Our TG Caption

Bertha Dreessen adjusted her reflection in the dulled glass of the control panel, tugging the tail of her auburn ponytail until it sat taut and precise. Her lab coat—an obligatory uniform—hung crisp and clean, tailored just enough to hint at her precision. Underneath, a cream blouse tucked into dark green slacks struck a quiet note of intention. A blush-pink patent leather belt cinched her waist; her flats shimmered faintly, gold-tipped at the toes. Slim gold studs winked at her ears; a minimalist watch clung to her wrist. The effect was subtle but curated. A murmur of fashion-consciousness threaded through her appearance, quiet but deliberate.

At eighteen, Bertha had left high school behind with a shrug. No need to linger when she’d already secured her job at The Changegrounds: Free Trial—a modest offshoot of the flagship downtown. The real Changegrounds shimmered with glass and branding; this branch squatted in a washed-out strip mall beside a dry cleaner and a derelict vape shop. But it functioned. One complimentary reality edit dangled like bait, luring customers who might later pay for something deeper, more enduring. Reality editing wasn’t new anymore, but it still thrummed with allure—the machinery powered by strange, jagged crystal shards sealed beneath heavy glass.

Bertha didn’t need to understand the physics. She only had to make it sing.

A soft chime sounded from the front. She rose, adjusted her sleeves, and stepped into the waiting room.

“Welcome to The Changegrounds: Free Trial,” she said, clipboard poised. “Let me check—Nicolle Taylor and Camille Potts?”

The taller woman nodded. “That’s us.”

Camille, thirty-three, dressed with downtown bite: oxblood lipstick, leather crossbody, cropped wool jacket over a slouchy band tee. Her gaze slid across the waiting room, coolly amused, as if half-suspecting the dusty ficus in the corner to sprout hidden cameras.

Bertha’s eyes shifted to Nicolle. Mid-forties, her look gentler: pale blue button-down, black jeans, shoulder-length blonde hair clipped back neatly. A canvas tote bag dangled from her shoulder, its contents clinking softly.

“I’m excited,” Nicolle chirped, voice bright, a touch too loud. “My friend said this place was wild. Said she felt like a whole new person after.”

Bertha smiled with practiced calm and beckoned them down the corridor. Fluorescent lights hummed and flickered overhead. Nicolle chattered breezily—about her daughter, about the confusing angles of the strip mall lot—while Camille followed, arms crossed, boots clicking sharp and measured.

In the Alteration Room, Bertha gestured Nicolle into the chamber and sealed the door behind her. Across the hall, in the Command Room, she powered up the system. Monitors sputtered to life; Nicolle’s profile slid into view: forty-one, sales rep, one daughter—Judy, seventeen. Married, eighteen years. Clean, simple data.

Camille drifted to Bertha’s side, peering uninvited over her shoulder. “So. What’s the game?”

“Trial gives her ten free alterations,” Bertha replied smoothly. “She can use as many or as few as she likes. Looks, behavior, memories, even personality. They all cement once she leaves the chamber.”

Camille tilted her head, mouth twitching. “Told her to loosen up. She lives in cardigans.”

Bertha’s fingers paused over a preset, but didn’t select it. Instead, she tapped into a custom interface—a quiet override, buried a few menus deep.

Camille frowned. “What’s that one?”

Bertha smiled faintly, not answering. She tapped a sequence into the console. Reality Attunement, dormant state: disabled. Conscious control: enabled. Memories: integrated. Personality: unchanged. Suppression protocols: lifted.

The chamber shimmered, a ripple like oil on water sweeping from floor to ceiling.

When it cleared, Nicolle looked the same.

Same blouse, same jeans, same gentle features. But her eyes—her eyes flicked toward the glass wall, and something sharp glittered behind the blue. She straightened with a strange stillness, like a string had been cut and rewound tighter. Her fingertips flexed slightly, experimentally, as if sensing something in the air. A faint hum passed through the room—just outside the frequency of hearing.

Camille blinked. “Did anything happen?”

Bertha glanced down at the monitor. The data had changed. New flags blinked softly. Category: Sensitive. Level: Self-Wielder. Latency: Expired. Awareness: Full.

“She remembers everything now,” Bertha said quietly. “She’s had the ability for about a year—latent. Used it by accident at first. Fixed small things without realizing. A cracked glass. A bad conversation. A dog that nearly got hit by a car.”

Camille scoffed. “You gave her powers?”

“No,” Bertha said, still watching Nicolle. “I just stopped suppressing them.”

Inside the chamber, Nicolle tilted her head. Her reflection blinked—but not in sync. It stared back at her, a second too long, then nodded. She didn’t react. She just smiled.

The system let out a soft ping.

Bertha clicked her pen. “Nine changes left,” she said, voice even. “Want to see what she does with them?”

A soft, static crackle split the air.

The chamber door stuttered, lights along its frame flickering unevenly. With a final mechanical wheeze, it slid halfway open, then stopped. Nicolle stepped through the gap like it hadn’t resisted her at all.

She didn’t rush. She walked slowly, purposefully, like she’d owned this hallway for years. Her gaze flicked to Bertha, who instinctively took a step back.

“Everything okay?” Camille asked, voice casual. “Is that supposed to happen?”

Bertha’s eyes narrowed. Her fingers hovered over the console again.

Nicolle raised her hand.

Reality twisted.

The air folded in on itself with a soft shnnk, like a page turning the wrong way through time. Bertha didn’t even scream—just staggered once, blinking rapidly as her lab coat melted away into a scarlet satin corset trimmed with silver sequins. Her blouse and slacks unraveled into fishnets and stilettos, her ponytail unfurling into glossy curls that bounced around her shoulders like a shampoo commercial.

A tiny velvet top hat snapped into existence atop her head, tilted at a coy angle. The clipboard she had clutched was now a wand with a glittering star tip. Her watch warped into a rhinestone bracelet. A black spade tattoo glinted just beneath her collarbone.

She swayed where she stood—then straightened, shoulders pulled back, arms poised behind her as if holding a magician’s cape she no longer had. Her lips stretched into a dazzling, permanent smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said brightly, voice now full of sparkle and trained charm, “prepare to be amazed!”

With a shimmer, she was gone—blipped mid-pose in a blink of rhinestones and perfume.

In her place stood a different woman entirely. A new lab tech, mid-thirties, glasses perched low on her nose, hair clipped into a tight bun. She frowned mildly at the terminal, unaware she hadn’t been standing there all along.

Camille blinked. “Was… was Bertha just—?”

“Bertha?” the new woman echoed, glancing over. “No, I’m Claire. Are you feeling alright?”

Camille frowned, but the thought slipped sideways. Claire. That sounded right.

Nicolle turned now to Camille, who folded her arms, slightly uneasy. “You good? That shimmer thing was—”

Nicolle stepped forward, brushing two fingers lightly across Camille’s forehead.

The click of the change was almost soundless, like a pen cap snapping into place.

Camille’s stance shifted instantly—hips tilting into an exaggerated pose, her boots replaced with towering stilettos in glossy black. Her band tee cinched into a midriff-baring halter stamped with a designer logo. Her jeans peeled themselves into glossy vinyl, low-slung, revealing a tattoo of a thorned rose on her hipbone. Her cropped wool jacket slithered into a studded leather bolero that sparkled like oil on water.

Her cheekbones sharpened. Her lipstick deepened to near-black plum. She blinked, now with heavy mascara and half-lidded eyes that smoldered in a practiced pout. Her waist had shrunk dramatically, impossibly narrow beneath a silver-buckled corset belt. Her posture oozed irritation—restless, brittle glamour.

“Ugh, Auntie Nic,” she muttered, voice lower now, touched with a teenage sneer. “Can we please go? I’ve got a shoot in Malibu at eight. I can't be seen in a place like this.”

Nicolle smiled, the kind that didn’t need teeth to press down hard.

“Of course, sweetheart,” she said smoothly, her voice warm and amused. “Just wanted to try something new.”

Camille—now Cam, the twenty-year-old it-girl, notorious for her mood swings and signature “urban melancholy” aesthetic—tossed her head and pulled out her phone. Her lock screen was a black-and-white photo of herself, spine arched, wings painted down her bare back.

As they turned to leave, Claire blinked at the screen, faintly unsettled. “Did—did you still want to use the rest of your alterations?”

Nicolle paused in the doorway, then tilted her head with a slow, knowing grin.

“Oh, I already did,” she said.

Then she left.

The door whispered shut behind them.

And the Changegrounds: Free Trial went back to humming softly beneath the flickering lights, unaware that anything had shifted at all.