Jack

The sun was barely peaking out of over the horizon as Jack jogged his usual route. Doing a quick lap around his apartment complex to warm up, Jack was usually done by now. However, the party last night had gone a bit late, so he decided to sleep in. But still, even with that, he finished his warm up before Sam had even stirred. He contemplated waking her up and asking her if she wanted to come workout with him, but figured she'd most likely say no. Yesterday was already a ton of anxiety for her with the whole party thing.

Jack and Sam lived right outside Jackson University at an apartment complex. They had moved in together this last summer and things had been great. Sam may not have a ton of social experience or outgoing personalities, but she was a fantastic communicator. Anytime they had an issue, the two of them would discuss it and find a solution. They also only had one car between the two of them: Jack's old beatup truck. So made things a lot easier, even though the apartment complex was merely a short walk away from the University.

After finishing his jog, Jack grabbed his workout bag before leaving to head to the University gym. He loved getting in a solid workout to start his day. Mentally, as he walked there, he went through his checklist of the things he had to do. He had to research and write out his interview questions for the football coach before their first game, prepare all the needed items for his classes, as well as Sam's, that were about to start, and clean up the office.

"Oh right, the office!" Jack exclaimed out loud, realizing just how messed up they had left it.

It was a point of pride for Jack to have that office be ready to function at all times. He wanted to get to the gym early, though, because his favorite machine was usually taken if he waited to long. As he reached the crossroads between the two, he stopped for a moment, looking back and forth to decide.

In the end, his pride for the Soaring Falcons office won out. He turned and made a mad dash to the office, quickly heading up the stairs in the student center to get to room 221.

He arrived and used his key card to open the door. Sure enough, it was still trashed. Looking through it all quickly, Jack calculated how long it would take to clean it all up.

"Look, 10 minutes tops then I can book it to the gym and my machine will still be open," Jack said, setting down his bag. "Or at least I hope it will be."

Jack was a beast of a man. A massive wing span, large muscles, and a winning attitude made it so that anything physical he tried was already a great start. So for him, tossing trash, moving tables, resetting monitors, placing chairs, was quite trivial. He flew through the room like a storm.

However, as he went through, he stumbled upon the strange package from the night before. It was a small brown box with a notecard left on top of it. Assuming somebody brought a present for the group, Jack went to move it aside when the card slipped off, falling on the floor. He picked it up, seeing it had a lot of writing on it. Curiosity got the best of him as he read it.

"Dear Soaring Falcons Staff,

I absolutely love your newsletter. You are the best reporters around. This item will help you guys become the best in the country, I'm sure of it. Consider it an anonymous donation. Using this item will allow you to change anyone's mind by transmitting your own to them. With this, nothing will stop you from getting the inside scoop on every situation. I'd say use it wisely, but I know you will!

Sincerely, your biggest fan."

Jack looked at it for a second, blinking a bit incredulously. Change anyone's mind? That was some heavy stuff. Before he could think to long about it, the door clicked open. Walking in was Steph. Jack instinctively slid the card into his pocket.

"Oh, hey Jack. I was just coming by to clean up. Guess you did that first," she laughed before getting a bit more serious. "Hey what's that you got there?"

"Just a present from a fan of ours. Haven't looked at it yet," Jack said with a shrug. "Want to open it with me?"

Steph agreed. They both huddled around as Jack ripped the box open. Wrapped up in bubble wrap was a small device. It had a screen and a scroll wheel. There appeared to be a power button as well. It looked a lot like an old music player.

"Huh, weird. Anyways I was going to ask you for a favor," Steph said, immediately losing interest.

"And that would be?" Jack asked, still transfixed by the device.

"I saw Sam was being even more anti-social than usual. I wanted to try and get her out of the house, so to speak. I planned to invite her for a girl's only shopping trip, just the two of us. But after last night, I'm not sure she will say yes. Would you mind at all nudging her to come?" Steph asked. "I'm sure it would be a great idea for her to do."

Jack immediately knew Sam would say no. However, if this notecard was true, he had a guaranteed way to convince Sam to go out with Steph. Sam loved doing these things, but getting her to go was like pulling teeth out of an alligator. But with this device, maybe it would be easy. Plus, Jack was already dying to use it and his girlfriend was a perfect candidate considering it would be good for her.

"Deal!"

~

"Absolutely not. I already went to the party yesterday, going out in public at a mall of all places sounds terrible," Sam said, pacing across the room.

Sam was up and at em, having dressed herself in her signature hoodie once again. She crossed her arms, looking at Jack with a stern look. Jack had gone to do his workout before heading home. Bringing up the day out with Steph as soon as he got out of the shower and changed.

"You love going out with Steph. She's super fun and you know nobody will be staring at you with her around," Jack said then caught himself. "I mean you're plenty enjoyable to look at, just that she's, well, Steph."

Sam rolled her eyes before sitting down. She crossed her legs too, completely blocking out Jack. Jack sat down across from her on a table chair. This was getting nowhere. But maybe it was time to try the device. Pulling it out, Jack looked over at Sam.

"Okay, let me try this thing out," Jack explained, holding it out. "I know you have really bad social anxiety, this might be able to fix that by giving you some relaxation."

Sam perked up at this, standing up to walk over and see what he was talking about. Jack spun around and Sam sat down at the table so the two of them could study it.

"Its like an old MP3 player, what does it do?" Sam asked, clearly interested.

"It lets you change anyone's mind by transmitting to them," Jack said, hitting the power button on it."

*Hello, Jack! Welcome to Person-2-Person Services. This Device's code is Beta-03. Please select from below your option as well as a target. To update this Device please input a newer code while connected to the internet.

Options: Swap, Transmit, Store, Auto-Pilot

Available Targets: Samantha Green*

"How the fuck does it know your name?" Sam said, immediately taken aback. "How does it know my name?"

Jack reached out, touching her arm to calm her down.

"This was given to the Soaring Falcons staff by a major fan. Maybe they just preloaded out names. It isn't a big deal," Jack explained.

He rolled over to the transmit button. He didn't need to change targets, there was only one option. He turned and looked over at Sam.

"Okay, you up for this? I want to ask before I just do it," Jack asked.

Sam thought for a moment, thinking about the device that had freaked her out. But in the end, curiosity got the best of her. She wanted to go out with Steph, so if Jack could share some of his enthusiasm, then she was game for it. With that, she shook her head yes.

Jack took a deep breath before pressing down on the button. The screen lit up with their names on it and an arrow between them that said downloading. That's all Jack remember before everything went dark.

It was only for a moment, when Jack suddenly opened his eyes once again. He was immediately greeted with a sight that nobody would expect. His own body, laying face down on the table in front of him. He looked down, seeing a much more feminine hand holding the device that had a complete status on it.

"What the-" Jack started to say before realizing that his voice sounded completely different, yet all to familiar.

He looked down to see that he was wearing Sam's hoodie. He pushed back from the table, seeing Sam's sweats and his much smaller feet. He stood up, quickly looking around the room.

"No way, no way, no way," Jack said, hearing Sam's voice repeatedly. "Am I dead, what is this?"

Jack turned, walking out of the room at a brisk pace and heading straight into the bathroom. There, in the mirror, he was greeted by Sam's face. He was in Sam's body.

"Holy shit, I'm Sam!" Jack cried out with Sam's voice. "This is unbelievable! Wait, is she in my body?"

Running back into the kitchen, trying to ignore all the parts of his new body that were moving with him, Jack inspected his own motionless body. He tried shaking it, but there wasn't any response. It seemed like he had figured out what transmit did. He was transmitted into Sam's body.

"So that means Swap would've swapped us. That's crazy this device can do this," Jack said, still feeling awkward about using Sam's voice. "I should swap us back before anything happens."

Picking back up the device, he saw a new warning on it.

*Warning, transmitting often may cause unintended health consequences to the target. The recommended wait period is 8 hours.*

"Shit!" Jack said, realizing he might be trapped like this. "Sorry Sam, my bad!"

Nobody answered however as he stood there. Suddenly, he heard Sam's phone ring in the other room. Turning to head to it, he once again did his best to block out his new center of gravity and how awkward just moving felt. He hadn't fallen yet, so at least Sam's natural body muscles were able to takeover the movement portion, even if it felt wrong. Picking up the phone, it was a call from Steph.

"Hey Sam, I'm going to be there in like twenty minutes, be ready to head out to the mall. And wear something fun for once," Steph said with a laugh.

"Um, I'm not sure I can-" Jack stuttered, unsure what to do before realizing this was the plan all along.

Sam may not want to go out, but right now, Jack was at the controls of her body. It wasn't what he hoped would happen, but this would do just fine. Sam would be going out, and Jack would be the one doing it.

"That sounds awesome. Can't wait, see you soon," Jack responded, trying to sound as girly as possible.

"Ooooookay..." Steph said, her voice suspicious. "See you then. Ciao babe!"

With that, Steph hung up. So Jack had 20 minutes to get Sam dressed and catch the ride. What to do?