Twisted Testing - Part One

"Once again..." the soft spoken woman on the monitor coos, pausing for a moment just to take a sip of water as she quickly mutes and un-mutes her microphone. "...We cannot thank you enough for your interest in our program Mr Hughes" she continues, adjusting her dark framed glasses before sliding a lock of black hair behind her pale pierced ear.

I squirm a little in my seat, my hands clammy and my heart fluttering nervously as I stare down at the woman on my laptop's screen. Clearing my throat I begin to speak, my gaze darting to my own image in the teleconferencing window as I make sure I look presentable.

"It's alright, I just wasn't expec..." I begin to chirp back, the dark haired woman soon cutting me off as is want to occur when talking over the internet.

"It's just that..." she begins pausing as she jumps a little. "Oh, my apologies Mr Hughes. I was just wanting to say we don't normally get people seeking employment as a tester with your sort of education."

"Like I said, it's alright" I say back, rubbing the back of my neck. "I figured that might be why you asked for a call. I received the offer just fine, but... well..." I mutter, trailing off as I stare over at the formal notice sitting beside the computer on the coffee table, the subject line still sending chills up my spine.

'Welcome to the X-Change Family'

 

The woman on the screen chuckles a little, the mousey and dark haired woman appearing to be somewhere in her mid to early thirties. Leaning back a little I manage to catch a glance of her shoulders, her extremely narrow and slight build being clad in a white ruffled blouse.

"Well Mr Hughes, you would be correct in that case" she giggles, raising a hand to her mouth as she covers her thin red painted lips. "Normally we would simply send the product with instructions to our tester, the typical process being they try the product and take a picture to upload to our testing portal so we can check its effect."

Nodding along I narrow my eyes, a light bulb flickering to life in my head as I snap my fingers. "That's for the... what's it called... Custom?" I ask, cocking my head to the side inquisitively.

The dark haired woman merely nods back, a slight smirk spreading across her lips.

"Correct Mr Hughes, I take it you've seen the commercials?" she asks, her smirk growing a little as she speaks. "Our marketing department has been 'flooding the air waves' as it were, though I guess that has a very different meaning given current technology these days."

"You could say that..." I chuckle back nervously, my mind casting back to the last time I watched a videos online. You couldn't go ten minutes without seeing that damned advertisement, of men and women talking about their alternative to cosmetic surgery for those with a large enough back account. "... There's only one you, why not be your best?" I coo, repeating the line I had heard far to many times in the past few months.

"So you have seen it" the woman chuckles, rolling her sparkling hazel eyes. "As you may have guessed, the ad doesn't exactly paint the full process. It of course starts with the patron designing their dream body, but we do have a step before that and delivering their finished product."

"Testing" I state, the woman nodding again at me through the camera.

"Correct again Mr Hughes" she states, typing something on her keyboard before returning to the conversation. "We test to see if the product we had fits the patron's specifications. For the highest end this includes measurements down to the inch, however, for most all we need is a photo to confirm that all the features are present that can be."

Cocking an eyebrow I slowly begin to furrow my brow, a crease soon forming on my forehead as I look at the screen in confusion.

"All the features that can be?" I ask, folding my arms across my chest.

"Many people seem to have the wrong impression of X-Change Mr Hughes..." the woman chirps back, her slender figure inching a little closer to the screen. "It can change structure..." she states, turning her head to her side to show off her delicate jawline. "... And internals..." she continues, flashing a pearly white smile. "... However everything else... is... fixed" she mutters, blinking her hazel eyes and sliding her dark hair behind her ear once more.

"So you're not looking for that stuff..." I begin to muse, looking at my image in the monitor before looking back at the camera. "... You just care about the overall build?"

"You certainly catch on quickly Mr Hughes" the woman coos, her unseen hands typing at the keyboard once again before clicking a few times at the mouse. "We then send the subject a reversion pill, a little thing that works to pull out all the changes we have made and fix up the tester for their next round. We also send the check at that time as well, making sure that payment is provided once the job is done."

 

There is a bit of a pause in the conversation as I'm left adjusting myself in the seat, my gaze turning to the window before slowly returning to the woman on my screen.

"But I take it you want something more from me?" I ask, swallowing hard as the woman's smile grows into an almost giddy grin. "I mean... you wanted to speak to me personally and all..."

"Well..." the woman begins, leaning back into her seat as she resets herself into the center of the frame. "We might still send you a Custom for testing, like I said we have different tiers of product and specificity to suffice. However, you are right that we at X-Change have other products we wish to send you, though both the Customs and these new ranges would require a similar level of reporting."

Wringing my hands together I take a moment, nodding after composing myself for the woman to continue as she brings up a screen share.

"Alright, to start with..." she mutters, the screen filling with a remuneration schedule. "We are willing to offer two-thousand dollars a fortnight while you are under our employ or the effects of any X-Change we send you, whichever duration is longer. You may seek other employment during this time, so long as you manage to maintain your reporting obligations to X-Change we do not mind if you earn any additional income."

I open my mouth to speak, my voice catching as she quickly shifts to the next screen. Between multiple images of gene sequences and the various paragraphs of text I quickly become lost in all the science talk.

"As you know, most of our offerings come from utilizing pre-existing human templates to provide phenotypical alterations. These are largely temporary due to cost, however with the addition of stabilizers we are able to increase the length or even lock in these changes at a typically drastically increased cost."

"Sorry... sorry but can you go back to remun..." I begin to ask, the woman changing the slide before I can finish my request as my screen is filled with various pictures of animals.

"Apologies, but can we please keep questions to the end?" the woman asks, her hand reach for her throat as she clears something before continuing. "However, we are also aware that certain traits from animals might also be desirable in humans. Fertility from rabbits for instance or the unwavering focus of hunting dogs. We believe we have been able to isolate these traits for use in X-Change, and we hope to start test immediately."

Opening my mouth to speak the screen shifts once more to a slide of various groups of people, from college students all together to older men and women or even the downright elderly along with groups of pregnant women and a cavalcade of porn stars.

"We are also working on a range of novelty X-Change" the woman explains, mousing between the various groups. "Reliving youth, trying out being the housewife for a change, having the perfect temporary body for a romantic vacation away, maybe solving some arguments about how hard pregnancy is or how well people will age" she continues, pausing for a moment as her eyes practically sparkle. "And we would also use them practically too, giving more realistic sex-ed or helping couples prepare for pregnancy, or maybe helping people come to grips with aging. There are so many possibilities."

As the screen flickers to the next slide it shows a bit of a flow chart, a list of various stages slowly leading down towards a box surrounded by firework clipart and reading

[Public Launch!]

 "So... this is where you come in Mr Hughes..." the woman chirps, circling a section towards the later half of the pipeline. "We have tested our model, and the experimental pills are deemed safe for consumption. However, we have not tested their long term effects on humans and especially not someone who can articulately explain any changes he may have undergone."

"So you want me to document it for you?" I blurt out, my face growing pale at the thought of being a guinea pig in this particular way.

"Please..." the woman insists, holding up her hand. "...Leave your questions for the end. We want you to docu..." she continues, pausing as she seems to finally twig to my question. "Exactly! We figure a daily check in would suffice, a picture would even do, with more substantial check ins happening via a call like this along with the submission of a diary or journal." 

With one more click the screen turns black, small text up the top simply explaining that the presentation was over. The woman purses her lips, her eyes narrowing before the share screen suddenly shrinks away.

"I could have sworn I had another slide..." she muses, twisting her lips from side to side before giving a small shrug. "Oh well, so... any questions?"

 

Dumbstruck by the presentation I'm left sitting in shock for a moment, my mind reeling as I try to put together a semi-articulate question to start off with. The woman on the screen tilts her head a little before leaning in, her hand moving for the mouse as she jiggles it slightly.

"Hello?... Mr Hughes?" she asks, looking around the screen for something. "Have we lost connection or..."

"So you're trying to make... cat girls?" I ask, the idiotic thought blurting out before I can think better. The woman cocks a dark eyebrow at me, a half choked laugh managing to escape before she merely scoffs in response.

"No Mr Hughes, we are not intent on creating 'cat girls' of any kind" she states dryly, tilting her head forward as she gives me a knowing look. "As popular as that might be in certain markets we are trying to keep out experimental lines purely for utility at this stage. It will be hard enough for people to take the idea of animal augmented X-Change seriously, we don't need news outlets talking about us making 'Milky Breasted Cowgirls' when we're just trying to make a lactation aid." 

"If they're just minor changes, then why do you need such extensive testing?" I quickly follow up, my mind managing to spit out a more cogent question than the first.

"Trying to make minor changes Mr Hughes" the woman sighs, her shoulders sloughing a little. "The trying is the important part. We believe our proposed new lines, be they the animal based products or the novelty items, are sound. However, there are always variables we might not see in the simulations or outside of a real world environment. Even extended duration may make a difference, hence the ask for more than just a mere photo like with the simpler Customs."

"And the Customs?" I ask, cringing a little as I remember that add again. "Would I be testing those as well?"

"Potentially" the woman states, nodding her head slightly. "It would depend on departmental need. Should we ask you to try a custom we would likely need to you perform some other tasks for us, things the client had requested for their new body to be built for."

"Such as?" I ask, furrowing my brow once more as I look at the dark-haired woman.

"Fittings..." the woman states, coughing a little as her cheeks grow a faint hint of color. "Potentially some sort of exercise or hobby, some people ask for bodies that can handle cold weather for instance and you may need to go camping in the elements to test that for us or potentially a night out to see how they handle their liquor and the hangover that follows. Again, it's hard for us to try it in the lab."

 

With a deep breath I lean back, my hands raising up to my temples as I rub at them furiously. I can hardly believe that I was even considering this, though it was hard to turn down a thousand dollars a week for doing practically nothing.

Reaching to the bridge of my nose I begin to rub along its length, pinching down firmly as I try to focus on what to say next.

"We can even throw in a signing bonus" the woman remarks, a grin forming on her face as she twists the proverbial dagger. "Five thousand up front... once we have confirmation you have taken your first dose of course."

Slumping forward I slowly crane my neck back up, my eyes falling on the grinning visage of the woman on the screen.

"I guess... when do we start?' I ask, the woman quickly responding with a giddy clap.

"Today!" she chirps, her whole body leaning forward as she begins to type and click at her computer. "I will have one of our couriers come to your apartment in the next hour or two.. Oh this is so exciting! Thank you Mr Hughes, I promise you won't regret this. Let me just..."

"Okay but what are you sending me?" I grumble, my lips pursed as I feel my stomach begin to sink.

"Oh... right..." the woman remarks, her eyes going wide as she realizes that she had just completely skipped over that part. "I was thinking we would get you to try..."