The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

“So this is our own private version of the software, custom-made for our own yearbook. Everybody go ahead and click on the shortcut, and I’ll walk you through the basics,” began Miss C that afternoon.

Conner was already logged in and drumming his fingers impatiently. No wonder he couldn’t find another product name on the software anywhere; it had been written specifically for Northside High School. He needed to figure out how this crazy thing worked so he could find another way to fix what he’d broken. If he couldn’t learn about the maker online, maybe Miss C could point him in the right direction.

With agonizing slowness, his teacher helped the class set up their logins and be introduced to some of the major features. Her plan was to tackle a couple a day in depth for the remainder of the week, so that by the weekend they’d be relatively self-sufficient and could resume production. Today, she was starting with the class spread tool. Conner followed along, opening the class spread as she instructed.

“Everybody seeing what I have up on the projector?” she asked. No one dissented, so she began explaining. “This here is what we call the master spread. This is an index of all NHS students, current and in a few cases former. Expulsions, withdrawals, that kind of thing. This is what TIOS uses to annex all the other references of students. It’s sort of a combination of the usual class spread and the index, where it not only has each student’s class photo, if they have one, but also has indexes for every other photo they’re tagged in elsewhere in the book.”

Indeed, a handful of students had a small print number under their names. Conner immediately recognized them as the freshmen academic decathlon participants. “So you see here, Raymond Marquez—everybody find him on your screen—there’s a little number 0001 underneath, OK? That number is a spread he’s tagged in. The number is in green, which means he’s in a picture in that spread. The royal blue is for spreads where he’s quoted or mentioned by name, and teal is for both. If you click on it, it takes you to that spread.” She clicked, and the screen projected on the front board showed Conner’s in-progress spread he’d begun over the weekend.

DeShaun raised his hand with a question. “But a number seems kind of… I mean, like, wouldn’t it be better if it just named the spread so we’d know what we were clicking on?”

“It would for a lot of students, but let’s take… well, let’s take you, DeShaun. How many clubs and organizations are you in this year?”

“Um… cross country, track, wrestling… band… marching band… natural helpers, National Honor Society, Key Club… I think that’s it.”

“And yet somehow he’s single, folks!” teased Jordan. DeShaun shot him a dirty look

“Don’t forget yearbook now, DeShaun,” added Miss C with a smile. “And you’ll have your senior quote, plus maybe one or two others… my point is, for a very active student, it takes up a lot of visual space here. So TIOS uses numbers to keep it short, but if you mouse over it…” She did so, and the words Academic Decathlon popped up. “There you go. As long as the spread has a title, so make sure you get in the habit of titling them as soon as you open them, so you know what you’re going back to.”

“Are you following this OK?” whispered Heather as Miss C paused to do some one-on-one troubleshooting.

“Yeah, it’s pretty basic so far. I played around with it a little over the weekend; it gets pretty complex, but a lot of it seems to be learning what the program will intuit.”

She frowned. “I just wish we had some kind of straight-up manual. These tutorials are always so…” She made a little growling noise. Coming from her cherubic blonde face, it was rather adorable. “I mean, we’re going to have a test over this, and it’s all going to come from notes and ad hoc pointers.”

“You’re probably the smartest student in class, Heather. If Miss C ever writes a test you can’t pass, the rest of us are doomed.”

She gave him a little smile; Conner hadn’t even realized he was complimenting her until her reaction. “Well just make sure you know what you’re doing, because if I need to start cheating off of somebody, you’re my guy.”

Conner laughed. “Why, because I’m an easy mark?”

She arched a thinly sculpted brow. “No, because you sit right beside me. If the editor-in-chief gets any input on the next seating chart, try to keep yourself in my eyeline.”

Miss C called attention back to the front of the class and resumed going through pointers. As she went on, Conner heard very little of it. After surreptitiously tilting his monitor so that Heather couldn’t observe him, he resumed staring at those interchanged pictures, still idly daring them back to their proper place, every time still getting the same error.

“Wishful thinking there, Conner?” said Don behind him in a stage whisper.

Suddenly everyone was looking at him, even as he once more dragged Hailey’s picture to Hayleigh. All eyes on him, rather than quickly scroll away before anyone else saw what he was doing, he instead froze. “What’s going on?” asked someone up front who couldn’t see his screen.

“He was trying to swap Hayleigh McKnight’s picture with some fat girl,” said Don.

“Donald!” snapped Miss C. “That’s very rude. Why don’t you mind your own business and pay attention up here, all right?” Still, Conner didn’t miss the sharp look she directed at him for a bare second.

The editor-in-chief’s mind was racing, both in terms of the embarrassment he’d just suffered and the information he so desperately needed. In a rush, he cut in before the teacher could continue. “All I was trying to do is see if you can rearrange the photos, like if there’s an error or something. And I guess my brain got mixed up in the alphabet or whatever because I thought Hailey McManus and Hayleigh McKnight were in the wrong order.”

Miss C paused, then scrolled from the freshman all the way down to the seniors until she found the two girls, in the same wrong order on her screen, and the projector connected to it, as on his. “They look to be in the right order to me…”

Nobody disagreed. Conner gritted his teeth in frustration for just a moment, then replied. “No, I see that now, but like, what if. Like say there’s a new student and they’re put in the wrong order, or somebody switches some pictures as a prank.”

Miss C nodded. “Thankfully, that shouldn’t be a problem—at least not for you. The photos here are all entered by the photography studio, attached to each students’ name, and they sent the info to the TIOS team. See, say I try to switch two pictures…” She leaned down to her laptop as the males in the class as ever trying not to be too obvious about admiring the view down her less-conservative-than-usual neckline.

“Like say, we tried to do yours,” she said, scrolling up a couple pages to the F’s. “I click Conner Fishers, try to put his photo on Alexandra Finch…”

“NO!”

The whole class turned to stare at him in shock. He’d screamed that outburst, terrified by the prospect. Miss C just mouthed “w.t.f.” at him, eyes askance, and completed the operation anyway. The girl’s picture now said Conner Fishers, and vice versa. Conner flinched, then immediately looked down at himself. He was the same… right? Clothes for sure. Alexandra was multiracial, but his skin tone still looked the same shade of pasty-white-boy to him. As the class got over its puzzlement at his behavior and resumed looking at Miss C up front, he surreptitiously slipped a hand between his legs to confirm that yes, his penis was still there. He heaved a sigh of relief.

“So see, it swapped the pictures. And now Conner can relax as we see it only switches yearbook photos and not their immortal souls.” The class had a little chuckle at his expense. “Now, neither of these two are tagged in any spreads yet, but rest assured, the spreads are attached to the names, not the pictures, so it won’t break any links or mess with anyone’s spreads. And all you have to do to fix it is just… voila.” She dragged the two back.

No error message. And, so far as he could tell, no body swap.

What the hell?!

The remainder of the tutorial went off without incident. Conner paid attention, though distractedly, and nothing that was said explained anything about how he’d done what he’d done. But he had done it, hadn’t he? Could all this be some kind of hallucination?

No. That made no sense. People hallucinated under the influence of chemicals, or extreme stress. He’d been under neither, and even if he had, it wouldn’t persist this way. Hailey was Hayleigh, and Hayleigh was Hailey. Even if nobody noticed but him. He’d get to the bottom of this… but today, he’d already drawn enough attention to himself, and he didn’t want to take further risks.

At the close of class after spending the last fifteen minutes helping individuals troubleshoot, Miss C returned to the front of the room. One glance was all it took to confirm she had her Business Face on, one she only wore when someone had truly screwed up. The students stopped readying backpacks and listened closely.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the yearbook staff. Earlier today, I was privileged to find a pair of underwear in the yearbook office.” The class broke out in the mumbles, some in timid giggles, but a sharp gesture from Miss C and they were silent again. “I don’t know whose they are, and the school has refused by request for DNA testing, so you got lucky this time.”

“That’s right he did,” said Don with a smirk. Everyone else had read the room, and knew this was not the time for jokes. No one laughed.

“They were actually women’s underwear, Donald, and I encourage you not to double down on your point.” She re-directed the stern look to the rest of the class. “Henceforth, the office will be locked at all times unless in use. Only Conner and I will have a key. So if you need to check out equipment, you’ll have to find one of us to let you in. Or if you need to defile my classroom, you’ll need to dump some ice down your britches and grow up. Understood?”

“What if they were Conner’s panties, Miss C?” said Jordan, smirking at his classmate out of the corner of his eye. A derisive eye roll at the boy’s idea of a joke from Heather was small comfort to Conner. “Doesn’t seem fair to accuse everyone but him.”

“Well then I suppose if it happens again, we’ll know who to blame, won’t we,” she responded irritably. “And one more comment like that, Jordan, and you’ll be spending the rest of the week in detention.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, smirk not fading.

The bell rang moments later. Miss C wordlessly handed him his key with a lingering gaze that made him wonder how seriously he took Jordan’s quip. Regardless, he was out the door a moment later. He rendezvoused with Owen at his locker, and as his friend went on about some banal incident in math class, Conner tried to figure out how to make things right again. He couldn’t keep using Hailey—especially since once he found out how to reverse the switch, he wouldn’t want to. It was a shallow of him, yes, and that was a big part of what was making him feel so guilty. Still, physical attraction was a real thing, and honestly, he wasn’t even attracted to her personality. Besides, once they graduated and moved on to the real world, would Hayleigh’s reality come crashing down if people started treating her like they did Hailey? Maybe her popularity was only a result of her having won the genetic lottery and being so afraid of fatness that she spent ten hours a week on the treadmill, but that didn’t make it any more right for him to take it from her.

Only then, he walked by her on his way to the parking lot.

She was with a group of her friends, though he didn’t see her boyfriend Jayce Deacons among them. He did, however, see Jordan Lyons, smirking as ever. Lord, how Conner wanted someone to knock that look off his face. Aside from Hayleigh, everyone else in that cluster was either gorgeous, or close enough that their family’s money could make them seem that way. As for Conner, he barely glanced at them, like usual, only then Hayleigh spoke to him.

“So Jordan tells me you were trying to turn your little girlfriend McManus into me in yearbook. Is that right?” said Hailey McManus’ voice with a level of haughtiness it had never before held.

“What? Hailey’s not my girlfriend,” he stammered. Owen stopped beside him, but stayed back. Starting an argument with these people could be social suicide, and Owen’s position was already precarious. He’d step in if he had to, but only then.

“Really? Weren’t those her panties you were sniffing in the yearbook office? That’s what I heard. You two would make such a cute couple. Fatty, and Ratty.”

Conner didn’t really get the jibe, but the imagery coupled with her rhyme seemed to amuse her friends. “Look, I didn’t mean to—”

“Fuck what you meant to,” she cut him off with a sneer. “You know, I could tell Jayce you were messing with me and he’d beat your geek ass through the pavement. Now apologize, and then get the fuck out of here.”

Conner just stared for a moment. Jordan’s arms were folded across his chest, looking more pleased with himself than anyone Conner had ever before seen. “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered. “But I really wasn’t… trying…”

His words fell on deaf ears; as soon as he apologized, the popular crowd broke into laughter and started walking away. He heard Audrey Fowler trying to console Hailey. “Ugh, the number of creeps you have to put up with, babe…”

“Uh, so… how was your day, dear?” asked Owen.

Conner didn’t answer his friend. What would be the point? He couldn’t convince him of the reality of the situation, and he didn’t want to relive the tongue-lashing he’d received from Hayleigh. Instead, they drove home in awkward silence, and after dropping off Owen, Conner had every intention of calling up Hailey and telling her it was over. Then his nerves got the better of him, and he thought maybe he could find a way to do it via text. Of course, bringing up his text conversation with Hailey was an immediate window to those lurid pictures she’d sent him at lunch, which sapped what remained of his will.

Ever a believer in nap therapy, Conner retreated to his room and took a couple hours’ sleep. His dreams were fitful, and while they weren’t metaphorical to his plight, they certainly kept him mindful of the urgency of what he was dealing with. With his mind better rested, he reached to his nightstand to pick up his phone and—

Where was it?

A search commenced. Conner was forever misplacing the thing; he wasn’t such a social butterfly that he was getting a steady stream of updates. Only it didn’t seem to be in any of his usual spots. Not the bathroom, not the kitchen counter, not in the foyer where he took his coat off, not his desk, not yesterday’s pants pockets… nothing. Before he quite reached the point of despair, he finally thought to check the next most probable cause of it going missing: his pesky stepsister Angelica.

“Hey Ang, have you see my phone?” he yelled down the hall.

“We’re indoors, Conner, use your indoor voice—or just text, for crying out loud,” said his stepdad from the living room, gradually trailing off in volume.

But Angelica arrived in his room a moment later. “Looking for this?” she asked, holding up his phone.

“Yeah—what the heck are you doing with that?” Conner made a grab for it, but she pulled it back.

“Well you left it on the gossip bench, and the damn thing was ringing nonstop. Being the benevolent sister-ish type I am, I went to mute the damn thing, but when I swipe it on, what do I find?”

She held it up at arm’s length behind her, the screen facing towards him. As her thumb moved across the screen to unlock it, the color drained from his face. The first thing that popped up was the closeup of Hailey’s bare breasts that she’d sent him earlier that day.

“Give me that!” he said, trying to push past her outstretched arm to get it. She relented after a moment, letting him snatch his phone back and remove the image from the screen.

“So looks like my advice worked!” she said proudly. “Got your little gal pal sending you some kinda freaky pics, do ya?”

He sighed. Of course to her, the pictures would seem to be nothing all that hot. “They’re not ‘freaky.’ People do that all the time. It’s normal.”

“What, send each other porn? In my experience, you usually start with selfies and bore yourselves into stooping to porn shots. Not that I’ve ever bored a guy,” she said, grinning smugly. Conner doubted it. His stepsister was blessed with some mighty fine genetics of her own, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t occasionally noticed when she walked around the house in something skimpy. It was an awkward thing, suddenly gaining a hot female presence in your house at the age of sixteen but having society tell you not to notice.

“Well kudos to you. And these are selfies. That’s just what she looks like.” He glared, daring her to laugh.

And laugh she did. “Yeah right. So your chubby date turns into a skinny girl with amazing boobs under a full moon of fluorescent lights, does she?”

Conner was ready to tell her to mind her business when suddenly it struck him. “Wait. You think… you think these boobs are amazing?” He unlocked the screen, then held up the picture of Hailey’s chest.

“Don’t be a pig, Goner. I’m not gonna sit here and talk about your girlfriend’s taste in porn with you.”

Conner rushed to cut her off as she turned to leave, kicking the door shut behind him. “Wait. Just this one question. Not a conversation, just… you’re telling me that this picture, right here on the screen… this looks like porn to you, and not a fat girl?”

“First off, big girls can and do star in porn, ya pig. Get woke. Second off, I’m not blind. Obviously those are quality ta-tas. Now can I go, or do you have some more smut you wanna run by me?”

He didn’t get in her way as she brushed past him. Instead, he was throwing on shoes and moments later dashing across the street to Owen’s house. He was practically family there himself, so he went straight in and down to the basement, where Owen’s room was.

“Oh hey, man,” said Owen. “Good timing. Trying to unlock the viridian skin for—”

“I don’t care. I need to show you something.” Conner fished his phone out of his pocket, and with a swipe of his thumb revealed the shot of Hailey in her stall. He didn’t like showing something this personal to his friend, who could be insensitive in even the best of times, but he needed another set of eyes.

“Um, what? Did you just come over to show me… wait, is that a bathroom stall at school? Who the hell is that? Is that Casey Nielsen? Damn nice titties, baby!”

“No. Shut up. I need you to do me a favor and describe what you’re looking at.”

“No seriously, dude, you have to tell me where you got this. Did one of your staff members do naughty things with a camera and forget to wipe the memory card? Holy shit, is that Heather? No way, her tits are volleyballs, not softballs. Hair’s wrong, too, I guess.”

“Damnit, Owen, just tell me—do you think these boobs look good, or gross?”

“Well, I’m definitely not a fan of those tan lines. Those are just terrible.”

“But overall—”

“What do you want me to say? Good job finding a picture of amazing boobs? Now are you gonna tell me who those belong to, or do I have to fucking guess?”

“AHA!” Conner shouted, then winced at his own volume. “Dude, you need to sit down for this one.”

“Um, I am sitting. And frankly, it’s kind of annoying that you’re not.”

Conner settled into the spare seat on their gaming couch as he replied. “OK, now… tell me what you think of this shot.” He scrolled up just a little to Hailey’s original shot, where she was still in her bra.

“Still not bad, though I’d take the first one any day.”

Conner stroked his chin. “What color hair would you say that is?”

Owen glanced to his friend. “Huh? Tits have hair? Oh, that. Um, I dunno. Brownish reddish something?”

Hailey—the original Hailey—had a light brown color. Now, thanks to him, it was auburn.

“Holy… dude, those are Hailey’s.” Conner said, holding his phone up to Owen’s face so he could see the name attached to the contact.

Owen shook his head quickly. “Wait, what? Hefty Hailey’s sending you pictures of girls in the bathroom? That’s fucking creepy. Cool of her, though.”

“No, dammit—that girl in the picture, it is Hailey!”

“Um, obviously not, man. Stretch mark free, see?” Owen said, rolling his eyes. “She didn’t seriously try to convince you that was her, did she? Are those photoshopped to look like our bathroom stalls?”

Conner finally took a seat, stealing himself with a deep breath. “Look, I have something to tell you. And it’s going to sound insane, but I think I can prove it if you’ll just hear me out.”

“Dude—”

“Just shut up for a minute, OK? Let me say this.” Owen shrugged and gestured for his friend to proceed. “So last week, yearbook got this new software. And I was doing the spread for academic decathlon, and while I was doing it, I was looking through the class spread—that’s where everyone’s school picture is saved in one massive file. And I was looking at Hailey, and kind of feeling sorry for her I guess, and I dragged Hayleigh McKnight’s picture over to McManus, and my system swapped them.”

“I don’t follow. You mean your phone? Like, it flipped contacts around or some shit? Because I hate to burst your bubble, but no way Hottie Hayleigh is sending you topless pics.”

“No man, I don’t mean… I’m saying it swapped them. TIOS.”

“What the fuck are tios?”

“This Is Our Story. The new yearbook software. Look. I went and clicked on the academic decathlon spread again, and suddenly, McManus’s face was replaced with McKnight’s in that picture, too. And then, remember how I was pointing out McKnight with Jayce Monday? Because, you see, now she looks like McManus! Only nobody noticed but me—until you saw this picture of McManus, who now has the body of McKnight!”

Owen made a face. “You are making no sense right now.”

“Look, what I’m trying to tell you is—”

“I speak fucking English, man. But what I’m saying is that the words you’re saying do not compute. Did you have a nervous breakdown? Try acid or something? Did she bully you so hard you’re actually hallucinating?”

His friend sighed. “I didn’t think you’d believe me. But watch—I can prove it.”

He picked up his phone and typed out a text to Hailey. Owen scooted over so he could watch. “You better not be trying to punk me, man.”

Conner ignored him. Hey, Hailey. I just wanted to say what an amazing time I had today. You were absolutely incredible.

He hit send, and hoped she was near her phone, and in the mood to talk. Sure enough, it notified him she was typing a response soon enough. Thanks. That was pretty crazy lol

Owen looked like he might be sick. “Dude. Please do not make me hear about this straight from the big fat horse’s mouth.”

“Right, ‘cause I’m the one who’s always sharing TMI,” he muttered, typing. I hope you had fun too. I know I did. Seriously cannot WAIT to see you again.

I had fun too. had no idea u were into that kind of stuff! Lot to wrap my head around!

Don’t get me started on how hot you looked with your head wrapped around a certain something… ;) Conner replied, trying to suppress his misgivings.

“Gross. Fucking gross, dude. I mean, right on, but gross.”

Well, I wouldn’t be a very good slut for you if I didn’t try my hardest… lol she said after a minute.

“Oh god, dirty talk from Hefty Hailey. There goes that kink,” griped Owen.

You know, I wouldn’t mind a peek at my little slut right now, Conner continued. Any chance you’re feeling a little naughty?

“You did not just use the word ‘naughty,’ Conner.”

“Shut up. Now just wait…”

Sure enough, a minute later came a fresh picture. From the color of the paint on the walls behind her, he surmised this was at Hailey’s house. He presumed it was her bedroom, though he was yet to see it personally. Most of the shot was dominated by her chest, two weighty but perky half-orbs with dazzling white triangles dominating each.

“See?! I told you!” Conner insisted, shoving the phone in Owen’s face.

“Told me what? There’s still no way that’s Hailey!”

“What! You’re saying she just happened to have that shot handy on the off chance I asked?!”

“Makes more sense than what you’re saying.”

Conner frowned, then typed another text. So fucking gorgeous. Could I have one with your face? You’re so pretty, I want to see you in it too.

“Maybe she’s photoshopping. Wouldn’t prove anything,” Owen insisted.

Conner rolled his eyes and went on. Oh, and maybe you could, like, close your eyes and make a kissy face, and hold your hands up in a little peace sign? That’s how you hot girls always pose, right? ;)

“There. Think she can photoshop all that in thirty seconds?” Owen had no reply this time. And sure enough, in about that span of time a new pic showed up that was exactly what he’d requested. Perfect boobs and all.

“HA! There it is! In your face!”

Owen averted his eyes, groaning dismally. “Oh GROSS, man! I can’t believe you just made me look at Hefty Hailey topless!”

“I… but… it’s the same body! Don’t you see that? It’s the same fucking body!” Conner held it up again, and again Owen looked away in disgust. “Hang on…”

Conner tapped the picture, then zoomed way in so it was nothing but boobs, with a little bit of her peace sign. “Here. What do you see now?”

Owen refused to look. “I’m not falling for that shit again, man.”

“Dammit, just look, Owen!”

Owen glanced down for just a moment, and then back, his grin slowly returning. “Now that’s more like it.”

“Well, now, just keep looking, and…” Conner pinched the photo and slowly zoomed back out. There was her toned stomach, the peace sign, the ends of her hair, her arm extended to take the selfie, her neck, and finally, her face.

Owen’s ginger face went even paler than usual. “What. The. FUCK!”

“What? Did you see? Can you tell it’s her now?”

His friend kept staring, trying to make sense of whatever it was he’d just seen happen. Finally, he turned back to look at Conner. “You… you swapped them. You weren’t fucking kidding. Holy shit, man, you… you… this is…!”

“I know, I know! Why do you think I’ve been so freaked out all week! Now do you see why I hooked up with her?”

“Shit, Conner, why the hell aren’t you over there slobbering on those sweater cows right this second!”

Conner grinned, then picked up the phone again. “That reminds me…” He sent Hailey another text, claiming his mom needed him for something, but he’d text her again before bed. She said not to bother; she had a field trip tomorrow and was turning in early and then sent him one last screenshot of another kissy face.

“Holy shit that girl is so hot, dude. I cannot fucking believe you!” Owen exclaimed, punching Conner softly on the shoulder.

“I know it, man. So like, what did you see? When I zoomed out?”

Owen thought for a moment. “Well, it was like… I dunno. Like I saw hot titties, right, and then… I can’t explain it right. It was sorta like that scene in all those stupid chick flicks where the girl lets down her pony tail and takes off her glasses and is suddenly insanely hot. Like, I recognized her as Hailey, but like, I never realized Hailey was such quality tail. Does that make sense?”

“None of this makes sense, but I think it fits our narrative at least.”

Owen nodded. “So today, when Hottie Hayleigh—McKnight, I mean—flipped out on you…”

“I was trying to switch them back.” Conner held up a hand to forestall his friend’s outburst. “I felt bad, OK? I mean, it was awesome, but I’m playing around with people’s lives. And either way, it won’t work. I don’t know why, but it won’t let me switch them back. For now, they’re stuck like this.”

“Hey, after the way that cunt treated you this afternoon, serves her right.”

“Maybe.” Conner flopped onto his back. “You have no idea how good it feels to have somebody else know about this, man. This has been the weirdest few days of my life, and I was half-worried I was going crazy.”

“If you are, you’re taking me with you,” Owen said with a laugh. “So what’s our next move? Who’s our next target?”

Conner tilted his head up to look at his friend. “No. No more targets. I don’t even know how I did this, or what the ramifications are. I can’t just go willy nilly transforming people!”

“Uh, yeah you can. Hey, I think I have a shot with Kendra Holcomb. How about we get a nice pick of your stepsis and… voila, life goal achieved, baby!”

“Angelica doesn’t even go to our school, Owen! I can’t swap photos with someone who doesn’t have a photo there.”

“Have you tried?”

Conner paused. “Well, no…”

“Then what say we try, eh?”

After hours of back and forth with Owen, it was going on midnight before Conner returned home. Music was faintly audible coming from Angelica’s room across the hall; no doubt listening to it on her headphones so she could still vibrate her brain without waking the whole house. He made sure not to make a peep as he let himself into his room and closed the door behind him.

Angelica. Owen’s crush had never been something he’d kept secret, not even from Angelica. He was often apt to make an awkward come-on or lewd comment. Luckily for him, she’d decided to take the whole thing as a running joke and bantered back. For instance a time last summer when he’d given her a thorough once-over and said, “damn, girl, all those curves and me with no brakes!”

In response, Angelica had stepped—stomped, really—on his foot with her heel, then as he yowled in pain, answered, “Really? You’re sure there’s nothing broken in there?” They were kind of terrible to one another, but really, his flirting and her rejecting seemed to upset Conner more than either of them.

Only now, Owen wanted to take it to the next level.

He tried not to think about what his friend had asked of him as he settled into bed. As a distraction, he figured he’d go ahead and help himself to another perusal of those pictures from Hailey. It was then that the boy finally realized that she’d tried to call him—four times—while he’d been napping that afternoon. That’s right, Angelica had said his phone ringing was what had bugged her to the point of picking it up and set off everything that had followed.

There were three voicemails. A bit nervously, Conner queued them up and hit play.

“Tuesday, 3:55pm,” said the robotic voice, then shifted to Hailey’s. “Hi, Conner, it’s Hailey. That was, um, pretty whooooooa, today, right? I wondered if we could talk, maybe? Not that I didn’t have fun! I did. You’re sooooo amazing. Oh gosh. Anyway, call me maybe? Please? OK, bye!”

It proceeded to the second message. “Tuesday, 5:19pm. Hi Conner, Hailey again. Sorry about that other message—sometimes I call without knowing what I wanna say and I just kind of babble like an idiot instead of getting to the point, ya know?” There was a brief pause. “Whiiiiich I guess I sorta just did again. UGH. Darnit! Is there a delete button on… Anyway, sorry, just wanted to try to catch you, and—”

Conner couldn’t help but give a little laugh as she was cut off. It then went to the third message. “Tuesday, 6:04pm. Conner? Um, this is…” He heard a deep breath. “This is your… your little slut? I miss you. I want you. Call me?”

Holy crap.

He listened to that last message over and over until, with a contented sigh, Conner went to sleep harder than he ever had in his life.

The following afternoon found the two boys huddled around a borrowed NHS laptop at Conner’s desk in his bedroom, This Is Our Story loading. The day had been pleasantly uneventful to this point—no guilty-boner-inducing texts, no social assaults from girls in other girls’ bodies, no weird shifts in reality from a renegade yearbook program.

At least, not unless they succeeded.

“Look away, Owen, I gotta enter my password.”

Resentfully, Owen turned his back. “What, like you’re worried I’d steal your login and turn every 2 in our school into a 9? Because I would. I so would.”

“I was more worried you’d try to switch Zack Hofstra with Keith Dudley just to watch Zack drag himself around the school on his elbows while nobody noticed.” Zack was one of Owen’s own nemeses at school; Keith was a student in a wheelchair.

“Holy… you think that’d work?!”

“Moving on… I’m logged in.”

Owen whipped back around. “So what do we got here? What do we do?”

“Well… first let me say again that—”

“—that you’re not promising anything, I know, I know. Broken frickin’ record.”

“Good. Also, remember to keep your voice down. Angelica’s just downstairs, OK? So all right, let’s just see what we see.”

Conner started with the class spread. All 2,244 NHS Nighthawks, organized alphabetically by class. Here and there was a blank space for kids who’d missed picture day or had transferred to school later on; others had a red X in the corner for students who’d dropped out or otherwise left NHS. Owen groaned at the sight of his own picture, a fresh dorky haircut his mom had imposed on him stuffed into the only dress shirt he owned. Owen was already not the most photogenic person in the spread; he was the quintessential ginger, and while his braces had finally come off last year, it was still hard to picture him without them.

“Hey I could always switch you with somebody with an ounce of fashion sense. Somebody who actually hit the gym once in a while.”

“Whoa, you could! Oh wow, let’s—”

“Bear in mind, I’m the only one who’d be able to tell, so fat lot of good it’d do you.”

His friend’s face sunk. “Fair point. So now, what do we do? Angelica’s not in here, obviously, so like… Do we just say, hey TIOS, hocus pocus pretty please?”

“I’m not sure… Here, let’s try this.” He opened a new spread, and with a few clicks, uploaded a picture of Angelica they’d swiped from her facebook. She was wearing a cute white shoulderless dress for a concert she’d gone to at the end of the summer. She was the only person in the pic, so hopefully it’d be difficult to screw it up too badly.

Conner then clicked the button to tag a student in the spread, and TIOS gave him the option to input either a name, or select one from the class spread. Conner chose the latter, then scrolled down to the seniors. To be cautious, he clicked on Sasha Quesada’s picture. She’d been expelled a few weeks ago; rumor had it she’d threatened to burn down a boy’s house over some kind of infidelity-related issue. Conner didn’t see how expelling her made this less likely rather than more, but left such determinations to professionals. Either way, it was a girl who, if things went wrong, would be less likely to cause problems—for them, anyway—if this went wrong.

“Psycho Sasha, huh? You sure about that?”

Conner gave his friend an annoyed look. “Is there anyone you don’t have an alliterative nickname for?”

“You jealous, Cuddly Conner?” Owen went in for a hug and Conner squirmed free with a laugh.

“Anyway, I’m not going to try to switch them. It should have some kind of confirmation check, and my thinking is that even if something goes wrong, if we do it in a spread, we might be able to undo it by deleting the spread.”

“Um, sure. Well, let’s do this shit, man. Click away!” Conner tagged Sasha in the photo, then went back to the spread, muscles tensed to see what awaited him.

“Holy…”

“… shit,” finished Owen.

There in front of them was a picture of their felonious Latina classmate wearing Angelica’s dress. She was even shorter than Conner’s stepsister and painfully thin, although the dress had shrunk to compensate. The picture looked otherwise identical—same facial expression, same angle, same background, same lighting. The only thing that had changed was the girl.

“Did we… are they…?!” said Owen.

“I don’t know. Oh shit, last time it asked me to confirm the change! What the… Shit shit shit! Hang on. OK, maybe… let’s check, OK? Let’s just check.” Conner opened a browser and went to facebook. With his heart in his throat, he typed Angelica into the search window and went to her page. Both boys heaved a massive sigh of relief as they saw her profile picture was still the real Angelica, and when he clicked on her photos, they all seemed to show the same.

Except for one.

“Dude, no fucking way!” exclaimed Owen. “It’s like… it’s like we rewrote time, or something! Like that moment, we left everything the same but who was standing on that spot. Look, even the tag!” He pointed, and Conner saw that indeed, the photo was now tagged with Sasha Quesada. He was pretty sure she had never even met his stepsister.

“Just to make sure… why don’t you go downstairs and check. Just in case.”

Two tense minutes later, Owen walked back into the room. He looked like he’d been gut-punched. “Dude. You’re not going to believe this.”

“No! Shit, no! Oh my god, my stepdad is going to murder me when he finds out! Oh shit oh shit oh—!”

“She’s fine, moron. Geez, you panic like that and it sucks all the fun out of punking you.”

The information sunk in after a moment, then he took a feeble swing at Owen’s arm, deflected with a laugh. “You asshole!”

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it. She’s fine. Damn fine, actually.”

Conner rolled his eyes and sat back down. “All right, now let’s see if we can untag her.” There was no undo button, but when he went back to the class spread, it allowed him to uncheck Sasha’s picture. Sure enough, when he went back to the spread with Angelica’s picture, there she was again. Same with its facebook counterpart.

“All right, so we can fuck with her picture—now can we move along with the process?”

“Calm down. We’re messing around with serious stuff here. I’m not going to rush it just because you can’t keep it in your pants. So let’s see if we can find a way to add her to the class spread. That’s where I switched Hailey and Hayleigh, so if we’re even considering this, we should start there.”

“Considering? Dude, you had me at I-body-swapped-Hefty-and-Hottie.”

Conner browsed through his buttons and drop-down menus, looking for anything that would let him add a student. Even with Owen as a second set of eyes, he couldn’t find anything. It was frankly illogical, considering if a new student transferred in, they’d have to be able to add them somehow. There were image editors, spread editors, yearbook staff management tools, organizers and sorters and filters. But no Add Student button.

“Looks like we may be out of luck, man,” Conner said at last. Secretly he was a bit relieved. He’d never been close with Angelica. Still, it felt weird to contemplate messing with her like that, even if neither she nor anyone else would know. She’d been pretty cool the other night, giving him advice for his date, even if she was usually a thorn in his paw.

“Damnit. There’s gotta be something in here, buried in some sub-menu somewhere!”

“We’ve looked and looked, and either it’s not part of the program, or, more likely, they made it so only Miss C could do it.”

“Well that sucks. Shit.” Owen glowered at the screen as if it had wronged him.

“Hey, and speaking of, I gotta use the bathroom. Do I need to take the laptop with me, or can I trust you not to screw with things?”

“Hurtful that you don’t trust me. I promise, OK? I’ll look for a way to add her, but I won’t click anything without you. Promise.” Conner narrowed his eyes, but even skeptical as he was of his friend’s level-headedness, he’d known Owen since before kindergarten, and he knew when he meant what he said. This was serious enough stuff to give even Owen’s libido pause.

When he came back, Owen was still on their trial spread with the picture of Angelica. Only Conner could see he’d typed something—and there was a dialogue box that had popped up. “You better check this out, man.”

Conner took his place, looking first at what his friend had typed. In a text box next to the picture, in the agreed-upon yearbook font type and size, were the words, I just can’t get enough of Owen’s schlong! The pop-up box, which his eyes scanned in the next instant, was an all-too-familiar error exclamation point. Only this one read Error: Invalid quote Code 0040181.

“Real fucking mature, Owen. What the hell is this?”

“You tell me! I couldn’t find a way to add her, so I was just fucking around and thought it’d be funny. But then this error message pops up. TIOS can be a little bitch, man.”

Conner frowned. Its juvenile content aside, there was otherwise nothing intrinsically wrong with the quote. He hit OK on the error message and it disappeared, then inserted a quote himself. Rather than repeat Conner’s quote, he typed in blah blah blah testing testing. He clicked to confirm, and there it was. Error: Invalid quote. Code 0040181.

“Why would it…” He thought for a moment, double-checked all the settings, made sure the alignment for the text box was perfect, this time just hit a bunch of keys—fo;ijkwhekjsdhjsd—and again. Error: Invalid quote. Code 0040181.

“What the hell is an invalid quote?” he muttered grouchily. Heck, at this point he wasn’t even worried about the program’s bizarre powers; he just wanted to be able to include a quote in a spread. He went back to the academic decathlon spread, and sure enough, the quote there was just fine. Conner deleted it, re-typed it, and there it was. No problem. So why…

“You know, Mrs. Reyes got really pissed at me when I made up a bunch of quotes on my research paper last month. Could that be…?”

“Right, because TIOS knows when the quote is made… up…” Mid-sentence, Conner reached the same bizarre hunch that Owen had.

Conner clicked to create a new quote. This time he typed, “That’s nice.”—Angelica Buck. Something she was sure to have said countless times. He clicked enter, and…

The quote remained.

TIOS could distinguish between real and fake quotes.

“OK, what the fuck is this thing?!” Owen said, standing and taking a few steps back.

“This… I don’t know. I just… I don’t know.”

Then, suddenly, Owen bolted from the room.

“Dude—hey!” He blinked as his friend vanished down the hallway. He expected to hear the front door a moment later, but instead he heard feet thundering down the stairs. What could he be doing? He tried to listen, but other than a derisive-sounding laugh from Angelica, he heard nothing. Then feet on the stairs again, and then there was Owen in the doorway.

“Move over, man.”

Conner hesitated only a moment before his curiosity bade him comply. Owen settled back in, and once more opened a quote box. “I can’t get enough of your cock, Owen.—Angelica Buck, he typed.

He hit Enter.

The text box remained.

“OK, what the hell did you just do down there?”

“Who me?” Owen grinned.

“Seriously, man. Spill it.”

“Oh fine. I went down there and I told Angelica I was going to start a podcast—you know how she’s always raving about this or that fucking podcast—and I needed a female co-host with a sexy voice. So I asked her to say, in her sexiest tone…”

Conner re-read the quote on his screen. “And she did it?”

Owen shrugged. “Sort of. I mean, she said it like…” He pinched his nostrils shut and did a nasal whine. “‘I can’t get enough of your cock, Owen.’ And she laughed at me, and I laughed, and then I came back up here and BAM, there it is in black and white.”

Conner shook at his friend. “You are such a child. You do realize that just because she said it doesn’t make it true, right?”

“Well let’s find out, shall we? Sitting here with your magic body-swapping program, and somehow you’re so certain about what it does and doesn’t do.” He excused himself, and Conner waited. About thirty seconds later, he heard a shriek that at first he thought was Angelica’s; only as he heard her shouting did he realize the sound had come from Owen.

“Now get the fuck out of this house and don’t you fucking dare set foot in it again, you sick little pig! I mean it—get the FUCK out!” Conner winced. His stepsister had some pipes on her. From his bedroom window, he watched a clearly wounded Owen staggering down the driveway and across the street. One hand was clutching his groin; the other was held out in front of him as if to catch him in case he fell.

He threw up in his mom’s hydrangeas.

“I do not want you hanging out with that freak any more, do you understand me?” Angelica was saying before she even reached his room. Conner pulled a lightning quick alt-tab just as she stormed into his room.

“Why, what on earth happened?”

“Fucking pervert pulled out his dick at me, and I kicked it right the fuck up into his pervert throat—that’s what happened. Can you believe that pig! The nerve! And right after he came down asking… you know what? No. Fuck that. He is not allowed over here any more while I’m home from school. I so much as see his cowlick’s shadow cross the front doorway and I’ll tell your mother exactly what he did. You get me, Goner?”

“I get you, I get you!” he assured her. “And… for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I… I didn’t think he’d do that.”

She paused for a moment, and seemed the slightest bit mollified before she departed. Only when the door was shut—slammed, really—behind her did he return to TIOS. He studied those ridiculous words on the screen for a long moment, then shook his head and decided he’d screwed around enough for one day. He clicked the X in the corner to close it—when it surprised him yet again.

You have unsaved work on spreads (1). Do you wish to save? Conner wondered for a moment, and decided he was curious enough to want to have the option to explore more later. He clicked yes, and then popped up yet another window.

There are untagged references (1) in this file. Would you like to tag now? He shrugged and clicked Yes, not sure what to expect. To his surprise, a box opened up with the name Angelica Buck at the top. Beneath was a series of options: student, faculty, staff, administrator, other. After a moment, he clicked student. His mouse showed the computer was working, and when after a couple minutes it hadn’t finished, he was about to force it to shut down when still another box appeared.

No student profile found under the name BUCK, ANGELICA. Is this an alternative name? Then it listed a teacher, a woman he was pretty sure worked in the lunchroom, and two students, all with vaguely similar names. Sophomore Archer Buchhold was the closest, and it was not that close at all. At the bottom, however, he saw he could select, This is a new student.

He checked that box, and hit Next.

New student added. Add default photo?

“No. Freaking. Way.” Conner stared, then hastily brought up the class spread. There she was among the seniors, no picture shown, right between Vivian Bucello and John Burke. Angelica Buck. He clicked the blank space where her photo should be, and TIOS asked if he’d like to upload a picture. Since he had it handy, he went ahead and added the one he and Owen had been using earlier. (That is, after making sure it was really her and hadn’t reverted to Sasha Quesada. It hadn’t.)

Considerably puzzled, he finally closed the program. What had TIOS done this time?