Our TG Caption

Bertha Dreessen adjusted her reflection in the smudged control panel, tugging once at the end of her auburn ponytail. It was smooth, tight, just the way she liked it. She smoothed her sleeves, gave her outfit the routine once-over: crisp lab coat, cream blouse, dark green slacks, a blush-pink belt, and polished flats with gold-tipped toes. Her gold stud earrings caught the light faintly. Not flashy, but calibrated. Tasteful precision threaded her look.

At eighteen, Bertha had left high school early, uninterested in diplomas when she’d already secured a job at *The Changegrounds: Free Trial*. Not the downtown flagship, all glass and architectural ego, but a suburban outpost nestled beside a dry cleaner and a vape shop. They didn’t need glamour here. Just the lure of a free alteration—one-time changes to reality. If clients liked it, they might come back for something permanent. Reality editing was no longer new, but it still buzzed with secrecy. The tech ran on strange crystal shards sealed in thick panels. No one really explained them. Not to clerks like Bertha.

She didn’t need to understand it. She just had to make it look good.

The front door chimed.

Bertha stood, brushed the front of her coat, and stepped into the reception room.

“Welcome to The Changegrounds: Free Trial,” she said, clipboard in hand. “Nicolle Taylor and Camille Potts?”

The taller woman nodded. “Yes. That’s us.”

Camille was thirty-three, dressed in curated disinterest: leather crossbody, dark lipstick, cropped wool jacket, and a graphic tee depicting a snarling angel. She looked like she’d rolled her eyes at every stoplight on the way over.

Nicolle was older—mid-forties—with shoulder-length blonde hair clipped back, a pale blue blouse, and black jeans. Her tote bag rattled faintly as she shifted. No frills. No risk.

“I’m excited,” Nicolle said brightly, almost too loudly. “If it’s really like what my friend said, then—wow. She told me she walked out feeling like a whole new woman.”

Bertha offered her standard smile. “Let’s get you started.”

The hallway lights flickered overhead as she led them to the Alteration Room. Nicolle chatted: about her daughter, about the weird parking lot, about how she hadn’t done anything fun in years. Camille remained silent, arms crossed, boots clicking with a sound like impatience.

Bertha gestured to the chamber. Nicolle stepped inside without hesitation. The door hissed closed.

Across the hall, Bertha brought the Command Room online. Monitors lit up with Nicolle’s profile: 41, sales, one daughter named Judy. Married. Reasonably content. Reasonably forgettable.

Camille hovered over her shoulder.

“So,” Camille said, her voice low, skeptical. “How does this actually work?”

Bertha didn’t glance up. “Ten free changes. Physical, behavioral, psychological, memory-based. They hold as long as she’s in the chamber. Once she exits, they lock in. Unless overwritten later.”

Camille smirked faintly. “I told her to do something wild. She never has. She’s all… PTA, podcast recs, grocery list apps.”

Bertha paused, then tilted her head. “You want wild?”

“Something that would *freak her out* if she saw herself in the mirror,” Camille said. “She told me she’s been with, like, three guys total.”

Bertha tapped into the interface. “Let’s try something… eye-opening. Higher sexual experience index, confidence modifier up, visual cues tuned for suggestion.”

Camille blinked. “That’s… a setting?”

Bertha didn’t answer. She keyed in the command and hit *Execute*.

The chamber shimmered.

When the light cleared, Nicolle had not merely changed—she had *arrived*. The pale blouse and jeans were gone, replaced by a black vinyl pencil skirt hugging hips that swayed even in stillness. Her top was a mesh-paneled bodysuit, just sheer enough to flirt with decency. Heels, five inches tall, shaped her legs into something sculptural. Her blonde hair now fell in smooth, platinum waves, parted dramatically to one side. Her lips were deep wine red. Her eyes—lined thick, lashes lush—glittered like they *knew*.

She stood differently now. Like she had already sized up the room and made decisions it didn’t know were being made.

Bertha glanced at the monitor. “She’s had lovers on four continents. Knows her own limits and has crossed most of them once. She doesn’t just flirt—she instructs.”

Camille stared, mouth open slightly. “What the *hell*.”

“She’s self-possessed,” Bertha said mildly. “In full command. Remembers the name of every hotel bar where she’s turned someone’s world upside down.”

The chamber’s inner lights caught on Nicolle’s lip gloss as she smirked. She turned, hands on her hips, and gave a little slow spin, as if trying on a new version of herself—and finding it very much to her liking. She blew a kiss at her own reflection in the mirrored wall.

Bertha cleared her throat. “In this version, she’s always been this way. A few repressed years for her marriage, maybe, but she never lost the core.”

Camille gave a low whistle. “I thought you’d just, I don’t know, give her a pixie cut.”

Bertha clicked her pen against her clipboard. “Nine changes left,” she said, her voice calm, professional. “Want to keep going?”

Camille hesitated, her eyes still fixed on the transformed Nicolle. The woman in the chamber was radiant, magnetic in a way that felt almost unreal—too much for a Tuesday morning and far too much for Nicolle. This version moved like every room was a private stage. Even standing still, she exuded a heat that pressed outward like sunlight through glass.

Bertha, calm as always, watched Camille’s silence with mild interest. She waited three seconds longer than courtesy demanded. Then: “I can enhance it.”

Camille blinked. “*Enhance*?”

Bertha adjusted her stance slightly, her fingers poised above the console. “Right now, she reads as experienced. Knows what she wants. Comfortable with power. But we can go deeper. Push the expression of it. Aesthetic, affect, backstory—more intensity, more texture.”

Camille crossed her arms, but the air had shifted around her. “She’s already dressed like she eats boyfriends for breakfast.”

“She could devour cities,” Bertha said, voice smooth. “You’d be surprised what people carry, buried under years of polite compromises. What if she’d never made those compromises? What if her history had shaped her into someone... mythic?”

Camille gave a nervous laugh, short and uneven. “Mythic Nicolle. Jesus.”

Bertha turned back to the terminal. “Let’s try setting her to *Iconic Libertine*. It’s a higher-order profile. Less ‘mom who had a wild phase,’ more ‘cult figure with a soft ban from three European countries.’”

Camille opened her mouth to protest but found no clear objection. Something about Bertha’s tone made refusal feel embarrassingly pedestrian.

The console hummed as Bertha keyed it in.
**Set: Iconic Libertine**
**Traits: Max charisma; aesthetic: haute provocation; presence: intoxicating; reputation: infamous but adored.**
**Execute.**

The chamber pulsed. This time the shimmer held longer, as if the machine itself hesitated to release what it had just conjured.

When it cleared, Nicolle was... *otherworldly*.

Gone were the vinyl and mesh. Now she wore a tailored suit of deep oxblood silk, the jacket sharply cut and worn with nothing underneath. Diamond cufflinks winked from her wrists. Her pants were high-waisted, fluid, and perfect. On her feet: stilettos with crimson soles that looked almost ceremonial. A black velvet choker with a platinum ring sat against her throat like a signature.

Her makeup was no longer playful or seductive—it was sculpted, exacting. Her brows were strong. Her lips, a deliberate matte nude, framed a smile that suggested secrets too dense for language. Her hair was straight now, blunt cut, tucked behind one ear in that effortless way that required twenty minutes and a stylist’s hand.

Even her body language had shifted. She didn’t just own the space—she curated it. The chamber seemed smaller, lesser, in her presence. Her gaze swept the mirror with calm disdain, then amusement, then boredom. She raised a single eyebrow and tilted her head, as if waiting for someone worth her time.

Bertha barely moved. “She’s given lectures on seduction theory. Once slept with a rival CEO to stall a merger. Her signature scent is banned from six airlines for ‘excessive disruption.’”

Camille sat down hard on the edge of a chair. “That’s *Nicolle*? That’s… Judy’s *mom*?”

“She’s still Judy’s mom,” Bertha said. “But Judy’s grown up with a different version. One who taught her how to negotiate with charm, how to deflect attention or weaponize it. She’s a woman people write think-pieces about. Who stares down gatekeepers until they mistake her for one of them.”

Camille watched as Nicolle adjusted one cuff, then met her own eyes in the reflection and smiled faintly—as if she saw something delicious just out of reach.

“She looks like she’s going to walk out of there and ruin someone important,” Camille said softly.

Bertha checked the display. “Eight changes left,” she said. “Would you like to soften it? Or should we see what else she could be?”