Chemystery, by Karin Bishop

Part 2

June 13

Oh, God. Craig’s gone. Or he will be, tomorrow. It was weird going to his house, where I’ve been a zillion times, and it was all empty and they were living out of suitcases.

Oh, and school’s over. Just a couple of half-days and time for the three of us to hang as much as we could, and all day today. Craig’s parents sprang for us to go bowling and have pizza and then unlimited game room time, just like a birthday party, but none of us wanted to celebrate. Craig’s sister Teresa is a basket case; apparently a cute boy had just asked her out, finally, and now she’s got to move. The high school let out a week earlier for seniors so she’s already done the graduation thing and all that.

Craig told me that he felt closer to his sister than he ever had before. He said this while Tommy was bowling and the parents weren’t around. Craig said that it was probably the move that brought them closer; they’d been living separate lives with separate friends and schools and now they were just two kids again, doing what their parents wanted.

I told Craig, “You’re lucky. Your sister is so cool. And so pretty! I can’t believe that guy took so long to ask her out!”

“I know!” he nodded. “Chump.”

“Yeah. I mean, I love her hair, with that new style. And she’s always dressed really nice, you know? Not a total Hollister clone like a lot of girls.”

He nodded again. “That stylist got it right. I like the new cut, too. It frames her face.”

Tommy came up from the lane. “Frames? How many?”

He’d thought we meant ‘bowling frames’ so Craig said, “You can do one more, if you want. My arm’s kind of tired.”

I looked at my right hand. “I think I’m getting a blister on my thumb. I’m going to lay out, too.”

Tommy nodded and then, to our shock, hugged Craig. “I’m going to miss you so much,” he sniffed, and turned away back to the lanes before we could see his face, but I think he was starting to cry.

“We’re all pretty emotional,” Craig began.

“And having interesting dreams,” I added.

“And we’re soft and squishy. Have you noticed Tommy’s getting a little …”

“Rounder?” I’d noticed it in his face.

“Eating better, maybe,” Craig said, but something in his voice said he didn’t believe it.

“Craig, we’ve gotta admit it,” I said, looking around to see that we were alone. “Whatever happened to us at Intellia that night did something weird.”

He shook his head. “Not just did something weird; it’s still happening.”

“You’ve noticed, too?”

He turned to me. “Look, Chris, you’re the only one I can talk to about this. I can’t talk to Tommy …he’s got too many other problems at home and I don’t want to lay it on him until I’m sure. But you, you and I …” He looked around. “Have you …felt yourself lately?”

“You mean, like, playing with myself?”

He grinned. “Well, that, too, but I meant …well, start with that. Have you played with yourself lately? And come on, we know we all do.”

I blushed. “No. I mean, yeah, I did, but I hadn’t thought about it until you just said that. No, I haven’t played with myself since …yeah,” I nodded. “Since at least that night.”

“My point exactly. So, what I said before …have you felt yourself? Like …” He looked around, made as if to stretch, and traced his fingers over his chest. “..this?”

“Not really.”

“You will, I’ll bet. Have you been thinking about girls differently than you used to? I know you have, because you’re talking with Jenny Allen all the time.”

“Not all the time …but, yeah. Maybe it’s just growing up.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s more. Have you thought about …about their clothes?”

“No, not beyond any …” I stopped myself, suddenly remembering how we’d just been talking about his sister, and then I remembered complimenting Mom on her blouse. “Yeah, now that you mention it. And I remember Tommy saw Jenny a week ago and said, ‘cute skirt’.”

“Which Tommy would never say.”

“Which Tommy would never say,” I agreed. “So you think we’re …oh, God …do you think we’re turning gay somehow?”

He gave me the saddest smile imaginable. “Not gay. Not that simple. Maybe, but …no. I think we’re turning into girls.”

“Into girls?” I almost blurted loudly. “Why …how …”

“Why, I don’t know. The how is obvious–our beverages at Intellia. Something that all three of us got, in the drinks or the ice cubes, and I think …” He sat up closer to me and lowered his voice. “Everything I’m saying applies to all three of us, okay? And so we’ve got to be completely honest with each other because we can’t not be–because we’re the only ones who know. And it’s not us being weird, it’s something that was done to us. So there’s no shame in that.”

“But not telling Tommy right now–”

“Is because of his family. You want him to maybe get an arm broken? Neither do I. Okay.” He ticked points off on his finger. “First of all, everything odd started that night. That’s a given. Next, we’re all feeling, like you said, soft and squishy. Next, we’re all having strange dreams. Dreams about girls and boys and different feelings.”

“I haven’t dreamed about boys.”

“Not yet, but you will, I bet,” he said bleakly.

Strangely, that thought didn’t revolt me; it almost sounded …neat.

Craig sighed. “We’re using words and speech patterns closer to the girls around us than the way we spoke before, or the way guys speak around us. Next …well, I’ll bet you’ve been seeing the guys as school in a new light. Differently than before. Same with the girls.”

I nodded.

He did, too. “Next, the clothes …girls’ clothes …are really, really fascinating. Like the way my sister’s skirt swings when she walks.”

“God, I know! Teresa’s so cute!”

“See, there you go, doing it!” he grinned. “But we used to watch her butt. Now we watch her skirt. See the difference?”

I stared off at the lanes. “We’re becoming girls.”

He nodded. “We’re becoming girls.”

“But how far?”

***

So we spent the rest of the day not talking about it. We promised each other that as soon as the time was right, I was going to have to tell Tommy without Craig being there. But Craig’s got a fancy video hookup on his computer, and mine is cheesy but works. We figured we’d be emailing each other, and then get Tommy in front of my computer for a three-way conference.

Our Intellia Conference.

June 16

Craig was right, as usual. I discovered my fingers tracing lazy circles around my nipples while I lay in my bed, reading. There was a puffiness to my nipples; I lifted my t-shirt and sure enough, there were little swellings under my nipples. I pulled my shirt down and tried to read but my mind was on my body.

About an hour later I checked my computer and finally there was an email from Craig, all apologetic about how the movers didn’t have all of his computer in one place so it took a while to track it all down and reassemble it. He wrote a bit about the new house and neighborhood and then got to it. He said ‘that thing’ we’d talked about was on his mind and for me to email him when I’d be alone in my room for a video feed. I emailed right away that I was there for the rest of the night. I ran down to tell Mom that I might be getting a feed from Craig and I’d be on headphones and I didn’t know if the signal would be any good so if she needed me for anything to wait until I came back out. She said she completely understood and to say hi to Craig for her.

About five minutes later I sat with the phones and microphone boom awaiting the feed. It was funny; when it came through it was just like when Craig lived in my neighborhood. It was weird thinking that he was in another time zone now.

His head loomed in the monitor as usual. “Hey, Chris.”

“Hey, yourself. I read about your new house. Sounds neat.”

Small talk out of the way, he asked if we were ‘secure’ and I said yes. He asked if I’d been thinking about what we’d talked about at the bowling alley. I had; I asked him if he remembered an old spy movie where they used the code ‘Moscow Rules’ and he did, grinning. It meant we’d only speak when absolutely sure nobody could hear. And we’d tell each other the truth. And no recording! We both agreed and said the phrase ‘Moscow Rules’ and I told him about my kind-of puffy nipples.

He said, “They’re kinda puffy, huh?” and unbuttoned the green shirt he was wearing and flopped it back over his shoulders. The camera showed his nipples were puffy, sure …but there was a small mound rising around each nipple.

“I saw Teresa when she was first getting her boobs. I look just the same.”

“Well, yeah, same genetic stock,” I said, lamely.

“You know what this means?”

“We start shopping at Victoria’s Secret?” Lame, again.

He grinned, though. “Not yet, but maybe soon. This is way faster than Teresa’s. I’ve been reading up on this thing called ‘gynecomastia’, which basically means boobs on boys. We sort of qualify, but not on the timetable, and definitely not with everything else.”

“You mean the dreams, the …thoughts …” I trailed off.

“Boys?” he said oddly.

I nodded. “I was looking at a People magazine, just browsing, you know? And suddenly my heart went thumpa-thumpa and it was this guy with six-pack abs and was only seventeen and I was almost panting.” Just remembering it made me breathe faster.

I wasn’t surprised when Craig nodded. “I saw this boy down the street and my brain said he was cute and I wonder what kind of girl he likes …and I realized that my brain meant, ‘girl’ as in me being the girl.”

“What the hell is happening, Craig?”

“I don’t know. I mean, yeah, we both know; something was done to us on purpose or by accident at Intellia. But how and why a video game company would have the ability–or even the stuff laying around–for that to happen …”

“We’ve got to dig up info on Intellia, beyond the games.”

“That’s the starting point, sure. The one thing that confuses me–I mean, that doesn’t fit–is that it’s the wrong demographic.”

“Oh, sure, of course; I was thinking along the same lines,” I teased. “What the heck do you mean?”

“Their games–the whole range of games, even ones we don’t play?–they’re all boys’ games. I mean, not just Omega Chronicles and shooters, but hard-core sports things like football and basketball. There’s not even softer stuff like Bejeweled or that Dance-Dance thing or Guitar Hero–heck, even Teresa plays Guitar Hero!”

“Well, that’s part of what makes them so cool, so hard-core. Gamers wouldn’t want the same place that makes Halo, say, to make an Easy Bake Oven.”

Craig actually giggled at that, but said, “That’s what I mean about the demographic being all wrong; they don’t …”

He paused, thinking.

I said, “The only thing I can come up with for Intellia to do something like this is that maybe they figured we’re hard-core gamers; we proved that to them, with all the questions they asked. So if we turned into girls, would we still be gamers? Like they could find out what we didn’t like about the game–as girls, I mean–that we did like as guys? And then come out with a …I don’t know, a unisex Omega, maybe?”

“It’s a stretch, yeah,” Craig nodded. “Except that it doesn’t quite fit. If there was a girl-gaming community besides the hard-core fan-girls–I mean, if it was perfectly normal for girls like Teresa and Jenny Allen to game–then your idea would fit. But they’d have to already be into gaming, and they’re not, so it would have to be a whole new social restructuring. It’s a good idea you had, but it would be like testing two different car models on some remote villager who only drives ox carts. The poor guy wouldn’t have the experience to determine if five cup holders was a good thing!”

We agreed that the demographic-test idea was unlikely, and then Craig went on to tell me some of the stuff he’d dug out about boys turning into girls. There were some rare conditions where it happened, but for all three of us to do it and in the exact same time frame was ‘statistically impossible’–one of Craig’s favorite phrases, I remembered. Plus, like he’d said, the timetable was all wrong, all sped up, based on how fast he was developing compared to his sister’s rate as a normal girl.

I had a weird sudden flash of, ‘I wonder when I can wear a bra?’ Not if, or have to, but when can I …

I said it was time to get Tommy in on it, and we agreed I’d get him over for a Moscow Rules session and we laid out a basic schedule for another video feed and then ended the connection.

It was still early enough that I called Tommy and got his brother who was normally nice but kind of sneered and asked ‘Why did I want the little faggot?’ and all I could think of was, poor Tommy. He came on the line sounding very, very strange.

“Chris. Hi. Uh …”

“Listen, Tommy, how you doing?”

“Okay.” He was definitely not okay.

“Can you come over tomorrow some time? For at least an hour or so?”

“Um …hold on.”

The phone was muffled and there were voices and a bit of shouting. When Tommy came on he was sniffing. “Not tomorrow. The next day, maybe. Five or six. I’ve got to be back home by seven.”

We agreed on five and I emailed Craig and got a response that he’d be on day after tomorrow at 5:15, our time. I lay back in bed and thought.

And my fingers were gently stroking my nipples.

June 17

I decided to help Mom today. I do, anyway, but we did a big day of laundry and dusting and vacuuming. I wore a t-shirt and shorts and suddenly flashed on several things. First of all, girls wore t-shirts and shorts. Other than underwear, my clothing was truly unisex. I was wearing flip-flops, too. All of the moving and stretching involved in the work made me realize my nipples were rubbing against my t-shirt and it both hurt and felt good at the same time. Kind of like that icy-hot feeling with Ben-Gay or Atomic Balm. But I knew that it was only a matter of time before I became noticeable.

And then what?

Mom went out shopping and I flipped through the new magazines from the mail and I found myself checking out the girls and boys–but entirely unlike any time I’d looked at magazines before. I’d looked at cute girls in magazines but now, the girls I was rating as cute–but cute but in a totally different way. ‘Cute’ like, that was a cute outfit; I really liked the skirt. Or, that looks like a cute top. Or even, I wonder if my hair would look that cute if I got that hairstyle.

When Mom came home I was unusually quiet. She gave me my space but asked if I’d join her in a movie on the couch. It was an old rerun of Miss Congeniality and I watched it with new eyes. The ugly-duckling becoming the beautiful swan …

June 18

I spent most of the next day on the internet, after a bike ride. Mom was working late so I was completely undisturbed, and we’d get our video conference done with before she got home. I also uncovered a bunch of stuff to tell the guys.

And I had a shock at five.

Tommy did not look like Tommy to me. Oh, the black eye was nearly gone, but there was a swelling along his cheek, and when he reached for something his t-shirt sleeve slid up and I saw his upper arm was black and blue. We’d seen stuff like that over the years and it made Craig and I really crazy and sad at the same time. Helpless, too. We learned to ask once how he was doing and then shut up about it. So I asked but knew he’d just shake his head and not say anything. But instead he put both hands over his face and burst into tears. Tommy? In tears? I sat next to him and hugged him and we sat there for awhile until he got himself together. He was still sniffing when the video feed came through.

After Moscow Rules–and explaining it to Tommy–Craig immediately laid it all out. He apologized for us not telling Tommy sooner, but we’d only just found out ourselves and talked at length yesterday. Not entirely true, but it satisfied Tommy. Craig said quite bluntly that something happened to us at Intellia and whether by accident or on purpose …all three of us were become feminine. Possibly becoming females, he said.

“God, I knew it!” Tommy squealed. “I’m becoming a sissy!” He burst into tears again.

It took us a bit to get him calmed down. Craig said there were some things that seemed to mean that it wasn’t just becoming girlish males. He asked about Tommy’s chest and the way he shook his head vehemently led Craig and I to look at each other and nod. I went first. I lifted my shirt.

“Tommy, look at me. Look at me, please.”

Tommy glanced and did a cartoon-worthy double-take. I had the puffy nipples and now the slight mounds that Craig had shown me yesterday. Then on the monitor, Craig grinned and unbuttoned his shirt again and turned sideways. Tommy and I stared at Craig’s boobs. There was no other word for them–his profile showed the mounds unmistakably. Tommy gasped and Craig looked at him, still with his shirt off.

“Well, Tommy?” I said, gently.

He hung his head, then took a sharp, ragged breath and undid his baggy shirt. There were two mounds, puffy nipples and all. Suddenly we all broke out laughing, giggling uncontrollably. Eventually we calmed down and buttoned up. But at least Tommy felt way better.

I told them the results of my net searches. There was that statistical impossibility to overcome, and I told various theories about different species that changed sex. Tommy said, whoa, maybe we’re just growing boobs, but I confessed to thinking about cute dresses and cuter boys.

Craig said, “Not to play one-up-man-ship, but I think I’ve got you beat.”

He’d been sitting at the computer and now stood from the chair and stepped back. Omigod! Craig was wearing a denim miniskirt! He sat back down.

Matter-of-factly he said, “One of the advantages of having a sister.”

I asked if he’d told her; he said not yet but he’d grabbed a few things that might be explained as ‘lost in the move’. He said it just felt right, but that he was going to take a bath later tonight and shave his legs. He said then he’d feel right.

Tommy just stared at him. I just thought about how cute Craig had looked in the skirt and thought about myself in one. Maybe like the cute one Miranda wore the last time I saw her?

Focus, Chris! I told myself.

Craig then told about his researches, and it seemed that Tommy really needed to hear it. And I was staggered by what Craig had found.

Intellia was a state-of-the-art video game company, but it was so ‘bleeding edge’ that it had been acquired by another company. And another company had that one as a subsidiary, and another one …it was like that cartoon with a fish coming to eat a little fish, with an even bigger fish right behind ready to eat the first fish. Infinite regression, I remembered from a thing I’d read about M.C. Escher and murmured his name.

“No,” Craig said, grinning wickedly. “Not Escher. Pentagon.”

He’d tracked them one by one until it became obvious that the ultimate ‘parent company’ of Intellia was the Department of Defense.

“I don’t think Intellia is doing anything for the D.O.D.,” Craig said. “I think it’s just part of a blind, a front, maybe. And lord knows it’s a profitable one.”

I said, “So you think that the Military Guy wasn’t Intellia …”

He nodded. “I think he was directly or indirectly D.O.D. or at least worked for them. Did you see the look on the guy with the beard? It was like he was scared of those guys.”

“And was helpless,” I mused.

Tommy spoke for the first time. “I think the Bearded Guy was going to let us go really quick.”

“Yeah, before the Black Hats arrived.”

“Hats?” Tommy asked.

I explained the term, and he nodded and then I said, “So are we being punished …or tested?”

Craig shrugged. “I’d say we’re being tested.”

Tommy said, “Tested to do what?”

Craig and I exchanged one of our countless looks over Tommy. Craig patiently said, “Not tested like in school, tested like …well, like lab rats.”

“What?” Tommy almost jumped from the bed.

I calmed him down and reminded him that what was happening to us had been done to us; it wasn’t our fault.

Tommy seemed frantic. “Yeah, but we’re still growing tits! I can’t …I can’t do this!”

“Calm down, big guy,” Craig said. “We don’t know–”

“Big guy? Ha! What a laugh!” Tommy almost sobbed. “You two are going on and on about your tits, but what about your dicks?”

Craig and I exchanged looks; we hadn’t gotten to that part yet. At least, I hadn’t …

Craig calmly said, “Yeah, my dick is smaller. Yours, too?”

Tommy groaned. “Yeah …oh, God!”

I said, “Look, Tommy, this isn’t God’s Divine Punishment or anything like that,” knowing his religious bent. “This is something those guys did to us.”

Tommy said, “So let’s just go back and tell them to fix it.”

It was stunningly simple except for one thing.

I cleared my throat, getting their attention. “Guys, I rode my bike over there today.”

“Great!” Tommy said.

“Oh-oh,” Craig said.

“Yeah, oh-oh,” I agreed sadly. “They’re gone.”

“Gone?” Tommy gasped.

Craig said, “I was afraid of that. We …breached their security. They ‘fixed’ us and then had to pack up.”

“Intellia’s gone?” Tommy said dumbly.

“We’ll just have to track ‘em down,” Craig said. “In the meantime–”

“In the meantime,” Tommy almost snarled, “you think we’re turning into chicks!”

Neither Craig nor I spoke. Then, just to get onto a different subject–sort of–I asked generally, mostly for Tommy’s benefit, “Why would they turn us into chicks? Why even come up with something like that?” I didn’t bother telling Tommy about our ‘demographics’ idea; I knew it would only confuse him and Craig and I had pretty much discarded it, anyway.

Craig said, “Ah …I may have an idea. Two ideas, really. Okay, I’ve been reading a lot of odd websites lately, and one of my bookmarks is for a site talking about cutting edge weapons. Not weapons that go boom!–but weapons that make the enemy not want to fight you. And some of them are just crowd control, like for riot situations.”

“Or political protests,” I said, getting cold at the thought. I’d read something about it.

“Yeah,” Craig nodded solemnly. “They’re really strange, all over the map technically. They’ve got sound cannons that send a special sound frequency that is like the ultimate fingernails-on-the-chalkboard. And one frequency that’ll make your stomach sick and you crap your pants.”

“God!” Tommy exclaimed.

“I don’t think God’s involved in these; He’s probably embarrassed by the ways we come up with to hurt each other,” Craig said dryly. “There’s another ‘cannon’ thing–I think anything that outputs something is called a cannon–only this one doesn’t put out heat, exactly.”

“I read about that one!” I said excitedly. “In Wired magazine, I think. It makes you feel like your skin’s on fire; supposed to be total agony without anything actually burning.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. There’s things about super-glue, and sticky nets, and all sorts of stuff. And you’re right, Chris; most of those were all crowd-control things for protestors. But the weapons for armies, or maybe like a terrorist training camp …” He broke off, lost in thought for a moment.

It went on so long that I said, “Craig? We still doing Moscow Rules?”

“Yeah, Moscow Rules. I just had a thought. I was going to tell you about bio-weapons, like plague and that Ebola virus and stuff, and there was something about tranquilizers in the water supply. I suddenly had a thought …” He paused for a moment, holding his hand up. Tommy and I looked at each other; we knew that when Craig got like this, his wheels were turning at high speed.

Craig nodded and spoke. “Yeah, it makes sense. Think about this. The terrorists–I mean, the ones we’re mostly fighting now–are religious fundamentalists, really conservative and all, and you know how they keep the women hidden and wearing those big black things?”

“Burkhas,” I said.

“Yeah. Veils, the works. Women are second-class citizens, if they’re even considered as ‘citizens’. Sort of like ‘failed men’. Not all Muslim countries are like that, and not all Arab countries.”

“Just the fundamentalists,” Tommy nodded. “Like those Christian fundamentalists with like sixteen wives and they all dress alike and look like robots.”

We’d all seen that on TV when their compound had been raided.

“Exactly, Tommy,” Craig nodded. “Yeah. So, I’m just going off the top of my head here, but I said I had two ideas. The first is, religious fundamentalists. And I don’t mean just Islamic guys. Tommy was right about the Christian guys, and I don’t know about any other religions really well, but it seems that in every single one of them, the back-to-basics, fundamentalist kind? In every single one of them, women are downgraded. Second-class citizens, or really just slaves, good for babies and keeping house.”

I said, “I saw something about that on the History Channel, and I never thought of it before, but you’re right. They’re all really macho, me-Tarzan-you-Jane sort of things.”

Tommy actually giggled at my Tarzan reference and put his hand over his mouth, fingers straight up. “Sorry!”

Craig and I exchanged a glance at that, both the giggle and the gesture.

Craig went on. “Okay, so any of the fundamentalist crazies, any religion, all seem to be rough-tough macho male-dominated groups, that look down on women?” He paused and Tommy and I nodded.

“Oh!” I said as the thought came. “The Taliban and one of those Christian camps up in Montana or Wyoming or something, the one the FBI raided?”

“Where they shot the FBI guy?” Tommy said and Craig was nodding.

“Teenagers,” I said. “They’re all teenagers. I mean, not every fundamentalist and not every religion, but I know the Christian guys were like seventeen–at least the one that shot the FBI guy was–and I think the Taliban’s really young.”

Craig’s face was grim. “Yeah; I remember a phrase somewhere that few things are more frightening than a sixteen-year-old boy full of God and carrying a Kalashnikov.”

The image made me shake, like a sudden chill.

Craig’s mouth quirked in a wicked smile. “So what do you guys think would happen to a big old terrorist training camp, like a hundred rough-tough guys–especially macho teenaged dudes–when they all start turning into girls?”

“Omigod!” I gasped.

Tommy cracked up. “They’d be so busy disciplining each other, even when they were turning into girls themselves!”

Craig laughed and said, “They sure wouldn’t be spending too much time on training how to shoot and blow up Americans.”

Tommy said, “Maybe they’d all take up baking instead!”

We all giggled at the vision–as politically incorrect and ignorant as it was–and there’s no other word for it; we all were giggling.

Then I said, “What’s the second idea?”

Craig said, “That Intellia is the legitimate public image, the respectable front, with labs in front designing software, and in the labs in the back rooms one of the Black Hat outfits tinkers away at their experiments, completely hidden.”

I put it together. “So you think they were working on a …call it a ‘girl-bomb’ somewhere in the building we snuck into? And they infected us, exposed us somehow …” I nodded grimly. “Our drinks, yeah. You said that before, Craig. And all of them were opened. Maybe in the ice, but definitely in the drinks.”

Tommy said, “So, why? So we’d turn into girls and be too busy shopping for purses at the mall to say that Intellia’s got Black Hats in it? They’ve already left; what’s the point?”

“The marketing,” I said, stunned.

“Huh?” Tommy asked.

“Not the demographic thing we first thought,” Craig nodded.

“Remember the ‘marketing survey’?” I used air-quotes. “The one that Military Guy did? Remember the questions? Some were typical marketing things like what kind of computer do we use.”

Tommy said, “Maybe so they’d know which computer was ours if they broke in?”

Craig said, “Possible, big guy. Or they–”

“Stop calling me ‘big guy’,” Tommy said, glumly. “I don’t know what I am, or what I’m turning into, but …” The tears came again.

This time I handed him a box of tissues and went on speculating. “The questions were also about our parents, siblings …”

“Girlfriends, sex questions,” Craig went on. “Yeah. All mixed together. Brilliant. But, hey, they’re the D.O.D. so taxpayers pay ‘em to be brilliant!”

“But why turn us into girls?” Tommy whined, sniffing.

“To test the stuff. They know how much they gave us, and–” He broke off and went into his deep thought mode briefly. “Hey, Chris; you mentioned the Taliban and I just remembered something about them …” Then he had it. “Yeah. There was a thing I watched on terrorists, that was like the life cycle?”

“Not a long cycle,” I joked.

“Hate those guys!” Tommy blurted out.

Craig gently said, “Tommy, remember we talked about how hate makes us stop thinking? Those guys want us to hate them so much that we do something stupid.”

“Hate ‘em, Tommy,” I said, rubbing Tommy’s shoulder. “But don’t let the hate rule you.”

We both realized that it was odd to be sitting there, knees together, with me rubbing his shoulder. I stopped.

Craig might have seen all that but let it go. “So in the documentary, these kids go into religious schools when they’re like five or something, and by the time they’re our age, they’re so conditioned in the religious craziness that they happily go shoot people or blow themselves up.”

“Yeah; Chris was saying the guy was like seventeen or something,” Tommy said.

I didn’t correct him that the Christian guy had been seventeen.

“Don’t you see?” Craig nodded. “It’s our age. We’re like almost prime terrorist age, so they could test it on us and know that it would be similar to the guys in the terrorist camps. Maybe a little younger, but cut ‘em off before they strap on the explosives, you know?”

I said, “And even the older guys that do the training, if it worked on them but slower …”

Tommy said, “Like we said, they’d be so busy screaming at each other, totally freaked out, that the whole thing would fall apart. The camp, I mean.”

Craig said, “So we were perfect test subjects. Just three normal guys, and willingly gave them all that ‘marketing info’ so they know who we are and where we live, and we’re probably being monitored right now. And will be, too.”

Automatically I glanced at my windows; my curtains were down. I shrugged. “Which probably means they’re intercepting this transmission, Moscow Rules or not.”

Craig obviously hadn’t thought of that; he was visibly shaken. “Damn. Okay. I’ll contact you again in a few days. We all hold tight. Maybe …maybe talk to our moms. Not our dads–sorry, Chris.”

“Do we have to?” Tommy pleaded.

“We’re not going to be able to hide it much longer,” I pointed out. “And you’re already getting beaten up just for helping your mother in the kitchen.”

Tommy rubbed the bruises on his upper arm without thinking; and then nodded sadly.

Craig said, “We’ll back you up, Tommy. It’s happening to all three of us, so they can’t be totally down on you.”

“You can’t even begin to know,” Tommy said quietly.

End of Part 2