Chapter 12

That night, we made love. As we expected, we switched sex, and during the day, we both had to endure being something we were not. Granted, I had been a male for many years -- over two hundred, but I was completely acclimated to being female now. John and I had grown up together, and he was just as comfortable being a male as I was female. I have to say, he made an attractive woman, but he was positively grim all day. We were both thrilled the next day to become ourselves again.

Three times a night was what seemed mandatory. I suppose that it was the most our bodies could endure. There was a two hour break in between each time, then after the third time we fell deep asleep. I had vivid nightmares each time, and John confided in me that he did as well.

We seemed to be in a hiatus in the murders. There had been none for quite some time, and we were hoping there would not be any more.

Marc and Kari told us one day that their time as the opposite sex had levelled off at forty-eight hours. While I found the thought of remaining male for two days horrible to contemplate, I seriously doubted that Caesar had left things there. I was certain that we were in for another twist.

“I am sorry to say it, but I’m sure that we have something new in store,” I told them.

They both nodded, solemnly. “We figured,” Marc told us. “ I’m just hoping that it’s not something we can’t handle.”

It was horrible when it arrived. They had been at forty-eight hours for about thirty days, when things changed for them. Kari told me that she had been terrified of Marc that night. She was afraid that Marc was going to force himself on her, and she couldn’t bear the thought. She complied simply to protect herself. They didn’t change until the end of the third time. For awhile that day, she had been afraid of him still, but it slowly faded, and she was happy with him again. Of course, they were the opposite sex now, and she noticed as she lost her fear of Marc, he seemed to be growing fearful of her. They were still on speaking terms, but Marc constantly seemed to be on edge.

"Wouldn't it be terrible if Caesar made everyone go through a period when they were scared?" John half joked. He stopped and thought about what he had said.

"Oh dear God, no," I said. Kari and I were the only ones who had dealt with a period before. Marc and John, even though they had spent a considerable amount of time as women now, had never experienced that particular pleasure.

Later that day we were in the command center when a light started blinking. It was the incoming communication light. What is going on? I wondered. I walked over and accepted the communication. It was from Earth!

It was Freeman, once again as a man!

To the people on N21. This is Freeman.

I’m not sure how long we have for this communication, so I hope you’re recording. I fully expect this to burn out our comm system.

The picture was grainy, and there was a lot of static in it, but we were receiving, and it was intelligible.

I want to tell you what we have tried to defeat the ‘Total Fun’ problems. We have still not been able to do it, but I want you to know. Maybe you’ll get some ideas from our failures.

The first thing we tried was looking for more documentation on the nanites. We could find none. Well, we found some, but it did not include any programming. The nanites are designed to be impermeable, as I’m sure you know. They are designed to withstand almost anything. We were not sure how much, but we found that the only way they die, is if the host dies. Obviously, that is not a desirable outcome.

We tried to set up an EMP, but when our scientists did, they were promptly killed by the nanites.

We tried an acid only known to affect metal, but the things are encased in an organic shell, so there was no effect. The acid could not get through.

Another attempt was to set up a local EMP, only affecting one person at a time. Again, there was no effect.

We heard a knocking on Freeman’s door, and he glanced that way, but then ignored it.

I have to hurry. We tried… He broke off when the knocking turned to pounding. We heard wood splintering. Shit! I’m sending you a file which contains everything our scientists attempted. BANG! BANG! This will be the last message from me. He reached out and touched a button. Goodbye N21! Freeman out!

He stood and turned to face the door but he left the comm going. There was an explosion of the door and whatever they used turned it into shrapnel. Several pieces directly hit Freeman. He was flung backwards by the explosion, his arms and legs stretched out in front of him. He hit the wall with incredible force, and I was afraid his back would be broken.

He slid down the wall, and then slumped over where we couldn’t see his face, but while he was sliding, we saw that he was hardly recognizable. His face had been demolished, and his chest was covered with blood. Apparently, a piece of the door had cut through an artery in his neck, and it had left a considerable spray across the room as he flew. Now, it was sprayed out and then slowed to a trickle.

There was another explosion, this one seeming to burst from inside the room, and the screen pixelated, then went dark.

None of us could believe what had just happened. Marc grabbed a hard data repository for the information to go onto, then started it saving.

It took a considerable amount of time to save, but considering how long Earth had been able to work on things, It was no wonder.

I wondered what they had tried. It was a frightening prospect that over thousands of years, they hadn’t found anything that worked.

John and I left the command center and hand in hand, we walked around the upper, then lower circles. It was heartening to see that many couples were out for a stroll as well. It was also disheartening. How many people had to deal with the disgust of being the opposite sex for however long?

We finally went to my apartment, and I rummaged around in my recipes. I finally made a facsimile of chicken with peanut sauce and asparagus tips.

When John had finished his dinner, he sat back, gratified. “I have the best meals on this station,” he said. “The senior chef of the best restaurant, cooking a meal for just us.”

“That’s not all you get,” I told him as I grabbed his hand. He let me pull him up, then we made our way to my bedroom.

Four hours later, we fell asleep, and stayed that way for several hours.

It had been three weeks since we received the data from Earth. I was constantly wondering what had happened on our planet. We had lost our friend and source of information, but we wondered who had killed him. We had no doubt that he was dead. We showed the recorded video to Roman, and he told us there was no way a person could survive the carotid artery being severed. Even the nanites couldn’t help there.

Marc and Kari had extended their cycle time to a week now. John and I were at the forty-eight hour point, and I found that I was fearful of him now. True to form, the ghost of Caesar had given us another twist. Every time Marc and Kari swapped, the woman had a period. Thankfully, she was not afraid of him, but the periods were exceptionally terrible. Kari told me that she had never had one even half as bad. The cramps were extraordinary, and her emotions were such that nobody wanted to cross her. I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell John what we had to look forward to. It sounded bad enough to me. What would it do to him?

I saw the effect on Marc, and he told Kari and me that if this was what we had to deal with every month, he took back every joke he ever said about a woman during her time. Kari answered that this was way worse than any she had ever experienced, but she accepted the apology.

John heard and I saw him go white. He was not looking forward to this for himself.

Not much research in the Earth files got accomplished that week. Marc could not concentrate through the pain. All he wanted to do was sleep, but that was effectively stopped as well. I sat up with him for several hours each night I was a woman, and John did when he was.

We were grateful when the time came for him to change back.

When we reached the time that they were at, I was shocked. Nothing that Kari had said prepared me for how miserable it actually was.

What we had to look forward to was much worse, however.

Marc and Kari’s sex life had gone to one time every month, with a period for the woman lasting the entire time. For the men, it had become bad too. Marc explained it as a constant throbbing in his testicles as if he had been kicked there, and the pain simply would not diminish for the entire month. There seemed to be no way to simply block it out either. There was no getting used to it. It was constantly demanding that you felt it at its original intensity.

I had almost forgotten what being kicked there felt like. The times as a man hadn’t included that feeling. I remembered that it hurt like hell, but the feelings of being a woman had eclipsed that for me.

When John and I arrived at that point and I felt a month long, super intense period, I found myself looking forward to switching. That wasn’t such a good thing, however. When it was my turn to be male, I couldn’t do anything. I had needed support from John during my period, but now I found I couldn’t stand upright. I didn’t remember anything hurting so much from my time as a man. John told me he didn’t either. I wished that I could put my hands around Caesar’s throat and squeeze the life out of him, but I doubted I would be able to squeeze hard enough. The pain was simply too intense.

Somewhere, Marc had been able to find the time to finish going through the work that had been done on Earth. We met in the room by the command center again. It wasn’t good.

“They tried some very good ideas, and some that made almost no sense at all. I suppose when their good ideas ran out, they figured anything was worth a try.”

“Is anything worth revisiting?” John wanted to know.

“I’m not sure,” Marc answered, his feminine voice sounding thoughtful. “I've got a few ideas. There are a few of their ideas that make me think they might work, if we could find a way of pulling it off.”

“Why?” I asked. John was in severe pain, and I’m not sure he or Kari were following the conversation very well.

“The scientists who were working on an EMP were killed. They were beheaded in the same way our murdered people were.”

“How do you propose we get around that little obstacle?” I asked. My emotions were high, and I was finding it hard to control my temper.

Marc was pretty pissed about everything in general too. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “The fact that they were killed, however, leads me to believe that they may have been onto something.” He sounded very mad as he told me his opinion.

“I’m sorry, Marc. I didn’t mean to sound like that.”

“You really didn’t,” he told me. “I think we’re both on edge. Let me do some more research and I’ll let you all know what I’ve found.”

“Okay,” I told him. I turned to John. “Let’s go back to your apartment. I’ll make some dinner for us.”

“I sincerely hope I can keep it down my dear,” he said as we stood. Well, him sort of.