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“I must see The Judge at once!”

I looked up from my desk. I had been so involved in what I had been doing that I had not even heard anyone approach. What I saw in front of me was a stern-faced woman, middle-aged with short, black hair. She wore little or no makeup and her clothes were equally plain, consisting of a long black skirt and a gray blouse which did little to hide two oversized, drooping breasts.

“I’m sorry,” I said primly in my best authoritative manner, “The Judge has given strict orders that he is not to be disturbed.”

The woman frowned menacingly at me. I didn’t recognize her at all. She wasn’t a shade, though, so she had to be someone The Judge had transformed. But she was so unlike most of the transformees that I would have surely remembered her unless...

“Diana!”

The frown disappeared, replaced by a mischievous smile. “I almost got you that time!” Instead of the harsh voice of the middle-aged woman, the voice was cheerful and lilting. Soon, the body matched as well as her form blurred and changed until a twenty-something blonde in a very, very short white skirt and a pink tube top stood smiling in front of me.

“Diana, it’s winter for God’s sake. You’ll freeze in that outfit.”

“Hardly,” she laughed, twirling a strand of long blonde hair. Then she sighed. “But I suppose I ought to look like I belong here.” This time, just her clothes blurred. There were black tights on her slim legs and the tube top became a black sweater. Even the white skirt changed, becoming red plaid–but it remained almost obscenely short.

She perched on my desk in a pose that would have had me panting if I had still been the college boy I had been when I had first arrived in Ovid. But those days were long ago. Now, the woman in me looked enviously at Diana’s trim, young figure with longing. How I wished I could wear an outfit like that without looking ridiculous.

“You missed all the excitement,” I told the goddess.

“Don’t I always?” she returned with a mock sigh. “Thank God we have you to help us keep up on current affairs.”

“Thank God or thank The Judge?”

That just got me another mischievous smile.

“So don’t you want to know what story I want to see?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious this time; don’t you?”

“Well,” she allowed, “I suppose it is pretty obvious. Besides, as slow as things have been around here lately, I’m surprised you’re still here.”

“We won’t be in a couple of days,” I told her. “The whole family is going to Disney World for Christmas. There are no more trials scheduled until after the holidays. In fact, Susan and her family are already on vacation in the Bahamas.”

“I know,” Diana replied. “I had lunch with Susan in Nassau.”

“When?”

She looked at her watch. “Oh, about half an hour ago. She told me all about the big flap.”

“Big is the word for it,” I agreed. “Are you ready to see it?”

“Hit it!”

“Okay,” I said, already falling into my trance...

“So what’s the story on Tulsa?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“You’re not going to Tulsa until tonight,” Tony told me, shoving a file across the small table that separated his seat from mine. The file drooped over the tiny table, but I guess it was difficult to have much of a table on a plane as small as ours. “You have a luncheon with the Chamber of Commerce in Muskogee. Then we fly to Tulsa after you take a tour of the Port of Muskogee.”

“Oh, right,” I nodded. After a breakfast in Enid and a teleconference with the State Party Headquarters in Oklahoma City, my brain was already fried, and it wasn’t even noon for another hour and a half. I rubbed my temples, my head pounding.

“Is it bad this time?” Tony asked with concern on his ruggedly handsome face.

“I’ll live,” I assured him. Tony just nodded. I was grateful that Tony said no more about my headache. He knew how serious they could get, but he also knew I didn’t like to be coddled. Tony would have made a good Marine, and that was the highest compliment I could give anyone. He would have been a great adjutant for a senior officer–always organized and never ruffled. Of course, that made him a great assistant for a politician as well. “So what’s the scoop on Muskogee?” I asked him, opening the file.

Tony shrugged. “The usual for this part of the state. Farming is important. Also, they’ve got light manufacturing and a couple of colleges. And don’t forget the Port. They do a lot of shipments in and out by barge down to the Gulf. That means they’re interested in foreign trade as well.”

I groaned, “In other words, everything is important to them. You didn’t mention oil though.” I had actually managed a little smile when I pointed that out.

“Oil goes without saying,” he replied. And he was right. There really wasn’t a place in Oklahoma that wasn’t interested in oil and oil policy. Hell, there’s even a working oil well on the State Capitol grounds. No matter what the future had in store for Oklahoma, it was oil that had put the state on the map–literally. Before oil was discovered in the state, it just seemed like a worthless place to be foisted off on the Indians.

I started to ask another question, but the plane bumped suddenly.

“What was that?” Penny called nervously from her seat at the rear of the plane. Penny Dumont was a fine secretary but a nervous flyer. She always insisted on sitting at the rear of the plane where she was usually perched–as she was just then–with a cell phone in hand while she lined up all the details of the campaign that were essential on the whole but individually too small for Tony to worry about.

“What was that?” Tony repeated to the pilot over the intercom.

“Probably just clear air turbulence,” the pilot responded with an Oklahoma twang so rich it made the rest of us sound like a bunch of Yankees.

“Probably?” Tony pressed. There was a lot couched in that one-word question. What Tony was really reminding the pilot was that one of his passengers was Conrad Williams–me–Member of Congress and (hopefully) the next governor of the State of Oklahoma, so the pilot had better make sure it was just clear air turbulence and ‘probably’ wasn’t good enough.

“Uh...” the pilot began. Then he murmured, “Just a minute.”

Whatever distracted him was enough to make me worry. As a Marine officer, I had been a passenger in a lot of aircraft and I had known a lot of pilots. Dusty Osborne was a damned good pilot, having flown F-18s in the Gulf War. He still flew Reserve at least a couple of days a month and was just the sort of pilot you wanted flying you in a rented aircraft into every little dirt strip airport in the state.

I gripped the sides of my seat, reluctantly remembering a plane ride during the Gulf War that had cost me my military career. It would be more than a little ironic if another one were to cost me my political career–or worse yet, my life.

The ride during the Gulf War was on a chopper, churning through the heavy, hot air of Southern Iraq. I was a captain then–an officer expected to go places once my tour of combat was over. I had already been selected for major, and duty at the Pentagon was just a few weeks away. Ironically, the sortie into Iraq was to have been my last mission. It was, but not the way I expected.

We were in the process of setting down, every man checking his equipment when the blast hit us. It was a hand-held antiaircraft missile–probably Russian manufacture from what the experts could later determine. The blast was the loudest thing I ever heard, even drowning out the noise of the rotors.

“Jesus!” The pilot’s mike was open, and it was easy to tell from his voice that we had a serious problem. Sure enough–out the hatch we were due to embark from we spotted a squad of Iraqi soldiers. They were hopped up from their success hitting the chopper, and I could see them getting ready to fire another one at us.

Now in the war movies, this is where the bright young Marine captain leaps twenty feet to the ground surrounded by his unit as they dutifully wipe out the enemy force before further damage can be done. Real life doesn’t work that way. First of all, it wasn’t even my decision. Until we were on the ground, the pilot was in charge. Calling at us to secure ourselves, he turned quickly and flew our sorry asses out of there. We could hear the whump of another missile exploding just off our port side.

We made it back to base, but it was a rough ride, and the chopper was pretty badly shot up. The landing was brutal, the gear of the chopper severely damaged. It caused the bird to collapse on the runway, tilting far enough to one side to shatter the rotor and send pieces of it flying into the belly of the aircraft exactly where we were located. I didn’t even see the part that hit me, but I felt it slamming into my head. I was out cold before I could even scream.

When I came to in a hospital in Germany, I found out that the good news was that everyone had survived. The bad news was that nearly everyone had suffered some injury, and four of us had been in bad enough shape to require evacuation to Germany for surgery. I was now the proud owner of a metal plate in my skull that would give me headaches the rest of my life, ruin my military career, and make going through airport security a living hell.

Fortunately, there had been an answer to the second part of my dilemma. My wife’s father was a political bigwig with the party back home in Oklahoma, and they had a tough Congressional race coming up in a few months. A war hero might be just right for the district which had shown little loyalty to either party lately.

A word about Oklahoma politics–traditionally Democrat for a number of years, the state has become more Republican with each passing year. Republicans now control the Governor’s office, both US Senate seats, and five of the six US House seats while the Democrats control the State Legislature. In such a volatile political environment, it helps to have a little something extra–like being a sports figure or a war hero. Did I mention that before I went into the Marine Corps I played first string on the University of Oklahoma football team?

So there it was. With the right introductions from my father-in-law, I was able to move into a district where my background would make a difference. I didn’t even have more than token opposition in the primaries. As for the general election, I squeaked into office for my first two-year term, but in the three terms since, I’ve won walking away.

I suppose if I had been willing to rest on my laurels, I could have stayed in the House for many more years. Some people did it, including Carl Albert, an Oklahoma Congressman who served as Speaker of the House for six years. But I had my eye on bigger things, and for all its collective power, the House of Representatives wasn’t the place for someone like me to stay forever.

At the risk of making a political speech, there were problems in our country I wanted to fix. To my way of thinking, the country had been drifting for a while, and presidents from either party hadn’t done much to change that. That’s right–I planned on being President of the United States someday.

But the problem was how to get there. If I did, it wasn’t going to be from my present position. No individual had been elected directly from the House to the Presidency in over a century. For that matter, no president had been elected directly from the Senate since John F. Kennedy. No, the place to be elected from was the governorship. Four of the last six presidents had been elected after being governors of their states, and since Ford had been appointed, that meant that four of the last five elected presidents had been governors.

It made a lot of sense when you thought about it. Governors could portray themselves as executives just like the president while legislators were constantly having to defend their records on the issues. There were too many contentious issues in the land now to allow a legislator to vote either way without pissing off the at least half of the electorate. Current political thinking was to run for office from the middle of the political spectrum, and that was damned hard to do when being a legislator meant being forced to take a stand on issues that were almost always either too far left or right.

I had waited for the right time to run. Our governor had no desire to be president, but the US Senate looked mighty good to him. With one of our senators ready to retire, he was ready to surrender the governor’s chair, and I was ready to seize it. But it wasn’t going to be easy this time. I had opposition within my own party from an elected state official who originally came from one of Oklahoma’s larger cities while my district was mostly rural. He would be a tough man to beat.

But beat him I would. Travelling from one end of the state to the other had allowed me to sneak up on him in the polls. As of that moment, it looked as if I would get my party’s nomination with a win of almost sixty percent in the primary. But the electorate was fickle, and with the primary only a few days away, I hadn’t let up on my schedule. I would be governor, and that would just be the next step on the way to the presidency itself.

My dreams of power were interrupted as the plane shook again–this time harder than before. “Dusty, what the hell is going on up there?” I yelled into the intercom.

“Just rough air,” Dusty replied. “Don’t worry; I just got permission to go to a lower altitude. We were about ready to start our approach anyway and–shit!”

The plane didn’t bump this time. It just began to roll over. All I could think of was how ironic it was that I had survived one air crash and was now about to be in another one. The difference was that this one would be hard to walk away from. I knew just enough about planes to know that Dusty had just lost control of the bird. How or why didn’t matter; what mattered was that in a few seconds, we’d be in an uncontrollable spin and there would be nothing to stop us from hitting the ground.

I suppose most men would have used those final moments to think about their families. Not me, though. My wife Louise and I craved the same thing–power. We hadn’t craved anything from each other in years. We had no children–Louise didn’t want any–so there was no son or daughter to think about, and my parents had been dead for several years. Add to that the fact that my brothers and I weren’t very close and there was no one back home to think about.

Instead, I thought about what might have been. I thought about the vision I had for a new America–strong and vibrant, leading the world to a better tomorrow. That was even part of my campaign slogan: ‘A Better Tomorrow Today!’ Well, all the great campaign slogans in the world wouldn’t trim one knot off the airspeed of our crippled plane.

I heard Penny yelp, as there was the unexpected feeling of our butts being squished into the leather seats of the plane as it suddenly changed attitude and levelled out. “Thank God!” Tony exclaimed, saying out loud what all of us had just been thinking. Dusty had just proven himself to be one hell of a pilot.

As the plane smoothed out, I unlocked my seat belt and hunching over, so my six-two frame could walk down the aisle, made my way into the cockpit. I put my hand on Dusty’s shoulder. “Great work, my friend.”

Dusty took a hand off the controls long enough to brush a shock of short red hair out of his face. “Thank you, sir, but I had nothing to do with it.”

I frowned. “What are you saying? Planes don’t just right themselves.”

“I’d usually agree with you, sir, but not this time. And to make it worse, nothing I seem to do to the controls changes anything. I was sure it was a complete hydraulic failure. It’s almost as if someone else is flying the plane.”

I looked at the controls. I could read the instruments well enough to notice that we were starting to lose altitude. I mentioned that to Dusty. He nodded in agreement. “You’re right, sir. But it’s a gentle controlled descent. We seem to be heading for that valley up ahead.”

I looked out the cockpit windscreen at the valley Dusty had referred to. The valley was long and wide, nestled between two ridges of moderately-sized hills. At first glance, its lush farm fields, sparkling lakes and wooded glades appeared to be much like any other valley that might have stretched from the eastern part of Oklahoma all the way to the Atlantic Coast. But a more careful look showed an odd difference or two. First of all and most disturbing were the hills themselves. Both of the ridges appeared to be virtually identical, as if they were mirror images of each other.

As for the other difference, there seemed to be fewer roads than might be expected. Viewed from above, most of the farm states are laid out with section roads crisscrossing each other with predictable regularity. The impression from above was one of squares, like some gigantic green checkerboard with the color in each square often varying according to the crops being raised there. This valley had fewer roads at irregular intervals, and none crossed over the hills. In fact, the only through road appeared to be a ribbon of asphalt that crossed the hills at one end of the valley where the hills seemed to almost end. It snaked its way southward into the town, curving off in mirror-like fashion at the south extremity of the municipality and crossing another low-lying hill beyond.

I pointed out at a shape in the distance. “There! That looks like an airport south of town just off the highway.”

“I think you’re right,” Dusty replied. “The problem is none of my charts show an airport there.”

“Maybe you have an old chart,” I suggested.

Dusty looked at me with thinly-disguised disgust. “No pilot would carry old charts; it’s suicidal. And it isn’t just the airport that’s not on the charts. I don’t see any sign of this town or even this valley. According to the charts, there’s a single ridge of hills that rises up about here and ends a few miles south of where that town is parked.”

“What are you saying, Dusty?” I asked, unwilling to accept what he had just told me.

“I’m telling you there shouldn’t be a town down there. I’ve flown over this region dozens of times. I might have missed a little place with a few dozen residents, but that town out there looks to be ten thousand or so. I’ve never seen it before.”

I felt a chill run up and down my spine. Dusty wasn’t the sort of pilot given to letting his imagination run away with him. If he said there shouldn’t be a town down there, then that was that. But it was impossible to refute the evidence of our eyes. Perhaps, I thought, we had been knocked off course. Perhaps Dusty wasn’t where he thought we should be. Yes, that had to be the answer. But we would have to discuss it later. Right now there was a more pressing problem–namely, how to get safely on the ground in an aircraft that seemed to have a mind of its own.

“Can we make it to the airport?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” was the reply. “But that road down there looks pretty smooth and straight. We seem to be heading right for it. In fact, when I nudge the controls that way, I seem to have some control. I’m going to try to set her down there. You’d better strap in.”

I made my way back into the cabin, telling Tony and Penny to belt in while I did so myself. I wasn’t too worried actually. Dusty seemed to have at least enough control to get us on the ground safely. In fact, all I could think about was what a great news story this would make. It was a shame my press secretary was in Oklahoma City where my wife was hosting a forum on women’s issues designed to give me a little more strength with the women’s vote.

Penny was a wreck, nervously patting her blond hair which she always wore in a tight bun that took nothing away from her beauty. I watched her appreciatively as she straightened her white skirt to cover a bit more of her tanned legs. Don’t get me wrong, though. Looking was all I ever did, in spite of what my wife thought. My name was Williams–not Condit.

Tony was trying to look as if he had more important things to worry about. I suppose he did–getting me elected. Tony had handled every campaign for me. He matched me in height and was actually better looking and a little younger. I was at first surprised that Tony didn’t want to run for office himself, but he preferred to manage the campaigns of others instead.

The plane made a descent so smooth I almost felt as if I was flying a normal route on a major airliner. Dusty had to be wrong about the hydraulics, I thought. No plane could make so smooth an approach with a major hydraulic problem. We were in the pipe on a smooth descent right down to the highway below.

Out the window, I could see that there was indeed a problem. We were landing with the flaps up in a cruising position. I hoped there were no cars on that highway out there because without flaps, the plane was going to take forever to get stopped. Sure, there were brakes, but we would be landing at an unusually high speed–or so I thought.

Although the flaps never extended, the plane slowed as it neared the ground, an apparent contradiction in aviation theory and practice. True, Dusty had his nose up as far as he could, but we should have been moving a lot faster when the wheels dug into the asphalt highway.

Tony noticed it, too. “What’s slowing us down?” he asked to no one in particular. I was too busy watching the ground rush up to answer, and Penny was just doing everything she could to keep from wetting her pants. I couldn’t say that I blamed her.

The plane skidded a little from side-to-side as Dusty applied the brakes, but it wasn’t too bad. After all, we had lost most of our airspeed. The section of road we had landed on was perfectly smooth, and apparently, we hadn’t met any cars on the ground. We all breathed a sigh of relief as Dusty cut back on the engines and veered the plane off the highway onto a smooth gravel shoulder.

“Okay folks,” he called over the intercom. “That’s one more we get to walk away from.”

None of us moved until the plane came to a slightly bumpy stop at the side of the road. The right wing, I noticed, hung out over a shallow gully along the side of the road, but the wheels had come to rest along relatively level ground. Still, we remained in our seats until the engines stopped completely and Randy’s head appeared at the cockpit door. “Okay, it’s safe now,” he told us.

We exited the plane and were hit at once with the warm, muggy air of an Oklahoma summer. The smell of residual exhaust from the engines and the odors from the baking asphalt mixed with the pungent smell of weeds, trees and crops which made up the visible countryside. I loosened my tie at once just to be a little cooler. Tony kept his tight though, as if he expected reporters from all the major networks to drive up any minute.

“Any idea where we are, Dusty?” I asked.

Our pilot just shrugged. “Like I told you, this valley shouldn’t be here. Neither should that town.”

“What town?” Penny asked. She was shifting her weight back and forth from leg to leg to try to keep from having her heels sink into the warm asphalt.

I nodded to the south. “It’s that way. I suppose we should start walking.”

Before anyone could say another word, we heard the sound of at least one car and maybe more approaching from the direction of town. We couldn’t see them since there was a small rise in our line of vision, but from the sound of the engines, they were speeding toward us. Then we saw them–a white sedan followed by a white minivan–and both of them had red and blue lights flashing.

“Well, it looks as if we’re going to have an official welcome,” Tony mused. “Congressman, it might be a good idea if you straightened your tie and looked official.”

I returned the grin he gave me and pulled my regulation sincerely red politician’s tie back into a semblance of a professional knot. I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I got a strange feeling when an officer got out of the first police car. Actually, I suppose the strange feeling started when I saw ‘City of Ovid’ in blue letters on the side of the car. I had never heard of the City of Ovid, and for a man running for governor of the state, that wasn’t natural since the town he seemed to have come from was certainly large enough for any state-wide politician to take note of. But the officer himself made me feel even stranger. I couldn’t really say why because he looked perfectly normal in his gray-blue uniform and mirrored sunglasses.

Then I realized what the problem was. I would have expected any police officer first on the scene of an emergency landing like ours to look first at the plane and then at us, but he didn’t. It was as if the plane held no interest for him–as if he expected it to be there and had already dismissed it as part of the background. Instead, he focused on us. “Mr. Williams?” he addressed me.

“How... how do you know who I am?” I stammered.

“We received your pilot’s distress call,” he explained. “We’ve been tracking you since you got close to Ovid.”

“I see...” I replied slowly, but I really didn’t see. Track us? With what? Small towns don’t have elaborate radar systems. I should have known. After all, I sat on the House Transportation Committee. Small towns the size of Ovid were lucky if they had a paved runway and runway lights.

“Now, if you’ll all just step into the van, we’ll get you into town,” he told us, motioning at the van which had pulled up behind his car. The van door was already open.

“Can you get word to our people in Oklahoma City?” Tony asked the officer, who I noted wore a nametag which proclaimed him to be Officer Mercer.

“We’ve notified everyone who needs to know,” Officer Mercer replied drolly. Tony, Penny and I all nodded, but it wasn’t until we were in the van that I realized he hadn’t exactly told us who had been notified.

“I’d like to stay here and look over the plane,” Dusty said to the officer.

“The plane will be safe here,” he was told. “The Judge wants to see all of you now, so if you’ll just get in the van...”

“The Judge?” I asked. Then I realized what was going on. Some local judge wanted to meet with me. After all, I stood a good chance of being the next governor, and every local political figure would want to meet me. There’d be appointments I’d have to make, and who better to appoint than some local judge who had agreed to support me in my campaign. “Oh, of course. That’s fine, officer. We’ll be happy to meet with your judge. But you would be doing us a great favor if you’d let us use the van to continue on to Muskogee.”

Officer Mercer was tall enough that he could actually look slightly down at me, and I could swear that I saw amusement in his face. “That will be up to The Judge,” he informed me.

“I understand,” I replied, not realizing that I didn’t understand at all.

The trip into the town of Ovid was uneventful. What I saw from my vantage point in the front passenger seat of the van was a small Oklahoma town, different from most other towns of its size only in that it seemed to take a greater pride in its appearance. Most small towns are dying–unless of course they are close enough to larger cities to become attractive suburbs. Not Ovid, though. Signs of prosperity were everywhere from the freshly painted homes and neatly trimmed lawns to the prosperous-looking shops and other businesses along the way.

Even the people of Ovid were more prosperous looking. In most small towns (and most larger cities for that matter) business attire had given way to casual, and casual had declined into sloppy. In Ovid, people were better groomed, as if someone had published standards of neatness that everyone had agreed to follow. Oh that didn’t mean there weren’t people dressed casually, but there were more suits and ties on the men and more skirts and heels on the women than I would have expected.

I glanced over at our driver. She was an attractive young black woman, wearing a women’s equivalent of the uniform the stolid Officer Mercer wore. I glanced down at her nametag trying not to be seen as staring at her superb breasts. Her name, I saw, was Hazleton. “Officer Hazleton...” I began.

She smiled never taking her deep brown eyes off the road. “Call me Wanda, please.”

“Wanda then,” I started over, pleased that she was much more open than Officer Mercer. I was glad he was in his police cruiser instead of accompanying us in the van. It was more relaxing that way. “Ovid looks mighty prosperous. What do people do for a living around here?”

She laughed, “Oh, it’s a typical small town. There’s a lot of good farmland around. Retail business is pretty good, too. And of course, there’s Vulman Industries.”

That got my attention. “Vulman has a plant here? I thought they were located in Tulsa.” In my time on the House Transportation Committee, I had heard the name Vulman a number of times. The company had developed a number of cutting edge products that were finding their way into the aviation industry. One of those products promised to add to the efficiency of aircraft engines, increasing range and thus lowering fuel costs. Some people had even talked about extending the technology to automobiles, cutting our dependence on oil dramatically.

“Actually, Vulman is headquartered in Ovid. Tulsa’s just a sales office. Eric Vulman himself lives right here in town.”

That was news to me. I wondered how something as important as that could have escaped my notice. I’d have to get on Tony about that. Ovid was starting to appear to be a much more important place than I had imagined. For that matter, why hadn’t I even heard of Ovid? Looking at the buildings as we sped by, it was obvious that the town was at least ten thousand and growing. What kind of a governor would I be if I didn’t even know about a town as large and important as Ovid?

“Here we are,” Wanda said as we pulled into the parking lot in front of gray granite building with impressive columns in front. The words ‘City Hall’ were solemnly carved into the granite above the columns. It was as was neat and impressive as the rest of Ovid, with the Oklahoma flag fluttering in the warm, light breeze next to the US flag in the grassy area in front of the building.

“You have a very nice town here, Wanda,” I told her with my best politician’s smile. “It’s the sort of town I’d be proud to call home.”

She laughed softly for some reason I couldn’t fathom just then. “I’m glad you feel that way, sir.”

Officer Mercer was just climbing out of his car, and Wanda went over to talk to him while Tony, Penny, Dusty and I huddled.

“Tony, why wasn’t I briefed on Ovid?” I asked him, not too unkindly. “Did you know this is where Vulman Industries is headquartered?”

“It shouldn’t be,” he replied insistently. “In fact the whole town shouldn’t even be here.”

“And did you see those weird people?” Penny chimed in, nearly shivering in spite of the warmth.

“What weird people?” I asked. “Penny, what the hell are you talking about?”

“The transparent ones. The ones you could see through,” Dusty explained. Then to Penny, he nodded. “Yeah, I saw them, too.”

“Wait a minute,” I growled. “What...”

I never got any further. Officer Mercer had sent Wanda into the building and returned his attention to us. “The Judge wants to see you right away,” he told us. That was fine with me. The sooner we saw him, the sooner we’d be on our way. Although I wondered if I could get a chance to see the elusive Eric Vulman. His support–both moral and financial–of my campaign would be a big boost toward putting me in the Governor’s chair in the fall.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have realized there was something strange going on. After all, planes don’t fly themselves, and towns didn’t normally escape Tony’s notice. Perhaps I could be forgiven for not taking Penny seriously, though. Her talk of transparent people was pretty far out. All I had seen walking down the street were dozens and dozens of potential voters.

As we walked into the courtroom together, I took on the usual appearance of a seasoned politician, casual and friendly, complete with a dazzling smile. I had expected to be welcomed to the courtroom as an honored guest, shake a few hands, listen to how the local roads really needed state dollars, and be on my way. I never expected to be put on trial.

The Judge was already at the bench, a stern look on his handsome, middle-aged face. He was impatiently stroking his beard of brown peppered with gray as he watched us with steely blue eyes barely shielded by expensive gold-rimmed glasses.

“If the defendants will take their seats at the table with their attorney, we can get on with this trial,” he remarked firmly.

As a member of Congress, I was quite unaccustomed to being talked to in such a fashion. My casual gait at once became a ramrod-straight stance as I began in a tone petulantly enough to match The Judge’s tone, “Your Honor, what is this all about? We have just narrowly avoided an aircraft accident and are hardly in a mood for ill-conceived jokes.”

The Judge’s eyes caught fire. “A joke? You think landing an aircraft on a public roadway, endangering our citizens, is a joke, sir?”

“We had no choice...” Dusty began but I silenced him at once. I’d do the talking here.

“My pilot is correct,” I told The Judge as an attractive woman at the defense table I took to be our court-appointed attorney looked on in shock. “We were forced down when our plane developed trouble.”

“I’m aware of the circumstances,” The Judge told me, his manner only slightly less confrontational. Apparently he was used to having his own way. Well, most judges are. “That does not change the facts. How do you plead?”

“Plead?” I practically yelled. “What are you talking ab...”

“You are in contempt of court, sir!”

“I don’t recognize the authority of this court in this matter!” I shot back.

It was then, standing directly before that magistrate certain that I could make him back down that I froze. I don’t mean I lost my nerve; I mean I literally froze in place, unable to move or utter a sound. It was as if the messages from my brain were not reaching my limbs. I could feel beads of sweat breaking out on my forehead.

The Judge’s eyes narrowed. “In the absence of a plea from you, I must find you guilty of the charges. You are all guilty!”

I sensed that the rest of my party was also immobile, although I could barely see them out of the corner of one eye as they stood next to the attorney at the table to my left. I could hear them gasping for some reason as The Judge muttered something which sounded like a foreign language–almost like Latin and Italian all mixed together.

It was really creepy, and I was all nervous just standing there while Marsha and Susan watched on from the gallery. I mean, what if they told their moms and they told my mom? I had to plead so hard with her to get the car go visit the campus that day. I’d probably never be allowed to drive her car again until I was thirty!

I tugged a little at my skirt. Why had I worn such a short one that day? The Judge had looked at me as if I were some sort of tart or something. I mean, it was like fashionable and all and really, really nice, but The Judge had looked at me sort of like the way dad always looked at me when I wore that skirt on a date. And then there were those people standing there with me. What were they doing there? They were adults, all dressed in suits and dresses and they were looking at me as if I had just landed from Mars. Jeez folks, get a grip. The skirt wasn’t all that short...

“But under the circumstances, young lady, I’ve decided to suspend your fine for careless driving.”

I couldn’t believe The Judge was really saying that! I mean, yeah, I had been a little careless when I turned into that one-way street, but how was I to know it? I mean, the street wasn’t even marked or anything. So okay, maybe it was marked and I just didn’t see it because all three of us were so busy watching that really hunky guy walking across campus. God, if just ten percent of the guys at Capta looked like him, I was going to really, really like going to school there.

“But if you ever show up in my courtroom again, Ms. Stewart, I can promise you I won’t be as lenient!”

I barely heard his lecture, but the crack of his gavel brought me back to earth. I looked around and smiled at Marsha and Susan in the gallery. They smiled back at me. I glanced down at my watch. We could still make lunch someplace. I hadn’t seen a Mickey D’s when we got into town, but there was this place called Rusty’s Burger Barn that looked pretty cool...

I think I actually screamed when I woke up. My breasts were heaving and felt almost unnatural on my chest. I reflexively reached inside my pajama top and touched one just to assure myself that they were normal. I cringed as I halfway expected my chest to be flat and covered in coarse hair, but the breast was smooth, full and normal.

Normal.

I looked about in the dark, gasping softly as I saw a dark shape approaching me. It sat down on my bed, the additional weight nearly causing me to lose my balance. A small hand grasped my bare arm. “April honey, are you all right?”

I breathed a little sigh of relief as I recognized the sweet, soft voice of Laurel Jacobson, my roommate in the sorority. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I mumbled, not really believing it.

“Same dream again?”

Her question reminded me that I had awakened for the last three nights from nightmares. The difference was that on that night, I remembered what had frightened me after I had awakened. “I think so,” I replied slowly.

“Do you remember any of it?”

I shook my head. “No.” It was a lie, of course, but how was I supposed to tell my roommate–a girl who had been my friend for over two years ever since I had started school at Capta College–that I was having a bad dream about being a... a... man?

Laurel hesitated for a moment and then asked, “It doesn’t have anything to do with Paul, does it?”

I shook my head again. Paul had been my boyfriend ever since last year’s spring semester. We had hit it off well from the start and had even written each other over the summer when I had gone home to Tulsa. As the fall semester began, we had picked up where we had left off and soon were... intimate. It was wonderful while it lasted, but our relationship cooled with the coming of winter. I had been looking for love; Paul was looking for sex. When I pushed him for a commitment, he dropped me in a heartbeat. A tear came to my eye. I thought the big shit actually loved me.

“Well, I know it’s not your period,” Laurel announced lightly. No, it wasn’t. I had had my last one over a week ago. It hadn’t even been a particularly bad one.

“Maybe you should see a doctor or something,” Laurel ventured as she rubbed my back.

“I’ll be okay,” I assured her, smiling bravely until I realized she probably couldn’t see the smile in the dark.

“All right,” she agreed reluctantly, standing up to be silhouetted in the moonlight. “Try to get some sleep.”

“Okay.” I sank back down on my pillow, hoping that sleep would claim me quickly. I did begin to drift off almost at once, but not before my tired mind asked one more question: why is it that when I saw Laurel in the moonlight, it was almost as if I could see the light through her?

I awoke the next morning feeling better. Fortunately, it was a Tuesday and I didn’t have a class until nine. Laurel had already left for class, so I had the room to myself. The entire sorority house was quiet since all of my sisters were either in class or sleeping in.

I was still a little on the tired side, unsettled by my dreams. I had dismissed Laurel’s apparent transparency as an optical illusion, brought on by the conversation in the dream. But I couldn’t write off the dream quite as easily. It had been so real. I had actually dreamed that I was an older man–a Congressman no less. Well, at least I didn’t dream small. If I had to be an older man in my dreams, I might just as well be a powerful one.

The problem was it didn’t seem like a dream. It seemed more like something that really happened that I just hadn’t thought about for a time. Lying there, I experimentally put a hand to my smooth cheek, trying to imagine what it must be like to have beard stubble. Strangely enough, I could almost envision it, as if it were something I had actually experienced. Disturbed by the sensation I had just subjected myself to, I jumped out of bed with a gasp and fled to the shower.

The warm water felt good on my body, its soft flow reassuring me that I was, indeed, a woman as it rolled gently over my breasts, teasing my nipples in a pleasurable fashion. I soaped languidly, taking perhaps an extra moment between my legs where the true proof of my sex lay passively hidden. What must it be like, I wondered, to be a man? How did they even manage to walk with all of that... equipment dangling between their legs?

I should never have asked myself that question, because unbidden, the answer emerged in my mind. I felt in my head the strange sensation of something large and potent between my legs. I understood in that moment what it felt like for a penis to harden and the demands it put on a man’s body.

“Oh God!” I screamed, rinsing myself off quickly and practically leaping out of the shower. I tried to blank out all thoughts as I dressed for class.

Myra Smithwick, one of our new pledges, was studying in the dining room while enjoying a cup of coffee. She was one of two pledges who lived in the house and my sorority little sister, so I was very happy to see her. “Wow! What are you all dressed up for today?” she asked me.

“I just felt like getting dressed up this morning,” I told her. Like most of the girls–Myra included–I normally wore jeans and a sweater to class, but men also wore jeans and sweaters. I wanted to wear something that would make me forget the odd sensations I had been experiencing. No man who I knew would go to class in a lightweight pink sweater, fall white skirt, and one-inch heels.

“Well you look great,” Myra said.

“Who looks great?” a voice called from the kitchen. I recognized it as Stacey Adams, Myra’s roommate. Stacey appeared in the doorway holding a cup of coffee. She looked at me and grinned. “Hey girl, who are you trying to impress?”

I didn’t answer her because I couldn’t. I was too shocked at seeing Stacey standing there and still being able to sense if not exactly see the coffee pot that should have been hidden behind her.

“Are you okay, April?” Myra asked me, a puzzled frown on her face.

“Oh... uh, yeah,” I finally managed, backing out of the room. “I... I... just forgot something in my room–that’s all. I’ll be right back.”

My heart was pounding as I raced back to my room. Dear God, it was true. There really were people you could see through–just like that woman, that Penny, had said in the dream. Yet as I closed the door to my room behind me, I realized Myra was not alarmed by Stacey’s appearance. Could it be that she just couldn’t see it–just as I couldn’t until then?

That was possible, but now that I could see Stacey as some sort of apparition, how was I going to deal with her? For that matter, according to my dream girl, Penny, Stacey wasn’t the only ghostly person in Ovid. Of course, ghostly might have been too strong a term. I couldn’t exactly see through Stacey. Rather, it was more of a sensation of knowing what should have been hidden by her body instead of actually seeing it.

Besides, there was something to think about that was even more unsettling than Stacey’s semi-transparency. Namely, the girl in my dreams might have been more than a character I had imagined in my sleep. What if she was real? That meant the drama that had played out in my mind as I slept could be a memory of an actual event.

But that just couldn’t be, I told myself as I paced about my room. I had never been a man. I had always been April Lynn Stewart of Tulsa, Oklahoma. My father was general manager of an oil drilling company and my mother was a former nurse. I had two sisters, Janet and Jennie. Our dog was a basset hound named Boomer. I remembered grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles as well as friends and (blush) lovers. Yes, I remembered losing my virginity out at the lake right after I got out of high school, and I was very certain I hadn’t been a man at the time.

Was it possible that my dream had somehow triggered an illusion of transparent people? Or perhaps I was still dreaming. I remembered something I had read about lucid dreaming, but this didn’t seem like a dream... exactly.

No matter what, I couldn’t spend the rest of my day in my room with the door shut. My sorority sisters would want to know what was wrong with me. No, I had to carry on as if everything was all right until I could figure out just what was wrong. Taking a deep breath, I opened the door and prepared to face the world.

It wasn’t easy, though. I walked onto campus with Stacey and Myra, trying my best to ignore Stacey’s strange condition. It wasn’t that hard after a little while because I realized that most of the people we passed on campus were just like Stacey. Some of them smiled and said good morning, for they were people I had known ever since I had entered Capta College. No solid person such as me seemed to take any unusual notice of them so I did the same as best I could.

After my morning classes and a quick lunch in the Student Union cafeteria, I realized the somewhat ghostly people were not going to go away, and I was most certainly not in some incredibly lucid dream. But the events did lead me back to thinking about my initial dreams. I remembered the name my male persona had used in the dream–Conrad Williams. And he had been a member of Congress, so his biography should be available in the library. The College had a very good research section, so I decided to skip my one o’clock class and check out the congressman.

My research was all for naught. There was no Conrad Williams listed in any of the relevant publications. Oh, I did find a Conrad Williams all right. He was an English fantasy author, but no politician by that name. Apparently, my male persona was as much a fantasy as what the Englishman of the same name wrote.

Part of me was relieved. I don’t know what I would have done if I had found out that a congressman by the name of Conrad Williams had disappeared about the time I started going to Capta. The fact that the man didn’t exist was just further proof that all I had experienced was a dream. Of course, that didn’t explain the people I could almost see through, but perhaps it was just something caused by my nightmare. Perhaps a good night’s sleep would dismiss it entirely.

Or so I thought.

I drifted in and out of dreams that night, but all of them had one thing in common: I was the non-existent Conrad Williams. I was a small boy, growing up on a farm near a small Oklahoma town. I was a young man in high school, playing football. I was a male student at the University of Oklahoma. I was a young Marine officer, emulating my two older brothers and my uncle, all of whom had been Marines. I was in the desert with my patrol and could feel the impact of the missile against our chopper. I was in Congress, a respected member of my party.

But the worst dream of all was having sex with a woman. She was approaching middle age but was still very attractive. Her legs were spread but there was no enthusiasm in her that I could detect. I knew that she was my wife, and that we had lost whatever love we had once felt for each other. Still, I persisted, ramming myself into her until...

I stifled the scream I felt as I woke up. I didn’t want to wake Laurel again. I groped at my breasts, relieved once more to find them still in place. But I was damp between my legs, as if ready for sex. The problem was that it didn’t feel right to be wet there. I should be hard, extended...

I should be a man.

These were not dreams which had invaded my sleep. They were memories–memories of someone who shouldn’t have existed but did. Or at least he existed in my mind. There was a name for my problem which I remembered from a psych course I had taken last year. It was called ‘Multiple Personality Disorder.’ I was going stark raving rat fuck mad.

Wait a minute. I didn’t talk like that. Rat fuck? No. Yes. I don’t know.

I had to seek help. I seemed to remember from my coursework that if MPD was treated early, I could be saved from watching my personality fragment still further. I’d see a doctor first thing in the morning.

First thing turned out to be after lunch. I decided I couldn’t afford to miss another day of classes, and since my afternoon was free, I’d go to the Student Health Center then. It was a bad decision. All morning, I had to force the thoughts of Conrad Williams out of my mind. He was trying to take over. I could feel him lurking in my mind, reminding me of things I had no reason to have ever known in the first place. I was near tears by the time I checked in to see a doctor.

“How long have you had these problems?” the woman at the reception desk asked me. She wore scrubs like a nurse, and I could see from her nametag that that was just what she was–a PN, or Practical Nurse. Her name was Nancy Franklin, and I was relieved to see that she was taking me seriously. Her dark brown eyes held sympathy for me, almost as if she understood my problem even better than I did. She was an attractive woman in what I guessed to be her mid-thirties, with short hair the color of her eyes and as little makeup as social convention would permit.

“The last four days,” I replied. Then I amended, “Nights really. It comes to me in dreams.”

“And you say you’re a man in those dreams?”

She was piercing me with her stare. She was one of what I had begun to think of as real people, rather than the transparent ones I had suddenly become aware of. Why was she taking such an interest in me?

“Yes. A Congressman named Conrad Williams. But I looked him up. There isn’t a Conrad Williams. Please, Ms. Franklin, I need to see a doctor right away.” I was crying now, unconcerned as to how I must look to the other students waiting in the lobby. “I... I can’t stand the thought of sleeping another night and being... him!”

She quickly wrote something on a piece of paper. “Be in this room in half an hour,” she told me.

After I looked at what she had written, I looked up at her, confused. “But this is a room in Administration. I need to see a doctor!”

She put a soft hand on the back of mine. “April, please believe me. Go to that room. The people you meet there will be able to help you more than any doctor could. Please trust me.”

There was something so sincere about what she said that I could only nod in spite of my confusion. “In half an hour?”

She nodded, her eyes shifting as if she wanted to make absolutely certain no one else could hear her. “You’ll find help there. You’ll see.”

‘Who could help me more than a doctor?’ I wondered as I made my way across campus. I shouldn’t have listened to the woman, I thought to myself. I should have insisted upon seeing a doctor. What could someone in Administration do for me–change all of my records to Conrad Williams? But I had to admit I was curious. The woman had been very conspiratorial with me and I wanted to know why. The answers were in the Administration Building.

The room she had sent me to was a small conference room. Whoever was going to meet with me hadn’t arrived yet, so I took advantage of straightening myself up a little by using the full-length mirror which the room sported. I guess it was there just to make the small room look a little larger.

I brushed back a strand of long brown hair which had been fluttering about my face as I walked across the campus facing a chilly fall breeze. My cheeks were a little red, too, and I wanted to do something about that but decided to work on my hair instead. I stood there, dressed in a plaid skirt, black turtleneck and black tights carefully smoothing my hair and wondering how in the world I could ever have imagined being a middle-aged male politician even in my nightmares. But as I looked at myself, I could almost see my large brown eyes staring out of a different face–a face that was rugged and masculine, framed in hair not too far from the color of my own if you discounted the streaks of gray.

I had never ‘seen’ myself in a dream. I don’t imagine most people do. So why was I able to created this mental image of a man who had never existed? Why could I imagine him almost as clearly as the pretty, feminine face I knew was in the mirror.

“April Stewart?”

I jumped at the sound of the voice. I had been so captivated by my own image I hadn’t heard the woman–for it was a woman’s voice–enter the room. I turned tensely to face a woman who appeared to be just a few years older than I. She was black and very attractive, her dark hair short and her coffee-colored skin flawless. She wore normal business attire–a dark blue suit with her skirt conservatively at the knee. She smiled at my alarm.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She offered a hand. “I’m Coretta McGregor. Call me Corey.”

I offered my own hand, wincing a little at her strong handshake. Although she was about my size, she had the sleek build of an athlete and the hand strength to match. “I’m sorry... I’m April Stewart.” I giggled nervously. “But I guess you already know that.”

As we were shaking hands, another person entered the room. He was a very nice looking man not much older than I. His angular face and slender body were strangely attractive as he held himself with such poise. I don’t mean he wasn’t attractive. It’s just that I usually dated more the jock types, and this guy didn’t look like a jock. His glasses were wire rims, and along with the small Van Dyke beard he had grown, provided his face with character. He looked a little familiar; I was sure I had seen him on campus before. Of course, he also looked a little like that guy on Dark Angel, so maybe that was why he looked so familiar. He offered his hand as well. “Chip Wellington,” he announced.

I looked uncomfortably at Corey. My expression told her that I had not expected an audience. “Chip is with me,” she assured me. “Once we’ve had a few moments to talk, I think you’ll understand why he’s here.”

No sooner had she finished than another person entered the room, but this one I had already met–sort of.

“I believe you know Nancy Franklin,” Corey announced as she formally introduced me to the woman who had sent me here in the first place.

I looked at the outstretched hands of the two new arrivals, unwilling to shake hands with either of them. “What’s this all about? Who are you people?” Nancy and Chip withdrew their hands exchanging amused smiles.

“Sit down, April,” Corey offered pleasantly. “We’ll explain everything shortly. Before we do, we need to hear your story. Sit down at the table and tell us what you told Nancy.”

I was hesitant at first, embarrassed to tell the entire story. I think Chip’s presence made it worse. He was a nice looking guy–the sort of guy I might even be interested in even if he wasn’t a jock. But I was sure that after he heard my story, he wasn’t going to be interested in me. Corey did an excellent job of drawing the story out of me. She was patient and even understanding. Before I knew it, I had told her everything that I had told Nancy and a lot more.

I was expounding more upon the life I recalled as Conrad Williams. Everything I said about my–his–life seemed to bring other details into focus. Soon, I replaced the word “he” with “I” as I described a life that the reference books assured me had never existed. I realized after a while that no one was talking but me. I stopped and sighed, “Look, I’m sorry. I can understand if you don’t believe a word of this...”

“On the contrary,” Corey replied seriously. “We believe every word of it.” She looked at her two associates sitting to her right at the table. “Don’t we?”

Both nodded, Chip even saying quietly, “Absolutely.”

My heart skipped a beat. “Does that mean you can help me get rid of this... this delusion?”

“Oh it’s not a delusion,” Corey laughed. “I have no doubt that you really were Conrad Williams, a member of Congress.”

“But that’s not possible,” I protested. “I know who I am.”

Corey leaned forward. “You’ve told us a story. Now let me tell you one. A few years ago, some very powerful beings created a town out of nothing. They called it Ovid–after the Roman poet. For at least ten years, they’ve been gathering up anyone who strayed too close to them and turning them into residents of their town. You just got caught up in their net. Then you were sent to see The Judge you mentioned and the next thing you knew, you were April Lynn Stewart of Tulsa, Oklahoma, coming to Ovid to attend college. Your friends were changed, too, into new people.”

“But no one has that kind of power,” I argued. “What are you saying–they’re space aliens?”

“More fantastic than that,” Chip broke in. “They’re gods.”

“Gods?”

“Yes, gods,” Corey confirmed. “Remember when you were a boy, reading all those Roman myths about Jupiter and Juno and Mars and Apollo?”

“But those are just stories.”

“Some of them are,” Corey admitted, “for these gods aren’t always the way we read about them. But maybe they’ve changed over the centuries, or maybe the people who chronicled them got it wrong. Whatever the case, this town is run by Roman gods who have changed you to suit their own purposes and will never let you go.”

I jumped up. “You people are just plain crazy!” I started to leave but stopped when Chip called out to me.

“You know, I really admired that game you played against Nebraska. Four touchdowns in the first half really broke their backs. If you hadn’t pulled that hamstring, you might have scored four more in the second half.”

I turned from the door and stared at him. “I didn’t say anything about playing football. How do you know about that game?”

“Because I was there,” Chip replied, standing to look me straight in the eye. “My dad took me to see it. I was just a little guy then, and I sure didn’t look like I do now, but I made up my mind watching that game and watching you that I was going to be just as good a football player as you were.”

“And were you?” I asked quietly, feeling in that moment a strange kinship with this young man who shouldn’t have even been born the day of that Nebraska-Oklahoma game so many years ago.

He grinned. “Better. I was starting wide receiver for the Sooners for all four years and played ten years in the pros for Kansas City before I got sidelined.” He put out his hand again to me. “It’s really a pleasure to finally meet you again.”

This time, I slowly took his hand. It was warm and comforting somehow. He applied pressure to his shake as if he were shaking with a man but not enough to hurt my smaller hand. “Should I remember you?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “No. I came to Ovid before you did. No one outside remembers Flip Washington. You wouldn’t either. The funny thing is, we actually met. You came into the locker room before a Texas game a few years back. You even shook my hand and wished me well.”

“I remember being there,” I confirmed. “But I don’t remember you.”

He grinned. “You wouldn’t.”

Slowly, I sat back down at the table, noting the amused expressions from my three new acquaintances. I began to realize that I needed now more than ever to listen to what they had to say. It was one thing when I remembered being someone who couldn’t have possibly existed outside my own mind. It was another thing when I realized that at least one of these people knew that Conrad Williams was more than the delusional ramblings of a young coed who had apparently flipped out.

“Exactly who are you people?” I asked slowly and softly.

Nancy snorted, “That’s a good question!” She settled down when Corey gave her a stern glance. It was Corey who continued, “We’re The Judge’s mistakes.”

It took her fifteen minutes to tell me what she knew of the transformation process. Apparently, less than half of those transformed remembered their previous lives. The rest were like I–like we had been. Most of those who lost their memories never recovered, but a few–a very few–regained their recollections of a previous life.

“But why us?” I asked.

Corey shrugged. “The common thread appears to be some sort of injury to the brain suffered in our previous lives. Nancy had a large brain tumor which cut off parts of the brain. Chip had a stroke. As for me, I had been injured and had brain damage.”

“And I had a metal plate in my head from a war injury,” I cut in.

Corey nodded. “So you see the pattern.”

“The human brain is a marvellous device,” Nancy explained, sounding much like a doctor. I found out later she had been one in her previous life. “It stores information in multiple places so that if one storehouse of data is destroyed, the duplicate knowledge stored elsewhere is transmitted to wherever it needs to be.”

“Our gods didn’t seem to realize this,” Corey continued. “They appear to be under the assumption that you either remember your previous life as all of their pets do or you forget your previous existence in which case you’re of no further interest to them.”

“But that’s actually an advantage to us,” Chip explained. “Apparently some of the rules are programmed into us when we’re transformed.”

“Rules?” I think I was becoming even more confused.

“Yeah,” Chip nodded with a grin. “You see, if we had maintained our memories when we were first changed, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. People who remember...”

“We call them Rems,” Nancy interjected.

Chip nodded. “Right–the Rems. They can’t talk about the gods or even mention them by name in this context.”

“We believe the Rems also are given something when they are changed that allows them to accept their transformation without going totally bug shit,” Nancy added.

“Sort of like divine Prozac,” Chip clarified.

“Oh this is just too much for me,” I laughed nervously. “You’re trying to tell me that I’m not really April Stewart but instead some congressman no one has ever heard of?”

“Oh you’re April Stewart all right,” Corey assured me. “In case you weren’t listening to everything we’ve told you, Conrad Williams was completely removed from reality and April Stewart was put in his place. You’re going to be a girl until we can force the gods to change us back.”

My eyes narrowed. “And just how are four mentally-damaged victims going to do that?” I could have added, “even if we wanted to change back.” After all, I wasn’t exactly interested in becoming a middle-aged man again, assuming what they had told me was true. I might have two sets of memories, but the strongest set still told me I was April Stewart. Conrad Williams was just a hotshot politician with delusions of being Emperor of the Known Universe as far as I could tell. I didn’t think I had a lot in common with him.

“There are considerably more than four of us,” Corey informed me. “Are you familiar with the concept of the revolutionary cell?”

“Cell?” Suddenly the information on cells was in my mind. I remembered an intelligence expert briefing us in Congress on the concept. It was funny, but the memory hadn’t been there a moment ago. Uncomfortably, I realized that more and more stimuli could trigger memories of a life I didn’t want to know anything about. “Cells are small political units, usually with half a dozen or fewer members. They’re organized so that if one unit is brought down by the authorities, no one knows the members of the other cells, so the entire revolution can’t be stopped by one mistake.”

Corey nodded. “That’s exactly right. And just like revolutionaries for decades, that’s how we’re organized in Ovid.”

I know my mouth had to be hanging open. “You’re telling me that there are many of these cells here in Ovid?”

“Several dozen,” Corey confirmed with a smug smile. “The gods don’t suspect us. They think they have tight security in this town. You see, they think only the Rems have their memories, and they’ve made it so none of them can even speak the names of the gods except as mythological figures. In fact, three of them in a group can’t even discuss their situation even if they don’t name the gods.”

“Look,” I said slowly, “I don’t want to get involved in anything crazy like a revolution. I just want to make these dreams about another life go away. I don’t want to be Conrad Williams or any other man.”

“You say that now,” Corey countered, “but soon your male memories will be as strong as your female ones. What happens then? What happens when you can’t have a boyfriend because it seems like a gay relationship?”

I saw Nancy wince at that.

“What happens when you realize you’re stuck here being a simple little coed when you could have been one of the most powerful men in the land? Don’t bother to deny it, April–it will happen. It’s happened to all of us. Nancy was a well-respected surgeon. Chip played professional football. I was a well-to-do male business executive. Now look at us. Look at you.”

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked defiantly.

“Consider our offer,” Corey pressed. “We’re asking you to join us–help us escape from here with our old lives again. The Judge and his henchmen claim they rescued us from death. We don’t believe it. They just stole our lives for their own amusement. Help us get back at them.”

Corey was a persuasive speaker, and I felt as if she was speaking right from the heart. It wouldn’t be easy to turn her down. Besides, I thought, it appeared as if this was the only group I could explain my problem to who wouldn’t laugh at me or drag me before The Judge. “I’ll think about it,” I replied quietly.

Chip rose. “Come on, April, I’ll walk you back to your sorority.”

I nodded, grateful for the company. I really didn’t want to be alone.

“Think about it, April,” Corey called out as we left.

“I will,” I promised, meaning it.

In fact, I thought about it most of the way back to my sorority house. Chip was a gentleman. He tried at first to engage me in conversation but backed away when he correctly deduced that I was in a pensive mood and unwilling to talk. The shame of it was I found him very attractive. If it wasn’t for the weird situation I found myself in, I would probably have been sizing Chip up as my next boyfriend.

I wondered why I found him so attractive. He wasn’t my type. Were some of Conrad’s thoughts and attitudes bleeding over into my mind? If so, why didn’t I think, as Corey had suggested, that being attracted to boys was gay? There was nothing in my memories to indicate that Conrad Williams had been gay. Maybe Conrad’s thoughts were just making me consider other aspects of guys like Chip which would make him desirable even if he wasn’t a jock.

I tried to keep my mind off Chip’s looks and concentrate on what Corey had told me. I was terribly curious as to why a bunch of Roman gods would take the time and effort to build a phony town like Ovid and populate it with unsuspecting humans. But I was more than curious; I was livid as well. What right did they have to take me out of my life and put me in this one? Not that I wanted my old life back exactly. It was still like a bad dream to me rather than an actual life, but it was the principle of the thing. They had no right to do this to me!

“We’re here.”

“What?” I asked stupidly.

Chip raised an amused eyebrow. “This is your sorority house, isn’t it?”

“Uh... yes,” I mumbled. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

He nodded. “I know. It’s a lot to think about.”

“But is it real?” I asked him, hoping he’d tell me it was all just a big joke.

“Everything Corey told you is real,” he confirmed.

“So what does she–what do all of you–expect to get out of this?” I demanded. “If these beings are really gods, how can you hope to defeat them?”

Chip shook his head. “You don’t understand, April. This is all too new for you. We don’t really want to defeat them. We just want them to quit playing with our lives. Some, like Corey and Nancy want to go back to their old lives–they want to be men again.”

“And you–what do you want?” I asked him. “You want to go back to your old life, too?”

He shook his head. “Actually no. Maybe someday I’ll tell you why. Let’s just say for now that I don’t like somebody trying to run my life for me–even if that somebody is a god.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help myself. I liked Chip’s attitude. Why couldn’t I have met him before I had started dating that ass Paul last spring?

“Well...” he shrugged as if uncertain as to what to do next.

I put my hand on his arm. “Thanks for walking me home, Chip.”

“Any time.” He turned away, then turned back to face me. “April, if you need anything, give me a call. Here’s my number.” He hastily wrote a phone number on the back of a business card for Rusty’s Burger Barn.

Reluctantly, I took the card. As nice as Chip was–not to mention good-looking–I wasn’t sure I wanted to get tied up with him and his friends. “Okay,” I replied blandly, rewarding him with my least-dazzling smile. It was enough for him, though. He smiled back–a toothy, boyish smile–and turned away once more.

“Who’s your new boyfriend?” one of the girls called out as I entered the sorority house to find half a dozen girls who had apparently just witnessed my parting moments with Chip.

“I know who he is!” one of the other girls called out. “He’s Chip Wellington.”

“You know Chip?” I asked with surprise.

The girl who had spoken up was Mary Phillips, one of the brightest girls in the house–and one of the transparent people. She grinned. “I wouldn’t be much of a physics major if I didn’t know the studliest TA in the whole department, would I?”

“Uh... no, I suppose not,” I managed.

“He’s cute,” Myra volunteered. One of the other pledges nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

“Thanks,” I replied. I thought of telling them that Chip wasn’t my boyfriend, but maybe it was safer for the moment to let them think so. I still hadn’t made up my mind whether or not I was going to have anything to do with Corey’s cell, but if I did, it would allow me to meet with Chip without drawing any suspicion.

That wasn’t the only reason Chip would be a convenience for me if everyone thought him to be my boyfriend. Since Paul had unceremoniously dumped me, a few of his jock friends had been sniffing around, and I have to admit I had shown some interest. As I said, I always seemed to have a thing for jocks. The problem was that ‘thing’ seemed to be abating. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I still found them to be absolutely hunky. It’s just that I didn’t want any serious entanglements until I had sorted things out in my mind.

The rest of the evening went by fairly normally. I studied and worked on a paper. One of the problems with being an English major was the never-ending succession of papers I had to write. I managed to immerse myself in normal activities, and by bedtime I had nearly forgotten about Conrad Williams and all the Roman gods. Once in bed, my relief turned out to be short-lived, however.

I was in a war.

Oh, I knew it was all a dream, but it was vivid beyond any dream I had ever experienced before. I was a man again, dressed in desert camouflage. I could feel the sweat on my face dripping from the uncomfortable beard stubble. It was ungodly hot–even hotter when I faced toward the sun. The air was sickeningly moist, in spite of the dry sand all around my men and me.

“Captain, HQ wants us to move forward!” That was from one of my men. Somehow, I knew his name was Sergeant Forrester.

Before I could answer him, there was a shrill whistle overhead followed by an explosion a couple of hundred yards behind us.

“Damn it, don’t they know we’re already in artillery range?” I yelled back at him over the noise of the explosion.

“They’re taking care of that right now sir!”

As if on cue, two F-14s streaked over us at low altitude. I never got to answer the sergeant. The bright desert sun was suddenly replaced by the cool darkness of my room. The stifling heat of camos worn for two straight days was replaced by the cool fabric of my nightgown. Reflexively, I put my hand to my face relieved to feel smooth, soft skin on my chin.

I looked over at the clock. It was three in the morning–0300 Military Time. How were my men doing? Then I remembered that they all did fine. The F-14s took out the artillery for us. We moved forward, hitching up with another unit just like HQ wanted.

No...

They were there–all of my memories. Or perhaps I should say all of Conrad Williams’ memories. But that was saying the same thing, wasn’t it? After all, I was Conrad Williams.

God, what had happened to me? I had been trapped for two years in the body of a girl. I had worn skirts and makeup. I had joined a sorority. I had made love to... to...

Those bastards! Gods? They weren’t gods; they were devils. They had no right to do this to me, to take away my life and replace it with this simpering, giggling, infantile girl!

Still fuming, I got up and rushed over to my desk. Fumbling about in the dark, I managed to find the card Chip had given me. I was mindful of the fact that it was the middle of the night, but some things just could not wait. I slipped out of the room and found the house phone furthest from my sleeping ‘sisters.’

“Hum-oh,” a sleepy male voice mumbled in a comical attempt to say hello.

“I need to talk with you, Chip.”

“April?”

Of course it’s April, I said to myself. What other girl would call him up at three in the morning?

“We need to talk, Chip–in person.” I certainly didn’t want anyone in the house hearing what I had to say.

“Will breakfast do?”

I thought about my schedule. I had a class at nine I couldn’t afford to cut but was free until then. “Where do you want to meet?”

“How about Nellie’s?”

Ugh! Nellie’s Grill wasn’t exactly the sort of place coeds from Capta College went for breakfast. But from my memories, it was the sort of place Conrad Williams might show up for a photo op when he was trying to be just one of the boys. “All right. Seven thirty?”

“See you then.”

Conrad Williams might have enjoyed Nellie’s but I didn’t. By morning, I was probably more April than Conrad once again. I was wearing jeans, a sweater and a leather jacket against the morning chill when I entered Nellie’s, but the looks I was getting from the almost exclusively male patrons made me wonder if I had been magically dressed in a bikini. All conversation stopped except for the middle-aged transparent waitress who was yelling out an order to an unseen cook in back.

I looked around, relieved as I spotted Chip in a booth all the way in back. I rushed to join him, trying unsuccessfully to walk without swivelling my hips. God, haven’t men got anything better to do than watch girls walking?

“You sounded pretty shook up last night,” Chip remarked as he poured a cup of coffee for me. I was not a big coffee fan. No, that’s not right. April Stewart was not a big coffee fan. Conrad Williams was. I gratefully accepted the coffee, taking a sip of it black just the way Conrad liked it. The bitter taste was not pleasant.

“I’m sorry about that,” I said as I added two packets of sugar to the cup–the only way April Stewart could stand the stuff. I looked him in the eye. “Look, I want to join you.”

Chip shifted back in his seat and looked at me critically. “What changed your mind?”

I told him about the dream and how I now had all of Conrad Williams’ memories banging around in my head.

His eyes narrowed. “So now you want to be Conrad Williams again?”

I hesitated. Did I? I answered slowly, “I’m not sure, but I have to do something. I can’t have two people’s memories all the time. Look at me–I can’t even drink a cup of coffee without deciding if it’s April Stewart or Conrad Williams in control.”

He nodded with understanding. “Nancy has the same problem. Corey probably does, too.”

“But that means you don’t?” I asked, suddenly curious about Chip.

His reply was delayed by the appearance of the waitress. We both ordered–a full Southern-style breakfast for Chip and a poached egg on toast and orange juice for me. Then Chip told me, “I guess it’s easier for me. At least I’m still the same sex.”

“But not the same race, I’ll bet.”

He looked at me in surprise.

I laughed, “It wasn’t too hard to figure out. Flip Washington is a rather unusual name for a white guy.”

He grinned back. “Yeah, I guess so. To make it worse, my real name was Abdul Mohammed Washington. My parents were into that Islamic stuff.”

“But not you,” I prompted.

He shook his head. “No, I was raised by an aunt–a Baptist aunt–after my parents died. I was only five when they were killed in a car crash. My aunt thought I reminded her of the old comedian, Flip Wilson. The name sort of stuck.”

“So I assume you want to get back to your old life.”

He shook his head. “No way. I’m happy here. Now don’t start thinking it’s because I’m white now instead of black. I was fine being black. It’s just here I’m free to be who I was meant to be. You see, April, I was your poster boy for ‘black dude grows up in the ghetto and works his way out by becoming a successful athlete’ story. And sure, I was big and looked plenty mean. My aunt didn’t have much money–certainly not enough to send me to college. So I had to depend on an athletic scholarship to go to college.

“Once I got to Oklahoma, the coaches told me that I should major in something easy to keep me eligible for football. I was a pretty good student in high school, but they seemed to think I was nothing but a big dumb jock. After a while, it was as if I was majoring in football. When I got out of school with a degree in Recreational Studies, about the only thing I was qualified to do was play football.”

“At least you were lucky enough to play in the NFL,” I pointed out. I should know. The game Chip had mentioned where I scored big against Nebraska had ended my chances at an NFL career. My knee had been repairable–enough so to get me into the military. But NFL scouts were sure I’d never be able to make it in the pros. After a few months in the Marines grimacing every time strenuous activity caused my knee to hurt, I was convinced they were right.

“I know, but here I can do what I really want to do.”

“Teach physics?”

“How did you know that?” he asked suspiciously just as our breakfasts came.

“Easy,” I grinned. “One of the girls in my sorority called you the studliest TA in the Physics Department.”

Chip blushed shyly. He really was studly, I thought. I quickly suppressed that thought. Conrad didn’t like the idea of a man being studly.

Conversation halted again as the waitress put our plates in front of us. The orange juice looked watery and the poached egg looked like something out of the Third World. It was better than Chip’s plate though. How he could eat that greasy junk was beyond me. I think even the Conrad side of me was a little disgusted.

“Why physics?” I asked while trying to determine if my poached egg was edible.

“Why not physics?” he returned as he cut up a thick slab of ham into bite-sized chunks. “You think maybe a poor black guy from the ghetto can’t handle physics?”

He said it as a joke, but now it was my turn to blush. “No, of course not. I guess I mean if you don’t want your old life back, why are you helping Corey when you ought to be uncovering the Secrets of the Universe?”

“But that’s exactly what I’m doing,” he countered. “Think about it. These gods have created a town out of nowhere and changed humans to populate it. Talk about your Secrets of the Universe! They already know them–or at least some of them. Corey and Nancy and all the other revolutionary cells can do whatever they please. I just want to know more about our jailers and how they do it. I’m content to stay here for the rest of my life if I can learn even a part of their secrets.”

I nodded in understanding. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to live my life as April Stewart or more like Conrad Williams, but I, too, wanted to know why the gods had done this to us. I wasn’t about to sit back and do nothing about it. As a member of Congress, I had always felt I had a mission to do what was best for America. It was too much of a stretch to think that ancient gods screwing around with American citizens was good for America. I might not be the powerful person I had once been, but I’d do what I could.

“So how do I join?” I asked flippantly. “Do I sign my name in blood or take a secret oath?”

“If you want,” Chip laughed as he sopped a piece of toast in a pool of disgusting grits. “But seriously, just go see Corey. She works over at the college in Purchasing. Just tell her you’re in and she’ll find something for you to do.”

“Something to do?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Don’t worry; it won’t be anything dangerous. Mostly, we just look things up for her–you know, stuff from the library or something in the local newspapers. She says other cells handle some of the dangerous tasks. We just gather information.”

That suited me fine. Information was what I wanted. I had no desire to storm the City Hall and drag The Judge out of his chambers while others fired the building. Besides, even if some of the other cells had such violent revolutionary plans, what good would they do against the power of gods? Before they were able to fire the building, they’d probably all be changed into weasels or something. Gathering information seemed to be a no-risk proposition. Of course, at the time I had no idea what that might entail.

Chip chivalrously paid for my breakfast and walked me past the ogling male clientele to my car. “Maybe I ought to go with you to see Corey,” he suggested.

“I’ve got class now,” I told him, opening the door to my little Ford Focus. “I’ll have to see her later.” Impulsively, I leaned over and gave him a kiss on his cheek. Conrad didn’t like that but for April it felt sort of nice. “Thanks for your help, Chip.”

“Hey, all I did was talk to you.”

I smiled. “And that’s just what I needed.”

I felt almost normal in my classes. Losing myself in the lectures, I felt almost like my old self–or maybe I should say like my new old self or my April self. Even the transparent people didn’t bother me much. After a quick lunch at the Student Union with a couple of my sorority sisters and an early afternoon class, I was almost ready to forget the whole thing, blow Corey off, and live out my life as April.

But then I realized it would soon be another night–a night with dreams of a previous life most likely. If they continued, the thoughts and attitudes of Conrad Williams might become stronger in my waking psyche. If they were, I’d slowly either go mad or lose my ability to function as a normal woman. Already Conrad’s thoughts were encroaching on April’s life in ways that might eventually be disastrous. If I could figure out what was happening in Ovid, I might have a chance of finding out how to control my two selves.

I walked into Corey’s office just as she was gathering up her belongings to leave for the day. Actually, I had planned it that way. I hadn’t realized that her job in Purchasing actually entailed running the department for the college, giving her a private office. She gave me a warm smile as I entered. “April! How nice to see you.”

“I’ve been thinking about what you told me,” I said without any preamble. “I want to help.”

I went on to explain to her my reasons for helping her group, and she seemed to accept them at face value. “So you don’t want to be male again?” she asked when I had finished.

“I don’t remember saying that,” I told her from my seat across the desk from her. I was having trouble verbalizing exactly what I did want. I would have thought Corey would have no trouble understanding that. She had been a businessman after all. She knew what it was like to have memories of being both a man and a woman just as I did. Apparently she had learned to reconcile her two genders better.

“But you did say you were having trouble dealing with both sets of memories,” she reminded me. “You know April Stewart is an artificial creation. And from what you’ve told me, Conrad Williams was a powerful man. Surely you want to go back to that life.”

I didn’t respond. The fact of the matter was I had been thinking about that very thing all day. Why was I so reluctant to return to my former life? Corey was right. I knew my memories of growing up as a girl were as false as the transparent people walking the streets of Ovid. Wouldn’t it be better–cleaner really–to find a way to return to the life of an important figure–a member of Congress no less?

But could I do that? I remembered the plane trouble. I felt in my heart that we would have surely crashed and died without the intervention of The Judge and his cronies. Then there would be no glorious future for me. I had no idea what had happened to my staff, but obviously The Judge had changed them as well. Maybe like me, they had not remembered who they had been before. Would it be fair to yank them out of their new lives and return them to lives they didn’t even remember? Was that even possible?

But on the other hand, if The Judge could change reality so completely, why couldn’t he have rescued us from the plane crash? Just think–I could be returned to that moment. Dusty could find a way to pull the plane up again. We’d go on to Muskogee and then on to Tulsa. The next day, I’d be reunited with my wife in Oklahoma City in plenty of time to make the big rally my supporters had planned for me there. Then it would be on to victory in the primary. Then I’d be governor. Then things would really start rolling...

Yes, I thought, things would be rolling all right. I’d be a man again, but a middle-aged one. I’d be saddled with an unhappy marriage that existed only to satisfy the political ambitions of my wife and me. Life as April Stewart was almost a vacation compared to the life I had been a part of before. I was young and attractive, and I had been female long enough for it to seem perfectly natural.

Of course, April Stewart was not exactly perfect, I thought as I tried to see her from the perspective of Conrad Williams. She was vain and shallow in many ways. While an attractive brunette, she acted at times more like a blonde Valley Girl, flirting hopelessly with boys and even going to bed with ones she found attractive enough to date regularly. Her grades were mediocre, choosing to spend most of her time in social activities. In some ways, she was a poor little rich girl–the pampered youngest child of a Tulsa businessman who had been able to give his only daughter a nice car, pretty clothes, and an education which would allow her to meet plenty of eligible and intelligent guys, one of whom would probably marry her and keep her as her parents had before.

My God, I realized, there was the problem. After I left Corey’s office, I walked back to the sorority house realizing that I didn’t mind being April Stewart. I just didn’t want to be the April Stewart I had been for the last two years. I wanted to be... another April Stewart–one who could make a difference just as Conrad Williams had wanted to.

Myra Smithwick and a couple of other girls were studying in the dining room when I got back to the house. She looked up from her book and smiled wickedly. “Your new boyfriend just called.”

“What boyfriend?” I asked. I had been so deep in thought I had forgotten that they all thought of Chip as my boyfriend. “Oh, you mean Chip. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s just... a friend who’s a boy.”

Myra and the other girls broke into a fit of uncontrollable giggles. “And you’re not his girlfriend,” one of them mocked in a singsong voice. “You’re just his friend who’s a girl.”

There was more laughter at that and I could feel my face flush. There was no sense in trying to make them understand, I realized as I rolled my eyes and ran up the stairs to my room hoping that Laurel wasn’t back from classes yet. I wanted to use our phone in privacy.

Chip answered on the first ring. “What’s up?” I asked.

I could almost sense him shrugging. “Nothing much. I just thought I’d see if you talked to Corey today.”

“Yeah, I did.” I had thought he might be calling me up with an assignment already. I told him as much.

“No,” he laughed. “Corey doesn’t demand much of our time. Weeks go by without anything from her. She says she uses that time to coordinate with other cells. I just called to see if you wanted to go to a movie with me tonight.”

“A date?” I didn’t mean to yell that into the phone, but Chip caught me by surprise.

“Well... yes.”

It wasn’t as if I had never had a date before. I had dated lots of guys, and the old April Stewart would have said yes in a heartbeat–especially to a guy as good looking as Chip. But I had Conrad Williams to worry about now, and the Conrad part of me nearly puked at the idea of dating another... I mean a guy.

He sensed my reluctance when I didn’t say anything, so he pressed on, “Look, April, you and I may have to work together on projects. It wouldn’t hurt for us to get to know each other better. Besides, your sorority sisters will just think I’m the guy you’ve started dating.”

“Oh? Did you ask Nancy out when you two first met?”

“I might have if she hadn’t been married with two kids.”

I hadn’t realized Nancy had a family. Talk about a rude awakening! That meant she woke up one day to find not only that her manhood was gone but that she had family responsibilities as well. No wonder Nancy acted a little flaky. If I had been in her shoes, I would have been an absolute basket case. Of course come to think of it, I was something of a basket case right now.

“Chip,” I said as gently as I could, “I don’t think it would be a good idea. I really need to study...”

He was silent for a moment. I cringed a little, the Conrad part of me remembering similar rejections when I was a young man. “Maybe this weekend?” he asked quietly.

The April side of me knew he wasn’t going to give up easily. I was too confused though to start dating someone. It wasn’t just the Conrad side of me. My breakup with Paul had hurt me deeply and I needed some time to think. But on the other hand, I was an attractive girl. Other boys were already finding out about the breakup with Paul. They’d start asking me out as well. And my sorority sisters would want to know why I had stopped dating altogether. I couldn’t very well tell any of them what had happened, could I?

Maybe dating Chip wouldn’t be such a bad idea. It would keep other boys and my sorority sisters from pestering me. And since Chip knew my situation, I could keep him at bay. Besides, I thought wickedly enough to cause the Conrad in me to wince, Chip was kind of cute.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, we can do something together this weekend.”

I don’t think winning the lottery would have made Chip feel any better. I had to smile in spite of myself as he enthusiastically made plans to take me to dinner and a movie on Friday night. Nothing fancy, you understand, but a real live date. I got the distinct impression Chip didn’t get out much.

Laurel had walked into the room as I was finishing up with Chip. I hadn’t realized she had been discretely listening to my side of the conversation. When I hung up, she teased, “What’s this? April Stewart actually turned down a date on a school night to study?”

“And what’s wrong with that?” I wanted to know.

Laurel grinned. “It’s just unusual for you to put classes over your social life.”

I just shrugged. She was right, I realized. April Stewart had never been much of a dedicated student. I was majoring in English with the idea of someday becoming an English teacher. It wasn’t what I really wanted, though. I–or rather April–had come to college to meet eligible guys, one of whom would marry me and support me in the good old-fashioned way. I was my mother’s daughter, and that’s what she had done.

All of a sudden, that didn’t seem like much of a goal. If I was going to be April Stewart for the rest of my life, the part of me that had been someone else had more ambition than that. Conrad Williams had been a powerful man with aspirations to become president. Was April Stewart going to just sit back and let some guy sweep her off her feet and run her life for her? Not any more she wasn’t.

I actually did what I told Chip I was going to do that night; I studied. April’s notes were a mess, and I was embarrassed to see little flowers and clouds drawn in the margin of sparse notes. I’d have to start paying more attention in class. Otherwise, I would be forced to adopt Plan B and let some guy sweep me off my feet because I’d never be much of an English teacher.

One course I had the next day was political science. Science... ha! Politics wasn’t a science; it was an art. I don’t know which disgusted me more as I read the assignment for the next day’s class–the simplicity of the text or the unrealistic, totally idealistic message it conveyed. My years in Congress had taught me that the people who went into the field with the idealistic views expressed in the text were reduced to dog meat in a few weeks. Politics was rough and tumble. A politician had to be able to stand up in front of a business audience and tell them why they should support him or her and then walk right across the street and tell an audience of labor union members why he or she deserved their support when both audiences were on opposite sides of many of the issues.

Thoughts like that were still rolling around in my head when I sat down for Professor Wheeler’s political science lecture the next morning. I had always liked Professor Wheeler although I was struggling by with a C in his course. He was real and not one of the transparent people who made up most of the students in the class. With his white hair and neatly-trimmed beard, he seemed more like a professor out of another era. Yet he was sharp and witty and his lectures were punctuated with references to political campaigns he had participated in. Perhaps he was a Rem who had actually been in on those campaigns, or perhaps he had the implanted memories the rest of us were given. Whichever the case, his stories smacked of real politics and even involved men I had known in my days as a congressman.

“Ms. Stewart!”

I was about to be called upon. Professor Wheeler had a nasty habit of calling upon some of the slower students to feed him wrong answers so he could set them–and the entire class–straight. It also meant we all had to pay attention–especially those of us whose performance in his class was mediocre.

“Yes?”

“Who can become President of the United States?”

I knew what he meant. He was looking for the age and citizenship requirements stated in the text. I could have answered them of course, but with my newfound knowledge, I decided to have a little fun with him.

“A little over a hundred and fifty men and women,” I replied.

The answer was so odd that Professor Wheeler looked almost at a loss of what to say. The silence was laced with an occasional snicker. A few students had decided that April was being a ditz today.

“Would you explain that remark, Ms. Stewart?” he asked at last.

I laced my fingers and looked up at him from my second row seat, much as a small schoolgirl might do. “The actual requirement according to Article II of the Constitution is that the candidate be at least thirty-five years of age, a natural born citizen of the United States, and a resident of the United States for at least fourteen years. It also covers those who were not natural born but were citizens of the United States at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, but I don’t think there are any of them left around.”

He actually looked a little stricken. Lots of people could recite the age and “natural born” rule but not the others. “But a moment ago you said...”

“I know what I said,” I replied. “I was just being pragmatic. Actually, while a large number of Americans are eligible to become president, only a few actually can become president–which was the way you phrased the question.”

He folded his arms, his composure returning. There was actually a little look of satisfaction on his face. He sensed he was in for an interesting discussion. “Then perhaps you had better explain your statement.”

“While the rules of eligibility for the presidency are fairly broad, no one has been elected to the job in almost half a century without having been either Vice President, US Senator or governor of one of the states. The last exception was Eisenhower. Popular winning generals like Eisenhower still have a shot although it isn’t as good a path as it once was.”

“But what about Gerald Ford?” the professor asked. “He was a member of the House of Representatives.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “and he was appointed and not elected. Besides, when he became president, he had already been appointed vice president. When he stood for election, he was defeated by Jimmy Carter–a governor by the way. And when you think about it, being a governor is actually the best way. Four of our last five presidents have been governors or former governors. The last president elected directly from the Senate was John Kennedy in 1960.”

Professor Wheeler’s eyes were actually twinkling now. “And why do you think the Senate is falling behind?”

I shrugged. “Senators have to vote on issues. Their vote becomes a matter of public record. With all the divisive issues facing the nation these days, a US Senator, no matter how personally popular he might be, can have his views brought into question by reviewing his voting record. Governors don’t vote, so their view can be skewed to fit their audiences better. They are also viewed as executives, just as the President of the United States is viewed as an executive. And since they have no foreign policy experience, they are mostly immune from criticism there as well–except for the comment that they obviously lack such experience. Still, it’s usually better to lack the experience than to be judged on their voting record.”

“That would seem to be a very jaundiced viewpoint,” Professor Wheeler noted. Then he smiled. “It is also a very cogent argument.”

I could almost hear the gasps from my fellow students.

“You see don’t you that what she is saying is the reality of politics today?” he went on, addressing the class and turning away from me.

“But doesn’t that mean our system doesn’t work?” a boy toward the back of the room asked.

“On the contrary,” Professor Wheeler returned. “It means it’s working just fine. The electorate has determined that this process of choosing a chief executive from the pool of individuals with the most meaningful experience works very well. Oh, a senator or even a congressman might know more about international relations or the military and how things work on a national scale, but they don’t always know how to manage through staffs and departments as effectively as a governor would.”

He turned back to me. “An excellent analysis, Ms. Stewart.” And with that, he turned back to his lecture. Needless to say, I felt as proud as I had felt in a long, long time. I could almost feel the awed stares of my classmates. Even the political science majors seemed begrudgingly impressed.

Professor Wheeler went on with his lecture, and I listened intently. My April memories were of a class that I was only taking to meet a social studies requirement, but I now found it to be exciting, in spite of the naíve and stupid questions some of the students asked. The naíve questions came from the better students whose sense of idealism would never have worked in the real political world. The stupid questions came from the lesser students who seemed to have little or no idea of how the American political system worked. If required to take the citizenship test foreigners were given before being granted citizenship, they would probably have flunked. I thought with a momentary pang of chagrin that the old April Stewart would probably have failed with them.

As I gathered up my notes after class, Professor Wheeler called out, “Ms. Stewart, could you stay a moment please?”

Uh-oh, I thought. I had tipped my hand inadvertently. I shouldn’t have called attention to myself. My argument had been so out of character for April Stewart that the professor sensed something was wrong. In the future, I’d have to be more subtle.

“Ms. Stewart,” he began once everyone had left the two of us standing and facing each other, “I was intrigued with your argument. It was the sort of discussion I would expect to have with a graduate student–not a young lady who has previously shown little interest in my subject.”

“Oh... well...” I stammered nervously, “I guess I... Well, I guess I just suddenly developed an interest in the subject.”

His eyes narrowed and I seriously wondered if he was going to turn me in to The Judge for further investigation. Then, he allowed himself a small smile, not noticing that I had visibly relaxed at the sight of it. “Well, I suppose it does happen occasionally,” he admitted. “Usually, a student comes into the class prepared to like or dislike the subject and seldom changes his or her mind. Most are just taking the course to meet a requirement and those who are majoring in the subject usually plan to go into law or economics at the graduate level. What is your major, Ms. Stewart?”

“English,” I replied, a little embarrassed to admit it. April, of course, was an English major. Conrad thought it was a worthless subject to specialize in.

“English,” he repeated. “And yet you have a grasp of the political equation that even some members of Congress refuse to accept.”

Wasn’t that the truth? I had known members of Congress who flattered and deluded themselves into thinking that they had a shot at the presidency in spite of the fact that they represented backwater districts or small states without influence. At least I had had sense enough to switch to the governorship before trying to thrust myself upon the national scene.

“Thank you, Professor Wheeler,” I managed to reply.

“Ms. Stewart, what you major in is entirely up to you,” he went on. “But I must say that I suspect you would do very well as a political science major. Have you ever considered it?”

Considered changing majors? I had just found out that I had changed sex. That was enough change to think about for the moment. I shook my head. “No sir.”

He seemed just a little disappointed. “Well, should you ever decide to consider it, please let me know. And I hope you will continue to bring up points such as the ones you had today.” He gave me a fatherly smile.

I returned it and said, “I’d be happy to.”

It was with no small relief that I left the classroom. Thank God he hadn’t gotten too suspicious. I’d have to be more careful in the future. April Stewart was known on campus as a girl who was something of an underachiever when it came to schoolwork and a bit of an overachiever when it came to men. I’d have to be subtle about how I handled both. School wouldn’t be a problem. I had no intention of being a mediocre student just because I had been in the past. April had always had the ability and chosen not to develop it. Conrad, on the other hand, was ambitious and bright. If I had chosen to change my major as Professor Wheeler encouraged, I’d have no problems being an A student. But no matter what I majored in, I’d have to let my tests and papers enhance my reputation for me. Acting too much out of character in class could be dangerous.

As for the overachievement with men, that presented a bigger problem. As April, I had never been promiscuous, but if I really, really cared for a boy, I would go to bed with him. Sex was a mutual expression of love to me, and the act was more than a little enjoyable. The problem was that with Conrad’s memories available to me now, I realized that I had been a little naíve with men. My latest–Paul Danvers–was a perfect example. Handsome as could be, I thought he was as in love with me as I had been with him. We had made love countless times since I had started dating him in the spring. I had obeyed his every wish and satisfied his every whim.

I had only seen Paul once since the breakup. Fortunately, we had no classes together. When I had seen him, he was walking with one of the girls from another sorority. She spotted me first, grinning as if to rub it in my face that she had him now and I was out of luck. I wasn’t as hurt by that, though, as I was by Paul’s reaction: he ignored me. A greeting died on my lips as he looked away and hustled his new girl past me as quickly as he could.

Our breakup two weeks ago was still a source of pain for me, and even Conrad’s pronouncement that I shouldn’t be dating men anyway wasn’t enough to assuage the longing. But even the April side of me was so pissed at Paul for breaking up with me so he could have another girl. Oh, I wanted nothing to do with Paul. He had betrayed me and I didn’t even want to speak to the bastard again. Thank God we had no classes together. But the problem was that I would have to find another boyfriend in a hurry or the girls in the sorority would start to wonder what was wrong with me. What if one of those girls was working for The Judge?

The solution was obvious. Chip had as much as agreed to it. Chip would have to become my new boyfriend, I decided. I had already determined it would make our contacts look perfectly normal. Of course, the Conrad side of me offered a note of niggling doubt. Was the only reason I was going to date Chip for an effective cover? Would I have been nearly as quick to arrive at that solution if Chip had been a scrawny, pimple-faced boy with bad breath? No, probably not. I had to admit that part of my willingness stemmed from the fact that he was a very good-looking guy, but even the Conrad side of my mind had to admit I would have to date someone just to look normal and it might as well be Chip.

My first real date with Chip began that Friday evening. He was adorably nervous as he waited for me in the living room of the sorority house. I can’t say that I blamed him. I could remember Conrad’s college days and the many waits he had experienced in the living room of sorority houses while girl after girl ‘casually’ trooped by to get a look at the new guy her sorority sister had agreed to go out with. Poor Chip. He’d be discussed and rated for acceptability by a dozen girls before I ever walked down the stairs to meet him.

Of course I was a little nervous, too. Sure, as April Stewart I had dated a number of guys–some of which I had known less about than I knew about Chip. But now I had the memories of my former life to contend with as well, and I kept trying to switch my perspective of the date from female to male and back again every few minutes. I hadn’t been able even to get dressed without unwanted thoughts from my male side. I had decided upon the skirt and sweater look for a cool fall evening. A gray sweater, black skirt cut short but not quite a miniskirt, black tights and black flats gave me the well-dressed coed look, but the Conrad in me wondered why I was going to so much trouble for someone I was dating only out of convenience. I had no answer for the suspicious bastard.

Fortunately, Chip was an easy guy to get to know. We decided to share a pizza at Leonardo’s, a little pizza place just off campus. Then we would walk over to the Student Union where fairly new movies were shown every weekend. It wasn’t exactly a thirty-six screen multiplex cinema with auditorium seating, but it was close, cheap and usually fun. I knew a TA didn’t make a whole lot of money, so it was fine with me.

The walk across campus gave Chip a chance to fill me in on some of the elements of Ovid I hadn’t known. He told me about the transparent people–shades he called them. According to Corey, the leaders of some of the other cells thought the shades were just placeholders–not real at all and just elaborate figures of our imagination.

“I don’t believe that, though,” Chip told me as we neared the entrance to Leonardo’s. “I believe they’re some form of life–spirits if you will. They animate the residents of Ovid until The Judge has a victim to put in their place.”

“So you mean there was a shade pretending to be April Stewart until I came along?”

He shook his head as he opened the door. “No, not pretending. The shades are as real as anyone else, and they think they’re who they look like. I always treat them as real people. They’re intelligent and in spite of their insubstantial appearance, they’re solid.”

As if to prove a point, a short bearded man, transparent with a dark Mediterranean appearance smiled at us from behind two menus. “Welcome to Leonardo’s. Two?”

We talked about other things as we ate–classes, our families (or at least the families our current identities were supposed to have. I was relieved to note that Chip’s family in Oklahoma City seemed to be real. That meant mine probably was as well. I had been concerned that our lives outside of Ovid were merely false memories we had been given. Quietly so other around us couldn’t hear, Chip assured me that our families were real. Later as we walked over to the Student Union, he explained, “I don’t think it was always this way. At one time, some of the families outside Ovid must have been imaginary. Nancy has been here in Ovid for several years and remembered when trips out of Ovid to visit relatives had been nothing more than enhanced dreams.

“She told me that when she first got her real memories back, she went on a trip to Kansas City to visit her husband’s family. She thought it was going to be her chance to get away. Then when they reached the edge of town, her husband pulled over to the side of the road as if he were in a trance. She blacked out then, and when she awoke, they were driving back into town and four days had gone by. She ‘remembered’ their trip but knew it had never really occurred.”

“But now you say it’s all real?” I pressed. Ever since I had learned about the gods and Ovid, I had harbored a secret fear that my parents and my sisters back in Tulsa were no more than figments of my imagination.

“Yes,” he replied with a knowing nod. “I’m not sure how, but our families are real. I suspect the gods have managed to find families who have lost loved ones and replace memories of them with memories of us.”

“But that’s horrible! That would mean that my parents have completely forgotten a daughter that they lost.” I had visions of sad graves left unattended and fond memories of loved ones now lost forever.

“But if I’m right, your parents are happy in the knowledge that you are their daughter and that no harm ever befell you.”

“You sound as if you’re defending the gods,” I grumbled pushing my hands deeper into the pockets of my jacket as we walked. I felt cold, and it wasn’t just the temperature of the dusky evening.

He shrugged. “Maybe, but I don’t think like Corey and Nancy do. I’m not convinced that everything the gods do is out of malicious intent. Of course maybe getting one’s sex changed has something to do with their line of thought.”

Did it? Did I think like Nancy and Corey thought? I wasn’t sure. They seemed to hate being women. They wanted their male lives back–or at least someone’s male life. I wasn’t sure I did. While I hadn’t completely made up my mind, I was becoming more convinced that being April Stewart was not all that bad–especially with the changes I had begun to make in her–my–life.

Once we were out of the evening chill and in the Student Union where we both saw many familiar faces, I began to feel normal again. Or perhaps I should say I began to feel normal as April Stewart. A couple of my sorority sisters were there, and of course they came over with their dates anxious to meet Chip. I found myself proud to introduce him to them. He wasn’t the hunk Paul had been, but he was bright and friendly, two things Paul was not. Come to think of it, what had I seen in Paul anyway?

The movie was one that had been around for a while but I had missed it on its first run. It was called ‘Legally Blonde’ with Reese Witherspoon. I think I had avoided it because it looked pretty lame with Witherspoon playing a vacuous Valley Girl who had somehow managed to get into law school. The funny thing was that as I watched it, I realized there was more to her role than I had imagined. I was so engrossed in the movie that I scarcely noticed when Chip put an arm around me. Instinctively, I snuggled against him without losing my concentration on the movie.

After a while, I began to identify with Witherspoon’s character. I began to realize I was very much like the girl she portrayed. Oh, that isn’t to say that I was beauty pageant ‘cutesy’ like her character started off. And I didn’t have a little dog, seldom wore heels of more than an inch or so, and hadn’t been looking for a proposal of marriage–at least not yet. But like her character, I had devoted considerable effort to my social life with little thought of what the future might bring. The Conrad in me, always goal-oriented and ambitious, found enough parallels between my life as April and Witherspoon’s character to be disturbing.

Odds were good that I was stuck as April Stewart forever. Unlike Corey or Nancy, I had no real hopes of being turned back into a man no matter how successful we were in learning about the gods. But I had no intention of being stuck as the borderline bimbo April seemed to be taken as. That was when I really got into Witherspoon’s metamorphosis, and by the end of the movie, I was well satisfied with the results. I only hoped April Stewart’s life would turn out as well.

“Did you like it?”

I was leaning into Chip’s body as we walked back across campus. His arm was encircling my waist and I found that I actually liked it there. It made me warm against the chill of the evening and helped me feel somehow secure. “Yeah, it was cute,” I replied. “Maybe I ought to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Go to law school.” Many–in fact most–of my associates in Congress had law degrees, although many had never been practicing lawyers. I had always felt a little disadvantaged when bills were being brought to the floor and often had to depend too heavily upon my staff for the legal details. It might be fun to get a law degree this time around.

“You can if you want to,” Chip commented. “Since they don’t think you have your memories, they won’t stop you from leaving town to go to law school.”

There was another reason to be careful in Ovid. Without my memories of my previous life, I was no danger to the gods. However, if they knew I was aware of who I had been, I might not be allowed to leave town at all. From the way Corey and the others talked, that was the way it worked. The Rems were strictly controlled while the rest of us lived pretty normal lives, including no real restrictions on travel.

All too soon, we were at the front door of my sorority house. “I had a great time tonight,” I told Chip, facing him at the door. It was true, too. Chip was a refreshing change from the guys I had dated before. He was the first guy I had dated in a long time who hadn’t tried to get his hands in my pants on the first date. Of course, I guess that just showed what bad taste I had shown in men.

Oh, he did kiss me goodnight, but it was a gentle kiss that even the Conrad in me seemed to find unobjectionable. I returned it in kind, thinking as I did that in spite of its gentleness, it was the most dramatic kiss I had enjoyed in a long time.

We mumbled goodnight to each other and I slipped into the still-lit living room of the sorority, steeling myself against the barrage of questions from the dateless ones.

“What’s he like?”

“How far did you let him go?”

“Is he in a fraternity?”

“Which one?”

“He’s a serial killer; we had sex twelve times–thirteen if you count the time with the dog. And he’s too cool for a fraternity.”

“Aw!” came the collective moan from the four girls who had interrupted a marathon bridge game to interrogate me. I just smiled and headed up to my room. Part of the smile was inward, wondering what the four girls would have thought if I had told them the truth about Chip.

Chip called me on Saturday to ask me out again. I begged off because I really did have a lot of schoolwork to do which would take me the rest of the weekend. As April, I had been so wrapped up in my social life that I had let my studies slide. Now I had a lot of making up to do. I was carrying no more than a C in every subject. That was no longer acceptable. I was discovering the Conrad side of my personality was far too ambitious to accept mediocrity.

It’s funny, but I had never thought of my performance in class as mediocre before. Now I found myself snorting in contempt at the girls in the house who were throwing themselves in front of boys at the expense of their studies. But it wasn’t as if I was seeing them just through Conrad’s eyes. I still thought of myself as April Stewart in spite of Conrad’s vivid memories. It was as if the Conrad persona had forced me to awaken a part of myself that I had never recognized before.

It even made me rethink my agreement to join Corey’s cell. Much of my reason for joining was because I was infuriated at the thought of anyone–even a god–messing with my life or more nobly, the lives of others. Unlike Nancy or Corey, I didn’t want to be a man again. Well, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be male again if I could be a male my–April’s–age. But I didn’t want to be a middle-aged man again. Even the Conrad side of me had come to realize that youth as a girl was preferable to middle age in either sex.

Besides, all of my thoughts for more than two years were the thoughts of a young woman. Kissing Chip romantically was actually pleasant–once Conrad got over his misgivings. The thought of kissing one of my sorority sisters romantically didn’t do a whole lot for me. Of course, part of that acceptance from my Conrad side probably had something to do with the fact that as Conrad Williams, I had not enjoyed a very good love life. My wife and I had maintained our marriage primarily for political reasons, and while I knew she had enjoyed a discrete tryst or two (or more), I had restrained myself. The media was always ready to unveil a sexual scandal involving a politician and I had always valued my political life over my sexual life.

Of course now, I didn’t have a political life to worry about. And as April, I had enjoyed an active sexual life. Even guys like Paul who I never wanted to see again had been darn good in bed. I had memories of Conrad’s sexual endeavors, and there was nothing in any of them to compare with the experiences I had enjoyed as April.

So why was I avoiding Chip?

Well, I wasn’t, I reminded myself. I just had a lot of studying to do. Chip could wait.

I was taken aback by my own thought, putting the textbook I had been reading aside on my desk and leaning back. Sure, I had a lot of studying to do, but why did Chip have to wait?

Conrad could influence April but the opposite was true as well. Both sides of my personality were strong enough to make themselves heard, and it was the April side of me that was able to realize that Chip wasn’t the only person I had made wait in my life. My wife–Conrad’s wife–had been forced to wait, too. First, Louise had to wait while I established my military career. When my wounds forced me to give up on my goals in the military, she had to wait while I established myself as a politician worthy enough to rise to the very pinnacle of power. Meetings, junkets, speeches, and strategy sessions all took time away from a marriage, and since Louise couldn’t have children, she didn’t even have motherhood to console her from my absence. No wonder she hated me. I almost hated myself.

On an impulse, I picked up the phone and dialled Chip’s number.

“Hello?”

“Hi. I just felt like a study break.”

“Uh... you mean just on the phone?”

“I had something a little more personal in mind.”

“I can be there in ten minutes... no, make that fifteen. I need to shave.”

I was actually giggling when I hung up the phone.

I suppose all work and no play was making April a very dull girl. I resolved to remedy that situation. No, I wasn’t reverting to the old April’s routine of social before scholastic. I was merely learning to bring the two into balance.

The day was warm for late October, but the growing piles of leaves in Sooner Park were ample evidence that winter was near. I was glad I had chosen to wear a tank top and shorts. It would probably be my last chance to do so, for even then I knew I’d be too cool once the sun began to set.

“That tree used to be a drug dealer,” Chip told me, pointing at a large oak near the entrance to the park. “Or so they say.”

“Huh?” I returned, stopping to look at the majestic tree. “The Judge can do that, too?”

Chip nodded. “Yeah. I guess that makes us a couple of the lucky ones. He can change people into plants or animals if he wants to. From what I hear, he reserves fates like that for the criminal element. You notice there aren’t any drugs in Ovid.”

I hadn’t really thought about that before. Sure, other places had drugs, but there weren’t any in Ovid. Come to think of it, no one smoked either. Yet in spite of this being different from the outside world, it had seemed entirely normal to me until Chip had mentioned it.

“Maybe The Judge isn’t such a bad guy after all,” I commented, meaning it as I looked at the tree again. I thought back at all the hours we spent in Congress debating anti-drug bills that never seemed to work. Maybe changing dealers into trees was the answer. Jupiter for President!

To any curious eyes, we appeared to be just two young people enjoying a fleetingly warm Saturday, and I suppose that was just what we were. Chip had brought along a Frisbee which we threw for awhile. Fortunately, he took it easy on me. I was cursed with being the poster child for throwing like a girl. Later we trudged through the leaves, kicking them up in the light breeze and laughing like two small children. We even threw ourselves down in a pile of leaves, wrestling with each other until our lips met...

It was more than just the warmth of the sun that made my body melt as we lay there together. As Conrad, I had denied myself the physical love of another human being for far too long, and as April, I had indulged in the physical without fully appreciating any deeper relationship. But that was changing now.

“Chip...”

He propped up on one arm. “Yes?”

“Let’s go back to your place.”

The expression on his face left no doubt that he understood exactly what I was proposing. “Are you sure?”

“Aren’t you?”

He smiled. “I’ve wanted to do that since the moment I met you.”

I feigned shock. “What? You’ve always wanted to make love to a middle-aged politician?”

He leaned over and gave me a gentle kiss. “What middle-aged politician?”

Conrad kept his mental mouth shut, for which I will be eternally grateful for I had never had a lover like Chip before. He was gentle with me, and unlike Paul whose idea of foreplay was like Jesse James hopping in the saddle for a getaway after a bank robbery, Chip made very sure I was ready before he entered me. Ready? No, that word doesn’t convey what he did to me. I was aching with desire when he finally pushed in.

When I was finally able to think with my mind again, Chip was holding me gently. I had never had a lover like him before. Oh, that makes it sound as if I had had many. In fact, Chip was on a very short list. Since graduating from high school I had been what is commonly referred to as “serially monogamous.” Sure, I made love to my boyfriends, but only after we had managed to establish a non-sexual relationship first.

Until Paul.

When Paul took me I suppose it could have been construed as rape. After all, I told him no but forgave him afterward. Lying there, I began to realize that with Paul I had begun to slide down a very slippery slope. With the other boys, I made love; with Paul, I had sex. If I hadn’t awakened the Conrad side of me, I might have run right into the arms of another Paul. Conrad emerged for just a moment to ask me how I had ever gotten mixed up with a jerk like Paul. I had no answer for him.

Chip hugged me a little tighter, making me feel good. “Look, I’m sorry...”

“Sorry for what?” I asked, confused.

“I didn’t mean for us to... you know.”

I pulled out of his embrace and faced him eye to eye. To his credit, he met my gaze instead of looking down at my bare breasts. “Look, I asked you as I remember.”

He looked down at the wrinkled sheet between us. “But I never meant to...”

“Not at all?” I teased.

That got a little smile out of him. “Well, maybe sometime. I just...” He leaned back. “April, I don’t know what it is, but I was attracted to you the moment I saw you. But I figured you’d be like Corey and Nancy... you know, upset over being a girl. I didn’t want to impose.”

“I’m not Nancy or Corey,” I reminded him. “Sure, I remember being a man. I was a pretty good man, too. But until a few days ago, I thought I had always been April Stewart. Yeah, I can understand how Corey and Nancy want to be men again, but I don’t. Conrad Williams is quickly becoming like a favorite uncle. He can give me advice and hold my hand but he can’t run my life.”

Chip nodded. “I think I understand. That’s the way I feel about Flip. He’s part of me but he isn’t all that is me. Does that make sense?”

“Probably only to someone like me,” I laughed.

We were both silent for a moment until I looked down and saw that his withered penis was starting to recover. “Want another dance?” I asked him flippantly.

“I don’t know if I can,” he groaned.

“Sure you can,” I replied, taking the uncertain member in my hand as I bent over to take him in my mouth.

“Look, you don’t have to...”

“But I want to,” I informed him. Jeff, my first lover after high school liked blowjobs, and I found out I really didn’t mind giving them.

“But...”

“Quiet! I’m busy.”

He was quiet but not for long...

If I had expected joining the cell to be like starring in a spy movie, I would have been disappointed. Corey only contacted me once and that was by phone. She told me in a very conversational tone that there was an opening for a student assistant in President Vest’s office. To anyone listening in on the phone, it would have sounded as if an employee of the college was just trying to help a struggling student she knew get a part-time job. I realized, though, that it was actually my marching orders. I had no idea why Corey wanted me to take the job but I dutifully rushed right over to Administration and applied for the job. Something told me the fix was in and no matter how many students applied the job would be mine.

I didn’t hear back from Admin until Friday, but the week was busy enough that I didn’t have much time to think about it. As if catching up in all my classes wasn’t going to be hard enough, my period hit on Monday. No wonder I had been so damned horny over the weekend. I had left Chip with a smile on his face that might never go away. Fortunately, my period was a fairly mild one so it didn’t give me cause to rethink my decision to stay female no matter what happened. Of course, the remaining Conrad attitudes made it a little harder to deal with my period but not so much harder that I couldn’t handle it.

The strangest thing to happen to me that week was completely unexpected. I was sitting on a couch in the living room of the sorority house when it began. It was Wednesday and my period was down to being a mild annoyance. I had just finished lunch and didn’t have a class until two, so I used the time to study on the couch since I was one of the few in the house without a one o’clock class.

I heard a car pull up in front of the house, and out of curiosity I craned my neck around to see a white police cruiser with Ovid Municipal Police in blue letters on the side of the car. A tall, lanky officer got out of the driver’s side and I felt a frigid chill as I recognized him as the very one who had escorted Conrad Williams and his party into The Judge’s courtroom.

Had the cell been uncovered? I wondered fearfully. Surely it couldn’t have been, could it? And if it was, what was going to happen to me? What was going to happen to the others–especially Chip? What if they took us before The Judge and changed us again and we forgot once more? I couldn’t stand the thought of losing Chip that way.

It was with deep relief that I saw him walk over to the passenger door and open it. There was a girl sitting there and I knew at once she had to be one of my sorority sisters. I chastised myself then for being relieved. One of my sisters wouldn’t be riding in a police car for no reason. I wondered who it was and what had happened to her.

She got out of the car with a little assistance from the officer–Mercer was his name I remembered. She was about my height and build, wearing tight jeans and a white cotton blouse. Her hair was light blonde and there was a look of confusion on her pretty face. “Oh God, it’s Laurel!” I mumbled out loud, realizing at once that it was my roommate, Laurel Jacobson.

But she looked different, I thought to myself as she walked unsteadily up the sidewalk on the arm of Officer Mercer. It took me a moment to realize what was different–I could no longer see through her. She was as solid as I was, and that meant...

I liked Laurel; I really did. We had become friends from the first moment we pledged together. When I had awakened with Conrad’s memories and saw for the first time the faintly transparent nature of my roommate, I was a little frightened, but I realized quickly that it was still Laurel. In my short time of awareness in Ovid, I knew that the Laurel I had known and who had been my best friend in the sorority was no more. The Judge had changed another poor unwary soul into Laurel to replace my friend and I hated him for it.

Did the girl know who she had been? It was hard to say, but from the shock on her face, I had to guess she was just coming to grips with the fact that something she would have believed impossible if she had ever thought about it had, indeed, happened to her.

I was alone in the living room and unsure as to how I should react to her. I couldn’t let on that I knew what had happened to her. If I did, I’d risk the entire cell. I’d have to play it cool and just treat her as if there was nothing wrong. I braced myself to not act strangely when the officer and his charge entered.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry about it. Before they came in, Myra Smithwick bolted down the stairs as if she were on a mission. She glanced over at me, surprised to see me sitting there, but she recovered quickly. I just tried to act normally and looked back down at the textbook I had been studying just as the door opened.

“Can I help you?” Myra asked, but I could tell from her voice and the lack of surprise upon seeing the officer that she had been expecting him.

“Ms. Jacobson here was feeling a little faint,” Officer Mercer said in his official, noncommittal voice. “I decided it would be best if I gave her a ride home.”

“Laurel!” I gasped in my best acting style. “What’s wrong?” I threw the book down and rushed over to her, taking her trembling hand in mine. I didn’t really want to do it and frighten her more but it wouldn’t have seemed natural if I hadn’t been concerned about my roommate and best friend. After all, I wasn’t supposed to know what was really happening, was I?

“She should be all right,” Officer Mercer assured us, looking at me as if he had never seen me before. Apparently I wasn’t the only good actor in the room. “She should be fine with a little rest.”

I put my arm around her. “I’ll take her up to our room and put her in bed.”

“No, April, I’ll do it,” Myra volunteered suddenly. “You have a class at two, don’t you?”

“Well, yes...”

“Then let me take her up,” she offered holding Laurel from the other side. “You go ahead and go to class.”

“I’d be glad to drive you to your class,” Officer Mercer interjected.

Sure. He just wanted to make certain I wasn’t around when Myra took care of Laurel. It would have been only natural for April to do just what I was about to do–help Myra with my roommate. I had to know what was going on, but I didn’t dare seem too curious. “Thanks for the offer,” I told Officer Mercer as calmly as I could. “My class is only a couple of blocks and I need the exercise after lunch. I’ll just walk.”

Myra had already gotten Laurel halfway up the stairs and was looking around to make sure I was gone. I dramatically looked down at my watch. “Oh! I didn’t realize it was so late! I’d better start walking now.” I gathered up my text and a notebook and hustled out of the house without looking back. In a moment, I heard the door of the police car open and shut, and seconds later watched as Officer Mercer’s car turned at the corner and headed in the general direction of City Hall. When I was sure he was gone, I doubled back to the house.

I tiptoed up the stairs of the sorority house to the third floor landing. The room I shared with Laurel was there and I was pretty sure Myra would have taken her there since her own room was in a busier part of the house. There were fewer rooms on the third floor and all of my sorority sisters who shared the floor were in class. As a result, I had to be very quiet. I could hear Myra’s muffled voice through the closed door of my room.

“...a few days to get settled in,” she was saying. “Until then, you’ll need to be careful. Not everyone remembers their previous lives.”

“Does... does my roommate? What did you say her name was?” Laurel’s voice asked timidly.

“April Stewart,” Myra replied. “And no, she doesn’t remember who she was.”

“Was she a... a... man before–like me?”

“I don’t really know.”

There was a sudden tearful cry from the new girl. “Oh, I can’t do this! I can’t be a girl. You’ve got to take me back to The Judge. He’s made a terrible mistake.”

“It wouldn’t do you any good,” Myra insisted. “Believe me, I know. My mother works for Susan Jager–your defense counsel. It can be downright dangerous trying to get The Judge to change his mind. I’ve never seen it happen myself.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” she wailed. “Get your notebook and go to class. You’ve got a three o’clock history class. I’ll walk you there.”

“I can’t go out like this!”

They continued talking, but I couldn’t stay and listen as I heard the front door open and close and realized that a couple of the girls were coming home from class. I hurriedly scrambled down the stairs. It wouldn’t do for them to see me standing outside my own door listening to a private conversation. That wouldn’t be cool and might even be dangerous.

When I got back from my afternoon classes, I knew I’d have to act like nothing was wrong when I saw Laurel. It wasn’t easy to do. She got back to the room a few minutes after I did and nervously greeted me, mumbling my name as if she wasn’t really sure about who I was. She was obviously uncomfortable with her new form, and I was actually a little amused to see her trying to move like a girl but obviously having difficulty with it.

We settled in to study, each at our own desk, but I could almost feel Laurel’s tension as she tried to reconcile herself to her new existence. Dinner would be served in half an hour and I knew she would not be in any fit state to face all of her new sorority sisters at the dinner table. I tried to imagine what it must be like for her. Like me, she had been male, but unlike me, she had not had the opportunity to know what it was like to be a girl for two years before discovering her previous existence. Just think–that morning she had been a man and yet here she was now, a girl. At least like me she was wearing jeans, but I knew all too well how different those jeans felt on a female body, with its small waist and protruding hips and the strange tightness between the legs where something should have been bulging.

Well, it was time for me to do my good deed of the day. “I think we’re having fried chicken tonight,” I began.

“Huh?”

“You know, for dinner–fried chicken,” I clarified, leaning back in my chair as I faced my new roommate. “I’m just not in the mood for it. Wanna get a burger with me?”

I could see in her eyes that she was torn between having to face an entire dining room full of girls or facing the terror of leaving the confines of the house as an attractive young woman.

“Come on,” I urged. “I’ll even buy.”

“O... Okay,” she agreed timidly. “But what do I wear? I mean...”

“You look fine,” I assured her. And she did, too. Laurel was very attractive. Someday, she’d come to appreciate that fact but for the present it would have frightened her half to death to know she’d be turning the heads of every boy we passed.

She actually loosened up a little once we got in my car. My little Toyota was comfortable and just the right size for us girls. As I drove to Rusty’s Burger Barn, she looked around with curiosity as if she had never seen any of the town before. I suppose she hadn’t seen much of it–just the route to City Hall and then to the sorority house after her ‘trial.’

I began to think as we entered Rusty’s that I might have made a mistake in unveiling her to the public so soon. Every male eye was following us. In my time as April, I had gotten used to it–even enjoying it–and having Conrad’s memories again did little to dampen that enjoyment, but for Laurel, it was a new and unnerving experience. As quickly as I could, I hustled her to a table toward the back of the room and faced her away from the interested stares.

“I’m sorry if I haven’t been myself today, April.” She thought for a moment of what she had said and giggled nervously.

“What’s so funny?” I asked innocently.

“Oh! Nothing really,” she tried to cover. I just smiled as if I had no idea what she was talking about.

“April... can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Are you happy?”

“Happy with what?”

She shrugged. “Your life–who you are. Would you be anyone else if you had the chance?”

It was an intriguing question. Of course, Laurel just wanted to know if life in Ovid was all it was cracked up to be. She had been a male from somewhere else and wanted confirmation from a neutral source. Although she had been led to believe I had no knowledge of my previous life, she wanted to know if happiness in Ovid was even possible.

“I’m pretty happy,” I told her honestly. “As for being someone else, well I suppose it would depend upon who that someone else was.”

“Would you want to be a man?” she pressed.

I almost gave her a glib “no” but I realized that wasn’t what she was really looking for. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind being a man...” I trailed off. I had almost slipped up and added “again” to that statement. “But I don’t mind being a girl either.” I paused. “Do you?”

She flinched at the question. “I’m not sure. I... that is, a man is bigger and stronger–more confident.”

Our discussion was interrupted by our waitress, a girl I knew from a couple of classes. I ordered with Laurel just having what I was having. She hadn’t had a chance to look at the menu and didn’t want me to know it. Once we each had a Diet Coke in front of us, I picked up the conversation again.

“I’ll grant men are bigger and stronger for the most part,” I began. “But as for men being more confident, I think that depends upon the man–or woman.”

“But look at us!” Laurel insisted. “How can we be confident when we wear makeup and revealing clothes just to attract men?”

“I wouldn’t say we’re wearing revealing clothes right now,” I pointed out. “In fact, we’re about as unrevealing as we could be.”

“Wrong!” she countered. “Sure, we’re both wearing jeans, but look at how they fit. Guys wear loose, comfortable jeans while I feel like five pounds of hamburger stuffed into a two-pound bag. And look at our sweaters! They’re designed to show off our breasts–not keep us warm. Plus they’re both pink!”

Actually, mine was salmon-colored but that was a nit. “What’s wrong with being attractive?” I asked.

For the moment, the new Laurel couldn’t think of a good answer, so I pressed on. “Look, Laurel, I don’t know why you’re obsessing on this. Sure, we dress to attract guys, but we also dress that way because it makes us feel good to be attractive–more confident if you will. Besides, think of the power it gives us.”

“Power?”

“Turn around quickly and look at those two guys across the room.”

She did, turning back quickly, her face red. “Oh Jesus, they’re looking at us.”

“Damned straight, and I’d be plenty pissed if they weren’t,” I retorted. “All we have to do is nod our heads and they’ll be over here in a heartbeat eating out of our hands.”

“So?” Her eyes told me that wasn’t something she wanted to happen.

“So think about if you were a guy.” I knew that wouldn’t be too hard for her. “If we were two guys and they were two attractive girls, do you think we could just nod our heads and have them come running over to us? Who has the power, dear?”

I could tell from the expression on her face that as a man, she had never had that sort of power. Even many women lacked it, but she wouldn’t. She and I were both attractive enough to be in control of our relationships if we chose to be. As April alone, even I hadn’t realized that, but with Conrad’s knowledge to draw upon, I knew I could be a much stronger woman. Since Laurel remembered her manhood, so could she. Our food was delivered about then, but as we ate, I could see the wheels turning in Laurel’s head. It would take some time, but whoever Laurel had been as a man would start to fade, and what remained would be a strong woman, much like the Laurel I had always called my friend.

Between dating Chip, building up my grades, and working with Laurel, I didn’t have time to think about anything else. But Friday of that week, something else was added to my plate. Admin called up to tell me that I had the part-time job in President Vest’s office. An hour later, Corey called me. There was going to be a meeting of the cell that afternoon.

We met at Corey’s apartment. Nancy was already there as Chip and I entered together. Corey looked at us with amusement, so I guess my dating Chip was no big surprise. Chip and I were going out for dinner together after the meeting.

Nancy was looking nervously at her watch. It made sense, I guess. She was the only one in the cell who had a family to worry about. I supposed her husband and kids would wonder if she was late.

“We’ve had a break,” Corey said happily once we had all made ourselves comfortable in the small living room of her apartment. “It may bring The Judge and his cronies to heel once and for all.”

The twisted sensation I felt in my stomach was evidence at how comfortable I had become with my life. On a day-to-day level, I could completely forget about the cell and any activities against the gods. The initial shock of learning I had once been a man had ebbed away, and my April persona and my Conrad persona had merged together to form a new person–a young woman who was attractive, intelligent, and confident in her love life. Now the commitment I had given to the cell in a moment of confusion was coming home to roost.

I looked with concern at Chip and he returned the look. Unlike Nancy who was becoming quite animated at the thought of bringing down the gods, Chip was as disturbed as I was. Corey didn’t seem to notice as she dropped the big bombshell on me. “And April, you’ll be our most important element.”

“Me?” I squeaked. I was a soprano but I really didn’t think my voice could go that high.

Corey nodded with a proud smile. “Of course. Why do you think I got you a job in President Vest’s office? Betty Vest is one of them–one of the gods. She’s Vesta.”

“Vesta?” I repeated stupidly. Sure, I had heard of Mars, Jupiter, Mercury and Venus–but Vesta?

“She was the goddess of the hearth,” Corey explained as if talking to a stupid child. “Didn’t they teach you anything in school?”

“Roman myths weren’t exactly the meat and potatoes of the curriculum at the University of Oklahoma,” I replied defensively.

Corey looked as if she were going to make a snide comment but let it go. I supposed she had been about to tell me that she had matriculated at the Harvard Business School and she still knew who Vesta was. Instead she continued, “Vesta is one of the inner circle of the gods. We’ve gotten a report that the inner circle feels the need to communicate better with each other. They’ve decided to install a very private computer network which will allow them to see the same information more quickly.”

“It sounds more like General Motors than Olympus,” Nancy commented.

“Up until now, they’ve all had to use a single computer over at Del’s Computers on Main Street. But that system has been compromised. Too many locals know about it. So The Judge decided secure terminals would be installed at the work locations of the entire inner circle–the police station, March’s Department Store, the public school district, City Hall, and...”

“President Vest’s office,” I completed with a sigh.

“Exactly.”

“But I’m no computer expert,” I protested. “You said yourself these would be secure terminals. How can I do anything with the system without the passwords?”

Corey smiled, anticipating the question. “One of our other cells has gotten us the key,” she announced, pulling a small flat pad out of her purse. It was gray and looked very flexible.

“So okay, what is it?” Chip wanted to know.

“It’s a device for determining keystrokes,” she explained. “April will have to slip this under the keyboard like this...” She turned to her computer desk and slipped the pad underneath the keyboard. I had to admit it was for all practical purposes invisible. “Then you just type something.” She demonstrated on the keyboard. “Then when you remove it, you attach it to a computer with a USB port and it downloads every keystroke.”

I knew what was coming next and gritted my teeth as she continued, “Then all April has to do is go back in the office, enter the passwords we’ve captured here, and enter the system. She downloads as much as she can to a CD and gets out.”

The only part of the plan I liked was that last part–the getting out part.

“But how will I know what I’m looking for?” I asked.

“I’ll help you with that,” Nancy said. “I’ve had to work with the college’s computer system for a while. I can tell you which files to ignore.”

I made arrangements to meet with Nancy after work the next day at the Student Health Center where she could review the college’s system for me. Corey handed me the device which would hopefully give us the passwords and wished me luck. I realized I hadn’t even reported for work in President Vest’s office and already I was set to betray her.

“You don’t look happy,” Chip commented when we were safely away from the meeting and back in his apartment.

“I’m not,” I admitted morosely as I sat there on his couch holding the spying device in front of me as if it were a dead snake. “Chip, what have we gotten ourselves into? Look at us. We’re both happy to be who we are–happy to be with each other. Is Ovid such a bad place?”

“I thought you were upset with the fact that they changed you without your consent,” Chip pointed out as he sat down beside me and put a comforting arm around me.

I was near tears. “I am upset about that. Of course I am. Who wouldn’t be? But think about it, Chip. You and I each woke up one day and realized we had been other people. What did we do about it? We integrated those other people into who we are now. What was Chip like before you found out about Flip?”

Chip grinned sheepishly. “He was kind of a nerd, I guess. A little socially retarded would be one way of putting it.”

“And look at who you are today,” I told him. “You’re confident, socially skilled, intelligent...”

“Please! You’re going to make me blush.”

“Not to mention good looking...”

His arm held me tighter as I looked into his eyes. Suddenly, my concerns ebbed and something told me we were in for a late dinner that night...

Working with Nancy on the computer was a better experience than I had anticipated. Whenever I had been in a meeting with Nancy, she had always seemed sullen. No, sullen isn’t the right word; that’s too strong. I guess I would describe her as withdrawn. I couldn’t blame her, really. From what Chip had told me, she had gone from a young, successful single doctor to a married woman pregnant with her second child by the time she realized who she had been.

“Hi April,” she greeted me with a small but friendly smile. It was the end of the regular workday when I arrived. We arranged that so we could have some privacy. I was amazed at how cheerful she seemed as she walked me through the fundamentals of the computer system I would have to master before I could get at the programs I needed.

“You’re a quick learner,” she complimented me as my fingers whizzed over the keyboard.

“Thanks,” I told her, not daring to look away from the screen. At last, the desired information came up on screen and I leaned back in relief. After all, the quicker I was able to get to this point, the quicker I’d be able to get out of the president’s office. I had no desire to be caught by one of the gods.

“April, why are you helping us?”

I turned to Nancy who was seated right next to me. I looked into her eyes, determining that it was just curiosity and not some suspicion which had prompted the question. “I guess it’s a matter of control,” I replied after thinking a moment. “In the military and in politics, I always felt like I was in control of the situation. What The Judge did to me stripped me of that control. Now, I’ve got it back. I want to know why he did it.”

“I suspect you want to stay as you are, though,” she ventured.

I blushed. “Is it that obvious?”

“You mean you and Chip?”

I blushed again. “That, too. I mean is it so obvious that I want to stay a girl. I know you don’t want to, but...”

Nancy chuckled, “What gave you the idea I didn’t want to stay female?”

If it were possible, I was suddenly even more embarrassed. “Oh, well, Corey thinks you want to be a man again. So does Chip for that matter.”

“Well, I suppose I did once upon a time,” Nancy admitted with a shy grin. “It was quite a shock to wake up one morning and remember who I had been while seeing my belly all pooched out. I assume you knew about that?”

I nodded.

“Well, it really bummed me at first. If somebody had offered me the chance to go back to being a man right then, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Then I got to know Dan–my husband–and my son, Billy. I guess I never realized what it was like to have a family like that.”

“So why are you involved in all this if you’re happy?” I blurted out.

“Happy?” She seemed a little surprised at that word. “No, April, I’m not happy–at least not the way I’d like to be. You see, all I am here is a glorified receptionist.”

“I thought you were a nurse...”

She laughed. It was a bitter laugh. “No, I’m not even an RN. Here I am with all the memories of a Harvard Medical School education and I can’t even treat students coming in here with a simple case of the sniffles.” She hugged herself. “April, I feel so useless! Today training you was the first worthwhile thing I’ve done at work in weeks. I go home every night to a family I’ve come to love but somehow it isn’t enough. I need to be working again at what I’m good at–being a doctor.”

It did seem to be a terrible waste of talent, I thought to myself. Maybe in a town run by gods doctors weren’t needed as much, but to waste the talents of such a person when she could have been doing so much good for the community seemed almost criminal. “So is that what you want?” I asked. “Even if it meant giving up your family to get back to your previous life?”

She shook her head, a few tears forming. “I don’t know, April. I’m not even sure there’s an old life to go back to. As nearly as we can tell, the gods erased all traces of our real lives. But if I don’t do something I was trained to do, I’m going to go crazy, and that won’t help my family a bit.”

“Well,” I said, trying to sound upbeat, “let’s see where Corey’s plan gets us. Maybe we’ll get enough goods on the gods that they’ll have to give in to our demands.”

Of course it was at that moment that I realized I had no idea what our demands were going to be. But it was way too late to worry about that now, I thought. Corey and the other cell leaders would have our hides if we didn’t follow through on the plan. I just hoped Corey and her associates knew what they were doing.

I reported for work in the president’s office the following Monday. To say I was nervous was an understatement. Since learning about the gods, I had only a brief brush with Officer Mercer to test my mettle. Now I was going to be in the presence of one of the loftiest of the deities, and to make matters worse I was going to have to spy on her.

“Ms. Stewart?”

I looked up from my seat in the president’s waiting room to see a woman who I recognized from the few times I had seen her at a distance as Dr. Elizabeth Vest, the President of Capta College. She had a pleasant smile on her ageless face. While her figure betrayed her appearance as that of a woman in her mature forties, her face was almost youthful, and there was only a slight trace of gray in her short, brown hair. On many women, it would make them look older, but on her it added a touch of academic distinction.

I rose nervously as she extended a hand to me. “I’m Betty Vest. You’ll be working for me the next few weeks.”

I took her hand as bravely as I could. What would it be like to touch a goddess? It felt warm; it felt... human. Betty Vest had a firm but somehow feminine handshake. I thought for a moment that she had a fine politician’s handshake. Then I remembered that most college presidents I had met in my life were, in fact, excellent politicians in their own right. They had to be to win grants, public funds, and private endowments. Did this goddess need to do that as well?

“Nice to meet you,” I managed at last when the awe dissipated.

She spent the next half hour with me going over my duties. It seemed that the installation of the new computer had disrupted things around her office. As a result, a lot of small, menial tasks had fallen behind, and I was to be the one to get things caught up.

“Will I need to learn how to operate the new computer?” I asked as innocently as I could.

President Vest–Betty rather as she was very informal–looked a little surprised. “No, that system is tied into some... secure databases that don’t concern you. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you would give that system a wide berth.”

“Of course,” I said simply, not even glancing at the new computer.

It took me two days to slip the device under the keyboard. Betty had a meeting that I knew would keep her occupied for at least two hours. Her secretary, a nice shade named Brenda Williams, had just stepped out for a short restroom break leaving me in charge. As soon as I was sure she was gone, I bolted for her desk where she kept a key for Betty’s office–a key I was probably not to know about–and quickly opened the door to the president’s office. There was nothing to placing the device under the keyboard. It fit snugly and was so thin that no one would ever notice it was there. I had everything locked up and was nonchalantly organizing some files when Brenda came back from her potty break. I was just glad she couldn’t hear the nervous pounding of my heart. I felt as if I had just survived a combat mission. How would I ever get enough time to download data from the computer?

I removed the device two days later in a similar fashion. Corey was well pleased with me when I gave it to her. I almost tried to beg off from any further covert activities, but I knew she’d never go for it. It wasn’t just that I was afraid. The fact of the matter was that I was growing to like Betty Vest. No, it went beyond just liking her. I had begun to admire her.

I guess it was the politician in me that first recognized her qualities. As I’ve already observed, college presidents must certainly be good politicians, and Betty Vest was one of the best I’ve ever met. She knew when to talk and when to shut up and listen. She knew how to bring people with opposing views together. She knew how to delegate. Her combination of tact, intelligence, and self-confidence made others look to her for leadership. And she knew how to be attractive and feminine without losing an iota of her power and authority. The Conrad in me and the April in me both wanted to be just like her.

I thought back on my–Conrad’s–desire to someday be president. Reluctantly, I began to realize I would have most likely fallen short of that goal. But Betty Vest, had she been a man, would have been a natural for the highest office in the land. She as a he would have rolled over any political opponents and gone as far as she wanted to go. Hell, maybe she wouldn’t have had to be a man. The country would have a woman president someday. Maybe she would have been the first.

Betty was the first of the gods whom I got to know well. Slowly, she changed my opinion of them as capricious beings with power far beyond their intellects into one of wondering if there was some noble purpose behind Ovid. If there was, then I was on the wrong side. The thought did not sit well with me.

Still, I said nothing about this to Corey. I had committed to a side in this conflict and had no firm evidence that I had made a poor decision. I continued to report faithfully to Corey of the comings and goings of the gods as I saw them from Betty’s office. Through my efforts, we were able to identify positively two minor gods who periodically visited Betty. They were Muses–attractive young women who seemed to have an influence on the academic climate at Capta. Corey seemed very pleased with my work.

The big event was still to come, though. I needed a time when both Brenda and Betty would be out of the office and I could access Betty’s terminal undiscovered. Corey had given me the password: HEARTH. It made sense if a hacker knew who Betty Vest really was, but it would be meaningless to anyone else.

Unfortunately, the more time passed, the more comfortable I was becoming with the life that I had been given. I had discovered the very next weekend after I had gotten my new job that my life outside Ovid was very real. I had worried that my family in Tulsa was all a figment of my imagination. Corey, Nancy and Chip had all told me that residents weren’t allowed to leave Ovid at all. I decided to test that theory when my parents called and invited me home for the weekend. In turn, I invited Chip along as well.

“It won’t work,” Chip told me, shaking his head as we discussed the invitation over lunch a couple of days before I would have to go.

“Chip, I can understand why the gods might try to keep the people here who remember being changed, but they don’t know we have our memories.”

“And this might be a way for them to find out,” he pointed out. “That’s why I’ve never left Ovid. What if we reach the edge of town and our memories trigger some sort of alarm. It’s too dangerous.”

I folded my arms in defiance. “Well, I’m going with you or without you.”

In the few weeks we had been friends and then lovers, Chip had come to know that once I had made up my mind on an issue, there would be no changing my mind. Conrad had been a stubborn cuss and April was, too. At last he sighed and said, “All right. I’ll come with you–but only to keep you out of trouble.”

Chip was almost cringing as we reached the Ovid city limits. I have to admit I was feeling a few butterflies as well, but as I had suspected, nothing happened. My hands relaxed on the steering wheel as I watched the valley disappear in my rear-view mirror. I aimed the car in the general direction of where I thought Tulsa should be and in a short time, we were on the main highway heading for Tulsa.

The April side of my mind knew just where to go, and although most of Conrad’s time in Tulsa had been spent being driven from political meeting to meeting, I had no trouble knowing just where to go. My parents’ house was an impressive one in a very nice part of town. My father, I realized, was an executive with a medium-sized oil drilling company, so life for the Stewart family was very comfortable.

Mom and dad met us at the door, mom smothering me with a loving hug while dad shook hands with Chip. I felt as if I had known them all my life, and in a sense, I suppose I had. I was undeniably their daughter, sharing with them the fair skin and brown hair of a Scottish-English heritage.

“How are things at Oklahoma State?” mom asked.

“Great,” I replied, hoping she hadn’t noted my surprise. I looked over at the car, then back at her. The Capta College decal on the rear window of my Toyota now read Oklahoma State in orange and white letters.

I heard a scuttling noise punctuated by panting as a clumsy black dog rushed across the marble tile entryway to greet me. “Hello, Boomer!” I cried, squatting down on the floor to greet the dog I remembered living with since seventh grade. Conrad cringed a little inside me as I remembered he had a terrible allergy to pets.

“Honey, why don’t you show Chip to the guest room?” my mother asked. I hoped that neither of my parents saw the look Chip and I gave each other. The look stated without any words that we’d far rather be sharing a room, but it was my parents’ house after all. With a subtle grin, I motioned for Chip to follow me.

We had enough time in the guest room for a hug that was as much for our triumph as it was for our affection for each other. “I can’t believe it!” Chip marvelled. “We were actually allowed to leave Ovid.”

“Why not?” I asked, hugging him tighter. “The gods have no idea we remember who we were.”

Chip released me. “Do you think we should go to the authorities?”

I shrugged. “And tell them what? Tell them that we escaped from a town run by Roman gods after we had been changed into other people?”

“But the town is really there,” he insisted. “We could take them to it.”

“I’m not sure we could,” I told him. “Sure, I know the way back, but I’ll bet if we took anybody back there who didn’t belong there, Ovid wouldn’t be there.”

“But it has to be there!” Chip argued.

I shook my head. “Don’t be so sure. You know what my mom just asked me? She asked how things were going at Oklahoma State. That’s where they think we go to school. And after she asked, I looked over at my car. You know the Capta College parking sticker on my windshield? It now reads ‘Oklahoma State.’ So does the decal on the rear window.”

“Good God!”

“Or gods,” I amended. We didn’t speak of telling the authorities again.

We had a great time with my parents that weekend. They treated him as part of the family. And why not? Chip was the age of one of my older sisters, so they could relate to him pretty well. I think Chip had a good time as well. He had never gotten up the nerve to try to leave Ovid before. Of course, his new life as Chip hadn’t included a family like mine. The aunt who had supposedly raised him was dead and he wasn’t close to his cousins in Oklahoma City. I guess he just never had a good reason to leave Ovid before I came along.

“I’ve got a theory about you and your family,” Chip told me as we started our drive back to Ovid at the end of the weekend.

“You mean as to why they have no idea where we’re really going to school?”

“Partially,” he replied. “Did you look around the house much?”

“Sure,” I told him. “It brought back a lot of old memories.”

“Such as your best friend in sixth grade?”

I thought for a moment and realized I really couldn’t recall much about sixth grade.

“Or the first boy you ever dated?”

“Oh that was...” What was his name anyway?

“How about the first boy you made love to?”

“That’s not a nice question.”

“Do you remember?” he pressed.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “His name was Randy Etkin. I met him right after I graduated from high school.”

“In other words, right after you were transformed.”

I saw where he was going with all of this. Details of my life after my transformation were understandably sharp. However, details of growing up were on an ‘as needed’ basis. Family I tended to remember. After all, I’d be meeting with them and talking about family matters. As for who my best friend was in the sixth grade... I had no memories of that, nor was I likely to need them. I might never see her again. I mentioned this to Chip.

“And yet there are pictures of you at that age.” He reached inside his coat. “I brought one along. I found it in the drawer in the guest room.”

I glanced at the picture as I drove. There were three girls in the picture, each grinning in their swimsuits showing off undeveloped bodies looking to be somewhere between ten and twelve. One was recognizably me. As for the other two... “That’s Dina Becker and Sarah Driscoll. They were my two best friends in...” My voice trailed off.

“In sixth grade, right?”

He sounded so damned sure of himself. “Yeah, right. So I guess I just forgot their names for a minute.”

“Or you just remembered them because you needed them,” he amended. “Don’t you see what’s going on here?”

I’d had enough. I pulled off into the parking lot of a convenience store. “Okay, Chip. What are you getting at?”

“The gods need people from out of town to attend Capta. It wouldn’t look natural if all the students were from Ovid,” he explained.

“So what does that say about me?” I wanted to know.

“April, my guess is that there really is–or was–an April Stewart. There’s too much evidence in that house for it to be otherwise. I know the gods could create it. If they can create an entire town, this would be nothing to them. But I think they took an easier path with you. Why not give you the identity of someone who was real?”

“But where is the real April Stewart now?” I asked. A dark part of my mind came up with an answer. I shivered. “Oh.”

Chip put his hand on my trembling arm. “I’m not saying it was definitely that way.”

I nodded, feeling the sting of tears. “I know.”

But it made sense. The gods needed outsiders–as college students and probably other identities. Why not look for the type of people they needed among those they couldn’t or wouldn’t save? A young man falling asleep at the wheel on a long, lonely road. A young woman living alone who tripped and hit her head on the edge of a sharp cabinet. A young high school girl, just graduated, who went to the wrong party on the wrong night and met the wrong man...

I shuddered.

“April, what is it?”

“Nothing,” I lied, remembering for the moment the party out at an old deserted farmhouse. I remembered there was a lot of drinking going on–drinking and more. I remembered the guy–big, strong, not one of the guys I had gone to school with. I remembered flirting with him, going into the woods with him, the feeling of panic as he pulled off my skirt. I told him no...

“Oh God!”

Chip held me close. “Block it out, April. It wasn’t really you. It was the other April–the one you replaced.”

“She’s dead, Chip!” I cried, burying my face in his chest.

“I know,” he said as he gently stroked my hair. “I’m sorry, April, but I know.”

Although we had travelled to Tulsa in my car, Chip drove the rest of the way back to Ovid. I was too upset to even think about staying behind the wheel. I was dead. No, that wasn’t right; I was alive. But April Stewart–the real April Stewart was dead. I couldn’t exactly see her death (thank God) but I could feel it, lurking in the aftermath of an ill-fated party.

What had happened to the real April, I wondered? Was her undiscovered body still out there in the woods somewhere? I doubted that, really. After all, The Judge wouldn’t want an unexplained duplicate of April Stewart, alive or dead. No, he must have known of the real April’s death and rushed me in as a replacement. I would have bet a lot of money that the real April died within hours of my transformation.

But how had he known that I wouldn’t remember being another person? As I had already seen, some of The Judge’s victims remembered their previous lives and others didn’t. He must have been pretty certain that I would forget who I had been and settle into my new identity at once.

As I rode in silence, I began to see something strangely generous in The Judge’s actions. My parents hadn’t suffered the loss of a daughter. My family–my new family–was whole. But why was I chosen to take her place? Corey told us that The Judge lured people to Ovid and changed them for his own purposes. I believed that. I had thought that he and his cohorts had forced our plane down. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if our plane was supposed to crash and he prevented it?

That line of thought led to a number of new questions. If he could prevent my death, why not leave me as I was? I could have done some good for the state–for the nation–as I had been. I would have surely been governor and maybe even achieved national office. Instead, The Judge had used me to replace a young girl who was by all standards of measure I could think of, less important to the scheme of things than Conrad Williams. April–I–was a mediocre student, boy-crazy, frivolous, and immature. Conrad Williams was intelligent, forceful, mature and focused.

For that matter, why hadn’t The Judge saved April’s life if she was so important? Why had he allowed her to die and her killer go free? It was enough to make my head spin.

I put those thoughts away as Ovid appeared over the hill. “So you found the way back to Ovid,” I said to Chip.

“Not really,” he replied, slowing down as we approached the city limits. “I just sort of let myself go, as if I was flying on autopilot. The next thing I know, there’s Ovid. The funny thing is I could never explain to anyone exactly how we got here.”

Chip pulled into the parking lot at the sorority house. “But how are you going to get home?” I asked him as I fussed with getting my shoes back on.

He shrugged. “I’ll walk. It’s not far.”

“But it’s dark,” I pointed out. “And it’s getting colder.” That was an understatement. The last light of day had displayed a leaden sky that hinted at one of Oklahoma’s famous sleet storms.

“Don’t worry,” he assured me with a smile. “I’ll be fine. Now, how about you? Are you going to be okay?”

“I...I think so,” I answered softly. “I just keep thinking about her...”

“You don’t know that’s what happened.”

“Yes I do,” I told him. I couldn’t explain how exactly, but I knew.

Just then, he took me in his arms and kissed me gently. “April, no matter how or why it happened, I’m glad you’re you.”

I managed to give him a small smile before rushing off to the house before I could hold back the tears no longer.

Inside the house, I was forced to keep from crying just a little longer. Myra spotted me from the dining room where she was studying. “Hey April! Some woman named June has been trying to call you all evening. She said to call her whenever you got in. She didn’t leave a number, though.”

Of course I had the number, but I didn’t want to call it. There was no June. It was a code word between Corey and me and it meant something urgent was going on. I located a reasonably private house phone and called her.

“Where have you been?”

Those were her first words and they irritated me. “I told you I’d be in Tulsa for the weekend.”

“And I told you it was a bad idea, particularly taking Chip with you. What if you’d had a problem getting out of Ovid?”

“Look, Corey, Thanksgiving isn’t very far off and I’d have to leave town then. It would seem a little odd for me to spend the holiday here when my parents were so close. Besides, there was no problem.” I didn’t tell her what I had learned. Maybe I would later, but for now I was royally pissed with her attitude.

Corey must have figured that out, for she backed down at once. “Okay, you’re right. No harm was done. The reason I called is we know when you’ll have access to the system for at least three hours from one to about four.”

I felt as if my heart had stopped. Tapping into Betty Vest’s computer was the furthest thing from my mind at that moment. “When?” I asked, hoping I’d have plenty of time to steel myself for the task.

“Day after tomorrow,” she replied, dashing my hopes. “You need to put everything you can on a CD. Have you got a blank one?”

“Yes.”

“Then good luck, April. Be ready.”

I heard the click as she hung up. It was really going to happen! All right, I told myself. I’ll do it. I agreed to do it and I would. But after I had given Corey the CD, I wanted out. I wanted the chance to be left alone to live my new life as best I could. Corey and Nancy and even Chip could continue if they wanted to, but I just wanted to be April Stewart for now and for always.

I was thankful that I didn’t have to be at work again until the appointed time for my betrayal. I didn’t think I could look Betty Vest or Brenda in the eye for very long without losing my resolve. Both of them had been wonderful to me and I was about to let them down. So I spent the next day sleepwalking through my classes. Even Professor Wheeler seemed a little disappointed in my performance and held me after class.

“Is there something, wrong, Ms. Stewart? You didn’t seem to be very involved in class today. That isn’t like you.” He could have added “recently” but he didn’t.

“I’m sorry, Professor,” I sighed. “I guess I just feel a little out of sorts today.”

I’m sure from the way I said it that he assumed I meant I was having my period. That was the only good thing about the monthly visitor–it made a terrific excuse. He looked a little embarrassed and abruptly changed the subject.

“I understand you’ve been working part time...” he began.

“Yes?” I replied cautiously. Was he working with the gods? Was there something that he suspected?

“If you need a job, I was wondering if you would be interested in doing some work for me next semester,” he ventured, causing my whole body to relax. I hoped he didn’t notice.

“What kind of work?” I asked, curious as to why he bothered to approach me about it.

“Oh the usual for a professor,” he chuckled. “I’m writing a new textbook. Well, actually updating the one we use here. I could use an administrative assistant to help me get it organized. I’ll clear it with Betty if you’d like.”

“But... wouldn’t you rather use a political science major for that?” I asked. “Surely many of them would jump at the chance to help you.”

His eyes narrowed and a thin smile crossed his lips. “Ms. Stewart, you seem to know more about the realities of political science than most graduate students would. These past few weeks you have blossomed from an average–no, below average–student into my star pupil. You have an understanding of the workings of government that would elude even career bureaucrats. Have you given any more thought to changing your major?”

In fact, I had thought about it. The new me wasn’t cut out to be an English major. Even the old April had never intended to do anything with an English degree. She–I–was just majoring in English because the rules said you had to major in something. My real major had been personal social activities.

Political science, on the other hand, was interesting since I had already walked the walk in a previous life. With a major in political science, I could go on to law school or maybe get a graduate degree in the subject and teach it at the college level. Or maybe I could run for office again. As I left Congress, there were more and more women elected all the time. Of course, I’d have to move away from Ovid since the rest of the world seemed to have no idea it even existed. I wasn’t even sure if that would be possible, but it was an idea.

“I’d like to change majors,” I told him honestly, “but I’m already a junior. I wouldn’t have much time to take all the required courses.”

He smiled. “Let me look into it for you. Both majors are in the same school so I imagine your English courses can be moved over as electives and you can concentrate on courses in your new major for the remainder of your time here. With your abilities, I’d have no problems waiving prerequisites to get you into the advanced courses you’d need.”

We discussed the change of majors for a few more minutes, and when we had finished, not only had I agreed to change majors but I had accepted the job as his research assistant for the following semester. After all, the job in Betty Vest’s office was only good through the end of the semester, so I’d need something for the spring term. The more I thought about it, the happier with my situation I became. I even managed to come out of my funk over what I would be required to do at work the next day.

My elation didn’t last long, though. The day of my betrayal came at last. I began to realize as I made my way to Betty Vest’s office that if I was caught raiding her computer, there would be no change of majors, no research assistant’s job, and quite possibly, no April Stewart.

Brenda was at her desk as I entered the office. She was straightening a small stack of file folders on her desk as I came in. “Oh, April, thank God you’re on time today,” the shade greeted me.

“Why’s that?” I asked as innocently as I could.

“Betty had to go to a meeting with the Provost. She won’t be back until at least four and Purchasing needs me to go over some PO’s with them right now or we won’t get some equipment we need on time,” Brenda informed me. “I know it’s short notice, but can you handle the office for a while? This shouldn’t take too long.”

When Corey got Brenda in her clutches. I figured it would take considerably longer than Brenda assumed. Corey had done her part and had cleared the way for me. There was no turning back now. Oh how I wished I had never ever gotten mixed up in all of this!

“I’ll be fine,” I assured her, sounding much more calm than I really felt. “Don’t worry.” She gave me a parting smile and hustled off in the direction of Corey’s office. I was alone. Hurriedly, I shut and locked the office door. It was unusual but not unheard of for the door to be locked. Unlike a major university with its vast staffs, Capta College was small enough that no one would be suspicious. Everyone would just assume that the small staff the president employed was occupied elsewhere. The phones were the same way. I transferred the line to voice mail and made my way into Betty’s office.

I won’t say I wasn’t nervous as I sat behind her desk and turned on her terminal as Nancy had shown me. I had the password, of course, but what if it was wrong? What if this was a trap? I was about to steal information from beings whose power I could scarcely imagine. What they would probably do to me would not be pretty.

As the prompt came up, I carefully typed in H-E-A-R-T-H. I breathed a sigh of heartfelt relief when the screen flashed “Opening Files. Please Wait.” Several file folders appeared on the screen. Some were standard college folders which Nancy had taught me to identify. There were about half a dozen, though, which weren’t familiar. I cursed to myself hoping I could find the important ones quickly so I could download what I needed and get out.

There was a likely candidate, I thought. The folder was labelled ‘Delphi.’ I remembered from my readings that the gods often consulted the Oracle of Delphi. It was worth a shot. I just hoped no additional passwords would be required. From what Corey had told us, the gods might have incredible powers, but they had limited computer skills. I suppose since computers tended to become more inaccessible for those who hadn’t grown up with them, the gods must be the most out of touch computer operators on the planet. I seriously doubted if they would burden themselves with multiple passwords.

To my relief, the folder opened with no problems. I quickly looked over the myriad of files and told the computer to download all of them to my CD. The system complied, and I watched with satisfaction as file after file was transferred.

Now, I had time on my hands. I had noticed another file on the screen called ‘Residents.’ I wondered as I waited for the extensive download to complete exactly what was in that file. Personnel records on all of us who had been transformed, I guessed, and when I brought up the file, I found I was correct. Curiosity got the best of me. I realized I would never have an opportunity like this again. Just for the fun of it, I brought up the folder, finding it activated a database and a prompt. I began by typing in Chip’s name.

On the screen, two pictures appeared. One was of the Chip I had come to know and care for and the other a picture of a nice-looking black man. In a column underneath the black’s picture was a brief description of the life of Abdul Mohammed Washington, or Flip as he was otherwise known. There was nothing in the bio that Chip hadn’t already discussed with me, but it was interesting to know Flip had been cute, too. He was quite a good football player and I know I would have noticed him if the memory of his very existence hadn’t been erased by the gods.

Next, I looked myself up. Funny, in my memories I was better looking than the picture of Conrad Williams that came up on the screen. I guess my Conrad side was blessed with a good self-image that my April side didn’t buy. He–I–was attractive in a fatherly sort of way. I suppose that wasn’t really a bad attribute for a politician. I could certainly remember being Conrad, but it was a little hard to think that the slightly paunchy, graying man in the picture had been me. I looked at the picture of April Stewart and then again at Conrad’s picture. Well, The Judge may have screwed Nancy and Corey, but he did all right by me. Maybe if I had known from the beginning who I had been before, I might have thought differently, but two years of being a girl without knowledge of my previous life made my April identity feel natural and my Conrad identity like some sort of a dream life.

I looked at the CD. It was still churning away. I realized I hadn’t bothered to see how large the Delphi folder was. I hoped it wasn’t so gigantic that the CD couldn’t hold it. Maybe I should have checked first. Oh well. There was no going back now. As long as I had the time, I continued to look through the Residents file.

Nancy was next, and I was surprised to see she had not only been a man but a black man. I wondered if Chip was aware that Nancy had been a soul brother. Probably not or he would have mentioned it. She–then a he–had been an outstanding surgeon according to the record. A Johns Hopkins education, complete with residency at the hospital there followed by fifteen years at the UMKC Medical Center in Kansas City had garnered Dr. Andrew Mitchell (Nancy’s former name) the deep respect of the medical community. Apparently, though, Dr. Mitchell had never found time for a family. He had been divorced after a brief early marriage and never remarried. No wonder as Nancy she had come to value the family she had never enjoyed before, even though she chaffed at the cost.

That just left Corey. When her record appeared on the screen, I at first thought I had made a mistake. Hadn’t Corey told us she had been a businessman? The picture on the screen next to the one of Corey showed a woman–blonde and probably not unattractive in her youth, but that had been some years before. The forty-something year old woman in the picture had a hard edge, as if she had taken on the world and lost. But it was the biography below the picture which alarmed me the most. It read like a police blotter–charge after charge of what seemed like every possible non-lethal crime. There were few convictions and those were typically on minor charges, but the whole bio told the story of a woman who might have been one of the biggest con artists in the Midwest.

Con artist! My God, we were all following a woman who had lied and cheated her way through all of her adult life. We believed in her. We were risking our very necks for her. And for what? Was this just another con? Were there really other cells? Was she really working against the gods?

I looked down at the CD which had stopped spinning. What was on that disk that I had downloaded for her? I had to know. I was about to put something in her hands that she could use against the creators of Ovid. I wasn’t sure she was entitled to such power. In fact, I was pretty sure she wasn’t entitled to it at all.

But what if there were other cells? What if Corey actually was a part of a larger plan? How could I keep the CD from her? For that matter, I didn’t even know what was on the disk. Maybe my fears were over nothing. Perhaps I had guessed wrong and the Delphi files were nothing more than recipes for nectar of the gods or something equally innocent. I had to know.

Nervously, I opened the folder surprised to find that it held only one file labelled ‘CONFLG.’ At least I wouldn’t have to paw my way through endless files. I clicked the file icon and waited. I didn’t have to wait long. What appeared on the screen was like watching CNN speeded up. Images flashed on the screen too quickly for me to follow, but subliminally, I was able to recognize a few of the pictures as they flashed by. Perhaps it was Conrad’s political and military background which helped but the images seemed to make sense in a strange sort of way.

I suddenly noticed the Pause key on my keyboard and hit it to stop the images from flashing past. What remained on the screen was something that at first I thought was an image of Hiroshima. It was a city devastated by a nuclear explosion. But closer examination of the image showed something even more frightening than an image of the past. I could tell from the architecture of the skeletal burned steel that remained of the buildings that these had once been high-rises in what I suspected was an American city. I wasn’t sure which city but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was not something out of a Hollywood special effects lab; it was a photograph in full color.

I started punching keys to make the images move again. The Enter key did the trick, but while I had hoped to see just the next picture, the images began flashing past me once again. I thought I saw the image of a friend of mine from Congress, but it couldn’t have been him. He was even younger than I was but the quick image showed a much older man.

By the time I was able to hit the Pause key again, the image showed a force of armored vehicles–American from their markings–sweeping across a desolate landscape. The vehicles were like nothing I had ever seen before and yet once again they were obviously real. But how...?

I was dealing with gods, I reminded myself, and gods consulted the Oracle of Delphi to learn the future. That was what I was viewing–the future.

I allowed the images to speed by again, stopping them as quickly as I could. This time I saw a city I didn’t recognize, but I could see the minarets of a large mosque dominating part of the city. Overhead was a bright sun–brighter than I could imagine in even the Middle East. I was certain it was the Middle East, but while I had been there both as a soldier and a politician, I couldn’t be certain of which city it was. Damascus? Mecca? Teheran? Baghdad? I didn’t know.

As I looked at the image, I became aware that the bright object was not a sun at all. It was the beginning of a huge explosion. Already buildings nearest to it were swaying unnaturally as if they were about to disintegrate. It was the airburst of a thermonuclear weapon. For once, I was happy I couldn’t tune finely enough to see the next few pictures. I was certain that they would show me the charred ruins of another city.

Morbid curiosity urged me to push on, but a sudden thud in the outer hall reminded me that I had no right to be viewing these images. Betty or Brenda or even someone else could be out there right now. I quickly removed the CD and slipped it in its jewel case, but it was too late. The door to Betty’s office was opening.

“April?”

It was Corey! At first, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had half-expected Betty Vest or Brenda to open the door catching me in the act of stealing secrets from the computer. The thought of being discovered by a goddess with all her power was not a happy one. I hadn’t realized Corey had a key. Then I remembered what I had discovered about Corey. She had lied to us; she didn’t deserve the disk. But how could I keep it from her? We were both female, but in a fight, I suspected Corey would win. She appeared to have both size and strength on me.

“Oh good,” she remarked, “you’re finished.”

How had she known that? I had quickly closed the file I had been watching so she couldn’t see it. Then I realized there was still a message on the screen announcing that the file had been successfully downloaded to the CD. “Uh... I’m not finished yet,” I protested.

“Nonsense,” she replied, slipping past me and removing the CD. She carefully placed it in a jewel case and stuffed it in her purse. “I’m sure you’ve got enough. You’ve done well, April.”

No I hadn’t. I had given away important information to a woman I no longer trusted. I thought about wresting the disk from her, but that was Conrad talking. As April, I was much smaller and weaker than my male self. Corey had height and weight over me and could have taken me easily. Even my fighting skills I had learned in the military would not help me. I had never tried to use them in this female form and doubted it I would have the strength to make any of it work right.

“What will you do with the CD?” I asked, trying not to sound suspicious.

She shrugged. “That’s up to a vote of the cell leaders. We’ll see what’s on the disk and if it’s good enough, we’ll use it to make Jupiter release all of us. You’d like that wouldn’t you, April?”

“Oh, of course,” I lied glibly. Hearing Corey’s lies made it easier to return them. “But I thought you were with Brenda.”

“I was,” she told me. “But as we were finishing, Brenda got a call from the Health Center telling her that her child was sick.”

Obviously Nancy made the call. “How did you manage to make her child sick?”

“Oh, we didn’t,” she laughed. “When Brenda gets over there, she’ll find out it was all a mix-up. She’ll probably be back here in another half hour or so, so you’d better get out of here. Make sure nothing was disturbed.”

The room looked fine, but I was disturbed.

“Can you imagine?” Corey chuckled. “That shade actually thinks she has a little girl.”

“She does. I’ve seen pictures of her.”

“Well of course you have, but you realize it’s all an illusion, don’t you? It isn’t as if they were real people.”

There was a time when I would have believed that, but I had come to know a number of shades–my roommate, some of my professors, other students, including some of my other sorority sisters, and, of course, Brenda. I had found them to be just people. I wondered sadly what happened to them when we replaced them. In any case, Corey was starting to show her true colors. Whatever she had planned didn’t involve the good of her cell or any other cells–if there really were any. Whatever she had planned was going to be only good for Corey.

“Better hurry, April,” she said with a smile, and left with a look of smug satisfaction on her face. If I was going to do anything, it would have to be quickly. I didn’t expect Corey to wait long to make her move.

But I was stuck there in the office until Brenda got back. I’d have to call for help right away. I thought about making an anonymous call to The Judge’s office, but he’d find out eventually what had happened. Besides, whatever the motives of the gods, they had to be better than Corey’s. I was beginning to regret not fighting her for the disk.

“The Judge’s office,” a pleasant voice announced. “This is Mrs. Patton. Can I help you?”

“I need to speak to The Judge.”

“I’m sorry, he’s left for the day. Can I help you?”

Oh no! I had to talk to him. “This is an emergency!” I blurted out, near tears.

“Well... maybe I should connect you with Officer Mercer.”

Officer Mercer. He was really Mercury, of course, but more importantly, he represented the police in Ovid. What would he do with me when he discovered what I had done? His manner was so crisp–almost cold–that I was reluctant to trust my story with him. But what choice did I have? Every minute Corey had that disk was a minute more for her to hatch her plan. “All right,” I agreed, a quaver in my voice. “Let me talk to him.”

I didn’t even hear the phone ring. Instantly, a voice announced, “Officer Mercer.”

I must have sounded like an absolute ditz. In a matter of seconds, I had confessed to breaking into the gods’ computer system and stealing information. I managed to implicate Corey, Chip and Nancy as well. As they might have said in the old crime movies, I sang like a canary.

“When did you give Ms. McGregor the CD?”

I jumped at the question, for it hadn’t come from the phone; it came from behind me. My heart pounding from the shock, I turned to see Officer Mercer standing behind me. His face was impassive and his mirrored sunglasses hid whatever expression his eyes might have held. I was suddenly reminded of my first and only meeting with him the day I had been transformed. It was an uncomfortable memory to say the least.

“Uh... about half an hour ago. You can still catch her before she can use it against you.”

I thought I actually saw a small smile cross his lips, but maybe I was mistaken. “She can’t do us any harm with the disk. Transmission by computer is strictly monitored since a... breach occurred a few months ago.”

“But she must have some way of getting the information out of Ovid,” I pointed out, frustrated nearly to the point of tears. “You aren’t taking this very seriously.”

Still unperturbed, he replied, “Oh, we’re taking it very seriously.”

“April! Officer Mercer! What’s going on here?”

I didn’t even have to turn to recognize the voice of Betty Vest. I turned toward her but my eyes were downcast in embarrassment for having betrayed her trust in me. “I’ve done something awful,” I told her as the tears finally began to flow. Briefly, through the tears, I explained what I had done, finishing with, “I’m so sorry. I’ve been a fool. I’ve betrayed you and Jupiter and...”

“What did you just say?” Betty interrupted, alarm in her voice.

“I said I had betrayed you,” I managed to say again through the tears.

She was standing directly over me now, a strangely confused expression on her patrician face. “No, I mean about Jupiter.”

“Jupiter?” I repeated meekly. “The Judge!”

I looked from her startled face to Officer Mercer. Even his impassive countenance seemed shaken, and I almost imagined I could see his hidden eyes become suddenly wider.

“How... how can you say his name like that?” Betty demanded. Her hands were on my arms, shaking me gently. “You are one of the Children of Lethe...”

“Lethe?” I asked nervously.

“The River of Forgetfulness,” Officer Mercer supplied.

Betty’s grip on my arms turned to a more motherly caress. “I’m sorry to alarm you, dear, but you’ve startled me. You’ve startled us all.” She looked up at Officer Mercer. “This makes things worse.”

Officer Mercer nodded and left. Well, he didn’t exactly leave. Instead, his body seemed to blur and streak toward the open door. He was gone from sight in less than the blink of an eye.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

Betty thought for a moment, as if deciding how much to tell me. At last, she replied, “We have to be careful to protect our existence here in Ovid. As you have probably found out, the outside world knows nothing of us and can’t for many years if we are to succeed. Those who remember their previous lives after their transformations are not allowed to leave Ovid until they have earned our complete trust. For the rest, it doesn’t really matter. Their origins in Ovid are hidden when they leave.”

I thought about my parents. They thought I went to school at Oklahoma State in Stillwater. As April, I must have thought so, too, whenever I had visited them–at least until the last trip I had made.

“Then Corey can leave Ovid,” I suddenly realized. “She’s like me–she remembers everything.”

Betty nodded. “Yes, and like you, she can find her way back here–with others if she chooses. Once they have viewed your CD, they will have no choice but to believe her story.”

“But... but... you’re gods. Can’t you stop her? Can’t you just go where she is and... do whatever it takes to keep your secret?”

“No, dear. We aren’t omnipotent,” she explained ruefully. “And to make matters worse, our powers beyond Ovid are limited. We will do everything we can to find her and stop her from whatever she has planned, though.”

“What... what happens if you can’t find her?” I asked meekly.

There was sorrow in Betty’s eyes. “Then, my dear, the world may come to an end a little faster.”

Betty’s words were still running through my mind the next morning when I awakened in my own bed. I had halfway expected to be hauled off to some secret dungeon beneath City Hall. Of course there was no such thing, but my imagination had been fuelled by the guilt I felt for my part in allowing Corey to get away. If such a dungeon had really existed, I would have probably deserved to be chained to the wall there.

It was hard to imagine as I woke up on such a bright, crisp late fall morning to the morning laughter of my sorority sisters that the end of the world might be near. It was even harder to imagine that my actions might have brought it even closer. Like many who had served in Congress or the military or both, I believed that once the threshold of nuclear destruction had been crossed, there would be no going back. The images of the Oracle indicated as much. I realized now that the gods must have found a way to prevent that future from occurring. How they planned to do it, I had no idea, but my actions had really botched their efforts up. I was certain of that.

Before I could continue to feel sorry for myself, Myra ducked in my room. “April, there’s a call for you on the house phone. It’s Cindy Patton at The Judge’s office.” I could tell from the look in her eyes and the tone of her voice that she knew very well the gravity of such a call, even if she didn’t know the content.

I jumped up adjusting my pajama tops from where they had twisted under my breasts. “Thanks, Myra.”

Mrs. Patton’s voice was even but I could hear a thread of tension in it. “April, The Judge wants to see you in his courtroom at ten this morning.”

“But I have a class...” I protested weakly. Class or not, I found myself honestly frightened that I would have to see The Judge. I began to wish that I had called Chip and Nancy the previous night. Perhaps they could have given me some moral support. After all, even though they weren’t aware of it, they had been duped by Corey as well. But I had been too embarrassed and too upset to call either of them. In fact, I had even refused a worried call from Chip.

“Cut it,” Mrs. Patton replied sharply. “I think you know how important this is.”

“I’ll be there,” I agreed softly. As if I had a choice.

I walked cautiously into the courtroom tugging at my skirt. Why had I chosen to wear such a short one? Then I remembered ruefully that it was about the same length as the one I was wearing after I had been transformed. If I had had all of my memories that day, I would have been horrified suddenly to find myself standing there in a short skirt. Now, I just hoped I’d still be wearing it when I left. There were rumors that not everyone who entered The Judge’s courtroom left as a human.

Others had arrived before me, I saw. Standing at the bar were Susan Jager who had been our attorney on that fateful date over two years before and a blonde I remembered being in the gallery that day. “April!” the blonde called out. I could tell from her voice who she was. “I’m Cindy Patton.” She walked to my side and put her hand on my arm. “Are you all right? You look as white as a ghost.”

“I...” My voice just trailed off. I was too nervous to deny how nervous I felt.

“The Judge asked me to bring you into his chambers as soon as you arrived,” she explained, guiding me to a door at the back of the courtroom.

“What... what’s he going to do to me?”

“He just wants to ask you some questions,” she explained gently. “Just tell him the whole truth and I’m sure things will be all right.” The problem is her tone didn’t sound as sure as her words.

She and my attorney followed me into The Judge’s chambers. I wondered if they were actually there to make sure I didn’t bolt. Honestly, I thought about it, but I knew I had nowhere to run. The gods controlled every inch of Ovid, and I was reasonably certain that my ability to leave the town had somehow been curtailed.

The Judge was leaning back in a large green leather chair behind a huge oak desk. He was an imposing figure, and I felt my knees tremble when I looked into his stern eyes. Even the gold-rimmed glasses didn’t soften the piercing stare. “Miss Stewart. Please find a seat.”

It was then that I noticed that two of the green leather high-backed chairs were occupied. It was with no little relief that I saw Nancy and Chip both sitting there calmly holding mugs of steaming coffee. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here–except for Corey, of course.

Careful not to allow my already-short skirt to hike even higher, I slipped into a chair next to Chip. I was comforted by the reassuring smile he gave me. Cindy Patton even asked me if I wanted coffee, but I whispered no. I was still so nervous I knew a cup of coffee would land me in the restroom in minutes.

“Now that we’re all here, let’s begin,” the Judge ordered. “Miss Stewart, I’m most interested in hearing your story. Please tell us what has been happening these last few weeks.”

“Where do you want me to begin?” I asked nervously.

The Judge spread his hands. “You might as well start at the point where you remembered your life as Conrad Williams.”

It took an hour. I could have probably done it in less, but I realized I was on trial even if I wasn’t in the courtroom. That caused me to be cautious. The Judge also asked a number of questions. It became apparent to me that Corey had been correct–the gods had no idea that memories thought lost could be recovered as our little cell had proven.

When I had finished, The Judge turned to Nancy. Her story was shorter since she had had far less to do with extracting the data from the Oracle. The Judge waited to the very end to ask his questions of her.

“And so, Mrs. Franklin, you joined the cell and helped Ms. McGregor in the hope of being returned to your former life?”

“Yes,” Nancy replied softly.

“And is that still your wish?”

“I... I don’t think so,” she answered to my surprise. “When this all began, I guess that’s what I wanted. I wanted to be a man again–any man even if it wasn’t a black man. But I’ve come to love my family, Your Honor. It’s just that...”

“Yes?” The Judge prompted.

“I feel so useless,” she explained. “Your Honor, I’m–or I was–a doctor. Memories of being a doctor have been returned to me. I need to practice medicine again. I can be... an asset to the community.”

“But what if that meant you’d lose your family?” The Judge asked.

Nancy looked blankly at him. “Is that my choice?”

“Our current doctors are all men,” he pointed out.

Nancy thought for a moment, and I knew whatever she said next would be painful to her. At last, she announced, “If that’s my choice, then I choose keeping my family.” There was pain in her eyes, but I think sitting there with the realization of all her family meant to her had caused her to reorder her priorities. Even at that, it had not been an easy choice for her.

The Judge just nodded and turned to Chip.

Chip’s interrogation was quick and to the point. He backed up everything Nancy and I had said and provided his own reasons for helping Corey. The Judge didn’t seem too surprised.

“I gather then that you’re content to be who we have made of you,” The Judge surmised.

“Yes I am,” Chip agreed. Then he turned to me. “As long as I have April.”

The Judge rose. “Then it’s time for the final act in this little play. If you will accompany Ms. Jager and Ms. Patton into the courtroom, we can resolve this situation as quickly as possible.”

I didn’t really know what was coming. I’m sure none of us did, for as we entered the courtroom, we let out a collective gasp. There, standing before the bar with Officer Mercer next to her was Corey McGregor. She had a smug smile on her face as she saw us. At first, I thought Officer Mercer had captured her, but the smile told me this was somehow all part of her plan.

“Ms. McGregor, how nice to see you again,” The Judge said. There was no sarcasm in his voice, and if I hadn’t known the situation, I would have thought he was greeting an old friend. It was probably the right thing to say, though. It surprised Corey so much that the smile slipped just a little.

Mrs. Patton ushered Nancy, Chip and I into the gallery while Susan Jager took her post at the defendant’s table.

“I won’t be needing your pet lawyer today, Judge,” Corey growled, bringing a red flush to the attorney’s face. “I’m not the one on trial today.”

The Judge had donned his black robes of office and stood at the bench, making no move to sit. If Corey had expected to disturb him with her rudeness, she must have been surprised. The Judge merely shrugged and stepped around the bench to face his adversary. “If you will,” he replied with dignity. “What is it you want?”

Corey nodded. “I like that–right to the point. You know I have the CD that April over there made for me.”

The Judge smiled. “Of course. And I would imagine that you have already made certain that there is no way we can just retrieve it from you.”

“That’s right,” she agreed. “Five copies of the disk will be expressed to five news organizations today. Unless you agree to my demands, the whole world will know about what’s on it by this evening. You were a fool to make it available in a standard readable format.”

The Judge’s staff winced when she called him a fool. I nearly did myself. She might have some leverage over him, but I wondered if she truly understood who she was dealing with. Although The Judge’s smile didn’t waiver, I was certain that he was filing the comment away for future reference.

“And again I ask: what is it you want?” he queried evenly.

“Change me back to who I was,” she demanded. The Judge shook his head. “You know I can’t do that. Your old life is gone. No one even remembers Vanessa Bradshaw.”

There was a gasp next to me from Nancy. Of course, I realized. She didn’t know Corey had never been a man. That was just Corey’s way of gaining Nancy’s trust.

“You would have died from that beating,” The Judge continued. “It wasn’t very smart of you to try to con the mob. If Officer Mercer hadn’t found you in that ditch...”

“Damn Officer Mercer!” she yelled. “You knew it was going to happen. You let it happen. You let them beat me and then instead of fixing my body, you threw me into the body of this nigger!”

Chip and Nancy both gasped at that. So there was another reason Corey had lied about her previous life. She had been–and still was–a bigot. It was poetic justice for her to be in the body of a black woman, but it explained why she was so anxious to be transformed out of it.

“So if you can’t be your original self, you want to be someone else,” The Judge surmised.

“Damned straight I do!” she snarled. “And that’s just for starters. I want fifty million dollars transferred to the offshore account I had before I came here. And I want your word that you’ll leave me alone.”

“And what do we get in return?” The Judge asked calmly.

She smiled a sly smile. “You’ll get the names and locations of the recipients of the five CD’s. What you do to get them back is your business.”

The Judge shrugged. “Agreed.”

“Agreed? Just like that?” Corey asked, surprised.

“It’s a small price to pay,” The Judge informed her. “You can confirm the transfer of the money from my office. Now, do you have any certain identity you would like me to create for you?”

It was Corey’s turn to shrug. “I don’t care as long as I’m in my mid twenties, attractive, healthy, and white. That’s white–you got that part?”

“Female?”

“Of course,” she replied. “Oh, and none of your tricks. I want my entire memory this time.”

“Oh you’ll have it,” The Judge assured her. “Second transformations always leave memories intact. They lack the trauma of first transformations you see. Are you ready now? If so, picture who you would like to be in your mind. We’ll provide the rest.”

I shivered as I heard him utter those strange Latin-sounding words again. It was a memory of my own transformation. But nothing happened to me. Instead, I watched as Corey’s body seemed to brighten until it nearly glowed. Her skin began to turn lighter and her hair lengthened a bit, changing in color to a spun gold shade. Corey had been a little matronly on top, but now her body was as trim as a model’s. Even her clothing changed. The gray women’s suit she had been wearing changed into a winter white dress, complete with all the appropriate accessories.

“Observe,” The Judge said, the air in front of the new Corey shimmering until she could see her reflection in it.

Corey put a pale, slender hand to her cheek, as if to make sure what she saw was real. “It’s perfect,” she murmured. I could imagine the wheels inside her head turning as she realized how she now had the face and figure to con any man right out of his last dollar.

The Judge smiled. “I’m so happy you approve. Now, shall we go take care of that transfer? Ms. Patton will get you set up on my terminal. I’ll just be a minute here.”

Once they had left, The Judge turned back toward us. “You don’t look too pleased, Ms. Stewart,” he observed. Was that a tiny smile on his lips?

“You know, Your Honor, she’s lying to you,” I said carefully.

“Oh?”

“Even if she gives up the copies she’s told you about, she has more,” I pressed on. “And what about the other cells?”

He shook his head. “First of all, Ms. Stewart, there are no other cells.”

No other cells? But who had Corey been conferring with? Where did she get her information? Where... “Oh.”

The Judge openly smiled now. “That’s right. She would get information from one of you, or just observe things in the course of her day, and tell the rest of you that the information came from other cells.”

“But how can you be sure?” Nancy asked.

“We can’t,” The Judge admitted. “But it is very similar to a scam she pulled in Florida a few years ago while pretending to be a Cuban revolutionary. She is extremely good at that sort of thing. Besides, as each of you has had reason to note, while she is very good at gaining trust, she is slow to trust others. It’s very unlikely she would agree to be part of a larger organization like the one she had you believing existed.”

“But what about the other copies of the CD she undoubtedly still has?” I asked. “I spent many years in politics, Your Honor, and I’ve seen this pattern before. Once she’s succeeded in getting what she wants, she’ll want more.”

The Judge waved his hand in dismissal. “I appreciate your concern, Ms. Stewart, but let us worry about that. We have a more immediate problem–namely, what to do with the three of you.”

As one, we shifted uncomfortably. We were accessories to Corey’s scam, and even though we had cooperated with The Judge, our hands weren’t clean–especially mine.

“You present me with something of a problem,” The Judge told us. “We weren’t aware that the Children of Lethe could regain their memories. We have researched the problem with Ms. Patton’s assistance and believe we understand what happened.”

“Your Honor,” I asked, “why is it that some people remember and others don’t? Corey told us that those who agreed to cooperate with you got to retain their memories.”

He shook his head. “Another lie I’m afraid. To be truthful, none of us completely understand. In ancient times, it didn’t seem to be a problem, though. I suspect it has to do with your modern world. You are sure of your science that you even question the existence of your own god. Perhaps some of our new residents are more open to the idea of what you would call magic than others. Those who are open to the concept seem to remember while those who are more... pragmatic do not.”

“Pragmatic... like a politician,” I suggested.

“Just so. Politicians are the most pragmatic people on the planet. Only the plate that was in your head seems to have softened that pragmatism in some physical way, allowing your original memories to resurface. You see, that is what each of you share. Each of you had some physical... abnormality in your head which had caused your minds to think along different pathways. While your transformations suppressed your original identities, copies of them took different paths in the brain and eventually resurfaced.”

He turned to Nancy. “Had you still retained your medical skills after your transformation, we would have found a more challenging role for you. Do you still want to be a doctor?”

Something crossed Nancy’s face that I had never seen before. The corners of her mouth pulled up in a hopeful smile, and there was a brightness in her eyes I had never seen before. “Oh yes! Do you mean...?” Her voice trailed off as if she were afraid even to ask the question. But she had to ask it eventually. “Will I still have my family?”

The Judge nodded. “Yes. Now it won’t be as challenging as your former medical career, but tomorrow morning, be at Ovid Memorial at seven for your rounds. We’ve altered things to make it seem as if you have always been a physician.”

There were tears in Nancy’s eyes. I saw her mouth a “thank you,” but she was too overcome with emotion to speak.

“Mr. Wellington!”

Chip jumped as The Judge called his name.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“It seems that you seek nothing less than the secrets of the universe.”

“Yes...”

“Some of them are here, of course,” The Judge told him, “but they must be earned.”

“How, Your Honor?” Chip asked.

“Why through hard work and study,” The Judge replied. “I can offer you nothing for free, but I’m willing to let you continue to discover them for yourself. Just don’t attempt to find them by snatching them from places you don’t belong. Continue your studies, but leave the rest to us. Is that understood?”

There was a not-so-subtle threat in The Judge’s words. The look of relieved agreement on Chip’s face told me he would be seeking his future answers in the same way all physicists must and not in the archives of the gods. But just being close to them could provide some of the answers, couldn’t it?

“And finally you, Ms. Stewart...”

I grimaced. It was my turn. Nancy and Chip had been given fairly passive roles in our little cell, but mine had been very, very active. Corey had not demanded anything for me. She had left me hanging out to dry. In a moment of panic, I thought it very likely that the anger The Judge must have bottled up inside regarding Corey’s successful extortion was about to be visited upon me.

To my surprise, his voice was warm, almost fatherly. “Ms. Stewart, what did you hope to gain from all of this? Our research indicates that you have already reconciled yourself to being April Stewart.”

It was a good question, but I already knew the answer. “Power,” I replied.

For the first time since I had known The Judge, he appeared puzzled. “Power? I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” I sighed. “You’ve never been without it. I’ve just realized it myself. When you made me into April Stewart, you made me powerless. You turned me into a girl–some might say that was a loss of power right there. Then you made me think that my social life was more important than anything else. The only way I’d have any power would be to marry the right guy and leach some of his power. As a congressman, I had power. I was one of the most powerful people in the nation–maybe even in the world–and I thought I had a shot at gaining even more power–enough power to make a difference in the world. When you took that away from me, I didn’t realize it at first, but when my old memories were restored, I realized you had stripped me of power every way possible. That’s why I fell for Corey’s line, I guess. By finding out what was going on here, I could regain some of that power.”

I sighed, nearly on the verge of tears. “The problem,” I continued in a softer tone, “is that I didn’t understand what was at stake.”

“Do you understand now?” The Judge asked, understanding evident in his own tone.

I nodded. “Some of it, yes. Your Oracle has predicted the end of the world, and we’re going to do it to ourselves.”

“Yes?”

“And you can stop it,” I concluded. “Or you could have if I hadn’t screwed everything up.”

“The future is not cast in stone,” The Judge explained.

Always in motion is the future. Thank you, Yoda. You’re a big help.

“We believe we can influence the future, yes,” The Judge admitted. “And you would be correct to surmise that Ovid is part of that influence.”

“But how...?”

He shook his head. “That is not for you to know–at least not now. Suffice it to say nothing Ms. McGregor has done will change things. Both the problem and our attempted solution remain the same. While you have certainly done your best to confound us, I also recall that you tried to warn us as well.”

I could only nod at his remarks.

“So tell me, April, if I were to release you... on probation shall we say, what would you do with yourself?”

It wasn’t a subject I really needed to think about. I had been thinking about it a lot for the past few days. “First, I’d change my major to political science,” I said. “I don’t know if it would even be possible, but politics is still in my blood and I’d like the chance to get back into it.”

The Judge nodded but reserved comment.

I turned and faced Chip. “And I guess the other thing I’d do is straighten up April’s social life. No more Pauls in my life, I think. I guess I’ll keep seeing physics graduate students or something like that.”

Chip smiled encouragingly.

The Judge favored me with a small smile. “Then consider that the terms of your probation. Also, with the holidays coming up, I suppose there’s no good way to keep you from going to Tulsa to see your parents. But henceforth, all of your trips out of Ovid must be approved by me. Of course, you will be subject to the limitations which prevent you from uttering our names in the current context.” He turned to face Chip and Nancy. “That goes for you two as well. I don’t expect any more trouble out of any of you. I can assure you if there is any trouble from you, you will not like the results. Am I clear?”

The three of us nodded.

Before anything else could be said, Cindy Patton escorted the new Corey back to The Judge. “I assume everything meets with your approval, Ms. McGregor?” he asked formally.

Corey nodded slightly, as if to an inferior. Her smug expression was enough to make me want to wring her new neck. “Everything is in order,” she agreed. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be going.”

The Judge gave a slight nod to match hers. “Of course.”

We all stood silently listening to the sound of Corey’s heels as she left the courtroom. She didn’t even acknowledge us as she walked away. I guess we just weren’t important to her anymore. After all, we had done our part in her little scam, and now we were left to suffer the consequences. Were it not for The Judge’s leniency, I think I would have attacked her on the spot. As it was, there was nothing to be done but let her go.

“Don’t worry, Ms. Stewart,” The Judge murmured to me. “The game isn’t over yet.”

I felt a delicious shiver at his words. I seemed to remember from reading mythology as a young boy that mortals sometimes got the best of the gods, but not forever. The gods had long memories, and in the end, it was the mortals who paid. I might never know the final result, but I was certain The Judge would win in the end.

“Now, I expect all of you to get back to your roles,” The Judge pronounced. “Dr. Franklin, I believe you may want to go by your office to familiarize yourself with your patient files before beginning your rounds tomorrow.”

“My office?” Nancy said blankly. “But I don’t even know where it is.”

“Check in your purse,” The Judge suggested. “It’s on your business cards in there.”

Shaking from excitement, she fished out her cards. With a grin, she gave one to Chip and another to me before hurrying off to her new professional life.

“And I believe you have a class to teach, Mr. Wellington.”

Chip grinned. “Yes sir.” He turned to me. “Dinner tonight? Six?”

I smiled and nodded happily.

“If she’s finished with her work,” The Judge admonished. When he saw my look of confusion, he explained. “Betty Vest asked me to tell you that you still have your job. Of course, new security protocols have been added to her computer.”

“That’s fine with me. I never want to see that computer again,” I told him.

He dismissed me with a nod, so I walked out to the parking lot with Chip. I said nothing to him; just holding his hand as we walked was enough. I had a lot to think about. I’d be changing my major and preparing myself to get into politics again when I graduated. Oh, I’d have to earn my spurs. No one would nominate a young woman with no track record. Being a war hero as Conrad Williams had given me a big leg up on my career. No, it would take me many years–assuming I was still able to leave Ovid.

And being in public service meant even more to me now than ever before. I had seen the future–or at least a possible future–and it didn’t look good. I’d have to do whatever I could to prevent it from happening. Another word for war was conflagration. CONFLG had been the name of the file folder I had downloaded. War was coming–maybe tomorrow and maybe years down the road. I’d have to be ready for it...

“I always liked Conrad Williams,” Diana sighed as I returned to consciousness. “I think he would have made a good president. I voted for him five times the last time he ran for congress.”

“Five times?”

She shrugged.

“The thing that bothers me though,” I told her, “is that the bitch got away with it.”

“Don’t be too sure about that,” The Judge said from behind me.

Diana jumped off my desk and threw her arms around The Judge. “Hi, Daddy!” She always played her roles to the hilt, playing today the flighty little blonde. I wondered what classical scholars would have thought about Diana the Huntress doing her best Britney Spears imitation.

The Judge returned the hug, looking down at his daughter’s skirt. “Didn’t they have anything shorter?”

“Oh, Daddy!”

The Judge merely smiled, and just for a moment, I saw a doting father in the place of the stern god I had come to know. He looked at me, noting my bemusement it would seem. “Have you read the morning paper, Ms. Patton?”

“Sorry, Your Honor. I didn’t have time today.” With school in Christmas recess and three children to get ready for day care, I didn’t have time to read the paper. Every now and then, I found myself wishing the twins could remember who they had been so they could be more helpful. Of course, then I would recall my two juvenile fraternity brothers as they drank thoughtlessly in the back seat during that fateful trip to Ovid. Did they remember anything of their previous lives?

The Judge tossed the morning edition of the Tulsa World on my desk. “There’s a story on page three I think you’ll find interesting.” Indeed it was interesting. It seemed a Corey McGregor had been arrested in Dallas. Documents tying her to certain Middle-Eastern parties through a former lover had come to the attention of a special anti-terrorist task force headed by an Admiral Nepper. In addition to the evidence obtained in her apartment, the task force had traced a fifty million dollar payment made to an account in her name at an offshore bank that was cooperating with US authorities. The money had come from a known terrorist group.

“Was the money really from a terrorist group?” I asked.

“Of course it was,” The Judge replied. “It was a way to... I believe the expression is kill two birds with one stone.”

“April will be happy to hear about this when she gets back from Christmas break,” I commented. As April had remarked, the gods had long memories.

The Judge nodded in agreement, ushering Diana into his office. I was left to ponder on the works of the gods. I was certain that at that very moment, an unhappy Corey McGregor was sitting in a jail cell wanting to tell the authorities what had really happened. She couldn’t, though. What she had failed to keep in mind was that when she had The Judge transform her, he had undoubtedly removed from her the ability to speak of the gods, just as he had with the other members of the cell.

Poor Corey, I thought as I began to work on the stack of legal documents in front of me. She would have done well to study the works of Ovid for whom the town was named. If she had, she might have realized her efforts were doomed to failure as Ovid had warned in–appropriately enough–Metamorphoses:

The gods have their own rules.

The End