The door opens. Michael is home.

“Emily?” I hear him call, walking into the darkened hallway. He's uncertain, I can tell by the tone of his voice. Normally when he arrives on a scheduled break the house will be lit and cheery and something will be ready to eat – probably something which will still be edible if I turn it off and reheat it later, just in case his other appetites are going to take priority. Usually I'd be rushing down the hall to greet him by now. At the very worst, even if I was tied up with something that couldn't be left, the place wouldn't be unlit and silent as the grave. Michael is no fool. He has to be wondering if the time bomb he's been keeping in his home for the last three years has finally gone off. I'm wondering that too.

“Emily?” Michael says again, as he steps into the sitting room and flicks on the light. Then he sees the gun I have pointed straight at him.

“I know the secret.” I say sadly

“Emily, Emily my lamb,” he says, in tones of such love and concern that I want to drop the pistol and go rushing into his arms. “There's no need for this. You're my Emily. I'm your Michael. I promise we can sort this out.”

“Emily isn't my real name,” I reply stonily “And you aren't my Michael, are you? You're my jailer. My something anyway. Your job is to make sure I don't remember who or what I am, and to make sure I don't get away if I do.”

Michael starts to say that he doesn't know what I'm talking about but I cut him off, icily

“Don't lie to me, Michael, please. If I mean anything, if I ever meant anything, please tell me the truth.” Michael falls silent for a moment
“You said you knew the secret. So, you already know that you're...” Michael hesitates and his voice trails off.

“Canadian,” I say “I'm a Canadian soldier, or maybe some sort of spy. You've been sleeping with the enemy.” I let out a short, mirthless laugh. Michael lets out a real one.

“Wait, you think that's the secret? That you're Canadian?” He starts laughing so hard it would infuriate me under other circumstances.

“You mean I'm not?” I feel a bit of hope rising. If only I've got it all wrong, Michael can just explain it to me, tease me for being so silly and I can go back to my happy life as Michael's Emily. Or Kelly or Alyssa or whatever my real name is

“You are, but really, that's the least of it.”

“Oh God,” I feel my heart sink again “Am I a war criminal then? Have you been waiting till my memory comes back so you can put me on trial. For whatever I've done?” No wonder he never asked me to marry him; all this time he's just been making my captivity as humane as possible. That's so Michael, kind even to monsters. Monsters like me.

“What's a war criminal? No one's followed any rules of war since the day we nuked Toronto and started our surprise attack. Believe me, if you were a war criminal we'd have shot you without wasting time, but from what I've heard that's been done to plenty of prisoners already.”

“Wait! Wait! We launched a surprise attack?”

Michael laughs at me again. There's a fierceness, a cruelty in his face I've never seen before. This isn't the Michael who comes home to me. This is the Michael who fights a war.

“Don't tell me you believed all that crap about a Canadian attack on the US? Shit, you must be the only person on Earth who doesn't realise that you can tell when the President is lying because his lips are moving. I suppose only having three years of memory must do a lot for naivety, but really this beats all.”

“We, I mean, you started the war?” I say again, stupidly.

“The US outnumbers the Canoeheads by ten to one. Why would you start it?”

I can't say a thing. My worldview has just been turned upside down. I'm a damned Canoehead. And the damned Canoeheads might not be the villains after all.

“Is that the secret?” I finally manage to ask

“Yes; it's so secret everyone in the world knows except you and the President, who can convince himself of his own fantasies, and I figured you were just paying lip service for fear of a treason charge.”

“Then what is the secret?”

“Your real name is Captain Marcus Julius Naso.”

“But that's a boy's name.”

“Yes. You are another of the President's fantasies made real.”

“Huh?”

“Trump was surprised how much resistance Canada put up. Hell, all of us were. We beat you at every kind of conventional warfare but you turned out to know everything about guerilla warfare. What with that and the French and British sending you supplies it still isn't safe for a US soldier anywhere in Canada unless he's in an aeroplane too high for surface to air missiles to reach. So when US scientists developed a way to alter people at the genetic level it gave the mad old bastard an idea.”

I sit numbly, trying to grasp the total overturning of everything I thought was solid, so confused that I still feel offended to hear the man I thought was my President described as a 'mad old bastard'. Even though it now appears he actually is.

“The way he figured it, you give women jewellery, money, flowers and pretty clothes and they're happy.” Michael shrugs “It's worked for him all his life so I suppose it makes a sort of sense from his point of view. He never has listened to anyone else's and I suppose that's worked for him too. After all, no one in their right mind expected him to be President in the first place.”

“Less commentary, more info!” I demand, waggling my little .22 pistol with its ladylike bullets.

“The President figured if the entire population of Canada consisted of pretty girls being showered with treats instead of infuriated guerillas, problem solved. Operation Disney Princess was born.”

“Operation Disney Princess?”

“Yes. This breakthrough could be used to create super soldiers who could end the war in months. It could be used to devise plagues that we could immunise our citizens against and then turn loose to wipe out our enemies. It could eliminate every genetically transmitted disease or weakness. It could even give us a stab at immortality. So what does the President use it for? Creating more women for him to grab by the pussy.”

There's something familiar here. The words 'Operation Disney Princess' have literally haunted my dreams so I must have some connection with it but for the life of me I can't see what. My bewilderment is obviously reflected on my face because Michael gestures impatiently and says “Don't you get it? You were a man.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” I say automatically. The idea just doesn't make sense, so much so that I'm torn between relief that I'm not a war criminal and annoyance that Michael is so obviously misinformed that I may never find out the truth. Men can be wonderful. I wouldn't be without one, but they're stubbly, insensitive creatures, who can't pick up on hints, are inordinately proud of being able to pee standing up and would live in a cave made of dirty laundry and unwashed plates if you didn't pick up after them. The idea that I could have been one is just untenable.

“You were a man,” Michael repeats “A Canadian soldier. A notorious Canadian soldier, cunning as a wolverine and tougher than a wasp and if you hadn't been so badly banged up by your capture that no one recognised you at first you'd never have made it to the prison camp alive But you did and you were selected as one of the subjects for Operation Disney Princess.”

“i don't believe you. No, I believe you're telling me truthfully what you've been told, but this can't be right Michael. You don't know any of this first hand. Somebody's fed you a line. You'd never met me before I was brought to this base as your housekeeper. “

“Yes, I had.”

“Eh?”

“I was the one who finally destroyed your unit. I captured you. Then, because keeping hundreds of prisoners in one place and experimenting on them is never a safe proposition, they pulled me out of the front lines and made me Head of Security for the project.”

I can feel my jaw drop. Either this is some very weird elaborate hoax, or a cover up for something even stranger, or Michael is telling the truth. And everything, everything I've learnt about Michael's face and voice and stance and whole being in three years of intimacy says he's telling the truth. It makes sense of some things too, even as it makes nonsense of others I thought I knew. Unless he can read my mind Michael can't have taken Operation Disney Princess from my thoughts. It explains how I was able to take down a man twice my size, effortlessly and within seconds. It doesn't explain why I find the idea of being male so alien of course and it doesn't explain my emaciation when I came here.

“Wait, so I was never in a Canadian slave labour camp?”

“There are no Canadian slave labour camps. That's just propaganda. They haven't the people to spare to run them and they can't hold territory in the face of overwhelming force. Your side either kills people or lets them the fuck alone.”

“Then why was I so emaciated when I was found?”

For the first time Michael looks ashamed.

“The budget for feeding US prisoners is miniscule to start with and by the time various contractors and cronies who run the programme have taken their cut it's less. Subjects for Operation Disney Princess get special treatment, of course, but you hadn't had much time to put on weight when you escaped. After that you were missing for days, probably with nothing to eat but what you could scavenge, and that's not a lot for anybody nowadays”

“in my dream... in my dream someone said I was subject 239. How many others are there like me?”

“None.”

“What?”

“There were five hundred test subjects before the project was abandoned. You are the only success.”

“I thought you said scientists had worked out how to alter DNA.”

“With test animals, yes. They ran through thirty or forty prisoners before the subjects stopped dying. After that everyone thought it would be plain sailing. It wasn't. It turns out that changing someone's sex without so much as a by-your-leave is one of the most traumatic things you can do. Some of the test subjects lapsed into catatonia when they saw their new selves, some slipped into psychosis. Quite a few killed themselves, more forced us to kill them or died trying to escape. A dozen or so did escape and were never heard of again. And then there's you.”

A realisation hits me hard. “That's why I'm alive isn't it? You wanted to study me, to see why I was different.”

“Not me, I don't get to take that kind of decision. The scientists did though. They were very eager to see if the project could be put back on track. So when you claimed to have lost your memory I was diverted to this base as your -”

“Jailer!” I interrupt bitterly

“I prefer the term handler”

“Does everyone know? Everyone on the base?”

“Yes. Families live here. With us not knowing if you were faking memory loss, or if you'd get it back at any moment, we couldn't do anything else.”

“No wonder I sometimes get funny looks. Everyone I know must be laughing at me behind my back.”

“No, it isn't like that. People were nervous at first but they came to trust you pretty quickly. Heck, not only do the local koffeklatsch girls drop in on you all the time, they let you look after their children. If you think about it that's the biggest compliment anyone could give.”

“What about tricking me into being your fucking bedwarmer? Is that a compliment too?”

I see Michael wince a little. I don't usually swear and my tone is accusing. That's how I want it. I daren't soften now.

“It wasn't like that! You came on to me remember?”

“Yes, I remember. You must have laughed yourself sick.”

“No! Listen to me for God's sake. Emily, I love you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it. Deceiving me so your damned mad scientists could dissect my soul to see how I was different. Did they ever figure it out?”

“Yes. We knew where you came from. Eventually some bright spark had the idea of digging your medical records out of the ruins of your old town. Do you really not know? Can't you guess?” Michael looks at me curiously

“Just tell me.”

“Tell me something first. How do you feel about being a girl?”

I consider the question. “Honestly? Normal. There's nothing about being a woman I don't like, apart from the things which are nothing to do with being a woman and everything to do with men. Like being lied to by my boyfriend!``”

“So you don't want a dick on you? As opposed to in you?”

“Firstly, that's just crude and secondly, euww! No I absolutely don't!”

“Well that's the secret of your success. It seems you were transgender to start with. You'd already been living as a woman full time for months when the war began and were about to start further procedures. You deliberately put off transitioning so it wouldn't interfere with you volunteering for the armed forces.” Michael shrugs “What can I say? You're a patriot.”

I sit in silence for a moment. I don't know a lot about transgender people, but what I've heard is that they're born trapped in the body of the wrong sex. If that is so I can believe I was transgender a lot more easily than I can believe I was ever a regular male. Now that's irony; being given the gift I most wanted by my most deadly enemies. Go figure.

“Emily, “ Michael is saying gently “Your war is over now. Stay here. With me.”

“So you can think up more experiments to try out on me? I don't think so.”

“No!” Michael is starting to sound desperate now “Once they found out why you were different the scientists lost interest. I managed to persuade the powers that be to let you alone, just so long as you were in my custody. But you have to stay in my custody or all deals are off.”

“You mean I have a choice between being your skivvy and whore or going back to a POW camp? I think I prefer the camp.”

“It's not like that. Emily, I fell in love with you. What does it matter how we met? Emily, Emily will you marry me?”

I can feel the tears forming and a lump in my throat. Such a little time ago those were words I longed to hear and now..as Michael steps forward, arms open, reaching for me I jerk the pistol barrel at him

“Get back!”

“Emily, why can't you trust me?”

“Why? Why? I'm either Captain Naso, in which case this is a breach of every law on treatment of prisoners ever written or I'm Emily, in which case you got me to sleep with you by deception. That's rape, Michael, as surely as if you'd jumped out on me from behind a bush!”

“It is not!”

“No? Do you think I would have come on to you if I knew the truth?”

“Wouldn't you?”

“You know the answer, or you would have TOLD me the truth.”

“Emily, please. Think about this. If you go running away you'll be caught, as sure as can be. The government can't afford to let you go telling the things you know now. When they catch you God only knows what they'll do to you next. There are worse places than this to be.”

“No one will catch me. I'll head for the border. You haven't the numbers to search a nation bigger than the whole continental United States. The manpower that might have found me is bleeding away on the frontlines. Everyone on this base talks to the women they sleep with and then we talk to each other over coffee. It's the best intelligence network in the world. Why do you think I worry so much when you go away? You're losing this war.”

Michael glares, I've gotten him angry now. “Emily, whatever your gaggle of hens tell you, you WILL be found.”

“Because of this?” I sniff away tears and hold up my silver and bluejohn bracelet. “You know, in three years it never occurred to me to wonder why I had a bracelet with a semi-precious stone that's found in caverns in exactly one mountainside in all the world. And then I worked it out. It's semi-precious so I wouldn't wonder how I could afford such a big piece of it and it's this particular semi-precious stone because it carves well. So you could have it hollowed out and put a transmitter in it.” I drop the bracelet on the floor and crush it under my foot. “Thank you for the lovely bracelet though; I always wondered where it came from.”

“Emily -” Michael begins but I cut him off.

“That's why I can't stay. You're still lying to me even now.” I keep a straight face but inside it feels like I'm dying. A little voice inside my head is still screaming at me not to ruin things. If I let Michael put his arms around me now I'll crumple like a wet handkerchief.

“Emily, I can't let you go.”

“You can't stop me.”

“Maybe not.” Michael draws himself up to his full height “But you'll have to kill me to get past me. I'm still prepared to die for my country. Are you still prepared to kill for yours?”

That's when I burst into sobs and Michael steps forward to comfort me. I jump up and put a bullet into the floor between us.

“No!”

With a sigh that clearly says “Women!” Michael turns his back and leans on the desk in an exasperated fashion while I stand irresolute.

I can't kill Michael. Whatever he's done, whatever he deserves I can't kill the man I've loved for three years. As he turns back towards me, the automatic he was concealing in his waistband streaking to the firing position so fast it almost blurs, it's obvious he doesn't feel the same way.

I pull the trigger.

Half an hour later speeding south in the Ferrari he never let me drive before, I'm still having to dash tears from my eyes from time to time. He didn't love me, not at all, not ever. He couldn't have tried to shoot me if he did. And I still couldn't kill him. I put a .22 slug into the muscle of his shooting arm, hit him over the head with a lamp and then tied him up with his own zip tie restraints. He regained consciousness while I did, kept muttering about how he'd always known he'd regret showing me how to use those things.

“That's what you get for bringing your work home!” I'd shouted as I left.

The worst thing was that I'd already inflicted my revenge on him – the revenge I'd never wanted and which he would never know. Maybe the worst revenge possible – Michael would never know his own child. It turns out the Pill isn't a hundred per cent reliable Maybe, just maybe, if it had been I would have kept my mouth shut and stayed, pushed down my doubts and worries, given Michael another chance. But no way was my child going to be raised with a liar and murderer for a father.

I'd tricked Michael by saying I would head for the border. Canada is no place to raise a child right now. I was heading south and west, too far south to be in danger from the war with Canada, but stopping too far north to be in range of the battle lines if this band of lunatics started a war with Mexico. I had a cunning plan. I was young, I was pretty, I was healthy, I was hard working. I would find one of those idyllic small towns with no crime, get a job and make a life for us. And maybe, just maybe, one day I'd find someone honest and decent who was good father material and then they were going to get very, very lucky