Terry Gillespie walked into his home and closed the door. He sighed, took off his shoes, and walked into his den. He started up his computer and stared at the background images to remind himself of the people he’d helped, the people who made his job and the ruses he had to play for his job worthwhile. Jordyn. Quinn. Alex. Marti and Marty. Ellie. Even, although she’d never admit it, Doreen. And so many more.

As he stared, he relaxed, emotionally, and physically, and with his relaxation he let Terry go for the evening, slipping into someone more comfortable.

After a moment, Teri opened her eyes. She stretched to adjust her body awareness to her smaller stature. As she grabbed a quick bite to eat – changing shape consumed a lot of calories, after all – she considered her options for the evening and weekend. She wanted to go out, possibly even with someone, but she didn’t want to risk being recognized. She loved her friends, but they were also part of Terry’s job, and after the queerphobic conservative bullshit she went through at work this week, she couldn’t handle that right now. But, that would require… ugh.

It would require either non-TiGer dating, which was boring as hell, or another new persona.

She sighed. Fine. Time to get it over with.

She walked upstairs to her bedroom, shedding Terry’s too-loose suit as she went. Usually she hung his clothes up when she got home to prevent wrinkles, but she had all weekend to do that. She looked in the mirror and tried to decide who she wanted to be tonight.

Hmm… I haven’t used the name Tara yet, and it’s cute enough as long as you think about the Buffy character and not the voice actress…

Right. So what was Tara like? Obviously flirty, if we’re going for hookups on her first day out. Let’s be a bit of an attention seeker, too – not so great for long term, but fun for a one-off. As Teri thought about who Tara was, her body shifted to match. She grew three inches and slimmed down, her bust decreased slightly, her hair grew and become electric blue, and her face’s microexpressions shifted to have a happier-looking resting face. After a few minutes of consideration and modification, Tara nodded. Her body was what she wanted. Now to figure out what to wear.

This was a bit of a challenge, because her closet was organized to the sizes and tastes of her other female identities – Teri, Tori, and Trudy – and she hadn’t yet figured out what Tara liked. She started with climate – it was a warm night, so she wanted to wear something that showed off what she had. That wasn’t her bust in this body, although she did choose a low-cut green top with a reflective shimmer. Instead, she decided to show off her legs, putting on a miniskirt, torn fishnet stockings, and three-inch heels. Apparently she was going for flirty and extremely tall tonight.

She opened up her Gendr app and went into her profile. She’d helped with implementing the Shifter-specific settings, so they came easy to her. Add new identity – name, preferences, and photo only. Name: Tara. Preferences: either gender, stable form. She didn’t want to accidentally match with someone she knew or who knew her. She took a couple selfies for her new photo. Then she checked the final option, Hide other identities. Anyone who matched with her would know she was a Shifter, but they’d only see Tara’s name and photos, and wouldn’t have any indication of what her other personas were unless they’d been previously matched – Gendr’s developers had recently become very concerned about a small but significant segment of Shifters who used the app for catfishing or stalking their exes.

Tara hit Submit and started reviewing profiles.

The first few profiles were fine if unremarkable – a couple Switches trying to figure their new bodies out, a handful of Chasers, one or two Cursed, including Jordyn which, love them as a person, was not going to happen. There was one Hopper trying to offer a “host and Hopper consensual shared body experience”, which she flagged – the Gendr app was for many things, but it was not for soliciting new body hopper hosts.

Then her breath caught on a profile she’d have thought she’d skip over.

Courtney’s profile picture featured her wearing an elegant evening gown with a low neck and a high slit. She wore a pearl necklace that looked real, and had earrings to match. It was the kind of look that Terry had seen time and time again at work events and dismissed as “trying too hard”, but this was certainly catching Tara’s eye.

She shrugged. Years as a shifter had taught her that the body wants what it wants. She checked Courtney’s profile for red flags – none, she was a lesbian Chaser who was trying Gendr out after a lack of luck on traditional dating apps – and indicated her interest for an encounter tonight. Courtney responded immediately indicating the same.

Courtney needed a little time to get herself ready for the evening – unlike Tara, she hadn’t planned on going out. Tara spent the time before their meeting letting friends know where she’d be in case she needed a bail out. She’d never needed one before on a date with a woman, but you never knew these days, especially in this community.

She’d let Courtney pick the activity, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they were going to a “drink and paint” event. Courtney came to pick her up, dressed casually in a tank top, jeans, and low-heeled sandals. Both women brought their own drinks, but halfway into their guided paintings of unhappy-looking trees, Courtney offered her a “sip swap”, and Tara agreed. The store-label white wine Courtney gave her wasn’t as fancy as what Terry’s salary and Marti’s connections usually let them have access to, but when you’re on your fourth glass of wine, any distinction in quality was much less likely to be noticed.

Following the painting event, Courtney suggested another activity while they sobered up, and pointed out the arcade next door. The two women fought their way through galactic invaders, ostrich-mounted knights, zombie hordes, and rival race car drivers before getting involved in an intense pinball showdown. Here, Courtney showed her ability to handle her liquor, or at least recover from it, much more quickly than Tara – she’d won every contest, even on the Addams Family pinball machine whose duplicate resided in the rec room at Terry’s office.

After pinball, Courtney declared herself sober enough to drive, and offered to escort Tara home. Tara agreed, trying to decide how she was feeling about offering an “afterparty”. In the end, it wasn’t up to her – Courtney decided that Tara was still a little too tipsy to be trusted making any further invitations. She helped Tara get into her house and bid her a good night.

The next morning, Tara woke up, which was unexpected. One of her few limitations as a shapeshifter was overnight reversion – more than a couple hours of sleep, and she’d wake up as Terry. It was a frustrating condition that had gotten in the way of more than one relationship. It was just as well. She’d fallen asleep in her clothes, changing back to Terry would have ruined them, and she liked this outfit.

But, the time for fun and games was over. She hadn’t put enough work into securing an identity for Tara to be her for more than the night, or anywhere besides Gendr. She thought for a moment, and decided that she could do with a Teri day to do some shopping and meet up with whatever friends were available. She concentrated briefly, and then…

Huh.

She still saw Tara’s electric blue bangs in her eyes.

She tried again.

What the fuck?

Same result, or lack thereof.

Fine, then, Tara thought, closing her eyes and concentrating on Terry’s form instead. She opened her eyes. Electric blue bangs. Fuck!

She’d never run into this problem before. If anything, her struggle was that it was too easy to switch forms – more than once in college, she’d had to focus on staying in the same shape during an acting class or when doing an impression of a teacher or classmate.

She looked at her phone to see an unread text from Courtney: “Good morning, love! I hope you’re not feeling out of shape today! I’d hate for you to feel stuck in a rut! Mixing the wrong drinks can get so shifty sometimes, and sometimes the reaction isn’t quite normal!”

That fucking bitch. Tara knew that many double entendres couldn’t be a coincidence. She read the texts again. She spiked the fucking wine. No wonder someone with an evening gown in their profile brought store-brand wine – can’t waste the good stuff on drugging your date. But how?

She went to call Courtney, but of course Courtney’d already blocked her number. Going back to Gendr was no help either – blocked there as well. Tara pulled up her computer and used a couple… backdoor tricks she new for the app, only to find that the problem wasn’t that Courtney had blocked her, but that Courtney’s profile was gone entirely.

Shit. Without linking her identity as Tara to Terry beforehand, she’s forfeited immediate access to a number of the firm’s resources. Thankfully, the firm didn’t have all the resources she did. She fired off a quick text to Doreen, then got herself dressed in street clothes. She was going to need to make a visit to the lab.

------------------

“So you know that we don’t have a lot of blood samples from Shifters,” Doreen said.

“Yes, specifically to stop the kind of thing that’s happening to me right now from happening,” Tara confirmed. “What are you able to figure out?”

“From what we can tell, this is some kind of nanotechnology. No changes to your DNA or proteins, so there’s no biological reason you can’t shift, but when I compare your blood now to your blood before…” Doreen showed Tara the results.

“There’s something there inhibiting the process, and it’s a foreign substance.”

“Right. Any idea who did this to you?”

Tara sighed. “I’ve got my PI team working on it. From everything they can tell, Courtney was legit – no connections to any of our enemies, no history with us, not even a previous bad date on Gendr.” She pulled up a text message from part of her team. “But, it looks like her car hasn’t been back to her house, and someone gave her a large sum of money recently. I don’t know if she was targeting me specifically or shifters in general.”

Doreen let out a low whistle. “Daaaamn. Someone got a Trojan horse past you. That’s impressive, T.”

Tara glared at Doreen. “And they used your app to do it. So we both have a problem to fix. What do we do?”

Doreen looked at the screen showing Tara’s blood test results. “Well, I’m going to get my team working on isolating this inhibitor. Hopefully, whoever this is wasn’t trying to target you specifically, just bother a shifter in general. Until then, I think you’re going to have to do what you can do as Tara.”

---------

The background images on the computer were barely visible to Tara through her tears. The lives she had touched weren’t as important as the lives she wanted to touch in the future, and Courtney had, knowingly or not, stripped one her main resources to provide that help away.

As she wiped her eyes, her gaze moved from the center of the screen – where her friends and successful clients’ pictures were – to the right side, where she saw the pictures of people she hadn’t been able to help.

Yet.

She opened the background image to add a new picture. Terry’s. After a moment, she added Teri, Trudy, and Tori to it as well. All her, but also their own identities in need of help, in a way. She’d just need to find ways to do it without being shifty.

Right. I can do this.

She picked up the phone to call her tailor. The first think she needed to do was figure out what suit Tara would wear to her first day at a high-stress, high-reward job at a law firm.