New tasks for John

Slowly dragging on his cigarette and squinting at the man sitting across from him, John Cunningham pressed down with silence. Smoke hung in the air like a thick cloud; the ceiling lamp hissed, as if afraid of his tone itself. On the table: an ashtray, a folder with photos, and a glass of water the suspect still hadn’t touched.

— Well? — John rasped, lazily flicking off the ash. — You do understand how this’ll end if you keep your mouth shut, right?

The suspect flinched but didn’t lift his gaze. John loved that moment — when a man broke not from words, but from the air itself, from the tension John created just by being there in that tight interrogation room. Those moments, he savored the power.

— Let’s do it this way, pal. — He leaned forward, bracing both palms against the table. His voice grew harsher. — You’ve got two options: either you talk, and I write in my report that you cooperated. Or your buddies talk for you, and I promise I’ll make sure you get the worst damn sentence possible.

The suspect twitched, lifted his eyes nervously, and suddenly spoke in a hoarse, hurried voice:

— I… I’m not the one you’re looking for! I swear! They planted those papers on me, I didn’t even—

— Shut the hell up! — John barked, snapping upright so fast the chair beneath him screeched. His palm slammed down on the table; the folder jumped, photos scattering across the gray wood. — You think I’ll buy that bullshit?! I’ll rot you in ghm-ghm-mhm…

He choked on the words, feeling something warm, wet, and far too eager moving inside his mouth. A tongue. In an instant, John was no longer in the interrogation room. The cold table, the folder, the cigarette smoke — gone. Instead, he was on someone’s lap, swallowing a kiss he couldn’t escape from.

— Mmmph?! — John jerked, eyes flying open.

He tried to pull away, gasping for air, but instead felt his new tongue sliding helplessly inside another’s mouth, moving in sync with the rhythm. Then something gripped his left ass cheek so firmly he moaned — and immediately realized the sound that escaped him was nothing like a hardened cop’s grunt. It was the kind of soft, sultry moan straight out of a porn actress’s mouth.

— Mmmph… (smack!) what the… — slipped from his lips as they came apart with a wet pop, a thin string of saliva stretching down to his chin.

John froze. What came out wasn’t the rough growl of a seasoned cop, nor the low bass he was used to. No. It was different. Softer, higher — with a languid, sensual vibration.

— Why’d you stop, huh? — the man’s voice murmured right by John’s ear, and his hand slid along the tight latex pencil skirt, squeezing his ass with such command that it took John’s breath away.

John gasped sharply, but instead of the usual tense growl, a soft, broken sigh escaped his chest. He looked down — and in that moment, his world collapsed completely. He was sitting on a man’s lap in a way he would’ve never allowed himself in his entire life. Slim wrists were wrapped around his neck, so unlike the large hands he was used to — yet John knew damn well those wrists now belonged to him.

— Well? — the boss’s voice was low, irritated. — I don’t get it, Vivienne, you don’t need this job anymore?

‘Vivienne… he’s talking about me?’ His breath faltered. The small but firm breasts under the blouse rose and fell, the hardened nipples brushing against the rough fabric of the man’s shirt.

— Who the hell is Vivien… — he breathed out automatically.

Richard Stanley squinted, his fingers still firmly gripping her waist, not letting her pull away. He leaned forward, his breath burning against John’s neck.

— Is this some new kind of game? — Richard said, narrowing his eyes, tilting his head slightly.

John clutched the armrests of the boss’s chair like his life depended on it. He couldn’t feel the usual strength in his hands — the wrists were delicate, the fingers slender. ‘Fuck… these aren’t my hands…’ His gaze darted down to see a tight leather pencil skirt squeezing hips that were far too wide, and nipples standing out clearly beneath the blouse. He looked around wildly, strands of hair falling into his face, blocking his view.

— I… I… where am I?! What the hell is this place!? — he jerked up, trying to stand, but the knees in high heels slid helplessly across the smooth office floor, and John fell right back into the boss’s strong arms.

Richard Stanley didn’t let go — instead, he gripped her waist even tighter, so hard John nearly choked on his breath.

— You serious? — he said quietly, but with a sharp edge. — Vivienne, my day’s packed down to the minute. If this is your way of stalling, you picked a fucking terrible time.

— Vivienne… — John repeated the name aloud. To him, it sounded way too girly, like something you’d hear from the girls in a cheap brothel. — I’m not Vivienne! I’m John Cunningham, police detective! I was in the interrogation room, I—

Stanley suddenly laughed. The laugh was short, but there wasn’t a drop of humor in it — only sarcasm.

— Perfect. So now you’ve decided your boss is your suspect? Great, keep going, “detective.”

John’s throat went dry. He didn’t know yet that he wasn’t the only one caught in something like this. A wave that spread across the entire world — a phenomenon people would later start calling “Alt Shift” — had just hit him too. Though deep down he still naively believed it was some kind of mistake, hallucination, or a trap during interrogation. But everything around him felt far too real: the smell of expensive perfume, the foreign breath brushing against his neck, the painful pressure of his boss’s hands on his thighs.

“Alt Shift” struck the planet like a bolt of electricity. Every fifth person on Earth woke up in someone else’s body. Men in women’s bodies. Women in men’s. Teenagers in the bodies of the elderly, the elderly in the bodies of models. No one got to choose. No one could change back. The government rushed to set new rules: “Live as the one whose body is now yours.” Those who disobeyed were hunted down and sent to reeducation camps.

For John, that meant only one thing — he was no longer Detective Cunningham. He was now Vivienne Swallows, an office blonde whose only place in this corporation was on Richard Stanley’s lap. And if he tried to resist, the law would throw him straight into a reeducation camp — beating into his head, with interrogation methods and pain, the lifestyle that existed before this officially named “mass hallucination.”