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Copyright © 1999 by Cleo Kraft. All rights reserved.
The Mining Outpost of Moray
by Cleo Kraft
The Mining Outpost of Moray By Cleo Kraft --------------------------- Mining colonies were growing faster and faster these days. It's not as dangerous as Earthers tend to think. In fact, it's quite boring at times, what with the lack of any real social life and all. Most of the mining outposts had a population consisting entirely of men, and let me tell you, it gets awfully lonely in space at times. Awfully lonely. The few miners lucky enough to afford girl-droids usually didn't count on how easily a girl-droid can be dismantled by a mob of jealous men. The occasional prostitute who wandered around the outposts looking for tricks . . . well, let's just say most guys in the mining business are too broke to afford the kind of prices these girls are asking for and the lucky bastards that can afford it usually contract Martian VD. Not too many clinics in space, you see. Not this far out from Earth anyway. So all the heterosexual guys in the mining colonies had to just deal with the loneliness in their own way, but then some scientist back on Earth made a discovery that changed the very perception of life itself forever. Actually in a way it's pretty coincidental how Dr. Sutterman came up with his discovery. You see, it was a newly discovered element right here in the asteroid belt that started it all. An element that actually split up the old table of elements completely and changed entire fields of science. Turns out all these years we were wrong about the atom. It's more complex than we ever before imagined. The discovery of kelleniualite changed chemistry and DNA research completely. The discovery was so tremendous, we had to throw out our old table of elements and start brand new, otherwise there would be half elements, and sixteenth elements - it would have been too much to track the old way. Even more startling was the effect of this discovery on our old "laws" of physics. Laws of thermodynamics were totally rearranged and in most cases didn't even apply to some of the newer elements that evidently arrived from some other source than our own perceived universe. True anti-matter engines were derived from many of the half elements found in the asteroid belt. Faster-than-light-drives were no longer science fiction but were within our capability now. Teleportation devices were beginning to appear all over Earth and Mars. It was like opening a window and seeing the library of God. Seemingly anything imaginable was now possible. The only big problem was finding a steady supply of kelleniualite and other metals. So mining colonies spread out across the asteroid belt like never before as would-be fortune seekers went out looking for the motherlode. I was already out on the Moray Outpost for several years before Dr. Sutterman's discoveries. I wasn't out here to get rich quick, but I wasn't going to complain if fortune came my way. No, I was out here mostly to get away from Earth and to get away from my broken up family that kept trying to pull me in all directions. Divorce is what did it. My parents got a divorce and then expected the kids to split right in half or something. No, it didn't work out for me. I couldn't play favorites, nor pretend, so I packed up left that all behind. Mom and dad would be lucky now if I even called them once a year. I just needed to be alone and forget about my parents. I was a grown man now and I had no need to hang around the bird's nest any longer. It was time for me to fly free and live my own life. Anyway, I wound up on the Moray Outpost. It's named after the twenty-three kilometer wide asteroid it was built on. Five levels deep from the surface, and then ten to fifteen kilometers worth of tunnels under that. We were lucky. Yeah, we were damn lucky. Not all the outposts had a ready supply of kelleniualite, but we sure did. Miles of the stuff, but I knew that one day it would all run out and we'd be out here digging for copper again. Well, one day a space yacht landed. I didn't think much of it at first, just supplies or something, right? Well, turned out that there were ten beautiful young women that walked off that yacht and made their rounds about the outpost. Each guy must have gotten laid five times by the time I even got close to a woman, but when it was my turn I just couldn't go through with it. "What do you mean `No'?" the woman asked staring at me with her seductive blue eyes. "My papers are good. I'm clean. Come on." "No," I said. "I'm sorry. I just can't, that's all." "You gay?" she asked. "No," I answered. "I just don't feel right, that's all." "It's your loss," she said walking over to tend to the next guy in the bunkhouse. Well, when the yacht left I found out I wasn't the only guy that turned down those women. Aside from the thirty or so gay guys, at least seven others had turned down an opportunity to sleep with a woman. Turned her down and for no real good reason. It wasn't the fear of Martian VD, because these women were certifiably clean, right? I mean, these were exceptionally beautiful women and eight of us, including myself, turned them all down. Why? It had nothing to do with the price, because these girls were practically doing it for nothing, which in itself was surprising, but we just turned the girls down. "Harold," my friend Rex said. "What's the deal? Nearly everyone else got laid, why not you?" "I don't know," I said shrugging. "I would have but it just didn't seem right for some reason." "I know you're not married, and you're straight, so it must be religion, right?" Rex asked. "No," I said. "Not that either. It just seems . . . odd. That's all. I just don't feel like it. It's almost like these girls are my sisters or something. I just can't bring myself to feel attracted to them for some reason. Oh, I don't doubt they're all beautiful, but I can't quite get any feelings for them you see?" "Harold," Rex said shaking his head. "Sometimes I just don't understand you. Ten beautiful women and you won't even try one of 'em. You aren't . . . . . you're not . . . you know, one of those people who wants to get their sex changed are you?" "I don't know," I lied, knowing darn well what must be going on inside my head. I loved women alright, but I'd much rather BE a woman than be with one. I just never wanted to admit it. Probably also why I left Earth and all it's women behind me too. Jim, who was sitting on the bunk across from me, looked up and smiled. He was also one of the eight guys like me that didn't get laid tonight. None of us eight were gay, or at least none would admit it, but then neither would we admit to wanting a sex change. "Well, whatever the reason, you blew it big time by passing up a chance like this," Rex told me. "Ten women . . . man, do you know that's the first time that many women came to this outpost at any one time? They were clean, too! Man, you blew it big time, Harold." I didn't care. It was my decision and I wasn't complaining about it at all. I rolled over on my bunk and went to sleep. ___-----___ I woke up hearing a bunch of the guys quarreling in the middle of the night. "She's mine!" someone said. "Lay off! I saw her first!" another guy said. The lights went on and I sat up in bed to see what all the commotion was. "I said let go!" another guy yelled punching a guy in the nose. Five guys were there fighting over a woman. She was a red head. She looked like one of the other girls who visited us earlier. She must have gotten left behind by accident. Whatever the case, she was stuck here now on this station with over sixty men eager to claim her for their own. She was pulled around by the arm by one guy and another was pulling her back by the other arm. The poor woman was too frightened for words. "Look, look," Rex said stepping forward to break up the fight. "We can't ALL have her. Why don't we lock her up in the brig and decide what to do later? That's the best thing for her. It'll keep her safe from guys like us. We'll post guards." "Good idea," a few guys said nodding. Rex looked over at me and pointed, saying,"Harold's safe. He didn't want any of the women. We'll put Harold on first watch, okay?" Rex winked at me, as if he thought he was giving me a second chance to get laid tonight by a woman. A few guys led the frightened girl out of the bunkhouse and I followed. We went up to the brig and they put the girl inside, locking the steel door behind her and tossing me the key. "We trust you Harold," Joe, one of the guys on my work crew, said. "We'll exempt you from four hours work each day this week until we get ahold of that yacht to come back for her, okay? For now you'll take first watch and rotate guard duty with Kevin every two hours." The guys left and I sat down at a desk nearby and started reading the computer. There was a good novel playing currently so I read that for most of my shift when all of a sudden I heard the girl calling my name. She must have heard Joe say my name earlier or something so I didn't think much of it. "Harold," she said peeking her head through the tiny square window on the door. "Come here, Harold, I want to explain something." Just then Kevin walked in the room to relive me from duty. "Anything I should be aware of?" Kevin asked as I tossed him the keys. "No," I said. "She was trying to get me to talk to her just now but other than that she hasn't tried anything funny." "Okay," Kevin said nodding as I stood up to leave. "I won't let her trick me or anything. Go on to bed. I'll see you in two hours." "Later," I said leaving. ___-----___ I didn't get much sleep because not more than forty minutes later the guys woke me up with worried expressions on their faces. "What's wrong?" I asked. "The girl's gone," Rex replied. "So is Kevin and Jim. I went up to check on the girl and found the cell door wide open." "We'll have to spread out to find them," another guy said. "We still didn't install sensors in this damn place. I mean, who's gonna rob an empty rock out in space anyway, right? So we've got to find them on foot." "That could take days," I realized aloud, knowing the mines down below stretched on for miles and miles. The only thing that might give us a chance to find the girl, and the other guys as well, was to possibly cut off the food supply and sooner or later they would just show up out of hunger. Unless of course they took their own food with them, in which case it would take weeks to find them. Of course, nobody really knew what had happened, but I suspected Jim had gone up to the brig and demanded that Kevin release the girl, possibly by use of force, and then there might have been a chase. At any case nobody was quite certain what had really gone on. All that was certain was three people were missing and we had to find them. Now where would I hide in an old outpost if I was a girl? "Come one, everyone split up," Rex ordered. "Half of you down to the mines, the rest come with me - we'll search this place from top to bottom. Come on." ___-----___ I walked down tunnel seventeen, past dozens of digger-pods. The mines were illuminated with green glowing shad-lamps stuck in the side walls here and there at random. The worst thing about the mines was the cold. The deeper you went, the further away you were from the heater units. That's why it was wise to stick close to the shad-lamps to get as much heat as you could from them. Shad-lamps were all part of the new science. Cold was literally transformed into heat and light through a microscopic perpetual reaction in the clear green rock the lamps were made from. Between the lamps it was horribly cold even with the worksuit I wore, so I paused every now and then and let a shad-lamp warm me up a bit before continuing onward into the tunnels. I continued onward until I got to tunnel twenty and decided to follow it a bit deeper into the asteroid. Radio communication in the mines was useless. Nothing could get through the tons of kelleniualite, copper, and other ore and solid rock that made up this floating mountain in space. I didn't want to go much further as the cold was really intensified in this portion of the mines. I searched a few minutes more and headed back the way I came. ___-----___ "We got the girl," Rex told me when I got back. "One other girl was with her hiding in the cargo hold. I think they were hoping their master was coming back to rescue them or something, but that yacht is long gone now. It could be awhile before that yacht comes back looking for these girls. Anyway we still can't find Jim. Kevin's back though, but now Troy's missing." "Probably still searching tunnel twelve," a guardsman suggested. "We'll send someone down there after him if he doesn't return in an hour or so." "Anyway," Rex said handing me a clipboard. "Sign in so everyone knows you're accounted for. A few of the guys thought it would be good to divvy up appointments with the girls if you know what I mean, but I don't think it's such a good idea. Not after that last escape attempt. Anyway the girls are still pretty shook up about being abandoned here alone with all us men and everything. The girls are too shook up to tell us what went on and we still have to hear Kevin's explanation for what happened since he was the one supposedly guarding the girl at the time." We all went up to the brig and Kevin sat there at the desk and looked ashamed that he let the girl escape like that. "What happened Kevin?" I asked. "I got bonked on the head," Kevin replied. "I'd rather not talk about it, but see for yourself if you don't believe me. There's the chair right there on the floor and this bump on my head had to come from somewhere, right?" Troy came walking in the room, scratching his blonde beard while curiously looking at Kevin. "Hey Troy," Rex said. "We were starting to get worried about you. We caught the girl and one other friend of hers." Troy looked puzzled and turned to look back at the way he came, then he looked at Kevin and gulped, then quickly left the room. Kevin shrugged and said,"Troy's sort of the cause of all this. He just wanted a quick lay, you know? I wasn't about to open the cell so he could rape that girl, but he just bonked me on the head and the next thing I knew, they were gone. So I chased after them." I walked over and peered through the window to the cell. The girls were just sitting there on the small bed with their hands folded in their laps, waiting patiently for their fate while they occasionally sniffled and wiped a few tears from their eyes. I felt sorry for them. They'd been through a pretty rough ordeal getting left behind. For all anyone knew, their master might never return for them. Girls like that were in a pretty tough situation. Earth laws didn't apply in space. Slavery actually was allowed in space, but mostly it was just slave girls, you know, for pleasure kings and star pimps. I think some of the girls actually liked it for some reason, either that or they were just drugged into submission fairly convincingly because every time I'd seen a slave girl she was happy, horny, and hot. Slave girls might have lost most of their freedom but not the freedom to have a good time every night. No, for them, life is just one big orgasm after another and with freedom like that I guess you don't notice the short leash around your neck after awhile. I looked the girls once more and even though they were locked away in a little jail cell, I'd trade places with either of them in a heartbeat. I don't know why, really, but I guess I sort of thought it might be fun to be a girl. It looked like fun anyway even though these two girls were in that cell. Even though most of their freedom was cut off, I know I'd be having the time of my life if I were ever lucky enough to be one of those girls in there. Make me a girl, lock me up and throw away the key and I'll be happy forever. I turned away from the cell window and walked out of the brig, back to my bed, and slept the rest of the night away. ___-----___ I woke up and got ready for a half day of mining. Turns out that not only was Jim still missing, but now so was his bunkmate, Todd. I went down to tunnel seventeen in a digger pod and used the grabber arms to claw away at the nearby wall, pulling apart clumps of minerals and letting the catcher screen sift through and collect the good stuff. Pretty boring work actually, but the hours flew by and I ate lunch and spent most of the afternoon reading a good computer. Boy, there's nothing like sitting back and reading a good computer after a few hours in the mines. ___-----___ That night someone woke me up. It was Troy. "Shhhh," he said and whispered. "No, I'm not here to remind you of your guard watch on the girls. Instead, I'd like to offer you a little business proposition. Get dressed and follow me. We'll talk out in the tunnels." I took my time about getting dressed. After all, all this guy was going to do was try and bribe me to get alone with the girls for a few minutes. He could wait. Oh I'd take the money alright, but he could damn well wait a minute or two for waking me up like that. ___-----___ "What's the deal?" I asked. He looked both ways down the corridor and then answered,"There's a cargo ship due this way in a few hours. Let's you and I stow away the girls on that ship. We can sell them for a pretty good price back on Mars. Whadda'ya say? You could use a few million plinkets, right? You'd never have to work another day in your life. Whadda'ya say? You with me?" "They'd catch us," I said. "Anyway, even if the crew on the cargo ship doesn't have us both spaced for stowing away, there's always the chance the guys here will have us tracked down. Then you've got to worry about the former master who really owns those girls in the first place." "Then don't go," Troy told me. "Don't go. Just help me get the girls on that cargo ship and we'll make like you were bonked on the head or something." "Bonked on the head?" I asked. "You mean like Kevin was, right?" "Oh, that," Troy said realizing everything pointed to him as the culprit. "Well, I'll admit what really happened earlier today was I tried a similar plan with Kevin but it went bad and they found the girls before the cargo ship could arrive. I was the one who bonked Kevin on the head to, well, to steal the girl. Anyway, we can get those girls out of here right on your shift. Everyone else will be asleep. It'll be perfect. Nobody else knows about the cargo ship coming in - well, Kevin would have found out but I told him I only wanted the girl for a few romps in the closet if you know what I mean. Well, we can have the girls out of here in an hour or so if you'll help me. It's a plan that can't fail." "Unless I don't go along with it either, like Kevin," I pointed out. Troy sighed and said,"Okay. Tell you what. I'll give you seventy percent of what we get from selling those slave girls, okay? If money is what you want, then let's talk numbers. Is seventy percent fair? I think it's fair, don't you? Whadda'ya say Harold? Are you in on the deal or what?" What did I have to lose? If I got caught, they'd put me in a slave mine somewhere, but I was already a miner of my own free will so I'd be right back where I started. The absolute worse that could happen is the crew on that cargo ship would catch us and space us and keep the girls for themselves. That alone was reason enough to not agree to the deal, yet the money sounded good, and I could use a bit of adventure right about now. Yet something about this plan didn't make sense. What was the cargo ship coming here for anyway? "Troy," I said in a suspicious tone. "Why exactly is this cargo ship coming here off schedule? Why isn't it in the logs or anything?" He looked nervous all of a sudden and broke into a sweat. "There's more to this plan than you're telling me, Troy," I accused, poking him in the chest. "You'd better tell me what you're up to or I'm reporting you to the guys. No cargo ship's going to come here unannounced and just wait there for ten minutes and then just leave again with a couple of stowaway kidnappers and slave girls from Neptune. Someone called for this ship, right? I bet you called for this ship, didn't you? Plus, why all the fuss over a couple of slave girls? It probably costs more to have a cargo ship travel all this way for just two girls. What is it you're not telling me, Troy?" He pulled out a little bottle of pills from his coat pocket and handed me the bottle. "What's this?" I asked opening the bottle. "Dizzy-ups," he answered. "I've got three crates of the stuff stashed away. About a billion plinkets per crate. For the last year or so I've been hiding kelleniualite dust in one of the tunnels and converting it into dizzy-ups. Sort of an expensive high, but then again you didn't actually believe they'd really let us sell unregistered slave girls back on Mars, did you? Heck, I was going to give you your million plinkets and keep the slave girls for myself after I sold this stuff. So what's the difference now? If you don't help me, I can't get this shipment off this damn hell hole. At least not now that you know the real plan." "So you were going to make me think we were stowaways the whole time when the real danger was getting caught by the Earth-Feds with this drug shipment?" I asked. "That's about it," Troy answered nodding. "What about the girls then?" I asked. "It still doesn't make sense. You're still not telling me something. With three billion plinkets you could get any girl you wanted. You could buy a whole army of slave girls if you wanted with that kind of dough. Plus, what ever happened to Jim during your first plan anyway?" "Why don't you just go start your guard shift and try one of those dizzy-ups, Harold?" Troy suggested patting me on the back. "You're all worried over nothing. You need to relax, man. Think all this over for awhile. Just think it over and then I'll stop by and you let me know one way or the other what you've decided, okay?" "What happened to Jim?" I asked again. Troy pat me on the back and smiled, then walked away. Whatever was going on, Troy intended to keep me in the dark about Jim. I bet Jim was in on this whole fiasco. He was probably the one who helped make up all the dizzy-ups, or was there more to it than that? Troy came to me for help, but why did he need my help for when he could have just as easily smuggled out the drugs himself? I then realized he needed my help to get the girls out of the brig because I was the only other guard, and Troy knew he wouldn't trick Kevin twice, but why did he need the girls in the first place? What was so special about the girls in all this? If I told the other guys what Troy told me, then the jig was up, but that wouldn't help me find out what happened to Jim. Troy knew the answer, but wouldn't tell me. I didn't need to accept his offer, but if I was going to find out the rest of the answers to this mystery, I'd have to make a decision pretty fast. If the cargo ship really was coming in an hour or so then it didn't give me much time to decide. Not as much time as I'd like anyway. Troy lied to me already about selling the slave girls and cutting me in on the profit. He even admitted to lying to Kevin in an attempt to get that one girl out of the brig. The question now was could I trust he wasn't lying again? With all the money he'd make off the alleged drug shipment, he wouldn't even need the girls. Why risk all that money over a couple of girls? Lying or not, he was offering me money one way or another and even a liar has to pay up sooner or later. If I made a few million, or even a few billion plinkets along the way, then all the more reason to go. Oh, I wasn't really into it for the drug smuggling. Heck, drugs are perfectly legal on over half the planets in the solar system, so I didn't feel that guilty about helping Troy if it meant I'd make an instant fortune and have a little adventure along the way. I didn't even know what dizzy-up really did anyway, so I didn't care who bought it. I suppose all I really wanted to do this for was to find out what was so special about the girls and why Troy needed them enough to risk loosing such a big drug shipment. Besides all that, what ever happened to Jim? ___-----___ I sat there at the guard desk and pondered over what was really in the pills. It could be dizzy-ups just like Troy said it was, but since he lied to me once, he could be lying to me again. This could be nothing more than a bunch of sleeping pills to get me konked out enough so Troy can just slip in here and steal the girls - but again, why the girls? What was so special about them? Awhile later Troy walked in and saw me. He looked a bit startled to see me, actually. Probably because I was wide awake and had seen right through his sleeping pill ploy. "Harold," he said clasping his hands together as he tried to think of something to say. "Well, well, well." "This isn't a bottle of dizzy-ups, is it Troy?" I asked tossing him back the bottle. "Can we let the girls out now?" he asked, changing the subject. "Tell me what happened to Jim," I said. "No. First I want you to take one of your so called dizzy-ups. Then we'll see if I trust you." "My God, Harold, we don't have time for this," Troy said pointing to his watch. "The ship's due here any minute now. Come on. We've got to hurry." Well, why not? Troy wasn't going to tell me the answers I wanted anyway. It came down to one thing: adventure or no adventure. I tossed him the keys and he quickly unlocked the door and let the girls out. It was about time I decided to choose adventure instead of boredom. I took another glance at the girls. One was the same beautiful young redhead I'd seen earlier. She wore a white skirt and blouse and black high heels. The other girl was a blue eyed blonde and wore a similar outfit only the skirt was red and her blouse was black with ruffled sleeves. Surprisingly both girls were very cooperative and followed Troy right down the hall and up to the cargo bay. Sure enough the cargo ship was there waiting for us, and sure enough several crew members were loading three crates into the side of an open hatchway. We hurried on board and even though the crew saw us, nobody seemed to care to ask us who we were or anything. They just let us right on the ship and continued loading the crates. We climbed up a metal ladder and into a small passenger cabin. The girls sat on a couch opposite from Troy and I. I heard the hatch closing below and then the ship rumbled to life. Before I knew it, we were on our way away from the asteroid belt and, if Troy wasn't lying about it, we were now on our way to Mars. ___-----___ The girls seemed uninterested in conversation, though I was curious to find out more about them anyway. Unfortunately with Troy around the girls were too afraid to speak to me. I don't know why but it was almost like he already became their new master and the girls were secretly following his orders to keep quiet. "This is a very important shipment," Troy said. "We're talking lots of money, Harold. I forgot to mention it but I'm sure you'd remind me sooner or later - the drugs are going to bring me at least three billion plinkets. I'm prepared to share some of the profits with you. I know I lied about selling the girls, but that was to cover up this drug ring. Anyway one evil's as good as another, eh Harold?" "What did you bring the girls for?" I asked. Troy pulled a silver computer disk from his coat pocket and waved it in front of my face. "You know how tough it is to keep a secret, Harold?" Troy asked. "Oh, but you've already seen that I'm not much good at keeping secrets from you, right?" He then changed the subject. "Anyway, you were asking about Jim before. I think I'm ready to tell you now. You see, Jim was working for the wrong people all along. Like myself, he wasn't just your every day miner. No, he was working with the Earth-Feds all along. Before I barely got my first batch of drugs ready to ship out, the Feds busted the cargo ship and that, my friend, sent me back months in my plans. Well, this second batch won't be stopped because I found out Jim was with the Feds. Why, you might ask, did I choose to trust you then? Well, Harold, I've known for a long time now that you'd go along with just about anything as long as it didn't take you back to Earth. You weren't like the other guys, Harold. Most of the other guys were out on Outpost Moray to work off old debts, but you were a volunteer. You gave up everything to come this far out in space, didn't you? Well I saw you weren't very happy being stuck at Moray. I saw it everytime a prostitute walked by you and you turned her down. Why do you punish yourself like that, Harold? You could have had any of the girls the other night, but you didn't, and somehow I thought that made you someone I could trust. A neutral person, Harold. I needed a neutral person. Someone who gave up his own freedom to come out here and do hard labor and then turn down pleasure every chance he got - a neutral person, Harold. You weren't a Fed, and I could see that right off. That is where I knew you'd be the perfect one to go along with me to Mars. I knew you would, if only to just get off Outpost Moray which turned almost as sour as Earth for you, didn't it Harold? Besides . . . you were the only other guard. What choice did I have but to come to you?" I'd known Troy for awhile. He was more of a friend to me than some of the other guys. Not as good a friend as Rex, but that's only because I could handle just one friend at a time. Troy had even given me some of his days off work in some attempt to buy friendship from me. Then he became distant from everyone a few months back, but I bet that was because he knew someone had betrayed him by blowing the whistle on his first drug shipment just as he explained. It kind of made sense now. The guy really wanted off Outpost Moray and I could tell he really wanted those girls, but I still didn't know what he wanted with the girls when it was the drugs all along that would be bringing in the real money. I don't know about Troy. He was lying to me in ways that were so obvious it was as if he was going out of his way to keep changing his story. Was Jim really an Earth-Fed? Was there really a drug shipment in those crates down in the cargo hold? "So what happened to Jim then?" I asked. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Troy said putting the computer disk back in his coat pocket. "Information comes at a price, Harold. The more you know about this operation, the more you're just asking for trouble. Trust me. Information can be a bad thing. Let's just say Jim is no longer going to pose a problem for anyone, okay? I've already told you more than you need to know about all this. I'm a drug smuggler, okay? Isn't that enough for you? I'm keeping the girls for myself . . . for now anyway. What happens to the girls is none of your business anymore. I'll pay you up to twenty percent of the profit on this shipment and that's more than you would have gotten from seventy percent profit off a pair of slave girls. That's it. No more bargains now. When this is all done, you go your way and I go mine. Just forget about the girls. They're my responsibility now." The girls didn't seem to show any sign of caring about what Troy just said about them. They just sat there looking bored, occasionally yawning and looking over out the window to watch the stars. "So, dizzy-ups must be worth quite a penny on Mars, then," I said. Troy agreed, nodding, and said,"The stuff is worth a fortune, Harold. After this, I'm retiring from this racket. Kind of a one shipment kind of guy, but with as many dizzy-ups as I've got, one shipment is plenty enough anyway." "So this ship's using those new engines they came up with, huh?" I asked noting how fast the stars outside the window were moving. "Yeah," Troy nodded stroking his blonde beard. "Amazing what science can do now-a-days. Why before you know it, they'll even find a way of turning a man into a slave girl like one of these fine beauties." Troy gestured toward the girls sitting across from us and winked at me. "How about it, Harold? If you could just pop a pill and turn into a young lady, even if it meant being a little scarce in the intelligence department, and even if it meant becoming a slave girl for life, would you do it?" I shrugged, not wanting to admit to the truth that I really would consider changing into a girl, even a slave girl, if there was such an opportunity offered. "You know," Troy said. "There's actually one scientist who's done it. Well, he hasn't turned himself into a slave girl or anything but he actually has made some incredible achievements, Harold. Really incredible achievements. In fact, I'd like to introduce you to him when we arrive on Mars. His name's Dr. Aronson. You'll have to remind me, of course, as the shipment schedule will be occupying my mind most of the time, but I think you'd get a kick out of what science can do now." "Has he really done that? Has he changed a man into a woman then?" I asked thinking it was too good to be true. "I could have the computer call up some pictures for you if you'd like, but I'm afraid it wouldn't offer you much proof," Troy said. "However you must realize that Aronson's got control of the rights to his discoveries, so you couldn't just go to any scientist and expect the same results. It's actually quite amazing how changeable the human body really is. I bet Aronson will offer you a sample of what his work is capable of. Anyway, you've been working the mines longer than me, so there are a few other advances you should be aware of. First of all, teleportation booths exist now on both Earth and Mars. They don't quite trust teleportation between planets yet, but they're working on it. Secondly, the androids are fairly tough to distinguish from real humans now. Oh, but cloning is still restricted to government use only on Earth and Mars, so don't get your hopes up of buying yourself a few extra copies with the millions you'll be making off this drug deal. Anyway, I'm sure you'll find out more about all the new things technology can do. Well, looks like we're going to land here in a minute. If anyone tries to ask you about the shipment or the girls, just let me do the talking." The ship landed and we all got out and hopped in a teleporter booth. I couldn't see the numbers Troy punched on the keypad but it didn't matter much because one bright flash of light later and we were in another teleporter booth in someone's living room. A white haired middle aged man wearing a gray suit approached us as we stepped out of the booth. "This is Eliza Roberts," Troy said introducing me to the white haired man. "But most people just call him the Sandman." Troy winked at Sandman and said,"And this is my business partner, Harold." "The kelleniualite," the Sandman said ignoring my offer to shake his hand. He turned to look at Troy and asked,"Where is the shipment?" "It's a moment away from here," Troy replied taking the redheaded girl by the arm and stroking her soft skin. "Please relax, Mr. Roberts. The shipment is safe. I believe you agreed to accept the first transaction though." Sandman nodded and a few men in black suits stepped out of the shadows. They were guards of some sort. "The slave, yes," Sandman said. "You brought two though. Which is she?" "The blonde," Troy answered and the guards immediately took the girl by the arm and escorted her away down the hall. Sandman grinned and said,"Troy, you delivered her just like you promised you would. I've been after this one for a long time now. Just remember this, Troy, don't ever cross me because you know what'll happen to you if you do, got it?" Troy nodded. "Good," the Sandman said scratching his neck. "Is the other one your girlfriend or something?" "She's just a friend," Troy explained. Sandman laughed and said,"Making friends with slave girls, are you now? Come on, who was she? An enemy of yours perhaps?" Troy smiled and nodded,"Yeah. Something like that. What's the difference though? Slave girls don't tell tales." Sandman laughed again and came forward, patting Troy on the back. "Don't you forget it either, my friend," Roberts, the Sandman, laughed. "Don't you forget it." The guards returned, each carrying two suitcases. Troy walked back in the booth and pressed some buttons, then stepped back a few paces and a crate materialized. "Kelleniualite," the Sandman said clasping his hands together. "Pure unrefined magic. You have done well, Troy. Are you sure you're retiring after this is done? Why don't you consider expanding the business?" "I might," Troy said. "I might. Right now I have other business to attend to. Other clients to visit. Good to see you again, Sandman, but it's time for me to be going." The guards moved the crate out of the booth with the aid of an anti-gravity clamp. They brought the crate over to the side of the room and opened the lid. "It's the real stuff, boss," one of the guards said pulling up a handful of silvery rocks. Troy opened one of the suitcases a crack and seemed satisfied with the contents so he quickly closed it back up and turned to me and said,"Grab those two suitcases there. Come on, we're going." "Don't be a stranger," Sandman said with a sly grin. "At least I hope it doesn't have to come to you being a stranger, my friend. Good luck, Troy." Troy, and the redhead and I walked back inside the teleporter booth and I again saw a flash of white light and we were somewhere else. Well, I was somewhere else anyway. Troy and the girl were gone. Somehow they gave me the slip and had me routed somewhere else for transit. At least I still had the two suitcases though. ___-----___ Once again Troy lied to me. He said he was selling drugs, but Roberts mentioned it was pure unrefined kelleniualite. He said he was keeping both girls, but he only kept one. I stepped out of the booth and set the suitcases down and opened them. Sure enough, just like I thought, he ripped me off. Nothing but sand. All this for nothing. Mr. Roberts was playing along the whole time with this setup. They were going to trick me all along. It would figure they called him the Sandman, only I had to learn the hard way. Nothing but sand in the suitcases. Cheap, slimy bastards ripped me off. I looked around at the garden I stood in. There were little bonsai trees, shrubs, and flowers all around a cobblestone path that wound around and around up a sloping hill right up to the back porch of a little red house. I looked up at the blue sky and realized this wasn't Mars at all. The son of a bitch! He took me back to Earth! "Troy!" I yelled up at the sky. "You son of a bitch!" We never went to Mars at all! ___-----___ I walked up the little garden path to the back porch of the house and knocked on the door. A few moments later an old man opened the door. He was a short, bald man with glasses. He stood there in his red bathrobe holding a newspaper in one hand and he looked at me kind of funny. "I seem to be lost," I explained. He shook his head and waved his hand like he wanted nothing to do with me and he started to shut the door. "No, wait!" I pleaded and he turned back around to face me. "I really need your help. You see-" "The Sandman, right?" he asked. "Yeah," I said. "How did you know?" He pointed across his garden to the large sand pile that lay between some trees. "I wouldn't mind you know," he said and sighed. "That is, I wouldn't mind if I were in the sand business, which I'm not, but I'm getting tired of this, as well you can imagine. They come and go, you know, suckers like you come and go all the time. I'm tired of the whole affair. Always bringing sand. Endless supplies of sand." He paused and pointed to some barrels that lined one pathway. "See what I mean? Gallons and gallons of the stuff. Tons and tons. Bah! I don't want any more! You just take the sand you brought with you and get off my property before I call the police." "Gladly, sir, but I still would like to know where, exactly, this place is," I said. "You're in my back yard, that's where you are." he snapped. "Now quit bothering me. I'm tired of people like you coming around and asking for help or asking for directions all the time. People coming and going, always in a hurry, they are, and always the same thing: `Sandman ripped me off' they tell me. Well do you think I give an elephant's behind about any of it? Well do you?" "No sir," I replied. "And well that you don't," he said wagging his rolled up newspaper at me. "The police won't let me get rid of the teleporter. They keep trying to trace where you suckers are beaming in from, but so far no luck in tracking down this so-called Sandman fellow." "Why would the Sandman be doing this to you?" I asked looking around at the pile of sand again. "It's the number," the old man replied. "All one's. Easy to remember, you see. They dumped you here in transit, right?" "Yeah," I nodded. "See," he explained. "That's illegal and it ruins the trace pattern, or so the cops told me. Only a few criminals even have the capability to use splice-dumping like they did on you. You know, one of these days that Sandman fellow is going to mess up, and then me and a certain dump truck are going to pay him a little visit. That's right, son, just you keep watching the papers. One day Sam Dawson's going to stick sand down Sandman's pants and let the cops take him to Timbucktoo. Now just turn yourself back around and teleport yourself away from here, and take the sand you brought with you." He turned and closed the door. I walked back to the teleporter and figured out how to use the electronic directory and teleport to a hotel. I didn't bother bringing the sand with me like the old man asked. I mean, how stupid do I look anyway? At least I was able to get a hotel room, but I was still furious about what Troy did to me. He wasn't ever going to let me in on the deal at all. I was just extra baggage just like the suitcases of sand he discarded along with me. I knew I could return to the outpost if I came up with a good enough excuse, but I sure as hell wasn't going to go back and explain how Troy tricked me all the way back to Earth. He knew I hated Earth. He knew it, and yet he did this to me anyway. The evil bastard! I'll kill him if I ever see him again. He's dead for doing this to me. Earth. Of all places, why did it have to be Earth? I sat down at the desk in my hotel room and used the library computer to see if I could track down someone I knew. I couldn't afford to live in a hotel for very long. Not with my salary cut to nothing all of a sudden. I had to find a less expensive place to stay for awhile. My parents - well that was already out of the question. I wasn't going to live with either my mom or dad. The divorce situation was just too much tug-of-war with me as the rope. No, I couldn't go back to that again. Friends - well, not much better there either. I was never that close to any of my so-called friends to suddenly drop by and announce I was staying at their place for awhile until I could find a job. I gave up searching for a place to be a bum and decided I'd just take a small vacation for awhile anyway. I had enough money for about a three week's vacation, but not at this hotel. I'd have to find a cheaper hotel or something. On a whim, I searched the databanks for any record of a Dr. Aronson. I figured that Troy might not have been lying about this Aronson guy. At least I hoped he wasn't lying. To my surprise, a Dr. Aronson actually existed in the area. My heart skipped a beat or two and I had to catch my breath from what I saw next. According to the directory, Dr. Aronson was actually a well renowned research scientist! Well, that did it then. First thing in the morning I was going to go down there and have a little talk with Dr. Aronson and see if he could help me track down Troy. Troy slipped up this time and I knew with such a lead I'd be on his trail and after that money he promised me. Even a liar has to pay up sooner or later. ___-----___ After a fairly restful sleep I got ready and checked out of the hotel first thing in the morning. I punched in the teleporter number for Dr. Aronson's office and I was there quite literally in a flash. I stepped out of the booth and into a waiting room. A blonde teenage girl in a red dress walked by me smiling and repeatedly kissed a bottle of medicine like it was a box of candy or something. I walked up to the receptionist's window and she said hello. "Hi," I said. "I'd like to see Dr. Aronson please." "Do you have an appointment?" the receptionist asked. "No," I shrugged. "Then would you like to make an appointment?" she asked. "Look, I just need to talk to him," I said. "I need to ask him a few questions." "I'm sorry, but the Doctor is busy," she explained. "You'll have to make an appointment." A little man half my height tried to push past me. "Hey buddy, move it," he piped "I've got a complaint to register, okay? I ain't got all day." "Just a moment," the receptionist told me, standing and peering down over the counter at the midget. She seemed to recognize him immediately and said,"Mr. Duff, I told you there is nothing we can do. You signed a waiver and took the experimental treatments anyway. There is nothing more we can do for you at this time. As soon as the Doctor finds something we'll let you know, but until then there's nothing more we can do." "But they were only one hour pills," Mr. Duff complained. "This wasn't supposed to happen." "Side effects happen from time to time, Mr. Duff," the receptionist explained. "Especially with experimental research. You volunteered for this, remember? I'm sure the doctor is working on a cure right now, but we really have done all we can for you, Mr. Duff. Are you sure you still won't consider the permanent alternative to your situation?" "Heck no," he yelled, waving his tiny arms up in the air. "You think I'm some sort of sicko? I did this for the money, not for some cheap thrill." He slapped me in the side and said,"Crazy wacko nurse thinks I actually LIKED being a little girl. Sheesh . . . hundred plinkets a day for a month I had to put up with bein' someone's adopted little girl. God, you think any guy in his right mind would want to do that for nothin'? I mean, for nothin' the rest of his life? Come on, buddy, you don't want to do business with these people." "That will be enough of that, Mr. Duff," the receptionist said and looked at me apologetically. "He's a special case, you see. This doesn't always happen." "Special case?" Mr. Duff asked throwing his arms up in the air again. "Look at what they did to me!" He kicked the wall nearby and turned around and walked in the teleporter and vanished. "I'm sorry, sir," the receptionist said. "I'm sorry you had to see him throw a fit like that. It's really rare for a patient to suffer such side effects, you see. To make it up to you, I can have you see the Doctor right away if you'd like. I'll just squeeze you in between some other appointments. Please fill out these forms and I'll see about getting you in to see the Doctor as soon as possible. Again, I'm sorry you had to see Mr. Duff throw such a fit like that." "But I'm not-" I said and cut myself off. I was going to say I wasn't here to see the doctor about any experimental treatments, but then again it did sound fairly interesting. I mean, if it were actually possible for a guy to change into a girl . . . well, I was curious to find out if it really worked. It would be interesting to find out what it would be like to switch sex like that. "Nevermind," I said taking the forms and a pen from the receptionist. I walked over to the couch and sat down and quickly began filling out the paperwork. ___-----___ Awhile later I was sitting atop a padded table on a sheet of paper. On the counter across the little room, there were a few plastic models of the male and female reproductive system as well as a few models of the female breasts. The room was painted pink on one side and blue on the other. A little poster on the pink side read: "Get a life. Be a girl." Another sign on the blue wall read: "Be a man." The door opened and in walked a five foot tall man in his early to mid thirties. He brushed his black hair back with one hand and set a clipboard down on the counter with the other. "Hello there," he said offering me a handshake. "You must be Harold. I'm Dr. Aronson." "Hi," I said shaking his hand briefly until he broke off the handshake and went over to the sink to wash his hands. "Sorry to shake hands and wash up like this," he said laughingly as he finished washing his hands and started drying them with a paper towel. "Med school can get you into some rather odd habits you know. Anyway, what is it I can do for you today, Harold?" He looked at the clipboard and nodded. "I see . . . Interesting . . . So you want to get involved in some paid volunteer research, do you? Well, right now the only paid program we have going is the child adoption program. It's on a month by month basis and once you sign up for a month, you're obligated to complete your assignment. The program does have it's dangers as well as it's benefits, but I can go over all that if you're really interested. Now on the other hand if you want to go with a sampler kit, which consists of four pills and a follow-up visit, I can certainly help you come to a better decision about where you, if I may quote you here, "want to go in life." " "The sampler kit sounds good," I said nervously. "Very well then," he said walking over to the counter to scribble something down on the clipboard. "I think you'll find the variety quite interesting. " He set the clipboard aside and opened a cupboard and took out a large blue shopping bag with black plastic handles. He handed me the bag and said,"Inside you'll find four outfits - they're yours to keep as part of the bill. There is also a box with four pills, each labeled differently." I looked in the bag and saw some bluejeans, t-shirts, and other clothes for boys of various ages. "No," I said handing him the bag back. "You misunderstood me. I want the sampler kit for girls." "Oh, my," he said taking the bag and putting it back in the cupboard where it came from. "I'm sorry. I get in the bad habit of trying to second-guess the patient's wishes. The girls samplers are over here." He walked over to the pink side of the room and brought out a pink shopping bag with red plastic handles and handed it to me. I looked in the bag and saw dresses and things. Girls clothes. I nodded in approval and the doctor smiled and went over to the clipboard again and wrote something else down. "I advise you to take precautions," he warned me. "You'll only keep each form for a duration of about an hour, and I'm assuming you know better than to have sex under age so I won't elaborate on things I just won't tolerate, but if you do have sex, regardless of the fact that it is impossible to get pregnant with only a one hour timeframe, I still highly recommend you take precautions. Martian VD can still be caught, you know, so don't take any chances. I recommend you avoid sex altogether as this is probably your first time you'll be a girl. Take it easy and gradually. I can always prescribe more pills for you which you can only pick up at my office. Take each pill tonight. I must warn you though, that the six year old girl formula has not yet been perfected and you might suffer some side effects if you decide to try that pill. I will leave it up to your own best judgment since you have already signed the waiver. Go home. Try each pill, but wait about an hour or so in between just so your body doesn't go into shock from repeated metamorphosis at close intervals. You'll feel a bit funny at first, but I'm sure you'll get used to your peek into the female side of life with each pill. Take it slow and easy and don't rush things. Sex isn't everything you know. Just stay at home and get a good idea about which body suits you best. I'd like you to return to my office tomorrow morning and let me know what happened. Also, I have a list of suggested things to keep you occupied while in each different body. Give the list a try and let me know what happened." "Yes Doctor," I said and then asked. "Have you ever met a miner named Troy? A guy with a blonde beard. He said he knew you." "Troy . . . ," Dr. Aronson said scratching his chin. "You don't mean Troy McCulty?" "Yeah," I nodded, making a mental note of Troy's last name. "Troy?" he asked. "Yeah, I know him. He sort of helped jump start my business a few years back but then he ran into some trouble of some sort and he left. As a matter of fact I do believe he said he was going into the mining business but I didn't believe him. I don't think too many people ever trusted Troy, come to think of it. Why did you ask? Is Troy in trouble again?" "Sort of," I said, thinking to myself that the trouble Troy was in was with me because I was going to kill him whenever I caught up with him for what he did. "It's just that he mentioned your name before, that's all." "Do you know where he is?" Dr. Aronson asked. "I think he's right here on Earth," I shrugged. "Interesting," the doctor said. "Well, if he's here then he'll probably be paying me a visit sooner or later. Oh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be talking about the other patients. Anyway, I think if you go up to the receptionist just outside, you can setup an appointment for tomorrow morning. Good day, Harold." I took the shopping bag and walked back out to the waiting room. A woman in her forties stood there at the counter talking to the receptionist while holding hands with what could only be her little daughter. "She was just a darling the first couple weeks," the woman explained to the receptionist. "But lately she's been giving me and John some trouble. She doesn't want to take her medicine anymore." The receptionist peered out the window down at the little girl and wagged her finger,"My, my, my. Little girls mustn't be naughty like that." "But I'm NOT a little girl," the child complained stomping her foot. "I'm NOT, I'm NOT." "Now, now, now," the receptionist said. "Remember, you made a promise sweetheart. You made a promise when you signed the papers." Then she turned to the child's mother and said,"Well it's your call, Mrs. Phillips. The time is subject to extension under the contract. How much longer do you need?" Mrs. Phillips bit her lip and looked down at her adopted little girl with some concern and looked back up at the receptionist and replied,"Well, I don't know . . . I don't want to traumatize the poor dear by stretching this out." "If the child isn't cooperating we can extend the duration up to a year if necessary," the receptionist explained. "I recommend at least another month. After all, you deserve satisfaction in your end of the bargain." "Oh but I couldn't," Mrs. Phillips said. "One more month? I'd feel awfully guilty . . . Perhaps two more weeks." "Very well," the receptionist said stamping a piece of paper with a rubber stamp. "Time extended. Here are enough pills for two more weeks. Please let us know if the child continues to be a problem and we will find a more cooperative little girl for you." "Two weeks?!" the little girl complained. "Noooo! But I'm not a little girl. I'm NOT, I'm NOT!" The mother and daughter turned and walked past me and into the teleporter booth. A moment later they were gone. "Good volunteers are so hard to find these days," the receptionist explained as I stepped up to the counter. "Yes," I agreed nervously. "I need to come back tomorrow morning for a follow-up. Oh - and what about the billing situation?" "We'll just debit your account," she explained and checked the appointment book and looked up at me. "Is nine okay for you?" "Sure," I said and she scribbled it down on the calendar. "We'll see you then," she said and I headed for the teleporter. ___-----___ I got back to my hotel room and quickly shut the door and pulled the drapes closed. I don't know what good it would do since most of these rooms had hidden security cameras in them anyway, but I just didn't want the whole world to get a peep show of what I was about to do. I opened the shopping bag and laid out all the girls clothes on the bed. Then I took out the little bottle of pills and poured them out into my hand and sorted through them. The pills were pink and all had "grl" written on them, which I took to mean "girl" and there were numbers to the right of that, which I suppose was for the age. Grl-18, Grl-21, Grl-14, Grl-6. Four different pills. I went into the bathroom and got a glass of water, then I put the Grl-21 pill in my mouth and swallowed it with the water. I went back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed and watched some television. About ten minutes later I felt kind of light headed and dizzy. My vision blurred and then my stomach cramped up and I fell to the floor. A minute later when I got back up, I was a girl. It all happened so fast. I no longer felt light headed or dizzy and my vision returned to normal, but now I was a young woman. My male clothes no longer fit so I took those off right away. Any excuse to have a naked woman in the hotel room, right? Well, that naked woman was me, and no matter how I tried, I just couldn't stop admiring the new me. It was fantastic. Every little part of me was just perfect from head to toe. I spent the rest of the hour just looking at myself. Mostly I just looked at myself in the mirror, but I also had time for some more intimate self exploration. By the time I was ready to check out the list of things to do in this new body, I felt the dizziness return and I knew I'd run out of time and was changing back into a man again. Minutes later I was a "he" again. I know the doctor said to wait about an hour between pills, but I was just too anxious to try out the next body. I plopped a grl-18 pill into my mouth and swallowed it with more water. I don't know what happened next because one minute I was watching television again and the next thing I knew, I blacked out. I woke up on the floor with the television still on. I got up to see what time it was and realized I not only was not a woman, but I had been unconscious for the last five hours! My body just couldn't take two transformations that close together. Well, I just wasted the grl-18 pill, and now I had just two left. I waited about one more hour before getting brave enough to try another girl pill. This time I tried grl-14. Well, just like before I felt dizzy and cramped up and then felt rapid changes flowing through my body. This time I also could literally feel myself shrinking in height as I became a fourteen year old girl. I looked in the big wall mirror and saw I was just under five feet tall now. I was kind of short and thin. I became a blue eyed girl with shoulder length red hair cut into straight bangs in the front. I had a few freckles on my face and my chest wasn't all that big, which was okay for a girl my age I guess. I was kind of spunky looking, kind of like those wiry little gymnast girls on TV all the time. I discarded my male clothes quite awhile ago and I still was naked. I walked over to the bed and picked up the list the doctor had provided for me. One of the suggested activities for this particular body was swimming, and as I glanced over at the silky white one-piece bathing suit lying there on the bed, I remembered this hotel had an indoor pool. Within minutes I was in that bathing suit feeling all snug and comfy all over, and I was down on the fourth floor annex standing on the diving board above an Olympic sized pool. I checked my rubber cap to make sure my hair was going to be alright, and then remembered it wouldn't make a difference anyway since in less than an hour I'd be a guy again. I dived in and swam to the other end of the pool. I wasn't that fast of a swimmer before but with this new, younger female body, I swam swiftly through the water. A few more laps later and I climbed out of the pool and dried off. I sat down on a bench and looked down at my feet in wonder. The bottom edge of my feet had a pinkness to it. It was like brand new skin. In a way - it was. In fact everything about me now was new. So far I'd tried three new bodies, though was unconscious while in one of them. Of the two that I could remember, this younger body was definitely the body of choice for me. I wasn't so drop dead gorgeous that I couldn't stop looking in the mirror like that twenty-one year old woman's body I had before. This time I was just a plain old pretty girl. Just a teenage girl who still had a few years of development to go which was just about right for me. I mean if I had to choose a new body to keep, this one would be it. Just enough beauty in me to attract some attention but not too much attention. That would suit me just fine and it would give me time to grow and learn about what it meant to be a woman. I went back upstairs to my hotel room and took a quick shower and changed my clothes. I sat on the floor in some shorts and a pink t-shirt and I started doing some stretches, as the doctor's list suggested I try. I tried the splits, which was amazingly easy to do now, and I could do the splits both sideways and forwards too. I could even stretch over and grab each foot. I got up and then arched my back all the way backward until I could reach down and touch the carpet with my hands. Then I kicked my right leg up and over and was doing a handstand for a moment before I brought both legs down again. I got up and turned on the radio and started dancing all over the hotel room. My small breasts bounced up and down under my t-shirt a little too. I knew for a fact that this was going to be my body of choice if I ever could afford the permanent transformation. I felt the dizziness and stomach cramps come back again and I knew I was changing back into a man. I didn't like the thought of going back to being my old self. I didn't much want to be the old thirty-three year old guy with thinning brown hair and not nearly a fraction of the energy this fourteen year old girl's body had. It was a crime to have to go back to being my old ugly male self again after being such a pretty girl just now. As it was, the sampler kit was going to cost me two weeks of my vacation money. Now I'd only have a week left to find work again or I'd really be in for some trouble. I forgot to get out my girl's clothes and heard my shorts rip as they pressed tighter and tighter into my crotch and waist. My t-shirt also ripped on the arm sleeves and around the neck. I stood there beside the bed and looked over at the wall mirror. I was a man once more. I immediately felt the drain of energy from becoming my thirty-something male self. No more spunk. No more agility. Just plain old Harold again. I got out of the torn clothes and into my male clothes. I called room service and had some Italian food delivered for dinner. Then I spent the rest of the evening brooding over whether or not to try that last girl pill. After seeing what happened to Mr. Duff, and after hearing the warning from Dr. Aronson about possible side effects on this last pill, I just wasn't sure I wanted to go ahead with the next sample life. I already knew being a fourteen year old girl was tons better for me than an older woman and especially better than being a man any day, but being a little girl was something altogether different. I wasn't sure I wanted to try that just yet. I finally decided to hold off on it. If the doctor asked, I'd just lie and say I tried all four bodies, that's all. I stuck the grl-6 pill back in the bottle and set it aside for now. Then I watched a bit of television and went to bed. ___-----___ I went down to Aronson's office the next morning. I got there a bit early so I just sat in the waiting room and read a few magazines and occasionally glanced over at other patients who sat there waiting themselves. A young brunette woman sitting across from me smiled and said,"I sold my house." "Pardon me?" I said and set my magazine down. "I sold my house," she repeated smoothing out her light blue dress with both hands. "That's nice," I said picking up another magazine from the coffee table between us and she smiled at me. "I had to," she explained. "I'm going permanent today you see. Costs lots of money to go permanent you know." "I see," I said nodding and turning to another page in the magazine. "I had to skip my medicine to close the sale," she explained. "Ah-hah," I said uninterested in her life's story. "It was dreadful," she added. "I was always such a bald little man. It was embarrassing to go back to that, even for one day." She leaned over and spoke in a low whisper,"If you want my advice, go permanent right away. Temporary treatment's just putting off the inevitable and is just a big waste of money. Get it over with and the sooner the better too. I mean, and who wants to take two pills a day anyway, right? Just buy the body for God's sake and stop renting. That's what I say. I wish I thought of that three years ago, but I kept putting it off. Do you know, my last boyfriend socked me right in the jaw. Right in the jaw when he found out I was a half-girl. I mean, I'm a real woman when I'm on these pills, right? No sense using names. He socked me in the jaw and called me a half-girl. I guess I kind of had it coming for not telling him in the first place, and he wouldn't have known it until one day I woke up an hour too late and had changed back to a guy again before I could get to my medicine. Oh it was horrible. I didn't want him to see me like that but he did and I lost him for it. If you want my advice, go permanent. Save yourself some trouble and go permanent as soon as you can. You'll thank me for it when you do, and you won't have all those stupid follow-up visits to go to either." "Okay," I said and she sat back up and pulled out a little compac from her purse and began checking herself out in the little mirror. "I can understand the importance of the little make-up and hygiene advice the staff here at Doc Aronson's gives, but the cost just adds up after awhile," she said powdering her face a little before closing up the compac and placing it back in her purse. "A girl can learn. Given time, a girl can learn, right? I could have learned all this stuff on my own, right? Well, anyway I sold my house, like I said, and today I'm going permanent with this body. Thank God for that. Taking pills just to maintain a halfway decent body is just too much for a girl to put up with all the time. Anyway, my official name from now on out is Sarah Wellsworth." "I'm Harold," I told her. "So nice to meet you, Harold," she said digging in her purse and pulling out a small bottle of hand lotion. She squirted a little lotion into the palm of her left hand and then replaced the bottle back in the purse and started rubbing her hands together. "One thing I can't figure out is why my hands chap so easily now. I mean, as a guy I never had this problem. Oh well, I suppose the female body is fairly high maintenance after all. High maintenance but well worth it. So what are you here for, Harold?" I set my magazine aside and said,"Just a follow-up visit. I tried the sampler package yesterday." "How did you like it?" she asked. "Wasn't that something else, eh?" She gave me a knowing smile and winked. "Yeah," I agreed. "Bet you never thought you'd get to go through something like that, huh?" she asked folding her hands and placing them in her lap. "Nope," I said. "How was the little girl pill?" she asked curious. "You know, three years ago when I took my samplers, they hadn't even invented the little girl pills yet." "It was okay," I lied, not wanting to tell her I deliberately held off on taking that particular pill. "Glad to see you didn't suffer any visible side effects," she said unfolding her hands and crossing her legs ladylike. "You know, one guy wasn't so lucky. Poor fellow got stuck a shrimp when the girlness wore off." "I know," I nodded. "I saw him yesterday. Really sad thing to happen, but I hear they're working on a solution." "Yeah, yeah," Sarah said sarcastically. "Right. Like they're really concerned about fixing things after the fact, Harold. This place is designed to leach people of their money even if side effects pop up every once in awhile in some of the customers. Like I said before, make up your mind and get the permanent change and you won't have to worry about side effects every time the temp pills wear off. Say, I bet you didn't read all the fine print on the forms you signed for that sampler kit, did you?" "What do you mean?" I asked. "I read what I thought needed reading." "Yeah," she agreed. "I bet you did. So I bet it's okay with you that your male half is sterile now, right?" "What are you talking about?" I asked and gulped, looking down at my pants in horror now. She'd better be joking about that. "It was in the fine print," she said smiling. "`Treatment is known to cause sterility in subject's birth sex.' It's right there on page one of the waiver forms. Oh, but since you read it and signed it, the doctor probably thought he didn't need to explain that to you out loud. If you don't have children now, Harold, you're certainly no longer capable of fathering any new ones with your sperm. The only way to gain fertility again is to go all the way and become a woman." "Then what about women patients who become men?" I asked. "That's no different," she told me. "Birth sex equals sterility in this program, honey. The pills are little miracle workers but there is a price to pay for just sampling the experience of being a member of the opposite sex and expecting to just walk away unaffected. If you ask Dr. Aronson, he'll tell you he deliberately designed the pills that way. It helps to force you into making a decision. If you've taken the sampler pills, then you've fallen for the bait and the hook has taken something from you that you will never regain again - virility of your birth body. If you want children of your own now, honey, you'll have to become a woman and bear them yourself. I hate to break the bad news, but you've just given up the easy side of reproduction for good, Harold. If you'd taken the trouble to examine yourself this morning, you'd have found that your testes have shrunken up right back into your abdomen. With the girl pills, you can have fully functional ovaries, but without the pills you'll just have testes that are just as dried up as a hundred year old man." I was speechless. Just too shocked for words from what she said, but it was true. Even though I'd turned down those slave girls who visited Outpost Moray, I still got hardons around beautiful women. It wasn't something a guy could really control, you know, but now I fully realized why I was able to sit here in this waiting room with a beautiful young brunette sitting across from me and my body was getting no sexual responses what-so-ever. No hardon or anything. It was just like she said. It had to be true because the changes I went through last night were so complete that I just never thought about what the side effects could be, but it made sense. It made sense that I'd dry up like that. I mean, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, right? Even under the new science where that rule was being broken every day, there were cases where the good old science rules came up every once in awhile when you least expected. "It's true," she nodded. "You'll never have any kind of satisfying sex ever again as a man from now on, Harold. You're just not capable of sex as a man anymore. You've taken a peek into a woman's world through a few sampler pills and now you really truly are no longer capable of being a man in bed anymore. No balls, no sperm, no hardons, no nothing. If you thought you could just see what it's like to be a girl and then walk away with that knowledge for free, well then think again Harold because you've given up your balls for a couple hours of paradise. This time curiosity did something different than just kill the cat, didn't it Harold? It crippled the cat . . . right between the legs it crippled it." "I guess I should have been more careful," I said feeling sick now. "Who would have thought something like that would be hidden in the fine print?" "So," Sarah said. "I guess even now if you didn't want to be a girl, you'll at least consider it in order to get back some sort of sex life, right? That's the trap, Harold. That's why the sampler kit was relatively cheap and you didn't even need any sort of psychological testing or anything. Just for a few hours worth of play-acting you're a girl and boom! Hook line and sinker - you're now in the program. Unless you've got almost two hundred thousand plinkets, you'll have to either be a sterile man the rest of your life, or you'll have to enroll in the twice-a-day girl pill program . . . unless you're going to sign up for the little girl program, in which you'd actually get paid for that, but with some drawbacks, conditions, and various little traps written into the contract, in which case you'd only have to take one pill per day." "Yeah," I said. "I hear the money's not too bad, a hundred plinkets per day. I might consider that option if I can't find a job by the beginning of next week." "Just be careful, Harold," Sarah cautioned me. "I don't want to see you get hurt. I've heard lots of patients who signed up for that program washed out and wound up with worse problems than they started with, or more commonly, they were forced into permanent change and adoption by exceeding the maximum number of penalty points allowed. I've looked over the contracts myself once or twice, Harold, and I've seen how easy it would be for a parent or guardian to accuse the child of breaking the rules outlined in the program. Dr. Aronson and his staff always trust the parents and guardians, you see, and the child almost never gets a say in the matter in any kind of defense against the accusation. All they have to do is keep extending the month by month duration period through penalties and before you know it, the child's racked up enough penalty points before the year time limit on extension and she's given one last and very powerful girl pill and set up for adoption. Be careful, Harold. I don't want to see you get hurt. I don't want to see anyone get hurt by joining that experimental program. If you want to be a little girl, then do yourself a favor and agree on permanent change and adoption, otherwise you might be putting yourself through hell thinking you'll some day change back to your normal self when in reality that day never comes." "Sarah," a nurse said from the doorway. "Sarah Wellsworth? The doctor is ready to see you now." Sarah stood up and smiled at me. "I'm going permanent today," she said happily. "I can't believe it. Anyway, Harold, it's been good talking with you. I hope you make a smart decision. Good luck Harold." She followed the nurse out of the waiting room. A few minutes later the nurse came back and called my name. "Harold?" she said. "If you'd like, please follow me. The doctor's still busy with another patient but you may wait in the other room back here." I followed her down the hallway and she led me into a little room and told me to sit on the table. This room wasn't split blue and pink like the previous one I was in yesterday. No, this room was entirely pink. Pink's for girls. Were they trying to give me a hint as to what to decide on this morning? "The doctor will be with you in a few minutes," the nurse said walking out into the hall, closing the door behind her. I waited five minutes and then heard the doctor's footsteps out in the hall. He paused and opened the door and said,"I'll be with you in just a few moments. There's a child patient I have to see. Priorities you know." He closed the door again and I could hear a little girl in the next room whining and yelling. Through the fairly thin walls, I could hear just about everything that was going on. "Mmmmmmm NOOOOO!" the little girl cried. "No! I don't wanna!" "She won't take her pills," an older woman said. "I tried to force her but she kept spitting it out." "Now, now," I heard the doctor say in a tone that could only be meant for the child. "Throwing a tantrum's not going to get you out of it, Darla." "My name's not Darla!" the girl protested, stomping loud enough for me to hear despite the wall between the rooms. "I'm Ted Farley! I'm quitting your stupid program, Doctor. I can't take any more of this. I only agreed to a month of this crap!" "True," Aronson said. "It was only for a month, but you broke the rules. You're breaking the rules and only making it worse for yourself. Now you know, Darla, I'm going to have to recommend one more month for this kind of resistance, and penalty time is unpaid, my dear." "But I've been a little girl for over eight months now," Darla whined. "And now it'll be nine," Aronson added. "So now you have one last point on warnings. You know what that means, don't you? That means if you continue to be a bad little girl, then your stay in that body becomes permanent and you will immediately be allowed to be adopted by your current guardians who will then become your new, permanent parents." "Oh, Doctor, do you think that last warning is really necessary?" the child's acting-mother asked. "The visits to your office are really most inconvenient, Doctor. She's never going to cooperate and learn her place if we don't enforce a more permanent arrangement right away." Through the wall, I could hear the little girl start crying now. "I'll be good," Darla cried and bawled. "I'll be good, I'll be good, I'll be goo-hoo-hood . . ." "Very well, young lady," Aronson said. "One more chance then. Now here's your pill and a glass of water. Show me how you're going to be a good little girl from now on, Darla. It's just for another month. Now show me how you'll take your medicine twice a day like your mommy asks." There was silence for a moment and then I could hear the older woman give out a sigh of relief. "That's a good girl, honey," the lady said to the child. "See? It wasn't that bad. Momma forgives you, honey. Momma forgives you." She then addressed the doctor and said,"So you'll send me another check then?" "Yes, Mrs. Crothers," Aronson answered. "The receptionist will have it ready for you to pick up on your way out. I do appreciate all you've done to help make this program a success." "Not at all," Mrs. Crothers said. "Though I do feel kind of guilty that I made more money off the program than Darla did." "Yes, yes," Aronson agreed. "That is IF she makes it to the end of the program to even see her check." The doctor and Mrs. Crothers laughed together at that. "Come on Darla," Mrs. Crothers said to her child. "Let's go home now." A few minutes later the door opened again and the doctor walked in to see me. "So Harold," he said walking over to the sink to wash his hands. "I see you made it back in one piece. How did you like the sampler kit?" "Fine," I replied. "But is it true that I'm now sterile?" Aronson finished washing and drying his hands and said,"Yes. I'm afraid that was one of the known side effects mentioned in the waiver you signed. I take it you did read the documents, didn't you?" "Yes," I said shrugging. "Mostly." "Well," Aronson said. "Then I take it you must really want to be female, then, right?" "Yeah," I nodded. "Then you've come to the right place," he assured me. It was, after all, a pink room I was sitting in. Like I thought before, these people anticipated my decision all the way. "So," he said. "Which body impressed you the most, as if I need to ask? It was the twenty-one year old, right?" "Actually, I liked the fourteen year old the best," I admitted. "Which can be a problem," he told me. "You see, that's a fairly expensive model, if you intend on the permanent change. You also have to consider what you're going to do. You would, of course, be considered a minor, and as such you would need a guardian. Most parents are willing to adopt infants first, and from there it's less and less appealing for them to adopt children of higher ages. Teenagers can be a problem and are something parents usually want to get rid of, not adopt. You would have to essentially buy yourself a guardian. The older model girls are more appealing to our clients simply because it allows you the freedom to remain an adult and continue to be treated as such, plus you don't necessarily need to give up your job." "I don't have a job anymore," I told him. "Well then," he said scratching his chin. "Looks to me like that rules out any of the daily double pill programs. You need to have a job, Harold, if you are going to be serious about this business of changing your sex. Unless you're retired and rich, you'll need a job. Of course, there is one other option you might consider. The child adoption program." "I've heard all about it," I said. "And I haven't made up my mind yet." "Well, Harold, then you know your options," Aronson said as he wrote down something on his clipboard. "When you do finally make a decision, you know where to come." "So," I said and changed the subject. "Have you seen Troy McCulty since we talked yesterday?" "Yes, as a matter of fact," Aronson replied. "He was just in here late yesterday afternoon." "Do you know where he's staying?" I asked hoping to catch up with that bastard and get the money he promised me. If I had that money I could have more options for deciding on a sex change. "No," Aronson shrugged. "Though if I did I still wouldn't reveal that sort of thing. I keep patient information fairly confidential at all times." I wanted to be a woman alright. Female was the way to go for me, I decided, but the only way to really go with the right package was to get that money Troy said he'd give me. Trying to get money from such a cheat wasn't going to be easy, but it was the only way I'd ever afford to be a fourteen year old girl for keeps. ___-----___ I left Aronson's office and went to the plaza to do a bit of window shopping. As a guy it never occurred to me to keep my eyes open for anything a girl might shop for, but now that I had the chance to be a girl, my choices for where to shop and what to shop for just opened up to a whole new level. I didn't dare go in any of the lingerie shops, but I was brave enough to stand outside and examine the window displays far longer than I ever had before. I suppose the stares I got would have been alot less had I actually gone in one of the women's shops, but I just wasn't quite ready for that just yet. I stared at the outfit one mannequin wore. It was just one of those white tennis outfits for women. Nothing fancy at all. Perhaps it was because it reminded me of a cheerleader's skirt, or perhaps it was simply because I thought I'd look cute in it if I were a girl, but I just stood there looking at the display for quite awhile until a young woman tapped me on the shoulder from behind. "Excuse me sir," she said and I turned around to see a young blonde woman standing there. She wore a brown dress with a name tag. "Were you interested in purchasing that one?" "Oh-oh, ah . . . um. W-Well," I stammered. "Maybe." "Okay," she said clasping her hands together. "Or if there's another dress you'd be interested in . . . ?" I looked at her name tag. It read: Sally. "Um, no thank you Sally," I said. "Maybe next time. Just window shopping for when I'm - I mean in case I . . . well, for a friend of mine." "Oh," she said nodding. "I see. For a friend. Okay. She must really be into tennis, right?" "Um . . . not really," I said and then added. "I mean not yet that is, but she might if things turn out right." "What's her name?" Sally asked. "Her name?" I asked and thought about it for a second then replied. "She hasn't got one. I mean - what I mean to say is she hasn't told me yet." "She hasn't told you her name?" Sally asked raising her eyebrows. "Where is she? Does she live around here? I can ask her for you if you'd like." "Oh no," I said. "Don't do that. I mean - you can't do that. She's kind of tied up at the moment. Anyway, I'll probably come back for the dress later." "Do you mind if I tell you something?" Sally asked. "No, go right ahead," I replied. "I don't know how to put this," she told me. "But the way you were looking at that dress . . . I mean, I don't think I've seen a guy look at a dress quite like you were doing. You're not . . . ?" By the tone of her voice I knew she was inferring that I was a crossdresser or something. "No, no," I said. "Nothing like that at all." "Well it's okay if you are, you know," she said. "I have a cousin of mine that's into that stuff. No big deal, really. Nothing to be embarrassed about. I mean, if it really is for a girl, that's okay, but if it's something you just want for yourself, that's okay too. Either way, a sale is a sale." "Okay," I said. "But not right now. Maybe later. Nice talking to you though. Well . . . gotta go." I turned and walked away. I walked over to a video-phone booth and punched in the number to Outpost Moray. Perhaps I could just call up and they'd have my job waiting there for me and nobody would say a word about what happened. After all, if Troy smuggled out a few crates of kelleniualite, who would even know to miss it? Rex's face came on the screen. He looked shocked to see me. "Harold?" Rex asked. "Harold, is that you? Where the hell have you been? The Feds are looking for you, you know." "The Feds?" I asked. "Looking for ME???" "Yes," he nodded. "But if you turn yourself in and give back the kelleniualite, I'm sure they'll reduce your sentence. Where the hell are you? Is that Earth?" "Rex, I didn't do it. It was Troy," I said trying to explain. "Troy McCulty is the one who stole the kelleniualite, not me." "Harold, what's gotten into you? Troy's been here the whole time," Rex said. "Are you alright? Look, just turn yourself in, Harold. Everything will be fine if you just turn yourself in. By the way, you haven't seen Jim have you?" "No," I replied. "And if Jim's still gone then why were you blaming me for anyway? What if he was the one who stole the kelleniualite?" "Sorry to break this to you, Harold, but Jim's working for the Feds," Rex explained. "You didn't kill him did you, Harold? You know what happens to guys who mess with the Feds, right?" "I didn't do it," I said, shaking my head. "Look. I didn't take the kelleniualite and I don't know where Jim is, and I certainly didn't kill him." "Well we've searched the whole outpost, Harold, and Jim's nowhere to be found," Rex explained. "The Feds are furious at this point and will do whatever it takes to find the body of their agent and the killer who did him in. Jim is NOT on Outpost Moray, Harold. So that means he must have went with you. Say, that IS Earth you're at, right? Come on, Harold, just turn yourself in." "Sorry, Rex," I said. "But I've got to go. Whatever happens, please trust me that I'm innocent in all this." I knew I wasn't entirely innocent though. I mean, after all, I did help Troy get the kelleniualite off the outpost. Problem is, now Troy's back there and everyone is pointing the finger at ME. I switched off the video-phone and hurried back to my hotel. ___-----___ I got in my room, gathered up whatever few things I had with me, and went back downstairs to check out of the Hotel. If Rex told the Feds I might be on Earth, then they'd be on my trail in no time. Since I'd checked into the hotel using my real name, it would be damn wise of me to check out while I still could. If they hadn't found me by now, then I was just one lucky bastard, that's all. Just one lucky bastard despite being conned by Troy and then stuck with the blame for HIS crime. I came out of the elevator and glanced across the lobby and sure enough there were cops all over the place. Damn my luck! I ducked back into the elevator and went up to the fourth floor. I hurried past the pool and into the mens room. Looks like no one was in there except me. I found an empty stall and shut the door behind me. I had only one chance now. One chance to escape the authorities. I reached into my pink shopping bag and pulled out my pill bottle and quickly plopped the last pill into my mouth. "Work, damn you, pill, work," I said clenching my fists. It seemed like I was in the bathroom forever before I started to feel the effects of the girl pill start working on my body. I was sure the authorities would have found me by now. It had been at least ten minutes already. I felt nauseous and was grateful to be right by the toilet in case I had to throw up or something. My stomach cramped up twice as bad as ever and my knees got so weak that I fell to the floor. I trembled all over now and I wondered if it was because of the effects of the pill or if it was because I was damn scared the Feds were going to find me before the pill worked. Sweat trickled down my forehead and I felt feverish. I shivered as I got the chills and I began to shrink. I actually could feel myself shrinking now. I don't claim to understand much of the new science or where all my body matter was going, but whatever the case I was shrinking down in size and that's all that mattered to me at the moment. "Hurry," I cried, trembling. "Hurry you damn pill. Hurry before it's too late." I started pulling off my baggy clothes even as I continued to shrink and change. My hands were tiny now and I had trouble with my shirt buttons so I just pulled my shirt up over my head. My pants and underwear just fell right to the floor as I no longer had my thirty-two inch waist anymore, but rather that of a child. I rummaged through the shopping bag and pulled out some clothes for a little girl. "Check in the bathrooms," a man said loudly from the pool area. "Yes sir," another man answered back. Oh my God. They'll catch me! I heard footsteps getting louder as someone walked in the men's room. Someone then started kicking open the stall doors. I pulled a little red dress over my head as fast as I could. I stuffed my male clothes back in the shopping bag and stepped back just as my stall door was kicked in. "Oh, sorry," a policeman said looking at me standing there. I was wearing just a little red dress, and held my shopping bag. I didn't have time to put my girl shoes on, so I was standing there barefoot. I suppose I looked kind of silly. I mean a little girl standing there in a men's room stall, barefoot and holding a shopping bag much to big for her size. "I think you're in the wrong bathroom, little girl," the policeman told me. "Come on and get out of there now." "Yes sir," I said nervously looking up at him without taking a step forward. He looked like a giant to me. I then realized what I'd forgotten years ago - I'd forgotten how big the world appears to the eyes of a child. He was just so tall I couldn't believe it. Of course in reality it was I who had simply shrunk down in size, but never-the-less I was scared out of my mind by seeing that giant police officer standing there looming up over me. "Well?" he said crossing his arms and stepping back. "Come on then. This is no place for little girls." I bit my lower lip nervously and took a tentative step forward. I don't know why I was so afraid of the policeman now. I mean, if I was still a man, I'd have much more to be afraid of him than as a little girl. I mean, he was after a guy named Harold, not some little girl, right? I had nothing to be afraid of, and yet the way he towered over me made me feel absolutely helpless and terrified. Take a girl pill - yeah, really bright idea I had, right? Now what was I going to do? How far could a little girl run to anyway? Besides that, I only had an hour now to make my escape, but would an hour be enough? "O-okay," I said taking another step and then hurried past him, running out the door with my shopping bag dragging on the floor. I heard him laughing at me from behind. Sort of the way adults laugh at kids every now and then for some of the silly things kids do. I guess a little girl in the mens room was as silly as it came, right? As if a real girl this age wouldn't know how to read the signs on the doors or anything. I walked alongside the pool and over to the elevator. I went back down to the lobby and saw there were still quite a few policemen milling about. I drug my bag over to a chair and dug in it for some shoes. I found some little black flats and put them on. They fit snugly on my tiny feet and I was amazed at how comfortable little girl's shoes could be. I walked through the lobby past dozens of policemen and government agents, dragging my shopping bag along the way and gathering the occasional stare every now and then. For the most part they weren't interested in what I was doing or where I was going. I guess that's because they were looking for a thirty-something male and I clearly wasn't that anymore. The automatic doors slid open suddenly, nearly startling me by the loud swishing sound. I walked out onto the sidewalk and over to a teleporter machine. I looked up at the keypad above me and could barely reach the bottom keys while standing on tiptoe, and the display panel was completely way out of my view. Clearly this wasn't going to work. Teleporter booths were obviously designed for adults, not for children. I remembered the number to Aronson's office but I was too short to key in the whole thing. Obviously I had to get to Aronson's and get myself a more permanent body if I was going to elude the authorities much longer. A woman walked up behind me and said,"Come on out of there. Don't you know teleporter booths are not for children to play with? Come on now. Where's your mother?" "Can you help me lady?" I asked. "I can't reach the numbers to go back home." "I see," she said tapping her foot impatiently on the sidewalk. "Well, then what is it? I can't wait here all day for you, you know?" I told her the number and she reached over and keyed it in for me. "Thank y-," I said as the machine dematerialized me, cutting off my last word. I materialized in Dr. Aronson's waiting room. I walked out of the booth and noticed nobody else was in the waiting room. I quickly ran up to the window, hiding under it so the receptionist couldn't see me. My shopping bag, unfortunately, gave me away. "Who's there?" the woman asked peeking out the window and looking down at me. "Oh my. What do we have here?" She recognized my shopping bag at once and said,"You know. The sampler kits are not something you should be dragging around in public, nor sampler bodies. Is everything alright?" "I need to go permanent," I said stepping back away from the window so she could see me better. "I like this body and want to go permanent." Any excuse to prevent this body from wearing off. I didn't want to change back to my old self only to be caught by the authorities. I knew I'd regret asking to be a little girl for keeps, but I had to have some excuse to keep a female body in order to hide from the people after me. Anything to keep them off my trail. "I want to be a little girl," I said pleading. "I want to keep this body." "You'll need to talk to the Doctor about that then," the receptionist said. "Do you have an appointment?" "No," I shrugged. "No, but I can't wait. I'll do anything. I'll sign anything. Just help me to go permanent right away, please." "Well, well, well," the woman said. "And none of the other sampler bodies were any good for you?" "No," I lied, really wanting to be the teenage girl and not this six year old. "I like this body just fine, thank you." The receptionist picked up a pen and tapped it on the countertop for a minute or so, then she said,"I see. Well, dear, do you have a legal guardian arranged to look after you then?" "No," I said and sighed. "Oh, please can't you do something to help? I do need to keep this body. I'll do whatever it takes. Just please help me." "The Doctor can see you about this right away," the woman said. "But only if you promise to sign up for the adoption program. I can't guarantee you'll get to keep that particular body, darling, and nothing permanent can be setup right away unless you have the money for it." "I don't have the money for it," I said sadly. "Then you'll have to go the adoption program route anyway," she informed me. "Can it be kept confidential?" I asked hopefully. I didn't want the Feds to find I'd done a body change on them. That could really complicate things. "Yes, yes," she nodded. "Completely confidential if you'd wish. Not even your next of kin would be able to find out what happened to you if that is your wish. Because of the various problems we've been encountering in the adoption program, you MAY have to agree to some slight behavior modifications as well as volunteer to have your intellect dampered enough to make your transition into a real little girl as complete as possible. It all depends on the potential parents, you see, but from feedback from existing parents in this program, they would like to see better behaved little girls. I'm sure you'll understand it's only for the best." She scribbled down something on a notepad and looked over at me and asked,"You did say `permanent' was your preference right?" "Yes," I nodded. "Very well," she said smiling at me. "Just meet me through that door there and I'll take you back to see the doctor." ___-----___ "Back so soon, Harold?" Dr. Aronson asked and I nodded my little head as I sat there high up on the table with my legs dangling over the side. He looked over the papers I'd signed and nodded approval. "I see you weren't exactly honest with me. You were supposed to take all the pills last night like I instructed." "I forgot," I lied. "Well, I don't know what I can do for you today," he said walking over to me. He lifted my arms up by the elbows, examining them for a moment and letting go. "I do have quite an extensive list of prospective parents who would like to adopt a little girl of their own, even for a month or so under the program. I could have some parents come down here for you as early as eight o'clock tomorrow morning if you'd like. I feel a trial period is in order, Harold. While I'd like to just go ahead and give you that permanent change you seem so intent on, I also want to give you a chance to back out of such a decision if you later on change your mind. I suppose the temp pill will be wearing off shortly. Do you want me to give you some more temp pills, Harold, or can you manage it through one more night of being a man?" I didn't want to change back. The cops or the Feds would find me if I changed back. "I'd like the temp pills, please," I replied. "I thought you might," he said picking me up off the table and bringing me high up in the air only to set me back down on the floor. I stood there and looked up at him with both fear and respect. The fact that he was an adult and I was a helpless child made me look up to him in awe. I wondered how such a man could have created such a wonderful, magical pill that could reduce a man into being a child, and a girl child at that. Why, with such a powerful pill, a man could rule the world simply by changing everyone into helpless little girls, and if he kept feeding them these amazing pills, he could keep them that way forever. I was trusting this man to keep me this way. In fact, I was practically begging him to keep me this way. Not because I wanted to be a little girl, but because it was the most effective way I could think of to elude the authorities and go into hiding. I knew of course that I would have to run away as soon as I was given my permanent little girl body. I would have to run away and try to prove my innocence. Troy McCulty was guilty, not me. All I had to do was buy me some time and then I'd go looking for him. Then I'd make him pay for what he'd done to my life. "How can I trust you won't take all the pills I give you THIS time?" Dr. Aronson asked opening a cupboard and pulling out a plastic bottle of pills. "You can trust me," I said. "I'll be good. I'll take all the pills you give me." He shook his head no and set the pills back up in the cupboard and pulled out a needle, jabbing it into a small glass jar, drawing in a clear fluid. He walked over to me and picked me up, carrying me back over to the table. He laid me down on my tummy and lifted up my dress. I didn't have any panties on as I just never had enough time back in that bathroom stall. No matter because the Doctor didn't seem to care. "Now this may pinch a bit," he explained rubbing a wet cotton ball on a spot on my butt. Suddenly, and without further warning, I felt a jabbing pain shoot through my rump as the needle went in and he injected the mysterious clear liquid into my body. I don't know whether or not it was because I was so small and that needle so big, or if it was because children react to pain more than adults or if it was just because I was a little girl, but whatever it was, I cried and screamed then cried some more. "Now, now," he said pulling the needle out and quickly wiping another cotton ball on me and putting on a band-aid. "All done, now. Wasn't that simple? Now you don't need to take any pills until tomorrow. I've just put some stabilizer in your blood, Harold. Isn't that nice? Now you can be a little girl for sixteen more hours and that's more than enough time to keep you that way until your eight o'clock appointment tomorrow morning. Now you'll be required to have a temporary guardian until then, so one of the staff will be looking after you tonight. Precautions, you see. Can't have you changing your mind at this point, Harold. Not after all the papers you've signed. Can't have you change your mind and decide to run away or something silly like that, now. Anyway, you'll be taken care of my Nurse Kemperton." I kept crying and sniffling, trying to catch my breath as I was darn near hyperventilating from how bad that shot hurt. He picked me up and set me on the floor on my feet again. I looked up at him though teary eyes with fear and respect. Dr. Aronson had, with one little shot, ensured my stay as a little girl was extended sixteen more hours. He was a powerful man and I was just a child. He could keep me as a child for as long as he wished now and there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it because he was big and I was little . . . . . . and he had the magic medicine to do it too. If he wanted, he could give me a shot of the permanent stuff and keep me this way without ever having to bother about it again, or he could just keep giving me shots on schedule to make sure I stay like this, but I knew what was really going to happen starting tomorrow. Dr. Aronson was going to assign some parents to watch over me and he was going to trust them to make me take my medicine each day for a month - to keep me a girl. To make me stay little. "It's always the men," he said with a chuckle while scribbling down some things on his notepad. "Never once has a woman walked in here and signed up for the little girl adoption program. Never once. It's always the men. I don't know why. Ah well, it's all in the name of research I suppose. Comes out of my pocket, you know, Harold. It costs me quite a penny to put a child through this program. If I thought I'd get so many volunteers, I probably should have charged for entry to the program, you know. I've made up for it on the cancel out option from time to time. You see, if you want out of the contract, Harold, all it takes is money. I've made quite a bit of profit in that way, but I'm afraid you'd have to have nearly a million plinkets to buy your way out of this one, Harold." I sniffled and looked down at my feet, still marveling at how comfy the shoes felt. Unfortunately comfortable feet could in no way make up for the soreness I still felt from that shot. I tried to smile as I wriggled my toes in my little black flats, but it came out as another round of sobbing. "It's always the men," he said shaking his head. A tall young nurse walked in the room then and came right over to me and picked me up, lifting me up over her shoulder and patting me gently on the back. "There, there," she said soothingly as I heard the Doctor tear off a sheet of paper from his notepad. "Here are some instructions," Dr. Aronson said to the nurse. "Don't coddle her. I don't want her spoiled or anything. She wanted to be a little girl, so treat her like one. You know what to do." "Yes doctor," the nurse said kissing me briefly on the cheek, then setting me down on my feet again. "I can't help it sometimes. They're just so adorable, you know. Was she . . . ?" "Yes," the doctor nodded and I looked up at the nurse and stood a little bit closer to her. The doctor was really scary compared to the lovely nurse who looked like she wouldn't hurt a fly. The doctor shook his head. "What else but another man would sign up for THAT?" he asked pointing down at me. "I think it's cute," the nurse said defending me now. She placed her hands on my shoulders and rubbed them for a moment. "What shall I call her?" The doctor picked up his clipboard and said,"Well, the couple coming in tomorrow want a girl named Brittany, so Brittany it will be, although the red hair will have to go. They're more suited to a brunette girl, but we'll fix all that tomorrow morning. Until then, nurse, you may have the remainder of the day off to watch the child. Do have her here promptly tomorrow morning by eight, understood?" "Yes sir," the nurse said and leaned over and took hold of my left hand in hers. She stood up again, still holding my hand, and led me out the door. "Come on Brittany." I followed her down the corridor and out into the waiting room. She walked up to the window and spoke to the receptionist. "Tomorrow at eight there will be another little girl in the experimental adoption program," the nurse said. "Yes, yes," the receptionist said already aware of this. "And I have already notified the parents. They can't wait to see their new little girl." Then she had the nurse step aside so she could get a good look at me. "There's the lucky little angel now. Another man again?" "Yeah," the nurse said smiling at me. "I don't care what the Doc says, I still think it's cute that a man would sign up for that. I know half a dozen ex-boyfriends of mine who I'd like to personally welcome into this program. Ah, but a gal can dream, can't she?" "Yeah," the receptionist agreed. "Well, what do you give her? A week? Ten days tops?" The nurse squatted down and took me by both hands, holding them up to her face. "Now how can you judge a cutiepie like this?" she asked letting go of my hands and standing up again. "Well, anyway, I know *I* wouldn't last more than a few days in this program. I'd miss being an adult too much. No, I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we? I think it's adorable. One thing's for sure, she'll never be the man she once was after a month of this. Nope. This'll either teach her to learn her place or drive her absolutely insane. Either way, I'll grant you this - a guy's gotta have guts to want to go through with it. Yes sir, a guy's really gotta have guts." She leaned over and scruffed up my hair and smiled. "She doesn't look like a flunky though. She could prove us all wrong and go against the odds and turn out to be just as nice a little girl as she looks right now. Yep. Just a cutie, cutie, cutiepie. Come on Brittany. You'll be staying with me for tonight, then we'll come back and get you a new mommie and daddy for a month. Won't that be fun?" I looked up at her, uncertain as to my answer, so she just grinned and took me by the hand and led me into the teleporter. ___-----___ I suppose I should have worried more about finding a way to prove it was Troy and not me who the Feds should be after, but I guess most of that was lifted off my mind when I signed up to be a little girl for a month. At least this way I wasn't going to be caught as easily. At least I hoped not. Still, the Feds were pretty resourceful after all, and I might only have added to my alleged guilt by deliberately running and hiding like this. What would I do if they did track me down? More importantly, what would THEY do to me if they caught me? I was accused of possibly killing a Federal agent, but nobody anywhere could come up with Jim's body. He simply vanished from Outpost Moray around the time Troy and I headed off to Earth. Cursed Earth! Why did it have to be Earth? I went to the mining colonies to get as far away from Earth as I could. Now I was back on this horrible planet and look at the trouble I've gotten into? It's a curse. As far back as I can remember, bad things always happened to me when I visited Earth. Of course it all started with my parents and their divorce, but it was more than that. The whole planet seemed out to get me, and this time was just one more huge mess I'd managed to get myself into, all because I let Troy talk me into going along with him on some stupid smuggling operation. Now he's back at Outpost Moray and probably still in the smuggling business, and here I am on Earth with no job to go back to, hunted by the Feds and hiding in a little girl's body. What could be worse? "Please eat your green beans," the nurse said from the other side of the table. "Don't make me tell you again, Brittany." I didn't like green beans as a child the first time, nor as an adult, so it didn't surprise me that I wouldn't like them as a little girl. I scooped a forkful of the foul tasting vegetables and opened my mouth and tried as best I could not to get sick as I chewed the stuff. I kept at it until my plate was cleaned. "Good girl," the nurse said, praising me for completing my task. "Now clear your plate and get ready for your bath. After that it's beddy-bye time." I climbed down from my chair and took my plate and glass over to the sink. I got up on tiptoes and set the stuff on the counter. I walked back past the table and down the hall and I heard the nurse say,"Such a cutie-pie." The nurse didn't have a spare bed, and thought it silly to have to make me sleep on the couch, so she said I'd be sleeping with her tonight. I guess it couldn't do much harm. After all, I was just a girl now like the nurse. Well, an undeveloped girl, and all the more reason why there wasn't anything the nurse had to worry about. I certainly already lost my male sex drive last night when I took my first sampler pill, and on top of that, not once while in this body could I bring myself to at all get sexually aroused in any way shape or fashion. Quite simply, I was a child and incapable of such things. It was odd how I could look at such a pretty woman as the nurse and not think of anything about her except respect, because she was the adult and I was the child and I had to do whatever she told me, or I'd get into plenty trouble. I went in her bedroom and stood beside her big, queen-sized bed, and rubbed my hands along the light blue quilt. After all these years, I'd get to sleep with a woman. After all this time, but it won't mean a thing because nothing's going to happen. I took off my black flats and left them at the end of the bed. Then I lifted my dress up and over my head and pulled the dress free of my body. I looked down briefly at my naked body. Nothing really there, and no big deal either, so I looked back up and almost jumped back because standing there in the doorway was the nurse. She caught me looking at myself! She stood there with hands on hips, tapping her foot and shaking her head. "I might have known," she said wagging her finger at me. She saw me looking up at her with fear in my eyes and she laughed. "Checking to see that it's really gone?" She walked over and took me by the hand and said,"That's a fine way for little girls to act. Come on Brittany. Bath time." "I was only lookin'," I said trying to defend myself somehow against what she must have thought. "And you really think I'll buy that?" she asked leading me into the bathroom. "You wanted to be a little girl, now start acting like one. Now into the tub you go." I climbed in the tub as she ran the water and poured in some bubble bath. "Well, don't just stand there," she said. "Sit down. This is a bath, not a shower." I sat down and watched the warm, bubbly water slowly rise over my legs and past my belly-button. As the water gradually rose, the nurse looked at me and shook her head. "You ever even been with a girl before?" she asked. I shrugged. "I thought not," she said with pity. "Have you even tried?" I shrugged again. She shook her head. "You know what?" she asked and said. "It doesn't really matter, Brittany. I think you made a brave decision to change your life like this. A brave, brave decision." She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. "Now I'll leave you be," she said tossing me a washcloth. "Don't do anything you'll regret or I'll have to report you to the Doctor. Try and act like the little girl you've become. Just get cleaned up. Here's a towel on the sink. Go ahead and wash up and then go to bed." "Okay," I said taking the washcloth and scrubbing my arms. She paused by the doorway and turned around and smiled. "I don't care what Doc says," she said to herself. "I think it's cute." She went back into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the tub. I washed myself, just like she asked. I didn't want any trouble, and I certainly wasn't going to do any unnecessary exploration. Yeah, I was curious alright, but not really motivated to check myself out in those ways. Like the nurse said, I'd become a little girl. That was that. No sex drive existed in this new body, so why would I explore where I didn't need to? No, despite my curiosity, I just washed where I needed to and didn't think anything of was was or wasn't down there between my legs. I was a girl. So what? So were lots of people, and now I was one of them. No big deal, really. Gotta be one sex or another, right? So, here I am. A girl. I'd much rather be a woman than a little girl, though, but this was for free so who's to complain, right? Anyway, I didn't sign up to be this way for any other reason than to hide out, but what good would it do me? The Feds would still find me sooner or later, and the longer I waited, the longer Troy would have to continue his dirty little smuggling operation. Perhaps I made a mistake in signing up for this, but what could I do now? I'm as good as stuck now. Well, unless I could sneak out of the nurse's apartment tonight somehow, but how was I going to pull that off? Then I'd be a man again sometime tomorrow morning when the stabilizer shot wore off. I wouldn't have much time to get away, and I don't know how far a little girl could really get, but at least now I had more than just one hour to run from the Feds. The more I thought about it, the more and more I realized I'd made another mistake. My first mistake was trusting Troy. My second mistake was bothering to call back Outpost Moray in an effort to see if I still had my job. This third mistake was the clincher, because wouldn't the Feds find me anyway no matter what body I was hiding in? They'd find me. The longer I sat around pretending to be safe from them, the more time they'd have to track me down, and when they finally caught up with me I wouldn't be in any position to make any fast or clever escapes. No, if I went down to Aronson's office in the morning I'd be falling into a trap. I had to get away - tonight. I wonder what Aronson does to guys who sign up for his experimental programs only to skip town and renege on the contract? Certainly he wouldn't send a bounty hunter after me, would he? I hope not. I'm in enough trouble as it is. I finished washing up and got out of the tub and dried off with a big yellow towel, that to me was more like a soft, fluffy blanket. I wrapped the towel about my waist and walked down the hall to the bedroom. There was no nightgown in my shopping bag, so I just put on a pair of white cotton panties and crawled up into bed and turned off the lights. The nurse was out in the living room watching television. I tried hard to just lay there and stay awake. I thought if I stayed awake long enough, the nurse would come to bed and go to sleep and then I could try to make my getaway. Well, staying awake was tougher than I thought and before I knew it, I fell asleep listening to the sounds of the TV set off in the distance. ___-----___ I woke up later that night and the whole apartment was dark and quiet. I heard the nurse breathing quietly as she slept beside me. She was so close to me that I could smell her sweet perfumed body. I rolled over on my tummy and let my feet dangle over the side of the bed, then I slid quietly to the floor. I crawled along the edge of the bed, feeling for where I discarded my shoes and my dress, finding them after a few minutes searching in the dark. My male clothes were in the shopping bag and I certainly didn't want to go rummaging through a paper sack looking for my pants and have my whole escape attempt ruined. I'd have to figure out where to get male clothes later on, that is assuming of course that the Doctor was right and the shot would only keep me in this body for sixteen hours. Otherwise if it was longer, or even permanent, then bringing my pants would be useless anyway, right? So I crumpled my dress up under my left arm and carried my shoes with me out of the bedroom and down the hall. I made it to the living room and could barely make out the dark, shadowy furniture around me. I felt around for the teleporter booth and finally located it, but there was a door on it - a locked door. Perhaps it was locked to keep unwanted visitors away, but then again now that I thought about it, I suppose it could also be to keep sneaky little girls from trying to leave the apartment. I wandered towards the kitchen and bumped into the couch along the way, nearly dropping my dress and shoes I carried. I don't think I was afraid of the dark so much as afraid of being caught by the nurse. If she caught me, that would be it. No more chances and then I'd be in a real fix, being stuck as someone's little girl for a whole month. I don't know why I signed up for this. Why didn't I just try and run away in the first place, letting myself return to the man I really was, rather than think hiding out in a little girl's body would have slowed down the Feds all that much. They could have tracked all the teleporter booths outside of the Hotel by now and figured I'd gone to Aronson's for a hideaway body like I did. They should already have figured it all out by now. I bet they're just waiting for me to come to Aronson's office tomorrow morning and then they'll snag me no matter what body I'm wearing. I walked barefoot along the cold kitchen floor and found the back sliding door. I unlatched the door lock and carefully rolled the sliding door open, followed by the screen. I walked outside onto a patio and pulled the glass sliding door closed. This time I wasn't so lucky. The door made a horrible screeching noise and rattled loudly when I shut it. I knew for sure this must have awakened the nurse. Now I had to run away as fast as my little feet could take me before she realized what happened. I carried my dress in my left hand now and both shoes in my right and I ran across the patio and out into the apartment complex courtyard as fast as I could. It was cold outside, but then again all I was wearing at the moment was just my panties. I ran out across a lawn to another apartment building and hurried down some stairs. "Brittany!" the nurse called out from behind me. "Come back! Where are you going, Brittany?" I ran out under the car port and onto a long driveway and I could hear her loud footsteps behind me as she scrambled down the stairs behind me. A long row of bushes lay to the right and I quickly dashed in, scraping my arm a little as I hurried through some junipers. I slipped into a small crawlspace under one bush and waited there, trying not to breath too hard from running so fast. I saw a woman's shadowy figure run past, heading up the driveway towards the street. I crawled a bit forward and stuck my head out from under the bushes to see where she went and saw her about twenty or thirty yards down the driveway standing there by the main road. She stood there in a white bathrobe looking puzzled at where I could have gone and how I could have possibly outran her all that way. Then it dawned on me that she'd come back looking for me and realize I must have hidden here in the bushes. Even if she didn't find my hiding place, she'd just go back in her apartment and call the cops and they'd find me, that's for sure. I couldn't wait any longer. The only way out was for me to get to a teleporter booth and teleport to a random location away from here, but the only booth I knew of was in the nurse's apartment but it was locked up. I looked again at the nurse standing way down there at the end of the drive and realized she'd only had time to grab her bathrobe and nothing else! That means the keys to the teleporter booth must be in her purse back at the apartment! The hell with my dress and my shoes! I dropped them there in the bushes and I crawled out and ran back to the car port. "Brittany!" the nurse cried out seeing me. "There you are. Wait!" It's a good thing I didn't drink much milk at dinner time, because if I had, I was certain I'd be peeing my panties right now. I hurried up the steps and ran back across the lawn and up to the patio again. The sliding door was wide open. I ran in and shut it, quickly locking it behind me. If she really didn't have time to bring her keys, then at least a locked door might slow her down a little more. I flipped on the kitchen lights and ran out into the living room and found her purse. "Oh hurry," I said pulling out lipstick, makeup, and hairpins. "Where did she put the keyy as fast as my little feet could take me before she realized what happened. I carried my dress in my left hand now and both shoes in my right and I ran across the patio and out into the apartment complex courtyard as fast as I could. It was cold outside, but then again all I was wearing at the moment was just my panties. I ran out across a lawn to another apartment building and hurried down some stairs. "Brittany!" the nurse called out from behind me. "Come back! Where are you going, Brittany?" I ran out under the car port and onto a long driveway and I could hear her loud footsteps behind me as she scrambled down the stairs behind me. A long row of bushes lay to the right and I quickly dashed in, scraping my arm a little as I hurried through some junipers. I slipped into a small crawlspace under one bush and waited there, trying not to breath too hard from running so fast. I saw a woman's shadowy figure run past, heading up the driveway towards the street. I crawled a bit forward and stuck my head out from under the bushes to see where she went and saw her about twenty or thirty yards down the driveway standing there by the main road. She stood there in a white bathrobe looking puzzled at where I could have gone and how I could have possibly outran her all that way. Then it dawned on me that she'd come back looking for me and realize I must have hidden here in the bushes. Even if she didn't find my hiding place, she'd just go back in her apartment and call the cops and they'd find me, that's for sure. I couldn't wait any longer. The only way out was for me to get to a teleporter booth and teleport to a random location away from here, but the only booth I knew of was in the nurse's apartment but it was locked up. I looked again at the nurse standing way down there at the end of the drive and realized she'd only had time to grab her bathrobe and nothing else! That means the keys to the teleporter booth must be in her purse back at the apartment! The hell with my dress and my shoes! I dropped them there in the bushes and I crawled out and ran back to the car port. "Brittany!" the nurse cried out seeing me. "There you are. Wait!" It's a good thing I didn't drink much milk at dinner time, because if I had, I was certain I'd be peeing my panties right now. I hurried up the steps and ran back across the lawn and up to the patio again. The sliding door was wide open. I ran in and shut it, quickly locking it behind me. If she really didn't have time to bring her keys, then at least a locked door might slow her down a little more. I flipped on the kitchen lights and ran out into the living room and found her purse. "Oh hurry," I said pulling out lipstick, makeup, and hairpins. "Where did she put the keys?" Someone banged on the sliding door over and over again. "Open it up, Brittany," the nurse said from outside. "Don't make me break the glass." I found a set of keys and quickly ran over to the teleporter booth, trying each key in the lock. Finally I got the right key and the door clicked open. Just then the sliding door shattered as the nurse threw a potted plant through the glass. I stepped in the teleporter booth and pressed the buttons I could reach. The nurse screamed as she cut her feet on the glass. "Damn you, girl!" she cursed. "You're gonna pay for this! Nobody backs out of a deal with Dr. Aronson! You're gonna pay!" I kept pressing the lower buttons . . . 7, 8, 9 . . . 7, 8, 9 . . . A warm, welcome flash of light engulfed me and I appeared elsewhere. I stepped out of another booth and realized I was inside a school hallway. I don't know why I thought it was a school because there weren't any lockers along the walls, but it just reminded me of a school. For one thing, there were a few multiple drinking fountains between the girls and the boys restrooms nearby. Fountains that were just right for someone as tall as, say, a six year old girl. This was some sort of indoor elementary school. Was it coincidence that pressing the lower buttons in the teleporter would bring me to such a place? Then again, why not? If kids couldn't reach the higher buttons, then why not set some lower button combinations for such places as the elementary school or perhaps a playground or somewhere? Made sense to me anyway, but then again it could be just coincidence. The hallway was dimly lit, but some light was better than none at all in a big building like this, even if nobody was supposed to be here now. I turned and walked back in the teleporter booth and pressed buttons in the reverse configuration: 9, 8, 7 . . . 9, 8, 7 . . . Another flash of white light and I walked out into an ice cream shop in a mall or somewhere. Obviously nobody cared much about burglars popping in places nowadays, yet despite the fact that I was now inside an ice cream shop, the front doors seemed locked. Strange that they would bother locking up when a teleporter booth put you right inside. Then again, the only teleporter booths I'd seen so far WERE inside buildings. You had to either own a teleporter, or be in a building that had one. That meant that due to the level of trust among teleporter owners, the entire route must be traceable somehow to enable the authorities to incriminate thieves. Trust was allowed, perhaps as an experiment to weed out those who would come into a shop and start looting. After all, these machines took apart entire bodies and put them back together again. A burglar stealing even one ice cream cone from this shop could be tracked and the imprint of the burglar with the cone in the booth would be enough evidence to press charges. Teleporters had, in a way, helped make the world much more free to live in, but perhaps also allowed authorities to keep a better watch on an individual. They probably could track a person's entire route from booth to booth. The entire route! If the Feds could do that, then I was on borrowed time at this point unless I could find another way of transportation to get some good distance away from here. If the Feds could do that, then probably others as well, and that meant the nurse might be after me right this moment. Probably not though. After all, she cut herself on the glass. That would slow her down a bit. Plus I was only guessing at why someone would stick a teleporter right smack dab in the middle of an ice cream shop and then lock the front door. The only thing that might explain it is technology and the law had somehow intertwined to come up with something bizarre like this. Booths that could take you anywhere, even after hours, only somewhere, in some computer room, somebody was watching your every move, or some machine was recording your entire path. Give a man freedom while taking it away - that's what the government did by putting in these teleporter booths everywhere. The nurse had a lock on her booth, but I'm sure that was just for psychological safety. People still weren't quite sure they wanted to leave their front doors open at night so they locked up just so they could sleep at nights. In reality though, any murderer, burglar or rapist would be caught rather quickly with a teleporter tracing system like the one I suspected was already well in place. Crime not only didn't pay, but the authorities set these booths up in these shops to entice criminals to do something stupid. At least that's the only explanation I could think of for locking the front door of an ice cream shop while letting anyone teleport right inside after closing hours if they wanted. It was weird. If true, it meant I could teleport almost anywhere I wanted to hide, but the only people I could ever hide from that way were people like me - citizens. The authorities would probably be able to track me down in an instant once they found a link in my trail. I looked around the ice cream shop and saw a couple stools over by the counter. I walked over and dragged a stool inside the teleporter and climbed up for a better view of the control panel. More importantly, now I had access to the teleporter directory computer. It was cold enough outside when I was running away from the nurse, but in this ice cream shop it was absolutely freezing. They must keep the air conditioner on full blast in this place. Even with the freezers under the main counter, you'd think they wouldn't need so much air conditioning in a tiny shop like this. It's not like the ice cream is out and is going to melt or anything. First order of business was getting me some clothes. I'm sorry but a little girl running around in her underwear is just an antidote for pneumonia on a cold night like this. Plus assuming I really would change back into my adult male self in a few hours, I'd really be in a heap of a mess because there was no way I was going to run around public wearing panties - and one's for someone oodles shorter than a full grown man. I located the number to a sort of homeless shelter that offered free clothes, though I knew I wasn't going to be getting anything fancy when it was second hand and for free. I noted the number of the ice cream shop, as I would be borrowing this stool and intended to return it. I punched in the number to the homeless shelter and wasn't surprised that everyone was asleep as it was still the middle of the night. So much the better because I didn't want people seeing me like this anyway. I located some boxes of clothes and found a raggedy, tan dress and some brown boots that were a size or two bigger than my tiny feet, but I managed with a few extra layers of socks. I also found some old bluejeans, a white t-shirt, and some tennis shoes and socks for when I changed back to my old self again. I stuffed all this into a battered up old backpack and climbed back up on the stool in the teleporter and went back to the ice cream shop. I needed to find the space port if I was going to have any chance of eluding the authorities long enough to somehow prove Troy was behind the smuggling ring. Lucky me - the Los Angeles Space Port was all eights. Eight eights in fact. Pretty easy number to remember, and real simple for a child my size to reach without standing on a chair or something. I replaced the stool back at the counter of the ice cream shop and went back in the teleporter. "Here goes nothing," I said with a sigh, dialing the number to the space port. ___-----___ Amazing how I was able to walk right by all the security checkpoints in the space port without anyone stopping me or questioning where I was going. I mean, at this time of the morning it wasn't at all busy, so I couldn't have likely slipped past the checkpoints posing as someone's daughter or anything. I didn't have a ticket. My wallet was left behind in the nurse's apartment. I left it in the little pink shopping bag at the end of her bed. No money or anything now. Through the huge panes of tinted glass I saw dozens of space ships parked by the gates. I may have made it this far without anyone stopping me but I was sure I couldn't sneak aboard one of those ships by posing as a regular passenger. The only thing to do now was find a way to stow away somehow. I walked back the way I came and headed over to some luggage check-in lines. At five thirty in the morning, the place wasn't exactly bustling with people, so there were only a few men and women working behind the counters now. I waited beside a pillar for about five minutes until a few of the employees walked to a back room for a break or something, then I made sure those left minding the counter weren't looking in my direction. I quickly walked up behind the counter and ducked in the first doorway on my right. Beside me was a treadmill, but it was stopped for the time being. I saw some luggage sitting atop the treadmill and I climbed up and inspected the tags. These people were heading to Neptune. Well, Neptune was better than being on Earth any day in my book. I found a large duffel bag and opened it, pulling out all the clothes and tossing them in a trash chute nearby. Then I climbed in the duffle bag and waited. ___-----___ The conveyor started moving about thirty minutes later and I was glad nobody had caught me in my hiding place, and grateful to still be little enough to even have such a place to hide. Now jetliner luggage compartments weren't too survivable for pets, let alone stowaways, but the big space liners had airtight luggage holds fully equipped with life support, so I wasn't worried about that. My main concern now was not getting caught, and making it to that cargo hold before I switched back to a man again. With the new science, the flight wouldn't last that long anyway. Neptune was less than thirty minutes away by micro-jump, and if I got there within the next two hours, I'd still be a little girl and able to sneak out of this duffel bag before anyone was the wiser. I tumbled down some sort of luggage tube and rolled along another conveyor belt which dropped me up inside one of the space ship cargo holds. Awhile later I heard the outer latch close and I lay there in my bag, waiting. A few minutes later I heard the ship's engines cranking up and felt the comfortable rumble of modern transportation kick in as the ship rolled back away from the gates and out along the taxiway. I heard a tremendous bang and the next thing I knew, I was floating in zero gravity. ___-----___ When we got to Neptune, I waited until I was sure I was on the conveyor belt again, and then I climbed out of the duffel bag and hopped off the conveyor into a maintenance tunnel somewhere on one of Neptune's space ports. I still had about half an hour until eight o'clock, which was my estimated time to switch back into a man. I hid behind some crates and waited. Neptune was certainly no place for a little girl to be alone. Neptune really wasn't a place for a girl to be at all. Girls had no rights on Neptune, you see. The dictator on this planet simply didn't allow women's rights to exist at all. No, Neptune was a man's world, and the only women here were slaves. Just a bunch of slave girls. Oh, Earth and Neptune did have a few wars over the women's rights issue, as well as other issues, but Earth kind of used it's scarce resources up and Neptune won the upper hand, forcing Earth into a defensive position. Flights to Neptune from Earth were allowed now mostly because Earth needed some of the minerals Neptune had to offer. The same thing happened in Earth's old oil wars along time ago. Not all of the mid-eastern countries had exactly model societies, nor were women treated very fairly there, but all because some larger nations needed oil, they all looked the other way. Same with Neptune, only with kelleniualite instead of oil. As the asteroid belt was drained of it's supply of kelleniualite more and more, Earth was forced to deal with Neptune in order to keep new-science technology up and running. I had to hide here for a little while longer because I was a girl. If they caught a little girl wandering around a space port, she would be punished. Women here simply weren't allowed to go near a space port without a permit from the government. I had to wait to change back and then try to walk away from this place like nothing had happened. Like I was a regular passenger just returning from Earth. I sat there on the cold concrete floor, hugging my knees to keep warm. If someone asked me before all this mess started if I wanted to be a girl, well, I would have lied and said no, but I was allowed to live for awhile in a girl's body and it wasn't so bad being a girl after all. Being a little girl was something else entirely. I didn't like it as much as I enjoyed my hour's stay as a teenage girl, but I had to admit, it was a good change of pace for me. Yes, being a little girl was something of a vacation for me in a way. A vacation from being plain old Harold the miner, just a plain old guy working on Outpost Moray. I knew one thing was certain, I'd miss being female. Awhile later I felt dizzy and my stomach tightened up and I felt myself changing back to my normal self. I hurried and removed my little boots as I knew my normal feet would be crushed if I didn't. I hadn't bothered to remove my dress, so it of course tore to shreds as well as the crotch of my panties which tore only after wedging painfully up my butt. I cursed myself a few times for not thinking ahead and removing my little girl clothes like I should have for the changermations through use of the new science, but I knew there must be some other doctors working in the underground that had similar medicines that could change a person's life. Being a girl wasn't bad at all, but being a little girl was just too much for me to handle. I thought I'd like it but it just wasn't the same as when I was a teenage girl. There wasn't the same level of freedom. Children just don't have that much control or freedom over their destinies. I would have wound up as someone's adopted six year old girl. Stuck that way for God knows how long. I wasn't prepared for that. As much as I wanted to escape the Feds who were undoubtedly on my trail the whole time, I realized trading my adulthood for a second childhood wasn't going to work. It was something I realized a little bit too late, but at least I was lucky enough to make my escape and get off Earth. Neptune wasn't my planet of choice, but it was a whole lot better than being on Earth where the Feds were still looking for me for a crime I didn't commit. Most of the cities on Neptune were built under the surface with a few scattered domed cities left over from the old colonization effort of last century. Dazar was one of those domed cities of the olden times. As such, it was fairly run down compared to the average modern underground metropolis. Run down or not, it was the perfect hiding place for me now. Perfect, too, for over half the known population of thieves, thugs, and smugglers this side of the asteroid belt. Perfect because Dazar was in effect a neutral zone where law and order quite simply did not exist. The only laws that mattered here were self survival and that women were toys for the boys, and had no rights of their own. Perhaps the only law of Neptune that really was upheld in Dazar was: men are people and women are slaves of the people. I wandered around the streets of Dazar and noticed one thing about this place. There were hardly any women around, and those that I thought were women, upon second glance I realized they were just men in drag. The one thing about Neptune was women had no rights, so it was no wonder that I wouldn't find very many girls wandering the streets, but guys dressed as girls could wander the streets and still retain their male rights. Such an odd society where sex was the boundary between freedom and slavery. A man could dress and even act and do things like a woman, but he would still have rights, yet a woman would always be denied rights under this dictatorship on Neptune. A planet where women had no rights made it a lonely place indeed for the average man looking for a girl to make his wife. In a growing effort to avoid loneliness, men began playing the part of the woman, and other men began taking them for their wives. Street girls - that's what guys in drag were called on Neptune. Street girls - because the only girl that would ever wander the streets on Neptune would have to be a guy just playing the part either because he wanted to or because in a society like this, he had little choice but to adapt or get out of town. "Goin' somewhere, cowboy?" a street girl asked in a throaty voice. I stopped walking along the sidewalk and turned to face her. She was a street girl alright. The red wig and large hands made it fairly obvious. One thing about her was especially different than the other street girls I'd seen. This one had some sort of silver metallic device wrapped around her head, covering her eyes and ears completely. It looked like one of those virtual reality interfaces I saw in an add awhile back, but why was she wearing one out here on the street? It must be a new wireless model or something. "Not really," I said looking at her black skirt and red blouse. "Are you sure?" she asked suggestively putting her arm around mine. "Actually," I said. "I need to find a place to hide - I mean, a place to stay." "A place to stay?" she asked winking. "Are you sure that's all you really want?" "Say, what's with the V.R. interface?" I asked pointing to her head. She looked at me quizitively and shrugged, saying,"I don't know what you're talking about. What interface?" "The one you're wearing," I said pointing. "You're crazy," she said laughing. "I've never worn one of those in my entire life." "Well you're wearing one now," I told her. She reached up and touched her face. She felt around her cheeks and nose and up and around her V.R. interface unit. Then she shrugged and said,"Look, cowboy, wouldn't you think I'd know it if I were wearing a V.R. interface?" "But you are," I insisted. "You're crazy, cowboy," she said squeezing my arm and snuggling up close. "What program are you running anyway?" I asked. "I bet you don't even know you're not a real girl. It's all a simulation, right? You just think you're a girl because you're wearing that V.R. interface." She stood back and slapped me across the face. "What did you do that for?" I asked trying to rub the stinging sensation off my cheek from her slap. "I don't think you're very nice, cowboy," she said with hands on hips. "What do you think I am? A fake? You've got alot of nerve - insulting a girl like that. You know, if I was a guy, I'd sock your lights out cowboy. I'd kick your ass." I walked up to her and yanked off the V.R. unit. She blinked a few times and looked around in shock. Have you ever woke up a sleepwalker? I have, and this street girl looked just like that. She didn't know where the hell she was or how she got there or anything. She looked down at herself and saw the clothes she was wearing and she looked at me with an open mouthed expression of shock and pointed at the V.R. unit in disbelief. "I-I remember," she said in a deep, manly voice. "I was late. I didn't mean to be late, but I couldn't come up with the money any sooner. Th-they said they were going to kill me if I didn't come up with more, but then they stuck THAT . . . THING . . . on my head." A couple guys in black leather jackets brushed past me, grabbing the V.R. unit from my hands. They quickly grabbed the street girl by the arms and replaced the V.R. unit back on her head. Her expression went from shock to startled, but welcome surprise. "Hi fellas," she said in her best girl-voice she could muster. "How did you guys get here so fast? Snuck up behind me?" "Never mind that now," one of the thugs said. "Just get back to work, okay?" He turned to me and grabbed me by the arm, dragging me a few yards away. "What's the deal?" I asked as he let go. "Don't let me catch you on this street again or you'll be sorry," he replied matter-of-factly. "She's my property, got that? I won't allow revealers to ruin my franchise. Now unless you want to wind up like her, you'd better leave my turf and get the hell outa here. Now go!" I hurried around the corner to another street and kept walking away from there as fast as I could. Virtual reality technology had been around for quite awhile now, but I couldn't believe it would actually make a person think he was someone else, at least not until I saw what they did to that guy back there on the corner. They turned a guy into a street girl with the help of a suped-up V.R. unit. I thought being stuck as a little girl was bad, but that gang back there . . . they could make you think you're a hooker and you wouldn't even know anything had changed. One moment you'd be your normal average every day guy and the next, a guy who actually believes he's really a girl. Now THAT's true power. Power was evolving with the advent of the new science, but I'd been cooped up on a mining outpost for so many years that I just wasn't prepared for what mankind could do - especially what mankind could do to one another now. I read about the teleporters, and the faster than light drive, and even about V.R. units, but reading something and seeing it in person is quite another matter. Sometimes reality can be shocking, especially if you've been living under a rock for so many years. I walked in a bar and went up to the counter. "What'll it be?" the bartender asked. "Water," I replied sitting on a stool. The bartender looked at me kind of funny, like I was a Martian or something. I guess he thought I actually was a paying customer, but he didn't know I was a fugitive from Earth. A fugitive hiding from the Feds and a mad doctor. Yep, no money here. Just a bum off the streets. There were a few guys scattered about the bar, but it certainly wasn't packed. Then again, just about any bar in mid-afternoon isn't going to have as many customers as later on in the evening. The bartender handed me my glass of water. I took one sip and felt a tap on the shoulder. Before I could say a word, a street girl slipped around me and sat up in my lap. This one had a V.R. unit wrapped about her head like a metal doughnut just like the previous street girl I met out on the corner. Different turf, same old game. "Sorry," I said to her. "I'm not into that." "What's a matter?" she asked sliding down off my lap. "Don't like girls?" Clearly she was a guy wearing a white dress, tights, pumps and, of course, a V.R. unit. She may think she's a girl, but it wasn't turning me on and I wasn't exactly packing away a large sum of money to pay a street girl for a trick anyway. "Nah, it's not you," I lied. I added a half-truth to that. "I mean, I don't have the money." There. That ought to get rid of her. "Oh," she said a bit disappointed. "Okay. Well, bye then." She wandered over to some other guys at a table nearby. "Are you going to order a drink or what?" the bartender asked. "Actually," I said. "I was wondering if you were, ah . . . hiring." He looked at his watch and back at me and replied,"Look buddy, it's three fifteen in the afternoon. This place doesn't get much busier in the evening. Know why? It's because the streets aren't safe after dark, that's why. The only customers I get at night are killers, pimps, and prostitutes. So, no, we're not hiring. Now quit wasting my time." A short, white haired guy sitting at the bar a few places away from me turned and grinned at me. "You need work?" he asked. "Yeah," I replied. He looked me up and down and asked,"You into show biz?" "Huh? Showbiz? No," I said. "Why?" "I got a sidewalk show," he explained. "In Dazar?" I asked. "Are you kidding?" "No, not Dazar," he laughed. "It's down in Arka. You know? The tourist section. Well, as much of a tourist section as Neptune's got anyway. You interested?" "Sure," I said shrugging. "What do I have to do?" He thumb-pointed back over his shoulder to the street girl sitting at a table behind us. "Help me sell some V.R. units," he explained. "All you got to do is try on a few programs in front of a crowd. They'll laugh at you a bit, but laughter is a gimmick that helps sell this product pretty good. Oh, but you'll find out about that. So you interested?" "Sure," I replied. "How much and when do I start?" He pulled out a five hundred dollar plinket and set it on the counter, sliding the coin over to me. "Five hundred a month?" I asked taking the coin. "A thousand a night," he corrected. "You'll get the other five hundred after tonight's show. My name's Ergston. I'll be your boss if you're interested. You'll get a thousand a night." "My name's Harold," I said, then asked. "A night? Did you say a thousand a night?" That was alot of money, but then again, this was Neptune - the world with the best economy at the moment thanks to the ample supply of kelleniualite found on this planet. "Yes Harold. A thousand a night," Ergston said standing up, and walking to stand beside me. He pat me on the back and handed me a slip of paper. "Meet me at this address in two hours." He snapped his fingers and whistled at the street girl nearby and she got up and came to him, wrapping her arm around his. "Come on Candy," the guy said leading her out of the bar. He paused on the sidewalk outside and turned around and pointed at me. "Don't forget. Be there in two hours." I should have known. The guy was just another pimp looking to trap me into becoming his next street girl. Yet he did give me money up front, so perhaps he wasn't all that bad after all. Besides, if I were to go in drag, I'd make one heck of an ugly looking girl. It didn't take an art critic to see how ugly I was. No, this guy was probably on the level with me about assisting him in some sort of sidewalk sale. I'd just put on the V.R. unit and act like a fool in front of a crowd for awhile and then at the end of the show, he'd remove the helmet and pay me another five hundred plinkets and I'd go to a cheap motel somewhere and wait until tomorrow night's show and start it all over again. Easy money. ___-----___ I took the next train to Arka and hung out along the storefront where I was supposed to meet this Ergston fellow. I grabbed a bite to eat from a nearby hot dog stand and waited around until Ergston showed up. He pulled up in a pickup truck and I helped him unload a table and some boxes. Arka wasn't a dome city, but an underground one so there were lights up above along the rock ceiling that dimmed at sunset, emulating the switch from day to night. "What happened to the girl you were with?" I asked Ergston. "You mean Candy?" he asked. "She doesn't really work here. She used to, but I had to let her go." "She used to help you in this show like I'm going to do?" I asked worried now because I didn't want Ergston to drag me around all over the place with a V.R. unit on my head. He nodded and said,"It wasn't like you think. She was a friend of mine. I didn't make her do anything she didn't want to do and when she was ready to quit, I let her quit. No big deal. There's no strings attached to this, Harold. If you don't like the job, then you can walk away and no big deal. Just give me enough notice if you do quit, okay?" "Then who was going to help you out tonight?" I asked. "I mean where's the regular guy then?" "Oh, he'll be here," Ergston assured me. "Joe's an old pro at this, but it's about time I got another guy in on the act. You'll do fine." He handed me a V.R. unit and a couple discs. "Always put in the big disc first. The small one is for behavior control - you know, to make you believe you're the person or animal on the main program disc." "Or animal?" I asked shocked at the idea of myself running around on all fours. "Oh, it'll be okay," he explained. "Just a horse and a cat, or you could be a dog if you want. Just part of the show. You know, to get people interested enough for me to make my sales pitch. Just remember to put in the big disc first and never put in the small disc unless someone is around to make sure you don't get into trouble. I don't want you running all over town pretending to be a stray cat or runaway horse. It wouldn't be good for business. Anyway the general public doesn't get to buy the small discs - they're illegal you see, but I only use them to sell the product. Anyhow go on ahead and put on that helmet and stick the big disc in. I want you to get ready for the show. You ever tried one of these helmets before?" "No," I answered putting on the doughnut shaped unit. Everything was black, like someone turned out all the lights. It was totally dark now. Pitch black. I could still hear but it was dark. "Okay," he said grabbing me by the arm and leading me over to the table. "Place both hands flat on the table like this." He helped me put my hands on the table. "Okay," he said tilting my head down. "Now keep your head like that. I want you to see this. It'll blow your mind away. Here. I'll plug in the disc. This'll blow your mind. Just keep watching." Suddenly I heard a humming noise in the V.R. unit and I could see again. Nothing had changed yet with my perception of reality. I was just looking down at my own normal male hands that were still pressed flat against the tabletop. "The program takes a few seconds to initialize," Ergston explained. "Just keep watching your hands. This'll really blow your mind." I saw my arms and hands blur but everything around them was clear as a bell. Same fake woodgrain pattern imprinted on the plastic tabletop. Same boxes of V.R. units stacked on the table near my hands. Same concrete sidewalk that I stood on. Suddenly I heard a popping noise in my head and I felt lighter, thinner, and shorter than I was a moment ago. My arms and hands went from a blur back into perfect focus only now I was looking down at the arms and hands of a young woman - and my nails were painted pink! "What happened?" I asked and heard my voice come out just like that of a teenage girl. I looked down at myself and noticed I still had on my bluejeans and white t-shirt, but everything seemed to fit differently now. I had wider hips and breasts! My perception was telling me things I knew just weren't true. I was a girl, but I was a guy. My mind was teetering back and forth, trying to decide if I really was a teenage girl or a grown man. It wasn't anything like the pills Aronson gave me. At least with those pills, I knew I really was a girl, but with this V.R. program I kept thinking "I'm a guy" while also thinking "I'm a girl" - my mind just couldn't decide. "Isn't it wild?" Ergston asked holding the small disc before my eyes. "Ready for something even better?" He didn't give me a chance to respond. He quickly put the small disc in my V.R. unit and now the entire world seemed to shimmer. ___-----___ Dad wanted me to help him with his show again tonight. I mean, I don't know what else a girl could do but go along with her father's wishes and help him run his business. I just wish dad wouldn't insist on keeping the family here on Neptune. I mean, a girl's got no rights on Neptune, right? I don't mind the crowds laughing at me so much, because the joke's on them, right? They think I'm not a girl, but a guy but I know what's going on. I may be a girl but I'm not stupid. "He really thinks he's a girl!" a guy called out from the crowd and everyone laughed and pointed at me. I stuck my tongue out at them. Stupid insensitive men. I don't know what drugs they're all on, but I'm a girl, not a guy. I've always been a girl, thank God, and I'll always be one. I just wish I didn't have to help dad run his business like this. I mean, just once I wish dad would let me wear one of those V.R. helmets but he says I'm not old enough and I'm not allowed. What good am I just standing around on the sidewalk like this every night when I could be wearing a V.R. helmet, trying to help dad make better profits? "Kate," dad said. "Go ahead and walk to the corner and back." I walked up to the corner and guys everywhere were laughing and pointing at me. I don't know why. Hadn't they ever seen a girl walking before? What was their problem? Oh well, whatever it was, it got them lining up to buy the V.R. helmets. Now I understood why the men were laughing at Joe, because Joe was acting like a fool wandering around the sidewalk pretending to be a dog. Poor Joe - even I laughed at him. He was such a fool. Such a poor, poor fool. I just don't get it. Why do the guys laugh at me though? I'm not even wearing a V.R. helmet and the crowds still laugh at me. Am I that different from them? I know guys probably don't see too many girls out here on Neptune, what with the way women are treated and all. I bet these guys are laughing because they haven't seen a girl before. That's it. That's got to be it. They don't understand so they laugh at me. Well if it helps dad make money, then I don't care what these strangers think of me. I'm a girl, and that's that. ___-----___ Everything blurred and then blacked out. I felt someone lifting the V.R. helmet off my head. The world came back into focus and I saw Ergston set the helmet down on the table. "It's after midnight," he told me. "We had quite a good crowd tonight, Harold." Oh yeah, that's right, my name's Harold now. What a trip. It's been three weeks now and I'm starting to go mad trying to figure out who I really am anymore. With the helmet on, I become a cat, or a horse, or a dog, or even Kate Ergston, and each time I come out of it I seem to loose a little bit more of myself. I know I'm supposed to be Harold, but more and more lately I've been absolutely convinced that my time as Harold must be part of some V.R. program, and that I'm really still Kate Ergston, sixteen year old daughter of Todd Ergson. "Todd," I said. "Yeah?" he asked carrying a few boxes over to the truck. "I need to quit," I told him. "I can't take it anymore. It's driving me insane. I don't know who I am anymore." He set the boxes down and turned to face me. "Or is it that you don't know who you want to be?" he asked. "I'm Kate," I replied. "But I'm also Harold. Oh, it's all so confusing. I don't know. I just can't take this anymore." "Well, Harold," he said. "I'll tell you what. You can go then. Just like I said from the start. It's your choice. Anyway you had fun, right? The last few weeks were fun, weren't they? You made some money, too, right? So go on, Harold. I'm not going to hold you back." "Thanks . . . dad," I said smiling at him. "Anytime . . . daughter," he said smiling back. I helped him load up his truck and then I went back to my motel room for the night. I wondered if I was making the right choice. I did love it when I got to be Kate, but coming out of a reality changing session was just too much for the Harold half of me anymore. I had to get out of that job. It just wasn't worth having my mind split in two every day. I had to be me - whoever that was now. Whoever that was, I had to be that person . . . but something inside me was fighting against remaining Harold. No matter how bad virtual reality split my mind, reality itself - this reality - was the real killer. If only there were a cure. If only I really had been born a girl. Then everything would be solved. Then I would be free. ___-----___ The next morning I took the first shuttle off Neptune. I knew I couldn't just go back to Moray and tell the guys I was innocent. I mean, why would I run if I was innocent, right? Everyone's entitled to a trial, right? Well, I ran, and that's that. Now the Feds are after me, and probably Dr. Aronson as well. It's not my fault. Troy was behind all this. Troy was the culprit. How was I going to prove that to everyone else though? The shuttle took me to Gamma Station, which orbited Neptune. If Neptune was where the kelleniualite was, then Gamma Station was where new science exploited the precious substance to the fullest. I heard about Gamma Station. It's the place where the newest of the new technology is developed. Dr. Aronson is supposed to have developed his little magic girly pills on Gamma Station and then perfected them on Earth, or so I read in one of the papers I was required to read before signing up in Aronson's "volunteer" adoption program. I got off the shuttle and walked into the main terminal on Gamma Station. Fairly busy place, but most people were leaving Neptune and stopping off here briefly before continuing on to the inner planets. According to a large directory sign, casinos lined the hallways to my left and right, and up ahead were storefronts and science labs. I walked towards the stores. People nicknamed Gamma Station "wonderland" and for good reason. This place was setup like some twisted amusement park where the rides were experiments in technology, and the tourists who visited were the guinea pigs. "Shut up," someone said walking past me. "I don't have to," someone else said. I saw the people arguing were really one and the same person - only the guy had two heads. "Why did you talk me into volunteering for this stupid experiment anyway?" one head said to the other. "Shut your trap," the other head responded. "I don't want to hear any more of your lip. Now shut up and take us back to the lab." I followed the guy for awhile to see where he was going, and to see if there were other strange looking people wandering about the station. I was curious - that's all. I walked past a boarded up door. A big sign above the door read: Girly Girl Land. Another sign across the door read: Moved to Earth! I suppose that was one of Aronson's offices. The guy I was following turned left into an open office. A sign above the door read: Twice As Smart, Inc. I walked back to Girly Girl Land and stood outside the door reading the little business cards people taped up to it. "Excuse me," a guy said from behind me. "You don't have to go to Earth for that you know." I turned around and saw a short, chubby, bald man in a white business suit. "Who are you?" I asked. "People call me Charlie," he said offering to shake my hand. "And I'm Harold," I said shaking his hand briefly. "As I was saying, Harold," he said. "You don't have to go to Earth for that. I've got a setup right across the way over here. I know, I know. What about Aronson's copyright on the transformation process? Well, Aronson's a bit of a liar. You see we both own the rights to that process. He used to be my business partner in fact. Anyway you wouldn't be interested in a transformation, would you?" "No thanks," I said. "Actually I might later on but right now I have a bit of a puzzle to solve." "Puzzle?" Charlie asked. "What sort of puzzle?" "Well, you see," I said. "I'm in a bit of a fix at the moment." "I see," Charlie said nodding. "Well then, why don't you come inside my office and tell me all about it?" I followed him across to his office. The wall to the right was made of glass and I could see another room where dozens of little girls were playing on some sort of indoor playground that had swing sets, jungle gyms, slides, and all. The thing was, all these girls looked like identical clones in every way. They all were little blue eyed blondes, with pink dresses, white socks, black flats, and little red bows in their hair. They all looked like clones of one another. Charlie laughed and said,"That's just what's left of the old Girly Girl Land. You want to sign in?" He laughed and pat me on the back. "Just kidding, you know. Anyway, why don't you have a seat over here and tell me more about this problem of yours." "Sure," I said sitting down in a leather chair beside his desk. "The thing is - why would you even be interested in MY problems anyway?" Charlie gestured over to the glass window that housed the indoor playground and replied,"Isn't it obvious? If you're problems are too great, I can offer you a way out. How does that sound, eh, Harold?" "I've been through all that before," I said. "That's part of my problem. I ran away from Aronson's girl program. You see, I changed my mind about it all. That just wasn't for me, you see? I mean, not yet anyway. It just wasn't the right time. You see, I still want to get myself out of the bigger mess I'm in. The Feds . . . well, let's just say I've got alot of people after me for alot of different reasons." "So you've been a girl before?" Charlie asked frowning. I nodded. "I see," he said nodding. "Well, well, well. A runaway. What we have here is a runaway." He leaned over his desk and pressed an intercom button. "Mrs. Munsworth, we have a situation here. An Aronson runaway. Understood?" A woman's voice replied over the speaker,"Yes sir. Fully understood." "What's going on?" I asked standing up. "Please, Harold," Charlie said. "Have a seat. Nothing to get all worked up over. I just set some wheels in motion. You see, in my line of business, runaways are just bad publicity, even if you're an Aronson runaway it's still bad business for me. Now why don't you tell me more about your problems, Harold, or don't you trust me anymore?" I turned to leave and saw two men dressed in white coats standing by the exit. They each had pistols in their hands and were waiting there patiently for further instructions. Mrs. Munsworth's voice crackled over the intercom,"Visually confirmed, sir. Dr. Aronson is very pleased you've caught this one. Shall I patch him in for you?" "That won't be necessary," Charlie replied. "The couriers are here and will take care of the situation. However do tell Dr. Aronson that he owes me big time for this." "Yes sir," Mrs. Munsworth replied. "Why are you doing this?" I asked Charlie as one of the guardsmen came up from behind me and put me in handcuffs with my arms behind my back. "What's going on? I'm no criminal." "But you DID sign an agreement, didn't you Harold?" Charlie asked. "Yes," I said. "But-" "Then you must abide by your agreement," Charlie said and turned to the guards. "Be careful with him. Aronson will want him in good condition, understood?" "Yes sir," the guards said in unison. "I can't believe this!" I cried as they hauled me out the door. "Damn it, this is the last time I trust anybody." "Shut up and keep walking," a guard said from behind me. ___-----___ They put me in a small cell in a cargo ship and informed me it might be a long ride due to some stops we had to make enroute to Earth. I just lay there on my cot and waited. ___-----___ "Hey dummy," someone called to me from the cell window. I looked up and I swear I couldn't believe my eyes because there on the other side of the door stood Troy. The guy who double crossed me. "Troy!" I said jumping to my feet and running for the door to strangle the guy through the bars. "I'll kill you, you little -" "Shut up will ya?" he said opening the door. "I'm here to bail you out. Come on. Hurry before the guards come to." I walked out and followed him down the hallway and out a cargo door into . . . "Outpost Moray!" I exclaimed. I'd come full circle in my adventure. "Will you shut up?" Troy asked leading me quickly over to an open hatchway in the floor. "Come on. There's another ship. Hurry you fool before we're both caught!" I climbed down a ladder down into another cargo bay where a red space yacht sat waiting. I'd seen this ship once before, but where? A short, fat bald man peeked out the entry hatch of the yacht. It was the space pimp! Now I remember. He'd come here with ten beautiful young women before and I'd turned them all down. "Harold," the fat man said waving me on board. "Come on, hurry." "How did you know my name?" I asked quickly boarding his ship. I turned to ask Troy something but Troy was gone and the hatch was closing up. "What happened to Troy?" "He couldn't make it," the fat man said leading me over to a couch. "Please do sit down, but first, allow me to introduce myself. I'm Victor Kars, but most people just call me The Boss. I've heard so much about you, Harold. I can't believe how much trouble a man like you has managed to get himself into. An Aronson runaway, also wanted by the Feds for the disappearance of one of their top agents? My, my, my. The list goes on too. How you've managed to stay one step ahead of your pursuers is a bit amazing. Do you realize that both the Feds as well as Aronson's bounty hunters both nearly caught you back on Neptune? It's true. Had you delayed ten more minutes at the space port, they would have caught you for sure. Lucky for you I happened to intercept Charlie's transmission to Dr. Aronson's office and was in the neighborhood to help." "But why do you want to help me for?" I asked puzzled. "All this time you were searching for answers, right Harold?" the Boss asked. "Well, I think it's time you found out what happened to that government agent. I believe his name was Jim, right? Well, not that it matters now. Why don't you take a look for yourself." He flipped on a video monitor that displayed a woman lying in bed with her wrists and ankles tied up to the bedposts. It was one of the two girls I'd seen flying with Troy and I on our way to Earth. "Jim got in the way, you see," the Boss explained. "So we had to get rid of him. This was Troy's idea that you see here. Anyway, back to why I'm helping you now. I like a man with your abilities, Harold. You've been pretty smart up until you told Charlie you were an Aronson runaway. Oh, but even someone as clever as you would be entitled to a mistake every now and then. I want you on my side, Harold, because sooner or later a guy like you would undo my entire operation, and I can't have that. So I want you on my side. What do you say?" "I don't know," I said. "I mean, Troy lied to me before, and then he goes and breaks me out of a cell only to dump me here. What is it you even want me to do? I can tell you're probably more than just a space pimp. So what is it you're smuggling?" "Smuggling?" the Boss laughed and stopped when he saw I wasn't laughing with him. "Okay. If you need more answers, then here it is. Kelleniualite. The wonder substance. Despite the small amounts we've been smuggling out of Moray Outpost, the stuff is worth so much that each delivery means another Boss, like myself, gets rich enough to buy in to the program and purchase his own mining outpost. You see, Harold. I am the owner of Outpost Moray now, and as such, I hold over twenty percent of the known supply. No other person in the solar system can even come close to that. These girls I have . . . well, they're just to keep the men busy while people like Troy load up my yacht with crates and crates of kelleniualite. We occasionally have one or two cargo ships that come in and smuggle a bit for me, but the main operation is right here in my yacht. As for the girls themselves, well they're real girls, I assure you. All natural born girls, Harold. No funny stuff, just all woman. Troy, on the other hand . . . he's not all he appears to be. He was actually born a girl, and later, after working in my service, earned enough to get one of those fancy transformations into a man. He keeps a few girl pills on hand for when he needs to make a quick change getaway or in the case of that federal agent, put a man out of commission without actually killing him. Well, there you have it, Harold. What more do you need to know?" "And you OWN Outpost Moray now?" I asked. The Boss nodded. "Why smuggle then?" I asked. "If it's your kelleniualite, then why smuggle it?" "Because," he said. "The stuff is regulated. I don't get to keep that much profit on an open market, but on the black market I get to keep it all and make ten times as much. Besides all that, the Earther governments are just hoarding the stuff. They're not using it like they should be. I sell kelleniualite to clients who will actually use the material. Clients like Dr. Aronson, for example, who use it for other things besides teleportation or propulsion systems. This is the age of the new science, Harold, and I won't have Earther governments keeping discoveries from people like you or me. Now will you work for me?" "Only on a few conditions," I said. "First you have to release Jim and change him back into a man again so the Feds aren't after me anymore. Second, get Aronson off my back, and third . . . " ___-----___ "I can't believe it!" Sam Dawson cried looking at his backyard, now empty of sand. "They've taken it all away! I don't know how to thank you." I handed him his morning paper and said,"No problem at all." "But what happened to it all?" Sam asked. "You know that fellow called the Sandman?" I asked. "Well, let's just say he got what he deserved." Several news reporters huddled around me. "Harold, how did you do it?" a woman asked. "How did you single handedly manage to break up the kelleniualite ring? How did you manage to trick the Boss into revealing their entire operation?" I smiled and said,"Even someone as clever as the Boss should be entitled to a mistake every now and then. Wouldn't you say?" I pushed past the reporters and climbed inside a stretch limo. "I don't know how to thank you," Jim said as I pulled the door shut and sat down across from him. "How did you do it? How did you get the Boss to crack?" "Simple," I said. "There's one thing I've learned on my adventure and that's not to trust anyone. So when it was the Boss's turn to trust me, well, I turned his whole operation into one big pile of sand. You know, teleporters come in pretty handy sometimes." "Well, I can't tell you how glad I am to be back to normal," Jim said as the limo started on down the street. "I'm sure glad it was reversible after all. Being stuck as a woman against my will was just horrifying." "I'm sure," I agreed. "Candy?" a six year old blonde girl asked holding out a dish to me. "No thanks, Dr. Aronson," I said smiling at her as she set the dish back in her lap. No matter how bad things seem to be, you just never know who's looking out for you. Sooner or later you can't go wrong. That's the amazing thing about life. "I still think it's cute," the nurse said from across me. I found out her name was Stacy, and she'd been so anxious to catch me that she followed me herself. All the way to Neptune and back. She wasn't going to be a nurse anymore. At least not in Aronson's office. The limo stopped and I got out, and lifted Stacy out. I turned around and there sat the red yacht. "Kiss me," Stacy said. I lifted her wedding veil and kissed her. Sometimes you can't trust people, and sometimes you just have to let your heart make the decisions for you. Aronson tugged on my shirt sleeve and I turned to see the little girl standing there with a stack of papers in her hand. She took a match and lit the papers on fire and threw the stack up in the air. The wind carried the charred remains down the spaceport runway. "A wedding present," Aronson said smiling. "Good luck to the both of you." I carried my wife over to the red yacht and set her down inside and closed the hatch. "Where to?" a young woman asked from the pilot seat. "I think we'll go to Neptune," I said. "Oh, but would you mind if we stopped off at my new mining colony?" "Outpost Moray it is," the woman pilot nodded. "Thanks Troy," I said. Outpost Moray. My old home. The yacht slowly lifted off the ground and a moment later streaks of starlight shimmered past the windows. "What do you think about having children?" Stacy asked. "I think it's a wonderful idea," I replied. "How about a girl?" she asked leaning over to kiss me. "Sure," I said. "Lot's of children. Lots of girls." She kissed me and I felt a needle prick my arm. "Good," she said laughing playfully. "Then we'll take turns." "What?" I asked rubbing my arm. "You go first," Stacy said and kissed me again while tossing the needle into the waste basket. Why not? If changing sex was so easy, why not have the husband and wife take turns at being pregnant? After all, it's only fair, right? Thank the stars I'll get my chance. Goodbye Earth. Hello freedom.
Copyright © 1999 by Cleo Kraft.
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