All About Erin

Erin Smith was a student in the Lyceum of Victoria, located in Melbourne She didn’t have the highestGPA in her class, and wasn’t the most popular, but she was one of the students that had the highest Kodikos score in their school, which allowed her to keep her scholarship. They showed me several pictures of a pretty teen girl. But, like me, it took them a while to get a definitive score for her at eighty-five percent. And in her senior year, she was given a dose of the “food of the gods.”

As predicted, she had stabilized by the end of her school year, but she had transformed into a boy sometime during the sixth month. From pictures, the new Erin looked like an even buffer Chris Hemsworth from Thor, or maybe like The Hulk but not green or ugly.

Based on Maia’s theory, it was probably because the Kodikos map that was her match – which was that of a male god, and because of this, she became male – just like me, except that, because my map was of a female’s, I changed from male to female. None of the Endowment students change, though, because, per Maia’s theory, it only happens when one’s score is sufficiently high. The theory still hasn’t been tested, but then how could they test it? They only had a sample size of two. Maybe in the future…

One other thing that happened was that Erin had gone, well, crazy. Maybe crazy wasn’t the word, but it was pretty close.

First off, upon changing, he changed his name to Hercules. Some may scoff or make fun of the new boy’s name, but never to his face, or you’re liable to be beaten to an inch of your life.

The name actually suited him, judging by the picture Maia showed me: He was very tall at seven foot-two, very muscular, and very powerfully built. He was also quite handsome in an angry, scary kind of way, although I didn’t see that at the time, as I was pretty much still mostly male-heterosexual in my head (eventually, I’d change to a more pansexual alignment, but not yet at this time). I did feel that, from his picture, he had an angry, hard or sharp edge to him, and didn’t know if this contributed to his psychotic behavior.

He didn’t have too many friends in school, but unlike my situation, his was because of the kids’ out-and-out fear and hatred of him and his arrogant, condescending, self-centered, and self-indulgent way. Before graduation, he said he didn’t want to avail of the college scholarship and opted for the lumpsum grant. For whatever reason, his grant was released early, and he got it before graduating.

Soon after he ran away, the Endowment lost track of him - the only transformee they ever lost track of. But several years ago, they found him again: he had become a politically active behind-the-scenes campaign manager to several politicians. He had a hand in the recent political mess that almost landed the country in a new war, but it was avoided with the timely intervention of the Endowment and its various organizations - all in secret as well.

“Hercules” apparently fancied himself as a latter-day emperor, and would bully and cajole world leaders to install his own “candidate” as his puppet, and through his puppet, establish his influence and power. He would have preferred not hide behind proxies and puppets, but he knew how people reacted to him. Interviews with those he… “interfaced” with told the Endowment people that he was the worst of tyrants, getting his way by bullying and terrorizing his “subjects” (as he referred to his minions). Several of the more corrupt were threatened with being outed, while many had their family and loved ones held hostage.

However, the majority of his minions didn’t need to be “convinced” this way, as they believed him hook, line and sinker, although the bulk of his followers weren’t the smartest of citizens Many had racist mindsets or were angry and dissatisfied with the world for some reason or another. Hercules capitalized and fed on this anger, and got them eating out of his hands in short order. As for most of his proxies, they were focused on their own power and any means to increase it, and were fully committed to forwarding Hercules’ agenda and, hence, forwarding their own.

The people they talked to couldn’t explain it, but they said he had a charismatic air about him – a lot of native charisma, allowing him to easily capitalize on his followers’ ignorance, weaknesses and prejudices, making promises he didn’t intend to keep. He didn’t even worry about being consistent in his promises, often outright lying. He co-opted the sixties slogan of “power to the people,” and used it as his rallying cry, including the shorter “POPO.” A lot of people made fun of that funny-sounding almost-abbreviation, but as his “movement” gained momentum, no one found it funny anymore.

It was because of the noise that his “movement” started generating, and the near-disastrous “campaign” of one ex-governor he had caught in his web of anger and deception, and because of his pronouncements, that several countries – a couple even having their own nuclear arsenals – were on the verge of going to war with the country.

Maia then took over the narration, saying Dr. Penny might not give a full accounting of what happened next, since she was a major part of the subsequent events.

According to Maia, with the almost inevitability of war, Dr. Penny, who had her own kind of charisma, prevailed on cooler and more rational heads, and the government was able to back the country off from an out-and-out confrontation. She had also accompanied representatives of the country as they made state visits to the foreign leaders, and it was with her largely-unacknowledged behind-the-scenes influence that these leaders de-escalated matters quickly.

The government also started indicting most of Hercules’ proxies and these were soon facing criminal charges. Many were convicted though many others escaped conviction. But because of their bad press and reputations, these “lucky” ones found their careers in the limelight ended regardless.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Hercules went into hiding, and Dr. Penny and her people lost him again. As for the rest of his followers, without their leader, the “movement” lost its way, and it quickly fell apart, and all of his followers went back to their own day-to-day routines.

Without its figurehead, the POPO rallying cry became an empty one, especially when Dr. Penny let the derogatory “poopoo” version of their rallying cry leak out into social media.

Three days after his disappearance, Dr. Penny and Maia found his headquarters, which had been secret up to then. It was empty by then, of course.

It was… an unusual campaign headquarters. From the outside, it looked like a slightly smaller version of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, except, inside, instead of an empty rotunda with President Jefferson’s statue in the middle, there were two floors of offices and rooms, all of which appointed in marble and with purely decorative marble columns.

It seems Hercules had a fixation on Ancient Greek architecture. More telling, however, were the many three- to four-foot statues in many of the rooms, and several large portraits in the hallways. The statues and paintings depicted a heroic-looking ancient Greek Hoplite warrior in complete armor, Aspis sword and Xiphos shield. He didn’t wear a helmet hence his handsome, angular, chiseled features were on display, along with his thick, long hair in fine curls. The reason this was relevant was because all of the statues and paintings were of our favorite transformee, the-former-Erin-now-Hercules. Seems he was more narcissistic than your run-of-the-mill Aristotle student.

The people in the know in Archimedes Genomics tried to understand why Hercules would be like this, but they hadn’t really come to any conclusions. Again, Maia had a theory.

“Did you know which of the ten Kodikos maps Erin… I mean Hercules has a match with?” Maia said.

“No,” I said.

“He’s actually a match for the map attributed to Ares. Ares, as you know is the…”

“… Greek god of war…”

“Yes. He was actually both the Greek god of war and courage. But the Greeks were ambivalent towards him because, though he embodied the physical valor for war, he also personified sheer brutality and bloodlust – the opposite of his sister, Athena.”

“Are you saying he is embodying the characteristics of Ares?”

“That’s my theory. Everyone in Archimedes thinks it’s wrong. There are no correlations with the other transformees’ behavior who also matched the Ares map. But we all think it also depends on their score – that there is a minimum score for these things to kick in, and we’ve been lucky enough that no one has hit over sixty-five, except for a handful. But then again, the unlucky part of it is that we really don’t have a big enough sample size to conclude anything.”

“Yeah, there are just the two - Erin and Dr. Penny.”

“No, Val,” Maia grinned. “There are three. You’re the third one.”

I looked at her, mouth agape.

I completely forgot about my score.

Maia giggled and gave me a hug. “Not to worry, Val. You aren’t a match for the Ares map. I don’t think you’re going to be like Hercules. Your map was the Aphrodite map. And Aphrodite was the ancient Greek goddess of love, beauty and passion.”

I had a thoughtful expression, and Maia tapped me on the shoulder.

“What’re you thinking of, Val?”

“Maybe that’s not too bad.”

“Not bad at all,” Maia said.

“So…” I said, “what’s your DNA map, anyway, Dr. Penny?”

Dr. Penny grinned. “I’m like you, Val. My DNA Map’s Aphrodite’s.” She kissed me on the cheek. “We’re like sisters!”

What gave Maia’s theory more credence was that Dr. Penny also matched the reputation that Aphrodite had (Maia said not to inquire too closely about it and giggled), but having caught her and Dr. Penny at the motel, I had more than an inkling of what she meant by that. I had some issues about what implied for me…

All About Val

With all of this information, Dr. Penny explained that everyone in the know was worried that if Hercules found out about me, he might want to recruit me, or have me killed or something else more gruesome.

They have done all they could to track him down but he had completely disappeared into the world again, and was probably planning yet another megalomaniac scheme. A group of Aristotle staffers have “infiltrated” the American US Department of Homeland Security, Interpol, and many other intelligence agencies, but so far no luck finding him.

In the meantime, though, it was Dr. Penny’s intention to hide the fact that I had changed genders, and to hide my Kodikos score.

“Your score will be easy to hide,” Dr. Penny said. “In all your records, your official score will be fifty-eight.” (I remembered that was the same score as Arianne’s.) “And rather than tell everyone about the gender change, it wasn’t going to be recorded anywhere and just have all of your IDs and documents appear that you’ve always been a girl. In your Kennedy Science High records, we’re also going to hide the fact you transferred to Delos – like your gender, we’ll just keep it blank, and just not say to where you transferred. Same as in your Delos records – that you transferred to Delos in your third year, but as to where from – it won’t be recorded.

“Also, Mr. Daimon will contact your folks later today, and tell them that we can assist them in fixing their documents to reflect your new identity gender. Mr. Daimon also got an idea - that, supposedly, per the Delos school psychiatrist, no one who knew your previous gender identity to refer to your old gender again, whether to you or other people, even relatives. Because it will give you gender dysmorphic feelings and make it hard for you to adjust fully.”

“How will you be able to insure that?” I asked.

“We won’t. We’ll leave it to your folks and to you to do that. What we recommend is for you to avoid anyone who knew you as ‘Val Edward,’ whether it's friends, schoolmates or relatives, you should just avoid them. If you do encounter them, just tell them you have changed genders, and leave it at that – let them make their own conclusions.”

I shrugged. “I haven’t seen any of my relatives except once or twice,” I said. “Most of them are in California, so no opportunities to meet up with them. As for friends… well, like I said, I don’t have a few.”

Dr. Penny nodded. “That simplifies things. As for the kids in Delos, when you come back on Monday, your homeroom adviser and your other teachers will make a short announcement at the beginning of class. Other than that, no other announcements will be made, and allow the student body to adjust to the news.”

“That’ll be hard for me, you know,” I sighed. “You know how kids are – I’m gonna have to be ready for some abuse.”

“Not to worry, Val. We’ll transfer you ASAP if things get out of hand. But we can’t have you just disappear. People will ask where you disappeared to. And that can be just as bad.”

“Well, why not just hide my gender change altogether, so no issues?”

“We can, but I doubt we can hide your changes. Like those, for example.” She pointed to my brand-new boobies. “Besides, you just need to last for a month until the end of the school year. It’s actually our intention to transfer you next year.”

“Where?”

“How do you feel about transferring here?”

“Here?” I was thinking I would be going to school with Momo-Chan, Arianne, Ashanti, Rose, and Jazz, and that was exciting. “I wouldn’t mind that,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant.

Dr. Penny chuckled. “you’re so transparent, Val.”

- - - - -

Later on, after lunch, I went on the net. Apparently, Maia edited things. Sure, Aphrodite was the goddess of love, beauty, and passion – but per the Britannica site, she was also the goddess of lust, pleasure, and procreation. And if you include what Venus was supposed to be, she was also the goddess of desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. I could do with the prosperity and victory thing, but I don’t know about the rest…

At dinner later, I asked Drs. P and Maia about it, and they said they weren’t sure if I’d have to deal with the entire ball of wax. Dr. Penny said that I’ll have to observe myself as I develop, and we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get there. Of course, that was easy for them to say. I suppose I wasn’t able to hide my expression well as Dr. Penny hugged me.

“Don’t worry, little sis,” she said, and gave me another kiss, “it’s going to be okay.”

Well, I don’t know if I believed her, but I can get used to the hugs and kisses…

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