Disclaimer:
~The Center universe and any original characters from it that appear here belong to Lilith Langtree.
~Characters or lines taken or paraphrased from published works are their creators’ property.
~Any characters I create for The Center universe are open for use by anyone else, just ask first.

Chapter 5

The retrieval squad returned to the Center after a few hours of flying. Raven and Jessica were quickly separated upon their return. However, Kristyn assured the two of them that they would be reunited soon enough.

Jessica was taken to head to the infirmary for her pre-Second Emergence checkup, and then was going to be settled into the secure bunker for the next phase of her emergence. They were taking her there as an added safety measure, both for herself and the facility. They were all just too aware of how destructive her powers could be.

Meanwhile, Raven was told to unwind in her room for the time being, and to just relax and wait for things to happen. Kristyn and Colonel Harris really wanted her to relax after the strenuous mission and before being debriefed by the two of them. Raven, however, was having mixed emotions at the moment, as reality was settling in all around her.

On the one hand, her father and the only family that she had left and had been there through most of her life was now dead, burnt to death in an accidental use of Jessica’s powers. Raven understood that it had been an accident, and most of the time, a new emergent would have little to no control whatsoever of their individual abilities. She had forgiven Jessica on the plane ride back. Now, Raven was just beginning to grieve his passage into the afterlife.

On the other hand, Raven was really excited to have Jessica back in her life again. As Jack, he was never able to muster the courage to push their friendship any further than just two long-term friends. They had known each other since kindergarten, but, they were just friends. Raven had resolved herself to try to create a deeper relationship with Jessica after she had gone through her physical transformation.

After their strange reunion at the flaming remains of Raven’s childhood home, Raven had just become even more acutely aware of some feelings that she had for Jessica. She had never been completely aware of them before, but now, they had forced their way to the surface. Her thoughts were beginning to wrap themselves around Jessica like a snake getting tightening its grip on its prey.

She didn’t know how long she was lying their on her bed, but soon she heard a knock on the door.

“Come in,” she said, a little startled.

Dani walked in the room, presenting a very business-like attitude with her. She saw Raven on her bed, and then said, “They’re ready for you now, and they sent me to escort you to Kristyn’s office.”

Raven looked at her attire quickly, and said, “Would you mind if I got dressed first? I became distracted after I got back.”

“Of course,” Dani replied.

Raven went around her room, and gathered the various items of school uniform’s clothing that she had found scattered around the room. Raven wasn’t one of the most tidy of people in the world, but she did have her own system of doing things and was happy with it.

After about fifteen minutes, Raven was finally presentable. She donned the school’s uniform again, since she didn’t know what would work when one is being debriefed. Dani kept reassuring her that her debriefing would be fine. Debriefings were just a way of getting the full story of a significant event from all parties involved.

-------

The two of them arrived at Kristyn’s office a short time later, and Dani stopped at the threshold. Raven looked perplexed.

“Sorry,” Dani said, “this is only between you and the two in there.”

“Two?” Raven asked.

“Yes, Kristyn and Colonel Harris.”

Raven was a little taken aback by that particular fact. It also ramped up her nervousness, as she had never met the colonel.

Dani could sense her increase in apprehension, and said, reassuringly, “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

“Thanks,” Raven said, with a touch of reservation in her voice.

Raven entered Kristyn’s office, and found Kristyn sitting at her desk, quickly looking over a file, while the colonel had his back to the door, and was gazing out the window. Raven noticed the sunflower on her desk was in bloom, and was suddenly a little happy about that.

“Please have a seat, Raven,” Kristyn said, looking up from the file.

Raven took the seat opposite of Kristyn, and remembered how to present herself. It still wasn’t automatic for her yet, but Raven figured that she would get there eventually.

“First,” Kristyn began, while the colonel continued to look out the window. “Tell us about the encounter with the first emergent.”

“Harold?” Raven replied.

Kristyn nodded. “Yes, Mister Harold Quinn.”

“After we were briefed on the situation by Chief Whisenton, you and I went through the school to try to find him before he did anymore damage. When we got to the breezeway by the old gym and both locker rooms, I was surprised when I saw that he was an emergent.”

“You weren’t too happy about that, were you?”

“No, as Jack, Harold was always a constant threat to my well being. He went out of his way to try to beat me up for my lunch money, homework, or anything that tickled his fancy that day.”

“What happened after the surprise wore off?”

“I tried to distract him while you attempted to sneak around and subdue him. I used my past as Jack to throw him off guard and it worked. About a minute later, you had stunned him and he lay crumpled on the ground.”

“Then what happened? Please be as specific as possible.”

Raven thought for a moment, and then replied, “A group of redheaded women, all wearing an ominous trench coat, and looking identical to each other stepped out from behind the building, along with a blond-haired male, also wearing a trench coat.

“They thanked us for subduing Harold, before the man raised his arms and the earth from underneath us started to move and blocked us from getting to Harold. One of the redheads grabbed Harold off the ground, and then they all left the area. Most of the girls faded away, as if they were never there in the first place.”

Harris nodded, as he continued to stare out the window. It was irking Raven that he just stood with his back to her, while she was relating the events that had transpired earlier today.

“When we arrived at your former home, finding it in flames, what was the first thing that ran through your mind?” Kristyn continued, as she went to the next major incident of their pickup mission.

“I was devastated that the home that I knew for so many years was being destroyed. I then wanted to rush inside and see if my father was inside and all right. After I did that, I found him, dead,” Raven said, choking up on those words.

It was clearly evident to Kristyn that the loss of her father was heartbreaking to Raven. Kristyn gave her a few moments to recover, and noticed that the sunflowers on her desk had started to wilt.

“When you were inside your burning home, after you found your father, you found your previous life’s best friend, Jessica Martinez. What happened then?”

“I was first puzzled why she wasn’t burnt by the fire. Then, finding out that she was still alive, I picked her up and rushed her from the burning house.”

“When she regained consciousness, and revealed the fact that she burnt down the house and killed your father, why did you try to comfort her and not be angry at her?”

“I knew that Jessica, even though she may have committed the act, she would never have had the motivation to do cause that kind of destruction on purpose. She has a good heart, and she needed her best friend to help her through it. So, I did the only thing that came to my mind, and tried to bring her back to reality.” Raven took a small break to catch her
breath before she started again.

“When she became hostile, and was enraged about thinking that I was a total stranger and possessing Jack’s necklace, I knew that I had to try to make her see the truth before she did do something that she was going to regret later in life.”

“How were you able to control your powers?” Colonel Harris interjected, turning around to address Raven.

Raven was not too surprised by the way the colonel looked. He definitely fit the role of an imposing United States Army colonel that she had heard about from everyone here.

“I’m not sure. I just felt that she needed to be restrained before she committed any act. She wasn’t a danger and if reached could be reasoned with. It was as if the tree knew what I knew and then helped me when I reached out to her.”

“Do you have any idea of why your powers then reacted the way you wanted it to, when Lions has informed us that they were not able to before that moment?” he continued.

“Maybe because I was acting with my heart, and not my head?” Raven guessed.

The colonel nodded to himself and then turned to Kristyn and whispered something in her ear. Raven couldn’t make out what they were saying, and her gaze turned to the sunflowers
on the desk.

She remembered how they looked before, and how sad there were looking at the moment. She tried to make them be happy again. She thought of how she felt when Jessica realized who she was, and the flowers started to perk up and regain their bloom. They even looked a little better than before, Raven observed.

“Miss Hawkins, we have a propos–,” Colonel Harris began, but was cut off when Kristyn’s cell phone rang.

“Keys. She’s almost ready? We’re on our way,” Kristyn said quickly into her phone before closing it.

“Jessica is about to undergo her second emergence,” she said.

“Can I watch?” Raven immediately said.

The colonel performed a small nod, and Kristyn said, “Let’s go.”

As the two of them left the office, Kristyn playfully remarked, “You like messing around with my flowers, don’t you?”

Raven could only blush at that comment. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I like what you have done with them.”

Raven giggled as the two of them began walking towards the secure bunker of the infirmary.

-------

The two of them soon arrived at the observation room in the secure bunker. Dani and Doctor Litchburg were already in the room. The good doctor was monitoring Jessica’s health, while Dani was staring at the patient through the one-way glass. However, the doctor had a strange look on his face as he examined the pre-second emergence preliminary test results.

“It took you a while to get down here,” Dani said, when the two of them arrived.

“It was a long debriefing,” Kristyn replied. “How’s she doing?”

“All right for the most part, I think it’s the nerves that are getting to her now. She can undergo the second emergence at any minute now.”

Raven walked over to the glass and stared out at Jessica. She could see that Jessica was sitting up on the hospital bed, wearing the traditional hospital gown. Jessica looked
anxious and nervous about her upcoming second emergence.

Dani explained to Kristyn, with Raven hearing, that Jessica had been told what was going to happen to her. Raven was only half-listening to what they were saying, as she was focused on her friend. Raven was really concerned for Jessica’s well-being.

As Dani and Kristyn continued to talk about Jessica, Raven turned to them and said, “I want to go talk to her.”

The two of them were taken off guard by that remark.

“Please,” Raven pleaded. “Let me go see her.”

Kristyn nodded, and Dani showed Raven into the hospital room. Dani closed the door after Raven had entered the room, leaving her alone with Jessica while Dani returned to the
observation room.

“Hey, how you doing?” Raven asked.

“Fine,” Jessica said. “I’m still wrapping my head around all of this though.”

Raven giggled, “Yeah, it took a while for me, too.”

“It feels weird knowing that I’m going to turn into a guy. But, then again, you turned into a very attractive girl.”

Raven blushed, and said sheepishly, “Don’t remind me.”

“Why not? You should definitely take advantage of that. After this, I’ll tell you all the secrets that I know, okay?”

“Okay. Do you have a name picked out for your new self?”

“No, I want to see what I look like before I rename myself.”

“All right. There’s no rule saying that you have to think of one right away.”

Raven looked away from Jessica for a moment, and sniffed a bit as a few tears started to form in her eye.

“What’s wrong?” Jessica asked.

“It’s just…,” Raven started. “I thought that I was never going to see you again, and suddenly I find out that you are like me.”

Raven started to cry some tears of joy, and Jessica climbed off of the bed and wrapped her
arm around Raven.

“I know the feeling of thinking that I was never going to see you again,” Jessica said, hugging Raven close.

Raven turned herself around and the two of them embraced the other in a large hug.

“I love you,” Jessica said.

“I love you, too,” Raven replied.

Their hug escalated into a kiss. Suddenly, Jessica jumped back from Raven, as if something had just caused her to become extremely frightened.

“What happened?” Raven asked, looking extremely concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Something…doesn’t feel…right,” Jessica said, as she began clutching herself.

In the observation room, Doctor Litchburg saw Jessica’s vitals go wild, as Jessica fell back onto the bed. Raven rushed over to her side, worried about her friend.

“Hold on, Jess,” Raven said, standing by her friend.

Raven helped Jessica into a safe position on the bed. Once she had accomplished that, she pulled her hand back quickly, as if she was just burned.

“What happened?” Jessica asked, through the pain.

“I think you might’ve accidentally burned me.”

“Raven, I’m sorry!” she said quickly.

Jessica bucked on the bed, and arched her back. She was in excruciating pain as the second emergence began in earnest. Kristyn, who was standing inside the doorway of the room, quickly rushed over to Raven and pulled her out of the room. They quickly went to the observation room, where Raven watched in fear and awe of the transformation that was taking place before her.

The transformation was a wonder to behold. Raven watched Jessica’s Hispanic features morph away, she now looked like she was Caucasian. Her hair lightened considerably until she was a platinum blonde, and her brown eyes shifted to a dazzling sapphire blue. She also grew taller.

During the transformation, Jessica issued red hot flames from her hands a few times, several feet in length. Raven knew they were unintentional, from the reports that she heard about when she underwent her second emergence. But, after Raven could get another clean look at Jessica, what happened next was definitely unexpected.

After Jessica had lost consciousness from the excruciating pain that she was enduring, Jessica’s body was changing in a different way. Instead of losing its feminine curves and other physical characteristics, the second emergence only seemed to amplify them. Her breasts and hips only grew bigger, and her body seemed to be more toned.

About a minute later, Jessica was sleeping peacefully on the bed, but now she looked like a stereotypical California girl, with the only difference from that being her hair color.
Raven was baffled. She knew that the second emergence would flip her gender to male.

‘But why is Jessica still a she?’ Raven thought to herself, as they rushed into her room.

“Doc, what happened here?” Kristyn said.

“I don’t know. This shouldn’t have happened,” Doctor Litchburg replied, as he began to look Jessica over to see if there was anything else out of the ordinary, and to check her vital signs from the equipment that she was hooked up to.

Doctor Litchburg began taking blood and other bodily fluid samples to test in the laboratory to compare to Jessica’s previous form. Raven just watched as he tried to do his best to figure out what was going on.

“Doc,” Raven, with a definite note of concern in her voice, said, “is she okay?”

The doctor looked up quickly, and said hurriedly, “As far as I can tell, yes. But, I don’t know why her second emergence did this.”

“Can you figure that out?” Kris asked. “I don’t want to give false hope to everyone else
around here, unless we’re finding something new about the emergence.”

“I’ll do what I can, but every emergence thus far has been a gender switch of some kind
with an intersexed person,” Dr. Litchburg explained. “When I first examined Jessica, she didn’t have any indications that she was intersexed. But, she did possess the abilities that are associated with an emerged.”

“Do you have any of the test results?”

“Preliminary ones should be in soon.”

“How soon?” Kristyn said, with deadly urgency.

“I’m not sure. Probably within an hour.”

“Good, and get these out for testing ASAP. I want a rush order out on those tests. Got
it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the doctor said, “Nurse!”

The nurse walked over carrying a tray full of the equipment that the doctor would need to take samples needed for the comparison tests that Kristyn had just ordered.

Kristyn walked over to Raven and then said, “Why don’t we leave and let the doctor do his job, okay?”

Raven paid little attention to Kristyn, as she was focusing only on Jessica at the moment. She was wondering everything that they were wondering, and even much more. Kristyn shook Raven to try to get her attention.

“Hey, Raven,” Kristyn said.

Raven, however, just kept staring at Jessica.

Kristyn shook her again, and said, “Earth to Raven, come in Raven.”

“What?” Raven said, after being snapped out of her daze.

“I said, perhaps we should get out of here and let the doctor do his job. C’mon, I’ll get
you something at the cafeteria.”

“Okay,” Raven said, as she let herself be led off by Kristyn.

As they left the room, Raven’s gaze never left Jessica. Kristyn rolled her eyes, and figured when Jessica was awake; the two of them would be as close as peas in a pod.

-------

Raven was led back to her room to rest, after the two of them stopped by the cafeteria to pick up a couple of sandwiches. Kristyn then told her that she would be told when Jessica’s interesting twist on the emergence could be sorted out. Raven insisted that she help in figuring it out, but Kristyn said to leave it to the professionals for the time being and just try to rest.

Raven was feeling irked about that. She knew a good deal about genetics from all the internet research that she had done in the past. She also felt like that she knew something that could contribute to this investigation.

She walked over and sat down at the computer in a huff, still very annoyed at their attitude for not allowing her to help. She let herself fume for about a minute, and then
brought up her internet browser.

She started typing in the web address for one of her favorite websites, when she changed her mind. She went over to Google and began entering various strings of text to try to figure out why Jessica remained a girl.

After twenty minutes of finding little, Raven’s eyes went wide when she saw a possible solution to the current problem. She reviewed the information a few times, and then dashed out of her room and to the infirmary.

-------

Jessica was still sleeping soundly when she arrived, with the doctor overlooking her. Raven was trying to catch her breath, when she said, “I… know… why… she’s still….”

“Calm down, Raven,” Liz said, who was assisting the doctor.

Raven took a few deep breaths, and then said, “I know why she’s still a girl.”

Doctor Litchburg humphed, and said, “That’s good of you to try to figure it out, but I think we can do it. While I applaud your desire to help your friend, you should really leave this to the people who know the subject a lot better.”

“But, I know why. It’s the only logical conclusion.”

Doctor Litchburg ignored Raven’s argument, and said to Liz, “Will you please escort her out of here?”

“Yes, Doctor,” Liz said.

Liz had a painful look on her face, as she led Raven out of the hospital room. She tried to say something to alleviate the situation, but she couldn’t think of anything at the moment. Raven was also looking extremely frustrated at the moment.

“Liz,” Raven began, “please help me out here.”

Raven continued her pleading, “I know how Jessica just changed in appearance and not in gender as well. I just want a chance to say it.”

“I know, but, look at it from his perspective. He’s basing his judgment on the experience that he has over you. So, it’s going to be hard for him to accept anything in his field from you.”

“I see that. But, it doesn’t mean that I’m wrong,” Raven countered.

“Yes, I understand that,” Liz said.

The two of them reached the corridor and Raven turned to Liz and said, “Is there some way you can get the test results of her genetic profile, from the before and after second emergence?”

“I don’t know,” Liz said, turning and looking away.

“Please,” Raven pleaded, “it may give me the evidence I need to convince him that I’m right.”

Liz continued to stare off down the corridor, and Raven quickly added, “If I’m wrong, I’ll
drop it. Please, Liz, can you give me the data.”

Liz, looking uncomfortable, finally said, “Fine. But, don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“They won’t hear it from me, unless it’s forced out.”

Liz nodded and went back down to help the doctor, and to get the data for Raven to peruse.

-------

A few hours later, as Raven was working on her homework, she heard a knock on her door.
“Come in,” she said, looking up from her work.

No one opened the door, after Raven had invited them in. She climbed up off of her bed, and went over to the door, and found a manila folder on the ground, which had been slid underneath the door.

Raven opened the folder, and inside it was the information that she wanted. She walked over to the desk, and grabbed on of the spare notebooks in the desk, pulled up the website that she had found with the information on it, and began to conduct her own analysis. She poured through the available data, looking through it for the clues that would tell her if she was correct in her assumption.

She continued to work on this problem, well into the night, without any kind of break or any kind of rest. She was determined to figure out the answer to this mystery, but eventually sleep did manage to take hold of her. Raven slowly nodded off at her desk, and fell onto her work, lost to the realm of her own dreams.

------

Raven’s dream was definitely up in the strange category. Raven walked down the corridors of the Center in her dream, as her new self. Raven laughed at that image being projected. It seemed that her subconscious mind had associated her new body as herself now. The corridors of the Center were dark, with the emergency lighting that line the bottom of the hallways on and glowing blue.

She walked down the hall, not sure where her mind wanted her to go. Eventually, she
entered the cafeteria, and saw several of the students’ bodies scattered over the tables. The bodies were mangled, bloodied, and all dead.

However, there was someone standing at the other end of the hall. She was facing the door that led to the other side of the Center. Raven carefully walked over to the figure, and said, “Hello?”

A girl who looked like a Goth, and with stunning violet eyes and shoulder-length midnight black hair, turned around and said, “Raven, where have you been? We’ve been waiting for
you.”

“Who are you?” Raven said shocked, “Do you know what happened to everyone?”

She nodded, “Beware of your counterpart. They will try to unleash a rider of the apocalypse upon us all.”

The figure faded away and the doors leading on flung themselves open, waiting for Raven to cross over their threshold. Raven was wondering who that girl was, as she had never seen her before, and what her cryptic warning was supposed to have meant.

Raven continued down the hallway that was on the other side of the cafeteria, and saw more bodies littering the hallway. There were people lying there she didn’t recognize at all. Eventually, she entered the area of the Center that led to the various offices, and she saw yet another figure that she didn’t recognize.

This person appeared to be Asian in descent, and had hair that moved about on its own accord.

Before Raven could say anything, the girl said, “Nature’s fury will need to be unleashed. Someone has been playing with her toolkit; stop them before it’s too late.”

The figure pointed down another hallway, before again fading away.

Raven went in the direction that she had indicated, and heard the cawing of a bird echoing throughout that hall. Eventually, she had reached the door to the Center’s laboratory. There was a light coming from within, and she went inside.

She saw a raven sitting on a butane gas vent, next to a calico cat. Sitting at the bench,
staring at a pile of binders was Kristyn. Kristyn turned in the chair, and what surprised Raven the most was that there seemed to be electricity sparking from her eyes.
“Kristyn! What’s going on here?” she said.

“Find the answer to the problem. You will need her help to succeed and everyone else as well. There is still time to stop them.”

Kristyn faded from view, just like the other two girls, leaving Raven alone. The raven cawed again, loudly.

Raven awoke with a start, her face wet with the cold sweat she had from the dream. She looked up and out of her window, and saw a fluttering of wings quickly fly away. Raven tried to calm down after what had been an intense dream. She tried to recall what had happened in that dream; however, her mind was drawing a blank. The dream was now nothing but a blur.

She rubbed her face, as she tried to recover from that dream’s effects on her, and looked down at the test results. She looked at the PCR results from the sex chromosome templates of Jessica’s pre- and post-second emergence results. She realized that the evidence had been there staring at her in the face.

She scooped up the results and her findings, and then rushed out of her room. She knew that the doctor would probably not listen to her, so she ran to Kristyn’s office.
Raven thought to herself, ‘Hopefully, she will listen to me.’

-------

The secretary for Kristyn’s office showed her in, after Raven had pleaded with her for a few minutes. The secretary called in, and Kristyn said that she could have a few minutes.

‘With any luck, that’s all the time I will need,’ Raven thought to herself.

She entered the office, and quickly said, “I know why Jessica didn’t change her gender physically.”

Kristyn sighed, and then said, “What have you found?”

Raven laid out the information in front of Kristyn and began to explain her findings.

“The PCR results from Jessica’s genome turned up two different sized bands in her
pre-emerged state, and only one band twice as strong in her post-emerged state.”

“Meaning what?”

“This means that while Jessica looked like a girl before her second emergence, she was actually a he. Those two bands are her former X and Y chromosomes. Since there is only one band in the post-emerged results, but twice as strong, that would be her now two X chromosomes.”

“Okay, then why did she look like a girl when we picked her up? The last time I checked a person with an X and a Y is a male, not a female.”

“There is a genetic disorder known as Swyer syndrome. It results from a mutation in the SRY gene on the male Y chromosome. This disorder prevents the development of the testes, and without them, no testosterone is produced. Without that hormone, the fetus is forced into the default state, female since there is an intact X chromosome which is used to get information off of.”

Kristyn shook her head as she tried to process what Raven was telling her. “If I understand this, you’re saying that Jessica was a boy, but the stuff that should have told her body to be a boy was broken. So, she ended up looking like a girl?”

“Yes. It was also because of this syndrome that she never developed any testes to make her intersexed, and why she was off of everyone’s radar, until her first emergence. We were just in the right place at the right time.”

“All right, should we expect more of these kinds of people out there?”

“I don’t think so. The odds of both intersexed and this genetic disorder combined is extremely rare. I think that Jessica may be the only one, if you couple those with the chance of whatever causes our condition occurring as well.”

“I’ll pass your findings along to Doctor Litchburg and Colonel Harris. We’ll let you know what our decision is as soon as we can. Good work.”

“Thanks. It was an interesting problem to solve. Since, Jessica and I are both girls, can she be my roommate?”

“I don’t think that should be any trouble. It’s a good idea for the two of to be together, so that way you can show her around, and show her the ropes.”

“Thank you, Kris,” Raven said, giving her a hug.

Kristyn returned the hug, recalling when she first arrived and how Dani had been very helpful for her then.

“All right, I’ll let you know as soon as possible about our decision. I’ll see you later.”
Raven left the room, as Kristyn was picking up her office phone to make a few calls.
Raven was feeling like a large weight was taken off of her, after she had solved that mystery. She was also very happy that her best friend would be her new roommate.

-------

Raven, Luna, and Ali were eating their dinners in the cafeteria, talking about the rest of their day. Ali was very excited that she was starting to use her powers to try to lift herself off the ground. She desperately wanted to be able to make herself fly.

Luna, however, was having some difficulty in using her powers. The most she could do was move shadows around, and have the shadows starting to come off of their surface and take on a life of their own, under her control. The power trainer thought that Luna’s emotions were also somehow tied into her powers, after he had heard about Raven’s usage of her powers in the field.

Raven was only half-listening to everything they were talking about. Her thoughts were split between Jessica, and when she would be able to leave the infirmary, and the decision that Kristyn and the others were making.

“Raven,” Ali said.

Luna nudged her when she didn’t reply.

“Huh? What?” Raven replied.

“Are you alright?” Ali asked, looking concerned. “You seemed to be miles away for a
minute there.”

“What? Oh!” Raven replied. “I just have a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

“You want to share?” Luna asked.

“I’m just concerned about Jessica, that’s all.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine with her. I’m still finding it strange that she’s still a girl.”

“Her genetics confirm the gender flip,” Raven said. “She was genotypically male, but looked female due to mutations on the gene that encodes for the hormone responsible for making a person male.”

“Okay…,” they both said in response.

Raven just shook her head. She seemed to get that a lot, since she had so much interest in that subject, and others were just baffled by the amount of knowledge that she knew.

Ali and Luna decided to continue their conversation, as Raven just decided to stare at her steak and mashed potatoes.

“Raven,” a voice said to her a few minutes later.

Raven looked up and saw Dani there, “Yes?”

“Kris and Colonel Harris would like to see you in Kristyn’s office.”

“When?” Raven said, her mood shifting from wonder to a nervous excitement.

“Now,” Dani calmly replied, before she went to go join Tina at a nearby table.

Raven froze for only a second, before she headed off to Kristyn’s office. The secretary
quickly showed her in, when she got there. Kristyn asked Raven to take a seat, before letting the colonel do the talking.

“Miss Hawkins,” he began, “first, I would like to inform you that Doctor Litchburg has confirmed your findings about Jessica’s condition. He was surprised that he didn’t catch it earlier. But, it’s understandable since we have never encountered this type of anomaly before.”

Raven nodded, while she waited for the colonel to continue.

“Second, Jessica will be in your room tonight. She is currently being moved there now, since she is just peacefully sleeping, with her body giving her time to recover from the physical emergence.”

Raven again nodded, her nerves building up even higher now.

“Third, based on events earlier today, and your performance in the classroom, we have an
offer for you.”

“Offer? What kind of offer?” Raven asked, now wondering what they wanted.