It was her first day at work and Megan felt miserable. She was coming down with flu and had taken some medication for it. The pills made her quite drowsy and she only wanted to lay her head down for a while. Leslie saw her and shook her head.

"You look terrible." She said, while Megan yawned and sniffed.

"I’ll be okay, I’ll rest tomorrow." She said blowing her nose.

Leslie put the mannequin’s arm down. "Could you get some mannequins I placed in front of the storeroom and send them down with the elevator. I know it’s your first day, but you look dreadful. Grab your coat and go home. Okay ?"

"Okay." Megan said faintly.

Megan took the elevator with the trolley, went to the storeroom, and got the mannequins Leslie had asked her. She waited for the elevator to arrive and felt a bit dizzy. She looked and saw the beds department and wanted to lay her head down for five minutes to clear the horrible numb feeling in her head. The elevator door rang, and she pushed the trolley in. She pushed the "zero" button and went towards one of the beds.

Megan hadn’t returned and Leslie went to see at the elevator. She saw that it was on her floor and saw the trolley with the three mannequins waiting to be dressed. Leslie shouted her name and then shrugged, believing the shy Megan had already left.

Megan woke up almost instantly. She looked about herself and everything was dark, except for the safety light, which was still burning. She looked at her watch and realized it was one AM. She got up and ran towards the elevator. She pushed the button and waited for it to come. She crossed her arms and shuffled restlessly for the elevator to come. After having made a full turn, she noticed something odd. Over by the stopped escalators, the mannequin stands were empty. It struck her because she had dressed them only hours before. Had Leslie removed them ? But then Leslie would have seen her, Megan said to herself. She got up to the escalators and shouted Leslie’s name.

No answer.

Carefully, she walked down the tall steps of the escalator and went for the ground floor. On the next floor, all mannequins in the men’s department were gone. She circled the floor and saw no mannequins at all. Same for the women’s and children departments. All the mannequins in the store were gone. Megan felt ill at ease and wanted to leave. She went to the front door, but it was locked and barred. She rattled the door and punched it, but it wouldn’t open and she didn’t have any keys. She turned around and jumped in the air as she saw someone standing behind her.

Leaning against the door, she watched the naked mannequin with short black hair standing on its own in the middle of the floor, seemingly staring at her. It hadn’t been there before, as if someone had put it there behind her back. She gave it a wide berth and walked quickly towards the escalator to get her coat with her cell phone in it and call somebody to come and get her.

Arrived at the beds department, she couldn’t find her coat and purse. She looked under the bed and the one besides it and screamed as she got up again. The mannequin was standing on the other side of the bed. Megan fell on the bed behind her, crawled over it, and ran towards the storeroom. But she slipped and fell off the bed. She was stunned for a moment and then tried to get up. And when she looked up the mannequin was standing in front of her, blocking her between two beds and the wall. Megan looked around and tried to find the person who was moving the mannequin. But she couldn’t see anyone.

With trembling hands, she grabbed the mannequin to put it aside and felt warmth and softness like real flesh. The mannequin blinked and it stared at Megan. Megan jumped back a meter and pressed herself against the wall.

"Hi, there, Megan." The mannequin said, looking very much alive, although her skin still had this plastic sheen.

"Who are you ?" Megan managed to say, slowly regaining her confidence.

"I’m Becky." The mannequin said. "Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you."

"What are you doing here ?"

Becky looked at Megan thinking and smiled. "Why, I live here."

Megan still had this puzzled look on her face. "What ?"

"I’m a mannequin." Becky said removing her short black wig and rubbed her bald head.

Megan was speechless.

"Something went wrong. You weren’t supposed to be here, not now."

"You’re a burglar !" Megan said, pointing at her and trying to climb over one of the beds.

Becky smiled. "I’m not a burglar, silly." She said and grabbed Megan’s hand.

"Look." She arced her back and showed her crotch. It was smooth and featureless. She ran her hand over it and looked at a stunned Megan who was shaking her head.

"This is not a trick." She said. "Are you convinced now ?"

Megan could only nod.

"Feel better ?" Becky asked.

Megan sipped some water and nodded.

"You’re wondering what’s going on, right ?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, first of all I’m going to reassure you, only the mannequins in this store are like me." Becky said prodding herself. "I used to be like you."

Becky’s eyes widened and she took another gulp.

"I chose to be a mannequin, because I hated my job, hated my life, hated my body !." Becky paused and looked down thoughtfully for a moment before resuming. "I was 22 and dying to get some excitement into my life. I got an offer from Mr. Jones who told me he could change me and my life. He said I would be very different from what I was, but I grabbed the opportunity. He took me to his lab and operated on me. I had to sit in this tank of green transparent jelly and I came out pretty much the way I look now, except that he had to remove all my hair."

Megan just listened to Becky and sniffed once in a while.

"He used stuff that’s top secret !." She said. "It’s really weird stuff."

"But you don’t have a … You know ?" Megan’s eyes lowered.

Becky laughed. "I did have to undergo some surgery. And we have special devices inside our bodies that take care of all our needs." Becky explained.

A pair of mannequins, male and female entered the room.

The woman was an unusually tall Asian woman wearing a swimming outfit, complete with goggles, cap and a Speedo bathing suit. The man was wearing an expensive suit.

"How is she doing ?" The Asian woman asked.

"I told her about us." Becky said.

"Don’t be scared." The man said. "Everything will be fine."

"Are you two … ?" Megan went.

The woman nodded with a friendly smile. "Every mannequin in the store."

"Even the kids ?" Megan had noticed they had vanished too.

"We wouldn’t want to separate families wouldn’t we ?" The woman said.

"You mean those children mannequins are alive ?" Megan was completely stunned. "How can you stay still like that ?" Megan asked.

"We just do it." The man said. "Nothing to it."

"Don’t you get bored ?"

The woman smiled. "Oh, you’d be surprised what fun we have … "

"I get it ! This is some kind of weird dream …" She smiled and waited to wake up.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but this is not a dream." The woman said and pinched her.

"OUCH !" Megan went and realized this was no a dream at all.

A man entered the room.

"Mr. Jones !" The woman exclaimed. "I’m glad you could make it."

"How is Miss Goodson doing ?" He was a man in his mid-forties with a well-groomed beard.

"Why didn’t you tell me they were real people ?" Megan began. "They almost scared me to death !"

"I was meaning to tell you about it, but you discovered everything ahead of schedule." Jones said. "Let’s go to my office, we’ll talk there."

Megan sat in a opulent room in a deep leather seat and slowly relaxed and a glass with a hint of cognac in her hands.

"Feeling better ?" Jones went, a bit like her concerned grandfather.

"I still don’t understand why these people want to be mannequins."

"Most of them have their own reasons. I offer them my inventions and they benefit from it."

"Inventions ?"

"Ah, yes … I think, Miss Goodson, that you are about to get another shock …"

Megan grabbed the arms of her chair and braced herself.

"This may sound completely incredible, but I can turn everybody into a mannequin, virtually indistinguishable from the real thing !"

At this point Megan would have believed anything.

"I’m an scientist, you see ? And I made an important discovery, nanotechnology !"

She failed to make the connection.

"Nanotechnology, incredibly small machines that have almost infinite applications …" He explained. "We will use them everywhere in the future, and if properly programmed, they can do amazing things !"

Megan was still listening in a kind of trance-like surprise.

"Know I’ll keep a long story short and tell you that an assistant of mine abused to nanites for his own purposes on some unwilling women, but I soon discovered that his victims felt very happy in their new state. I decided to let them be. But one of them fell in love with me and made me a suggestion …"

(In other words, read the stories "Barbie and Ken" and "Barbie 2, Barbie visits the Mall"

Becky was showing her around. Living mannequins were walking around or stretching their legs.

Megan had to restrain herself from staring rudely at some of them.

"This is Sharon." Becky said. "She’s been a mannequin ever since she was altered. She hasn’t moved or talked since"

"When was that ?"

"About eight years ago."

"How do you know she’s okay ?"

"One of the benefits of the nanites is that we are all connected." Becky explained. "I’d best describe it as a kind of telepathic Internet. While our bodies are static, our minds are very active. We can meet each other inside a virtual reality, it’s like our private little world. In her case, she always tells us she’s fine, but she rarely comes out."

Megan was completely stunned as a plastic man passed her and smiled. He was one-tone gunmetal all over …

"He too ?" She said with her mouth still wide open.

"Yep ! Some of the abstract ones are real people too…" Becky said with a little smile.

"Do the employees know about this ?"

"Most of them do, we usually inform the new ones, but you found out the hard way."

"Aren’t you afraid they will tell other people ?"

"We are a closely knit community. Why would we tell other people ? Most would never believe us."

"Phew, time is flying !" Becky noticed a clock. "The night’s almost over !"

"You’ll all become mannequins again ?" Megan asked.

"In a few hours." Becky said.

"Don’t you get bored ?"

"No, we have lots of things to keep us busy ! through the nanites, we can talk to each other, go to virtual places, do anything we like. Some perform plays ! You see a girl standing in the lingerie department and she’s playing Lady Macbeth in her mind with a Macbeth who’s in menswear ! We can even watch TV." Becky said. "And our kids go to school !"

Megan was now completely stunned. "This must be the medication ! I’m hallucinating !"

"Megan, believe me, this is not a hallucination." Becky said. "We are all here out of our own free will, anyone is free to leave, but nobody ever left for long, because they miss all their friends ! We’re all very happy !"

***

Megan got that day off, but at night, Megan couldn’t sleep. She was feeling a lot better, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what Becky and Mr. Jones had told her. She had felt too embarrassed to tell Becky that mannequins had always turned her on.

There was something incredibly erotic and appealing to their immobile forms and shapes she had always been jealous of.

Becky and all the people she had seen had beautiful bodies and looked so happy ! She had never seen so many people smiling. And all those wonderful things Becky had told her, made Megan very curious.

But Megan also knew she would never have the courage to tell them about it …

***

It was hard for Megan not to walk up to Becky and talk to her, but she didn’t know if she would hear her, as the mannequin she was during the day looked just like plastic. She could even see seams in Becky’s body, although she had assured her she couldn’t be taken apart.

And all in all, Megan felt she would look ridiculous talking to a mannequin.

For days, Megan worked in her department, but her mind was elsewhere.

"Felling better ?" Jones startled her.

"I want to be a mannequin !" She replied much to her surprise, her eyes growing wide open and her slapping over her own mouth.

Jones began to laugh. "They’ve gotten to you too ?" He sighed in an amused fashion. "A lot of people who start work with us as salespeople all want to become mannequins !!!"

"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that !" She said, flushing bright red.

"It’s okay, Becky loves every second of her job ! She’s very good PR !" Jones said. "But to be honest we’re a bit overstaffed at the moment, I have to rotate some people on vacation or as staff, or there would be more mannequins that customers." He said.

"I’m sorry, but it’s been in my mind for a while." Megan said. "But if there are too many people …"

"If you really want it, I could show you the facilities and everything that being a mannequin entails."

"Could I ?"

"Don’t be so shy, there’s nothing to it …"

***

"You’ll spend a few hours in this vat. It will infuse you with a few billion nanites that will take care of you and your body. They alter your body so that you become the prefect living mannequin. One of the benefits is that they will take care of you for as long as it’s needed ! They can even produce food for you if you don’t have the time to eat. They recycle bodily wastes and change your skin to suit the type of mannequin you want to be ! And most importantly of all, they put a special antenna inside your brain that allows you to tune into the other’s minds. By means of a small nanotech computer in the basement, you can be busy, while your body is stiff. You can learn to fly a plane, climb Mount Everest or even watch TV !" Jones explained.

Megan seemed fascinated. "Does it hurt ?"

"No, you don’t feel a thing." Jones said. "But you might gain a few ounces due to the weight of the nanites."

Megan was a cute, but fairly average girl and looked very self-conscious at that moment.

"And the nanites can also change your body, if you don’t feel it’s up to it … But that takes a long while." Jones said. "Almost a whole month in that vat !"

"What do you mean by change ?" Megan asked.

"The nanites can give you the body you want. You can be any size or race you want, even have an abstractly styled body if you really want to, although nobody has ever dared that."

Megan remembered the metal man she had seen when Becky toured her.

"So you could make me into a mannequin ?"

"Aside from the weight and the fact that you can’t be taken apart, you’ll be a mannequin."

"How will they dress me ?"

"You’ll dress yourself like you do every morning. Then you’ll be put on display."

"What if I have to go to the bathroom ?"

"The nanites take care of that, they just break it down and recycle it into anything they or your body can use. Once nanitized, you’ll effectively have a self-contained life-support ! A man, who’s crazy about diving had his nanites make nanogills that allowed him to breathe underwater." Jones explained.

"But what about aging ?" Megan asked.

"The nanites will repair all damage caused by aging, effectively keeping you young all your life."

"But what if I’m eighty ?"

"The nanites can in theory be programmed to keep you young indefinitely, but that feature was never implemented by general consensus. They can guarantee you a relatively trouble-free and dignified old-age, when you feel up to it, though."

"So, if I go through it, I’ll be beautiful, be young for a very long time and I don’t have to do anything for it ?"

"Sounds almost too good to be true, No ?"

"There is no catch ?"

"Megan, I know this sounds crazy, but this place is where like-minded people meet. They have created a wonderful place where people have learned to appreciate life in a whole new fashion ! I made this invention, and I make money with this store to further develop it so that in the future, everybody will be able to benefit from them."

"You’re making me ever more anxious to do it !" Megan said.

"You’ll have a wonderful time, I promise." Jones said.

***

A bright young woman hurled herself at Jones as he entered the office.

"Kelly !" He smiled and transformed into a different man.

"Oh, Jack ! I’ve missed you !"

"How is my daughter doing ?" Jack asked her.

"She’s doing fine ! She sends her love." Kelly said. "How was your day ?"

"I’ve got a new girl lined up. She’ll be perfect !"

"What do you think about my idea now ?" Kelly said and held him tight, pecking his face all over.

Jack let go of one of his grins. "You wanted me to get all the mannequin-lovers to work for me in this store and offer them the chance to become what they all dreamed of, I thought you were crazy, but you were right as always !" He gently slipped out of her embrace. "I’m due somewhere else …"

"When will you be back ?" Kelly asked.

"In a few days …" Jack said. "Give my regards to Glenn, Cathy, Linda and Jill."

"I will !" Kelly said.

"But I have some time before we leave." Jack said and grabbed Kelly, easing his lips onto hers ...

***

*Becky ?*

Megan heard Becky’s silvery laugh inside her own head.

*Welcome to the gang !* Becky said.

Slowly Megan could see vague shapes and outlines.

*How does it feel ?* Becky went.

*It feels wonderful !* Megan said. *I feel really cozy !*

Megan could now make out Becky’s face. "Is this that virtual reality ?"

"Yep !" Becky went and showed the world around them.

"It’s almost like an out-of-body experience." Megan said.

"Let me show you around …" Becky grabbed Megan’s hand.

***

Megan felt a strange tickling as her crotch gently smoothed over on a simple mental command.

She felt her body slowly becoming rigid from her toes, up to her head. Her skin hardened and acquired the silky sheen of plastic artificiality. She closed her eyes and felt her breasts harden down to her nipples and tug into the fabric of her clothes. By now the transformation rushed down her arms and up her neck. She wiggled her fingers one last time before they became completely immobile.

A final blink and she felt the tip of her smooth, bald skull change.

In some ways, it felt a lot like she had imagined, and there were many small details she never would have thought of. She was now fully dressed and ready to be put on display.

Becky brought Megan a beautiful wig with long ash-blonde hair and adjusted it over her head and a woolen bonnet over it and some goggles. A pair of skis were put in her arms and she was ready to go skiing in her pink and blue jumpsuit with a warm and soft (artificial) fur collar.

The fun bit was that Megan could literally step out of her body if she grew tired of it and actually go skiing in Aspen or Graz if she wanted to.

All around her, she saw happy people not only indulging into their most treasured fantasies, but also sharing it with others.

Becky felt Megan’s pleasure and smiled as brightly as Megan would have if she weren’t stiff all over.

Megan could also keep her thoughts private and felt grateful that Becky had picked this outfit for her. It covered what she considered to be her own imperfect body. Although she would soon get a treatment to alter her body like Yanmei, the Chinese girl in the bathing suit she had met on her first eventful day.

Becky assured her only minor alterations would be necessary, but Megan felt a bit self-conscious about herself.

Megan decided to see through her own eyes and looked to see a young woman staring directly at her. But a second later she looked on and then walked away, never suspecting who she really was.

Megan loved to watch the people come and go, lingering for a few seconds and grant her a look, feeling a certain fulfilled pride she had never experienced before.

Suddenly she wished she could move and surprise them, but that was against the rules. There were few if any rules and most people tended to believe in them as they were based on common sense. Not moving was the main rule ...

This is easy ! Megan thought and could not believe her luck. I could stand here every day of my life and never get bored of it …