If I felt uncomfortable before, once we passed the midway point... "Let me put it this way," I said to van Els, "If you look up the word uncomfortable in the dictionary, you'll see my picture next to it."

"I'm sure it would be a lovely picture," one of the doctors told me. It might have been a nice compliment if he hadn't had his hand inside me as he said it.
 

My job is interesting, yeah, but the best part is that I work with an amazing variety of people, all of them top notch at what they do. Some of them are a little — or a lot — weak on their people skills, but that comes with the territory. But truthfully, that sort of thing is generally getting better: scientists, engineers, computer people (like me) are a lot more social, a lot less nerdy.

When I first started here, the really smart guys rubbed me the wrong way, but then I caught on: It was just their insecurity talking: as long as a genius feels that he's smarter than you, he likes you. It's the achilles heel of the super-intelligent, and — hey — if I play off their weakness, I don't really manipulate them. It's just to get along. And I get along pretty well with the brain boys. In fact, I get along pretty well with just about everybody.

And yet somehow, I always find myself eating alone... go figure.

So I'm sitting at lunch, wondering whether it's really a good idea to eat lasagna three days in a row, when Isaac van Els sits down opposite me. I don't know him, but I know who he is... he's some kind of engineer, and he's one of the lucky ones who gets to work directly with the alien technology that was found here in Timbuctoo, California. Most of us only get to work on the data, and never even *see* the alien tech. I'm on the team that works on machine translations of the alien language. It's challenging and interesting, but it is one godawful slog, let me tell you.

Anyway, van Els... he sits down with me and is oh-so-charming. He asks me about my work, shows what seems like real interest, asks very insightful questions, and then he goes so far as to make a couple of interesting suggestions. I get pretty excited, because his offhand remarks might end up giving me a huge shortcut to breaking down the alien documents.

Okay: so he was just buttering me up. I know that now. But oh, he really buttered me good. When he first sat down, I felt okay. I wasn't down or anything like that, but after we'd talked a while, I was really UP. His attention flattered me. His listening was a relief, because most people don't want to hear about my work. His suggestions were so exciting that I wanted to run back to my desk and start pounding out some new code.

But then he turned the conversation around. It was like we were sitting on this huge pivot, and he gently turned the whole conversation and the elation I was feeling — well, he pointed it all in a new direction.

He started talking about what he was doing, and it was fascinating. He wasn't boasting; that was the nice part. He was sharing. He made me feel like this was confidential, like maybe he wasn't even supposed to be telling me, but he didn't care.

"So what does the device do?" I asked.

"In a nutshell, it rewrites your DNA and forces your body to update."

"What do you mean, *update*?"

"Let's say a woman wants to have blonde hair. She steps on the pad, and the program rewrites her DNA. If it stopped there, she wouldn't suddenly have blonde hair. She'd have to wait until her follicles started making new hair before she saw any change."

I frowned. "How long would that take?"

"Who cares?" he countered. "Too long. The thing is, the machine forces your body to do a kind of reboot. It flashes all your cells so that the change is apparent immediately."

"So she'd go from brunette to blonde—"

"—in five seconds."

"Wow!"

"That's a trivial example. The aliens—"

I interrupted. "What's it really for? The aliens didn't bring it here for spa treatments, did they?"

"No," he said. "I was just about to tell you. We've managed to figure out that the aliens weren't human. They were humanoid. They looked kinda human, but not quite. This machine let them go the last mile and masquerade as one of us."

I swore in surprise. "Do you think there might still be some of them still here on earth?"

"No telling," he said with a shrug. He moved his coffee cup and started pushing the drips of coffee around with his fingertip. "So anyway..." he said with studied casualness, "how'd you like to give it a whirl?"

"Me? Whaaa—"

Well, we argued for a while. Or discussed, rather. We talked about protocols and rules (There are no rules if you get results, he said). We talked about safety (absolutely no danger, he said). I mentioned the terms permanent damage and side effects.

"Look," he said. "The thing takes a snapshot of your current status, so you can always revert to exactly what you are now. And the only side effect is that, no matter what, it will take ten years off your age."

"How's that?"

"You know that as you get older, your DNA kind of gets frayed at the ends? After a certain point, the copies degenerate. That's what aging is all about. This machine will knit up the frayed ends. Make you ten years younger."

Well, I'm only forty-three, but the idea of backing off to thirty-three was not without its appeal! Thirty-three was a good year for me, so...

Twenty minutes later, I was dressed in a tank top and shorts, barefoot, standing inside the alien device. A ray of light passed slowly over me and bam! my hair was blond. It was so funny, I had to laugh. A couple of doctors gave me a good going over and after their thumbs-up, van Els asked, "How about another go? Want to see the Japanese version of you? the Kenyan version?"

Well, we tried them both. I stood in the box, the ray of light passed over me, and bam! I became a Japanese version of myself! Bam! I turned into the Kenyan version of myself! It was exhilarating. The doctors checked me over thoroughly after each change, and said I looked better than when I walked in. I felt better, too. I jumped around a little, dancing and laughing.

"Okay," van Els said to me. "Anything else you'd like to try?"

"No," I said, a little taken aback. "I'm all out of ideas. Uh... I guess I'm ready to turn back."

"Hold on there," van Els laughed. "Just because you're out of ideas doesn't mean we are. We've got plenty of ideas."

I felt a little chill. Even though he was smiling, I felt that his inner mad scientist was showing. He noticed my discomfort and said, "Don't worry! It's nothing bad. Maybe a little embarrassing for you, but all in the interest of science."

I hesitated, so he added, "When we're done, you can go back to what you were, or what you were... with more."

"More what?" I asked.

"Whatever you want," he replied. "You name it. Just like in a fairy tale."

That sounded good, and maybe I did have some ideas... I could use some muscles, better teeth, more hair... "But what exactly do you want to do to me?" I asked.

"We want to make a radical change, one that goes all the way down to your bones and inner organs. That way we can really see what this machine is capable of."

"Specifically what does that mean?"

"All the changes we made so far are superficial. Think for a moment: What's the biggest, most elementary change we could make in you? One that involves every system in your body?"

"No," I said.

"It's reversible," he said.

"You're going to take pictures," I protested.

"This is science," he said. "We have to measure everything we can measure."

We went back and forth for a while, until it got late. We agreed that I would sleep on it, and I went to my quarters, still as the blackest man that I'd ever seen.

In the morning I met him in the lab and told him, "Tell me all the details."

"We're going to move you gradually from male to female, talking blood samples, doing ultrasound at some steps, X-rays at others. We'll do a full body scan at the beginning, middle, and end."

"And each step I'll be a little less male."

"And a little more female, right."

"And at the end, you'll change me back."

"Right. With whatever changes or enhancements you like."

"Okay," I said. "Let's do it."

The first couple transformations were not too embarrassing. My facial hair was going away... but once my testicles started shrinking and my breasts started growing, I began to feel pretty damn uncomfortable. I wasn't sure which was worse: being examined or being photographed.

"How are you holding up?" van Els asked.

"Every pass of that ray and I'm less of a man," I complained.

"And more of a woman," he countered. "This is very brave of you," he added. "And the results we're getting are remarkable."

If I felt uncomfortable before, once we passed the midway point... "Let me put it this way," I said to van Els, "If you look up the word uncomfortable in the dictionary, you'll see my picture next to it."

"I'm sure it would be a lovely picture," one of the doctors told me. It might have been a nice compliment if he hadn't had his hand inside me as he said it.

Yes, I said "inside me" — after the midpoint in the series of transformations, they started doing internal exams. During the first examination I joked, "Just like at the airport!" and everyone laughed. During the third exam, I snapped, "Do you dip your hands in ice water before you touch me?"

After the next to the last change, the staff were practically on tip toe, and I was in a total snit. I'd gone from a permanent blush to a state of irritation on a hair trigger.

"I'm sorry," van Els said, trying to look and not look as they examined me. "I know this is difficult for you, but we're almost done."

"If it's any consolation," the doctor said, "you look adorable." I blinked and fumed a little, because after all — and once again — he had his fingers inside me as he said it. Talk about bedside manner!

But still...

Before I stepped into the box the last time, I took a look in the mirror. God, I *did* look good! I'm pretty sure I was hot. I had a skinny little waist, a nice little butt and a pair of perky breasts. And I had one of those cute little faces that you want to kiss and kiss and kiss.

"How much of this is me?" I asked, twisting this way and that, and looking over my shoulder at the mirror.

"Um, if I understand the question, all we did was tweak the male/female switches."

"You mean the XY chromosomes?"

"Well, there's a bit more to it than that, but the short answer is yes. This is how you'd look if you were born a girl, all other things being equal."

"Hmmph," I said, considering, turning one way and another. I saw the doctor standing slack-jawed in the background, but I ignored him.

"Okay," I said. "Let's do the last one."

"Ready?" van Els said.

"I just said that I was," I growled.

"Sorry," he said with a gulp.

I stepped inside the device without bothering to put on the tank top and shorts, and as I stood there naked, the ray swept over me, and I felt the change happen.

I stepped from the box, and van Els whistled.

"Oh, baby!" one of the engineers ejaculated.

"I have to tell you this — and don't get mad," van Els said, "but you were already smoking hot before you stepped into that box, but now you are on freaking fire!"

"Huh," I said, looking into the mirror. "So percentage-wise, am I zero percent male now?"

"Yes," van Els agreed, "and 100 percent female."

"Now that's it: we've finished with the damn less ray, the one that makes me less of a man?"

"Oh, honey," van Els exclaimed, "That's not a less ray, that's a MORE ray."

© 2011 by Kaleigh Way

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