The place was surrounded with security cameras, barbed wire, there were a couple of armed guards, and it looked more like a prison than a school.
Stupid goddamn foreshadowing. I wish I hadn’t been right.

It was pretty clear that the girls weren’t trying to hurt me. Hugging people to cheer them up seemed like a bit of a stereotype, though - I got the impression they were actually… well, kinda girlier than actual girls, but… then again, I’d never really had a chance to see what girls actually did together when there weren’t any boys there. Well, there was ME… and I suppose them… but yeah, the lines between genders had been shattered.
Anyways, the girls were being really nice, once we managed - rather clumsily - to get off the whole gender topic. Allison and Sarah were all seriously into CounterStrike, while Yvonne and Lisa were hardcore Halo-ers, and… well, I don’t like that kind of thing. Tina played Guild Wars pretty avidly, and Leanne was a World of Warcraft addict - neither of them played as much as I was on Netherworlds, but they were pretty intense about it and were actually pretty excited to hear about NWII - if only because we got it into a (free) closed beta test. Mm… beta…
Netherworlds was… expensive. 30 US dollars a month, which at the current market, is about 36 AU. It was - as far a MMORPGs go - big, but…the tiny development and maintenance team and large (4 million) subscriber base meant they made an insane profit. Unfortunately, they’d raised the cost to 45 US a month recently (remember me talking about profit-crazy?) and surprisingly, they only lost about 30000 subscribers, which meant they had… a lot of money. About 120 million in profit a month.
So after the CS discussion had drawn to a jerky close based on a discussion about teabagging (if you don’t know what this is, I envy you,) we switched to what was buzzing on my mind - the GDD animals.
“Yeah, nearly all of them are stuck here,” Yvonne said, “I mean, they get to sit the tests like everyone else, but barely any of them get used to their new brain. A couple of the smarter ones, like the chimps and gorillas and stuff, manage to pass, but because the only ones available to be GDD’d are in zoos, we don’t have many of ‘em.”
“A few’ve the dogs and cats manage to pass, mostly because they already know about people - fair few birds manage to pull it off, especially the parrots. You know, because they already knew how to talk,” Tina said, “but even once they pass, the have to move up to the advanced course - our class.” Okay, I seriously like-liked (sudden abandonment of complicated words in favour of childish terms for the total win) her. Looks like Lara’s a lesbian.
Okay, that realisation was a relief. A big one.
It LOOKED like GDD hadn’t messed with my mind at all, apart from not being turned on by a cute girl in the mirror. My morals were the same, my orientation… well, it was different, but with the same end result, and Netherworlds was still the shining beacon of light it always had been. (Coincidentally, Beacon of Light spam for the win.) On the other hand, I was a lot more emotional now, actually quite a bit more confident, and… well, it was a completely different kind of friendship, I s’pose. Thing is, I don’t know whether those three were more a result of GDD or the fact that I was a girl, or even just the fact that I had changed.
Okay, the emotions I can explain away. My body was getting an excess amount of oestrogen at the moment. The confidence, though… is a little odd.
Aaron was quiet and introverted. Lara… wasn’t…
And question number 2 pops up - have I still got aspergers?
Like I said, Aspergers was a lot less common in girls than boys. It didn’t SEEM like GDD had messed with that, but like I said, I was more outgoing and “social behaviours” felt more natural. While this was all well and good… the intelligence bonus was a big part of me. Going from antisocial nerd to social… cheerleader… looking… girl… was kinda messed up, and I seriously don’t want to lose that unique part of me. Thing is, it was kinda hard to tell at the moment - what with falling behind in classes and stuff, I haven’t felt that smart lately - maybe the dizzy spells during the spasms had been the nanobots messing with my brain.
“So, um, what’s gonna happen when we arrive?” Lisa asked.
“Everyone’s got to go to this assembly thing in the hall, it’s just welcome and stuff, and then they play this video feed from the chief bender factor or something… and then you get your classes assigned,” Tina said, somehow managing to convey how boring it is with an expressionless voice.
“Assigned? D…don’t we get to pick?” I stammered. The main thing going through my head was “crapcrapcrapcrap PE crapcrapcrapcrap…” followed by “do I still suck at it?” and “if they’re making me do sport how does that help with blending in?”
“Hell no. It’s gotta be stuff outside your comfort zone. Pretty much the only thing I can guarantee is that you’ll get home ec and sport,” replied Yvonne.
“Guh…”
/whimper
“What… what sports?”
“Depends on your body type, I s’pose, like the really agile types get gymnastics and stuff, the bulky types wind up wrestling, n’ so on. I got stuck with netball…” Leanne sighed.
“Sport is pretty much the only class we’re we’ll have anything to do with the GDD animals. It’s kinda annoying, they kick our ass at athletics and stuff, but we’re usually better at most team sports. Seeing as there’s about 20,000 times more GDD animals than people, you never get put with any other original humans.”
“But… how can they afford schooling for 4 million animals?” I asked.
“Uh. Schooling is kinda optional for animals,” Sarah said, looking down - sorta embarrassed.
“Yeah, none of the insects actually come, even though they make up about 85% of the GDD animals. It’s only about, oh, 0.375% of the mammals actually get to come, so about… uhh…” Allison mumbled.
“0.075% of all GDD animals come, so there’s only about 1500 at the school. There’s usually about 200 GDD humans who haven’t passed,” Yvonne shot Sarah an annoyed glare, “so it’s pretty cool for us, we always wind up captaining or whatever if we do team sports. I’m leader of the gymnastics team, ” Sarah added, proudly.
“Yeah, netball captain here, Allison does archery. Li’l miss goth here does shooting,” Leanne said, scowling.
Yvonne smirked. “Just about the only class I LIKE,” she said.
“Sweet. Tina, how about you?” I asked. This didn’t sound too bad, actually, archery would be pretty kickass.
“Oh, cheerleader here.”
I blinked. “That… isn’t a sport, though.”
“It’s Phys Ed, not sport. It’s cool, though, I like cheerleading. All the girls I’m leading used to be possums, they look all cute and innocent and stuff but they’re actually real bitches. I think they look at me as a leader, though, but that doesn’t stop ‘em from snatching food and trying to scab money and stuff like that… Lara? You okay?”
I already knew which sport I’d be stuck with. I only had to look in the mirror to find out.

For those who hadn’t worked it out, in case I have to be completely direct, I looked like a cheerleader, and figured I’d wind up as one. Sure, I could be lucky and wind up with another… less… public “sport”, but I had a really unlucky streak, as you’ve probably noticed by now. I really wouldn’t be surprised if the AFL* started recruiting cheerleaders for the grand final (maybe they have already. Eh, not like I care about football,) but if they do, I’m pretty much guaranteed to find myself waving a pair of pompoms in front of about a hundred thousand people. Urgh.
“Lara, snap out’ve it. They don’t offer internal monologue counselling as GCS,”said Allison, snapping her fingers in front of my face.
“Guh?” I mumbled. Allison was… kinda weird.
“So what’d you think of those two cute guys that came up?” Leanne asked.
“Wait, Richard and Mike?” I said, blinking.
“You, uh, think they’re cute?” Lisa asked.
“Well, look at ‘em!” Leanne said.
I looked down the bus to where Rachel/Richard and Mike sat, with Tomi and Stephanie next to them, talking quietly. I didn’t hear what Mike said, but the two girls started giggling while he grinned broadly. I’m pretty sure my face went red at that point, for two reasons. No, wait, three. One, Mike was MY friend. So I was feeling kinda overprotective. Two… I actually did think he was “cute”. Kinda a disturbing realisation. Three - uh. Kinda awkward… but, um, my boobs… they kinda went sorta hard. I guess this is what girls had instead of… you know. Stiffies. (does that word have a plural?)
Also some uncomfortable, uh, dampness. Downstairs. Which kinda reminded me how empty I was there. Which kinda reinforced the redness. It was really embarrassing.
“Awww… is ickle Lara embarrassed?”
I kinda just stared at my feet at that point. Like I said, YES, I WAS EMBARRASSED. THIS IS NOT THE KIND OF THING I’M USED TO. CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME.
I mumbled affirmatively.
“I’m not surprised. Nearly everyone who goes through GDD comes out bi.”
“Nearly?”
“Yeah,” said Tina, nodding, “people who were originally gay or lesbian become straight. Basically how it works is that heterosexuality is added to your current attraction.”
RANDOM LANGUAGE FACT #1337 - Homo Sapiens vs. Homosexual.
Homo Sapiens literally means “wise man”, so it figures that “homosexual” is “attracted to men”, which would mean that all straight women are homosexual. But in homosexual, “homo” means “same”, but THAT means Homo Sapiens means Wise Same. Gaaah… language is confusing!
Anyways…
“So, um, you guys’re all bi now?”
“Er, no. Not me,” said Tina, “I’m just hetero.”
Gah, damnit.
“So, uh, you were gay before?” said Lisa, a little nervously. From what I knew of him, Leeroy had been a bit of a homophobe. Again, looks like Leeroy still had a bit of a grip on Lisa.
“I s’pose so, I hadn’t really thought about it that much, y’know? I wasn’t really that attracted to girls, but I wasn’t attracted to guys either. I’m just a normal girl now, I guess,” said Tina, shrugging.
“Oh.”
/whimper
“Um, we’re almost here,” said Leanne.
“Oh, cool,” I said, sorta half-heartedly.

As we filed off the bus… is that possible? Meh. As we got off the bus IN single file, I realised my brunette curls had fallen in front of my eyes again. I brushed it out of the way, and guess what, it swung back again. Woo! Annoying long hair!
“Lara? You need some help with that?” Tina asked.
“Oh, um. Yeah, kinda.”
“Kay, just face away from me for a moment,” she said, and before I was done turning, she’d pulled my hair into a high ponytail.
“Wh… what are you doing?” I asked.
“Just a moment,” she said, and holding it in place, she pulled something out of… one of the pockets on her dress, I think, I couldn’t really see. She’d wrapped it round my hair before I could blink, and then she let go.
Then she turned me around to face her. And she pinched my cheek. Omg.
“Aww, you look so cute like that,” she said, her face…
Okay, this might take a little bit of explaining. You know how there are all the different kinds of smiley emotes? :), =), :D, =D and so on. Probably the happiest of them is ^_^ in my opinion. I use it a lot, although the winking version ^_~ is pretty popular too. How you have a wiggly eye I don’t know. But, anyway, ^_^ is a very anime thing. Like… eyes closed from happiness. Kinda confusing. But that’s how Tina looked, and I <3’d that look a lot.
I started blushing again as we waited for further instruction from the teachers.
“Heehee, that’d be your bisexuality playing up, right?”
“Um, yeah,” I said, scratching the back of my head embarrassedly. I felt the ponytail, and reached down, where it fluffed out a lot at the bottom.
“We should really try using a hair straightener on that, I think you’d look hot with straight hair,” she said. Gah! She said I’d look hot! I mean, sure, I’d never have a chance with her, seeing as, you know, she’s straight, but if she thought I’d look hot, then sure as hell I’d-
“Alright, boys and girls,” said Melissa, her rather petulant voice acting as an interruption to my first PLEASANT inner monologue, “For those of you for whom this is the first time, please wait here. The rest of you know where your classes are, and I highly suggest you get to it.”
Allison and co. waved goodbye, as they filed through the gates into the school.
I looked at the building.
And surprisingly enough? It looked back.
The place was surrounded with security cameras, barbed wire, there were a couple of armed guards, and it looked more like a prison than a school.
Stupid goddamn foreshadowing. I wish I hadn’t been right.