Reality Reversal - Part One

I kick my legs beneath my seat as I sit in the cramped waiting room, the extended and narrow space being more a wide corridor than a real room in and of itself. I had been waiting for nearly an hour, the rough appointment time being more of an estimate given the nature of the work going on behind closed doors.

"Mr Anderson?" calls a soft voice from further up the room, a tall and slender redheaded woman reading from a clip board as a doughy young man heaves up to his feet. The plastic seat creaks beneath him as the frame flexes without his weight bearing down on it.

I watch as the shorter blonde haired man waddles up towards the taller redhead, the woman barely even paying him much attention as she gestures down a hall with her clip board before guiding him out of sight.

My gaze returns to the walls around me, the pale robin's egg blue begin meant to act as a calming color for those awaiting their test results. Posters and pamphlets set in clear view for those waiting for their appointment.

'It's okay to be the weaker side'

'Coping mechanisms for a new reality'

'Need new clothes? Find local partners stores inside!'

I let out a long sigh, kicking my legs forwards as I lean back in my seat. Glancing around I spot various nervous folks, men and women of all ages wringing their hands awkwardly or staring at their phones in an effort to distract themselves.

"Ms Casey?" calls a deeper voice than before, my eyes darting to the young Indian man standing at the mouth of the hallway. His brown eyes track to a frail and puffy eyed brunette in her forties, her hand fiddling with a well-worn wedding band. I watch as the woman clambers to her feet unsteadily, her lithe and fragile form covered in a loose and somewhat stained pink and white sundress.

As she reaches the corner I watch as a slender and top-heavy blonde in her early twenties staggers out from around the hallway, her luscious hair a disheveled mess as dark heavy shadows rest beneath her eyes while her lithe body shakes painted into a tight sparkly black dress. Her lightly tan and freckled face burns red as she struggles to stand on her six-inch heels, her long legs shaking as she grasps the wall to support herself.

As the blonde shuffles along, the scent of vodka and sweet fruit juice clinging to her as she passes by, I can't help but wonder just who that had been. A common thought that I had been grappling with since coming for my appointment at Reality Reversal.

 

With the empirical proving of the multiverse theory of reality the next question posed had been simple, how could one see the other side of things. The race for that goal was short lived however, with a small start-up soon developing a way to look into and view other realities. While this had been celebrated at the time, the development was in fact far more limited that what the team had once thought.

Through linking a person into the weave between realities, the team could view said subjects otherworldly counterpart. While this first required the subject to remain in the testing apparatus the whole time, the system had quickly been stream-lined to one that merely needed a small blood sample.

However, despite how hard they tried the team could get their equipment to show any other reality than the first one that had appeared for viewing. After much testing the cause was discovered, that being the relatively distance and weakness between the walls holding back one universe from another. Where the distance was shortest and the barriers weakest the device could show the other side with ease, while any beyond that singular instance were impossible to peer into.

Quickly, the world moved on from viewing to trying to interact with the other world. While the multiverse at large was out of reach, the tantalizing nature of being able to contact even this one singular world each person seemed linked to was just too much of a draw to pass up.

After millions of dollar being spent and dozens of failed efforts only two partially successful products were produced, both of which swiftly being acquired by that original start-up and their venture capital masters.

The first product had been made in an attempt to force a subject into their other world, the device taking up the weave around the target before effectively tearing them from one reality to another. While the device itself partially worked, it left behind a bit of a mess with the subjects tested going comatose while their other half in the other reality seemed to freakout and panic almost immediately.

It was soon found that the device was rending the mind of the test subject from their body, launching it into the closest acceptable body that wasn't currently being metaphysically and artificially shaken and jostled between realities. Once in the other reality, the subject's mind would settle into their body in the other world, a version of themselves that had lived a different life in a typically quite familiar reality.

However, this was often a one way trip. Between the harm done to the test subject, their rapidly failing body, and the usual lack of any multiversal research in this new reality the test subjects would soon have to learn to live out this new life regardless of how they ended up.

The second product sought the opposite to the first, to bring someone from the other world over to our own. Much like the first, it too had an obvious and immediately glaring flaw. Cries of discomfort had filled the testing labs one each attempt with the end results always being the same, the viewing window showing a mangled and disembodied brain on the floor and the test subject wearing the body from their multiverse other-half.

This was most certainly irreversible. Beyond the mere fact that the disembodied brain left behind was most certainly deceased, no one really even knew where the test subjects original body had gone or how to get it back. Subjects were forced to simply try to adjust to their new body, with new IDs being issued based on what could be gleamed from the other reality and from testing of their new body.

Despite these largely being considered failures by their original researchers, the start-up, now branded Reality Reversal, saw them in a completely different light.

Unhappy with your life? Why not take over another?

Wanting to try a different look? Why not have a whole body makeover?

What was strange was the fact that each of these procedures seemed to only work with certain people. While most everyone could do one of them, aside from those with deceased counterparts in their closest reality, each person who was tested seemed more likely than not to only be able to do one or the other. The reasoning had just been chalked up to the walls between worlds preferring to flow in one direction or another, with only a rare few getting an actual choice in which procedure they could undertake.

 

I had made my appointment well into my stint of unemployment, a government sponsored program offering to pay for the procedure after having spent most of a year floundering in search of a new teaching position.

The thought behind the program was simple, either I would be sent to the other reality and no long be a drag on unemployment numbers on this side or perhaps I would find more luck finding work with a different outward appearance. On top of this, Reality Reversal wouldn't even charge if I ended up elsewhere so long as they got to keep the leftovers. The company more than happy to find a use for an uninhabited body, and with the powers that be simply not questioning the reasons.

 

"Mr Hughes" calls a voice, the tall redheaded woman from earlier calling out my name as I whip my head around. I quickly hop to my feet, my heart racing in my chest as I raise my hand to wave at the redhead woman. She merely nods at me, gesturing down the hallway where the doughy young man had gone and the gorgeous blonde had emerged.

My mind races as the woman walks me down the hallway, the various closed doors making be wonder if the young man I watched enter here was still around.

"Just a bit further..." the woman coos, her dark green eyes darting between me and an open door. "Just that one... on the left..."

As I reach the door I peek inside, my gaze falling on a small desk separating the room into two halves. Behind the desk sits a tan blonde man in her late fifties, her white lab coat and the mask over his mouth leaving him coded as a doctor at the very least. A faint few gray hair sit in his side burns, the silvery strands hiding well among his light blonde locks.

He fiddles at a strange computer, the standard LCD screen and mouse being all that really makes sense to me as I try to take in the cables and metal casing overflowing the small wooden desk. A small slot rests with a small vial of blood resting in it, a tiny green LED beneath it flashing rhythmically while a second light remains off. Cables run across the floor to a large metal plate on the floor, a small metal stool sitting in the center and directly across from the 'doctor'.

"Ah Mr Hughes I presume" the man huffs, his deep gravelly voice becoming slightly muffled by the mask. "Please, take a seat. I'm just reviewing your file, sorry we're a little behind today but one of our staff decided to quit in a rather novel..." he huffs, his pale icy blue eyes narrowing in frustration before he lets out a long sigh.

As I take an awkward seat on the metal stool I feel a series of light static shock prickle at my fingers, the stored energy being strong enough to even zap at my legs and ass through my loose pale blue jeans. The doctor's shoulder slump as he squeezes the bridge of his nose, kneading the tan skin as he tries to ease out some tension.

"Sorry... sorry, no need to hear our workplace prob..." he sighs, his gave darting to an empty coffee mug before sighing once more. "Alright, let's go over these results..." he mutters tiredly, reaching up as he begins to turn the screen towards me.

The screen is largely filled with writing beyond my understanding, various test results from the blood sample I had given weeks ago that meant practically nothing to me. A bit of movement catches my eyes, a small window in the top right of the screen showing fairly low frame rate footage as if from a security camera.

"Don't worry about most of that, your iron levels are fine and all the usual metrics are well within the healthy range. What matters for your purposes is that you appear to be..."