Our TG Caption

Bertha Dreessen adjusted her reflection in the dulled sheen of the control panel, tugging once at the end of her auburn ponytail. Neat. Tight. She smoothed her sleeves and glanced down: lab coat crisp and fitted, cream blouse tucked into dark green slacks, a blush patent belt threading through the loops. Flats gleamed faintly at the toes, gold-tipped. Stud earrings and a slim watch added polish. The look didn’t shout fashion, but it murmured it. Intentional. Controlled.

She’d left high school at eighteen—early—because she saw no reason to stay. The Changegrounds: Free Trial had offered a job, and Bertha took it. It was a lesser satellite of the real operation downtown, which gleamed with designer glass and had a logo people recognized. Here, they were buried in a forgettable strip mall beside a dry cleaner that always smelled like vinegar. But it worked. The free one-time alterations drew in the curious. Reality editing wasn’t new, but it was still strange—crystals, sealed in glass, humming faintly, promising transformation.

Bertha didn’t need to understand the science. She just needed to make it sound good.

A chime sounded. She stood, tugged her coat again, and stepped into the waiting room.

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

The taller of the two women nodded. “That’s us.”

Camille was thirty-three and had a certain edge: leather crossbody, cropped wool jacket, graphic tee with a cracked print. She wore dark lipstick and an air of practiced detachment, her gaze flicking over the waiting room like she expected a hidden camera.

Bertha turned to Nicolle. Mid-forties, dressed modestly: pale blue blouse, black jeans, shoulder-length blonde hair clipped back. No real makeup. A big tote bag hung from her shoulder, jangling faintly.

“I’m excited,” Nicolle said, a little too brightly. “If it does what my friend said—wow. She said she came out feeling like a new person.”

Bertha gave her a polite smile and led them down the hall. Lights buzzed overhead. Nicolle chatted—about her daughter, the weird layout of the parking lot, the best kind of travel mug—while Camille trailed behind, silent but attentive, boots tapping softly on the tile.

Inside the Alteration Room, Bertha gestured to the chamber. Nicolle stepped in without hesitation. Across the hall, in the Command Room, Bertha keyed up the system. Monitors blinked alive. Nicolle’s profile loaded: forty-one, works in sales, one daughter—seventeen, named Judy. Married. Predictable.

Camille leaned in, uninvited. “So what’s the game?”

“Trial gives you ten changes,” Bertha said. “Looks, personality, habits. All temporary until she steps out—then they lock in.”

Camille rolled her eyes. “I told her to try something wild. She’s always so… mom.”

Bertha considered that. Her eyes flicked over the presets, then narrowed slightly. “Let’s lean into it, then. Go full mom. Not the frumpy kind. The kind who hosts brunch, runs five-mile charity walks, texts you unsolicited muffin recipes. Glossy hair. Clean car. Command presence. MILF, but PTA.”

Camille blinked. “Wait. You can do that?”

Bertha already had her fingers moving. “Watch.”

She keyed it in. Executed.

The chamber shimmered.

When it cleared, Nicolle stood in the same place—but she’d become something else. Her blouse was now an elegant, deep mauve wrap top, cinched to hint at a trim waist and generous bust. Cream trousers, high-waisted and tailored, flowed to glossy nude heels. Her hair had thickened and brightened, swept into a soft, honeyed blowout that framed her face with calculated effortlessness. Diamond studs gleamed at her ears. Lipstick: soft rose. Cheeks: gently sculpted. Her nails were pale pink, almond-shaped, immaculate.

But the real shift was in how she stood. Hips set, one arm folded, the other resting on her purse—now a structured leather satchel. There was calm authority in her stance. Confidence. Nurture and discipline in equal measure. The kind of woman who could bake a quiche, call your bluff, and schedule your dentist appointment in the same hour.

Bertha smiled faintly. “She’s always had that look. Runs the carpool. Has matching Tupperware. Gives excellent advice—whether you ask or not.”

Memories clicked into place. Nicolle knew every stain removal trick in the book. She volunteered at school functions and remembered the birthdays of her kid’s friends. Judy once said her mom was like a human Pinterest board—except cooler. Their house smelled faintly of citrus cleaner and home-baked cookies. No one ever dared wear shoes on her rug.

Camille stared. “Holy shit.”

Bertha nodded. “She organizes group vacations. Has a garden. Knows how to flirt without meaning to.”

Nicolle glanced down at herself, then up at the glass. She adjusted her top—just so—and gave a small, knowing smile. Not embarrassed. Not surprised. Like she’d always been this way.

Bertha tapped her pen lightly against the clipboard. “Nine changes left,” she said, voice crisp and calm. “Want to keep going?”

Bertha tapped the side of the monitor, eyes narrowing. Nicolle smiled inside the chamber, adjusting her sleeve, checking a nail. Still human. Still gentle, collected. Still *possible.*

But Bertha had seen the other sliders. Hidden behind submenus and bland labels. Administrative-level edits. Reserved for corporate experiments. Supposedly locked.

Supposedly.

She glanced at Camille, who was half-distracted, thumbing through her phone, clearly impressed but restless. Not watching closely.

Bertha entered the override key.

The interface changed—stripped itself of pastel colors and customer-facing language. No more “Style Enhancements” or “Confidence Boosts.” These presets had names like *Archetype Injection,* *Essential Form Realignment,* *Ontological Elevation.* She scrolled until one caught her eye.

**MATERNITY PRINCIPAL — CLASS: THE MOTHER.**
**Note:** “Global emotional field anchor. Localized reality compliance enforcer. Manifestation of nurturing force in perfected archetypal body. Strong anchoring advised.”

Bertha’s heart picked up speed.

She selected it.

A warning flashed:
**WARNING: Change is intensive and recursive. Subject will not recognize discontinuity. External perceptions will adapt retroactively.**

She clicked **EXECUTE**.

The chamber did not shimmer. It *hummed.* A low, resonant tone filled the corridor, vibrating the glass underfoot, the walls, Bertha’s molars. Light didn’t flood the space so much as fold—everything inside the chamber bled away into white, featureless blur, a space beyond optics.

Camille looked up. “What the hell was that?”

Bertha didn’t answer. She was watching the screen.

The figure standing in the chamber was not *just* Nicolle.

She had grown—taller, fuller, not merely in shape but *presence.* Her body radiated form the way the sun gives off heat: instinctive, inescapable. Her curves were impossibly sculpted, maternal abundance and divine symmetry wrapped in a sleeveless ivory dress that trailed behind her like mist. Bare feet floated inches above the floor. Her hair had lengthened into a mantle of liquid gold that moved like it had breath. Her arms—strong, flawless—were the kind that lifted children or worlds, interchangeable.

The air around her shimmered, gently, like summer haze.

But it was her face that silenced the room.

Not beautiful. *Foundational.* The kind of face that could hush storms. Eyes large and infinite, the blue of first skies. Her expression was calm. Serene. Not blank—*watching,* inwardly, as if surveying generations.

Camille took a step back. “What… what did you do?”

Bertha barely heard her. The monitors were glitching, artifacting at the edges. Words rewriting themselves.

Profile:
**Name:** The Mother
**Age:** Timeless
**Occupation:** Caregiver of All
**Dependents:** Yes
**Reality Permissions:** Elevated

Inside the chamber, **The Mother** turned slightly, as if responding to an unseen voice. She smiled faintly, then reached out and plucked something from the air—an invisible thread. It glowed in her hand.

A soft noise filled the room. Not sound exactly, but *soothing.* Like a lullaby you half-remembered from infancy, before you had words. Camille’s phone buzzed and died in her hand.

Bertha spoke, her voice hushed. “She doesn’t know she changed. Her mind filled in the gap. As far as she knows, she’s always been like this.”

Camille stared, pale. “Get her out.”

Bertha shook her head. “No. Not yet.”

The chamber’s temperature readings began to drift. Not in Celsius or Fahrenheit—just *warmth.* *Comfort.* Something in the hallway bloomed. Somewhere distant, a baby cried, then fell quiet.

And inside the chamber, **The Mother** raised her hand again and spoke a name. Soft. Not directed at anyone. But Bertha’s spine stiffened. She had never told Nicolle her mother’s name. Not aloud.

She looked up at the glass.

**The Mother** was looking back.

Still smiling.

Still unaware.

Reality began to bend inward like a flower at dusk.

Bertha clicked her pen once, sharply, just to feel something solid. “Eight changes left,” she murmured.

“Do you want to keep going?”

The chamber should have remained sealed.

Security protocols required biometric clearance, dual-key confirmation, and a system-generated approval code to open it post-deep alteration. But none of that mattered. Not now.

Because **The Mother** stepped forward, and the chamber obeyed.

There was no hiss of hydraulics, no mechanical whir. The glass door simply *ceased* to exist, vanishing as though it had never been installed. A quiet, permissive unmaking. The room flooded with warmth.

**The Mother** emerged.

She moved like memory, slow and inevitable. The hallway lights softened. Paint on the walls warmed a half-tone. Somewhere unseen, a child laughed, the sound somehow *personal*, as if meant for each individual ear.

Bertha turned, blinking. She didn’t feel fear—just a momentary blank, as if her train of thought had derailed and rerouted itself down a different track entirely.

Then she was four years old.

It happened between heartbeats.

Her white lab coat now swaddled her like a toy blanket, bunched and trailing behind her on the floor. She sat cross-legged at the base of the control panel, a pacifier clipped to the hem of a ruffled pink dress. Her red ponytail had become a fine, wispy fluff, pinned with butterfly barrettes. Gold studs? Gone. Clipboard? Replaced by a plush rabbit gripped in both hands.

She looked up at **The Mother**, eyes wide with unquestioning trust.

“Hi,” she said, her voice small. “You look like somebody’s mom.”

**The Mother** smiled, radiant and benevolent.

Behind Bertha—now *little Bee*, as she was called—another technician moved smoothly across the floor. A young man, maybe mid-twenties, with a name tag that read *“Jeremy.”* He tapped lightly at the console as if this had always been his shift, his desk, his domain. He didn’t remember Bertha Dreessen. No one did.

Reality had stitched itself neatly.

And Camille—

Camille opened her mouth to speak. But her voice caught. Something inside her was slipping, like sand through a sieve.

Her eyeliner was gone. Her cropped jacket, too. In their place: a practical denim tunic, soft from years of washing. Her hands—*her hands*—were calloused in new ways, ringed with pale bands where gold had once rested. Her shoulders curved slightly from years of lifting, carrying. The leather crossbody bag she'd worn? Now a bulging canvas tote, overflowing with snacks, water bottles, and a balled-up hoodie.

A toddler tugged at her tunic. “Mommy, can I have juice?”

Camille didn’t hesitate. She crouched, ruffling the child’s curly hair, already reaching for a juice box from the bag—she knew exactly where it was. “Of course, sweetheart,” she murmured. “Pass it to your sister when you're done.”

Two more kids peeked in from the corridor. Then another. And another.

Six.

Six children. All hers. Each one a perfect echo of her, like pages torn from different chapters of the same story. And Camille didn’t question it. She just shifted a hip, balancing a baby, issuing instructions with the ease of someone who’d been doing it for over a decade.

The world had bent to **The Mother’s** design.

Jeremy, now finishing the chamber diagnostics, glanced at her. “All clear, ma’am. Shall I prepare for next intake?”

The Mother didn’t speak. She simply placed a hand on his shoulder, warm and final, and he nodded as if she had.

Little Bee toddled up to her, thumb in her mouth, rabbit clutched close. “You smell like cookies,” she said softly, swaying.

The Mother bent down, scooping her up with divine ease. No weight. Just a natural motion, like the earth accepting a seed. She cradled Bee against her chest, humming—low, wordless, infinite.

Around them, the strip mall faded—plaster walls giving way to soft, warm architecture that defied logic. Arched doorways. Flowering wallpaper. Framed crayon drawings of suns and smiling stick figures. Light pooled, diffuse and gentle. Outside, the parking lot became a garden. The dry cleaner became a swing set.

Camille wiped applesauce from a toddler’s cheek. “Don’t forget—speech therapy at four. And dance at five. And dinner after. I already defrosted the lasagna.”

No one thought it strange.

No one remembered it being different.

And in the center of it all, **The Mother** stood barefoot and patient, arms full of the innocent, smiling like the keeper of all homes.

Eight changes left. But none were needed.

Not now.

Not while The Mother watched over everything.

The street was calm, sun-washed and bird-strewn, a stretch of quiet suburbia painted in soft pastels and trimmed hedges. A sprinkler ticked rhythmically in a front yard, casting arcs of water like crystal prayers into the breeze.

**The Mother** walked barefoot down the sidewalk.

The world shifted gently to accommodate her passage. Where she stepped, the pavement softened, warming like sunlit porch stone. Flowers bloomed in the cracks. Wind chimes rang without wind.

Ahead, two girls wheeled their bicycles in lazy loops—fourteen, maybe fifteen—arms bare, shorts rolled high, voices bright with summer boredom. They circled each other like young birds testing the air. One had dyed blue tips in her hair. The other wore a hoodie despite the heat, earbuds in, nodding to a beat no one else could hear.

They didn’t see **The Mother** approach.

They saw a woman—tall, serene, beautiful in that way which didn’t feel like beauty but *rightness*, like she’d always been part of the landscape.

Then reality bent again, soft as breath.

The handlebars of the girl with blue-tipped hair shimmered, reformed. Her bike vanished beneath her like sugar in warm tea, replaced in an instant by fat, unsteady legs and a sunhat that drooped into her eyes. She tottered where she'd stood a second ago, now no taller than a mailbox, wearing watermelon-print overalls and gripping a plush toy with one sticky hand. Her hair—still faintly tinted blue at the ends—was pulled into pigtails, tied with pink ribbons.

Beside her, the other girl had changed, too—but in the other direction.

Her hips had widened, her chest fuller beneath a flowing maternity top. One hand rested on the curve of a ripe belly. Her earbuds had vanished, replaced by a diaper bag slung over her shoulder. A quiet weight lived in her eyes now—one that comes with late nights, bottles, and lullabies.

And she—*the mother*—smiled patiently, brushing hair from her daughter’s forehead.

“Stay close, sweetpea,” she murmured. “The sidewalk’s hot.”

The toddler nodded, wobbling toward a tricycle that hadn't existed a moment ago.

No one screamed. No one noticed the swap.

Because to them, this had *always* been the way of things.

The young mother adjusted her ponytail and glanced across the street, thinking about nap time, maybe lunch. Wondering absently if her little one had enough sunscreen on.

And then **The Mother** paused.

Her head tilted slightly. Her eyes—not cruel, not curious, but utterly *attentive*—fell upon the pair again.

She reached out with one finger.

Reality reversed its braid.

The toddler straightened. Her limbs elongated, her eyes sharpened with teenage thought. The blue tip returned to her hair—then vanished again, dyed over, forgotten. She blinked, confused for only a fraction of a second, then reached into her hoodie pocket to check her phone.

At the same instant, the pregnant girl wavered—belly shrinking, body compacting. Her eyes lost that maternal distance, becoming round and clear. Her voice came out high and uncertain.

“Mommy, can we go to the park now?”

“Sure, honey,” her *daughter* said—now *the mother*, once more, without question. She reached down, taking her toddler’s hand.

Two worlds. One flipped over like a coin.

And neither girl—mother or child—had any sense they had ever been anyone else.

They strolled past **The Mother** with idle ease, the older one adjusting her oversized sunglasses, the little one dragging a stuffed elephant along the sidewalk.

“Careful not to trip,” the mother said, voice rich with instinct.

“I won’t,” the toddler answered, skipping.

**The Mother** walked on, her gaze soft, her hands empty and ready.

Every step she took hummed with possibility.