New Story! "New U"&2

From alt.sex.stories.tg Mon Mar 3 22:56:19 1997 Path: nienor.IN-Berlin.DE!sauveur!IN-Berlin.DE!fub!fu-berlin.de!news.nacamar.de!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!ix.netcom.com!news Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.tg Organization: Netcom Message-ID: 01bc1cf8$3edefec0$LocalHost@jsrose NNTP-Posting-Host: bal-md6-10.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Mon Feb 17 9:29:44 AM PST 1997 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1155 Lines: 674

This is the first time I've written a transformation story and it looks to be a long one. these early chapters set up the characters and have no sex in them. I've yet to decide just how much of a role it is going to play in the actual story. So if you're looking for somthing to masterbate to, you'll likely be disapointed.

If there is a more appropriate newsgroup, for this piece (even if you think it's the trash can) let me know.

Obviously, the characters and situations presented are fiction and any resemblence to anyone living or dead is purely coincedental. Please feel free to post or archive with notification. Otherwise, this work should be considered copyright 1997 Jeffrey S. Rose and no part should be published in printed form except for review/critical analysis, or offered for sale without consent of the author. -- Jeffrey S Rose (jsrose@ix.netcom.com) "Lineage, social status; why should these things

matter so much? That's how grown-ups are. If that's so, I'd be happier as a child, never growing up."

• Washuu (Tenchi-Muyo!, OAV#8, Hello Baby)

"All humans, without exception, want love. No organic or emotional, or psychological damage can remove that need. Humans can survive, albeit in pain, without being loved - but lock a man in a dungeon and he will find an ant to love, or try to. The sociopath, who feels no emotions, wishes he could love, and is driven mad by his impotence."

• Michael Finn

"Callahan's Secret

New U: Ch.1, The Job Interview, by Jeff Rose 1997

"You did what!?", I cracked at the three women arrayed before me. I say cracked because, well ... Let me back up a bit.

My name ...

I'm ...

How do I explain this?

James (Jamie to his friends) McGowan was pursuing his least favorite pastime after joining the ranks of the unemployed: Reading the want ads.

General handyman needed. Should have working knowledge in Landscaping, Carpentry, Electrical wiring & PC's/Home Electronics. Live-in. Salary/Benefits negotiable. Call: 555-3510

Well 30 yr. Old Jamie had been a dilettante all his life. Between his parents love of home improvements and his own varied work history, as long as whoever wasn't looking for a expert in all those areas he might have found something. He called the number listed in the paper and after taking down some odd instructions (One of which was to draw up a diagram showing the wiring layout for a proposed entertainment system) he found himself with an appointment three days hence, to meet with the owners of an of plantation house out on Rt.40.

"So what makes you think you have the qualifications to upgrade and maintain this place?"

Jamie thought the interview had been traveling somewhat widely when that question popped out of Bethany Williams' mouth. Her green eyes danced mischievously, as if she hoped my tour of the house and it's co-owners would make me feel I had already gotten the "Handyman" position.

"Well I've worked in practically every area that will need renovation or refurbishing and I know a good electrician who can handle some of the rewiring that will be needed in the utilities area.The big question is why you don't hire a Major Domo to just handle contracting everything out? With the amount of work you're looking at, he or she (Never forget a woman can be just as skilled as you are while in an interview. -Jamie's Guide to Job searching #12) won't be able to do it all alone anyway.", Jamie replied. He was proud of the fact he managed to remind his prospective employer that he was a 'Jack of all trades' while minimizing the 'Master of none' part of the title. Implying that the job title was inadequate might border on the impudent, but it also spoke of the fact he was quite aware of what the ongoing responsibilities would be. Besides, Beth had pulled a cheap trick.

As Bethany cocked an acknowledging eyebrow that had Jamie wondering if I might have over stepped my bounds and prepared another volley, Anne Howe walked in with some drinks.

" We know that you will have to contract out some of the landscaping and wiring, but we'd like to minimize the number of people running through the house.", she said passing Beth a Grolsh. "Are you sure you wouldn't like a beer? Anne asked as she handed Jamie a black coffee.

"Thank you, but they tend to make my brain soggy and besides", Jamie patted the slight bulge in his middle, "as much as I like the things, I have enough trouble presenting the image of a trim go-getter."

Jamie smiled sadly at this last self derogatory comment. While he was not a drunk, he was very fond of good beer and at 30, he had no illusions about his looks. At 5"10 1/2' in stocking feet and 200 lbs. his large frame could not hide the fact that he preferred sitting in front of the tube watching anime or playing a video game to jogging around the block. The thick sandy blonde hair of his youth had darkened a bit and partially migrated. Dressed as he was, he looked like a tenured Prof who didn't realize he was just a shade to old to be hip.

Just as Jamie became aware of the lapse in the conversation, the third co-owner of the house chose that moment to make herself known, "Well I don't know about you girls, but the boy knows his way around a sound system.", Chris Anderson said tossing the schemes Jamie had drawn up per their phone call."Little pricy though." she added.

Jamie pulled another set of drawings from the portfolio he had brought with him.

"Quality costs and you did ask for off the shelf components."Jamie reminded the small seemingly oriental woman who had managed to snatch Beth's beer, then wink inspiratorially at Anne who grinned slightly as Beth tried not to look irked and got up to retrieve another Grolsh.,"Given a little time to browse Baynesville Electronics, a soldering iron and some time in that workshop of yours and I think this one switch box could save considerable confusion, not to mention close to one hundred bucks in extra cables and boxes."

Jamie smiled as Chris' face took on a engrossed look that technophiles everywhere get when looking over a new set of specs. As she read the papers in her left hand, Beth noticed the Grolsh dangling in Chris' right and calmly accepted her beer back. The plans detailed an A/V. switch box that would plug into the amplifier from her original request. The nice part was that it included support not only for the S-Video cables running from her VCR and laserdisc player but, would accommodate the straight A/V. cables from her camcorder and video games. It even had a built in RF modulator for her vintage Atari, Colecovision, Master System and Intellivision games. The whole thing could be cross patched on the fly and subsequently fed into her editing deck, to then be sent to another VCR for recording.

"The date on these plans.."Chris started.

"I collected all the old game systems my parents couldn't afford when I was a kid and got fed up with needing three different boxes to route everything. By the way do you happen to have the 'Valis' Hu-Card for the TG-16? I've been looking for one at a reasonable price for years.", Jamie explained with a friendly grin.

"Well I'm ready to take him on.", Chris announced and attempted to take a swig from the non-existent bottle in her right hand. Finding it to be missing her dark eyes swivelled quickly to see a grinning Beth wink conspiratorially at Anne who giggled slightly. " Have you given him the low-down on pay and bennies Beth?", Chris asked sweetly while staring at the beer bottle being tilted to Beth's full lips.

"Yeah, I covered that and the non-disclosure agreement early on."

Anne raised a hand to her two house mates and while her cobalt blue eyes seemed as merry as ever, the rest of her face went into a deadpan that the best poker player in the world would have problems with. "Christine, Bethany, please. No discussion till I hear from you as department heads.", she said in such a businesslike manner that Jamie felt his eyebrows climb involuntarily. "Now then, Beth?"

Beth gave Anne a startled look that let Jamie know something was amiss. Not horribly wrong, just that what Anne had requested was a breach of some long standing agreement between the women.

"Subject displays very mild manic/depressive tendencies but seems well adjusted to the subsequent mood swings. He also has a mild paranoid streak due to a self esteem problem; probably stemming from an early childhood trauma. Subject's personal life reflects the above noted problems to a tee."

Jamie found Anne's soft touch on his forearm as he began to raise up and call a halt to Beth's accusations. It was bad enough that she was hitting fairly close to home, but it was obvious that they had somehow managed to do a complete background check on him in less than three days and he wanted out before she began poking at his lifestyle too closely. But as he glanced over at Anne, sitting next to him, she very slightly shook her head "no" and rubbed his forearm reassuringly. The gentleness of her touch as she the moved the hand down to his and squeezed slightly sent such a thrill of confusion that he lost control of his muscles and slumped back in his chair as Beth continued.

"Subject lives alone and while he does have friends, none would consider themselves to be particularly 'close'. The subject on the other hand does not allow others close to him casually. He has shown a loyalty in times of need that borders on the obsessive. Still, he holds himself at an emotional distance from even these few links he has to the rest of humanity.

Although outwardly an extrovert, he acts this role deliberately to guard himself from others. The few intimate relationships he has had have engendered such feelings of despair upon ending that the past 12 years of his life have been spent without a partner of any kind. To escape the pressures of the outside world, the subject has read extensively, with a particular interest in science fiction. Subject also is an avid collector of Japanese Animation and old video game systems.

He is politically conservative and while registered republican holds views of a definite libratarian bent.

Surprisingly, the subject holds no police record and only a couple of driving citations. His favorite dish is Chicken Tetrazzini and he seems to have a distaste for domestic beer in general and any lite beer in particular. Further details can be found in the report filed in the computer, but to sum it all up, Mr. McGowan here should be completely reliable. Any problems he has are not such that a few hours of therapy wouldn't clear them up. Like most people he just wants to be wanted."

As Beth sat down Anne took hold of Jamie's hand again and again there was such a feeling of understanding that he didn't even attempt to open his mouth. He was finding himself feeling very close to this woman who was about his age and despite her trim figure, simply styled short brown hair and blazing cobalt eyes there was nothing sexual about this feeling. He wanted the comfort and ease of being that she generated naturally. He felt he could see all the horror that visited everyone in the world daily, just so long as she was there to tell him with that gentle touch to let it be. He barely took notice when Chris stood to present her report.

"Okay now that the tact patrol has throughly disturbed 'The Subject', I'd like to compliment him on the breadth of his experience. Jamie here has sold and installed telephone and computer systems. He sold electronic and A/V hardware for over five years and was particularly well known amongst his customers for actually taking the time to show and explain all the components necessary to do anything from distributing signal from a single antenna to all the TV/VCRs in the house, to bypassing cable boxes (naughty, naughty), to some really bizarre things that I'm not sure what some of these customers thought they wanted. This, as opposed to simply piling parts on a counter and ringing them up.

While in the military Jamie was a Photo/Video equipment specialist. What that means is he was responsible for keeping all the A/V. equipment on the base he was assigned to in working condition. It became a real 'jack-of-all-trades" assignment when the classes moved into building and maintaining darkroom facilities under field conditions. Can anyone say 'carpentry and plumbing skills a must?'

Further, I went to his parents' house and conducted their interview personally.

(Don't give me that look Anne. It was the only way to see what he could do with a yard. )

Jamie, on the budget your family had to produce that yard alone, your kin should've gone into the landscaping and construction business. I included photos in my report if you'd like to call them up.

On the downside, Jamie has never bossed a job this big before, but I'm sure with our organizational help he could pull this off.

In short; Ya got my vote kid!"

That last remark kicked the analytical side of Jamie's mind back in gear and elicited another confusion in his mind. Chris couldn't be any more than 30 years old herself (and he was willing to push that back to 25) yet all through her "report" she had referred to him as if he was at least a decade her junior. The emotional side, which was still riding the swell of well being generated by Anne, kicked an annoyed foot to the shin of its twin, but lost its balance when Anne withdrew her hand and gathered herself to present her report. It righted itself promptly as she scanned her two house mates and finally settled on Jamie.

"Alright ladies, Jamie, normally I would have sent any outsider to another room while we discussed 'house business', but I wanted you to hear what we thought about you in an unadulterated form so you would have a better idea of who we are."

Jamie was again put on notice that something about this setup was not right. The little analyst in his head began setting up the equation again. Even considering the "fixer-upper" price the three relatively young women would have paid for this place, the house an land were still worth about $500,000 on the open market. He was applying for a permanent position. The girls were not planning on refurbishing the place and selling it. The market was wrong for the expense and the location wasn't remote enough for most of the few prospective buyers that did exist.

Then there was the small add-on building in the rear of the house. Beth had explained they wanted to cover it with a deck that would eventually lead to the pool. When he had requested entry to see what support structures existed to hook into when planning the deck, Beth had curtly told him he could not be allowed into that part of the house until he was hired.

Three beautiful women, a secluded mansion with a forbidden room, and the non-disclosure form. Jamie suddenly began to feel like one of the idiots in a Friday the 13th movie who after hearing about the psychopathic killer living in the woods outside the camp, then decides to take a midnight stroll.

Anne crossed to the other side of the table and stood behind her partners. Beth passed a paper across the table to Jamie and Anne explained; "We feel you are acceptable for the position of handyman, unlike the other applicants for this spot, you have no real connections to the government or any large corporations, you have the basic skills needed for the task and we like you. That last part is vital as we will all be living together and assisting you as much as possible. We really don't want any more people wandering about the place than necessary for reasons that will become clear after you sign the form in front of you."

Jamie looked over the standardized non-disclosure form that sat in front of him. He had signed several others in the past, except that no reference was explicitly made as to the name of the name of the company. Only "the Corporation" was mentioned. He looked up inquiringly at the three ladies across from him.

Beth nodded her head in silent approval. She knew the insatiable curiosity over what was behind closed doors, a typical defense strategy of mild paranoids, would make him need to know what he couldn't know without signing the paper. Chris just smiled at the war going on in Jamie's head between curiosity and caution. And then there was Anne.

Although her face maintained the same businesslike expression, her body language was tense. Not in a predatory way, but like a mother, waiting to see if her child would be able to take those few steps from the couch he was propping himself up by, to her arms. There would be pain for her if he failed, or worse, damaged himself in the attempt.

Jamie signed the paper.

Chris raised a toast as Anne scrambled to wrest a bottle and some shot glasses from the ajoining kitchen. Beth, in her first real show of affection, lightly tousled the thin stuff on top Jamie's head.

"To our new employee and roomie!", Chris intoned solemnly. Then waggling her eyebrows and thrusting her hips out;"May he serve us well!"

Jamie choked and sputtered as Beth reached over and playfully swatted the back of Chris' head. Anne shot the still giggling Chris a dirty look and said;"Alright, down to business. Jamie, how old would you say we are?"

"Hu .. er..Couldn't we start our business relationship on a less troubling basis?"

"But you don't understand, our age is our business."

"My point exactly."

"Let me try, Anne.",Beth said as she sat down next to Jamie. "You know our names; have you ever heard of New U."

Jamie thought for a moment. New U Nanotech had finally justified the investment community's faith in biotech companies. About a year ago the three scientists who started New U had invented a new form of nanite that could apply chemotherapy directly to any and all cancer cells in the body. The result was drastically smaller dosages of the caustic drugs and much less damage to the patient. Currently their stock was one of the hottest trading issues on the market.

"But isn't New U located on the west coast?" Jamie was trying to remember the photo in the Newsweek article he had read. "Shouldn't you three be quite a bit older, if you weren't kidding me about your names?"

"You'd hardly think that Anne here will be 62 in two weeks.",Chris said as she brought in some microwave pizza rolls.

"Although I don't think Jamie would be hard pressed to believe Chris, Beth and I were room mates in college.", Anne replied.

"C'mon, if you don't want tell me what's going on .."

Chris reached over and Beth picked up on it. Jamie found himself being lifted and guided toward the closed section of the house.

"The Nanites we used to create the Chemo Delivery System were over ten years old by the time the FDA began allowing testing on human subjects in the US.", Anne said ,coming to the door with the scanner plate installed next to it. "We've come a long way since then but, without approval there's no way to market the stuff in the US."

"Not to mention the fact that if you begin producing outside this country you never know who is going to end up with your product. Next thing you know, some mega-corp has reverse engineered thirty years work and 'poof' there go all those lovely investor dollars.", Beth added.

Jamie heard three sets of clicks as several rows of bolts automatically slid back after the scan plate read Anne's palm print.

"When the FDA announced they were starting final testing on CDS we had to start distancing ourselves from the lab. Then our private lives were being intruded on by idiots and then the press got wind of what we did and things got impossible.",Anne stepped aside and posed like an usher. Beth and Chris escorted Jamie inside. "So we set this place up and decided to drop out of sight till things blew over."

"But even getting this built proved to be a major exercise in espionage training. Fortunately we have some very low friends in high places now.", Beth said as she picked up the story."Since the press and competing companies were aware of what we looked like, we had to change our appearance."

Jamie was gazing at the facilities that surrounded him. There was a surgical table in the middle of the room and a lot of medical equipment that maybe his sister would've recognized sat on the ample counter space to his right. The left hand side of the room had more counter space with several animal cages fastened to the wall. All were empty. The far end of the room was occupied by an elevator that looked like something out of the "Jupiter 2" from LOST IN SPACE.

He was taking all this in as the "girls" continued telling him their story. By making appropriate noises and asking for the occasional clarification their story took shape. It was a typical American success story. Three young women became possessed of an idea an began working on the project as a way to have something that was theirs as opposed to the University , or later their employer's. With Anne supplying her medical knowledge, Beth worked to design the molecule sized machines while Chris cobbled together the equipment needed to create the little goobers.

In 1979 they jointly patented the design for a self-replicating molecule and formed New U Nanotech. Now armed with a simple nanite, Beth was forced to find a way to bond the thing to typical Chemotherapy drugs. Meanwhile Anne defined characteristics of various cancer cells and Chris began creating a program that could be molecularly encoded to allow a nanite to identify the various cancers and kamikaze attack then individually.

Fortunately by the time they were ready to begin producing the first versions of CDS for experimentation on animals, the investment boom of the 80's was on and the Women (no longer girls) found themselves with funding and in possession a large facility in Silicon Valley. By 1987 they where ready to patent the CDS and submit it to the FDA for approval for human testing.

The quartet was now in the lower level of the lab and Chris was proudly showing off the "cooker" as Anne continued the story.

"So there we were with happy investors, FDA approval pending, and a fresh contract from Exxon to begin applying Nanotechnology to oil spills and a working CDS. But we were rapidly coming to realize that CDS was a patch at best. It still depended on extemely expensive and unstable compounds to cure cancer. Any cost reduction from the lower amounts of Chemo required was rapidly eaten by the initial cost of nanite production. Worse, the chemo treatments in use are still as unpredictable in their effects. We had managed to deliver the drugs to precisely where needed, but we had as little idea about whether the drugs would work or not as before. That was when we turned our efforts to a much more sophisticated series of nanites."

"You see once we create the initial prototype nanite, given a growth medium, it will begin building more of itself immediately."Beth said as she picked up the story. So Chris began programing them to tear apart cancer cells directly and use the materials to build more nanites. The really nice part being that the nanites continue to live in the host. Any relapse is effectively halted as the first cancer cells manifest."

"But that was only the beginning. Around that time we lost a really promising technician to AIDS.", Chris chimed in; "He was a sweet kid who had done nothing but get some tainted blood in those days when the Red Cross was still coming to terms with the problem."

"So I changed the direction of the new Nanite series. Instead of just hunting cancer cells I went after any organism that didn't conform to the genetic code of the subject."

"And promptly killed three monkeys before you came to me." Anne looked mildly vexed , "Chris forgot that there are lots of beneficial bacterial that are quite necessary to the continued functioning of a living being."

"So,"Chris said, mildly embarrassed by the memory, "we built a second nanite series to tag and protect beneficial bacteria. A third series was then introduced as we found our strike force nanites were attacking normal cells with minor defects caused by aging. That nanite checks over each cell in the body and corrects any problems it finds. Combined, the treatment became the basis for the way we look now."

Anne began calling up pictures on the computer. "The first of the new treatment was used on some baby white mice. In the following weeks we noticed they weren't growing. The treatment had locked the mice' cell structure at the time of development they were at when originally treated."

"They couldn't get sick, and as far as we can tell, barring accidents, they can't die. But they never get any older either. The next round of experiments took a group of apes through the same process. The result were identical to the mice.

"The third experiment was the one that was the kicker though. We took one of our older apes whom we'd raised from an infant. We had samples of blood and tissue we'd taken when he was an infant and used that to base the nanites' programing on. Within six months, a mature chimp whowas about to be sent away to prevent him from accidentally hurting his keepers was reduced to the biological age of three months."

"So how did you acquire samples of your old DNA when you decided to 'disguise' yourselves?", Jamie asked.

"Ever heard of a friendship bracelet?" Chris asked.

"My sister mentioned something about those once."

"Well when we first moved into the apartment together, we kind of had a pre-house warming party."

"We got soused.", explained Beth.

"Well anyway, by the end of the night we pledged eternal friendship to each other and Anne insisted we all cut a Locke of our hair and make a friendship bracelet to commemorate the event."

"I kept mine," added Anne, blushing. " and you can't lose some hair without losing some DNA."

"So you're all immortal now?", Jamie continued.

"I doubt it.", answered Beth, starting back to the mini-elevator. "You can't flaunt the Second Law of Thermodynamics indefinitely. I'm willing to bet we've traded failure of our biological systems within the next twenty or thirty years for failure of the nanites maintaining those systems within the next hundred or so years. Then we'll see what'll happen."

Jamie assumed the tour was over on that note and began to walk over to the elevator where Beth and Anne were waiting when Chris bounced up from behind.

"So when can we get you moved in?" End ch.1 copyright 1997 Jeff Rose

New U: Ch.2 Getting to know you By Jeff Rose

Jamie had been working for the three (now) young owners of New U Nanotech for about three months. The first week was spent moving him into his office/apartment above the garage. After that, things settled into a routine. The girls considered themselves to be semi-retired and spent minimal time in the lab, checking results and directing operations from across the country. The rest of the day was either spent "off", acting as Jamie's aid or performing normal household chores. The girls were dead set against hiring any further permanent help and so Jamie found himself enlisted in the cooking and cleaning as often as the rest. For Jamie's part, his days were spent setting up the equipment in the rec room, talking to a contractor about the new satellite system that would allow both sending and receiving for both entertainment and business, drilling holes and running conduit for the new LAN and at night setting up with his landscaping program and running the result by Anne.

He didn't mind the cleaning/cooking as he began finding himself increasingly thinking of his employers as family. They went shopping together and even ate together. His friends got over ogling the girls and asking him embarrassing questions fairly quickly. All in all the only aspect of his employment that occasionally bothered him was the fact that they sometimes seemed to forget he was male. Being asked to help zip up a skirt here and catching Chris running around the house in her underwear (if that) there, was beginning to take its toll on his nerves among other things. It helped if he tried to think of them as his sisters. .. but not a lot.

He was making his presence felt as well.

Anne was finishing up reviewing a report from the coast when Chris came traipsing through. Although spring was definitely making it's presence known, the T-shirt and shorts Chris had on were a little on the chilly side yet.

"Where are you going? It's nearly 9:30."

"Jamie's got a copy of 'Fighting Street' for the Turbo Graphix and said I could try it out."

"You know there are times I really wish I never introduced you to Pac-Man back in 78."

"You thought it was so-ooo cute."

"Not after the 3,000th time you forced me to play. Won't you be cold in that?"

"In what?"

"To quote Jamie,'My point exactly'". Anne sniffed, "Are you wearing perfume? Why do you tease that.."

"At 30 years old he's hardly a boy. Sheesh! Look at us! I haven't felt, much less looked this good in longer than that." Chris said as she pirouetted practically into Anne's lap. "I should think that we deserve to have just a little fun in these new bodies." She promptly collapsed into a sitting position next to her freind."Or has it been so long since you've had some innocent fun with a known harmless guy that you can't remember the fun of the tease?"

"He just reminds me of my nephew, I don't want any of us to hurt him." Anne got a distant look in her eye, then shook her head. Jamie was not Scott. "Or anything else. He's an employee."

"Who lives with us and is a lot of fun to be around and helps remind me I'm a 25 year old again every time he blushes." Chris counted off while giggling.

"Alright! Alright. Off with ye, you brazen hussy! I need to file this report then off to bed."

Chris kissed her best friend on the cheek and made a conscious effort to bounce out of the room. She paused at the stair though. "What happened to Scott wasn't your fault Anne. Jamie isn't going to do that. And besides, he's with us now!"

Anne held herself perfectly still until she heard Chris pad up the stairs, then shook slightly as the picture of her nephew's body floated back into her mind again.

Jamie had found a fellow addict for support in his video game habit in Chris. She had tagged along on his little expedition last Saturday and he had to admit they'd had fun poking around the North Point Flea Market. She even understood when he showed her the stall that contained a mint copy of the "Valis" Hu-Card for his Turbo Graphix. The $100 price tag was outside his ability to justify even with his new job. She had offered to spot him the cash but friend or not, that was just too expensive. "George, will eventually figure out I'm the only one interested and cut me a deal"

"Or he will find someone willing to part with that much cash.", countered Chris.

"Then I won't be tempted to blow the money any more.", he grinned, and dragged her to another booth before she talked him into buying the thing.

Right now however, she seemed grimly determined to kick his butt from one end television screen to the other. Jamie wasn't at his best playing fighting games (He preferred Role Playing Games) and the way Chris insisted they sit next to each other on the floor meant he was continually reminded of the female beside him. Her perfume tugged at his nostrils and he felt quite like the naughty schoolboy when he realized his left knee was touching Chris' bare right thigh. He shifted position, but his lack of attention to the game left him open for Ryu's dragon punch. He rallied and was distracted again when her elbow caught his arm. He noticed then that when she blocked, she pulled the controller into her chest, drawing the material of her loose T-shirt across her petite breasts.

Even though he didn't glance again, knowing that eventually he would be caught, every now and again Chris' elbow would catch his arm and the image of what she looked like would pop into his mind. It threw his timing off and was resulting in an impressive run of wins for Chris. They went through an hour of this when there was a knock on the door.

Chris was about to suggest they throw quit Fighting Street and try Bomberman SS when someone knocked on the door. Jamie paused the game, smiled apologetically, and got up.

Jamie opened the door. Beth was holding the tape he had lent her yesterday. She was dressed in a dark green silk housecoat and matching pajamas. Bringing the cassette case up to her head and waggled it, smiling."Jamie I think you..." Her eyes were a little puffy but Jamie saw open wide as a blush started spreading across her cheeks.

Chris had put Fighting Street away and began looking over the shelves Jamie set up in his room to hold his games. Finding Bomberman, she turned to the open doorway already aware that Beth was there from the voice. She was surprised to see the rapidly darkening blush on Beth's face though.

Beth looked even younger than her biological age of 30, Chris thought as she spouted; "Beth! C'mon in, we were just playing."

"I, er .. was just giving this back." Beth stated, trying to regain her composure. "Jamie let me borrow it."

"This is just too good to let go." was all Chris could think as she walked purposefully toward the couple. "Jamie I'm surprised at you. Indulging Beth's perverted need for porn.", she scolded , wagging her finger in front of Jamie's face. As the color drained from his features and Beth's jaw dropped in shock, Chris deftly plucked the video from Beth's nerveless fingers.

"Hey, I don't watch or have any stuff like that!!", Jamie protested. Chris noted just how upset he was getting. Best to move him on before this gets serious. Glancing at the case she saw it was an anime titled Only Yesterday. The cover showed a young woman dressed casually, holding the hand of a much younger girl with a slightly bewildered look. This just kept getting better.

"What kind of incestuous prattle is this?"

Beth was getting irritated now. "It's nothing of the sort!"

"We'll see." Chris tossed the video to Jamie. "You! Get some popcorn started and load this into the VCR in the rec room. Beth and I will get Anne and let her decide just what kind of film this is. Jamie froze for an instant, then left. As Beth heard him hit the stairs, she reached out and pulled Chrisin close. "What the hell are you up to now?", she demanded.

"C'mon, let's get Anne. She's spent the day analyzing those Pro-j reports from Dana and looks like she could use the kind of movie that would give 'big tough Beth' those happy-ending-crying-eyes.", she paused outside Anne's door a threw a mock serious look at Beth. "Has anyone ever toldyou what a cynic you are?"

Beth's blush revived a bit as she grinned."Nope. Anyone told you how twisted you are?"

"Just you and Prof Hanson."

"Hanson ...?"

"You remember, our ethics prof? The one who way too into Machievelli and Nietzsche.

Anne was watching the news when Chris and Beth dragged her down to the rec room. She had protested, claiming she needed to get up early and help Jamie with breaking ground for one of the garden plots. She was surprised to find out that Jamie had been roped into this however, with the Tape queued up and popcorn ready. Chris made a big production of presenting the "prosecution's case" and begging Anne to make final judgement as to the pornographic content of the film.

As the movie progressed, Anne had to admit it was gorgeous. She had always thought of Disney and Bugs Bunny whenever she thought of cartoons. But this quietly funny and genuinely touching story about one woman's journey of self-discovery while vacationing in the Japanese countryside with the memories of her five year old self contrasting the action, left all three girls misty eyed. As the movie came to a close, Anne glanced down at the Kleenex box in her lap as a hairy hand plucked a couple of tissues as nonchalantly as possible.

"All cynics are closet romantics.", Jamie's disembodied voice explained flatly as the end credits rolled.

They left the empty popcorn bowels to be cleaned the next day.

End ch.2 copyright 1997 Jeff Rose

Ch.3: Related Themes by Jeff Rose 1997

Chris tightened the bolt while Jamie and Beth held the 4x6 in place.

"Jamie," Beth started, "I was wondering .. if it's not too personal that is .."

"Would his telling you it was make a difference?"

"Shut up Chris. Jamie, you know everything about what we can do and after all the work you've done on our computer I'm sure you have at least as much access to our records as we do."

"True 'nuff."

"In all the time you've been with us, you've never asked about getting the 'New U' treatment for yourself."

"Nope.", Jamie looked up. Chris had finished tightening the beam in place and was now looking at him with curiosity in her eyes.

"Okay, it's like this right?", he said. "I'm only 30 right? You guys took all the requisite samples anyone would need to clone me, or at least to provide me with a little tax deduction." Now Chris and Beth looked confused. Jamie sighed and went on, "Hell, assuming y'all are amenable, I could wait til I'm 60, or older and still turn the clock back. I've come this far; I might as well at least sample old age."

"Besides, by then any possible side effects would have cropped up, yes?"

"OK troops, gather 'round for tea!", Anne called as she walked up from the cellar entrance. Jamie helped Chris down as the four met at the picnic table in the back yard. "Jamie, remind me to look around for something to replace this . Now what's the topic of conversation today?"

"Jamie just accused us of shoddy work.", Chris said and pulled Anne upright. Handling her like a product, she hefted Anne's ample breast.

"Now does this look like a bad job?", she asked as Anne slapped her hand away any looked at Chris in a way that reminded Jamie of an old Beatles song. Lennon' s voice was still running round Jamie's head ("If looks could kill it would'a been us instead'a himmmmm-AH!"), as he heard himself say, "That's not what I was saying Chris. And don't fondle others in public, it's rude." Jamie sipped his tea and thought for a moment.

"I was talking about the fact that no one has done what you've done to yourselves. No one, has any experience with this stuff. For instance, what ultimately does a full 'New U' treatment do to the subject's immune system?"

"Jamie maybe I gave you too much credit. The S-1 through V, completely takes over for the body's immune system.", Beth stated.

"Exactly! Now let me tell you a story I read once."

"Once upon a time, there were two parents who loved their newborn very much. They wanted to protect their baby from all the evil and nastiness in the world. So they enclosed their child in a bubble and carefully monitored every thing that the child encountered there."

"No food was brought in that might sear his mouth or rot his teeth. No entertainment, neither book, nor music, nor video, was that might elicit an emotional response was allowed into that pristine environment."

"And when the child was 18 and legally an adult, they acknowledged that they had done all they could do to protect him and quite a few parents groups applauded their efforts....and the poor dumb kid took two steps outside the bubble before dying of excitement."

"Cute, nice O. Henry twist. What's the point?"Beth asked.

"You just told me five separate series of nanites handle the same responsibility as the immune system. Just what does that system do in the meantime? You also told me that just after I was hired that you're guessing that those nanites will shut down in about 100 years."

Jamie began to warm to his subject. "All of them will self destruct in 100 years? Simultaneously? I doubt it. When I was reading through the overview of the treatment, you noted that because of the nature of those very same nanites, any attempts to alter or introduce new nanites would result in their destruction as they were identified as invaders."

"So lets say (God forbid), in 40 years you lose your S-III's. There is now a hole in your defenses and your natural immune system is defunct. I think I'd feel pretty silly meeting St. Peter and having to admit that I died of terminal Athlete's Foot."

Jamie finished his tea."I love you girls dearly," he said hugging first Anne, then Chris, finally taking Beth's hands, he tried to make eye contact with each saying,"but until I absolutely have to have that kind of support, I'll do the best I can without."

He winked at them and returned to the deck, humming. Beth strained for a moment trying to identify the tune. Then screwed her face up in disgust.

"Eheeuuww!"she groaned.

"What was that for?" Chris asked.

"Believe me you don't want to know."

Anne just stared at the man moving another piece of lumber into position. "Break's over.", she said.

"Just got the last of the tests faxed back from Hopkins."

Anne looked up at Beth from the batch of requests and orders on the desk. "And..?"

"It's definite. Non-hodgekins Lymphoma.", Beth said as gently as she could, placing the damning folder in front of Anne and then massaging the older woman's shoulders. "They want to know when they can schedule him for an appointment."

Anne leafed through the pages looking for some discrepancy in the tests and their results. All she could see was Scott and her cobalt orbs went cold. "How Long to get a full treatment prepared?"

Analyzing other people's work had been Harry Selznick's job for five years now. He was very good at it and companies were willing to pay him a lot to do it well. Unfortunately one company was willing to pay him even more to do it badly.

In a way, Harry's job was simple. He would be presented with a proposed set of nanite designs for production. Those plans would in turn be compared with the subject's DNA for compatibility purposes. Similarly, when the treatment had been manufactured he would check that against the original production orders.

Harry had some help of course. The mini-cray in the basement had the a complete set of data from the recently completed Human Genome Project. Together, they could describe anyone with just a single complete strand of the stuff. The FBI was seriously looking at adopting the system he had developed for New U. What Harry had been doing with that system to the two special orders handed down from the three rejuvenated women in the Baltimore facility went well out side the duties in his job description.

This morning, Ms. Anderson finished setting up the satellite link between the mini-cray in the basement and the Baltimore facility. This pleased Harry as he'd held up final approval of the Angstrom and McGowan packages for as long as he dared. As far as the computer here knew there had been no tampering with designs submitted by his soon to be former employers. The computer in Baltimore was another matter however. Since one of the treatments was going there, he deftly told that computer to forget about what it had been told before. This was what the Angstrom and McGowan treatments should be. The computer took the data tentatively, examined the authorization codes, and finding them to be good, accepted the update. Convincing the machine that there had been no update and that this was the data it had always had took a little longer, but after some whining, the machine allowed that it had been in error.

Grinning at his cleverness, Harry opened his briefcase and looked over the original orders for McGowan and Angstrom. His new employer was playing him a lot of money to disrupt the company. They'd said nothing about killing anyone (Although they had implied it forcefully.), and what he had done would result in no deaths. He and the mini-cray had been very careful on that point. After all Harry Selznick might be an industrial spy and saboteur, but he was not a murderer."Ah well", he thought aloud, closing the folders and briefcase.'They could've been siblings anyway." Chuckling to himself, he realized that now they would be.

Harry called his secretary in and passed the two release orders to her with proper routing instructions and left to start his vacation.

At 65, (The) Richard Angstrom was out of practice feeling grateful. Never the less, he'd had to consciously refrain from hugging and kissing the whole staff at the New U clinic (His wife, Mary, had felt no such need for such restraint.) when he and his daughter walked(!) out to his car. The money he'd invested to accomplish this feat was meaningless. He'd started with less some 50 years ago and he and mary still could live out their lives in comfort.

Five years of chemo, radiation and that god awful bone marrow transplant had been erased from her life. Just last week his little girl had been virtually bald, weighed less than 90 lbs. soaking wet and was at death's door. Now she stood tall (if somewhat shakily) on her re-fleshed legs. Her golden hair was still short (Barely 3" long.), but just as thick as it had been before five years ago. In fact, except for hair length, there was almost no way to tell the difference between the 12 year old student she was and the 17 year old former cancer patient she now was. She had literally come full circle.

As he drove his family (His daughter would come into her trust fund before he'd be able to afford a driver again.), he glanced periodically into the rear view mirror at his little girl. Neither he nor Mary however could see below Danielle's shoulders and so never noticed the way she was absentmindedly scratching her arms and belly, although both were taken by the thought that her pale green eyes seemed brighter somehow.

End ch.3 Jeff Rose 1997

New U: Chapter 4, Happy Birthday Jamie By Jeff Rose 1997

Sweet Dreams are born inside you

Sweet Dreams are made to last

Sweet thoughts within your make up

These thoughts will always last

-'Sweet Dreams'

Jon Anderson / David Foster

Cotillion Music & Yessongs Ltd.1970

Lend me your ear, while I call you a fool

You were kissed by a witch, one night in the wood

And later insisted your feelings were true

The Witch's Promise was coming ...

-'Witch's Promise'

Ian Anderson

Published by Rare Blood Music Inc. 1970

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"SURPRISE!!"

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

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

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

Ron's van took the party to the beach where Jamie got his first present from Anne. When Jamie ( with mock lament), mentioned his lack of swimwear while they set up, Anne just reached into the sports bag she'd put down and tossed a pair of trunks at him. They impacted squarely on his face.

"Gee, thanks.", Jamie intoned sarcastically as he tilted his face down and let the trunks drop into his hands. Then he got a good look at them. They were hot pink with a black elastic waistband and black piping down the sides."Anne!?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ron would've taken Jamie to his room and we'll need to monitor him in (Humph!) the lab. Chris, the scan lock, please."

Getting the nearly 200 lb. man on the table produced even more grunting and not a few explicatives from Beth. Once Jamie was on the table still snoozing away, Anne began prepping the package they received on friday.

"You know, we never got around to telling Jamie about this last gift." Chris mentioned while pulling Jamie's t-shirt over his head. "Remember what he did when we were chatting him up about virtual immortality?"

"Yeah, answered Beth,"the little warehouse of trivia here started humming the theme to "Highlander".

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

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

"What about all the alcohol in his system?"

"S-1's will clean it out. Catheters in place?"

"Aye."

"Starting drip."

As usual, Jamie's computer woke up before him. It waited patiently through five minutes (At 200 MHz, that's a long time indeed.) and started the CD in the tray. Jethro Tull began to fill the room while the computer flashed "Wake up sleepy-head! Time to start another adventure in the game of life!" on its screen. Waiting the full 3.5 min. for "Witch's Promise" to end (Jamie taught his computer not to be rude.), it then ran a WAV file of Jamie screaming (He, on the other hand...) at himself to wake the fuck up. Waiting another 10 min. the computer decided no one was in the room after all and promptly shut itself down. While the assumption had been quite correct for the past two days, it was patently false today and would be again tomorrow.

The darkness was pierced by music and dreams of memory. Jamie was bounced unceremoniously through a tour of his life to date. He tried to grab hold of the better memories. The birthdays. The first time a girl (Sarah Rogers) slipped him the tongue. The surprise when he found out Stephanie Jackson really was interested in him. Finding a pristine mint copy of the first Ninja High School Yearbook. He skimmed by first time he met Rose, but landed in the middle of the phone call where she told him she was returning his ring. He was so close to suiciding that night, (That wasn't the reason though, was it?)eight months later she called again and his dreams, both then and now filled with the vision of a little girl (THAT'S the reason.) who had Rose's pixy face and grace, but no trace of his...Red paint! How the heck did he get red paint on his thumb? Some of the other kids were finger painting, must've spilt some where he was putting away the big building blocks. Teacher's so upset. It doesn't even feel... cold. God, the barrel of that gun felt cold against the back of his ..."Head on back man. She's been doing the horizontal bop with that guy the whole time you were..."

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

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

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

It was only when he reached over for the little vacuum jar he kept in the medicine cabinet that he realized there was a lot more air around his balls than normal. Looking down while humming the theme to the Jack Benny show, he noted with a little irritation, the underwear he bought last week was being held up solely through the heroic efforts of his morning woody. "Good job man. I knew I kept you around for something.", Jamie mumbled as he lifted the waistband of the BVDs and let them fall to his ankles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Lets see, Anne comes up with the idea, Beth and Chris run with it. Anne wouldn't have the meanness to do it without the other two to egg her on." He decided. Then Beth, the chemist works out the formula. But she really doesn't like to get touchy with anyone; so that leaves Chris to apply the stuff. I wonder if I enjoyed it? Jamie shook his head and chuckled at the naughty thought.

Examining himself more closely, he noted that not only wasn't his skin irritated, but he was having a hard time seeing the moles that dot everyone's skin. "Damn, a full chemical peel, with a skin conditioner built in? Wonder why they left my pits and crotch alone? Probably the skin's too sensitive there.", He decided, absentmindedly scratching his chest.

Grabbing the shampoo, he looked at the bottle and poured some in his hand. Then looked at the little pool in his hand, sniffed and satisfied there was no danger, slapped the stuff onto the top his ... hair! Not the fine wispy stuff heredity had condemned him to, but the thick mat he remembered from his youth. As soon as he got tired playing with this hair weave, or whatever it was he had to find whatever listening device they had set up ( At least he hoped there wasn't a video of this to worry about.), and get a look at himself in the mirror before he got rid of the rug currently attached to his scalp.

In the meantime... "God I wish this were real."

Chris was in the lab listening intently to "Blood Music". Specifically, she was listening to the musical interpretation of the mathematical algorithm that was Jamie's DNA signature after his treatment. She was comparing it to the version in the server from the time she and Beth had programed and prepped his treatment for production at the home office. She glanced over at the cooker she kept for on site experimentation. "Sorry Kiddo, you're fine for instant prototype creation, but Harry's got much better with QC equipment than I do."

Still, Chris prided herself on having a good ear and although Beth cleared the final product as matching the version in the server to 5 decimal places, She couldn't shake the feeling the tune (in both cases) had changed subtlety. And there was the fact that Jamie had been out for 96 hours instead of the projected 48.

She raised the headphones to her ears lost herself in the nuances of Jamie's Blood Music again. Then the computer cut in announcing a phone call being routed through the home office.

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

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

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

Jamie put his glasses back after one abortive try. He was seeing clearly without his glasses. The hair was real. It was short ;maybe two inches of growth and lighter. But it was real. He wondered if the eyes were as well. He continued staring after hearing the girls knock.

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

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

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

Jamie's back was to the pair and he was blocking their view of the mirror, but it was clear that the treatment was having an effect. They hadn't noticed just how much the nanites had slimmed Jamiedown. If she didn't know better, Anne would have guessed he was emulating the loose fit style that the kids were currently wearing. Both of them were surprised at the regrowth of hair however.

The bald spot on the back of Jamie's head had been replaced by a dense growth of honey blonde hair. The rest of his hair had grown out similarly. Anne reached out to run her fingers through the dirty blonde hair that encompassed the rest of his head. It now ran down to the base of his neck and the roots were the same honey color as the top.

Jamie turned quickly and Anne found herself face to face with the man. This also was odd. Anne assumed that Jamie had been slightly hunched at the sink. Now there was no doubt in her mind that Jamie was standing straight but his head had to tilt up slightly to meet her gaze.

It was that gaze that caused Anne to gasp though. Before, Jamie had deep hazel green eyes, with little flecks of gold embedded around the pupil and a faint ring of brown around the outer edge of the iris. Now the iris was turquoise with faint spokes of blue radiating out from the pupil.

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

"Happy 31st Birthday?" Beth offered.

Ch 5: Blood Music By Jeff Rose 1997 (with apologies to Greg Bear)

So, in answer to the prayer, the one you want is there,

The one you feel inside of you

• "Shock to the System"

Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Johnathan Elias

"You did what!?", Jamie cracked at the three women arrayed before him. They were on the way down to the lab. Chris had met Jamie, Anne and Beth halfway there. Jamie had to stop and turn up the bottom of his jeans after nearly tripping down the stairs.

Anne steadied Jamie while he was bent over, "You said, and I quote, '..until I absolutely have to have that kind of support, I'll do the best I can without.', unquote. A couple of months ago, I got back the results of some of the lab tests we ran for your physical. I can now categorically state that there is no trace of cancer in your body.... I couldn't have said that then." There were tears welling up in her eyes." Dammit! I've seen what this stuff does to people and nodular Non-Hodgekins Lymphoma is only responsive to traditional therapies 50% of the time. Even then, temporary remission, not cure is the best anyone else could offer you."

Beth and Chris had taken either side of the pair and were looking concerned. Cancer? Jamie bit his tongue before he could say anything he'd regret. Reaching up, He took Anne's face and looked into her troubled, eyes. He felt he'd had just been mortally offended by this woman, but right now they both needed her strength and he also felt as much to blame as anyone. "I know, I'm just a little upset right now. You did what you thought was right", was all he could think of to say.

Tilting her head down, Jamie kissed Anne's forehead. There were tears from both of them as they hugged each other tightly. A couple of seconds later, Chris and Beth (!) joined the support group and Jamie knew he'd done the right thing.

"Sometimes, " Jamie thought, I'm too "clever" for my own good." When he was twelve, Jamie worked on the Christmas pageant for the Mars Hill Baptist Church, where his Mom was Music Director and Dad was a Deacon. This would, like as not, be Jamie's last year in the "Children's Choir" and he figured one last fling in the back row of the "Heavenly Choir" wouldn't kill him. Besides, his Mom practically begged him.

(My voice had dropped the year before and I found myself to be the closest thing they had to a bass. Conversely, because I had a three octave range, in highschool, I wound up with the 1st Tenor slot. Shocked the other guys, when I managed a fairly rich Baritone during the fall Musical as Sir Evelyn Oakleigh in "Anything Goes". Even made 2nd tenor (barely) in All State Choir in my senior year. But I digress. - Jamie)

Jamie was standing there cracking wise with the boys in the choir before rehearsal started when Mrs. Patterson came running in. Little Donnie hadn't shown up and now they were short an Angel to tell Joseph that Mary wasn't the immoral woman he thought. She whooped and hollered so that Jamie was getting a little concerned. She wasn't a young woman and seemed to be doing a rather high impact aerobics routine. He caught his mother looking at him to do something since the other kids seemed content to watch Mrs. Patterson work herself into a heart attack. Sighing, he stepped forward.

" Umm... Miz Patterson? I could uh, you know, stand in for you til you find someone else for the Angel."

What he proposed seemed perfectly clear to him. He was willing to act as a marker and reader so the rehearsal could go on. Just to work out the blocking and give "Joseph" someone to bounce lines off of. It couldn't be that hard to find another little kid to do the angel, right?

The old bitch never bothered. She had her warm body, and because it would cause Jamie's parents embarrassment if he made a fuss, she knew she could control Jamie easier than any five year old. All he could do was ask politely if she had found a new angel.

So it went and Jamie's error ended with him being put into a white satin baptismal gown that was tied at the waist with gold rope, fluffy wings and a gold headband, that had a doofy tinfoil halo attached to it. This combo was completed by the addition of black tights (At 12, Jamie's legs were already covered in curly blond hair and he steadfastly refused to shave them.) and a pair of white satin slippers... and a trumpet. No one had a horn.

(Let me make something clear now. I did not look "cute". I'd always been a "big" kid and for the first time in my life I was thin. At 5' 10", I was 150 lbs and carried it well on 40" shoulders and a 24" waist. I had a "credible" mustache and long sideburns with collar length, somewhat unruly thick blonde hair. I looked like an inverted triangle with a fuzzy yellow knob on top. I was a little mollified when one of the guys in the choir told me that he heard Colleen Jansen giggle and say she'd like to "Scoop" me. Later, that turned to mortification, when I found out "Scoop" was the local slang for .. Well, lets just say she wanted to do something that broke, or at least bent, several comandments and I wasn't equipped for in the first place. So sue me. I had a sheltered childhood. - Jamie)

Walking down the aisle, Jamie knew it was his own fault he looked like a Monty Hall reject. He had dictated the rules. He'd told Mrs. Patterson that he was willing to be the angel until she found a suitable replacement. She'd followed those rules. She just didn't tell Jamie that he was, in fact, what she considered a suitable replacement. He had made a similar mistake with Anne, Beth and Chris by implying that it was ok to treat him if he "needed" it.

"If I'd told them the real reason, the girls might have thought I was a nut," he thought "but, I probably wouldn't have eyes that that'd do some anime characters proud."

As the circle broke Anne and Jamie composed themselves and started back down the hall holding hands. Chris held Beth back to whisper something in her ear. Beth's jaw firmed as she nodded, and went to her room while Jamie laid his palm against the scanplate that controlled the lock on the lab.

Anne looked at Jamie as the plate commenced an unprecedented third run across his palm.

"Well don't look at me, it worked fine the last time I tried it." Jamie said as he pulled his palm back and stared at it as if trying to see the differences that had been made in his palm print. Anne placed her palm on the plate and with a familiar sound of bolts sliding back Jamie said, "Oh sure, for you it works."

"It'll be alright Jamie. Chris said , "Let's get your measurements first. Now strip for the nice doctor."

"Where's Beth gone to?", Anne asked as she began gathering the tools of her trade and pulled up Jamie's file, "We'll need her for Bloods."

"The home office called." Chris stated from behind Jamie on the scale. The petite Asian shook her head slowly at Anne. Adjusting the scale she began calling out figures. "Weight: 165.34 lb, Height: 5'8.5".

"Wait a minute. I'm 5' 10", and I was only down to 185 lbs last week."

Jamie stated as Chris pulled out a measuring tape.

"Jamie, your eyes should not have changed color either. We don't fiddle around with reconstructing DNA. Chris explained while calling out the fact that Jamie's waist was down to 25" while his shoulder had shrunk to 38". "And this stuff." She added, reaching up to scruff his hair., "We have no idea how you got this from a straight New U Treatment." The poking and prodding continued. He was then handed two cups and a magazine. When he came back (Anne had to open the lab door for him.) Anne took the samples.

"When we brought you back up to your room two days ago, your dimensions had not significantly altered, you had standard male pattern baldness and you weighed 180 lbs." Anne said, reading from the computer screen. "Frankly, I'm at a loss."

"We got problems back west too. "Jamie, put these on and pull our back-ups. " Beth said as she walked into the lab. She stopped in front of Anne, "Harry's missing,"she said and then in a quieter voice, " and the Angstrom case has blue eyes."

"Well," Dani said to no one in particular, "I may look like my old self, but I'll be a few months before I can get back to my old pace." She stepped off the stair master with wobbly legs. Still, being able to do five minutes on the thing was a big achievement compared to having to be carried up stairs as had been the norm for the month preceding the treatment.

Satisfied and sweaty, she walked back to her room, picked up some fresh clothes and made her way to the bathroom. Closing the door, she stripped out of her exercise outfit and started the tub. Waiting for the water to come to temperature, she looked at the figure in the mirror.

This couldn't be Danielle Bridget Angstrom. She was 17 years old, 5' 9" and practically bedridden. Her hands and legs had been mottled red from poor circulation; a common side effect of red cell destroying chemo and radiation treatments. Only a few wisps of baby fine hair adorned her head, when it wasn't covered.

The girl in the mirror was five years younger ("At least!", she thought remembering how loose her old bras had felt this morning.), 5' 7" , and had flawless skin and hair!

"A little too much of that last." she said to herself, seeing her legs. "Crap, I just shaved yesterday. Dr. Howe said It'd grow back fast til I filled back out to my true age, but I didn't think she meant everywhere." and so, mumbling about the curly blonde hair on her legs, Dani grabbed some shaving cream from the medicine cabinet, and a Lady Bic before climbing into the warm tub.

Harry waited in his hotel room for the Michael to come and pick up what he paid for. By now the office would have made calls to his house and the lodge in Aspen he said he was going to. He took along pull on the beer in his and got up when he heard someone knock.

"No maid service today!", He called in what didn't sound like a natural voice even to him.

"Ah, but this is opportunity calling. I do not think you should wait for it to knock twice."

Harry opened the door quickly and ushered the thin man in the dark business suit in..

"Let me introduce you to my associate, Leonard.", another much larger man Carrying a briefcase stepped in. Leonard had been squeezed into a suit of similar quality to the Michael's, but where Michael looks ready for a nice tea, Leonard looks like a gorilla stuffed in a suit. Leonard closed the door as he entered, put the briefcase on the small table in the room. He carefully helped Michael get seated then took up a position at the door.

"You enjoyed your stay here?" Michael asked cordially.

"The service is fine, but frankly, I've been too nervous to see so much as the main street parade. Beer?"

Michael shook his head with a smile. "Too bad. This will likely be the last time you will be able to see Disneyland. Your double called yesterday to let me know the arrangements you made for him in Colorado were most enjoyable. I trust you had no problems registering here"

"No, the ID and credit cards you gave me are impeccable."

"Excellent. You have ..?"

Harry opened the drawer of his dresser and pulled out a large loose-leaf binder and a small CD hardcase. Opening the case he displayed four gold CDs, "Here it is, The basic construction guidelines for the nanites and my own program for defining DNA. I even threw a copy of the matrixes I redefined as an example. Uhm, your people are going to need a copy of the HGP data to do anything though."

Michael glanced at the gold CDs with their hand written labels, then leafed through the binder. "Yes, that should be no problem." He opened the briefcase, which was filled with cash and bearer bonds and turned it to face Harry. " Two million I believe was the agreed amount."

Harry licked his lips and reached to inspect his prize. Before his slightly shaking hands could to pick up the top bundle of bills, Michael slammed the lid violently down. "Before we complete this transaction, our employers have some questions about the methods used to disrupt operations at New U."

Harry now pulled the rooms other chair out and sat. He had expected Michael's bosses (and his now from the sound of it) would not be completely happy with his solution to their request.

"Did you not understand what you were contracted to do?"

"Your bosses wanted me to disrupt New U's operations long enough for them to be able to take advantage of the information I'm delivering now. I have honored that contract to the letter.", "Too defensive, Harry thought, "Back it down a bit."

"Still when I reported your accomplishment, creative as it is, the whole board was upset. Arranged placements at the coroner's office had to be paid off without their having to do anything. Never a good precedent to set, and of course without the ability to leak reports from an official channel, publicizing this tragedy without exposing us needlessly, is virtually out of our hands. "

"More to the point, some of our employers felt that, at best the 'disruption' you've arranged will not give us the time we need to completely replicate New U's results unassisted. Some even suggested that these," He gestured at the discs and binder, "may not even be usable product."

Harry swallowed, "You're not suggesting ...?" He started as he felt two massive hands grip his shoulders lightly from behind.

Michael smiled again. "Me? No I have every confidence in you. We just need your assistance to get our R&D people up to speed. We're even willing to offer an additional million for your inconvenience ... Should the board's fears prove unfounded, as I'm sure they will."

Michael rose and put the discs and binder in his briefcase and started for the door. "I'll just carry these for you. Leonard, please help Mr. Selznick check out. I'll wait in the car."

Jamie was a little disgruntled about the jeans Beth had lent them. They were tight around the waist, but nowhere near as tight as he thought they should be, and loose (thank goodness) in the hips. Collecting the CDs Beth requested from the storage locker, he went up stairs, rubbing his chest.

".. and then it hit me that Chris had been saying all along that Jamie's Blood Music was different."

"Beg pardon, Beth?", Jamie interrupted, handing over the discs.

"Listen to this." she said and Jamie huddled in with the girls gathered at the terminal to hear the strains of his DNA turned to music via the program Chris had written. After a few seconds Jamie turned to Chris. He was familiar with the Blood Music of all four of them. Chris and he were working on combining his, Chis', Beth's and Anne's theme into a single piece of music for Anne's Christmas present under the title "The Harmony of One".

"Have you been tweaking the program? Sounds like it's in a different register and the theme has changed I think."

Chris shook her head, "I was beginning to think I should ask you the after your treatment. Beth is tone deaf and I couldn't mention it to Anne and the computer swears it's the right file."

"Now, let's put your ears to the test.", Beth said, placing one of the CDs in the machine. She scanned the files, "Ok, here it is."

The tune was similar, but to Jamie's and Chris' ears but definitely not the same. Anne nodded and said, "Right, do we have all Jamie's files to run a complete analysis?"

"Looks like it .", Beth said, "I've got Pam and Jerry combing through the system at New U to see if Harry's left any more little surprises. We'll need the mini-cray to get a complete breakdown on what's been done to Jamie .. and Dani. Her files show 'fixes' similar to Jamie's." Beth continued to stare at the files she was pulling up from the backups to compare with the altered In the meantime, Chris , what's the chances of us cooking some SOUP just in case? I don't know about the rest of you, but I want to keep this as far away from the home office as possible."

"Look I'll admit I could eat a horse," Jamie said , "but doesn't feeding our faces come second to .."

"Not soup you eat Jamie, S-O-U-P, 'Super Oxygenated Umber Plasm'." Chris explained then to Beth. "Beth came up with the name. Mixing the base compounds in the cooker shouldn't be any problem, but we'll have to improvise a tank."

"Anne, Chris and I will be a while processing all these samples from Jamie and he did have a point. It's nearly twelve and while I've got the munchies, he hasn't had anything but IVs for the past few days. Why don't the two of you fix us all some lunch?"

"Well that settles that."Anne said returning to the kitchen. "Mr. Angstrom will be flying over this weekend with Dani."

"Who's Dani?", Jamie asked around the a bite of his third sandwich. Despite everything going on he certainly hadn't lost his appetite. He suppressed a small belch and leaned back as his full stomach radiated a warm lethargy through his body.

Anne started putting cold cuts back on the platter since Jamie seemed finished demolishing it as quickly as she could lay them down. "She had cancer like you, only she was much further along. Her father used to be a big financier until he retired after his second marriage. By the time he came to us, Dani was so far along that all the CDS could do was prolong her pain."

"So what, 'daddy' bribed you into doing a full treatment?" Jamie asked and realized just how much sarcasm he'd allowed to slip through. He pumped his t-shirt like a bellows to increase the air flow around his chest.

"He tried to, but the cancer was so well distributed through her body, we were afraid to use it." Anne was slipping into a lecturing mode, distancing herself from the tone of Jamie's inquiry and observing him curiously.

"You see, the full treatment attacks foreign cells and uses them to build more nanites. That gave us two problems. Dani didn't have a lot of body mass to spare at that point. Also, nanites, like any animate thing generate heat. Not a lot individually, but the billions that would be working on her could've pushed her temperature beyond her ability to withstand. "

"We had a rat in similar condition that we tried it out on. In two hours we had a dead rat that was perfectly cooked from the inside out. Then Beth was watching 'The Abyss' on HBO and found the solution. The oxygenated emulsion that Ed Harris used for deep diving."

Jaime's mind clicked and he giggled. "What she needed was some home made SOUP?"

Anne nodded, "Yep, Beth got together with an old friend at MIT who worked on the stuff in real life and together they came up with a formula that could not only be used to regulate Dani's temperature, but gave the her and the nanites enough building materials to keep her alive. Hypnotism allowed her to relax enough to accept breathing the fluid instead of air."

"Jamie, are you feeling alright? You look flushed, you're squirming in your chair and that's the fourth time in as many minutes I've seen you playing with your t-shirt."

Jamie looked at Anne sleepily. "I guess I could use a nap after eating all that.", he said, getting up and yawning. "Why don't you take the tray down to Chris and Beth. I'll just grab 40 on the couch. Its not like you need me for anything other more tests, right?"

Anne was half tempted to suggest he rest on the exam table in the lab, but knew he would refuse. Instead, she guided him to his room and told him to keep the baby monitor on in case he needed anything. She could send Chris up to keep an eye on him and she could use his computer to set up a SOUP tank as easily as down there.

"Yes, mommy," Jamie teased as Anne turned to go back down. He was too tired to change the sheets on his bed and didn't think he could take the heat anyway so he drew the covers up over the bed. He'd just laid down when he noticed his skin was glistening and his shirt and Beth's jeans were starting to soak through. Running his hand across his arm revealed the "sweat" to be sticky. Alarms began going off in his head as he lifted the arm to his nose. The faint rancid smell, reminiscent of the gagging stench that engulfed his shower earlier, caused the alarms to scream shrilly.

Jamie tried to scream himself, but the best his pumping lungs could produce was a softly whispered "Help! It's happening again!", and even that came in fits and starts as the nanites in Jamie's system shut down his vocal cords for reconstruction. His attempt to jump out of bed and run to the lab was cut short by grinding pain emanating from his hips, shoulders, then every joint in his body.

He collapsed wetly back into his bed. Unable even to whimper in pain, Jamie lay there as the creeping lethargy that had been pushing Jamie to sleep began wiping his senses out. It started as a loss of sensation in the tips of his toes and fingers. It spread with a slothful pace inward, leaving only a warmth that held those parts in a gentle floating state of forgetfulness. Jamie's logical side thought briefly of experiments with sensory deprivation (Then the emotional side began beating it fiercely about the head and shoulders with a live halibut and it quieted down.) as the roaring in his ears quieted and a dim film enclosed his vision. Just when he thought the darkness and silence would last forever and maybe he'd died after all, the dreams started.

Jamie embraced the dreams with open arms. In every one of them the same music played, if only in the distance. Jamie McGowan slept to the soft strains of his blood's music.

"Damn, Harry's good.", Beth said staring into the screen. "Resetting the treatment sequences to be practically identical is one thing, but he rewrote both their genetic codes from the ground up.

"I don't think we're going to get much from Jamie's blood samples. Chris said handing over the printouts to Beth. "His HCTs, neophyles ,everything checks normal on the cell counts, but his hormone levels are all over the chart. Which, if I remember correctly is fairly standard. At least it was for us. Maybe Anne could see somthing... And what makes you so sure Harry did this?"

"Thanks," Beth glanced at the numbers and flicked the sheets with her finger. "Besides the fact he never reported back to work after his vacation, these. There are no indications of anything but benign mutations. Chris, the treatment programs for Dani were very different in application, yet the changed programs take advantage of that ", she began scanning the sheets in a more determined manner, "Where are nanite counts?"

"Third page."

"Uh-huh, right. There are S-XII groomers still active Jamie's system. Our version of his treatment had them at dormant levels unless triggered by an abnormal DNA sequence. We can't do a full DNA reconstruction until Pam and Jerry clear the mini-cray for use. It'd take our machine a month of sundays to crunch. What about the skin samples, do we have the chromosome scans yet?"

"Should be done in a sec". Chris said and got on the elevator. "I'll check on them ok?"

"I'd be kind of surprised if the only major change he made was to shrink Jamie and change his eye color." Beth said to herself as the lab door opened and Anne walked in with the baby monitor, a tray of cold cuts and sodas. "Where's Jamie?" she asked, glancing over.

"He ate three sandwiches and gulped down two Pepsis before deciding he needed to sleep it off. I figured to send Chris up to keep an eye on him and work on the computer."

"Cool Beans!" Chris said jumping off the elevator. She tossed some papers at Beth and headed for the door. "I haven't babysat for .. God! 44 years! I hope the rates have gone up since then."

"Sorry, just room and board for now." Anne said. "Give a holler when you get there, I left the monitor on."

Beth listened to the last with only half an ear. She was looking at Jamie's chromosome pairs and a very obvious anomaly was staring back at her. She shuffled through several similar (but note quite the same) samples and issued a low whistle. "Now I know what the S-XII's are up to."

"Those are from Jamie?", Anne asked.

"Yipper. Did you call Angstrom?" Beth asked handing the collection of reports to Anne. She purposefully placed the chromosome scans on the bottom.

Anne sat down at the counter and began looking them over. "Oh yes, I've arranged for them to arrive 8:30 Saturday night, United Airlines flight 675, gate 2."

Beth's green eyes narrowed as she sat thinking. Anne was still making her way methodically through the stack of papers. Harry's version of the Jamie's treatment patched several safety subroutines from Dani's program into the S-XIIs. She thought, then her eyes widened as Anne reached the Chromosome Scans and muttered , "What have we done."

The scans were of the most basic sort. They simply showed the chromosomes in order for each cell dissected. Jamie had several samples that looked absolutely normal, but several came out with final groupings of "XX" or even "XXY".

Chris' voice came over the monitor. "Guys, grab everything you might need for samples. STAT!" She didn't sound at all well.

Anne and Beth burst through the door to Jamie's room to find Chris bent over, patiently wiping Jamie's face, but it was obvious that as fast as she could clear one section of the stinking reddish brown substance. Jamie was laying covered from head to toe in the stuff, his clothes clinging wetly to his body. It was clear the change was progressing much more quickly than previously.

"He's in REM sleep, but I can't wake him up.", Chris said continuing to work on his face. "This stuff looks and smells like SOUP. It evaporates quickly but he's sweating so much of it."

"He must be using it to dissipate excess waste and heat." Beth had already begun cutting away at Jamie's clothes, revealing the extent of what was in progress. Pealing away his shirt, she heard Anne gasp at the sight of his rapidly thinning arms and shoulders. Under the damp gel surrounding Jamie's chest she could see his nipples had grown and the plum-sized swelling beneath them. Anne began sobbing and Beth knew she was going to be no help for a while. Beth sighed and started on the jeans she'd lent Jamie earlier.

Jamie stepped into the great ballroom, studying the Rococo architecture with interest. The orchestra played a melody that hung at the back of his head and drew his gaze down to the mass of humanity below. The ball had already started and he knew he was expected to make an appearance.

"Sooner begun, sooner done.", He said, though why he was here in this monkey suit escaped him. Large crowds of people in social settings always made him nervous. He made his way slowly to the floor which was awash with all the people he'd ever met. Matt and Sue reeled by him with the ease and grace that came from truly knowing your partner. It was something he'd hoped to experience, knowing he never would and envying those who had. He nodded to them and their course across the floor shifted to intersect him.

"Glad to see you made it .", Matt said as his face spun by. The couple broke briefly to gather Jamie into their embrace. Sue looked him over, "Jamie, you look marvelous! Have you lost weight?"

"A bit.", Sue, as always had a casual glow of life that was only enhanced by the stunning gown she wore. "Matt, you better keep an eye on her."

" 'A Nod's as good as a wink.' At least I don't have to worry about you Jamie."

"Oh?"

Sue turned his face up (?) to hers. "Of course silly, everyone knows you're taken for the evening. She's waiting for you."

"But you've got to find her.", Matt added, disengaging from Jamie as he and Sue continued the dance leaving him to continue the search.

He saw a lot of people in that timeless place. Some he remembered fondly, Like Miss Barbara, who used to babysit him (she made the most wonderful "gillcheese" sandwiches) and her husband Mr. Barry. Joy Hubbard, who was the fixation of his first crush on an older woman. She was still 17, and gave Jamie one dance before bending over to give him a kiss on the cheek and send him on his way. There was Kevin Rath, who played with him in kindergarten. Jamie was bemused to watch the five year old waltzing with his first steady girlfriend, Heather Kinnison.

Other's were distant memories of people. His Great Grandpa McGown had died before Jamie was even five. The kid who smashed the macaroni necklace he made for his mother in kindergarten was there, carrying drinks. The little girl at Camp Wo-Me-To who pinkie-swore with him to write was also there.

The Orchestra was led by (oddly enough, considering she's tone-deaf)Beth. Her red hair swayed in a seductive manner as she kept time that reminded Jamie he was dreaming. Anne and Chris were represented as well. Chris pirouetted wildly about the room in the throes of some tune heard only by her. Anne made a game of his finding her flickering visage though and when Jamie finally caught hold of her she only hugged him in a maternal way, blushed and told him how proud she was of him and that SHE was waiting at the refreshment table.

The only constant in all the meetings were that he automatically assumed the age and manner of the person he was at the time, growing or shrinking as required. Finally, Jamie made his way through the crowd on the floor having failed to meet only one person that stood out in his life.

"Hello Jamie."

"Rose?", Jamie turned from the punch bowel and looked down at the pixy face and just enough overweight frame of the woman who taught him his ability to judge women sucked righteously. "Are you ..?" he started while thinking desperately, "God please, I can't live through this again!"

Her dark eyes twinkled merrily and she smiled at the misunderstanding.

"No, I didn't want you remember?", Rose said taking the cup from Jamie's hand and placing it on the table. "But I can introduce you to her if you like." Rose took his hand and began to lead him to the end of the table where a young girl in a very pretty party dress stood delicately. Jamie's heart leapt to his throat in an agony of longing as Rose placed his hand around the little girl's.

"Jamie McGowan, meet your daughter.", Rose said, smiling that huge smile that haunted his worst nightmares and backed away, melting into the dance behind them.

Jamie glanced back down as the little girl changed. She grew from age five to fourteen and as she did her chestnut hair became blonde, pulled back into a french braid that he knew ran down to the middle of her back. Her dark brown eyes turned a deep sea green as her face lengthened, pushing cheekbones up and dress became an appropriately mature, yet innocent thing of silk and velvet that hinted at the woman ready to come into her own.

Jamie could feel himself changing as he had for the other meetings he'd made here, but he ignored it steadfastly and instead, feasted on the sight of his daughter. "Jen- Jennifer. ..?"

"I've waited so long to do this!", She cried and hugged Jamie. His own tears sprang unbidden and he clutched the girl to his bosom. Then they talked of the future and danced and shared what seemed an eternal moment. It ended all too quickly.

"Remember, I'm waiting for you." She whispered as the ballroom began to break up around them and the darkness drew on Jamie. "I will be yours. Just believe in others. Believe in Daddy. I love you Mommy!

As the darkness claimed Jaime again he realized he'd spent the entire time with his daughter to be as a woman.

Ch.6: Without Hope You Cannot Start the Day

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

• Walt Kelly s Pogo

"Jamie?", Anne bent down to touch his/her shoulder. It had been midnight before Jamie's body slowed its transformation. Anne handled cleaning him up while Chris and Beth got fresh sheets out of his/her chest. She marveled at how easily Jamie's new form could be lifted from the bed. When they were done and Jamie was placed between the clean cotton sheets, she d watched as the pitifully small body arranged itself in a fetal position and began snoring softly.

"Jamie, can you hear me?"

Rude vibrations rocked Jamie. Turquoise eyes flickered open briefly then shut and reported a nasty loud brightness outside. His brain mulled this over a bit and decided to send some test signals out. "Fleebe aclone", Jamie mumbled and turned slightly. Shifting the extremities about produced reports of stiffness and mild discomfort. The ears confirmed that the voice was back on line, but the pitch was cranked too high and the tongue and lips were having problems with coordination. The lack of "Witch's Promise"playing in the background meant actually getting up was optional. Then the bowels and bladder walked up and said they had something to bring out for discussion. They got priority in these situations so the brain kicked the conscious mind out of the storage bin it was screwing around in with the subconscious and powered up the rest of the system.

Jamie had discovered early in life that getting out bed and into a standing position quickly was imperative if he was actually going to wake up. It started in high school when he began noticing a tendency to overuse the snooze button. So he placed the alarm clock on the opposite end of the room and left the volume high. Later, rooming with others who frequently did not appreciate rising as early forced him to learn to reach that alarm as quickly as possible.

Anne was just about to sit down again when Jamie's turquoise eyes flew open as he simultaneously threw the sheet off and rolled onto his back. Normally this would be followed by heaving his legs out onto the floor while using the momentum to bounce himself into a vertical position. What Anne saw however, was Jamie's calves striking the edge of the mattress followed by a startled "Eeep!" as said mattress flung Jamie heels over head backwards to the floor with an loud thwup.

The drive to the airport was made in deafening silence. Rick Angstrom had seen Dani put up with myriad pains over the past five years. The loss of her hair, dental problems as the enamel was slowly stripped from her teeth, even the loss of continence during the bone marrow transplant , didn't faze her. But this latest round of changes was tearing her apart. He promised himself he would do the same thing to Harry Selznick when he got hold of the little worm.

He looked into the rearview mirror and said, "We'll be there shortly Dani." Dani just sat there, staring out the windshield with those odd turquoise eyes of hers and continued to crunch away on some peanut brittle that would've shattered her teeth two weeks ago. The clinic said she d grown almost a full inch since her last visit. No wonder, the way she d been packing it away.

For her part Dani was upset to say the least. The past week had been

nothing but disappointments. Yes she was almost back to her old height, but her waist and shoulders had gained at least that much and her breasts had shrunk up to the point that she had stuffed socks into the A-Cups she was wearing now. .. And they itched. She gave up on shaving her legs and pits two days ago when hair started to spread up from her crotch and that itched worse. Hiding her case of "fuzzies" caused her to wear the oversized sweatshirt and jeans that were threatening to broil her whenever she stepped into the late August sun. She was scared to show Mom what was happening and Dad either didn't or refused to understand how frightened she was. Just to add insult to injury she was getting a mild case of the cramps.

Saturday mornings are supposed to be fun. It had been a long time since Jaime had stopped perusing the networks's morning offerings with a bowel of Cap'n Crunch or Coca Puffs in hand, but getting up early and running some "Ranma ", "Tenchi-Muyo!", or "Patlabor" while setting up for the day was still a Saturday morning ritual he had enjoyed. But not today. After Anne helped him get up off the floor while explaining that everything would be all right and Chris was going to the White Marsh to pick some things up for him, Three things hit him simultaneously:

1. You're Naked!

2. You're staring into Anne's left nostril.

3. Now that you've bounced yourself off the floor you really have to go

to the bathroom!

Jamie chased Anne out of the room and rushed to the can. Getting the necessities out of the way didn't take too long. Just refuse to look at yourself, but remember to sit. It was almost fun having enough hair to need to use a blow dryer. .. But it made it necessary to violate the aforementioned rule. You couldn't help but notice that your hazel eyes had shifted to an unnatural blue/green. Looking more like those the stones in those rings your sister liked years ago. The blonde eyebrows were nothing new, but their customary light tone that faded to nothing halfway across, now seemed to emphasize the smaller, more vaguely feminine contours of your new, chubbier face. Your formerly thin lips have taken on a more pouty look as well. Good thing the loss of 4 " in height mean you can't really see anything below your chin in the bathroom mirror unless you want to. Maybe getting dressed (hold that pun) and just losing yourself in a game would help.

The 3D controller for the Saturn felt too big in Jamie's much smaller hands. But then, everything was too big. The extra large Ranma t-shirt that he wore to cover his pubescent breasts was now long enough to cover the pink and black swim trunks Anne got him for his birthday. Thank god for draw strings or those would've been on the floor. Nights twirled and spun across the landscape of the Soft Museum stage and the music played as Jamie tried to reach the Zen state that (he hoped ) would let him forget the grumbling for food in his gut (Look what happened the last time you got hungry No, strike that. Don t look.) and disquieting feeling of movement down below as his plumbing continued to rearrange itself. The timer got to zero during the third run and Nights reverted to Claris. Jamie reached over and shut off the game. Looking over at the clock, he noted it was only 10:30 in the morning. Jamie checked his scheduler and began picking up the room.

"Chris should be back from the mall in a couple of hours.", Beth said, sitting down net to Anne at the kitchen table. "Are you sure Chris was the best choice to pick up some clothes and basics? You know her sense of humor."

"She follows the fashions more closely than either of us.", Anne responded looking at the somewhat matronly fashions she preferred. "She knows better than I do what the kids are wearing today."

"That's what I m talking about. Have you seen what kids are wearing this summer? I don't think Jamie's going to respond well to a middie tee and low slung hip huggers, eh?"

Anne started to look worried. "You don't think she d go that far, do you?" Beth shrugged, "I wouldn't be surprised to see a couple of mini-skirts in the mix, but. ..", Changing the subject, she pointed to the baby monitor on the table and asked , "How long has it been that quiet."

"Couple of minutes", Anne rose and smoothed out the floral print skirt she changed into after Jamie chased her out of the room, "Think I ll try talking to her. She's got to be very confused."

Beth Grabbed Anne's arm. "Better let me handle the first round. This is the same 12 year old that chased you out of her room, remember?", She pushed up the existent sleeves of her tank top. "I think Jamie may need someone less prone to bolt than you. Listen in on the monitor and come in when I call."

The door to Jamie's room swung and Beth watched as Jamie returned to her chest and began piling jeans and sweat pants onto his bed. "You know if I d known about my guinea pig status, I d have asked for a better salary." Beth was amazed. The little girl in front of her was a little tall for her (biological) age, but the immense tee shirt and oversized trunks, made her look even younger. The high voice further emphasized the matter. Jamie turned her head and Beth watched as her shoulder length wavy blonde hair shifted and a tomboyish face peered out from under ragged golden bangs. "So you think I should just put em in storage for the next hundred years or donate them to Goodwill and try to convince the Infernal Revenue Service I can still claim the deduction?"

"Hold onto them.", Beth said, glad that Jamie had at least realized the change wasn't really permanent. " What's old is new again and all that."

Jamie sniggered at the pun, but when it came out as a giggle, the control he was striving for broke and the giggle rapidly changed to sobs and tears.

Jamie tried to turn away from Beth when a strong hand gripped his shoulder and spun him about. The hard slap that followed cut the ears short and for the first time in years Jamie lost control. Beth was surprised by the fury with which Jamie commenced attacking her. Beth was now taller and out massed Jamie which put him at the disadvantage. Jamie obviously never trained to fight as she did and was used to simply wading in and throwing his opponent around. Typical for a kid who'd grown up big for his age . Jamie was too close for Beth to do more than try to restrain her though. Beth had just about managed to pin Jamie to the bed when a hand freed itself and shot out, grabbing her collarbone and squeezing.

"Urrgh! Nice try missy!" Beth grimaced, and was thankful Jamie's strength had been diminished by the transformation. This hurt, but if Jamie had been able to apply her former strength, Beth knew she d have a broken collarbone. "If you'd been a real girl you would have gone with a titty twister though." She leaned forward, forcing Jamie to bend her elbow and ease her grip.

"James Everett McGowan! Stop that this minute! Anne's voice boomed through the room and Jamie stopped struggling immediately. Beth almost reluctantly moved aside to reveal Anne standing behind her. Anne had her fists planted on her hips. Her face was a mixture of horror at the scene and irritation that things got this far. She panted from running full speed to Jamie's room as she tuned to Beth. "And you.. "She started.

Jamie burst out laughing. This time it was a full throated belly laugh. "You used the Mother Voice !", tears were steaming again and the laughter died down to giggles. "Oh, Jeeze," Jamie managed in between fits, "I haven't cut loose on anyone like that in years. Not since I was .."

Noticing that Beth was massaging her shoulder Jamie asked, "Beth, are you ok? I, uh .. never well."

"Nah, not bad for your first cat fight. The bruise should be gone in an hour. See? There are good things about having nanites running around your system.

Jamie soured at that. "You mean other than being stuck in a teenage girl's body for the next hundred years? Or watching my family all die before I become an adult again? My social life might've been garbage before, but I don't even want to think about what kind of creep might be interested in me now. That is, of course, assuming I don't become the first thirty year old Kiddie Porn star in history! Or do I just go on Geraldo and sing the blues for cash and prizes?"

"Scum puppies! Now I want to kill something again. Anne, hand me that notebook."

"I will not." She said pulling the chair from Jamie's desk and motioning Beth to find a seat on the bed next to Jamie. "And you are most certainly not stuck in an 12 year old's body. Beth has been going over the changes Harry made to your treatment and once the changes to your genitalia finalize, you'll age very quickly til you hit what. ..?

"Somewhere between 17 and 21 biologically."Beth supplied. "I'm not going to lie to you Jamie, this is going to be hard for you to deal with. We'll help however we can and your basic job will stay the same. We'll help with your family if you want us to, but for all extents and purposes you are now a young woman and the sooner you get used to the fact the better."

"Jamie,", Anne said, taking Jamie's reduced hands into her own. "You once told me the reason you loved your job here was the broad range of things that needed to be done. 'Never a chance to get bored when you can switch from landscaping one day to wiring the next or working on the design for some workbench or addition we need.' , I think you said. That hasn't changed. If anything, we need you more than ever. You, the essential you, has not changed. Jamie McGowan still has the mind of a 30 year old dilettante whose interest in everything from Anime to Zoology has kept him a poking his nose into anything that struck his fancy."

She was doing it again Jamie thought, looking into the cobalt orbs pleading with him/her to accept her gentle authority. Jamie gathered her strength of will together for an assault of her own.

"Alright, I know I'm still me. I also know I m pissed off. Anne, you said I had cancer, but you could've told me and proscribed the Chemo Delivery System nanites a whole hell of lot easier than setting me up for a full treatment the way you did. You knew I didn't want a full treatment. What the hell were you thinking? "

Anne lowered her eyes and had the courtesy to look embarrassed. Jamie felt Beth tensing on the bed beside her.

"It had to be your decision Anne." Jamie pressed. She (Get used to that pronoun Kid) felt Anne's shame at what had happened, but needed to get at the root of the cause before she felt too sorry for her. "At best, Chris tends to think of me as a little brother or someone to tease. Beth, no offense hun, but this is the first time since before I introduced you to what I like in anime that you haven't looked at me like I was a potential rapist. Some day you'll have to tell me why guys put you off."

Feeling her oats now, Jamie gently squeezed Anne's hands, which were still clasping her own. "But you Anne, have always treated me like a child who needs protection." Jamie grinned as those words passed her lips. "So you convinced Beth and Chris to knock me out, and turn me into Lazarus Long. Except something went wrong and now I look more like an immature Deety Burroughs."

Anne looked confused. "Who?"

"I'll see if I can't find my copies of Time Enough For Love and Number of the Beast later." Jamie sighed. "You're avoiding the subject though. Why force me into a full treatment you knew I wouldn't want?" "That's my cue to leave.", Beth said, standing, "I m going to start lunch. You two have a lot to talk about and Chris'll be back in an hour or so any way."

Jamie closed the door after Beth and hearing her stomach growl, threw caution to the wind, and grabbed a couple of birch beers out of the mini-fridge she used as a night stand. Passing one to Anne, she sat jumped back onto the bed. "Well?"

"Remember back when you hired on us and Chris talked about where the idea to apply create the broad based treatment that de-aged us came from?"

"Sure, one of your technicians died of AIDS."

Anne seemed to fall into herself and her eyes looked through Jamie. "At that time some people were still calling it GRIDS. When my brother-in-law's

son heard what his son had, he disowned him and I allowed him to stay with me on the west coast."

Anne's gaze sharpened a bit. "You reminded me of him. His manner and style I mean. Shy, yet valiantly attempting to hide behind puns and banter. Purposefully exposing yourself so no one else would have a chance to."

"He hid the fact he'd caught a cold and Beth, Chris and I were off on a money run. Those were busy days for us, when we weren't in the lab, we were constantly being introduced to potential investors and demonstrating the possibilities of nanotechnology. Most of which were for naught. You want to know why Beth is put off by men? Wait til you have to put up some of what we went through to get New U established with our skins intact."

"Three days later, I opened the door to my apartment to find Scott unconscious. He'd just given up. I rushed him to the hospital, but his lungs had already filled with fluid from pneumonia by then. Anne's eyes clouded again as the sight of the 20 year old swam in front of her. I was the only one in the family willing to care for him and I ignored the obvious symptoms. I let him die so I could chase money."

"I couldn't just .. stand by with partial methods when I knew I could save your life and keep you safe! You'd never have figured out what had been done for years. By then I didn't think it would matter. Instead .. "

Jamie did her best to gather Anne into her arms and pressed her small face into Anne's hair. "Instead your QC man re-rigged the treatment and tipped your hand, eh?"

"You're not ..?"

"Like I said before, I m throughly pissed; at you for not trusting me and at Harry for fucking with my life. There's another person to be pissed at though and he isn't as available for kicking in the ass as he used to be. Anne, I've lived the last 12 years without becoming romantically involved with anyone. Do you know why?"

Anne pulled and Jamie found herself firmly in Anne's lap. Anne brushed some hair out of Jamie's eyes. "I always thought you were just too shy."

Jamie found herself even more firmly in the grips of Anne's magic than ever before. She resisted the urge to rest her head on Anne's shoulder, looked her dead in the eye and continued.

"I went through all the normal dating experiences as a kid. From boyhood crush to having someone who throughly disgusts you chasing you around. I've even participated in a few of those relationships from the other side as well. Fell into the secret admirer bit in Jr. high. Had a few steadies and when we broke up it hurt the way such things always do I guess. Looking back, I knew none of them were ever going to be permanent relationships. Then in college I met Rose."

Jamie was now feeling quite uncomfortable and got out of Anne s lap. "She was my first .. everything I guess. The first girl I ever seriously considered marrying. The only girl I ever proposed to. The first woman I ever made love to. I was so scared when I gave her the ring I told her to stop crying, the diamond wasn't that small."

Jamie smiled at Anne, "We were the jesters for the local SCA group. She was the Rude Jester and I was the Crude Jester," Jamie flipped the bird, "This one to be exact."

"Anyway, I knew her home life was kinda screwed up, but I wasn't aware of how badly she wanted out. After I proposed, she wanted to move in with me, but I was raised fairly conservatively and wouldn't hear of it. When I offered to help her find an apartment of her own, she declined saying that as an Airforce brat, she didn't know how to function off base. Then she wanted to push our wedding date forward."

"I was a student working part-time and hustling flea markets and comic conventions, trying to make a grubstake. I couldn't support a family then, no matter how much I might've wanted to."

Jamie picked up the only stuffed doll in the room. A small Fox-squirrel that Rose had given Jamie years ago. "So she found someone who could. I knew she was mad when she left for the summer to see her grandmother in Philly. Wouldn't tell me how to get there or what her phone number was." "She called me in August and told me she was transferring out there and about Patrick. She was sending my ring back. I told her to cash it in as a wedding present. Two months later she called to tell me how happy she was to be married and pregnant."

"Y'know how you hear about how utterly stupid some guys can be? I still have dreams about her. I even dream about Crystal. That's what they named the baby, did I mention that? Always liked Jennifer myfself. Never even seen her, but I know who she doesn't look like. Rose likes to call whenever she's having problems. She called me just to catch up on old times after divorcing her second husband a month before I moved in here and I thought I was going to die. I couldn't bring myself to tell her where to get off. I just made conversation as merrily as you please.

"The point being that I don't date because I know that if she walked through that door right now, with Crystal in tow and asked me to take her back, I d do it."

"Do you know how scary it is to be that stupid and know it? How can a person, knowing he's that messed up, trust any of his feelings about people? I resigned myself to being alone for the rest of my life and you just extended that sentence by a hundred plus years! THAT'S why I m pissed at you."

"But I can't stop there and still be a good, honest to myself cynic. I'm where I am because I made sure no one knew why I didn't want to be immortal. Not even the one woman I've known since Rose that I instinctively trusted from the moment I met her.", Jamie banged her head against a bookshelf. "And THAT'S why I'm pissed at myself!"Jamie knew she was indulging in self pity now but the leaden feeling in her heart was increasing anyway. Spreading from the center of her chest and just hanging there. She couldn't stop the tears when she felt Anne s arms encircling her and felt her kiss the back of her head.

"You were wrong about some things that's all."Anne said quietly, "We all are sometimes."

Jamie sniffled a bit, knowing she d just told this woman the one thing she'd never told anyone. Not her family, not Matt or Ron...

"Cushlamochree! What'll I tell everyone about this! Younger and shorter, people ignore or attribute to a rug or maybe Grecian Formula. Younger, shorter and breasts get flat denials!"

"How about, Matt, there's something I've been meaning to tell you for years. ", Chris offered as she entered the room carrying more bags than Jamie would've given her credit for. "Seriously, don't we have enough bridges to cross tonight without bringing even more people into this?" She dropped the bags onto Jamie's already crowded bed and after tossing the collected jeans, pants and underwear to the floor, she dug through them till she came up with a Rite-Aid bag.

"Into the bathroom Missy, Anne start sorting through this stuff and find Jamie some real shorts, panties and a bra. Beth should be bringing lunch up and I want to have Jamie here presentable before tonight." Glancing at Jamie's trunks, she added, "Bet you're thanking God for drawstrings."

Chris whipped Jamie out of Anne's grasp and pushed her into the bathroom. Before she was quite aware of what was happening, Chris had stripped her down and placed her in the shower.

"Yes I can see we have some work ahead little miss hairball." Chris began by showing Jamie how to shave properly. It really wasn't that different from before, Jamie reflected, there was just a LOT more surface area to cover and some of the positions required to get there were, well awkward to put it mildly. A thorough shower followed with Chris detailing how best to keep the new equipment Jamie had properly clean. When she protested about how detailed Chris was becoming with her descriptions and instructions, she then began describing the consequences of not knowing what she was explaining. Jamie suppressed a gag and washed on.

When Jamie tried to use the shampoo in the shower Chris slapped her hand and threw it out. "You want people to think you have dandruff or something?"

"It was on sale."

"For a very good reason. It smells like a the back end of a mule with dysentery. Use this.", Chris countered passing a bottle through the curtain.

Jaime had to admit, it did smell a lot better than the other stuff and she barely missed the tingling scalp. "Besides washing one's hair is much more pleasant when there's hair to wash", she thought. "Conditioner though, she decided, is just plain boring.

"Towel!", Chris shouted tossing one over the curtain rod once Jamie shut the water off. Jamie patted herself off and then fumbled a bit, realizing she was going to have to buy some larger towels if she was going try wrapping herself in them.

"I'm well aware my bottom is hanging out Chris.", Jamie said while stepping out of the shower. "Humming the theme to the Jack Benny show is not necessary."

Chris made her sit on the toilet while she evened Jamie's hair and applied some evil smelling goo to the ends. "Your hair is darker at the ends that at the roots. This'll help even that out, unless you want a really short style. I have to admit though, I didn't realize it was down to your shoulder blades."

"Are you kidding?", Jamie shot back. "The hair's the only part of this I like."

"Fine, then let that set for a few minutes." Anne poked her head in the door and handed Chris some clothes. "Lunch is ready when you two are."

"Give us ten minutes.", then to Jamie, "Ok Kiddo, stick your head in the sink. Time to rinse."

A minimum of time was spent drying." You've got enough natural wave in your hair to get away with just letting it hang for now, but I can t wait to get you into the salon." Chris said. "Oh.. goody."Jamie said, pouring as much sarcasm as she could muster into it.

"Hey you said you wanted the hair. It's the price of admission. TANSTAAFL, yes? Oh, I almost forgot!", Chris exclaimed and began powdering Jamie. "Keeps you smelling fresh all day and helps keep that new skin you've got nice and soft."

Jamie sighed and began pulling on the clothes Anne dropped off. "Chris, I m impressed, you didn't go for the silkies." Jamie said slipping on the cotton panties, followed by a pair of beige shorts.

"You're a little young yet and we expect you'll be growing out everything I just bought within the year. That'll give you a chance to grow into your new proportions like any girl."

"Great.",Jamie said encountering problems with the bra til she turned it backwards to clasp. "This however is too much." She said dropping the kawaii lace trimmed tank top and picking up the white tee shirt with both Ranma Saotomaes on it. "Much more appropriate, don't you think?"

"No one else in the house will get joke." Chris said as Jamie tucked the shirt in.

"As long as I do, who cares? Let's eat."

Lunch went without incident as they all ate. Jamie put her new clothes away, surprised at just how much Chris had picked up. There were even three pairs of shoes. Basic flats, a pair of two inch heels, finally, some trainers. Jamie opened the box. Ankle socks were livable but these? "I knew you had to have them the moment I saw them." Chris said grinning as Jamie pulled the hot pink cross trainers out of the box. She grimaced a bit, then smiled at the joke and slipped them on and laced them up. "I guess they do fit my new image." So saying, Jamie stepped over to her desk an rustled through one of the drawers til she found what she was looking for. Gripping the prize in her fist she rummaged in the closet.

Jamie normally didn't wear hats (His hair loss had not begun to become noticeable til after he'd been forced to wear them continuously in the military.) but this Baseball cap was purchased during the height of his obsession with Ranma and matched the shirt perfectly. With the closet door hiding her from the others, Jamie pulled her hair back the way she remembered her sister doing and used the rubber band clenched in her fist to make a ponytail. Tucking it through the back of the cap, She spun out from behind the closet door. She stopped in a slightly undignified manner. The small weights on her chest and her changing center of gravity causing her to bobble a little. "Well, wha'cha think?"

The three women applauded and Jamie felt a mild blush. "As long as I can put my own spin on this, I guess I can survive." She thought and acknowledged their applause with an exaggerated curtsy.

Rooms were prepared for Mr. Angstrom and Dani and round about 6:30 Anne and Beth got ready to pick up the pair at the airport.

"But why can't I go too?"Jamie asked in what sounded even to her, suspiciously like a little girl whining. "Gotta work on the delivery", Jamie thought, but she really was curious to see her other half.

"The car will be crowded enough as it is, with the two of them and their luggage. I also want to make sure Dani is prepared to meet you. I don't know just how much Richard has told her about what s happening to the two of you and she may not even be aware of you yet. Given the importance of the your role in helping her through this, I d like to make sure she's prepared. Beth will be going along to keep everyone in line."

Anne had explained her buddy system to Jamie during lunch. Jamie was to help Dani get used to being Danny while Jamie was learning to be a girl from her. "It shouldn't be too hard to teach Dani to make rude body noises and remember to occasionally scratch her balls." Beth smirked and Jamie stuck her tongue out at the slight on her former sex.

Once they left, Jamie began preparing a light dinner and Chris checked to make sure the lab was prepared for tomorrow. It gave Jamie time to think about the changes that were continuing in her body. Nibbling on a carrot; there was something new. Jamie had always hated raw vegetables but it seemed her taste buds and sense of smell had even changed. Not altogether surprising as her new body was a combination of the best aspects of both Jamie and Dani Angstrom. She wondered again what Dani looked like. How much

Jamie was peeking through her and how was she dealing with that?

The smell of meat and spices was filling the kitchen and Jamie turned to get some lettuce for the taco salad when she saw her distorted reflection in the refrigerator, "Not much Jamie left on this end.", Jamie said.

"About half you, half Dani Angstrom to be exact." Chris said, walking in, " You might not believe this, but I think we all went through that to an extent. At least I did." Chris sniffed cautiously. "Not bad."

"When we tried the treatment on ourselves," Chris said, "I was amazed at how much of a difference 30 years made. Colors were brighter, clearer, and smells! I didn't realize how much the olfactory senses faded over time. Flavors became richer and more vibrant than they had in years."

"I know what you mean about that. " Jamie agreed and started shredding the lettuce..

"For a while, It was intoxicating." Chris went on and began washing her hands. I had to try everything again. But in the end I was still me and.."

"Don't push. The fact is, I'm not really the girl I see in the mirror. She looks like she belongs on an old after school special. She doesn't legally exist. She can't drive, I certainly wouldn't trust her with a drink. She's 5' 6" if she's an inch! One Sam Adams and she'd likely be on the floor. Worse, I think she's a little slut."

Chris did a beautiful double-take. "Wha ... Where'd that come from?"

Jamie blushed, but in for a penny. .."I have never felt .. not without meaning to, anyway. When you were telling me how to wash .."

"Oh that was just good clean fun." Chris giggled."Don't tell me you really believed you were supposed to massage your nipples with the soap?"

"Dad, what does she mean?",Dani cried. "The techs at the clinic said they were sending me here so Dr. Howe can fix what's wrong!"

Anne bit her tongue and looked in the rearview mirror. She and Beth had flown to the clinic to supervise Dani's treatment while Jamie was at the convention. Paula at the clinic had been sending information and photos constantly. They didn't do the "girl" justice. The treatment they designed for Dani had her regressing to her pre-diagnosis age of twelve, followed by an accelerated growth period til she would be physically 17 again. Within 12 months, she would stabilize and the nanites would lock her in time. Unfortunately, Harry's alteration to the program had mixed Jamie's traits into Dani's. While girls usually hit their growth spurt about a year earlier than boys as a rule, Jamie had gone from being tall for an 11 year old at 5'7" to 5'10" when he started 7th grade at age 12. Dani's regression program had been left virtually untouched though and the nanites in her system were now fighting a two front war.

Trying to both accelerate her growth from 5'4", to 5'10" and expanding her dimensions to male proportions explained her current eating habits. Even as Anne was watching, Danielle was methodically working her way through the largest bag of Fritos they could find in the gift shop and the way she was going, she could complete two more before finishing the 45 minute trip back home. First order of business when they got back would be starting Dani on TCP IV, before she ended up with a serious eating disorder on top of everything else.

Angstrom cranked his head around to face his daughter. "Dani, I think you were reading things in to what the personnel at the clinic said. Now hush while Anne finishes explaining what's planed for you. Doctor, what do you have planned?"

Anne sighed inwardly. Apparently, Angstrom had not told Danielle anything, leaving that for the "experts". "Dani, remember our interview a month ago? The treatent you were given involved installing an immense number of tiny machines into your body. Some those machines have taken over for the biological systems in your body that identify and destroy foreign bodies and prevent any new cancers from growing in you. Those machines will also act to prevent new machines from being introduced to correct any difficulties you are having. There are others that were supposed to rebuild your body after getting rid of the cancer that was already there."

"You said I would grow back to the person I was, just without cancer. But I never looked like this! I've got 38" shoulders already and my hips have gotten slimmer if anything!"

"Danielle!",Angstrom snapped, "Control yourself. The Doctor has given you a new lease on life. There are always problems in any new process."

Paying the toll for the Ft. Mc Henry Tunnel, Anne rolled the window up and continued. "Problems is an interesting way to describe what's been done to your daughter. Dani, as your father told you about Harry Selznick?"

"I thought you could explain that better than I." Angstrom said, shifting uncomfortably for the first time.

"Selznick altered the treatment you and another of our patients were supposed to receive. Beth said, scowling at the back of Angstrom's head. "Instead of rebuilding you as you, per say, he combined genetic information from the both of you. Now, the thing to remember is even if we can't get around the nanites already in your system, we can still put you back to rights when they shut down naturally."

"Combined...?", Dani said quietly, looking at a chip filled hand. "With whom?"

Claiming the hat was getting on her nerves, Jamie went up stairs to take it off. Chris' mentioning of how the girls had already used the treatment on themselves had reminded her that the women she was living with and working for were all in their sixties. She tended to forget how long and hard they had to have worked to build New U. There were questions running round her head that she had ignored previously.

For instance: Promptly upon getting New U on it's feet the three people responsible for making the company a name in both the science and the industrial communities all but changed their identities and move to the east coast. Even going so far as to disguise themselves on the few occasions they'd needed to return to the home office.

Ron and Matt didn't know where their money came from. Jamie had been given very specific instructions to evade any such questions. Even checks that were being signed out to suppliers and the few contractors she'd used so far, were drawn on a joint account, not a corporate account.

The explanation that they wanted to retire and enjoy the fruits of their labor made some sense, but if that was so, why spend 3-4 days a week overseeing operations and teleconferencing (Again, Jamie had been told specifically not to include video capability in that system.) with suppliers and clients? The facilities at the home office on the west coast should be much better equipped to handle the problem she and Danielle were encountering.

Yet they were bringing Danielle here instead of closing up shop and hauling Jamie (a much less important client) to Silicon Valley. That was flattering, but hardly professional. More to the point, considering their dependance on the mini-cray, it would make sense to keep it under as close a scrutiny as possible.

Since she had never been interested in pursuing the New U treatment herself, she'd never let the thought about the girls actions as the job was enjoyable and they were good company. Besides which, she felt that by the time it would be "safe" to tell the world about the life extension capabilities of the full treatment, she would be dead.

She was pretty certain that in terms of actual time and materials, a full treatment only cost about $10,000. The price could only go down in time. Unless, one wished to start riots of people demanding free treatments. Or, like as not some group would demand legislation banning the procedure since only those who could afford it were receiving it. That would just drive clinics underground. Visions of rich people living under a masquerade similar to something out of Heinlein's future histories danced around Jamie's head.

In either case, cheap space travel, or some other form of pressure valve would have to exist as well, or the world's overpopulation problems would become truly unbearable even in countries like the United States that still had some fairly large expanses of arable land.

Now it looked as if Jamie had the Chinese curse of living in interesting times to look forward to. Of course, Harry being loose somewhere had probably accelerated that timetable anyway.

How did Harry manage to get past the same screening process she'd been put through anyway? Too many questions and some did not bode well for any of them. "Time to do a little hunting before throwing questions into the air.", Jamie said to herself, "Never know where it'll land."

Sitting down at her computer, Jamie logged onto the LAN (pleasingly, none of her passwords had been changed.) and began doing some cruising thorough the sever's directories. She had just found the phone logs when the security system reported an entry in the front drive. She saved copy of the logs to her hard drive, logged off the system and headed downstairs.

"It's been a while since I took an active interest in my world. Feels good. Jamie thought to herself as she met up with Chris at the front door.

"Excited?"

"Let's say I feel I have a vested interest to pursue.", Jamie said grinning, and opened the door.

End ch.6 Jeff Rose 1997

Ch.7: Gross Adjustments - Jamie Jeff Rose 1997

"I am he as you are me and we are all together." - Graffiti found of the headstone of a pair of Siamese Twins

"I saw a picture of you, and it took me through so many visions of you I couldn t stand it. But I , I sat it through." - "Sound of Water" Kalea Chapman & Frank Orrall

The old comics shop had reopened and while browsing the contents, finding books and toys that never existed with indecipherable packaging, that delighted him nonetheless Jamie bumped into Rose. She d been sitting in her old place, looking at a photo album. That she appeared to have grown no older in the intervening years made no difference in Jamie's heart. Joy blossomed simultaneously with fear but joy won out. It always did.

Heartfelt embraces flew about the room and suddenly Jamie found himself alone with her. They were in a kneeling embrace, naked on his old bed (inexplicably restored after being given to Goodwill), studying each other with lover's eyes.

For Jamie it was like drinking an ice cold Wild Goose after a long hard dayin the sun. Cool relaxation washed away his burning embarrassment as he gazed at her gifts. Rose had never been what most people today would consider to be a beauty physically. She was short, only about 5'2" and heavy, with dark brown hair and chestnut eyes that dominated a face that alternately seemed to belong on a hobbit or a pixy. Endless mirth seemed toreside there and made her body seem lighter than physics should deem possible.

The great artists of the Renaissance would have drooled over her luscious curves and pale skin. Most of his friends had thought her fat, but Jamie d always found her plush body to be just right for the caressing and kneading Rose took such pleasure from. He'd delighted himself in discovering new ticklish spots under the drape of her ample breasts, or at the joining of her well fleshed limbs, or even in such unlikely spots as the crest of her shoulders.

Just hearing her gasps and giggles of delight as he ran fingers or tongue around her form was nearly enough to get him off. The fine sense of ecstacy he received giving his lover the attention she craved was just as satisfying in its way as actually having his penis comfortably surrounded and squeezed by her tight canal.

Jamie started to speak but Rose placed her finger to his lips and said, "No words Jamie love. I have a gift for you." Jamie s back was to the headboard, in contrast to nearly all their previous encounters and Rose was taking the initiative. As she ran her the her fingertip across Jamie's lips, she pressed lightly, causing him to bend backwards. She followed his decent and now her hands ran up into his hair, pulling him back into the bed's embrace.

Rose played with the hair on top of Jamie s head as she continued lowering herself over him. Jamie's legs were still bent at the knee. She had him trapped with his heels, touching his buttocks as she laid over him and kissed him. He raised his arms to enfold her and run his fingers down her spine, but she instantly broke the kiss, leaving his lips feeling the moist embrace of the pale pink lipstick she favored.

"No Jamie love.", she grinned, shaking her head gently and brought Jamie s arms down. "This is my gift to bestow tonight.", She brought her mouth to his right ear and whispered, "Accept it in the spirit with which it is given." With that admonishment Jamie gasped then relaxed as Rose sucked gently on his lobe.

Jamie could barely remember the last time Rose had lavished such attention on him. While he d never had to force Rose to make love by any stretch of the imagination, typically he serviced his lady, rather than the other way around.

"Ow!" There was a brief, unexpected flash of pain as Rose quickly bit his earlobe.

Rose crossed from Jamie s right ear to his left with breaks to close his eyes with gentle kisses and an admonishing brogue. "For every bit o pleasure there s a equal bit o pain to match." It was a saying Jamie s grandma had been fond of but he couldn t remember Rose ever using it before. Not that he had much reason to think about such trivia as Rose started in on his left ear.

The nip at the end hurt every bit as much as the first and Jamie tried to shift positions but with his legs in the position they were, Rose s weight held him firmly to the mattress. His arms, seemed light and immaterial now, with no strength to push his playful lover away. Rose had been stroking and massaging them as she d been nuzzling his ear. Now she sat up on him and held Jamie s hands to her face. His arms looked as light and thin as they felt. Even the thick hair that covered them seemed diminished. Only his large pianist's hands looked as they ought. Rose spoke again.

"You always treated me like your most precious treasure, Jamie love. When I was with you, you always made me feel like a most gracious Lady. You never satisfied your lust til I begged you for it. Before I go again, I want you to always remember just how good you made me feel.

"Remember how you kissed and caressed me all over til every nerve I had screamed for release?" , she asked and proceeded to take each of finger individually into her mouth to be sucked and tickled by her tongue. Letting him know that other appendages would fit quite as nicely in that warm wet embrace. The sadness forming over her intent to leave him again was mildly accentuated by the sight of his finger being withdrawn from soft lips. The nail sparkled and glistened in the night lights being cast through the window .

She shifted slightly. Not enough to allow Jamie to move his trapped legs, but more than enough to let his old friend (now as stiff and long as it had ever been) feel the gentle pressure of Rose s warm, furry sex pressing down on his manhood. Jamie groaned , forgetting the future and Rose smiled.

"That's more like it love," she said, lowering his hands and bending back down to nosh lightly on his adam s apple she added, "I can feel your attention." Rose whispered as Jamie s hips began to pump involuntarily against her, "but like I used to, you'll have to wait til I think you're ..receptive enough." Jamie's moan of delight at her kisses reached new heights and Rose began moving down from his throat. Her hands massaged and molded Jamie s shoulders as Rose's tongue poked through full lips to rest lightly on the very tip of his right nipple. Rose's marvelously talented hands continued down onto his chest, compressing and molding Jamie as she began teasing his nipples with her tongue and teeth in an exact replicationof the way he played with her in years gone by. He was almost felt a twingeof sadness through that even with all the attention his pecs were getting there was no way for Rose to...

"Cushlamocree!!", Jamie screamed as Rose pulled his teat into her mouth. Jamie s back arched and his penis strove desperately to find any orifice tolodge itself into.

Rose busted out laughing and pulled entirely off him. Jamie blushed, panting. His vision was dimmer now, but he could swear she'd stretched his tits. Rose began working on his legs and feet. After unfolding Jamie s legs, she began massaging his feet.

"Yes, I think you re just about ready, but I don t want my Jamie love cramping up on me.", Rose said between giggles, working her way up his calf. "Ok Barnaby, lets see if I can make you a full member of the "Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns and Little Men's Chowder and Marching Society." She was now following the pressure of her kneading fingers with sweet kisses as she made her way up between his thighs. Jamie felt the gentle pressure of Rose's nails on his sack now. Anticipation broke into glorious relief when she began laboring over his swollen member.

Jamie was already almost to his breaking point and knew from the past that Rose had never been terribly fond of getting shot in the mouth. He tried to withdraw, but Rose followed as if permanently attached.

"Hon," Jamie gasped. The effort to fit words to concepts was becoming quite an effort. "I can't .... hooold it much .. longer!

Normally, Rose let her hand finish the job and had fun using the throbbing organ like a squirt gun, Aiming it anywhere but at herself. Tonight however, she increased the pace and as the first spasm ran through him, she swallowed it and him whole.

Rose crawled up Jamie's spent frame and smiled down at him like the cat that ate the canary while idly caressing his breasts.

"God Hon, that was...", Jamie paused. Rose s lips weren t pink anymore. They were a glistening scarlet. There was a similarly glistening track running from her chin, down her body where she d crawled up Jamie. She opened her still smiling mouth to reveal red stained teeth and said, "Now I think you're open to receive what I have for you."

Jamie was wide awake, in a cold sweat and standing beside her bed. She reached over to the chair she laid her terrycloth robe on before going to bed and drew it about her shivering frame. The room was quiet and dark but for the hum of the air vent and the dim light illumination from the clock at Jamie s bed, which read 3:28am.

Tired but unable to sleep, all she wanted right then was someone to hold onto; the way Anne had Saturday morning. Before coming here, she d have just gotten some munchies and waited the feeling out. Telling (then) himself the dreams were a reminder of why he made sure he had no one to call or cling to.

"When others depend on you; it is a responsibility. Honor it. Becoming dependent on anyone for support is a tactical weakness. Do not submit to it.", Jamie's Rule #10 & 11.

As little as a week ago, she (then him) would have been consciously tempted to scrap rule eleven and knock on Anne s door. Now? Well she sure as hell didn't want any munchies. She could (must) control herself. It had worked in the past and her mind had'nt changed, right? Her body on the other hand, was shaking like a leaf.

"Maybe a God's Blessing will calm me down.", She said to herself and turned on the lamp by her bed, set up the one-cupper in her bathroom and slipped into a night shirt to go with the robe. Her movements seemed slightly jerky to her. It was taking real concentration to place her hands and feet where she thought they were going.

Walking gently down the hall to the stairs, she noticed a light under Dan'l's door. "Sweet dreams to you too.", She said under her breath and went down to the bar in the rec room. Collecting half a shot glass of Jamison's with some mint mixed in, Jamie returned to her room. The light under Dan'l's door was off.

"Just a couple more hours til first light.", Jamie said and began putting the ingredients for Irish Coffee together. Taking measured steps she turned on her computer, and finished sorting through the phone logs. The jolt from the coffee helped get her motivated while the Jamison's mellowed her jumpy nerves. The routineness of sitting at her machine began reaffirming the stability of reality.

Looking the list over, she began dropping numbers she knew were harmless. Ron, Matt, Ron's store, other neighbors, contractors, etc. .. That left about thirty names. Some were familiar and the others got plugged into an Internet search. She then ran a Search program through C&P to list the owners of the numbers without names listed in the logs. Only a fraction of that group saw hits. Not surprisingly, those that did showed up as corporate numbers. The others would be purposefully unlisted and she would need someone a little more savvy in such in digging through the phone company s mainframes than she was.

Maybe Davis was still at his old address. "Well, it won't hurt to send out a quick inquiring note.", Jamie wrote a quickly and posted it to the appropriate newsgroup. "Nothing to do but wait and see if he's still out there."

So saying, she began creating a database in Approach to insert the loose the names, numbers and what descriptions she d been able to pull out of the net so far. At five, she closed it down, threw some clothes on and went down to start breakfast.

Jamie didn t show up for breakfast Sunday morning, although she had left sausage gravy and biscuits for everyone. At 9 am. Anne began looking around the grounds for her. Jamie had made a habit of scheduling any outside work for as early as possible during the summer months. Switching off to things that could be done in the workshop in the garage, or running errands, or whatever needed to be done inside by one. On the other hand, she ritually kept her plate clean on Sundays.

Still, Anne found her scratching around the bushes they d planted around the front property line. The Eagles "Doolin Dalton" led her to the new girl, searching through the mulch that defined the line of bushes. Knowing that when she was concentrating on a project she tended to block out what was going on around her, Anne approached in as noisy a manner as possible on damp grass.

"Jamie, what are you doing out here? It's past nine. Did you forget I wanted give you and Danny physicals today?, Anne asked. "And were did you find those jeans?

Jamie threw a handful of small weeds away and stood displaying her work clothes. She was barefoot and wearing a pair of her old size 36/31 Levis, using a short rubber tie down to cinch the waist in and rolling the legs just above her ankles. She had been half hoping no one would think to look for her today if she didn't make herself readily available.

"It was such a beautiful morning that when I finished breakfast, I decided to spent some time out here and do a little weeding.", ..and thinking., she didn t say as she proceeded to dust off her hands and brush small nuggets of pine bark from her knees before continuing. "As for the clothes; these are some of my old things. Chris selections for my wardrobe were very nice but I m not wearing a $50 pair of jeans to weed the beds." "Go ahead and do Dan'l's physical first. I don t think he would want me to be anywhere in the vicinity prior, during, or after that and I need to clean up and anyway. Sides," Jamie added, "he's made it pretty clear he doesn t want any thing to do with me."

"Jamie, I think he needs your support more than you or he realizes.", Anne paused, as if considering whether to add to the comment. Then shook her head and said, "Be at the Lab by eleven."

Jamie watched Anne's receding form, grabbed her boom box and started back herself. She couldn t help but think the meeting of the world's first artificially created fraternal twins had been, at best, a qualified success. They hadn't killed each other (yet), but Dan'l seemed determined to make their relationship as antagonistic as possible. Given the absurdity of the situation though, it certainly could have been worse. Just how, Jamie was hard pressed to describe but then, how do you handle meeting the person whose DNA had merged with your own without so much as a turkey baster in common? Somehow this situation didn't seem to be covered in any of the etiquette books she d rummaged through in Jr. High. Finally, she decided that just catching a glimpse of Dani while calmly retrieving the luggage from the car would be sufficient till Anne or someone could arrange something more formal. Having made a decision, Jamie glanced at Chris with a confidence she wasn t sure of and grasped the door knob before anyone could have a chance to get to the door. The car had just stopped on the drive in front of the house and Beth calledas Jamie and Chris approached the car. "Jamie, This is Rick Angstrom. Rick, our Handyman, Jamie McGowan and you remember Chris." Jamie looked up at the man who d just extricated himself from the car. He'd somewhat expected the stereotypical pot-bellied old rich dude who was living his remaining years at the club. This man however, if he spent any time at some club, it must be spending most of it exercising. At 6' 2" he had not let his large frame go soft and with his iron grey hair and rugged face, he had a presence that reminded Jamie of Robert Mitchum at his best. As Angstrom presented his immense hand, the first thing that went through Jamie's mind was that it looked like he could probably pick her with that hand. Just place the palm on the top of her head and grip with the fingers.

She was supposed to put her hand in that?

"Pleased to meet you Mr. Angstrom.", Jamie said, watching that great hand swallow her own. "I'll just get y'all's bags." She started to pull away but Angstrom's grip did not loosen. He was still sizing Jamie up. "Now hold on a minute. We can t have a little thing like you hauling all those heavy bags, eh?" In the dim illumination provided by the driveway lights, he had initially thought that somehow Dani had managed to teleport into the house and come back out. The background check he'd arranged for Anne back in February had prepared him for a heavy set man who d been reduced and feminized. Not a replica of his daughter at 12. But then the posture and body language was wrong, the face seemed distorted and while the voice was certainly similar, pitch and a very mild southern drawl betrayed the girl before him. When they got into the house, he wanted a better look at Jamie. Why don t we all pitch in and then I understand there's some food awaiting, hmm?"

"Really, Mr. Angs.."

"Call me Rick, Jamie."

Jamie sighed and extracted her hand, flexing it slowly to restore circulation. "One more try" she thought. "Rick. Really, this is just a part of my job."

"Hi Rick.", Chris said while grabbing Jamie shoulder. "That's a great idea. Cut the macho posing Jamie."

Anne had popped the hatchback from the dashboard after killing the engine and Jamie reached in to grab a couple of bags. She noted the guitar case with interest, but decided not to touch it. She knew better that to mess with another person's instrument without permission. She picked out three large bags, she was the hired help after all and Anne had said her job hadn't changed. Unfortunately, Jamie's small hands and reduced musculature were unable to manage two suitcases and the hanging bag she'd initially picked out. So she contented herself with just the two cases and turned to stare into the strangest pair of eyes she d ever seen outside of the mirror.

It was rather like looking into a distorted mirror. Jamie was looking at a not quite accurate portrait of what she d looked like as a boy late in sixth grade. A thick mop of unruly blonde hair reaching just to the top of his(?) surprisingly broad shoulders had been worked on extensively to force it to maintain the center parted style Dani evidently preferred. As a male Jamie had always parted his hair on the side, but to each his own. She knew from previous experience that you could suspend a pencil vertically in Dani's bangs and it would stay without any form of support. (She'd won bets on hat point for a number of years until shortly after her high school graduation, when she noticed the pencil slipping.) This framed a face with high cheekbones and deep set eyes that stared back with the same turquoise irises that resided in her own sockects. There were no personal revelations on either side as far as Jamie could tell. Just surprise on both sides as Dani was evidently not yet prepared to look into this mirror either.

Just as that revelation was seeping into Jamie's brain, she also realized that two great weights had been released from her hands. Dani's brief yelp of pain let Jamie know where those weights had gone. Jamie recovered quickly and retrieved the bags, straining to lift both. She apologized profusely while Chris snatched one of the suitcases and admonished Jamie for not remembering she wasn't as big as she used to be.

"Y..you're..?", Dani started, getting her(?) composure back. "I'm Jamie McGowan. ..Sorry about this." She said, trying to ease the tension. Unfortunately the Ranma reference was too obscure for even Chris to catch and Jamie added, "Somehow I don' t think this was the formal introduction I had in mind."

Everyone began collecting bags and transporting them to the rooms that were prepared.

Jamie gave herself the once over while showering. Her wavy hair reached just between her shoulder blades and her body was had just begun to really show the promise of what was to come. Scrubbing with soapy hands along the her still developing lines, she realized that even with the proper clothes, it would be impossible to pass as a young boy for very long, if at all.

"It's a certainty that Mrs. McGowan wouldn t recognize her only boy if she walked in right now.", Jamie chuckled as she carefully cleaned the folds of tissue between her legs. She thought briefly about leaving that area stinky to discourage what was likely to be her first gynecological exam, but

Anne would likely just lecture her about it while Beth smirked and Chris would never let her live it down.

Later, while getting dressed, she began comparing her appearance with what she remembered about her self-image as a boy of twelve or thirteen. Her hips were still a bit slim for a mature woman, but if the pair of jeans she was attempting to slip into now were any indication of all the pants Chris picked up for her yesterday, there was simply no way for them to be mistaken for a boy's (Was it really necessary the jeans to be so tight, or for flowers and butterflies to be sewn on the back pockets?)and unless she was willing to break out the ace bandages, her (!) petite breasts would give her away the first time she crossed her arms no matter how loose fitting a shirt she wore.

Pulling on the lace-trimmed, white tank top she'd deigned to leave on top of the hamper yesterday, she began thinking about everything she would have to get used to in the coming years. The shirt had been too cute (kawaii) for Jamie to think about putting on yesterday. Today, she saw it as one more thing to reinforce this new aspect of her identity.

Unless she wanted more dreams about impromptu circumcisions like last night, she'd need to do what Capt. Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager needs to do every week.

" I need to get my ship together.", Jamie giggled and stepped onto bathroom scale for old times sake saw she was down to 120 lb. "Heck of a way to run a weight loss program"

Dinner that first meal didn t go much better. With the everyone's luggage in, the conversation around the table started with the typical 'How was the trip?' type fair. Jamie was finally able to get a better look at Dani as "she" stuffed her face. The new boy had definitely gotten the McGowan jaw. Hard and sharp as a knife. His hair looked wildly incongruous though. It was longer than Jamie had ever worn as a boy. The bottom was showing all the waviness that had convinced her (then his) mother to insist she (then he), keep it as short as possible. Right now, it looked like it was trying desperately to tap Chris on the shoulder. The top had been tamed somewhat and "poofed" out with (what?), mousse she guessed.

"Oh well, there s something else I'll have to learn about", Jamie thought as poked her fork down and heard it clank. Jamie looked down at her plate and realized it was empty.

"What the. .." Jamie mumbled. "When did that happen?" She looked up from her plate and into Dani s face.

He stared back with a look of amusement on familiar features and said just loud enough to carry, "Didn't realize how hungry you are? I m still famished. Pass what's left of the Taco Salad, would you?"

Dani s tone was overly polite and there would be no mistaking the contempt behind his words even without this weird feeling (Empathy?) between them. Jamie picked up her own empty plate as well as the largely decimated remains of the salad, got up and dropping the salad off with Dani went to the kitchen. Anne began talking about the possibility of using nutritional supplements to help control Dani's appetite.

As Jamie proceeded to the kitchen a sensation of fullness grew in her stomach, until she felt quite ill. Rushing to the sink, she dropped the plate into the sink and then her belly hoisted what she d eaten to join the pate and silverware. Jamie consciously stopped breathing through her nose, wiped her mouth and contemplated the matter while eradicating the evidence.

She knew, with the door closed no one could've heard her spill her stomach into the sink. So she didn't have to worry about anyone rushing in to see this embarrassment.

She'd nibbled at everything since this morning, but in all honesty, she had never been hungry. Just looking the full plate at brunch had made her queasy. She remembered taking a few sample bites before starting to put the clothes Chris got her away, but she never came close to finishing the plate. She knew she'd taste tested everything in dinner as she made it, but again the thought of an actual meal was making her gall rise again. Yet she'd sat across from Dani and ate at least one (uurrpp!), full plate. "In fact", she thought rinsing the last of the mess down the drain, "I pretty much inhaled a full plate without thinking about it. I didn t even feel queasy til I got away from Dani." Pouring herself a cup of coffee to occupy hands and mouth while thinking, she returned to find Dani glaring at her. Jamie declined to comment that green suited Dani.

Conversation, after Jamie returned, drifted towards plans for "Danny" and Jamie s future. It seemed "Dan" was going to start taking courses at Loyola come Spring Session in January. Jamie was asked to consider the option to go back to school as well. After all, who was going to believe she'd been in college at age 5 or whatever.

"Anne tells me by January the two of you should have stabilized enough that any further cosmetic changes would be unnoticeable. Rick said. "That should give our two kids here more than enough time to help each other get set up in their new identities. It also gives me time to arrange the necessary record changes for Dan and ... Pardon me Jamie, but I feel more than a little responsibility for you as well."

That startled Jamie. "How so?", she asked. The inclusion of herself as one of his children made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She knew from the days she used to follow the markets that Angstrom had been a big-time money man before going into "retirement" to spend more time with his new family. Although he d supposedly shifted from the more mercurial and of the market to various "long-term" investments; evidently New U was among them. The kind of money this guy wielded ultimately just kept breeding more money unless you were a fool. That kind of money also bred power. Even if all of his money was solidly locked into long term investments, his name was helping to keep them afloattil they could pay off that investment. That alone gave Rick access to whatever resources they had at hand.

His attention was now focused on Jamie. She wondered briefly how many timeshis name would pop up on the phone logs before the events of this past week.

Anne watched as Rick shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tapped his pen on the pad he d been reading and taking notes on. "Rick was one of our earliest supporters and helped give us a lot of contacts with potential investors Jamie."

"Yes.", He said, "That's one of the reasons Anne was willing to hear my pleas for giving Dan the treatment. What was it? A year and a half...no, two years ago. Beth approached me about getting someone to maintain quality and streamline the production facilities for the clinic when it they got it on line.

"There are maybe a handful of people around the globe who are both good engineers and really good setting up and managing production schedules. They command salaries that make even my head spin, but I knew of a man who had been tops among their number. I suggested Beth look up Harry Selznick.

He'd worked in a consulting role at several companies I helped build up over the years. He was looking for work after some hard times. I pointed out that New U needed the best. But they needed him cheap."

"Why exactly was Harry cheap?"Jamie asked.

"Got into some problems with the bottle after a particularly nasty divorce. He'd been on the wagon for two years though and well, he'd done well for me in all the jobs I'd brought him in on. I don't forget useful people.

"Wait a minute. Selznick knew you were responsible for getting him hired?" Jamie was stunned at the thought.

"No Jamie.", Anne said. "Beth approached Harry directly. He never knew Rick's connections to New U except for the fact that Dani was being treated by us. He also gave us the detectives who ran through your history before we started direct interviews."

"We had some words after he fell into the bottle and out of his last position." Rick said picking the tale back up. "I thought he might be too prideful to take anything from me directly. Unfortunately, it's turned out to be one of the worst calls in a my very long career. Maybe ..." His got distant and then Rick shook his head.

"In any case Jamie, I feel I owe you some goodwill at least. Your records are going to have to be generated from scratch. Beth tells me you will be the same biological age as Dan here when you stabilize. Obviously, that won't jive with your real age of 31. Besides, my legal contacts have informed me that your military records are virtually untouchable and the state of Maryland actually has a law on the books which disallows altering birth certificates for the purposes of sex change. Then Anne informs me that it would be practically impossible to prove your identity through any of the accepted practices anyway."

"True enough.", Jamie said thinking about where this was going. "We already know my fingerprints have changed. I wouldn't be surprised if my retinal, foot and ear-prints had altered as well, assuming they d been recorded prior to this."

Rick returned to his notes,"Have you told anyone about this yet?"

"Haven't really had time. I'm going to have to do something about my friends though. Matt's supposed to give me a hand with getting some landscaping blocks this week. Somehow I think he might notice I've changed my image since last week."

"What about family?" Rick continued.

"Actually, I'm not sure how to handle that yet. I'm not on the best of terms with Dad since I went into the military but, my family tends to pull together when the roof falls, so they may form a posse and go hunting for vengeance - legal or otherwise. Dad's family is from the mountains of North Carolina. Round there, you wrong someone s kin and you re likely to pull back a bloody stump with no body attached."

"So? Sounds like they d be supportive of you." Danny said, sounding a bit contemptuous.

"Problem is, assuming I can get them to believe I'm me, I think they'd be likely to go after the company and the rest of y'all without thinking. Heck, if I can't convince 'em of my identity, they'll be out for my blood too. You know any lawyer they talk to will be licking his chops at the publicity for his firm." Jamie ran her hands across her arms, up to her shoulders and back down to her elbows. "The resulting hoo-ha would probably break New U as a corporation. After all, the company experimented on an underage girl and a non-consenting adult. Public opinion would sour on the idea of bio-reconstruction by use of nanites and we could end up stuck forever."

"I doubt the results would be that severe.", Rick said.

"How well are IUD s selling in the States compared to Europe?", Jamie asked.

"What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?" Beth asked.

"IUD s are still considered the BC method of choice in Europe supposedly," Jamie said, "but when one manufacturer put out what was thought to be a defective version in the US back in the 70's, the publicity killed the market here. Even though there were and are two older, proven versions of the product available."

"And remember how Norplant was going to take the US by storm as a wonder product? Then the suits started flying when doctors improperly implanted them, or failed to tell patients that it produces the same side effects as the pill, but went ahead and put them in women who wanted to sidestep those effects? I was reading an article in US News that said IUD s have a 4% failure rate and Norplant was even lower at .05%. Yet for birth control in the US, they re used less than diaphrams, condoms and spermicides and have failure rates ranging from 16% to 30%.

"And you just happen to remember all that? Danny asked "Why?"

"I grew up in a house built in the early 1900's. Used to be a farm, then suburbia grew up around it." Jamie said. "By the time my parents bought it, there were railroad tracks running behind it to the west, two major roadways to the north and east and Middle River ran to the south.", Jamie grinned, "There were three blocks of houses in that rectangle, but those places had originally sold to workers at the Martin Marrietta plant back during WWII. Most of our neighbors were retirees or just marrieds." "When your most available playmates are all either just getting ready for solid foods or just getting off them, you have lots of free time to read when most kids would be playing with their friends. I never lost the habit.

I read anything and everything that crosses my path. As a result, I tend to carry a lot of trivia in me noodle.", Jamie said tapping her temple. " Anyway, I'm about half convinced I should wait til the end of the year when we ll be close to full grown and try to convince Mom and Dad I went in for a sex change operation." Jamie said returning to the original subject.

"Dad likes to shave with Occam's razor and with a little luck, he may cut himself with it. Only problem is, I don't think ... No, scratch that. I know he'd never accept it, even if he overlooks the impossibility of the time elapsed since I've last seen the family. This is not something a Deacon expects of his boy."

"Course the other obvious plan," Jamie started, thinking aloud, "would be to just report me missing and abandon my car out on 795 or Rt 301. Nah, getting a body for later discovery would be impossible and I d rather have Mom and Dad knowing I was dead than always wondering what happened to me." In looking down at the table, Jamie missed seeing Rick's normally squinty eyes widen.

" How soon before your family will expect to see you again?"Rick asked.

"Hmm? Oh, Dad doesn t. Mom invited me down to Black Mountain for a family get together on Labor Day, but I'm not really expected. As long as I send cards... well Mom'll be unhappy and Dad would feign disinterest. Or just blame me making Mom sad. Should probably have Dan'l talk for me if I need to use the phone though." Jamie looked at Danny. Dan'l . The name seemed to fit. "No offense, but if we re going to keep them from noticing something's wrong straight off, you sound more like I did than I do. If you take my meaning."

"Really?" Dan asked, batting his eyes. "I can t hear any difference between your dulcet tones and mine."

" Dream on unto the heart of the sunrise. ", Jamie quoted and began counting ten in Japanese to herself.

"Yes well, I think Dan can certainly help you with that. Speaking of cars though, I'll need one Monday to meet with some people in Virginia ."

"Dad no!"

"Not to worry honey," Rick frowned at the incongruous pet name,"There are things about this I need to oversee personally and some fires with some of New U s investors that will need to be attended to before things get any farther." Rick glanced significantly at Anne before continuing with Dan. "Your mother will come in to help you start apartment shopping before the next week is out and the three of you",he said adding Jamie back into the conversation, "should get to know each other better."

Dan looked close to tears. Jamie had started another ten count, (This time in German) when she felt Dan l s distress wash over her like a wave that left her feeling vaguely nauseous again. She remembered the look and feeling well as a teen.

"I don't want Mom seeing me like this!", The boy practically sobbed. " And why should she be forced to spend any time with HER!.

Jamie thought briefly about how proficient at counting she was going to be at counting before this was over and mentally winced at the anger boring into the back of her head like a white hot needle. "Despite the phrasing; It is a fair question Mr..Rick. Why should your wife need to spend time with me?"

Rick s face went totally passive. Jamie could almost see him ticking off numbers in his head. "This has been, and will very likely continue to be a hard time for my family. My wife, Mary was looking forward to things returning to normal for us. You can imagine how upsetting this has been for her and I. Unfortunately, the fire breaking Anne and I need to do with some of New U s associates, as well as the string pulling required to create new records for you and altering Dan s will require me to be running allover god s green earth for the next few days." His face softened a bit as he continued.

"I don t want Mary to be alone any longer than necessary. Dan began withdrawing from his mother since it became apparent that something had gone wrong with the treatment." His gaze shifted to Dan and became accusing. To the extent that he refused to allow his own mother to travel with us to Baltimore."

"Dad, I thought there was a cure waiting for me. I.."

"That will be enough young man." Rick cut in. "I indulged you at the expense of your mother. That stops now."

He turned back to Jamie. "As you will be getting Dan acquainted with what he needs to know about being a man and he will be giving some basic lessons in femininity, I'd like Mary to participate. To help get the two of them reacquainted with each other." "In the meantime Jamie, there are some details I have to settle with Anne, Beth, and Chris here. Would you be so kind as to show Dan his room and help him get settled in?"

"Hyeah, sure." Jamie said rising, "Dan l?"

Jamie gave Dan'l a brief tour of the house, trying to impress him with what she'd done so far and intended to do in the future. She rapidly understood that she was just boring Dan'l and began leading him to his room. Being this close to him was weird. It was a constant battle not to reflect the kid's anger back at him and start a real donnybrook, just to have done with it. There was so much she had wanted to ask, but just the act of breathing the same air as the kid seemed to annoy him. Worse, the tension radiating from him seemed to be building like a thunderhead.

"How'd you do that?", Dan'l asked as they got to the door.

"Do what?", Here it comes, Jamie thought.

"I've been stuffing my face since I got home from the clinic and not once have I so much as belched." He said "A half-hour after meeting the person who... After meeting you, I m right in the middle of chewing and I feel like I m going to hork up everything I ate in the past two weeks."

"I thought you looked a little green when I got back.", Jamie lost track of what she was going to say, as her feet came off the floor and the wall leaped up to smack her soundly in the back of the head. When her eyes uncrossed and she found herself pinned to the wall, the logical side of her brain began making a assessment as it had been trained to. The emotional side was busy cranking the pots on every sensory organ she had, then huddled in a corner to wait for this to be over.

Item 1: While subject is the same approximate height, he out-masses us by at least ten to pounds. (RE: The little tiff with Beth this morning.) Item 2: From the opening conversation at dinner, when she was a girl she was active in a variety of sports. Some of Rick s remarks at dinner indicate Dan'l resumed physical training upon release from the clinic. Item 3: Subject has taken a wide stance for better support and footing. (Logic made an appreciative nod to emotion for widening the peripheral vision.) Item 4 (Assumption): Subject has had testicles for less than a week. Item 5: This is Angstrom's kid.

Summary: Think fast rabbit. He might or might not be open for a knee to the groin or a heel to the instep, but you can't win a fight if he blocks and do you really want this to draw Angstrom s attention?

"They tell me many of the decaffeinated brands taste just as good as the real thing.", Jamie tried. When Her head bounced off the wall for the second time today, she decided that had been an ill considered comment.

"I got sick in the kitchen okay? I ate too much without thinking about it and ralphed it into the sink.", Jamie said. The anger in Dan l shifted to confusion. Jamie could see, no that wasn't quite right was it? "You didn t just get gas or something. You felt my distress."

"That s not true.", He protested. His grip was slackening. "You ate less, but ..."

"Dan'l, I just want to help. I know how weird this sounds, but I haven t been able to think about eating more than a nibble here or there since I binged yesterday and triggered the final phase of my transformation by accident." Jamie could see, no, feel that she was beginning to get through to Dan'l. "I didn't get sick til I moved away from you. I wasn t able to get around my own stupid fear til your appetite overrode it. You didn't even get queasy til I got sick. I didn't know. I'm not your enemy." Jamie brought a hand up to touch one of the arms still pining her shoulders to the wall. Her own control was a key issue now. If she could just soothe Dan'l s anger with her own control. Jamie's hand slowly grasped Dan'l's arm. "C mon Dan'l, how bad can being a guy be? I spent thirty-one years as one." "Whoops", flashed briefly through Jamie s mind as the Dan'l's grip tightened again. She winced waiting for bonk number three. It didn t come though. Dan'l just pushed Jamie away down the hall.

"I am not a boy!", Dan l shouted, "Now get out of my head, you bitch!" Jamie watched Dan'l's shoulders slump a bit as the distance between the increased. "Leave me alone." He said softly before going into his room.

"Nothing's ever easy, is it?", Jamie said to herself and went back to her own room. It was almost eleven anyway, and besides; if Dan'l needed time to get used to the idea that he was going to be a guy, who was she to deny it? She'd been ready to rip Beth's head off her shoulders just this morning simply because she was close at hand.

Entering her room, Jamie thought about that while getting ready for bed. One of the parts of her self image she was proudest of, had been finally acquiring a modicum of control of her emotions. As a child, her partial seclusion from kids her own age (Two major thoroughfares, a river and railroad tracks.), had made Jamie the obvious outsider . A pariah, to be kept at a distance. Add his large size to that (He'd been the biggest kid in most classes through Jr. High, til everyone began catching up.), and when he wasn t being made fun of in general, the boy frequently found himself on the top of the list when new kids wanted to get their Tough-guy image established. Jamie was thirteen before he started getting a real handle on the cloud of depression that seemed to eternally follow him about.

Dan'l must ve been under enormous pressure all during her years of cancer treatments. Keeping up a brave face under that sentence must have taken everything she had. Being offered a chance to leave that behind and pick up her life from where she d been before the diagnosis must have seemed a dream come true. This must seem like Murphy has a personal grudge against her. Dan'l probably saw Jamie as salt in the wound.

While removing her shoes and socks, she was reminded of the giggle Murphy was having at her own expense. The accelerated growth she was going through evidently included body hair. The light blonde hair on her legs was already long enough to be visable.

"Scum puppies." She said, removing the rest of her clothes and heading to the bathroom to finish her now extended wash up for bed.

Dressed, pressed and if not smelling pretty (though there was more than enough perfume in the shampoo), then at least clean, Jamie made her way down to the living room without encountering Dan l. It was still about a quarter til eleven when she got to the door to the lab. She pressed the buzzed the intercom. "Is it all clear in there?"

The door bolts popped and Anne pulled Jamie in. "Great! We sent Dan out with Chris and Rick a few minutes ago. C'mon in and put this on." She handed Jamie a traditional hospital attire

Anne was in uniform for the first time in Jamie's memory. Normally, she went around the house in whatever happened to be comfortable that day unless she was going out or had company. In those cases she would go with a conservative blouse an skirt. Today however, her white lab coat (complete with name sewn over the right breast and stethoscope tucked in left pocket.) covered a white cotton turtleneck. She even was wearing those godawful white bellbottom slacks with white rubber-soled shoes. Jamie suppressed a giggle as she had flash of Anne with short blonde hair instead of her natural dark brown. She had her Comlok in hand and was talking to Commander Koenig.

Looking around while changing, she noted only one major change in the room and her heart sank to see it. The surgical table in the middle of the of the room had stirrups attached.

Anne began running Jamie through the usual gauntlet; Urine sample (difficult, Jamie not only didn't have to go, but ended up having to ask for a fresh gown afterwards.), Having her weight, height, blood pressure, heart, lungs, checked with Anne talking the whole time.

"So how are we doing? Any special complaints?"

"Well, its only been what, a little over twenty-four hours?", Jamie said, pulling her bangs up off her forehead and running the fingers through her hair. "Other than the obvious stuff connected to growing up again, I'm not sure what to tell you about."

"This is new ground for all of us.", Anne said smiling. "If it helps, I can think of one thing. Your gestures are already starting to change. You still like to walk when you talk but, when you re thinking about something you used to rub the back of your head. Now you're playing with your hair."

"Huh? Hmmm...Same basic response to stimulus, different form." Jamie jumped onto the table so Anne could draw bloods. I guess a lot of it is that kind of thing. Y'know, reaching for stuff and realizing you re going to need a stool, that thing with the luggage was pretty embarassing and since you mentioned hair. .. No this is stupid.

"Nothing is stupid Jamie." Anne said, drawing a second tube.

"Well, I never realized how much insulating value body hair has.", Jamie said trying to pick at physical items rather than go into the more peculiar aspects of the encounter with Dan'l. "I mean, it's kinda like my first night in boot. You've seen recruit haircuts before. The barber leaves you without enough hair to look tough and too much for the Mr. Clean look."

Anne nodded and placed a bandage on Jamie's arm where she'd just removed the syringe.

"It s the same way it was weird to feel air directly on my scalp; that s the way my whole body feels.", Jamie continued as Anne unsnapped the fastenings at the back of the gown and began examining her bust. "Hurmmm, uh. ..When I went to bed last night and even with the jeans I came down in... It felt different. Like I had never really directly touched the fabric before. I'll get used to it but. .. is that really necessary?" Jamie asked.

Her breasts were responding to Anne s manipulations and Jamie could feel the burn of her blush spreading across her cheeks and down her front. "It's a little disconcerting."

"Raise your arms for me Jamie. I just want to make sure you re progressing properly."

Jamie accommodated, sighing. "Also, my balance and coordination are a bit off. I think maybe doing a little Tai Chi in the morning will help with that though."

Jamie hadn t heard the elevator so Beth s voice came as a surprise. "You know Tai Chi?" Beth smirked a bit as Jamie s hands flew down to pull the remnants of her dignity back up with the gown.

"Well at least she retained her modesty. The computer should be through chewing on Dan's bloods in half an hour and I've got the samples prepped for Jason at Hopkins. Are these ready?" Beth asked Anne.

"Yes they are. Next time I have a patient up here though, please buzz the com first." Anne responded, handing over the phials containing Jamie s blood. Pulling the buxom red-head aside, she whispered, "If you'd come up her a couple minutes later. .."

"Okay Anne, I wasn't thinking.", Beth said. "I like the kid to, you know." Walking back to the open elevator, she called "I'll have everything ready for you by two Anne."

Anne turned back to Jamie, who was red as a beet. "Sorry, Beth's a labrat at heart, and Chris has never had to work with patients before either, so teaching them manners may take a little time." She explained. Now, if you could lie back for me, Jamie. Why don't you tell me about Tai chi."

Jamie allowed herself to be positioned and talked to cover her embarrassment over the coming segment of her exam. "I had real problems with my. .. temper when I was a kid. Yoga bored the spit out of me, so I looked into the martial arts to try to find some discipline. Unfortunately,

as big as I was, I could already literally throw most kids my age out of my way. If I actually knew how fight, I thought I might get into even more trouble."

"So I talked to a Sensei who suggested Tai Chi. It takes as much concentration and body awareness as any other form of martial arts, but it s very calming and peaceful. Very good for working through stuff. I think I still have a book with some of the forms upstairs."

Jamie felt the section of the table between her legs drop away. "Maybe I could go find it and-"

"Maybe you should have studied a less mobile form of meditation. Just relax and I ll try to make this as quick as possible."

"How about painless?"

"Will you settle for uncomfortable?"

Jamie released her breath and tried to relax. Visualizing what Anne was telling her about what she was doing and how it was being done was nicely distracting from the discomfort of actually being there. She told herself it was necessary no to look, to keep from squirming during the stretching and poking and scraping. Especially since trying to crane her neck wouldn't allow her to see anything except possibly a scene from that nightmare last night. Finally, Anne said she was finished and allowed

Jamie to clean herself and put her clothes back on.

While Jamie got dressed, Anne went down to hand off the samples she d collected to Beth. When Anne got back, Jamie was just finishing tying her shoes.

"Well, will I live doc?"

"Much longer than most if you re careful. Jamie, just on the basis of a visual examination, you are a perfectly healthy thirteen year old girl. I'm sure Beth and Jason will confirm it when we get the results of your tests back.",

Anne smiled and offered Jamie the Stool she'd been using. "However, There are some things I need to discuss with you about. .."

"Chris went over the personal hygiene stuff yesterday.", Jamie offered.

"That was part of what I was thinking of, but there are other responsibilities a young girl has to herself that ..." Anne shook her head

and blushed, "I've never had a girl of my own to discuss sex with."

"Geeze Anne", Jamie said incredulously. "C mon, I've had all those talks years ago and while I may have regained my virginity, I don't think I need a refresher course on what the plumbing's for. Besides, I doubt even the raging hormones of puberty could convince me to let my feet be swept out from under me."

Anne's blue eyes twinkled but she said quite seriously, "Even so, the Treatment does have some very gender specific holes in the defense it provides. For instance, when/if you become pregnant," She put a finger to Jamie s lips to stop the coming protest. "This is important young lady. The nanites in your system are specifically designed to recognize sperm as friendly . Otherwise you would never be able to get pregnant."

"Hey, I don t even want-", Jamie started to protest anyway.

"But you might some day. Remember what we talked about yesterday? A hundred years is a long time. The important point is a side effect of allowing you that capability. The nanites in your system also maintain proper hormonal balance. Pregnancy alters that balance drastically. We programed in an allowance for such deviations and sincethere was no way to define for the nanites how to recognize a developing fetus, when anything close to that hormonal shift occurs, all the defensive nanites tasked to your sex organs will go inactive. Otherwise you'd miscarry every time."

Jamie closed her eyes, thinking. "Don't both Norplant and the pill use synthetic hormones to convince the body there's already a bun in the oven?"

"Esserntially. Using any such drug will simply leave you open to infection down there. To run down the main list of other options though; Spermicides will be neutralized very rapidly. They're not that dependable except as a secondary defense anyway. Diaphragms and IUDs should not be used as they may actually make you feel ill when the nanites bulid up to attack these much larger and tougher invaders. A condom is about the only form of BC you can tolerate and should always be used anyway, but make sure to use a quality brand. No reason to take chances on a thin wall."

"Uh, If a diaphragm might make me feel bad, why wouldn't a condom?"

"A man spends much less time in a woman than her diaphragm does."

The next half hour was spent drilling on what was happening inside Jamie and what she could expect in the future. Then Beth shifted the conversation to when she came up from the lower level.

"I need to drop these off in Jason's safe box at Hopkins. Anyone for a trip to the Inner Harbor?"

"It feels like forever since I've been out and about.", Jamie said. "What say we do Phillip's . My treat."

Anne glanced at Jamie then to Beth, who shrugged. "Are you sure you feel all right about being out?

"Hey, who's gonna recognize me?", Jamie was practically bubbling with enthusiasm. "Besides, you just said I'm a perfectly healthy thirteen year old. Yesterday I was twelve and I want crabs to celebrate my birthday."

"Give me twenty minutes to get ready.", Anne said, watching intently as Jamie ran out. While she was certainly attempting to behave normally, the mood swings Jamie wasdisplaying over the past twenty-four hours were a little worrying to her. Jamie had gone from quietly upset to completely distraught, to treating her condition as a joke, then being enthusiastic about meeting her new brother , which turned to irritation during diner. She was withdrawn this morning and now she wanted to get out and about .

"Beth?"

"She s a teen again. They re not exactly known for their stability. Twenty minutes?"

Jamie felt truly up for first time since last yesterday. It didn't make any sense. She was a little sore from the exam and. .."I m not enjoying anything. Dan'l is." The realization should have chilled Jamie, but in a way it was nice to know that something was still capable of making Dan'l feel good. The feeling got better as she crossed into the living room and looked out onto the porch. A guitar was playing.

Dan'l sat on the porch swing with his back to the window. Chris and Rick were leaning on the rail, facing in. Chris nodded to Jamie and started back into the house. The tune was familiar but it was meant to have a banjo running counterpoint and she was having trouble identifying it til he started the first verse.

"Fall upon me in my quiet pain. Fall upon me again and again. Across wide open fields and grass down of green."

Dan'l's voice called strongly and Jamie found herself pulled into the harmony for the chorus.

"I'm awake but my head is in the air. Wide awake, take me walking into the cold, cold air.

Chris walked up to Jamie, "He's very good.", Jamie said. "I used to wish I could play like that. Anne, Beth and I are heading downtown. Do you think. .."

"I'll stay here with Rick and Dan. They need some time to talk and Rick's headed out tomorrow. In the meantime let's us get you ready to be seen in public.

"Beg Pardon?"

Chris took Jamie upstairs and put Jamie s hair into a french braid and swiped some of Beth s makeup to give Jamie some color.

"It s the middle of summer and you're so pale. With arms showing we can't add a lot but this'll help. I'd use my stuff, but our coloring is too different. After Dan and I have some time to work with you this week though I think we'll go out to start putting you together properly. You don't even have a purse yet."

The trip to the harbor went well, with Anne shepherding Jamie who genuinely enjoyed finally getting the two to sample a Maryland traditional dish. It surprised the two women when the waiter took the tablecloth and replaced it newspapers. The afternoon was spent with Anne and Beth teaching Jamie to sit properly and the like while Jamie taught them how to finesse the sweet rewards out of steamed Maryland Blue Crabs. They split a half dozen, of which Jamie only had one, Anne noted. The amount surprised them til they realized Blue Crabs are much smaller than the king crabs they were used to on the west coast. The reason for the newspapers became readily apparent.

The crabs were caked in spices that instantly got all over everything. Jamie had soda but insisted Anne and Beth have at least one beer which disapeared rapidly when Jamie reluctantly informed Beth what the crab's 'Mustard' actually was.

It had to end sometime though and when they got back, Jamie went to her room with the idea setting up the week's work schedule while beth and Anne looked over what the computer spit out.. But when she got there Dan'l was sitting by her computer.

"We have to talk."

End New U ch.7 Copyright Jeff Rose 1997

Ch. 8: Gross Adjustments-What happened while you weren't looking By Jeff Rose

[Harry: Shortly after being picked up by Michael]

"It can happen to you It can happen to me It can happen to everyone eventually"

• It Can Happen (Squire/Anderson/Rabin)

"Well, what do you think of the facilities, Mr Selznick?"

Harry studied his "assistant" carefully while thinking about his response to Dr. Hanson's query. During his entire orientation, David had been at his elbow from the time Michael and Leonard dropped him off at Biomech's compound outside Ft. Meade in southern Maryland. He'd helped Harry settle into the quarters provided him and walked him through the physical with its various inoculations.

Harry had been tempted briefly to slap away David's helping hands when dressing in the disposable jumpsuit provided him, but although David was certainly smaller than Leonard, the strength of his grip and the speed with which he "guided" him made Harry acutely aware that however well trained David was as a lab tech, he was at least as well trained to keep Harry in line.

"Biomech seems very well equipped to tackle nanite design and construction. I think I can have your boys up and running within a month." Harry paused to phrase a question and stepped out into the corridor. "David, I thought Biomech had been working on similar Nanite Construction techniques to New U, but this place has so many containment doors and the decon procedures. ...."

A female voice jumped in."Well in the good old days of the cold war our primary thrust was bio and chemical warfare research.", The woman in extended her hand. "Dr. Lauren Hanson. I'm the Administrator and Head of Bio-Chem Research."

"So your nanites started out as a biological weapon?"

"The man who built the bug that is the basis of our system was actually trying to find a means of controlling outbreak while minimizing loss of contractibility."

"Send that by me again?", Harry blinked as they stepped out into the hallway.

What he created was TRS80." Dr. Hanson adjusted her glasses as David and Harry stepped out of the changing room, and began down the hall. "I'd like you to see why we were so interested in New U Nanotech's approach to bio-manipulation."

"You see, TRS80 was developed before the concept of nano-machines had even been broached. The idea was to create a bacteria that would maintain a symbiotic relationship with a tailored virus.", She said, handing him a folder containing the project information. "Understand, a properly tailored virus can be devastating to any target organism, killing in less than 24-48 hours. And for BW purposes they have the added advantage of being incurable.", she continued, "Even if the theoretical 'enemy' creates a vaccine, it will only help non-infected assets. A victim either develops adequate anti-bodies and overpowers the infection or not. That's why the outbreaks of Ebola and other more primitive "killer" viruses burn out so quickly today. Modern medical containment procedures seal off the infected before they can infect others. Since these viruses are unable to exist outside a host organism or a controlled environment for more than, say between a couple of minutes to an hour, there's quickly no place to go to and the epidemic ends."

"That's also why AIDS and other more sophisticated viruses are so difficult to wipe out. They kill much more slowly, over a matter of years. And the host is relatively healthy for much of that time. That gives them much more time to pass the infection on. Not to mention the fact Unless you like the idea of concentration camps for all such victims like Castro is supposed to be using, accidents happen. Without a vaccine or real cure, it just keeps chugging along. Just thank God both Ebola and AIDS are both still too primitive to exist outside their host organisms for any real length of time. If they were capable of aerosol transmission..." Dr Hanson shook her head in awe a the thought.

"Bacteria on the other hand; While they can be treated with antibiotics, sulfa or other toxins, curing the infected individual, containment of a bacterial outbreak can be much more problematic. Typically bacteria can survive for extended periods outside a host organism or even go dormant until they encounter a favorable environment unless some form of sterilization is performed. "

"Battling a bacterial outbreak requires finding the source of the epidemic and sterilizing it. as well as all the normal contact tracing. Ah, here we are.", She finished, sliding her ID through reader by the door. The room was long, thin and crammed with a huge amount of recording equipment. Another tech sat at the right wall, which was occupied by an immense picture window, looking out on a large enclosed and skylighted kennel area. none of the animals were in evidence though. That wasn't too surprising as about ten feet away from the six pens, were the remains of what must have been a very impressive indoor park.

As Harry looked into various monitors, displaying various areas of the huge enclosure, He asked, "So what you wanted was the survivability of a bacteria merged with the destructive capabilities of a very primitive virus?"

"Exactly. What they developed was a fairly harmless bacteria that acted as a carrier for whatever viral type might be preferred. As long as the virus was made up of a longer DNA or RNA chain than the bacteria; That's all a virus is. Anyway, for a virus to operate, once it has penetrated a cell membrane, it plugs into the existing DNA or RNA and uses the cell's reproducing capabilities for itself. With TRS80, the virus is dormant, but protected by the bacterial component. , She said, becoming excited.

"But, when the bacteria finds itself in favorable conditions, how does the virus duplicate much less enter the host?" Harry asked. Staring at one of the monitors. He thought he saw movement in one of the bushes.

"For a brief period during the Bacteria's reproduction cycle, the DNA or RNA strands are long enough for the virus to plug in. This prolongs the process and the stress inevitably kills one of the developing cells. The cell membrane ruptures temporarily. spilling the new virus into the environment. The old virus, deprived of a place to plug into goes dormant til the process repeats or the original bacteria wears out. The bacterial aspect is quite benign"

"How does TRS80 relate to the New U process?"

"Take a look at the project objectives in the folder. We've got another ten minutes or so before feeding time." Harry let his eyes come off the monitor. He'd caught a glimpse of something, but doubtless he'd get a better look at feeding time. "Let's see...You tried replacing the viral component with something similar to New U' S-XII "Groomer" nanites." He continued paging through Biomech's progress. "But this will only..."

"Call it planned obsolescence.", Lauren replied. "Repeated exposure must be maintained on a constant basis. The Rebus virus in the TRS80 tends to mutate rapidly, losing it's beneficial effects."

"But it works?"

"David? Why don't you help Jeremy here with feeding." David shuddered visibly, displaying something other than his normal coolness for the first time since Harry had met him. "Harry and I will be fine right here. Oh, and be careful around Marion. I understand she's gotten rather snippy since dropping her latest litter." David nodded to Dr. Hanson and followed the tech through the doorway at the end of the room.

"They'll be a minute or two getting into environmental suits and clearing the airlock." Lauren said. "A necessary precaution I'm afraid. About a year ago we had an accident in one of our labs. A test version of Rebus got out while some of the Rebus development team were working with some test animals. The environment in there is full of Rebus. But you'll see that the results were somewhat startling. You should also be able to recognize the current flaw in Rebus. " "We are really at our wit's end with Rebus. Which means we've had to put additional effort into our R&D with nanotechnology. Since New U patented their nanite construction technology, they gave us a leg up on developing our own nanites. They're not as sophisticated as what New U is capable of but that will change. What they haven't patented or copyrighted is their molecular encoding process or the operating language they use. That we did need."

A door opened by the kennel area and two suited figures, one carrying a bucket and the other what appeared to be a cattle prod. As the first started scooping what Harry assumed to be feed into the scattered food bowels, he noticed movement in the underbrush at the edge of the kennel.

"They scent food very quickly." Lauren commented.

Harry's breath caught in his throat as Slowly the one then another of the large 'dogs' came out of the brush. Finally five of the creatures made their way to the waiting bowels. Most moved quite capably on all fours, but two had apparent difficulty. one because of a pair of distinctly human breasts which got in the way of her fore legs. Harry had trouble identifying the other's problem, til he saw him sit by the bowel furthest from the pack leader. He gingerly scooped food out of his bowel with his... hands? That would account for his difficultly walking. It couldn't be easy feeding himself either as it seemed he was unable to rotate his 'hands' palm up. Harry noted silently that the dogs human, rather than canine hair patterns made them seem that much more alien than even the very human faces, with their shortened snouts that made feeding a quite messy affair.

"Marion must be waiting for David and Jeremy to leave before she'll move away from the pups. ", Lauren commented. " See how they've established a crude pack order? Sam inspects everyone's bowel and appropriates anything he finds interesting."The one eating with his hands is Larsen, poor boy. Used to head this section. Now because he's not able to function efficiently as a dog he's become 'odd man out'."

Harry's eyes widened in disbelief. Dr. Hanson suppressed an inappropriate chuckle. "Oh I'm sorry I didn't make it clear. What you are looking at are what's left of the nine members of the Rebus team caught by the accident. They were using a canine version of rebus to clean the congenital deafness out of a dalmatian's DNA.", She shook her head sadly. "That's the main problem with Rebus. The bacterial component easily survives in most mammals and we need a more compact programing language to keep our Groomers from converting everything it encounters to its matrix. After all, we're trying to skim the scum out of the gene pool, not rebuild the earth in Dr Moreu's image."

[Rick: Dinner, Saturday Night]

Rick watched Jamie and Dan leave the room. That girl will have to watch her step around Dan, he thought. He'd never seen Dan take such an instant dislike to anyone before. Hopefully it's just the tension working its way out. He took out his cell phone, tapped a number and waited. Still, Jamie seemed a sharp lass and not all that disturbed by her situation.

"Rick, why haven't.." Chris halted her inquiry when Rick lifted a finger. After about six rings, he was greeted by a rumbling "Hello?"

"George? This is Rick.....Yes, I know it's Saturday night. Considering circumstances of the past week or so; I didn't think you'd mind. Now secure this line." Rick waited while alternating tones told him that George's phone and his were discussing scrambling/descrambling protocols. Then there was the click confirming the scrambler was in fact engaged.

"Okay George, I just got into Baltimore...No, I already have someplace to stay. I want a meeting at Gordon/Star Monday, noon. Call it lunch. Have a complete report with Michael on hand. ....No don't do anything about it til we have a chance to talk. Just make sure that ambitious slut Hanson doesn't so much as take a shit but that you don't know how much and what it tastes like."

Chris mouthed "George?" at Anne, to which she whispered back, "Biomech".

"Alright, we'll discuss options then. No, they're as well as can be expected considering. I do want you to start thinking about where Biomech is going to start drawing funds to clean this up. I'll see you Monday.", Rick put the phone back into his pocket. "Right. Anne, what has this done to our schedule? "

"The our computer is back online and they're still working on a simplified version of New U for general release, but you know we're going to be blocked on distribution. Beth, Chris and I are still looking over the possibility of altering the Nanites established in Dan and Jamie, but that doesn't look encouraging.", Anne responded.

"Wait a minute." Chris said. "What was all that about Biomech? Were they responsible for the sabotage that started this?"

Rick had the grace to look embarrassed. "Chris, you knew there were other companies looking into similar technologies. Biomech has been trying to produce something like the New U treatment scince before Anne approached me. George is my Proxy holder at Biomech. When Beth leapfrogged the existing technology, we began pressuring their R&D unit to produce or abandon the project. They'd already had one very expensive accident. The funding they received through their parent corporation was quite extravagant compared to the operating funds New U has to work with so it looked like it was going to be a piece of cake. After all, Biomech started the project on George's proposal."

"So how...?

"The project director appears to have acted on her own. That's what the meeting on Monday is concerned about." Rick paused and flipped a few pages in his notebook. "I'd like to suggest putting a recovery program on the back burner. If we have to risk either of those kids lives to get them back to normal, then we won't do it. Dan is alive and healthy. He'll just have to live with it."

"And if you get someone to carry on the family name out of it so much the better?"

"Now Beth, that's... "

"An pertinant question.", The red-head insisted. "You led that poor child to think we had a ready cure. Hell, We can't even suggest SRS for the kid because his system would 'repair' the 'damage' within a month and hormone therapy would be rejected by the nanites out of hand. "

" So instead of prepping him for the bad news and trying to convince him that being my son meant no more to me than being my daughter, I let him run head on into a brick wall.", Rick was getting angry now. "That sounds like I was really encouraging the boy! I Love my child, no matter what he is."

Rick sighed, "I really hoped you would have come up with something. He's been so misserable. Mary usually handles him when he's depressed, but he hasn't let her near him. She's the psychiatrist in the family. I'm just an old con-man with money.", Anne reached over to Rick, but he shook her off and grinned. "Everything I've worked for for the past 30 years and more has been for the future. For my children and their children. And in one swell foop it could come crashing down around my ears before it even really gets off the ground." "I wasn't joking before about needing to do some firebreaking. George is holding up reports from Biomech's Nanite group and unless I can come up with an amicable solution, our medical revolution may well spark the resource war I've been trying to beat."

"I thought you were closing Biomech down?", Asked Chris.

"The shut down was going to be put to the board as a cost cutting measure. If they find out they now have access to your technology... Well let's face it. The money-making potential of a cure all vacine is what Anne here tried to sell all our investors on in the first place. I do have an Idea about how to get Biomech more or less off our back without taking us any further off track though."

[Dan'l: Saturday night]

"Don't surround yourself with yourself Move on back to squares Send an Instant Karma to me Initial it with loving care Don't surround yourself"

• I Seen All Good People (a: Your Move) (Jon Anderson)

Dan'l Angstrom closed the door to the room and looked around.

"I'm not a boy."

The statement had less force behind it than when she told Jamie where to get off a few moments before. Snapping the television on was even depressing .. News and "Cops" reruns. At least it was noise. She thought as the announcer droned on about the world's first commercially run space shuttle.

Digging through the sports bag by the bed, Dan'l fished out a worn and beaten diary. Pooh, Christopher Robin and Eeyore looked back, solemnly guarding the contents as they had since Mom bought it for her during the family's last trip to Disneyland, before starting treatments at the New U clinic.

At that point she'd been practically wheelchair bound. The effort required to get out of the car and into the chair, left her breathless. Raising the book to her lips Dan'l raised the pitch of her voice a half octave and spoke, "Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin."

It was the first line from "Winnie-the-Pooh" one of her favorite books as a child and the reason Mom had bought it in the first place. The phrase barely fit in the voice lock, but she'd been determined and finally got it down into the chip in the thing. Sadly, she realized that If her voice continued to drop, she'd have to reprogram it. It might be easier to just get a new diary; this one was nearly full now anyway. There were only about five pages left to write on.

Before putting anything further down though, she paged through the book slowly.

Apr 5th:

I was done today in only 3 hours! I know that sounds like a lot but, my counts were down again so I got one unit of blood to top off my tank to go with the CDS treatment. The CDS bag was like, a quarter of the size of what I was getting before though and only took about 10 minutes to administer. The rest of the time was waiting for the blood to warm and getting it in through the Hickman.

I didn't even need the anti-nausea medicine! (Keeps the tummy from doing weird things but it gives me really shitty headaches.)

Dr. Howe was there to make sure everything went smoothly the first time, but she looked different somehow. I know she's at least as old as Dad, and she looked the same as when I met her last week, but something was definitely different about her. It was like she was acting her age rather than .........................

Of course now Dan'l knew that she, Ms. Anderson and Ms. Williams were acting their age. But then, she'd only met them once before, when they looked her over to see if their Chemo Delivery System might help her. It did too, Dan'l admitted. It just wasn't a cure. Not for her anyway.

Oct. 3

............Mom's worrying again. This last conference with Anne was upsetting for her. Seems what we hoped fell through again. The CDS has stopped the progression, but I'm making cancer cells as fast as the cytoxin can kill them. Dad sent us home while he discussed some more "business" with Anne.

When we got home, Mom and I spent an hour or so in meditation while we waited for Dad. I wish he would spend more time with Mom. I think it exhausts her to be brave in front of me by herself and she really needs some support from him.

On the up side, I haven't needed blood for the last month and I really do feel better than I have since the bone marrow failed. I let her know that and she seemed to perk up a little.

PBS is running "The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe" tonight. Break out the popcorn!..........

Dan'l smiled. That had been a good night, achy joints and all, snuggled between her parents in front of the tube. Next to The Forty Acre Wood, Narnia was one of her favorite places to lose herself in. One of the therapists Mom took her to was into "visualization therapy" and had Aslan battling the forces of the Ice Queen in her body. That didn't work either.

Feb 6:

Well Dad's surprise was a stunner, if not new. I'm going to be starting a new experimental treatment in the next couple of months. That was the "not new" part. The stunner was watching Anne, Chris and Beth remove their "faces" to prove the treatment works, after introducing me to the technicians who'd be giving me the treatment they named after the company. They literally rebuilt them selves and if I survive (more on that later), I'll not only be in full remission, I'll be cured!..............

July 18:

......ACK! Now I know why babies scream and holler when they're forced to breathe air for the first time! You don't mind liquid once you get over the initial shock of breathing it, but afterwards! Even when you get through coughing the foul stuff out of your lungs, you feel all slimy inside for hours after. Yuck.

The Therapy room was in a different part of the clinic. on the third floor. Chris said it was her workshop and it looked like something out of a TV science fiction show that spent beau coup money on permanent sets, and then had to fudge any additions.

And that tub was definitely an addition. It looked like the ones used at SeaWorld to take care of sick dolphins, except it had a large reticulation/filter system attached. They used the scale for invalid patients to hoist me into it after putting me under. We know that the SOUP works though. Now they say it'll take a month or so to get the treatment finalized and that starter solutions "cooked".

After five months of prep and hypno training, I'm ready to ...............

"...start a new life." Dan'l sighed and skipped forward to the blank pages.

Aug 25:

Well, the good news is I'm not sick. The New U treatment is working. The bad news is, the reason my clit has been swelling up and my (GOD I can't believe this!) vagina sealed itself, is that I'm turning into a MAN!

According to Anne and Beth there was a really bad sabotage attempt at the clinic and I got some guy's treatment, or it got mixed with mine. It doesn't make any to me. All I know is that a 30 year old man is running around in the body that should be mine.

His/her name is Jamie. I don't know what to feel about her. Part of me hates her and the fact that she'll be experiencing everything I dreamed of for the past five years and the other part- There's something happening between us that reminds me of Mom. For a moment, just as we met the feeling of connection was so "tight" it overwhelmed me. Then the connection snapped close. Like a door slamming-HARD. That feeling was accentuated when she dropped the two huge suitcases she was trying to get out of the car on my feet.

The rest of the time she's so "surface" though. I mean, Mom always said I had a knack for reading people; her in particular. But although Jamie looks normal (as normal as one could expect considering), it's like a well crafted mask. But the mask was made to fit a different set of features, if you take my meaning. It looks quite good until you notice the edges overhang the face a bit.

And that was what made it so noticeable to me. The mask doesn't quite fit. It slips occasionally, Jamie corrects quickly. I doubt even Dad can read him effectively. Nonetheless, if you poke her hard enough the real Jamie peaks through. .............

Dan'l put down his pen and closed the diary. He had been poking and prodding at Jamie all night. The phallic imagery of the thought couldn't be lost be lost on Dan'l as he entered the bathroom, got out of his sweats and made him stop. She'd (HE'D) been trying to force her way through Jamie's defenses. Provoke her into action. Granted, she'd(HE'D) gotten a couple minor responses from him. But for the most part, Jamie had responded by just retreating further into her shell and presenting a calmer, more flippant (if possible) face than before. Instead, she (HE) had ended up acting like a bully.

Dan'l's hands started moving the bar of soap around his body as warm water from the showerhead beat a staccato rhythm on his chest. Like it or not with one well timed statement, Jamie stuck at the core of Dan'l's problem. She'd even stumbled across an acceptable name at dinner. One Dan'l knew he could hear without cringing or ignoring.

Rinsing the spreading hair across his flat chest, he looked down and there was the most undeniable evidence what was happening and that his declaration to Jamie was blatantly wrong. All four inches of it hung limply to the left as he began slowly soaping the dense hair surrounding his (Go on, say it.) penis and the developing flap of skin where his outer lips had been. Where his scrotum was forming.

Dan'l finished washing and toweled himself off quickly and began pulling on the pajamas Dad bought him before they left. Looking in the mirror he brushed out and blow dried his hair. Jamie did let slip some interesting information though. She was aware of the link between them as well. Dan'l's last attack had been meant to unnerve Jamie. Instead, Jamie had only confirmed his suspicion that they were inadvertently influencing each other.

The link between them was at least as strong as the one Dan'l and his Mom had forged over their years of meditation together. Stronger really. It took them two years to form the bond. The bond he hadn't felt for the past few days. A bond lost because he couldn't bear to reveal himself to his Mother now that he was healthy, but had reveled in while sick and in his own mind disfigured. Was this that much different?

"Alright, so I am a boy." He said, running his hand round the contours of his face. It wasn't a bad face as such things went. Strong jaw line, deep-set eyes, a straight but not pointy nose. No unibrow; that was a relief. Just enough baby-fat still lingering to remind one that this is still a kid. If she'd seen this guy five years ago, she might have thought he was kinda cute.

"Course, I'll be cute in a Grizzly Adams way if I don't do something about this", Dan'l said to the mirror rubbing his rapidly sprouting beard. When his hair had started spreading up his stomach and across his chest, he'd been afraid the treatment had left him with hyper-trichosis. He could take care of that tomorrow. Tonight he'd use it to help with coming to terms with his new status.

He put the sweats and underwear in a laundry bag, staring at the panties and bra (never mind the extra socks) he'd worn earlier. "No backing up. Do the next thing." Walking back to his room, Dan'l knew that the first step to understanding his twin Jamie was to understand self.

The TV was still yakking inanely so he turned it off. He'd left the meditation candle at home, but that was a convenience, not a necessity. Clearing some space at the side of the bed, he chucked the PJs and sat in the position his Mother had taught him. He'd never really bought into his Mom's New Age beliefs. That didn't mean her belief in the power of meditation and self-hypnosis was entirely bogus either. While neither had been able to actually do anything about the cancer eating away at him, Dan'l always felt better after a session. The position was now comfortable, but also made him aware of his body.

This might have been easier with Mom to guide him but he thought he should be able to do this initial probe himself. Turning his mind inward, he began checking himself out. Extending his awareness through the core to the ends of each extremity and back again; building a cohesive self image. Dan'l almost laughed to look at it. The image he stepped away from was Jamie. Or at least, the way Dani had pictured herself in the sessions with Mom or her therapist. The differences negligible. He circled the image and began reshaping it to fit reality. Slowly exploring himself from the inside out, he pulled the tissue in from his chest and expanded his shoulders. Did he have a 15 or 16 inch neck? Another giggle ensued when he realized he'd left his nipples at their old silver dollar size.

As he started in on each area he tried to cherish it fully before releasing it and bringing the new form in. Dan'l took as long a he needed. Time meant nothing where he was now. When the image in his mind's eye matched what he was getting used to seeing in the mirror every morning now, he settled into it and realized that for the first time since undergoing transformation at the clinic he could feel what was happening inside him again. He could feel his new testicles which were now finishing the journey downward they'd started a week ago, filling the empty sack between his legs. The final stage of his transformation was complete. Dad now had someone to carry on the family line.

No! negative thought. Dad's wishes are of no importance. Calm steady breaths. Release your anger. Richard Angstrom's wish for a son is irrelevant. You are Dan'l Angstrom. You are almost 18 years old and you will live beyond this century; maybe even the next.

With that thought, Dan'l sank into his mind to begin the second phase of his self examination.

The room was a jumbled mess. Memories of Dani Angstrom's life were scattered everywhere. He wasn't surprised by its condition. It had been a while since he'd done any house cleaning in here and Dani had spent the last few days mulling over 'might-have been's and 'used-to-be's. He picked through the scattered memories; cherishing each as much as possible before putting them away. Some were loving moments like the evening watching TV with Mom and Dad. Feelings of safety and security. Laying out in the back seat, on the way home and knowing all was right with the world while Mom and Dad were in the front seat. Happy times, Watching Daddy cheer a particularly good hit a little league, or finding and getting a hug from Pooh at Disneyland on her third birthday.

Some were vague wispy things that were hard to pick up, but evoked strong responses. A small red terrycloth robe with Pooh sewn on the pocket, smelled of Uncle Jack's pipe tobacco and Dan'l spent some time in his cabin listening intently as he read her favorite stories.

Eventually all that were left were the 'Dust Bunnies' under the bed. He'd never ventured in there without Mom's or his therapist's guiding hand. Slowly Dan'l reached into the shadows and pulled each out. A 'Get Well' gift reminded Dan'l of an incident during the during the Bone Marrow. Dani had been so hopped up on pain killers at one point that she spent and hour arguing with a cat...and only after conceding that the cat was in fact right (Regis is the Anti-Christ) did she begin to suspect the toy balloon of having ulterior motives. A jump rope that brought Dani to tears a week after her original diagnosis when the closing phrase of "Yes my child by and by", took on a more relevant meaning.

There too many of those Dan'l thought. But each was taken and held and incorporated. These were the things, both good and bad that made up Dani and laid the foundation for Dan'l.

Then Dan'l stood alone and naked in a clean and orderly room. Not empty, everything was that had been there, still was. All the unresolved issues and fears had been packed into the the closet, but the door was open and they waited for resolution and confrontation. He felt ready to deal with the world now. Except for the music coming in through the window.

Window? There'd never been windows here before. Open or otherwise. Examining it more closely he saw that the widow wasn't really open. the screen was down. Beyond the screen was an even more interesting sight. A corridor made of concrete, like you'd expect to find in an underground garage or the emergency exits for a mall. At the far end a set of polished oak doors opened out onto a very high priced office set. After staring awhile, Dan'l thought he caught a glimpse of two people, one in a in business suit and the other in rags hurridly running back and forth. Dan'l had constructed the room he was in years ago, with the aid of his Mother and Therapist. It was patterned after his room in the old house and while the original did have a window (two in fact) He'd purposefully kept the walls here clean of outside distractions. There was no other way to look at this but as a distraction.

The noise coming from the offices was increasing in volume. For a moment Dan'l though he heard a woman laughing. The comings and goings in the office were picking up tempo as well. A breeze began wafting up the corridor. It carried a very familiar smell to Dan'l. He'd just spent a lot of time breathing it in. The smell of Dust Bunnies left too long under the bed was being stirred up over there. Even as he identified the scent of fear, Frick and Frack over in the office collided with each other and the doors to the office slammed shut on themselves.

The shock of that sound made Dan'l open his eyes in the real world. Unlike any other session, he felt bone weary, and a little apprehensive. Bleary eyes scanned the non-descript room he was given and eventually landed on the clock on the wall. "Geez, It's past three.", Dan'l said raising to his feet unsteadily. He felt like he'd just woken from a bad dream and meditation should never produce that kind of feeling. Loneliness and uncertainty flared briefly in the back of his head, sending tingles through his gut. Dan'l shivered and pulled his PJs back on. Crawling under the covers, Dan'l reached over to the night stand and picked up the phone. "Mom... It's me. ", He said turning off the light and trying to feel her comforting presence.

The talk with Mom helped clear the air about some things and Dan'l woke up feeling much better than he had in a week. The reflection that greeted him in the mirror was actually smiling today. A fuzzy smile to be sure but that could be taken care of easily he thought, toweling his hair. Digging through the small case on the sink, Dan'l pulled out the electric razor his Dad packed. Twenty minutes later Dan'l gve it up as a lost cause and joined his father Anne, and Chris for breakfast.

"Planning on growing a beard?", Dad asked, scooping some white goo onto a forkfull of bisquet and egg.

"Not really, just didn't seem too important.", Dan'l said scratching an itch on his cheek. "Am I allowed to have breakfast before my check-up?" The savory scent of sausage had Dan'l's mouth watering.

"Go ahead, this morning's check-up is my first chance to have a look at my favorite paitent since you came out of the tank. How do you like your eggs.", Anne said, fixing Dan'l a plate. "By the way, did you see the cook this morning while you were upstairs."

"Scambled is fine and no, I havn't seen Beth at all this morning."

"Dan son, I think your prejudces are showing." Dad said around mouthfull of bisquit. "What woman in her right mind today would fix a breakfast so loaded with fat, grease, salt, and chloresteral without a alternative?" Anne commented that Dad wasn't much better for that remark and that given Dan's evident need for starch and protiens she might have prepped something similar, but today was Jamie's day to do breakfast.

Dan'l had to admit Mom might make something like this for Dad, but would have made sure he got no other junk food the rest of the day. "Well, I haven't seen Jamie this morning, but I think she was up and about pretty early."

"Alright, finish your breakfast and meet me down at the lab. I want to do a quick walkabout to make sure Jamie's ok."

Anne seemed preoccupied all during the exam and as promised, nothing out of the ordinary occurred.

"Well," she said as beth took the samples down from the examination room to the main lab below. "Beth's tests and the kids at Hopkins get the final say, but I will venture to say that outside of your accelerated metabalism, you are the very model of a young man just getting over his growth sprut." "I want to talk to a dietitary specialist, but I think I'm going to put you on one of the protein supplement drinks to try to get your appitite under control until you finish growing out."

"Doc, Why isn't Jamie scarfing everything down the same way I am?

"He's...heh, She's got a bit less growing to do than you. You're 5' 7" right now. By the end of the year our computer is projecting you at just under 5' 11". Maybe a little taller. Your Father's a good 6' and Jamie was 5' 10". I'm not saying you'll be the next Arnold, but your genetic makeup is currently well disposed toward looking very emphatically male. So, in addition to at least three or four inches in height, your body is trying to increase your mass proportionally."

"Jamie also has about two or three inches in height to gain but much less muscle and bone mass. In fact she's dumped a large proportion of her bodyweight as it is."

"I know what Dad,'s like, but what about Jamie?"

"I'm afraid I'm a little prejuduce where she's concerned.", Anne blushed slightly for the first time since Dan'l had known the doctor. "I love her like my own. How are you and your father getting along?"

"I don't know what to think about him anymore." Dan'l clenched his fists.

"He and I have always had a weird kind of relationship I guess. I mean, he was always interested and wanted to be there for me but the only times he could be depended on was if I was in an important game or seeing a new doctor or about to have a major operation. It was like he just couldn't be bothered by any award I got, unless it was for sports. Did you know my last recital before had to stop playing guitar, I was considered one of the best classical players in the state? Maybe I just wanted too much from him."

"Why don't you come out here and play for me now Sweetheart." Came Rick's voice from the door way. "Doctor? Is Dan finished?"

"Go along dear, I think it's time for your recital."Anne said patting the child on the rump.

"Before you say anything else Dad, we have got to talk about my name...."

Rick had brought the six string out to porch and Dan'l inspected the insturment carefully before begining to tune it. He worked up slowly testing long and uncalussed fingers with pieces like "Tom Dooly" and "Scarborough Fair". They talked through all the while. Dan'l thought he might be limber enough to take a crack at Steve Howe's "Clap" when Rick asked his son to sing.

Dani had often sung in the shower, but was never felt her voice was unsuitable for anything but her own enjoyment. "Dan'l, I know I never really went out my way to see you perform, but I always paid attention when you played and one hearing you "hum and strum", was one of the more relaxing things I got to do when I was home."

Dan'l thought for a moment as Chris dropped off some drinks and picked a song he thought his voice could handle. He had a little trouble with finding his pitch at first, but by the time the chours swung around he was staring out past the front hedges and felt he could almost hear the alto harmony gliding airily round his tune. The feeling was of a good bonding taking hold and staring at his father he knew that more than one bond was going to be established today.