Shxpeshifters

The gun and badge lies there on the table in front of me. My boss is looking at them with fear and confusion. He looks up at me, begging for an answer. But there is no answer.

''Fine!'' I exclaim. ''Here's my dolphin and scuba suit!''

I put down a live tucuxi dolphin carefully on the floor and slam an expensive scuba suit next to the gun and the badge.

''Where were you even keeping that? How were you keeping a live dolphin on you? Why?'' His eyes light up with horror.

''It'll dehydrate out here, oh god, I've got to get it out to the kitchen, into a sink!'' He grabs the dolphin, which clicks with surprise and some distress as the large manager carries it out of the room. The rest of the kitchen staff shouts in surprise and utter befuddlement, while I'm still standing there in the boss' office. I hear the sound of a sink being filled, and the joyful clicks of a dolphin that is no longer outside of water. Meanwhile I'm still standing here.

''Fine!'' I exclaim again. ''Here's my sword and shield!''

The manager comes back into his office where I've shoved a large glowing 10th century Viking sword into his desk, and through it into the floor.

''Why! Why do you have a sword! Why is it glowing?!?''

This time I have to explain, as it is the duty appointed to me by the Lady of the Lake, which is rather confusing to experience suddenly having such a duty. ''Whoso pulleth out this sword of the desk and floor, is rightwise king born of all Michigan!''

My boss looks at the blade incredulously and then back up at me. I stare back at him with stoic disdain. Curiously, he reaches out for the sword and tries to pull it out but to no avail. No matter how hard he pulls, the blade does not become loose from the place where I've deposited it. He calls in some of the other waiters and some of the kitchen staff, ones who are big, burly, and not busy trying to keep a large confused dolphin alive.

''Get him out of here, stop him from, whatever it is he is doing!''

My burly former colleagues move towards me, before I exclaim with great gusto.

''Fine!'' And put down Marilyn Monroe as she was in 1960 on the floor, she is holding a large ostrich egg. ''Here's my no.1 human celebrity crush and my breakfast!'' She stares at the burly men, then at me, then at the egg. '

'I remember being dead. Killed by Hoover's FBI thugs!'' She screams and throws the egg at the closest man, me, and I get a face-full of raw ostrich eggyolk. She then bolts past the confused waiters and chefs before escaping into the night.

My former colleagues and my former boss stares at each other for a brief moment, before grabbing me. One of them holds their hand over my mouth. But it's too late, the eggyolk makes my face too slippery to keep silent. ''Fine!'' I manage to mumble through the fingers, and though they try to hold me back I exclaim as I take out something new: ''Here's my light and my bike!'' Beautiful and blinding blue light emanates from my hand as I release a blast of Cherenkov Radiation into the room, and on the remnants of the boss' desk is a 1931 Mazda-Go three-wheeled motorcycle. The light temporarily blinds the boss and my former colleagues, which I use to jump atop the pristine bike, and begin accelerating.

My boss manages however to grab onto the back of the motorcycle as I start driving out of the restaurant. ''What! In! The! Name! Of! God!'' He exclaims as I crush through the restaurant's front windows, I look back at him, and finally I remember what I was supposed to give him. ''Fine!'' I exclaim one last time, as I throw the two items at him. ''Here's my electronic notepad for taking down orders, and my waiter's uniform!'' Both strikes him in the face, so he lets go of the mint-condition pre-war vehicle, and fall down to the asphalt, luckily avoiding the broken glass shards.

Hm. Didn't quite remember what exactly what it was one hands over. I take out my personal notepad while the Mazda-Go drives itself towards my apartment. I note down that if you're supposed to be a human working in the service industry, you need to hand over the things you're given, not just a gun and a badge, though human cultural products usually only depicts those sort of scenes when a member of a human oppression worker, or cop, is fired.

Conclusion, guns and badges are only to be handed over if one works in the field of human-on-human oppression. The three-wheeled motorcycle drives me back to the building where I live, and then up its walls, which is more only possible due to modifications to its system. Otherwise it would be incapable of driving most places besides roads.

I drive through the angles unseen by human eyes and arrive back home at our apartment. My husband is already waiting there. He is a seven foot tall insectile creature comparable in looks to an Earth moth, only incredibly buff.

I take off my human suit as I enter and look at myself in the mirror. ''Lost my job today.'' My antennae hangs somewhat low over my own moth-like face. My slender and short body slumps somewhat, as it has been a somewhat crummy day. My husband is thankfully quick to cheer me up. ''Don't worry about it. I've lost my job too.''

I turn to look at him in shock. He's kept the job as a personal trainer at a human gym for months now. Longer than we usually succeed in doing that.

''How?'' I ask.

He shrugs. ''Some of the humans I trained wanted to go further on the path of the swole, so I offered them access to genetherapy. Got them really big, without losing mental or reproductive capacity too. But it seems humans have laws against genetically altering people.''

Odd that.

He continues. ''So the human oppression men came to put me into their containment facility. Told them I didn't want any. I said that the humans I'd helped were very glad for what I'd done. Seemingly some governments are terrified of the whole concept of a physically perfect human specimen.''

I shrug and lie down on some of the many piles of pillows we keep in the extradimensional apartment.

''You?'' He asks.

''Seems that humans don't like it when you improve their recipes by adding better food from other universes. Don't see what the problem is, suddenly all the food tasted better, was healthier, and promoted good and healthy chitin growth on the customers.'' He nods knowing and lays down one of his six arms on my head, patting it affectionately.

''That might be the problem. You forgot that humans don't want or have outer chitinous exoskeletons like we do, and most of them don't want it.''

Ah. That makes sense. That and the whole, couldn't remember the right item picked out from the extradimensional pocket universe where I keep my stuff, probably means we'll have to move again.

''So where are we moving this time?'' He engages the navigational system of the extradimensional engine that allows us to open gateways to the human planet. ''How about New Zealand. Never tried taking jobs down there. Bound to be some along eventually that we can work without getting discovered.'' I nod and begin to redirect the entrance to Auckland.

It's been fun staying in America for a while, but Earth is just too strange and alien sometimes for us.

Better than going back home to our own universe and own planet though. We'll find a way to figure out how humans work, and then, we'll live among them.

''Gotta love those humans. You know, a lot of people are really thankful for how we've helped them, even if it's been weird for them too. Just got another one of those electronic mails from that country where we had to overthrow the leadership. You know, from that one family we lived with when we tried to pretend to be cats for a while. They say they miss us.''

I nod and chitter happily in remembrance. Nice family. Nice country. Shame we accidentally destroyed their government, but they've been rebuilding decently. We'll find a way to fit into human society one day. Because they're such great fun, and so nice, even if their leaders are just as bad as ours are back home.

*****

THE END