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Author's Note: And We're Back! Sorry for the massive delay, I was stumped then bored then stumped again but now things are back on track. This one is a little short but I hope to make up for that as the story progresses :) I'd like to thank djkauf for the editing.

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7.

44414e474552.

What the hell did it all mean? Was someone pranking me? Or was it just some random spam that tends to pop up every once in a while. There were supposed to be filters for those kinds of things but spammers were getting better at bypassing them. I would have to ask Mom about it. Though there was another explanation.

Joe.

Though he’d never done anything like it before, I wouldn’t put it past him in the least to spam me with crazy numbers.

I had half a mind to pip him now and chew him out.

I wasn’t ready for that yet.

I wasn’t ready for any of my friends yet actually.

Especially Maddie.

The numbers could wait though.

Sighing, I pushed myself off the bed. I felt more refreshed now than ever. Ok so not totally true but I couldn’t lie there anymore. I needed to do something, anything. I know I told Mom I just wanted to veg but I’d been doing that for the last couple of weeks. Hell, I’d been doing that for the last fourteen years. I needed to get out and do something. Actually “need” wasn’t the right word, more like “want”. I wanted to get out and do something. I thought back to the tests and the activities they’d been making me do. The exercising. I was never really a fitness nut before but now I felt like a run.

I looked down at myself.

I wasn’t exactly dressed for one though.

Walking over to the wall screen, I stopped to think. What site did Carrie use to buy me clothes?

Groaning, I turned on the screen. I pressed a button, bringing up the intercom.

The Vid came to life, showing my mother in her office.

She was at her desk, working on the console interface there.

“Mom?”

She flinched for a sec. “Honey, you startled me.”

I bit my lip. “Sorry but I need some help.”

She looked concerned. “Is something wrong?”

I nodded. “I want to go for a run but I have nothing to wear.”

She gave me this strange look.

Hey, it’s not like I’ve grown a second head or something.

“A run?”

“Yeah, you know. Around the block, maybe to the park. Something.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

I shrugged. “I need to get out of the house, Mom. Sitting around is making me feel all itchy.”

She smiled at that.

It was actually true now that I thought about it. Just standing around was making my skin tingle a bit. I’m not sure how to describe it. I was never much of a physical person before. Sure, I was in shape for the most part but I wasn’t a crazed fitness nut though. Now I felt like I needed to run, that I needed to flex my muscles and keep my body doing something. Maybe it was some compulsion buried deep down inside before. Something that my new Alphahood is bringing to the surface.

Great, now I’m Wonder Woman.

Or something.

“You want me to help you pick out something to wear then?”

“Well seeing as I’ve only been a girl for a little while, I don’t exactly know what to do .Besides, nothing I own from the past will fit anymore.”

I could see Mom trying to suppress her smile.

Yeah, laugh it up.

I tried to show her how cross I was with a look but I’m not sure she was buying it. In the end, I just gave her an annoyed one in response.

“It depends on what you’re looking for honey” she started and we began.

I quickly ruled out the whole sports bra and tight little shorts thing.

There was no way in hell I was doing that.

I don’t care if I had the body for it.

In the end---after much deliberation---we settled on the combination of gray running tank top and black running tights. I wasn’t too happy about how tight they looked but I’d deal with it. We got some good running shoes too. My new clothing items arrived a few minutes later. Mom wanted to help me to make sure I didn’t mess things up but I turned her down. I was fourteen; I didn’t need my mother to help me dress.

Though if there was one thing about this whole girl thing I was never going to get used too, it was the damn clothes.

Why the hell did everything have to be so tight?

I managed to get both the pants and the top on but damn, it felt like my entire body was being squeezed.

Ok, so a little overdramatic but still much tighter than my old clothes.

I did like the way they felt though.

Male clothes were rough to the touch.

These were soft and actually comfortable.

I could move a lot better in them too.

This body was a whole lot more flexible too. I liked the way I could bend and stretch. Nothing at all like my male body. I couldn’t help but smile a bit about that.

Did I still want my male body back?

HELL YES.

Seeing as that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon though---never in fact---I’d just have to deal with it.

As I was putting on my new shoes, there was a light tap on the door. Not even bothering to turn my head, I knew it was Mom.

“Wow” she said softly.

I laced up and turned slightly. “It’s not too much is it?”

I turned this way and that, looking myself over as I did so.

It was hard to believe that all of this was me now.

“Do you think it’s too much?”

“I don’t really have a choice now do I?”

I’m not sure when the tears started but the next thing I knew, Mom was hugging me.

This whole thing sucked.

Plain and simple.

Mom held me for a while, let me cry it out. It was kind of nice actually. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d ever held me this long. Not to say Mom was a horrible parent, just not a very attentive one. When I finally finished and we pulled apart, there was this pained look on her face. It was only there for a moment but I think it might have been regret.

“You can stay here with me you know. You don’t have to run if you don’t want to?”

I shook my head.

I needed to run.

I started stretching. “I have to do this Mom. I’ll be back in an hour or so I think.”

“Ok honey, just be careful.”

Careful?

Careful of what?

“I will, Mom.”

When I was younger, Grandpa used to take me to the park. He used to bring me to this little fitness area and we’d spend hours there. He used to regale me with stories about the park when he was a kid. His childhood parks were a great deal different than mine, of course. They used to be much bigger and there was a lot of green. They were more for recreational purposes back then, a sense of bringing some bit of nature into large cities and towns. We learned a lot of that stuff in history class; of course, most of it was pretty watered down.

Grandpa always used to have much better things to teach me.

Sadly, our parks were far from his

Sure they were still about bringing nature in, but I think it was more for a practical purpose than anything else. You couldn’t even really call them parks. Sure there was grass and trees but much like the grass in our own yards, it was well manicured and sectioned off. There were only small sections of it here and there and all well within control. Each Zone had their own park, each one the same size, the same layout. The small fitness area where I played as a kid was still there---unchanged. There was also a tiny picnic area with vintage benches and things. In the center they even had a fountain though the water was holographic. Using real water for something so trivial was a waste in this day and age. My grandfather used to say that the artificial didn’t make it feel like nature anymore. Sure it was real grass and real trees but everything else was fake.

The birds, the small animals.

All synthetic.

Even the flowers were some kind of synthetic nano-creation.

All fake.

All within control.

I tried not to think about it as I ran. I tried to think about little as I made my second or third lap around the bike path.

Sure there was a track that I could run on but that meant going to the school. I wasn’t ready to go there yet. At least, not until tomorrow. Mom and dad had pulled a lot of strings to get me there. Of course, they wanted me to go The Cube. My parents were able to convince the government to give me a chance. I wanted to be as normal as possible. Part of that normality meant returning to the same routine as before. My gender might be different, I might be different but I still wanted to prove to people that I was still me.

Still human.

On my fifth time around the path, I noticed the company.

It was hard not to.

I’d seen the four of them approach. I tried not to pay attention at first. They were a group of guys from my school. John Kingston and some of his buddies from the Free Ball team. What’s Free Ball you ask? Well think of old school football and basketball, remove the court and field and put it in a large domed room. Then remove the gravity. That’s Free Ball. It was the only sport authorized by the Metro government. Our school was pretty good apparently. Not that it really took much skill to play. I mean a monkey could strap on those shoes and go floating around like that.

One didn’t dare call a Baller a monkey, though.

Well not unless you wanted to keep your smile.

John wasn’t a bad guy I guess. We didn’t run in the same circles so I didn’t really know him all that well. His father was a Supervisor---a low man on the government totem pole. In fact, he was the Supervisor of Zone 3. John was a bit of school royalty because of it. He never used that to his advantage though. He did like to show off though. He was after all the closest thing to an Adonis that our school could muster.

For a Ject anyway.

I heard them before I saw them.

The five of them were trying to catch up with me. They started at a steady pace first. After about ten minutes, they started on a little faster. Five minutes after that, I could hear the heavy footfalls. Thanks to my biological enhancements---better sight, hearing---that kind of thing, I could tell they were really trying. Mark Rogers got close, I could hear him huffing and puffing behind me. He kept that pace for a whole minute or so before falling back. Sam and Greg Hodge---the Wonder Twins---lost the race a few laps beforehand. Frank West fell out a minute or so before Mark, leaving John the lone man to try to impress me.

That’s what they were doing after all.

Five idiots trying to show the Alpha girl that they were cool enough to hang with her.

So far, John was the only one who seemed to be doing ok.

I could feel him waning though.

After another lap, I finally felt the burn.

I took stock at where the Ballers were currently collapsed and made a beeline for a bench about twenty feet from them. I was feeling pretty good after my run. My blood was pumping, my heart was pounding and I felt great.

No, I felt alive.

I was also feeling something else.

Something foreign.

I began stretching, using the bench as I perched one of my legs on it and slowly started to lean forward. As I did, I couldn’t help but notice that five pairs of eyes watched me the whole time.

Something stirred inside.

Something new.

Something overpowering.

Pride.

I felt proud that they saw me.

I was proud that these guys saw something when they looked at me.

Them looking made my heart pound even faster.

I finished stretching a moment later. John took that as his cue to approach.

It was a bold move on his part.

He slicked back his sweat drenched blonde locks and slowly made his way over.

As he approached, I couldn’t help but size him up. I could see why a lot of the girls in school saw him as a “prize”. He was well fit for a Ject. His biceps bulged, his muscles well formed in the thin t-shirt that currently clung to his body. Something else bulged too. I felt a bit repulsed by that but embarrassed too. A bit scared as well. Even more scared when I found myself looking. I was a guy, I shouldn’t be looking there.

No Beth.

Not a guy anymore.

Shit.

“Hey” he said, starting to stretch like I’d been doing only moments before. “You’re pretty fast”

“I know.”

It was my attempt at a brush off but I have no idea what I’m doing.

Double Shit.

“I’m John,” he said with one of his prize winning smiles.

“That’s nice”

Come on take the hint.

“You’re an Alpha right?”

All I could do was nod.

“That’s really cool,” he said with another smile. “We don’t see too many around these parts. You live nearby?”

I sighed. This guy wasn’t going to go away.

I took the hip bag from around my waist. It was another one of our quick purchases. It was attached to a thin belt, hanging on my hip like it belonged there. I unzipped it, taking out my water bottle before leaving it sitting on the bench. I took a quick swig of water before speaking.

“A couple of blocks away.”

That seemed to surprise him.

“Not in The Cube?”

“Nope”

Go away please.

“So does that mean you go to my school?”

Oh shit he was hitting on me or trying too. This kind of tactic might work on normal girls---Ject girls---but with an Alpha, he was out of his league.

I think he knew it too.

When he stopped stretching, I couldn’t help but smirk.

John was tall, a good physical specimen of the Ject race. Blonde hair, blue eyes, chiseled looks.

The best that he could offer.

But still a Ject.

A Ject who was a whole head shorter than me.

This guy used to intimidate me in gym class. He never went out of his way to do so of course because like I said “Good Guy” but I was always afraid of him. He was the kind of guy who had a presence. Everyone flocked to him, girls drooled all over him, people opened doors for him. That kind of thing. The complete opposite of me.
Well the old me.

Now though I couldn’t help but smirk.

“What’s so funny?”

I was still amused when I spoke. “Thinking about something from before.”

“Before what?”

“Before all this” I said, waving my hands up and down my body.

He looked confused.

Time to break his precious heart.

“Where do you think Aphrodites come from John?” He gave me a clueless look. I decided to cue him in. “We’re guys, John, or at least we used to be. I’ve only been a girl for about a week or so, John. How does that make you feel?”

He stood there dumbfounded.

His friends must have been close enough to hear our conversation because they started to laugh.

I wanted to laugh too but that would have been cruel.

Instead, I patted his shoulder gently. Touching him made my skin tingle which I didn’t like in the least. Being close to him like that made something else tingle too. That scared me. I knew that this was a possibility but I wasn’t going to let it. I took a step back and brushed past him, leaving him standing there with his mouth open, contemplating my words. As I walked by the table with his friends, I couldn’t help but rub it in a bit.

“See you at school tomorrow boys”

I put a slight sashay in my step as I started walking away.

I got about ten feet or so, when I was greeted by more numbers. As soon as they popped up on my HUD, I froze.

54 68 61 74 20 77 61 73 20 63 72 75 65 6c.

What the hell was going on?

I snapped around quickly, my pulse racing. I looked at John and his friends. John was back at their bench, his friends were still laughing at him. He was still a little dumbfounded. I looked from them to the rest of the people in the park. There was a group of small children playing, their mothers nearby. There was an elderly couple on one of the benches, too. Nothing out of the ordinary. I scanned the rest of the area. The only thing that seemed out of place was a silver sedan. I’d noticed it on my run. Was it there as I started or did it show up after?

I tried to remember but after John showed up, I lost interest in it.

Shit.

Staring at it though made my heart beat a little faster.

Maybe I was being paranoid but I wasn’t going to take a chance.

I started to move away when there was a commotion. John apparently recovered. He was watching me but more than that, he was watching the car, too. He shouted something. I think he must have picked up on my apprehension because he seemed to notice that the car had been there a while too. He started to make his way toward it when the car quickly took off.

Ok that wasn’t suspicious or anything.

I wanted to stick around to say thanks but I was already unnerved enough.

Instead, I turned and started to run.

John shouted something.

I was almost home before I realized I’d left my hip pouch behind.

Damn.

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF