Synopsis:

Scott was on his way west to meet up with his friends to start a new life in L A. What he came across in the desert after his car broke down would change him forever. He wondered if his friends would recognise him once they finally met again. He didn’t think this was what his friend’s intended when they said, "start a new life."

Chapter Nine

Robert, now Rosie the dog, trembled in fear. She urinated on the ground, seemingly unable to control herself as she whined and bit at the rope. Eventually, she seemed to sink into a lassitude born of defeat. The others watched carefully from behind the curtains, making sure she wasn't going to be molested by any roving males of the canine variety.

Sara had left a bowl of water out for her, and as the day's heat built into the mid thirties; Rosie had to learn how to lap up water. Kevin had gone to the shops with Leanne, in Margaret's body, as her original body wasn't stored in any bracelet and she wanted out of being Jennifer. They had gone to pick a few items needed for both Rosie and the others.

Seeing it was a nice hot day, they had decided on a traditional ozzie barbie. The Fremantle Doctor, as the afternoon sea breeze was called, had kicked in, cooling Kevin, with a nice refreshing breeze as he stood by the glowing BBQ. The smell of frying steak was making mouths water, including Rosie's who had been led around into the back yard and allowed some freedom to run around the enclosed yard. Daniel had returned to his favourite female form, Julie, and was attired in a skimpy bikini.

Leanne and Sara in Margaret and Jennifer's bodies respectively, were preparing some salads and bread rolls for the snags (sausages) that were being cooked, while William opened a can of 'Chum,' dog food for Rosie. He called to her, telling her that her dinner was ready.

Rosie came over and looked at the brown mush that constituted dog food. She whined and turned away, looking at Kevin, who was sampling a sausage, (cooks prerogative).

"This is dog food," William spoke to Rosie. "You're a dog, so this is what you'll eat-forever, if you don't behave. You have a choice, stay as a dog, and eat this," William nudged the plate of dog food in emphasis. "Or you can become Bobbie the little girl, and eat real food."

Rosie barked, managing to do a reasonable begging act. William took it as an agreement to going back to being a girl.

"Okay, but if you misbehave in any way, and try to run away or even act other than a girl should, it's back to being a dog forever, which isn't that long, maybe 12 years."

Another affirmative bark.

Once they changed Rosie back to Bobbie the 9-year-old girl, they gave her a plate of food and then told her not to get her dress covered in tomato ketchup, as she sat quietly eating. She looked embarrassed, dealing with her skirts, and fidgeted on the seat, trying to get comfortable. At least her foul mouth was silent, as she looked at these people with fear. She stayed quiet the rest of the evening, not fussing too much when she was given a nightie that Leanne had purchased earlier on her shopping trip. She seemed resigned to her fate, which she knew rested with these people. Just the thought of becoming a dog again was enough to curb the most rebellious thoughts of disobedience.

As before, with the Ellery's home, once the place was put on the market, they were assured of a quick sale. The place was just across from the beach in a quiet street and ideal for a quick commute into the city of Perth itself. Kevin and William removed the alien sensor for the hidden room, covering the hole with a piece of corkboard that could be used to pin notes or pictures. The rest of the stuff in there was sorted and removed, leaving just the shelves and the phone socket for the computer. There was one thing found that caused a few minutes interest. In the corner under a pile of scattered papers was a pair of sunglasses, they looked like those ones used as a fashion statement with almost clear lenses with a pearlescent look to them than functional sunglasses. Once it was determined that they didn't imbue the wearer with X-ray vision nor had some other alienish power, they were put aside.

The girl's, Leanne, Sara, and Julie, looked after Bobbie, teaching her how to behave and act, while they waited for the house to sell. They spent a lot of time on the beach getting a nice tan, while the boys tinker with the alien computer. They managed to salvage the hard drive and soon had it installed in a second hand laptop of the same model. They discovered why Jennifer was involved with Robert. Apparently, she was getting information from him through the network of corruption that the Australian based mafia had their fingers in. Government secrets, CIA involvement, the whole shebang. It seemed corruption had spread its tentacles everywhere, and Jennifer was feeding this information on to her companions. There were no references to the aliens, just dates, people, money transfers, and of course the information collected.

"I think we should drop this off to the police, there's nothing we need here, maybe with this, the corruption might be cleaned up," William suggested.

The other's agreed.

Bobbie did ask a few questions, when she thought it was safe, like how they had made her into a girl and a dog.

"Do you really want to know?" Kevin asked menacingly. "We could tell you, but then you'll have to understand that we'd have to tell the people we work for, that you know too much. Your fate will then rest in their hands, as to whether you live or die, not ours. I repeat, do you really want to know our secret?" he repeated.

Bobbie shook her head, making her pigtails swing about. She was too terrified to answer. These people already scared her with their powers. The thought of strangers deciding it was too much of a risk to keep her alive, terrified her.

"Please don't kill me, I won't tell anyone...please," Bobbie pleaded.

"Your fate rests on how you behave, until we are ready to leave," promised Kevin, lightening up on his tone of voice.

It was Sara that found the disk, as she tidied the place in readiness for the first prospective buyer. They had done a search, looking for anything of use, but hadn't found anything of note. Sara had pulled the bed out in the main bedroom, that she and Leanne were using. As she was changing the sheets, she saw something drop from behind the headboard to the floor, as it went past the gap between the headboard and the mattress. Managing to squeeze her slender arm though the gap, she retrieved a floppy disk from the floor. Calling William, all activity stopped as he inserted the disk into the laptop.

"This is interesting," he said, as he accessed the data contained on the disk. "It seems Jennifer was wise to our friend Bob, or is that fiend." He added with a laugh. She was never abused by Bob in any way. Only Bob didn't realise it. Apparently, each night he thought he was having sex and roughing her up, was spent in a hypnotic trance, as she interrogated him. She mentions a code phrase she used to take him in and out of the trance state. She would get him to do things for here, like accessing information, which he wouldn't normally do. She does mention something called a Spectraliser that she first used on him."

"A Spectraliser?" Kevin asked, rubbing his chin with his hand in a thoughtful way. "Is there any other clues to what one of those looks like?"

"Sorry, no."

Sara then asked what the code phrase was, having getting an idea.

"Zeeplattern, for entering and kelicran, for coming out," supplied William.

"Zeeplattern," Sara repeated, speaking the phrase to Bobbie, who had been in another room when William had first uttered the keywords.

Bobbie's eyes glazed over and she stopped moving about. Sara tested her, checking to see if she was really under. Once this was established, she began to question her.

"Robert, I want you to think back to when you first saw me," Sara suggested, using Roberts original name. As Sara was still in Jennifer's body, so she used that in her questioning. "I want you to describe what you saw."

The others gathered round watching, guessing what Sara was up to. Bobbie started talking, slowly building a picture of the first meeting with Jennifer. Something she mentioned, sparked Sara's interest, and she asked Bobbie to repeat it.

"We where at this bar, and I looked into eyes, behind those swirly glasses of hers, and I felt a strange feeling-" Sara interrupted, and got up and brought back the glasses they had found in the secret room.

"Like these?" she asked.

"Yes those are the ones." Bobbie confirmed.

"Kelicran." Sara said, happily, ending the trance.

Sara put the glasses on and asked Kevin if he saw anything unusual in them. Looking closely, trying to see what was so special, Kevin was unaware that his gaze was fixed, as the pearlescence seemed to draw his attention.

"Um nooo, I doon't-" He trailed off, seemingly struck dumb.

"Can you hop on one leg Kevin?" Sara asked hiding a smile, as she realised what was happening.

"Sure." Kevin replied, hopping on one leg without seeming to notice what he was doing was in anyway strange.

"You can stop hopping now," sniggered Sara, sharing in the grins of the others.

"Well we know what those do," laughed Leanne. "I just might borrow those," she added."

"Darn, it's a pity they are so girly," grumbled William good-naturedly. "I could use them on my future girlfriends."

"Well you could try a lesbian relationship," hinted Sara suggestively. "I hear they lick the alternative," she laughed.

"Hmm, it's not the alternative I want licked," he grinned, getting the joke.

"Hey! You don't need any girlfriends with me about," Daniel in her Julie form blurted out unthinkingly, pouting prettily. Her words fell into one of those silences where everyone's thinking, making more of an impact than she realised. Whether Julie was joking or not, it set off a train of thought that continued past the immediate moment.

William looked at Julie, seeing in her the possibilities that had sprung to mind. Julie realised that she had meant what she had said. William had taken on the image of a perfect boyfriend, and her thoughts towards him had taken on a deeper meaning. She wondered why she hadn't realised this before. This girl stuff was sneaky, one minute; your friend is just a pal. The next, you find yourself looking at him in a different light, as a potential lover and soul mate. She blushed at the thoughts rushing though her mind and her body tingled in a way that said it wanted more.

She tried to act like nothing had been said, as she brushed at her hair idly. William caught her eye, and for a moment, they looked at each other. Something passed between them, some unspoken communication, which said volumes, yet was still not quite understood.

Sara and Leanne caught that glance and looked at each other. They too, passed a silent message between them, but one that was completely understood. A slight upward quirk of the lips and the faint crinkle around their eyes was all they needed to confirm, what the other had thought. This would bear watching in the future to see if anything would develop. Sara thought it was the best thing that could happen, if the result was as she anticipated, and the two of them ended up together. Just thinking of the possibilities made her slightly jealous. She sighed, wishing she could find the same solution.

Leanne caught Sara's faint sigh, and knew immediately what it meant. She also knew something that Sara had seemed oblivious of. The way Kevin looked at Sara when she wasn't looking at him. She knew the signals of physical attraction, having been a women all of her life. She had also caught the odd look that Sara had given Kevin when he was busy doing stuff. Leanne grinned inside, letting no hint reach her lips. She hoped they would find each other the same way that William and Julie seemed to be doing. If not, there was always the possibility that a bit of careful prodding from her might set them in the right direction.

The moment passed, and although conversation picked up again, as they discussed the uses for the glasses, a seed of thought had been planted in their minds. Kevin, having missed the signs, blathered on regardless, his words only being half listened to, by the others.

"...so I think we can deal with Ken in that matter, don't you think?" He concluded.

"Um, yes," Sara agreed, dragging her thoughts back from her mental wanderings. "I'm sure the glasses will help there," she added, concentrating on the idea of Kevin's for dealing with an overly suspicious Ken.

After that, things settled down. Sara had no problems with withdrawing all 'her' money from the various banks. Amongst the litter of paper left behind, were her bank accounts and deeds of ownership to the property. They enjoyed the lazy days in the sun on the beach and did the usual touristy things.

Sara made sure she had the glasses with her all the time, as a recurring problem with Bobbie kept coming up. Oh no, Bobbie wasn't the problem, far from it, as she stuck like glue to Jennifer's side as if her life depended on it, which in all truth it did. No, the problem was her age; she should have been in school. Police officers often came up, as well as nosey busybodies that had nothing better to do, and enquired as to why she wasn't in attendance. Most were fobbed off with excuses, like she was just coming from the Doctors, or she was excused for family reasons, but it became a chore. Only the pleading look from Bobbie and the thought of dragging nappies and the rest of the paraphernalia around stopped her from regressing Bobbie to preschool age.

One persistent biddy, which saw her regularly going to the beach with Sara on school days, started getting annoying. No excuse was good enough for her, so Sara resorted to using the glasses, telling the woman, that no despite the evidence of her eyes, she couldn't see Bobbie at all, thus making her invisible to the woman for all practical reasons.

It must have worked, as she never acknowledged Bobbie ever again, even when Bobbie poked her tongue out at the woman the next time they passed.

Eventually the house sold and they had the money sent to their account in the states. The time had come to make a decision about Bobbie. Leanne had changed her mind about what she was going to do; instead, she gave Bobbie several choices, making it very clear that there was no way he was going to get his manhood back.

"I can change you into an adult woman, but you will have no identity and the only way you'll make a living is by using your body, plus we will erase your memories of us. You can if you want, have your male memories erased to make your new life easier to bear, or you can retain full knowledge of who you were, but not how you became female." Leanne explained.

The other option is to regress you to a baby, female of course, and make sure you'll be taken care of. You will grow up having an identity given you by the courts, so you can eventually get a good job. You have the same choice over the memories, to retain them or not. I was going to have them blocked away till you reached 20 years old, or the first time you had sex, when they would return, minus the how and why. These are the choices, you have till tomorrow to think about them and make your decision." Leanne finished.

Bobbie nodded, not happy, but resigned to accept one of the choices. She spoke slowly, weighing the results of her decision.

"I'll decide now. Looking back on my life, I can see I wasn't a particularly useful member of society. I didn't finish school, and I turned to crime to survive. I treated women abysmally, but found enough that would tolerate my abuses, that I never bothered to change. Since I've been with you as a little girl and seen the difference in the way that people treat me, I could do it, live as a female, I mean." Bobbie looked around at them for a moment before continuing. "I'd rather not be an adult and forced to sell my body to survive. If I have to be female, I'd rather grow into it, learning the skills I need to live normally. In addition, I'd like to have my memory blocked, so I grow up thinking I'm female until about 18 to 20 years old. That way I can learn the proper behaviour to continue living as a woman." Bobbie stopped then, and looked at Leanne, tears building in her eyes.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you; I was an animal and deserved to be treated as one. Maybe I should have been left as a dog, it was a fitting punishment." The tears then fell, as Bobbie finished, sobbing quietly, showing the genuine remorse she felt.

Leanne wasn't made of stone, her heart melted. She went and hugged Bobbie and the last of the pain she had felt about her rape, washed away, as her tears joined Bobbies.

Sara promised it would be done and that Bobbie would get the best body available. Sara said she would make it so that when Robert's memories returned; they wouldn't cause her any conflict with her new life. As a bonus, if she were ever in a situation where she was in danger for her life, prior to her memory return, Robert's memories would return and allow her to deal with the situation, before fading away again.

It took a whole day to set things in motion. Pictures of female babies were sourced and selections made. Even the parents IQ became a factor, in increasing the odds of getting an intelligent infant. Bobbie joined in on the selection process, seeing it was to be her body for life. Once the final selection was made, the hard work began. Under hypnosis, the blocks were set. It was important to take every precaution to make it work as promised. Trusting in the alien device that had put Robert into his first trance, they worked ceaselessly to perfect the commands that would awaken Robert's old memories at the right time. The change into the infant was an anticlimax by comparison. She was such a beautiful baby; it seemed a crime to abandon her at the city hospital. They left the swaddled baby in her basket in the waiting room, with a note. "Her name is Bobbie, give her a good home."

Sara watched and waited till the low cry of Bobbie, attracted the busy nurses attention. Seeing no one close to the basket, and getting no response to several paging messages for the mother, the nurse called a doctor and Bobbie was taken away into the maternity ward.

"Goodbye Bobbie, I hope you have a wonderful new life." Whispered Sara, as she turned to leave, hurrying so the tears she shed wouldn't attract attention.

To be continued.

    

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 © 2005 by Prudence Walker. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of the copyright holder.