Emily cross-dresses as a man to gain Natalie's affection but at the cost of her relationship with Nate. Unable to reconcile with either personalities, Emily decides to take more drastic action.

Chapter Two - Penelope

Poppy enters into an uneasy truce with Elliot as they settle into the safe house. Poppy has a secret that Elliot finds quite astonishing and is even more astounded when Poppy tells him her life story and how she ended up on the streets.

In the three months since she'd entered the Program, Verity had been exposed to indignities without number: probes and penetrations; medical procedures which invariably left her shaken and tearful. The invasions never seemed to end. They'd explored her most intimate recesses with a barrage of wicked-looking instruments, delving and touching and pricking and poking until she'd begged them to stop, wailing like a child as each new device was inserted. Still, there was something worse than all the violations she'd suffered over the past ninety days...

Struggling to survive the lethal poverty of a post-apocalyptic world, young Verity Sherman has volunteered for "genetic reconfiguration;" a long and torturous medical procedure which effectively transforms biological males into fertile young women. If successful, Verity will be granted wealth, comfort and privilege beyond her wildest dreams - but only if she can survive the horrors of reconditioning. A dark, dystopian vision of a future where gender is a fluid medium and sexual slavery is the only alternative to the slow, creeping death haunting the slums of the Red Zone.