Chapter 1.11

I was devastated. It was terrible investigating a headless corpse, but to watch someone who had become a friend die right in front of you was somehow even worse.

I had to pull myself back to the murders, however. I had a theory about them, but I had no way of testing it. It seemed too convenient that the murders were happening and leading to another twist. Was this programmed into the nanites? Were they making someone do it? We had never had a murder before now. Arguments, certainly, but murder? Hardly. The four of us met in the medical clinic the next morning. People were not happy to see me or Kari, now a woman again, come into the clinic.

“We need to test everyone for lying,” I stated.

“Why lying?” Marc wondered.

“You don’t think they’re going to tell the truth about murdering someone, do you?” John agreed with me, but that wasn't a surprise.

“I suppose not.”

Something had been bothering me, but I hadn’t been able to place it. Now, I did. “Look at this cut,” I said, pointing to the obvious one on Carla’s body. “Can anyone tell me which way whatever made it went through?”

Nobody said anything. Finally, I said, “Exactly. It doesn’t look like any tool was used. Perl’s was the same way.”

“What are you saying?” Kari asked.

“We’ve been travelling in groups, or at least pairs for protection. I seriously doubt that would help. If nanites can reform the entire body, what’s to stop them from amputating any part of the body at any time?”

“That’s crazy!” exclaimed Marc.

“So was Caesar,” I returned calmly.

“Well isn’t that just lovely,” John muttered.

We returned to the room off the command center and John pointed something else out.

“Marc and Kari; you have found that touching each other does not change your sex. The act of sex is what does it. What if one of us touched our opposite in you?”

“We have no idea,” Kari pointed out. “I would hesitate on touching each other, though. Our physical relationship didn’t start until we accidently touched. That seemed to intensify our feelings until we couldn’t fight it anymore.”

Inside, I felt deflated. I wanted so badly to feel his arms around me, especially with all that had been happening. I also knew that I could never go back to being a man. If I did, even accidently, we would convulse until I became a woman again, or possibly, until John did. I wondered if we would hate being the opposite sex. I suspected that since we had a bond, we would. I really wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

We had no recourse but to wait.

It was about two weeks later that another person was killed. This time, a man. We were constantly afraid that one of us would be killed, causing our mate to be killed as well. We had seen it happen, and the convulsions appeared to be a horrible way to die.

I missed Brandy very much. She had seemed to have a head for the investigation. We had recruited another man to help us investigate, several days before, as we knew we would have another death. His name was Roman.

The problem was, Roman had been there when the man died. It turned out he had been in a homosexual relationship with Louis, the dead man. They had continued with their physical relationship, as they were not afraid of each other, and no sex change was going to happen for them. They had been living together throughout 'Total Fun'.

Roman was training as a medic, and had been second only to Brandy. Louis had worked in hydroponics.

Louis had died in the main circle on the upper side, and about twenty men had been nearby. All of them had lost their fear afterwards, and were standing not far away as we knelt by the body. The cause of death was the same. We had been starting to wonder if the deaths would happen only in seclusion. Now we knew; they would not.

I hated to ask Roman what happened, so I turned to the group. “Are any of you medics? This will be very hard on Roman, so I think we need to question somebody else.”

No one volunteered and I wasn’t surprised. I had smelled vomit when I entered the circle.

I turned to Roman, and realized some of it was on his shoes, and even more, not far from the body of his lover. I couldn’t ask him. I stood and walked over to the men. “I need to know what happened,” I said. “Who saw it happen?”

One man slowly raised his hand. “Come with me, please.”

We stepped about ten meters away, and I asked.

His color suddenly went white as he told me. “I was heading in the same direction as them, but slightly behind. They were holding hands, and stopped. They turned to each other and kissed, then his face froze. He was still smiling at Roman, but his body just gave a tremble, and his head fell onto the floor. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, and I could see him move his eyes to look at his body as it fell. His body twitched a few times, then stopped moving. It seemed like his head lived for about thirty seconds, then it stopped moving. I lost my lunch over there.” He pointed off to the side of where the body lay. “So did the Roman.” I could see tears forming in his eyes. They were forming in mine as well, and I knew I had gone white.

John had walked over before the man had started. I was glad Kari hadn’t. I was thinking about Perl dying in the ‘J’ walkway like that, all alone. Kari and Perl had been friends, so I knew she would have hated to hear it. I had thought Ralf’s death had been terrible. That last thirty seconds for Louis was worse than anything I can imagine, seeing what had happened to you and knowing what was coming. I realized that somewhere in the conversation, John had gripped my hand. I was squeezing his very hard. Suddenly, I remembered. I wasn’t wearing gloves yet! I looked down, and breathed a sigh of relief. John was.

“Do you always have guys walking around out here in the circle?” John asked.

“A lot of us are homosexual. There’s a couple of bis as well, but I don’t associate with them. They scare me. Is Roman going to be okay?”

“It will probably take awhile for him to recover from Louis’ death, but he should be,” I told him.

“I’m glad to hear it. He called for help, and I ran over. Obviously there wasn’t much I could do for Louis, but I held Roman for a little while.”

I stared at him for a moment. I had a feeling what would come. There would probably be a bond between them, but what would happen if they had sex? I guessed we’d see eventually.

Ten days after Louis died, a straight woman died. This was the start of a run of people dying. I can definitely say that it left us reeling. The next day, we received three different reports of people dying.

With so much happening, I began to wonder if John and I should just give in and begin a physical relationship. We arranged for a place to speak with privacy, and talked about it. I was rather surprised when he made the decision that we wouldn’t.

“I want it to be something special that we decide on our own. Not something decided for us by Caesar.”

“Do you think we will ever defeat this?” I asked him.

“I certainly hope so.”

I thought for a moment, and asked a question I really didn’t want to. “I know you felt that Brandy should go back to being Randy. What about me?”

“I’ve thought about that. You can’t go back. Not without us both dying. I would gladly trade my life for you to go back, if I could. However if I were to, you would die also. That is unacceptable to me.”

“Yes, but that isn’t logical,” I argued. “You said you want our relationship to not be forced on us by Caesar. If we ever get to that point, I will be able to go back.” He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up my hand to stop him. “I have been a woman for several months. I seriously doubt that I would ever be comfortable going back.”

“Now who’s being illogical?” He asked. “If you were to be touched by a man…” he stopped, remembering the outcome of that. “Okay, point taken,” he conceded.

We were both seated on a couch that was L shaped. We were on either side of the ninety degrees. I got up and sat down on the other side of him. We had gotten into the habit of wearing gloves around each other. I got as close to him as I could and put my head on his shoulder. I would have much rather sit on his lap and cuddle, but I was afraid that might lead to something much more. What I was doing was dangerous enough. I was very careful that my face did not touch any of his skin, but I knew an accident could happen.

“I love you,” I finally said, my voice breaking as I started to sob.

He sat there, unmoving for a long time, then finally; “I love you too.”

The next day, two people died. Again, we were feeling the punch from Caesar’s tricks. The only good thing was that we were getting an ever larger number of people who had no fear of any other gender. We decided to call a meeting of those people.

Marc and Kari led the meeting, while John and I sat in the front row. They spoke for quite some time, telling of their experiences. We weren’t sure what any audience participation would bring, but it was revealing. One man stood up and told us that he and his partner had a physical relationship, and during a conversation with a husband and wife, there was an accidental skin to skin touch between his partner, another man, and the wife. Nothing had happened.

With a bit of questioning, it turned out that the man and wife had a physical relationship as well.

So the benefits of a bond with physical relationship was you could no longer be transformed by any other touch except while in sex with your mate. As well, there was no fear.

The cons were that you died when your mate did, period. Or so we gathered. It was very hard to tell, because there were changes with the sex act.

Another thing that was discovered, was that the sex always came in groups of three. However each time between a group got longer. I looked at our two friends, and Kari seemed to be thinking. Finally, she said, “I had never really noticed before, but you’re right. It’s not by much, but if the trend continues eventually it will be a long time that you have to spend as your opposite sex. That will be completely miserable.”

“So,” John said, “The tradeoff for a physical relationship with your mate is that you have to spend a longer and longer time miserable afterward.”

“It seems so,” Marc agreed.

“Is there any way to avoid sex?” I asked bluntly?

“Only the way you and John are doing it,” Kari answered. “Don’t touch each other.”

“But if I accidently am touched by someone else, I will probably kill us both,” I responded.

A few weeks later, John and I met again where I first told him that I loved him. We were not sure what to do now. Do we give in, risking an eventual long term being miserable, or do we remain as we were, risking life and limb?

I know what I wanted to do, and I’m sure John did as well. The bond was getting deeper and deeper. So much so, that I sometimes thought I could feel his emotions when we were in our own rooms.

I was having a hard time sleeping too. He had told me of the same problems. It was such that when I fell asleep, I was jerked back awake almost immediately. I was now getting very little sleep at all, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep going like this. I don’t know how, but I knew if we had sex, I would no longer have this problem.

I told John of it, and waited. I had no idea what he would do, but I didn’t expect his response. He leaned over and kissed me.

I know the nanites beheading their host is strange, but then again, my muse appears to have an much odder imagination than I have.