“My dad went… kind of insane after Mum died. He wasn’t violent… I guess I’m lucky there. He got angry, though… at me. But he wasn’t actually a bad guy. He wound up getting drunk a lot lately. But he… didn’t take it too well that he was losing his only son. He… kinda let it slip at the pub I’d caught BS. People started making fun of me for getting the “queer virus”… and he reacted badly.”

Netherworlds
Chapter 6
By Taveena

---

 
Author's Note: The ending felt a little lackluster to me, but I'm hoping the next chapter will be better...
 
 
Oh… my… god.

Netherworlds II?

We’d HEARD of it, sure, but only as a rumour on some of the obscure forums, and even then, the Netherworlds staff had deleted it straight away. The NW team was… fast, to say the least. People joked they had monkeys just typing “netherworlds II” into Google and deleting the sites that came up. Netherworlds… had power. Power that other MMORPGs (say mumorpuguhs… or don’t…) didn’t.

It was run by a Korean company - a seriously big one. No-one actually knew who worked there, except for a couple of the friendlier forum staff, but they’d gone a little profit-crazy lately. So, now we knew why.

Netherworlds II. For VBox.

The bloody machine that got Sarah and me into this mess. The machine that broke my leg. The machine that turned me into Lara. The machine that had caused more than 300 suicides.

And THAT’S how they release Netherworlds II?
 
 
“Uhh… Lara?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been staring at the poster for about 5 minutes,” said Mike.

“Oh. Right. Er, where’d everyone else go?”

“Up to the apartments. It’s only a block from here.”

It was seriously strange, even walking that distance. When I said it was like a slice of Melbourne, I wasn’t kidding. It had shops, and shopping centres, and apartments - and it seemed way too small to need all that. I saw a few shops that I recognized, so I suppose enough people were here that some people who worked there didn’t get fired. It was… weird! And I’d almost feel at home… if it wasn’t for… my boobs.

My longer hair rubbed up against my shoulders. My boobs felt the constricting pressure of the slightly-too-small bra. My larger hips swayed weirdly when I walked. Being Lara… was so different.

From the information I’d found on GDD, I was entirely female now. The only thing that showed anything of my previous life was the inactive nanobots that were apparently hiding in my now swollen ass. My brain had male memories, but it was all female now.

GDD was man-made, and as a result, actually AIMED for a perfect body, which is why I looked like a cheerleader, and probably why Leeroy looked like a whore.
The apartments looked like a hotel when you came in. It had a big lobby with parts of it leading off to what looked like a seriously well supplied food… place. I could see a buffet from here, and it smelled GREAT… at least, parts of it did.

I’m a vegetarian. Not because I don’t like the taste of meat, or because I’m allergic. I just really like animals (no, not like that. Urgh! Teenage brain for the lose.) So I’m vegetarian for moral reasons. Or at least, I was - there’s no telling how much this thing had messed with my head.

Turned out that this thing hadn’t messed with my morals, which was a huge relief.

So we went to the reception desk. I was somewhat surprised to see the pretty girl at reception - maybe 22 or so - wasn’t wearing a biohazard suit.
 
 
“Sorry to see you here, guys,” she said, “Names?”

“Er, original or current?” I asked.

“Depends. You two already transformed?”

“Yeah, we’re done,” said Mike.

“Alright, new names then,” she said.

“I’m Lara now…” I said.

“Mike,” said Mike.

“Alright. Seeing as you’re already done, you can head to the normal rooms. All your stuff has already been put there - Mike, you’ll be in room 1057, floor 10, Lara, you’ll be in room 1092, same floor.”

“Er… if you don’t mind me asking, why aren’t you wearing a biohazard suit like the people who checked us in?” I said. I erred a lot now. It was weird.

“Oh, I was born a guy like you. I think I was about the hundredth person to catch it.”

“So they kept you in here?” Mike asked.

“Oh, hell no. I was broke n’ homeless, and after I got BS, they let me stay here.”

“Let… you? You mean, you coulda left?” I asked, confused.

“Yeah, but I haven’t got anything to go back to. There’s a permanent population of about 15 thousand, only about seven thousand people actually chose to leave,” the receptionist said.

“So… we’re allowed to leave?”

“Sorta. You’ll get it explained to you late-”

“Wait. 15 thousand plus 7 thousand? There’s only about 4000 infectees, aren’t there?” said Mike.

“There were 4000. We’ve been getting about 10 new infections a day since then - nanobots aren’t easy to stop. Look, I really think you two should go up to your rooms. You’ll be starting the classes tomorrow, and you don’t wanna sleep through it. Trust me.”

“Crap, we still have to go to school?”

“This isn’t a normal school. You’ll see.”

Just as we turned towards the lifts, she added “Feel free to come and chat any time. My name’s… well, it’s Bridget now, but I still think of myself as Peter.”
“Alright, thanks, Bridget,” said Mike, “See you later.”

Okay, seriously. They had ELEVATOR MUSIC. I thought that was only in the movies. Apparently not. And it was freaking “Spanish flea”. How much more cliché can you get?
… okay, not much. There’s a limited amount of lift related clichés in the world. But this one was trying its best to fulfil them.

It was about then, as the lifts doors opened, that I realised how freaking tired I was. I’d been up for… what, 36 hours straight? I had - and still have - no idea how I managed to ignore it. Maybe some kind of perverse adrenaline rush.

So by the time I’d found my room and fumbled with the entry key card we’d been given enough to open the door, I didn’t even have time to take my clothes off before I fell asleep. Pity I missed the bed.
 
 
I woke up with massive pins and needles in my right arm and a bruise on my hip. So I had a bad landing. Then I remembered where I was and why I was here.

The why was a lot more unpleasant.

I was still really tired, so I crawled up onto the bed I’d aimed for before. This time, my aim was better.
 
 
About an hour later I woke up for real - I was surprised to see that it was only 5 AM. FIVE FREAKING AM. I wouldn’t normally get up that early even if someone slapped me in the face with my own dead dog. While it was on fire. And had nitro-glycerine in it. And a rabid wolverine. If I had a dog, anyway.

I groaned. The classes were today. You’d think spontaneously changing gender would be enough to drop you out of school. Apparently not.

I actually rolled out of bed and slumped onto the floor before pulling myself up blearily. There was a little post-it note stuck to the drawers next to the bed.

It said - and I’m not joking here - This is not a bad dream. This is real. Clothes are in the drawers.

I’m not sure what worried me more - that the note was true or that the note was necessary. Uh, except the clothes part. That wasn’t scary at all, I suppose.

Probably the latter, because I’d already come to terms with my new identity. Well, sort of.

I glanced around the room. It was normal enough, with an ugly light-beige paint on the walls, a similarly coloured carpet was on the floor, and the bed I’d gotten out of was - you guessed it - beige. With beige sheets. Urgh.
 
 
The clothes turned out to be in the drawers, funnily enough. I held it up, incredulously.
You know those dresses they have for kids in primary school? Those ones with the white-and-green checkered pattern? It was one of those. Except, you know, bigger. And uncomfortably comfortable - that is, mentally UNcomfortable, physically fine. But it was a dress, and it fit me, and I couldn’t find any other clothes, other than the underwear they’d provided. This was actually pretty sick, in my mind. I mean, I’d been a girl for - what, 48 hours? And they shove me into this.
Urgh.

I pulled the horrible… uh, can’t think of a derogatory name for a piece of clothing, so… dress over my head, and looked in the mirror.
Lara looked back at me, mimicking my actions.

She… wasn’t me. I was Aaron Campbell. Lara was… close. She looked… not like my twin sister. Not like how I think I’d look as a girl. More like… a hotter version of my twin sister. And looking at her…
…

I sighed. She was probably the hottest girl I’d seen, but… considering most of the girls I meet are made of ones and zeroes, that’s not much of an achievement. But hell, she was hot.

But I felt nothing.

GDD was messing with my mind. Aaron was holding it, sure, but the libido seemed to have been won over by Lara.

… this is where I started to wonder if I was schizophrenic. Not only was I sorting my mind into “Aaron” and “Lara”, but I was thinking about both of them in third person. So… who the hell was I?

The fact of the matter was, at the moment? Lara wasn’t me. She hadn’t really come out into the light yet, but she was slowly blacking out the Aaron-ness of his - MY - mind.

So I didn’t seem to occupy any of my mind. This… was a problem.

And then? It wasn’t.

Somehow, the girl in the mirror wasn’t Lara. She was me. I saw her body and felt smug, not… er, lusty.

I looked down at my body, and even though it wasn’t what I was used to, it was mine.

Then I caught myself thinking like this. The stuff I’d read about GDD said that about one in ten people with it had wound up actually getting used to it. Looks like I was one of them.

Lucky freaking me.

Oh, it was still weird as hell, but I’d accepted it as real. I was a girl now, albeit one with zero experience. Urgh.
 
 
I reached the… you know, the point at a hotel where you check in. Lobby, that’s it - I kept thinking it was login. Netherworlds had really rubbed off on me. All the other GDD victims were sitting on a couple of couches arranged in a square - I’ve seen those in hotels a lot, but no-one ever sits on them while I’m looking. Double-you tee eff? My eyes scanned the group, clearly embarrassed by the clothes they were wearing, especially the guys who were yet to change - although the dresses did look funny on them.

Rachel had edged a little bit closer to androgyny over the night - her breasts were definitely smaller, and there was the beginning of a bulge in her pants. Steven didn’t seem to have changed - the slightly androgynous boy was as slightly androgynous as he ever was. Leroy was sitting down on the floor - it seemed like she was done - and was just staring at herself incredulously. It looks like the ‘bots had cut back a bit in the end - yes, her boobs were bloody huge, but they were within reason. Sam looked female now, although still pretty close to androgyny. I swear, I’ve used the word androgynous and stuff like it more times in the last hour than in my entire life. Tom was still a guy, definitely, but his face had softened and he looked less like the jock he had been. Brittany was almost done with hers, I think.
She looked…well, now would be a perfect opportunity to abuse the word “demure”, so I will. She was demure, petite, tiny - even, as the shreds of maleness inside my head tried to put together a coherent thought - kinda cute. She’d put her long hair in two pigtails, and it looked like she’d brushed it. My hair just kept getting in the way, and seeing as I hadn’t had breakfast or anything yet I hadn’t really done much more to get ready than put some fresh clothes on.

Brittany waved me over, and began to talk about some slightly random things that I wasn’t really paying attention to - mostly because this was girl talk.

Yes, I was female. Yes, I had all the plumbing. No, I was not a girl.

I still felt like a boy. I didn’t want to be Lara, and I’d sure as hell change back if I could - but I knew I couldn’t. It would be stupid to expect society to treat me the same as before, so I had to change to fit it.

That is, if I ever went back into society.

So we were all sitting there, chatting about random… stuff… and this woman comes in from the lifts, looking a bit flustered. She looked like she was in her mid-40s, which meant she was born a girl.

Unlike me.

The inactive nanobots in my arse were going to stay there until I died. Their job? Stop me from changing back.

The ones that had been left behind survived mostly on the reduced amount of testosterone my body produced - and by doing that they keep it down further. They used the chemicals to make sure nothing - not surgery, not hormones, not…some other third thing… could change me. Well, it could. It’d just be back to Lara in under an hour and another painful spasm.

I became vaguely aware of the woman calling a roll of names. I wasn’t really paying attention - between GDD and Netherworlds my mind really hasn’t had a lot of free space lately. As it was, in the end me, Mike, Leeroy and Brittany were the only ones left - because we were done with the transformations, I suppose. Brittany brought up the subject of boys. I still found the idea of relationships - this time, I MEAN the more mature… okay, more adult… meaning - with boys freaking repulsive.
The idea of being a girl… well, I guess I should separate it into two bits. There’s the “female” part. I had a vagina. I had breasts. I was female, and I’d accepted that. Then there’s the “girl” part. The part that means I can wear skirts or dresses without being shunned. The fact that I’m expected to be interested in guys.

To sum it up? The anatomy, I could live with. The culture? I’m not so sure.

Leeroy stopped… her… silent self-inspection. She looked up at me, Mike, and Brittany, and… cried.

“How the *sob* fucking hell do *sob* you guys take this so easily? I’m a *sob* fucking cunt now,” she bawled, “and I’m fucking stuck like *sob* this. My *sob* fucking dad hates me now, and my mum’s *sob* dead. I *sob* fucking cry at everything now because I’m so fucking emotional and you’re *sob* sitting there like nothing’s bloody *sob* happened!”

Mike was actually grinning at Leeroy’s discomfort. Somewhere in my head, Aaron’s sadism towards Leeroy was jeering. But…

I wasn’t Aaron. I had changed.

Maybe Leeroy had too.

I struggled with myself internally for a while before coming out on top. Yes, Aaron hated Leeroy. Lara, though… should give him a chance.

I got up off the couch, and sat down next to Leeroy. And hugged her.

She… looked at me. Surprised, not disgusted.

“I… I thought you were… I thought you were born a girl… you’re… so natural….” she stammered.

“Uh… thanks…?” Was that an insult or a compliment?

“Who… were you?” she asked.

“I was Aaron Campbell. Mostly… I still am.”

“… oh.”
 
 
There was an awkward silence. Knowing you’d said more to what you thought was a complete stranger but actually turned out to be someone you’ve been annoying, teasing, and bullying for 8 years than you’ve ever told anyone else.

I sighed. “Leeroy… Aaron hates you. Lara’s inherited a lot from him. But… you’re not Leeroy any more. You need to accept that. Hell, I’ve accepted it - I still hate this body and I’d cut off my right arm to be Aaron again. But I can’t. I’m Lara now… and as soon as you know who you are…”

“Lara… I never knew who I was. That’s why I was an asshole, because… I wasn’t anyone… after my mum died… I just… felt so alone…”

“Shouldn’t you have… you know, gotten some counselling?” I said. It was really hard to remind myself that the tearful girl next to me was the boy who’d given me so much grief.

“Heh. I wish,” she said, giving a weak smile, “he was a bit… you know. Tough guy-y. ‘Boys don’t cry,’ and all that crap. My mum kinda lavished her attention on me… and after she died, I suffered from Acute Attention Withdrawal.”

“Uh…” I uh’d.

“I needed attention, basically. I didn’t know how to get it at school, so… I was an asshole. It worked… but… in the end, everyone hated me so much that I lost the attention I craved. I…wanted to start again. My life… was a mess.”

“And that was 6 years ago… I… couldn’t cope. I… hated life…”

“My dad went… kind of insane after Mum died. He wasn’t violent… I guess I’m lucky there. He got angry, though… at me. But he wasn’t actually a bad guy. He wound up getting drunk a lot lately. But he… didn’t take it too well that he was losing his only son. He… kinda let it slip at the pub I’d caught BS. People started making fun of me for getting the “queer virus”… and he reacted badly.”

“About half an hour after I got the final shocks turning me into this,” she gestured at herself, “I got the news he’d been badly injured in a brawl at the pub. He’s in ICU now…”

“He really cared about me.”

I stared at my feet.

“I… I got the fresh start I wanted. I… didn’t think… it would be like this…” Another weak smile.

“I’m… I’m going to do better this time.”

I looked at her face. Teary, honest eyes looked at me. Leeroy… becoming this girl… was surprising…

She looked up, a thoughtful look on her face.

“Hello… I’m Lisa. It’s nice to meet you.” she said.

I smiled at the newly christened Lisa. She already seemed happier.

“Hello, Lisa. I’m Lara,” I said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

---

 
To Be Continued...