[Note: Cautions, themes, etc., apply to the entire story.]

CHAPTER 4 -- The Bad News

When we got there, the doctor -- Dr. Newcomb -- ushered us into his office. He must have been really somebody, because it was big and carpeted and had lots of mahogany and leather furniture. I didn't know if this was how he always looked, but he looked nervous and sweaty.

"I'm -- I'm not a neurologist. I'm the director of research for what is usually called 'gene therapy' here at the University. We've been working with other gene therapy groups on techniques for regrowth -- and corrective growth."

My parents looked as perplexed as I felt.

"One of the uses is regrowing lost limbs, or correcting congenital defects. That's still experimental, but we all hope to have it FDA approved in a few years. Our work here is more experimental. One group of patients we work with are people with gender dysphoria." He must have realized we had no idea what he was talking about, because he tried to clarify it. "You know, men who feel they're a woman in a man's body, and vice versa? The usual treatment is sexual reassignment surgery. We're trying to do it using gene therapy techniques."

"And what does that have to do with Martin?" my father asked.

"One of our subjects was in the coma ward at the same time your son was. We're still running tests to be sure -- by the way, Mr. Rawlings" -- here, he looked at me -- "could you stop by the lab on the way out and leave us another blood sample -- but we think that whoever was actually doing the work, taking samples and injecting the material mixed up our subject and your son."

"You mean, your guy got the brain drugs and our son got the sex-change ones?"

"Essentially, yes."

My father looked stunned. We all did. Then he sat back and said, very quietly, "then you've got to fix it."

The doctor looked even more nervous and sweaty. He'd been sitting with us, like it was a social visit, but now he got up and stood behind the desk. "I'm afraid that isn't possible. I'm sorry." He rushed ahead. "Once the genes have been delivered to all the cells, there's no removing them. Maybe we could have done something if we'd caught it, say, a half-hour after the vectors were injected. But now it's too late."

My father isn't the rant-and-rave type, so he just stared at the doctor. Finally he said, "don't you have a treatment to turn women into men? Couldn't you use that?" My dad is pretty smart. I'd never have thought of that.

"Unfortunately, we can't do a second gene therapy -- any kind of second gene therapy. For some reason, the two therapies interact, and you get bad results. We've tried it in animals, and the results were hideous."

"So I'm going to -- turn into a girl?" I sputtered.

"Externally, yes. You'll develop a normal-looking clitoris, labia, and vagina with a cervix, but there won't be a uterus or ovaries behind it. There's a gland that puts out female hormones, so you'll have breasts. We've even developed an approximation of female sexual response."

I could see that my parents had mentally checked out. Any kind of discussion of sex made them uncomfortable, I'm sure that hearing about the sexual parts that their son was in the process of growing was tripping all their circuit breakers. I was still thinking, "this isn't real, I'm going to wake up and it was all a bad dream." Except I knew it wasn't.