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There is nothing stranger than watching a violent storm cloud build and knowing with absolute certainty that it is nothing to worry about. The cloud approaching Ovid was massive, boiling with shades of black tinged with green, completely hiding the afternoon sun. Distant rumbles of thunder were like heralds announcing the approach of a royal visitor, and the flashes of lightning were almost constant.

I was just coming out of March’s Department Store when I saw the cloud. Most of the residents of Ovid were hustling about, one eye on the storm, certain that it was about to hit our town with its full fury. Of course, they didn’t know what I knew–that the gods would never allow such harm to come to Ovid. We might get a ‘gullywasher’ as heavy rains were called in Oklahoma, but the winds would be no more than moderate and twisters would pass without incident.

There was going to be a serious early fall storm somewhere though, I realized. Although more common in the spring and early summer, September storms like the one approaching could be just as violent as those earlier in the year. This one might even cause a few deaths in its path–that is unless the storm’s victims happened to stumble upon Ovid first. I turned away from the cloud and tried not to think about that.

I silently cursed that I had chosen to walk downtown, leaving my car parked back at City Hall. The Judge had given me the afternoon off since things were slow. I took advantage of the time to pamper myself. I managed to talk Bobby Sue into a last-minute appointment at M’Lady and then snooped around March’s for something to go with my new look.

Walking had been an easy decision. I had worn comfortable shoes that day with just a low heel–good for walking. And I had plenty of time to shop and get back to the car to pick up Ashley at the sitters. I needed to get back in fighting shape since having Ashley. I had never realized before how much strain having a baby could put on a girl’s body. The things a woman has to do to look good! Of course, growing up male, I had never worried about it.

But I certainly wasn’t male anymore, and in a way, it seemed as if I had never been. My previous life as a boy growing up back east and going to college at Notre Dame seemed like someone else’s life. And I suppose it really was. I was the only one who even remembered that life.

I was starting to regret my ambitious walk though. I had only walked half a block when the rain began to fall. At first, it was just a light sprinkle, but I didn’t want to waste a perfectly good trim and set at M’Lady, so I needed to find a port before the storm broke loose. Even though my heels were pretty low, I wasn’t prepared to run in them. The choice was obvious. I ducked into the office entrance for the Farmer’s and Merchant’s Bank Building and walked the flight of stairs up to Susan’s office.

Susan Jager and I hadn’t seen much of each other lately. First, both of us had young babies to care for, and second, the work had been piling up for Susan while she had been out. The life of a lawyer in individual practice isn’t an easy one–even in a small town. Plus, Susan’s practice had grown steadily as her reputation as a competent attorney grew. It seemed as if the only time I got to see her was when she was defending someone before the Judge.

“Cindy!” a pleasant voice called out to me as I closed the office door behind me. “What a pleasant surprise. I just called over to the courts and they told me you had the afternoon off.”

The speaker was a pleasant woman in her forties with mostly brown hair and a motherly smile. Dori Smithwick had been Susan’s legal secretary since she had opened her office. Of course, Susan hadn’t really opened the office. It was there when she was transformed. So I suppose in a way, Dori had been working for Susan since before there had even been a Susan. It all gets so complicated sometimes.

Dori had been a shade for most of that time, but a few weeks earlier, a poor girl strung out on drugs came to Ovid. Although the girl aged twenty plus years and lost all of her memories, she had made an excellent Dori. Given that the girl would have been dead from an overdose within a week, it wasn’t a bad trade.

“I do have the afternoon off,” I replied. I pointed at my hair. “See?”

“Oh, it looks great on you,” she said with a smile. “Has Jerry seen it yet?”

Jerry was my husband, but once he had been my fraternity brother. As I said, it all gets very complicated sometimes. “Not yet. He’s still at the store. But I told him I had the afternoon off, so he promised to come home early. I got a sitter and he’s taking me out to Winston’s tonight.”

“Well, Susan is out taking a deposition right now,” Dori told me. “But if you want to go on in, Myra is just setting out some files for her. I’ll get you a cup of coffee while you wait.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

Myra Smithwick–Dori’s lovely daughter–was just finishing up when I stepped inside Susan’s office.

“Hi, Cindy!” she greeted me brightly.

“Hi, Myra.” Myra was one of the true success stories in Ovid. Formerly something of a bimbo, she had turned her life around. After spending a year as the girlfriend of one of the local high school jocks, she had dumped him, toned down her makeup and wardrobe, and buckled down to become a great student. In fact, she earned a scholarship to Capta College starting in the fall and had plans to go on to law school.

Those who didn’t know the inner workings of Ovid considered it a small miracle. They would be surprised to know they were right, but not for the reasons they thought. Myra had once been as male as I had been, and her determination to escape from the life the Judge had given her had come from outside the persona Myra had, before a transformed road worker had been given her life.

“So how are you and your mother getting along?” I asked her quietly once I had closed the door. I’ve always been a little curious as to how much of a person’s old self survives the transformation. I can’t quite bring myself to believe that all of the old personality is lost, even though the memories are taken away and replaced with more appropriate ones.

“Great,” she replied. “Of course she doesn’t remember who she was before.”

I nodded. That wasn’t uncommon. The majority of transformed people lost all knowledge of their former lives. They were like my husband and my twins and believed they had always been the people they had been transformed into.

“Still, I wonder,” Myra added. “Every now and then she does something or says something I wouldn’t have expected from her. She even acts a little younger sometimes. Do you suppose even the people who don’t remember who they were retain just a little of their old selves?”

“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly. “But I’ve suspected that might be the case. It seems a shame to lose all of your old identity.” Although there was I time when I might have envied them, I thought. It was very unnerving to find myself suddenly transformed into a woman. When I was changed, I had gained not only a few years in age but a husband and two children as well. It might have been easier if like them I had thought that had always been my life. But of course if that had been the case, I would have missed out on a lot of excitement in Ovid.

“Well anyhow, she’s still mom to me,” Myra concluded. “How’s Ashley?”

“Doing fine,” I said with a smile. “I have to pick her up at the sitters in a little while. I just thought I’d duck in out of the rain and see Susan for a minute.”

“What? It takes a rainstorm for you to come and see me?”

I hadn’t heard the door open since the rain was now making quite a racket. I turned and saw Susan looking very wet but happy to see me.

“I can see why you ducked in here,” Susan said, laughing as she gave me a sisterly hug. “I like your hair that way. It would have been a shame to ruin it in this weather.”

“Thanks.”

Before we could say another word, lightning seemed to hit the side of the building. A bright flash nearly blinded us, and when our vision cleared, there was a very lovely woman–apparently Hindu from her sari and caste mark–standing in front of us. She smiled at us, her dark brown eyes twinkling, and made a little bow with her palms pressed together before her.

“And a good day to you,” she said in the singsong voice of an Indian princess. She reminded me a little of Apu’s wife on The Simpsons. Then she looked up at the sky and called, “Thanks for the ride, daddy!”

It was, of course, Diana. Someday she was going to run out of new identities, I thought to myself. In the time that I had known her, I had never seen her in the exact same body twice. Yet every body she chose was uniformly beautiful. This one was more exotic than most but certainly no exception.

“Been in India?” I asked.

“Yep,” she replied with a grin as the Indian accent disappeared. “I had a long visit with my old pal, Shiva.”

“So the Hindu gods are real, too?” Myra asked. Diana had allowed Myra the same privileges Susan and I enjoyed–the ability to speak freely of the gods. I was pleased because Myra, despite her youth, had become a good friend as well. Since she had started working part time for Susan, I had gotten to know her well. She had even appeared at Susan’s side a time or two in court. Of course, in our previous lives, Myra would have been older than me, so I suppose it all averaged out.

“Sure, but I’m not supposed to admit that,” Diana said, the grin still in place. Diana would usually tell us about anything–except the purpose of Ovid. When it came to that, she could be as reticent as any of the other gods or goddesses who flitted in and out of Ovid.

Diana was a frequent visitor to Ovid, preferring to live elsewhere. I was not sure if she really called anyplace home, though. I had actually been expecting her visit. She always seemed to know when something unusual had happened in Ovid and timed her visits accordingly. Myra, Susan and I even had a little running bet going as to which case would attract Diana next. Myra had actually won the last round, so Susan and I had to buy her lunch. I had missed out when I had predicted she would show up to hear the story of a married couple who had strayed into Ovid and had their sexes reversed while remaining married. Apparently, that was just too mundane for Diana. She had preferred to hear about a travelling salesman who had ended up as a three year old girl–not one of my favorite stories, to be honest.

“I suppose you want to hear about the escape,” I ventured hopefully. That had been my current bet in the pool.

“Of course,” Diana replied as Myra and Susan sighed. They’d have to buy me lunch. “It’s not every day something like that happens. Daddy usually keeps better control of things.”

“Maybe it’s because your father is a couple of thousand years behind on technology,” Susan suggested.

“Well, he hasn’t exactly needed it before,” Diana pointed out. “So start the story already.”

“Okay,” I agreed, leaning back and relaxing in one of Susan’s big leather chairs as I allowed myself to drift into my trance...

My cubicle felt like a prison. Oh sure, I could get up and go to the bathroom or the break room pretty much any time I pleased, but my cubicle would always be waiting for me. It imprisoned me from the heat and sunlight of a bright Dallas summer day. It reminded me that it differed from my Spartan apartment only in size. It isolated me from my co-workers. It bored me to death. But when you got right down to it, it was all I had.

I tried to concentrate on the stream of data that was advancing slowly up my screen. That way I could forget just how empty my life was. I could fill it with data. I could try to tell myself I was contributing to the greatest advance in software since Microsoft had developed Windows–although there were some who would probably argue that Windows wasn’t that significant an advance.

But I knew in my heart I was just another cog in the great machine. Software magazines didn’t come to interview me. Sure, I got offers from other firms, but so did every other programmer. If I left Aldeberan Netware, I’d just be replacing one cubicle for another. And I wouldn’t know anybody at another company. Of course, I barely knew anyone at Aldeberan for that matter. Hell, my supervisor could scarcely remember my name. He called me Jack about as often as he called me Jeff.

Yeah, that was me–Jeff Bradshaw–programmer by trade and nonentity in the pattern of life.

I suppose when you get right down to it, I had brought it all on myself, I thought. I had always been a loner. It wasn’t as if I could blame that on someone else. Sure, I had been an only child, but my parents had lived in the same house in Topeka, Kansas, since I was seven, so I had every opportunity to make friends and keep them. Maybe if there had been someone close to my age in the neighborhood, I might have turned out differently, but there wasn’t. Oh, there were a couple of guys down the street who were three or four years older than me, and there was a girl in my class just a block away, but no one I could call a good friend.

The Pattersons next door to our house had a little girl who wanted to be my friend, but she was three years younger than me and I wanted nothing to do with her. Now I regretted ignoring her. She was a runner-up for Miss Kansas a few years ago–or so I heard. On the other side of our house were the Skinners. They had no children and proclaimed with pride that they never wanted kids. I was a constant annoyance to them. My boisterous play in my own yard seemed to annoy them. My parents asked me to keep a low profile so as not to bother them.

I think that had something to do with my attraction to the computer. I could play with my little Atari and not disturb the Skinners. Besides, I didn’t need any friends when I was on the computer. My world became defined by the size of my monitor.

It was only natural that in college I would study Computer Science. I was very good at programming and soon developed a reputation for being something of a whiz at anything that involved a computer.

So how had I ended up in a dead-end job when I showed so much promise in school? I don’t really know. No, that’s not true. I did know. I just couldn’t relate to people. In fact, I still couldn’t. I barely knew the programmers in the cubicles on either side of me. Oh sure, I knew their names and we worked together on projects, but I didn’t really know them. It wasn’t that I was unfriendly. And I would have liked to have known Kathy Reynoso better. She worked in the cubicle next to mine. She was very attractive and I would have liked to know her much, much better, but I was too shy. Besides, I was probably not her type. I wasn’t a bad looking guy, but I had never been able to do very well with women.

I looked up at the clock. It was only two, so I had at least four more hours to go. It wasn’t that I had a large amount of work to do, but programmers were expected to put in long hours. If I left at five like a normal person, my workaholic supervisor was sure to know. He might not remember my name, but he’d remember I left early. What was the old saying about programmers? It was something to the effect that the best way to manage them was keep them in a cage and feed them raw meat.

Well they had the cage part right, I thought, looking around my cubicle aimlessly yet again. As for the raw meat... well, no such luck. I did have a Payday candy bar in my desk drawer, but that was for later. It was something to munch on until I got home to another frozen pizza.

Determined to stop feeling sorry for myself, I cast about for something to do. There was always my email. Maybe there would be some inane requirement from HR or something which would occupy my time. Anything to keep from gazing at strings of code. At least the company was pretty liberal about email. I could get my personal email forwarded to the company servers and read it at work. Not that I got a lot of personal email, but I suppose it was the thought that counted.

I had ten unread messages. Good–there were a couple from HR. Human Resources was always running one study or another, or telling us about some exciting new benefit like free checking at a credit union in Mongolia. The rest were just boring stuff. But one caught my eye. There was no sender listed, but the subject line read ‘Your Best Friend.’ It had to be an ad, I thought. Maybe it was some sort of sex aid. I’d have to stop surfing through those X-rated sites. They were finding out where I lived.

Or maybe it was some sort of new virus, I thought suddenly. In spite of the anti-virus protection and firewalls and all that happy shit the company had invested in, I’d hate to be the one to unleash a powerful new virus into the system, even though the computer I was using wasn’t tied to the research system. Well, I had to depend upon our tools and assume that if it was a virus, it would have been detected. With confidence, I pressed the key to retrieve the message.

What I saw on my screen seemed to be directed at someone else since the message began as if I had known the sender all my life. In fact, I had never heard of the sender before. I checked again. No, it was my email address and my name. Someone had to be playing a cruel trick on me, I thought. But who? Frankly, none of my co-workers were close enough to me to make it worth their while to pull such a stunt on me. My curiosity was piqued. I pulled a container of fruit juice I had forgotten about out of my desk drawer and settled back to read what appeared to be a very lengthy message...

From: (Sender Unknown)

To: Jeff Bradshaw, Aldeberan Netware

Subj: Your Best Friend

Jeff, I know you’re going to think I’m nuts, but I’m not. Even though you’ve probably never heard of me I’m–or at least I was–Andy Skinner, your best friend. Now before you press the delete key figuring you’ve got some sort of loony writing you, hear me out. It’s sort of complicated.

Remember back in Topeka and you were a kid? Remember the Skinners next door–or at least I hope they moved in next door. They probably didn’t have any kids as you remember, but they did have one–me. They didn’t want me; they never wanted kids, but accidents do happen and mom wasn’t the sort to submit to an abortion, being Catholic and all. The result was me.

By the time we moved in next door to you, I was twelve years old. I hadn’t exactly had the happiest childhood in the world. My parents never missed an opportunity to tell me how I was a big accident and how much simpler their lives would have been without me. Oh, they were never cruel enough to say it that way, and they kept me clothed and well fed, but they made it obvious they just tolerated me because they were supposed to. So by the time we moved next door to you, I was a wreck.

You weren’t so much yourself, pal. I remember the very first time I saw you. You were tall and skinny and looked pretty nerdy. I was the cool one. But I envied you. God, how I envied you! I might have been a better looking and more athletic guy, but you had parents who loved you dearly. I would have given anything to have been in your shoes.

I think that’s why we became friends when you get right down to it. I gave you something you’d never had before. I gave you self-confidence. When we were together, you seemed to come into full bloom. You laughed more, carried yourself better, and appeared to be a normal guy and not some nerd. I don’t mean to hurt you with these comments. You and I talked about this many times as we got older over a bottle or two of beer. I wish you could remember that.

In return, you gave me something I had never had before–a real family. Your mother... honestly, Jeff, I thought she had to be the most beautiful woman in the world. I would have done anything for one of her smiles. And then there was your father. He went fishing with you and took you to ball games, and when we became such good friends, he took me along, too. I had never experienced anything like it.

And then there was you, Jeff. You were the brother I never had. I could talk to you... tell you things. Do you remember back in...? Oh, no. Of course not. You wouldn’t remember when I told you back in our junior year of high school how much I loved Beth Ann Mitchell. I’m sure you remember her, though. I had managed to get her out on a date and just fell for her. I told you all that. I poured my soul out right in front of you. Then when she wouldn’t have anything to do with me, it was you that told me Peggy Winters was hot for me. I promptly forgot about Beth Ann thanks to you.

And I was there for you, too. I’m the one that coached you on how to win Suzy Norton when we were in college together over at KU. I hope when reality shifted it didn’t take Suzy away from you. If it did, I’m really sorry, Jeff, but it wasn’t my fault.

Okay... I probably lost you with that comment about reality shifting, didn’t I? Now you know you’re reading something written by somebody who’s one cherry short of a hot fudge sundae. Well, maybe I am. There are times when I wake up and think I must be out of my mind. I’m not Andy Skinner. Andy Skinner never looked anything like this. In fact, there never was an Andy Skinner, was there, Jeff?

I’m sure you’re completely confused now. Maybe I should leave out all the personal stuff about you and I being friends and get on to what happened to me. Then it’ll be up to you to decide if this is a true story or just the ramblings of a madman with email. I’m really banking on the fact that the Jeff Bradshaw I once knew was a very curious guy. No matter how strange or bizarre something was, you wanted to check it out. Remember when you thought our high school physics teacher was in contact with aliens? But no matter. On to my story.

It starts with a road trip. Dave Malloy, Connie Hancock and I were all three on our way to an install at Vulman Industries. Since you don’t remember the players, Connie was our sales rep for the Southwest Region, and Dave and I were the techs sent to install the network at Vulman–Connie’s new account. Did I mention we all worked with you at Aldeberan? Well we did.

You and I used to always say if we were single, we’d be fighting it out to see who got Connie. She was really sharp–short dark hair and a sweet face and a body that would make every tech in the office fall silent when she walked through the place. Dave was single, and he loved to go out on installs with Connie. Not that it did him any good–Connie couldn’t see him that way and Dave was too shy to make a good move on her. It was funny to watch.

And it wasn’t as if Dave was a bad looking guy. Actually, I had heard more than one girl back in the office say they wished he’d ask her out. He was about your size–six feet and maybe a little more, decent build and a shock of unruly blonde hair that endeared him to folks in smaller towns–like Ovid.

I was asked to go along because the Vulman install was going to be a pretty good sized one and we wanted it installed and tested in a couple of days. I don’t know how well Vulman is known outside of Ovid, but apparently they’re an important defense contractor and they make parts for Ford. They have a sales office in Washington and another in Detroit that somebody back there was installing on the network. Needless to say, their system had to be state of the art and secure enough to connect with DOD and other government agencies, as well as Ford.

The hardest part was finding Ovid. For some reason, it didn’t appear on any of the maps, and when we rented a car in Tulsa and asked about the town, no one at the Avis counter had even heard of the place. It was apparently a common problem–or so we had been told. The people at Vulman had bought the system by coming to Dallas to handle all the paperwork. They had warned us that due to a cartography error, Ovid had been left out of the databases. They provided us with a hand-drawn map so we could reach the town without difficulty. Of course, it wasn’t until later that we learned the truth.

“This road isn’t even here according to the Gousha Atlas,” Connie commented.

We were driving on some state highway–two lanes and winding through forested hills. It was actually sort of a pretty drive. I needed it to relax. Dave had been driving all morning and nearly pulled out onto the interstate right in front of an eighteen-wheeler. Time had stood still for us, but the trucker had made an amazing swerve, barely missing us. How he was able to keep from hitting us seemed like a miracle. It wasn’t until later that I realized just how much of a miracle it really was.

“It seems to be the right road according to this map they drew for us,” I said after we had calmed down from our near accident. I had practically memorized the crude map. “There’s no highway number on the map, so I can’t be too sure.”

“It’s the right road,” Dave told us confidently. “Look.”

He was right. There ahead of us was a commercial sign welcoming us to Ovid, and as we crested a small hill, we could see the town laid out before us. There was nothing unusual about the town from a distance. It just looked like one of a thousand little towns that populated this part of the country. Oh maybe it was a little neater–just a little more prosperous looking, but still it was not unusual. As we got closer, we could make out the neat clapboard houses, uniformly white or other light colors nestled among the trees. Some were fairly new–an indication that the town was still growing unlike many small towns. It was probably due to Vulman’s success I told myself. All it took was one successful business to keep a town like Ovid in beer and skittles.

“Should we go straight to Vulman?” Dave asked.

“Well, the map leads us there,” I replied. “We might as well.”

That meant driving through town on the highway, so we got a chance to see all the roadside businesses that populated all small towns. Connie was reading over the installation plan and Dave was busy driving, trying to be extra safe to make up for his near accident earlier. I on the other hand, had plenty of time to look around.

At first, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing I found a little odd was the lack of recognizable brands on the roadside businesses. I would have expected to see a Phillips 66 gas station or something similar, but I saw brands of gasoline I had never heard of before. And while most towns the size of Ovid might have a McDonald’s or a KFC or at least a Pizza Hut, Ovid had only a local places, like Rusty’s Burger Barn.

But that wasn’t the strangest thing I saw. If the businesses were a little odd, some of the people were downright unbelievable. They were transparent! No, wait a minute. That isn’t quite right. I don’t want you to think you could actually see through them. You couldn’t do that. It was as if you could sense what was behind them, sort of as if one tiny part of your brain was telling you they weren’t exactly there. Does that make sense to you? Probably not, but just keep reading and I’ll tell you more about them later.

“Holy Cow!” Dave exclaimed while we stopped at a stoplight. “Did you see that?”

Connie looked up from her computer. “Did I see what?”

“That woman who just crossed the street on a bike,” Dave explained. “It’s like you could... see right through her.”

“Dave!” Connie said in mock exasperation. “So what if she was wearing something revealing? What makes you think I’d care?”

She had misunderstood, I realized when I saw the troubled look on Dave’s face. He didn’t clarify his remarks, but I could tell from his expression that he had seen one of the transparent people as well.

Now not everyone was transparent, although most of the people I saw were. Still, Connie didn’t seem to notice at all while Dave and I did. Maybe we should have said something to her, but she would have just thought we had been smoking something funny. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference. But if I had known then what I know now, I would have demanded that Dave turn the car around and head out of Ovid as fast as possible.

Come to think of it, though, that might not have worked.

Vulman Industries wasn’t exactly a huge place, but it was getting bigger. Construction crews were working on an addition to the building, and from all indications, it wasn’t the first addition. The company looked like a combined office and manufacturing plant, and from the expansion and the well-kept facility, it was easy to see that business was good. It had to be, I thought. Our systems were good but they weren’t cheap.

Normally, this would have been a cushy assignment. The building was new enough that there would be no electrical problems, and with both Dave and Connie there, the install should be a snap. Plus the company looked prosperous enough that no one would get upset when we nickel and dimed them with all the little add-ons that always accompanied an installation like this one.

But I didn’t feel like I was on a cushy assignment. I felt there was something very wrong about this–the town and its people seemed just a little bit out of kilter. I really wanted nothing more than to rush through the installation and get out of town, forgetting that I had ever even heard of Ovid. Like a lot of this message, that may seem like an overreaction to you, Jeff, but there was really an odd feel to Ovid–something that made you want to want to get away while you still could.

As we got out of the car, I tried to tell myself it was just my imagination running away with itself. People weren’t really transparent. It had to have been a trick of the light, or maybe I was just tired. Maybe Dave was tired, too. After all, Connie hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. So it had to be my imagination. Peggy had warned me not to stay up late watching those spooky movies on cable.

I had nearly convinced myself once inside Vulman’s lobby. A cheery blonde receptionist–buxom but hardly transparent–had paged the project manager for the network install–a Holly Cache. I had just settled into a comfortable chair in the lobby chastising myself for being so foolish when my little rational fantasy collapsed around me.

“Brenda, will you FedEx this package for me?”

I looked up out of curiosity to see the receptionist accept a package from a young man in a tie. He was quite fit, with dark hair and an even tan. His tie was stylish and his manner professional. He was also transparent. Well, so much for my theory about just being tired, I thought.

Dave noticed it, too. He motioned with his head for me to join him. Then he announced to Connie, “Be right back. I want to check something in the car.”

“I’ll go with you,” I announced, picking up on his ruse.

“What the hell is going on here?” Dave asked me once we were outside the building.

“I don’t know,” I said in a worried voice. “But did you notice how that secretary didn’t see anything strange?”

“Neither did Connie,” Dave pointed out. “She was checking that guy out as if there was nothing wrong with him.”

“I don’t like this,” I muttered.

“So what do we do?”

Every instinct in my body told me it was time to run. I wanted nothing more than to jump in the car, drive back to Tulsa, and catch the first plane to Dallas and pretend as if Ovid never even existed. But something else told me it wouldn’t be as simple to do that as it sounded.

“I think we need to do this install and then worry about what’s going on,” I said slowly.

Dave just nodded in agreement and the two of us reluctantly went back into the office.

When we re-entered the lobby, Connie was standing, talking with a very attractive woman. The woman looked like an Indian princess with her long black hair and perfect bronze skin. She wore her white linen business suit with all the poise of a model, displaying her long, beautiful legs as if she were on a runway. She turned and smiled at us. I would have done anything short of leaving Peggy for one of those smiles.

“Guys, meet Holly Cache,” Connie said, obviously amused at our reaction. “And it’s Mrs. Cache.”

Blushing, Dave and I each shook her feminine hand and introduced ourselves. Her casual but firm handshake reminded me more of a man’s handshake than the lifeless grip so many women had. I found to my relief that despite her model’s looks, Holly was just good people. I could see the wheels turning in Dave’s head though. If only she was single, he was thinking sadly.

“Holly will be our liaison on this project,” Connie explained. “She’s given us a conference room to work out of.”

“I’ll take you there now,” Holly volunteered.

The conference room wasn’t far from the lobby, and it was close to a break room with soda and candy machines along the wall. I looked around to see if any of the transparent people were lounging about, sipping sodas and swapping stories, but the room was empty.

“While Holly gets you guys set up, I’m going to visit the little girl’s room,” Connie said, pointing across the hall.

When she was gone, Holly looked at the two of us. “Okay guys, what’s wrong?”

Dave and I glanced guiltily at each other but neither of us spoke. Just then, a secretary bustled into the room. She was young and as pretty as all the other women we had seen at Vulman with the bright red hair and cute freckles of youth. And she was transparent.

“Holly, here’s that site map you wanted,” she said, favoring us with a smile.

Holly noted our expressions. Then she said, “Andy, Dave, meet Darlene. She’ll be working with us on this project.”

The secretary–Darlene–stuck out a hand. Without thinking, I took it and was relieved to note it was as solid as my own. I was visibly relieved but Darlene failed to notice. Dave had a similar reaction when he shook her hand.

After the usual small talk, Darlene left the room. Holly looked at us with a mischievous smile. “Feel better now, guys?”

“Uh... yes,” I admitted while Dave nodded.

“Look guys, while you’re in Ovid some things might seem a little strange. Just ignore it. You’ll understand before too long; I’m pretty sure of that.”

“But...” Dave began.

Holly shook her head, the luxurious dark hair floating in waves. “No buts. Believe me guys; it’s for your own good. Now, let’s get started on the install.”

Reluctantly, we followed her advice. I suppose we had little choice. Besides, Holly might be an attractive young woman, but she carried herself like someone who was used to being in charge. She had planned out her part of the install with almost military precision. Soon, Dave and I got with the program, ignoring the transparent people as if they were just normal folks while we went about our business. It may seem strange that we were able to stop worrying about the transparent people just like that, but we had a job to do. By the end of the day, we had accomplished far more than we had anticipated.

“We may only need to be here one more day,” Dave told Connie as we drove to the Ovid Inn where the company had rooms reserved for us. “Dave and I can have everything finished by tomorrow at noon. Then we can do a little administrator training with Holly in the afternoon and leave tomorrow evening.”

Connie frowned. “Do you think that’s a good idea? We have a full day blocked out for training.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but Holly is picking up on it fast. I don’t know what her background is but she knows computers and electronics better than a lot of our employees do.”

“What?” Connie said in mock surprise. “A woman who knows about such things? Why, I do declare!”

“Okay,” I admitted laughing, “So some women are as good at this sort of stuff as men. I never said they weren’t.”

I hadn’t either, but the best techies I had known were almost always men. You and I talked about that over more than one beer, Jeff. We both knew some good female techs, but it has always seemed as if men dominate the field. Take Connie for example. She had great customer skills and a working knowledge of the product, but despite a strong background in computers while in school, Dave and I–and you for that matter–could run circles around her when it came to the complicated stuff.

Dave and I stayed quiet about the transparent people until later that night. The three of us had made good use of our expense accounts at a great steak place called Winston’s. Dave and I had made it a point to ignore the transparency of many of the town’s residents. A satisfying chunk of red meat and a liberal amount of wine were what Dave and I needed to relax us and help us to forget the strange things we had seen in Ovid. For that matter, Connie was no slouch in either the steak or the wine department. How a little thing like her was able to wolf down a steak as big as mine will always be a mystery.

The night was still young, so Dave and I decided to take in the local nightlife. Connie begged off and headed back to her room to call her latest boyfriend and get some sleep. Dave and I decided a place on the highway called Randy Andy’s was just about right to celebrate a good day.

“Besides,” Dave said with a grin, “the place is named for you.”

“The Randy part or the Andy part?”

“Both.”

I think we were both a little disappointed with the place once we walked in. I guess it’s too much to expect a strip club in a small Oklahoma town. Randy Andy’s was just a bar–no strippers, no hookers, and not even any loud rock music. Well, there was music, but it was Faith Hill on a jukebox, and the volume was set high enough so you could hear it but low enough that you could still talk over it. There was a smell of grease and beer in the place, but oddly no smoke. Not that I minded: I gave up smoking years ago when I married Peggy.

We took a table and ordered a beer from a hot looking babe with an eagle tattoo on her ankle named Sly. That is, the waitress was named Sly. I never did learn what the eagle’s name was. She was a friendly type, but Dave and I both got her message: look as much as you want but don’t touch.

When our beers came, Dave hunkered down, ready to talk. “What do you think is going on here?” he asked me quiet enough not to be heard beyond our table.

“I don’t really know,” I sighed. I looked around the room. Some of the patrons were real enough, but others had that strange near transparency that made them seem entirely unreal.

Jeff, it’s hard to explain what we were seeing. I’m sure you’ve conjured up images of ghostly beings by now, but it isn’t like that at all. If you glance at one of the transparent people, you might not notice anything wrong. But if you look at one of them–and I mean really concentrate on them–you can sort of make out what’s directly behind them. If one of them walks up and starts talking to you, you can see what’s behind them, but it seems to fade in and out, as if concentrating on what they’re saying makes it harder to concentrate on their transparency. And when you shake hands with them or pat them on the back, they feel as real and as solid as you or I.

“Vulman is involved in government projects,” Dave pointed out. “Maybe this is some sort of an experiment–you know, shifting dimensions or something.”

“Maybe,” I allowed, “but why is it that some people don’t notice? Connie didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

“I don’t know. Maybe only men can see it.”

“But Holly knows,” I pointed out. “She even warned us not to remark on it. I saw you talking to her alone this afternoon. Did she tell you anything?”

“Nothing,” Dave said with a shake of his head. “It’s almost as if there’s some taboo or something against speaking about it. Everybody just acts like it’s all normal. What about you? Didn’t you wire the president’s office?”

“I did,” I replied. I told him about meeting Eric Vulman. He was friendly enough, I suppose, but he seemed to be different, too. I didn’t mean to imply that he was like the transparent people–just the opposite in fact. He seemed to have a... presence about him. Even though he walked with a noticeable limp, it was as if he was almost regal. And yet we talked amicably. He was interested in our system and asked a lot of questions. And strangely enough, the questions were thoughtful and penetrating, unlike the usual simple-minded questions most CEOs asked me. Although he didn’t volunteer the information, I suspect he was quite an engineer in his own right.

Four bottles of beer on top of the wine at dinner accomplished nothing other than more speculation, and each beer seemed to cause us to consider even more outlandish answers. The funny thing is that we never hit on the real answer, and it was probably more outlandish than anything we imagined. I wish I could tell you what the answer was, Jeff, but we were right about one thing: there are some taboos in Ovid, and talking about some of them is forbidden. I can’t even type some of the answers out. Whenever I try, my fingers come down on the shift keys and nothing happens.

The next morning wasn’t a terribly pleasant one for me. The three of us had split two bottles of wine with dinner. The four beers on top of that had created a hellish swimming pool in my stomach. I was popping Rolaids as if they were candy. At least a big fluffy cinnamon roll at a place called Nellie’s Grill soaked up some of the stuff, but even that didn’t help much. And I read someplace that coffee doesn’t really help your hangover. If that’s the case, Dave and I wasted a lot of time drinking an entire pot.

“I’m going to have to keep a better eye on you boys,” Connie laughed when she saw our distress. The thing a person with a hangover hates most is another person without a hangover. I mumbled something unintelligible to her. Dave just groaned.

Somehow, we got through the morning. In spite of our infirmities, the rest of the install went well. As we had thought the day before, we were finished before lunch. The ever-efficient Holly had her staff gathered in the conference room right after lunch. Connie handled most of that training session, allowing Dave and I to relax as we nursed our hangovers at the back of the room. We were finished by three thirty.

While Connie was in no particular hurry, using the extra time to schmooze Holly and her staff, Dave and I were champing at the bit to get the hell out of town. Our bags were already in the car and Dave thought he could make it back to Tulsa in time to catch a late flight back to Dallas. I had even called Peggy from a Vulman phone (cell phones don’t work here) and told her jokingly to kick her lover out of bed because I’d be home by midnight.

At last, Connie said her last goodbyes and we were ready to hit the trail. But it wasn’t to be.

As we bustled through the lobby, we found our path blocked by an imposing man. He was middle aged with graying hair and skin that was tanned and weathered by a lot of time outdoors. He looked almost uncomfortable in a suit, and I couldn’t help but think that this was a man you wanted by your side when the going got rough. The only thing that kept him from being an aging Indiana Jones was the noticeable limp when he walked. I, of course had already met him.

There was a bright smile on his face as he stuck out a large, strong hand. “You must be the rest of the team from Aldeberan,” he said with a nod to Dave and an appreciative glance at Connie. “I’m Eric Vulman.” When they had received his firm handshake and introduced themselves, and I had shaken his hand once again, he continued, “Holly has told me you all did a great job.”

We thanked him with suitable embarrassment.

“We’re all a little new at this networking stuff,” he told us. “Is there someone we should get in touch with if none of you are available?”

I imagine at least one of us will be available all the time,” Connie told him. She was in typical sales mode. Actually, there were times when we were all out of touch–like now. Unless someone knew to call us at Vulman, they wouldn’t reach us since none of our cell phones seemed to be working. We had just thought at the time that there were no cells in Ovid. Strangely, none of us had found it odd that we had been completely out of contact with the office for a couple of days. Normally, that would have driven us nuts.

“Well, perhaps,” Eric Vulman allowed. “And perhaps not.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that none of us found it a cryptic remark at the time. Later, we would understand why he had asked the question–or at least Dave and I would.

Connie gave him a whole list of people to call–including you, Jeff. I doubt if he’s called you though. You were pretty far down the list. Connie never cared much for you for some reason. Sorry, old pal, but that’s the way it was.

It was late afternoon by the time we actually pulled away from Vulman. I had driving duties, and I have to say I was so anxious to get away from Ovid that I hadn’t been paying any attention to the speed limit. I don’t really think in retrospect that it would have mattered if I had been paying attention to it though. When the Judge wants you, he wants you.

Oh, I guess I haven’t told you about the Judge yet, have I, Jeff? Well, I’ll get to him in a little while. Just take my word for it–the Judge is someone you don’t want to meet.

Anyhow, my stomach dropped through the bottom of the car when I heard a police siren start up behind me. I could have sworn there hadn’t been a police car in sight. Besides, I was only doing forty and the speed limit along the four-lane stretch of road leading out of Ovid had to be at least thirty-five.

“Shit!” Connie muttered. “Now we’ll be late for the evening flight.”

I looked at Dave and he looked back at me. We didn’t have to say it, but both of us suspected there was far more at stake than missing the late flight.

I don’t know how to explain it to you, Jeff, but there’s a feel to this place. It’s a little like the feeling you get in a strange place when you think something is going to jump out at you from the shadows. You know it isn’t really going to happen, but the feeling just won’t go away. The difference with Ovid is that there really is something hiding in the shadows, and just when you think it’s all just your imagination, that ‘something’ jumps out at you.

Our ‘something’ was about six feet tall, very slender and trim, and wore mirrored sunglasses even though the afternoon sun was abating. Remember the bad guys in The Matrix? Remember the unsmiling expression and the dark glasses the baddies in the dark suits wore? Well, take away the dark suit and put one of them in a police uniform and you’d have what was walking calmly toward our car.

“License and registration,” the officer demanded before I could say a word. With a sigh, I handed him everything he had requested.

“I was only doing thirty-five, officer,” I pleaded weakly, knowing I was doing forty.

“But the speed limit is twenty-five,” he told me, not bothering to look up from my documents.

“Twenty-five!” Connie echoed from the seat next to me. “On this stretch of road? That’s ridiculous!”

Connie just couldn’t seem to see and feel what Dave and I did. To her, this was just another small town with a speed trap. I don’t know what it is about some women, but they’ll cry and try to get out of a ticket when they’re at the wheel, but they’ll do everything in their power to piss off the cop when they’re not driving. Go figure.

“I’ll have to ask you to follow me to the station,” the officer said as he handed my driver’s license and the rental agreement back to me.

“Can we take care of this quickly?” I asked as politely as I could. “We’re trying to make it to Tulsa to catch a late-night flight.”

“Just follow me,” he repeated.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to stay at a hotel by the airport,” Dave said with a sigh. Then he added, “If we’re lucky.”

We weren’t going to be lucky, I thought when we got to the police station. Jeff, that strange officer–Mercer is his name–booked us! There was this nice young black woman in a police uniform, and she took down all of our vital information and put our personal belongings in envelopes. The next thing you know, she and Officer Mercer are leading us off to cells–one for Connie and another for Dave and me.

“This is ridiculous!” Connie yelled as she was unceremoniously nudged into her cell down the hall from ours. It’s a good thing she didn’t have a tin cup or she’d probably have been banging it against the cell door.

And it really was ridiculous if you think about it, Jeff. Nobody throws you in jail for a lousy speeding violation unless you were doing ninety in a thirty zone or drunk or something like that. The worst that would normally happen is you’d have to stay over and appear in court the next morning. Most of the time, you could just mail the money for the fine in. But jail?

“Can we see a lawyer?” I asked as Dave and I were put in our cell.

“In the morning,” Officer Mercer told us.

And that was it. I won’t bore you with how we spent the night in jail. Let’s just say it was only the second time I had ever been in jail and I didn’t like it. Remember the first time, Jeff? No, I don’t suppose you do. We were in college and ended up sneaking into one of those casinos over on the reservation near Topeka. Then they figured out we had phony IDs and threw us out. We drove back through a little town called Hiawatha and got arrested for drunk driving. We spent the night in jail there. I can remember how my parents wouldn’t even bail me out and we had to wait until the next day for your dad to get us out. Yeah, those were the good old days. It’s a shame you probably don’t remember any of them.

I suppose I should point out in all fairness that Ovid’s jail wasn’t like that little dumpy one up in Hiawatha. No, it was actually comfortable. The black officer–Hazleton was her name, Wanda Hazleton–brought us a pretty decent dinner. And the beds were actually comfortable, even though it was a little disconcerting to have a toilet along one wall.

We were close enough to Connie’s cell that we could talk to her even if we couldn’t see her. She spent most of the evening ranting and raving about what she was going to do when she got back to Dallas and saw her own lawyer. Me? I just wanted to get our court appearance over with. I think Dave felt the same way.

Although we didn’t talk about it–except to make a few off-hand comments–both Dave and I realized this wasn’t just a simple speeding case. If it had been, we would have been brought before a local magistrate–even if they had to pull him off the golf course–fined, and sent on our way. No, they wanted us and not just for our fine money. It was a sobering realization, I thought, as I drifted off for a few hours of troubled sleep.

After a decent breakfast, all three of us were led from our cells into a courtroom. No one would give us a good explanation as to why Dave and Connie had been put in jail. After all, I was the guy who had been driving. They were just passengers. Well, they’d regret it in the end. Connie was serious about getting her lawyer on the situation as soon as we got back to Dallas. She was already muttering about false arrest and imprisonment and how the town of Ovid had better have a lot of money because she was going to sue them for plenty. Of course, that all depended upon our ability to get back to Dallas.

The courtroom was well appointed with oak benches and wainscoting. And it was immaculately clean, the woods brought to a high polish in the morning light and floors so clean you could eat off them. I couldn’t help but think the room was almost like a courtroom set you’d see in the movies–almost too good to be true.

There were only two other people in the room when Officer Mercer led us in. One was a very attractive blonde woman sitting in the gallery. She was well dressed, wearing a tan suit and a skirt short enough that it showed off a fine pair of legs. I thought that maybe she also had an appearance in court that day. I could think of no other reason for her to be there.

The other person in the room was a very attractive brunette. She too, was wearing a suit, only hers was a deep burgundy shade offset by a white blouse. She was sitting at one of the tables at the front of the room, and I realized suddenly that she was our court-appointed attorney.

“Susan Jager,” she said, rising to offer us her hand. Each of us in turn shook it and introduced ourselves. “I’ll be your attorney today, as you’ve probably guessed.”

“I’d prefer my own attorney,” Connie interjected. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Susan replied with an unwavering smile. “However, I should warn you–all of you–this isn’t the sort of proceeding you think it is.”

That got my interest. “I assumed I was here on a speeding charge.”

“On the surface, that is why you’re here,” Susan agreed, “but you may have noticed that things are a little different here in Ovid.”

It was nice to know I wasn’t just imagining things, but deep down, I would have been as happy as a pig in shit if she had told me that Ovid was just one big speed trap and I was about to get a thousand dollar fine. “Different... how?” I managed to ask.

“For the moment, let’s just say there’s a lot more to Ovid than meets the eye,” Susan replied. “You’ll see what I mean.”

“All rise,” Officer Mercer suddenly intoned. “Ovid Municipal Court is now in session, the Honorable Judge presiding.”

Yes, I thought, turning to face the front of the room, Susan was undoubtedly right. There was more to Ovid than met the eye.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but the Judge wasn’t it. I think maybe I was expecting someone who looked more like Count Dracula than the middle-aged man in his neatly pressed black robe who strode regally to the bench. He seemed very fit, his face lean and his beard neatly trimmed. His hair and beard showed only a little gray, and I estimated him to be no more than forty-five. His glasses were gold rimmed but did little to hide piercing eyes.

“Be seated,” he commanded, his voice betraying just a little of the famous Oklahoma twang.

We took our seats and Susan whispered to me, “Just stay calm and everything will be all right.”

“Officer Mercer, what do we have on the docket today?” the Judge asked.

“The City of Ovid versus Andrew Skinner, charged with speeding.”

“And the other two?”

“Accomplices.”

It was too much for Connie. She let out a groan and rose to her feet. “Your Honor, I may not be an attorney but I know there’s no such thing as being an accomplice to speeding and...”

Her lips continued to move but nothing came out. I watched in horrid fascination as her eyes went wide and she grabbed her throat. At first, I thought she was having some sort of seizure, brought on by her anger. Then I noticed no one in the courtroom was moving to help her. In fact, the Judge had a very satisfied look on his face.

“We will have no more outbursts in this courtroom,” the Judge demanded sternly. “Is that clear?”

Connie could only fearfully nod her head.

“Then sit down and be quiet.”

I wasn’t sure if Connie sat voluntarily or was forced to sit, but one way or the other, she plopped down in her seat.

“How do your clients plead, Ms. Jager?”

Susan looked at me. I mouthed “guilty.” To be honest, Jeff, I was scared shitless of the Judge. As wacko as it may sound to you, there were supernatural forces at work in that courtroom, and you could actually feel them. Of course, if I’d known what was coming, I would have done everything in my power to avoid a guilty verdict–not that there was anything I could have done. The deck was already stacked against us.

“Guilty, Your Honor,” Susan said formally, ignoring Connie’s wordless protests.

“The defendants will rise,” the Judge intoned. Dave and I rose slowly to our feet, but Connie tried to fight it and was jerked rudely to her feet by some unseen force.

“I find the three of you guilty as charged.”

Up to that point, the formal language of the court had ruled. Now though, the Judge closed his eyes and began to chant in some language I had never heard before. I suppose it might have been Latin, but it wasn’t like any Latin I had ever heard before. Rather than the stilted language I thought of as Latin, it was almost melodious with a cadence not unlike modern Italian. Remember when we took that Italian class in college? No, I suppose you don’ t.

As I stood there, I began to feel odd. It was as if my there were a thousand living things crawling about inside my body. It’s a feeling I hope you never experience. At least there was no pain, but there’s every other sort of sensation all wrapped into one.

I looked over at Dave and Connie. Something was happening to them as well. It was hard to tell just what was happening, but it seemed as if both of them were... changing.

Jeff, this next part is the part where you may decide to erase this whole message and forget all about this, chalking it up to somebody who’s gone completely loony tune. Please don’t do it, though, I beg you! I swear all of this really happened. Even if you don’t believe it, please read on.

The most obvious change was happening to Connie. She was shrinking. Never all that tall to begin with, she was only four feet, then three feet tall. I didn’t know where she was going to stop. Then I looked at Dave. He was shrinking, too, but not as much. And his hair–it had turned a vibrant red and seemed to be getting longer as I watched.

Then I looked down at myself. The dress shirt I had been wearing with a tie the day before was changing color. No longer white, it was now bright yellow and becoming some sort of knit fabric clinging tightly to my chest. As for my chest, it was becoming smaller as well–less defined somehow. But then, two bumps appeared beneath the fabric. They were small, but growing larger. “Oh my God!” I screamed, surprised at how thin my voice suddenly sounded.

Then I did what any rational man would do under the circumstances–I passed out.

Have you ever noticed how women faint but men pass out? It’s okay for a guy to pass out, particularly from, say, too much beer or what have you. But fainting is a sign of weakness, isn’t it? So I didn’t faint. I kept telling myself that as I climbed back out of my mental fog. I really didn’t faint.

“Are you okay, honey?” a soft, concerned feminine voice was asking me.

I tried to grunt a “yes” but it didn’t come out very clearly. It was more like a sigh, partially from the pleasant feeling I had of something cold and wet placed against my forehead. Slowly, I managed to look out of blurry eyes at Susan who was holding a wet cloth to my head.

I knew where I was. I was lying on one of the benches in the courtroom. I must have passed out from the stress or something, I thought. That must have been why I thought I saw Dave and Connie changing. Obviously no one could be changed by a small town judge mumbling Latin over them. But just then, I put a small, slender hand to my forehead and learned just how drastically a person could be changed.

“Holy shit!” I screamed in a high-pitched voice as I sat up with a start. It hadn’t been a hallucination after all. I looked down, first at my hands. Then I looked at the rest of myself. Myself? Well, I looked down at who I had become. I was wearing a yellow tank top and very, very short denim shorts. And my body was obviously young–and just as obviously female.

That’s right, Jeff–I’m a girl now.

I wish you could remember me as I was before and appreciate the irony of all of this. Of the two of us, I was always the guy sniffing around for a little pussy–before Peggy of course. Now I had one of my very own, and I wasn’t very happy about it.

“Who... what...?” I managed, then turned around to gaze at the bench. The Judge was nowhere to be seen.

“He’s gone,” Susan said gently. “You and I are the only ones still here.”

“He... I...” Oh I was making brilliant conversation that day, wasn’t I?

“That’s right, honey, he changed you into a girl,” Susan told me. “Since girls as young as you don’t always carry ID’s around, it’s my job to fill you in and send you home.”

“I... I don’t want to be a girl.” And I didn’t want to be sent home, either. Something told me that didn’t mean the place I shared with Peggy in Dallas.

Susan gave me a sympathetic look. “I know you don’t, but you are one and you’ll be one for the rest of your life.”

The rest of my life? But what about my other life? I wanted to ask. What about my real life? What about Peggy? We had planned to have a family. I couldn’t have a family with her looking like this. Well, I suppose I could, but I shuddered at the thought of bearing children.

Susan seemed to understand. “Just relax for a minute. I know what you’re thinking. If you try to accept this, it will be easier for you.”

“Accept it?” I asked, trying to make it a fearsome roar. But it came out just a plaintive little cry. “How can I accept it? I’m not a girl. I can’t be a girl!”

Okay, I was a little hysterical, but can you blame me? Just think about what it would be like, Jeff, to wake up and find you have these little stick-like hairless arms with slender fingers tipped with pink polish. Think what it’s like to have long blonde (that’s right–I’m a blonde) hair tickling the tops of your shoulders. Think about what it’s like–if you can–to have little perky breasts sitting on your chest and this curious feeling of emptiness between your legs. I felt small and weak. Hell, I was small and weak. And to top it off, I was starting to cry.

“Don’t cry, honey,” Susan said in a tone that was surprisingly comforting. I couldn’t help it. I buried my face in her breasts and cried like a baby.

Eventually, the crying stopped and Susan helped me out to her car. It was a little Honda Civic. Apparently being a lawyer in a small town didn’t pay terribly well. I plopped down into the front seat and waited for Susan to get seated behind the wheel.

“Where are we going?” I asked, disgusted with the sweet little voice I now had.

“I’m taking you home,” Susan said. “You’re Carrie Anne Summers now and you stayed home from school today because you weren’t feeling well.”

School! Oh shit.

“You’re thirteen and in the seventh grade,” she continued. “You’re an only child as well.”

“I’m not going through with this,” I said petulantly, trying to find some way of folding my arms over my chest without pressing on my little breasts. They weren’t very large but I could feel them anyway.

“You have to,” Susan replied. “You really don’t have a choice. Everyone in town will remember you as Carrie Summers. If you go around trying to convince people that you’re a man who’s been changed into a girl, they won’t believe you.”

“Are you trying to tell me that we’re the only ones who know who I really am?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she admitted. “There are others like you–and me for that matter–who will realize you’ve been changed just as we were. But most of us learn to accept what’s happened to us. We even come to be glad it happened.”

I shuddered as she spoke. I felt as if I had been dropped into the middle of a bizarre remake of The Stepford Wives. Susan had just admitted that she, too, had been changed and yet she enjoyed the change. I suppose she must have been a woman before. Maybe she was an ugly old crone made young and attractive by the Judge. Whatever her reasons, I knew that there was no way I would ever accept what had been done to me. My career, my marriage, my very life had been taken from me and I would never be happy in Ovid.

“I know you don’t believe me now,” she said as if reading my mind. “But you’ll see. The important thing is to try to fit in.”

“Try to act like a thirteen-year-old girl?” I asked sarcastically. “What am I supposed to do–put pictures of Leonardo on my wall and listen to the Backstreet Boys?”

“It might help,” she replied. I don’t think the sarcasm was lost on her though, and I wasn’t pleased by her faint smile of amusement.

“I’ll get away,” I argued. “I’ll get out of Ovid. I’ll get someone to believe me.”

Susan shook her head. “There isn’t any way out of Ovid–at least not until you accept what’s happened to you. You’ll find you can’t get beyond the hills surrounding the town. If you try, you’ll just find yourself back in Ovid.”

“Just what’s going on here?” I asked her as she came to a stop in front of a neat two-story house in a relatively new area.

“There’s no easy answer to that,” she told me as she put the car in park and turned to face me. “No one really knows exactly why all this is happening–except the Judge and his... people.”

“And they’re not telling,” I surmised. “So just who or what is this Judge?”

“Sorry,” she replied. “That’s something you’ll have to figure out for yourself. Now go on. Your mother will be home soon.”

“Wait a minute,” I called before she could pull away. “If I’m supposed to be sick, what’s wrong with me?”

Susan gave me a mischievous little smile. “Well, your mother thinks you might be getting your first period.”

I felt all the blood drain out of my face.

“Don’t worry,” she laughed. “According to the Judge, it’s a false alarm. Remember, Carrie, act the part or the Judge will be angry with you.”

“Yeah? And what more can he do to me?”

“Well,” she said slowly, “I had one client who found himself in diapers since he refused to act the part he had been given. I don’t think you’d want that, would you?”

“No.”

“Okay.” She shifted the car into gear. “Good luck, Carrie!”

Some attorney, I thought as she drove away. Sure, she could tell me what to do. She’d always been a girl. So what if she had a new life? She was attractive, a professional, and an adult. I was none of those things. Well, maybe I was attractive. I hadn’t had a chance to see myself in a mirror. To be honest, I really didn’t want to. If I was attractive, I’d just be hit on by pimple-faced little boys. And if I wasn’t attractive... well, I really didn’t want that either. All I really wanted was to get my old life back.

There was a house key in my shorts. Now don’t ask how I knew that, Jeff. If you were wearing little teenybopper shorts like I was, you’d know there was a key in the pocket, too–that’s how tight they were. So I opened the door and got my first look at my new house.

Everything looked pretty normal–and I mean Leave it to Beaver normal. The house was neat and middle-class nice. There was even a cat snoozing on the sofa–a cute little white cat. Yeah, right–it was cute. I find myself saying words like that even when I try not to. The cat just looked up at me and continued its snooze. I suppose it knew me–or thought it did.

I had the run of the house and used it to good advantage. Of course finding my room was not a problem. All I had to do was look for the room with the most frills and a color scheme made up of cheery feminine colors. In this case, the colors were peach and white. I suppose it could have been worse–it could have been pink. Needless to say, there were dolls on the bed and cosmetics on a small dressing table. At thirteen, my existence would be a balancing act between the child I had supposedly been and the young adult I was soon to become.

It was about then that I noticed a full-length mirror on the closet door. Well, I had to look at myself sometime, I thought. Hesitantly, I moved in front of the mirror. I can tell you, Jeff, I didn’t like what I saw. In short, I was hopelessly cute. I don’t mean gorgeous or anything like that. I was just... cute. I had long blonde hair–the dark sort of blonde–that had just enough curl to it that it famed my face and seemed to bounce at my shoulders.

And as for a face, mine was cute enough to be in those Saturday morning commercials on TV pushing breakfast cereals or something. I was pleased at first as I thought it was devoid of any makeup. No such luck, upon closer examination. I was wearing very light makeup which I guessed was appropriate to my age, but not so much that I looked like jail bait. Damn, Jeff, I even had pierced ears and little gold earrings.

My body was small and willowy. I was sure I didn’t even top five feet. And of course, I had the appropriate female shape. It wasn’t fully developed, but I could tell that in a very few years, this body was going to be a show stopper. The breasts were small and just developing. The hips were narrow, but the waist was already femininely tiny. And remember that pink polish on my fingernails, Jeff? Well, it was on my toes, too, for I could see it through the white straps on my sandals. My legs were lithe and tanned–completely hairless of course. I wondered if I was one of those fortunate girls who had little body hair or if I would have to shave my legs regularly. Of course, I was young enough that I might develop more hair later. What a happy thought.

I knew what was–or was not–inside those little denim shorts, but I decided to wait until another time to examine my new equipment. Somehow, the idea of fondling the private parts of a thirteen-year-old girl seemed a little perverted–even though I was the thirteen-year-old girl. Well, Susan had said something about my periods not starting just yet. I suppose in girls that means the sex drive wasn’t fully developed. It was just as well. As a boy, I was already a horny little bastard at thirteen.

That was an uncomfortable thought, I realized. Looking at myself in the mirror, I could appreciate the fact that I was attractive, but I didn’t think of myself as a sexual object. I was just... me. Did that mean I’d view women as just like me and men as sexually interesting? I didn’t want that to happen, believe me. I had no interest in boys or men or whatever. The only penis I ever wanted to see again was my old one back where it belonged.

I examined my thoughts a little more though. What about Susan? When I had been ushered into the courtroom, I had thought of her as a very attractive woman. When I thought about her now, I realized she was still attractive, but in a more academic sort of way. Strangely, I thought of her as being an older woman, yet I was sure that before my transformation we were both about the same age.

I looked again at my image in the mirror. Somehow, it didn’t look quite as alien as it had before. That seemed to be me staring out of those blue eyes. That’s when I think I realized the magic of this town wasn’t quite done with me yet.

You and I used to sit around back in college and discuss how the human mind was like the computers we studied. It is subject to programming which is far more sophisticated and subtle than the raw code we plug into our computers, but it is strangely analogous. I began to realize that I was being constantly bombarded with inputs that declared me to be the girl I had become. My image in the mirror, the hormones rushing through my body, and even the genetic makeup of my brain were all working in concert to tell me that I was a thirteen-year-old girl.

Susan gave me to understand most transformed people went along with their new roles. I could understand now why that was. Add to that the interaction with my ‘parents,’ my classmates, my teachers and so on, it wouldn’t take long for me to fall into the trap the Judge had set for me. I had to keep that from happening, but how?

The answer came to me just as I heard a car pulling into the driveway. I would have to escape from Ovid. I read someplace that one of the reasons the military encourages its members to try to escape when captured is that the hope of escape and rescue gives them the will to resist their captors. I knew that at least for now, I was stuck as a young girl, but if I could get away and convince the authorities that I wasn’t just some little teenager wigged out on drugs, I might force an investigation. As the door downstairs opened, my mind was filled with the fantasy of FBI agents overrunning the town and forcing the Judge to change me back into my real self.

“Carrie, are you all right?” It was a woman’s voice, gentle and concerned.

“Up here...” I called back, reluctantly adding, “...Mother.” Gee, I would have felt stupid if it wasn’t my mother, but it was a pretty safe bet.

In moments, a thirty-something woman was at the door of my room. Actually, she looked much like a more mature version of my own body. She was wearing a skirt and heels, as if she had just come from work. I was relieved to see she was as real as me. A transparent mother might have been a little too much to deal with. “How are you feeling, honey?”

“Okay,” I replied with a shrug.

“No... bleeding or anything?”

Bleeding. Oh shit! She was talking about periods. I managed to shake my head, hoping she didn’t see the disgust I was feeling.

“Well, then maybe it was just a false alarm,” she surmised. “Or you could have had a little food poisoning or something. Maybe it was just the flu.”

“I think so,” I replied, playing along. Was this woman a transformed person as well? I had a strange feeling the Judge had changed quite a few people in Ovid. If so, did she remember who she was before? Was she an ally? She just appeared to be what she acted like–my mother. Well, I’d just have to play my part–for the moment.

“Well, I guess you won’t need these,” she said, pulling a box of tampons out of a small sack she had been carrying. “I’ll put them in your bathroom though. You know the doctor said you might begin your flow at any time.”

Wonderful.

I won’t bore you with my first evening as a girl. It consisted mostly of hiding out in my room anyway. Oh, I had dinner with my ‘parents.’ Mother turned out to be a hospital administrator and my father managed a farm equipment dealership. He, unfortunately, was one of the transparent people, but he seemed normal enough. He even gave me a hug, and I have to admit he felt as solid as any normal person.

The biggest problem for the evening seemed to be the constant stream of phone calls I got. They were all from girls I apparently went to school with. They told me what I had missed in classes and gave me my homework assignments which I realized I would have to do. Then, they wanted to chat away by the hour about this boy and that boy. Isn’t Jack a hunk? Do you think Paul likes Amy? Josh was looking at you the other day in the cafeteria–do you think he likes you? I played along as best I could, but the constant subject of boys, boys, and more boys bored me quickly. I usually got out of the call by pleading that I was still tired from my supposed illness.

I had agreed to walk to the bus with one of the girls. Her name was Wendy, and although I wasn’t exactly excited about the idea of chumming around with a girl, I would need someone to show me around–even if she didn’t realize she was doing that. The only concession I had to make is that she wanted us both to wear skirts. Apparently, girls have their own dress code: if you’re going to hang with me you have to dress like me. What a crock of shit!

I got ready for bed as quickly as I could, grimacing at the unwanted experiences of evening ablutions as a girl. I don’t even want to talk about all the details, but I don’t think you can imagine my sense of loss when I looked between my legs for the first time. It’s not as if sitting to pee is such a problem. All guys do it sometimes. The problem is knowing you have no choice but to sit down to pee.

Fortunately, the girl I had become seemed to favor pajamas over nighties. Maybe that’s common for thirteen-year-old girls. It’s probably why Victoria’ s Secret doesn’t have a children’s department. At least I didn’t have to brood over being a girl once in bed. Having your sex changed is tiring work, and I was asleep in no time.

‘Mother’ had to bark at me a couple of times the next morning. The truth was I didn’t want to get up and go to school. I thought about feigning illness again, but decided against it. As unpalatable as it was, I was going to have to face the world sometime. It might as well be right then.

At least I had discovered the night before something that made my new life a little easier. I found that if I just relaxed and let my mind go blank, my body would do whatever was natural. That meant I had wiped myself like a pro and even braided my hair before bed. So when I finally managed to pull myself out of bed, I just relaxed and let everything happen.

Everything included a shower. It was hard to blank out my mind while I was soaping up all my new parts. I’m sure my nipples were fairly small since my breasts hadn’t fully developed, but they felt huge when I was washing them–not to mention very sensitive. Washing between my legs wasn’t quite as difficult as I had imagined. Because so much of my new hardware was internal, it wasn’t too harrowing. I actually got used to it pretty quickly.

I did my hair as if I had been doing it all my life, but I balked a little when it came time for makeup. I know–if I’d just blanked my mind, it wouldn’t have been a problem, but lipstick tastes funny. But I managed eventually. Fortunately, I didn’t seem to require a lot of makeup. But the combination of makeup, hairspray and cologne made me smell like a flowerbed.

As for the clothing, all I can say is that I was wearing more than the day before. My top was pink and sleeveless, but it didn’t seem to expose as much skin as the one I had awakened wearing the day before. The skirt Wendy had insisted I wear was about the size of a table napkin. It was khaki and well made, but I swear I could feel a draft on my butt. A pair of brown leather sandals with just a little tiny hint of a heel was enough to complete the outfit I reasoned, but by keeping my mind blank, I soon found myself wearing two bracelets–one on my ankle–a necklace, and earrings. I felt like a fucking Christmas tree.

A hurried breakfast didn’t seem out of character. ‘Dad’ had already left by the time I got to the table and ‘Mom’ was just finishing up. I didn’t even have to decide what to eat. Apparently Carrie was a cereal and juice sort of girl. I gulped it down quickly, barely tasting it, and bolted the table just as the doorbell rang.

Wendy was one of the transparent people, but I tried not to notice. She was one of those perky little redheads who would eventually end up on the cheerleading squad. But she was glad to see me and didn’t notice anything odd about me. We caught the school bus together, and once on board I found myself in a gaggle of girls all laughing and giggling. I hoped they didn’t notice how I was hanging back. Fortunately, they were too busy discussing their social lives to notice that I hadn’t spoken.

Ovid Middle School (‘Home of the Fighting Centaurs’) was fairly new and modern, but I looked at it with all the apprehension of a villager looking at Frankenstein’s Castle. Middle school wasn’t much fun until I met you, Jeff. So I had a few flashbacks regarding my first time there back when I was a boy. At last, Wendy noticed something was wrong.

“Are you okay, Carrie?”

“Huh? Oh, sure. I guess it’s just that I’m a little off balance from yesterday.” Boy, was that an understatement!

“So was it your period?” one of the other girls–I think her name was April–asked.

“Uh... no.”

“Bummer,” a cute brunette named Donna commented. “I started mine three months ago.” The way she said it, she seemed actually proud of the fact.

“Yeah, me too,” April chimed in. “You started, too, didn’t you Wendy?”

“Last month.”

My God, Jeff, did you know girls stood around proudly talking about when their periods began? Can you imagine a bunch of guys standing around talking about the first time they were able to jack off?

So began my first day of school as a girl. I won’t belabor you with all the details from my first morning as a girl. Let’s just say it was everything I was afraid it would be. Once Wendy unwittingly led me to my first class, I tried to keep to myself. But you know what the problem with that is? When you’re a girl, it’s sort of like being prey and boys are the predators. If you’re not part of the herd, they move in on you. By lunch, I had fended off the unwelcome attention of half the boys in my own seventh grade and a few from the eighth. I rushed to become part of a flock of girls just to avoid the attention.

Unfortunately, being part of a group of girls wasn’t exactly delightful. I had gotten away with saying very little in the morning on the way to school, but now I was prodded into joining into the conversation. My ‘friend’ Wendy is a genuine airhead. All she can talk about is boys. As for the other girls, I found myself part of a pack of ‘popular’ girls numbering about half a dozen. Only one of those girls was not transparent, and I found in my attempts to learn more about what was going on in Ovid that she thought she had always been the girl she now was. Who knows? Maybe she was right. As I write this, I still haven’t learned all the rules in Ovid yet.

One good thing happened that day, and it happened right after lunch. I found Dave. Of course, Dave wasn’t the Dave I remembered...

“Andy!”

The hair on the back of my neck rose as I heard my real name called. It was an unfamiliar woman’s voice that had called me. I was just on my way to the girl’s room before afternoon classes when I heard it. I turned and saw a very attractive redheaded woman of perhaps twenty-five peering out at me from an office. I recognized her as Judy Carlson, the principal’s secretary. One of the other girls had made a comment about her when she was walking down the hall earlier. Come to think of it, it had been Wendy who had said, “You know half the boys in the school have fantasies about Mrs. Carlson.” Close up, I could see why–she was an absolutely stunning redhead.

“Yes... Mrs. Carlson?” I said carefully.

“Andy, it’s me–Dave!” she said.

In spite of myself, I laughed. “Dave?”

She frowned. “You’ve got nothing to laugh about, little girl. Come in my office.”

Fortunately, everyone else had gone to lunch, so we had the office to ourselves. As Dave–or maybe I should now say Judy–sat down, I noticed she was wearing two and a half inch heels. At least I had been spared that indignity for the time being. Then she crossed her legs in a most feminine fashion. I noticed to my dismay that I had already done the same without thinking.

“I was worried about you,” Judy began. “When you passed out, I was afraid something had gone wrong.”

I gestured at my body. “What more could go wrong than this?” I asked.

“Well, you could be like Connie.”

My heart stopped. “What’s wrong with Connie?”

“She’s a little boy now,” Judy explained. “Right after you passed out, her transformation was finished. But she doesn’t remember a thing. She started acting like a little three- or four-year-old boy calling for her mother. I guess it’s his mother now though, isn’t it? Anyhow, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember ever being Connie. That blonde who was watching us took him and gave him to a woman who acted like she was his mother.”

What was with that Judge? I wondered. Did he change everyone’s sex? Based on what he had done to us, that appeared to be the case. “So Connie forgot who she used to be?”

Judy nodded. “It would seem so. Apparently that’s pretty common from what I’ve heard.”

I would have to agree based upon what I had seen. “What else have you heard? And who told you?”

“There’s a teacher in seventh grade math who remembers who she used to be.”

“Was she a man, too?”

“No,” Judy replied. “She was always a woman–but she was an elderly one before. That’s why she’s here.”

“I don’t understand...”

“Look... what is your name now? I can’t very well go around calling you Andy anymore,” Judy remarked.

I felt my face redden as I said, “Carrie. Carrie Anne Summers.”

“Well look, Carrie, people for the most part don’t come here by accident,” she explained. “Apparently the Judge and that Officer Mercer have a lot of help around here–probably including our attorney and that blonde in the gallery. Denise–that’s the teacher I was telling you about–knows who the Judge and Officer Mercer are, but apparently she can’t talk about it. There are all sorts of rules like that here. Just like the way I’m talking with you–if one other person comes in the office, we can’t talk about any of this.”

“I know how to keep my mouth shut,” I said a little indignantly.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t mean we wouldn’t want to talk about it. I mean we physically couldn’t talk about it. Remember what happened to Connie in the courtroom when she tried to talk?”

I nodded.

“Anyhow, the way things seem to work around here is that you have to be about ready to die before the Judge takes an interest in you.”

“Die?” I asked. “You mean like that old lady you mentioned. She was going to die of a heart attack or something?”

“A stroke according to her.”

I leaned forward, then back again as my small breasts shifted disconcertingly. “But all of us were young. We weren’t about to die...” Then I added, “Unless...”

Judy closed her eyes and nodded slowly. “We already had died–or would have if that truck hadn’t been magically kept out of our way.”

I remembered the incident. Come to think of it, at the time it happened, I had dubbed it a miracle. God, I hated being right this time.

“So you’re saying even if we got out of here, everybody will think we’ve died?” I asked.

“No,” she responded with a little quake in her voice. “People won’t think we ever existed.”

I sat in stunned silence staring at her.

“I called the office this morning,” she went on. “I was surprised it was so simple. I thought they’d have the phones blocked or something. So I asked for Jeff Bradshaw, but he was out of the office. Then I checked in with Sally over in accounting. I knew she’d never believe I was Dave Malloy, so I pretended to be Connie, and...”

I leaned forward again, ignoring my little breasts. “And...?” I prompted.

She sighed, “And she had never heard of Connie–or of any of us for that matter. It was like we never existed. Then I called my mother...”

Before she could continue, Judy let out a sob. “I’m sorry. I just seem so... so... emotional now. So I talked to Mom and... and... she had never had a son named Dave. She told me I must have the wrong number. God, Carrie, we don’t exist except... except like this!”

I had been so busy just adjusting to my new body that I hadn’t even thought about calling Peggy. Even if I had, how would I have been able to explain to her that I was her husband transformed into a thirteen-year-old girl? Now there was no hope of ever talking to her. She wouldn’t even remember me as her husband. I almost felt like crying, too, but I managed to hold it back.

“What are we going to do?” she asked me.

“Why ask me?” I returned. “At least you’re an adult. I’m just a kid.”

To my surprise, she laughed though her tears. “And you don’t know how lucky you are. Let me tell you what happened to me after you passed out. Some guy came into the courtroom and headed right for me. He was about thirty-five or so, nicely dressed. He asked me if I’d gotten my new driver’s license–with my married name on it!”

I looked down in horror, noticing for the first time the diamond ring on her left hand. “You’re... you’re married?”

“Not just married,” she explained, “I’m a newlywed! I’m married to Albert Carlson. He’s an accountant with the city and several years older than I am but apparently we fell in love–or so everyone believes–and got married. This is my first week back from the honeymoon. All he wants to do is hop into bed with me.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did,” she admitted softly. “It’s hard to explain, but when he got me home and put the moves on me, it was as if my body had a mind of its own. I got unbelievably aroused and...” Judy got extremely red.

I suppose I can’t blame her for what she did. I had spent the last day trying to play my part as a thirteen-year-old girl. More than once, I had referred to something as being “cool” with one of the other girls. I had primped and preened and talked about boys with them just to blend in. I could scarcely judge Judy for doing the same. She was supposed to be a newlywed and it was expected of her. What else could she do? Besides, these weren’t our real bodies and our real identities anyhow. If I had been in her shoes, I would have probably had sex, too, as disgusting as that thought was.

And okay, Jeff, you’re probably wondering if I wasn’t just a little bit curious about the experience. Of course I was. I think every guy wonders deep down what women experience in sex. But for most of them, it remains nothing more than idle curiosity–like wondering what it might be like to be able to fly like Superman or be a professional football player or some other fantasy. And that’s still the way I see it. Men aren’t sexually attractive to me at all, and I have no intention of trying out this body with one no matter how long I’m stuck in it.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” I told her, changing the subject to save her from further embarrassment.

“Like this?” she asked, indicating her body. “Who’d believe us?”

She had a point, and I didn’t really didn’t know how to answer her. Fortunately, I didn’t have to because the warning bell for afternoon classes was ringing. I promised to get back to her after I’d had a chance to think about it.

The afternoon went pretty much like the morning. You have no idea how boring it is to go through middle school a second time. Going back through college might even be a little entertaining, but not middle school. I would have no problem maintaining Carrie’s apparent reputation as a good student. After all, there was nothing I was being exposed to in class that I hadn’t known for years.

But frankly, I didn’t plan on being in Ovid all that long. After all, what was to prevent Judy and me from jumping in her car and leaving town? Sure, that cop, Officer Mercer, or somebody like him might try to stop us, but what if we didn’t stop? I’d have to propose it to Judy.

I caught her alone in her office after classes.

“You’ll miss your bus,” she warned me.

“I’m not taking the bus,” I replied. “You and I are going to go out to your car and drive away.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I already tried it this morning.”

“What?”

She nodded, a gloomy expression on her face. “Yeah. I thought I’d just drive away and get help. I got as far as the hills surrounding the town.”

“And...?”

“And,” she sighed, “I topped the hill and found myself approaching town from the other end. Then I tried another road–same result. Apparently we’re caught in some sort of dimensional bubble. Trying to get out just brings you back in. I was twenty minutes late and got my ass chewed this morning.”

Dejected, I told her I’d think of something else and headed for the bus. At least I just had to go home and pretend to be a teenage girl. Judy was probably going home to another night in the sack with a creepoid accountant. I suppose I had the better end of the deal.

It’s funny how quickly things become routine. Calling the two people who weren’t really my parents “Mom” and “Dad” was easier than I would have ever imagined. I suppose when they act as if they’re really your parents, it’s easier to see them in that light. Even Dad’s transparency became a little less noticeable, and when I gave him a goodnight hug, he was as warm and real as any normal person could be.

I don’t know if my real parents lived next door to yours in this new reality. But if they did, you probably wonder how I could have tolerated them. The answer is I couldn’t–any more than they could tolerate me. That was why I spent so much time at your house. So in a way, it’s actually kind of nice to have a set of parents who love you. Of course, it’s very stifling in a way, but since they see me as a thirteen-year-old girl, I suppose their actions are normal. It’s not their fault that their daughter has the mind of an adult man.

Anyhow, as I said, in only a little over a day, my life was becoming strangely routine. I helped Mom with dinner and watched a little TV while I did my homework. Of course Dad thought I shouldn’t try to do homework while the TV was on, but I think I convinced him I could do both at the same time. After all, it’s pretty easy to do seventh grade math problems when you’ve already had college level calculus.

And of course, I got my usual quota of phone calls. There were at least half a dozen calls from girls wanting to discuss the social news of the day. There was even one call from a boy in my class. His official excuse for calling was a question about our math assignment, but it was pretty obvious he just wanted an excuse to talk to me. Great–I had a would-be suitor. And of course, Wendy called to coordinate outfits for the next day. It took me a moment to realize ‘shortalls’ were those things that look like overalls only with short legs. Well, I supposed it was better than a skirt.

I hadn’t given up on escaping Ovid. In fact, I was even more desperate to do so. Why? Well Jeff, let’s just say that being Carrie Summers was starting to be a little too normal. It has to do with being immersed in a role. When you’re forced to act a certain way, it starts to become natural after a while. I found myself unconsciously twisting a strand of my long hair while I studied, or giggling while on the phone. I found myself becoming exasperated with my parents one minute and thinking they were really neat the next. That’s right–neat.

Even my clothing was starting to feel natural. I had never worn a skirt in my life, and yet I hadn’t bothered to change when I got home. I didn’t even notice the earrings I wore, but when I had first awakened as Carrie the day before, I had found them irritating and distracting. The bra still felt a little strange, but even with my small, still-developing breasts the support it gave was welcome. As for what was–or wasn’t–between my legs, even that didn’t feel odd if I didn’t consciously think about it.

I had formulated a plan to escape though, and I’m reasonably certain it will work. The first thing I had to do was find a computer to write out a rather lengthy message. That, of course, is what you’re reading now. I got my hands on the family computer and told my parents I had a report to write, so they’ve left me alone. As soon as I’m done, I’ll try to send this to you.

Anyhow, should this reach you, here’s the plan, Jeff. I believe the Judge and his minions only gain power over those who are about to die. As for others, they can probably come and go in Ovid as they please. So someone could come to Ovid and try to rescue me, but once I was in their car, we’d be caught in Ovid just like Judy had been. We’d try to leave and bounce right back into town.

But I think there’s a way out–even for someone like me. Sure the roads are a trap. If I tried to leave by road, I’d bounce right back into Ovid. There’ s a small airport here, too, but my guess is any plane taking off circles back to Ovid, too. But what about the open farm fields? I have a hunch I could just take off across one of the fields and make my way out of Ovid.

I’ll admit I’m not sure about this, Jeff. How could I be? It’s the sort of thing you can only try once, for if I’m right, I doubt if I’ll have a second chance. It just makes sense to me as a programmer. If you think of Ovid as some sort of elaborate computer program, you realize that it is too complex to account for everything–even given the nature of its creators (sorry, Jeff, but I can’t discuss that with you). So they must have depended upon countering likely escape routes rather than every possible route. Most people probably acclimate to their new lives before they figure out how to escape.

The problem is I’m only thirteen. What would I do once I was out? Odds are good the authorities would just turn me over to my parents without even listening to my story. I can’t really say that I would blame them. I scarcely believe what has happened myself. So I’m trapped here until I can get someone to help me–someone who would believe my story and help me get a hearing with the authorities. That’s where I hope you come in, Jeff.

If you can figure out how to get to Ovid and check out an escape route, you could leave a vehicle outside Ovid and we could get to it before the Judge and Officer Mercer know about it. Then we could go to the FBI and tell them what happened to Connie, Dave and me. I can probably get Dave to go with us, but Connie wouldn’t be any help to us. I know it’s a long shot, but it’s the only hope I have. You are–or were–my best friend, and I have no one else to turn to.

Jeff, I’ve had to add a little more onto this message. It’s about two hours after the last part of my message, and I’ve done everything I can to send the message. Nothing has worked, though. I think the Judge may be more savvy when it comes to computers than I had imagined. I was able to send simple messages with innocuous content, but whenever I try to send this message it bounces back.

I have an idea though. The system we installed at Vulman is very sophisticated–much more so than the simple email program on this computer. I’m going to zip this file and try to set up a routine that will cause this to piggyback on one of Vulman’s messages. It’s a little bit like the technique the guys who create computer viruses use. If it works the way I hope it will, the next time somebody at Vulman sends an email to Aldeberan, this file will be piggybacked with it and should automatically unzip on your system.

The problem is how to get it on Vulman’s system. Naturally, I can back door into it, but I need a faster connection to hack into Vulman’s server. Maybe the school has something I can use. I’ll check with Judy in the morning. If that doesn’t work, I don’t know what I’ll do. Thirteen-year-old girls probably don’t go strolling into a defense contractor’s office and start playing with the computers. Thank God though that the email system we installed isn’t for classified use. There’s probably no way I’d be able to break into that one with the resources available to me now.

So this is it, Jeff. Either this works or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, well at least writing all this down has made me feel a little better. It’s given me hope. If this reaches you, Jeff, I’m sorry to hit you up for help like this, but as I’ve already said, you’re my only hope.

Of course, you may get this and decide to do nothing. If you make that decision, I really can’t blame you. You could be risking your life on what could turn out to be the demented ravings of a thirteen-year-old lunatic. It’s your choice, Jeff. If you make the attempt, thanks in advance for risking your neck. If you don’t, well, I hope your life is a good one, and goodbye old friend.

End Message

I looked up from my computer. It was well after five but I hadn’t noticed. I wondered if any of my co-workers had observed me with my eyes glued to the screen. I suppose if they did, they wouldn’t have noticed anything strange. I often worked late. Without anyone or anything to go home for, working late was what I did best. I don’t think anyone had even said goodnight to me as they left.

On the surface, the message was ridiculous. A town run by a judge with magical powers who changed people’s sexes and lives? A magic so pervasive that it had spilled over into the outside world and had taken away my wife, my best friend, and everything I had to live for? I shook my head. Somebody had to be playing an elaborate joke on me. Well, I wasn’t going to fall for it. I nearly deleted the message, but at the last minute I saved it, shut down my system, and left for home.

I tried to act normal, but everything that I did that evening reminded me of the message. I mumbled “Hi, honey, I’m home,” to my empty apartment. I had meant it as a meaningless joke to myself, but the joke backfired. I felt as I muttered the line that there was something missing in my life–something I had had and had subsequently lost.

What if this Andy–or Carrie now–had been telling the truth? What if there really had been a marriage between Suzy Norton and me? Oh yes, I remembered Suzy Norton. She had been in one of my classes at KU. She was bright and attractive–the sort of girl every guy would have wanted to know. Why then would she have ever picked me? I was too shy to say even more than a few words to her all the time I knew her.

But that was the point, wasn’t it? Somebody named Andy Skinner had been my best friend, and in the course of that friendship, I had lost my shyness. Maybe by the time I reached college, I was confident enough to say more than a few words to Suzy Norton. Maybe we found out we had more in common than we realized. Maybe I made her laugh. Maybe we got married.

The empty silence of my apartment became even more oppressive as the ‘what ifs’ churned through my head. If Andy had been telling me the truth, then the Judge had fucked up my life as much as he had fucked up Andy’s. Maybe he had fucked mine up even more. Andy at least, if his story was to be believed, now had a life in which his parents loved him. From what he had said, the Skinners had been unsuitable parents. Of course, he was a girl now, but I suppose that wasn’t any worse than what had happened to me. It was as if I had changed as much as Andy in a way.

What kind of beings would have such power anyhow? And why would they even bother doing what they were doing?

I remembered back when I was a kid. I read a lot of science fiction then. Since I had few friends, it was one of those solitary hobbies only children develop. I read a book called The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. In the book, time travellers often changed reality, making what they called Minimum Necessary Changes. Just moving a bottle across a shelf might set off a chain of events that would alter future history dramatically. Was that what these beings were doing? Were they changing the world by taking people out of existence and substituting other lives in their place? If that were so, had their Minimum Necessary Change disrupted my entire life?

In a way, I wanted to believe it was true. It would explain why my life had turned out so meaningless. I had no friends and no family, and a job that was more routine than challenge. Did it make it better if I could know that it wasn’t the life I was really supposed to have?

I was still brooding about the message the next day at work. A restless night with little sleep had made me unfit company for my co-workers, so they left me alone. I was just as happy that they did, for it allowed me to come to a decision that I might not have come to if mundane reality had been allowed to intrude on my more fantastic thoughts.

What if the message was real? If it was, my life had been stolen from me just as surely as Andy, Dave, and Connie had had theirs stolen. The only difference was that mine had been unintentional–sort of like collateral damage in war. And that meant the only way I would ever be able to get my rightful life back was to help a person I had never heard of who claimed to be my best friend.

There was one problem I needed to solve first–where was Ovid? A quick check of my road atlas showed no town in Oklahoma called Ovid. Database searches online were equally fruitless. I could wander for weeks or months on the highways and roads of Oklahoma and never find Ovid. Of course, there was one way I might find it. If I tried to kill myself, I might come to the Judge’s attention. But that seemed a bit drastic and might not work at all. Besides, I had no intention of killing myself just to get into Ovid.

There was one possibility. Andy had said that someone at Vulman had drawn a map of how to reach the town. There might even be a copy of the map in the file. It was worth a shot.

The Vulman file wasn’t very impressive. Vulman wasn’t a particularly large or complicated customer. According to the file, Vulman had two locations–a sales office in Washington and a headquarters and manufacturing facility near Tulsa. My heart fell as I saw the Tulsa address. So there was no Ovid. But then I saw the install file. There were handwritten notes in that file. The sales rep wasn’t anyone named Connie and no Andy or Dave had been in on the install.

“Looking for something specific?”

I was startled by a woman’s voice. I turned to see Greta Locke, one of our installers. Greta was an attractive brunette, and as always around attractive women, I got a little tongue-tied.

“Uh... just looking for something and I saw this file. I’ve never heard of Vulman Industries.”

She shrugged. “They’re a small defense contractor up around Tulsa. In fact, I installed that system for them.” She grabbed the file out of my hand, spotted something in the file and threw it away. “That doesn’t belong in there,” she said to no one in particular as the wad of paper bounced into the waste can.

“You sure they’re in Tulsa?”

“Right outside the city,” she said. “It’s a Tulsa address though.” She handed the file back to me and walked off.

I wondered if there were little trip wires that required an action once someone started snooping around Ovid. I had no doubt that Greta really believed she had installed the system at Vulman. And if I’d asked Greta later why she had pulled a document out of the file, wadded it up, and thrown it away, she wouldn’t even remember doing it. But I had seen the item she had removed from the file. If I hadn’t read Andy’s email, I would have thought nothing of the item. But now, I reached down in the waste can and pulled the paper out, carefully smoothing it out on a nearby desk. Of course, it was a map.

“No wonder nobody just stumbles on Ovid,” I thought as I studied the circuitous route to the strange town. I wasn’t even sure I could drive there even with the map.

I had a plan figured out in my mind, but it would take a little time to put it all in place. Andy had started me thinking. For all his power, it was unlikely that the Judge or his followers could be everyplace all the time. Andy had compared Ovid to a computer program. Ovid was in some ways like a computer program still in beta test. Not every possible contingency would have been anticipated. I suspected Andy was absolutely right when he said it was probably possible to take off across the fields and escape Ovid. But anyone attempting to escape that way would be moving too slowly to escape for long. Before they could get far, their absence would be noticed and Officer Mercer or someone like him would be dispatched to collect them. That’s probably why they didn’t worry about that sort of an escape. But I thought I had that problem solved.

Another problem was a lack of knowing just how powerful the Judge really was. Again, Andy had given me some clues, but for some reason he hadn’t been able to tell me what he had learned. Maybe he just wasn’t thinking clearly. I suppose it was easier to think clearly, when one didn’t have to be constantly trying to fit in as a thirteen-year-old girl.

When I got right down to it, there were only three possibilities as to the identity of the Judge: mad scientist, wizard, or supernatural being. Now I suppose a mad scientist might come up with something to change the shape of a human á  la Dr. Jekyll or something. As farfetched as it once seemed, modern experiments with DNA might produce such an elixir–or I presumed it would be possible. It wasn’t really my field. But even if such a potion were possible, it didn’t explain Ovid or how reality itself could be shifted.

That left some form of magic. It was hard for me as a rational computer programmer to imagine anything as unlikely as magic. To believe in magic, I had to accept that there were forces in the universe which our rational set of beliefs could not encompass. I would have to believe that genies came in bottles and witches changed reality with a wiggle of their noses. If Andy’s story was to be believed, then magic was certainly possible–even probable. But if the Judge was a wizard in the usual sense, why hadn’t we seen other evidence of magic? Surely, he would have to be considered a strong wizard, but that implied there should be weaker ones as well all over the world whose existence was well known.

That left the Judge as a supernatural being. A trip to the library over my lunch hour seemed to give credence to this theory. When I looked up the subject of transformation, mythological stories of gods and goddesses came to the forefront. I nearly dismissed these out of hand until I remembered Andy’s message. He mentioned that the Judge chanted something which sounded like Latin. Who led the Latin–or Roman if you will–gods? Why, Jupiter of course. Jupiter: Judge. Coincidence? Then there was Officer Mercer, a policeman who seemed to come out of nowhere. Wasn’t Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods said to appear suddenly? Mercury: Mercer. I was beginning to notice a trend.

I mentally kicked myself a dozen times for coming up with such a conclusion. Roman gods and goddesses couldn’t really exist, could they? I tried to think of the other names he gave me. There was Susan Jager. Did the gods have a defender in their myths? I couldn’t think of any and couldn’t find any in the books. Perhaps she was just a human servant of the gods, along with the blonde who had been in the courtroom.

Even though I had begun the day not believing in ancient gods, the sudden thought of crossing them seemed frightening. I was just a man. I would be as defenseless as any other man in Ovid. Or would I? I began to realize that I had something no one else had apparently had when entering Ovid: I had knowledge. I knew what to expect. If I was right, I would be able to slip into Ovid unnoticed, gather up Andy and Dave, and make a getaway before the Judge even knew I had been there.

Besides, I had nothing to lose by going to Ovid. My life was in ruins–no friends or family and nothing to live for. Whatever I had once had belonged to a Jeff Bradshaw I didn’t know. He was a more personable fellow who had managed to get the girl he wanted and was getting on with his life. I began to feel almost as if I was no more in my true body than Andy was. I didn’t know if rescuing Andy and Dave would get any of what I had lost back, but it seemed as if the exposure of Ovid might at least be payback for what I had lost. Besides, Andy might be a thirteen-year-old girl now, but he–she–was the only one who remembered who I had been. Perhaps with her help, I could regain that part of me that had been lost.

I arranged some vacation time. Sales had been a little slower than anticipated, and the need for my services had lessened a little. I think my supervisor was actually happy to see me request the time off. I would be one less person he would have to keep busy until the slump was over.

I bought a round trip airline ticket to Tulsa, wondering at the time if I would actually be able to use the return trip. I pushed that negative thought into the back of my mind and mentally checked my inventory. I had plenty of cash; I wanted no record of credit card receipts which might leave a trail. Only my plane ticket and rental cars would be on my card. In Ovid, I would use only cash.

I got a car from Avis at the airport in Tulsa. Then, I checked the Yellow Pages and found a nearby firm that provided day laborers. My requirements were simple. I needed a man with a valid driver’s license to ferry a car for me. The rate was a little higher than I anticipated, but I had plenty of cash. I paid on the spot.

I was sure the laborer I had hired thought I was crazy. He was a taciturn man, his face showing the results of a young life wasted with alcohol and drugs. I estimated him to be about forty, but the ravages of his dissipated life might have aged his appearance several years. He went by Mac and I never learned his last name. His hair was long and stringy and he needed a shave. As for his clothing... well, let’s just say his hair was his best feature. In spite of the morning Oklahoma summer heat, I left the window next to me down to get fresh air.

I drove him back to the airport area and left him standing by the car as I went into another car rental firm and rented a second car. Then, I pulled my new car up behind him and gave him the keys to the first car. “You understand what you’re supposed to do?” I asked.

He shrugged, throwing away the last of a cigarette I had not allowed him to smoke when I was in the car. “Yeah.” His voice sounded like gravel falling down a tin chute. “I follow you.”

Come to think of it, that was really all he did need to do.

The map was easy enough to follow once I got the hang of it. It took us further and further from any populated areas. In a surprisingly short time, it seemed as if we were the only cars on the road as we passed through verdant farmland punctuated by meandering streams and rolling hills. I expected to see some evidence of Ovid with every hill I crested, but I was rewarded with only a view of more farmland. I began to wonder if Ovid was really out there somewhere. Then at last, it happened. There in the distance was a town. I pulled to the side of the road, got out of the car, and hefted the binoculars I had bought the day before.

From a distance, the town seemed perfectly normal if a little larger than I would have anticipated from Andy’s description. Trees obscured most of the view of buildings, but a few church spires rose above them and a few new houses were observable on the fringes of the town. I could pinpoint where the business district was by the lack of trees in roughly the center of the town. I estimated there were no buildings taller than three stories though. All-in-all, it looked like a pleasant little Midwestern town–the sort of place where people still smile and speak to each other on the street and everyone leaves their doors unlocked. I was having a difficult time imagining the town as Andy saw it.

“Where you want I should park?” Mac asked.

I jumped a little. I had been watching Ovid so intently I hadn’t even heard him approach me. I looked around, spotting a copse of trees just off the road and down the hill out of sight of the town. “Over there,” I commanded, pointing.

Mac gave me another one of those ‘you must be out of your fucking mind’ looks. “But there ain’t no road there.”

“No fence either and the ground is solid and the trees will hide the car,” I pointed out. “Now park the car and let’s get out of here.”

Reluctantly, he started back for the other car. Then he asked me, “What town’s that?”

I didn’t bother to answer him and he didn’t ask again.

The drive back to Tulsa wasn’t a particularly pleasant one. Again, I had the window down part way since even the Oklahoma heat was preferable to Mac’s body odor. There was practically no conversation between us. Mac was not exactly an intellectual giant, and the fact that I had forbidden him to smoke in the car had put him in a foul mood. It was with relief on both of our parts as I dropped him off at the day labor office where he could pick up his daily wages–probably to spend them on a few packs of smokes and a quart of cheap wine. Or maybe he was more upscale than I had imagined and would spend his wages on drugs.

I then drove to a hotel to spend the evening. I wanted to get a good night’s rest before putting the rest of my plan into action. If everything went right, within two nights I would have rescued two people from Ovid. Then we would have to convince the authorities that there was something strange going on in that town. I expected that to be the most difficult part of the plan.

Looking back on it, I suppose it was rather egotistical of me to think I could foil a plan devised by gods, but I didn’t think of them as being gods in the religious sense. I believed then–and to a certain extent still do–that the gods were more like Q in Star Trek than beings to be worshipped. They acted more like Q than gods since they apparently chose not to be worshipped as gods. Also, their actions were more like children playing at running a town rather than supreme beings with omnipotent wisdom. Now with the benefit of hindsight, I’ve begun to think the real answer might be somewhere in between.

In any case, I was confident my plan would work. To quote another Star Trek analogy, as Kirk said about the Kobeyashi Maru solution, it had the benefit of having never been tried before.

Late the next morning, I was again driving to Ovid. At least I was driving by myself without having to worry about Mac keeping me in sight. It made the drive almost pleasant. I had grown up in country not unlike the area around Ovid. So many people think of places like Kansas and Oklahoma as being vast treeless plains, flat and uninteresting. While parts of those states are somewhat like that, eastern Oklahoma, like the area around my native Topeka, Kansas, is made up of gentle hills with stands of trees wherever the land hasn’t been cleared for farming–and a large amount of the land has been left in woodlands.

The sad thing about some of these rural areas is that there are fewer people to see them. While cities like Dallas or on a smaller scale Tulsa are booming with new suburbs and a myriad of opportunities, rural areas continue to lose population as farms become larger and less labor intensive. Ah well, it’s called progress, but sometimes I wonder...

I felt relief as I crested the hill that allowed me a view of Ovid. I had almost feared that it would disappear mysteriously before I could return. This time though, I wouldn’t be viewing it from afar. This time I would be walking directly into the lion’s den. This time I would be taking the first positive steps toward somehow regaining what I had lost in my life.

I had been prepared for something more ominous than what I saw as I drove into town. I saw several people going about their business, but they all looked like normal everyday people. There was nothing strange about them. I looked at them intently, hoping to find some evidence of the transparency Andy had mentioned, but there was nothing unusual about them.

If there was anything odd about the town, it was that it was unusually prosperous. But of course I knew that Vulman Industries was a successful company, and sometimes a company like that was all a small town needed to prosper. In addition, I noted signs directing motorists to Capta College. Again, a small college could be a financial shot in the arm for a small community. Since Ovid had both a successful industry and a college, it wasn’ t surprising that it showed signs of prosperity.

Rather than ask for directions to the Ovid Middle School, I chose to drive around a little. The truth was I wanted to have no unnecessary contact with residents of Ovid. While I was convinced I had determined the identity of the Judge and Officer Mercer, I knew the pantheon of Roman gods was a large one. Any of Ovid’s residents might be a Roman god–or in the service of them.

It didn’t take me long to find the school. I had followed signs leading to the high school and then fanned out my search from there. As I had expected, the middle school was only a few blocks from the high school. I had timed my arrival early in the afternoon. I parked the car in a shaded spot where I thought I would be taken as a parent there to pick up his daughter or son. I quickly wolfed down a sandwich I had picked up at a convenience store in the last town before Ovid and settled in to wait.

Perhaps I can be forgiven my ignorance. I had sought to blend in, then look for a young girl who seemed to be a little out of place–a pretty little blonde who would notice me and recognize me. What a fool I was. This wasn’t a large city where a person can remain anonymous for long. I was a stranger, and anyone who saw me would catalogue me as such. I had been in place for only a little over half an hour when I was confronted.

I cursed my bad luck as the skirted figure walked out of the school and made a beeline directly for my position. At first, I thought I should just get in the car and go. Then I realized that was the most suspicious thing I could do. I’d have to invent a reason for being there, I thought. Then suddenly I got a better look at the woman who was approaching. She was a woman about my age–mid twenties–pretty with long red hair. She looked like Andy’s description of Judy Carlson.

Once I realized who she was, I realized this was the best thing that could happen. Although I didn’t remember Dave Malloy, I was certain that this attractive young woman was who Dave had been transformed into. I had thought to use Andy to get to Dave, but now it would be the other way around.

“Sir?” she began while she was still walking toward me. Her voice was high and sweet. “Just what do you...?” Her voice trailed off as she peered at me. “Jeff? Is that you?”

I managed a little smile. “Yes, Dave, it’s me.”

She turned suddenly and waved back at the school. For the first time I realized there was another woman standing at the school door. Of course. Judy was to check me out. If she couldn’t identify me, whoever was at the door would call the police. Then she turned back to me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

It wasn’t really what I expected her to say.

“And how do you remember who I was?”

That was what I had expected her to say.

“It’s a long story,” I said, not quite ready to tell her my plan.

She scowled. “Do you have any idea what will happen to you if someone were to call the police?”

“I guess I just didn’t realize a stranger would be immediately suspect,” I replied.

“This may be a small town but we can read,” she said defensively. “There’s perverts all over the country looking for little girls–looking for little boys, too.”

My mouth dropped open. I motioned with my head toward the school door. “They didn’t think that I...? You didn’t think...?”

“That you were some sort of perv here to bother one of our kids?” In a way, she was enjoying this, damn her.

“I just wanted to see Andy.”

“You mean you wanted to drop by the school and accost a thirteen-year-old girl when she got out of classes for the day?”

I could feel my face redden. I really hadn’t thought of it that way. Although I knew I was looking for a thirteen-year-old girl, my email message had been from the mind of a twenty-five year old man. I was off to a bad start in Ovid. Some adversary for the gods I was going to be.

“All right,” I sighed. “I see your point. I needed to talk with you, too...”

So we stood there together, talking. I’m sure the people inside the school who had thought me a child molester were now convinced that I must be all right or Judy wouldn’t be spending so much time talking to me. They would be alarmed if they could hear our conversation though. I told her about the message I had gotten from Andy. I then began to tell her who I thought was running Ovid. Before I could give the identity of the Judge, my throat constricted and my voice froze.

“Jeff?” she asked, concerned by my sudden inability to speak. “Don’t bother trying to say it. I know who the Judge is. We all figure it out after a while. But you can’t talk about it. He won’t allow it.”

So I relaxed and could feel my ability to speak returning. So that was what Andy meant when he told me in the message that he couldn’t discuss the identity of the Judge. “Are there any other rules I need to know?”

She shrugged. “There are probably several, but don’t worry. Most of them aren’t as unpleasant to break as that one. Oh, there is one other one you might want to think about. No more than two people can discuss the nature of Ovid together. So even if you did manage to talk to Carrie, it would have to be without me in the conversation or you couldn’t talk about this. For that matter, just why did you come here?”

“To rescue you,” I said simply. Then I added, “You and Andy. Connie, too, I suppose if that’s possible.”

“None of it’s possible,” she said, shaking her head firmly. “Connie doesn’t even remember who she was. It wouldn’t do any good to rescue her. Besides, what makes you think we need rescuing anyway?”

She was becoming the master–mistress, I suppose–of the unanticipated question. “That Judge took your lives from you. For that matter, he took my life from me.”

She frowned. “What do you mean when you say he took your life from you? You’re still Jeff. Granted you look a little different...”

I felt the blood rush out of my head. “Different how?”

She took a moment to look me over. “You’re thinner and paler. You don’t look quite as... robust as I remember you. You and Suzy must not be getting out enough. I thought she had you playing tennis with her a couple of times a week now.”

I clenched my fists and tried to control the anger I felt building inside me. “Damn it, Dave, there is no Suzy–at least not in my life. Back in college, Andy apparently urged me to ask Suzy out. Because of what happened to Andy, Suzy and I never got together. She’s probably someone else’s wife now.”

“Oh God, Jeff,” she cried, gently gripping my arm, “I’m so sorry. I guess with my own problems I just never thought about what might have changed outside of Ovid.”

“If the Judge has been transforming people for very long, there must be hundreds or even thousands of lives that have been changed outside Ovid,” I told her. “You say I don’t look the same. I suppose in a way I’ve got a new body, too. It sounds as if I’d prefer my old one.”

She gave me a sad smile. “Well, the old one was a little nicer...”

“So you see, I have to get you and Andy out of here. We have to find someone outside Ovid who’ll believe us and do something to stop this madness. We might even be able to get this Judge to return us to our old bodies and lives.”

She seemed ready to say something but held back. She bit her lip in a very feminine way and unconsciously smoothed back a strand of loose red hair. It was hard looking at her to imagine that she had ever been a man. How could she have changed so drastically in such a short span of time? The Judy Andy had described was not nearly as girlish as the one I had found. I suddenly realized that I really had no idea how long she had been in Ovid. It was late May now, and it had taken me a week to arrange this trip. I suppose I thought the message from Andy had been sent shortly before. But Andy had said his message would be sent the next time someone at Vulman emailed someone at Aldeberan. But that meant the message could have been written any time.

“Dave...” I asked slowly, fearful of the answer to the question I was about to ask, “...just how long have you guys been here in Ovid?”

She looked at me blankly. “Why, since early April. Why?”

It was the end of May. That meant Dave and Andy had been their new female selves for nearly two months. What must it have been like for them, to have submerged their male personas for female ones for so long? No wonder Dave was acting so feminine. My God, what must Andy be like? Probably about the same, I told myself.

“What’s wrong, Jeff?”

“Nothing, I guess,” I managed to say.

“Come on, Jeff,” she insisted. “You may not look quite like the Jeff I knew, but I could always tell when something was bothering you.”

Had Dave and I been good friends? Apparently so. “Okay. I just didn’t realize you had been here that long. I just got the message last week.”

Dave–or I guess I should say Judy–nodded. “Carrie and I were afraid it might be a while before Vulman emailed Aldeberan.”

“And what has happened since you sent the message?” I asked.

Judy looked back at the school. “Look, Jeff, I have to get back to work now. I was going to go to a little place called The Greenhouse after work for a drink with a couple of the staffers here. Be there about five thirty. They’ll be going home then and we can talk. My husband is working a little late tonight, so no one expects me home.”

After she gave me directions to The Greenhouse, I reluctantly left the school. She promised me she’d talk to Andy–or rather Carrie now–and arrange for us to meet. I did see the logic of what she was saying though. It wouldn’t look right for me to be hanging around the school to meet a thirteen-year-old girl. Of course, come to think of it, it didn’t exactly seem right for me to be meeting a very attractive twenty-five year old married woman in a bar while her husband was working late.

What choice did I have though? I thought as I drove into downtown Ovid. Dave might be a married woman and Andy might be a thirteen-year-old girl, but I knew who they really were. And without their help, I had no way to get back the life I was entitled to.

I parked the car downtown and just strolled around waiting until it would be time to meet Judy. Ovid was a pleasant little town. The streets were clean and the businesses were small but prosperous looking. The only buildings of any size were March’s Department Store–sort of a poor man’s Macy’s I supposed–and the Farmer’s and Merchant’s Bank which seemed to have offices over it. In fact, I noticed on the door to the office floors the names of the tenants–including Susan Jager, the court-appointed attorney for my friends.

An attractive blond woman and an equally attractive brunette strolled over to the office entrance. They were laughing and talking, gave each other a sisterly hug, and parted–the blonde heading back down the street and the brunette into the building. Something told me these were the two women from my friends’ court appearance.

More from curiosity than anything else, I followed the blonde just to see where she was going. Of course, I followed at a very discrete distance. My near brush at being tagged a child molester had taught me to be more careful. I didn’t want to be accused now of being a stalker.

As I watched, the blonde walked half a block ahead of me. It was a thrilling view. She walked confidently, her firm ass swaying with feminine grace as her high heels clicked against the pavement. In a few minutes, she disappeared inside a rather imposing building–the Ovid City Hall. It didn’t absolutely confirm my suspicions, but I was fairly sure in my own mind that she was the blonde in the courtroom.

I didn’t follow her in the building. I had no desire to run into the Judge or Officer Mercer. I just continued my stroll down the streets of downtown Ovid.

I made several observations as I walked. The first was how absolutely normal everything looked. Andy had caused me to believe there was something sinister about Ovid, but I saw nothing to indicate that. By then, I would have expected to see one of the transparent people, but I didn’t. Everyone looked perfectly normal to me. Yet I had talked to Judy and knew that everything was not perfectly normal.

Unfortunately, my afternoon passed slowly. There was nothing in downtown Ovid to spend a great deal of time browsing over. When I was back in Dallas, I would often stroll through a mall, stopping to spend pleasant air-conditioned minutes in a bookstore or a computer store. Ovid didn’t have much in the way of browsing stores. Oh, there was a computer store–such as it was. It was a Radio Shack. Well, actually, it wasn’t even a real Radio Shack. Instead, it was one of those authorized agent stores where they had a few Radio Shack products along with other items. As a computer professional, I had always felt Radio Shack was a little primitive, but any port in a storm.

When I entered the store, I felt as if I had been transported back in time. There were none of the slick displays and flashing screens I had come to expect in computer stores. Other than the old-fashioned bell over the door which tinkled as I stepped in, the place was unnaturally quiet. I looked around and saw, as expected, a number of computer systems I was very familiar with. Over a long table boasting several fairly recent models was a professional but plain sign which proclaimed ‘Welcome to Del’s Computers–an Authorized Agent for Radio Shack.’

“Can I help you?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I had heard no one enter the room. I turned, then had to look down slightly. In front of me was a short man who looked a little like Gomez Adams–even to the pinstriped suit and bow tie. His hair was slicked down and parted a little high, and his mustache was neatly trimmed but a little too thin.

“Can I help you?” he repeated formally.

“Oh... uh... just looking,” I said noncommittally.

“Please feel free to look about, Mr. Bradshaw,” he said with a sweeping gesture at the long table of computers. “I am Mr. Wolf should you need anything.”

“Thanks, I... Wait a minute, how did you know my name?”

He stared at me silently. Then, “A question, Mr. Bradshaw?”

“Damned right!” I replied. “How did you know my name?”

The punctilious little man placed his hands together, one over the other. “Mr. Bradshaw, our business is information management. Your name is information. Therefore, it is our business to know your name.”

It took me a moment to realize he hadn’t really answered my question. “Does anyone else know I’m here?”

He closed his eyes, as if in disdain. “If you are going to continue to ask questions, Mr. Bradshaw, perhaps you would like to become one of our clients?”

“How do I do that?”

He sighed. I had asked another question. “Upon further reflection, I think, Mr. Bradshaw, that it might be a bit... complicated to take you on as a client. However, in the interest of community relations and all that, I will allow you to ask three additional questions–no more no less–at no charge.”

“And you’ll answer them?”

“Is that one of your questions, Mr. Bradshaw?”

“Uh... no.” I would have to be more careful so as not to waste my questions. I thought back of stories I had read where a person gets three wishes from a genie and manages to squander them. I would have to be careful not to squander my questions.

“All right,” I said at last. “Tell me, what is Ovid?”

Mr. Wolf looked disappointed. Apparently my question was not an interesting one. With another signature sigh, he seated himself at a terminal at a nearby desk. I couldn’t see the screen, but I could see the keyboard. There was something strange about it. It had additional keys with strange symbols on some and what appeared to be Greek letters on others.

Suddenly, he seemed to go into a trance, looking straight ahead and not at me. He began to speak, but his voice had acquired a resonance which had not been there before. “Ovid: a town in eastern Oklahoma and elsewhere. Population: thirteen thousand three hundred and ninety eight. Principal industry: Vulman Industries, a maker of auto parts and a defense contractor.”

He looked up at me, suddenly out of his trance. “Your question was rather pedestrian,” he commented, his voice normal once more.

“But you didn’t answer my question,” I cried in frustration. “I wanted to know how Ovid came about and what its purpose is.”

“Then you should have asked it that way,” he replied huffily. “You should take more care with your questions. The last question posed by our most valued client took over an hour to ask.”

Over an hour? I would have to be more careful; that was for sure. “All right. My second question relates to the transparent people. I have reason to believe that some people may view others in Ovid as being somewhat transparent. I would like to know first if that is so, next who these transparent people are, and lastly, why I can’t see their transparency.”

A small indulging smile crossed Mr. Wolf’s lips. “There, you see, Mr. Bradshaw? You can ask a reasonable question if you put your mind to it. It’s still a bit vaguely worded, but it’s much better than your first question.” He typed something into the keyboard, then stiffened once more in a trance.

“The transparent people you speak of are commonly called ‘shades.’ They are real in every sense of the word but are only marginally real on certain parallel dimensional planes–hence the apparent transparency. Origin of the shades is classified under directive Judge 14-793. You cannot identify shades because you are not attuned to parallel dimensional activities and/or are not scheduled for termination. While this is not an absolute set of conditions, it is accurate at a confidence interval of eighty two percent plus or minus three percent.”

Parallel dimensions? Judge’s directives? Termination? I particularly didn’t like the sound of that last term. “Can you...?” I stopped before I could say more. There was one question I wanted answered above all others, and I had one question left to ask. My third wish for the genie had to be phrased just right. I was going to be taking a terrible chance just asking the question.

“I have a plan to escape from Ovid and take a resident of Ovid with me. Will my plan work?”

“It will,” was the response. As I started to feel relieved, Mr. Wolf’s augmented voice added, “unless random factors combine to change the odds. Chance of success is currently eighty point two percent.”

Those sounded like good odds to me, but what had he meant by random factors? I had to ask. “What random factors are you talking about?”

Mr. Wolf rose from the keyboard, his appearance normal once again. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bradshaw. That would be a fourth question. I’m afraid you’ve had your three.”

“But...”

“I’m sorry. Now if you’ll excuse me, I do have work to do.”

I turned away for just a moment, unsure of what to say or do next. Then I turned back to Mr. Wolf, but he was gone. There was no sign of him anywhere. Well, maybe there had been something on the computer screen that he hadn’t told me. If he wasn’t there, he couldn’t stop me from looking. I looked at the computer screen. It was completely dark. And I mean dark. It wasn’t a blank screen, it was completely black–no reflection or anything. Hesitantly, I touched a key. Nothing happened–nothing at all.

When I stepped back on the street, I realized for the first time how absolutely quiet the silence inside the store had been. It was almost as if Del’s Computers existed outside normal time and space. Perhaps it did. There were forces at work in Ovid that I couldn’t hope to understand. I just hoped that like Mr. Wolf, they proved to be benign.

I had been in the store longer than I thought. A quick look at my watch told me it was time to find The Greenhouse. Fortunately, it wasn’t far. It proved to be a pleasant little place, more restaurant than bar. Judy was already there, but to my consternation, three other women were with her in a booth. I had thought they were to leave before I showed up.

“There he is,” I heard Judy say. “Over here, Jeff.”

Hesitantly, I approached the little group. Wine glasses all over the table indicated that more than one round had been ordered. The women were all very much like Judy–that is to say young and attractive. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen a single person in Ovid who was unattractive–except maybe for Mr. Wolf.

“Girls,” Judy began holding onto my arm, “this is my cousin I told you about–Jeff Bradshaw.”

They giggled and introduced themselves, and within five minutes, I couldn’t remember any of their names. I tried to sit and make polite conversation, but mostly I just remained quiet and let them talk. As I said, I’ve always been a little nervous around attractive women.

Finally, the girls got up. One of them, an attractive brunette, brushed my arm. “Where are you going to be staying in Ovid?” she asked.

“He’s staying with Albert and me,” Judy replied before I could stammer a made-up response.

“Oh, well say hi to Albert for me,” the brunette said. And with a smile, she left Judy and I standing in front of The Greenhouse.

“What do you mean I’m staying with you tonight?” I asked when the brunette was out of earshot. “And what’s this stuff about being your cousin?”

“Well, where had you planned to stay tonight?”

“I hadn’t decided,” I lied. Actually, I had decided. My initial plan had been to find Andy coming out of school, have her locate Dave, and have the three of us out of Ovid by nightfall. It wasn’t working out that way though. It was obvious I wouldn’t see Andy until the next day, and come to think of it, Judy hadn’t seemed too excited about the prospect of leaving Ovid. I knew better than to check into a local hotel.

“You were going to sleep in your car tonight, weren’t you?” she said. Had it been that obvious?

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked.

“So you planned to just park someplace, sleep in the car, and show up tomorrow looking like a derelict and pull a thirteen-year-old girl out of school.”

“Well...”

“Jeff, I’m trying to help you,” she told me. “But you’ve got to work with me. I’ve made arrangements for Carrie to be pulled out of class tomorrow morning. I gave her teacher some bullshit about updating her records. We’ll have a conference room all to ourselves. It won’t give you much time to talk, but maybe it will be enough.”

“Did you tell her what was going on?” I asked.

“I didn’t tell her anything,” she replied. “I didn’t want to make her nervous all evening. And I just talked to her teacher anyway.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “But won’t your husband wonder about me cropping up out of nowhere?”

She laughed, “Oh, you don’t know Albert. Don’t worry, I can handle him. That’s why I’m passing you off as my cousin.”

She could handle him, too. By the time Albert got home, Judy already had dinner nearly ready. She introduced Albert to me as if I–her cousin–had been planning this trip for weeks.

Albert Carlson was a pleasant man, but he obviously lived in a world all his own. He seemed befuddled at my presence and a little shy around me. But as preoccupied as he often seemed to be, he was very solicitous of his wife’s feelings and accepted me immediately as if I had been in the family forever.

“Uh... were you at our wedding?” he asked me when we sat for dinner.

Before I could answer, Judy chimed in, “Of course he was there, Albert. Don’ t you remember? He sent us that... place setting.”

“Oh yes,” he said with a happy smile. Obviously, he didn’t remember.

Yes, Judy certainly knew how to handle Albert.

Later, Judy and I sat on the front porch of their cozy little house while Albert volunteered to do the dishes–to allow Judy to catch up on family news.

“Judy,” I said right at the start, “I want you to come with us tomorrow.”

She turned away from me. I could swear there were tears in her eyes.

“Come on, Dave,” I urged, using her old name. “I’ve found a way to get us out of Ovid. Then once we’ve told the authorities, we’ll figure out a way to get back to our original bodies.”

“But you’re already in your original body,” she pointed out.

I shook my head. “You said it yourself. I don’t look the same. Not being married to Suzy changed my life. Did you know they’ve taken a lot of surveys that show married men are healthier and live longer than single men? This isn’t my body–at least not as it should be. And then there’s you–you won’t have to be married to that creepy husband of yours.”

“He’s not creepy!”

She said it with so much vehemence I was stopped for a moment. “But you told Carrie...”

“That was weeks ago,” she said angrily. “A lot has happened since then.”

We were both quiet for a few moments. Then she began, “Jeff, I know what Carrie told you. She told me all about it after she sent the message to you. I was excited when she told me. There might actually be a way out of Ovid, I told myself. Then I wouldn’t have to pretend to be a woman anymore. And I wasn’t just a woman–I was a wife. I wouldn’t have to be that anymore either.

“But it’s funny how things work around here, Jeff. I guess maybe it’s all part of the magic of this place, but after a while everything just starts feeling right. Take sex, for example...”

“Judy, you don’t have to tell me about that,” I said as I felt my face flush.

“Yes I do,” she replied seriously, as she looked me in the eye and gently touched my arm. “I need to tell you because I need for you to understand.” She stopped for a moment, collected her thoughts and continued, “At first the sex was weird. I don’t mean Albert is into anything weird. It’s all pretty much plain vanilla with him. It’s just that it feels so strange to be... penetrated.”

She laughed nervously. “The first time we... we did it, I thought I’d lose my mind. I was a man, and what I was doing wasn’t natural. But when we were... together, it felt very, very good. I think that frightened me more than it would have if it hadn’t felt good. I think even then I realized I could get to like sex as a woman. We really do experience more pleasure in sex than men do.

“Then after a while, it started feeling more and more natural. I finally had an orgasm and then another. Jeff, you can’t believe what they feel like. It’ s not as intense as a man’s orgasm, but its satisfying beyond my ability to explain it. Pretty soon, I began to forget what it was even like to have a penis. What was between my legs now felt... well, natural.

“And as for Albert, I think what I first thought was a little creepy about him turned out to be just shyness. I think a lot of newlyweds probably come back from the honeymoon wondering what the rest of married life is going to be like. It weirds them out a little bit. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I was afraid I did. “You’re saying you want to stay here in Ovid.”

She nodded. “Please try to understand. I have a good life here. Albert and I are even talking about having children.”

I hunched over and looked at her with as serious an expression as I could muster. “Judy, have you ever heard of the Stockholm Syndrome?”

She shook her head.

“It’s what happens when a person is held against his or her will and starts to eventually sympathize with the abductor.”

She actually giggled, much to my dismay. “Is that what you think has happened here? Albert isn’t my captor; he’s my husband.”

“Is he transparent?”

“You really can’t tell?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Well no, he isn’t transparent,” she explained. “I guess he was probably someone else before he came to Ovid, but we don’t talk about it. He only remembers his life here. So you see, Albert is as much a ‘victim’ of Ovid as I am–maybe more so since his previous life was taken from him. Your Stockholm Whatever seems as if it wouldn’t apply unless I was married to Officer Mercer or something.”

She had me there. “Judy, are you sure this is what you really want–to stay here in Ovid?”

“Yes,” she affirmed with a nod of her head. “I want to stay here, make Albert happy, and raise a bunch of kids.”

A bird in a gilded cage, I thought to myself. I didn’t remember Dave as a man, but apparently we had once been friends. This was not Dave though–not a man who could be my friend. This was a stranger. Well, I couldn’t force her to leave Ovid–certainly not by the overland route we would have to travel. It would have been better to have her along. With both Dave and Andy telling the authorities about Ovid, the story would have more weight.

In a strange sense though, I could understand her point. She had been immersed into the existence of Judy Carlson. It had become a familiar, even enjoyable, existence. She had no wife or children waiting for her outside Ovid. Why not stay and make a life of it? In a small town, an accountant was a respected professional. She’d have a good, comfortable life. Maybe even Connie would be okay with her new life as a boy.

I knew though that Andy would be with me. As I lay in bed in the guestroom, I pulled out the printout of Andy’s message to me which I had carefully included in my small overnight bag. I read it again to reassure myself that I was doing the right thing. Andy’s plaintive pleas to be rescued from her new life were clear. Dave might have reconciled her transformation to Judy as a good thing, but Andy would not. Tomorrow I would get Andy out of Ovid.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I was up against gods with unbelievable power. But they had established rules to govern the conduct of Ovid, and I suspected that their powers were somewhat limited. Since I was not about to die, I was of little interest to them, and I had done my best to maintain a low profile in their town. And since I would be taking Andy out cross-country, I would trigger none of the usual alarms designed to prevent Ovid’s denizens from leaving. Even if they had noticed me before our escape, they would think they had me safely bottled up since my car would still be in Ovid. They wouldn’t know about the other car.

Of course, once we made it back to the car I had hidden the previous day, our trials would be just beginning. The only proof that I had to offer the authorities was Andy, and who would believe the mad ramblings of a thirteen-year-old girl? But they would believe her when they found out that her fingerprints matched no known runaway or abductee and that she had the mind of a twenty-something computer expert. They’d still be sceptical but they would have to believe something was wrong.

Then we’d return to Ovid. I doubted if even the Judge and his associates would be able to hold back the authorities. We’d force the Judge to change Andy back and give us both back our lives. If he could change Andy into a young girl, he could surely change her back again.

My only immediate concern was that I might have raised an alarm when I went into the Radio Shack, since the store was obviously part of the supernatural fabric of Ovid. I looked in a book I had brought along detailing the names and attributes of the Roman gods and could find no one who matched the description of Mr. Wolf or who had a name vaguely similar to his. I was relieved for a moment until I remembered the officially, the store was Del’s Computers. I looked up any reference beginning with ‘Del.’ That’s when I learned about the Oracle of Delphi.

The Oracle of Delphi was apparently under the auspices of the god Apollo. I looked up Apollo and found to my dismay that one of his primary symbols was the wolf. Mr. Wolf. With a sinking feeling, I realized that my presence in Ovid was no longer a secret. If the Oracle knew, then any of the gods could know. But was that information conveyed to them automatically, or was it available only upon request? I had no way of knowing. The fact that they had not already tracked me down led me to believe that the latter case was true. Mr. Wolf was so officious I suspected the Oracle enjoyed a considerable amount of autonomy. No matter what, though, I’d have to move quickly. Hopefully, I could meet with Andy and we could be on our way at once.

Albert had already left for work when Judy got me up. She fixed me a quick breakfast of cereal and juice and we were soon on our way to meet with Andy.

“Try not to be too surprised at her,” Judy cautioned as she drove. I had let her drive me to the school. It was only a couple of blocks to the edge of town, so there was no sense in driving those two blocks, leaving the car, and giving the gods clues as to which way we had run. I had left my rental car parked a couple of blocks from Judy’s house to try to keep her out of the fray.

“Why would I be surprised?” I asked her as I checked over my backpack. I had prepared everything I thought we would need to hike out of Ovid–water, food, a first aid kit. I had a sudden feeling I should have brought a gun. It wouldn’t have mattered though. I wasn’t any good with a gun. Besides, how much good could a gun do against gods?

“Just think about what I said when you see her,” was all she said in reply.

Judy ushered me to a conference room that was not on the main corridor. She had thought it would be more private. “I’ll go get her now,” she told me. Then, before she left, she turned back to face me. “Jeff, I won’t see you again before you go, I guess. Even if I did, three of us can’t talk about the nature of Ovid together, so I wouldn’t be able to say what I wanted to say. I just want you to know I appreciate everything you tried to do for me. I hope no matter what Carrie decides that you can get out of Ovid.”

“Is Ovid that terrible?” I asked wryly.

“Of course not. It’s not terrible at all once you get used to it,” she clarified. “I just meant I know Ovid isn’t right for everyone, and you want your old life back so badly I... Well, I just hope you get what you came for–one way or the other.”

“Thanks, Judy.”

She surprised me by giving me a big hug, and when she walked away, I saw the glint of a tear in her eye. “Good-bye, Dave,” I whispered, too softly for her to hear.

I waited impatiently for Carrie to show up, idly watching as students walked past the conference room window. They looked like students looked anywhere, except maybe for the fact that I saw no spiked hair and torn T-shirts. They were all good looking kids, reasonably well groomed and well dressed. More girls wore skirts than I suspected would be the case outside of Ovid but...

There–that little brunette. I noticed her because she was very cute, but there was something odd about her, I thought. Maybe it was a trick of the light reflected off the glass. I jumped up and looked out the door. No, I had been right the first time. She was transparent. For the first time, I realized what Andy was talking about in his message to me. She wasn’t ghostly; it was just that I could somehow make out what was on the other side of her. What had Mr. Wolf called them–shades?

My heart was beating quickly now. I had not been able to see the shades before. Why could I suddenly see them now? What was it that Mr. Wolf–or rather the Oracle through him–had told me about the shades? Oh right, I wasn’t able to recognize shades because I either couldn’t see something from a parallel dimension or I wasn’t scheduled for... termination. Oh shit!

Numbly, I made my way back to the conference room table. I sat down heavily in a chair. Termination. Death. I was due to die. But why? What had changed from earlier? I had to think it out. To make matters worse, what had Judy told Carrie? Oh yes–it was something about the Judge becoming interested in a person once they were supposed to die. Did that mean I was on the Judge’s radar screen now? I would have to move fast. Where was Carrie?

“Jeff? Is it really you?”

The voice was soft, sweet and very feminine. I turned my head toward the door. Although I knew in an instant that this was my forgotten friend, Andy, I gasped at the figure in front of me. I was gazing at an individual who was not yet a woman but was more than a child. Her angelic face was framed with soft curls of pure golden hair, cut to fall just over her creamy shoulders. She wore an orange tank top which did little to disguise her breasts. They were girlishly small but showed promise of flowering into voluptuous womanhood. Her waist was so slim I almost thought I could put my hands around it, and her hips had only begun to flare. I couldn’t see her legs, encased as they were in flared jeans, but I suspected there were slender and feminine like her arms. There was red polish on her short but femininely trimmed fingernails, and matching polish could be seen on the small toes that peeked out through the straps of her heeled sandals.

“Andy?” I gasped.

She absently brushed a wayward strand of hair back from her face. “I guess.”

“You guess?”

She rushed over to me and touched my arm. I felt an ashamed thrill from her touch. This was only a child but what a beautiful child.

“Oh Jeff, why did you have to be such a good friend?” she asked. She seemed on the verge of crying.

“Huh?”

“I... I gave up hope when I never received an answer to my message,” she explained. “I need to tell you the whole story.”

I shook my head. “There’s no time. We have to get out of here right away.”

“But... why?”

I quickly explained to her how I had never been able to detect the shades before that morning and what I suspected it meant.

“Oh Jeff,” she said, touching my arm again, “you’ve got to get out of here now.”

“Are you coming with me?” There was no time to be anything but blunt. I had come to rescue Dave and Andy. Dave had made his choice to remain Judy forever. If I was ever to have even a small chance of regaining all that I had lost, Andy–or Carrie–had to come with me now.

“How’s Susan?” she asked me suddenly.

I closed my eyes. “There is no Susan–at least not in my life. I’m single and always have been.”

“I’m so sorry, Jeff.” There was a note of pity in her voice.

“Are you coming with me?” I asked again, picking up the small backpack of essentials that I had brought along. To my relief, she nodded. “Then let’s go now.”

It was an effort for her to keep up. The heel on her sandals wasn’t large, but it was enough to slow her down. Add to that the fact that I doubt if she even topped five feet and her legs were much shorter than mine. We didn’t speak as we walked. I was nearly breathless from unaccustomed exercise and Carrie was out of breath just trying to keep up. But in a few minutes, we had reached the edge of town. Only a barbed wire fence segregating a pasture from the developed edge of town lay in our way.

I held the wire open for Carrie while she snaked in between the lines. She nearly stumbled, causing me to have to catch her before she fell. She weighed practically nothing I realized. “Thank you,” she said with a sweet, sad little smile.

I think it was at that moment for some reason that I realized I had done the wrong thing. “Carrie, stop.”

She stopped there at the edge of the pasture and turned toward me. I could see worry and even a little fear in her face. “What, Jeff?”

“You’re like Judy, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“You don’t want to leave Ovid, do you?” I asked, fearful of her answer.

“Jeff, let’s just get you out of here,” she said, dodging my question. “We can talk later.”

We trudged across the pasture in the bright morning sun. I asked her no more questions; I was afraid of her answers. I had the feeling I had made a terrible hash of things. But how was I to know? I had received a message that begged for my help. In that message, I had seen the chance to put my own life straight as well. But I hadn’t realized the awesome power Ovid held over its... what? Prisoners? Victims? Or were they something else?

It took nearly two hours to angle back across the fields to cross the road where I had left my car. We were both hot and tired, the hike more than either of us were used to.

“There it is,” I said, pointing to the clump of trees which hid the car. I practically ran for the hidden vehicle, and that mindless rush was very costly. Running past the bushes which completely hid the car, I heard a muffled scream from Carrie behind me. Before I could react, a large figure burst out of the bushes in front of me. I noticed first the gleaming pistol he held in his hand. Looking up into his face, I had a sick feeling. It was Mac.

Mac grinned maliciously at me. “Thought you’d be back this morning,” he said. “What did you bring with you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“Don’t play me for a fool,” he growled. “I know how these things work.” He inclined his head toward the hidden car. “That’s a getaway car. You and your little chickee here rob a bank or somethin’?”

“No, it’s nothing like that!” I protested.

“Hey Mac!” a voice behind me called. I turned my head to see someone who looked even bigger and meaner than Mac. “This here’s a kid.”

I nearly rushed the ape that held Carrie. I knew it would be a stupid move but one look at the fear in her eyes was almost enough to make me do it anyway. I forced myself not to move though. I had to look for an opportunity before I did anything.

“She’s kinda cute, don’t ya think?” the ape said, grinning to show a mouth full of blackened or discolored teeth.

“Yeah,” Mac agreed with an equally disgusting grin. We can take her with us an’ play with her as soon as our pal here gives us whatever he got in town.”

“I didn’t get anything in town,” I insisted. “I’m not a bank robber or anything. I just...” My voice trailed off. The real reason I had gone to Ovid would have been hard enough for an intelligent man to comprehend. Those two thugs probably couldn’t even conceive of something like Ovid.

Then I realized why I was suddenly able to see the shades in Ovid–I was about to die. It had depended upon my making the decision to leave town when I did. If I had decided to wait until later, say to leave under cover of darkness, Mac and his accomplice would have probably tired of waiting and contented themselves with stealing the car. But I had decided to head for the car during the time frame they would be there. Now, I was going to die for my decision. And to make it worse, Carrie was going to suffer, too.

My god, I thought, they’re going to rape her. She’s just a thirteen-year-old girl and they’re going to do terrible things to her. And it’s all my fault. I never should have come to Ovid. I never should have talked Carrie into leaving with me. I never...

“So you tryin’ to tell me you did all this and didn’t take nothin’ with you?” Mac sneered. “My mama didn’t raise no fools.”

“Hey Mac, he took somethin’. He took the kid here. Maybe he kidnapped her. Maybe she’s worth money.”

“Bring her over here,” Mac ordered. “Let’s hope you’re right, Jake. If you ain’t, I’m gonna be pissed.”

I hated to think what that might mean for both Carrie and me.

Mac inspected her as Jake held her tight. “You don’t look like nothin’ special. Your daddy rich?”

I don’t know what Carrie would have answered for herself. Before she could give a muffled reply, an unfamiliar voice called out, “Drop your gun and you–let the girl go.”

I swung around to see a slender man in a police uniform standing closer than I would have imagined he could be. He wore mirrored glasses to hide his eyes, but it was obvious that they were focused on Mac and Jake. There was a formidable weapon in his hand, and it was trained right at Mac.

Mac didn’t bother with a reply. He quickly fired his weapon at the officer, but the sound seemed to be coming from two directions. It was followed almost instantly by a loud smack as two pieces of metal nearly fused together and dropped midway between them.

“He hit your bullet!” Jake exclaimed. “That’s fuckin’ impossible.”

I didn’t have to see his nametag. I realized at once that I had just met Officer Mercer. I hoped for Mac’s sake that he dropped his weapon. I doubted if the swiftest of the gods would give him a second chance.

“Drop the gun,” Officer Mercer said again, but this time, there was a coldness in his voice which could not be misunderstood. Even a cretin like Mac knew his life was on the line, and like most men of his ilk, he was essentially a coward. Carefully, he laid the gun down on the ground.

Officer Mercer turned his attention to Jake, but the big man had already released Carrie. She ran to me and threw her arms around me, hugging me tightly as she could as she cried softly. I couldn’t remember Andy, of course, but I couldn’t imagine this would have been his reaction. I gently put my arm around what I knew to be a thirteen-year-old girl with no trace of Andy in her.

“I’m sorry, Carrie,” I said softly, feeling relief in the sudden tears in my own eyes.

We just stood there while Officer Mercer placed the two men in the caged back seat of his police cruiser. It was only a short distance from us, and how it had gotten there was beyond me. I had a sneaky hunch he hadn’t driven it there. Then he walked back over to us. “We need to go,” he told me. “Follow me into town in your car.”

I looked at him, surprised. “You trust me to follow you?”

There was something like a small smile on his lips. “Where else can you go?”

Where else indeed?

I did as I was told, carefully following Officer Mercer into town. Carrie sat silently beside me, her small body still shuddering with residual fear.

“Andy, I’m sorry,” I said, hoping my use of her masculine name would shake her out of her mood.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she replied, barely audible. “I’m the one who asked you to come here. It’s all my fault!” The last word was swallowed in a sudden cry and burst of tears.

What did Ovid do to its victims? I thought. It not only changed them physically but mentally as well. I had mentioned the Stockholm Syndrome to Judy, but what really happened was even more pervasive than that. This was not merely a matter of sympathizing with an abductor. Carrie had become sympathetic with her new life. She wasn’t just acting like a thirteen-year-old girl to fit in until a rescuer came–she was a thirteen-year-old girl.

“It’ll be okay,” I told her, patting her on the shoulder as I drove.

“No it won’t!” she cried. “Jeff, I don’t know what he’ll do to you, but you tried to mess with his plans. Let me out here and I’ll be okay. Just turn around and get away while you can.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, Carrie,” I said, using the name I now knew she preferred, “you and I both know there’s no getting away from Ovid. Besides, even if I got away, there’s nothing for me back in Dallas now.”

“I... I guess.”

We pulled into the parking lot, but before I could get out of the car, Carrie jumped across the seat and planted a kiss on my rough cheek with her soft lips. “Good luck, Jeff.”

There were no preambles as there had been with Andy, Dave and Connie. We were all led directly to the courtroom. At least Carrie and I were walking under our own direction. Mac and Jake seemed to stumble along as if they were puppets on strings. They would look about and try to speak, but something was holding them back.

I felt while remembering Andy’s message that I had already been in the courtroom. As expected, an attractive blonde sat by herself in the gallery, watching as we paraded to the bench. Ahead and on the left, an attractive brunette in a professionally cut gray suit stood waiting for us. I wondered if she was a goddess as I had suspected. I supposed I would never know now. My fate was surely not to be a pleasant one.

“Both of you, sit here,” Officer Mercer ordered ushering Carrie and I to seats next to the attorney who could only be Susan Jager.

I quietly introduced myself to Susan, touching her hand for the first time. She seemed warm and human and there was a friendly smile on her face. Perhaps I had been wrong about her. I looked around and saw that Mac and Jake were now ramrod stiff before the empty bench. It wasn’t that they had naturally adopted a military bearing; they were being forced to stand rigidly at attention. At least they had enough intelligence to look frightened.

“We haven’t much time,” Susan told us. “Carrie, when Officer Mercer calls the court in session, I want you to go back and sit next to Cindy.” She motioned with her head at the blonde in the gallery.

“But I want to stay with Jeff!” she cried plaintively.

“I’m sorry,” Susan replied with a shake of her head. “That just won’t be possible. If you want Jeff to have any chance at all, you’ll do what I say.”

“But what’s going to happen to him?”

“I don’t know,” Susan admitted.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked. I believed her. I knew my life was about to be changed in some way that would have seemed impossible to me once. I was surprisingly calm, though. I think it was because I had nothing worth going back to in the new reality that now existed. Whatever happened to me before the Judge would at least bring closure.

“Just tell the truth,” Susan counselled me. “It’s the only thing you can do.”

“All rise!”

With one last look of concern, Carrie squeezed my arm for luck and retreated to a seat next to the blonde woman Susan had called Cindy.

“The Municipal Court of the City of Ovid, Oklahoma, is now in session, the Honorable Judge presiding.”

From Carrie’s email message, I knew what to expect. The Judge was precisely as she had described him, but I wondered how many others standing before him realized they were in the presence of a god. Not many, I supposed, but anyone would be able to see that this... being standing before them was more than a small-town municipal judge.

“Be seated,” the Judge intoned. We all sat, except of course for Mac and Jake.

“And what is our first case today, Officer Mercer?” the Judge asked.

“The City of Ovid versus Arnold Mackenzie and Jacob Walters. Charges include assault with a deadly weapon, attempted robbery, attempted kidnapping, resisting arrest, as well as a number of crimes previously committed in other jurisdictions.”

The Judge waved his hand at the pair and Mac came out of the spell talking.

“You can’t do nothin’ to us for stuff in other jurisdictions!” he complained. “I know the law.”

“I’m sure you do, Mr. Mackenzie,” the Judge said smoothly. “After all, you have had plenty of occasions to be acquainted with the law, haven’t you?”

Mac seemed stunned by the Judge’s question, so the Judge continued, “Yes, you’ve been under suspicion of any number of crimes since your latest release from prison three years ago. And the irony is that the authorities only knew a fraction of what you had done. But you’ve always been a wily one, haven’t you? You usually work alone so that there’s no one else to point the finger at you. And on the rare occasions that you do have an accomplice, it’s usually someone you can dispose of. That way there’s no one to split the take with or tell of your involvement. Were you aware of that, Mr. Walters?”

Jake frowned suspiciously at Mac, his fear temporarily abated. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Not that you’re much better, Mr. Walters,” the Judge added. “I see you had an attorney who managed to convince the court you were only guilty of manslaughter when you were sentenced to ten years in prison. You were a model prisoner, though. You got out in just seven years It’s a good thing they didn’t have all the facts, eh? Such as what you did to that young teenage girl in Texas when you were only twenty.”

I heard Carrie cry out and watched as Jake’s face became pale. “No one knew about that!” he blurted out before he could stop himself.

“Well,” the Judge sighed, “we could discuss the criminal careers of each of you all day I suppose, but to what end? Let it suffice to say that neither of you will be missed.” He looked over at Susan. “Am I to assumed, Ms. Jager, that you are still unwilling to act as counsel for these two... men?”

Susan rose to her feet. “That is correct, Your Honor.”

The Judge turned back to the two men before him. “Do either of you pitiful specimens have anything to say for yourselves before judgement is passed?”

Mac began to bluster, “Look, Your Honor, what kind of a trial is this? We ain’t been properly charged, we ain’t got a lawyer, and...”

“You’ll find this a most unusual courtroom,” the Judge said in a tone that brooked no interruption. “You are guilty, not because of what happens in this room today, but because of what you know–and what I know–you really are. As for an attorney, Ms. Jager is always happy to defend those whose cases merit an advocate. Yours does not. The list of your crimes is long and serious. But that list will end here!”

I could actually feel the air around me stirring as the Judge’s voice suddenly shifted into a chant which did most certainly sound like some form of Latin. The words had obvious power, for Mac and Jake began to cringe from their weight. Then I realized they weren’t just cringing–they were shrinking!

Their old, faded clothing became a gray-brown covering which spread to their exposed skin as well. Smaller and smaller they became until each was a quivering mass of the gray-brown fur cowering below the bench. Strange inhuman squeals escaped reshaped mouths and hairless tails emerged from their bodies, lashing against the polished wood floor.

The Judge looked down upon his victims. They could move about but couldn’t run away. “Now you have a form which will fit your true natures. You will be cunning but cowardly, and you will spend the rest of your lives doing what you do best–hiding in the shadows. You will eat, sleep, and breed as what you have become, but forever you will remember who you were and what you have lost.”

The Judge waved his hand and the two newly-formed rats disappeared in a bright flash of light.

“I wonder what the rats who mate with them will think of them,” I whispered to Susan.

“It won’t be a problem,” she whispered back. “One of them is now a female rat.”

“Which one?”

“Does it matter?”

I supposed that it didn’t.

“Officer Mercer,” the Judge ordered, “you may now allow spectators in the gallery.”

I turned as the doors to the courtroom opened without anyone touching them. To my surprise, dozens of people began to file in. It was at that moment that I realized I had only witnessed the preliminary act. I was about to become the main event. The people entering the room were both real and shade, but all seemed to glance in my direction long enough to show their disgust of me.

“Jeff, we need to talk,” Susan said with a hand on the back of mine.

“They... they think I’m a... a...”

“They think you’re a kidnapper,” she finished for me. “They think you took Carrie against her will. They’ve had plenty of time to get worked up this morning ever since Carrie was reported missing.”

“Oh my God!”

“They think at best you would hold her for ransom,” she continued, “and at worst... well, you can imagine what they think.”

“But I’m not a child molester!” I protested. “Andy was my friend–even if I couldn’t remember him. I only wanted to help him get back his own life–and to get my own life back as well.”

Susan looked me straight in the face. “Jeff, considering the fact that you apparently knew what you’d be facing in Ovid, I don’t know whether to call you the bravest man I’ve ever known or the stupidest. Many of us stumble on Ovid. Sometimes we’re guided here by the Judge and his clan. Sometimes, we just wander into it. But you are the first person I have ever known who dared to come here knowing what he was facing. You do know who the Judge is, don’t you?”

“I know,” I said dismally, trying to shut out the angry muttering going on just behind me.

“So why did you do it? I have to know if I’m going to help you,” she pressed.

“The Judge took everything from me when he changed Andy.” I saw the look in her eyes. “No, it’s nothing like that. But we were very good friends. We grew up almost like brothers. Without Andy to help shape my personality, I’m afraid I botched my life. I lost my wife and a promising future. When I got his plea for help, I of course didn’t really remember he existed, but I had to help him. I just felt there was something more to my life than I had been left with when Andy was... removed.”

“And you really thought you could win?”

“No,” I admitted, shaking my head. “I hoped I could win, but I always knew the odds were against me. But I knew I had to try. If I didn’t, not only would my life be less than it should have been, but I would know that to be the case. Oh what’s the use? You can’t possibly understand what I’m saying.”

“You’d be surprised how well I understand you,” Susan said, but didn’t elaborate. “Now let’s see what we can do to salvage something for you. I have to tell you, the Judge was not happy to find out about your little plan.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t,” I agreed. “I...”

“Court is still in session, Mr. Bradshaw!” the stern voice of the Judge said.

So it was my turn. “Sorry, Your Honor,” I replied, trying to sound as respectful as I could.

“Mr. Bradshaw, approach the bench.”

I rose reluctantly. Apparently, my fate was to be a public spectacle. Well, it would all be over in a few minutes. I might as well wear my humanity with distinction for the small time I would have it, I thought. I wondered just what rats ate anyway. It wasn’t that I thought I’d be a rat–rather I thought I might end up whatever they ate.

“Mr. Bradshaw, please face the gallery.”

I was a little taken aback by his order, but anything to avoid his piercing eyes. I turned and faced a mob. There were only two faces in the entire crowd who were not favoring me with a venomous smile. The ever-present Cindy appeared a little sympathetic to my plight–much to my surprise. I had thought her to be one of the Judge’s cohorts, perhaps even a goddess. And the other, of course, was Carrie. She sat with her hands in her lap and tears in her eyes as she watched me in my shame. Oh Carrie, I thought, why did it have to end like this?

But as I watched the audience, they seemed to slow in their movements, at last coming to a complete halt. There was no mumbling or shuffling of feet. Their eyes continued to stare at me with vehemence, but they didn’t move at all. Then, I saw faint movement. It was Cindy who was gently patting Carries hand. I heard Carrie sniff. I looked at Susan. She, too, was still mobile as was Officer Mercer–naturally.

“Face me again, Mr. Bradshaw.”

I turned slowly, looking as bravely as I could into those cold blue eyes.

“I wanted you to see the trouble you nearly caused,” he told me, his voice measured anger. “You and your little playmate nearly disrupted a plan that has been carefully crafted for many years. Before I pass judgement on you, I want to know just how you came up with this scheme of yours.”

“Your... Your Honor?”

I turned my head and saw Carrie on her feet.

“Ms. Summers, you are out of order.”

“I... I know, Your Honor,” she replied, her voice betraying her nervousness. “But I’m the one you should be... I mean, I’m the one who deserves...”

“Punishment?” the Judge finished for her.

Carrie turned pale. “Uh... yeah... I guess.”

I was the answer of a frightened young girl.

I wanted to speak up for her–to protect her from the Judge’s wrath, but before I could speak, Susan interjected, “Your Honor, perhaps we should hear from Ms. Summers first. It might put things in perspective.”

I expected the Judge to respond angrily, but instead he said, “Perhaps that might be best. Ms. Summers, you may approach the bench.”

Hesitantly, Carrie made her way past the frozen spectators until she stood beside me. “Your Honor,” she began, “I’m the one who asked Jeff to come here. I’m the one who suggested a plan for getting away. This is all my fault. I’m... I...” She broke down in tears, letting up a little when I gently touched her arm.

“Ms. Summers.”

We both looked up at the sound of the Judge’s voice. He was holding a computer diskette in his hand. “I’m aware of your part in this,” he said, “although I wasn’t until this morning. The Oracle was good enough to finally give me a copy of your email. I must give you points for creativity I suppose.”

“And, Your Honor,” Susan added, “I should point out that Carrie hadn’t been in Ovid very long when she wrote that email.”

The Judge looked at Susan for a moment. It was easy to tell she had faced him many times, for there was an unspoken communication which seemed to go on between them. The fact that Susan even knew about the email meant she and the Judge had talked before the trial. “I assume you would like Carrie to testify as to what happened after she wrote this message.”

Susan just smiled.

“Very well,” the Judge sighed. “Ms. Patton, if you would come forward.” The blonde made her way to stand before the bench. “Ms. Patton will assist us in Ms. Summers’ testimony,” the Judge explained to us. Then, to Ms. Patton, he added, “Start immediately after the email message was written.”

Ms. Patton closed her eyes and seemed to be going into some sort of a trance. Before I knew it, I was feeling very strange. Was this the beginning of my transformation? No, the Judge seemed to be in a trance as well. I felt almost as if I was falling as the courtroom faded away. Suddenly, out of the darkness, there was a room–a girl’s room...

My message written, there was nothing I could do until morning. ‘Andy, my boy,’ I thought to myself, ‘you’re half way there.’ Now all I had to do was figure out a way to get the message out on the Vulman network. As I sat there in my room studying, I found it hard to concentrate. I kept thinking, ‘what if the school’s system won’t connect either?’ There had to be another way.

I sneaked into my parent’s room and snagged the phone book. Maybe I could find something in the Yellow Pages. Who else besides the school might have a system I could use. The city? Fat chance. The last thing I wanted to do was try to send the message from the Judge’s backyard. There was a college in town, I noticed. Maybe. But how would I get there? I couldn’t drive. Besides, I looked a little young to be a coed. Businesses were my best shot, but there seemed to be no other big businesses besides Vulman.

Computer stores! Ovid was a little small for a CompUSA, but perhaps there was a local store I could find. There it was–Del’s Computers. The words were in bold print. Then under them I saw: Authorized Radio Shack Dealer. Jeez–Radio Shack. Well, any port in a storm. I wrote down the address of the Radio Shack just in case. With any luck though, I’d be able to use the school’s system.

My luck didn’t hold though. The next morning before classes found me in Judy’s office. I paced nervously as she tried to upload my message. Finally, she shook her head. “I can’t get it to work.”

“Shit!”

“Carrie!” Judy admonished me playfully. “Such language from a thirteen-year-old girl!”

“Yeah, right,” I sneered. “You ought to hear the language in the girl’s restroom.”

“I know,” she laughed. “It’s the same way in the staff restroom.” She pushed back from her computer. “Any other ideas?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” I replied, handing her the note with the Radio Shack dealer’s address.

“Radio Shack?”

I shrugged. “It’s our best bet. You can drive me down there at lunch.”

“What? I can’t do that,” she protested. “What if somebody sees us?”

“Oh come on, Judy.” I tried to make her name almost an insult. “Didn’t you ever get one of the staffers to drive you someplace when you were in school?”

“Are you kidding?” she said. “I went to middle school in the heart of Cleveland. It was more like a prison than a school. One of the staffers would have been afraid to take a student someplace. The staffer might get assaulted–by the student.”

“Think of an excuse,” I told her as I left for classes, “or spend the rest of your life as a good little wife.”

I spent the morning in classes not knowing if she’d help me or not. I had been pretty rough on her. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure if Dave still wanted to get out or not. He was becoming more Judy every time I saw him–her. At least I didn’t have much time to think about it. We had a quiz in history and read a really cool story in English. I had to admit classes were actually fun. As Andy, I had been mostly a science and math type. I still enjoyed those subjects, but I found now that things like history and English and the other traditional social studies were more interesting than I remembered them.

By the time lunch break rolled around, I had just about given up on Judy, but to my surprise, she was waiting for me outside the classroom. “Carrie, I hate to delay your lunch, but can I see you for a few minutes?”

That had been for the benefit of the girls who were going to lunch with me. “You guys go on,” I told them. “Don’t wait for me.” I didn’t have to ask them twice.

“This is crazy,” Judy said as she drove us the short distance to downtown Ovid.

“You sound like you don’t want to get out of Ovid,” I accused her, half joking.

Her face flushed. “That’s silly. Of course I want out of Ovid.”

Was it my imagination, or was there a lack of conviction in her voice? Surely Judy would want to find a way back to her own life. It wasn’t as if there was someone waiting for her back in Dallas, but the idea of having to make love as a woman... It was enough to make me feel lucky. Sure, I was a thirteen-year-old girl, but it would be a long time before I had to worry about the things Judy was experiencing. I was still at the stage where I’d have to worry about pimples and my afternoon math quiz.

“I just can’t see what a Radio Shack can do for us,” she continued.

“They’ll have newer, faster computers,” I told her. “And that probably means a faster modem as well. What I need to do would take an hour on a slower computer. And I’d probably have a disconnect before I could finish. Vulman’s system won’t let me maintain the link very long.”

“Yeah, I guess I knew that,” Judy admitted. “It’s funny–computers were my life until this happened. I guess I’ve had other things to think about the last couple of days.”

I could certainly agree with that.

We found a parking spot right in front of the store. My heart fell when I saw it. I don’t know what I had been expecting. I guess I thought it would be like one of those mall stores with all the electronic toys in the window. Instead, it looked like one of those shoestring operations that might crop up in a seedy part of a city. There were a couple of systems poorly displayed in the window and a hand painted sign propped up against the glass that said ‘Del’s Computers.’ A smaller plastic sign placed in the window as an apparent afterthought showed the store to be a Radio Shack Authorized Dealer. I braced myself. If this didn’t work, I wasn’t sure what to try next. I was running out of options.

There was even a little bell over the door when we entered. No one seemed to be around. I was sure a salesclerk would come bustling out of the back room any minute. Until he did, I used the time to look over the systems. There was one in the back of the sales room that wasn’t familiar but might be what I needed. “Keep the clerk busy up front,” I whispered to Judy.

“May I help you?”

I jumped at the words. I had been watching the back of the store. Wherever the clerk had come from, it had not been from the back of the store. As I turned, I saw a man–fairly short although still a lot taller than I. He wore a neat blue–almost black–pinstriped suit and a neatly tied bow tie. I know bow ties can be trendy, but this one wasn’t. It was red with small white polka dots and looked as if it had been designed during the Nixon Administration. In fact, he looked like something that had dropped in from the past, with his hair parted high and his thin mustache.

Okay, I may be a blonde now, but that doesn’t mean I’m not bright. I knew there was no way this guy could sneak up on us like that. But somehow, he didn’t impress me as someone–or something–in the same league with the Judge. I had started to form the opinion that the Judge was more than just a human with magic powers. This fellow seemed for all his tricks to be a little more human.

“I’m here to see about a new computer,” Judy said as businesslike as she could. Then she added, “Mr...?”

“Wolf,” he said with a faint smile and a slight incline of the head. “Is this a computer for you?” He cast a slight glance in my direction. I gave him my best innocent little girl smile.

“Yes... yes it is,” Judy confirmed. She pointed at one in the window. “That one, perhaps.”

She positioned herself beautifully, making certain that Mr. Wolf had to look away from me. I took my cue and slipped behind the desk at the back of the sales room, making me partially hidden by the computer monitor.

I looked at the computer. It was a little unfamiliar with some additional keys on the keyboard whose functions were obscure. The extra keys were marked with what appeared to be Greek letters. Presumably, the letters formed Greek words, but fortunately the standard QWERTY keys and normal function keys were there as well. There was no brand name visible anywhere on the computer.

There was nothing odd about the display though. A standard Windows 98 display was there, and in moments, I had accessed the modem and was connecting with Vulman’s system. I slipped the diskette into the drive, holding my breath as it clicked in place and began to whir. Fortunately, Mr. Wolf was well into his sales pitch. Judy was doing a great job asking elementary questions and allowing Mr. Wolf to show off his knowledge.

I had a limited amount of time, so I wasn’t able to search the entire Vulman site once I got in. I picked Holly Cache’s system to place the message. The next time Holly contacted our tech staff, she’d inadvertently send the message. Since she was going to be the system administrator, it shouldn’t be too long before she emailed our techs, I thought. Out here in a small Oklahoma town, how computer savvy could she be? I estimated Jeff would have the message in a couple of days. A couple of keystrokes and the message was sent.

I looked the screen. It confirmed my message had been sent. I quickly logged out, but before I could get up, a strange message appeared on the screen:

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW?

I shrugged. It must be some local demo program. I ignored the message, removed the diskette and slipped in back into a rear pocket of my shorts.

“Mission accomplished,” I told Judy when she had finally told Mr. Wolf she would have to think about the computer. I explained exactly what I had done.

“So now we wait?” she asked.

“Now we wait,” I agreed.

Waiting proved to be more of an effort than I thought it would. I had gone back to classes that day with a spring in my step. It was the same feeling I got as a kid when I would send away for some junky toy by mail. The very act of sending away for it was almost like receiving it. Of course, I forgot the other side of those little activities–the painful wait for each day’s mail to see if my trinket had arrived. But that would come later. Now, my days in Ovid were numbered–even if I wasn’t sure what the number was.

I even decided as the day went on that it might be fun to get into the role I had been given–to explore what it really meant to be a young teenage girl. After all, how many guys ever get the opportunity to see how the other half lives? Then, when Jeff found a way to rescue Judy and me–and maybe even Connie–I’d be better equipped to handle women once I was back in my own body. Well, one woman anyhow.

It’s funny how little I had thought of Peggy since my transformation. I could see her in my mind’s eye and remember the wonderful times we had together, but now when I thought of her, it was like envisioning one of my new mother’s friends. That troubled me, but I suppose it was part of the magic. It was also due to the fact that I was constantly surrounded by thirteen-year-olds and my interaction with them was bound to affect my thinking.

Of course, remembering my own days as a thirteen-year-old boy, I had to admit that girls that age were a bit more mature. The girls who made up my peer group were childish in some ways, mooning over boys and stuck as emotional roller coasters, but on the whole, they were more mature than the boys. While the girls seemed to be putting one foot boldly into adulthood, discussing serious matters of life and family while attempting to acquire a more adult look in their clothing and makeup, the boys seemed more content to approach adulthood more slowly. They still dressed and acted like boys two and three years younger. They performed and capered in front of the girls, trying hard to be noticed. Unfortunately, as often as not, that notice was not positive.

“Boys!” Wendy muttered with mock disgust as we walked to catch the bus home. Ash McLeod had just nearly run into her as he caught a football thrown by a friend. Having caught a few balls on my own, I could tell that he had positioned his catch right in front of us. It was no secret that Ash had a thing for Wendy.

“They’re just having fun,” I reminded her with a laugh.

“I guess,” she allowed with a little smile. “And Ash is kind of cute–in an immature sort of way, I mean.”

I held back my laugh this time. It wasn’t that I wanted to embarrass Wendy who had added the “immature” comment as an afterthought. It was that when I thought about it–yes, Ash was kind of cute. So when did I start noticing that boys were cute? It was an unsettling thought. It almost made me back away from my resolution to act the part until my rescue.

“Hi, Mom. I’m home.” The greatest thing about my new life was my parents, I thought as I head Mom call back to me from the kitchen. Carrie Summers lived a family sit-com sort of life, with a nice house and loving parents. Mom’s job seemed to allow her reasonably flexible hours. I guess small town hospitals weren’t quite the administrative nightmares as ones in cities. And apparently Dad’s business was a little slow in the summers, since farmers usually bought their new equipment after their crops had been sold and bank loans had been repaid. It meant we had a lot of time together as a family.

At first, that had worried me. I had thoughts of adults peering over my shoulder. The memories of my own misfit parents haunted me. They seemed to only find time to criticize me or worry that I was doing something I shouldn’t be doing. Not my new parents, though. Sure, they questioned, but the questions were more positive. They’d ask the “how was your day” type questions, and I found I was happy to discuss my day with them.

While at home, my decision to enjoy the ride until my rescuer came was a good one. I enjoyed helping Mom with dinner and eating together as a family–something I had seldom done with my real parents. I found I was a good student, and my time spent studying in the evening had a certain comfortable feeling. Sure, I had taken all the subjects before, but it was fun to combine my adult knowledge with what I was supposed to be learning. It allowed me to answer questions insightfully in class and impress my teachers.

Of course, all of that would have given me a questionable reputation as a boy among my peers. In some ways, it was harder to act smart as a boy. Sure, there were some who managed to be popular and smart at the same time, but some boys had never learned how to balance the two and were dismissed as class nerds. Sure, there were some girl nerds, but their nerdy reputation came more from their mode of dress or (yuck) personal habits, such as not shaving their legs or leaving their hair stringy and unwashed or–the worst of all–not using deodorant. But smart girls could be popular, too–like me.

Okay, so I was popular. It didn’t hurt that I was attractive. Yes, in a couple more days I actually came to grips with the fact that I was attractive. Sure, I was a little underdeveloped, but I showed promise. It didn’t hurt that my Mom was cool and even helped me to dress trendy and all that. And I ran with a popular crowd. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a female equivalent of a Jeff in the group. Wendy came closest, but it wasn’t a friendship like Jeff and I had enjoyed. Maybe if I had really been a girl all my life I wouldn’t have been so particular, but I found myself missing a really good friend–someone I could really talk to.

Maybe, looking back on it, it was for the best though. Having friends like Wendy showed me what thirteen-year-old girls were all about. I learned what (and who) they did and didn’t like, what they wanted, and why they wanted it. I saw girls unwittingly developing habits that would stay with them the rest of their lives. I felt I could almost predict who would be successful in life and who wouldn’t, but I suppose everybody feels like that at times.

I didn’t see much of Judy over the next few days. Even when I did, it was usually just to ask each other if we had heard anything from Jeff. As the days went by, a subtle thing happened to Judy, though. At first, she would show mild disappointment when I told her I had heard nothing from Jeff, but as the days went by, her reaction seemed to change–almost to one of relief.

“Judy, what’s going on?”

I asked her this after about a week had gone by. We were alone in her office just before afternoon classes and I had just told her that I had heard nothing from Jeff.

“Why, nothing’s wrong,” she said far too innocently to be believed.

“Come on,” I coaxed. “You’ve been acting differently the last couple of days. What’s the problem?”

She sighed, “I guess there’s no fooling you, is there, Carrie? You’ve known me too long.” She motioned to herself. “Look at me, Carrie. What do you see?”

“Well,” I said cautiously, not quite sure where she was going, “I see an... attractive young woman.”

“An attractive young married woman,” she amended.

“Is this something to do with your husband? What’s his name–Albert?”

“Yes, it does have to do with Albert,” she admitted. She was quiet for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “Do you remember how I told you I dreaded having to have... have sex with him?”

I nodded. Of course I remembered. When she had told me about that I realized I didn’t have it so bad after all.

“Well,” she continued, “at first, it was awful. Oh, I don’t mean that it hurt or anything. It was just that I was a man in my mind. Spreading my legs and letting him enter me was enough to blow my mind. Even though it felt good–very, very good in fact–I felt as if I was doing something perverted. But Albert is... gentle with me. He is solicitous of my moods. He knew something was bothering me.”

“You didn’t tell him the truth, did you?” I gasped.

“Oh of course not. It wouldn’t have done any good if I had. Albert just seemed to accept my discomfort as something all newly married couples go through. So he started letting me control the pace of the action.”

“You?”

She nodded. “Yeah, me. Carrie, you have no idea what that can be like.” She had leaned forward and was holding my hands. Thank God I was sitting down. I was stunned by the look of excitement in her eyes.

“You just have no idea the power a woman has in making love,” she went on, oblivious to the look of horror that had to be on my face. “It’s incredible! When you control your lover’s touch and his timing, you can be over the brink before he even gets started. By the time he enters me, I’m already on the Moon.” She looked suddenly stricken, her face red. “Oh! I shouldn’t be telling you this. You’re a little young.”

“Judy, I’m two years older than you are!” I practically yelled in exasperation.

“Well, before, yes,” she admitted. Her tone was soothing–the way my new mother would get when I got upset about something. “But now, Carrie, you have to admit, you’re only thirteen.”

“Not in my mind!” I protested.

She looked at me suspiciously. “Not in your memories, perhaps. I’ve been watching you, Carrie. If I didn’t know who you used to be, I’d think you were just what you appeared to be now.”

I suppose in a way, I should have felt complemented. Wasn’t this what I had been aiming for–to fit in? I had known from my first hours of transformation that I would have to act the part of a thirteen-year-old girl. But had I been acting it a little too well? Judy had known me as Andy and yet she now saw me as a young girl. Had I really become what I appeared to be?

It was the last serious conversation I had with Judy. The class bell rang and I mumbled something about having to get to math class. After that, we just seemed to have nothing in common. She no longer pulled me aside to ask if I had heard anything from Jeff and I had no reason to talk to her. Oh, we would see each other in the halls every now and then, and she would primly say, “Good morning, Carrie.” I would reply with a girlish smile, “Good morning, Mrs. Carlson.” And that would be it.

It depressed me at first. Connie had been lost from the moment of transformation. Now Dave was gone as well, replaced by a Judy who was content to be a woman. It made me feel a little sick to know my friends were gone for all practical purposes. Well, I suppose that wasn’t really what made me feel sick.

“Oh shit!” I yelped when I woke up the next morning in a sticky pool of something. Certain that I must be dying, I touched the liquid along my inner thigh and withdrew a hand smeared with blood. “Mother!”

I would just as soon forget that morning. It had been a Friday and I stayed home from school with my first case of the cramps. Mother gently helped me get cleaned up, talking in soothing tones to me about what it meant to be a woman now. She didn’t have to tell me. I knew what would happen. My body would continue to develop even more rapidly now, my hips widening and my breasts expanding to probably match my mother’s ample size. I could get pregnant now. Oh joy.

She helped me insert my very first Tampon, encouraging me like a flight instructor with a student making his first landing. It felt so invasive to shove the device into my body. I could feel it in there with my sensitive new vaginal muscles. It didn’t hurt–thank God! But it didn’t feel that great either. It made me feel like I should walk bow legged. I supposed I would get used to them though. If Jeff didn’t come soon, I’d be wearing them every month for the next few decades.

I was beginning to think Jeff wouldn’t come. Maybe the message was intercepted. Maybe the security in Ovid was better than I thought and they had found the message. Or maybe it had reached Jeff and he had dismissed it as some sort of childish prank. After all, he didn’t know a Dave or Connie or Andy. He probably took the email home to Susan and the two of them had a big chuckle over the phony message.

Having my first period was a grim reminder of how overwhelming my change had been. Before it happened, I could tell myself I wasn’t really a girl–I had just been transformed to look like one. Having my first period though was a slap in the face. I was a girl–facing womanhood. The mild attraction to boys I had been attempted to suppress would become greater. My body would fill out. It was all so natural, even if it had been devised by ancient gods.

And yes, I knew the ancient Roman gods had created Ovid. It wasn’t all that hard to figure out. Even though we were prohibited from speaking of it directly, there were clues. Judy had managed to be prompted by her teacher friend, and before she had opted to accept her new life, she had made certain that she had advised me to read up on the gods. Of course, I had no way of telling how many there were in Ovid, but I was sure there were more than just the ones everyone met in coming before the Judge.

So by the decree of an ancient god and confirmed by a physical passage more ancient than he, I was a girl. And I mean I was really a girl–in mind as well as body. I had surrendered to natural and supernatural forces beyond my ability to resist. Andy was dead. Long live Carrie.

I must admit, it made my life easier once I had accepted my fate. The next day had found me at March’s Department Store with Wendy and a couple of other girls. Since I had been out of school on Friday, they suspected the reason and had called me Friday evening. They were taking me shopping in celebration of my new womanhood.

Women shopping really does seem like such an unfortunate stereotype, but I must defend my new sex on this point. The male body seems more suited for standardized clothing. Check the sleeve or pants leg length, the waist, and if buying a dress shirt, the neck and a man is all set. Oh sure, there’s suit coat sizing across the chest, but how often do men buy new suits? But a woman has too many variables to make off the rack clothing a matter of size alone. Then going beyond size, there’s color. Women’s clothing is available in so many hues I’m amazed that we can get dressed in the morning without picking something that clashes with something else. And then there’s shoes and accessories. So okay–we shop.

Wendy and the girls had a mission in life. I was the last of our little group to achieve physical womanhood–as they defined it. Therefore, they were going to help me pick a more womanly look now that I was no longer a little girl. At least that’s the way they saw it. Mother had laughingly gone along with the plan, even calling Vera March to verify that I could charge to her account–with a limit, of course. But the limit was sufficient for me to ‘fill in’ my summer wardrobe.

Wendy’s older sister agreed to drive us downtown and pick us up later. She was sixteen and didn’t like being seen with a group of thirteen-year-old girls, but according to Wendy, their mother had made her chauffeur us in return for having car privileges for the day.

I had forgotten until my transformation how constrained life was for a teen. Although my real parents had been the opposite, not caring where I was as long as I wasn’t bothering them, I remembered friends like Jeff grumbling about his parents wanting to know where he was all the time. There was enough adult left in me that I chafed at parental control a little bit. I was ambivalent, though. Where I resented having to tell my new mother that I would be shopping in the morning and going to a movie in the afternoon with my friends, part of me was pleased that she cared enough to ask. If it turned out that I was stuck here for life, I at least still had enough maturity left over from my previous life to establish a good dialogue with my parents.

I knew of course where March’s Department Store was, so I wasn’t surprised by its size. Only three stories tall and covering only a quarter of the block, I had thought of it as a poor man’s Macy’s when I first saw it before my transformation. I hadn’t been in it though, but I really didn’t expect much. I was pleasantly surprised when I entered the store with my friends. The store was bright and cheery with the merchandise well displayed. I had expected racks of out-of-date merchandise poorly displayed. Instead, the clothing on the mannequins would have not been out of place in one of the teen fashion magazines that I had glanced through with some of the other girls.

We were greeted in the Women’s Department by a person who was easily the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. Her hair was the color of unblemished gold and styled in a classic upsweep. She wore a well-tailored beige suit that showed every luscious curve of her body, neither understating nor overstating them, rather allowing them to speak for themselves. Her nametag identified her as Vera March, but I knew in an instant that it was not the name she had been born with. Nor had she been transformed as I had been. It didn’t take much talent to figure out I was in the presence of a goddess. The name Venus came to mind.

“How nice to see you girls,” she said with a smile. Her voice was melodious. Had I still been a man, I would have gladly followed any command that voice might give me. “Carrie, your mother called. I’ve told Donna what the limit is. She’ll help you.”

I turned my attention to the woman next to Vera March. I suppose she had been there all along, but I hadn’t noticed her when in the presence of Mrs. March’s beauty. It was an oversight for sure, because Donna Gorman was very lovely as well in a more understated way. She wore a peach-colored suit which looked wonderful on her slim body. She wore her hair long, gathered in a loose ponytail which streamed down her back. Whoever Mr. Gorman was, he was a lucky man.

“Hi, girls,” she greeted us. The girls all responded as if they’d known Donna for some time. I found out later that one of our number–Terri–had an older sister who had gone to high school with Donna, although she had apparently been something of a wallflower in her high school days. She sure didn’t look like a wallflower now, though. Of course, I found out why when she was helping me later.

“This would really look great on you,” she told me when we were alone, showing me a very skimpy skirt.

“Uh... I don’t think so,” I told her. I wore shorts or pants as often as I could and tried to avoid skirts as much as possible. Wendy had told me I should wear skirts more since I had great legs, and that just made me all the more determined to avoid them.

“At least try it on,” she insisted, looking around to make sure no one else was listening. “You might as well get used to wearing them. They’re really pretty comfortable once you get used to figuring out how to stay modest in them. I know how hard that can be.”

I looked at her dumfounded. “You know... about me?”

She nodded. “Vera March told me. She often has me wait on some of the new girls. She thinks talking to me is good for them.”

“Because you used to be a man?” I asked, pretty sure of the answer.

“That’s right,” she confirmed. “You seem a little surprised. Surely you’ve met others like us.”

“Oh yes,” I agreed, thinking of Judy and how we had drifted apart. “But there’s nobody close to me who’s been changed.”

“I know how tough that can be. But you won’t notice it after a while. Now here’s a nice top that will go with that skirt.”

I looked at the short navy blue skirt and the white knit sleeveless top she had picked to go with it. It did look nice. I didn’t have to have very much imagination to imagine how it would look on my body, but...

“Isn’t it a little... revealing?” I asked.

“The skirt or the top?”

“Both,” I replied. “The top seems to be cut a little low. I mean, I don’t have much... on top.”

She smiled a friendly smile. “Don’t worry about that. You’ll probably develop quite a bit over the summer. Go ahead–try it on.”

Well, it wasn’t as if it was the first short skirt I had worn. And I had to admit, once I got it on I looked good in it. It showed off my legs and was snug enough that my developing figure looked very promising. Against the voice of reason crying out from deep within me, I bought it.

All-in-all, the four of us made Donna’s day. I hope for her sake that she was on commission. In fact, we bought so much that she agreed to hold it for us while we ate lunch and went to the movies. I felt a little uncomfortable at the ease with which I had gotten into the spirit of shopping. It actually gave me a perverse sense of accomplishment to match outfits and find the right accessories for them.

Donna was certainly a big help, too. As a young married woman, I knew we’d find little in common besides our transformation. But it was good to know there were more former men inhabiting girls’ bodies besides Judy and me. I think in retrospect that it was her ease with being a woman that made me think I could do this after all. And I learned that she had married after coming to Ovid, so unlike Judy she had made a clear choice.

I sat through the movie still thinking about what it really meant to be a woman. To be honest, I don’t even remember what the movie was. I remember it had the guy from the X-Files and Minnie Driver in it, but it was just another of those light romances like Peggy always used to drag me to see. I was too busy thinking about my new life to pay much attention to the chick flick. Maybe I wasn’t all girl after all, or maybe it was just a so-so movie.

So there I was, watching this mediocre movie while I thought about the pluses and minuses of my new life. Pluses first. I might be a girl, but at least I was an attractive one. Of course, the minus for that was that in couple of years, I’d be beating off boys with a baseball bat. A couple had already asked me out, but I had told them primly that my parents wouldn’t let me date until I was fourteen–and it wasn’t a lie either. Still, if I had to be a girl, being attractive could be fun. And I was healthy. And girls could play sports now, so I could compete. And come to think of it, I was pretty darned bright, too. If I kept up my grades, I could have a very good future–even if it was in skirts.

But the biggest plus was my family. My parents were wonderful. They were loving and encouraging but not cloying or judgmental. Unlike my real parents, they seemed happy I was their offspring. I suppose to be fair, my real parents weren’t consciously cruel to be; they were just detached. But the result had been the same. I had been unloved and unwanted. Not as Carrie though.

Actually, I told myself, I had been given a life that many people would have given almost anything to have. So what were the minuses?

Well, for starters, I was a girl. That meant periods, makeup, frilly stuff, and someday spreading my legs and maybe even having babies. Of course, I supposed I could be a lesbian. I tried to imagine coming on to Wendy or one of the other girls. Nope–I just couldn’t imagine it, any more than I could have imagined having a sexual relationship with somebody like Jeff when I was Andy. On the other hand, boys were starting to show promise in my eyes. I really wasn’t ready to date, but I had found myself noticing a couple of the boys in my classes. There was something about the confident way they moved and the ruggedness that was just starting to appear in their boyish faces...

The other girls teased me after the movie for being in such a fog. They thought it was over David-what’s-his-name in the movie, but they were wrong. Fortunately, I pulled myself out of the fog in time to laugh and joke with them at Potter’s, a little drugstore with probably the last of the soda fountains. It was near March’s. We had picked up all of our packages from Donna and were just waiting for Wendy’s sister to pick us up. We even found time to flirt with a couple of boys from our class. I found that if I put my mind to it, I could flirt with the best of them. I have to admit it was actually fun to watch the boys fall all over themselves to impress us.

“I think Jeremy Martin really likes you,” Terri teased when we were in the car.

“Oh?” Jeremy had been one of the boys at Potter’s. “Why do you say that?”

All the girls giggled at that. Even Wendy’s sister chuckled.

“I’ll bet five dollars he calls her before the weekend is over,” Darlene called out. She had been “making progress” as she put it with Jeremy’s friend, Morgan. Nobody took the bet.

So then I got teased about Jeremy. It was an envious teasing though. Jeremy was pretty cute, and more than one of the girls had made a run at him already.

“See what happens when your period starts?” Terri teased.

“Yeah, you start getting horny,” Wendy laughed.

I started blushing like a... well, like a schoolgirl. But the funny thing was, I found myself hoping Jeremy would call me over the weekend.

He did.

So that’s how I ended up dating Jeremy. Well, we weren’t really dating I suppose. My parents really didn’t want me dating until I was fourteen. But I could study with him, couldn’t I? And we didn’t have to be dating if we were together with a group of girls and boys and just happened to hold hands. And just because he got a little steamed about me talking with Ron Turner at lunch the other day doesn’t mean he was jealous does it? Of course not. And I wasn’t jealous when he was talking with Anna Bishop after school last night when he was supposed to be walking me home. Besides, she’s such a little tramp. It’s okay though. We made up this morning before classes. He even got up the nerve to kiss me. Of course, I told him he shouldn’t do it in public, but boys! What can you do with them?

That was when Mrs. Carlson found me and told me I was needed in the conference room. She seemed so uptight that I wondered what was wrong. Well, whatever it was, I just hoped it didn’t make me late for class. I wanted to talk to Wendy before class started and tell her Jeremy and I had kissed and made up–literally.

There was a man waiting for me in the conference room. He was dressed casually. He looked a little pale and thin, sort of like a pallid version of my old friend, Jeff... My heart stopped. Oh God, it was him! Why did he have to come now? Didn’t he know it was too late? Oh, of course he didn’t. Besides, was it really Jeff? No, it couldn’t be. But it had to be. What had happened to him? “Jeff,” I ventured timidly, fearful of the answer, “is it really you?”

The courtroom slowly returned from the sudden blackness, like the lights in a movie theater after the feature is over. My eyes focussed on Carrie as she shook her head as if just coming awake. “It... it was like reliving that time,” she mumbled softly.

“I know,” I told her. “I lived it, too.” I stopped for a moment, then added, “Carrie, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I thought I was doing what was best for both you and me. I had no idea you were happy here. I should have known though. Judy tried to tell me.”

She gently placed her hand on my arm. “No, Jeff, it’s my fault. I didn’t know how much trouble this would cause.”

“Ahem!”

We looked up at the Judge as he ceremoniously cleared his throat. “If you two are finished taking the blame and apologizing, we can get on with this trial.”

Reluctantly, we were silent, but Carrie took my hand in her smaller one. As terrified as I was of what the Judge might do to me, I felt comfort in her gentle touch.

“Ms. Patton,” the Judge announced, “you may be seated–and the Court thanks you for your help. Ms. Jager, do you have anything else to present before the court in this matter?”

“No, Your Honor,” she replied to my surprise. Was I not going to be given a chance to explain my own side of the story? No, of course I wasn’t. After all, I knew from Carrie’s message how trials in Ovid were conducted. And I had knowingly tried to foil the gods. I was sure my fate had already been decided, and I was convinced it would not be a pleasant one.

“Mr. Bradshaw,” the Judge began in sonorous tones, “you have been found guilty of the following charges...”

I waited to hear them while holding my breath. The Judge had not specified all of the charges against me. What would they be? Kidnapping? Unlawful flight? Reckless endangerment?

“...contributing to the delinquency of a minor.”

Yes, that, too. Then I realized that it was the only charge he mentioned. I must have looked at him in visible surprise.

“That’s correct, Mr. Bradshaw. The Court recognizes that your actions–while detrimental to our plans–were not illegal.” He gave a smug glance to Susan. “In fact, Mr. Bradshaw, in a strange way, we owe you a debt of gratitude–and Ms. Summers as well. You penetrated a security system which we thought was more than adequate. With your society’s dependence on automobiles, it never occurred to us that someone might simply walk in–or out–of our community. We have also made changes to our communications systems to prevent further use of email to contact outsiders, although I suspect these methods will be found wanting with advances in technology.”

I happened to think that there was nothing preventing someone in Ovid from calling outside, but I had a hunch the message the outside party received would not necessarily be what was spoken. Regular email would probably be handled the same way.

“So all in all, no permanent damage has been done,” the Judge surmised. He nodded to Officer Mercer who returned his nod, walked to the courtroom doors and opened them. There was a group standing outside the door–all but one of them young teens about Carrie’s age. When the doors were opened, all of them marched up the aisle of the courtroom followed by a professionally dressed woman. She appeared to be no more than forty or so, and she was really unlike four of the six teens. The word that came to mind to describe her was sophisticated, but attractive and intelligent would also have applied. She walked directly over to Susan and greeted her warmly.

The six teens–two girls and four boys–lined up next to Carrie and me. Each had the glazed look of the spectators in the courtroom. When everyone was in line, the Judge began to speak again in Latin or whatever it was. I gulped; it was time. Whatever he planned to do to me was about to start.

I braced myself, squeezing Carrie’s hand as I felt a faint tingle begin. It started in my head, almost like the feeling I would get when novocaine begins to wear off. Then it spread to my torso, flowing quickly out to my limbs. I could feel my body becoming smaller. Oh God, what was he turning me into?

There was a tickle at the back of my neck, and I watched in alarm as the sleeves of my shirt began to disappear. As morbidly fascinated as I found myself, I couldn’t stand to watch. I closed my eyes and felt my flesh continue to reshape itself. There were strange sensations from nearly every part of my body. I was still holding Carrie’s hand, but my hand no longer seemed so large. I felt myself forced up a little on my toes and felt my entire center of gravity change. I nearly fainted.

Then, the tingling subsided and I could hear the murmur of voices from the gallery once again. Nervously, I opened my eyes and looked at Carrie. She was looking at me with an unexpected grin on her face.

I jumped a little at the sudden sound of a gavel. My attention was returned to the Judge, but not before I realized I was still human. And I knew from dozens of tiny clues and even without looking down at myself that I was no longer male. The Judge seemed to favor male to female transformations, so that wasn’t the surprise. The surprise was that in spite of all that had happened, I was still human.

“I think,” the Judge began, “that in light of the fact that you have all agreed to repair the damage at Dr. Miner’s home following your little teepee prank, I will–at the request of Dr. Miner–drop all charges against you and return you to the custody of your parents. Remember though, any one of you who does not show up at her home to clean up the toilet paper in the trees after school today will find himself or herself back in the courtroom again. Now, I understand that this is the last week of school for the term, so enjoy your summer.”

The Judge smiled as he slammed the gavel down one more time. From behind me, I could hear a collective sigh of relief in the gallery.

I looked over at Carrie. She had changed. Instead of the casual clothing she had been wearing before, she was wearing a white dress that ended just above the knees. It was sleeveless and tailored to make her look a little older and a little more mature. She was also wearing hose and a pair of white sling back one-inch heels that when coupled with her subdued makeup and more carefully styled hair added to that look of maturity. She was looking at me, a surprised grin on her face.

I followed her gaze, looking down at my own body. I was dressed in an outfit exactly like hers. “Oh my God!” I gasped.

“Well, you girls got off pretty lightly,” a man’s voice said behind me. I jumped as his hand gently touched my shoulder. Turning, I saw a man smiling down at me. He was wearing a sport coat that he looked a little uncomfortable in. I guessed him to be nearing forty with just a touch of gray hair and smile lines around his mouth.

“Thanks, Dad,” Carrie said.

“Sherrie, you and your sister are very lucky to get off so lightly,” a woman’s voice said. Again, I turned to see a woman who looked very much like Carrie–and like me, I imagined. “I can understand boys doing that sort of thing, but when I was a girl we had better sense to get involved in this sort of prank.” She was smiling as she chastised us, though.

Susan came up to us, smiling as well. ‘Dad’ shook her hand. “Great job, Susan,” he said warmly. “I didn’t think the Judge would let them off so lightly.”

“Oh, the Judge can be magnanimous when he wants to be,” she replied with a twinkle in her eye as she looked right at me. “He usually does what’s best,” she added.

I didn’t have to look in a mirror to see who I had become. All I had to do was look at Carrie. I was Sherrie now–her twin sister. It was certainly a better fate than I had expected, but I still wasn’t sure how I was going to like being a young teenage girl. I brooded about it on the drive home, but everyone else was so happy, they didn’t seem to notice–except Carrie.

“This is going to be so neat!” she gushed once we were alone in her room. Or was it my room? She answered that quickly. “Look at this! It’s a Jack and Jill bathroom. Your bedroom is on the other side!” She grabbed my hand and pulled me through the bathroom. “Ooh! I like your bedroom better.”

It looked about the same as hers as nearly as I could tell.

She looked at me, puzzled. “What’s the matter, Sherrie? You don’t look very happy.”

I looked at myself for the first time in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door. Sure enough, I looked exactly like Carrie–or very close to it. “I... I guess this is just a lot to absorb. It isn’t every day I get changed into a girl.”

Carrie came up behind me and put a sisterly arm around me. “Do you remember when we were boys? My family had just moved in. I had left all my old friends behind in Kansas City. You seemed like a great guy if maybe a little on the nerdy side.”

“I was not nerdy!”

“Yes you were,” she laughed. Then more seriously, she continued, “And I felt like I didn’t have a friend in the world. After a few days getting to know each other, you told me we’d be just like brothers.”

“And we were,” I admitted softly, trying not to notice how small and feminine I looked.

“It will take a few days,” she told me, “but we’ll get through them together–just like we got through that first summer as boys. Only this time, it’ll be even better.”

“Better?” I asked, turning to look into her eyes. “Why better?”

She gave me a warm smile. “Because this time, we won’t be brothers.” She hugged me tightly. “We’ll be sisters.”

“That’s it?” Diana asked as I came out of my trance. “That all happened back in–what–May? It’s September. What happened to them after that?”

“I can tell you,” Susan laughed. “Their father and my husband play golf together. Of course, most people’s memories shifted so most people think the twins have always been there.”

“Remember Carrie didn’t have any friends who remembered their previous lives,” I pointed out. “That means just shades and transformed people without memories interfaced with them. It made Sherrie’s assimilation much easier.”

Diana nodded. “So considering that Jeff knew what to expect–especially since he was given a glimpse of Carrie’s assimilation–there were none of the usual problems.”

“That’s right,” Susan agreed.

“I can confirm that,” Myra added. “I’ve seen them a few times this summer out at Sunset Beach. It was only about a week after they became twins that they were both flirting with Dan Metzger, one of the lifeguards out there.”

“Ooh, he’s cute,” Diana remarked. “Who ended up with him?”

Myra grinned. “He couldn’t decide, so he took both of them out that night.”

“Their parents let them go out with Dan?” I asked. “He’s sixteen and they’re thirteen.”

“Fourteen,” Susan corrected. “Their birthday was three days after Jeff was transformed.” Then she turned and looked at Diana. “By the way, how did you know what Dan looked like?”

For an answer, Diana became suddenly shorter as her skin lightened, her eyes turned blue, and her hair changed from black to red shaped into a ponytail. Her sari became a miniskirt and tight-fitting top. At most, she looked to be sixteen. “Who do you think has a date with him this Saturday night?”

The End