Announcementcontent warning: brief mentions of sex & hypnosis"Please Lisa?" Chelsea begged. "That was so incredibly hot, you have to do that to me too!"

  I tried not to face-palm as I sighed, "You're not even into that stuff. The hypnosis and the mind control and all that? That's Gwen's thing."

  Chels pouted, "If that's what it takes to get you to boss me around then it's worth it."

  "Make me desperate, make me beg, then make me cum my brains out!" she added. "I want to be passed out drooling on the floor too! Please?"

  I knew it was no coincidence she was begging for that, and in those specific words. She would have seen what I was into when she was in my character sheet earlier, now she was trying to tempt me with it. It almost worked too, but I knew I'd have plenty of opportunity to see her like that ter on.

  So I shook my head, "Not right now. I'm supposed to be figuring out this ptop, remember? To try and get us our own pce, away from your dad and Gwen's parents."

  "And I know you edited my character to make me 'more dommy in bed' but that doesn't mean I know how to do it," I added with a frown. "Twenty-four hours ago I was a shy quiet traumatized egg. I thought I was a boy. And I was still a virgin."

  I continued, "Now I know I'm a trans girl, so is my best friend who's become my maid. And the formerly evil Chelsea is now a tiny busty sub. I've got this reality-bending ptop and I'm trying not to let the power go to my head while I look for a way to save us all from evil parents. Meanwhile both you and Gwen keep acting like you want to be my harem. It's all just a little overwhelming."

  Chels pouted again, but only for a few seconds. Then she sighed, "Sorry Lisa. You're right. It's been a crazy twenty-four hours, and I guess I've been letting it go to my head? It's been fun though, more fun than I've had for as long as I can remember. I know we still need to deal with my dad and Gwen's parents, but I honestly feel free already. For the first time in my life I feel free."

  "I'm gd you're happy Chels," I replied as I gave her a sad smile. "I want all three of us to be happy. And feeling free sounds nice. Maybe I'll feel that too, after I figure all this stuff out? But for now I just feel the pressure of having to do this by tomorrow afternoon, before Gwen has to go home and face her parents."

  Speaking of my best friend, she was still sprawled out on the floor in front of me. She'd been listening to the conversation though, and apparently she'd recovered enough to join in.

  "I'm sorry for putting that pressure on you miss," she mumbled as she slowly sat up.

  Her jet bck hair was messy and her skin was slick with sweat. And her inner thighs were slick with other fluids. She looked like she needed another shower, but she also looked beautiful. Not quite as divine as when she was cumming herself senseless, but I decided the afterglow look was still pretty good.

  Gwen continued, "I know you're doing your best, and I know you don't want to sink to their level? But if that's the only option then I'm ok with it. I've made up my mind. I'm never going back home as long as my parents are transmisic queermisic bigots in a position to hurt or control me."

  I continued admiring her gorgeous body a couple more seconds before her words finally sank in. Then I sighed, "Ok Gwen. I understand. And whatever happens, you're welcome to stay with me. I'd never send you home to unsupportive or dangerous parents."

  "What about my dad?" Chelsea asked. "He'll be home in six days. And what about csses? We've got less than forty-eight hours to figure that out."

  I grimaced, "I know Chels. Um, thanks to the ptop I have enough money in my bank account that we could just go somewhere else right now? I could probably cover rent for six months, maybe up to a year? And if we can't find a pce by Friday we could get a hotel room."

  Both of them suddenly looked very surprised and interested at the mention of the ptop filling up my bank account. I kept talking though, before either of them could question that.

  "I don't know what to do about csses though," I added with another sigh. Then I frowned at Chelsea and asked, "Wait are you even still in university? Or are you back in high school again, since you knocked four years off your age?"

  The question caught her off guard, actually it seemed to distract both of them from the money stuff. Chels gulped, "I don't know? I still remember everything I'm taking at uni, it's not like the knowledge disappeared or anything."

  After a moment I decided, "I'll check the ptop. It should indicate what your education is."

  Chelsea watched quietly while I did that. And Gwen finally got up off the floor, then used the towel to clean herself up a bit. After that she quietly excused herself, and took the towel with her to put in with the next load of undry.

  "Ok you're still a level fourteen student," I announced when the data came up on the screen. "So twelve years of high school and two full years of university. Which is good news, it means you don't have to repeat anything."

  The cute blonde nodded slowly, "It's just something else people are going to question though. Not only about how I've changed, but how an eighteen year old is in her third year of uni."

  "And now I'm wondering what's going to happen with all the sports I was doing," she added with a frown. "Like if it hasn't changed my curriculum then I'm probably still listed as being on the soccer team and everything else."

  I let out another long sigh, "So that's something else I'll probably need to try and fix. Although I don't exactly need a reality-bending ptop to hack the university database."

  Chels gave me a suspicious look, "Seriously? Wait, have you hacked into school computers before?"

  "Maybe?" I tried not to smile. Then I admitted, "Ok I might have done it once or twice, but I've never done anything big. Maybe I tweaked a grade by a couple percent, or edited some teacher's comment to be less negative? So your dad wouldn't take out his 'disappointment' on me. Or to make sure Gwen's folks wouldn't ground her for a month."

  Chelsea's expression shifted to sadness when she heard that. She moved closer and gave me a hug, then she stepped back and made a suggestion. "Let's take a break from all the heavy stuff, ok Lisa? It's nearly lunch time, why don't we heat up some pizza? Then I'll make sure Gwen and I stay out of your way, so you can focus on the ptop without any more distractions or interruptions."

  I returned the hug then agreed, "Ok Chels, that sounds like a good idea."

  After turning off the ptop I followed her out of my room, then we pulled Gwen away from her chores and the three of us headed upstairs to the kitchen. Chels put a few slices in the oven to warm them up while Gwen set the table, and I got us all some co to drink. And soon enough we were all sitting around the kitchen table again, enjoying our reheated lunch.

  "I have to admit it's kind of weird that I'm the only one wearing any clothes," I commented. "Don't you two feel self-conscious, going around naked like that?"

  My friend seemed almost confused by the question, "Of course not miss. Proper maid attire here is nothing at all."

  "Oh right," I grimaced. That actually slipped my mind when things got stressful earlier.

  Then Chelsea admitted, "It's still new and novel for me, although I think I could get used to it? Around the house that is, when it's just the three of us."

  "Why were you asking?" she added in another teasing tone. "Are you feeling left out? You could always strip down and join us."

  I blushed and shook my head, "No thanks. Um, maybe ter? Like if we're doing another slumber party tonight then um, maybe I could skip the nightshirt?"

  "Nice," Chels grinned.

  Gwen seemed to approve, "That would mean less dirty clothes to wash tomorrow. Although if tonight is anything like st night then I'm going to have to wash the bedding again regardless."

  That got Chelsea and I blushing again, but neither of us tried to deny it. Instead we both just focused on our lunch, and so did Gwen. It was actually a fairly light meal, Chels warmed up a half dozen slices but none of us managed more than a slice and a half. When we'd all had enough to eat Gwyneth took care of the dishes, and Chels offered to help.

  "I'll give Gwen a hand with the dishes," she decided. "Then maybe the two of us can get to know each other a little better? That way you won't have to worry about any distractions or interruptions for a while, Lisa."

  "Thanks Chels," I smiled. Then while the two of them gathered up the dirty ptes I headed back down to my room and that enigmatic pink ptop.

  After all the distractions this morning it took me a few moments to figure out what to do next.

  I doubted there was much more to learn from the inventory system, and likewise the character editor probably didn't hold any more secrets either. So I figured I should probably stick with my earlier pn and have a look at the remaining three editors in that 'Work' directory.

  The next one up was the Level Editor, and just like the other two when I unched it I was asked to validate with my fingerprint. And that's where things took a different course. As soon as I swiped my thumb on the sensor the program quit with an error message, dumping me back at the command line.

  According to the ptop, the level editor could not be opened due to a 'Realm Mismatch'. Apparently the current realm didn't support a level system, therefore there were no levels to edit.

  I ended up staring at the error as I considered what it meant. Like there were definitely levels on our character sheets. Gwen was a level twenty maid, Chelsea was a level fourteen student. So the message didn't make any sense, unless that's not the kind of level the editor was meant to edit.

  Which meant the level editor was probably for editing the 'location' or 'challenge' kind of levels, rather than the 'skill' kind. Which fit with my original assumption, that the ptop used to belong to a game developer. In which case 'levels' would refer to something like the levels you had to progress through or beat in order to advance within a game.

  Except the ptop was obviously a lot more than just some game dev's workstation, considering it was able to edit and change reality.

  I let out a loud sigh and muttered to myself, "I feel like instead of finding answers I'm just coming up with more questions."

  Still, the level editor mentioned realms and there was a Realm Editor right there waiting for me to have a look at it. So I went ahead and unched that, then swiped my thumb when it asked for validation just like all the others.

  Unlike the first two editors, this one didn't start with a menu or a search option. Instead it opened directly into an editor sheet with the heading Current Realm. And rather than a bunch of editable fields, the opening screen seemed more like a bunch of status information.

  My first thought was the real Lisa must have been working on some kind of science fiction game, since the initial stats talked about pnetary stuff. Like the size of the world, ratio of oceans to dry nd, mean gravity level, number of moons, and stuff like that. It even had details about the world's sun, like size, age, average orbital distance, that kind of thing.

  Except as far as I could tell the data wasn't describing some cool new alien world, it was just Earth. In fact there was a field titled 'realm alias' that indicated the world was called 'Earth-742'.

  Seeing that left me with a cold feeling in my gut, but I kept going.

  After scrolling a little further down I found a section that covered dates and times. The first field in there was titled 'in-realm current date reference', and the value next to that was today's date. The field below that was belled 'local time reference'. Its value was the current time, given in hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds. And it was updating in real time.

  Apart from the peculiar field names that didn't actually seem too unusual, but the next section only added to that cold feeling in my gut. Under the heading 'Realm Summary - General Configuration' was a text field that read, "Basic post-industrial science & technology format. Trace magic levels. Standard / mundane flora & fauna. Human-centric."

  The heading below that read 'Realm Summary - Subjective Experiences'. The data next to that felt damning but accurate, "Late-stage capitalism. Gross inequality. Climate change / looming climate crisis. Rising fascism, bigotry, intolerance."

  By that point I almost felt ill. I quit the editor and closed the ptop lid, then took a deep shaky breath. Finally I leaned back in my chair and mumbled to myself, "Is our world just a game, or some kind of virtual reality construct? Is any of this even real?"

  An even worse thought crossed my mind and I shuddered slightly, "Are we real?"

  PurpleCatGirl