Out in the World The New World of SwapTech chapter 9 by deleted_user

Diesel lingered in the hallway after slipping out of the janitor's closet. His legs were unsteady, and his thoughts were a mess. He still felt the thrum of his body’s earlier climax, the ghost of it echoing through his limbs. But guilt clung to him now like sweat.

He’d just... done that. In a closet. With a stranger’s body—his own, now, somehow. And it had felt incredible.

Shoving that thought away, he made his way down the back hallway toward the side entrance. The gym's main floor was still full of confused, transformed people, and Diesel wasn’t ready to face all of that again. Not yet. He needed space, air, context.

He slipped out into the early afternoon heat, shielding his eyes. The sun hadn’t changed. The world still looked normal. But everything felt different.

He started walking.

It was only when he reached the corner of Lincoln and Main that he realized: every man outside looked like a woman now. A group of city workers in reflective vests were standing around a utility truck, all of them clearly transformed—one was adjusting her hard hat over freshly dyed pink hair, another was adjusting her oversized safety vest over wide hips. None of them looked comfortable.

Two delivery drivers leaned against their van, scrolling frantically through their phones. One—a tall Latina with what looked like the beginnings of a beard shadow under full lips—was visibly panicking. “Dude, no, seriously. You think this is like... a terrorist thing?”

“Nah,” said the other, now a curvy redhead in a DHL polo shirt. “Aliens. Or like... some lab thing gone wrong. I saw a tweet about a company called Swaptyx?”

Diesel’s ears perked up.

Swaptyx?

He headed toward the gas station convenience store on the next block, slipping inside to grab a water and hopefully use the bathroom. The woman behind the counter was short and broad. She looked up from a tablet and froze.

Diesel gave a quick nod. “You too?”

The clerk sighed. “Yeah. Name’s Benny. Or... it was. You lookin’ for answers, man?”

“Diesel,” he said. “Yeah. You heard anything about Swaptyx?”

The clerk nodded. “Bunch of people on Twitter are saying the same thing. Like, something happened at their HQ. Some radius effect? Everyone inside twenty miles.”

Diesel frowned. “That’d be the whole damn Valley.”

Benny nodded. “No one knows if it’s reversible. But like... this ain’t some prank. This is everywhere.”

Diesel took a long swig of water, his hand trembling just a little.

Just then, a police cruiser screeched into the lot. Two uniformed officers stepped out—both clearly transformed, both in various states of disbelief. One, tall and black with a gorgeous twist-out bun, was yelling into her radio. The other was scanning the horizon.

Diesel ducked back inside. Everything was chaos. He needed a plan.