“Greeings, my son,” Starla’s father said.
Billy turned to the hologram, which apparently couldn’t see her at the moment. “Help me! Turn off these robots!”
The hologram only stared at her. The robot had reached the first level again. Two other robots were joining it as well. “Hurry!”
“Voice input not recognized. Please use manual input,” her father said.
A keyboard appeared in the air. The only problem was the keyboard’s characters were alien ones—Starla’s native language. Billy closed her eyes, trying to remember her home row from typing class in junior high. She tapped at the keys, hoping she was telling the computer to turn off the robots.
The robots were within ten inches of her. Billy pressed her face against her new breasts to protect herself from a punch. None came. Billy looked up to see the robots all sag forward. “That was close,” she mumbled.
“Security systems deactivated,” Starla’s father said. “Is there anything else I can do, my son?”
“Where is Starla?” Billy typed.
“I do not detect her presence inside the Crystal Lair or within range of the security sensors.”
“Are there any other heat signatures nearby?” Billy asked. It was possible the sensors might not recognize Starla if she’d been turned into Anorexic Girl or something else.
“There are two polar bears five kilometers away.”
Billy doubted the aliens had turned Starla into a polar bear. At least she hoped not. She shivered and remembered she wasn’t wearing any clothes at the moment. This in turn prompted her to wonder how she’d get out of here now that Starla was gone. “Contact Midnight Spectre,” she typed.
There was a lengthy pause. “There is no response.”
“Crap,” Billy muttered. “Try the Super Squad’s headquarters.”
Another lengthy pause. “No response.”
“Shit!” she shouted. Her tiny voice bounced around the Crystal Lair for at least thirty seconds, causing her cheeks to warm. “OK, send out a general distress call.”
“No response.”
“What are you talking about?” she shouted before she remembered the computer couldn’t understand her. She typed in, “How is that possible?”
“All emergency bands are over capacity.”
“What is going on?”
The image of Starla’s father disappeared to show her scenes straight out of Armageddon. Whole cities were in flames while people—all women and girls—ran screaming through the streets. “Oh my God.”
Billy decided that for the moment the Crystal Lair was probably much safer than anywhere else on Earth.
***
Kate King ordinarily didn’t like fluff pieces. Stories of lost kittens being reunited with their owners or spelling bee champions or beauty pageants were better reserved for PTA newsletters than a real newspaper. Of the fluff, weddings were pretty high on her list of articles to avoid.
This fluff piece was special. Her two best friends in the world had gotten married: Billy Leyton and Starla Marsh. That was a fluff piece worthy of her talents, especially since she had been the maid of honor.
As she’d stood at the altar, Kate had barely held back tears. It should have been her and Stan up there. Except she hadn’t realized her true feelings for Stan until he had disappeared. When he had come back three years ago, she’d found out he was an impostor. The impostor had put her into a coma for over a week.
When she emerged from the coma, Kate had felt different. Coming so close to death, she realized how much of her life she had wasted by putting her job above everything else. She had neglected her feelings for Stan so long it had been too late to act on them.
So she had made a pact with herself to start paying more attention to her friends. That began with Billy and Starla. The latter had disappeared for over a month. When she came back, she was different. There was the short haircut, the freckles, and the cat’s eye glasses, but more than that was her attitude. She and Billy barely left each other’s side for weeks. Even without her reporting acumen, Kate knew they were in love. She didn’t know what had brought that about, but she decided she would support the two crazy kids however she could.
They were both so young that Kate often felt like their mother. She had never felt more like a proud parent than when she’d watched Starla glide down the aisle in her white dress. Kate had to resist the urge to wrap her friend in a hug to see her so beautiful and happy.
Kate stared at the screen, trying to put these conflicting thoughts into the right words. She didn’t want to make the whole thing about herself. She wanted to focus on Starla and Billy. They were the star attraction, not her.
As she considered this, the lights in the newsroom flickered and then went out. Before Kate could ask what was going on, a pink light swept through the newsroom. This light was closely followed by pain that ran through Kate’s entire body. She fell off her chair to lie on the floor, her eyes pressed tightly shut. Around her she heard other screams, all of them the higher-pitched cries of women.
Kate never passed out, but for a few minutes—she couldn’t be sure how many—she lay on the floor, someplace between sleep and wakefulness. When she finally felt strong enough to get to her feet, it took a great deal of effort to sit up. Once she had reached a sitting position, she felt something heavy press down on her thighs.
She put a hand to her mouth in time to keep from screaming. Most of the mass from her breasts had migrated down to her stomach; a naked potbelly pushed beneath the hem of her top to rest on her thighs. “Oh God,” she said, her voice sounding higher, not marred by years of smoking as a cub reporter.
She flailed around to find her purse on her desk. Inside she found her compact. She flipped it open and then nearly screamed again. Staring back at her was a round, pudgy face dotted with angry red zits and framed by straight brown hair. This had been what she looked like when she first became a reporter in eighth grade. Back then she had been a shy, lonely nerd in desperate need of an extracurricular activity so she could get into a good college. Reporting had been far down her list, but since she couldn’t play sports, sing, play an instrument, or act she didn’t have many other options.
What had happened to her? She ran a hand through her greasy hair and wondered if this were a dream. Maybe she’d had a relapse of her coma. Or she might have hit the edge of her desk and given herself a concussion.
A woman’s scream snapped her out of these thoughts. It had come from Larry Black’s office. Kate pushed herself to her feet and then waddled as fast as she could to the office. “Oh God,” she said again.
In the office was a pretty woman in her thirties with wavy chestnut hair down to the middle of her back. Men’s pants were pooled around her ankles while a white shirt and tie went down to her knees like a nightgown. “Larry?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“It’s me, Kate.”
Larry held out a tress of hair and then stared down at her breasts. “What happened to me?”
“It must be that alien weapon, the one used on the Super Squad four years ago. Someone’s used it on us.”
“Holy shit.” Larry collapsed onto her chair. “Who did this?”
Before Kate could say anything, the entire building rumbled. Kate ran over to the window in time to watch an out-of-control airliner streak down Oppenheimer Avenue, its wings shearing off as it went. Kate dropped to the floor before the final explosion rattled the building.
As befitted a fifteen-year-old girl, she began to sob as she thought of the hundreds of people who had just died. Who could have done this: Rad Geiger, Clownface, Ion Man, or maybe one of the run-of-the-mill terrorist groups like al-Qaeda?
She wiped furiously at her eyes and then got to her feet. She was going to find out. “Where are you going?” Larry asked.
“This is the biggest story of the century. I’m not going to miss it,” Kate shouted back. She stuffed a notepad and pen into her purse and then hurried towards the stairs t
o break the biggest story of her career.
***
Robin Holloway sat up in bed. She recognized the room she was in; she had seen it often enough, only from outside. The clinically white walls stuffed with rubber padding were a dead giveaway in any case: she was in Ledbetter Asylum.
Had she finally snapped as Elise, Captain Howe, and numerous wags in the newspapers had predicted many times? She ran a hand through hair that was much longer than she remembered, down practically to her waist. How long had she been in here?
A girlish squeal escaped her lips when she looked down to see her chest was completely flat and her white nightgown about five sizes too big for her. Her tongue flicked around to find her front teeth missing. She was a child again, probably seven years old at most.
She tried not to freak out. She had gone through extensive mental training to survive all manner of psychological distress. That had kept her from going nuts when she had become a girl and later when Dr. Roboto tried to hypnotize her. If her mental conditioning were that good, then how had she ended up in an asylum?
She closed her eyes and tried to think back. She had come here for her bi-weekly appointment with Dr. Hanover. The session had gone about the same as always, a mental battle of wills between her and her therapist. Despite her best efforts, Robin always surrendered a few key pieces to the doctor.
After the session she went down to visit Jane Doe, also known as the other Robin Holloway. This was the impostor who had been a man until Major Dalton inadvertently turned him into a teenage girl, as had happened to Robin. The impostor was about a year younger than Robin but far less stable. She spent most of her time huddled in a corner, mumbling to herself and sometimes clawing at her breasts as if she could tear them off.
But for this last visit, something was different. The impostor sat on her bed, far more alert and focused than before. When Robin opened the slot near the top of the door to look inside, the other her sat up. She smiled at Robin and said, “Hello, sister.”
“We’re not sisters. You’re my clone. Remember?”
“Or maybe you’re my clone.”
“No. We’ve already done the tests on that.”
“Maybe they’re lying to you.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re in there, and I’m out here. That makes me the real Robin Holloway.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” The girl got to her feet. She padded barefoot across the room until she was inches from Robin. The girl’s eyes had a crazy gleam in them. Before Robin could say anything, the clone spat at her. But it wasn’t a loogie; it was some kind of miniature syringe. The syringe pricked Robin’s neck. Almost instantly she collapsed to the floor. She remembered a guard scooping her up to drag her into the room.
After that there were only a few vague images. They had kept her hopped up on so many drugs not even her hardened mental conditioning could repel them. Even if she had maintained her wits, what could she have done? If she’d said she was the real Robin Holloway, everyone from Dr. Hanover on down would assume it was the ravings of a lunatic trying to escape.
Now that someone had used the alien weapon on her again, the drugs had been flushed from her system, allowing her to think again. There was the same problem only magnified now: how could she get out of here? As tiny and weak as she was, she didn’t have any chance of breaking the door down. Maybe she could find a way to crawl into the air shafts; she’d be little enough to fit now.
She heard the door buzz. This she knew was the door unlocking. Robin hiked up the hem of her gown as she ran across to push the door open. It took every ounce of her probably forty pounds to get the door open enough that she could slip through.
She emerged into a dark hallway. The child’s part of her mind prompted her to run crying in search of the nearest adult. This wasn’t actually a bad idea. She resisted the crying part.
As she ran, she tried not to collide with other patients. They were a good twenty years older than her but from how loose their gowns were, she assumed they had been hit with the alien weapon too. Robin knew better than to talk to any of them; she scurried away from them, towards the group therapy rooms. If there were a doctor around that’s where she would be.
The problem, as it had been to get out of her room, was to get the doors open. By the third one she tried, sweat was dripping down her face and matting hair to her forehead. Her childish instincts urged her to lie down for a little nap, but her mental conditioning urged her forward.
She came to another door. This one led to the rec room for the patients. Maybe there would be a nurse who had a pass that would allow Robin to get out of here. She groaned as she opened the door.
At first she thought it was another dead end. Then she heard a sniffle. “Hello?” Robin called out. “Is someone here?”
There was no answer. “It’s all right,” Robin said. “I won’t hurt you.”
She heard another sniffle. A teenage girl with mousy brown hair peered over the top of a couch. She might have been another patient, except when she came out from around the couch, Robin saw the girl was wearing a beige suit now several sizes too big for her. She wiped at her nose and then asked, “Robin?”
“Dr. Hanover?”
“What’s going on here?”
“Someone’s used that weapon, the one that made me a girl. We got to get out of here. Do you still have your pass?”
Dr. Hanover nodded. She fumbled around to produce her badge. Robin hurried over to her and then patted the teenager’s shoulder. “Good. Let’s get to your office. Then we can call for help.”
They were almost to the security door when a woman said, “You’re not going so soon, are you? The fun’s barely started.”
A young woman stood in the doorway, a blood-smeared scalpel in one hand. The willowy frame and black hair draped over her face were unfamiliar, but the psychotic gleam in her one visible eye and the demented laugh were all Robin needed to identify her.
It was Clownface.
Chapter 7
Hitter wasn’t surprised when he awoke in a jail cell. It had happened often enough in his career, especially the last three years at Gitmo. The surprise came when he sat up to find his suit hanging off him as if he were a boy dressing in his father’s clothes. Except from the way the shirt bulged near the top of the chest, he knew it wasn’t a boy dressing in a man’s clothes.
Something dark fell over his right eye. He batted at it only to realize it was a tress of brown hair that went down to his waist. “Oh shit,” he mumbled in a tiny voice—a girl’s voice. That’s what he was now—a girl. “No! This can’t be happening. Not to me.”
She heard a scream across the hall. Hitter limped over to the barred door to see a raven-haired girl in a tank top that looked more like a dress on her. It was the same tank top Ion Man had been wearing beneath his armor. “They got you too, eh?”
“Hitter?” the other girl chirped.
“More or less.”
“Oh shit. We got to get out of here and find some way to change us back.”
“There is no way to change you back. Believe me,” another girl said. Hitter recognized this girl as Outcast, the one who had escaped from the control room. By the look of it, she hadn’t been affected by the alien weapon at all. “You girls are stuck like this.”
“No! That’s not true,” Ion Man—or Ion Girl as it should be now—shouted.
“It is true,” Outcast said. “Now, I want to know who put you up to this.”
“You think we did this to ourselves?” Ion Girl said with a sneer that belied her years.
“No. I know you aren’t that stupid. But someone sprang you from Gitmo. Someone got you working together to attack this station. Who was it?”
“Why don’t you ask your girlfriend,” Hitter said with a sneer of her own.
The girl threw herself at the bars. “She would never do that! Robin—Midnight Spectre—would never do something so horrible.”
So Midnight Spectre’s real name was Robin; Hitter filed this p
iece of information away for later, should she ever get out of this place. “Then I suppose you don’t know her as well as you think you do. She’s the one who got us out of jail. Took us away in her submarine and brought us here.”
A bloke with the muscles of an Abercrombie and Fitch model came up next to Outcast. He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Did she tell you what she wanted?”
“She said she wanted you super jerks dead,” Ion Girl said. “That was all the motivation we needed.”
Outcast turned to lunge at Ion Girl’s cage, but the man in the loincloth stopped her. “Why don’t you go up to the control room? I’ll handle this.”
“I can do it,” Outcast said. She took a deep breath and then glared at Hitter. “She didn’t say anything to you about getting an alien weapon for her?”
“No. Killer Whale was supposed to create a distraction, Neanderthal was to break us in, Ion Girl there—”
“Hey!”
“Sorry, love, but it’s true now. Ion Girl was to take care of the speedsters. And I was supposed to kill you. That was the whole plan.”
“The rest of it surprised us as much as it did you.” Ion Girl leaned against her bars and raised an eyebrow. “How did you two avoid getting hit with it?”
“We were underwater,” the man said.
Ion Girl’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Pacifican, aren’t you?”
“That’s right. And unless you two want your heads on a pike at the front gates to Pacifica, you better tell us the truth.”
“We told you the truth,” Hitter said, hating how whiny she sounded. “Now let us go.”
“So you can try to kill me again? I don’t think so.”
“How long are you going to keep us in here then?”
“Until we can figure out how to get you back to Gitmo where you belong,” the merman said.
Girl Power Omnibus (Gender Swap Superhero Fiction) Page 51