New U Redux Ch.4 "Happy Birthday Jamie" :: BigCloset Classic :: BigCloset TG Stories <br /> June 2001 to November 2004

New U Redux
-4-
Happy Birthday Jamie

By Jeff Rose

Chapter 4 of the original eight. (anyone wanna tell me how to create a font tag before I post the chapter featuring Dani's diary entries?)

Minor Note:
I started including lyrics from various songs because I listen to music when I write. Sometimes the songs are directly relevent to the story at the time of writting, but often as not only the snippet of verse quoted is relevent. If you know the songs listed think of them as BGMs.

They worked as that during both the inital writing and rewrites.

Shade & Sweetwater,
NiGHTs
2004

Sweet Dreams are born inside you
Sweet Dreams are made to last
Sweet thoughts within your make up
These thoughts will always last

'Sweet Dreams'
Jon Anderson / David Foster
Cotillion Music & Yessongs Ltd.1970

Lend me your ear, while I call you a fool
You were kissed by a witch, one night in the wood
And later insisted your feelings were true
The Witch's Promise was coming ...

'Witch's Promise'
Ian Anderson
Published by Rare Blood Music Inc. 1970

At eight Monday morning, Anne walked as calmly as she could to Jim's room. He'd spent the last three days at an anime convention, and had come home flushed with excitement. In the six months he had been living with the girls, she had rarely seen him so up. His friends, Matt and Ron, had helped move his purchases and bags up to his room last night before wishing him a happy birthday and leaving. Jim had explained on his first day with them that he always took the weekend of Otakon off for his birthday since the two events were usually on the same week.

Two days before, the package Anne, Chris and Beth had been waiting for arrived and today they would give Jim a real birthday party.

Jim had been up since five this hazy August morning. It would be too hot to work outside by eleven so he made sure the weeding on the south plot was up to date. He had planted tall grass and ground cover out there and once weeds became established, it would be well nigh impossible to get them out. As Jim stepped out of his shower Jon Anderson was telling how, "…the Teacher traveled, asking to be shown the same ..", to the gentle accompaniment of Messrs. Howe, Wakeman, Squire and Bruford. Toweling his hair dry, he padded over to the computer to check his schedule for the day.

"All that's left is to finish hooking up the satellite feed to the server and check alignment. I should be done by lunch." Given the lightness of his day, he was surprised to find he had no e-mail requesting the "one-more-things" that he usually found in his in box. It had taken him a month to fix his schedule so as to keep time open for all the little extra things Chris and Beth would think of in the wee hours. Anne would usually ask in person and if she couldn't find him, assume he was too busy.

"Smart lass." He thought, "Or at least very considerate."

Jim tried checking the girls' schedules and was surprised to find he was locked out, when he heard his doorknob turning. He quickly transferred the towel on his head to his waist and tried leap back to the bathroom as the door opened.

" Jim we'd like see yo..whoops!" Anne pulled her head back and left the door open a crack.

"Ah well, make that a considerate doctor who sometimes forgets to knock." Jim thought, dragging a pair of BVD'S and Levis from his dresser he called, "Sorry, first show's at two." pulling the jeans on he added, "Come in Anne, the gun's holstered and I think the safety's on." He began hunting through his bags for one of the t-shirts he'd picked up at the con. "So what's up that demands a full house meet without notice?"

"Something that needs to be taken care of today, but it'll take all of us working together." Anne said evasively, looking over the room and its occupant. As usual Jim was wearing full length jeans, murder during a Maryland summer where the temp was hitting 110 with 70% or better humidity. Was he really that self-conscious? She briefly recalled she'd never seen him in shorts before, except when she gave him his physical. 'We'll take care of that today.' She thought, while mentioning, "By the way, Chris and Beth took care of the dish hookup the day you left."

"Great! did anyone remember to do a complete system backup before hooking into the mainframe at the home office?" Jim asked, pulling on a t-shirt that seemed about two sizes too big. She recognized a big Totoro featured on the front and let her eyes continue scanning the room.

It was definitely a male's room. But there was a strange mix of mature and immature. The furniture and shelving were all in oak and matched the wood paneling flawlessly. The bedspread, curtain and shades were muted earth tones. The place would look downright dark if it weren't for the huge number of posters, prints and dolls from various anime shows plastered on the walls and stuffed on the shelves between books that seemed ready to come squirting out the first time you touched them. She stepped over to a 10" girl in an oddly retro flying suit.

"This doll's new, isn't it?" She asked.

"Yeah, I've been looking for a Nausicaa for a long time. The resin kits are easy to get hold of, but I don't really have time to work on them properly. Ready to go?"

As they walked out to the hall, Anne asked, "Don't you ever get male dolls?"

Jim blushed a bit on that one. "They don't make dolls like those usually." He felt he would appear overly defensive to inform Anne they were called vinyl kits. "Besides, the women are typically the most interesting characters in anime. Then there's the fact I've never found men to be aesthetically pleasing...uh, compared to women that is." Reviewing those last words Jim felt a blush creeping onto his cheeks that amused Anne. Crossing his eyes to make light of the situation he asked, "Did that come out right?"

"Well, it seems to be just laying there gasping for air. Let's see if we can't get it up and moving.", Anne tried to quip. It broke the tension though, and she managed to get Jamie so engrossed in explaining his views on the contrasting merits of female versus male forms that he missed the crowd at the foot of the stairs until they yelled.

"SURPRISE!!"

Matt and his family, Ron (with current love in toe) along with Chris, Beth all grabbed Jim and dragged him out to Ron's van. As Beth finished securing his seat belt, Anne leaned over and kissed him on the lips(!) briefly. "Thought I was going to let you get away with that stunt you pulled two weeks ago, huh?" Chris and Beth broke out with an explanation for those not involved.

Jim had been drafted into making sure Anne wouldn't see Beth and Chris prepare her party. He had arranged several system crashes on the LAN (after making sure the backups were up to date.) and reprogrammed All the TVs and VCRs to play nothing but Disney and the Weather Channel before sending her to Glen Burnie (on the opposite side of the beltway) to pick up a part he "needed" to fix the LAN. Her other option being to shovel fresh fertilizer for the garden out of the pickup and let him get the part. A call to Ron at the shop meant she would spend at least an hour there while Ron tried to figure out where "the guy who took the call" had put the part.

When Anne finally got back, Jim was worried he'd taken the joke too far. For the first time since he'd known Anne, she looked like she would seriously like to reach down some poor schmuck's throat and pull his testicles up for him to see. Since Jim was the only eligible candidate for such treatment, he'd made sure Chris and Beth were between he and Anne when she opened the door.

Ron's van took the party to the beach where Jamie got his first present from Anne. When Jim (with mock lament), mentioned his lack of swimwear while they set up, Anne just reached into the sports bag she'd put down and tossed a pair of trunks at him. They impacted squarely on his face. "Gee, thanks." Jim intoned sarcastically as he tilted his face down and let the trunks drop into his hands. Then he got a good look at them. They were hot pink with a black elastic waistband and black piping down the sides. "Anne!?"

"Off with you - get changed! No need to thank me. When you get home, you'll find about ten more pair of regular shorts. I got tired of worrying about you keeling over from heat exhaustion every time you work outside." Just as Jim opened the door to the changing room Anne added, " And hurry we've got a busy day planned!"

When Jim got back, Matt started in on his friend's new clothes, until his wife, in a very loud whisper asked Anne where she found such "darling" trunks.

The rest of the day was something of a blur to Jim as everyone seemed to be determined to hit the birthday boy in the face either with a present (The clothes weren't so bad, but the CD case and that video tape had hurt.) or a drink. Chris got him Valis! He thought they dropped Matt, Sue and the kids off on the way back from the beach. He remembered little Jodie grimly apologizing for getting sand in his cake. Ron and his girlfriend (what IS her NAME?) departed after sampling some appetizers at TGI Friday's and then

...

* * *

"Thanks Ron, we can take it from here."

Ron had his doubts, but Anne and the others seemed determined to take care of Jim themselves. He close the front door quietly on his inebriated friend. Chris and Beth began to lift Jim from the couch and move him to the lab.

"Ack! Y'know I'm the first one to refuse inappropriate - Ugh! - displays of chivalry Anne but..."

"Ron would've taken Jamie to his room and we'll need to monitor him in the lab."

Getting the nearly 200 lb. man on the table produced even more grunting and not a few explicatives from Beth. Once Jamie was on the table still snoozing away, Anne began prepping the package they received on friday. "You know, we never got around to telling Jim about this last gift." Chris mentioned while pulling Jamie's t-shirt over his head. "Remember what he did when we were chatting him up about virtual immortality?"

"Yeah," answered Beth. "The little warehouse of trivia here started humming 'Who Wants to Live Forever."

"We could try to wake him." Chris suggested, after hanging a collection bag of the bottom of the table and preparing the catheter.

"No time now. The treatment's at temperature. We use it now or start over."

"What about all the alcohol in his system?"

"S-1's will clean it out." Along with the Mickey. Anne didn't add. "Catheters in place?"

"Aye."

"Starting drip."

* * *

As usual, Jim's computer woke up before him. It waited patiently through five minutes and started an MP3. Jethro Tull began to fill the room while the computer flashed "Wake up sleepy-head! Time to start another adventure in the game of life!" on its screen. Waiting the full 3.5 min. for "Witch's Promise" to end (Jim taught his computer not to be rude.), it then ran a WAV file of Jim screaming (He, on the other hand...) to wake the fuck up.

Waiting another 10 min. the computer decided no one was in the room after all and promptly went to back to sleep. While the assumption had been quite correct for the past two days, it was patently false today and would be again tomorrow.

* * *

The darkness was pierced by music and dreams of memory. Jim was bounced unceremoniously through a tour of his life to date. He tried to grab hold of the better memories. The birthdays. The first time a girl (Sarah Rogers) slipped him the tongue. The surprise when he found out Stephanie Jackson really was interested in him. Finding a pristine mint copy of the first Ninja High School Yearbook. He skimmed by first time he met Rose, but landed in the middle of the phone call where she told him she was returning his ring. He was so close to suicide that night, (That wasn't the reason though, was it?) eight months later she called again and his dreams, both then and now filled with the vision of a little girl (THAT'S the reason.) who had Rose's pixy face and grace, but no trace of his…

...Red paint! How the heck did he get red paint on his thumb? Some of the other kids were finger painting, must've spilt some where he was putting away the big building blocks. Teacher's so upset. It doesn't even feel...

…cold. God, the barrel of that gun felt cold against the back of his...

…"Head on back man. She's been doing the horizontal bop with that guy the whole time you were..."

"..gone!"

"Get the fuck up you twit!" The computer blared in Jamie's voice and fell silent.

"Aw Scum Puppies! It's late." Jim couldn't bring himself to scramble out of bed as normal so he settled for a slow crawl to the bathroom. Every muscle in his body was stiff, his whole body itched like he hadn't bathed in days, and his brain felt wrapped in muslin that was pressing gently against the backs of his eyes. If he didn't know any better he'd have sworn he was last stages of a hangover. But he never got hangovers. Not _after_ drinking. His trick metabolism usually started his hangovers while he was drinking. Since it was hard to enjoy being drunk with a splitting headache, he rarely drank to excess.

Except, the trick didn't work when he mixed beer and hard liquor. "Oh shit." Jamie looked around the floor for vomit, but none was there and his stomach was actually reporting that it was a mite peckish. He told it to wait 'til after his bath, then tell him about how hungry he was. In the meantime, It would have to make do with coffee from the one-cupper on the bathroom sink.

It was only when he reached over for the little vacuum jar he kept in the medicine cabinet that he realized there was a lot more air around his balls than normal. Looking down while humming the theme to the Jack Benny show, he noted with a little irritation, the underwear he bought last week was being held up solely through the heroic efforts of his morning woody.

"Good job man. I knew I kept you around for something." Jim mumbled, as he lifted the waistband of the BVDs and let them fall to his ankles.

He started the tub and turned to the bowl. Dropping his voice an octave and a half to honor the little trooper between his legs with his best Darth Vader. "You have served your master well...."

* * *

"Beth, " Anne asked around her bagel, "who's on monitor duty?"

Beth sipped her tea. "I turned it down." She grimaced mildly, "Jethro Tull sucks.", Turning the volume on the baby monitor back up both women were treated to the sound of running water and the voice of James Earl Jones intoning, "…Now feel the full power of the dork side of the farce!"

"Anne, you were right, he's definitely more comfortable waking up in his own room."

* * *

The hot water of the bath was working its magic. The eerie feeling from uneasy dreaming and the tense muscles loosened in the warm cocoon of the water's embrace. The steam was dissolving muslin that was interfering with his synapses and his brain quietly reminded him he was running late and should cut this short. Jim began scrubbing in earnest.

"Oh fer the… Wasn't it enough that you guys decided to migrate from my head?" Jamie whined, as he looked from the washcloth (caked as it was with dead skin and not quite brown hair), and back down to his very clean, but quite hairless, chest. Picking himself up from the tub, he felt even more waterlogged and doughy filth sloughed off his body. The water was turning a ruddy brown as the stuff diffused into it. Then the steam rising from the water picked up the smell and Jamie's empty stomach retched.

Pulling the stopper from the tub, he grabbed the shower wand began furiously scrubbing the remaining reside from his body. Jim thought back to what Anne said in the van. "Dipping me in depilatory, huh? Didn't think Anne had it in her." He smiled at the work that had to go into this joke." I wonder how long it took Beth work out a formula that could stay on overnight without burning the skin."

"Lets see, Anne comes up with the idea, Beth and Chris run with it. Anne wouldn't have the meanness to do it without the other two to egg her on." He decided. "Then Beth, the chemist works out the formula. But, she really doesn't like to get touchy with anyone; so that leaves Chris to apply the stuff. I wonder if I enjoyed it?" Jim shook his head and chuckled at the naughty thought. Examining himself more closely, he noted that not only wasn't his skin irritated, but also he was having a hard time seeing the moles that dot everyone's skin. "Damn, a full chemical peel, with a skin conditioner built in?" He wondered, absentmindedly scratching his chest. Grabbing the shampoo, he looked at the bottle and poured some in his hand. Then looked at the little pool in his hand, sniffed and satisfied there was no danger, slapped the stuff onto the top his ... hair!

Not the fine wispy stuff heredity had condemned him to, but the thick mat he remembered from his youth. As soon as he got tired playing with this hair weave, or whatever it was he had to find whatever listening device they had set up (At least he hoped there wasn't a video of this to worry about.), and get a look at himself in the mirror before he got rid of the rug currently attached to his scalp.

In the meantime...

"God I wish this were real."

* * *

Chris was in the lab listening intently to "Blood Music".

Specifically, she was listening to the musical interpretation of the mathematical algorithm that was Jim's DNA signature after his treatment. She was comparing it to the version in the server from the time

she and Beth had programmed and prepped his treatment for production at the home office. She glanced over at the cooker she kept for on site experimentation. "Sorry Kiddo, you're fine for instant prototype creation, but Harry's got much better with QC equipment than I do."

Still, Chris prided herself on having a good ear and although Beth cleared the final product as matching the version in the server to 5 decimal places, She couldn't shake the feeling the tune (in both cases) had changed subtlety. And there was the fact that Jim had been out for 96 hours instead of the projected 48. She raised the headphones to her ears lost herself in the nuances of Jamie's Blood Music again. Then the computer cut in announcing a phone call being routed through from the home office.

* * *

Anne knocked quietly on the door to Jamie's room. Beth was standing ready to break it in if necessary. Both were mildly worried. They had been halfway up the stairs when Jamie's voice came out of the baby monitor in Beth's hand.

"You'll forgive me, I need to be alone with my thoughts for a moment. If you'd like to wait outside my door, I'll be right with you." The monitor cut out then. Jim's voice had been calm and collected, although there was a slight edge to it. Anne tried to run the last half of the stair, but Beth held her back. "We'll get there soon enough." she said.

* * *

Jim stood in front of the bathroom mirror, staring at himself. After finding and disconnecting the baby monitor by his lamp, he pulled on a fresh set of clothes. But, he was in such a hurry he failed to notice that the underwear was just as loose as the pair he discarded earlier. Jamie similarly missed the fact that although he'd pulled the belt as tight as it could go, his levis were riding low on his hips. Or, for that matter, that his T-shirt was hanging somewhere below his crotch.

Jim put his glasses on the nightstand after one abortive try. He was seeing clearly without his glasses. The hair was real. It was short -maybe two inches of growth and the rest was lighter at the roots.

But it was real. He wondered if the eyes were as well. He continued staring after hearing the girls knock.

"S'not locked." Jim called. This cannot be reality, he thought to himself.

"Must be video." The man in the mirror said.

* * *

Anne and Beth made their way to the bathroom, where the light was on. " Jim, you alright?"

Jim's back was to the pair and he was blocking their view of the mirror, but it was clear that the treatment was having an effect. They hadn't noticed just how much the nanites had slimmed Jim down. If she didn't know better, Anne would have guessed he was emulating the loose fit style that the kids were currently wearing. Both of them were surprised at the re-growth of hair however. The bald spot on the back of Jim's head had been replaced by a dense growth of honey blonde hair. The rest of his hair had grown out similarly. Anne reached out to run her fingers through the dirty blonde hair that encompassed his head. It now ran down to the base of his neck and the roots were the same honey color as the top.

Jim turned quickly and Anne found herself face to face with the man.

This also was odd.

Anne assumed that Jim had been slightly hunched at the sink. Now there was no doubt in her mind that Jim was standing straight but his head had to tilt up slightly to meet her gaze. It was that gaze that caused Anne to gasp though. Before, Jim had deep hazel green eyes, with little flecks of gold embedded around the pupil and a faint ring of brown around the outer edge of the iris. Now the iris was turquoise with faint spokes of blue radiating out from the pupil.

"Yeah, they kinda look back at you." Jim commented with a forced smile. "Now would you like to tell me what's going on, or should I guess?"

"Happy 31st Birthday?" Beth offered.

Note: TG sci-fi transformation series rated-M
Read Chapter 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.