He stepped over to his wife. “Hey, Estella. I need to zip over to Asia a bit. Wanna come?”
Estella took about one second to think, walked into the shuttle with Cory, and from the door, tossed her keys to Vivian. “Put my stuff in the fridge, please?”
* * *
Bessie raced west toward Indonesia in Low Earth Orbit. Estella’s eyes were transfixed on Bessie’s exquisite HUD, the earth turning beneath them.
Estella was enchanted with the shuttle. “Bessie, what would happen if you did some aerobatics?”
“You would never know,” Bessie said. “Inertial dampers.”
“Really? Like—”
The HUD showed the earth spinning in front of them, moving in a circle over the HUD from left over the top to the right, then across the bottom to the left again.
“What?” Cory asked.
“That was a roll,” Bessie said.
Estella looked at her husband. “Never felt a thing.”
Bessie’s large eyes on the HUD seemed pleased.
“Bess, can we have some Glenn Miller? ‘Moonlight Seranade’?”
Glenn’s soft music began to play.
Cory took Estella by the hand, his other arm around her waist, and began to sway back and forth. He kissed her softly on the lips and asked her, “Stell, you want to join the 100 Mile High club?”
Estella’s eyes widened. “Here?”
“We’re both astronauts.”
Her eyes glanced at the HUD.
Large eyes smiled at them.
“Bess, can we get some privacy?”
The shuttle flew high over the pacific, rolling, dodging, bouncing—dancing with her humans to the music.
* * *
“No, Mommy! Please?” The eight-year-old girl begged. She was crying. Her hands were constantly on her face. “I can’t, Mommy! I’m a girl. Please don’t make me go in there! He makes me feel so ugly!”
“George! You’re a boy,” her mother asserted, “and we’ll have no more of this girl nonsense! The doctor is trying to fix you!”
Alexander’s HUD depicted the cell phone network that led his worm to the little girl’s mother. He could hear her by tapping her phone.
Data flashed across his HUD: routes, address, satellite images of surrounding locations—the nature of the clinic: reparative therapy.
Location: Alexander’s HUD showed him at 150,000 feet over the Azores in the eastern North Atlantic.
Speed, distance, estimated time of arrival information swept across his HUD. The clinic pictured overlayed with diagrams. Data flashed in layers over pictures—
“Be civil, George,” the doctor said. “I’m here to help you. Trust me.”
The mother tried to lead the girl toward the doctor, but she fought.
Alexander raced west at blinding speed through the thermosphere, descending in an arc as he flew through the Mesosphere.
“Initiate” flashed across his HUD.
Every phone in the clinic rang.
The doctor turned to check.
A nurse picked up a phone which played a recording of President Obama’s voice: “Please don’t hang up. This is an emergency of the Psychiatric Critical Response Application Police—Psychiatric CRAP. For your safety, you are instructed to exit the building immediately. I repeat—”
“Doctor!” the nurse said. “There is an emergency!”
“What kind of emergency?”
The girl moved to stand behind her mother, away from the doctor, wiping tears from her face.
“We’re ordered to exit the building!”
Alexander arced down into the Stratosphere, his ship blazing like a meteorite—rocket speed.
At the clinic, speakers on every device so equipped began playing the message over and again. Televisions as well showed the President repeating his warning to leave the building immediately. “You must exit the building immediately. This is an emergency—”
Staff began to gather a few personal belongings—
The doctor turned to address them: “What is this!”
Views from tapped cell phone cameras danced across Alexander’s HUD.
“Troposphere” flashed in the upper right corner of the HUD. “E.T.A. 18 seconds.”
The video from what appeared to be the President on the T.V. addressed one woman in particular. “GET OUT NOW!”
Alexander’s shock wave over Georgia shook trees and buildings, set off car alarms, blew the wondows out of the sides of a few sky scrapers. His decelearation from Mach 4 occurred in 0.97 seconds. Hollywood couldn’t have done it better.
He hovered directly above the clinic, his ship smoking like a barbecue.
Walls began to shake inside.
People screamed and ran, while what appeared to be the President’s message repeated its warning to flee.
Doors to the clinic burst open. People ran out, along with the doctor, the mother, and the little girl.
—They all stopped to stare at the shuttlecraft overhead.
Alexander opened his hatch. “Carrie Combs,” he said in his own Connery voice, though softer, more kindly, than usual. “Would you like a ride?”
“I would,” the doctor said.
“You’re not invited,” Alexander said harshly. Then softly, “Carrie? Would you like a ride?”
The little girl’s face brightened. She started for Alexander’s ramp, but her mother cling to her arm.
“Your mother can come, too,” Alexander said.
Her moher balked. “No, I—”
Alexander lifted them both into the air and floated them into the shuttle, closed the door behind them.
“And as for the rest of you,” Alexander said on his loud speakers to the group below.
The HUD displayed infrared imagery of everything in the surrounding area.
The crowd below watched the shuttle, when, without warning, the clinic instantly slammed into the earth in a depression about a foot deep. Every atom of the clinic dropped to the level of the earth minus one foot, as if a huge invisible giant Walker from Star Wars crushed it. No dust scattered. No water sprayed. It just crushed.
The shuttle descended several feet into the space once occupied by the clinic, and though it was round, a saucer, it seemed to glare at the staff.
The shuttle moved slowly over the area of the clinic, owning every part of it, and spoke like the voice of God: “You think it’s okay to hurt people because they’re different from you?”
The shuttle reoriented, disk pointing up, and shot straight up so fast it blazed, again, like a meteorite.
In Low Earth Orbit, in the Thermosphere, Alexander let the craft float.
The Earth slowly turned beneath them, as Alexander stared at the two humans on his bridge.
“I object to being kidnapped!” the mother said.
“Then you may know how your daughter has felt,” Alexander said.
“He’s my son!”
“Thank you, Sir,” the little girl said.
“Your name is Carrie, right?” Alexander asked.
“It’s George!” the mother corrected.
“You’re kind of slow, aren’t you,” Alexander said. “Girl! What is your name?”
“Carrie.” She moved to hug a console in front of the HUD as if it were a person.
Eyes on the HUD melted.
“Do you see what’s happening here, Mom?” Alexander asked.
“But! The doctor said—”
“Doctors are as prone to bigotry and ignorance as anyone else,” Alexander said. “Sometimes worse, because they think they know.”
“I— I—”
“I—also.” Alexander’s tone softened. “I think we made a big mistake. I can’t believe it, but it’s true. We’d been so many thousands of years believing as we had, trying to stay out of humanity’s way, that we didn’t respond when we could have helped. But I’ll make that mistake no longer. This little girl needs your help.”
“She needs to be fixed. She’s gotten into this ‘I’m a girl??
? stuff, and it’s messing up her grades in school. She wants to go to school in a dress—”
“—and for thousands of years, humanity has thought there were just these two binary sexes—a distinct male and female. But now you’re learning, are you not? That these people have just been being oppressed. That you must help.
“My sins of absence, I cannot erase,” Alexander confessed to the lady. “But I can learn from them and do right from here.”
“Carrie, I should have been here sooner. But if you like, I can make you a girl in body, the way you need it to be.”
The mother looked horrified. “No! I—”
“Do you think we should always remain stupid because we were?” Alexander charged the mother.
“I—”
“Should we never learn?” Alexander’s eyes grew on the HUD.
“You can’t pretend to be something you’re not. That,” she indicated her daughter, “is shameful! I—didn’t want to hurt her!” the mother begged.
Tears flowed down Carries face.
“You were hurting her. And you still are.”
The mother shook her head. “No!”
Alexander said nothing.
Carrie hugged her mother and cried into her dress. “Mom! Please?”
“You can do this?” the mother asked Alexander.
“Carrie, look at these pictures.” Alexander put up several photos on his HUD of a girls. “Which do you need to be?”
Without hesitation, Carrie stepped over to the screen and pointed to one in clear certainty. “Please!”
The mom reached down to hug Carrie, then stood beside her and acquiesced.
A gurney appeared.
Carrie got on.
Her head strapped.
She dissolved and was reborn.
* * *
“Get her in here! Get her in here!” Billy Tsung gave his door to a clerk to hold, as he rushed back to open the next set of doors.
Paramedica rushed a gurney into the building, the badly broken and bloodied body of an automobile accident strapped atop it.
The lobby was full of people.
“Move!” A paramedic ordered someone trying to see.
“This way!” Billy screamed. “Hurry up!”
The gurney raced through the hall.
“Are you ready, Phil!” Billy yelled deeper into the next room.
“I got nothing to go on!” Phil yelled back.
“Just pick any body, but hurry up! It doesn’t matter!” the paramedic shouted.
Billy closed the doors behind them in the treatment room.
“This is just a transmuter room,” Phil said.
“We got to do her quick,” the paramedic said. “She just died.”
“How long ago?” Phil asked.
“About two minutes ago,” the paramedic said. “Her heart stopped. There’s no other way to save her.”
The paramedics put her body onto the transmuter table and stepped back.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Phil said, catching up. “We can do this.”
“Mandy,” Phil said to his transmuter. “Emergency. Give me a 20-year-old woman, average build. We need to hurry.”
Little straps came out to hold the deceased’s head against the event of any nerve that may fire.
“I’ve been listening,” Mandy said. “Ready.”
The smashed form on the bed became fuzzy and morphed into a healthy 20-year-old young, nude woman who gasped. Her eyes flashed open and she screamed. “Wha—aaaaaaaaaaaaa! Look out!”
Her eyes were wild. She struggled as paramedics held her down. “It’s alrigh, miss! It’s alright! You’re safe! You’re safe!”
The woman on the bed looked at them with fire in her eyes. She eventually focused on them, but she jerked her head as well as she could from right to left.
Her head straps disappeared.
She looked at the paramedics more seriously. “Where am I?”
An elderly man walked with difficulty into a transmuter station in St. Petersberg, Florida, a photo of his deceased wife in his pocket.
“Mr. Gonzales?” the receptionist asked.
He nodded.
“We’re ready for you.”
Mr. Gonzales followed the lady into the next room where the technician waited.
“Mr. Gonzales, we’re glad to have you. I’m so sorry for your loss, four months ago. Your wife.”
Mr. Gonzales nodded, tears filling his eyes. “I— I wanted to die with her, to be with her.”
The technician commiserated with him. “But?”
“But I think she would want me to live.”
“Yes!” The technician cried a little with him. “She loved you. I’m sure she would.”
With her mother by her side, a five-year-old girl climbed nude onto the table and lay down, hiding her male area with her hands.
“My love!” her mother cried. “You will be okay in just a minute. Is this the one you like?”
The hologram showed an average young girl of five.
“Yes, Mom.” The little girl’s eyes filled with tears, but her smile was as large as her mother’s heart.
“Then lets do it,” her mother said to the technician.
“Let your arms down,” said the technician.
Little straps came out of the bed to hold the girl’s head.
“Are you ready?” the technician asked.
“Please,” said the girl.
“Tanya,” the technician addressed the transmuter. “Now, please.”
The little girl’s wrong body became fuzzy and morphed into her right body.
A few seconds later, she took a breath and opened her eyes.
Her head straps disappeared. She had a T on her left temple where a strap had been.
She sat up and looked at herself. “Mommy!” she screamed and jumped off the table to hug her mother, tight around her neck, like she would never let go. Her tears soaked her mother’s hair.
CHAPTER
32
Nicki was dressed in an 1880s-ish, off-white, maxi evening gown with lace off the shoulders, form-fitting over her perfect figure, and a small train that trailed behind her heels.
Mel wore a black frock coat, white shirt, little black cowboy tie, black slacks and cowboy boots in the fashion of the times.
Together they strode from Mel’s car toward their club’s Recognition Dance at the club, in honor of those who won awards at the Nationals.
The parking lot was full of cars. The club area was full of old west style buildings, semi-permenant tents put up for atmosphere, and fake old west fronts used for shooting. Someone was charbroiling, and the air was thick with the smell of cigar smoke and beer.
“Hello Mel,” a passerby said with a smile, walking with his date. “Nicki.” He tipped his hat to her.
Mel smiled at them both. “Hey, Steve.”
Nicki reached over and put her hand in Mel’s.
Mel turned to face her. “You’re trembling? We know these guys. They won’t hurt you. Much.”
She put her other hand on his as well. “Some of them have been pretty bad toward L.G.B.T. in the past.”
“We’re straight, doll.” He turned to lead her toward the dance.
The music could be clearly heard: “Shiftwork” by George Strait. People were dancing in the “saloon” (building) near the old-west building fronts used for shooting.
“We’re T,” she said. “And I’m really trans, now.”
“Who is probably also pregnant by now.”
She slapped him on his back. And smiled.
“We’ve been through this at the nationals. Guys here don’t care about gays any more.”
“Well, they might, here. This bunch has been pretty hard on gays, I know, in the past. I never said anything, but now I feel it.”
“Well, we’ll stare ‘em down, together. Probably half of ‘em would like to get up your skirt, anyway.”
They walked through the split rail fence and into the saloon—right
up to the table with the worst of them.
The music was a bit loud in there. People were danging to George’s music.
Nicki moved to stand behind Mel, but he put his arm around her and brought her around to his side.
“Oh, ‘Horny Toad.’ There he is. I heard about you two. I do not believe you’re with that faggot there. You ain’t no faggot, are you, Horny?”
Nicki’s reflex was to step back, but Mel’s was to step forward. He lifted the table up from the side and turned it over, slamming it down hard on the wooden floor, and bent over the sitting bigot like a towering menace.
Others scattered.
The music stopped.
The man cowered.
Without taking his eyes off the man, Mel ordered: “Nicki! Come here.”
She did.
Mel took her left hand and held it out in front of the man to see. “See this here, Dick?”
“I’m Sam!”
“Now you’re Dick. See this here, Dick?” Mel held Nicki’s hand closer to Sam. “This here’s my engagement ring. She wears it ‘cause we’re gonna get married. Everybody see this?” He held Nicki’s hand high for all to see, then addressed Sam some more. “We’re in love. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and if you dis her again, I’ll slam you into the dirt right through this hollow-wood floor. I might even use both hands to do it, though it wouldn’t be necessary with a man who isn’t even strong enough to be civil.”
Mel studied Sam’s face, then others around.
No one responded.
Sam slumped like a coward should.
He stood up, still holding Nicki’s hand, and faced the guy playing music. “You got any Blake Shelton?”
“Uh, yeah,” the guy said.
People began to go back to their business, and the D.J. began to play “Lonely Tonight,” a loving, slow song.
Mel took a trembling Nicki in his arms and began to sway.
“It’s okay, girl.”
A few others gawked, disapproving, but others joined them on the floor.
She put her cheek on his cheek as he turned her around the floor and spoke into his ear. “It’s—”
Her right hand was in his left, so she put her left hand over her face as they danced. “I know. I don’t think they’re gonna do anything to us, but it’s the hate. The hate scares me. I don’t know why.”
Blake sang:
…We don’t have to be lonely tonight…