VENNgence Is Mine 3 -- NOT CANON
A Trust Machines story

I was going to make this a short-short like the other two, but I kept coming up with fun things to add. So now, along with getting to find out what happened to Dirk after his three year participation in the Earth's water cycle, we see what Marvin has done with his time.

I have redone this way too many times. I hope everyone enjoys it, warts and all.

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EDIT:
As it turns out, there are a number of issues with this story. Also, I'm not really happy with the way it came together. Look for the revised canon version to be posted soon.

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Over a century ago, if you could peek back in time, you would have seen students and faculty wandering the campus. But that's where the similarity ends.

The faculty were dressed in well-made three piece suits, demonstrating their positions of respect and authority. The students tended to dress more casually, wearing two piece suits and maybe even being rebellious enough to omit the tie.

What if the people from a century back could look forward in time?

They would have been appalled, or maybe excited, by the modern clothes that cover so little. The fact that girls dared invade this bastion of male learning might draw the eyes of some of the students, while others, especially the faculty, would worry that learning would be difficult with such distractions.

And these girls aren't studying nursing or teaching. They have the audacity to think that they can become scientists, mathematicians, and engineers!

And the colors! People are wearing colors that one would expect to see in a flower garden or a flock of peacocks. Or colors that never appear in nature at all.

And what are those devices that they are all carrying? Little glowing rectangles? Portable typewriters? Radios that fit in the pocket? How do they keep the vacuum tubes from burning holes in their clothes?

But even the early twenty-first century students would be confused by the era of the Trust Machines.

Furries? At school? And those fursuits look so real! And dragons. And elves and dwarves and ogres and aliens.

And it's not just full fursuits. Some sport tails or floppy dog ears or triangular ears that really swivel. Horns, antlers, multiple arms and legs, and even taurform bodies abound.

Those that have done any soldering can definitely appreciate the desire to have an extra set of arms. Or several extra sets. Or even tentacles.

Where are the ugly kids? The fat kids? The average kids, even? And the teachers? Even the faculty that attempt to put on the look of knowledge and respect end up looking younger than they should -- and, admittedly, attractive.

And clothing has become even more outlandish! It's like everyone is trying their best to outdo everyone else. Everyone is trying to show off their perfectly venned bodies by wearing clothes that only need to be imagined to be created.

The university saw a renewed surge of enrollment shortly after Venn Machines started showing up. People who thought themselves to be too old for college started to reconsider.

The school's field house, the gym complex that was built three decades ago, sees less use than it had in the past. Why push weights when you can venn all the muscles you want?

The students still enjoy the pool, handball courts, and the like. But why lift weights or run around a boring track when you can just venn yourself into whatever shape you like?

But some of the students beg to differ. Will a healthier unvenned body make it easier to get the venned body that they like? The only way to find out is to make a formal study. After all, that's what college students do. Or, rather, that's what scientists do.

And venns wear off. It's no fun waking up in the middle of the night in a sallow weak body. If all of your walking and swimming and biking is done in a venned body, then your unvenned body won't get a good workout. Or will it? More studies need to be done.

Marvin Vining came out of the field house, looking tired and sore. He had just finished a strenuous workout. While he spent most of his time venned for safety reasons, he worked out three times a week. Venning immediately afterwards cheated him out of the pleasantly sore feeling that many avid muscle builders crave, but it made it easier for him to be active for the rest of the day.

Since muscles are built when the body heals the damage from working out, the Venn Machines may help accelerate the process.

He attends his weekly martial arts class venned in a variety of forms, and sometimes unvenned. It would do him little good to develop a good set of reflexes in one form, only to need them while in another.

Marvin walked to the Venn Machine, where a young couple sat under an awning. "Hi Jim, Sarah," he said.

He pulled a venn token and two empty grocery bags out of his backpack and set the backpack down by Sarah. He handed the token to Jim and said, "History. I want my baseline body holding a yellow and a red bag."

Jim handed the token back. "Do me with the same bags and we'll call it even."

"Want to upgrade your computer while you're there?" asked Sarah. At Marvin's nod, she pulled it out of his backpack and opened it. She handed it to Marvin so that he could type in the password.

"Only five hundred volts out two thousand in the supercap? Don't you believe in charging the thing? You're down to a sixteenth of a charge."

Marvin shrugged. "It ought to be good for another week or two."

Sarah ran the Update Manager, then shut down the computer. "Update is done. It's compatible with the hardware in the new model."

She flipped it over, pressed a catch, and pulled out the multi petabyte mass storage device. She tossed the old machine into a box and pulled a freshly venned laptop out of another box. She slipped the memory module in and handed the computer to Marvin.

Marvin started it and typed in his password. "The supercap is good for four thousand volts now, eh? It'll be good to have four times the capacity."

"Not that it's likely to run out before you exchange it for a new one," Jim chuckled.

Marvin poked around a bit, then hibernated the Linux system. He handed it back to Sarah.

Sarah slipped the laptop back into Marvin's backpack. Marvin and Jim entered the Venn Machine.

Marvin's history already contained an image of him with the two bags. Jim's history didn't, so Marvin pressed the image of Jim's baseline venned body, then added the two bags. They both pressed the green button.

Marvin and Jim were transformed into their standard shapes. The two grocery bags were transformed into sturdier bags that, more to the point, contained goodies -- goodies that would go away when the venn wore off.

Marvin pulled the cooler out of the yellow bag and extracted two bottles of beer. One had a picture of a hops cone on it, and the other had a stalk of wheat. "I understand you don't care for stout. Here's an IPA and a wheat."

Jim pulled out a bottle with a picture of a darkened barley corn, and another with two. "A stout and a double stout. A pleasure doing business with you, sir!"

Marvin looked into the portable retina and iris scanner, just to make sure that Jim hadn't accidentally changed his venned body. The biometrics of the one currently in history is stored in his student ID card.

To keep students from cheating on their tests by any of a variety of venn tricks, the professors use an iris scanner before each quiz or exam.

Any student that wants to use a venned body needs to go to the security building. After hitting the red button to go back to his unvenned state, he is positively identified. Then, one of the college admin or security personnel will venn the student from history, and record the biometrics.

Marvin put his bags into his backpack and checked his cell phone. With a frown, he put it back into one of the armored compartments that he uses for his delicate electronics.

"Dirk has violated his bail and left the area," Marvin said.

"Idiot," Jim replied. "It's not like he has his uncle to get him out of it again."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "You've gone through the core curriculum and are well on your way to earning your degree. He's just been flowing all about the world. He doesn't seem to realize that things have changed in the past three years."

Marvin shrugged. "Forewarned is forearmed. Call the campus cops if you see him."

"What about you?" Sarah asked with some concern.

"It's not like he can hurt me permanently. And all of the machines on campus are well attended, so he can't force me into one."

"I don't think he could, anyhow," Jim chuckled. "You've managed to put on some bulk."

Marvin's sensitive ears easily picked up the tap, tap, tap of Dirk smacking his palm with a baseball bat. Marvin tapped his smart watch.

"This is going to be fun," snarled Dirk.

"Aren't you in enough trouble already?"

"There's nobody here to see us," he said, still slamming the bat into his palm. "I'm gonna get your pansy ass for what you did to my uncle!"

"Your uncle brought it on himself. He was a blight to the police force. I'm sure that a lot of his fellow inmates are showing their appreciation."

"He never hit you!"

"He didn't do his job," Marvin replied. "The entire police force ignored everything, and just blamed the victim."

"You lied to make him go to jail!"

Marvin laughed. "Nope. They said that threatening me with bodily harm wasn't enough to charge him, so we uploaded all of the footage to the Internet. After that, more than a dozen people came out of the woodwork and told stories about being beaten. The trial was quite the media circus."

Marvin grinned. "I enjoyed every second of it! And I'm gonna enjoy watching you go to jail for violating bail."

They both heard the sound of people running. "Freeze!" yelled one of the police officers.

Dirk raised his bat and ran toward Marvin. Marvin dodged to the side. A shot rang out. Dirk hit the dirt right where Marvin had been standing.

Marvin scooped up Dirk. "I'm venned. He isn't!"

Fortunately for Dirk, the campus police use light loads to reduce the chances of collateral damage. Marvin put his hand over the sucking chest wound to keep Dirk's lung from collapsing. He ran toward the nearest Venn Machine.

"Medical emergency! Three year venn!" he yelled as he tried to skid to a stop inside the machine. At the last moment, he turned slammed his back into the back wall of the machine. The door wouldn't close, even though Penelope had dropped a quarter into the machine and set it.

Marvin slapped Dirk in the face. "Wake up! Wake up or you will die!"

Dirk groaned. The door opening disappeared. Penelope, already in the other side, quickly said "Two Naked collared Pretty Pretty Pulchritudinous Pink and Purple Poofy Poodle Pleasure Puppy Plushies." She tapped the interface twice.

When the doors opened, there were two piles of clothing and a backpack. Buried in the clothing were two plush poodles.

Penny grabbed the plushie from the pile of bloody clothes, shook the blood off of it, and looked it in the face. "Idiot!" she said. Then, she tossed it to one of the officers. "Your prisoner, sir."

The officer looked at the struggling plushie, then at the handcuffs hanging from his belt. Penny reached into her purse and pulled out a large safety pin. A diaper pin, actually.

"Here. Point her legs toward me." She pinned the four legs together, which caused the poodle to struggle even more.

"That doesn't hurt, you sissy!" Penny said. She turned to the officer. "She can see, hear, and speak. She'll be able to walk when you unpin her, so don't leave her unguarded. If she gets dirty, a quick dunking will clean her up, but it's actually pretty hard to get anything to stick to that fur. The materials science people are still trying to figure out how it works."

"I'm not Dirk! I''m Marvin! I'm a guy! Let me go!" she said in a very cute high pitched voice.

Penny went to the machine and picked up Marvin, who had managed to extricate herself from the backpack and pile of clothes.

Mark, the other attendant of the Venn Machine, picked up Marvin's backpack and somewhat bloodied clothes and set them on the table.

The oldest cop said, "Leave the suspect's clothes. They are evidence." He nodded at one of his subordinates, who pulled out an evidence bag and a pair of rubber gloves. Soon, Dirk's clothes and ankle bracelet were bagged and tagged. The senior cop then sent him to collect the baseball bat.

Penny picked up Marvin and cuddled her, squeezing her flat.

"Ow! ow! ow! ow! ow!" Marvin said in a very cute voice.

Penny looked at him. "Faker!"

Marvin grinned. "You can cuddle me any time!"

Dirk said, "I'm Marvin! Let me go!"

Marvin said, "If you get into a Venn Machine, you will likely die."

Mark typed a few things into his laptop. He dropped a small dogtag into the printer, waited for it to print, then pinned the dogtag on Dirk's collar.

The cop read it. "Dirk Stanwick. DO NOT VENN! If found, give to police." The tag also contained the time and date that the venn would wear off.

"I'm Marvin! Let me go!"

Penny laughed. "What's the derivative of X cubed?"

Dirk just sat there. After several seconds, Marvin answered, "Three X squared."

"Second derivative?" asked Penny.

"Six X"

"Third?"

"Six"

"Fourth?"

"Zero"

She looked at the officers and held the pink poodle-ized Marvin up. "This is a third year engineering student. Your prisoner isn't. By the way, you can stick her into an evidence bag, too. She doesn't need to breathe."

The officers got statements from everyone, including Marvin. "After your girl is done with you, go to the campus security office. They'll have your statement all typed up and ready to sign."

Several times during the long process of taking statements, someone would hand Mark, the other Venn Machine attendant, a token. They would then get into the machine. After a minute, the venned customer would walk out, and Mark would return to his seat.

"What's the deal with those strange coins?" one of the young officers asked.

"A few years ago, one of our economics students minted them up as an experiment. One coin for one venn. The people that act as attendants end up collecting a bunch of them, and can sell them for whatever the market will bear."

"Classic commodity currency," another student commented. "One token for one simple venn, usually from history. But some people started charging more for complicated venns, so some argue that it has become a fiat currency."

Penny said, "Out in the real world, people who don't have a trusted friend will pay a service like Venn Partners or Trust Partners or Fantasy Venn to do the job. We like this system because we can trade venns. Those that want to make money can attend the machines more often. Those who want to use the services without contributing can simply buy tokens. Everybody wins."

After the police left, Marvin said, "You know I'm not fond of this form."

Penny giggled. "I'm sure Dirk hates it, and he's stuck with it for three years. I was tempted to make him into a rock, but this way, he can still stand trial. It won't cost much to incarcerate him, either."

Marvin said, "Now that we are done with that bit of unpleasantness, how about..."

Before he could finish, Penny threw him high and into the venn machine. He turned into his naked and sore self as soon as he was far enough into the machine. The door disappeared. He hit the corner at the back wall and ceiling and fell. His judo reflexes kicked in. He slapped the floor just before the rest of his body impacted.

Penny was already inside, so she was treated to the sight of his naked muscular body. "My Little Pleasure Purple Pink and Blue Cushie Soft Poofy silky furry Foxie!" she said gleefully. A long furred plush fox, the size of a large body pillow, appeared. As soon as the door disappeared, the fox hopped up and ran.

Penny playfully chased the fox, following it around all the twists and turns it was making. She scooped up the vixen and hugged her so tightly that her middle was flattened against her chest. "Now you're mine, my little foxie!"

The fox purred.

Eight hours after the venn, Marvin found his nude self wrapped tightly in Penny's arms. More snuggling ensued.

The next morning, they showered off the sweat of their exertions.

Inside the Venn Machine, the bag containing Marvin's somewhat bloodied clothes turned into a bag of freshly clean clothes. The t-shirt, shorts, and slippers he was wearing turned into clothing appropriate for class.

They shared a long hug, donned their backpacks, checked their biometrics, and headed for class.

Marvin and his friends followed Dirk's trial through social media and the news sites. They chuckled when they saw the results.

He was sentenced to ten years of probation, and to be a toy for the kids at a daycare center until the end of his venn.

Epilogue

Dirk's probation officer looked at the little pink plush poodle toy sitting on his desk. The DO NOT VENN tag was gone.

"Well, mister Stanwick, it appears that your venn wears off tomorrow..."

"Please," she interrupted. "I go by Miss Fifi now. Or just Fifi ."

"OK, Miss Fifi. What are your plans for tomorrow?"

"Um... Can you extend my venn for me?"