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Chapter 15
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Doctor Terrell greeted Judy after a few short moments. Her almost sudden appearance prompted Judy to slide away the last of her homework.

“Judy, hello!”

“Hi, Doctor Terrell,” she responded.

“Homework? Oh dear, but it’s so close to the best holiday of all. Speaking of which, do you have a costume picked out for this year, or are you one of those cool kids who thinks they’re too good to have fun for the night like everyone else?”

“I have a costume, but not for Halloween. I was hoping to find something at the last minute what with . . .” her hands set down as if to display her body and how it had changed from a mere month ago. “No such luck.”

“It’s too bad my staff doesn’t include that as one of their miracles. Actually, fun story, they got together one year for a single costume. I came in to work expecting there to have been an accident in the lab, and I found my people together inside of a fake wall, pretending to be spirits unable to move to the great beyond. They had no interest in getting out of that thing, and it was slow enough that day, so naturally they welcomed my patients as a possessed wall.”

“That sounds dedicated.”

“They do have their moments.”

Judy and the doctor nodded a moment, the latter using her available fingers to rap against the clipboard in her hands.

“I started my diary like you asked,” said Judy.

“Good, good,” Doctor Terrell answered. “Notice anything, whether in your writing or in your ongoing transition into your new life?”

“I can’t really say yet. I guess, maybe, it’s helping me express myself better.”

“Or to help you remember things later in life, I’m sure. Give it five or six years and you’ll thank yourself for it. Has there been anything exciting, though? Boyfriends? Girlfriends? Monthly vendettas against Mother Nature?”

“Nothing like that. Well, I mean, I’m a hero now.”

“You haven’t had a period yet?”

“Huh? No. My best friend had her first recently, but I haven’t had one.”

When Denise told Judy about why she had gone to the nurse’s office for most of the day, Judy cringed and hoped that she could somehow skip that part of having a woman’s body. A little over a month ago it didn’t even cross her mind as a possibility.

“Curious,” Doctor Terrell muttered, “curious. I know you’re still young, and age varies from one biological woman to the next, but still I wonder. Lie back for me so I can run a scan.”

“Sure thing.” She stretched her body along the length of the bed.

Doctor Terrell used the same method as before with the small device. Judy had to be careful not to zap herself inside of it again so that the doctor could get the readings she needed.

“It’s all the same,” the doctor said. “Still healthy, which is good, but no sign of movement or change since a month ago. If it wasn’t for your hair being, well, a hair longer, I’d have to venture a guess that either you’re some sort of immortal that won’t experience all that the rest of us do, or something is holding back your body chemistry.”

Judy said, “You almost sound like you want me to have a period, Doctor.”

“Well, no, not exactly. I wouldn’t wish for anyone to experience with regularity the bloating, the bleeding, the varying pain, or the need to chew the head off every last person who’s only asking if they’re OK.”

“Then, what?”

“You are a picture of health, Judy. A picture. I do not treat pictures, if I may be blunt. I do, however, treat young women. You seem like a nice young lady, but aside from having the parts for it, I don’t want you wasting time and money being in an office when you don’t need to be.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

Doctor Terrell said, “That said, I do have some questions for you. When was the last time you were injured?”

“I can’t think of anything unless you count a paper cut from a couple weeks ago. It went away later the same day, though.”

“Like a healing factor, you mean?”

“Not sure.”

“Did you go inside of a computer then? After the cut happened, I mean.”

“I think so.”

“Ah. I think we found it. The same thing that turned your body’s biology over can also heal wounds, unless I’m mistaken. I’m not often wrong, but this also leads me to think that maybe being inside of a computer keeps your biology from moving forward or backward. So as long as you have access to a computer, and it continues to work, you are practically immortal.”

“That sounds cool. I like it inside of computers,” said Judy.

“Do you?”

“It’s usually so peaceful. Lonely, which is the only downside, but peaceful.”

Doctor Terrell gave a knowing nod and glance. “I’m going to have to ask you to stop. Just for three months, maybe earlier. I know it’s asking a lot, but I’d like to confirm my suspicions, and also to know if your reproductive organs work right. You may hate me for this, but we need to know how well your organs work without the influence of being digitized.”

“I . . . I understand.”

“This sucks, this sucks, this sucks . . . .” said Pixeletta, who was sitting at the table inside of the League’s base.

Mortar looked up warily at the flickering lights.

Princess Undercut put a hand on Pixeletta’s shoulder. “Come with me.”

“What, where?” Pixeletta asked.

“Today’s pretty chill in Paragon, compared to how it has been, and Walter doesn’t need us to do anything specific. Plus, I have this afternoon off work. So I was thinking of going to the spa. New place, I’m totally going to try it out. You should come with me.”

“In our hero costumes, though?”

“Nah. Do you trust me with your secrets yet? Let’s go in our civilian outfits.”

Judy’s feet were in a small tub, her face was covered in a creamy mask, and the only person in immediate earshot that moment was the woman who brought her and was paying for this whole trip.

“Feeling relaxed yet?” asked Tatiana.

“I’m trying to,” said Judy.

Tatiana only laughed. “Trying! Do you also try to breathe while you’re at it? Just soak it in, and let whatever’s bothering you go pester a rock or something. This is your you time.”

The lights all flickered and died out with the salon’s background music. Judy’s feet felt even warmer than they already had in the water. The lights turned back on, and the people around the salon went back to their gabbing.

“Maybe not that much,” Tatiana remarked.

“Sorry,” Judy said.

“Don’t be. What has you so worked up, anyhow?”

“You know how I can enter computers at will? My doctor wants me to stop doing that for a while just to see if I start bleeding every month.”

“Some doctor.”

“Or not exactly that. I don’t know. It’s just that everything has been so crazy—good, but crazy—for the past month or more, and being inside of a computer has always brought me solace. No need to worry about my powers hurting anyone, no need worry about waking up and finding that the best of it all never happened, and no need to worry about being injured, apparently.”

“You’re still young, but that’s just life. Wait until you’re an adult. If I had that power like you explain it, I’d never come out of the computer except to join a party to get drunk, and then right back in when I’m done.”

“Sounds horrible,” said Judy.

“It really isn’t. And do you know why?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Let me give you a hint. You’re a hero now. What do you do for people?”

“I save lives, or make them better.”

“Right. I’ve seen a lot of people reach adulthood and just assume it’s like a burden. But, how many people see it as a power instead? For people like us, it goes beyond that.”

“We’re super.”

“And we’ll super-kick life’s butt if it gives us too much trouble. So, if your doctor wants you to try to live life without tucking yourself inside of a computer, then you should already have the upper hand.”

Judy giggled. “Thanks, Tatiana.”

“Any time. Now, what’s this big thing that happened in the last month? Wow, lights.”

“Sorry.”

“I thought you said it was a good thing,” said Tatiana.

“It is, but it’s complicated.”

“Try me, sweety.”

Deep breath. “I was born with a boy’s body. Thanks to my abilities, I was able to change that by accident. So here I am as a girl like I’d always wanted.”

“. . . Wow.”

“Just wow?”

“I was born the second of two girls amidst four boys, my family runs a coffee business that is highly successful out of hospitals, but I want to save up and open my own café, I picked up various martial arts to protect myself until one day when I avoided getting my car totaled by a falling satellite. Investigating it injected my body with nanomachines that mutated my body and gave me invulnerability, so now most martial arts instructors are uneasy about taking me on even after I assure them that it won’t break their hands or legs. I’m sleeping with a man I both hate and fell in love with. And I still have to get through college even though I’m spending my nights saving people. How’s that?”

Judy said, “I see your yucky sex life, and raise you a best friend who’s been coming on to me since I transformed. Jestingly, but still.”

“You’re only picking the one thing?”

“Does your mother collect every possible thing that’s hero related?”

“OK, now that’s just cool.”

“I’m a teenager, and you just called my mom cool.”

“Oh no, my cool points.”

They smirked at one another, and laughed.

Judy was finally home from a long afternoon. Everything was perfect, she thought.

Then her mom stepped in front of her with a fiendish smile and a box behind her back. Judy knew she must have jinxed it somehow.

“I have something for you to wear for the party on Friday,” her mom said.

Judy said, “You didn’t have to buy a Halloween costume, Mom.”

“I didn’t buy you a present, Judy. I found you something I thought I’d lost when I moved to Paragon, and you’re going to look as good in it as I did when I was your age.”

Her mom opened the box and let it drop once the fabric was in her hands. She was holding the outfit up in front of Judy, and all Judy could think about was the pure, unbridled dread turning into the unfathomable. She loved what she saw, but there was no way she could picture herself in it. Was her mom really wanting her to wear this?