Zeroed

“How so?” You ask as you use your card to enter the dorm.

“Consider fifty years from now:” the ring begins in your head, “You're seventy one. You've picked up some wrinkles. Your hair is gray. Your breasts are sagging.”

“Not exactly something I want to think about,” you interrupt, frowning as you climb the dorm stairs.

“Sure. Now suppose we're connected when you get shot in the head. I restore you… back to twenty one.” You nod, following along, “Your hair is vibrant. Your skin is clear. Your breasts are firm and perky again. You no longer match the picture the DMV has on file. Your boss at work doesn't recognize you. Your landlord doesn't recognize you. You have no valid ID.”

“I'd be zeroed…” you consider as you unlock the door to your dorm room, “...no job, no apartment, no friends or family unless they're aware of you…”

“Yeah. Alive is good, homeless, jobless, and friendless is not.” He takes a breath, “You'll also remember dying, and that can be quite traumatic… not to mention what seeing their own corpse does to people.”

Before you can ask about that one, your roommate greets you, not yet dressed to face the day… it's a good thing this is a girl's only dorm; you can see her nipples right through that teddy, “Hey! So dish, girl, how was he?”

Ah, the reason you asked… “He got me off three times at the hotel. But I really need to get to class.” You grab your book bag with various note supplies and rush out the door.

You do hear Betty's parting comment: “But your first class isn't until noon….”

You check your phone as you go down the stairs, looking for gyms… unfortunately, you quickly find… “Everything's booked already.”

“Well… you really just need somewhere private to try it out,” your sponsor speaks into your mind… which sounds exactly like he's in your ear. “Lots of room, maybe some large rocks to juggle.”

“Hmm…” you consider, “...I really just need to avoid people figuring out it's me, which mostly means not seeing me change, right?”

“More or less, yes,” the ring confirms.

“That's easy, then…” you head to the library, go up to the third floor, and walk into the women's restroom. Checking under the stall doors, you confirm: it's empty. “That was two taps with my thumb on that hand?”

“Correct,” the ring NOT under discussion responds, “it's a motion you won't make often, but is easy to do. Once might be accidental, twice won't be. After you get a feel for it, you should be able to trigger it without touching it at all, and eventually even without wearing the ring… I need the ring to lend my strength to the transformation, but you won't need that forever. Oh, but…”

A bit eager, you look in the mirror and tap the ring twice as indicated before he finishes. You feel a strange pinching, like someone is grabbing your skin and pulling… except it's all of your skin, all at once. It's not painful, but… well, it is weird. You also feel a little tension, like the excitement before a big showing. At the same time, you watch in the mirror as you grow from a mousy little librarian into an Amazonian muscle beach babe. You gain almost two feet of height, go from being a brunette to a redhead, watch your hair braiding itself… and your clothes tear like tissue paper as you grow a green body suit underneath.

“...you'll want to undress first,” the ring finishes, walking his image in beside yours in the mirror, and sighing. “Well, too late now. Anyway… do you feel it?”

“I do…” the tension and pinch hasn't really left. “What is it?”

“Magic, pulling on your energies and shaping them according to a pattern I specified based on what you wanted,” the ring replies, “maybe think of it like a dance instructor adjusting your limbs to the correct positions. The enchanted ring is pushing your magic through the motions along the patterns needed for you to make the effect yourself.”

You frown slightly, “Sounds inefficient.”

“Teaching often is,” he shrugs, “I'm providing most of the magic right now, and you're providing a little. It works as exercise for me as well, so it's no trouble.”

You pose and flex in the mirror a little, and nod, picking up the remains of your clothes and tossing them in your bookbag, “So… gym.” Whistling merrily, you walk out of the bathroom… and bonk your forehead on the doorframe. You barely feel it… and when you look, the doorframe is dented.

Smiling more, you duck under it and walk to tue college gym….