Chapter 1: The Garage Transformation
The only light in the garage came from a single, flickering fluorescent tube dangling over the rusted-out shell of a Delorean. It buzzed like an angry insect, painting the cavernous space in stark, shifting shadows. Jedediah Johnson lay half-inside the car’s trunk, their body contorted at an angle that would make a chiropractor wince. The smell of stale lake water, decades-old vinyl, and their own sweat was a familiar perfume.
“Goddamn shim,” they muttered, voice raspy from disuse. Their fingers, black with grease and nicked from a hundred minor battles, fumbled with a stubborn piece of trim.
They and Earl had fished the car out of the old quarry pit last week. How long it had been down there was anyone’s guess. Deloreans didn’t rust, not really, but time and algae had done a number on the stainless steel. It was a ghost, a silver coffin hauled back into the light. Earl, being Earl, had lost interest the moment the tow was paid. The mystery of it now belonged solely to Jed.
Their knuckle brushed against something wrapped in cloth, wedged deep in the cavity behind the tail light assembly. Not a factory part. Too deliberate. Jed pulled it free.
It was an oblong slab, about the size of a hardcover book, wrapped in what might have once been a white t-shirt. Now it was the color of ditch water and fused to the object in places. The slab itself was cold. Unnaturally cold. And it hummed, a faint vibrational thrum that traveled up Jed’s arm and set their teeth on edge.
“What in the hell?”
They turned it over in their hands. It looked like obsidian, but obsidian didn’t hum. Under the grime, the surface was perfectly smooth, mirror-like. Leaning into the weak light, Jed squinted. There, just at the threshold of vision, were traces. Fine, delicate lines etched into the blackness. They looked circuitous, intentional. Electronic.
A sudden, sharp pulse of energy shot from the slab into their palms. It wasn’t a shock. It was an invasion.
The overhead light bulb chose that moment to explode in a shower of glass and sparks, plunging the garage into near-darkness save for the eerie, burgeoning blue light now emanating from the slab and crawling up Jed’s arms.
They tried to drop it. Their fingers wouldn’t obey.
A wave of heat, then cold, then a sensation like every bone in their body being dissolved in acid washed through them. They heard a sound—a wet, organic tearing, mixed with the obscene rip of denim and heavy cotton. Their coveralls were splitting at the seams. Something was happening to the body inside them.
Their vision whited out. It felt like being struck by lightning while falling from a great height. The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of blinding light and searing pain.
Consciousness returned like a slow tide. Jed was on their back on the cold concrete floor, staring up at the corrugated metal ceiling. They took a breath. It felt… different. Deeper. Easier. No familiar stab in the lower back. No grind in the knee.
They sat up. The movement was fluid, effortless. They looked down.
Two significant, round obstacles blocked the view of their legs. They were… spectacular. They were also currently bare, as was the rest of the torso they were attached to. The torn remains of Jed’s coveralls lay around them like a shed skin.
“Holy shit.”
The voice that came out was not their own. It was a low, melodic purr, smooth as Tennessee whiskey, touched with the soft, rounded vowels of the Appalachians. It hung in the air, a foreign and fascinating sound.
Jed scrambled to their feet—her feet—stumbling towards a dusty, fractured mirror leaning against a tool cabinet. The reflection that stared back was a stranger.
A young woman. Early twenties. Face like something from a dream you’re ashamed to have—sharp, captivating, with eyes a shade of green that didn’t seem possible. Flawless, dusky gold skin stretched over high cheekbones. Not a mark, not a freckle, not a single hair out of place on the sleek, dark head. The body was… a masterpiece of provocative design. Curves in exaggerated, impossible proportions, lean and powerful yet soft in all the right places.
Jed pressed a hand to her stomach. It was flat, taut. She flexed an arm. Smooth, hairless, but with a latent strength. She brought a hand to her face, touching the full lips, the straight nose.
A laugh bubbled up, rich and unrestrained. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated triumph.
She was young. The constant, grinding ache in her joints was gone. The perpetual stiffness, the groan getting out of a chair—vanished. She could see. Crisp, clear details in the dark garage corners without squinting. The world was in high-definition.
And she was, undeniably, devastatingly hot.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Essie purred to her reflection, a slow, knowing smile spreading across her new face. The smile felt natural. The purr felt natural. A sense of profound, sensual confidence thrummed through her veins, unbidden, as innate as breathing.
Clothes. She needed clothes.
The garage’s side yard was her unofficial storage for the personal effects found in abandoned cars. People left everything: fast food wrappers, regret, and sometimes whole wardrobes. She normally let it pile up until Earl could haul it to Goodwill. Now, she picked through the damp boxes and mildewed suitcases with new hands—slender, nimble fingers.
She found a pair of denim shorts, faded and soft. A navy-blue tank top. Neither was a perfect fit. The shorts hugged the new curves like a second skin, the hem riding high. The tank top strained across her chest, the fabric taut. It was close enough. It was, in fact, better than close enough. She looked in a fragment of mirror propped on a crate. The effect was… aggressive. Tactical. She felt a thrill, an exhibitionist’s pride.
The low crunch of gravel under tires cut through the night.
A car was coming up the long drive. Not Earl’s tow truck—the engine was wrong. A door slammed, solid and heavy.
A customer? At nearly ten o’clock?
Old instincts, Jed’s instincts, flared. The garage was off the beaten path. You didn’t get casual drop-ins after dark. Essie moved, the new body flowing with a panther’s grace to the cluttered office nook. She yanked open a drawer under the cash register, her hand closing around the familiar, checkered grip of her .357 Magnum revolver.
She jammed it into the waistband of the shorts and immediately felt them slide down over the sleek hips, the denim puddling around her ankles.
“Shit.”
The purr made the curse sound like an endearment. She hiked the shorts back up, one-handed, holding the heavy pistol. No holster. No belt. The geometry was all wrong. With a shrug, she just carried the weapon at her side, her finger resting along the trigger guard. The cold steel was a comfort, a tether to the person she used to be.
She walked to the main garage door, the new body swaying with a hypnotic, rhythmic certainty she didn’t command. She didn’t walk. She progressed. Each step was a statement.
She leaned into the dirty windowpane, peering out into the tungsten glow of the security light.
She leaned into the dirty windowpane, peering out into the tungsten glow of the security light. The glass was filthy, streaked with years of grime and cobwebs, making the world beyond a blur of shadow and diluted orange haze.
The window was useless. If it weren’t for the headlights cutting twin swaths through the darkness, she wouldn't even be able to tell there was a vehicle out there.
The headlights died, replaced by the dimmer glow of parking lights. A door creaked open and slammed shut with a sound like a shotgun breach closing. Heavy boots crunched on gravel.
"Jed? You alive in there?"
Earl’s voice, a gravelly baritone worn smooth by forty years of Pall Malls and shouting over engines.
Shit.
She moved silently, her bare feet making no sound on the oil-stained concrete, and headed to the side door to peer out through its small, wire-reinforced window. It was Earl. He’d brought his wrecker. Behind it, he was towing a BMW sedan that looked like its front end had been smashed in by the fist of an angry god. The hood was accordioned back to the windshield, one headlight staring up at the sky like a dead eye.
"Jed! Got a payday!" Earl yelled again, his voice impatient. He leaned back into his truck cab and leaned on the horn. Two sharp, bleating blasts shattered the quiet of the night. He wasn't going away.
Shit.
He started walking toward the side door, digging into the pocket of his Carhartt jacket. He had a key.
Shit. Shit.
Jed – Essie – took a breath that felt strange in her new lungs, deep and clean. The .357 felt overwhelmingly heavy and profoundly right in her hand. She unlocked the door, yanked it open, and stepped out into the cool night air just as Earl’s key was heading for the lock.
She thrust the gun forward, the long barrel stopping an inch from the zipper of his bib overalls. "Knock that goddamn racket off," she yelled, her new voice cutting through the dark with a sharp, melodic authority.
Earl froze, his hands coming up slowly. "Whoa now, easy there—"
It was at that moment the security light, triggered by motion, clicked on with a loud thunk. Harsh, white light flooded the space between the garage and the wreckers, bathing both of them in its stark, unflattering glare.
Earl’s eyes, squinted against the sudden brightness, traveled slowly up from the gun barrel, over the bare legs, the strained tank top, and finally landed on her face. His expression shifted from cautious alarm to pure, unadulterated confusion. His bushy salt-and-pepper mustache twitched. He didn’t see a dangerous stranger. He saw something impossible.
His gaze narrowed, then widened. A slow, dawning recognition spread across his weathered features, followed by a smirk that cracked his face wide open. "Well I’ll be a sonofabitch," he breathed, a laugh bubbling underneath the words. "Jed? That you under there?"
Essie’s confidence faltered for a split second. "How the fuck?"
Earl just shook his head, the smirk never fading. "It's the eyes, you dumbass. Got the same damn pissed-off look in 'em. And you're pointin' my own goddamn gun at my tenders." He nodded at the revolver. "I'd know that scratch above the trigger anywhere. You bought it off me in '99 for eighty bucks and a case of Pabst."
The sheer, mundane logic of it deflated her. The gun. Of course.
Before he could say another word, before he could even glance at the wrecked BMW or ask a single logical question, she reached forward with her free hand. She grabbed a fistful of his bib overalls right at his substantial chest, the thick denim rough under her smooth fingers, and yanked him inside with a strength that surprised them both. He stumbled over the threshold, and she kicked the door shut behind them, plunging them back into the dim, oily silence of the garage.
The slab, now inert and dark, sat on the workbench where she’d left it. A witness.