The Alphabet Project, Part 7: "Four Hours"

This one came from two sources: an original idea suggested several years ago by Neil Marr from Bewrite, and a SMS conversation with my mate Andy Dodds. The story is a bit of SF-tinged silliness which naturally doesn't hold any water at all, but it's quite good fun all the same.

**

The queue at the gates was predictably long, and twenty minutes after we had arrived we passed through the turnstiles. Almost immediately the crowds dispersed, spreading out around SwitchLand, some going for food first, some to the toilets, some heading directly to the queues outside the main building.

As soon as I'd heard about the place I wanted to go. Nobody had tried what they did here before but by all accounts the technique had been perfected and it was proving to be hugely popular. Four hours of escapism for one thousand pounds. People came from all around the world and advance bookings were essential.

As we approached the building we saw a series of signs advising us of what would happen next:

Welcome to SwitchLand!
Transfer yourself into another body for four hours!
Be whoever you want to be!
See the world through different eyes!

The signs advised that the process would be painless and completely reversible. Due to advances in computer technology our minds, personalities and I suppose you could say our souls would be uploaded into a computer and then downloaded into another body. There was a selection of host bodies we could choose from (I'd read an article in the press where it was revealed some had been obtained from prisons where criminals on death row had elected to donate their bodies once their "self" had been uploaded and deleted - something of a virtual death I suppose) of all types, and both sexes. Some had been genetically engineered, which explained why some of the bodies were children and babies.

I looked at the options before me as I waited in line. Everyone obviously went for the opposite to their own reality, so the old became young, the weak strong, the bald hirsute, and so on. I'm nothing remarkable - white male, early thirties, blonde hair, reasonable build - but there, on the rack, was this absolute goddess of a woman, olive skin, black hair, fantastic figure. In a weird way I was smitten, and I had to be her.

I closed my eyes as they gave me the injection, feeling the anaesthetic spread through me, the ring of electrodes attached to my head like a crown. I closed my eyes and felt nothing.

When I awoke the technicians asked how I felt. "A little weird," I said, and my voice was different, softer, higher. I turned to one side and saw a mirror. I smiled. The woman smiled back.

One of the technicians attached a strap to my wrist. It looked like a watch. "This is counting down your time in the body. Be back before it runs out. Do anything you like in the park. You can't catch anything - the body might, but you won't - but you can't leave; if you try you'll be deleted remotely. You'll find some clothes through there." He pointed to a doorway.

"Thank you," I said. I stood, carefully as I felt a little woozy, and headed into the room.

A few minutes later I was outside, walking through the gardens, my cotton dress fluttering against my bare legs. It felt weird but strangely the same, the world not looking any different through these eyes but people - men - were looking at me. It felt most unusual. I sat down on a bench by a lake, watching people walk by.

"Is that seat taken?" the man asked, pointing to the space next to me. I shook my head. "Good." He sat down. "Don't you recognise me?"

"No. I'm sorry. Should I?"

"You should. I'm your wife."

Clearly she was unrecognisable, but this was Carol, my wife of five years, and childhood sweetheart, in the body of a tall, muscular man.

"Bloody hell," I said, and laughed. "How weird is this?"

"Really weird," she replied. "I've found a few things out already though. Been to the loo behind those bushes, just because I could, and I'd always thought it would be great to just - you know - but it went everywhere, on my shoes, on me!"

"It sometimes does," I said, "if you don't, well, hold it, or it comes back off a leaf or something."

"And sometimes your boxers do, well, pinch a bit and make you walk funny."

"Yours too," I said. "Bras could do with a bit of work as well."

"Anyway," she said, pointing towards the hotel, where a large sign announced that rooms could be rented by the hour. "Shall we?"

"Why not?" I replied.



It was an incredible experience, and obviously we both learned a lot. We stayed for longer than we had anticipated, going into a second hour, so we dressed quickly and left.

We spent the remaining time walking around the park, watching some of the others as they fulfilled their fantasies, some regressing to childhood, some just enjoying the change, the escapism. I saw all kinds of people, some I thought I recognised from their mannerisms, some from the faces of the donor bodies. I looked at the watch on my wrist and saw we had twenty minutes left. It was time to return.

I kissed Carol as she stepped into the building before me. We smiled at each other, said we'd see each other on the other side, and entered the room, closing the door behind her. Moments later I stepped into mine.

"How was it?" asked the technician.

"Fantastic," I replied. "Amazing."

"Good," he said, smiling. He placed the electrode crown back on my head and inserted the needle, pressing the plunger.

"Name?" he asked.

The world started to fade. "Simon Taylor," I mumbled.

"Oh," I heard him say.

Then it went dark.



Hi - this is Carol.

I came out of the changing room after a while and was fine. The park had been incredible and I couldn't wait to see Simon again so we could talk about it, but he didn't come out.

There was a bit of a commotion, people in white coats - the technicians - running all over the place, and outside I could see an enormous queue of people waiting to get into the park, and packed coaches arriving constantly, but no Simon.

One of the technicians took me to one side and into a small room, where one of the managers was waiting.

"I'm sorry about this, but there's been a bit of a problem. Simon is fine - absolutely fine - but there's been a mistake."

I frowned. "A mistake?"

"This has never happened before but, well, it would appear that his body has been loaned out."

"What?"

"When he vacated his body his empty vessel should have been placed in storage, in a kind of suspended animation, but it would appear that there was a mix-up and instead his body went to the pool of available ones - the line-up you saw when you arrived a few hours ago. You may have seen him while you were out in the park."

I searched my memory and remembered we had seen some people we felt we'd recognised. Could one of them have been Simon's body? Surely we'd have noticed.

"So what happens now? Can't you get his body back?"

"Theoretically, yes. In reality it's a bit trickier than that. You see he's become rather popular. It seems that everyone wants to be him, and all the people outside queueing to get in have reserved his body online. There's quite a waiting list, and it would appear news of his availability has spread online thanks to Twitter and Facebook and the like. If we were to repay all of these people it would ruin us and our reputation would be damaged. I'm afraid that the best course of action is essentially to wait your turn, until the demand dies down a little, and then you can have him back."

I heard the sound of another coach pulling up outside.

"It's a case of supply and demand I'm afraid. In these times of financial uncertainty if there is a demand and we have the supply to meet it, we'll meet it. Until then, Simon is perfectly safe, stored on our servers, backed up every five minutes, replicated via fibre optic links to our offsite storage facility."

Simon loved computers. He was always buying the latest gadgets and messing with his big boys toys. In a way this was just another body transfer for him. In a way, I knew he'd be loving it.

"Will you let me know when he's free?" I asked.

"Of course," he said, and smiled. "In the mean time though, do you know if he has a twin brother?"

**

Written by Peter Lee in Urmston, Sunday 2oth February 2011.
(C) 2011 Peter Lee. A Nasal Hair Production.