Alls gone to shit

Allie’s comforting smile instantly froze as she stared at Elena. Right before her eyes, the sweet, trembling posture of her rival completely vanished. Elena’s shoulders squared, her back slouched into a heavy, wide-set slouch, and she shoved her hands brutally into the pockets of her emerald dress.

Then, Elena raised a hand, her fingers awkwardly groping and grabbing at her own waist and hips with a look of utter, dumbfounded shock. It was clear she was examining her own body as if it were a completely foreign, bizarre object.

"Hello? Mic testing... one, two..."

The voice that came out of Elena's throat was an eerie, unsettling distortion. It was a bizarre combination of Elena’s natural sweet tone mixed with a harsh, deep, and aggressive growl that belonged entirely to Marcus.

Allie's stomach dropped into a bottomless pit. She knew the mechanics of the Neural Sync better than anyone. Elena's natural body language was gone. The signature teasing confidence Allie used was gone. This was the raw, clumsy ego of a completely different person. Someone else had just hijacked her puppet.

"What the hell is going on here?!" Elena grunted out loud, her eyes darting frantically from her hands to the crowded hallway, completely panicking as Marcus struggled to navigate a frame half his actual size.

Meanwhile, just down the hall, Leo walked into the boys' locker room, still desperately searching for any trace of his father's technology. He rounded the corner by the benches and froze.

Sprawled completely unconscious across the wooden bench was Marcus, the school's biggest varsity bully. His arms hung limply to the floor, and his head was encased in the unmistakable, heavy chrome curve of the stolen Cortex Systems helmet. The backup battery lights on the visor were pulsing a dangerous, rhythmic red.

Leo’s eyes widened as the final pieces of the puzzle slammed violently into place. The helmet hadn't been lost; it was actively being used. Marcus had put it on, and if Marcus was sitting here completely brain-dead in standby mode, it meant his consciousness had just been beamed directly into the sub-dermal chip on Elena's neck.

Leo turned on his heel and sprinted out of the locker room, dialing the override codes into his phone, heading straight toward the hallway where he could hear a strange commotion building.

Allie didn't hesitate. If anyone looked too closely at Elena right now, the entire high-tech secret would blow up, and Allie’s own role in ruining Elena’s life would be exposed.

Moving with frantic speed, Allie grabbed Elena’s arm. Through the silk of the emerald dress, she could feel the muscles locked in a rigid, awkward tension as Marcus tried to figure out how to balance in a frame half his normal size.

"Come with me, right now!" Allie hissed, putting her shoulder into it and aggressively dragging the clumsy, confused "Elena" away from the gossiping crowds.

"Hey! Get your hands off me, you crazy chick!" Marcus roared back through Elena’s vocal cords. The sound was still a terrifying, bizarre combination of Elena’s sweet pitch and a harsh, bullying grunt. Marcus stumbled over his own feet, his hands flailing and accidentally swatting at his own chest in utter confusion as Allie hauled him backward through the nearest doorway.

Allie slammed the heavy wooden door of the empty biology classroom shut, twisting the lock just as a bell rang out in the hallway.

"What did you do to me?!" Marcus yelled, using Elena’s hands to violently grip Allie by the collar of her shirt, slamming her back against the teacher's desk. Elena's face, usually so gentle, was twisted into a heavy, menacing snarl that was pure, unfiltered varsity bully. "Why am I short?! Why do I sound like a girl?! Where is my body?!"

Allie choked, her heart hammering against her ribs as she stared into the furious, mismatched eyes of her puppet. "Listen to me, Marcus! Shut up and listen! You put on a tech helmet in the locker room, didn't you?"

Marcus blinked Elena’s long eyelashes in utter bewilderment, his grip loosening slightly. "Yeah... I needed a bike helmet. It looked cool."

"It's not a bike helmet, you idiot!" Allie snapped, adjusting her shirt. "It's a military-grade neural sync device. Your mind is literally hooked into the chip under Elena's skin right now. You are her until we get that helmet off your real head!"

Before Marcus could even process the mind-bending horror of what she was saying, the doorknob to the biology classroom began to violently rattle. From the other side, Leo's frantic voice boomed through the wood.

"Marcus! Open the door!" Leo shouted, his shoulder slamming against the panel. "I know you are in my sister's body in there! I found your body! Open this door before I use the manual override and fry both of your brains!"