“Hey Vincent, good to see you again.  How was summer on campus?”

The towering blonde teen grinned at his stocky friend.  “Good to see you too, Mike.  Place wasn’t the same without you.  Ready to face advanced calculus?”

“Oh god, don’t remind me.  I’ve heard that class washes out more Mechatronics students than all the others combined.”

Vincent clapped his friend on the back.  “You’ll do fine.  You always do.  C’mon, let’s go enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.”

“And the pretty girls on campus?” asked Mike with a grin.

“Oooh, yeah.  We got a Venn Machine in the campus center over the summer.  Let me tell you, it was insane on campus that first week.”

“All the students trying out crazy new forms?”

Vincent nodded emphatically as they started walking toward campus.  “The Science Fiction club were the first to find it, so there was all kinds of crazy stuff going on.  Aliens mostly, though there was a thankfully brief zombie phase.  The administration started cracking down when people tried to come to class as wild animals.”

“How would that even work?” asked Mike.  “If you can’t hold a pen or type...”

“It didn’t.  The profs tried to rein it in, but didn’t get traction until the admin ruled you had to be yourself in class.”

“Awww.”

Vincent shot a glance at his friend.  “Disappointed?”

“Hey, my hometown got a Venn Machine halfway through my final year at high school.  I’ve seen the upside.”

“Yeah, well, so had half of the students by then.  There was a huge outcry, and as of the end of term they backed down... a little.  Now you just have to be humanoid and ‘non disruptive’ in class.  Oh, and fit in the desks.”

Mike grinned.  “Aw, yeah.  So the pretty girls?”

“Aren’t just girls,” Victor chuckled.  “Lots of pretty and weird stuff still fits.  The big trend toward the end of term was scales.  Lizards like the heat, and it was stinking hot on campus last month.”

“Did you try it?”

“Just to get relief from the heat,” said Vincent dismissively.  “Or I tried, anyway.  Got turned into a lizardskin handbag for my trouble, and figured I’d had enough.”

Mike snickered.  “Trusted the wrong person?”

“Yeah.  Some of the girls on campus have gotten really...”

Mike was staring at a group of girls in what looked like metallic armor in various primary colours.  “Shiny?”

Vincent followed his friend’s gaze.  “Oh, no.  You do not want to mess with the bike chicks.”  But of course Mike was already heading in their direction.  Vincent sighed and hustled to catch up.

As they approached, the heads of the green and purple bike chicks turned their way.  Soon all five were looking at them.  The purple one unshipped metallic wheels from her back.  One got dropped at her feet, the other tossed forward.  She dove toward it, hands clamping to either side of the wheel mid-air.  When she landed, her feet had done the same to the rear wheel, and she was racing off across the quad.  Bright green, yellow and red forms flashed after her, catching up quickly.

Mike turned to the blue one, who was still seated.  Up close, the armor looked more like a metallic exoskeleton.  “You okay?”

She sighed.  “Do I look okay?”

He sat on the same wall she was perched on, just out of arm’s reach.  “Not especially.  You’re the designer of those bikes.  How’d you get the wheels to do that?”

The metallic blue girl looked up at him, finally.  Her eyes were even bluer, and glittered in her pale blue but otherwise human-looking face.  “How’d you know?”

“Ever hear the two barber riddle?”  At her head-shake, Mike continued.  “You come to a town where all the men have neatly trimmed beards. You’re in need of a trim yourself,” he fingered his thick red beard at that, drawing a hint of a smile, “so you look up the barbers.  One has a magnificent beard, trimmed to perfection.  The other’s is nice, but... the artistry isn’t there.  Which one do you go see?”

The blue girl shrugged.

“The one with the imperfect beard.  He’s the one that trimmed the magnificent beard on the other barber, you see.  I see the same here.  You’re not as sleek as they are.  Shiny, but... not the same.  So you Venned them, and one of them returned the favour.  Except they’re not as good as you.”

“Not even close,” she muttered.  “Couldn’t get the freaking drive right.”

“Magnetic bearings?”

She nodded.  “That part I could explain well enough, I guess.  But the electromotive drive...”

“Oh, yeah.  I’ve seen the looks on some of my classmates faces when we got into that kind of stuff last term.  And they were Mechatronics students.  I’m guessing your friends aren’t.”

“Kinesiology, mostly.  Yuki’s in second year Computer Engineering.  I almost got through to her...”

“Want my help?”  Mike stuck out his hand.  “Mike Whittle.”

She stared at the proffered limb for a moment then shyly put her shiny blue hand in it.  It felt as warm as a human hand, but harder.  “Riki Waters.  Third year Mechanical Engineering.”

“Oooh.  I’m only just starting second year myself.  How’d you cope with advanced calculus?”

“Ugh.  Still having nightmares about the final, thank you very much for reminding me.”

“Sorry to bring up bad memories.”

Riki chuckled, and shook her head.  “I did OK on it, actually.  Just lost a couple friends who had to drop back a year.”

“Great, that’s a real confidence booster.  Maybe I can ask you for help on it, later?”

Riki pulled one of her wheels off her back and flipped it into the air.  It tumbled end over end, then she snagged it between her fists.  It snapped into place and hung there, suspended.  “If you can help me with this, sure.”

Mike reached out to the wheel, then checked the move.  “May I?”

“Sure, they’re inert.  Can’t feel anything from them.”

Mike gave it a flick, and it spun freely.  “Bearings seem to work OK.”

“Yeah.  But the drive doesn’t work for crap.  Burned it out earlier today trying to keep up with my so-called friends,” spat Riki bitterly.

“Why didn’t you just twin one of your designs, then?”

“Wait, what now?”

Mike explained how one could tell the Venn Machines to ‘twin’ oneself, making the person in the other half of the machine into a near-duplicate.  Riki wondered if that could be used to sneak a double into an exam, but the iris scanners the university had acquired at the end of summer put paid to that idea.

“Despite that, you think it’d copy the mechanics cleanly?”

“Sure.  We used that in the lab a bunch.”

“You helped build the Venn Machines?” Riki asked eagerly.

Mike laughed a big belly laugh.  “Oh, I wish!  No, it was this little fusion research startup in my hometown.  They hired four of us to get Venned into lab equipment.”

“Seriously?” asked Riki and Vincent simultaneously.

Mike grinned and nodded.  “Spent my first two weeks as a heavy duty roughing pump.  Pulling a vacuum with four of us going at it was waay faster, so they could cycle the experiment and change out gear more easily.  Then during some downtime I asked why not just turn us into fusion generators directly.  The look on the project director’s face!”

“So?  What’s it like being a fusion generator?” Riki asked, leaning in closer.

Mike shrugged.  “Nothing much, really.  Didn’t pan out due to scaling issues with their design.  Power scales to I think it was the fifth power of radius, so we only had little sputters inside us.  Now being a capacitor bank... whoo-ee!  That was fun.”

“Fun?  How can being inanimate be fun?” protested Vincent.

“Imagine feeling a one-point-two-one gigawatt discharge flowing through your body... and surviving, of course.”

Riki giggled.  “Seriously?  You’re going to quote Back to the Future at me?”

“Fine, it was only about 20 megawatts, and for a fraction of a second per shot.  Still cool.”

“So.  Think you can fix these motors, gearhead?”

Mike grinned, taking the name as a compliment.  “Heck yeah.  Lead the way, I haven’t been to this Venn Machine before.”

Mike admired Riki’s backside as she led the way to the Student Life Center and down into the lower floor.  Soon the three of them were waiting in line for one of the two Venn Machines to be free.  As they watched, a number of pretty lizard-skinned girls emerged from the machines, one with sparkling ruby scales that got some covetous looks from the gathered crowd.

The crowd reacted even more excitedly when Riki set the machine for a month.  Mike raised an eyebrow then glanced at Victor.  “You’ve got my back, right?”

“Sure.  Uh, wait.  What do you mean?”

“If she turns me into something immobile, you put me back in.  That’s all.”

Riki laughed.  “You don’t trust me?”

“I’m getting in with you, aren’t I?”  Mike stepped into the Venn Machine, and Riki followed suit, doors vanishing behind each in turn.  “So.  Motor upgrades, you said...  Exploded diagram, please.”

“What?”

Mike studied the image in front of him.  “So you’re mostly biological.  Were they?”

“I don’t think so, no.  Their arms ring when you tap them, mine went ‘thunk’,” said Riki.

“Ah, that’d do it.  Let’s go for some serious upgrades then.  Would going mostly robot bother you?”

Riki shrugged.  “In for a penny...  Hit me with your best shot.”

Mike grinned hugely.  “Awesome.”  He spent the next five minutes muttering and adjusting, finishing with, “End exploded view.”

“How much could you see in that view, anyway?” asked Riki.  “I wasn’t naked, was I?”

“Kind of, yeah.  Not much showed, though.  If it’ll make you feel better, go ahead and touch the bubble that just showed up when you said that.”  After Riki tapped on the interface he added, “I’d prefer it if you didn’t send me out of this thing in my birthday suit.”

Riki giggled.  “That’d be a bit mean for my tastes.  How about a pink dress instead?”

“Hah.  Sure, if you can make it look good on this chassis.”

Riki’s grin widened as she tapped further.  “Cute.”

Mike rolled his eyes.  “Ready for the big upgrade?  I think I’m done.”

“Hit me.”

A moment later Riki gasped as she saw her new body.  “Holy crap, I’m gorgeous!”  The only constants were the shiny blue tone and her still-organic face.  Where her armour had once covered a short and to her mind dumpy body, she was now four inches taller, much sleeker, and her joints looked like something designed by Sorayama.  Accenting it all were traceries of glowing blue-white lines accenting her seams.  The glow intensified as she stood there in awe.

Riki jittered in place.  “I feel like...  Like bottled lightning!  What did you do?”

“Megawatt grade power core in your torso, and conformal storage elsewhere.  Good for a few seconds of stupidly high output.  You should be able to accelerate at a couple of gs, if you could get the traction.”

“This.  Is.  Awesome!”

Riki looked at her display, then shook her head.  “Twin.”

Mike grinned, and waited as the green crescent timed its way to nothing.  Riki touched hers just before it would have blinked out, and Mike emerged from the booth looking a little stunned.  “Wow.  I feel even more jittery than when I spent a week as a capacitor bank.”

Vincent laughed.  “Happy with your change?”

Mike nodded eagerly without even looking at it.  Vincent smirked and waved as the two of them dashed for the stairs and out into the sunlight.  Riki tossed her wheels into the air and dove onto them much as her friends had.  Mike tried to follow suit, and ended up landing on his ass with his feet bound up in one wheel, and the other stuck to one hand.

Riki giggled, and admitted that they’d all had to practice the move dozens of times to get good at it.  Mike determinedly did exactly that until he finally managed the trick, though with far less grace.  Before he could get his bearings, Riki was already zooming off along Ring Road.  Mike zipped after her.  Tossing wheels around wasn’t something he’d done before, but lanesplitting on a motorcycle was second nature.  That his new chassis was far more maneuverable and had stupidly greater acceleration than any bike he’d ever owned just made it that much easier.

They played tag through traffic until they hit the highway, then really opened up.  It felt as if the traffic was standing still.  They moved so fast that the other drivers only saw glowing blue and pink blurs.

Shortly after a roundabout forced them to slow down a touch, the highway turned into a two-lane rural road.  After snaking through a town it banked hard to the left as it descended into a valley.  Riki skidded to a stop then stood and stowed her wheels.  Mike did the same beside her, wobbling unsteadily for a moment until he freed the wheel between his feet.  “Nice view,” he said, then turned out to look over the valley.

Riki laughed.  “We’re halfway to Niagara Falls.  How long did it take us?”

“Not a clue.  Felt like minutes.  I don’t think we went supersonic, so it has to have been at least ten.  Want to go the rest of the way?  Road’s a bit twistier from here on out.”

Riki’s only answer was to dive onto her wheels and take off down the road.  With a laugh, Mike soon followed.  She took it easy until he caught up, then rocketed off down the twisting road.  Mike stayed close on her tail, and they dodged and weaved through the light traffic almost as if they were one entity.

They only slowed down once they reached the falls.  Riki kicked off of her wheels and stowed them, then slowly walked to the railing to stare down into the rushing waters.  Mike stumbled trying the same trick, but managed it.  He stepped up beside Riki, close enough that their hips brushed, and marveled at the view.

After a time, Riki turned to look at him.  “You haven’t said anything about what I turned you into.”

Mike grinned.  “Right!  Thanks for sharing, this body is incredible.”

Riki frowned and looked back over the river.  “No, I mean that I turned you into a female.  A hot pink one, at that.”

“I did wonder about the colour.  Why pink?”

“We’ve got a red bike chick already.  And it matched the dress.”

Mike snickered.  “Right.  Did you turn my image into a girl before or after adding the dress?”

Riki had to giggle.  “After.  Couldn’t make it look good on you before.”

Mike snorted. “Not surprised.”

“Still...”  Riki turned back to him.  “I feel guilty about turning you into a girl without asking.”

“Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed until you pointed it out.  And with the way you’re looking at me... you don’t feel guilty at all.”  Mike lounged back against the rail, showing off his curves.  “This turns you on.  That I’m a guy inside this turns you on even more.”

Riki discovered that her new body still could blush, her cheeks purpling.  “I...  Yeah.  The other bike chicks just love being shiny.  I’ve flirted with them, but they’re all straight.  For all they treat most men like pariahs.”

“That explains Vincent's warning.”

“That, and R3, sorry I mean Judy, she tossed a guy into the duck pond when he kept hitting on Yuki.”

Mike laughed.  “I'm sure he deserved it.  No tossing me in the river.  We'd sink.  Or short out, which would make one hell of a mess.”

“No showers?” fretted Riki.  “That's going to get smelly.”

“Nah.  We're mostly machine, just a wipe down with a damp cloth will do.  Or maybe some waxing compound to stay nice and shiny.”

Riki grinned at him brazenly.  “I'll wax you if you wax me.”

Mike laughed and agreed to her terms.  Unfortunately when they found a hardware store Mike realized his wallet had become part of his body.  Riki offered a raincheck on the 'date', and instead they raced back to campus.  This time they took the main highway, which was level and ruler-straight for miles.  They tore up it at warp speed, leaving more than one highway patrol confused in their wake.  At the end of the run Mike wished he'd been carrying his bike's GPS unit to log their speed.

“I had a blast,” said Riki.  “See you tomorrow?”

“Sounds great.  I'll bring the wax and polishing cloths.”

“You do that, P7.”

Mike raised an eyebrow.  “Colour and ordinal?  Does that make you B1?”

“B4. Yuki was the one who came up with the idea, so she's Y1.  I just did the design work to make it happen,” Riki said with a self-deprecating shrug.

“And your work was awesome.  Don't sell yourself short.”  Mike offered a hug, and Riki accepted it with a ringing of metal on metal.  The kiss she pressed against Mike's cheek worked much better.

Riki tossed her wheels out and dove onto them.  “Tomorrow, P7.”

“With bells on, B4.”

Riki grinned and accelerated away so quickly she seemed to vanish in a puff of dust.  Mike shook his head and headed back into his residence building... then realized his keys were now part of his body, too.  Fortunately the floor rep had spare keys.

* * *

The next day, Mike set out carrying his old black backpack to hold his things.  He’d dug a few different kinds of wax out of his motorcycle maintenance kit, and managed to find a cleanish cloth to apply them with.

Finding Riki was another matter entirely.  They hadn’t agreed on a place to meet, so Mike randomly wandered around campus in hopes of finding the bike chicks.  Fortunately more than a few people recognized his styling, and helpfully pointed to where they’d last seen the “pack”.  The first four such leads were wild goose chases, but after the fifth he got a “they were just here” instead.
 
The tail-chase took a few more minutes, as Mike didn’t want to blast around campus at anything like his top speed, even on a semi-deserted Sunday morning.  He caught up to the rest of the pack when they dismounted to sit on a flight of stairs.  He shipped his wheels before approaching as he wasn’t nearly as graceful at that as they were.

The yellow one spotted him first and called on a greeting, addressing him as P7.  Picking up that cue he replied to her as Y1, before turning to Riki.  “Hey, B4.  I brought the wax, though it looks like it’s be gilding the lily to use it now.”

The green-armoured bike chick turned her nose up at Mike’s backpack.  “We have to find you something more suitable!  That ugly thing does nothing for you, darling.  Did your father pick it for you?”

“I... yeah.  Fathers, go fig.  It was his old backpack from when he went here.”

“Ugh.  Looks like it.  Why did you accept?”

Mike shrugged.  “Engineer.”

“You poor, poor thing.  C’mon, let’s get you something that actually goes with you.”

Instead of heading to a mall for shopping, G2 led the pack back to the Student Life Center, where she pulled a coin out of her shiny green satchel and set the Venn Machine for eight hours.  Mike looked to Riki, who pointed at the backpack.  He dumped the contents outside the Venn Machine, then took it inside with him.

“Don’t touch anything,” said G2 as she entered the other side.

“No worries.  So what’s the plan?” asked Mike.

The shiny green woman’s answer was to touch the green circle.  Mike looked down at the backpack in his hands and saw that it was as shiny and pink as the rest of him.  It looked sleeker, and while waiting for the timeout he tried it on.  It fit flush against his shipped wheels, as if shaped to fit.

Mike emerged to check his new look out in the mirrors across from the Venn Machines, and the pack looked like it had always been part of his design.  “Very pretty,” he admitted.  “You do good work.”

G2 curtsied with a wry grin.  “Thank you.  C’mon, let’s get out of here and go race!”

Mike quickly refilled his backpack, and he and Riki caught up with the others out on ring road.  They dove onto their wheels and the pack raced off into the countryside on rural roads.  Mike noticed that their top speed seemed barely above the limit, and he shared a few private grins with Riki.  She refused to ditch the others, even when they stopped for a lunch break that neither Mike nor Riki required.

They spent the afternoon sunning here and there on campus, flitting off when anyone got too close.  Mike was thoroughly bored of their company by the end, and would have left if it were not for the chances to chat with Riki softly here and there.

Late in the afternoon, Riki pulled Mike away from the group on the pretext of escorting ‘her’ home.  Mike sighed with relief once they were away from the others.  “Are they always like that?”

“Nah.  That was at least partly a test.  You kept up with their chatter OK, and didn’t complain, so I think you passed.”

“Yay,” Mike said, flatly.

“Aw, c’mon.  You had fun with the racing around.”  Riki leaned in for a quick kiss.  “See you around, sport.”  She was on her wheels and vanishing down the road before Mike had a chance to recover.

Twenty seconds later, he was human once more.  Mike looked down at his body and grinned.  “Back to normal.  Though...”  He looked off to the horizon where Riki had vanished.  “It was fun.”

Monday was the first day of classes, and Mike was too busy to even think of hitting the Venn Machine.  He saw the bike chicks flitting among the campus buildings in ones and twos at various points in the day, and even spotted Riki once from afar, but she didn’t react to his wave.

The rest of the week went much the same.  Mike spotted the pack together a couple of times at lunch and tried to approach but they flitted off before he could get close.  Riki zipped past him once on Friday close enough to touch, but didn’t acknowledge his existence.  Mike sighed, and shook his head.

Saturday morning felt like his first chance to breathe since classes had started.  Mike sought out Vincent, and described how Riki was avoiding him.  Vincent suggest it was probably because he was a guy, and she didn’t want to lose ‘status’ with the pack.

Mike rolled his eyes.  “That sounds about right.  I don’t suppose I can talk you into using the Venn Machine to change me back into a bike chick...”

“If I had the slightest idea how, sure.”

“Oh, that’s easy.  C’mon.”

This time, Mike thought ahead to putting his wallet and keys (and the waxing kit) into a locker before getting changed.  He kept the backpack, though.  Vincent stared nervously into the machine after Mike set it for two days.

“Problem?”

“Last time I was stuck as a handbag for a weekend.  I’d rather not go through that again.”

“Aw, c’mon man.  I won’t turn you into a helmet or anything like that.”

Vincent reluctantly stepped in, and Mike hopped into the other side.  “OK, just say ‘history’, and you’ll see a row of previous images of me.  The pink one with the backpack is the one you’re looking for.”

Vincent nodded, and soon had the right form selected.  “Why a helmet, anyway?” he asked curiously.

“You’ve been reluctant to go motorcycling before.  Bad experiences as a kid, yadda yadda... it would have given you a feel for it without any risk of injury.”

“But how would I experience anything as a blind, senseless helmet?”

Mike laughed, and waved apologetically at Vincent’s hurt look.  “I’d make sure you’d have cameras to see with.  Oh, and a mic and speakers so you can hear and talk.”

“Oh!  Well, that’s different...  You’d change me back if I asked?”

Mike nodded reassuringly.  “Of course.”

“Let’s try it, then.”

“Cool.  All set up here.  Just hit your button, then I’ll do mine.”

A moment later P7 appeared in the Venn Machine, and went around to scoop up her new sleek helmet.  It fit perfectly.  When she posed in the mirror, the headset spoke in her ears in Vincent’s voice.  “You didn’t say I’d be pink.”

“Aw c’mon, what else would match this body?”

Vincent hesitated while Mike gathered his stuff and put it in his shiny pink backpack, then conceded the point.  Once Mike was on two wheels again, Vincent cheered.  “This is awesome!”

“Told ya.  Now we have to go find the pack.”

“Try near the sugarcube, I think I saw some brightly coloured flashes over that way when we were heading to the SLC.”

Mike scooted toward the library, deftly avoiding pedestrians.  There was a colourful gaggle outside, but it was lizard-skinned girls sunning themselves in little more than their scales.  “Whoops.  Wrong pack.”

“Yeah.  Those ones look like they bite,” commented Vincent in Mike’s ears.

Mike approached them anyway, and got some tips on where the pack might be.  They struck it lucky soon after, and zipped up to the pack just as it was settling near the pond across from the Environment complex.  Mike stuck the landing when ditching his wheels for once, and grinned as he stowed them.  “Didja miss me?”

Riki grinned.  “Yeah.  The others didn’t think you’d be back, but I kept hoping...  Nice helmet, if somewhat unnecessary.”

“Hand me to her,” said Vincent.

Mike took his helmet off, and held it out to Riki.  “It should fit you just as well.  The colour might not.”

Riki laughed. “It won’t hurt me to...”  She popped it on, then her face immediately went slack in surprise.  Distress followed shortly thereafter.  After a minute she flung the helmet at Mike and fell to her wheels.  She was off like a shot, faster than any of the other bike chicks could possibly follow.  The other pack-members exclaimed in surprise and dismay.

“Go after her, you idiot!” exclaimed the yellow one.

Mike slapped his helmet on and hit the ground already in motion.  He had a pretty good idea which way Riki was going, and raced toward the highway out of town.  “What the hell did you say to her?”

Vincent sighed through the headphones.  “I told her off for ignoring you like they did all the other guys, pointing out that she was being just as sexist as they accuse us of being.”

“Great.”

Mike glimpsed a flash of blue ahead.  The moment Riki noticed him, she poured on speed so hard it looked like she was flying.  Mike blazed after her recklessly, dodging around vans and trucks deftly.  Sadly, Riki wasn’t quite so agile when it came to the sharply curved onramp up to the freeway.  As Mike watched in horror she skidded out of control and went soaring off the pavement and slammed into the embankment.  He barely stopped in time, dropping his wheels on the ground beside her shattered form.  “Riki!”

Riki twisted to face him.  The bright lines of her storage elements were brightening and flickering rapidly  “It hur...”  A violent electrical discharge ripped through her body, scattering its parts over most of the green-space between the highways, and tossing Mike twenty feet into the air.  He landed hard, and took a moment to regain his sense of balance.  He patted his body down, finding that it was scorched but not otherwise damaged.

Mike ran back to the center of the blast, but all that was left there was a scorched crater and a singed blue-rimmed wheel.  “Riki!  Aw man, what do I do now?”

“Gather up the bits and take them back?” offered the voice in Mike’s helmet.

With the help of a concerned motorist who stopped to help and donated an old tarp to the cause, Mike managed to gather most of the scattered bits of armor.  The last pieces he located were Riki’s other wheel and both of his, though one was bent enough he’d never be able to drive on it.

A series of hitchhiked rides and a long hike later, Mike made it back to campus and the Venn Machines, with an improvised sack of blue parts over his shoulder.  He dumped them into one side, then hopped into the other without even thinking about the fact he was still wearing Vincent.  One quick cancel later and all three were human and whole once more.  Mike dashed around to hug Riki.  “Are you OK?”

“Don’t look at me!”

“Sounds like she’s fine,” snarked Vincent.

Mike backed off to look at Riki.  “Are you hurt?”

The short woman shook her head.  Mike was no judge, but she looked older than usual for a third year student.  Shorter than Riki had been even before he’d upgraded her, and on the cute side of curvy.  “What’s wrong, then?”

“I didn’t want you to see me.  The real me.”

Mike laughed and hugged her again.  “I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“You... you don’t think I’m ugly?” sniffed Riki.

“Ugly?  Hell no.  You’re sturdy.  I like that.”

“You do?  Really?”

Mike picked her up and spun her around.  “Yeah.  The twig girls...”  He lowered his voice to whisper conspiratorially.  “I’m always afraid I’ll break ‘em.”

Riki winced.  “Yeah, about that...  Thanks for putting me back together afterward.”

Mike set her down gently.  “Anytime.”

Riki stepped to the mirror, and frowned at her reflection in it.  “I... remember myself as being fatter than this.”  The way her shirt hung loosely suggested it wasn’t just faulty memory.

Mike shrugged.  “How long have you been a bike chick?  You’ve been getting lots of exercise, in a sense.”

Riki flexed her arm and stared at the muscle there in surprise.  “Woah.  I...  Look, would you be offended if I asked you to change me back?”

“Not at all.  You were hot like that.  Though... maybe we should dial back the capacitors, and add some storage compartments instead?  Blowing up once should be enough for anyone.”

Riki finally laughed.  “It was actually kind of a relief.  The pain stopped.  But yeah.  Less boom this time, please.”

“You got it.”

Riki paid and set the Venn Machine for a month.  “Can I persuade you to try life on wheels again?  You looked pretty damn hot yourself.”

“Only if I’m not pink.  Flame orange?”

“I can work with that.”

Vincent shook his head and walked away as the doors vanished behind Mike and Riki.  “Kids these days.”