“Em, I’m home!“ Ben dropped the keys into the key bowl next to the door, kicked off his shoes and strolled into the livingroom. There was no response. Emily must be working late. He sighed disappointedly. It had been over a month since he had dropped off their Atomizer at the store in the shopping centre. One month of him being stuck without a left hand, and Emily without arms. The company had claimed the upgrades would only take a week to install, so they shaped their bodies as much as they wanted with the Atomizer before Ben had dropped it off to get the refit. One week became two weeks, and those became a month. Now it was Friday, the end of the fifth week, and he finally had received a call from the shop. “Apologies for the delay, but you’re upgraded device is now ready for pickup at the store”, they had said. So he stopped by on his way home from work, excited to bring Emily the good news.
The past month had been fine. Emily had gotten rather adept at living without her arms. She could do most things herself, and for those few things she couldn’t do, she could always lean on him. He himself enjoyed the minor inconvenience having only one hand provided. He looked at his arm. It was almost completely intact, except that it ended in a stump instead of a wrist with a hand attached. He tried to imagine what having two hands was like. Of course, he had memories, but by now, this had become his new normal. He moved his fingers. He could see the tendons move on his arm, but they were attached to nothing. Still, it would be nice to do some alterations again. Emily grew frustrated with her lack of hands and the lack of dexterity that came with it at times. She’d be over the moon with the new possibilities. Ben grinned and snapped out of it. He set the box with the Atomizer down on the table and headed towards the bedroom to change into something more comfortable.
“Boo!”
“Aaaaa!” Ben shouted, while Emily fell on the floor, giggling to herself.
“Goddammit, Emily!” He was about to get into a rant about how he hated being jump scared, but just as he was about to begin, he looked down on his laughing armless fiancé. She wore a sports bra and short sports pants. Her lack of arms was highlighted by the sports bra and seeing how glad she was to have pulled it off, he couldn’t help but chuckle himself. Just like last year, when she introduced him to the technological marvels of the Atomizer.
“Got you”, she laughed!
“Indeed you did”, he concurred. “How was your day?”
“Alright I guess”, she said. “Tim is currently legless!”
“Is he?” Ben was surprised. “I thought he wanted to go hiking this weekend!”
“Yeah, but he said he wanted to do it with a little twist.”
“This guy…” Ben shook his head and grinned.
“And I needed to get some new binders from the storage, but obviously that’s not really a great task for me right now, so I phoned up Hannah, but Hannah had her leg and hand removed yesterday after work, so I had to ask Tina, but Tina is one-legged as well right now. Still, she managed, but it was a mess”, she continued.
“Oof, I can imagine!”
“Thankfully we have the most lenient and patient boss in the world. As long as we get our job done by the end of the day, we can do what we want. And still, we all felt a little bad for the chaos today..”
“Well, maybe we can help with that”, Ben grinned. “Guess what I picked up on my way home today.”
Her eyes went wide. “The Atomizer??”
“The Atomizer!”
“No way, awesome! I guess I know what we’re doing this weekend!”
“Sounds like a plan!”
“Where is it?”
“In the living room. Are you happy to get your arms back?”
“Hell yes! I mean… I like being armless. It’s fun. But… ya, I’m excited to try something else for a while.”
“Glad I’m not the only one.” Ben waved his arm stump around. “Come on, let’s have a look.”
They walked to the living room.
“Should we fix dinner first?”, Emily asked.
“Yeah…how about…uuh, you know what?”
“What is it?”
“Tina told me of this Mexican place today. They let you make your own quesadillas, tacos, and burritos. They just give you the ingredients and you can make them yourself. Tina said they also deliver, so you can eat it at home.”
“Sounds awesome”, Ben said. “Do you know their name?”
“Èl Tamandúa.”
Ben took out his phone and began typing. “Found it! Looks awesome.” He showed the menu to his armless partner. “What do you want?”
“Quesadillas, please, with chicken and extra guacamole.”
“The quesadillas you make yourself?”
“Yes please!”
“Cool, then I’ll have the burritos, extra spicy. I’ll make the call.”
While Ben was gone, Emily eyed the box on the table. It was surprisingly big, Bigger than it needed to be. She knew the size of the Atomizer very well. It had been an integral part of their lives for months now. She was giddy to peek inside but didn’t want to steal and of Ben’s thunder, and so she resigned herself to her fate of waiting.
“Food takes a while”, Ben said when he returned. “They have plenty of orders, so they’ll need between an hour and a half and two hours. That’s okay, right?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m hungry, but I can wait. Besides, this way we’ll have more time to play.”
“I love you”, said Ben and beamed at her.
“I love you too”, Emily replied. “Now, be so kind and finally open this box. I’m don’t think I can wait any longer.”
“As you wish, m’Lady.” Ben performed an exaggerated bow for her.
“Nerd”, she giggled. “Now go get a knife so we can open it.”
Ben quickly did as he was told and went to work on the box.
“Did you notice that it’s way bigger than it needs to be?”, Emily asked.
“It’s also far heavier than it should be”, Ben murmured. “I wonder what they put inside. Okay, here we go!”
He had cut the tape that kept the box shut and opened the lid now. “There’s a letter.”
“What does it say?”
“Hang on, I’ll read it out.” He picked it up and began to read:
“Dear Emily and Ben,
We apologise for the delay regarding the refit of your Atomizer. We did not anticipate the positive response our offer would get. As John from our store near your location told us, you were among the first customers to make considerable purchases in our store and from our inventory.
Not only that, but a survey we introduced in recent months asking new customers about how they learned of our products and promising premiums for the referrals of new customers showed that you singlehandedly brought at least six new customers to our company.
To apologise for the delay and thank you for your very open approach to our products, which brought us multiple new customers, we included a few extras in this box. On top of the refitted Atomizer, you will find vouchers for our online shop, multiple attachments for your version of the Atomizer, another device we think you’ll find interesting, and a trial version of a new game we are working on. You will also find a booklet of vouchers for multiple reductive activities we’re launching near you in the next few years. We again apologise for the delay and any inconvenience this may have caused for you, and hope you remain a loyal customer.
Enjoy!
Kind regards
Sara Munjipour
CEO of ReducTech Inc.”
He set the letter down and stared at Emily, who looked just as lost.
“I love this company”, she finally said when she had gathered her thoughts for a long time.
“This is incredible”, Ben agreed. “We should say thanks to our friends in some way.”
“True.” Emily nodded. “And John. He is probably the best sales rep they could’ve sent to take over that shop.”
Ben nodded.
“Should we take a look?”, Emily asked and nodded towards the box.
“Sure! Maybe I best put this down and we can look at everything from the couch.”
“Good idea!”
Ben carried the box over to the couch and set it down. Emily followed him and sat down. Once Ben was beside her, he pulled the box closer and pulled out the first item.
“This is the Atomizer”, I think, he said as he produced a smaller box, which they were both familiar with. He flipped it open. It was indeed the Atomizer.
“Looks almost like before”, said Emily. “The handle design is new. Looks like there are a few more buttons.”
“Also the attachment ports at the front. I guess that’s where the attachments they mentioned in the letter go. Look at this, the restoration pen now has buttons as well. And a tiny screen”, Ben commented.
“There’s a new manual.” Emily nodded towards a small booklet.
“Let me see. Ah, it highlights the changes from the previous version. Look at..wow, check this out! The attachments include a reductive scalpel for fine tuning, one attachment to add realistic scars if you want that, one that lets you create deformities or even more drastic amputations? That’s so cool!”
“Let me see”, Emily said!
Ben showed her the booklet. “It explicitly mentions removing your eyes, and something called a hemicorporectomy? There’s a whole chapter on that alone in here. There’s also even more the Atomizer can do now. Let’s look at that later and keep going for now. And of course, everything can still be timed.”
“That’s insane”, Emily whispered.
“The restoration pen can now also be timed, so if you had a permanent reduction, or rather, one without a time limit, you can now add a time limit, so it just grows back later. However, they still stress that attempting to immediately restore a reduction that has a time limit is still not recommended and can screw with your genes permanently, so we should be careful with setting time limits. Should we try the new pen?”
“Yeah, let’s do it! I’ve been armless long enough”, said Emily, shrugging her smooth armless shoulders.
“I’m going to miss those”, said Ben.
“So will I, but we can always get them back to be like this. Let’s have some fun with this.”
“Sounds like a plan! How long a time limit should I set? By the way, timings are now expanded. The maximum time that can be set is now up to five years.”
“Gee, that’s a long time. Let’s start with five minutes, okay?” Emily looked uneasy at the thought of having to live without her arms for such a long time.
“Sounds good!” Ben set the timer, triple checked it and activated the pen on Emily’s shoulders and his arm stump.
“Okay, let’s keep going”, Emily said.
Ben dug in again and produced two vouchers for the online shop. “€100 each! Damn, that’s some great stuff we can buy for that money!” He kept going and soon found another booklet.
“Those must be the vouchers for the projects and activities they mentioned”, Emily said. “Can you show me?”
“Sure, hang on!”
“A limbless spa, an armless party, a reduction themed escape room… multiple of those, actually, a blind diner, a reductive sports event with football and running amongst other things.. I’m having a hard time processing just how cool this is”, Emily said. Ben could only nod.
“What’s this? Live action fantasy games? This sounds super interesting!”
“It looks like they bought a factory hall in the old industrial quarters and turned it into a huge adaptable room.”
“I have no idea what that could be like”, said Emily.
“Maybe it’s a bit like a holodeck from Star Trek”, Ben suggested.
“Like a what from what?”, Emily asked.
“Have you never seen Star Trek?” Ben looked surprised.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, I guess I know what I’ll introduce you to next. They have this room that can simulate any real-life scenario very realistically, with smells, atmosphere, and all.”
“Sounds awesome!”
“We should check out that factory hall some time”, said Ben.
“Seems like it! Oh hey, my arms are back”, Emily said. “And so is your hand.” She stretched her arms. “Aaah that feels great!” She smiled at him, then turned towards the box.
“What’s that?”, Ben asked as Emily pulled out yet another box. Emily opened it. “Looks like those are the attachments, and a manual on how to use them.”
“Cool! But let’s check those out later and see what else we have here first.” Ben leaned forwards and pulled the next item from the box.
“This must be the game they mentioned. It says we need a PC or a PlayStation with VR capabilities for that.”
“Aww shucks, we don’t have either”, said Emily.
“Yeah, but that’s okay, I can get that. Apparently, you connect this device to your PC or PlayStation and to this box, which then records what you say and what you do and creates a virtual experience for you. You can even play it together with two VR devices or online… EMILY”, Ben suddenly shouted excitedly.
She jumped a little. “What?”
“You know what I told you about the holodecks?”
“Yeah?”
“This is almost a holodeck!”
“No way!” Emily’s eyes went wide.
“This is insane! Why on earth did they give that to us for free?”
“There’s a note here”, said Emily. She grabbed it and read it.
“This is our biggest and most ambitious product yet. We’re hoping you’ll try it out and give us feedback of anything you encounter that needs improving”, she read.
“Woah”, said Ben. “It says it alters your bodies similarly to the reductive King’s Cup we have. But like.. in a fantasy video game. Just…wow!”
“I can’t wait to try it”, said Emily and shook her head.
“I guess I’ll buy a PlayStation and VR sets. Those are expensive, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, but don’t worry, remember the lottery money? We can afford it”, Emily said.
“You’re simply amazing”, Ben whispered. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and kissed her. She relaxed and reciprocated. After a while, Emily looked at the box again.
“There’s still something in there”, she said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, one more thing.”
“They really must like us a lot, this is ridiculous”, Ben commented.
Emily pulled the last item out of the box. It was another case, like the ones that held the Atomizer and its attachments. She opened it. It was a metal ring with what liked like small laser sensors on the inside.
“What’s this?”, Emily asked.
“I don’t know! Look, another note”, said Ben, and picked it up.
“As part of our Atomizer program, we decided to take the experience of losing a limb to the next step. This scanner can be used to create a 3D-Scan of a stump, which can then be sent to our workshop. There, a perfectly fitting prosthesis will be built and sent to you. The entire process takes about three months. Of course, we can’t expect our customers to live with an abbreviated limb and without a prosthesis for such a long time, but they don’t have to. This scanner can save the blueprint for each stump it scanned and transmit it to your Atomizer, which can then recreate the stump that was scanned perfectly once the prosthesis arrives at our customers’ places. Alternatively, the scanner has a USB port, so the blueprint can also be stored there, and the reduction can be applied at any of our stores.”
“No way”, exclaimed Emily amazed.
“Wait, there’s more”, said Ben. “As a treat for your loyalty to us, you will find two gift codes at the bottom of this letter. Enter them online as you send the scans to us and you will each get the first prosthetic for free.”
“I don’t know what to say”, said Emily.
“Neither do I!” Ben looked lost. They both did. “Do you know which kind of Prosthetic you want?”, he finally asked.
“A leg, above the knee, I think”, she replied. “And you?”
“No idea!”
“I guess you have time to think about it…Wow, this exceeds my wildest expectations”, Emily said. “I guess we should get started trying things out.”
“Food takes another thirty minutes at least, I think. Let’s do it!”
Emily picked up the Atomizer and its attachments.
“What do you want to do first?”, Ben asked.
“Let me just check the manual”, Emily responded and flipped through the booklet. “Insane how much that thing can do now”, she murmured. “Hang on, this sounds weird!” She stopped at a page titled with ‘Krukenberg’. “This sounds so creepy!”
“What does?”, Ben asked.
“This: Apparently, some German doctor in WW1 created a procedure that gave soldiers, who lost their hands in battle some dexterity back. He did so by separating ell and poke, so that the men could use them as rudimentary fingers. Look at the graphic, it looks like a lobster claw.”
“That does sound creepy as heck”, said Ben.
“I wanna try it”, Emily said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I can’t imagine what this feels like, so I want to find out.”
“Fair enough. So how do we do it?”
“It says you need the disappear at least the hand, and maybe part of your forearm, but that’s hup to you. Then you switch to the scalpel attachment and separate ell and poke up to… here.” She pointed at a spot on her arm. “The two new fingers are then controlled by muscles down here and pressure management.”
“Sounds tricky, but I can try”, Ben said.
“Awesome! Then let’s go!”
“Do you want any time limit?”
“Nah, let’s just give it a go.”
“Okay then”, Ben said, punched in the settings and began to work.
Two minutes later, Emily’s left hand and part of her forearm had disappeared. Ben picked up the scalpel attachment. He clipped it on and flicked the Atomizer on.
“Does it work?”, asked Emily.
“No idea. Let’s see!” He spread his hand and without hesitating, he cut off his left ring finger. It fell to the ground.
“Aaaah”, he screamed in shock.
“Oh god, this is freaky”, said Emily. “Can you move your finger?”
Ben tried without much success. “Nope.”
“Can you stick it back on?”
Ben tried, but it wouldn’t stay in place.
“This is creepy. It’s one thing to just vanish everything, but with the finger here, it’s just a dead, cut off finger”, Ben said.
“Is there anything in the manual?” Ben scanned the section for the scalpel attachment. “Says here there are two scalpel attachments. This one doesn’t allow reconnecting. The other does. It’s used for some procedures.”
“Aw, shucks”, said Emily. “So what do we do with the dead finger?”
“Says here that we can just use the pen to restore my finger to a new one, and that we can use the Atomizer to make the dead one vanish.”
“Sounds great!”
“Yeah, but we’ll do that later. For now, let’s complete your procedure”, said Ben. He returned his attention to Emily’s stump and switched the Atomizer back on. Very carefully, he placed a straight cut down her arm between ell and poke. When he arrived at the point Emily had shown him earlier, he switched the Atomizer off again.
“All done”, he said. “Okay, this does look creepy!”
Emily inspected her arm. She took a while to figure out her sensations, then she began to slowly move her new “fingers”.
“This feels super weird”, she giggled. “I have way less grip than I imagined, but I can see how it was an alternative to prosthetics. She looked at her arm, then extended it to Ben, who inspected it.
“You have a lobster claw.”
“I have a lobster claw”, she grinned. She tried to grab the Atomizer with her claw but struggled to adequately control her fingers.
“Huh, I guess I need to practice this a bit.”
“Would you like me to do the other arm as well?”, Ben asked, while he used the Atomizer to vanish his dead finger.
“Nah, not now. Can you vanish my legs up to here?” She indicated her desired stump length, with very short leg stumps below her hips. Ben obliged and ten minutes later, his fiancé was one-handed, one-clawed, and legless. The doorbell rang and he went to collect their food.
During dinner, Ben had to help Emily with her quesadillas occasionally, but overall, she was surprised to find how well the Krukenberg-arm worked.
After dinner, Ben cleared the table, while Emily went back into their new stuff. She read through the Atomizer’s new abilities and familiarised herself with the attachments they had received. When Ben joined her again at the couch, she already knew what she wanted him to try.
“Remember when we briefly mentioned a hemicorporectomy earlier?”
“Yeah, what is it?”, Ben responded.
“It’s the complete amputation of the lower body”, Emily explained.
“Wait, all of it? How does that even work? Like…where does the waist go? Can a person live like that?” Ben fired these questions at her.
“Yes, I don’t know, depends, and apparently, yes”, Emily grinned. “I have no clue how it medically. Medically, you need a waste bag for the body waste products, but they didn’t want that for the Atomizer, so they figured out a way to make your body break down the food way further when you reduce it like that with the Atomizer. They found a way to recycle everything. There is no waste left. Everything you eat is used entirely.”
“That is amazing”, Ben admitted.
“It really is!”
“And you want me do try that?”
“I thought it might be fun… Pretty please?” Emily batted her eyes at her fiancé.
“Alright, fine. Screw it, let’s do it.”
“You are awesome”, Emily beamed. She picked the Atomizer up in her lobster-like claw and began setting up the Atomizer with her functioning hand.
“What do you need me to do?”, Ben asked.
“Get undressed”, instructed Emily, “and lie on the floor.”
“Alright!”
Once the Atomizer was set and Ben was in position, Emily began with her work. She carefully erased Ben’s legs up to the hips, then took a deep breath and vanished his privates. When she switched it off, Ben’s torso ended just below his belly button.
“All done”, she said. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at what was left of him.
“This is a whole new level of weird”, he said.
“A good weird?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“How do you feel?”, Emily asked.
“Alright, I guess. I’ve been trying to move anything down there, but there’s nothing. This is such a curious sensation”, he said as she stroked his rump where is hips used to be.
“How does that feel?”, she asked, now exploring his new shape.
“Hhmm, keep going. I don’t feel my dick anymore, but this is niiice”, he murmured while closing his eyes.
“How about we finish me off, and then move this to the bedroom?”, Emily suggested.
“Sure, sounds like a good plan. What do you want done?”, he asked.
“Well, first off, I’m not done with you. Extend your right hand.”
Ben did as he was told. Emily flicked the Atomizer on again and got to work. She carefully erased his thumb, pinkie, and middle finger. Then she clipped on an attachment and began shrinking Ben’s palm until it looked like he had always had just two fingers.
“What was that for?”, he asked as he inspected his new hand.
“I don’t know, I just wanted to see what that would look like”, she giggled.
“Fair enough”, he grinned. “Now, what do you want?”
“Can you make my right arm match my left?”, she asked.
“Feeling adventurous today?”
“You bet I am!”
“Okay then, extend your arm”, he instructed. He got to work, and a few minutes later, both of Emily’s arms ended in lobster-like claws, consisting of ell and poke.
“You really look freaky, you know that?”, Ben asked with a broad smile.
“Heyy”, she responded, playfully hitting him with one of her stump-claws.
“Let me just put this away, then we can move to the bedroom”, he said, picking up the Atomizer.
“I’ll go ahead and get ready”, she said and began shuffling towards the bathroom to brush her teeth. Using her new appendages to perform such tasks was a little tricky, especially since she had just spent a long time without any arms, but she eventually figured it out. She left the bathroom just as Ben arrived walking in on his hand and a half, and already switched into her sexy clothes.
When they found themselves in bed together 10 minutes later, they cuddled a bit and explored each other’s new shapes. Ben used his abbreviated hand to massage her clitoris and play with her parts, while she went to work on his sensitive rump.
“One thing I am missing tho”, Emily said eventually.
“What would that be?”, Ben asked.
“A dick would be kinda nice right now.”
“Don’t worry, I have something else in mind”, he said, positioned his mouth over her privates and went to work.
They both came to really enjoy their new shapes.