“I’ve got it!” Laney Garcia ran into the living room, her work coat covered in grime from this week’s latest endeavor.

“You’ve got what?” Robert looked up from his 3DS with a smile, clicking the lid closed. “That transforming tech you got that big grant for?” He chuckled as he looked at how excited his wife was, but he knew it couldn’t have been that. Transformation was impossible; physics and chemistry said as much!

“Yes!” Laney exclaimed, surprising him. “The secret wasn’t to use a potion or an injection; it was to use a costume! And better yet, that makes them reusable, shareable, and really easy to deactivate! Better yet, they’re totally a hundred percent safe!”

“Safe?” Robert arched an eyebrow. “How in the hell did you make it safe, let alone making it possible in the first place?” He paused, then added “Actually, don’t tell me how you made it possible; it would only give me a headache as to how much science you’ve just broken.”

“Glad to hear it!” Laney smirked. “And I kind of… Well… I might have looked that DARPA contract of yours.” She blushed as Robert groaned. “But in my defense, I only used it as a starting point; I totally improved on your tech and now it’s barely recognizable as having originated from yours!”

“That’s not making me feel better…” Robert muttered, crossing his arms. There was nothing like a none-to-subtle reminder that his wife was way smarter than he was; even though he’d married her for that very reason.

“Aw, you’re cute when you pout.” Laney grinned, hugging Robert tightly.

Robert sighed, looking to his wife with a tired smile. He never could stay made at her... “You’re cute when you anything.” He chuckled; then arched an eyebrow at her. “So… Would you care to tell me how you were able to improve on bulletproof armor?”

Laney beamed and hopped up and down on the balls of her feet, nodding excitedly. “I used some of that matter-refining tech I had done for my senior thesis in conjunction with a spliced subdermal reinforcement on the cloth! The result is that the transformed person’s ‘skin’ will be as tough as a tank!”

Robert blinked; then he nodded. “Oh my God, that’s perfect! Why didn’t I think to marry my work with yours?”

Laney smiled. “Because you already married me, and that was your genius idea for this decade?” She kissed him on his forehead; then stood up with an excited grin. “So… Want to see how it works?”

 

As it turned out, the ‘demonstration’ resulted in Robert being put in what looked like a cheap Halloween costume, a cow onesie. He started to think that his wife was letting him on, until she pulled out a cow-head mask with a flourish and a smile.

“This is the tech that ties it all together! Inside here we have a special device that helps us ignore all of those ‘matter cannot be created or destroyed’ technicalities; and we can even use it as a battery to make sure that we have return customers and to save on maintenance costs!”

Then a malicious grin slipped across Laney’s face, and she rubbed her hands together. “Plus if someone tries to reverse-engineer the formula, it detonates with the impact of a nuclear bomb—”

“You built a nuclear bomb?” Robert screamed, working out how quickly he could escape the blast zone.

“No, it only goes off if you were trying to reverse-engineer it, weren’t you listening? Plus I said ‘impact’, not ‘force’. Anyways, it goes off and poof! Instead of radiation everyone in a five kilometer radius becomes leopard slugs for the next month!” Laney cackled maniacally.

Robert spoke a little slowly, doubting his wife’s sanity. “Yeah… I’m just going to step out of this, and—”

“Oh, hush.” Laney grinned, shoving the mask down over her husband’s head before he could raise his hoof-covered hands to protest. “And have fun!” She clicked on a button on the side of the mask, and Robert shuddered as his skin didn’t quite feel right.

Then, with a shudder that ran through his entire body; his frame began to grow larger and larger by the second. He could feel his hands expanding and hardening, just as his feet were. Within seconds his hooves perfectly fit his body, and he looked down to them in surprise.

Unfortunately, it was the worst time for him to change his posture, and Robert found himself yelping as his center of balance was drastically shifted. He thumped to the ground on his hooves as his flanks started to expand and rippled with fat.

Robert grunted as his mouth grew big and wide within his muzzle; his tongue growing large and cowy. He shivered at the feeling of his skull reshaping too, and within seconds his eyes were positioned at either side of his head, just like a prey-animal’s.

“Oh my God! Yooo did it!” Robert explained, swaying his new tail and taking a hesitant step forward. He could feel his new udder swaying below him, and… With a blush, the new cow realized that she was no longer a he.

She wasn’t sure which was the most surprising to her: that her wife had gotten the technology up and running; that it had made Robert into a female cow; or that she was able to speak like a human, though with a cow’s moo.

She settled on asking about the latter first, looking to her wide in confusion. “So would yooo like tooo tell me why I’m moooing when I talk? Or how I can talk at all?”

“Oh!” Laney grinned. “You like that? I figured out a way to tweak the vocal chords of the suit to let you speak… But then I figured that animals speaking fluently like people was boring, so I decided to give all of them a slight accent!”

“An accent?” Robert asked, arching one of her big eyebrows. Still, she huffed with amusement and swayed her tail idly behind her, smirking contentedly. “Well, I think it’s cuh-yooot!” She bushed as she realized she’d have trouble on more words than she thought, a shiver running through her body that left her flanks jiggling.

“Well, cute technology like this deserves a cute name… So I was thinking we could call them ‘ShiftSuits’.” Laney grinned. “Just tell me when you want me to go back to being you. I’ve got a reversal ray all prepared…” She trailed off with a grin. “Or if you’d rather, I can make a bull suit in about an hour.”

Robert blinked slowly; then smiled. “I like option number twooo.” He grinned, flicking his tail from side to side.