The amino acid readers had levelled the playing field for love. You saw someone you fancied in the arms of another man. At a glance you can see you do not match up to her physical type. So you merely whip out your reader and scan the paramour’s DNA. His reaction would inevitably be conflicted. Flattered that you recognised him as a superior looking man worthy of emulation. Moderately perturbed that you were about to challenge him. The reader’s particle field serving as a gauntlet being slapped across the love rival’s cheek. For, after a single night having your DNA reconfigured under the auspices of the machine, the next morning there you were a perfect physical replica of the beau. Then it was solely down to charisma and personality to swing the women’s choice between her two identical specimens.
Yet it wasn’t quite so simple. The body might have changed overnight, but the psyche had to permit itself time to get used to it. In the same way that first time you shaved your new face and its unfamiliarity would trip you up time and again and lead you to slice your visage to ribbons, you also had to project your new features appropriately. You could not carry yourself the same way as you had with your former body. You had to ease into your gait, figure out the space it inhabited, how it moved and gestured. Too precipitant and you would sink any chance you had with your object of desire, since your mismatched clumsiness with your own self would paint you as inherently undesirable. For all the instant transformation, the shrewd suitor still had to play the long game of love.
