HOME | DD

Description
LayoveraTrust Machines storybyclancy688
I'd been an avid fan of hard science fiction since my childhood, and the twin paradox had always been a very intriguing concept to me. Leaving your home to return a few subjective years later, only to come upon a radically changed planet - because at home decades, or even centuries, had gone past. Imagine how the traveler must feel upon returning home and learning of all the changes which had transpired during his absence. The advances in science, the shifting social norms...

Granted, this hadn't happened to me. Not... completely, at least. No decades had elapsed, neither for me nor for anyone else. It had merely been a year since I'd last touched civilization. Barely anything had changed. Earth was still split up into the same countries, ruled by the same parties, with the same politicians in charge. There were still the same conflicts, although some had subsided a bit while others had flared up again. No groundbreaking changes in science or technology had been made, only the same new gadgets in yet another, slightly improved version.

Which meant that when I'd stepped out of the plane and into the busy arcades of Tokyo's Narita airport, everything had immediately felt familiar again. So there should have been no reason at all for me to feel like aforementioned relativistic space traveler. Theoretically.

Except... there was a reason for me to feel like such a traveler. In the form of a big, alien looking box which was sitting squat in the middle of one of the airport's shopping malls. And all I could do was gape at the impossible thing - and at the people entering and exiting it in all kinds of impossible shapes.

Uh... I think I should start from the beginning. You see, there was a reason why I'd never even heard of 'Venn Machines' until yesterday - I'd spent the last few months on a remote, deserted island in the Pacific counting birds, an occupation which had taken me out of the loop for an entire year. I'd been a biology postdoc without any immediate plans and the assignment had been available. It had sounded like an adventure, so I'd jumped at the opportunity immediately.

In reality, it had been mostly boring, but I'd managed. I'd been provided with enough provisions and fuel to last for a couple of months at a time, got resupplied regularly and finally had found the time to work through my considerate list of unread ebooks.

Retrospectively, the timing couldn't have been worse, of course. Apparently, the first Venn Machines had popped up merely days after I'd left to set up shop on my little island. To be honest, I hadn't been cut off from the world completely. There'd been a satellite uplink which I had been able to use to stay in contact with my family, but biology departments are hardly flush with money and satellite bandwith is hideously expensive, so my internet usage had confined itself to the occasional mail to friends and relatives.

Which meant that I'd stayed blissfully unaware of these crazy transformation boxes popping up all over the world. Of course, nobody had mentioned a peep about them in their mails to me either, but why would they? After all, I'd never told anyone about my obsession with transformations. It was quite depressing, actually. My deepest wish had become true, and I hadn't even been there to celebrate the gift.

I'd gotten the first indication that something weird must be going on when my transport ship had deposited me on the Japanese Izu islands. I'd been back in civilization at last, back in the lands of free Wi-Fi. So naturally the first thing I'd done had been firing up my smartphone and checking the news while I'd been waiting for my flight to Tokyo. The various news agencies hadn't had any too outrageously interesting to report , so I'd switched over to my bookmarked transformation blogs and boards, looking for new stories by my favorite authors.

This had been something I'd been looking forward to do for months. Of course I'd taken a giant collection of transformation stories with me, but for obvious reasons I hadn't gotten any new stuff while being beached somewhere in the god-forsaken Pacific. Which now allowed for the opportunity to reap a whole year of new transformation stories. Or so I'd thought.

Something had been amiss, obviously. I'd hardly found any new traditional transformation stories. Instead, there'd been thousands of fictional transformation experience reports. Plus, almost all of them had featured the most realistic looking, but obviously photoshopped post-transformation pictures I'd ever seen. I mean, come on... the things must be photoshopped, right? This had been my reasoning barely a few hours ago. Oh boy, had I been wrong...!

I hadn't had much time to dive further into the mystery since boarding for my plane had started, but I'd spent the entire trip to Narita pondering what the fuck had happened to the transformation community while I'd been gone.

I'd still been pondering over the mystery after landing in Narita. Or let's say at least until I'd stumbled over this big box, this 'Venn Machine', by chance. I'd simply stood there, mouth agape, staring at the tentacled monstrosity which had just crawled its way out of the box on slimy tendrils. I'd definitely seen a young girl entering the thing about a minute earlier. And instead of screaming bloody murder, the friend she'd been with and who'd entered the box on the other side had merely giggled at the slimy octopus something and then taken off with the creature in tow.

This wasn't rocket science. A girl had entered. A monstrosity had exited. Two plus two is four. Therefore... It hadn't made sense. Yes, two plus two is four, but four is ridiculous in this context. The obvious answer had also obviously been impossible, so I'd tried putting two and two together again and again, always with the same result - which was impossible.

A fellow Western traveler had misinterpreted my confusion as consternation regarding the tentacled being, not the process which had created said being. He'd given me the vital piece of information, though. "Yeah, you're gonna have to get used to this," the big, blonde guy, probably a Scandinavian judging by his accented English, had told me with a smirk. "The Japanese really get crazy around Venn Machines. The wretched things were a blessing to their otaku and porn industries. Better don't visit Akihabara if something like this puts you off!"

Chuckling, he'd continued on his way, leaving me behind dumbfounded. Venn Machines... I'd remembered this phrase from all these weird, obviously faked experience reports. A crazy thought had shot through my head: Was it possible that they hadn't been fake? The thought was ludicrous... or was it? With trembling fingers I'd taken my phone out and typed 'Venn Machines' into the wikipedia search box.

That had been two hours ago. After my initial shock had subsided, I'd taken a seat in a small cafe next to the Venn Machine, ordered a diet Coke and then greedily sucked up any piece of information about these seemingly magical machines I'd managed to find in the world wide web.

Which now left me with an absurd dilemma. My next flight, the one which would bring me home, would leave at midnight local time - in more than twelve hours. Originally, I'd planned to spend my free time between my flights doing some sightseeing in Tokyo, but that plan had been flushed down the toilet the moment I'd learned about these 'Venn Machines'. Nope, I had almost twelve hours at my disposal. Ten with a safety buffer for checking-in. More than enough for an eight hour change - something I now knew these Venn Machines were capable of.

And of course I was gonna take this chance! I'd mentioned that I'd been fascinated by transformations all my life, right? All my transformation interested friends online had spent the last year indulging their fantasies, and I'd missed all of it. Of course I was going to use the Venn Machines to transform. There wasn't even a question.

I just didn't know into what. It was hilarious. Here I was, confronted with a seemingly magical device able to fulfill any and every of my secret transformation desires, and I could only use it once before I'd be put into a plane again for another twelve hours. But I had dozens, hundreds of transformation ideas I was eager to try out. How in all what's holy would I be able choose just one?

I took a deep breath, trying to calm down my excitement. Alright... let's try to approach this logically... let's make a list...

Swiftly, I took my laptop out, opening a text document. I mulled over it for a few moments, then typed a short list.

Inanimate
Monsters
Animal
Gender
Anthro

Let's see... I let the cursor hover over 'inanimate'. Somehow, turning into clothes had always fascinated me, and I'd already seen that it was possible - a young girl had been turned into a swimming suit for a friend earlier, and several men into panties for girls right now.

I was intrigued, but quickly decided with a disappointed frown that I'd have to postpone inanimate experiments until I'd be home. Becoming a piece of clothing without someone to wear me would be pointless. But even if I did find someone who'd wear me, what would I do if she would take a flight to God-knows where? I was at an airport, after all. That's what most people were here for. Hell, not even that. She'd only have to leave the town and I'd have trouble getting back to the airport in time when I'd turn back. No, sadly inanimate transformations were out of the question due to the uncertainties involved.

I deleted inanimate. Okay, next one... monsters. Becoming something radically different sounded tempting, like the tentacled monstrosity I'd seen earlier. On the other hand... the shapes I had in mind were fairly radical, and I wasn't so sure if the other people in this airport would be cool with a Xenomorph. All monstery shapes I had witnessed exiting or entering the Venn Machine had been accompanied by a human or humanoid retainer, and there'd been one case of a saber-toothed tiger where mall security actually had intervened and prompted the guy (in a very Japanese way, with lots of passive-aggressive, determined, respectful bowing) to turn back.

With a sigh, I deleted monsters. And then animals as well. If I couldn't at least be a tiger, there'd be no point. I didn't want to spend my layover as something boring like a mouse or cat. And the ceiling wasn't high enough to have some fun as an eagle. That left...

I eyed 'gender' warily. Turning into a hot chick, partying in Tokyo... yeah, this idea definitely had some merits. But on the other hand, it still felt a bit underwhelming, giving what other, more radical changes I desired and what the Venn Machines were capable of. But then an idea shot through my mind.

Hmm... maybe... I thought, putting the cursor in front of 'anthro' and then hitting return, bringing 'gender' and 'anthro' into the same line. Maybe... I can have my cake and eat it!

The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. A gender-bender anthro change. I could have all the goodies of a regular gender-change, but by taking the anthro route I could also satisfy some of my more... animalistic desires. Especially if I went for a multifurry shape.

Grinning, I nodded to myself. Yep. That's it. That's exactly what I'm going to do. Okay... then all that's left is to decide which multifurry shape I'm gonna change into.

In the end, it was a no-brainer. Deep down, I already knew, the only thing left to do was to confirm my initial idea. I took my phone out and navigated into my writing folders. Over the years, I'd assembled a gigantic collection of animals, monsters, anthros and so on, to serve as inspiration for writing transformation stories, and now this collection would serve as inspiration for performing an actual transformation!

I didn't have to search for long. I knew exactly what I was looking for. Excited, I stared at the image on my phone's screen. It... she... was perfect. Exactly how I wanted to look for the next eight hours.

Alright, now that I've decided... I furrowed my brows. Of course there was still one obstacle, given the peculiarities of Venn Machines. I couldn't change myself. I needed someone to change me.

In any other country, my stomach would've been in knots now. I'd read enough about Venn Machines to have learned their other nick name - Trust Machines. Because you had to be able to trust the person on the other side of the booth to not turn you into a worm. And currently, I was a lone stranger in an alien country. There was nobody I could trust.

Thankfully, I wasn't in just any country. I was in Japan, maybe even the the most law-abiding country in the world. It wasn't my first time visiting the land, so I already knew how honest the Japanese people were. I could put a gold bar right on display on my table and leave for a couple of hours, and when I'd get back it would still be there.

So the only question was whom to ask... but I already had someone in mind. A young fellow, a local boy given his looks, who'd already lingered next to the Venn Machine when I'd arrived. He'd chatted a lot with the folks entering and exiting the machine, and even changed a few himself. One of the changes he'd done had been turning a cute, young girl into a felitaur, so he definitely was the right man for the job.

I took a deep breath and then stowed my gear, walking towards him.

"Um, excuse me...?" I asked, and he turned, looking at me. "Could you please use the Venn Machine to transform me?"

The guy stared at me. A few seconds of awkward silence stretched by. "Uhh... no Engrisu. Sumimasen," he finally replied with an apologetic bow, and I looked at him dumbfounded. Okay, right. I'd forgotten. I was in Japan. The land were every sign is bilingual, but none of its inhabitants are.

But I wasn't prepared to give up just yet. Last time I'd visited Japan, I'd managed to communicate just fine by using my hand and feet. There was no logical reason why this shouldn't work now.

"Venn Machine." I said, pointing at the machine and trying to scrabble together whatever little bits of Japanese I knew. "Omae wa..." I pointed at him. "Ore no..." I pointed at me. "henshin." Phew! I'd never thought that watching all these ero anime in my youth would eventually pay off.

His eyes lit up and he grinned. "Hai, hai!" he nodded enthusiastically. Japanese people loved helping hapless gaijin. He signaled me to follow him and together we went to the Venn Machine. I reached into my pockets to pull out 100 yen, but he was faster, apparently deciding to do this on the house. He slotted the coin in and then looked at me, saying some Japanese gibberish. It sounded like a question.

Oh! He wants to know for how long... "Hachi!" I said, simultaneously indicating a small distance between my fingers, then showing four fingers on each hand. I hoped he got the meaning. Eight hours, the shortest possible change. He nodded, and then pressed some icons. I'd never used Venn Machines before (obviously, duh!), but given what I'd read online, it looked okay for an eight hour change.

Then he looked at me again, letting loose another salvo of Japanese gibberish. Well, this was the moment of truth. I guess he wanted to know what he should change me into. I gulped, then took my phone out and pulled up the image. I hesitated for a few seconds before I showed it to him.

His eyebrows almost reached his hairline as he looked at it, and he contemplated the image for a few seconds. But then a smile curled around the edges of his mouth and he nodded. "Omoshiroi."

My heart was beating madly now. I was almost there. About to do what not even 12 hours before had been nothing more than an unrealistic fantasy to me! I took a step towards the entry on one side which had suddenly appeared, but my Japanese friend pulled me back and shook his head, pointing at my phone and luggage, letting loose more gibberish.

Huh? What does he- oh! Suddenly I knew what he was talking about. Right, when someone got transformed in a Venn Machine, everything with him would be changed as well. So if I'd take my phone and luggage inside, it would vanish. Not exactly a good idea to lose all your money, communication devices and identification when in a foreign country. I chewed on my lip, unsure what to do, but again my Japanese companion came to the rescue.

He pointed to a set of lockers at a wall a few feet away. I exhaled relieved. Perfect. "Arigato!" I said, depositing all my gear into one locker. I first searched for the key unsuccessfully, but of course there was none - what good would the locker be if the key would disappear during the change? I'd still not get at my stuff. So there was a number-lock instead, and thankfully the instructions were in English as well.

I have the Japanese guy a last glimpse of my soon-to-be form, then put the smartphone into storage as well, closed the locker, dialed in a number, and both of us stepped into the Venn Machine again. Once I was in, the opening just disappeared. I'd known it would happen, but it still startled the hell out of me. The way the door just poofed out of existence was like some alien magic!

The inside of the booth was illuminated, even though I was unable to spot any light sources. But what really caught my eye was the interface in the middle of the room. At the center, there was a lifelike depiction of my Japanese friend on the other side. I could hear him murmuring and see him tapping around in the air, which looked decidedly odd, a bit like he was trying to catch flies out of the air.

The fluttering in my stomach intensified as I noticed the bubbles which were floating at the edges of the interface panel. He probably was focused on creating my new shape already. I'd read a lot about 'bubbles' which showed variants of a selected transformation, but I hadn't really understood what this was supposed to mean. Now I realized that he probably was tweaking his selection of my resulting shape with voice commands, and his strangely looking arm movements were simply for selecting the bubbles which came closest to his imagination.

Fascinated, I reached out to touch a random bubble. Immediately, the image on the interface changed, now displaying a cute, Japanese woman in a light summer dress. I blanched for a moment. Had I accidentally changed him? But no, his muttering still had a distinctly male tenor, and the moving image of the woman didn't show any hint of surprise.

Calm down, you didn't hit the green button... I took a deep breath and eyed said green button suspiciously. So when I'd push this button, the guy on the other side would become the woman whom the Venn Machine showed me on the interface? Speaking of interface, the bubbles had changed as well. Now I could see women in all sizes, shapes and clothes in the bubbles. So the Venn Machine had changed its bubble suggestions based on my selection. Interesting.

I was sorely tempted to touch more bubbles, or to try out some voice input, but I restrained myself. I didn't want to transform my nameless savior by mistake and risk angering him. Therefore I simply waited and kept my distance from the green button.

It took a couple of minutes, but finally, his mumbling stopped. I could see his female avatar on the interface do a couple of final selections and then look at the center of the screen, furrowing his brows. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied.

"Owatta," he said loudly. "Junbi wa deki taka?"

My limited knowledge of Japanese was good enough to understand him just fine. I gulped as I realized that I was moments away from having a lifelong dream fulfilled. To be transformed. To experience another shape. A very different shape.

I closed my eyes, trying to relax as much as possible. Of course it didn't work at all, my body was tense beyond belief, my hands clenched into tight fists. But I still nodded. Now or never. "Hai. Onegai."

Less then one second later, something... everything... changed. My tension was still there, even more pronounced now due to the fact that my hair stood on end all over my body. No, not my hair. My... fur. I was still clenching my fists, but now I could feel tiny, sharp tips poking into my hand's heels. Moreover, I was clenching not two fists, but four.

But this was hardly all which was different. Other parts of my body were super-twitchy, parts which I hadn't had before, such as a bushy tail and mobile ears.

From what I could feel, my clothes had changed, too. Gone were my jeans and T-shirt, instead I was wearing a light garment which covered my torso and waist, but left much of my legs free. My shoes were gone as well, I was standing barefoot and on tiptoes, with claws on the end of my toes extending into the floor for additional stability.

My whole body was proportioned differently as well, I felt more slender, but with wider hips and a smaller waist, and an unfamiliar weight on my chest.

I could barely contain my excitement. It has really worked! Somehow, I'd still expected the whole thing to just be a crazy dream, that I'd wake up any minute, still on my plane to Tokyo. But no, this was not my imagination! My body had really changed! All the changes I had just enumerated were already awesome enough, but there was one change, one major difference to my normal existence which I hadn't yet really focused on. Yet it was the most radical of all.

I took a couple of deep breaths, then I turned my head to the left, and turned my head to the right. And opened my eyes. I got hit by a momentary touch of vertigo, but as fast as it had come, it disappeared again, and then my vision felt strangely normal.

What I saw was the dark-blue furred face of a vixen... and the dark-blue furred face of a vixen. For a few seconds, I simply stared into my own eyes mesmerized. Then, slowly, I started to smile on both of my canine faces, revealing sharp teeth in my muzzles. It really worked! I have two heads!

It was almost weird how normal this felt. I didn't see two images. Neither did I see double. I was simply seeing out of my left head... and I was seeing out of my right head. Both heads had only one field of vision, both were separated, but I was aware of both at the same time.

Oh my God... this is so...

"Crazy," "Crazy," I said with both heads at the same time.

I didn't know what startled me more - the slightly eerie echo, which I could hear twice as well, or the distinctly female tone of my voices. Hmm...

"Let's try this again," "Let's try this again," I spoke loudly in stereo, then concentrated on keeping my left head's snout shut. "Test, one, two, three..." I intoned with my right head, cracking a grin as I succeeded in staying silent with my left one. Out of a silly impulse, I stuck out my left head's tongue at my right one.

The childish pose made me laugh, and bemused, I shook my heads. "Well, let's see the rest then..." I mused, only with my left head this time, and looked down. I shouldn't have been surprised at what I saw. I mean, I requested the change, after all. But still... suddenly seeing a pair of female breasts on your chest when you've been a male all your life was a bit startling.

I'd read enough transgender transformation stories to know that what I was doing next was a total stereotype. But I didn't care. Grinning, I brought my left and right hand up and cupped my tits. "So that's what breasts feel like..." I giggled with my left head while I kneaded my new appendages. Suddenly I got an idea.

"Hm..." I mused with my right head. "Multitasking test!" And then I brought my other set of arms up in front of my right head's eyes, flexing muscles I hadn't possessed mere minutes before and displaying a set of wickedly gleaming claws. While I still groped my tits with my other set of hands.

I marveled at the sensations four arms and hands were providing me with. I'd expected the additional appendages to be difficult to control, but they worked just fine... I had no problems using them whatsoever. Moreover, I was able to watch two of my hands fondling my breasts with one head and watch the other two playing around with my new claws with the other one almost effortlessly.

Hmm, there is one thing I always wanted to try... I looked at my left head, which I was still using to look at my boobs, and put a frown on. "Hey," I said to myself sternly. "Do you really have to paw your bazookas?"

I batted my other head's eyelashes annoyed. "Give me some slack here, it's the first time I got boobs!"

"Typical." I rolled my right head's eyes. For a few more seconds I kept staring at myself, then I started giggling from both of my heads.

"Talking with myself really is as much fun as I expected."

"I'd say it's even better!"

"I'll have lots of time playing around like this later on. But how about checking out the rest of our body now?"

I winked at myself. "I guess you're right there..." Then I let go of my boobs and focused my attention on the rest of my shape. From what I could see, I was definitely all girl... a quick pat of my smooth groin confirmed this. All I was wearing was a short, red dress which displayed lots of dark-blue furred bosom and ended just a bit below my ass. All the bare body surface I could see was covered in silky fur, including my arms.

"Don't forget your tail!" I quipped with my right head at my left, unable to keep myself from playing around with pretending to be two different people. It simply was way to much fun!

"If you take a look at our legs." I retorted back and then turned my right head to look at my spine's extension and my left head to peer at my legs. My tail was a long, bushy one, and a quick grab with a hand told me that it was fluffy as well. I did a few wags, testing this new limb's range of motion.

Meanwhile, I also took in the shape of my legs. Whereas my arms were very much human-like, except for the slightly thicker, clawed fingers, my legs were distinctly different. Just like for cats and dogs, they were digitigrade, and I was basically standing on my tiptoes.

It certainly didn't feel strenuous, though, and I took a couple of probing steps to confirm that walking like this felt indeed perfectly normal.

A Japanese voice interrupted my giddy self-exploration, and both my heads went up startled, looking at the door. Apparently I'd been so caught up in taking in my transformed shape that I hadn't noticed the interface going dark and the Venn Machine opening up again.

A young girl peered into my side of the booth, giving me a pointed stare. She didn't seem fazed by my outlandish appearance, instead she appeared rather annoyed that I was still blocking the Venn Machine.

"Gomen nasai." "Gomen nasai." With a sheepish smile on my faces, I hurried out of the booth, making space for her to enter. Once outside, I had to stop after a few feet. Wow, suddenly everything seemed... brighter and sharper than before. And louder. And definitely smellier. Apparently my new shape's senses are way better than my human ones...

But what really made me come to a stop was the reflection on a mirrored wall right next to the Venn Machine. Hesitantly, I stepped closer, watching the vixen in the mirror do the same. She... I was almost exactly what I'd asked the Japanese guy to turn me into. Sure, there were small deviations, but nothing big.

The reflection which stared back at me was that of an anthropomorphic, dark-blue furred, two-headed, four-armed vixen. Both my heads sported long, white-haired manes, and my shoulders and parts of my thighs were colored white as well. My faces were almost fully animal, with very pronounced snouts but surprisingly human physiognomy. The rest of my body was almost perfectly human and very female. Except for the fur, the clawed hands and the digitigrade feet. Oh, and the tail, of course.

Slowly I raised a hand, the apparition in the mirror doing the same. Then I yawned with my left head and scowled with my right one, seeing the dual-vixen in the mirror reacting absolutely identical. This really is me...

"Manzoku?" The voice of my Japanese friend took me back to reality. I turned around, looking at him in stereo. He stared at me with a giant grin on his face.

I nodded exuberantly. "Aishiterou!" "Aishiterou!" I replied, then bowed a bit and wagged my tail happily. "Arigato..." "...gozaimasu."

"Ieie..." A sly smile appeared on his face. "Tanoshimu!" He said with a wink and then turned around, going back to the Venn Machine again.

Have fun, he'd said... yeah, he was right. I took a last look at my reflection. I was hot, I was a girl, and I was exotic... now that I'd managed to turn into one of the shapes which had fascinated me for years, I wanted to take it out for a test drive. The question was just where to...

After I'd retrieved some of my stuff (my new dress barely had any pockets, so I had to limit myself on taking just a few Yen bills and my phone) I googled for anthro clubs in Tokyo. It really just was a Hail Mary, but it sounded logical to me... if you got transformation machines then you also got lots of anthropomorphic people. All the furries at least. Who wanted to party, somewhere. So there'd have to be some clubs for this new target group.

And indeed my search provided me with an entire page full of addresses for Venned people like me in Roppongi, the Tokyo district famous for its night clubs and party locations.

Some of the clubs had English websites, and two of them even sported a disclaimer that they welcomed Xenomorphs! I had to chuckle at the mention. Why would someone specifically state that Xenomorphs would be allowed? Was it the norm for these critters to be forbidden? I'm sure there was a story hidden behind this...

Grinning, I looked at my reflection one last time, putting my lower set of hands on my hips and blowing myself a couple of raspberries. I wasn't sure what the coming eight hours would bring... but I'd sure as hell enjoy my time in this body! And this was only the beginning. My mind was already buzzing with ideas what I'd use the Venn Machines for once I'd be at home again.

I laughed out loudly in stereo. It didn't happen often that somebody's dreams got fulfilled overnight, but it had definitely happened to me!