A financial genius doesn't know when to stop making money and Gaia (Earth as goddess) takes advantage of the golden opportunity.

WARNING: If you have a fear of snakes, then this story isn't for you. A large nonpoisonous snake figures prominently in this story.

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Gaia's Avatar
by Terry Volkirch

Part 1

Thomas Comstock was a money making machine, destined for greatness. As a young financial whiz kid, he made his first million dollars by age 20 and dropped out of college before going on to make his first billion at 32 and his first trillion at 39. He could do no wrong, and when the Dow Jones and NASDAQ began to bore him, he turned to foreign markets.

Starting with the Japanese Nikkei as an appetizer, he moved on to control all of the major Asian and European markets until at age 50, it seemed like he owned almost everything -- commodities, currencies, stocks and bonds. It was like he owned the whole world.

The extreme wealth brought with it a fair measure of notoriety. Wealthy and poor alike envied the huge sums of money that were tossed around like small change, especially when it affected their jobs. Thomas had far too much influence over everyone's lives and didn't even realize it. Something had to be done.

It was late in the evening one cold winter day in New York City when someone, or something, came to call on Thomas and finally forced him to wake up and take responsibility. It started with a strange whispering voice.

"Thomas. Thomas Comstock." The words sounded incomplete and barely comprehensible.

"Who's there?" The man muttered, not looking away from his computer screen. "What do you want?" He'd been working late and sat alone at his large desk in his corner office that overlooked Central Park. His large meaty hands fumbled over the keyboard and sweat trickled down from his receding hairline. He was out of shape and looked much older than his years. He spent too much time on his financial investments to take proper care of himself. Health care was just another easily affordable service he could buy whenever he got bad enough to need it.

The voice grew stronger and more insistent, still broken up and sounding like an odd arrangement of primitive instruments designed to mimic various parts of speech. Only the hissing of words with the letter "s" came through strongly.

"Thomas Comstock. Stop making money. It's time to stop."

The hissing started to get to him and he actually did stop to look around.

He'd been going after small foreign markets that had eluded his grasp. They weren't much of a challenge. He just wanted to add them to his collection. Having a complete collection appealed to him. He didn't have to do the work himself but it was one of the few pleasures he had left.

"Who's there?" he grumbled, annoyed at the distraction. "Confound it. Show yourself." He soon regretted his demand.

A large python slithered from behind the pot of a large ficus tree that stood to one side of the desk. She introduced herself by regarding the man with cold eyes and flicking her tongue out twice. Her name was Clementine, and she was there to deliver a message, something that annoyed her as much as it did Mr. Comstock.

The snake didn't actually speak. She could make hissing noises easily enough but she generated the rest of the sounds by contorting her body. She thumped things with her tail and head, rolled, coiled and even forced air out through her mouth in unusual ways to create a few vowel sounds. It was all very uncomfortable, and none of it was her doing. She was but a humble servant for a greater power, a much greater power that currently directed her every move.

"What the hell?! How did you get in here?!"

Clementine didn't answer his questions. Instead, she moved back into position to finish the message.

"Central Park," she hissed, wheezed, banged and clunked. "Seek Central Park."

"What? Why?!" he yelped in fear. "Who are you?! Are you the devil?!" He vaguely remembered his Sunday school lessons about Satan taking the form of a serpent to tempt Eve in the Garden of Eden. The story didn't impress him at the time but the memory of it came back with a vengeance.

The snake couldn't be made to answer so many questions so quickly, and she could only make a very limited number of sounds. All she could do was try the same message one last time, only with much greater emphasis.

"Seek Central Park!" came out loud and clear. Then she slithered out towards his desk and hissed in anger. She hated giving the message and she'd had enough of the man's nonsense.

Thomas levitated out of his seat and flew around his desk and out the door of his office. He couldn't get to the elevators fast enough. He rode down to the staccato tapping of his shiny black oxford shoes and burst from the elevator as soon as the doors slid open.

Once he made his way to the lobby of his office building, the financial genius didn't think to grab a coat or a security guard. He exited the building and marched in the direction of Central Park, too afraid to be cold.

The brisk walk did wonders to elevate his heart rate and keep him warm enough. It wasn't until he got to the edge of the park and slowed down that the cold began to seep into his bones.

"What the hell am I doing?" he muttered to himself. "I must be crazy." Still, he kept walking until he was well into the darkest regions of the park. He might have made an excellent mugging victim too, except for one thing. He was being watched over.

The power that had controlled the python, now had Thomas close enough to perform its magic on him, but it wasn't the devil as he feared, it was the planet itself. Earth contained its own form of divine magic that manifested in times of crisis, and the modern era certainly counted as a crisis.

With all the pollution and destruction of habitat, Earth needed help more than ever. Mankind was out of control and a more direct approach was needed to address the problem. Earthquakes and other natural disasters were no longer adequate to stop the relentless drive to strip the planet bare and foul it with toxic chemicals and nuclear waste. The planet cried out for a heroine, a female avatar to represent the feminine energy of the Earth goddess.

Thomas Comstock wasn't feminine by any stretch of the imagination, but he'd have to do. The divine magic caught up with him and surrounded his body with a warm golden light. He squeaked out a yelp and then quickly calmed down from the influence of the light. He never felt more comfortable and more secure. His shivering stopped and he walked slowly back to his office building with a serene smile on his face, still faintly glowing.

He arrived back in the lobby to find a flustered looking security guard waiting for him, and fortunately for the guard's mental state, the glowing was too faint to see under the harsh glare of the florescent lights.

"Good evening, sir," the guard said. "Is everything okay?" He'd seen Mr. Comstock rush out of the building but he wasn't supposed to leave his post, and he didn't have time to call for an escort. Rich executives didn't normally leave the building by themselves so the guard wasn't prepared.

"Everything is fine ...," Thomas squinted to read the man's badge. "Larry. Everything is great." He didn't really understand what had happened to him but he did feel very good, better than he had in years.

"Are you sure? Why did you rush outside?"

"The devil made me do it," Thomas half joked, still wondering who or what was behind the strange events of the evening. Then he smiled and headed for the vending machines to see about getting a snack for the python in case it was still around in his office.

The security guard shook his head, keeping his thoughts to himself. Crazy rich bastard.

***

Thomas sat in his office, drumming his fingers on the solid mahogany desk with the lights dimmed. He didn't need artificial lighting any more because his glowing had brightened, enough that everyone who saw him noticed. It was only a matter of time before the embarrassing effect caught the attention of the news media. Then he'd really be upset.

Why him? What did he do to deserve being turned into a human glowworm? The ultimate answer to his questions would have to wait, but it would become plain to him once the glowing stopped and his impending transformation was complete. He controlled most of the money and resources on the planet, so only he truly had the power to make the changes that were so badly needed for the planet. As for the glowing itself, the reason for that would soon become evident.

The nervous man reached over and opened a plastic container, pulling out a piece of raw chicken breast that he carefully tossed over to his right. The meat never hit the ground. It was snapped up by the large python that refused to be removed from his office despite the best efforts of the security staff. They could've killed it and removed it easily enough but Thomas wouldn't allow that, so she stayed.

"Stick with me, Snake," he said, having no way to know her name was Clementine. "You'll go far." He laughed at the irony.

She hummed with contentment near a heating vent and reached out to coil the tip of her tail around his ankle as a show of affection. She wanted to wrap her whole body around him but she didn't dare. The one time she tried he scared her with his shrieking.

A knock at the door interrupted the happy scene.

"Come in."

"Mr. Comstock," a pleasant looking young blonde woman said as she entered. "They know."

"Damn. Thanks, Ms. West."

"You're welcome," she said, closing the office door behind her as she left.

The news media found out sooner than he thought. It'd only been three days since he'd wandered into Central Park for the first time in his life. Now he'd be hounded by the press for at least as long as he glowed.

Not that he wasn't hounded before. With each impressive milestone in his life, the press was there, waiting like a pack of starving feral dogs. They'd recorded his life ever since he'd made his first million dollars, and they'd be around for a long time to come.

Thomas consoled himself by moving over to rub Clementine's belly while muttering about his strange life. She rolled over before he got close and enjoyed every minute of the attention.

***

The glowing continued to get brighter, and with it came other changes that were gleefully noticed by reporters. Speculation ran rampant, with the favorite story being that Mr. Comstock had invested in a biotech company that discovered the Fountain of Youth. The man already looked 20 years younger.

As he left for yet another of his frequently scheduled doctor appointments, Thomas and his huge security force successfully fended off the reporters and made it the doctor's office with an impressively small amount of fuss.

"Hey Doc," Thomas said. "I'm ready for another round of poking and prodding."

"That won't be necessary, Mr. Comstock." The tall young doctor studied his patient with a look of disbelief. "We've ran all the tests we can think of and you have us all baffled."

"Well ... actually," the glowing man said. "I think I've got another change you should know about."

"If it has something to do with hormones, we already know. Your testosterone levels have dropped significantly and we've seen a huge increase in estrogen. You're changing into a woman. I can see it happening." The doctor had already measured a slight loss in height and a significant loss of weight. He also noticed a significant redistribution of weight, and his patient's skin was much softer and mostly hair free. As he looked over the feminized man, his professional but intense gaze bothered Thomas, causing him to blush.

That was the whole point of the glowing. It was supposed to draw attention to Mr. Comstock. Being an extremely unusual symptom of his transformation, it got the world to notice him and made sure his identity would be secure as he slowly changed into a young woman.

The earth goddess thought of everything in her quest to make the perfect avatar. Only a woman could hold the divine energy of the planet so Thomas Comstock had to become a woman, and everyone would be watching and would know it to be true.

***

The weeks rolled by and Thomas Comstock continued to get younger and more feminine. His skin darkened significantly from its original pasty white color and his hair grew thick, long and dark, but oddly enough, his eyes turned a bright blue-green from their original dark brown, looking out of place for his apparent race. The earth goddess thought to give her avatar a mix of all races so everyone would be fairly represented and feel at ease in the avatar's presence.

Mr. Comstock took the changes fairly well, though he refused to buy any women's clothing. He accepted that the doctors couldn't help him and simply went on with his financial wizardry. It wasn't until his transformation was nearly complete that some adjustments needed to be made.

He felt restless, and what's more, he had to stop thinking of himself as a man. He had the full figure of a woman and there was nothing left of his manhood. Even his thoughts and emotions veered towards the female side of the gender divide.

After being distracted for the umpteenth time by stray thoughts and ill-fitting clothing, the new woman buzzed her assistant on a sudden whim. "Ms. West, please come into my office," she said with a husky but obviously feminine voice.

"Yes, Mr. Comstock? You wanted to see me?" The young blonde assistant poked her head in the office, hoping to avoid seeing the large python that normally lounged on the black leather couch. She wasn't fond of snakes.

"Stop right there. Please. Do I look like a mister to you?"

"No." The blonde looked decidedly uncomfortable. She knew where the conversation was heading. She also knew it meant she needed to spend some private time with her boss so she reluctantly entered the office, shutting the door behind her.

"I have to face facts," Thomas said. "I'm a woman now and I ... need help."

Ms. West took pity and braved all the topics of conversation, including lingerie and personal hygiene. It wasn't until they got to the subject of a new name that she hesitated.

"I can't very well go by Thomas anymore." The avatar looked forlorn. Her lower lip trembled.

"I guess you're right," the blonde said after a minute. She couldn't think of any decent way of feminizing her boss's first name. "Do you have a new name then?" she asked hopefully.

"Haven't a clue."

Ms. West had a good look at Thomas but drew a blank. She'd known her boss as Thomas Comstock for a little over three years and had trouble thinking of the new woman as anyone else. After including what she knew about the glowing incident in Central Park, she slowly began to get some ideas though.

"I take it you have no idea what your parents would've named you if you'd been born a girl."

Thomas sadly shook her head. It was a safe assumption. The subject of alternate names rarely came up and Thomas's parents couldn't be asked. They died in a freak car accident several years ago on an icy stretch of highway in upstate New York. They'd slid head on into an oncoming semi truck and died instantly. Airbags didn't help, not when the car was compacted into a small fraction of its original length.

At the time, the grieving man had taken an unusually long break of three weeks from his work to mourn his parents. It was one of the few times in his life he showed passion for anything other than money. After that, he distanced himself even further from the rest of the world. He only had room in his life for the financial world. Money was his only friend.

"Okay," Ms. West continued. "You told me you felt a powerful presence in Central Park, right?"

Thomas nodded.

"Right. It might help us come up with a name if we knew who or what did this to you. I'm kind of curious about it anyway. Aren't you?"

Thomas shrugged and her assistant frowned back.

"So why change at a park and not here in the office?" The blonde continued, thinking out loud and stumbling along until inspiration hit. "You've got trees, grass ... a snake. Could it have been something like Mother Nature?"

She received another shrug. So far, Thomas didn't know anything other than what she'd told a few close associates, including Ms. West, in confidence.

The blonde woman wouldn't be stopped though, not once she got going. She slid Thomas's keyboard and turned the monitor so she could see it. Then she did an Internet search for Mother Nature.

She quickly found several links and tracked down an interesting name that struck a chord of truth for Thomas. It also caused the new woman to glow more brightly for a few seconds when spoken. The name was Gaia, and Gaia was trying to tell her something.

"It looks like you've got a new mother." Ms. West smiled.

"I guess so. I'm virtually reborn, aren't I?" Thomas smiled back.

The two of them continued searching and found the names of Gaia's children. Tethys sounded more like Thomas but Theia, Titan goddess of sight and heavenly light, seemed a better match for the glowing woman.

"Theia," the new woman said. "Theia Comstock. I think I like it."

"Why not just Theia? Goddesses don't have last names."

"I have a feeling I'm not really a goddess." She glowed more brightly in response to confirm it. "I think I'm more of a representative." Again, she glowed more brightly.

"You're like an avatar," Ms. West said, and Theia glowed more brightly for several minutes. The issue was settled. Theia was the avatar of Gaia, and she'd remain so for the rest of her life. A name and title had been found but the real work had yet to begin.

***

Using the hit or miss method of bright flare ups to communicate with the Earth goddess, Theia managed to figure out her purpose before her glowing faded completely and she became all woman. She was to use her modest powers and excessive wealth to protect and heal the planet.

Of course. It all made sense, in a strange sort of way. She couldn't exactly control governments but she had more than enough money to throw around to get her way. Environmental groups were ecstatic when they started receiving generous donations. With her new purpose in mind, she discovered the satisfying joy of compassion, and she blindly but gladly steered her life down another path. She finally found her true calling, and she was happy.

"Well, Snake," Theia said in a rich, contralto voice. "What's next?" The snake looked back at her from the leather couch it liked so much. "I don't know what else to do but I feel like I should do something."

The woman sat at her desk, surfing the Internet out of boredom. She'd found several major environmental groups to donate huge sums of money to, but she still felt like there was something more she had to do.

She missed her glowing. Without it, she had no way to communicate with Gaia, and even with it, it took far too long to understand anything. In her current state, she couldn't hope to comprehend the divine mind of a planet. Luckily, Earth had other ways to communicate.

"Don't like it here." Theia felt the message more than heard it.

"Hello? What?"

"Don't like it here. Too cold. Too dry."

"Who is that? What's going on?" Theia got up out of her chair and looked around the office. All she saw was her python companion, lounging in its usual spot on the leather couch.

"Snake?"

"Yes. Me. Hungry."

Theia numbly went to the fridge she'd added to the office and pulled out a recently thawed but still cold hamster. She warmed it up a little under a heat lamp by habit and tossed it to the snake who quickly gobbled it up.

"We go now?" The snake stared at Theia with its large, unblinking eyes and the avatar shivered.

"I'm talking with a snake," Theia muttered. Then she shouted. "I'm talking with a snake!"

"Yes. We go now?"

"Wait a minute," the avatar stopped to think before remembering the question she'd kept in the back of her mind for so long. "What's your name? I'm really tired of calling you Snake."

Theia received an image, and along with the image came the memory of a young man's voice. The man called out the name, Clementine.

"Clementine?"

"Yes."

"Your name is Clementine!"

"Yes. We go now?"

Clementine had a one track mind. She really didn't like it in New York City. It wasn't a good home for a python. She also didn't like her former owner. The young man didn't abuse her but he never fed her enough and never gave her enough attention, not like Theia. She really liked Theia, especially after the avatar finished transforming. The two of them could communicate now, and life would be much nicer for the large snake if she could ever get the woman to listen.

***

"So let me get this straight," Ms. West said, standing in front of her boss's desk. "You're telling me you can talk to that snake?"

"Yes!"

"That's a bit hard to believe."

"Well you've seen how strong I've become," she stood up and easily lifted her desk with one hand. "Why can't you believe I can talk to Clementine?" She flopped back down in her chair and sulked.

"Clementine?"

"That's her name. Maybe you could check for missing pythons named Clementine and find her picture or something. Maybe then you'd believe me."

"Wait a minute. Her? She's a she? How can you tell?"

Theia raised an eyebrow and frowned but didn't say anything.

"Right. Never mind. Okay. For the sake of argument, let's say she can talk. What's she been telling you? ... besides her name."

Theia filled in her assistant on Clementine's desire to move to a warmer location and happened to agree. She'd had enough of hiding up in her tower of glass and steel and wanted to be closer to Earth. Nothing more and nothing less than a ground floor office with direct access to Gaia would do. She could almost hear the Earth goddess calling to her.

Ms. West didn't like hearing that. She didn't like that at all. She loved New York and didn't want to leave. Theia couldn't help notice something was wrong.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry." The blonde sniffled. "I'm just being selfish. I don't want to leave. I can't leave. All my friends and family are here. Do you have to go?"

"I'm sorry too, but I'm afraid I do. It'll probably take several weeks to make plans and then several months to carry them out, but I'll be going just as soon as I can."

***

Theia's plans formed in an unusual way but they didn't take nearly as long as she thought they would. She had dreams, very vivid dreams that detailed everything, including a complete building design and location. Gaia found yet another way to communicate with her avatar.

Theia started by contacting an architectural firm to have her very special office building designed and built in Sacramento, California. The building specifications were quite different from most buildings but simpler in a way so it didn't take long before construction began. The building wouldn't be finished for another year or so after that. Thankfully, that gave the avatar plenty of time to prepare.

Her first order of business was to start taking Environmental Engineering classes and educating herself on how to take better care of the planet. With her online education started, she focused on addressing a more local need.

"Gloria? May I call you Gloria?" Theia asked her assistant.

"Yes, of course, as long as I can call you Theia." The young blonde smiled. She'd been hoping to be on more familiar terms with her boss for weeks. They both felt a strong sisterly bond forming between them that wouldn't be broken, not even with the impending move.

"Well, Gloria," Theia returned the smile. "I'll need someone to run things here after I leave. Do you have any ideas who I could hire?"

"No, I really don't."

"What about you?"

"What?! No way, Theia. I couldn't. Don't joke around like that."

"I'm not joking. You already do a lot of my work for me. It wouldn't take much training to get you up to speed to manage everything."

"But I couldn't possibly ...." Gloria couldn't finish. She couldn't believe her ears.

"Gloria, please." Theia got up out of her chair and directed her assistant to take her place. "Sit. I'm being serious here. We might as well start right away ... President West."

The shocked blonde sat on Theia's desk chair and stared at the computer monitor as her new mentor showed her around the world of finance.

***

As a man, Theia had looked down on her former personal assistant, figuratively and literally, but after her transformation, she lost several inches of height and now looked Gloria in the eye when they both stood. She also realized how intelligent the blonde really was, and how beautiful. The tall, slender blonde woman would never be considered model material in spite of her height and figure, but Theia saw an inner beauty that outshone any arbitrary physical standards.

The two women grew ever closer as they spent more and more time together. Feminine aspects of Theia's personality blossomed to match her body, making the pair much more compatible. They both filled a void in each other's life that neither realized they had, and promoting Gloria to president of New York operations helped make their relationship comfortable and easy. No one would dare suggest any impropriety.

The weeks flew by, and as predicted, the young blonde had no trouble handling her added responsibilities. She had a masters degree in business administration from Harvard after all. Being a personal assistant had always been just a stepping stone to a much more fulfilling career, one she thought would take years to develop, but her stepping stone turned out to be the ultimate short cut.

She spent most of her work time at her old desk. She couldn't handle sharing the same office with Clementine so it was her only option for the time being. She'd move into Theia's office after the move to California. That left the avatar and her companion snake lots of privacy and free time, making Gloria wonder what they did all day. It had to get a bit boring at times. Theia never went out during the day.

Up to that point, the former personal assistant had ordered appropriate clothes for Theia and helped the avatar dress. It took awhile to find a style though. Theia tried pant suits and they worked better than her original clothing, but she found them to be too restrictive and uncomfortable. They just didn't feel or even look right, and Gloria had to agree, so they decided to spend an afternoon pouring over several clothing web sites, looking for ideas.

"What about this outfit?" the blonde asked. The model in the photo wore loose fitting wool slacks with a conservative, long-sleeved white blouse. It was simple and elegant. "Think of it as business casual. You don't have to dress up all the time."

"Isn't that wool?" Theia pointed to the slacks. "Wool makes me itchy."

"You could wear hose underneath."

"Hose? I don't know ...." The avatar blushed. She still wasn't used to a lot of the more feminine articles of clothing.

Gloria sensed the problem and knew what to do. It might take a little work but no easier way presented itself.

"We have to go shopping," the blonde stated, her jaw firmly set. Only total immersion would do.

"But what about security?" The idea of going out scared Theia. She'd been hounded by reporters and religious nuts at every turn, even after she stopped glowing.

"That'll be a problem, especially with the women's dressing rooms and rest rooms. Our security force is all men." Gloria had felt a little restricted herself. She required guarding after her promotion and huge increase in salary.

"Yeah," Theia looked glum, but she hid her true feeling of relief. She still didn't like the idea of going out.

"There's an easy way around that though."

"Oh?"

"We hire women!"

Theia couldn't disagree. Having women bodyguards would make the outside world more accessible. She couldn't hide away forever anyway, especially after she got to California. Some of the dreams she had showed her meeting with people from all around the world and communicating with all different species of animals. As Gaia's avatar, she had to interact with the whole world.

*** to be continued ***

 © 2008 by Terry Volkirch. This work may not be replicated in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the Author (copyright holder). All Rights Reserved. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental.