It's a Max Phoebe Thing
Chapter Four
Waiting for Max to come down the stairs seemed to be the longest moment in Phoebe's life. Her breakfast sat like a brick in her stomach as she paced in front of Colosso. He didn't seem too worried about the twins' situation, humming contentedly to himself. Or, maybe he was just trying to get under Phoebe's skin. And getting under her skin it was. Very few things made Phoebe want to crawl under her covers and cry, but this whole thing was really making it tempting.
Finally, she heard the quick thudding of footsteps coming down the stairs. Max was taking the steps two at a time. "What took you so long?" she demanded as he came to a stop in front of her. He looked a bit unsteady. It seemed she was right in thinking she wasn't the only one uncomfortable in the other's body.
He held up her cellphone. "I ran up to your room to grab this," he explained. "I thought you might want it."
She grabbed it. "Yeah, but don't you think Mom and Dad might notice if you suddenly start using my phone, you know, with it's flowery, pink case and all?" He rolled his eyes, grabbing his own phone from his desk and pulling it off the charger.
Wordlessly, he popped off the case and snatched hers back. "It's simple, dummy," he said. "We'll just switch the cases." He punctuated the word 'switch' with a light snap as he pressed Phoebe's case onto his phone. "And you're the smart one?" She didn't dignify that with a response, instead grabbing her phone out of his hand, now dressed in his black case.
"Whatever." She spun around, back to Colosso. "Okay, did you think of anything, fur ball?"
"Of course," he snapped, trying his hardest to look superior - something that must have been immensely difficult for a fluffy little bunny. "The good news..." He took a long pause, seemingly for dramatic effect. "There is no scenario where this switch is permanent, if that's what you've been worried about." Both twins heaved out a sigh of relief. It was like a weight that had been pressing down on Phoebe's chest had been, well, not removed, but lightened a bit. She finally felt like she could breathe.
"Then what's the bad news?" Max asked slowly. Colosso was silent for a long moment.
"Just tell us," Phoebe said, voice flat. "We going to need to know eventually."
"Alright. I was thinking of possible methods of switching the minds between two subjects-"
"And you couldn't think of any?" Phoebe asked, ice filling her veins.
"Quite the opposite," the rabbit corrected. "I thought of several, actually."
Max took a step forward, brow furrowed in confusion. "And that's a problem because...?"
"Because, it's likely not all of the methods are, let's say, compatible." Phoebe didn't quite understand what he was getting at. She glanced at Max, hoping maybe he did, but he seemed just as confused as she did.
"And that's a problem because...?" he repeated, motioning with his hands for Colosso to get on with it.
"It's a problem because, if my theory is correct, incompatible methods could have... negative effects on you if you were to try and undo the switch." That didn't make things any clearer to Phoebe.
She stepped up next to Max. "But you just said there was no chance it would be permanent. Why would it matter if you switched back a different way?"
"Hmm." Colosso thought for a moment, maybe trying how think how best to phrase it so they would understand. "You could say the human brain is similar to a computer in many ways. Think of memories like data on a hard drive. The difference is, the brain is vastly more complex, and isn't as easy to re-write as a computer is. See, your brains stayed in their heads. Your consciousnesses and memories were just re-written into the other's brain. While it is entirely possible to re-write it back, using an incompatible method could cause, let's say, re-write errors. Data getting left behind or erased entirely."
Understanding dawned on Max's face as Colosso spoke. "So switching back willy-nilly could be incredibly dangerous, potentially destroying our memories and consciousnesses."
"Exactly." Colosso nodded, falling silent once more for a short moment. "Your safest bet would be to recreate the same process as happened the first time."
"We don't know what that device was, though," Phoebe said. She was cold, goosebumps covering her arms. She did not like all the talk of 'data loss.'
"Well, the way I see it," Max said, turning to face her, a glint in his eyes as his mind likely raced a mile a minute, "we have two options. We can find the jerk who did this, hoping he hasn't sold the damn thing or something; or we can break back into the research facility and try and get a hold of the device's specs, assuming either of us would be able to identify it well enough to find its information on their mainframe."
Phoebe's shoulders sagged. She walked back over to Max's bed, plopping down with a sigh before she spoke. "Either one of those things could take days, maybe weeks to do."
He sat down next to her, chewing the inside of his cheek. "Yeah," he said finally. "I know. But it's really all we can do."
"You two are really lucky you swapped with each other, though," Colosso chimed in, voice musing.
Phoebe tilted her head to the side. "How do you figure?"
"Your powers, dummy," he snapped, echoing Max from earlier. "And you're the smart one?" She crossed her arms, glaring. He didn't seem to worried, though, based on his low chuckle. "You two already have the same powers. You don't have to worry about them going out of control, because you both already have control over them. That extra lobe in your brain would cause a lot of problems for anyone who didn't already have one. I mean, could you imagine a non-supe in this situation with you?"
The idea was terrifying. Not only would their secret be out, but a non-supe suddenly having powers with no control over them? Phoebe shuddered a little. She tried to push the thought from her mind. "So, what do we do now?"
"Well," Max said, standing again, pacing slowly as he thought, "we need to come up with a plan, but, like you said, anything we could do would take a lot of planning and time to get done. I say, we focus on making a plan tomorrow."
Phoebe was on her feet in a second, eyes wide. The way she looked down at Max... it was as if he suggested they started by kicking puppies. "Are you kidding? Don't you think it would be better if we started sooner rather than later?"
"Yes," he agreed, "but we're in this for the long haul. It's going to take just as long, regardless. Let's take today to learn how to be each other." The thought hadn't occurred to her, though it was one of the most worrying things about the whole situation. "I mean, I have no idea how to be a girl. I'm sure you're no better about being a dude. Let alone each other specifically."
He was right. So they sat down across from each other on Max's bed. It was going to be a long day.