook the night before, was all the testament he needed. That everyone would need. It was certainly long enough.

The CEO put his hands on his hips

“Not talking, eh? Let’s try that again: why did you try to kill me?”

This time there was something different in the CEO’s voice. It sounded deeper, more assertive. More forceful.

The Kid’s mouth opened, and the words just spilled out. Uncontrollably. He ranted and raved. About healthcare. About the economy. About the government. About the hot oceans and ash forests and burning skies and desecrated celestial bodies.

And the whole time, the CEO just listened. He even nodded a few times, to the Kid’s surprise. It even gave him some hope, now that his plan was scuttled. Maybe the CEO had been so taken by the Kid’s argument he would pledge to reform. Might he even invite the Kid to speak with him at the conference, wherein they would announce that the company he ran would be made into a cop-op, with 50% of all profits pledged to various NGOs and Non-Profits?

When the Kid was finished, or when the CEO decided he was finished, he finally spoke again.

“Well, that was all very compelling, and well-articulated. You might even be right. But I don’t know anything about any of that. So let’s get back to the, you know, attempted murder. Did you know he has a wife and two young children who are dependent on him? Oh, speaking of, there he goes now.”

They both turned and looked as a perfect doppelgänger of the CEO passed by both of them, seemingly completely unaware of the bizarre scene that was transpiring mere feet away from him.

And it wasn’t just him – the Kid now noticed that everyone who walked by them on the sidewalk now did so without nary a glance at either the gun-toting would-be killer or his would-be victim. Even in a city like this, that should at least warrant a side-ways glance.

“Yeah, none of them can see or hear us. Better for them, really. They deserve their ignorance.”

The Not-CEO finally turned back to look at the Kid.

“Who are you?” the Kid asked, not realizing this would be the last full sentence he would ever utter. If he had, maybe he would have said something more trenchant.

“All you need to know,” the Not-CEO replied, “is that I’m someone who likes happy endings. For example…”

The Not-CEO pulled out a sleek smartphone – a model that the Kid knew wasn’t even on the market yet - from the pocket of his dress pants and turned the screen so that the Kid could see it.

It was a photo from his Mom’s Facebook page. It showed him, his father, and his mother all seated at the old, faux-wood dinner table in his childhood home. The caption read: “Another Sunday night dinner with the family!!!!! Applebee's takeout FTW!!!” They were all smiling. That was the Kid’s first clue.

The timestamp showed that it had been posted only 10 hours ago. When the Kid had been at the hostel, still waiting and hoping for that knock that never came.

The Not-CEO put the phone back in his pocket.

“Remember that blow-up you had with your family this Thanksgiving? Well, nobody else does, not anymore. Along with a few other notable, disappointing incidents.”

“Please -“ the Kid started to say before his mouth slammed shut, again against his will.

“No more out of you. You made your choice when you got out of the car a few minutes ago. Did you even realize it was owned by an immigrant who uses it full-time for his ride-sharing business?”

The not-CEO sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

“Now there’s nothing to do but face the consequences, I’m afraid.”

For the first time in his life, the Kid knew and truly felt terror. His previous concerns about the future of the planet and society and outer space, he now realized, didn’t even begin to compare.

“But what can I say: I like happy endings. Including for myself.”

The makeshift gun melted in the Kid’s hand. It became an indistinct, silver mass of liquid metal, before beginning to creep over his fingers and wrist. Within seconds, the liquid had reformed again: on his wrist, it became an expensive-looking bracelet. On his finger, it became engagement and wedding rings. Both were far too wide in circumference for the digit they now rested upon

But before the Kid could try to take them off, his finger - all of his fingers - began to rapidly expand. They each got thicker and thicker until his ring finger in particular had swollen to the point where he couldn’t get the rings off even if he had wanted to. And he did want to.

The Not-CEO laughed. Except he didn’t look like the CEO anymore. Now wearing a black t-shirt and plain jeans, his body and face had changed drastically. He was even fatter than before, but more muscular, the sleeves of his tight shirt barely containing his biceps. And…handsome. Really handsome…

What the fuck??? The Kid wasn’t gay (not that there was anything wrong with that. In fact, he thought homosexuals were in many ways superior to heterosexuals.) But still, he wasn’t, and his “experiments” in college had more than proven that.

So then why couldn’t he stop staring at the Not-CEO’s huge bulge? Even his big belly was starting to turn him on…

“Now let’s get the rest of your body to match those nice, meaty hands.”

His stomach churned and growled, and he could feel it start to expand outward, effortlessly annihilating his washboard abs. His legs too began to grow, until they began to stretch his jeans to their very limit.

Conversely, he lost stature, two feet at least, and now found himself looking up at the Not-CEO, whereas before he was looking down at him. That previous status quo had given the Kid a sense of smug satisfaction, so one can image how he now felt.

His hips widened, painfully. His ass rounded and expanded outward, considerably. And his chiseled pecks became two giant, saggy breasts. The kind he would have himself ogled if he saw them on another woman on the street.

Another woman. It was obvious to the Kid now that was what he was becoming. In his less dire circumstances, he could try to disconnect the correlation between these physical features and sex. In less dire circumstances.

As if cued by the thought, his balls retracted into his body, along with his penis, which ejaculated their entire contents as it shrank. His testicles became his ovaries. His penis became his clit.

The next changes happened above his now much denser neck. His facial features shifted until he had the face of a beautiful, albeit older, Italian-American woman, and his hair grew out to match it, staying just as curly as it was before, but now with grey streaks that betrayed her maturity.

Finally, his clothes morphed into something more appropriate for his new sex - his jeans became tight black leather, and the hoodie and the ratty wife-beater under it became a cropped leather jacket and v-neck shirt with an all-over leopard pattern, respectively. Her thick belly, adorned with stretch marks, pushed against the thin fabric of the shirt

“Hey, babe, what’s wrong”, asked Mario to his wife. “You space out on me or somethin’?”

Angelina shook her head as if to clear it of some mental fog.

“I was just thinkin’ about somethin’,” she replied in a thick Brooklyn accent. “Nothin’ important. I think I’m just tired.”

They had booked a hotel room in the city for a quick romantic getaway. After a show and dinner, they had planned to get some sleep… and instead fucked until 1:00 AM. Angelina was getting horny all over again remembering how Mario's manly hands had gripped her prodigious hips, his big hairy hairy belly pressed up against her ass…

She gave her husband a playful smack on his bulging beer gut, harder to the touch than it looked.

“Fuckin’ asshole,” she said with a grin that widened her full face even more.

Mario pulled her close and gave her a long, passionate kiss on her plump, full lips, while his strong, wizened hands crept down and grabbed a handful of each of his wife’s considerable ass cheeks through her pants.

“There, that shut ya up,” he said, and flashed her a mischievous grin of his own.

Angelina gently grabbed his sizable balls through his jeans, no doubt once again filled with the seed, still potent despite his age, that had he already used to impregnate her multiple times.

“Let’s get back to civilization already,” she said. “I’m so sick of the fuckin’ freaks and weirdos in this shithole.”

And with that, the portly couple walked off into the dark of the early morning hours, bound for their SUV and the large house it would ferry them to.

Some, with an unsubtle sneer, might call the car a “gas-guzzler”, and the house a “McMansion”. The same people would probably call them “dumb, crass, and uneducated.”

They knew all that, and loved both, and each other, anyway.

Maybe even more so.

….

He would play this role for a while. It might be based on stereotypes and tropes half-remembered from various tired television shows, but he had still been looking forward to inhabiting this persona for a long time now. It certainly promised to be much more visceral than his last few.

Eventually, though, and like always, he would get bored, make his current form a distinct yet still sentient individual (he liked Happy Endings, after all), and move on to something, somewhere, and someone else.

There were still so many lives he still wanted to live. All would be built on the bones of the guilty. In this way, balance would be maintained.

Such was the transient existence of the Adjustor.