Anne was unsure about what she signed up for, only that it had a ton of paperwork, including NDAs and Liability forms. It also paid well enough, so well in fact she had talked her roommate into signing up as well. Now the two of them were in the lobby of some tech company filling out forms for security passes. Once they were done they were buzzed through and sent to a side room with storage lockers to put their personal belongings in.
“Cool, it uses our fingerprints to unlock it,” Marie commented as she locked away her handbag.
“They could still probably unlock them without our knowledge,” Anne said as she followed. She didn’t feel comfortable leaving her phone in a random storage locker but that was a part of the conditions of entry. Failure to do so would see them escorted off the premises.
They exited the room where a security guard was standing, pretending to mind his own business but actually checking to see if they had listened to instructions. Now Anne had to go off by memory for which section of the building they were supposed to be at. It was one of the labs.
“Lab three,” Marie reminded her. She was better at the smaller details. “Looks like we just need to take the lifts down a floor.” She pointed to a sign mapping the building.
The elevator didn’t seem to have any buttons, just a black pad. Anne shrugged as she tapped her visitor badge against it, causing it to flash green. They waited as the elevator arrived on their floor. Inside the elevator there weren’t any buttons besides the emergency call one and they had to scan their cards again.
“Looks like we didn’t even need to remember where to go,” Anne teased as she presented her card again, but the elevator didn’t move. The doors just remained open.
“You both need to scan!” The security officer yelled out from down the hall.
“Oh…” Marie shrugged as she tapped her badge against the panel as well. The doors then closed and the elevator moved to their floor. As they exited the lift there was a flash of green light for each of them as they got off.
“This place doesn’t mess around…” Anne said as she looked at the signs for lab 3. They followed the path and ended up at another door where they had to scan their badges.
A young woman wearing a labcoat approached them as they entered the door. “You must be our volunteers,” she smiled as she adjusted her glasses. “I’m Jill,” she shook their hands. “I’m a junior technician on this project and I’ll be responsible for you.” She gave them a shy smile.
“So what is it exactly we’re doing?” Marie asked. “We didn’t get much information…”
“I suppose you wouldn’t, this is all very hush, hush,” Jill explained as she guided them down a corridor. “We’re testing out a new type of green screen, far more capable than anything ever seen… or not seen before…” she smirked at her bad joke. “We just need you two to try out a few things with it. Which means we’re also going to need to get one of you to get dressed in our state of the art chroma key suits.” Jill stopped before a makeshift dressing room. “The suit is already hanging up inside. It’s one size fits all but we’ve only got one at the moment. One of you will need to strip down to your underwear and put it on.” She instructed.
Anne looked at Marie who shrugged. “I guess I’ll do it…” Anne said as she entered the small room and locked the door. Before getting undressed she looked for any signs of a camera as she didn’t exactly trust them. Satisfied she got undressed and quickly put on the suit, which came up to her neck. She looked down at her body and was rather surprised, the suit felt like a second skin but also seemed to hide her figure entirely.
When Anne came out of the dressing room, Jill had a basket to place her clothes and Marie was standing in front of her wearing the mask that matched Anne’s suit.
“This is surprisingly breathable and I can see quite well…” Marie commented, her voice wasn’t even muffled by the strange fabric that completely hid her face. Anne looked at Marie and Jill a little confused wondering why she wasn’t in the full suit.
“We’d like to test a variety of techniques, so it’s better if one of you were the mask and the other the suit.” Jill answered Anne’s unasked question. “Now follow me,” she led them to another door. This one needed a badge to unlock. That’s when Anne realized she forgot to put hers back on. “Just step inside.”
Marie nodded and stepped into the large room that was entirely green on two of its walls and the floor. It was impossible to tell how large the room even was. At least it would’ve been if the other wall didn’t have markers for that exact thing.
“I can barely see your head,” Anne said, stepping inside, only to find that she was struggling to see her own body against this much green. She was disorientated looking forwards so focused on the white wall with the depth markers. At about the halfway point is where a team of people had equipment set up so that’s where Anne stopped.
“Um, hi…” Anne waved to the team who didn’t look up. She looked over to Marie who just shrugged.
“Just stand right there…” an older man instructed without looking up from the computer. “That’s all you need to do.” He added before turning to one of the younger guys. “Start with an easy one…”
Anne looked confused with all this secrecy and security just to put on a green suit and stand in the middle of a room. She didn’t get why they were even needed but at least they were getting paid. She figured they were doing something with them on the computer but it was a little disappointing not knowing what.
“What the…” Anne looked at Marie as the green mask disappeared, and revealed her head underneath. Though now Marie was bald. She also didn’t look like herself, her lips were puffier, her eyes were brown and she had a lot of makeup on.
“Where’s the hair?” the older man said in frustration now looking at Marie.
“It’s still rendering in…” the younger tech said as hair began to grow from Marie’s scalp ending up as golden blonde hair tied up in a bun. Anne observed that it didn’t exceed the dimensions of her mask.
It took a couple of seconds for Marie to notice that she wasn’t wearing a mask anymore and that one of the techs said that she had no hair. She reached up to her head and found that her hair was tied in an elegant bun. It wasn’t long enough to tie up before and it was secured before putting on the green mask. She pulled the pins that were holding it up and let it flow free, revealing golden wavy locks that extended past her shoulders.
“Is this real?” Marie asked as she ran her fingers through the strands resting on her chest and followed them up to their roots.
“Amazing, the rendered object has remained intact beyond the rendering field and appears stable in front of the non-renderable object” the younger tech ignored Marie’s question as he looked at the older man for approval.
The older man gave the tech a grunt before focusing on Marie. “Subject One, please step out of the rendering field.” Marie and Anne just looked at each other not knowing which one was which. “Yes I’m talking to you Goldilocks,” he pointed to Marie to come over.
Anne looked puzzled and didn’t know what to do as Marie stepped off the green floor and no longer the wall behind her. As she stepped out of the green part of the floor the technicians smiled and cheered at each other. Anne realized it was because Marie kept her current appearance.
It was at this moment Anne looked down at her own green suit. They had just changed Marie’s appearance completely and that was only with a mask. What could they do with a whole body? Anne wasn’t going to find out. The money wasn’t worth it. She reached back to find the zipper to her suit to take it off before any changes could be made but she couldn’t find it.
“That was the first thing we altered…” the older man gave Anne a sinister smile. “It’d be dangerous to remove something mid render.” Next Anne looked for the doors but the door she entered from was on a green wall. “No doors during our sessions we wouldn’t want to let anything nasty out.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore…” Anne stated.
“That’s fine, but you did sign a contract… I’ll tell you what we’ll compromise.” The man promised as he went to the screen. “You won’t need to worry about any of our renders…”
Anne felt weird as her body began to go numb. She felt a strange sensation in her arms as if they weren’t there. Next she felt herself falling before her head hit the floor with a thud.
“Anne, are you alright?” Marie ran over to her, placing herself back into the green side of the room. She towered over Anne and leant down to pick her up. That’s when Anne realized she was only a head and that they had removed her body from existence.
“I’ll take her,” the younger tech grabbed Anne off Marie and took her off the render zone. He put her next to the computers they were taking notes of.
“What did you do?” Anne managed to get through the initial shock and couldn’t believe she was now just a head.
“I compromised, you don’t need to experience any changes to your body as we now have your body…” the man smiled again. He grabbed the top of Anne’s head to face it towards the green zone. Where she watched a body materialize out of nowhere. Only this one lacked a head and looked rather different from hers. It was the same height but it was more fit and had bigger boobs. It was also completely hairless.
“This isn’t Anne’s body…” Marie was still confused as to what’s going on. She checked out the smooth skin on top of the neck.
“No it is not,” one of the tech’s answered. “We just used her body to make this one. This room allows us to make anything green become something else… though it needs to be of similar size. We can even temporarily remove it altogether and bring it back at any time…”
“Cool…” Maria poked the body’s shoulder.
“No, not cool, Marie… they just took away my body and changed it…” Anne shouted back.
“That’s not all we can change… we can change anything we’ve already made alterations too. Like your head for example…” The young tech changed Marie’s hair from long and wavy to a black buzz cut as her face became more masculine and she now had a bushy beard. “It doesn’t need to be human…”
“Marie!” Anne yelled as her friend’s head turned into a dog’s.
“Enough playing around…” the older man took control of the program and removed Marie’s head all together before the look she had before appeared onto the body made from Anne’s. “Now we have a complete subject to do whatever we want to.”
“But sir, the parameters of the experiment forbade altering a complete human due to safety concerns.” Someone else spoke up.
“And we’re abiding by them, they are two people…” the older man gestured towards Anne’s head and Marie’s body. “There’s the unaltered parts.”
Marie looked down at her new body only half hearing what they were saying. She looked over at her body now laying on the ground and over to Anne’s head. “You can turn me into anything?” Marie’s question wasn’t of concern but intrigue.
“So long as it’s human sized or smaller…” The young tech answered.
“I’d like to try that…” Marie looked down at herself.
“Marie!” Anne protested.
“Not a problem, we were going to try that one out anyway.” The tech began to enter the transformation into the program. The older man stopped him again and temporarily removed Marie from existence.
“You can play with her later. After our guest leaves. She’s not a technician or a willing test subject so can’t be in here.” The older man picked up Anne’s head and pasted it to the younger tech.
“Marie… Marie… put me down!” Anne protested in her helpless state.
“But she’s just a head…” the tech questioned.
“And there’s a body over there,” the Old Man pointed out Marie’s. “Because both head and body were separated using the suits and rending zone, they should be able to be attached together.”
Anne struggled in vain as her head was taken over to Marie’s body and her neck pressed against the smooth skin where Marie’s head was. The tech let go and she slid off but then he lifted Marie’s body up and tried again. Anne just slid off the body again.
“Oh well, it was worth a shot, take her up to Lab 1, I’m sure they’ll be interested in this.” The Old Man rendered the doors back. “Send a team for the body too.”
“You can’t do this to us!” Anne yelled as she was carried out the door. Not knowing how long she’d be a head, or what was going to happen with Marie.