The Planet of the Malls: Naming of a Time Lady

Steve sighed. Well, she supposed she better get on with it. Get a new Time Lord name, keep the TARDIS happy. Hauling her shopping, it was going to take another hour to walk to Vilavolio's shop, based on the directions she'd been given. Truth be told, the wonder of planet-wide shopping malls was wearing off, replaced by the exhaustion of having such a giant one. Eventually, she got to the shop, her feet aching. It was a small one with a secluded frontage and a sign with only his name. She had to push past curtains, into a dingy room with little in it but a desk chair, what looked like a dentist's chair with an array of machinery hanging above it, and an alien of the same species as Velavilia, albeit a male. This one was middle-aged looking, its head bald and its chin stubbly, a heavy paunch hanging under its grizzled jowly face.

"Oh, hello," Steve greeted the alien. "Velavilia recommended here as the best place to buy a new name?"

The surly man's face lightened up, his ruby eyes twinkling. "Ah yes, of course." He stood up, looming over Steve at around 6'7'', 6'8''. "And you are?" As Steve went to reply, Vilavolio pointed at her with three finger guns. "Aahhhh, got you. Of course you don't know your name, that's why you're here! Hop into the chair."

Steve climbed onto the dentist chair, staring up at the apparatus as Vilavolio hit some buttons and it begun to move and circle in confusing patterns, occasionally a laser shooting out to scan her head as his free hand pulled up a computer program on a screen. "I have to say, this isn't how I saw it working."

Vilavolio laughed. "Few do! But we do guarantee 100% satisfaction here, and this is the only way to do it. We take some information, make some scans, throw it through the computer, then we program the new name into your brain."

"My brain?!" Steve sat up a little, shocked.

"Well, that's an oversimplification, we imbue your personal energy field with it so you and most others will accept the name. And we do guarantee 100% satisfaction, look, it may not be the name you'd picked but I promise you once you've used it just three times..."

Steve cut him off. "Velavilia said the same thing about shopping, and uh, other life aspects."

Vilavolio nodded, satisfied. "We find it for the best. Good for embracing new experiences, good for shopping. After all, a planet like this, imagine the mess people would get into if they didn't just buy what they actually wanted. Shop til you drop is all fine and dandy for visitors like yourself, doesn't work out if you're living here several decades." The man gestured with one set of hands. "Plus, in many ways, a name is a promise. What your name is will affect who you will be; and when parents name a child, they don't know that. Buying a name as an adult gives the guarantee that it will be a name in line with the values that, deep down, you want to uphold in the future."

She reluctantly lay back down, letting the scanning continue. "Well, I suppose that does make a good deal of sense..." Vilavolio ran her through some questions to calibrate the machine. Species? Time Lo-Time Lady, although he'd never heard of them. Cup size? Well it seemed like an unwarrantedly personal question, but she was experimenting with having some pride in her 30GGs. Age? Well, hard to know now, but he'd been 32 before, her body now was... it looked like her mid-twenties?

"Hmm..." Vilavolio looked thoughtful. "Well, before we program in your optimal name, would you like me to tell you what it's found?"

Steve sat up, frowning thoughtfully. "Well, that can't hurt, but..." she felt compelled to ask. "Program it in? Don't you tell me what it is first, in case you dislike it."

"You won't," he immediately replied off-hand. "It won't work if you get room to second-guess. You get one purchased name, you don't find it out until it's installed. Would you like me to... ?" He gestured once more at the results, and Steve reluctantly nodded. "Well, it'll come as no surprise to you, it's clear you're new to this form and identity. Regenerating species? Ah yes, that makes sense. So it's identified the need for a name for this new identity, yes?"

"Well, I... guess so."

"Furthermore, it's identified the traits you most want going forward. You want to be someone notable, a traveller, an eccentric. Correct? But also you're new to femininity, and want to learn to enjoy it. You've got, uh, to put it politely, breasts in the top percentile of size for the overwhelming majority of mammalian species. Interesting..." He leaned forward to peruse the screen.

"What is it?"

"Oh, it's just something of an unusual name. Striking. But, well, I've not been wrong yet." The man sat down next to her, looking Steve dead in his blue eyes. "Now, once this is done, it can't be undone. But I absolutely guarantee you, this is the identity you were born for. Are you sure?"

She looked a little unsure. A whole new name, burned into her mind, without any input from her or ability to choose. Well... but it's not like he'd picked Steve, his parents had. And he did need a new name, Steve just didn't work for this new busty body... After a long pause, she spoke, "Alright. 100% satisfaction, right?"

Steve laid back as Vilavolio went to the machine, typing away as the array of equipment whirred down, a headset clamping around her blonde locks. Steve gripped the arms of the chair tightly, bracing himself as he felt a weird tingling, like honey running down the inside of a wall, only he could taste it inside his brain. There was a high-pitched whirring sound, and then bizarrely there was a sound like a train whistle and a blast of steam from somewhere.

Vilavolio helped the busty young woman up by the hand. "How do you feel?"

She rubbed at her forehead. "Ugh, funny. Did it work? I..." She thought frantically. "I don't seem to know my new name," she looked confused.

"Oh, well, it's in there, we just need to jar it into life. Let's reintroduce ourselves. I'm Doctor Vilavolio, and you are...?"

The blonde woman smiled, opening her mouth to reply with her name. It was the same reflex she'd use to answer 'Steve McKenzie', only the words that tumbled out on pure reflex (for who has to strain to think of their own name?) were, "Hello! My name is Boobsy." There was a pause, before Boobsy looked utterly appalled, a scoff escaping her lips. "This is some kind of joke, right? 100% satisfaction? You've named me Boobsy! I should go back to-" Her throat locked and no sound came out, she wasn't even able to remember her old name, her lips opening and closing soundlessly. "Why, I ought to..."

The blue alien chuckled, raising all four hands placatingly. "Please, please, I did warn you, it can take a few repetitions for it to sound right." He lifted a hand, cutting off Boobsy's yelling. "What is your name?"

"Repetitions to sound right! How can it ever so-" She was cut off by the question and answered on reflex, irritably. "You know my name, how hard is it to remember? My name is Boobsy, first of the Time Ladies." Boobsy's hand gestured to one of her enormous breasts, before squeezing it and giving it a jiggle. Maybe it wasn't so bad a name, after all, it did have a certain ring to it...

"Do I see a smile?" Vilavolio chuckled. "Was I so wrong? Look, third try. What's your name?"

Deep down she knew it was perverse to accept the name, but... it felt weirdly good, to go from an unattractive shut-in to this, this busty bouncy woman. Did she want to be remembered for her looks? Maybe not, but it had never been on the table before. So this time when she replied, she found herself grinning ear to ear. "Doctor Vilavolio, my name is now and forevermore Lady Boobsy, first of the Time Ladies, owner of these," Boobsy grabbed at her own chest, squeezing and bouncing them as a devilish smile appeared on her face. "Big fat bouncy fucking melons." Despite herself, she dissolved into a fit of giggles. How could she be fine with this? Why was this OK?

The sensation carried with her as she left the shop, finding herself back out in the promenade of this level of the vast shopping mall, hundreds of floors below her, the whole place lit with natural sunlight somehow despite not having a glass roof. Boobsy chuckled again. How the fuck had this happened, renaming herself to Boobsy? And then paying him 10,000 credits for the privilege? She ruefully laughed. Maybe she'd accepted it too quickly. Maybe she should go back in and see how true it was that she couldn't change it. But then, maybe it was a good thing. After all, she was very much boobsy, it was as good a name as any, and hardly untrue.