Hold On, What’s That Sound?

Was Sara from South America? Or Regular America? Gah, this would be so much easier if that buzzing wasn’t going off in my ear—hold on. Josh slowed to a stop as he pawed at his front pocket, suddenly aware that the very angry chiming noise he’d been trying to think over seemed to be coming from none other than his phone. After clicking the screen on, he didn’t even have time to reopen the rules app before it spread open over the display and spat out a collection of ERROR messages, flowing out in a garbled sea of legalese like a EULA had sprung a leak. Josh followed all of this with pursed lips and wide eyes, trying and failing to process the deluge until it finally stopped on a proverbial dime, with a few short staccato sentences and a timer counting down from (30) waiting for his brain to catch up.

WARNING The message flashed, Catastrophic change of User incoming, determined to be caused by the following factors:

-Heavily altered gender ratios, as realized by the increased level of global promiscuity

-User genetic index, stretching back at least as far as three generations into the family line known as “West”

-In-built user safety measures failing in (25) seconds

Would you like to take action?

Y/N

“Fuck me.” Josh mumbled under his breath, which he promptly sucked in sharply as the timer moved to (20). If he was reading this correctly, it was giving shape to something he hadn’t even realized was tugging on the edge of his awareness; if there were so many more women than men in this reality, what was the chance that he would end up as the sex he started at?

Alright, so obviously I want to stay a guy—but what the hell does “take action” mean? Does that mean stop it, or not stop it? Josh felt his teeth grind against one another while he worked his jaw in place, watching the numbers tick down to (15) as his thoughts moved in ever-greater circles. What is my genetic line, anyway? Great, first Sara, now me, I can't remember anything about the hot women in my life. At least… I hope I’m hot. Maybe I can put in a rule to make sure—GAH! FOCUS!

With (10) seconds left on the clock, Josh decided to do what his gut told him--click an option at random. I can always change it back in a sec if I mess up, anyway. Assuming I don’t forget most of my old memories, or like my new life better, or immediately drop my phone down a storm drain… Deep breath.

“Eenie meenie…”

(5)

“Miney mo…”

(4)

“Catch a tiger…”

(3)

“By…”

(2)

“Its…”

(1)

“Toe!”

Josh pressed his thumb down—on Sara’s smiling face, as his phone erupted into a call.

So that’s what she is.

The world went white.