Chapter 05: A Bloody Lecture“Wake up, dy!”

  The loud booming voice jerked me into wing wakefulness. I blearily looked around, w what the hell I’d just heard. Again, the voice called to me: “get up!” calling out from an adjat room. My feet hit the floor and I staggered out of the bedroom before I quite knew what I was doing or where I ain ping-ponged between my temples, and my tongue felt thi my mouth, and it only took a few steps for those tits hanging off my chest to remind me of the wrongness of my situation. My breasts bounced as I lurched down the short hallways. I leaned heavily against the wall for support and held one arm ay chest and grimaced. Beted, I realised that fug pale-blue babydoll still floated around my slender frame. The voice came from the end of the hall. A few steps and I emerged into a small, sparsely decorated lounge, unfamiliar and flooded with sunlight.

  A rge s on the wall flickered to life with my arrival. The smiling, bearded face of Scooter looked down at me.

  “This pre-recorded message begins in thirty seds,” the doctor said. “And this warning’s going to keep looping until you show.”

  My knees wobbled and the room tilted. I spotted a small sofa and pitched myself into its embrace. F myself into a sitting position, head clutched between both hands, I gred at the s. Scooter seemed tent to t aloud his thirty seds, gng at something out of frame. Eaumber reverberated within my skull like a pinball.

  “I’ll assume you’re in the room now,” Scooter said, the voice dropping to a reasohough still painful) volume. “At least, this part shouldn’t trigger until you are. To be clear, everything I say from this point on is pre-recorded aing itself as it pys. So listen closely, because you’ll only get to hear this ond it’s very important that you do. It’s quite literally a matter of life ah—yours, that is.” Even in my groggy state I noticed that the doctor looked the worse for wear, his face draale. His eyes looked tired and his normally jerky gesturiory.

  On the s, the doctor took a deep breath before beginning. “Katherine didn’t wao do this but when it es to medical matters, I won’t have aelling me how to do my job. As you’ve no doubt noticed by now, you’ve gohrough a few ges.” He smiled weakly. “It’s been three weeks since we found you on the floor of my offid we’re about to move you to Telesforos for awo of rest and recovery. After that Katherine will move you to your new home iy, you’ll wake up and you’ll probably freak out. Or rather, I guess you have, and you have. If you haven’t already, I’m sure you’re thinking about putting your fist through a wall.

  “Well . . . don’t bother. There’s no point. You’re not as strong as you used to be. You’d hurt your hand and waste the manicurist’s hard work.”

  The manicurist’s hard work dug painfully into my palm. If I could move without falling over, I’d have happily tossed that s off the baly.

  Scooter absently scratched at his beard, sidering how to proceed. “You should be thrilled, Girlie! This kind of thing is like a dream e true for. . . .” He faltered. “Listen, it’s. . . .” Again he hesitated and finally shook his head. “David. For what it’s worth: I’m sorry.”

  With my elbows propped up on my knees, naked breasts hangiween both arms, his apology didn’t mean mue.

  “I know this isn’t what you wanted. Katherine believes you o be immersed in your new identity as quickly and pletely as possible--but I won’t insult you by calling you Girlie, or dy, or anything but by your name. David, you have every reason to hate us, to despise Katherine and me and the ibsp; So ght ahead: hate us.” He leaned in closer. “But just keep ohing in mind as you do.

  “She kept you alive, David. You were bleeding out like a stuck pig when she found you. Half of the five litres of blood running through those pretty little arteries of yours, pooling across the floor. When we caught up to her, she was covered in blood. Most of it was yours but not all of it; those damned agents of Steele’s took a k out of her, too. Iomad out her side. She’s lucky it missed any ans; so are you. Because when she found you, she ignored her own wounds and k in your blood a you alive. Peptide seant and manually pumping your heart and giving you air meant when we showed up, there was somethio save.

  “David, my staff had to physically drag her away so that I could take over. She broke a nurse’s noses and an orderly’s wrist. The momeook over she passed out and. . . .” His voice trailed off and he sighed.

  “But maybe I’m wasting my breath here. Have a look for yourself.”

  The s blinked and threw up security footage. A figure y slumped o another. Gss and broken furniture and other debris was scattered around them. A dark pool of red slowly spread across the floor. The image zoomed in on one of the figures, the one wearing a tattered skirt: me.

  I looked terrible. Pallid and broken. One of my arms was twisted at an impossible angle. So too my leg. My skin glittered from the myriad gss splinters cerating my flesh, eae a crimson fountainhead. My face was a mess: one ear, and my nose reduced ted shred of flesh; skin torn into ribbons; mouth gaping opeh broken.

  A woman ran into frame. She slipped and fell in the pooling blood. She clutched her side, and blood welled from between her fingers. She regained her footing. Tore open drawer after drawer until she found what she wanted. Jabbed a syrio my side. The despair she exuded alpable but so was the raw determination. Bending over my limp form, she exhaled into my open mouth before ying her hands over my chest and began the desperate, rhythmic pumping that kept me alive.

  “Hate Katherine if you want,” Scooter repeated, his voice-rim. “But don’t ever question that everything she has done since meeting you has been with your long-term survival in mind. She saved your life. If you ask me again, she probably will again.”

  I wao shout at the s, to rant and rave. How could these, I wao yell, aed those bloated mammaries for him to see . . . how could these keep me alive?

  The s returo the doctor. “You probably don’t see it the same way. Personally, and as I’ve said before: I don’t care. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if you hate me or not, five me or not; but I do care about Katherine a great deal. You might think you know her in some small way, but you don’t. I’ve known her for over twenty years, and I don’t pretend to fully uand her. But I do know there’s no one I’d rather have as an ally against someone as dangerous as Jeremiah Steele, because I’ve never known anyone whose hatred is as pure and clear as the oherine carries for that man.”

  “So, keep that in mind before you swear your revenge on us, David. We caught yht with Steele’s assassin on the ic’s security cameras. You’ve obviously got secrets of your own. You’re clearly dangerous, too. But think long and hard before you do something moally stupid like running to the press or something, ive away your identity, or even worse, waste time chasing after Katherine, or me, or a the ic. Your real enemy is Steele: never fet that.”

  The doctor turned away. He made a sshing motion across his nebsp; “Yeah, stop it there,” he muttered. “This isn’t what I wanted. Last thing the guy needs is a bloody lecture.” The s turned momentarily bbsp; When the image returhe doctor looked a little more rexed, wearing fresh clothes, though still with visible signs of exhaustion worn into his fabsp; He was sitting in an office I didn’t reize, wood-panelled and warm-looking. He gnced aside before looking back to the camera and smiling.

  “You still with us, David? Good. Because now I’m going to tell you what we’ve done, and this part you’ve really got to pay attention to because if you don’t . . . well, you’ll die.”

  His hands jerked before his face dismissively. “Sorry for the dramatibsp; But your body’s been through a hell of an ordeal. As I record this, you’re lying in a bed ielesforos retreat, rec. I suppose you ’t appreciate it now, but… it’s a miracle, is what it is.” There was a corresponding tone of awe and revereo his voibsp; “A fug miracle.”

  “A me just say, David,” the doctor tinued. “I am beyond pleased at how well you’ve turned out. You were the perfect patient, a one-in-a-million find. Your blood, it’s… well.” He grinned. “I won’t bore you with the details. You wouldn’t uand them anyways, and I wouldn’t want you actally giving away corporate secrets, right? Let’s just say you’ve been through an… experimental processes, real cutting-edge stuff, and all for your be.”

  Despite the doctor’s obvious fatigue his eyes glowed with excitement. “You ’t imagihe kind of money people would pay for what you’ve just been given. These procedures are—priceless, to be ho. And incredibly difficult to reproduce successfully—maybe even impossible, for now, without further research.” He shrugged, dismissing such minor s. “I’m sure you’ve noticed by now the obvious alterations to your body. I hope you also appreciate the remarkable recovery you’ve made from your injuries.”

  Yeah, I’d noticed. I had a more than passing familiarity with pain and injury. Cuts, bruises, burns and the occasional broken bone, especially in my youth. It took days—weeks—once, a broken arm, months—to recover. The worst fight—until Fosters, that is—the ohat brought my old life to an end? Frankly, I don’t think I ever fully recovered from that one. Physically, it took most of a year. I spent months in hospital, I remember that. Not much else, though: not even the fight, really. In nightmares, glimpses of what happened: a dirty room, the distant throb of musid Persephone, dying on a filthy mattress.

  Sitting with a skull-splitting headache on dy’s sofa, fragments of the fight with Fosters fshed through my mind. The swing of the heavy metal bar and the ch of bone as he shattered my leg. My arm. My fabsp; The kiy chest and the bullet to the side. Those kinds of injuries left scars and perma damage. Yet my skin remained smooth and whole. I felt weak and a little shaky but otherwise fine. I’m a quick healer, but nobody heals this quickly, this pletely, not from those kinds of injuries. If anything, I looked—younger? Ahier than before. Impossible, but all those minor aches and pains that started to accrue in my te thirties were… gone? I only just realised the absence of the mild strain in my back, the hurt in my elbow. Even my eyesight and hearing seemed sharper than before.

  “Suffice it to say,” Scooter tinued. “That your body’s been through something remarkable. Essentially, we’ve rolled your body back to a… well, pre-adolesce I suppose, pulling cells into a pluripotential stage where they could re-differentiate and…” He trailed off, scratched at his beard and smiled sheepishly. “Fuck it. We tricked your body into thinking it was a child again, and the dragged you forward and made you a teenager again, David. Unavoidably, I’m afraid, gene expression switched to female, but as your raced through a sed puberty, your body healed. Along the way you demonstrated an accelerated development of sedary sexual characteristics typical of an adolest girl. Breasts grew. Your pelvis widened. The fat tissue you developed distributed itself in a typical female pattern. You even developed a bad case of ae for a day.”

  He couldn’t help himself, and his face split in a wide, toothy grin. “You are, in almost every way that matter—physically, hormonally—a een-years old girl. dy’s records list her as twenty. Just like that,” he said, and snapped his fingers, “we haven’t just healed your body of traumatijury--we’ve reversed twenty years of aging!” He spped his desk. “It’s a fug miracle, David!”

  The reg suddenly skipped a rough edit that suddenly put Scooted behind a different desk. He was wearing a rumpled b coat again, and his hair was a mess. He looked tired as he looked into the camera.

  “There was another side-effect,” he said, and his eyes slid away. His voice was a near mumble as he tinued. “As I’m sure you know, men generally have a greater leg-to-torso ratio than women. Y was broken—shattered, actually. We reset the bohough the damage was so extehat left to normal healing it would’ve taken years to fully heal, and you might never have walked the same again. eive process worked a charm but… Well. David. The femininizing rejuvenation also initiated a general—shortening—or shrinkage, of the body; and we had to make, uh, adjustments to the , too. You’ll find you’re just a tad . . . um, shorter than before.” He gnced guiltily towards the camera and muttered, “Uh, yes. Sorry David.”

  Not tent with stripping away my strength they decided to cut my legs out from under me--literally. I’d always been short fuy. 165 timetres or so. What was I now? Maybe one-sixty? Short--even firl. Short and weak and small.

  “So finally, David,” he said. He sounded as if he were hurrying, anxious to finish. “You expee residual effects from everything you’ve been through. Your hair will grow a little faster than normal for a while. Nails too. You might even find ordinary cuts and bruises healing faster. You’ll also be feeling the residual effects of a teenage female puberty: hormones might py havo your emotions until you ba a bit.

  “Holy, we’re irely sure what the effects of f an adult male brain and body through a female puberty might be; there could be a few other ued sequences. We’ve arranged a follow-up session at the ic for dy in three months. It’ll allow us to che on your progress and ensure “dy” remaihy.”

  On s, he smiled though it fell far short of his eyes.

  “But here’s the most importantly thing: David, all these hormones and residuals, the feminizing agents in your blood will, at the very least, chemically castrate you and atrophy your testicles; at worst they could lead to a whole host of serious, potentially fatal, medical ditions.”

  At this moment, my cod balls were the only thing eg me to the man I used to be. From where I was sitting, with this slim waist and rouits and shs, my crotch was the only thi of David. My hands curled into tight little fists at my side and I began to shake.

  “You’ll find in your new bathroom several prescriptions fs essential to your tinued wellbeing. It is absolutely essential that you take those pills as directed. Your body is produg a hefty quantity of en and other female sex hormoypical of a ‘girl’ ye, while blog normal testosterone produ. The pills will keep your testicles from withering and your penis from shrinking. Some of them will help ba other residual effects of your—rebirth, I suppose.

  “You’ll also find some powerful rexants in there, in case the initial emotional swings prove too difficult to deal with.”

  He gave a final sigh. “Listen, David,” he said, and his voice veyed guilt, pride and respe equal measure. “This is a hell of a lot to drop on you. I ’t imagine what you’re feeling right now. And I know it’s impossible to believe that this is all in your best i. But I holy do believe Katherine is right in this: dy is your best ce at survival. Not David--but dy.

  “So don’t fight it . . . dy. Just . . . live this life. You might not believe me but just about everything we’ve doo you is reversable. You be a man again. Someday. If you take your pills like a good girl. You might be tempted tain what you feel you’ve lost by, I don’t know—hag off all that fine hair, or w out again like a madman tain that muscle mass.

  “I… wouldn’t bother. We ’t say for sure, but early indications suggest your body’s going to resist any such efforts. Like I said: your hair’s just going to grow back, faster than before. The hormones and—other things in your bloodstream right noing to actively wainst your efforts. This is who are for now; it’s what your body wants to be. Push it too far, and you might just trigger further feminisation as those residual chemicals ki again.

  “So, instead… why not just wait? Just… be dy. It’s not like you have much choibsp; For now, give up on David. He died; Steele’s assassin got his man. Meanwhile, Katherine’s given you a life to inhabit. Miss Belmy—she atient of ours—and a fine, young woman. Try to enjoy the months to e and it’ll be over before you know it. Just give up on the man you used to be and bee the girl you see in the mirror.”

  He turned away from the s but paused. “Oh, I almost fot,” he said, gng babsp; “Just thought you might like to know. Your friend, Harry Longman? His operation was a plete success. Last I heard he was flirting with the nurses and preparing to head back to the studio.” Scooter smiled before turning away. “He was also asking after his ‘broken flower’. That’s yht?”

  The s went bnk.

  My fingers curled and uncurled into fists. I breathed—hadn’t even realised I’d been holding me breath—faster; I sucked in air, desperately. I sat there trapped in this fn body. A numb chill pervaded every iny being but quickly burned away beh the rising tide e. I breathed, deep, ragged breaths. My fists ched. I rose to my feet. Stood, wavering.

  With an angry scream—a visceral yell that even in my rage I knew sounded hysterical, feminine, more shriek than roar--I grabbed the hing at hand—a mp—and hurled it at the s with all my strength.

  It wasn’t much, but it was enough. The s shattered in a shower of sparks.

  Author's Notes:

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