Chapter 16:
The three sliders ran down a busy San Francisco street, as they were chased by a mob. Sam held a sword and waved it at the mob, who slowed down.
"I told you that they'd think the timer was a magic item!" Rebecca shouted.
"Sorry, but you asked how much time we had left!" Michael snapped.
"Guys, calm down, how much time is left now?" Sam asked.
"A minute! Get into the alleyway!" Michael replied.
They ran into the alleyway and Michael pointed the timer at the wall. The timer activated and the portal opened. Sam threw the sword at the mob and jumped into the portal.
"Give me the timer!" Rebecca shouted, grabbing the timer.
"No time!" Michael said and ran into the portal, followed by Rebecca, still hanging onto the timer.
They slid in the vortex. A strange lightning strike began to crash down, causing it to be bumpier than usual.
"This is your fault!" Rebecca shouted.
"If you hadn't grabbed the timer, it wouldn't have done this!" Michael shouted back.
"You are such a jerk!" Rebecca snapped.
"If the timer's broken cause of this, it's your fault!" Michael shouted as the lightning strike hit the two of them and they slid out of the portal.
They landed on the ground, as Sam stood up and brushed himself off. Michael and Rebecca stood up, looking dazed.
"You guys alright?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, if she hadn't grabbed the timer, none of that would've happened." Rebecca said.
"It wasn't my fault!" Michael shouted.
"Don't you start with me!" Rebecca shouted.
"Guys!" Sam shouted.
"What?" Michael and Rebecca asked.
"Well, for starters, Rebecca, you're talking like Michael." Sam said.
"Sam, are you blind? I'm Michael, I think the slide messed with your eyes." Rebecca said.
"Turn to Rebecca then." Sam said.
Rebecca and Michael turned to face each other and screamed. Rebecca grabbed her hair and Michael stared in horror at his body.
"What? I'm you and you're me? What happened?" Michael asked.
"I don't know, all I know is that it's your fault!" Rebecca shouted.
"Okay, so you two switched bodies?" Sam asked.
"I guess!" Michael shouted. "From now on, address us as who the mind is and not the body."
"Got it, Rebecca." Sam said.
"Calm down, check the timer. Calm down, check the timer." Michael said inhaling and exhaling. He looked at the timer. "Good, we have two days here then we can go, and replicate what happened and swap us back."
"Two days?" Rebecca asked.
"Yeah. I'm not too thrilled with this too." Michael said.
"How do you wear these jeans? They're so bulky!" Rebecca asked.
"How do you wear skirts? It's a weird sensation, and I hate it." Michael said.
"Let's get to the hotel, and you guys can buy some new clothes." Sam said.
"Easy for you to say, you're not walking around in heels." Michael said. "We run from people on a daily basis, why would you wear heels?"
"You can run in them with a certain grace, which you obviously don't have." Rebecca said.
"Guys! You two fighting got us into this. So shut up until we get to the hotel." Sam shouted.
"Fine..." Michael and Rebecca said.
They walked into the hotel room and Michael sat down and pulled the heels off. He lay down on the bed and groaned.
"Why you?" he asked. "Why not Sam?"
"Because you two were holding the timer." Sam said laughing.
"It's not funny!" Rebecca snapped.
"Oh come on, it kind of it." Sam said. "You two got what you deserved, to see life from the other person's shoes."
"I'd have no problem if her shoes were comfortable..." Michael muttered.
"I checked with the concierge, there's an all purpose clothing store down the block. We have enough money since we worked for it a couple worlds ago." Sam said.
"Great. I can't wait until I can get out of these." Michael said.
"One rule, you can't make my body look stupid." Rebecca said with her hands on her hips.
"If pants make you look stupid, I'm disregarding that rule." Michael said.
"Guys, you might want to check the mannerisms that you are using." Sam said. "They aren't indicative of your current genders."
"Shut up, Sam," Michael snapped.
They walked into the store and Michael instinctively began walking towards the men's clothing area. Sam grabbed his shoulder.
"Wrong way." Sam said.
"Right..." Michael said, and walked to the women's section.
Sam walked with Rebecca up to the clothing racks and Sam started pulling stuff off the racks.
"What are you doing?" Rebecca asked.
"Picking you out some clothes." Sam said.
"I'm capable of doing that on my own." Rebecca said.
"But you're a girl. You don't know guy clothes." Sam said.
"I've dated a few guys with terrible fashion sense to know what not to wear." Rebecca said. "I can handle this."
"Whatever," Sam said. "I'm going to go check on Michael."
Sam walked into the women's clothing area and saw Michael carrying an armload of clothes. He walked over and took some off the pile.
"Need any help, Miss?" Sam asked jokingly.
"Are you ever not going to find this funny?" Michael asked.
"Nope." Sam said.
"Wait for me outside the changing room, and hold the timer." Michael said, passing the timer to Sam.
"Want me to judge your outfit?" Sam asked.
"Just tell me if Rebecca will kill me or not for wearing it." Michael said.
"Will do." Sam said.
Michael emerged from the changing room a few minutes later wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a t-shirt, the heels having been replaced with a pair of Converse.
"She won't hate it..." Sam said. "But she might not like it."
"Whatever, it's comfortable. I'm sticking with it." Michael said.
He went back into the changing room and put the old clothes back on, and took the new ones to the register to pay for them. Rebecca walked up holding a new outfit as well and put it on the counter.
"Good, that's not a bad choice." Rebecca said.
"Thanks." Michael said.
Sam paid for the clothes and they left the store returning to the hotel, where they both quickly switched into their new clothes. Rebecca walked out of the bathroom in a green button down collared shirt and a pair of dress pants. She had made Michael's normally unkempt hair, into a formal style.
"Wow. I look like a dork!" Michael said.
"No, you look like an adult." Rebecca said.
"Michael, the timer's acting weird whenever you guys fight." Sam said. "The numbers fluctuate."
"Really?" Michael asked taking the timer. "It's probably Rebecca's fault."
"It is not!" Rebecca snapped.
"Huh, you're right." Michael said. "Why is that?"
"What did you see in the vortex?" Sam asked.
"There was, lightning and it struck the two of us." Rebecca said.
"Weird..." Sam said. "You think you can use the timer before it times out to fix it?"
"Can't. One, you're not supposed to do that. Two, since we had it upgraded, it won't do it even if we wanted. It has a failsafe to prevent it." Michael said.
"Wait a minute." Rebecca said. "I think I know what's happened."
"How?" Michael asked.
"I don't know. All I know is that I suddenly know all about the inner workings of the timer." Rebecca replied.
"Maybe it's because there's still a bit of my brain inside my body, and a bit of yours up here." Michael said. "That's why I knew what type of outfit you'd approve of. The bit that was still you picked it out."
"Wow. Anyway, when we go through the vortex, our molecules are scrambled. And put back together." Rebecca started. "And when one person holds the timer, it can differentiate between human and non-human matter."
"But if two people hold it, it can get mixed up, because it only sees human and timer, and not two humans." Michael said.
"And that's why we swapped bodies, the biological code that holds our minds got put into the wrong bodies. The lightning strike was the timer scrambling us, to try to fix the two sets of DNA." Rebecca said.
"And a bit of us is in the timer, since that got mixed in, so when we fight, it's like shorting the battery." Michael said.
"So, all we have to do, is go through the vortex with the timer in both our hands, and hopefully it'll strike us again and fix the fault." Rebecca said.
"Yes!" Michael shouted. "I could kiss me!" Rebecca and Sam looked uncomfortably at Michael.
"But I won't," Michael said. "Cause that'd be weird."
"Anyway, we just have to wait out the next two days and then we can slide out and fix this." Rebecca said.
"I think it's time for bed anyway," Michael yawned. "And the upside to this is that I get the bed to myself now."
"And why is that?" Rebecca asked.
"Because I have the girl body. And you don't." Michael smiled. "There is a bit of a silver lining after all."
The next morning Rebecca woke up and saw Michael exiting the bathroom. She looked him up and down.
"Ahem. You're forgetting something." Rebecca said.
"What? I washed and brushed your hair. I am wearing the outfit you approved. What else is there to do?" Michael asked.
"My face." Rebecca replied.
"Do you really need to wear makeup?" Michael asked.
"Yes!" Rebecca said.
"I've never understood that. There are countless girls I've known that just look better without it." Michael said.
"You still have to wear it! It's my face, I make the decisions!" Rebecca shouted.
"Fine..." Michael said, walking back into the bathroom. "But you have to help me, because I don't know what I'm doing."
"I was hoping you'd say that." Rebecca said and they walked into the bathroom together.
The trio sat down in the diner and picked up the menus. They glanced at them, and Rebecca turned to Michael.
"You can't eat like you in that body, not everyone has your metabolism." Rebecca said.
"I wasn't planning on it." Michael said. "Truth be told, I'm not all that hungry."
"Speak for yourself, I'm starving!" Sam said.
"You're always starving." Rebecca said.
"I can't help it." Sam said.
"Why is it that all the problems that can happen always happen to us?" Michael asked. "Sam is always unaffected."
"What about the VR world?" Sam asked.
"That was a conscious choice you made. So was helping the people on the utopia world." Rebecca said. "We always get the short end of the proverbial stick."
"One thing we can agree on." Michael said.
"Anyway, I'm going to go use the bathroom." Rebecca said.
She walked to the bathroom and walked into the women's bathroom, stopping halfway through the door. She walked into the men's bathroom. She emerged a few minutes later and returned to the table.
"I don't know how you do it, it's so gross!" she said.
"Finally used the men's room, huh?" Michael asked.
"I don't wanna talk about it." Rebecca replied.
"Maybe you two will come out of this with a healthy respect for each other." Sam said.
"Yeah, right." Michael said.
Sam sat on the bed in the hotel room, watching Michael and Rebecca playing with the timer.
"Okay, so I was holding it like this, and you held it like this." Michael said.
"But it should be switched if we're in different bodies, right?" Rebecca asked.
"I don't know!" Michael shouted.
"Does it matter?" Rebecca asked.
"I don't know that either!" Michael replied.
"How much time is left?" Sam asked.
"A few minutes." Michael said. "What I do know, is that I'm going to miss having Rebecca knowing the workings of the timer. It was fun to have someone to bounce the ideas back and forth with."
"I won't. It wasn't like I was talking, it was like you were controlling the mouth." Rebecca said.
"Anyway, do we have everything we need before we go? Because no telling what'll happen on the next world. We might turn into animals or something." Sam said.
"That's ridiculous. If anything we'd be human/animal hybrids." Michael said.
"Let's not jinx it. All I want out of the slide is to go back to normal." Rebecca said.
"Let's go then. Sam, remember, you go through first." Michael said aiming the timer at the wall.
"Got it! Let's go!" Sam said as the timer created the wormhole and Sam jumped through.
"Should we fight while doing it again?" Rebecca asked.
"Just hold onto the timer." Michael said, as they jumped through.
The lightning struck again and the two of them slid out of the portal onto the ground. Sam picked the timer up and checked the numbers as Michael and Rebecca stood up.
"Did it work?" Michael's body asked.
"Looks like it." Rebecca's body replied.
"You guys you?" Sam asked.
"Let's see, shorter hair, dorky clothes, slightly unshaven face." Michael said. "I'm me again!"
"What about the timer? Is it still connected to our bodies?" Rebecca asked.
"Not sure, start fighting again." Sam said.
"I can't just fight on command, she can though." Michael said.
"I do not!" Rebecca shouted.
"Do too." Michael said.
"Why you!" Rebecca started.
"Numbers aren't fluctuating. You guys are you and the timer is the timer again." Sam said.
"Good. I don't want that to happen ever again. New rule, one person to the timer when we go through." Michael said.
"Agreed." Rebecca said.
"Let's go wind down for a bit, we don't have that long here, only a few hours." Sam said.
"Fine by me. I get to enjoy this world from my own body." Michael said.
To Be Continued...