I could apologise for this. It reads a little bit like I’m channelling a grumpy old Brit who feels that the wrong side won in 1783 but, truth be told, as with most wars, I think the wrong side would have won regardless of who surrendered first.

Anyway, the idea for this story came after a minor prang I had earlier this year, pretty much as described in the story. On the plus side, in real life I have my bike back and running better than ever, apart from a recent problem with the gear lever return spring which is unrelated to the accident.

I should say I’ve never been within a hundred miles of route sixty six and all the descriptions come courtesy of my mate Google, so you can blame any inaccuracies on him. I hope you enjoy.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. You know, make the best of a bad job sort of thing?

It started with the accident. I’d been making my way round the M25, approaching Heathrow, when all the traffic had ground to a halt up ahead. Not unusual for the M25 these days, just an annoyance. Which left me wishing I’d planned a route through the more interesting, windy country roads, but Google had warned of roadworks along those as well, so I’d opted for the quicker route, or so I’d thought.

Four lanes of stationary traffic ahead of me. I’d eased to a stop, taken the bike out of gear and settled back for the wait.

There was a crunch behind me, and I just had time to wonder what it was about before I was shoved fairly violently from behind; hard enough for me to lose balance and go over, dropping the bike on its left side.

Not the sort of accident to tell your grandchildren about. The tent strapped across the pillion seat cushioned part of the impact, and I had crash bars and fairly sturdy paniers, so I didn’t even get pinned under the bike. By the time I’d extracted myself from the tangle, a bunch of people from the cars in front and behind were offering me a hand, getting me to my feet and helping me to lift the machine back up onto its wheels.

It turns out the guy behind me had stopped, but the guy behind him hadn’t even touched his brakes. If he’d hit me directly there wouldn’t have been anything left of my bike, and probably very little left of me, so thank God for not-so-small mercies.

We called in the police – I mean you don’t try to push three damaged vehicles across several lanes of fast-moving traffic, do you? They had words with us all, longest words with the pillock who’d caused the crash. They rather incongruously asked me if I thought my bike was safe to ride. I mean what a stupid question. When you have ninety-four horsepower grumbling away under you and only two wheels, you don’t take chances, and since the hit had been hard enough to knock me off, it could easily have been hard enough to damage the tyre, warp the wheel, twist the rear suspension. If I’d ridden the thing and lost control for any of those reasons, then that would have made the next accident my fault.

So, no I didn’t think my bike was safe to ride, and I wasn’t going to try it until someone who knew what he was doing looked it over and told me otherwise.

Which led to a long day in the summer heat waiting for recovery vehicles to take me home.

Followed by long weeks while my insurance company’s assessor took my aging Triumph away and looked it over.

And that’s where the problem lay. At twelve years old and with more than thirty thousand miles on the clock, my bike was getting pretty long in the tooth. By the time the assessors had looked it over, and yes, the rear wheel had been warped beyond acceptable limits, the repair bill exceeded the book value of the bike by enough to make it worth their while writing it off. Which meant I ended up being paid off with far too little money for me to afford a replacement. At least a replacement I’d enjoy riding.

It didn’t matter that it wasn’t fair, that was the way the system worked. The wheels ground on and, like the Juggernaut of mythology, you either stepped out of the way or you ended up being crushed beneath its merciless progress.

So what do you do with your sixtieth birthday looming and enough money in the bank to not quite replace the old two wheeled pride and joy? I mean my health was okayish but deteriorating, and I wasn’t altogether sure how many more years I might enjoy in the saddle, so I figured why not spend it on one last proper adventure? Nothing extreme, I mean riding through a war zone or fighting my way across rough country in the developing world sounded exciting, but the reality for an overweight hexagenerian was more likely to come across as unpleasantly uncomfortable.

The United States seemed tame enough option. They spoke English, or at least most of them spoke something close to it. I figured in a continent that size there had to be a decent range of scenery and as long as I avoided the interstates (motorcycles not made for straight lines) it could be a worthwhile experience.

After a frustratingly long hunt through the interweb – during which time I discovered that odd numbered interstates head roughly north south while even numbers head east westish – I eventually found what I’d been hunting for.

What’s that saying? You’ve got to spend money to make money? I’ve never been great at that, which is why I’ve never had a lot of spare cash. It also frustrates me hunting through Google, because the top searches go to people who are prepared to spend money on advertising, which by consequence means they’re also prepared to charge prices that cover their advertising budget.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, the holidays they were offering looked amazing. Guided tours on the Harley of your choice, staying in decent hotels, doing expensive extras like flying over the Grand Canyon. They were just about twice what I could afford, unless I was prepared to share my bike, which might have been worth considering if I'd had someone to share it with. I’m guessing the idea there was to appeal to biking couples and it had been a long time since I’d been part of a couple.

Anyway, right down at the bottom of page three of my eleventy-seventh search (maybe I’m exaggerating) I found this little business offering an unguided ride down Route Sixty-Six. The guy had two depots, one in Chicago and the other in LA. Well not actually in the cities, but near enough that you didn’t mind. You decided which way you wanted to go (west to east slightly cheaper since most people preferred to head towards the sun), turned up at the relevant depot and picked out your bike (from a selection of well-maintained iconic Harleys – his words not mine). He provided you with an armoured jacket (pretty much a must these days) a piss pot (what I’ve always called a half-face helmet), goggles and a travel pack which consisted of a bunch of maps, a guide to all the motels and eateries along the route and a second guide to all the tourist attractions you were going to pass.

You had seventeen days to cover the two and a half thousand miles and an allowance of an extra five hundred miles in case you fancied taking a detour or two. Fuel was charged to a gas card which was included in the welcome pack and if you were unfortunate enough to break down, you just gave him a call and he promised to get you a replacement bike within half a day.

He even offered a major discount for anyone who cared to do the trip both ways over thirty days. From his point of view he didn’t have the problem of bringing one of his bikes back, from mine, I didn’t have the additional cost of an internal flight from LA back to Chicago. I still had to factor in accommodation and food, which made the overall budget a little tight, but I figured I was only going to be sixty the once, so why not live a little?

July arrived and I flew into O’Hare on the designated day. My clothes fitted into the waterproof saddle bag I’ve used for a lot of years and all those little necessities of modern life – smartphone, ebook reader (don’t say Kindle, they’ll think you’re advertising), wallet, waterproofs etc – went into a neat little rucksack. I cleared customs and found a cab to take me to the outskirts of the city where I was to start my ride. The cab ride cost a bit, but then it go quite a way out of the city.

He had a lot of bikes and, not being that familiar with Harleys, I spent a good long while looking them over. Eventually I opted for comfort over performance and settled on an Electra Glide. He complemented me on my choice (I imagine he would have regardless of what I chose), sorted me out with extra gear and pointed the way to the open road.

I had the choice of heading back into Chicago to get to the official start of the road on Jackson Boulevard, but half a day in city traffic just for the dubious bonus of saying that I’d ridden the route from end to end didn't appeal. Besides, the weather wasn't that clement and I had jetlag to contend with. Chicago in July doesn’t usually see much rain, but what rain it was due to see on this particular July happened to turn up on the first day of my break. Tiredness and motorbikes don’t mix well, especially when there’s a little rain about. I mean, evidently I’m used to rain since I ride in England, but I was on holiday and not particularly enjoying myself, so I hunted out the first motel I could find and settled in for an early night.

The following morning offered blue skies and my early night had led to an early morning. My clothes had pretty much dried out from their short exposure to the rain, so I packed up and checked out with the early birds and headed off in search of the promised worm (Early bird? Worm? No?. Which is when I had my first inkling that perhaps there might be a few less than desirable aspects to this final adventure upon which I was embarking.

What to call it? Corporate homogenisation? Or perhaps that should be homogenization, given that I wasn’t in n Kansas anymore, or rather I very nearly was and probably would be in a few days.

Sorry, muddling my metaphors. What I meant to say was here I was in the USA, land of the ubiquitous zee (not zed) and the seriously endangered letter u, so perhaps I shouldn’t insist on speaking English when everyone I was likely to meet would be speaking American.

Anyway, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was here was my first experience of a quaint little American town and the main street was a jumble of adverts for just about every fast food brand you could think of.

I mean, I’m used, whenever I go abroad, to experiencing all the cultural differences of the countries I visit. It’s what I love about Europe, that every country has its own peculiar flavour, in its food, in its architecture, in the attitude of its people it’s also what I hate about the European Union, that it seems to be working towards making all of Europe the same. The differences are what make visiting Spain or France or Germany or Italy or Greece such singularly different and enriching experiences.

So, what if you were to visit a country the size of Europe and find that wherever you went, it was always somehow the same? Whether you were in Windy City or The Big Apple, Sin City or the City of Angels. North, south, east or west, wherever you went you were greeted with loud, in-your-face signs inviting you to dine at McDonald’s, or Wendy’s, Burger King or Taco Bell, Subway or KFC, or a hundred (almost) equally well known establishments.

They call it the American Dream. American Nightmare more like. Think big enough, push your idea hard enough and you can make a ton of bucks. No-one seems to grasp the concept though, that if you’re going to get rich, someone else has to pay for it, such as the small businesses that so often give a region its flavour. And since your food giants guarantee the same taste and quality of merchandise wherever they are (don't forget, there is such a thing as poor quality as well as good) they almost completely overrun the small businesses providing the regional specialities that would make Minnesota different from Mississippi, the Carolinas from California.

I was hungry enough to eat anything that morning, so I settled for a food chain I hadn’t encountered much in the UK. As I tucked into my breakfast burrito, I investigated Google to discover there were over a hundred branches of Taco Bell in my Green and Pleasant Land, but not one of them in my fiercely independent home county of Norfolk.

The burrito was everything I expected, which meant nothing I particularly wanted. It boasted a blend of three cheeses which my taste buds interpreted for me as three almost indistinguishable degrees of blandness. I didn't mind the sausage and thoroughly enjoyed the bacon because, well, who doesn’t? Overall though, it was a disappointment. Fats, carbs and proteins, the making of a man, as long as it was the Michelin Man. They were the wrong foodstuffs, messed with your brain so you’d leave wanting more. Good for business, but not for the customer. American Dream in action once again. Freddy Krueger in disguise.

I left my breakfast half eaten, before the cravings took me over, and headed for the door, turning a few heads as I went, because what full grown man leaves an unfinished breakfast burrito?

We'll that was an easy question to answer. The sort of full grown man who doesn't want to grow anymore. The sort who would prefer not to end up wider than his motorbike. The sort who didn't want to need the very generous padding built into the seat.

Easy to answer but harder to understand by those already caught in the trap. I didn't try. Most people don't take kindly to that sort of preaching (so why am I proselytising here?) I strapped my gear on my bike and headed for the open road.

Ten minutes later I pulled up on the side of the road and consulted my map. It seemed that in my urgency to find a dry bed before I got too wet the previous day, I'd ridden away from the iconic highway and had managed to ride parallel to it for the time it took me to find breakfast.

Another ten minutes had me on the right road.

I might have been inclined to offer up an apology for my earlier rant. From the outset, the road had a bunch of quaint little quirks that seemed to change with every mile. No Wendy's advertising here and Ronald’s golden arches had been well and truly relegated to the background.

I say might have, though, because it seemed like all the world and his wife was trying to call in on the notoriety of the road, and most offerings were tacky and half hearted to say the least. Vintage cars sat rusting here, old style petrol – sorry gas – stations were everywhere. So much of it had a cheap and cheerful prefabricated feel to it, like you might pick up the corner of the gleaming plastic exterior of some ‘olde worlde’ (well for America anyway) classic dinner and find the words ‘Made in Taiwan’ stamped on the bottom.

The first place that really caught my eye was Springfield. That's the one in Illinois since I wasn’t in so much of a hurry that I’d chased off as far as Missouri.

That was another thing I wasn’t too sure about: America’s sedentary fifty-five mile an hour speed limits. I was used to being able to add thirty percent to that and, even though this whole journey was intended as a relaxing jaunt through a ton of varying countryside, I hadn't been certain that plodding along at fifty-five would ruin the experience for me.

I’d read a fair bit about how the US police enforced the speed limit and it had persuaded me that I didn't want to risk going too fast, like ever.

Fortunately, the Electra Glide was a comfortable ride at fifty-five and eased effortlessly through what bends it encountered. Not that there were many in this first leg.

Two hundred miles from Chicago on my first day put me comfortably ahead of schedule (that’s pronounced as in shed you guys) so I hunted out a cheap and cheerful hostelry and spent the afternoon exploring the life of Abe Lincoln, who has always been my favourite among the very mixed bag of individuals given the opportunity to lead this peculiar country. I even found an eatery that did not belong to chain I’d heard of and presented me with a meal containing enough vegetables to satisfy my needs for roughage and vitamins

Sorry to keep banging on about it, but you get to my age and proper nutrition becomes a necessity.

The next day took me as far as Cuba, via St Louis and the magnificent arch that identifies it. I did go off piste a little in order to visit Defiance, having been a fan of the TV series for the short time it was on air. There wasn’t any evidence that the show had been shot or even set there, but I did pick up a couple of bottles of wine to enjoy later.

After the Gateway Arch, there wasn’t much to keep me in At Louis, which worked out quite well because the murals in Cuba really caught my attention.

I could take you through the trip one tourist attraction at a time. I mean, I stopped in Joplin long enough to learn about Bonnie and Clyde, I found the very short section of yellow brick road somewhere along the thirteen point two miles of route sixty six the passes through Dorothy's home state, then, like her and my earlier comment, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Cadillac Ranch was essential stop, though I didn't add anything to the layers of spray paint covering all of the cars.

Overall the journey became less about the tourist attractions and more about the changing landscape, and I stretched the daily legs until I was a couple of days ahead of schedule crossing the border into New Mexico.

Long before then, about the time I reached Texas, I’d tired of motels. For one thing the cost was eating into my meagre budget more than I’d anticipated. For another, despite efforts made to make each one unique, there was a similarity to them all that left me begging for a bit of variety. For yet another, they were pretty basic and I had been hoping for a little more lux for my bucks. Since I was in warmer climes, I started looking and phoned ahead to book some camp sites. With a few nice outdoorsy places sorted, I paused a while in Broken Arrow, Arkansas to try out a few sporting goods shops, settling in the end for a level of cheap and, I hoped, good enough to get me through to the end of my journey.

It still ended up costing a bit because there are always those little extras you need or decide you must have. Under the essentials were a compact tent, sleeping bag and something comfortable to put between my old bones and the ground. Under the unexpected essentials I invested in a canteen, a torch, a decent knife and hatchet and a bare minimum of cooking and eating utensils. I was sure I’d find a few more things I needed, but my credit card had friction burns by the end of the afternoon, so I figured I’d discover those things later.

Having headed the many warnings against wild camping, US attitudes towards trespass being a little extreme, I stuck to State Parks that allowed me to pitch a tent. As a bonus, that meant I enjoyed better facilities and more stunning surroundings, on the flip side, it was harder to find peace and quiet. With a motel room you can shut the world out, on a camp site, surrounded by a relatively large number of naturally gregarious families, I could barely their up my canvas before some cheerful soul came over to introduce themselves, at which point there would inevitably be some variation on, “England! I’ve always wanted to visit London/I visited London once. Gee, I love your accent.”

Of course that generally led to an invitation to eat with them which meant I didn’t have to cook or dig into my rations, but after a few stops I began to miss my alone time.

Which was why, when I reached Santa Rosa Lake in New Mexico, I had a quiet word with one of the officials explaining my predicament, and he kindly showed me to a patch a little way from the official campsite and down close to the lake shore where he assured my I’d be left alone.

I had days and miles to spare by that time and had planned a little side trip down to Roswell the next day. From the campsite it was two and a half hours and a little over a hundred and thirty miles away, which made it a pleasant day trip with the prospect of a second peaceful night under the stars by the lake.

Since I’d started camping, I’d fallen into the habit of eating my main meal at some diner in the middle of the day, meaning I could get by with soup and a roll and some campfire coffee in the evenings. Restrictions on open campfires meant I usually had to hire a gas burner for my cooking needs, but that was no major burden, and even situated apart from the main camping area, I had access to the facilities, so ablutery needs weren’t as primitive as they might have been.

The whole trip was turning into just the last fling on a bike I’d been hoping for, and I was even looking forward to the journey back.

Roswell turned out to be everything I expected, which is to say tacky and touristy, but as a sci fi nut, it was still pretty much a must. The crash site itself – oops sorry, alleged crash site – was part way between my camp and the city of Roswell itself, but the road leading out to it was not suitable to the Electro Glide, so I had to settle for what Roswell had to offer. The UFO museum proved a great example of what people might be inclined to accept as evidence if the were eager enough to believe – or according to my inner cynic, if they figured they could sell the idea to such people – but it was a fun experience once I’d given him (my inner cynic) the day off. If you’re going to get into sci fi, you have to be prepared to suspend your credulity from time to time.

Besides, my research had uncovered the Area fifty-one alien centre, which I planned to visit on my way through Nevada, so still had some hope of finding some thing real, didn’t I? Maybe that was just the suspended credulity talking.

It ended up being a longer day than I'd anticipated owing to the high tourist throughput. With shadows lengthening and the last site seen, I found myself a food truck advertising space burgers as, ‘the reason the Greys keep comin’ back.’ I asked him if he’d even been here when they came the last time, which admittedly rather pathetic attempt at humour earned me a growl and a rather taciturn, “look, do you want the patty or not?”

And, since I was starving and all the more salubrious eating establishments with such luxuries as seats were filled to capacity with oversized, sweating tourists, I said yes please.

It wasn’t at all bad even if it was served with that peculiar American abomination called the french fry. I deliberately spell it in the lower case because any Frenchman I ever met would be quite vocal in disowning the concept on behalf of his country. I mean why mash a perfectly good potato before frying it? Unless you deliberately want it to soak up all that delicious, artery clogging cholesterol.

It’s a complete non-starter though. If you ask why they can’t serve chips instead, they go and hand you a bag of crisps. George Bernard Shaw had it right when he called us two nations divided by a common language.

The shadows were lengthening by the time I’d satisfied my hunger, so I climbed onto my trusty hog and headed back north towards my campsite.

With the local speed limit up at sixty-five, the journey back took a little over two hours. The campsite was open twenty-four hours a day, so there was no rush, and there was still a little sunlight in the sky when I rolled up next to my tent.

It had been a good day and I had a gentle buzz going just from the amount I’d enjoyed myself. I grabbed my canteen and settled back against a convenient tree to watch the stars appear.

I’ve been a few places around the world where the night sky opens up to you, and New Mexico has to rank among the finest. Crisp, dry air and nothing nearby to throw light into your eyes. I’d thought about setting a fire and brewing up a jug of coffee, but hadn’t wanted to ruin my night vision. The result was spectacularly worth it. Stars brighter than I’d ever seen them, the Milky Way tracing an arch overhead, the Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy standing out like spilt silver. I sought out and found a few other deep sky objects I’d only ever seen through a telescope and allowed the magic of the night to envelop me.

A meteor shot across the sky, painting a blinding streak behind it. I followed it to see if it would reach the ground and was surprised to see it curving round close to the horizon. I prodded my brain, looking for a better explanation than the half dozen it had thrown me by default. It was no shooting star – they had no means of changing direction like that. Nor was it an airplane since nothing we’d made could travel that fast – not inside the atmosphere anyway. Every idea that followed was less likely, so with the light low down and growing as it scooted across the lake towards me, I was left with Sherlock Holmes’s razor that when you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable... and it was coming directly towards me, shining its light directly into my eyes with enough brilliance to blind me.

“Male!” a raspy voice spoke nearby to my left.

I was naked and lying prone on a surface made from something uncomfortably hard and cold. I tried moving and discovered every muscle in my body beyond the reach of my control.

Almost every muscle. With a herculean struggle, I managed to prize my eyelids open. I could also move my eyes a little. A glance left revealed a gaunt humanoid with mottled grey skin, every inch the epitome of a Roswell alien. I saw no sign of clothing, but then my view of him (her? It?) only extended to mid torso. The creature held one four-fingered hand out indicating my genitalia.

“Female!” A different voice said. This one was somehow gentler and belonged to an individual who stood outside my field of vision. An alien hand settled on my head, freakishly unusual. Each finger was as thick as my thumb and perhaps twice the length of my middle finger, and they were arranged with two fingers opposing two. It felt unlike anything I had experienced – dry and almost satin smooth.

Once I had adjusted to the odd feeling, my subconscious prompted me to take notice of the word. An icy chill ran through me as I thought of the small bundle of clothes tucked away at the bottom of my tote bag. It was something I’d long since learned to keep hidden from the world, just as it was something I’d long since learned I couldn’t ignore completely. It was one of the reasons I was so strict about keeping within the law because, more than anything, I did not want to find myself in a situation where I might be arrested and required to strip out of my clothing.

It had taken me a long time to get to where I was, most of my life having been spent in denial resulting in an inevitable binge purge cycle. It had only been in recent years that I had finally acknowledged that there was nothing wrong with me, and that it was okay to indulge in a little frilly lacy femininity. I still kept it to myself because a lifetime of denial left a lot of ingrained issues I knew I would always struggle to overcome, but having accepted it as a part of myself, I was learning to like the me that was emerging like the shyest of butterflies.

The part of the world in which I lived was very much on my side I knew, with the medical profession discovering progressively more evidence to support explanations of why people like me existed and why we should be permitted to be who and what we were, even the legal world provided legislation to protect us against prejudice, but I was also very aware that the man in the street was significantly behind the times in embracing this aspect of our brave new world. I mean I should know; I was one of the men in the street. However much I’d have liked to be open with the way I was inside, I knew just as well that I wouldn’t find the kind of acceptance I would want.

Which was why I felt afraid even in this bizarre situation, not so much afraid of these strange alien beings who had apparently taken me without bothering to ask, but rather afraid of even one of them seeing through to the inner me. I expected anger or ridicule from anyone who uncovered the girly part of me, and would have been just as inclined to shrink back into my cocoon at encountering either. It had been such a long journey for me to reach a point where I could even peak out from mt hiding place, I did not want to take any steps back.

So here was the reason for my fear. How had this creature, so alien, so different from me, been able to see inside me through my well-constructed façade, my impenetrable armour?

“Male!” the first alien growled pointing at a monitor which showed strands of presumably my DNA, also presumably from my Y chromosome.

“Female.” came the gentler reply from my hidden advocate. The image on the screen shifted to show a number of different genes. Again I was presuming, but these had to be the alleles I possessed that caused my brain to develop its more girly aspects.

“Both?” gravel voice asked.

“Both,” the other agreed.

“Euthanize?”

Not a word you particularly want to hear when you're the subject of discussion.

“Alternative.”

The screens flickered showing a series of complex alterations to my DNA which I can't pretend I understood in the least. They went on for quite some time and I may have drifted off party way through. I roused when the light show came to an end.

“Interesting,” gravel voice said. “Creative.”

“Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Gravel voice turned an unreadable face towards me. In his (for want of a better pronoun) hand (for want of a better noun) he held a device, the purpose of which was unclear, unless it was to fill me an unreasonable terror. It was long and thin and apparently intended to fit into a particular orifice.

Which actually wasn’t so terrifying. I mean I had my first colonoscopy courtesy of the National Health Service a few years ago. I won’t say the experience was particularly pleasant, but it did mean that what came next was not entirely unfamiliar.

Right up until the moment when the device had apparently been inserted far enough. The grey then looked into my eyes, appeared to smile with his thin, almost non-existent lips, and gave the contraption an abrupt twist.

The pain was excruciating and chased me back into unconsciousness.

“Good morning,” a cheerful voice greeted me. “We were beginning to wonder where you’d gotten to.”

I roused, feeling the discomfort of a few rocks under my back. My tent and other gear stood a few yards to my left with the Harley just beyond.

“Wzzamrgl?” I asked, stretching to ease the kinks out of my back. I was cold and stiff, but less so than I might have expected.

“We thought you were only planning to stay a couple of nights.” The voice came from a tall figure standing over me, its back to the rising sun.

I hunted around for my glasses before realising that everything was in focus. A gentle inspection of my face with one hand brought me to the conclusion that I’d been sleeping with them on.

“Mrblflyrgh?” I asked, raising myself up on my elbows.

“Yeah,” my visitor continued. “We kind of figured you weren’t going to leave your gear and bike, so we figured maybe you’d gone off to explore the lake. Then when you weren’t back after a couple of days, we figured you'd gotten yourself lost, so we’ve been looking for you. Care to tell us where you’ve been?”

“Couple of days?” I asked, words now apparently possible if not with any degree of independence of thought.

“Well yeah, only it’s been more like four now. We couldn’t find any tracks leading away from your camp, so frankly we didn’t know what to think.”

“Four dayzzz?” Slight loss of verbal control, still only accessing vocabulary from words recently encountered. Evidence of slowly returning cognitive process.

“Yeah. You’ve been gone four days with no word and no sign of where you went. We’ve been worried, and we’d like an explanation.” The cheery note had definitely faded from his voice, having been overridden by a distinct level of irritation.

“Sure,” I finally managed a word of my own, even if I had no idea what to follow it with. “Coffee first maybe?”

“Yeah, I guess, okay. We’re going to have to ask you to pay for the extra days you’ve been here.”

“No problem. D’you want that now?”

“No, come find me when you’re roused. Glad to know your okay.”

“Yes, me too.”

I struggled to my feet, not feeling the usual ache in my bones and finding that strange given I’d apparently spent a night out under the stars. The pain in my back passage stirred disturbing memories I’d been trying to suppress. I mean Roswell or no, that had been one doozy of a dream.

Coffee didn’t take long thanks to the propane fire pit the operators of my campsite had been kind enough to rent out at a small additional fee. With the risk of setting the bush alight it made sense that they didn’t allow visitors the freedom to build their own campfires, and there were apparently enough people like me riding around with a bare minimum of camping gear that they kept a few bits of gear for the likes of us. I’d likely have to pay the extra rental on that too, even though I hadn’t been around to use it.

Four days? It had been a dream, hadn’t it?

The coffee kick-started enough neurons to give me back my brain. I chewed my way through three cereal bars before my stomach finally stopped complaining. My phone was dead, so no use there. I’d have to wait till I was back on the road to refill it, then call through to my tour guide to explain why I was behind schedule.

And exactly why was I behind schedule?

I backed up my gear and strapped everything to the bike before taking fire pit and my wallet over to the campsite office.

I put some vague story together about wandering off in the night with the sky being so amazing, then getting lost and wandering about until I found my back. He didn’t seem to convinced, but I figured he’d be less pleased if I started talking about alien abductions. He did ask if I’d taken any drugs and I mentioned the burger from the food truck in Roswell, asking if that counted as a controlled substance. In the end he gave up asking and accepted my apology for the trouble I’d caused. Apparently it was more than he usually got, so he took it as a win.

A small roadside diner somewhere along the route in Arizona served as a lunch stop, by which time my phone had recharged sufficiently to allow me to call in. I explained the situation as best I could, relying on the same pathetic half-story I’d told in New Mexico. Once he knew his bike was alright he didn’t really care though. Since I was due to do the return trip, I could turn up in Santa Monica a couple of days late and catch up on the return journey. I would have to call in at his California depot though as he’d want me to ride a different machine back to Chicago.

I had about nine hundred miles to go, which would mean a couple of days with more than six hours in the saddle each day if I wanted to arrive in Santa Monica just a day behind. Riding in England and Europe, I was used to long days like that and the Harley was comfortable enough that I could go the distance without feeling particularly exhausted. The halfway point took me to Flagstaff Arizona where, having had enough of the outdoor life for a bit and feeling the need for some serious me time, I checked into one of the better rated motels in my guide.

After whatever I’d gone through during the previous few days, I was feeling in need of some serious girl time so, having checked into my room and closed the blinds, I dug to the bottom of my tote bag and pulled out my frillies.

They’re not the things I would usually wear. I mean I’m not the biggest bloke in the world at the best of times, and I’ve managed to keep reasonably trim, but I’ve found the more skin I show, the more ridiculous I look, so I’d usually go for long skirts and loose sleeves to hide the excess of meat I’m carrying around.

Fine, you do the jokes if you want, but that’s not the piece of meat I was thinking of. Not the only one anyway.

The thing is, I’d known I was going to be tight on space for packing clothes so, apart from a fair selection of lacy underwear I could hide under my jeans, I’d limited myself to a few relatively skimpy things. A tight miniskirt, a strappy top, a few pairs of thigh high stockings and a pair of ballet flats, all of which could pack down to a tight ball.

The down side was that I looked ridiculous in it and I knew it. The strappy top displayed my broad chest along with what muscles I had – not exceptional but maybe Serena Williamsish (to look at only I mean. I’m pretty sure she could beat me hands down in an arm wrestling contest (apologies for the pun)). It tended to bulge a little in the middle too which led to the display of a small amount of skin between the top and the skirt, only because my curves were more convex than concave at that point, the overall effect was more vomit inducing than attractive. The skirt hugged my bum as tightly as you can imagine, with the downside that the slightly erotic feeling I had from dressing up encouraged my little fella (not that little when he starts accumulating blood) to stand up for himself.

This meant that not only was I showing off an undeniably masculine chest and arms above the top and an unsightly bulge below it, but I also had a decidedly inconvenient additional bulge pushing its way out the front of my tight skirt.

I didn’t do it for the looks though. I did it for the way it made me feel. I tended to avoid mirrors when I was dressed like this because I seriously didn’t want to deal with the disappointment. I also made sure I stayed very much behind a closed and locked door because I was under no illusions what sorts of reaction I’d get looking like this.

I felt the weight of the world shift off my shoulders as, in my own private space at least, I didn’t have to pretend to be something I wasn’t. Mr Excitable wanted some fun below my skirt, but I knew if I let him have his way, I’d end up on a guilt trip. This wasn’t about any sort of sexual gratification, but far too often it gate-crashed the party spilled beer all over the furniture.

Not sure how good that is as a metaphor, but there was usually a spillage and a mess and an end to all that might have been good about the experience, so it kind of works. Either way, I tried to discourage my little friend, and the more often I succeeded, the more often I found the experience less intense but more positive.

Something felt different this time though. The bulge between my legs subsided sooner and more completely than I had ever felt before. If anything it felt like it had gone completely.

I looked down to see what might be visible and gasped at what I found. Not only was the lap of my skirt completely smooth and flat, but the rest of my body above the skirt looked totally different.

My arms were slender for one thing, and my shoulders closer together. I still filled out the top but very much more in the way originally intended. The usual bulge of my stomach had withdrawn to the extent that I now had a distinctly waspish waist, and above it two moderate mounds sprouted from my chest.

I needed a mirror. I ran for the bathroom, feeling an oddness in the way my body moved. A couple of unfamiliar something's were bouncing on my chest and my hips felt twice as wide as usual.

It wasn’t me, except in a way it was. I mean we’ve all had a play with one of those apps that shows how you’d look if you were a boy or a girl, or ten, twenty years older or younger, right? This wasn’t far off the female me at age forty. My hair had grown out over the two weeks I’d been on the road into something of a mess but now it looked like a deliberate shag cut which showed off a long slender neck I had never possessed. I stripped off the top and skirt, then stepped out of my skippies just to be sure. They weren’t super large, but I definitely had breasts now, and in the old giveth, taketh away theme, I also definitely didn’t have anything dangling between my legs. What I did have instead was soft and moist and not anything that had ever existed on my body before now.

I don't know how long I stood and stared, or how many times I ran my hands over my own body. I could feel my fingers caressing every curve, just as I could feel the soft smoothness of my skin. It wasn't weird or anything, I mean if they're yours there's nothing wrong with touching them, is there? I did stop when things started getting tingly, and eventually pulled my clothes back on.

The pragmatist in me couldn't get past the idea that things like this just didn't happen. I mean I'd lost four days somehow, I’d dreamed or imagined I was on an alien spaceship, because that couldn’t be real, could it? Complete it all with the cliché about being probed and everything. And now this?

There’s an approach to problem solving that suggests when a system goes wrong – or perhaps changes significantly because I couldn’t really think of what I was experiencing as something going wrong – to find the cause you should backtrack to last change you made from routine. For computers that usually meant the last new program or update you installed. In this case, despite the whole correlation is not causation concept, there just had to be a link between my experiences at Santa Rosa Lake and what was happening to me now.

But what had caused those experiences? I mean, I couldn’t really have been taken and randomly experimented on by aliens, could I? That official at the camp had said I’d been missing for four days with no indication of where I’d gone or how I’d left without leaving a trace. Of course, there was always the possibility that he was in on it, which might help explain where the extra bit of mystery came from, but it also steered me awfully close to paranoia.

Besides, exactly what would rationally explain what I was looking at in the mirror? I mean, I’d just been ordinary old me for the whole day hadn’t I? When I’d changed into these clothes I’d felt the old sense of vague disappointment over the gorilla in a dress syndrome. I’d felt the fabric of the top and skirt stretched against my bulkier masculine frame, then it had been gone.

By way of experiment, I tried lifting my tote bag. It wasn’t particularly heavy, but now it definitely felt heavier. If I’d been this weak for the whole day I would definitely have noticed it when riding the bike. And the guy who’d checked me into the motel had definitely called me sir. There’s no way he’d have done so if he saw what I currently saw in the mirror, even wearing the heavy armoured jacket.

I had no rational explanation for how a hundred and eighty odd pound, sixty year old man could, in just a few seconds lose a third of his body mass, wind back a couple of decades and become so evidently and undeniably female. Nothing on Earth could do that as far as I was concerned, which left us with Sherlock Holmes again.

More experimentation. I changed back into my normal clothes and waited. I didn’t feel anything, so I headed for the bathroom. What looked back out at me resembled a child trying on her father’s clothes, or maybe a girl in her boyfriend’s. The shirt and jeans didn’t swallow me completely but there was no question I’d be better off in something considerably smaller.

I didn’t change back.

How did you make fifty or sixty pounds of flesh just vanish? Liposuction couldn’t make that much of a change, and as for the physical differences, my apparent age and my new gender. Even if it was possible, it wouldn’t be possible in four days, at least no without a ton of bruising and discomfort. Could post hypnotic suggestion account for what felt like such an abrupt change? Could it have made me imagine the responses of the people I’d met today?

Now I had to face up to Occam’s Razor. The more assumptions I made in my attempt to construct a rational explanation, the less likely it was to have any truth to it.

Besides, why would anyone change me into this, at least without talking to me first?

I needed some air and, rather incongruously, I was likely to turn fewer heads in my skimpy skirt and top than my now oversized biker gear.

I changed again, feeling that familiar softness flow through me as I embraced the feminine in me. Maybe, without their being any rational explanation to support the idea, maybe wearing the skirt might help stop me from changing back. If I felt like a girl, maybe I was more inclined to stay like one. I mean the change had happened the moment I got my girl on, hadn’t it?

The ballet flats weren’t intended for outdoor wear. My feet still fit comfortably into my biking boots and the walking boots I’d brought along for something to wear away from the bike, but neither looked appropriate with the rest of what I had on, so I decided they’d have to do until I could find something else.

I didn’t have a bag, so phone wallet, room key and bike key all ended up in a sort of clump that was a little too large for my hands. Again, my hands looked about the same size as before, though my fingers were decidedly slimmer.

Night was fast approaching which meant the temperature was plummeting. I slipped the biking jacket on, almost staggering under its weight, and headed for the door. The pockets gave me somewhere to put my wallet, phone and keys, but I’d need to do some shopping soon. A bag would be nice, and there was a Native American street vendor near the motel who had a small selection of bead decorated purses on sale. They were nothing much, but then again that’s about what he was charging, and they gave me somewhere to put my bits’n’bobs that stopped the unsightly bulges in the jacket.

My next priority was shoes, since the ballet flats offered no protection against the icy pavement. The street vendor pointed me in the direction of a shoe shop that still happened to be open. I hadn’t planned to spend much, but my eyes were drawn to a pair of leather boots which I figured would work on the bike in a pinch. They bit a significant chunk out of my budget, but the girl in me loved them.

In the UK I was a size nine and a half men’s, which equated to size nine women’s. This meant it wasn’t impossible to find women’s shoes to fit me, but it did restrict my choice. Over this side of the pond, I knew I was an alarming sounding size eleven which had me worrying about the same thing here. It turned out that there was a significantly larger number of tall women in the US though, with larger feet to match, so locating a pair boots to fit took next to no time. The next half size up were a little loose in my sheer thigh-highs, so I stuck with my first choice and wore them out of the store .

Stumbling a bit over my new four inch heels, I hunted out and very nearly literally fell into a lingerie shop. The cold night air had my newly enlarge nipples stiffened and erect and chaffing painfully on the inside of my top. They also showed through in some detail. The leather jacket helped hide them from both the prudish and the lewd but, if only to ease the discomfort, I was in rather desperate need of a bra.

Again, the newly awoken girl in me responded to the temptation. So much choice and, even though I find American frillies to be over the top a lot of the time, there was still a lot to grab my eye

I allowed the shop keeper to measure me – apparently women’s breast change often enough over the course of a lifetime it’s not unusual to be remeasured at any age – and then offered me a selection to try. There seemed to be a direct correlation between how flimsy and impractical a particular bra was and its cost. In the end, conscious of my limited funds and with no small amount of regret, I invested a bare minimum on a fairly non-descript sports bra, which was, at the very least, comfortable. Once more I wore it out of the store

I checked out a few shop windows after that and even tried a few things on, telling myself there was no harm in trying. It turns out I was wrong. One of my try-outs was a pair of stretchy, boot cut jeans that looked so good once I had them on, I managed to convince my inner accountant that I’d need something to wear on the bike if I ended up stuck with this form. They wouldn’t offer much protection if I went sliding down the road, but they would be better than bare skin or nylons, plus they wouldn’t be quite as indecent as straddling the hog in a miniskirt.

The jeans stayed in the bag. My legs were cold, but I had every intention of making the most of my first public appearance in a skirt.

Purchases made, I headed for the nearest bar where I recouped at least some of my losses by paying for exactly no drinks. I mean, I’d intended to pay, but by the time the bartender got round to handing me my first libation it had already been paid for. The barkeep waved away my money as passed across my martini, pointing at one of his regulars who raised his beer in salute.

I let him come to me. I mean what kind of girl did you think I am? Mind you, I hadn’t yet figured that out for myself, except it didn’t seem right to throw myself at the first guy to spend money on me. Besides, it seemed more natural to let him do all the work. One of the reasons I’d never done so well with the ladies. Brain with passive tendencies trying to play an active roll in the game of love.

He didn’t take long coming over, which was probably as well as I’d spotted a few others on the prowl. He introduced himself as Hank and from the checks on his shirt to the points on the toes of his boots he was about as red necked as they come.

He was pretty easy on the eye, something I didn’t mind acknowledging now I was this side of the gender divide, but apart from being tall and some kind of ruggedly handsome, he was very much at the back of the pack when it came to mental agility.

I gave him a friendly smile and thanked him for the drink, and that precipitated the inevitable, “Hey, you're from Ingerland,” (his pronunciation).

“Hey wow, thanks,” I replied. “I was trying to figure out why everyone had this weird accent.”

His brow creased and I could hear the gears grinding. “You the one with the accent, darlin'” he said carefully as if hoping to avoid upsetting me.

It was kind of sweet. “Ai guess you could be raight,” I said in the worst impression of a southern belle ever attempted. “Ai just get so confused at times.”

“Well don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. You just let old Hank take care things and you do what you do so well, which is carry on lookin’ as cute as a cupcake.”

His last words had been addressed more to my behind than my face. Perhaps my sitting on a barstool offered up to tempting a target, but he really didn't need to give in to it. Except he did.

I felt a sizeable hand settle around one of my butt cheeks and give it a squeeze.

“I don't think that's a cupcake,” I said letting all the playful drop from my voice.

“I don't recall ever saying it was,” he laughed. Some of his cronies joined it.

I swivelled the stool round until he was obliged to let go.

“In my country that would count as sexual assault,” I said, still keeping my voice level.

“Well,” he moved in closer and settled his hand back where it had been, “I think we already established, we ain't in your country.”

“Perhaps not.” I took hold of his wrist and tried to dislodge his hand, unsuccessfully as it turned out. “But this counts as unwelcome attention, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to come across as ungentlemanly.”

I glanced over at the barman who was serving someone down the other end of the bar. Whether his lack of attention was deliberate or not I wouldn’t want to guess, but for now I was on my own. Hank seemed to have come with a coterie of like minded friends and they’d moved in to fill the space around me.

“Well, the way I see it,” he leaned in to speak low in my ear, “I done bought you a drink, and that should count fer somethin’, wouldn’t you say?”

“Sure,” I replied. My insides were warring between terror and rage and I hadn’t yet figured out which was winning. “It counts for a smile and a friendly conversation, just like we were having. It doesn't count for you taking liberties like this.”

I recalled a trick I’d learned but never had the opportunity to use against my older brother. I grabbed his little finger – which incidentally was about as big as one of my bigger ones – and twisted it back towards his wrist. It's painful and it's something pretty much no-one can resist. His other fingers peeled away and I reclaimed possession of the lower half of my anatomy.

“You bitch!” he snarled and used that same hands to slap me across the cheek.

I tasted blood and my head snapped round far enough to see the guilty look in the barman’s eyes before he looked away again. I felt other hands grab me by the upper arms. So it was going to be like that was it? Rage won.

I could feel myself swelling inside my clothes. Not quite hulking out, but definitely changing. My original sixty something self wasn’t in that bad a condition. I mean, I didn't work out more than building the strength necessary to manhandle a decent sized motorbike, but it was enough. I didn't know how to fight either. I'd spent all six decades of my life doing my level best to avoid fights, but there were times when the rage boiled up and I had to let it out on imaginary characters in my mind. My grandfather had been in trouble with the law several times because he didn't know how to hold back when he was caught up in a fight, and I’d always worried I might be the same.

The rage came all the way to the surface this time and for once I let it have control of my body. I tugged my right arm out of the grasp of whoever was holding it and swing my elbow back into his face. I didn't try to hold back and both heard and felt the satisfying crunch of cartilage under the blow. I twisted round to the man holding my left and registered the panic in his face before I smashed my forehead into his nose. Again no holding back and down he went with a face full of blood. I turned on my primary assailant and growled at him.

“What the hell are you?” he asked.

“Retribution,” I snarled and lunged forward, bringing my knee full force into his crotch. Again he went down like a sack of spuds, or maybe cornmeal given our location. Everyone else was backing away from me so I snatched the proffered opportunity, grabbed my bags and made a dash for the door.

Running in four inch heels isn't much fun if you’re not used to them and even less so if you’re suddenly sixty pounds heavier. I made it outside and sprinted for a nearby alley, reaching the safety of the shadows before anyone inside recovered enough to follow me out. When they did appear, they glanced up and down the street but lacked either imagination or inclination to continue their pursuit. I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back against the wall.

Only for a second though. Chances were the police would be coming and I did not want to be found looking like this.

I took advantage of the dark alley to slip off the boots and struggle into the jeans. I’d bought them to fit a much slimmer me, but one with much broader hips, so with a little bit of juggling with the junk, I managed to fasten the button and zip them up. Boot cut jeans meant that even with my more substantial calves, I could still wear the boots and hide them under the jeans. The miniskirt came off and went into the bag I'd been using to carry the jeans. With the jacket zipped up against the desert night chill, my appearance was just about acceptable. Not so much the heels, but the boots were still better than the ballet slippers. I set off on the twenty minute walk back to my motel room, keeping to quieter roads as much as I could.

The police knocked on my door the following morning. They were understandably confused about what they were being asked to investigate so weren’t too disappointed when I proceed unable to help them with their enquiries. Just passing through on my way down Route Sixty-six. Four hundred plus miles covered yesterday and the same ahead of me today, so mainly I’d wanted a good night’s sleep. No, no woman in a miniskirt in the place. Feel free to look around. I’d packed my gear including the girl boots ready to strap onto the bike, so I felt I was safe enough. They made some comment about my jacket matching a description they’d been given, but there was nothing distinguishing about it and I suggested they might end up talking to a whole lot of angry bikers if that was all they had to go on. They agreed. They instructed me to have a nice day and left me to find some breakfast.

I found a diner across from the previous night’s bar and ordered something substantial enough to take me through to the end of the day. The police still had the bar cordoned off so I asked my waitress what was happening.

“Oh,” she said, “some cockamamie bull about some guy and his friends being attacked by a girl who turned out to be a guy. Personally, I'd like to shake his hand, or her hand or whatever. The guy in question is a real douche. A local rancher made good, which means he’s good for business in town and the mayor likes him, but he ain’t been so good for some of the girls around here. I hear he had his pecker kicked so far up between his legs, he could taste it in the back of his throat.”

“What about his two friends?” I asked.

“Did I say he had two friends?” She gave me a look. “Well, maybe I did at that. Broken noses the both of ‘em. Won't look so pretty maybe, but they'll be alright. Listen, you want anything else, you let me know now.”

She hurried off after some other customer. I made my slow way through my gargantuan breakfast, enjoyed a couple of refills on my coffee and tipped my waitress quite generously.

Back as Mr Me, I barrelled down the last of the highway, stopping only to refuel. I made Santa Monica in time to watch the sunset and called through to my tour organiser who assured me the next morning would be soon enough to switch the bike over. Once night had fallen I headed back inland and found a cheap place to stay near the depot. I left the girl clothes packed away as switching bikes would be a lot less complicated if I managed to continue looking like the person who’d arranged the holiday in the first place.

I was waiting at the gate when the depot opened in the morning. The guy waved me in and went through an elaborate inspection of the bike, eventually nodding his approval and offering me a form to sign that said no defects.

“The boss wondered if you'd be up for a bit of negotiation for the return,” he said.

“What do you have in mind? Or rather, what does he have in mind?”

“He has a bunch of girls coming in in a few weeks looking to do Chicago to Santa Monica like you just done. Thing is, they all want smaller machines which means we need to get this eight eighty-three SuperLow back thataway. It's a smaller engine than you've been riding and a lot lighter, but the weights way down low so it's a dream going round corners.”

“What's in it for me?”

“A coupla extra days to get there and a coupla hundred extra miles for exploring.”

“Smaller engine means it'll be using less gas. You can do better than two days and two hundred miles extra.”

“He said I could go as high as four and four.”

“Four days and four hundred extra miles?”

He nodded.

“And since I'm two days late this end.”

“No. He said if you helped him out with this then forget the late arrival and enjoy the extra days.”

“Mind if I take it for a spin?”

“Sure. Take it round the block. See how it feels.”

It felt pretty amazing. Low ground clearance meant it wouldn’t lean far before scraping the ground, but my old man riding style wasn’t much into taking corners fast anyway. The engine size and overall weight were a lot closer to my old Triumph, so it all felt that much more familiar. With a luggage rack already fitted I didn't have any problem with where to stow my gear. It felt like a good deal so I signed up for it.

There wasn't much paperwork so I was away by nine. The new bike didn't have the same degree of comfort as the old, but it was a lot more agile. I began to understand why girls liked it and before long, the girl in my decided she liked it enough that she wanted to be out in the open air with it.

The change spread through me part way through a long bend. The same loss of mass, loss of muscle, loss of manhood. It felt great, but I did have to stop at the next convenient stand of trees to change into more suitable clothing.

The first couple of days had me catching up on the tourism. I'd discovered that the Area Fifty-One Alien Centre wasn’t much more than a diner and gimmick store and decided it wasn’t worth the detour. Area 51 itself would be a challenge with the eight eighty-three’s four inch clearance, so another bust. I hadn't particularly wanted to visit Las Vegas since it epitomises so much of what's wrong with the human condition, but I did want to see the Grand Canyon and that pretty much meant driving through Sin City. Next was Lowell observatory back in Flagstaff (and another breakfast at the diner opposite the bar) and Meteor Crater as a short detour just after. I allowed myself another day trip to Roswell but couldn't find the same food truck, and I'd already seen most of what was there so it ended up being a bit of a wasted journey.

It didn't matter. Going anywhere as a girl was a whole new experience. Most people I spoke to thought I was either gutsy or crazy riding alone and especially camping alone, and I'll admit there were several incidents that promised to go the way of the Flagstaff encounter. I learnt how to manage them better though and only had to bring Mr Me up to handle a particularly persistent individual. I knew I was taking a risk, but whatever insane course of events had brought me this gift, I didn't want to waste a moment of it.

I started hunting for thrift shops any time I passed through a town and slowly built up my stash of clothes. There wasn't much room to carry things on the eight eighty-three even with the luggage rack so I dug my way even further towards my credit limit by investing in a tank bag. Such accessories are rarely cheap, but there was no way I could get away with just one top, one skirt and a pair of jeans. It took a while but eventually I found enough girl clothes to fill it, probably spending half as much on the clothing as I did on the bag itself.

It had to be small stuff for the most part since I really didn't have room for anything bulky. Fortunately, most of the ride passed through states that were warm and dry this time of year and most of the clothing I ended up liking was designed to cover the essentials only and little Miss Me seemed to look younger each time I looked in the mirror. I wouldn't compromise when I was riding. Always the jeans and boots over a pair of tights, and always the jacket. A friend had told me some years ago to dress for the slide, not for the ride and I'd taken it very much to heart. As I’ve mentioned, I had no faith in the jeans to protect me much against road rash, but the lower speed limits would reduce the distance I'd be scraping down the tarmac by fifteen to thirty percent and the more layers I had, the better my chances. I did hunt for something a bit sturdier, but there was nothing in my budget. Instead, I had to rely on my better view of what was around me to keep out of danger rather trust to my ability to survive a spill.

Like they say, superior riders uses their superior judgement to avoid situations that require the use of their superior skill.

Camping became a delight. I'd stop early, pitch the tent and change into something that left most of my skin exposed to the air and the sunlight. My hair was growing out quicker than normal resulting in an overall effect that turned a lot of heads. It felt good to be noticed and encouraged me to smile more, which helped draw more attention and caused me to smile even more. I don't recall the last time I’d felt so buoyant in my spirit. It brought out a gregarious side to me that led to me meeting a lot of new people and being invited to share their company, their campsites and their food. It wasn't something I'd intended to do and I always offered to pay my way – which was always refused – and by the end of my second week, the money I'd saved on food just about covered what I'd spent on clothes.

Around the time I was due to leave Oklahoma I decided to make use of some of my extra miles to carry on eastward. It would keep me in the warmer weather for a little longer and take me through a couple more historical places I wanted to visit. I booked a spot in an interesting looking campsite at Pinnacle Mountain in Albuquerque, just outside Little Rock with its significant links in desegregation, then looked for somewhere near Memphis where I planned to spend a couple of days taking in the music scene and visiting Graceland. After that the plan was to follow the Mississippi north to rejoin route sixty-six at St Louis.

That was the plan anyway.

Riding the road I’d become used to encountering the same bikes and the same riders from time to time, and had assumed they were fellow travellers seeking to get in touch with a bit of America’s motoring past. Over the previous few days I'd noticed one particularly dodgy gang more or less keeping pace with me through eastern Oklahoma, and had done my best to steer clear of them. Whenever I saw their machines parked up next to a diner I’d been planning to use, I’d ride on past and stop at the next place. I'd also try and park my own machine out of sight off the highway any time I stopped. They didn't approach me and definitely had no intention of approaching them, so after a while I just let them blend into the scenery and ignored them.

Then I left Route Sixty-six and found myself a diner a short way into Arkansas. I hadn’t expected them still to be following me so I made no effort to hide my machine. Ten minutes later they pulled up in a cloud of dust and noise. They took over a couple of cubicles on the other side of the room and made just enough of a nuisance of themselves for the waitress to threaten to call the law on them.

I finished my lunch and downed my coffee, glancing over at them as I made my way to the rest room. Most of them were fooling about, but there was this one individual staring at me, wearing a predatory grin.

He was still waiting and watching and grinning when I came out. If it was intended to intimidate it was working pretty well. As on previous occasions, I felt a mix of nervous discomfort and anger, only this time the anger was losing. I paid my bill, tipped the waitress and offered her an apologetic smile as I headed out to my bike. It wasn't my business, but I still felt guilty leaving her with them.

I took the next turn off the highway. My tank bag had a clear pouch that fit my cell phone and I figured I could Google my way to my destination using some of the smaller roads running through the hills. It might take a little longer but with luck, they wouldn’t be able to follow me.

My luck was all bad. About half an hour after leaving the diner, just about when I was starting to relax and enjoy the scenery, I spied them in my rear-view mirror. They weren’t as conscientious as I was about speed limits, which wasn't a big surprise, but how they had known to follow me, that was.

They seemed to come out of nowhere. One minute I was gently leaning my way through a series of bends winding up into the forested hills of Arkansas, the next they appeared en masse, speeding around a bend not fifty yards behind me and accelerating until several of them had passed me on either side and closed in ahead. To my right, the supercilious smile of their leader stared back.

I had nowhere to go. They matched my speed and kept me hemmed in until an abandoned dinner and fuel station appeared ahead. My captor pointed at it and sped ahead to lead his band of brothers, and me as their captive, in for an impromptu pit stop.

I kicked out the side stand but otherwise stayed on my bike, helmet fastened, ready to speed off given the least opportunity. Adrenaline was coursing through my veins, but all I could think of was running away.

Whatever else these guys were, they knew how to spring a trap. They surrounded me with a double ring of bikes that admitted their head honcho who sauntered towards me, loosening the straps on his own skid lid.

“Anyone would think you were trying to get away from us,” he drawled in a gravelly voice. He reached over and flipped the emergency cut out and my engine died.

“Can you really blame me?” I asked sounding a lot braver than I felt.

He laughed. “I do like a bit of sass in my women.” He switched to an overdone attempt at a British accent. “Perhaps you would be so good as to hand me your key, my lady.”

It earned him a round of laughs from his cronies. There wasn't much point in trying to resist so I fished it out of my jacket and handed it over. Not so much a key as a security fob that disarmed the immobiliser when you were near to the bike. He tossed it to one of his crew who'd just climbed off the back of another bike.

“Mind telling me how you found me?” I asked. If I managed to escape, I'd want to make sure I could stay hidden.

He held up a device about the size of a mobile phone with a screen on it. “Pretty much all rental vehicles are lojacked these days.”

“I thought lojack needed to be turned on remotely and only the police and the manufacturers had the means.”

“Smart and sassy,” Mr Smiley said to another round of laughter. Honestly, what some of these people found funny. “Ordinarily your be right, but you see this little gizmo sends out some kind of test signal which turns on the lojack in any nearby vehicles, for a short while anyway.

“When you hightailed it away from the diner, I was watching you on this. It showed me where you turned off so we came a looking. Real kind of you to bring us all the way out here away from any prying eyes. We don't much like people watching.”

“What do you want with me?”

Another round of laughter. Apparently I was being exceptionally funny. Either that or they had a low threshold for humour.

“Well, from the business point of view, we’re more interested in your bike. We gotta hang on to you till we can disconnect the lojack though, so's you don't go reporting it stolen while the police can still use it to find us, you understand?”

I understood.

“So, if my lady would be so kind as to step off the bike, I would be delighted to invite you to ride with me.”

I looked him up and down uncertainly.

“Of course, I don't got to be polite. I could drag you off o' there by your hair and stick you behind one of my associates. You should know that some o’ them don't got great hygiene and most o’ then have no idea how to treat a lady, but the choice is yours.”

I wasn’t having a lot of success digging for my rage, not that I'd have held up well against this sort of number when any one of them could probably have torn off one of my arms and beat me senseless with the soggy end. I hated to give in to people like this, but I couldn't think of any alternative.

I stepped off my ride and followed him to his bike, a custom job with a vintage knucklehead providing the power. There wasn't much for the pillion to hold onto other than the guy in front, and I wasn’t too keen on doing that. I was pretty sure he'd try to scare me if I tried to avoid holding on to him, so I compromised by grabbing a couple of handfuls of his jacket.

The ride took us further into the Arkansas backwoods – real hillbilly country. I tried to follow the twists and turns, but there were a lot of them and I was hopelessly lost before we'd been on the road half an hour. Somehow we avoided any sizeable settlements and kept heading northeast deeper into the Ozarks until it was hard to tell we were still in a civilized country.

We eventually arrived at a sizeable plot of land behind some pretty blunt and uninviting signage. One said, 'Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.’ The rest were similar in nature. The bikes all ended up out of the sun under a cover parking area, all except my eight eighty-three which went directly into a barn.

I climbed off from behind my host and removed my helmet. I had enough hair that it needed shaking loose and gently raking through with my fingers before it felt presentable.

“So, what happens when you've done stealing my bike? Do you dump me by the side of the road somewhere with my bags?”

“Aw, come on now darlin’, you only just got here.”

“True, but I didn’t want to come in the first place...”

“Now you’re just being rude. Besides, now you’re here we have us a bit of a problem. I mean what’s to stop you bringing the po-po back up here once we let you go.”

“You think I could find my back up here?”

“Can’t take the chance darlin’. Besides, we could do with a woman around the place again. It’s been a while. We kinda wore the last one out.”

And there was the laughter again. It had the same effect as a pack if hyenas, wearing down any resolve I might have had. I mean, I was angry, except it was buried under so much fear.

The guy who’d ridden my bike came out carrying my bags. He’d fished my phone out of the tank bag and passed it over to his boss, leaning in to whisper in his ear.

“So, who’s the fella?” boss man asked.

“What?” I’ve always thought it’s a far more intellectual response than 'huh?’

“Your bags. Jamie says half the clothes you have are men’s clothes.”

“You don’t think I’d riding across America by myself, do you?”

“We followed you for a coupla days. Didn’t see no-one else.”

“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t there.” I was bluffing like mad. “When I don’t meet him in Little Rock he’ll come looking.”

“Think he’ll find you?”

“I’m guessing he’ll go to the police and they’ll turn on that lojack thing.”

“What, this one?” Jamie held up a little black plastic box which he dropped on the ground and smashed under his boot.

“And now, when the thing doesn’t work, they’ll organise a manhunt. I mean it doesn’t make them look good when a foreign tourist goes missing in their jurisdiction, so I’m guessing they’ll take it quite seriously.”

“All the more reason for us to keep you hidden then, don’t you think?” Smiley had a point, not that I wanted to let on. He turned to Jamie. “Show our guest to her room, make sure she has everything she needs and lock her in. Don’t touch her, mind.” He leered at me. “That comes later.”

The room turned out to be two rooms including the bathroom suite. The bars on the windows weren't going to shift under any force I could muster and the door, walls, floor and ceiling were all solid enough to be beyond any effort I could muster. Lighting came from an oil lantern with box of matches and the water for both the cast iron bathtub and the toilet had to be pumped by hand and ran cold. Not that you'd really want hot water with daytime temperatures well into the thirties (or eighties and nineties if you still subscribe to antiquated scales of measurement).

No such thing as electricity, at least not in this building, so no expectation of finding cameras. I looked anyway and instead found a couple of peep holes in the wall, one of which had an eye on the other side. I fished a match our of the box by the bed and flicked it through the hole into my voyeur’s open eye. From the swearing that followed, I caught him well and truly by surprise.

The bedroom contained one creaky metal bed, one chest of drawers and one wardrobe. Dresser and closet in local parlance, I reminded myself. The latter two were filled with women's clothes and underthings. Cotton for the most part, which was sensible given the climate. I tore up a well worn pair of smalls and used the strips of cloth to plug up the peep holes, then feeling relatively safe from prying eyes, I indulged in a cold bath and changed into one of the dresses. It fit quite well and felt deliciously cool.

Next, I had a good hunt through my bags. Everything had been disturbed, which I already knew, but apart from my phone, it all seemed complete. They'd even left my passport, possibly because they couldn't possibly imagine it belonged to me.

A key rattled in the door and my host stepped through.

“We'll don't you shine up real good?” he said giving me a good look over. “I'm glad to see you so accepting of your new position here.”

“I'm not accepting anything. This just seemed sensible given the temperature. Unless these are yours of course. I mean, I could always change into something else.”

His expression darkened for a moment. Good to know I could push his buttons.

“Jamie’ll be disappointed.”

“Yeah, well after having him rummage around in my things, I'd rather give them a good wash before I decide whether or not to burn them.”

He shrugged. “The boys is getting hungry and since our usual cook has something in his eye, that leaves you.”

“What makes you think I can cook?”

“Maybe you can’t. We just need to keep trying different things till we find something you are good at.”

Definitely intended as a threat. I put a fair amount of hatred into the gaze I turned his way then swept out of the room past him.

I've never been that interested in cooking, but I've done enough of it over the years that I've learnt how not to burn things. I didn’t have the first idea how to make cornbread, but sausage and bacon are easy enough, as are beans and fried tomatoes. What Americans call biscuits isn't too far off an English scone and gravy’s easy in any kitchen. I was tempted to add some rat poison, but didn't particularly want to kill anyone, even given what they had in mind for me. What ended up on the table was perhaps a little unconventional, but it tasted alright. I should know, they made me eat the first helping. Chalk one up for not poisoning everybody.

Lunch was followed by the biggest and in some ways foulest pile of laundry I'd ever seen. No electricity meant making use of any outside sink, washboard and even a mangle. It wasn't exactly backbreaking but it was drudge work, made all the less appealing by the regular visitors whose sneak up to me, give something part of my anatomy a good squeeze and disappear. By the time I had everything washed and hanging out to dry, my backside was bruised from all the attention it had been getting. On the plus side my anger was building.

The onset of night saw me back in the kitchen. With much the same raw ingredients at hand, the final product was more or less a repeat of lunch, not that anyone seem to be complaining yet. I'd had enough of being mauled though, so the next time anyone came close enough to reach for my assets, I spun around swinging a rolling pin and caught them a blow across the temple. I felt muscles bulging against the seams of the dress momentarily as the blow landed, which meant It was enough to knock my victim cold and earn me a stunned look from everyone else there.

I smiled sweetly. “Just so you know, my body is off limits to everyone. That means every part of it and to every one of you. Anyone wants to test me on this gets the same treatment, or worse. Dinner’s about cooked. You can serve yourselves. I dropped the rolling pin and walked out.

“Sassy.” Mr Supercilious followed me outside.

“You included,” I said without turning.

“I don’t recall makin’ a move on you darlin’.”

“I've seen it in your eyes. And you're not keeping me here.”

“You got a plan to stop me.”

“I'm getting there.” I did turn on him then. “It’d be in your best interest to let me go, 'cos if I have make it happen, I'll make damn sure you suffer.”

“You know, I believe you would. Which means I'm gonna have to take extra care that you don't get to try nothing. So, if you ain't gonna eat you might as well get to your room.”

He made no move to touch me, for which I was grateful, but he the test was there. I turned towards the building is been locked in.

“Me ‘n’ the boys are heading out tomorrow,” he said, falling into step behind me. “I'm gonna leave you with Frank and he has instructions not to go into your room. I don't think he would anyways, not since you flicked a match in his eye then knocked him out cold just now.

“He'll bring you your meals, but for the rest of it you'll be on your own till we get back.”

“When will that be?”

“Never you mind.” He opened the door to my prison and ushered me through.

“Do you have anything to read while you're gone.”

“Sorry, we live pretty basic up here. I ain't even sure how many of the boys can read.”

He closed and locked the door, leaving me to me thoughts. On the plus side, this meant I had a whole bunch more time to think about escaping. On the not so plus side, I wasn’t able to think of anything and went to bed frustrated. Admittedly in a pretty, lace trimmed cotton nightdress, but that wasn’t much of a consolation.

I don’t dream much, so when it happens it’s fairly memorable. I dreamt I woke up in a dark place with the sense of someone watching me.

I looked around, which didn’t reveal much. You know, on account of it being dark. I tried listening, but there was nothing to hear. Come to think of it, I couldn’t feel anything either. Not the bed I was lying on, not the clothes I was or maybe wasn’t wearing, not even my body, whichever one it happened to be right now.

1. “Hello?” I tried saying, if only to get a clue from the voice as to who I was in the dream. The word bounced around inside my mind, but didn’t have any substance beyond that.
2.
“Awake,” a familiar gravelly voice said, also very much in my mind.

“Yes, I am,” I replied. “You’re the alien that changed me.”

“Not alien.” An image of the grey appeared in front of me.

“Really? Because you look like nothing I've ever seen outside of a comic book.”

“Explanations first. Then questions.” The face faded back into darkness and then I really was awake.

“Well that really was useful,” I said to the ceiling, which was the closest thing I had to an audience. It was my girl voice that spoke, and that answered at least one of my questions.

“Did you see that?” The voice was raised and came from the other side of the compound.

I swung my feet out of bed and tiptoed across the cold concrete to the window.

“See what?” A different voice, still raised, still over the far side.

“In the sky. Those lights.”

“I don't see nothin’.”

“Yeah, they've gone now, but they was weird.”

“You're weird Frank. Now shut up. We’re trying to get some sleep.”

“But I'm telling you...”

“Shut up!”

The skies were clear. If there had been anything, it was gone now. I ran back to bed and pulled the blankets over me, but before I buried myself completely in my search for warmth, my eye caught something.

There was a pendant lying on the bedside table beside the lamp where there had been nothing before.

I picked it up and examined it in the small amount of light reaching into the room. It was the size and shape of a locket with a sort of rope chain.

“What on earth are you?” I hissed out loud.

“This data unit has been preloaded with a limited selection of data and is programmed to respond using current period languages.” The voice was hushed like mine and sounded vaguely female.

“Can you tell me how to get out of this place?”

“The response to this question lies beyond the scope of the data set.”

Not unexpected, but disappointing nonetheless. Well, if it couldn’t help me with my immediate problem, I did have other unanswered questions.

“How did you get in my room?” I asked.

“I was placed there by one of the creatures know to you as the Greys. Also referred to as the Roswell Aliens.”

I blinked. Did I have proof of alien life in my hand? I thought about the dream.

“One of them told me the Greys aren’t aliens.”

There was no response. I tried a slightly different tactic.

“If not aliens, what are they?”

“The Greys come from eight hundred years into the future of this planet. They are what the human race will become.”

Wait, what? That didn't sound right. I mean, evolution didn't happen that quick. How to phrase it in a question though?

“I was told explanations first, then questions.”

No response.

“Are you programmed to give explanations?”

“Yes.”

I waited, but that was all it had to say.

Cursing the literal nature of computer logic, I thought for a second. “On what topics are you programmed to give explanations?”

“The list is extensive and would take a great deal of time to give verbally.”

“If you are able to list the topics in another way that would take less time, please do so.”

Nothing happened.

“Can you respond any way other than verbally.”

“Not without additional equipment which is currently unavailable.”

I growled softly.

“Is there an explanation of where the Greys come from?”

“Yes.”

“Please tell me this explanation.”

It took a while. The salient points being that at a certain point in the near future, conditions on Earth would change dramatically, bringing an end to most life on the planet. Almost all humans would die, but a small number would find a way to survive underground and to adapt their physiology to all the new, harsher environment.

“If there’s an explanation of how and why the Greys have come this part of the world and this time, please tell it to me.” It felt like I was getting the hang of the device.

“The explanation of how the Greys came lies beyond the scope of this device. The explanation of why is as follows...”

It was another lengthy piece, a synopsis of which being that historical record of the Greys presence in Roswell in nineteen forty-seven inspired the development of a machine capable of sending craft back in time. The first was flawed, resulting in the documented crash and killing all on board. This was expected, and crewed by volunteers who knew their sacrifice would pave the way for subsequent missions to be carried out without unnecessarily altering the timeline. Missions that would enable the Greys to reacquaint themselves with human physiology in preparation for their plan.

“And what plan is that?”

“The response to this question is currently locked and will be made available at some future time when its capacity to impact the existing time line is no longer of consequence.”

Intriguing response.

“What can you tell me about the plan?”

“The response to this question is currently locked and will be made available at some future time when its capacity to impact the existing time line is no longer of consequence.”

In other words stop asking stupid questions.

“Is there an explanation of how and why I was abducted by the Greys and what they did to me?”

“Yes and no.”

“Please tell me what you can.”

“Certain abductees were imprinted with a suggestion to remain in the vicinity of Roswell and look out for individuals fulfilling predefined criteria. They were to tag these individuals and activate a beacon to call for a craft, which would then seek out the tagged individual so they could be altered in preparation for the plan.”

“Which you can't tell me about yet because the data in question is locked.”

“Correct. You possess the characteristics and so were tagged and subsequently altered.”

“The guy with the food truck?”

“The response to this question lies beyond the scope of the data set.”

“What is the nature of the alterations that were made to me?”

“The response to this question is currently locked and will be made available at some future time when its capacity to impact the existing time line is no longer of consequence.”

“Did my alterations include my apparent ability to switch between male and female?”

“Yes.”

“How does that work?”

“The development of your brain is such that it has both masculine and feminine characteristics. It is known that an increasing number of individuals in the current stage of human evolution possess this trait and it has been deemed preferable for such an individual to possess an appropriate physical body to match the state of his or her mind.”

“But how is it possible for me to switch between being a thirteen stone, one hundred and eighty pound man and an eight and a half stone, one hundred and twenty pound woman in the blink of an eye?”

“The alteration is extensive. It involves creating a clone of your existing body with an altered sex gene so that it develops into an equivalent physical form of yourself with the opposite gender, then quantum linking the two bodies with one of them held in a quantum pocket large enough to hold either body and linked in time. As the mind shifts into a state that indicates a shift in gender, the two bodies switch places between this space time and the quantum pocket.”

“So how do I change back into my male self?”

“Alter your state of consciousness so that your self expression is more male than female.”

“Yeah. And exactly how do I do that?”

“The response to this question lies beyond the scope of the data set.”

“Does getting angry help?”

“The response to this question lies beyond the scope of the data set.”

I did get an answer in a roundabout way. I could feel my frustration with the device growing with each unhelpful response and yet I had no sense of becoming any less the girl I was.

“Why is my female self so much younger looking than the male me?”

“The response to this question lies beyond the currently available data set.”

“Okay, one more question, and maybe one you can answer.” It was something that had been nagging at the back of my mind since I'd activated the device. “How come you speak to me in full sentences while the Greys only used one or two words at most?”

“Language changes over time and becomes almost unrecognisable after a few centuries. I have been programmed to speak and understand the languages of this time, but imagine if you were to talk to someone like Geoffrey Chaucer.”

“Who?”

“A British poet from the fourteenth century and considered the father of English literature. One of his pieces starts:

“Whilom, as olde stories tellen us, ther was a duc that highte Theseus; of Atthenes he was lord and governour, and in his tyme swich a conquerour that gretter was ther noon under the sonne.

“It's possible to get the gist of the meaning from listening to it, but imagine how he might react were you to speak to him in modern English. The Greys have a very different manner of speaking. By keeping their responses short, they increase the likelihood of being understood.”

“I suppose that makes sense. How do I prevent you from responding when someone else is around?”

“I have a proximity sensor that detects when someone is with earshot. I am programmed only to respond when you alone are nearby.”

“Okay, definitely the last one for now. The Greys must have noticed I’ve been imprisoned. Why didn’t they help me escape?”

“The protocols of time travel put great constraints on their permitted involvement. To alter the timeline at this stage could put the entire plan in jeopardy. They have already given you everything you need to rescue yourself.”

“What does that mean? Exactly what have they given me?”

“The response to this question lies beyond the currently available data set.”

I really shouldn’t have bothered with the last question. I mean, the answer had been pretty much inevitable.

I looped the chain over my head and let the device nestle between my breasts. Snuggling down in the bed I felt and delighted in every aspect of my female form. I’d spent too much of my life as a guy and I really didn’t want to be one right now, which had to be at least part of the reason why I wasn’t one.

The answers, such as they were, seemed to indicate I’d been altered to be either one thing or the other, as the mood took me. It was kind of a basic psychology idea that we had certain attributes about us that we needed to express. The ones we starved ended up clamouring to come to the surface, while the ones we overfed reached a point where they wanted to slide under the surface and hide. I’d spent all my life suppressing the girl and choosing to be the guy that, even in my present predicament, I couldn’t stop wanting to be female even though the male me was far better suited to getting me out of my current hole.

It wasn’t anger. Women felt anger just as much as men. Being in girl mode, I could see that the anger led to frustration, suppression of emotions, compromise and, at its worst, underhand and subtle tactics in seeking revenge. Male rage was testosterone fuelled and led to aggression, and it had been in moments when I’d felt the need for aggression that Mr Me had reasserted himself. The last time I’d been too deep into enjoying the girl experience so the reappearance of my male muscle had only lasted for the few brief moments it had taken to apply it to the blow. It was an unreliable approach to reaching for the guy inside.

So what else could I use? My girl senses were heightened, I knew, and constantly nagging for my attention. I could only survive by delegating the task to my subconscious, and that led to occasional moments when I had a hint of what was coming before it happened.

Women’s intuition; that capacity among so many of the gentler sex to see an underlying truth without the benefit of overt evidence. It had to be down to this mad jumble of sensation and emotion that accompanied every moment of life. The heightened texture to memory that would link two apparently different experiences because there was some subtle similarity between them that was only apparent to the unconscious mind. Once you had learned to surf the morass of emotion, you could pick and choose the feelings that told you the subtle truths of the world around you.

It was new and unfamiliar to me, and perhaps that’s why I was so keen to remain a woman. I could feel the logical focus of the man in me going unused and in time it would feel unused, uncared for and it would rise to demand my attention. Perhaps I could override this roller coaster.

I sat up in bed and focussed, blocking out the raging mess of sensation and reaching for the clarity and single mindedness I was so used to having, that had been an integral part of the sixty years I’d lived.

The seams on my nightdress strained and, in a few places, tore against my abruptly larger form. I looked own at my arms and legs, now significantly larger and hairier. I didn’t need to hang about long. I dived back into the kaleidoscopic whirlpool of colour and sensation and felt myself settle back into the girl.

At least I had a technique for changing. It would need practice to perfect and might not work under stressful conditions, but it was something. I snuggled down, embracing the softness and the sweet smell, and fell into a dreamless sleep that took me directly to morning.

I woke to the sound of motorcycles revving and disappearing out the gate in a cloud of loose gravel. As promised, the compound was empty, all except for Frank.

A couple of hours later he arrived with my breakfast. More of the mess of meat, grease and cholesterol, but at least the coffee was fresh. I tried to persuade him to let me out, but he had his orders, he said, and all but ran away with his hands over his ears.

That meant I had the second most desirable state of affairs. I hadn’t been allowed out, but I’d more or less guaranteed being left alone. I slipped out of my nightdress and focused on logic and single mindedness. No instant response but the male version of me ambled to the fore.

Man made fibres aren't the best for hot weather, bit I needed something with a bit of stretch. Boy cut knickers and the sports bra of bought in Flagstaff sorted me out. I turned back into a girl long enough to wiggle into my stretchy jeans then added a loose t-shirt before switching back. A quick glance in the mirror to make sure I didn't look like a total tool – was that a hint of colour I saw in my hair? Certainly it felt like I wasn't straining against the seams so much.

I spent the next few hours checking for weaknesses my slightly stronger male self might be able to exploit. If they were only trying to lock up a girl, they might not have made so much of an effort, but it seemed they had.

Lunchtime came and so did Frank. As before, he slid a tray of food through a flap in the door. This time I was waiting for him and managed to grab his wrist.

“Give me the key,” I growled at him.

“I can’t!” He fought to escape but I had too strong a grip on him.

“Give it to me!”

“I don't got it. I swear.”

And why would they give him the key? He had all the menial jobs. He was laughed at and ridiculed. They’d left him behind when they rode out. This needed a different tactic.

I let go of his wrist and changed back into a girl. I could here him scrabbling away out of reach, but not too far.

“Are you still there?” I asked.

“What in tarnation are you?” he asked by way of response.

“I’m a prisoner, Frank.”

“No, I mean...”

“I’m being held here against my will, and I suspect you are too.”

“No, I... I’m here because I want to be. I’m part of the gang.”

“Are you his brother?” I took a guess. “The guy in charge. The one with the greasy smile?”

“Who, Chuck? No he... He’s my cousin.”

I thought about the stories I’d heard about sexual practices in the remoter parts of this state. Chuck could well be both brother and cousin. Father and uncle too.

“He looks out for you, I imagine. Keeps you out of trouble.”

“That’s right.”

“He doesn’t stop the others from picking on you though, does he.”

“He... He looks out for me.”

“You like to look, don’t you?” I asked. “At the ladies I mean. You have those spy holes, and I’m guessing the last woman in here used to let you.”

“Mary-Lou. She was nice. She didn’t try to poke me in the eye or nothin’.”

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know who was watching. I kind of hopes it might be Chuck.”

He laughed. An odd gulping noise that hung in the air briefly before swallowing itself.

“You wouldn’t catch Chuck doing nothin’ like that. He want something, he’d just go right up an’ take it.”

“Did he do that with Mary-Lou? Did you watch that too?”

“She didn’t much like it when he did. She fought him off, so he let the whole gang take a turn with her. Weren’t long after that she went away.”

“I might let you watch, Frank.”

There was silence on the other side. A held breath, a stillness, an incredulity.

“I might take those strips of cloth out of the peep holes so you could see through again. Would you like that?”

“You’d just up an’ poke me in the eye agin.”

“I wouldn’t, Frank. Not now I know it’s you. You’re sweet. Not like your cousin or any of the others. But wouldn’t you rather come in here? I could let you... touch me.”

“No, I can’t. I don’t got the key. I can’t open the door.”

“We’ll, I could open up the spy holes anyway.” I backed off. “It’s kinda hot and I need to wash myself.” The tray of food had skittered across the floor, spilling its contents. The mug was on its side, coffee pooling beside it. One of the sandwiches had managed to stay on the plate. I picked it up and bit into it making appreciative noises. “You make a mean sandwich, Frank. Do you think maybe I could have another cup of coffee? Then maybe I’ll need to have that wash.”

The flap pushed open and I passed him the mug. While he was gone, I picked up the rest of the sandwiches and put them to one side, then I fetched a cloth from the bathroom and mopped up the mess. By the time Frank came back with the coffee, I had stripped down to my underwear and had a basin of water on the bedside table. I was using a washcloth to cool myself down.

He pushed the flap open as far as he could, and I could tell he was straining to see. I sauntered over to the wall – sashayed, I think the term is, with the pronounced hip movements – and pulled the strips of cloth from the holes, letting them fall to the ground. Unexpectedly, I was finding the whole performance quite a turn on myself.

I heard Frank scramble away and a few moments later, the light was blocked out from one the peep holes. I turned my back on him and pulled the bra off over my head. Picking up my washcloth I set about sponging down my breasts. My nipples were standing on end and my skin tingled at my touch. A range of grunts made it through from the other side of the wall and I turned slightly to give him a hint of a view.

“You know, keys aren’t the only way to get into a room, Frank. If you could find a hacksaw or maybe a prybar, you could prize the door open or take out a few of the bars on the window. It sure would be nice to have some company.”

One more breathless grunt and he was gone. I finished washing the sweat off me. I don’t care how the saying goes, it gets hot enough and women sweat just as badly as men. I drank the coffee and waited, hoping I hadn’t pushed him too far.

It took him ten minutes. He heralded his return by dropping the toolbox then set about straining at the door frame.

“Frankie,” I said softly. “The door opens inwards I have to Jimmy it from this side.”

“No, I got it, I got it!” he insisted and kept straining.

I don’t know how long we kept at it, him pulling, me trying to talk him down, but it was too long. A motorcycle roared into the compound followed by another and another.

“Frank, they’re back. Pass me the crowbar.”

“No. Nononononono.”

“Frank, if you they find the pry bar they’ll know what you tried to do. Let me hide it, then you take the tools away.”

“Oh no. Oh God, oh no.”

“Frank, get a grip. Let me hide the pry bar, then you take the tools.”

The flap lifted up and Frank’s hand reached through, offering me my way out. I pulled open the bottom drawer of the dresser. As I’d hoped there was a space underneath it into which I dropped the bar. I grabbed a bra and one of the mini dresses I’d bought on the road and set about getting dressed. I figured I’d have a visitor before long.

The door flew open and Chuck sauntered in, without his grin for once.

“Hey!” I snapped. “What do you think you’re doing, barging into a girl’s room like that?”

“You think you’re right smart, don’t ya?” he growled. “Where is it?”

“Where’s what? And don’t avoid the subject. I could have been undressed or anything.”

“Why would you be undressed in the middle of the day?”

“’Cos it’s hot you freak, and because I’ve been stuck in this stinking room all day.”

“Yeah. Trying to trick my idiot cousin into breaking you out. Now where is it?”

“I don’t know what he’s been telling you...”

“He’s been tellin’ me that he passed you a pry bar. That’s what he’s been tellin’ me.”

“And why on God’s green Earth would he do a thing like that?”

“’Cos you told him to.”

“And that’s all it takes, is it? Is that why you left him here on his own? ‘Cos he's such a great guard that if a prisoner tells him to let her go, he just goes and fetches a hunk of iron to break down the door. Maybe he is an idiot, but that's got to make you a worse one for putting him in charge.”

“Okay wise-ass, what exactly did happen?”

“We'll, it's like I said, it's been hot in here. With the windows and doors closed it’s been like an oven. I may have stripped down to my skin and given myself a wash down with cold water, and he may have come around with my lunch and caught a glimpse.” I felt kind of bad about throwing Frank under the bus, but since it seemed he'd talked on me first, this kind of evened things out between us.

“So why’d he try to break you out?”

“At a guess he was trying to break himself in. Idiot he may be but he's old enough to have needs. He was making awful noise, all sorts of grunting and wheezing.”

“An’ that didn’t scare you none?”

I shrugged. “Sure, I was scared. I was trying to get him to calm down when you lot came back.”

“I notice you opened up them peep holes again. Maybe you was givin’ him a free show, trying to get him riled up.”

“Why would I do a thing like that? I mean, what if he had a key?”

“Why would I give my idiot cousin a key to your room?”

“How was I supposed to know how much of an idiot he is? You made him my jailor. To me that says you might trust him enough to give him a key.”

“So why did you open the peep holes?”

“Because it’s hot in here!” I shouted. “I was desperate for a breath of air, so I unplugged the holes. Is it my fault you locked me in this oven for a day? Is it my fault your cousin’s a creepy pervert who doesn’t know how to control his pecker?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You wouldn’t mind if I had a look around? After all, I am still missing a pry bar.”

“Be my guest, but I’ll want an apology when your done, and some time outside on my own, and the rest of the day off from whatever lousy piece of drudgery you had in mind to throw my way.”

It was a risk. My hiding place wasn’t that great and if he decided to pull the place apart, chances were he’d find it.

I don’t know what it was, a combination of my reasoned and outraged arguing combined with the good looks the Greys had given me and the skimpy clothes I’d put in, but his search was less of a thing than I’d feared. He tossed the bed, went through every piece of furniture in the room and upended my bags. A lot of the places were too small even to hide the crowbar he was looking for.

“Satisfied?” I asked when he was about done.

He glowered and went on a brief hunt through the bathroom. I heard him open the cistern and rummage through the cupboards. There weren’t many places to hide things in there. He stormed out the rooms, slamming the door behind him.

I set about putting everything back in order, hanging up and refolding the clothes he’d tossed about the place. The mattress was a struggle, but I wasn’t going to risk changing form, just for a little more muscle. It took time, but I got there. The place was back to looking neat and tidy again, and me hot and sweaty by the time there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I said a little coldly.

He opened the door and looked around at the tidied room.

“I was going to offer to give you a hand.”

“You’re a little late.”

His jaw worked, but this wasn’t a time for giving ground.

“I guess I owe you an apology.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Frank’ll be cooking tonight. I can’t leave you to wander the grounds on your own, but Ray here knows not to interfere with you.”

Ray was standing beyond the door, just about in sight.

“He’ll make sure no-one else does neither, but you may want to cover up a little if you don’t want the others to... you know, make comments, whistle and stuff.”

“Give me a few minutes to freshen up,” I said, allowing the frost in my voice to thaw just a little

“Just knock on the door when you're ready. Ray’ll let you out, tell you where you can and can’t go.”

He left.

I took my time washing and dressed in one of Mary Lou’s cotton dresses. Whoever she’d been, she’d had a decent sense of style – feminine without being slutty – and despite having a modest neckline and a hem down around the knees, it was surprisingly cool.

Ray wasn’t one to show a lot of emotion but I like to think there was an air of frustration about him when I finally got round to knocking at the door. I figured they'd come back and give the room a more thorough search while I was out, but I couldn't think of a better hiding place for the crowbar than where it already was. Besides, chances had to be fair to middling someone would have an eye glued to one of the peep holes, so I left it where it was without so much as looking at it.

As predicted, the modest dress toned down the reaction of the goons around me, and Ray’s gently glowering presence curbed it even further. I enjoyed a pleasant and relatively undisturbed walk about the place, which includes a chance to look over the selection of bikes.

Most of them were modern enough to sport the most recent immobiliser technology, like the eight eighty-three I’d been riding. The only one that had an old fashion ignition key that I could see was Chuck’s knucklehead monster, and he never bothered removing it because no-one in their right mind would be so stupid as to mess with his bike, would they?

“Which one’s yours?” I asked in Ray’s general direction.

He pointed at a Sportster with a custom paint job – all skulls and naked ladies.

“Nice,” I said, because I knew it was expected of me. “How come your boss leaves his keys in? I mean, what’s to stop me climbing on and riding off on it.”

“Try it.”

It took all my strength to lift it off its side stand. Ray had hold of the handlebars, which was the only thing that stopped me from dropping it on the other side.

“Point made,” I admitted as I climbed off it. “What’s over there?” I pointed to a small building by the perimeter.”

“Nothing to worry your pretty little head about. He don't want you goin’ over there.”

So of course that was exactly where I wanted to go. I didn’t try to head that way directly, but rather meandered about the rest of the compound and slowly edged towards it from a different, less obvious direction. Ray wasn’t to be fooled though, and when we started getting close enough to make him nervous, he took a hold of my arm and steered me away.

I’m not sure if it was sixty years of age and experience that persuaded me not to fight him or the reduced tendency towards aggression that seemed to go along with my female form. Either way, it felt right, and I let him guide me away.

“It’s getting on for chow time,” he said and led me across to the small hall where we’d all eaten before. Frank gave me something of a poisonous look which didn’t bother me much. He was one of my captors and I didn’t owe him anything. Ray settled me into a seat and went to fetch a couple of plates of pretty much the same thing I’d served up the previous day. Hash browns featured, but apart from that there wasn’t much to tell between his cooking and mine.

It felt odd that I was adapting to my new roll so rapidly. I’d spent six decades as boy then man and struggled with the uncomfortable fit through all of that time. I’d now been a girl for less than a couple of weeks and everything seemed to fit completely into place. Everything from the attention I’d been receiving from the men I encountered to the way I felt attracted to everything feminine – clothes, makeup, perfume – to the heightening of my senses and the constant bombardment of different thoughts and feelings those senses fired at me. It all felt so natural and so much the way life should always have been. There were aspects of my new status I didn’t have the experience to handle just yet, and they brought with them a small sense of regret at what I had lost. I wondered if, in time, I’d reach a point where I'd miss being male, and certainly I hoped I’d be able access my maleness sufficiently to help me escape from my current predicament, but other than that I didn’t feel I’d miss the old me that much.

Having someone hold my chair and bring me a plate of food grew an unfamiliar warming effect in me and, despite myself, I began to enjoy having Ray around. I could feel my body reacting to him in small ways. Coy little smiles, fluttering eyes, a whole range of small ways my body spoke its own language to him.

And he responded, or at least his body did. This was a dance I’d never understood, perhaps because my brain had not been geared to respond to the correct signals. Perhaps because my current body seemed so much more attuned to subtle nuance. Either way, I could see he was interested. Maybe he didn’t realise it himself, so maybe I had to give him a prompt or two.

Once we'd eaten, which involved him finishing off what I left on my plate, he lifted my chair out of the way while I stood. With a touch too my elbow, he indicated the way back to my room. Southern courtesy was not entirely dead, it seemed, though possibly considerably agree aged and heading for extinction.

“I imagine after this morning there'll be a guard outside my room,” I said quietly once we were away from inquisitive ears.

“Why would you say that?”

“Well, with all the fuss I can only imagine your thinking either I'm a terrible person who needs watching or maybe I'm someone who needs protecting.”

“Do you want a guard outside your door?”

“Well, I wouldn't mind if it was you.”

He laughed. “You know, I heard you British women was all as cold as a snowman’s pecker, but that ain’t the way of it at all. Unless you're fixin’ to try somethin’ on.”

“Is that what you think?”

“To tell the truth, I don't know what to think.”

“Well, if you was to be guarding outside my door at say around midnight, you might learn a few things.”

He laughed again. “Is this how you wet Frankie’s whistle? I can see how it would get him all riled up.”

Wetting your whistle meant having a drink, but I was aware that most guys didn’t particularly like being corrected by girls, so I let it slide.

“Have it your way. I guess I’ll just have to settle for whoever’s guarding my door at midnight. Maybe we’ll both be disappointed.”

The comment was well timed. We’d just reached my room and I was able to close the door gently on him as I said it.

The evening air had lost most of its daytime heat. I picked up the strips of cloth and bunged up the peep holes. It was a little cold for a wash in unheated water, but I’d worked up a bit of a glow wandering around, so gritted my teeth and washed off the afternoon before changing into one of Mary-Lou’s nighties and settling down for the night. My body clock roused me a little before midnight. I dressed in my stretchy jeans, new boots, and a comfortable top, with my biker jacket over the top. I retrieved the crowbar from its hiding place – still undiscovered I was pleased to see – arranged the pillows in the bed so it might look like someone was tucked under the covers – at least to a moron in the dark – and gave the door a gentle tap.

The door opened a crack then wider as the man outside stepped into the room.

It wasn't Ray and, to be honest, I’m not sure what I would done of it had been. As it was, I dropped my tote bag full of clothes to stop the door closing and swung to hit the guy at the base of his skull, pulling most of my strength out of the blow at the last instant. He went down like a sack of spuds anyway.

I rolled him onto the bed and stripped him out of his clothes, pulling my nightdress over his head before tucking him in for however much of the night he was going to stay unconscious. Hopefully, if he did wake up before I was ready he’d waste a bit of time looking for something to change into before raising the alarm.

I still wanted to know what was in the building I'd been kept away from so I made my way around the perimeter, keeping to the shadows.

An armed guard paced back and forth in front of the door, which left a sizeable window on the side with a rotten frame. The crowbar barely made a sound as it prized the hinges off. The frame was heavy though and I had to shift into Mr Me to lift it out and gently lower onto the ground. Back in my more lithe Miss Me form, a vaulted into the room and looked around in the darkness.

Very much to my lack of surprise, the place was filled with automatic weapons and explosives. I’d fired off a few rounds when I'd been in the cadets half a lifetime ago, and it wouldn't have taken much to kit myself out with an AR-15 and a couple of spare magazines. The problem with guns though was that you were far more likely to be shot if you were holding one, especially if you were surrounded by other people holding guns and were little less inclined to use it than they were.

Explosives were a different matter though. Correctly used, they could provide a highly effective diversion while, at the same time, minimising the number of people around you with guns.

I mean, I wasn’t daft enough to mess around with blasting caps and plastic explosives with only guesswork to guide me, but grenades were a different thing all together.

I mean everyone's heard the holy hand grenade bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, haven't they?

And the Lord spake saying, “First shalt thou take out the holy pin, then shalt though count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number be reached, then lobest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight shall snuff it.”

No? Just me then.

Don't get me wrong, grenades could go horribly badly too, but there was a simplicity about them that minimised the chances of messing up. I kept three of the pineapples for myself and piled the rest in the middle of the arsenal, the vague plan being to lob one of mine through the window and run away like my tail was on fire. If I headed past the guard, there was a good chance he’d give chase and escape the blast radius too.

I was about to climb out the window when I spotted several charges with timers attached. Keeping to the KISS principle, which is always a good idea when dealing with dangerous materials, they were equipped with a knob to twist that would set the time and a button to press that would start the clockwork. I figured two minutes would be about right to put the rest of my plan in action, so set things accordingly and snuck off towards the bikes.

“You know, I was being to wonder if you'd changed your mind,” Ray’s voice reached me as I climbed onto Chuck’s monster.

I looked over at him and smiled. The smile didn't last long given that he had a handgun which he was pointing in my vague direction.

“I’d have been here sooner,” I said, “but I had to make a slight diversion. Here, this is for you.” I chucked one of the grenades at him. Pin in of course. I mean yet again I didn't want to kill anyone.

I didn't look, just trusted that Ray had good survival instincts. I reached for the man in me and called in his strength to lift the bike of its stand. A twist of the key and a thumb on the state brought it rising to life. My last two grenades, I did pull the pins before lobbing them gently into the remaining bikes. I kiced my own steed into gear and roared of towards the gate.

Behind me a double explosion turned half a million dollars worth of bikes into a pile of twisted metal. It was close enough I could feel the heat through my jacket. I didn't have time to do much more than hope the detonation had drawn everyone, the arsenal guard included, away from wherever he happened to be.

Modern bikes don't run without lights, so I didn't have to worry about turning them on. I shot past the gate guards – staring stupidly at the flames behind me – just as the second, much larger explosion went off.

What followed was a terrifying race down a twisting, unlit road through relatively dense forest. I hadn't had time to find a helmet or goggles, so the wind was stinging my eyes and my head was unprotected. I couldn't afford to slow down in case there were other vehicles somewhere on the compound but neither could I afford to go this fast on a traitorous downhill track on a machine that was to heavy for me even in my male form.

I heard a gunshot, then a second with the bullet whizzing past my ear close enough for me to hear the whine over the noise around me. Insane though it was, I twisted the throttle and sped down the track at quite literally breakneck speed.

Twice, sharp turns rushed out of the darkness towards me. Twice, I leaned until the foot pegs sparked and the bike lurched in protest. On the second turn, the back wheel lost traction and I had to counter steer to keep myself pointing down the road. I felt the heel of my right boot touch tarmac and break off. I swore. The boots hadn't been cheap.

A bike appeared to my right, Chuck’s livid expression glaring at me from the other side of a gun site. I hauled on the brakes just as the bullet flew past inches in front of my face. Now I had a bad guy ahead of me and who knew how many behind.

I did the only thing I could think of, utterly mad though it was. I steered off the road and into the forest, still descending at a mad angle.

I missed two trees, took a face full of branch from the third and just had time to jump off the bike as the fourth loomed out of the dark directly ahead.

It was a desperate jump, using all the strength in my masculine legs then taking advantage of my feminine lightness to take me up into the branches while the bike beneath me turned into yet another searing fireball.

I'd love to be able to tell you that I arced and twisted my way through the branches like an Olympic gymnast before landing in one of those dramatic superheroine poses on a thick bough high up in the canopy, but real life doesn't work like that. For one thing, I'm no superhero. For another, this was an ancient forest, far older than the nation in which it stood. The branches from one tree reached out and tangled with those of the next forming and impenetrable mass. I smashed into a succession of very solid pieces of wood. I felt bones crack and sinews tear and my body filled with a pain far more intense than any I'd experienced. I finally came to rest tangled in a mess of branches twenty feet above the ground and barely conscious.

I heard voices from below. “Where is she?”, “Find her!”, “Nobody goes home till I know she's dead.” “Hey, I found your bike, or what's left of it.” “Arrgh!! She is dead. If she ain't already she will be when I find her.” And more of the same.

I concentrated on keeping still and silent, which was no mean feat given the pain I was in. The search continued for what seemed like hours but may well have only been minutes. A helicopter rushed overhead, heading back in roughly the direction we’d come.

“Chuck, we gotta go.” Ray’s voice, and from almost beneath me. I looked down and there he. Was staring up at me, blood streaked down the side of his grim, angry features. Maybe he saw me and figured this was the end I deserved. Maybe it was too dark for him to make out any details among the branches. Whatever was going through his mind, he turned and continued, “We got smokey heading up to the ranch; you need to be there.”

“Damn!” Chuck spat out the expletive. “Rick, Mel, you to stay her and keep searching. If you don’t bring me her head, don’t bother coming back.”

“Boss, we can’t.” Again Ray. Either the voice of reason behind the throne or someone who, against the odds, was trying to give me a chance. “Explosion that size, we gonna have the National Guard comin’ up this road in a few minutes. They find any of us here huntin’ in the woods, they gonna want to know what we find so interestin’. She ain’t goin’ nowhere. We can come look agin when it’s light, when we don’t gotta worry about the po-po no more.”

After a brief bout of swearing Chuck reluctantly agreed. They left me hanging where I was, still wondering about Ray’s motives. He was right about one thing, with no vehicles stopped up on the road, any new arrivals would likely pass by without looking. The wreck of Chuck’s bike was already little more than a smouldering twist of metal and no longer visible from the road.

That meant my only chance of survival lay in my hands. This was going to suck big time. I began twisting about, trying to free myself of the hold the branches had on me. Every movement was agony, but nothing compared to when I finally did fall free.

I must have hit four or five more branches on the way down which, whilst it did prevent me from picking up any significant amount of speed in the fall, did have the disadvantage of hitting my injured body several times where it hurt most. Mercifully, I blacked out before I hit the ground.

The burning bike hadn’t died down much by the time the world swam back into view. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I levered myself up onto hands and knees and began half crawling, half dragging myself up the slope. I tried shifting back into my male self for the added strength it would give me, but something seemed to block the shift, so instead I crept on, inch after agonising inch.

Sirens and flashing lights screamed past on the road above me. Dozens of them. They seemed impossibly far away, but impossible meant I was dead, and I wasn’t about to accept that. I gritted my teeth and crawled on.

I don’t know how many times I passed out, but some dogged determination wouldn’t let me stay under for long. My left arm was horribly twisted and unusable, my left thigh sent jagged lances of pain through me every time I moved it. Simply breathing felt like I’d been stabbed in the chest multiple times, and the pain I my left side seemed to double with every yard gained.

It was growing light around me, or maybe I was imagining it. Either way, I was running out of time. I thrust the pain to the back of my mind and put in one last concerted effort. Against all the odds, I topped a rise and felt asphalt under my hands. It signalled an end to my strength. I rolled over onto my back and watched the stars fade.

I woke into a misty haze. The pain was still there but somehow removed. I could feel rough cotton bedsheets under me and a tube disappearing down my throat. Vaguely, off in the distance, a rhythmic beeping kept time with a numb throbbing in my head.

A feeble and largely ineffective attempt to move on my part attracted someone’s attention because I heard a quiet female voice beside me say, “She’s awake. Fetch the doctor.”

Rough thumbs pulled my eyelids open one after the other, and I recoiled from the light shining in. The torch was removed and I opened my eyes. Focussing was a struggle, but I eventually made out a friendly smile attached to a coffee-coloured face topped with tight curls of black hair.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” the smile said. “You had us worried there for a while. Can you tell me your name?”

I tried to speak but gagged around the tube sticking in my throat.

“Okay,” he said. “Just lie back a minute. This’ll be uncomfortable for a moment.”

There was a tugging and a sense of something sliding up my oesophagus. I retched and twisted sending red hot stabs of pain that reached past even the extreme numbness that suffused me. Then the tube was gone and I lay back, watching the ceiling spin about my head.

“Better?”

I nodded, though I’m not sure it was. At least the tube was gone.

“How long?” I asked.

“Five days. You’re in good care, miss. You’re in a military hospital. Could you tell me your name?”

I shook my head. No-one had asked me that before, at least not since I’d changed. I tried to change the direction of conversation.

“They kidnapped me,” I breathed. “Stole my bike, locked me up. I escaped but they chased me, tried to kill me.”

“And very nearly succeeded, but you’re safe now. You have some nasty injuries, so we’re going to have to keep you on pain medication for now. Just rest. Try to get some sleep. We’ll talk again later maybe get a few answers. For you and me.” He pulled a box on a wire off the wall and placed it in my hand. “You need anything, just squeeze. I’ll call by again later.”

“Well?” The voice was muffled and low, and came from the doorway.

“No name, not yet, but she did confirm they abducted her and tried to kill her. It’s enough to hold them on for now.”

“We need details.”

“Yeah, and she needs rest. You’ll have to be patient for now.”

The room and the conversation faded into a pink haze.

The next time I woke the pain was sharper, closer to the surface. My left arm hurt like crazy and I couldn’t move it or any other party of myself enough to see why. I looked at the call button in my right hand and seriously considered calling the nurse, but I had to get my story straight, which had to start with a name, and following on from that, a whole back story. All the evidence that supported my arrival in the US, the plane ticket, the bike holiday, everything, belonged to a man considerably older than my current appearance. I could go for the whole amnesia story, but I wasn’t at all sure they'd buy it.

Probably the best I could manage would be to come up with some tale about illegal entry into the States. It wouldn't win me any friends, but it would be believable, at least until they contacted the British Embassy who would tell them there was no such person this particular Jane Doe.

Which left me with escaping from a military hospital while severely injured, and since I’d done so well getting away from a bunch of untrained hill billies, I really fancied my chances against a base full of trained soldiers.

No, what it actually left me with was stalling for as long as possible while trying to come up with a better plan, which was not going to be easy with this much pain racking my body. I squeezed the call button.

A nurse appeared instantly. Petite, very pretty, all business.

“Would I be correct in assuming you've reduced my dosage of whatever happy juice this happens to be?”

“I'm sorry Miss. Doctor’s orders. Now you're out of danger, it's important you don't get hooked on the stuff.”

“Do you have anything else that might work that I am allowed to have? Only I don't seem to be able to move my left arm and it hurts like hell.”

“You're left arm. Sure. Let me fetch a doctor.” She scooted out of the room before I could react.

He still wore his smile, but his eyes showed... Concern? Sympathy? Pity? “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I hope you haven’t come to ask more questions because…”

“No questions. Well, about how you’re feeling maybe.” He picked up the chart from the end of the bed and studied it. One of those who always had to be doing something.

“You've reduced my pain meds,” I said by way of reply.

“Yes. We only use morphine when we absolutely have to, and now you're awake we’re better of using something else. You don't want to have to start dealing with addiction at your age.”

“It's just that my left arm really hurts and I can't seem to do anything about it.”

“Ah yes, the nurse mentioned something about that.” He sat on the bed. “We have to have a conversation about your injuries. I don't know what you remember.”

“I remember jumping off the bike before it hit a tree trunk, then I kind of smashed into a whole bunch of branches that were probably just as hard. My left shoulder took the brunt of it – that really hurt – then I smashed up a few of my ribs and my left thigh. I think that was about it.”

“You were lucky not to hit your head, but yes, that does sound about it. You fractured your left femur, which is why your leg is in a brace, cracked four ribs – you ended up with a collapsed lung on the left side and, for the life of me, I cannot imagine how you managed to crawl back to the road. Your worst injury was to your left shoulder and arm though. You smashed up your scapula – your shoulder blade – pretty badly and you broke your humerus completely just below the head. Now ordinarily we'd have been able to put it all back together with steel pins, but with dragging it up that hill and all, you suffered a lot of tissue damage. By the time we got you into the operating theatre there was an awful lot of necrosis – tissue that had died from the damage and compromised blood flow. I'm terribly sorry to say this but we had no choice but to remove your arm.”

“So, this is phantom pain I'm feeling?”

“Yeah. You still have the nerves that used to lead to your arm, only they’ve been severed somewhere along their length which means they’re misfiring and sending random signals to your brain. I have to say, you're taking this amazingly well.”

“I'm not taking it at all, doctor. I mean, I have to accept what you're saying, but it isn't sinking in right now.”

“I understand. There isn't much we can do about the pain, but you might want to try making a fist with your left hand, opening and closing it. I know it doesn't make sense since you don't have a fist to make, but the act of sending signals down the nerve paths does, in some cases at least, seem to ease the stimuli. Above all, get what rest you can and, when it feels right, have a good cry.”

“Can I see myself?”

“Well, I don't want you moving about much with your other injuries, but I'll see what I can do. As I say, rest for now. I'm afraid those questions will be coming sooner than you might want.”

He stood, offering me a rueful grin. “I really am sorry about the arm. If there had been any way to save it...”

“I understand doctor. Thank you for my life.”

He left me to my thoughts. A little while later the diminutive nurse came back in carrying a hand mirror.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “I didn't know how to tell you.”

“It’s okay. It was probably best getting that bit of news from the doctor. Can I?” I held out my hand and took the mirror.

It was unreal. Not just looking at my reflection and seeing nothing from my left shoulder outwards. Not just that I could definitely feel pain in the non-existent limb. Not just that I could feel myself making a fist in my left arm even though it wasn’t there. What else was unreal was how much I'd changed. My hair was well below my shoulders and my face and body – what was left of it – looked like they belonged to a twenty-five year old.

“Well, that was weird,” I said handing the mirror back.

“I can imagine. Look, is there anything I can get you?”

“Not right now, thanks.”

“Well, buzz if you change your mind. I have a ton of stuff to be getting on with.”

And there I was again, alone with my thoughts. I still had the problem of what to tell the authorities when they came looking.

There’s something about facing up to a major trauma that makes you re-evaluate your priorities. Personal issues like explaining how I happened to be in the USA without passport or visa faded in light of the bigger ones like making sure Chuck and his band where meted out the justice they deserved.

The problem persisted though. The police are faced with the daily task of digging the truth out from an environment where they are surrounded by habitual and congenital liars. It pushes them towards a thought process that is pedestrian and unimaginative. Forget Sherlock Holmes and his when you have eliminated the impossible, for most police work, the starting point was to eliminate the implausible, so any story I cared to share about aliens wasn’t likely to win me any prizes in the Credible Witness of the Year Awards. I could maybe demonstrate the whole gender shift thing, assuming I could get it to work again, but I suspected that would cause more problems than it would solve, especially with the military on the periphery.

It took a while, but I came up with a piece of plausible fiction that would dovetail in with the salient facts. The only issue was that it’d put me in an even more vulnerable position than the one I held at present. It wasn’t complete, but I had most of the kinks worked out when they finally turned up.

There was no mistaking them. The budget clothing – not so dissimilar to mine – the deliberate walks, the grim and determined expressions. There were two of them; an older man who would ask the question I guessed, and a younger woman who was there to fulfil the requirements propriety as well as take notes.

“Good afternoon, Miss, er...”

Okay, so it was afternoon. And the doctor had said give days. Not that any of that mattered much.

“Good afternoon,” I replied. “If it’s all the same with you, I’d rather not give you my name right now.”

“Why, may I ask?”

“No-one back home knows I’m here. I’d rather things stayed that way for now.” All true, kind of.

He raised an eyebrow at that. “With your injuries I’d have thought you’d want your mother here.”

“My mother's dead, and there’s no-one else in my family I particularly want to see. I’ve been looking after myself for longer than you might guess, so can we keep it that way for now?” Also all true. Maybe not quite in the way they would assume, but sticking to the truth mattered.

“Could you tell us what happened to you, Miss er... miss.”

I didn’t mind that he was uncomfortable not having my name. I could use any advantage. “I could, but I’m worried I might get into trouble. Should I maybe have a lawyer?”

“At the moment we’re looking at you as a victim, miss. We’re not concerned with anything that you might have done wrong.”

“Except you’re probably going to change your mind part way through. I’m sorry, but I’m going to need some assurances, and it would be easier if I had a lawyer. Partly to stop me from saying something I shouldn’t, and partly to negotiate a, what is it called? Indemnity something?”

“An indemnity agreement. Do you have a lawyer?”

I shook my head. “I’m a visitor here. Besides, I don’t have a lot of money.”

“I’d be happy to put the base’s lawyer at your disposal.” My doctor appeared in the doorway. “Uncle Sam is footing your medical bills, so I don’t see why he can’t be asked to do a little more.”

“Yeah?” I spoke past the policemen to the doctor. “Please don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful and everything, but could I ask why?”

“You’re a material witness in a case against a group who may well be just a little more than local criminals. Higher up the chain of command wants to make sure they’re prosecuted fully and correctly.” He turned to the police presence. “You’re military police, right?” They nodded. “Can I suggest our patient has a little time alone with someone from our law office then you come back in, say an hour?”

They shrugged and headed off in the direction of coffee and doughnuts, or whatever equivalent appeals to MPs.

A further wait of ten minutes brought a young and very well dressed man into my room. He closed the door as he entered.

“Good afternoon,” he said. “My name is Ambrose, and I understand you’re looking for a lawyer.”

“I am, thank you. You work on this base, I believe. Can I ask what would make you my lawyer rather than still representing the US military? Especially since your bosses are footing the bill.”

“A very good first question,” he said putting his briefcase down on the end of the bed. He removed a couple of sheets of paper from it and passed them across. “And this would be my answer. Read it through if you like but the short version is that you will not be charged for my services but I will act directly as your attorney, which means attorney-client privileges apply and I could lose my law licence if I disclose anything you share with me without your prior consent.”

“Who gets to see my signature?”

“Well, unless we have reason to refer to this document, which will only happen if you believe I have breached confidentiality, then my copy will stay in my briefcase and you can do whatever you like with yours.”

It all seemed in order so I signed both copies. My usual signature only uses my first initial, so worked well enough.

“May I ask...”

“I’d like to keep my name out of the proceedings if possible, so would you mind just referring to me as miss, or my client if in the third party.”

“Sure. So tell me about your problem. I understand you're a witness against a biker gang but you’re worried about disclosing some illegal activity on your part?”

“Yes.” I looked him over, trying to decide whether to trust him with the whole truth. “A weird question to start with. Do you believe in aliens?”

He laughed. “Not so much that we’re going to get along if it's going to feature in your story.”

Well, he'd answered my question well enough. I changed back into the original tack. “No, it's just that, I don't know, I thought we saw something when we were passing through New Mexico I suppose about a week back, but it doesn't really matter.”

“We. Who's we?”

I took a breath and started getting creative.

“My boyfriend and I were hiking through Mexico a few weeks back...”

“I'm sorry, how is this relevant?”

I sighed. “I'm in the States illegally, and I kind of stole someone's motorbike back in New Mexico.”

“Oh. We'll that complicated matters. Illegal entry involves Homeland and, I'm guessing you crossed state lines on the motorbike?”

“Three times. New Mexico into Texas, then into Oklahoma and lastly into Arkansas.”

“Yeah, well that gets the Feds involved.”

“Are you telling me you have to involve them?”

“No, ACP means I can't even tell government agencies without your permission, but I have to advise you to come clean. It'll go better for you in the long run.”

“Can that be a discussion for later maybe?”

“Sure, but I am not going to let it slide. Maybe best if we go from the top. Tell me about how you got here, and I won't interrupt again.”

So I told him my made up story of how I'd been hitch hiking in Mexico with my boyfriend, how one evening we'd come across a confrontation between two drug cartels, or maybe one cartel and the police, how we'd tried to sneak away but had been spotted, how my boyfriend had been shot, but I'd kept on running and eventually come across this old man, stopped by the side of the road with his motorbike. It had been cold, so he'd given me his leather jacket to wear, and we'd been sitting by his campfire when the cartel guys had rolled up quietly and turned on their lights. I’d panicked and jumped on the guy’s bike and raced off into the night.

I rode till morning then pulled to the side of the road to try and figure out what to do. I'd abandoned my bag with my money and passport back at the guy’s camp, but he'd left most of his things on the bike, which meant I had I had some cash at least. Fearful that I was still being chased, I'd just kept running.

Coming through Oklahoma was when I'd come across Chuck’s lot, and that was when my story headed back into fact. I'd given what I thought was a plausible explanation how I'd ended up on someone else's bike without any documentation on me, the rest could stand on its own merits.

He was shrewd. He took notes throughout and flipped back to the beginning as soon as I’d finished.

“There are some things about the early part of your story that don’t ring true. Everything from the time you met up with the biker gang I believe, but before that... You know, I'm not going to be able to help you much of you don't tell me the whole truth.”

“Alright. I'm really a sixty-year-old man who was abducted by aliens, who are really humans from a long way into the future. They altered me so I became what you see in front of you.”

He sighed. “Did it involve an anal probe?”

“As a matter of fact...”

“No. Stop. I really don't want to know. If this is what you want me to work with, I'll get you an indemnity agreement to cover your illegal entry and motorcycle theft which, according to your story, both happened under duress, but when they start asking questions you can't answer, you're on your own.”

“That's all I'm asking.”

Once he left, I called for the nurse and asked to use the toilet. Given my injuries this involved a bed pan and a high degree of indignity. I wanted to try shifting into my male form, but didn't think it wise to risk it in the open. Come to think of it, there was no telling what would happen when my larger, more muscled masculine left leg appeared with all the bolts, pins and plaster currently holding it together. It would be extremely painful at the very least, and might cause a lot of disruption to the surgeon’s hard work to leave me with a difficult explanation. Best just to wait it out.

The two MPs returned a short while later, ink still drying on my indemnity protection. With Ambrose beside me, I went through my whole ordeal, spending most time describing the contents of the arsenal and identifying specific weapons from a large book they provided. They wanted to know if the place smelled at all and I described a sort of oily smell which had them nodding.

“That'll do for now, but we'll want you to stay around for the trial. I know that's an inconvenience, but you're going to be here for a while recovering from your injuries anyway. We're hoping to fast track the trial so it takes place in about a month. Is that going to cause any problem?”

“Well, I don't have a lot to go home to,” I said, “ but I don't have funds to live here for that long.”

“You're a witness in a military matter, so we’ll look after you until after the trial. Room and board courtesy of the American government. Protection too until we get these fellers behind bars.”

“Are you saying there might be others out there who might be after me?”

“It's possible. What you described, and what caused the kind of explosion we picked up, suggests a weapons cache that we'd be more likely to associate with terrorist activity than ordinary crime, and terrorist cells tend not to work alone. There may be an attempt to stop this going to trial and since you’re the only material witness, it’s possible you may be at risk, so we're going to assign you a guard just to be sure.”

By the end of the week, they had me up and about in a motorised wheelchair. The techniques they'd used to immobilise my left leg meant I'd need two crutches at least and lacking one armpit meant that wasn't an option. A manual wheelchair would, likewise, have required me to have two arms, so instead I was loaned a set of wheels complete with electric motor and joystick controls. I wasn’t going to win any races, but at least I could get out and about. They wanted their bed back too which, after a little discussion, resulted in my moving in with the pretty little nurse who'd been looking after me when I regained consciousness.

There were so many new things to get used to, not least of which was the arrival of my first monthly visitor just after I moved in with my new roommate. It was uncomfortable and vaguely disgusting, but not something billions of women didn't deal with on a regular basis, so that's just what I did. One handed as with everything else.

Getting dressed was a challenge, but since all my clothes – along with my male alter ego’s passport and other goodies – had gone up in flames with Chuck's bike, I at least had a chance to buy stuff from scratch. The American military, who'd been so generous to me this far, gave me a modest budget to clothe myself, and Nikki, my live in nurse, was all up for the shopping spree.

Sports bras were a must. There was no way I could manage a clasp with just one hand, so having something stretchy I could pull over my bits turned the impossible into the merely challenging. The scaffolding on my leg denied me the option of trousers, but I preferred skirts and dresses anyway. I went for loose fitting styles with enough sleeve for me to pin closed on the unfilled side, all of which meant I could get by with a minimum of assistance.

There wasn't much to do during the day while Nikki was at work, so I shopped for food, cooked and cleaned as well as I could and negotiated the use of the base library and a computer.

I’ve always been interested in computers, buying my first eight oh eighty-six in my twenties and teaching myself about MS-DOS and programming from the outset. With the advent of Windows, I'd been unable to make the mental leaps necessary to keep going though. Too old a dog, too new a trick or something, even at that young age. Now my mind felt more agile than it ever had been and I was looking for a challenge. The base had a lot of books on cybersecurity and hacking, which was an area I'd always wanted to dive into, and now I not only had an opportunity but a reason as well.

My missing arm continued to bother me. The phantom limb syndrome subsided, but was replaced by a persistent ache and itch where the skin had been stitched up. I tried a lot of different creams on it in an effort to ease the discomfort and, after a week or so, noticed a small lump growing where my arm had been. A nagging feeling persuaded me not to go to the doctor about it. Instead I decided to try the pendant the Grey had given me.

“Are you there?” I asked it quietly after Nikki had left for her shift one morning.

“The question is without merit,” the voice replied. “I have been located on or near your person for nineteen days, five hours and twelve minutes.”

“How should I address you when I want to ask a question then?” I snapped at it.

“Simply ask the question. If you are on your own, I will assume you are adressing me and respond.”

“I was severely injured a couple of weeks ago. My left arm was amputated and now I can feel a small lump where my arm used to join my body. Do you know what it is?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

“The response to this question is currently locked...”

“Should I see a doctor about it?”

“No.”

“Then unlock the response and tell me about it.”

“The response to you question will be made available at some future time when its capacity to impact the existing time line is no longer of consequence.”

“How long before I figure out what's going on without your help? What if, once I figure it out, I decide on a course of action that does impact the existing time line in a significant way? Wouldn't it be better for you to help me understand what's happening now?”

No reply. Frustrated, I dropped the pendant back into my cleavage and set about the laborious task of cleaning up the breakfast things one handed. I'd about finished drying and putting things away when the voice sounded from my chest area.

“Standby for update.”

I stood by, or rather sat by, for half an hour then gave up and headed out to the library where I spent the day ignoring both the itching ache in my stub and the increased warmth in the pendant. I worked my way to the end of my current book, stored my notes on an online drive and packed up for the short trundle home.

Halfway home, a soldier fell into step beside me and dropped something into my lap. He'd turned away before I could make out any distinguishing features. Six foot plus – difficult to be more precise from a seated position – built like you’d expect a soldier to be and wearing the standard greens.

I pulled over to the side of the pavement (sorry, I refuse to call it a sidewalk) and examined what he'd passed me.

It was a small metal container with a flip lid, a lot like a Zippo lighter, but without the inner workings. Instead, there was a folded piece of paper which read, 'Don't testify if you want to keep breathing.’

I could feel my heart racing. They weren’t likely to follow through here and now, having just delivered their threat, but the point was well made. They could reach me whenever they wanted.

Back at Nikki’s apartment, I picked up the phone and called through on the number I'd been told to use in case of emergency.

It alarmed them that I’d been approached on the base and by someone who at least looked like he belonged. Their first instinct was to beef up the security, which prompted me to ask how if they could be sure their security hadn’t been infiltrated.

It wasn't the most diplomatic of questions, but I was feeling a bit jittery. Fortunately, the guy on the other end of the phone was prepared to make allowances and limited his response to a short sharp intake of breath.

He told me to stay where I was and await the arrival of a security detail, then he hung up.

It was probably going to be my last opportunity, so I reached for the amulet.

“Do you have an update for me yet?”

“Update as follows,” it replied. “Explanation not yet available. Keep injury hidden from others. Do not examine too closely. Arrange to be alone in three weeks. Further update available then.”

It wasn't much but it was better than nothing. Maybe the time when those answers would be unlocked was closer than I’d thought.

I scribbled a quick note for Nikki and packed my limited wardrobe into a shoulder bag. The knock on the door came ten minutes later.

“We've come to take you into protective custody, miss.” He was a corporal as far as I could tell from his stripes and he was having difficulty keeping his eyes off my missing arm.

No, that came out wrong, but I guess you know what I mean.

“Funny,” I told him with a little ice in my voice. “You look a lot like the guy who dropped a death threat into my lap.” I didn't wait for a reply but motored out past him to the waiting ambulance which at least was required with the necessary means to winch my wheels and me into the back.

The journey was the sort of short that left me wondering if I could have covered the distance on my wheels in less time than I'd been waiting for my escort. It ended up with me in an empty cell block in a cell barely wide enough to fit my wheelchair and a hard narrow bed.

“You're kidding me!” I said upon first sight of my new accommodation.

“Our first priority is keeping you safe, miss,” the corporal barked, his eyes staring fixedly ahead.

“I think I'd have happily chosen comfort offer safety.” But i threw my bag onto the bed and trundled in next to it.

“I can understand that,” a familiar voice said from behind me, “but the trial starts in a week and the commander doesn't want to take any chances.”

I spun the chair around and smiled up at the doctor. “So, he's going to lock me up to make sure I don't get away?”

“Actually no, you're not going to be locked in. This is the base prison, and your former abductors are currently locked up very nearby, but this whole wing is entirely yours and the doors will only be locked if you ask it. The guards here are for your protection. They won't stop you if you choose to leave, but they will both accompany you. I would ask that you consider staying inside for your own protection. We don't want a repeat of today's events, do we?”

“What about my library books and the computer I've been using?”

“Let one of the guards know what you need and he'll make sure you get it. We have orders to make sure you're as comfortable as possible, which is why I'm here – to make sure your accommodations are good enough. I've just ordered a better mattress and bedding along with some flowers.”

“Flowers?”

“I thought they might brighten the place up. I also wanted to check how your leg was. Do you mind?”

I indicated he should proceed and he poked and prodded me for a bit.

“Huh,” he said.

“What?” I wanted to know.

“Well, do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Bad before good, always.”

“Why?”

“It means you end on a high. Unless the bad news is too bad, in which case you don't have to wait for it.”

“Makes sense I guess.” He began foddling with the metalwork around my leg. “The bad news is I'm going to have to take away your wheelchair.”

“What! Why?”

“Because the good news,” he paused for effect then stood up holding the pins and brackets that had been holding my thigh bone together, “the good news is your leg is completely mended.”

“Weren't those screwed into me?”

“Yes, and ordinarily if have either left them in our removed them under anaesthetic. Your flesh seams to have healed around them though, and don't ask me how because I've never seen anything like it.”

“You're sure the bone is fixed. I mean, I thought you said three to six months.”

“I don't understand it myself, but try standing on it. Here let me help you. You’ll be a little weak at first. Can I ask how your ribs feel?”

“Kind of like normal I suppose.”

“No aches? No shortness of breath?”

“No.” I stood up and experimentally put my full weight onto my left leg. It was a little unateady from lack of use and I could feel the holes where the bolts had entered pinching together, but otherwise I felt fine.

“How’s your er... your stump?”

“It itches and aches a little, but otherwise no issues.”

“Do you mind if I have a look?”

“I’d rather you didn’t doctor.”

“I understand. Well, I guess I'll leave you to get settled in. Be careful walking about. Your balance will be off without your left arm and you may still think you have a limb that side to steady you. Your new mattress and bedding will be with you shortly and if you need anything else, just ask.”

“A laptop maybe?”

“Sergeant, get that organised please.”

“Yes sir.”

“I'll bid you good night then. I'll arrange for you to come up to the ward for a proper check-up tomorrow, otherwise just hold on. This'll all be over in a little more than a week.”

I explored a little. A wide corridor with five doors down either side, each of which led to a cell identical to my own. At one end a sliding, barred barrier with two armed soldiers guarding it. I walked through and the guards came to attention.

“Are either of you going to stop me?” I asked.

“No Ma’am.” The speaker had an extra chevron on his sleeve. “We do have orders to follow you if you leave. And to request you consider remaining in your cell. For your safety. Ma’am.”

A couple of privates turned up carrying my new mattress and bedding. A third followed closely with the laptop as requested and a vase of flowers as promised. I considered remaining in my cell and decided not to rock any boats just because they looked like they could be rocked.

The remade bed proved adequately comfortable and, with typical military efficiency, the laptop has already been connected to the prison wi-fi.

I hunted out my notes from the previous week's study and went through them, surprising myself at how much I remembered. Dinner came and went somewhere in the middle and I finished my review sooner than I'd expected. I settled down for an early night, exploring my left shoulder in the dark. The lump was definitely there and definitely growing.

I woke the next morning feeling ravenous. A quick exploration of my body showed the lump on my stump noticeably bigger still and the holes in my leg gone. I tried a few exercises – nothing more than simple squats and star jumps – which I managed with little difficulty. Balance was a bit off, like the doctor had suggested, but strength had returned.

Still in my nightie and dressing gown, I hunted out my guards – a different pair from yesterday – and enquired after washing facilities and breakfast. Once more, the corporal was the vocal one.

“Shower block’s down there, Ma’am. You'll find towels and soap ready for your use. Just leave any towel you use on the floor and it'll be sorted.”

“No orders to follow me?” Not a particularly kind question, but then I get cranky in when I'm hungry.

“No Ma’am, but if you need any help, just call.”

And that was me told. The shower block was a large communal affair. White tiles and glistening chrome, it was quite stark and large enough for a block of ten to use at the same time. With the water hot enough to sting, the place filled rapidly with steam until I couldn’t see anything of my surroundings.

Showers had become a special pleasure since I’d turned female. I found I could endure hotter temperatures and revelled in the pinprick stabs all over my body. My growling stomach persuaded me to keep my ablutions short, but this was going to be one of the high points of my semi-incarceration.

I dressed, delighting in the contrasting coolness of the air. Short skirt, short sleeves pinned on the left, deep cleavage, complete with my ever-present amulet. I would turn heads today, except I knew the admiring looks would slide away as soon as the caught sight of my missing arm. Still, that was their problem, not mine.

“Take me to your larder,” I said to the corporal once I’d brushed my hair out and declared myself ready for the world.

“Ma’am?” I should have known better than to waste my best jokes.

“Your canteen, corporal. I’m hungry.”

“Yes Ma’am.” He led the way with his companion bringing up the rear. Well, at least one of them would enjoy the experience.

Two plates full of bacon, sausage, grits, beans, you name it, and three mugs of coffee later, my body finally told me I could stop shovelling. My appetite had drawn quite a few interested glanced, but I wasn’t in a mood to care.

“The doctor told us to bring you to him as soon as you were fed, Ma’am,” the corporal said, looking over the debris I’d left behind. The private cleared away my things for me and, as before, I followed them out.

The doctor’s eyes went up again at the unblemished surface of my leg. He asked me to strip down to my underwear and I, in turn, asked if it was absolutely necessary.

“If I’m going to give you a proper examination it is,” he said.

“Or you could just write down, ‘patient refused examination.’ I don’t feel like getting undressed right now.”

“I don’t understand why you’re refusing...”

“Because I feel fine. Because the only reason you want to examine me is I'm healing faster than you expect and you want to know why. Because since I am healing faster, I don't need an examination. And because I'm maybe just a little fed up with my new accommodation and the fact that I didn't have a say in it. Oh, hi Nikki, sorry about last night.”

“It’s okay,” she said from behind the doctor. “Welcome to the army life, orders come from above and you just get on with it. No question, no complaint.”

“I'm not sure I could live like that.”

“It has its compensations. Excuse me doctor, you wanted me to tell you as soon as things changed.” She handed him a chart from another patient.

“Fine. If I wasn’t so busy, we'd be having a longer conversation right now. Corporal, please escort her back to her room.”

The day passed slowly with little to do. I hunted the web for anything interesting, skipping through the fake news and click-bait to find the real stuff. I made use of some of the things I'd learned from my reading to paddle in the shallows of the murky sea that is the dark web and set up a few aliases for future use. I also identified a little additional reading. At least one of the titles I knew was in the base library. The rest could be ordered and would hopefully arrive in time for me to read. I wrote out the list and passed it to the corporal before his shift ended.

I had the same three pairs of guards watching me round the clock. Six am till two pm, two till ten, then back to six the next morning. I suppose the intention was to keep the number of people who knew where I was to a minimum.

The next morning shift arrived and, with them, both my books and my breakfast. The same two plates of food I'd put away the previous day with some additional toast in case it wasn't enough and a whole insulated flask of coffee. Once more, I was ravenous and polished off most of it.

With a full stomach, I spent longer in the shower, including having to wait a couple of minutes for the steam to clear so I could find my way out. The rest of the day I devoured the new books, making notes as I went.

Five more days passed very much along similar lines, variations being that on the second day I asked if it would be possible to organise some time outside. As a result I was allowed a couple of one hour slots in a private courtyard to walk around and look up at the sky

The lump on my stump grew daily, showing to about the width of my old arm and extending outwards perhaps a couple of inches. It ached almost constantly and was becoming harder to hide. A lot of the growth was hard and bony so I couldn't just bind it with bandages. The best I could do was pin my sleeve more loosely and hope no-one noticed.

The day finally arrived for the trial to begin, and the timing couldn't have been better. I knew I wouldn't be able to get away with giving my evidence anonymously, so I'd been making practical use of my newly acquired cyber-skills to explore deeper into the shadowy places in the interweb. First step, how to do so undetected, second step, how to hack into a few databases, third step, how to fabricate an identity. As a first effort, I wasn’t sure how well it would hold up under close scrutiny but, as with my efforts to hide what was happening to my missing limb, I just hoped nobody would feel inclined to look too closely.

The courtroom had a mix of new and old. It was sparsely decorated and painted a utilitarian beige. An adjudicating panel of military high-ups sat behind a raised desk while everyone else – which is to say Ambrose and myself, the entire biker gang and their legal representatives, and a fair showing of military police standing ready to keep the peace – sat several feet below them.

As pretty much the only witness, I was called early to the stand. I gave my name as Gillian Walker, the surname being genuine and the first name being one that tickled my sense of irony. I've always been interested in the meanings of names and had been intrigued to find that Gillian, as the anglicised version of Juliana, meant youthful or Jove’s child. Since I currently looked half my actual age courtesy of what might, in a different time, have been considered the gods, the name was just too good to pass up.

With Ambrose’s help, I described my ordeal at the hands of Chuck and his cronies, going into a lot of detail in describing the contents of the weapons store. My estimate on the amount of explosives came close to matching an independent report from an the expert who'd investigated the compound after I'd escaped.

I ended with a description of the motorcycle chase that had ended with my crash, Chuck’s enraged demand that my remains be found and killed if necessary, Ray’s more measured response that effectively called off the hounds and gave me my opportunity to crawl to the road where I was rescued.

The bikers’ lawyers then had a go at me, focusing on where I'd come from, arguing that it went to challenging my credibility as a witness.

I told the same story I'd given to Ambrose, now supported by a few pieces of artificial evidence courtesy of yours truly, like a record of my arrival in Mexico and a police report of cartel activity across the border into New Mexico the night I said I'd arrived. It was enough to give my story the credence it needed and, since I’d been running scared, didn’t do much to damage my reputation as a witness.

“Why didn’t you go to the authorities?” I was asked.

“I was terrified,” I explained. “I needed time to figure out what to do, then these jokers rolled up and I didn’t have the option any more.”

I sat down under Chuck’s baleful glare and Ray’s more thoughtful one. The rest of the day consisted of cross examinations of each of the gang members to try and determine their degree of culpability. I was called on to contribute in each case and managed to identify most, if not all, of the riders who’d first kidnapped me, the ones I’d seen guarding different parts of the compound – the one I’d seen outside the arsenal hadn’t been present in the courtroom as, so I later found out, he was recovering from extensive injuries – and the ones I’d encountered during meal times.

It was a long day, but we covered all of the necessary details. What remained was for the judges to decide what happened next. The size of the cache put the crime very much in the province of domestic terrorism, which meant none of them was likely to get off lightly. I returned to my protected environment for what I hoped would be the last time.

Next morning breakfast arrived on cue. I was still ravenous and ate a lot every meal, my overriding urge being for meat, and yet after a week of pretty much the same diet, I showed no signs of putting on weight.

The morning meal was followed, as usual, by my trip to the showers. My hair needed a wash, so I spent a good long while under the jets, soaping, lathering, scrubbing. It felt like I was washing away the filth of my recent experiences and was utterly cathartic. I eventually turned off the shower and went stumbling blindly for my towel.

“You were warned, you know.”

My blood ran cold. The voice was almost familiar. I shrank away from it until I backed into one of the shower's slick walls.

I could hear footsteps moving towards me. Heavy, booted footsteps, slow and ponderous.

“It was nice what you did in there, putting in a good word for my brother.”

A shadowy figure appeared in the gradually dispersing steam. If I could see him then surely he could see me, yet he was slightly off to one side. I kept as still as I could, barely daring to breathe.

“Thing is, you got it wrong darlin’.”

I could just about make out his features. Six foot plus, wearing army greens. He looked a lot like...

“You see, it may have seemed Chuck was in charge, but Ray was the brains behind it all. I mean where’d you think they got all that weaponry in the first place, huh?”

He turned slightly, looked directly at me, but somehow there was no recognition in his eyes.

“You really ought not to hide,” he said raising his voice. “There ain’t no way out of here, least not for you. See, my brother and me, we had this all planned and now you done gone and ruined it all. That means you gotta pay.”

He slid a terrifyingly large combat knife out of its sheath and turned away to his left. How was it that he couldn't see me?

“All this time I've been keepin’ my nose clean, pretendin’ to be a good soldier, feeding Ray information on weapons transports so he could get Chuck and his goons to go steal ‘em. Building up enough firepower so’s we could raise an army when we needed, so’s we could get President Trump back into power, by force if necessary, and you done ruined it all.”

The last came out as a shout. The steam had all but faded completely. He spun on his heels, taking in the whole room.

“Where in tarnation you hidin’ woman?”

He had his back to me, but there was no way he could have missed me just now. He'd find me any minute. Freezing in place wasn't going to work much longer. Fight or flight, neither seemed like a good option. Maybe a combination of both?

I reached for my male form for the first time in over a week, and there I was, heavier, balanced, with both my arms. I launched out of my crouch, delivering a two-knuckle punch to the base of his skull. I didn’t hold back. I planted my feet as best as I could on the wet tiles and put all the force I could muster into it, shoulders twisting, arm extending like a piston.

It hurt like a son of a bitch, but it worked. He was completely poleaxed. As he went down face first, I grabbed the wrist and fist he was using to hold the knife and smashed them onto the floor.

He let out a bellow of pain – not unconscious, just momentarily stunned – and let go of the knife. I kicked it across the room and ran for the exit, reaching for my female form as I accelerated.

Running without an arm feels all wrong. My balance was off, and my newly healed left leg choose that moment to protest the strain I was putting on it. Without support, my breasts bounced about uncomfortably on my chest, but I needed to be the girl for this next bit. The terror helped. I found breath enough to muster a scream and ran on, pouring every ounce of effort I had into running.

My guards were down, blood pooling around them. I thought about grabbing one of their handguns, but their holsters were buttoned closed and I could hear footfalls behind me. Fumbling about with one arm would not be a good idea right now. Instead, I grabbed the loop of keys off the corporal’s belt and kept running for my cell.

I slammed the door shut and fumbled for the right key. Someone had had the presence of mine to colour code them somewhere along the line. Silently thanking whoever it was, I grabbed the key that matched the colour of my lock, shoved it in and twisted just as a heavy body slammed against the door from the other side.

A stream of enraged filth poured through the door at me. Fists pounded against steel punctuated by increasingly detailed threats. I sat with my back to the door and sobbed with a mixture of fear and relief, utterly spent.

Things fell silent on the other side of the door. I rose unsteadily to my feet. I wanted to put my eye to the peephole to see what was happening, but hesitated.

Fortunately, as it happened. A gunshot sounded and the door bent in where I'd been about to place my eye. I screamed involuntarily and ducked into the corner of the cell closest to the door.

Fourteen more shots sounded in quick succession, the bullets impacting around the lock. The noise was deafening, each crashing boom drawing another scream from my raw throat. I could feel a warm trickle running down the inside of my legs, which buckled under me. I collapsed sobbing into a pool of my own filth.

Muffled sounds of running and shouting came from the other side of the door and it was all over. A gentle tap sounded on the door.

“Gillian?” It sounded like the doctor. He'd been present at the trial to present his own evidence regarding my state when I'd been brought into the base, so he'd heard me give my name. “Gillian, it’s all over now. We've caught him.”

Slowly, shakily, I managed to persuade my legs to do their job. I stood and unlocked the door.

He took one look at my naked form then pulled the blanket off my bed, throwing it around my shoulders. I grabbed the two edges, pulling them closed across my front and buried my face in his chest. The tears now were pure relief.

Nikki joined us a while later. I hadn't quite finished crying but allowed myself to be transferred from the doctor’s shoulder to hers. She took me back to the shower to clean up and stayed with me because I sure as hell wasn’t going in there on my own. She helped me dress, then brought me back to the doctor who looked at me curiously, his eyes shifting between my left shoulder and my face.

“Are you ready to finish this?” he asked, evidently deciding to leave his medical questions until later.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The trial. Are you up to giving a little more evidence so we can put these people away where they can’t hurt you, or anyone else?”

“Is he going to be there? The guy who just...”

“Yes, but he’ll be restrained and under close guard.”

“Good. Let’s do this.”

It was another long day. Describing in detail what had happened in the shower didn’t take long, but the discussion over why he hadn’t seen me or how a tiny thing like me could have laid out such a burly soldier, especially with only one arm, lasted a long while and had to go into the record unanswered.

Having additional information on where the weaponry had come from, and what its intended purpose had been was a bonus, and they were happy to reassess their judgement against Ray as well as his brother.

It was all over. I asked about the eight eighty-three and was told it had been found and returned to its owner. I also asked about the old man I’d stolen it from and they told me no sign had been found and the suspicion was that the cartel had killed him and buried him somewhere in the empty vastness that was New Mexico. As long as they didn’t get round to comparing the signatures on my confidentiality agreement with Ambrose and the rental agreement forms for the motorbike, there wouldn’t be any more questions to ask.

When I said goodbye to the doctor, he gave my shoulder a pointed look and aske, “Want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t understand it myself, doctor,” I said, “so there’s really nothing to tell.” We left it at that

Nikki had been a good friend for the short time I’d known her. We hugged and made promises we probably wouldn’t keep about staying in touch.

When all was said and done, I was delivered to the nearest British consulate, which happened to be in Atlanta, Georgia, on the understanding that should I visit the United States again, I was to enter through official channels.

The consul found enough of the trail of breadcrumbs I’d left in cyberspace to accept I was a British citizen and arranged for me to be repatriated. Which was just as well, because I had nothing more than the clothes on my back and would never have been able to afford a plane ticket home. They were sympathetic about the injuries I’d received and at least arranged transport back to Norfolk.

I headed back to my home and used the emergency key I kept under a false rock in the garden to let myself in. With luck, news of my disappearance and possible demise would take a while getting back to England, by which time I could put together a cover story of how, after I’d had the bike stolen and been roughed up by this gang of Mexicans, I’d made my way home without telling anyone.

Safely behind closed doors, I unpinned my left sleeve and shifted into my male form. The dress was made of the sort of stretchy cotton tee shirts are made from. It tightened as I grew to fill it and, once again, my left arm appeared.

I felt ravenous. Certainly the dress hadn’t filled out as much as I expected, and a quick inspection showed me I had considerably less of a stomach than I expected.

Having been away for the beat part of two months, I didn’t have a great deal of food in stock. A packet of crisps or two and half a packet of stale biscuits was all I could find. I wolfed them down to take the edge of the hunger and hunted out a pen and paper to put together a quick shopping list.

Upstairs to change into something the neighbours might find slightly less scandalous, though to be fair, for all their backwards reputation, I’ve found Norfolk people surprisingly open to alternative lifestyles. Still, I wasn’t quite ready for the neighbours to see my in a dress, so I switched to a polo shirt and pair of jeans. I didn’t see any harm in keeping the bra and girl pants on, but decided to check the mirror in case anything showed.

I was going to have to go a little further if I wanted to convince people I was the old me. My formerly grey hair had turned its old dark mousey colour, the creases and sallow hue of my skin were gone. Combined with the slimmer, trimmer frame, I looked half my age, and no amount of persuasion was going to satisfy even the most casual of enquirers that I was actually in my sixtieth year.

A knock on the door and I felt the need to hide, to be anywhere but there. I looked around me then back in the mirror and let out an involuntary yelp.

I wasn’t there. I mean, my shirt was, and my jeans, but my body had gone. I shifted slightly and the illusion was broken. I was still there, just that my skin pigment had taken on a perfect imitation of whatever was behind me. Now that I was moving, I could see an image of the room painted over my face and arms. It was unreal. The knock on the door sounded again, louder and more insistent. I willed my normal colour to return and it did, so I willed it to fade a little. The effect wasn’t perfect – I mean my skin was still too young – but my hair was greyer and my complexion paler. Good enough for a casual encounter I decided and headed down to answer the door.

“Graham, dear.” It was Marjory from next door. Widower and local village do gooder. “I thought I noticed you were back, but I’m sure I saw someone in a dress. Did you bring a lady friend home with you dear?”

“No, Marjory. Just me.”

“Well, whatever you’ve been doing, I don’t know if it suits you. You’re looking a bit peaky, and you’ve lost so much weight.”

That was Marjory all over. I come home from holiday looking younger and fitter than I had in decades, and she could still turn it into a source for concern, or at the very least, gossip.

“If you must know, it didn't work out so well in the end...”

“Doesn't surprise me one bit. What you think you're doing, gallivanting about on motorcycles at your age, is beyond me.”

And that also was Marjory. Less interested in hearing your news than in spreading her questionable opinions.

“Well, it was good of you to check in, Marjory, but I've nothing in the house and really need to go out shopping.” I all but shoved her out the door, earning myself pole position in her list of things to gossip about.

Alone once more, I faced the hall mirror and willed myself invisible. It took a while but I definitely started fading. One more thing to chalk up on the list of weird, and possibly an explanation why Ray’s brother hadn’t seen me in the shower, or why Ray had seemed to look right through me in the trees for that matter. One more thing to ask the pendant about, though I could anticipate the response. On impulse I grabbed it through my shirt.

“Is there an explanation of the sorr of things I might experience following my abduction experience?” I asked.

“Yes,” came the reply.

“What is it?”

“Following your alteration, you may notice any or all of the following:

“You may appear younger than you are. Skin and hair colouration may return to some degree and skin tone will improve.

“You may notice minor injuries will heal more rapidly than you are used to. Also if you unfortunate enough to suffer a major injury, your body may be better able to repair itself than you would expect.

“You should avoid stressful situations as your body may react by hiding in a manner that would be difficult to explain.

“You may also find that, should you experience a surge of adrenaline, you will be able to move faster and act with greater strength than you are accustomed to for a short period of time.

“All of these changes will be fully explained to you at a future time when any impact to the existing timeline will be of no further consequence.”

I thought about the Greys’ odd arrangement of fingers and gambled.

“When the individuals who became the Greys adapted themselves to survive in the future world, did they use DNA from reptiles – lizards and the like?”

The device went quiet for a long minute while it considered the ramifications of answering. Eventually it said, “They did.”

“Did the alterations that were made to me make use of the same genetic material?”

“The alterations made to you will not result in excessive physical change.”

“Define the phrase, ‘will not result in excessive physical change,' in this instance.”

“Your appearance will remain unchanged other than resorting to an earlier age, and in your case potentially gender. You will eventually appear as you would have at age thirty, or thereabouts.”

“I’ve already reached that point. How would you advise I deal with people who know me as a sixty-year-old man?”

“Break contact with them and move. You can always make new friends.”

“Should I wait for my arm to regrow before I start making new friends?”

The silence was deafening.

“That is what's happening, isn’t it? Lizard DNA from chameleons allowing me to blend into my background, from geckos and others allowing me to regrow lost limbs, and who knows, maybe climb vertical walls, from heaven knows what else reducing the effects of aging and giving me that adrenaline spurt. There’s no point keeping it from me when I’ve already worked it out. If you refuse to tell me what’s happening, I may just start experimenting to find out for myself, and then where will you impact on the timeline be?”

“Standby for an update.”

“No! I’m done talking to a blasted machine. If they made you then you understand their language. Which means you can translate between us. I’m going to buy some food and necessities, then I’m going to drive out into the middle of nowhere where I expect a visit. They are still tracking me, aren't they?”

“Yes.”

“Then I shall speak to them later.” I picked up my list from the kitchen and headed outside via the garage.

It was a daft thing to do. I stared at the space where my bike had stood and felt a pang of regret that my riding days were done. It had been a good last fling, with a rather abrupt and unpleasant end to it.

I gave the place a once over, trying to decide what I’d need to get rid of if the car was ever going to fit in here. It was a problem of the modern age. Cars were getting steadily bigger – even the little runabouts – and garages weren’t. If anything, they were getting smaller in the new houses with builders apparently giving up on the idea that they were intended to house cars.

As with most problems of the modern age, it was best left for the future. If, as they said, tomorrow never comes, then you never had to plan for tomorrow.

A couple of months standing on the forecourt, even in the height of summer, had built up a layer of rust on the brake disks. I drove tentatively at first, at least until the scraping noise settled down, then eased back into driving on the proper side of the road.

Historically, the British always passed to the left, ostensibly to leave potential enemies to the right, on the side most people wielded their swords. Why most Europe’s chose to pass on the right is less clear, unless they were deliberately making themselves vulnerable as a sign of peace. It suggested that we were maybe a more aggressive people, though I didn’t feel that to be true of me. I’d face up to my terrors and fight back tooth and claw if I was threatened – I felt I’d proven that in the past week – but my preference would always be not to fight if I could help it.

Shopping was its usual delight of people dithering in the aisles and confusing layouts meaning I had to make my way around the shop twice before ticking the last thing of the list. I treated myself to a coffee afterwards and let out a deeply contented sigh at the first decent cup of coffee in a month. For which I suppose a fair translation would be the first coffee made the way I liked it. The price took some of the enjoyment out of it, but welcome to the modern highly broken world.

Back home to unload and then to set off to the north. There were places around the Broads which were quite remote, but this was grockle – a word I’d picked on a trip to the Isle of Wight some time ago, meaning tourist – season, so nowhere on the Broads would be particularly deserted. Instead I headed for one of my favourite biking areas in Norfolk. Northrepps, out towards the north Norfolk coast, was all windy quiet back roads and empty fields. I found a deserted layby and pulled in for a lengthy wait. Midsummer meant sunset would be around half nine and I didn’t expect any extra terrestrial (or maybe extra temporal?) incursions until it was too dark to see.

As it happened, I only had to wait till twilight.

“They’re coming,” my amulet told me.

I stepped out of the car just as the craft arrived, shooting down vertically so fast I only caught the slightest hint of movement before it appeared in the field beside me.

A panel opened in the seamless, silver underside and a grey stepped out.

“That was quite the entrance,” I said more nonchalantly than I felt. “If you can travel like that, why whiz around in the sky with your lights on?”

“Sightings,” a familiar gravelly voice said. But for that I wouldn't have recognised it, there being no distinguishing features I could make out. Shadows danced across its skin for a few seconds.

“OUr historical records tell us of sightings of UFOs,” my amulet said. “We appear in accordance with the reports. It is essential to maintain the timeline.”

“You've said something like that before. What do you mean by it?”

“Raindrops,” it said, and again patterns of light and dark streaked across its skin, reminding me of videos I'd seen of cuttlefish. The patterns lasted longer this time, then the amulet spoke.

“Consider raindrops running down a windowpane,” it said. “Their movement is seemingly random, but is influenced by the surface of the window. Other drops of water, tiny dust particles, imperfections in the glass. The same raindrop would only follow the same path if the surroundings were exactly the same. Change it slightly and the path changes, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

“Time is like this. There can be only one path, so each time we travel back and change the surface of the window, we risk changing the course of the raindrop so that it no longer connects to our future.”

“You're talking about the butterfly effect? A small change in the past can cause a large change in the future?”

“Yes. And no.” Once more shadows chased over its skin. I realised the same thing had been happening the time I'd been on their ship.

“The butterfly flaps its wings regardless. We ensure it does so in a manner that leads to our future for now. Small variations will correct themselves – the raindrop taking a slightly different path but rejoining its original stream. This happened with your unplanned encounter with the biker gang, the time stream corrected itself, but this is why we have to be careful. It is why we cannot risk taking you much.”

“The response to this question is currently locked and will be made available at some future time when its capacity to impact the existing time line is no longer of consequence.” I'd heard the response enough times, I knew it verbatim.

“Exactly.” This time there was no light show.

“What is your purpose in coming back in time?”

“Change.”

“To change the future,” The amulet filled in the gaps.

“But if you want to change the future...” Something clicked on my head. “You're keeping things the same for now so you can keep connecting to the past. You're trying to make more people like me, then when you're ready we change the time line and the future becomes something else.”

“Correct.”

“But if you will no longer be in our future, how come you can still journey into the past?”

“Branches.”

“The branch that leads to our future exists and will always exist. Once we change the course of history, time will no longer flow down it. We will cease to be. Until then, we can act.”

“Is your future so bad?”

“Yes.”

“All life on Earth ends. Even our existence will continue for only a short while.”

“What causes it?”

“Cancer.”

“Cancer occurs in living organisms when cells mutate so their only purpose is to feed themselves and grow. Life is delicate, it requires cooperation, it requires all parts to accept their place in the whole and work together.

“People are the cells of the world. Those who seek to take more than they give back, who find ways to do so on a global scale, they are the cancer that is killing your world, that killed ours.”

“And the only way to deal with cancer is...”

“Cut it out.”

“You want me to be your scalpel.”

“Surgeon.”

“You and others like you must be surgeons. When you begin, we will no longer exist. It is not us that will decide what to cut and when to stop cutting, but you.”

“How do you propose we do this.”

“Future.”

“This is a question for the future. For now you must remain hidden within your world and allow us to complete our preparations. You will know when it is time, and you will be many, so able to determine a better course, build a better future, than we did.”

“You altered my DNA.”

“Yes.”

“How? If I know what to expect, I'll be better able to keep it hidden.”

“Already known.”

“You've already guessed most of it, and yes the majority of your alterations come from reptilian DNA. When our world changed, our ancestors didn’t have time enough to refine their techniques and so we, their children, had to learn to accept extensive changes in our appearance. Much of our experimentation over the past years has been working on ways to pass on our advantages without altering the way you look.

“You have a chameleon’s ability to alter your pigment to match your surroundings, but your hands remain unchanged.” It held up its hand in demonstration.

“Will I be able to develop the control you have, to use it as language?”

“Perhaps.”

“It is possible, but you will have to experiment for yourself.

“You possess the capacity to regrow lost limbs...”

“How long is that likely to take?”

“Uncertain.”

“Our initial estimate was four to six months, but the rate of growth of your arm suggests perhaps half that amount.

“With practice you should be able to extend tiny hairs from the palms of your hands and soles of your feet, giving you the ability to climb vertical surfaces.

“Lizards tend not to show physical signs of aging, so your appearance and muscle tone should revert to optimal making you seem in your thirties. It is uncertain if this will extend your lifespan or by how much.

“Your blood now contains a form of antifreeze allowing you to hibernate in extreme cold.

“In stressful situations, your adrenal glands will excrete extremely large quantities of the hormone allowing you short periods of immense speed and strength, lasting perhaps a minute or two. There will be a cost to this. Each burst of activity will be followed by a period of overwhelming fatigue and perhaps some muscle damage, which your body will repair rapidly.

“Your brain will begin to function differently also. Your personality will remain intact, but your capacity for logical thought and calculation will improve.”

“That doesn't sound particularly like a lizard thing.”

“No.”

“It isn’t, but we are giving you altered versions of our own genes. Many of the advantages we have derive from the DNA given to us from reptilian sources, but some simply come from the way our minds have developed over the past centuries.”

“How many others are there like me”

“None.”

“You are the first gender diverse individual we have altered. It's likely because of this you became aware of your changes so rapidly. We are early in our program of alterations. At present thirty or forty exist, but in time the number will be in the hundreds.”

“Wouldn't it be better if I were to contact them so we could be preparing for the day when you're ready for us to act?”

“No.”

“You are the only one who is fully aware of the situation. This is already considered enough of a risk that some among us are arguing for your euthanasia. My partner and I believe you have the potential to be an asset, but you must become more covert.”

That shocked me into silence. I’d been helpless to stop them when they’d picked me up the first time. If they chose to dispose of me, I’d be gone before I even realised what was happening.

“How many of the others are my sort of age?”

“None.”

“None so far, and your changed appearance has shown us how problematic this will be. Future alterations will be made only to individuals young enough to hide the age regression.”

“In the meantime, I’m going to have to disappear and make a new life for myself. Is there any help you can offer me in doing so?”

“A little.”

“You have already begun developing skills that will allow you to create the false identities you will need, but you cannot excel in any field you work in. Notoriety will bring you to the attention of others of our kind who may decide you pose too great a risk. If your current identity is killed and your new ones remain unnoticed, this is less likely to happen.

“We can grow a dead clone of you in a matter of minutes and stage an accident site, but you must never return to your home. Find a small town or village somewhere remote and set up a local business.”

“What do I use for capital until I can do that?”

The other Grey walked out of the craft pushing a Triumph much like the one I’d had written off. Across the saddle were a leather jacket, boots, gloves and a helmet.

“Luggage,” its gentler voice said.

“The panniers contain clothes enough for both your forms, at least to begin. The top box has material of value which you can sell and use to fund a modest lifestyle for a month or two until you can create your new identities, then to provide you with the means to start a small business.

“Do not sell the motorcycle. It has a number of... special features.”

“Which I presume will be activated at some future time when their capacity to impact the existing time line is no longer of consequence.”

“Correct.”

“Thank you, I suppose.”

“Your thanks will be to justify our faith in you, to remain hidden until the appropriate time – which you will know – and to build a better world than the one we know. You will not see us again. Farewell.”

I left them preparing evidence of my sad demise. It felt good to be back on a bike – my bike – and in my neighbourhood. Route Sixty-six had its attractions, and Harleys were their own kind of fun, but this was the kind of biking I enjoyed.

I rode the smaller A roads heading north and west until hunger led me to a small pub. The menu was pretty generic, so I offered up an apology for my rant about American roadside cuisine from the beginning of this adventure. Mind you, something I’ve noticed about my country is its tendency to watch what’s happening on the other side of the pond and, whenever a particularly awful idea crops up, to wait a short while in order to confirm how bad it is, then to adopt it. I mean how long after Trump was elected did we end up with Johnson as our out Prime Minister?

The afternoon took me through more winding roads into the remoteness of the Yorkshire Dales, a place I’ve always enjoyed and in some ways preferred to East Anglia. I rode through a number of small towns till one felt just right. It had a pawn shop, for one thing, which paid me enough for what I explained was my father’s watch to allow me to rent a small farm cottage for a month.

Alternating days between my male and female selves allowed me to keep both of them well enough fed whilst watching my new left arm grow into place. I spent the time tucked away working on the laptop the Greys had provided for me, thoughtfully preloaded with a library of information on hacking and cybersecurity, and by the time Juliana was fully regrow and ready to meet the world, both she and Jonathon had relatively airtight bona fides.

I opened a bookshop in town called Jack and Jill’s, which does better trade on the Internet than on the high street, though it’s depressing how often I have to explain the name. I eventually put up a sign over the counter which reads, ‘Jack – short for Jonathon. Jill – alternative spelling of Gillian, derived from Juliana.’

The shop proved successful enough that I was able to put in an offer on a small farmhouse a mile outside town after only a couple of months. Yorkshire property prices aren't that high which helped, but I didn't have to open too much more of the jewellery the Greys had given us as start-up capital. The Juliana in me is grateful for the sparkles, and we even managed to buy Jonathon’s ‘father's’ watch back before it was sold on.

I watch the skies, whoever I happen to be at the time – and I've put together a website for alien abductees. Most of them are crackpots as you might expect, but there are a few in there I'm keeping an eye on.

Each of my personae has a separate circle of friends who call at the farmhouse without warning, so I've become quite adept at switching bodies. Clothing is proving a little harder and there are one of two rumours flying around about Jonathon liking to wear his sister's dresses. As for my other abilities, I practice regularly, if only to ensure I don't slip up. Colour changing I have down to a fine art and can shade any part of my body at will. Gecko hairs come in handy when I'm rock climbing, even though I rely as much as possible on conventional climbing gear. The rest I don't have much control over except that I've started practicing meditation to keep from inadvertently triggering my abilities.

The bike looks and behaves like an ordinary Triumph. It sails through its MOTs and never breaks down, plus it's freakishly efficient when it comes to petrol. I wouldn't sell it even if I’d been told not to. I can’t wait to find out what else it can do and I remain hopeful for the future but, until the day comes when I get to do something about the state of the world, I'm just happy being an ordinaryish guy and/or girl.