Button 16 - Bliss

Yana bounced through the doors of KK studios, excitement written on her face.  

KK was there to greet her.  “You’re way too chipper for a  Monday.  Did you have a good honeymoon?”

Yana’s hand went to the cat’s head pendant at her throat.  “Did I ever!  Did Heather tell you?”

“That it doesn’t matter that the dresses changed back?  Yes.  But not why.”  KK leaned in toward Yana, looking more closely at the pendant she was still fondling.  “Hi Darryl.”

Yana gasped and quickly put both hands behind her back.  KK laughed.  “Well.  This is going to be an interesting day.  Don’t worry, I don’t mind if he watches.”

“Oh, good.  He has this week off too, so I wanted us to be...”

“It’s fine.  So.  Do I get my robot babes?”

Yana grinned and nodded. “And then some.”

Heather entered and moved to the two of them.  “Aw, I wanted to be here when you told her.”

“I didn’t,” protested Yana.  “She figured it out.  Again.”

“Actually...” KK started slowly, “I’m not at all sure what’s going on.  Why do I have gold skin?  I didn’t see the button.”

Yana turned to stare at KK, eyes widening and her hand going to her mouth.  “Oh!  I’m sorry, you said robot girls and I guess I...  Still getting a handle on it.  I can change you back.”

KK shook her head and instead led the two of them to her office and closed the door behind them.  “This is... different.  No need to panic, or let the others see... yet.  I want their reactions on film.  So.  What exactly do we have here?”

“I don’t need the button any more,” blurted Yana with a grin.  “Darryl helped me train at your cabin.  I’m much better at not changing things by accident now.”

KK nodded, tapping a metallic hand against her arm.  “And this is?”

“I really wanted to show you?” asked Yana, weakly.

“Is this going to happen on the set?”  KK frowned.  “Wait, that could be cool.  How far away can you change things?”

“About sixty feet.  But I’m faster and more accurate within twenty or so.”

“So you could do this kind of thing from behind the camera?  I can work with that,” KK mused.  “How long will this last?” she asked, gesturing to her metallic body.

“It varies,” said Yana apologetically.  “Some people have more magic in them, and that makes spells on them last longer.  The one on you should only last a half hour or so.  Darryl trained me not to use the good stuff accidentally.”

“The good stuff?” asked KK.  “How long does that last?”

“On things, about a week.  But most people have enough magic to keep the spell from fading at all.”

“So they’d be stuck until you change them again, like Heather was as a dress?”

Heather grinned and nodded.  “Just like that, I’d think.  That was nice.  Can I...”  At a look from KK she subsided.  “Right.  Work to do.  I’ll be a dress on my own time.”

“I’ll be careful with people,” promised Yana.  “Just the short-term stuff unless they want to keep a change, then I can reinforce it to last longer.”

They continued to discuss the limits of Yana’s magic.  Yana pointed out that Darryl was better than her at judging how long a given spell would last, she mostly had to work from memory of how strong a thread she’d used.  It was Heather that excitedly brought up Yana’s ability to change larger structures, and its potential use in set-building.

KK’s eyes widened.  “We could do Smut Trek right?  Real looking sets?”  She grabbed a notepad and pen from her desk, and started sketching out ideas.

“With really nice uniforms and hand props,” added Heather.

“And aliens that aren’t just ‘forehead of the week’,” said Yana with a grin.  At the others’ looks, she shrugged.  “It’s Darryl’s favourite complaint about the show.  Well, the one on TV anyway.”

KK stopped writing.  “How alien are we talking, here?” she asked, curiously.

“Anything you can imagine.”

Heather grinned.  “Tentacles?”  She held out her arms and wiggled them.  A moment later they were replaced by long rubbery tentacles with rows of suckers on the underside.  Heather flailed them energetically, showing off their flexibility.  “Coooool!”

“Well.  That’s...”  KK shook her head.  “The actors here are pretty flexible, but that might be asking a bit much of them.”

Heather shrugged fluidly with her new appendages.  “Then I’ll be the monster.  I can do hideous.”

“Really?” asked Yana with a big grin.  “I thought you’d prefer being a sexy monster.”

“Given the choice between the two, hell yeah.  Curvy tentacle babe me up!”

KK stared as Heather’s form flowed and changed, limbs splitting, and dividing once more.  A mass of squirming tentacles stood in front of her, somehow still curvy and suggestive.  “What the...  Wow.  When you said you can do alien...”  She tapped her pen against her lips, making a ticking noise with each impact.  “There’s a market for tentacles.  And done like that...  I’ll do the market research, it might be time to branch out.  Maybe a new label.  For now, let’s stick to the plan for a robot babe shoot.  Change Heather back, and she can show you to sound stage three.  Let’s see what you can do for a robot girl’s spaceship set.”

Yana nodded eagerly and followed in the now tentacleless Heather’s wake.

An hour later, a normal-skinned KK showed up at the set.  “Impress me.”

Yana gestured toward a blank stretch of metallic-looking wall, and a door irised open within it.  She led KK into the heart of a small starship.  One wall was covered in a glowing tracery of lines, light pulsing along the traces like a heartbeat.  A crystal glowed in the middle of the wall, thrumming with power.

Four human-sized niches were recessed into one of the side walls.  A glowing white disc formed the floor of each one.  The other wall was open to the cameras.

“What you’ve done so far looks amazing, but it’s a bit sparse,” said KK.

“I ran out of mass to work with,” said Yana apologetically.  “I can’t materialize things out of thin air.”

KK nodded, and told Yana where the furnishings storeroom was.  “We need bed-like surfaces, and maybe a few different levels of stuff to lean against.”

Yana darted off and was soon back with a handful of miniaturized furniture.  They spent the next hour changing it into various sculpted, glowing forms and repeatedly reshaping and rearranging it to KK’s suggestions.

When they were done, KK looked around proudly.  “This is fantastic!  How do you feel, we haven’t worn you out, have we?”

Yana’s eyes were shining.  “Heck no.  I could do this all day.”

“Good,” enthused Heather.  “Because we need to do costumes next.  Come on!”

Heather showed Yana the old uniforms they’d used the last time they’d done a SF short.  They were looking awfully threadbare, and Yana said as much.  Heather shrugged.  “Before my time here.  I’d have done better work.  Still, it’d be cool to at least nod at these designs.”

“Miniskirts and tight black pants, check,” said Yana with a grin.

“And the same color scheme, more or less.  Nice fabric, well tailored.  Feel free to add some rank insignia and the like.”

“This is going to be fun!  Can I let Darryl out to consult on the rank stuff?  He knows these shows way better than I do.”

“Don’t let me stop you.  Not like I could, anyway.”

Yana set her necklace on the ground, and Darryl sprung up in its place.  “Aww...  Oh, hi Heather.”

“Aww?” asked Yana.

“Think of where I was sitting.  It’s pleasant.”

Yana snorted.  “I’ll put you right back there if you’re not good.”

Darryl grinned wickedly.  “Oh no!  Anything but that.”

“Nut.  C’mon, help me out with the insignia design.”

They spent half an hour coming up with new costume ideas, changing the design multiple times until both Darryl and Heather were satisfied with each one.

“They look really good,” enthused Heather.  “I’ll go get the actors so we can do a final fitting.”

As Heather left, Darryl turned to his wife.  “Back into the pendant?”

“Unless you want to be part of the fitting...”

“I’ll pass.”

Yana nodded, and a moment later was picking up a pretty fox-head necklace.  She had just finished clasping it around her neck when Heather and KK returned with two actors and an actress.  Yana recognized Steven from the stag/stagette night.  He was introduced as “Captain Tightpants”.  “Lieutenant Long” and “Yeoman Randi” weren’t as familiar, but she’d seen them around the studio.  Heather and the actors made a point of sticking to the in-character names so Yana played along.

The fitting itself went very quickly, with Yana subtly changing the clothes as the actors put them on.  They were all suitably impressed at how nice the uniforms were, too.  The “Captain” was especially taken with his laser pistol, and stayed after the others had left, playing with it.

“It almost feels real.  Like if I were to pull the trigger it’ll disintegrate something.

“Be careful with the safety then,” grinned Heather with a wink at Yana.

“What, this?” Steven asked, flipping the switch in question.  The prop lit up in his hands with an ominous thrum.  “Holy crap!”

He lined it up on a dressmaker’s dummy in the corner of the room and pulled the trigger.  The dummy glowed and vanished.  Steve very very carefully safed the gun then set it down.  His eyes were wide as saucers.  “How the hell did...  Did I destroy it?  I’m so sorry.”

Yana broke out into giggles while Heather reassured him that no real harm had been done.  A hard look at Yana ended the giggles and led to the reappearance of the dummy.

“What’s going on?” asked Steven weakly.

“Magic.”

“Yana!”

“Oh come on.  Like it won’t be obvious when they meet Tawny 2.0.”

“KK wanted that to be a surprise.”

“I’m sure it will be.  Off with you,” Yana said with a wave in Steven’s direction.  “We have to do Tawny now.  You’ll see her soon enough.”

Steven nodded and left, still looking starstruck.

KK showed up with Tawny, claiming that she wanted to provide input on the costume design.  Tawny looked at her oddly, then shrugged out of her robe. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath, and stood before Yana and Heather perfectly at home in her skin.

“So where’s my costume?” asked Tawny.  “The others were all abuzz about theirs.”

Heather looked over at Yana, who was blushing a bit at Tawny’s forwardness.  “It’s more of a special effect.”

“Aww, not full body makeup,” sighed Tawny.

“Nope,” Yana replied with an impish grin.  “Better.”

“If you say so.  What do you need me to do?”

Yana looked over at KK, and got a nod of approval.  Liquid gold washed over Tawny’s skin. When her wrists became exposed spherical joints, Tawny helped.

“What are you doing to me?”

“Applying your costume,” said Yana, matter-of-factly.

Tawny rushed to a mirror and stared at her reflection.  “What the fuck?  I look like...”

“A robot babe,” said KK, as if that settled things.  “Except... still too human.  Can you make her eyes glowy?”

Tawny’s eyes silvered over and acquired a soft glow. “Oh wow,” she breathed.  “Can I see in the dark?”

“You can now,” said Yana after a moment.

“Awesome.”

KK paced around Tawny, and shook her head.  “Still not enough.   We still need tits and ass, but can you make her boobs more spherical?”

Yana complied, adding a ring of glowing silver outlining the base of each breast, and another around Tawny’s now perfectly cylindrical silver nipples.

“Closer.  Can you add more of that silvery glowing stuff to highlight how robotic she is?”

Wrists, elbows, waist, knees and ankles in turn acquired their own glows.

“Yeah!” enthused KK with an enthusiastic clap to Yana’s back, making the smaller woman stagger.  “Now we’re talking!  How do you feel, Tawny?”

“This is so wicked!  I love it!  How long will I be like this?”

KK looked to Yana.  “I’d like her to be like this all week so we can get lots of footage.”

Yana nodded.  A moment later she said, “Done.  You should know that there’s a pretty good chance she won’t spontaneously revert, now.”

“I’m stuck like this?” asked Tawny with more curiosity than worry.

“I can change you back at any time.  But yeah, until I do you’ll stay like this.”

Tawny ran her hands down her sides, then cupped her breasts and amused herself by hiding and revealing her nipple-lights.  “Fully functional, right?”

“For sex, yes.  Breathing and eating are now optional.”

Tawny’s eyes lit up, literally. “Really?  Fuck, I may not want to go back.”  She turned side to side to examine her new body.  “Can I make a request?  I’d like a little more in back.”

Yana nodded.  “Just a bit.  I’ve used up most of your mass.”

Tawny slapped her enlarged rump making a loud clang.  “That’ll do nicely.  I’m ready.  Let me at ‘em!”

KK tossed Tawny an even more concealing robe than the one she’d been wearing.  “Let’s let the guys first reactions to you be honest.”

Tawny slipped the hooded robe on, and headed toward the modified stage.  At KK’s urging, Yana followed along behind her and Heather.

Yana got to watch the actors gape-jawed first look at the set.  But that was nothing to how they reacted when Tawny’s alcove lit up and she stepped out in front of them.

To their credit, they stayed in character, duly communicating their discovery to the Excelsior.  Tawny prowled up to them, taking the communicator and tossing “that useless toy” aside.  It landed with a thud and a sparkle of failing electronics.  KK grinned at Yana and gave her a nod.

Despite the promising beginning, the scene quickly degenerated from there, turning into the usual sort of un-plotted sex-fest, with multiple takes to get better camera angles.  After one set of especially tight close-up shots Yana sarcastically offered to put a camera inside Tawny.  Heather considered it seriously, but decided it “might be a bit much”.

Yana left the stage when they broke for for food and water.  She didn’t return.  

Heather found her a couple hours later, busy with the paperwork that was her original job.  “So, that’s what a shoot is like.  There’s a reason it’s a lot of work.”

“I guess,” said Yana unenthusiastically.  “Wasn’t there supposed to be more plot, to go with the costumes, props, and sets?”

“Sweetie, they don’t buy our videos for the plot.  The eye candy will sell.”

“Bah.  I was tempted to start Steven turning into a robot just to see them react,” pouted Yana.

“You totally should, for one shot.  C’mon, they’re just shooting filler now.”

Yana dolefully followed Heather back to the set, and let her try to sell the idea to KK.  The director soon approached Yana.  “Okay.  One scene.  You can change him back if I don’t like it?”

Yana snapped her fingers.  “Just like that.”

“Okay.  Let’s do this.  Don’t warn ‘em, just kick it off shortly after we start rolling.  Can you make it slow and creepy?”

“Creepy-scary, or just creeping up his body?”

“Go with the latter.  This time.”

KK called for action, and shortly after the cameras started rolling on a longer shot of Steven with the others looking on, Yana started the change.  The cameramen were in on it, so one zoomed in when the gold started spreading from Steven’s crotch.  It took almost a minute for the others to realize what was happening, and their gasps of surprise made Yana grin.  She kept her focus on keeping the change crawling slowly over Steven’s body, gold flowing first with traceries of glowing silver following behind to match Tawny.

Again to their credit everyone stayed in character, pointing out to “Captain Tightpants” that he was being affected by the robot.  Steven took a beat to let that sink in then did his best to “fight off” the encroaching metal, to no avail.  The process continued.  As the last of his humanity drained from his face he implored his allies to save themselves.  It was cheesy, but fun.  And when the two robots advanced on the unconverted crewmen, KK touched Yana’s shoulder to get her attention, then nodded.  So the changes kept spreading.

Soon, all four actors were shining and golden.  The cameras kept rolling for a long, long time, as they no longer needed to breathe or rest.  Yana had used the lightest threads on them, as promised to KK, and eventually “Captain Tightpants” abruptly changed back to human.

KK called for the end of the scene, and by the time everyone had huddled around to discuss what they’d done, the other two had changed back as well.

“I don’t know what we’ll do with all this footage,” said KK.  “But it’s hot stuff.  How do you guys feel?”

Steven shrugged.  “It felt weird, but a good weird.  I felt like I could keep going forever.   How long was that shot?”

“Forty two minutes.  Longest continuous shot we’ve ever done, by a huge margin.  Hell, I could practically turn this one shot into a video and sell it.  Put some of the earlier shots in front to set it up...”

“So we’re done with this set?” asked a woman with a clipboard.

“No.  I still want to do more with the robot babe theme.  We’ll continue with Tawny tomorrow, with a different setup.  Still Smut Trek, but mix it up a bit.”

Tawny bounced excitedly, making muted metallic clanks as she did so.  “I get to stay this way, then?”

KK nodded.  “Sure.  Go home like that if you like.  You might want to cover up so the mundanes can’t see you.”

“That’ll make it hard to drive,” Tawny mused.

Steven grinned at her.  “I can give you a lift.  Though... hey boss, how come she’s still a robot and we’re human?”

“Ask Yana.  She can set how long the changes last.  If we do more stuff like this, we’ll talk about how long people are comfortable with being changed.  Right now, the default seems to be under an hour.”

Yana nodded.  “I didn’t want to scare you guys off with it.  And... it’s easy enough to make mistakes, we don’t want anyone getting stuck as a dress, now.”

Heather chuckled softly, and snuggled up behind Yana.  “Yes we do,” she murmured.  She slithered to the ground against Yana’s back, and Yana turned around to pick up a long silk robe.  She shrugged into Heather, and smiled at the others.  “She asked...”

KK laughed.  “Go home, everyone.  It’s been a productive day.  I’ll see all of you in the morning, right?”  She held Yana’s gaze until Yana nodded.  “Good.”

As soon as Yana got home, she changed Darryl back to human and hugged him tight.  “So?  What did you think?”

“It was sexy as hell,” said Darryl once he got his breath back.  “But the plot stunk on ice.”

Yana sighed.  “Yeah.  Too much sex, not enough... well, anything else.”

“I mean, given half an hour and a couple sheets of paper I could have come up with way better,” claimed Darryl.

Yana’s eyes lit up.  “Let’s do it!  We can bring her tomorrow’s script!”

That was how Heather found them when she changed back to human, head to head over a pad of paper, scribbling away at a new script.  She laughed, and hugged them both.  “This is good stuff, but I think that Gary would make a better science officer than a doctor.”

“Oh?” asked Darryl.  “Who’d be the best doctor?”

“Well, we don’t have DeForest Kelley, but Marcus can do a pretty credible impression of him.”

They carried on like that for hours, Yana suggesting things she could do to enhance the story with magic, Heather offering casting suggestions and knowledge of the actors strengths and weaknesses, Darryl capturing the lot and trying to shape it into something cohesive.

Heather yawned and stretched.  “I’m bushed.  Can I get a lift home?”

Yana shot Darryl a wicked look, and he gave a subtle nod in reply.  “Why go home when you could be my nightie?”

Heather’s expression lit up like a kid’s at Christmas.