"Do you know which ones you're gonna use it on?" Karyn asked.
"Um," Jon murmured, "now that you mention it, I'm not really sure. Mathematically, aren't there like a thousand possible pairings in a set of twenty numbers? I'm sort of drowning in possibilities, here."
Karyn rolled her eyes, already very well-acquainted with her best friend's indecisiveness. "God, Jon-boy. Just activate the device already. Nobody's going to make fun of you for not making an impressive enough merge," the girl admonished.
Jon blushed. "Fine. I'll just point and click and see what I've made."
He pointed the strange magical technology at the student crossing his direct field of vision; it just happened to be Tiffany Sanders, returning from one of the many bathroom breaks she had taken that period. Jon wasn't particularly well acquainted with the details of childbearing, but he thought he'd heard somewhere that it had something to do with the baby pushing against the mother's bladder in utero. Jon was just relieved he'd never have to go through anything like that himself.
He waited until Tiffany's now-zaftig body appeared in the LCD screen to pull the targeting trigger, only to jump with surprise as the device responded briefly with a loud electronic screaming, its glowing green "on" symbol flashing to urgent red in protest.
Various heads in the classroom turned to the source of the noise, but Jon quickly hid the device under the surface of his desk, looking considerably embarrassed. "Sorry," he said, startled. "I thought I had it on vibrate."
"Smooth," Karyn muttered when the bored students went back to their mundane studying and socializing. "What happened? Why did it do that?"
Jon brought the device out, looking at the message on the screen. "It's a warning," he said, showing the message that had appeared on the screen, in neon green lettering, in both English and Japanese. He read the message aloud, being sure not to speak loud enough for anybody else to hear. "Merging a person in advanced state of pregnancy may cause permanent corruption to the merged persons and irreversible developmental issues may arise in the unborn child Miyamoto Magical Electronics, GK. is not liable for any damages suffered should you choose to proceed crap," he said in disappointment. "I knew I would select the wrong person."
Karyn shrugged, her pale green eyes peering at the warning cautiously. "It's probably common sense not to mess with a girl that pregnant in any way, Jon," she advised. "The two of them are going to have enough problems as it is."
"I guess," Jon said, fiddling with buttons on the device in an attempt to undo his mistake. "Oh, what the hell?!"
"What now?" Karyn said, starting to get thoroughly annoyed with this experiment.
"If selecting Tiffany was just a bad idea, why's it so hard to unselect her? I hate this. I should have wished for a manual."
"Can I see?" Karyn asked, holding her hand out. "I'm pretty good with this stuff. Remember how I programmed your VCR to tape Pokémon episodes? And we were, what, seven?"
Jon smiled, "Fine, but I still get the first merge. It was my idea, after all."
"Then you'd better think of who you'd like to combine, then, while I fix your screw-up." Karyn said, taking the machine from her friend. Because the LCD screen wasn't backlit, she had to angle it just right against the overhead fluorescent lights in order to read the interface. While she messed with various features and functions on the LCD interface, it didn't occur to either of them that she had the device's targeting shaft pointed directly at Jon.
"Ahh, I think I've got it," Karyn said triumphantly. "You hold the cancel button, and press ENTER "
Jon suddenly lurched back as an invisible laser hit him in the chest and he felt gravity begin to pull him backwards, through his chair, through all matter that would impede his course. Turning his head to see where he was going, he could see Tiffany Sanders looking extremely surprised as she felt the same force pulling her towards him.
"Shit! No!! Karyn! Auuuugh!" Jon screamed, sensing the inevitable fate that would befall him. He and Tiffany, the pregnant slut he'd seldom shared more than three words with, were about to be magically fused into some kind of abysmal monstrosity.
"Omigosh! Eeeeeeee!" Karyn shrieked, realizing what her carelessness had done. She fiddled with the device, mashing absolutely every button in an attempt to rectify the situation, but the device was locked until the process was complete.
Despite apparently having no inertia in this phase of existence, Jon kicked and thrashed at everything in his path, doing everything he could in a vain attempt to try and scuttle the process. He didn't slow down one whet.
"Nooooo!" Jon cried out, his body overlapping in the same location as Tiffany's. Bright, white light began emitting from both of them as if they were participating in some exquisite chemical reaction, but if they were, it was far beyond the ken of modern chemical knowledge. Their bodies liquefied, flowing together as if being poured in the same glass and then it found shape, solidifying into the blurry, but utterly recognizable form of a pregnant woman.
The screaming abruptly stopped. Jon no longer existed, so there was obviously no way Jon could scream, or even feel the terror that would cause such a scream. And Karyn just sat, frozen, mesmerized by the horror and splendor of what was unfolding.
The light dissipated in a cyclone of white motes. Where two people had once been, now there was only one, kneeling on the ground as though waking up from a dream. She had Tiffany's shape, but was considerably shorter, having dropped from Tiffany's five feet and eleven inches to a mere five foot four; two inches shorter than Karyn, and only an inch taller than Jon's sister, Zoe. Her hair was a long, straight sepia with natural amber highlights, the apparent compromise between Jon's brown hair and Tiffany's golden blonde.
She had a lovely face. It was a softened version of Jon's, modified with some of Tiffany's more alluring features; To Karyn's eyes, she looked somewhat like Zoe and somewhat like Tiffany, but not quite like either; it had innocence uncharacteristic of either girl, and yet, oxymoronically, also a sort of maturity neither had, perhaps brought about by her upcoming motherhood. Most strikingly, her left eye was Tiffany's clear blue and her right eye was John's oak brown. She had heterochromia.
She wore her pregnancy quite well, even in this advanced state. She was wearing a forest green maternity dress with a stylish pair of leather sandals, and some minimalistic gold studs in her ears. She had more attention to fashion than Jon, but was not as overtly trashy as Tiffany.
Karyn stared in awe, the beautiful mother before her not at all what she was expecting. She was much more than the sum of her parts She was a completely different person in her own right, with her own identity. Was this ?
"Jon? Are you in there?" she asked hesitantly, an obvious quaver in her voice.
The new person stood up, looking down at her body in ostensible confusion. She glanced at her hands, pulled a lock of her long hair into her vision, and rubbed her hands along the large, unavoidable bulge protruding from her midsection. She felt a flutter in her stomach as the child within her wiggled around blithely.
"I'm Felicity?" the girl said, as though uncertain with the idea. She glanced around, taking in her surroundings. Her classmates had been staring at confusion during the merging process, but as it completed, reality went into flux, as though Felicity had always existed. The other students were focusing on their friends and studies, business as usual.
Everything came into focus. She knew who she was. "I'm Felicity," she said, with more conviction this time. "Felicity Madison," she said, giving Karyn a warm smile.
The merging device in Karyn's hands flashed a bright blue light and chirped a happy electronic tone. "Merging Process Successful," the LCD screen said.
Karyn gasped, covering her mouth with her hand. What were the implications of this? What damage had been done?
