Swap Class Secret - Part Five

Swallowing hard, waiting for the sound of the footsteps to move far enough away, I turn on the machine as the sound of its whirring fills the room once more. Tapping at the console with my new miniaturized digits I quickly start it up, the pod in front of me soon growing warm as it spins up.

With my heart racing in my chest, I take a step forward and awkwardly stick a body part into the machine.

A cruel smirk spreads across my lips as I sit down on the floor, my stolen heat exhausted body practically screaming out in relief as I feel the hardwood press against my pert rear. Spreading my legs, the loose jeans making the movement easy, I slowly begin to inch towards the machine.

Swap Class Secret - Part Four

"Thank you for the body Ms. Fletcher" I moan softly, pinching at my firm and perky nipple with my right hand as my left blindly slaps around inside the machine. "Let's... Just..." I groan, a mixture of pleasure and discomfort building in my tone as I pull free the intact USB, placing it back into the machine to test a theory.

I smirk as I stare down at the poorly adapted little device, the bog-standard USB wrapped in small wires hooked up to an external battery supply. The whole thing is hot in my delicate pale hand, the electronics inside threatening to melt under the strain of holding such volatile and heavily compressed information.

As the scent of burning plastic begins to sting my nostrils I know I need to do something soon about the young woman trapped inside the storage device, the disgusting smell telling me that something was going to give at any moment. With a small groan and grunt I reach back into the machine, flailing about as I finally manage to plunge the USB back into the awaiting slot after only a few attempts.

Swap Class Secret - Part Three

"Let's get you to a nice bed where you can cool off. Once you're feeling better we can send you home for the day" the doughy nurse chirps, the seemingly older woman giving me a small wink as she practically drags me down the hallway.

I struggle to really keep up, my stick-like legs merely dragging along the polished linoleum floor as the foreign woman walks up forward. How light was I? How much mass had I lost when I let that stupid mouse walk away with my body?

"I know how it is" the soft Irish woman coos, pulling me into a side room as I feel more of my long brown hair slide from some unknown location. "Young, free... well aside from folks like Mr. Vasquez tellin' ya what to do... but a day or a half can really make the..." she continues, pausing for a moment as she pauses the two of us beside a large plastic curtain.

Swap Class Secret - Part Two

 Suddenly, the word goes dark as my senses are ripped from me. In that moment it feels as though I'm moving through a tumble drier as the heat and the twisting sensations bombard me from all angles.

There is no break in continuity however, no floating in a void or darkness. Being trapped in the slightly expanded cognitive buffer is like not living at all, a brief second of non-existence before I'm brought crashing back down into a very different living breathing form as the original mind is plunged into the USB, crammed disorientingly inside for me to fetch later.

Swap Class Secret - Part One

Creeping through the empty courtyard with a pet carrier under one arm and pry in hand, I try to keep my head low. Clouds blot out the moon, leaving the sky glowing and ever so faint gray while the street is solely illuminated by artificial light.

It was the perfect night to make a break-in, the low fog creeping in for the coming morning doing more than enough to obscure my frame as I rush along the concrete paths and up to the metal door frames.

Sliding the pry bar between them I easily manage to pop the lock, the metal crunching from within causing the pet carrier to erupt with panicked squeaks and squealing. In hushed tones I try to calm down the tiny creature inside the plastic cell, the tiny pale mouse racing around its enclosure in a panic seeming to not pay me any mind as it freaks out.

Rent-to-Swap - Part Two

At another Swap Clinic the renter enters in through the front doors, getting there early to sign much of the remaining paperwork before they could take possession of the body they had so eagerly rented out.

Before long, I would find myself wearing their body, the body of a younger woman for the next week.

Rent-to-Swap - Part One

Sitting alone in my apartment I fiddle with my phone, my eyes darting up to the notification bar over and over as I await the pending pop-up. It was overdue, the email I had been expecting all morning.

I had tried to push the thought from my mind in any way I could. From cooking as a lavish breakfast as I could on my meager budget, to reading the various books on my shelf, to searching the job listings in the hope that I wouldn't need to even read the email I was expecting.

Sadly however nothing had worked, each task in turn slowly ending in me staring down at my phone screen in anxious anticipation.

Suddenly my phone buzzes. Despite having been waiting for it to do so the vibrations on my hands cause me to jump in my seat. Looking at the notification I swallow hard, slowly building up the courage to tap the notification that reads...

SWAP CLINIC: RENT-TO-SWAP APPLICATION

The Last Swap Class - Prologue

Lathem College for several years, an elective that would make students swap bodies with one of their classmates for the whole semester. It was intended to give students an insight into alternative perspectives, and thanks to many positive experiences the class numbers continued to grow year after year. On the rare occasion there was an odd number of students either the subject coordinator or one of the tutors would swap as well, becoming a student for the semester.

Over the years of acting as the subject coordinator Margret Farland, a 61-year-old senior lecturer, found herself fiddling with the parameters of the swap. A memory or two exchanged here, an inability to talk about the swap there. Her experiments slowly became known by her fellow teachers, each one suggesting new tests to run each semester and enjoying what they saw as a social experiment.

However, during one of their informal after-hours 'meetings' around how to run the next class a new idea was proposed. This group of underpaid and underappreciated lecturers and tutors wondered "What if we just didn't swap back?"