Dreadnought

by April Daniels

  This is delicate. I pick my words carefully. “None of my clothes fit.”

  “Danny, we’re going to fix this pretty quick. We don’t need to be spending a lot of money on clothes that we’d only have to give away.”

  “Can I get new shoes, at least? These things are like boats. I’m going to be tripping all the time.” I’ve got to figure out something that will get Mom and me out of the house with the intention of spending money. Once I get her away from him, she’ll be a lot more reasonable. “I mean, just to wear until we fix me. They don’t have to be expensive.”

  Dad sighs, and nods.

  “Sure, Danny,” says Mom. A fizzing light of joy goes off in my chest, but I keep most of it off my face.

  • • •

  Mom takes me to the discount shoe store downtown, one of those places with the neon-orange carpet and the salespeople who are a little too friendly to feel safe around. The door gives an electric chime as we enter the shop, which summons them like sharks to bloody water.

  “Hi there! Is there anything I can help you with today!” says a man in a neon-tangerine polo shirt. He’s got a huge friendly smile that goes only as far as his eyelids.

  “Where are the girls’ sneakers?” asks Mom.

  “Aisle three! Do you need help looking for something!”

  “That’s okay,” I say quickly. The trick with these guys is not to make eye contact. Like restless ghosts, they want to drag you down to Hell with them.

  We slip down aisle three, and Mom measures my foot with one of those metal ruler things with the slide. Then she measures my foot again when we realize she’d accidentally used the men’s scale. There’s a whole wall of generic gray sneakers to choose from. I notice the colors for these are much calmer than I’m used to seeing in sneakers. Pastels and grays and so on. Boys’ shoes want to look like they’re made of knockoff hypertech. Boys’ shoes are friggin’ ugly.

  While Mom is searching for a pair of shoes in my size that are on sale, I slip around the aisle and head down the other side. Something caught my eye on the way in. These are the more distinctly feminine shoes. I find a pair in my size and clutch them to my chest, blushing. Flats, glossy black with straps. Super cute. I’ve always wanted some.

  Mom is pretty smart. If I show these to her, she might start putting things together. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

  Screw it. I really want these shoes.

  “Danny, I want you to try these on,” she says when I come around the corner again.

  My voice is quiet when I say, “I want these. They’re on sale.”

  “Oh, those are nice,” says Mom, and then an instant later I see her realize what Dad will think of them. A moment after that, she looks at me, puzzling. I’m sitting on the knife edge of hope, waiting for what she’ll say next. “But…oh. Yes, you can have those.”

  My smile is huge, as wide as it goes. I hug her, and she hugs me back and I love her so, so much. “Thanks, Mom.”

  After a long moment, we break apart and I decide to press my luck.

  “Now how about some underwear?”

  • • •

  There are cops all over the back side of the mall when we get there. It feels a little creepy being back here. Everyone’s walking around like they just lost a relative. As ecstatic as I am about what’s happened, someone had to die for it to be possible. I don’t like thinking about that, because it reminds me that I’m a horrible person. It’s disconcerting to realize Dad is right about how selfish I am. We have to go around two sides of the city block that the parking garage is on to get in.

  “I can’t believe Dreadnought is dead,” says Mom. “You were near that?”

  “It was really scary,” I say.

  She grabs my hand and squeezes it tight. “What were you doing back there?” she says as she locks up the car.

  I want to tell her everything. And I mean everything, from the powers to how I wanted to be a girl this whole time. But no. It doesn’t feel safe.

  “I was exploring.” It’s an amazingly lame excuse, but Mom doesn’t push.

  The mall downtown is built over several city blocks, with extensive skyways between the main buildings. We cross the road through a glass-and-steel tunnel on the third floor and come out near where we need to be. The lingerie shop in the mall is packed front to back with floor-to-ceiling photos of impossibly beautiful women posing dramatically in their underwear. And I mean literally impossible. These women have all been airbrushed and retouched until they are something that basically does not exist in nature. Even actual models don’t really look that way—it’s a full-time job for them to do the kind of dieting and exercise needed to be a top-tier model, and then on top of that they have staff to help them. Dermatologists, dietitians, personal trainers, makeup specialists, talented photographers, and even digital artists all work together make it possible. Our health teacher made sure to show us a really long documentary on the subject, about how every little human imperfection, from pimples to scars to pockets of fat, is digitally erased by artists before these photos are shown to the public. With an almost guilty jolt, I realize I look a lot like these pictures. Maybe not so…developed, but pretty close. There’s a weird moment of dissonance as I process that.

  A clerk walks up to us. They must pay better here; she doesn’t have that desperation that fills you with pity and fear. Her eyes are red and a little puffy like she’s been crying. A lot of people’s eyes have been like that today. Everyone loved Dreadnought. “Can I help you two?”

  “My daughter needs a bra,” says Mom. Another little burst of joy flits through me hearing her say that. Her daughter.

  The clerk takes my measurements, looping a tape measure around my chest, and then higher around my breasts. “You should have been in here a while ago,” she says.

  “Uh, there were complications.”

  She raises her eyebrows, but only says, “Oh, of course. I’ll get you a few different styles to try out in the changing rooms.”

  The changing room happens to feature the first full-length mirror I’ve had access to since I changed. I snuck into the bathroom to stare at my face for a solid hour late last night, but finally seeing all of myself, seeing the shape of my body, gives me goosebumps. For more than a few moments, I only stand and stare. I’m a girl. Finally.

  I’m just so happy. I can’t believe it. I keep expecting to wake up, to see the end of this delirious, wonderful dream. But I am awake, and I’m free.

  I pick the three bras I like the best, and Mom makes me put the push-up bra back. When I come back to her, she’s got a distant look in her eyes. She’s looking in my direction, but I’m not sure she sees me.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  She smiles. “I was just remembering when my mother took me to buy my first bra. I didn’t think I’d ever be doing the same thing.”

  “I like that we’re doing this,” I say. It’s the closest I can come to saying we were meant to be doing this.

  Mom smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She looks away.

  We get up to the register and the clerk rings us up. The price is shockingly high.

  “Holy crap! We can’t afford that!”

  “I’ve got a little money put away,” Mom says quietly. I don’t have to be told this isn’t something to repeat. “We can splurge on this.”

  “Thank you,” I say softly.

  We pick up some panties from the cheaper department store at the other end of the mall and head home. I wear the sneakers into the house and carry the flats, the bras, and the panties in the shoe store bag, which is less likely to catch Dad’s eye and be a problem. I claim to have a lot of homework and lock myself in my room again.

  I put on my shiny black shoes and practice hovering in midair. It’s easy now. I can spin on all three axes, and stop precisely in whatever orientation I choose. Tomorrow is Monday. I can’t wait.

  School is going to be amazing.

  Chapter Four

  “Where do you think
you’re going?” asks Dad, just as I’m about out the door.

  “School?” A girl can hope, anyhow.

  “I don’t think so,” says Dad. “You’re sick, and you’re not going to school until you’re well again.”

  “I feel fine,” I mumble.

  “You have a doctor’s appointment at eleven. You can send a text to David and ask him to email you your assignments. No phone calls. He doesn’t need to hear what’s happened to your voice.”

  Slowly, I shut the door and trudge back up to my room.

  • • •

  The doctors peek in the door again. Dad took me to our family doctor, Doctor Cho, and when he finally gave in and admitted it wasn’t very likely I had a twin sister we’d been keeping secret this whole time just to fool him, he immediately retreated and called for reinforcements. Since then, every doctor in the office has been in to look at me. Blood pressure, heartbeat, height, and weight. Urine sample, stool sample, saliva sample. They tried to get a blood sample, but the needle wouldn’t punch through my skin at first. For a scary moment I thought they were going to figure it out, but then I imagined the lattice again, imagined the net loosening, letting something through. The needle went into my arm with a pinch, and they got their blood sample. I was poked, prodded, weighed three more times.

  Finally, they leave me sitting on an exam bed, dressed in nothing but a paper gown. The walls are papered in medical information posters. I learn the early warning signs of heart disease, and how to examine a pair of testicles for cancer. (Won’t ever need to do that! Ha!) There’s a list of 1-800 hotlines, and a diagram of what to do when someone has a seizure. The place reeks of antiseptic and nonlatex gloves. I should have brought my sketchbook. Every once in a while, someone will poke their head in, stare at me for a few seconds, and then back out. They’re like curious gophers.

  “Can you tell Doctor Cho I’d like to speak with him?” I ask.

  “Sure,” says one. She keeps staring at me for a long moment.

  “Soon?”

  “Right.” She backs away and shuts the door. I can hear heated conversations on the other side.

  A century later, Doctor Cho returns. He’s got three other doctors with him. “So, have you figured it out?” I ask.

  “Not yet, but—” he begins.

  “Welp, you tried,” I say, hopping off the examination table. “Don’t blame yourself, I’m sure anyone would be stumped, you can just go tell Dad it’s hopeless.” I start pulling my socks on.

  “I don’t think it is,” says Doctor Cho.

  “What?” I look up sharply.

  “We need to get you to an endocrinologist. I think that, given the circumstances, we can skip the psychological counseling necessary to begin treatment for gender identity disorder.”

  “What?”

  “There are these rules called the Harry Benjamin standards of care that mandate at least three months of counseling to clear you for hormone replacement therapy, but since you were male until two days ago, we might be able to start you on testosterone shots right away. I’d need to get an opinion from a specialist, though.”

  He doesn’t even know the Harry Benjamin standards have been out of date for years now. Hell, they’re not even called that anymore.

  Part of me wants to laugh, and another part wants to cry, and a third part wants to scream. They butt up against each other and form a kind of tripod of misery, a stable equilibrium of horror and despair. NOW they want to treat me. NOW they want to change my gender. NOW it’s all hands on deck to consider the pressing possibility that something might be wrong with my body.

  I’m surprised by how level my voice is when I say, “Oh. Okay.”

  • • •

  Dad is tapping his fingers on the wheel during the long drive home, jiggling his knee, fiddling with the radio. Finally, at a red light, he says, “We can start the testosterone right away, probably. If this endocrinologist he’s sending us to won’t do it, we’ll just find another. But don’t worry, we’re not going to leave it at that. We’re going to figure out a way to get back your…you know.”

  “My dick?”

  “Don’t be flippant with me, son,” he says, staring straight ahead. He doesn’t normally call me son. “I know this is a hard time, but you’ve got to keep a cool head.”

  “Maybe it’s not coming back.” For values of maybe that approach absolutely. That brief moment of panic in Doctor Cho’s office is behind me now. I need to remember that nobody can force me to do anything. Not anymore. Not ever again.

  “Don’t say that! It’ll be fine. We’ll get you back the way you need to be.”

  “Surgery is pretty expensive, Dad.”

  “We have insurance, don’t worry about that,” says Dad, and I almost pity him.

  I’m really pretty sure our insurance doesn’t cover reverse boob jobs and penis grafts. And even if those were covered, these hips ain’t going anywhere. I’ve done research at the library, in moments of curiosity or despair. Transitioning from male to female, mostly, but I got curious and looked to see how the reverse works. Short version: it’s just as difficult, but in different ways. Even if I started on testosterone shots tonight, they wouldn’t make my shoulders wider or my hips narrower. They might make me a smidgen taller if the caps at the end of my bones haven’t fused yet. I’m fifteen, which in this body means I’m even further through puberty than I was as a boy, but I probably still have a few inches I could grow. Puberty leaves a mark human science hasn’t figured out how to erase yet, not that it’s a real high priority or anything. Unless the transformation I was subjected to when I took the mantle could somehow be reversed by the same process that caused it, my body is going to have undeniable evidence of femininity until the day I die, no matter what we do.

  And that’s if I allow the needles to pierce my skin. Which, ha, fat chance.

  I’m careful not to smile. He’ll get used to it. He’ll have to.

  • • •

  Minovsky_Particle has signed on.

  CombatW0mbat: are u okay? Was everything cool with your dad?

  Minovsky_Particle: yeah. He was upset, but it wasn’t too bad.

  CombatW0mbat: cool. Did you cut class today?

  Minovsky_Particle: no. just sick. I guess.

  CombatW0mbat: u guess?

  Minovsky_Particle: Yeah. I got a weird thing with my skin. Spent all day in the hospital.

  CombatW0mbat: is it contagious?

  Minovsky_Particle: Horrifyingly so. Half the west coast will be dead within hours.

  CombatW0mbat: lol gak

  Minovsky_Particle: Dad is flipping out about it. Had me at the doctors all day. I feel fine, tho

  CombatW0mbat: sux. you gonna be out tomorrow?

  Minovsky_Particle: prolly. What did we have for homework today?

  CombatW0mbat: chap 6 in history, chap 4 in math, odds, and finish reading mockingbird. dunno what you had in french and chem.

  Minovsky_Particle: thx

  CombatW0mbat: but srsly your okay? Things are cool?

  Minovsky_Particle: Oh yes. They’re not angry anymore, and I think Ill be better soon. Can’t wait to come back to school! :)

  CombatW0mbat: your a fucking weirdo lol

  Minovsky_Particle: bored. Wanna hang out! ^_^

  CombatW0mbat: wanna play a couple rounds after dinner?

  I hesitate before replying. I’d love to play some games, but he can’t hear my voice. Yes, I want to tell David—I’ve been thinking about how he and everyone else at school will react off and on all day—but I want people to find out on my terms.

  CombatW0mbat: u there?

  Minovsky_Particle: yeah sure, we can play. My mic is busted tho. can’t talk.

  CombatW0mbat: better thn nothing!

  • • •

  A week later, Dreadnought’s funeral is on TV. We all gather in the living room, Mom and Dad on the couch, me sitting off to the side on a cushion the way I like to. It’s good to sit down here because I’m close enough that
I feel like we’re all together like a family, but I’m out of easy line of sight. It’s safer that way.

  The Legion Pacifica is decked out in mourning colors as they carry the casket from the hearse to the grave. The President gives a speech, and then introduces one of Dreadnought’s teammates, an enormous man named Magma, who gives the eulogy.

  As he speaks, the guilt comes back, stronger than ever. Dreadnought is dead, and I just watched him die. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe if I were smarter or better or had done something different, he’d have survived. But no, I took his powers and went home with a big grin on my face. I’m a selfish, horrible person.

  I’m a horrible person and I feel guilty as hell, but I can’t pretend the days since it happened haven’t been the happiest of my life. Every day I wake up and get excited again about what I see in the mirror. Every day I quietly read aloud, just to hear the sound of my new voice. When I see myself, I see myself. My body is everything I ever wished for, everything I told myself I’d never have. Maybe I’m not good enough. Maybe I don’t deserve it. But I have it now. There’s no going back. As they lay him in the ground, I silently promise Dreadnought that someday, somehow, I will find a way to honor his memory. To earn what he did for me.

  • • •

  I can see the structure behind reality. Okay, not see, precisely. But it’s there. An infinite lattice of matter and energy, of thought and form. It spreads across the universe—it is the universe. I imagine it like a fine mesh net, searingly bright with coiled potential, and all the things in life little more than tangles in the light. The lattice gets twisted up into the shape of water and trees and people and music. As I imagine grasping it with my mind, my feet leave the ground.

  Flying takes concentration, but I think I’m getting better at it. With my legs crossed and my textbook in my lap, I hover above my bed and read my homework assignments. It’s difficult. When I start getting into the assignment, I tend to wobble and sink. When I’m steady in the air, I’ll find that I’ve gotten to the end of the page and can’t remember a single thing I’ve read. But I’m getting better. For a few paragraphs at a time I can read, understand, and stay up in the air, too. I’m better than I was last night. Tomorrow I’ll be better still. When I’ve got enough practice to concentrate and fly at the same time, I’ll—