I then followed her to reception and the limo outside. Once we were inside I put the divider up so we had some privacy.
“You remember the druid ceremony and the unknown familiar that agreed to bond with me?”
“Yes.” She looked at me curiously.
I took out my phone. “Well, my familiar is an electrical familiar who calls herself Andi. Say hello Andi.”
“Hi, Roni. Pleased to meet you. By the way, when you thought the computer was self-correcting your mistakes, that was me. Your touch typing has a lot to be desired. Next time just tell me what you are trying to type and I will do it for you.”
“Oh. Err...thanks, I think.”
“You're welcome.”
“Can you turn the phone off for a second?” Roni asked me with a worried look.
“Sure, but Andi will still hear you. Don't forget she is permanently connected.” I pointed at my head.
“I've not offended her or anything, have I?” Now Roni was a bit scared.
“I can hear chuckling, so I don't think so. Ask your questions anyway. It will be good practice for me to try and hear any comments she might make.”
“What is she exactly?”
“I'm pretty sure she knows everything that I know.” I paused for a second. “Yes, I didn't hear any words, but I felt that her answer was yes.”
My phone, that I had put back in my handbag was loud enough to hear a muffled “Yes”.
I took it back out again. There was no real point in it being hidden. “She knows about this world and Lagbit's world and that it is her job to protect me.”
The phone speaker activated and Andi's lovely feminine voice came out. “Yes. I don't remember anything before being a part of Tia's mind. There are some things I instinctively know. I think I will know when Tia is ready for another familiar. At the moment, we are still growing together. I don't know if I am a figment of Tia's imagination made real through some kind of mental judo, or whether there is a real place which has familiars ready to bond to the right minds. To some extent, I don't really care. I am of the 'I think therefore I am' philosophy. The point is if you are in front of any electronic device and you need my help, providing I have spare capacity, I will provide it.”
“Wow. That is like, super useful,” Roni commented.
“Most of the time, I will just be in the background,” Andi continued, “unless there is something that you need to know. Tia has asked me to tell her what I intend to do to Dr Sinclair, his five nurses who followed orders but still shouldn't have, about thirty army guys and General Pearson. At the moment, I am just working out appropriate punishments. There appears to be no threat from them at present and the eggs that they retrieved from Vee were non-viable.”
I was a bit shocked over the eggs bit, but it made sense considering her injuries. I don't know why they didn't take mine, but that was a small mercy. I think Roni was still in shock.
“Andi can you call Vee, she should be out of the MRI now.” Talking about Vee made me want an update.
Instead of Andi answering, my phone started calling Vee. “Hi, Tia. I was going to call you in a minute. They are looking at the MRI now and so far they can't find anything wrong with it. It looks like I am back to normal.”
“That is wonderful news. I think you need to get your beautiful arse in gear. We are supposed to be at Belladonna at ten am.”
“We are closer to it from here, but you are right, we need to get moving. I'll see you there.” She then made some kissing noises that I returned and the phone went dead.
“I think I need to say this to both of you. Andi is a wonderful addition to our team,” Roni started.
“Thank you, Roni,” Andi replied.
“I'm not finished yet. Andi is wonderful, but she is so wonderful that she must remain a secret. If anyone knew that she existed, she will be hunted electronically and we will have even more of a security risk. Anything you intend to do to those who have wronged us, and I don't disagree that you should do something, it needs to look like an accident.”
“You are saying that if my existence is known, I could put Tia in more danger?” Andi asked.
“That is exactly what I am saying. Having said that, there are phones that are smart enough to take action to a voice command, so that won't raise any eyebrows and anyone listening will presume the person we are talking to is on another phone somewhere. Just be careful to filter what you say so that you don't give your existence away.”
“I can do that. Umm. I have already cleaned out the bank accounts of all those involved and donated it to a women's abuse centre. It felt fitting. I won't take any more action without consulting you to get your feedback.”
“Personally, I don't think that is enough for Dr Sinclair, who we thought was involved, or for General Pearson, whoever he is, but he sounds like the man in charge. We just need to be careful. How about you think of some plans and we discuss them?” Roni said.
“OK, I can do that.”
“Besides, I think Vee would like to hear what you have planned. It might bring her closure.” Roni concluded.
I was a bit flabbergasted. This made it very clear that Andi, while she may be a part of my mind, was clearly independent.
We decided that we wouldn't tell Vee or Katie about Andi until we had some privacy.
Roni had not been idle while I had been working with Andi on our website, and had printed off a report. We decided there was no point in going through it until all four of us were together.
We arrived a few minutes early at the department store. Belladonna was a high-end fashion house that had branched into mainstream boutiques. They were based out of Paris but had branches in London, New York and LA. They had also diversified into designer handbags, purses, belts as well as lingerie and shoes. This meant we could get a pretty full wardrobe just from the one shop. This suited me perfectly.
As soon as I arrived I was separated from Roni with a personal shopper who already had my sizes and a heap of clothes for me to try on. We started with underwear and then moved on to dresses, tops, skirts, trousers, jeans and different shoes with different outfits. I was admittedly overwhelmed and just did as I was told. I would occasionally see glimpses of the girls if we came out at the same time, but mostly my world was Helga, my personal shopper and me.
Thank goodness she was quite decisive. There were no maybe's, it was yes or no and the no was put away, never to be seen again. Then having worked out my new wardrobe, she agonized over which outfits were suitable for the photoshoot, but eventually, chose three different ensembles. Then I was sat in a chair and another girl did my hair and makeup.
Then I was in front of a photographer who again directed me and I just tried to do what he wanted. I saw a bit more of Vee and the others as they sometimes had us in the same photo. When I changed to the next outfit, they redid my hair and makeup. That was a surprise. Still, I didn't have to do anything, just follow instructions. My third and final outfit was a figure-hugging light green dress with matching shoes. Apparently, the contrasting colour with careful makeup really emphasized my unusual eyes.
The shoes were four-inch stiletto heels and I almost refused, but they did look elegant and maybe an elf has a natural dexterity that made them not too difficult to wear. The last outfit was the one I was keeping on for the interview.
They arranged to deliver all the clothes and our headsets to the hotel. Next a quick bite to eat and then the interview. I was going to be the spokesperson, but we were all going to be on the sofa. Lunch was an uninspired salad and a fruit smoothie. Katie needed more protein, so we bought some nuts to snack on.
Chapter 8
Whilst at lunch we took the time to go through Roni's report. The first item was the two transgender individuals that Janice had put forward. Roni had managed to get hold of them both, but they didn't have a passport. Roni hates having problems without solutions, so she did some research and came up with a proposal. We haven't set a date for our travel to London, so tomorrow, we co
uld hire a yacht and travel into international waters, do the transformations, leave the girls in Mr Winslow's care until all their paperwork is ready, and then fly them to London to join us.
“I reckon, if we did one transformation a night, game time, with a day of rest after every two transformations, we would be able to do five transformations total in one real day. Why not see if we can find three more people who could join us.” I said.
“Great, more research,” Roni said. “Onto my next item, who, now I think about it, could be one of the three. Dr Sharon Mathews, the GP who has just gone through her SRS is willing to accompany us but is feeling very delicate at the moment. I will ask if she would like to be part of our experiment. It could make her feel a lot less delicate and would also let us know what happens to post-op TG individuals. Do you want the two other places to be people we want to hire or money earners?”
“I think they should be money earners,” Katie said. “I hate to sound mercenary, but we will need funds.”
“I can go through the pile of 'want help for a favour' later,” Roni said.
“We can all help you. Maybe after we have this interview, we can swing by the hotel before that meeting with the studio. We probably need to talk to the studio about anyone who wants to remain anonymous. They should be able to blur faces and alter voices.” Vee suggested.
“Right. I have provisionally organized a yacht hire for tomorrow, I just need to confirm.”
I thought I would try something. I tried to mentally ask Andi to email the yacht company that Roni had been in contact with, confirming. I didn't quite hear the word, yes, but I felt an acknowledgement. A couple of seconds later Roni's phone pinged with an incoming message. She looked at it and then looked at me. I just smiled.
“OK. Let's presume the boat trip is sorted. We need to decide when we are going to London. I have spoken to Professor Baldwin and he is setting up a laboratory space dedicated to us. The sooner we get started the better as far as he is concerned. We do have to sort out our own accommodations. I figure we start with a hotel. Our party is getting bigger. When they are able, we will have Janice's two young girls, and Dr Mathews. Presumably, those we want to hire will add to the list. We are OK at the moment, but it could become unmanageable. We are going to need a home base, whether that is London, Mexico, Fiji or somewhere else.”
“Until we have spent some time in London, we won't know how long we are going to be there, how many people we can transform in a given day or even what we can treat. Those worries we will address as we need to.” Katie said firmly. “The sooner we start the better. My vote is we go after this boat trip.”
No one objected so Roni said she would organize that.
Katie and Vee were still working on appropriate candidates, but their first thought was to find someone who was better at that than them. One of the first hires needed to be an HR expert. Hiring security types isn't immediately great, as they will take some time to become physically transformed. So at least some of our security candidates needed to be immediately capable. If all we had was amputees or paraplegics, we would struggle until about two weeks later when the changes were complete, if they worked. The same with cancer sufferers. If we wanted an immediate security force, someone on death's door was not going to be that much help. At the same time, we were all excited about helping people so we would probably need a mix. We would all have a morale boost if we could save lives.
“I think we also need to consider who would be successful in the transformation process. We all had our difficulties, but I think our desire to succeed overcame those issues. Maybe we need a questionnaire so people can indicate how much they desire this change.” I said.
“You realize that people will fake it, just to be given the chance. And what if they don't speak English?” Roni said.
“If they don't speak English, how are we going to use the truth spell and the geas on them. They have to understand the words and what they mean.” Katie asked.
“In the longer term, we could have a translator who had been transformed make sure they understand exactly what they are saying and what it means. We don't even know if the geas works in the real world. Right now I think we have to ask for English speakers only.” I said.
“We should be able to test out the geas. You are a member of the Royal family so you should be able to order us to do something and if the geas works, we will have no choice but to obey.” Katie said.
“I know what we should do. Wouldn't it be cool if the official language of the Elven Nation was Elvish? When I was transformed, I immediately had a rudimentary understanding and it didn't take me long to be able to speak the language.” Vee suggested.
“All great thoughts girls, but we need to get moving.” Roni reminded us of our need to get to the interview on time.
The interview consisted of a sofa where we all sat, a host sitting in a chair that was obliquely facing us and the audience. They had to re-do our makeup, something to do with the lighting. The audience was packed to bursting and we were told this was mainly going to be a question and answer session. The host put forward the initial questions which Roni had already vetted and then the members of the audience would have a chance.
I am not at all familiar with American celebrities, but I recognised our host's face even if I couldn't remember her name. She went through the usual introductions and what we were going to be talking about today. I was introduced as the man who accidentally turned himself into a woman. Unsurprisingly the first question was about that and how I was coping with it.
That was easy enough. I loved being a woman, I had a loving partner and was enjoying life. Then I was asked if I was transgender before this happened. All I could say to that was I didn't think so at the time. I had been in touch with my feminine side in terms of my gentle nature, and not wanting to hurt anybody. I had never had any desire to wear women's clothing and no one had suggested I displayed any femininity.
We then moved on to the health aspects and the talk moved to Katie. She still had her stick with her, but rarely used it now. There were pictures of her accident, and then her in the hospital and her in a wheelchair. We discussed our theory that if I could change so much, perhaps it could change others. So we decided to do an experiment and Katie was an opportunity to see what would happen. At that point, Katie got up and under her own power did a little lap of the stage.
Then they asked us about the limitations, so we discussed that we still had a lot of experiments to do to find that out, but we knew that we were unable to treat anybody that was unable to use the VDR headset. We also had little choice about the outcome. Essentially we could do a transformation ceremony that turns you into a female elf. We had no guarantee that it would be successful and we couldn't do anything different.
We had to go through the known limitations with VDR use. The brain had to be mature enough, which was universally true at about age sixteen. There might be a few who were mature enough a year or so earlier and some who still weren't, until about eighteen, but it was rare. It didn't work on the mentally handicapped and after a certain degree of brain deterioration that occurred in certain diseases. We discussed Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis, but only in terms of being able to use VDR. Cancer came up and the only limitation that we knew of was when the brain was affected. We stressed repeatedly that without further experiments we really wouldn't know. All we could say at this point is that it had worked to successfully turn a man into a woman and help a woman who had spinal cord trauma.
I could tell there was resistance to the idea that we could only turn people into female elves. After all, if we could do that, surely we could turn someone into a man or at least human. I explained that we were using a copy spell and that resulted in a copy of the character in the game. The only options available, at the moment, were female elves. We were hoping research would broaden the possibilities, but at this moment in time, that was what was available. Everyone who wished to be part of this experiment would know that g
oing in and have to not only agree but be very keen, otherwise, we suspected it would not work.
That concluded the questions that we knew were going to be asked. We did have to explain that we were not allowed to perform any more experiments on US soil so we would be relocating in the near future. To those who were interested, we would have a website up that would list our requirements and give people the ability to apply. I emphasized that we would like to help everybody but there was only me doing it and we didn't know how many we could do in one go, so it would only be a trickle treated compared to the flood that was needed to be treated.
Now it was time for the audience to ask questions. The host picked out the questioner and we did our best to answer. The first couple of questions were innocent enough, mainly clarifications of previously answered questions. Most of the time the answer was 'we don't know yet'. Then they started to get a bit personal.
“Are you in a relationship?”
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