Karyn and Jon searched briefly for costumes, but were quickly distracted by the huge amount of junk that seemed to be scattered around the back of the store. Most of it looked pretty worthless, but there were a few valuable looking items as well.
As Karyn passed by a stack of magicians' top hats, something shiny caught her eye. She picked the item up off the shelf to examine it more closely. It looked like a sci-fi ray gun from the '50s. It was made of tin, and felt incredibly light and cheap but seemed to have a fresh coat of shiny red paint.
"Hey Jon, check out this toy gun," she said, turning to show the gun to her friend.
"That's no toy," said the little old man they'd seen earlier, this time emerging from a curtain at the back of the shop.
"Looks like a toy to me," Jon said.
"I assure you, that is a sophisticated piece of extraterrestrial technology. I call it 'The Assimilator.'"
Karyn laughed, "Yeah, right. Why would aliens make something so cheap looking?" She pointed the device at Jon and pulled the trigger, which produced a campy sci-fi "ZAP!" sound as well as a blinding flash. When Karyn's vision recovered, she was not prepared for what she saw.
Jon was suddenly wearing an outfit just like hers, with a tight, low-cut fuschia top, even tighter jeans with black, high-heeled boots. His face was made up just like hers, but even more surprisingly- his male face was now framed by long blond locks styled exactly like Karyn's. Jon looked down at himself.
"What the fuck! What happened!" Jon screamed.
"That," the old man says, "is what The Assimilator does. You're lucky you're protected by the magic of my shop, otherwise your mind would have changed as well."
"My mind?" Jon asked.
"The Assimilator makes the target dress and act just like the person who pulls the trigger. The inventor was a bit of a narcissist. If you'd been outside my shop, you would be acting just like Karyn here. And anyone else who wasn't touching the gun would think you were perfectly normal."
Jon looked a bit scared by the fact that his identity could've been messed with so easily. "How... how do you reverse it."
"No problem," the man said as he took the device from Karyn. He flipped a switch on the back of the device from the green position to red, then pointed at Jon and fired again.
*ZZAAPPPP*
When the flash cleared, he was completely back to normal.
Jon sighed in relief. "Unbelievable," he said, patting himself down to make sure everything was in its right place.
Karyn looked at the man, "That thing must be worth a fortune."
"Actually, now that it's been touched by human hands it's mostly worthless." Karyn frowned and apologized. "No worries," the man said, "I have many more valuable items to keep my shop busy. Consider The Assimilator as a gift to satisfy your curiosity." He handed the gun back to Karyn.
"Um... thanks," she said, not sure if she was comfortable with such power. "So I can use this on anybody, and they'll start acting like me?"
"Most certainly," the man said, "Just be careful not to assimilate too many people at the same time. I'd say no more than two or three."
"Why not?" Jon asked.
"Let's just say... there could be side effects. It gets a bit unpredictable if you have too many assimilants around, especially if they start to congregate in one area. Just be careful."
"Sure," Karyn said, wondering what those side effects could be. Before she could ask, the man was gone. Jon and Karyn were again alone in the store.
"Well, Jon-Boy," Karyn said as they reentered the mall corridor, "Why don't we try this thing out?"
"I don't know Karyn," Jon said with trepidation. "You heard what he said about side-effects."
"Yeah, but I'm not going to zap everybody. Just a couple people. Let them see my point of view, you know? Besides, this thing has a reverse switch," she said as she flipped the switch back to green, arming the Assimilator.
