Take any individual. Over a long enough period, their personality will eventually change. You might even be able to influence the direction that they take, if you can get close enough. But what if you had complete control?

What if you could fundamentally alter their entire being in an instant?

I’ve been like this as long as I can remember. Every person I’ve ever met has had a cartridge sticking out of their head that holds their personality. As far as I can tell, nobody else in the world can see or manipulate these cartridges.

For the most part, I ignored my gift when I was younger, but I came to understand its true potential as time went on. I saved the data of any personality cartridge I could get my hands on, and I studied their contents enough to learn how to develop cartridges of my own with nothing but amateur programming techniques and a department store Sandisk. Not exactly something you can put on the resumé, but it’s an invaluable skill nonetheless.

Sadly, I’m still flat broke. I haven’t been able to get physically close enough to a billionaire yet to swap out their cartridge and improve their feelings of generosity towards me, specifically.

Greedy fucks.

Luckily, I’ve recently devised another good use.

I can see two girls sitting on a bench in the distance. They seem to be college-aged, not much younger than me. The park is a great place to scout for subjects since it’s so close to the university. I begin to slowly approach.

“Spring is here, Saori! Thank goodness it’s been so warm lately."

How cheerful. I think I’ll make this one mine first. She’s a very pretty girl; blonde and tall, wearing an evocative red blouse and short black skirt, accessorized with a designer purse and stylish hoop earrings. Really sexy. Conventionally attractive. I’ve done this enough times to know she’ll be a fantastic, if standard, experience.

“Yeah, it would have been perfect if it wasn’t for all of the pollen. I hate allergies.”

Her light-brunette friend appears more pedestrian on the surface. She’s still plenty feminine, but she’s definitely less girly than the blonde. She’s super short, and she’s wearing gym shorts and an athletic jacket over her blue tee. She has slightly shorter, medium-length hair, but it’s hard to tell from here; her hood is up, and it looks like she’s got an Adidas beanie on. The boyish clothes don’t really emphasize her figure, but you can still tell that her body is insane. I’m guessing it’s the result of many hard hours of track or volleyball in her past. That rack, though, just has to be a genetic gift.

I grin to myself. She’ll be dessert.

I’ve closed the distance. It’s time to strike. “Excuse me, miss, you have something on your head. Let me get that for you.”

The blonde one looks at me, confused. “Oh, a leaf?” She smiles sweetly. I’m impressed by the degree of kindness she exhibits towards a dubious stranger. “Um, thanks, but I can take care of that!”

Her friend is less amiable. “Ugh. Don’t engage, Rebecca,” she not-so-quietly groans. “Spring always brings out these creeps.”

I chuckle to myself. Vulgarity doesn’t suit such a cute voice. “No, it’s actually really stuck in there, though. Let me just pick it out.”

“Um, wait, hold on. You really don’t need t—”

Click.

The girl’s eyes go blank and roll back into her head as every neuron in her brain stops firing, all at once. “Cartridge ejected. Please insert a cartridge.”

The brunette stumbles backwards. “Wha— what?? Hey! What the hell just happened?”

“I just ejected your friend’s personality. It’s a little cartridge on her head,” I state plainly. I grab a spare cartridge from my pocket with a custom-printed graphic label of two hearts on the front. “I’m gonna put a new one in now.” 

It doesn’t take long for blondie’s new personality to take hold. The life returns to her eyes, though deeply corrupted, and she looks around with a renewed sense of absolute reverence before finding solace in my gaze. “Oh!” She leaps into my arms and starts aggressively rubbing her body against mine. “Oh, mister, I love you so much! I just love you,” she manages to gasp out, damn near licking me. The innocence she displayed moments earlier is now on sabbatical. “Hey, let’s get out of here right now mister! Wanna go to my place? Let’s go to a motel!”

The tomboy is dumbfounded. “Rebecca, what the fuck? Stop!” She looks at me. “Look, creep, I don’t know what you did to her, but I’m calling the cops!”

Sigh. “I already explained it to you.” I look her up and down. It shouldn’t be too hard to drag her back to my place without arousing suspicion. I live nearby, and the blondie on my other arm is good cover. I reach for her hood. “Don’t worry. I always reset them when I’m done.”

“Hey, back off, you fuckin’ sleaze! I’ll—”

Click.

“Ashley?” … “Detective Clarke, are you with me?”

I look up from the desk. “Uh, yeah. Yeah… What were you saying?”

The Sergeant sighs. “Look, I know this case is important to you, but there’s just not enough substance. We need you on other investigations.”

I pause. “You’re pulling me off of the case?”

“I’m not just pulling you off the case, Ashley, I’m closing the whole damn file,” he says, exasperated. “We have other things to worry about. Homicides. Non-trivial shit. I can’t spend time and resources on a pet project while the city has us under a microscope.”

I stand up and start pacing back and forth. I see a flash of red as strands of my hair obscure my vision, but I can’t be bothered to blow them out of my face right now. “Sir, with all due respect, these women deserve—”

“These women,” he sternly interrupts, “have not been harmed and are in no imminent danger. Hell, there’s not even any indication of trauma whatsoever. And the three ‘incidents’ you’re trying to connect, if we can even call them that, are loosely linked at best.” He hesitates for a moment. “The women aren’t even interested in the case anymore, Ashley. Everyone has moved on except you.”

I stop and look at him. “Come on, Robert. Something is up here, I know it.”

He stands up and meets my eyeline. “If that is all, Detective, you are dismissed. A new briefing will be on your desk by tomorrow.”

I glare at him for a moment before leaving his office. This is bullshit. I tie my hair back and rush to my desk to review the file one more time.

Three women, all college-aged, with no memory of a night they apparently spent with an adult male. Caucasian, mid to late 20s. His name might be Matt, or it starts with an E; conflicting reports. Sounds unremarkable on paper, but none of these women had any history of drug use, nor were they partying on a night out, according to them. All of them attempted to withdraw their reports a few days later; they felt like they overreacted, and one even said they now looked back upon the night fondly. Two of them say they remember him just approaching them in Gale Park, and one of them says he might’ve grabbed her head?

Damn it. Sarge is totally right. There’s nothing here. I might just be looking for some playboy college kid. Or worse, three different college kids! But my gut tells me there’s some kind of foul play involved.

I pull up a registry of addresses in the area. If the city isn’t going to let me look into this, I’m going to take it into my own hands.

It took a few tries, but I finally pulled her off of me. This bitch is obsessed! I guess that’s on me.

She looks at me, still on my lap. “Wow, mister! Are you already ready for another round?”

I grimace. This one is hot, no doubt, but I need to switch things up before I get bored. “I hate to end our third makeout session prematurely babe, but I gotta deal with your tomboy friend, uh, Sayu. She’s been drooling in the corner for the past hour.”

She giggles. “Her name’s Saori, but Sayu sounds even better, mister!”

Well, at least I got it half-right. I don’t even remember the blondie’s name. She was always just the appetizer.

I look over to see Sayu slumped down, her tan hair naturally framing her sculpted face. I wasn’t kidding. Ever since I ejected her cartridge, she’s been a literal mindless husk of herself. Those eyes are completely empty. I kind of love how they dumb and vacant they look when they’re like this, but I try not to leave them in this state for too long despite those guilty pleasures. Just doesn’t seem wise on a technical level. And it gets irritating hearing “please insert a cartridge” every 30 seconds.

“You should make her just like me, mister! Then we can both make you feel sooo good!” She starts wrapping around me again. “Pleasepleaseplease? I love you so much. Can we go again please?”

“Shut up for a second.” She frowns.

She’s not wrong, though. I could do that with another “lover” cartridge, and it might be fun to see that stuck-up tomboy instantly devolve into a shameless fawning slut. But at the same time, that schtick is already getting old with blondie here, and I’m trying to keep myself entertained. I could just go with an ol’ reliable “slave-maid”, or “bimbo”, or some other classic mind control trope-themed cart, but taking the easy path here would almost be a disservice to this chick and her shapely form.

That reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to try…

I sift through my cartridge drawer and pull out a cartridge labelled “ME”. It’s a copy of myself. If you’re wondering how I obtained this, let’s just say it took some finesse... I’ll admit, things could get weird here, but I’ve thought about this. Theoretically, our little Sayu here is just going to get deliciously corrupted by my personality. She shouldn’t inherit anything else like my memories or my identity.

I take a deep breath.

As I insert the cartridge, I watch her eyeballs slowly roll back out as she becomes imbued with every fibre of my essence. The remnants of distress on her face contort into a familiar depraved smile. Unlike her ladylike companion, “ME”-Sayu’s posture is lazy and relaxed, yet still undeniably sensual.

They always look around for a second to take the environment in. But Sayu quickly gets distracted by her own body. “Holy shit. These tits are insane,” she breathes out. Her hands are quick to follow, and she starts to knead her own enormous breasts through the thin material of her shirt. She may still be a girl through and through, but with the “ME” cartridge, she’s just as perverted as any red-blooded male.

And the way she sounds... She speaks in a laid-back, indulgent tone, in stark contrast with the feisty attitude she was giving me earlier. She’s accepted what’s happening, and she’s totally into it. Her words are unexpectedly rough and gravelly, as though she lacks experience talking in a feminine voice, which somehow makes this demented scenario even sexier.

She must have noticed me staring. She looks up at me with a glint of recognition in her slanted, unfocused eyes, her mouth curving into a smirk. “Ahh… I see. I get it now.” Sayu averts her gaze as her hands work their way back into a seductive fondle.

“So I’m just ‘YOU’ now, right?” She laughs. “I’m just some nobody, some lecherous fuckin’ pervert, some horny sex-addicted bastard who goes around hitting on women…  that’s me?” She slowly and seductively slips off her windbreaker. “I see what you’ve done. You overwrote my personality. Overwrote Saori. She would be disgusted to see what her body is doing right now.” She looks back up, staring at me with a sly grin. “How awful.”

Fuck. This is hot. She may be exaggerating, but she knows exactly how to push my buttons.

Sayu grabs me by the back of my head and suffocates me in her cleavage. “Nice to meet you, ‘ME’.” I wrap my arms around her waist. “You sick fuck,“ she breathes into my ear. “Caught a couple cute girls with big boobs, huh? Just gotta put in your favorite personality. That what gets you off?”

She pulls back to meet my gaze for a moment. “Like I can talk.” I’m in awe, looking at her in front of me. My own spirit puppeteering this fit chick’s flesh. The tomboy cunt I met in the park wouldn’t be caught dead making that lewd face for someone like me. The sensation is truly strange — thrilling, and arousing, and somehow almost like seeing myself in the mirror. 

She musters another laugh under her breath. “You gave me your fucked-up gooner-ass mind. Saori would despise this shit, but whatever’s left of her loves this degeneracy as much as you do… Max.”

She puts on a lurid smile before shoving my face back into her pillowy chest as her free hand briskly finds its way to my belt. “Oh, Becky… come on over, ‘Sayu’ could use your help down here…”

So that was the blondie’s name. I chuckle between gasps. “Damn, you’re one real twisted bitch, huh?”

“Police! Open up!”

I sigh to myself. What are you doing, Ash?

This is the 14th house I’ve tried. Or, rather, the 14th civilian I’m about to harass. None of them have any idea what I’m talking about, nor any willingness to cooperate and potentially incriminate themselves. Even trying every sensible permutation of Matt-adjacent names and “E” names, I ran out of viable suspects, so I’m broadening the search.

As I move to knock again, the door opens.

“Um, hello, Officer, ma’am. Can I help you?”

It’s just yet another extremely average white male. Although, this one seems a bit disheveled. “It’s Detective, actually. Clarke. Can I come in? Just want to ask you a few questions.”

He seems nervous. “Questions? About what?”

I resist the urge to sigh again. “I’m just investigating a case, and I was hoping you could help me out, Mr… Maxwell Erickson?”

He shuffles. “You know who I am?”

I push past the suspect and enter his house. “Hey, uh, wait, you need a warrant for that, don’t you?” he yells, running after me. I roll my eyes. “Look, I’m actually not here in any official capacity. I’ll be out of your hair soon.” He’s definitely acting weirder than the others I’ve met tonight. Probably not my guy, but definitely guilty of something. Maybe I could find some sort of evidence while I'm here so that my evening isn’t completely wasted.

I turn around and face the suspect. He’s leering at me in an unsavory way, but I’m no stranger to the male gaze. Just something you gotta accept and ignore as a female cop.

First things first. I pull out some pages from the file. “Mr. Erickson, do you recognize any of these women?”

The suspect looks down at the pages. After a minute, he looks up at me. In an instant, I see his hand lurching toward my forehead.

I jerk back and reach for my weapon. “Hey! Hey, hands off buddy! Hands up!”

He steps back. “Okay, okay, sorry! I just slipped!” His hands are up now. This is my guy for sure. “Bullshit! What did you do to those women?”

Suddenly, a blonde woman rushes into the room and embraces the suspect. “Nooooo! Leave Maxxy alooooone,” she cries. He seems just as confused as I am. “Becky, what the fuck are you doing?”

In that moment, I must have let my guard down. Someone tackled me from behind. I try to reach for my weapon, but even with my swift reflexes, it gets swatted away faster than I can react. The suspect rushes towards me and physically restrains me with my other captor, who I now see is another woman! As a trained agent of law enforcement, I am stronger than most women, but even I can’t overcome two mature individuals pinning me down at the same time.

“Jesus Christ! That was scary,” the suspect, Max, exhales. “You’re a real lifesaver, Sayu. I guess those athletics paid dividends beyond that lithe body. Heh,” he coughs.

“What the hell are you doing? He’s a monster!” I grunt. “He kidnaps women and… and he drugs them!”

Max scoffs. “What? Who told you that?”

“It’s obvious to anyone who reads the case files!” I lied.

He sits on the floor. “Officer, as you can clearly observe, these are two enthusiastically consenting individuals. And I’m not ‘kidnapping’ anyone. They’re all free to go once I’m done.” He pauses. “I even give them their original personalities back. Most of the time.”

I stop struggling. “What?”

“Although,” Max continues, looking me up and down, “I don’t think we have that luxury here, Officer Clarke. You’re obviously going to be quite a thorn in my side if I let you run free. And you’re such a fine specimen, too. It would be a waste. Maybe we could spark a few… lifestyle changes…”

What the fuck is he talking about? Now I’m getting worried. “Look, um, Mr. Erickson, you can’t just blackmail a cop. Let me take you in, and we can negotiate. With an attorney present.”

Max laughs. “Take me in? On what basis, Officer? Ogling a sexy woman isn’t a crime in this country.”

Funny how he found his confidence all of a sudden. Before I can respond to his snarky comeback, the woman helping him restrain me comes close to my ear, hissing in a sultry voice that’s bursting at the seams with pure fervor. It’s something she’s clearly been trying to hold in this entire time but can’t keep the lid on any longer.

“He’s going to carve out your brains and make you such a good girl… ooohh…” Her breath is hot on my cheek. “You won’t even care about what happened… mmm… aren’t you excited?”

I look at him, unknowingly about to utter what would be my last words. “What?”

“Sounds about right,” he shrugs. His hand extends toward me. “See you soon, Officer!”

Click.

It took a couple of days of rigorous coding, but I managed to devise the perfect personality for our sweet little Officer Ashley Clarke.

Obviously, I had to let Sayu and Becky go. It’s a shame after all the precious time we shared together, but it’s protocol at this point. Plus, with Ashley staying here now, I can’t manage multiple live-in subjects long term.

I hear the door open. “Welcome home, honey,” I say wryly. “How was wor—”

She slams me against the wall and presses her lips into mine. I reach down and pull her closer. How lucky am I that the cop they assigned to my case was a stubborn hot redhead?

Unlike with my other subjects, I thought Officer Clarke’s original personality was just too good to toss. Luckily, with a bit of Python and elbow grease, I was able to keep the core intact while adding some new “features”. You know, absolute devotion, fiery passion, and a hint of sadistic cruelty. All the essentials.

“It was good, sweetheart,” she breathes out as she pulls back. “You should have seen the look on Robert’s face. What a fuckin’ schmuck.”

I thought about keeping her in the precinct as a mole, or even an accomplice, but as far as I can tell, no one else gives a shit about my so-called “case”. I should have known. Only three incidents reported? I’ve had way more subjects. Just goes to show how good I am.

So I had her tender her resignation instead. I left the details up to her, but knowing Ashley, I’m guessing she let it get pretty spicy.

How ironic, right? If she just let it go, she would still be free. Not that she seems to mind.

“I have an idea, Maxxy,” she whispers in my ear. I can’t see her face, but I can hear her smile. “Let’s film a little vlog where I talk about all the depraved shit I said and did to Robert in my ‘resignation’ meeting, and you can put my original personality back in and make her watch.” She bites her lip. “I would love to see her reaction to me ruining her life.”

My eyes widen. “Holy shit, Ash. Maybe I went too far.”

She giggles and pulls me in again.