Chapter 1.5

As soon as my heart slowed down, I jumped to the comm panel and contacted Earth.

“This is N21.  We have ‘Total Fun’ happening here.”

“Freeman here!” He was staring at the screen, seemingly terrified.   “We have it too!  Sending you the OS seems to have triggered it!”  We heard a door open in the room he was calling us from. He bolted out of his seat, and without his face centered on the screen, the camera widened to show the whole room. It was the first time we saw anything other than him, and the room seemed to be a personal office.  A woman entered.  She seemed scared of him, but she resolutely stepped toward him. He screamed at the woman! “DON’T TOUCH ME!” She was moving slow, as if she was terrified, but she kept advancing on him.  She was close enough now, and Freeman was cowering on the floor.  She bent down and tentatively reached out her hand.   “NO!!!” She touched his face.

It was as if his body was made out of wax.  It seemed to melt and then reform.  The next thing we knew, Freeman was a woman, or seemed  to be from all appearances.  The tension in the room evaporated and he, or rather she hugged the woman..   “It’s okay,” the woman told her as she returned the hug.   “You’re my daughter now.”

Freeman let go of the woman and smiled at her, then she stood up and walked back to her desk.  Her clothes had not changed in the slightest, but they no longer fit his… rather her form.  She reached out and severed the connection.

Before we could react, the connection came back on.  The female Freeman was sitting there.  Her face was immaculately made up.  She stood up, and twirled.  Her dress swirled around her.  She sat back down, and told us, “This is me now.  I’m still Freeman, and have the same memories, but I am quite content with being a woman.  The fear has transferred from being caused by women to men.”  Obviously, she wasn’t seeing us, but there seemed to be a bit of revulsion as she spoke.  I felt the same thing looking at her, so I suppose she was affected by who she knew would be watching her. “These are the effects of ‘Total Fun’,” she said. Her voice much higher than it had been. “Whenever you see someone of a different gender, you are terrified.  Now that I am Female, I no longer have a fear of my mother.” She paused as she considered what to say next. “When you are touched by a different gender, you are changed to that gender.  The person’s sex makes a difference as well.  If they are biologically male, that is what you will be.  If they are biologically female, you will be as well.  If they are intersex, so will you be.  We have been working on this for more than a thousand year naw  Wallace’s code is incredible.  We haven’t been able to break it.  I’m not sure if we ever will.” Again she paused. “It’s hard to speak to you.  I can’t see you, but I know who is watching, or rather I suspect who is.  Not much time has passed for you, so it is probably the same men who were in the room at my last communique when my mother changed me.” She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts.   “We were inoculated for a supposed virus shortly after you left.  We had no reason to suspect it to be anything other than what we were told.  We believe this was when our nanites received their new programming.

“Because of the nanites, Wallace convinced us to do away with the medical profession.  Those same people are back, working on the problem, as are our computer specialists.  Every one of them.  They are collaborating, but nothing has been found yet.  We have no idea how nanites can make these changes so quickly, but we suspect that the ‘innoculations’ had a new strain of nanites with stronger abilities.  Or perhaps they have always had this ability locked away.  We don’t know, but are trying to learn.  There seems to be nothing inhibiting us from working towards that goal, except Wallace’s safeguards.  Again, If we find anything, we will let you know.  Freeman out.”  She reached to the computer, and seemed relieved to switch off the communication.

“This is insane,” one of the IT people exclaimed.

“Remember who started it,” John said.  He sounded disgusted.

“For some, this would be heaven,” I remarked.  “Except for the built in fear of other genders.  And for the prospect of turning back.”

Marc gave me a strange look, then seemed to realize that what I was saying made sense.  Slowly, he nodded in agreement.  “Aye. I wouldna ‘gree, but...” He swallowed hard, and seemed to make an effort to speak Standard again.  Different languages or dialects were rarely used anymore except in the home.  Tradition had held on as pride in one’s heritage.  Marc tended to revert to a Scottish dialect, which was from his mother, when he was upset.  He had never shied away from it before but perhaps thinking about his mother affected him.

I tried thinking of my mother for a moment, and I felt a rush of revulsion, something I had never felt. I loved my mother very much.  It appeared that my supposition was correct, although if that is what happened to Marc, I had no idea.  

A moment later, I heard a noise at the door, and I turned.  Perl and three more women were there.  
“Have you contacted Earth?” she asked.  It seemed to take every ounce of courage she had to stand there.  I nodded because my mouth was completely dry.  I felt the blood rush from my face, standing even this close to a woman.  I felt trapped in a room with only one exit, and a woman standing in it.  I felt faint and started to sway, putting my right leg forward to stope me from falling.  “DON’T COME ANY CLOSER!” Perl screamed.

I backed up to where a chair was, and sat down.  I didn’t like vulnerability of being seated rather than on my feet, ready for flight at a moment’s notice, but  supposed  if I fell, I would be even more at risk.   “Yes,” John told her, his voice trembling.  It took effort, but he told her what we had seen happen to Freeman.

“You’re shittin’ me,” Perl responded.

“No,” I said.  I wasn’t dizzy anymore, but I wasn’t going to stand.  I didn’t need to be again.  “We can all confirm what John just told you.”

“So if I could walk up to you and touch your face, you’d become a woman?” she asked me.

“Apparently yes,” I replied.  “Please don’t.”

“Not likely I’d do that right now.  I know this is all in the nanites and what they did to us, but touching you terrifies me.” She thought for a moment.  “How come his mother didn’t change?”

I thought for a bit, then said, “He… She told us that if we were touched by another gender… That implies that they were the one initiating contact.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Perl scoffed.

“Maybe,” Marc said, “ but do you have a better idea?  I don’t .”

“Neither do I,” she admitted.  “So what do we do?”

“I doubt we have to do much to keep all genders separated,” John took the lead.  “Maybe it would be best to separate them by bays.”

She nodded slowly.  Suddenly one of the three women with her announced, “I’ve got to get out of here.” She turned and ran.  

Another took it as an invitation to follow suit, and Perl grabbed the arm of the other before she could.“  Please, don’t go Kari.  We need to complete this conversation and I need your support.”

Kari looked absolutely terrified but nodded.  She looked like she was going to fall, so I reached for another chair.  Any other time, I would have walked over and helped her sit.  I couldn’t stomach that right now, however, so I kicked the chair towards the women.  It made it to within Perl’s reach, and she gingerly reached out to grab it with her thumb and index finger.  She moved it to beside her.

Kari looked at the thing like it had just been excreted by me.  “He just touched it.  How do I know there aren’t his nanites on it?”

With my love of ancient TV, I had come across the idea of ‘cooties’, and I let out a peal of laughter.  Perl looked at me like I had gone completely insane, and I explained.  “Just something I ran across years ago.  An idea among children that boys and girls both had their own special germs that could be transmitted to each other.  What they did, was never stated.  I doubt it was anything like this, however.”

One of the IT guys piped up.  “Our nanites are mostly biological, except for their memory that controls them.  They can’t survive without a person’s body heat for more than a couple of seconds.”

Kari nodded and sat down heavily.  It looked like she wanted to do it more gracefully, but being dizzy…

With her sitting down, Perl started to pull her hand away from Kari’s arm.  This was unacceptable, and the seated woman shouted, “No!” and reached up, grabbing Perl’s arm with both hands.

I felt the same way.  If the two hadn’t been standing in the doorway, I would have bolted.  I think all of us would have, judging from the looks on the others faces.

“I think the idea of bay segregation is a good one,” Perl said, her voice trembling.

Something inside me, from before the fear, made me speak up. “Marc, can your people be trusted to disable the motor controls on the exterior doors?”

“Hell, man!  Now you mention it, I don’t know if I can!”

“We’ve replaced the OS.  Didn’t you say it wrote exactly what we uploaded but added one bit?” John was thinking about the possibilities.

“Aye.”

“Okay, then there shouldn’t be anything to hurt anyone if they try.  Disable the motors permanently.”

Marc sighed.  “Okay.  The nice thing is I won’t trigger them while I’m working on them.  I don’t want ejected myself.”  He thought about it, then turned to Perl.  “Don’t move the women until I tell you to.  We don’t want you transferred before those motors are ruined.  That should keep any of the men from trying anything.  They won’t want to eject themselves.”

She nodded.  “Is that it?”

“Use the bays on the lower side,” I said.

“What about other genders?” She asked.  

We discussed them for a few more moments, then she made a quick exit.

---

The door to the command center opened into a short hallway which led to a smaller circular corridor in the center of the station.  There were several rooms on the inside of the corridor.  And on the outside were several ‘j’ shaped halls.  You walked about 10 meters, and then the floor curved up to ninety degrees from the floor of the walkway. From there, you turned right and you were in the middle of the hall which led from one level of pinwheel to the other.  The whole station was a maze of strange gravitational fields.  

I was heading home a short time after Marc left to work on the exterior bay door motors.  I was contemplating our situation.  It was frightening, the terror I felt when face to face with a woman.  Just the thought of one scared me.  I hadn’t met up with any other genders yet, so I didn’t know how much they would bother me.  The thought of caused fear in  an inverse funnel between me and a woman.  A bisexual man bothered me a little bit.  Then a gay man, followed by a genetically male gender fluid, to intersex, with all the layers in between.  The pattern reversed through the genetically female genders as the funnel got wider and wider, until it reached a completely heterosexual female

When I reached the ‘u’ shaped corridor running between levels, I turned to go to my apartment.  Now that we knew what was going on, I was a little more at ease.  I came face to face with fright again, however as I turned left into the corridor.  I was standing almost nose to nose with two women.  All three of us screamed and the women spun on their heels and started running downhill to the upper level.  

I stared at my hand, unbelieving.  When they turned, one of the women’s hands brushed mine.  A moment later, my vision began to blur and it felt as if my body was being taken apart and put back together.