What's Going On in Palo Alto The New World of SwapTech chapter 6 by deleted_user

While Kyle sulked in the bathroom, clutching a pillow to his now-jiggling chest while sitting on the toilet and crapping his guts out, Tessa wandered back into the kitchen, still trying to make sense of the past ten minutes.

If this was an act, it was the most committed bit she’d ever seen. But if that wasn’t an act… then she was having coffee with Kyle’s hot girl clone, and the guy she used to share a bathroom with had a vagina now.

Her phone buzzed. Group chat with her coworkers:

[Kelsey 💅]:
uhh is anyone else’s boyfriend just… gone?

[Maya 🍸]:
gone like missing?? or gone like “moved to Tahoe with a yoga instructor”?

[Kelsey 💅]:
no like. they’re here. but they’re girls now.

[Renee 🐍]:
girl what

[Kelsey 💅]:
I swear to god. Logan has boobs. I watched it happen.

[Maya 🍸]:
??????

[Renee 🐍]:
wtf are you on

[Kelsey 💅]:
Turn on the news!! Channel 7!!

Tessa blinked and picked up the remote. She flipped on the TV. The screen immediately cut to a local anchor standing in front of a very confused-looking crowd at the Stanford Shopping Center.

“…we’re receiving unconfirmed reports that every biological male within a 20-mile radius of the Swaptyx R&D campus in Palo Alto has spontaneously transformed into a biological female. Authorities are urging calm as the situation continues to develop. Again—this is not a drill. If you are—or were—a man this morning and are now experiencing symptoms such as breast growth, sudden changes in genitalia, or a voice that sounds like it could get you a job reading porn scripts, you are not alone.”

The screen cut to B-roll: a parking lot full of panicked hotties in basketball shorts, heels, pajamas, and boxers. One was crying while trying to cover up their new cleavage with a laptop bag. Another shouted into a cell phone in a breathy soprano, “No, Mom, I didn’t sign up for hormone therapy!”

Then:
A wide shot of a nude protester with a cardboard sign that read:

BRING BACK MY DICK, YOU NERDS.

Tessa’s jaw dropped.

“Holy shit.”

She turned up the volume.

The reporter looked like she was barely holding it together. “Again, this phenomenon appears to only affect men located in or around the immediate Swaptyx facility—known for cutting-edge bio-neurotechnology, AI sexual enhancement software, and, more recently, highly controversial gender-fluid neural mapping experiments that were absolutely not supposed to be live-tested, according to leaked internal documents.”

Tessa yelled down the hallway: “KYLE.”

A muffled groan. “What now?”

“You’re not the only one! Every guy in town got gender-swapped!”

Beat of silence.

“...What?”

Tessa grabbed her phone and ran to the bathroom. “Dude. It’s on the news. It’s real. You’re part of some weird mass transformation thing. Some freakshow Swaptyx experiment gone nuclear.”

Kyle opened the door just enough to peek through. “Every guy?”

Tessa nodded. “Yup. All the bros got boobs.”

Kyle slowly opened the door all the way, clutching his pillow over his chest like it would protect him from reality. “So this isn’t just some cursed tequila?”

“Nope. You, Logan from HR, the guy who sells weed on Bryant Street, everyone. It’s like a mass girl-ening.”

Kyle stumbled back toward the living room, brain clearly buffering.

The TV now showed a map of the Bay Area with a bright red pulsating circle centered over Palo Alto. Bold text scrolled underneath:

MASS TRANSFORMATION ZONE: ALL MALES AFFECTED
DEVELOPING STORY — AVOID THE AREA

A new segment rolled.

A woman in a lab coat—Dr. Victor Reed, PhD, Senior Biotech Officer at Swaptyx—appeared on screen, looking like she hadn’t slept in 72 hours and definitely had already yelled at six interns that morning.

“To be absolutely clear,” she said, rubbing her temples, “this was not intentional. There was a containment breach during a closed trial of our prototype identity-fluid quantum mapper. Something in the neuroreversal matrix… reversed everything. Including hormones. Including secondary sex characteristics. Including—yes—genitalia. No, we cannot yet reverse it. No, there is not a hotline. Yes, you should stay hydrated and refrain from panicking. Unless you are already panicking, in which case: understandable.”

Back to the anchor.

“Swaptyx has yet to release a full statement. In the meantime, we recommend affected individuals remain indoors.”

Kyle sat down hard on the couch.

“So... I’m not a freak accident,” he said slowly.

“Nope,” Tessa said, sitting next to him and eyeing his sideboob. “You’re just part of a really hot science mistake.”

Kyle put his face in his hands. “I knew that place was shady. They offered me a gift card to participate in a brain scan once.”

Tessa smirked. “And now you’ve got the tits of a bikini model and the emotional stability of a cat in a bathtub.”

Kyle groaned. “This can’t be permanent. Right? They’ll fix it.”

Tessa shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe you’ll get to experience PMS and a creepy Lyft driver before they do.”

Kyle looked down at himself again—at the smooth skin, the impossibly soft thighs, the chest that rose and fell with every breath like it was trying to hypnotize him.

“...I kinda want to touch myself again,” he muttered.