Chapter 9 --- Gimme a K, Gimme an I,...

Monique sat watching the cheer routines. This wasn’t a game, but a cheerleader competition. She hung out with the Possible family, because she didn’t have anyone else to sit with. Her best friends were on the Middleton squad.

Most of the other squads had already completed their routines. Only Lowerton and Middleton were left. The competition was far more interesting this year, as the routines contained elements that had been impossible before. Full-body nanomorphing was a running theme, the various squads using it in innovative ways. Not so much in the routine itself, but in the finale, the “dismount” so to speak. For instance, at the end of one routine, all of the girls on the squad had turned into Brittina.

Monique was curious about what the remaining two teams would do. They were the two best, and one or the other nearly always won. Middleton did so slightly more often, but not often enough to be considered superior. They were evenly matched, and both put on great shows.

The Lowerton team started and Monique was once again impressed by their skill. Nanomorphing did not provide any advantage in the athletic elements of cheerleading, especially since it couldn’t happen quickly enough, so there was no reason to use it during the main part of the routine. But like everyone else, Monique was waiting to see what they would do in the dismount.

It turned out to be another group morph to duplicate the same person, as the previous squad had done. However, rather than a celebrity, it was one of their own. As they yelled “gimme a L”, all of the members of the squad turned into one of the girls on it. Because of her association with Kim, Monique knew the names of some of the Lowerton girls, and remembered that this one was Lisa. But unlike the squad before, the girls waved their hands in a manner indicating audience participation. After a few seconds of looking around in confusion, the crowd got the idea and various girls in it started changing into Lisa as well. After Monique morphed, she looked over to see that Kim’s mom was now an older version of the teen, an age progression as was done with pictures of lost children. The other adult women were doing the same, either repeating the age progression or becoming just a larger version of the teen. The morph spread through the gym until every nano-capable female, and a few of the males as well, was a duplicate of Lisa, more or less.

Then the cheerleaders yelled “Gimme an O” and changed to a different girl on the squad. Monique didn’t know this one, but assumed her name started with that letter. The crowd nanomorphed again and the stands were full of duplicates again. It was much faster this time, as everybody knew what was expected of them. The cheer squad continued to spell out “Lowerton” by morphing into squad members with that initial and those in the stands continued to track them. Monique enjoyed the “T” cheer the most, because that was Tani, the girl from Venezuela, prettiest on the squad.

After the cheerleaders and the spectators morphed back into themselves, the squad left the floor to great applause for their innovative show. Mechanically, it wasn’t that different from what the squad before them had done, but dragging the audience into it had amplified the fun.

Monique hoped that the Middleton squad would be able to top it. Kim and the others had certainly been confident enough.

The Middleton routine commenced. The stunts, lifts, and tumbling were certainly competitive with the other squads. Monique didn’t know enough about the details to guess how the judges would rate the performance.

Then they reached the dismount. All of the girls were standing in a line, all in different poses. Monique held her breath, wondering what they would do next.

Then Kim nanomorphed. She was on the left end of the line, next to Olivia. She didn’t morph into a celebrity, she morphed into Olivia. In addition to the change of appearance, she changed her body position to match Olivia’s. That would have resulted in two identical Olivias side by side. But Olivia wasn’t there any more, at least not as Olivia. She had morphed into Marcella, who was in the third position. Again, not only the appearance was changed to match, but the pose. At the same time, Marcella had morphed into Bonnie, Bonnie into Liz, Liz into Hope, Hope into Tara, Tara into Crystal, Crystal into Tracy, and Tracy into Kim. In all cases, the body position was duplicated along with the appearance.

All of this took place simultaneously. From the viewpoint of the crowd, the cheerleaders had somehow shifted to the left in some sort of slide that didn’t require them to move their feet or change their body position, and Kim had instantly teleported to the other end of the line. The audience blinked and shook their heads, disoriented. A confused murmur passed through them.

Just as the watchers started to recover, the cheerleaders did another virtual shift. Everyone seemed to move to the left again, and this time Olivia was the one who instantly appeared on the other end of the line. The murmur from the crowd was much louder this time. The shift occurred again, after a much shorter interval. The squad shifted several more times, each quicker than the last, until everyone had their own face again and the virtual position matched the actual position.

The crowd started to applaud, but the whole sequence started again. This time the shifts were as fast as the girls could do them. The overall effect was like chase lights, where rapid sequencing gave the effect of motion. Tracy seemed to slide jerkily all the way from the right end of the line to the left end. But there was no actual motion, other than the pose changes. Everyone was doing rapid, synchronized, sequential nanomorphing in place.

When the sequence stopped the second time and the routine was actually over, the applause was deafening. In fact, the entire crowd rose to their feet in tribute to such a fascinating display. Monique suddenly understood Kim’s reference to “cheerleader chase lights” a few days earlier. It had been meaningless at the time.