The Center: Shit Happens Part 1 By Maggie Finson Copyright© 2010 Maggie Finson All Rights Reserved.

My alarm went off with its usual annoying music. I mean, come on here, who is going to just lay there and actually listen to the Carpenters? Getting out of bed and walking across my room to shut that sugary sweet annoyance off I instantly woke up when my feet touched the hardwood floor of my bedroom.

Yeah, I could have had a carpet in my bedroom, Dad had offered to put one in enough times, but setting my bare feet on the cold floor was a wakeup ritual I’d had since I was five years old. Why change that now? I like things being where they’re supposed to be and being what I expect them to be. Getting out of bed to land my feet on warm carpet just seemed so wrong.

I more or less staggered out of my room, made it down the five feet of hall between my bedroom and the bathroom and turned on the water in the shower. While waiting for the water to reach livable temperatures, I brushed my teeth, catching the tube of toothpaste before it fell off the edge of the sink and putting it back in the cabinet, then got into the shower wishing I could at least make a show of shaving.

Sheesh, sixteen years old and not even a hint of body hair yet. I had friends who had to shave twice a day already and here I was, Evan Houston, without even one hair to pull at in hopes of making it grow faster.

Life can be so discouraging at times, you know?

Oh well, it would come in time, I was sure. Dad always had fun teasing me that one day I’d wish I didn’t need to shave every morning. Grinning at that idea I got into the shower and did the usual body maintenance routine I won’t bore you with here then headed downstairs for breakfast.

Mom, my stepmother, actually since my birth mother had died when I was born was ready for work but stopped to give me a quick peck on the cheek. “Saved a few pancakes for you, hon. They’re in the oven staying warm.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I smiled in response, though the constant pecks to the cheek were beginning to be a bit more than I, as a red blooded teenaged guy felt comfortable with. But I put up with them because she was — well, Mom and I loved her.

“Have a good day, dear.” She waved while heading for the front door.

“Later, Mom, you too!” I belatedly hollered after her as the door closed. Then got down to serious business of fueling my growing body. At least I hoped it would get a growth spurt pretty soon. It’s kind of embarrassing when half the girls at school are taller than you are if you know what I mean.

Yup, that’s me all right, skinny, five foot five, smooth as baby skinned geek extraordinaire. Chess club, computer club, and theater were my mainstays at school while video games and surfing the net, along with comic books I no longer admitted to buying let alone keeping kept me from getting too bored at home.

Things started getting a little wonky when I started to head for school. A little? Okay just plain weird if you want to know.

First, my scooter which hadn’t been running at all just started up when I walked outside. No, I don’t mean I tried it in typical teenager fashion, I mean it STARTED when I walked out of the door. I was so shocked it took me a minute or two to dig the keys out of my pocket and open the three padlocks that we hoped would keep it beside the house and not in the back of some thief’s pickup. Okay locks are for honest people, we all know that, but if it takes too long to get through them they even discourage real thieves off and on.

Scooter is what I called it. Actually it was a royal purple 150 Kawasaki that should have been a dirt bike but was relegated to my main form of transportation before it decided it had taken enough abuse and just quit running. But she was purring like a kitten with a bottomless bowl of milk that morning. Go figure, I’d been wishing the bike was as good as when I, or my dad I should say, bought it for me new. More weirdness here, all the scratches and dings I’d put on it in two years were gone, and the vinyl on the seat looked, smelled, and felt like it was brand new.

“Okay.” I gave my surroundings a careful look and announced loudly enough to make sure the neighbors knew the teenager next door was nuts. “If this is one of those TV shows where you do nice things to deserving people, you can stop hiding now.”

“Guess not.” I shrugged when no one came out to fess up, put my helmet on and steered my strangely new feeling scooter towards the street.

Then on the trip to school, the Wilson’s German Shepard Harley who always delighted in chasing me whether I was on foot or riding got his head stuck in the fence when he was bunching his hindquarters for the chase.

I liked Harley so was glad he didn’t get choked or anything, but was also happy that I didn’t have to do the kicks and shouts the dog felt were obligatory from me when he honored moi with the chase.

But the really weird thing on that? The Wilsons lived three houses down from us and I don’t remember them ever having a fence. I’m pretty sure Harley was kind of surprised, too. He was giving me one of those sad doggy looks that more or less said, ‘What happened and why did you have to spoil our fun?’

“Sorry, Harley!” I hollered as I buzzed past him. “I’ll get you a nice rawhide bone to make up for it!”

The poor dog gave me another look that pretty clearly said. ‘I’m going to hold you to that.’

School was weird, too. I hadn’t gotten all my homework done and had been hoping that Mrs. Meers, my Government teacher would be sick today so I wouldn’t have to hand in nothing. My grades in that class weren’t all that good and missing homework wasn’t going to help the situation.

And wonder of wonders -- I walked into my first hour Government class to see a substitute teacher who was also pretty clueless. Man! The luck I’d had already today was probably using up all the saved up karma or whatever I had. But I wasn’t going to complain. Huh uh!

Then there was lunch time.

“Hey, Evan, watch out, here comes Bowers!” Loren Shane, my best, and to be honest, only real friend warned.

Watching the school bully approaching like a dark cloud of unutterable doom I wished he would just step on a wet spot on the floor and take a faceplant. Not that I thought it would do any good, I’d wished that, and worse, to happen to him for two years and started to get what was left of my lunch money out to appease the guy.

“Wow!” Loren shook his head. “That had to hurt, I think he broke his nose when he fell.”

In retrospect, it’s a good thing I hadn’t run the fantasy of him in the blender. But more on that later. I promise.

The rest of the day was just as strange. I won’t go into it other than to say that I went one day at school without a single hassle. I actually marked it on my calendar.

“Evan.” One of the hottest Ladies I’d ever seen greeted me once I got off my scooter and was heading for the front door. Talk about a really weird day. This girl wasn’t quite what some of my friends came up with for ‘one hot B’, but she was close enough to count. And she was sitting on my front porch and had obviously been waiting for me. Wow.

With my usual debonair aplomb I answered. “Huh?”

She smiled at me, actually gave me a real smile and not one of those fake ones pretty girls seemed to practice for dweebs, idiots, and people they really didn’t like but were pretending they did. “We need to talk.”

“Uhh…” Okay, so my comeback was nothing like I would have managed in my favorite fantasies.

She smiled at me, and gestured to her companion, another cute girl who looked like she might be half black and something else. Lord I was in heaven. TWO cute girls waiting for me on my front porch! The guys were NEVER going to believe this.

The first girl, with her almost bronze complexion that hadn’t come from tanning waved to her companion who looked at me for a few seconds, screwed her pretty face into a look that told me she was concentrating, and nodded. “Two hours, Kris.”

“My name is Kristyn.” She told me then smiled at her friend. “This is Danielle. We’re here to keep something bad from happening and you’d be the cause of that if you don’t listen to and come with us.”

“Bad?” I looked at both of them and shook my head. Pretty, hot, and well — sexy — or not, they sounded like head cases. “What are you talking about? The worst thing I ever did was put catnip in the neighbor’s food bowl for their cat. It was a hoot, by the way.”

Krysten laughed and shook her head, the other one — Danielle — grinned at me. “Oh I just know I’m going to like you even if you are going to be a pain in the butt, Evan.”

“Okay…” Something managed to sink in to my poor hormone riddled brain. “What’s this thing about bad things happening in two hours?”

“If you don’t come with us,” Kristyn sighed and I loved what that did with her chest —okay I’m a letch, what teen aged boy isn’t? — “you’re going to hurt or kill a lot of people you care for.”

“What?” I pulled away from two of the cutest girls I’d seen in all my life and shook my head. “I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“You wouldn’t mean to, Evan.” Danielle sadly told me then got a very serious look on her pretty face. “But it will happen. I’ve seen it.”

“You can see the future?” I questioned the girl while starting to think there were two real nutcases on my front porch.

“Yes, unfortunately.” Danielle sighed and was looking really unhappy when she admitted that. “You have to come with us now or a lot of people are going to either die or end up wishing they had, trust me, please.”

“Okay, let’s cut to the chase here.” Krystyn let out a sigh. “You’ve been having weird things happening to you today. Haven’t you?”

“Well, now that you mention it, yes.” I told her and added. “A lot of things, kind of like my wishes had come true.”

“They did.” She told me without the slightest hesitation or disbelief. “And in something less than two hours it’s going to get a LOT worse. People you love could get hurt if you don’t come with us now.”

“You two are nuts!” I informed them and started to unlock the front door. “Go away, hot or not, you’re just too weird for me. I’m out of here and please get off my front porch. If you don’t I’ll call the cops.”

I stormed away from both of them, crazy women, but instead of going into the house I pushed open the gate to the back yard and slammed it behind me.

“Hold still kid.” A man’s voice reached me and I looked up to see four people, carrying some kind of weapons, spread around my back yard. They’d trampled my mother’s prize peonies, too. “We don’t want to hurt you and won’t if you come with us quietly.”

“What is it with people wanting to take me away from here, today?” I muttered then shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere with you or anyone else.”

“Yes you are.” The first one answered and raised the weapon he held, it kind of looked like a tranquilizer gun I’d seen on some nature show Mom had been watching not long ago.

Something inside me broke as I saw that and realized these people were here to kidnap me. Once that happened something else surged up from deep inside and filled me with a confidence I’d never known before. I shook my head and told the guy. “I don’t think so.”

I was wishing they were gone, had never found me, and all at once the four intruders were just — gone. Mom’s peonies were back to normal and I felt like I’d just run ten miles at full speed.

The girls from my front yard hadn’t left, and were standing right behind me with looks of mixed awe and worry on their faces.

“I really hoped it wouldn’t come to this, Evan.” Kristyn let out an unhappy sigh just before she held up one hand and I swear to all of you, sparks started dancing between her fingers. “But we do what we have to do.”

The shock that hit me felt a hundred times worse than the tazer I’d had to put up with in self defense class. I blacked out in less time than it takes to say the thing.

When I came to it felt like every molecule in my body was doing a really wild square dance with the one next to it. Nothing felt even close to right, I was in pain, but not really pain and could swear that I felt things inside me shifting around along with the ludicrously cheerful square dance music I was hearing. I’d hated square dancing when they made us learn it at school, but this time I really learned what it meant to hate something.

I hurt, but didn’t hurt, I felt like three million ants were gleefully crawling all over my body and had managed to get inside.

I barely managed to note that I was tied down on a very uncomfortable bed and that there was nothing else in the room. Oh, the walls had that look of really well reinforced concrete, too. I didn’t get many more impressions because I passed out right about then.

“Evan?” A quiet voice interrupted my dream that involved Jessica Simpson. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah.” I managed a little croak, but my voice was all wrong. “I’m back. What happened?”

“You changed.” The voice sounded familiar and the mixed sadness and excitement in it was something I just wasn’t ready to deal with.

“Changed?”

“Go back to sleep, honey.” The voice, which I suddenly recognized as belonging to that really weird if hot girl, Kristyn soothed. “I’ll explain when you wake up. Just remember that you didn’t hurt anyone when it happened.”

I wanted to argue but just didn’t have the energy.

Waking up the second time was weirder than anything I’d ever been through and given the day I’d had that was saying something. I was disoriented not only because I woke up in a strange place, but because my whole body felt wrong. I mean really wrong.

Really, really wrong. Oh, I said that already, didn’t I? You try getting a mongo tasering and see if your synapses even try to work coherently for at least a few hours after you regain consciousness. Let me know if you manage to do any better and if you do give me your notes, please.

First off, everything looked — well — smaller. Not a humongous difference it was just that my feet looked closer to the foot of the bed, or cot, I was lying on than they had the last time I woke up. That, of course, was crazy. Right?

It was either the same featureless, concrete walled room or at least its twin and if someone is going to make rooms look the same why mess with the size of the beds in them? I’d always heard that it’s easier to buy things in bulk and cheaper, so it just made sense that even if I was in a different room the sparse furnishings would be the same. Wouldn’t it?

And the sheets were awfully scratchy. Not uncomfortably so, but really close to being annoying, kind of like those feelings you get where little invisible things are crawling all over you and you just can’t quite get comfortable kind of thing.

It felt like my butt was on a really big, soft pillow, too. The small of my back wasn’t even really touching the rather hard mattress I was on.

Then I really concentrated and sat up. Other than a sudden bout of dizziness I had to fight off, that wasn’t so bad, except for the shifting weights on my chest. Looking down to see what that was about I found myself staring at something I’d never dreamed of even wanting to see from that perspective. Tits, boobs, gozangas, melons, or as my mind insisted on really saying… Breasts! Real, jiggly, big pinkish brown nippled BREASTS. Hanging from my very own chest. I almost idly noted that they were a nice honey color, and seemed to have a good shape from my odd perspective then shook my head. “No waaay. Its residue from the shock I got from that nutso babe is all. I’m hallucinating here.”

I absolutely refused to believe I was staring down my own cleavage.

Then the hammer blow showed up. As if that revelation hadn’t been enough. Long strands of thick, shining, midnight black hair moved from behind me and yanked the rough sheet back up to cover what I was staring at. Hair, doing things like that, and worse I’d felt the motions in my scalp and the sensations of actually grabbing a cotton bed sheet, feeling its texture with more clarity than I’d ever experienced, making that sheet move.

Okay, that was IT. My overburdened mind just kind of shorted out. Again.

Waking up, take three…

“Evan?” A quiet, but insistent voice, vaguely familiar prodded my very unwilling mind back to consciousness. “Can you hear me?”

When I didn’t respond, the voice, belonging to someone named Kristyn, I recalled spoke to someone else. “I think we’ve lost her.”

“No.” A softer voice disagreed. That was who? Ahh Danielle, I recognized that one, too. Two familiar things in as many seconds. That was a good sign. “The danger is past, she’s just assimilating a lot of stuff right now is all, give her time, Kris.”

“Who you talking about?” I groggily questioned, slurring the words horribly, but managing to get them out.

“You, Evan.” Kristyn’s voice told me with a firmness something in me didn’t care for at all. “Open your eyes, please.”

“No.” I responded while feeling a sense of fear and disorientation. “Every time I do that, things get really weird.”

“I know, sweetie.” The Kristyn voice soothed. “But the worst is over now, you’re going to be all right, please open your eyes and look at me.”

“Nope.” I decided and answered all at the same time. “No way. Grey goes pink, or lavender and changes from concrete blocks to pretty tiles when I do that, and I don’t look right, either. No way am I going to look at that again.”

“Evan!” The Kristyn voice changed, gaining the kind of authority only my parents or the teachers I’d respected used to manage. “Open your eyes. NOW!”

So, can you ignore the much dreaded ‘Mama Voice’? I didn’t think so, but if it helps, neither could I. My eyes snapped open as if there were wires through my eyelids yanking them up.

What I saw was that Mediterranean beauty who had been sitting on my front porch when I got home from school. Behind her I saw the mixed lovely who had been with her. Sighing I did my best to nod while still flat on my back on still really rough sheets. “Okay, they’re open. Don’t ask me to do anything else that’s hard for a few minutes, please?”

“We won’t honey.” Kristyn’s face morphed from a stern Mama thing to one that held nothing but comfort and caring. “Take your time, but you had to really wake up or you might have died.”

“Thought I’d already done that.” I mumbled. “Things are sooo wonky. I can’t be alive.”

“Trust me dear,” Kristyn lightly stroked my cheek. “You’re alive.”

“But nothing feels right.” I complained.

“I know that it doesn’t, sweetie.” Kristyn hugged me. “Just come back to us, please stay awake and I promise I’ll tell you what’s going on, okay?”

Letting out a long, suffering sigh I answered. “Okay, just give me a minute here. I’m thirsty!”

That last just occurred to me but it was true. My mouth felt like I was chewing on a really fuzzy, wooly. dirty sock and tasted about like that, too. Kristyn smiled and gently put a straw between my lips. As I started to pull back she reassured me. “Just water, hon, and trust me, it will be the best water you’ve ever tasted.”

Water? Nah. It was nectar of the gods.

“No effing way…” I gasped.

They’d actually gotten me to get off the cot and stagger with their help, to stand in front of the mirror.

“Way, sweetie.” Kristyn demolished my hopes that this image was a delusion by pinching some of that flesh I was seeing that shouldn’t have been there. “This is you now.”

“Why didn’t you tell her first?” Danielle actually sounded a bit outraged for me.

Her. That was ME they were talking about. And I wasn’t the short, skinny boy I had been earlier. Not even close. Nope, I wasn’t that nerdy little white boy any more if what my eyes and senses told me was true.

The girl — GIRL — Kristyn was gently holding by her slim shoulders was every bit as exotic as the other two in the mirror. I could only stare in mixed shock and amazement at what my eyes, large, bright emerald green and almond shaped now were showing me.

I was still skinny, but not like a boy would be. The very definite swell of breasts pushed almost arrogantly against the thin hospital gown I was wearing and I could see a well defined curve of very feminine hips leading to long smooth legs to slim ankles to small, delicate looking feet…

Her — my face was almost comical in the way it was gaping and staring. And a pretty face it was, even with the goggling, slammed stupid expression on it. Oval, with well defined cheekbones that weren’t too prominent, small, straight nose, full mouth that happily escaped being bee stung in looks but was generous enough to be inviting, and those eyes, wide in shocked surprise right now edged with dark, curling lashes and topped off with thin, almost perfect arcs of black eyebrows, that face was mesmerizing and just kept staring.

“That’s… that’s me?” I questioned weakly while also taking in the fact that I had long, really long as in down past my bottom long, thick, shining black hair too.

“Yes, Evan.” Kristyn gently answered. “That’s you. If it’s any help, both Dani and I were guys not too long ago, too.”

“I need to sit down.” I told her, fighting the panic and other feelings I couldn’t quite describe just then down so I could even talk without screaming.

Kristyn led me back to the bed and I just kind of fell back onto it. Somehow the new mass of hair I’d acquired managed not to get caught under my bottom when I did that. “Are you going to be okay?”

“How?” I managed to get out before dropping my face into hands that were slimmer with longer fingers than I remembered.

“The short version is that about seventeen years ago some bio-terrorists broke into a facility that was working on genetic alterations for things like crops and animals.” Kristyn sat beside me and carefully put an arm around my shoulder. “Experiments were destroyed and some got into a nearby reservoir that a local water bottling plant used. Thousands of contaminated bottles of water were shipped out for sale before anyone knew anything was wrong. Oh, that batch was recalled, but not before some of it had been bought.

Fortunately, most of the people who drank that contaminated water weren’t affected.” She went on, almost as if giving a speech she knew so well it came out by rote, but there was emotion in her voice that belied the rote part. “Unfortunately, pregnant women who drank the contaminated water were affected, or their babies were.”

“My birth mother died when I was born.” I numbly told her.

“So did mine, hon. So did Dani’s, but the children born that way were different, intersexed for one thing if you know what that means?”

“Uh, hermaphrodites?”

“Close enough. We were all born with the sex organs of both sexes, but that isn’t the half of it.”

“I kind of noticed.” I answered while waving a hand at my changed body.

“All the kids here have gone through it, Evan.” Danielle put in, trying to calm me and I did feel better once she’d said it. “But let Kris finish, please.”

“And these children have powers.” Kristyn went on. “They usually show up around puberty or during times of high stress, and when those powers kick in the kid always changes sex.”

“I can believe the sex change thing, I suppose.” Giving a rueful look down my neckline I nodded. “Yeah, I guess I have to believe that part but — powers? Like the X-Men or something?”

A tendril of the hair I still wasn’t used to or was really sure was mine arced around with a serpentine grace and gently pulled the neckline of my hospital gown up.

“Something like that, yes.” Kristyn grinned as my hair had again shown it had a mind of its own.

“So what am I some kind of Medusa character like in those old comics my dad has saved back, or what?” I asked. “I mean hair that does stuff on its own is kind of neat, but also pretty creepy.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Kris grinned again. “Think about it, you have the equivalent of a bunch of extra hands just waiting to do what you want them to do. And you do control what it does, Evan.”

“I do?”

“Sure, you were embarrassed just now and your hair reached up to pull the neck of your gown a little higher didn’t it?”

“Well, yeah it did.” I admitted. “But that’s still not something shout about is it?”

“Used right it could be.” Kristyn told me then shook her head. “But that’s just a little side power to what you really can do.”

“Huh?” Geekdom is never far away is it?

“The reason we had to get you so quickly,” Kristyn went on, “is that a person’s real power shows up about eight or ten hours before the change hits them, and yours had been going all day. If we hadn’t gotten to you when we did things would really have gotten out of hand. I’m sorry I didn’t have time to really explain things to you when we first met.”

“Powers…” I was still getting my head around that and just to make things worse, or better depending on your outlook, my hair was gently massaging my shoulders and neck while I was trying to take all this in.

“Yes, powers.” Kristyn nodded then held up a hand and sparks jumped between her fingers like they were some kind of Tesla coil. “I’m an Electrokinetic, meaning I can control and use electricity.

Dani here is an empath and a precognitive.” She went on with a smile for the other girl. “You are definitely a probability manipulator, and a powerful one.”

“A what?” My hair, insane as this sounds gave me a comforting hug just as Kristyn did.

“A probability manipulator,” she repeated, “Someone who can actually change what’s going to happen or things around them to benefit themselves or someone else, or hurt someone just by wanting it to happen.

I thought about that for a few seconds. “My beat up bike looked and ran like it was brand new, my government teacher was sick and his substitute let us watch a movie… And those guys in my back yard.”

“That’s right, Evan.” She answered and Danielle — Dani touched my shoulder again. “Now what could have happened if you’d wished someone was dead, do you think?”

I couldn’t answer that one right away, I was too busy shaking and trying not to throw up.

“But you didn’t do that.” Dani’s voice penetrated my try at denial about something so horrible. “You’re a good person, Evan and we know that. If your power had let loose once you’d changed, you would have done things you’d never be able to forgive yourself for, but you didn’t do that. We found you, and got you to a safe place so you wouldn’t hurt anyone by accident.”

“I could — could really do that to someone?” My voice, even the higher pitched softer version I had now, was barely a whisper.

“Probably.” Kristyn hugged me tighter. “But you DIDN’T, even when your power kicked in and that bully was coming for you, or with those guys at your house. Hang on to that thought right now and keep it close to the front of your mind from now on. You could have killed that dog, your teacher, that bully, those agents, but you didn’t do it.”

“But if I can really do that kind of thing,” I whispered through my hyperventilating. “I’d be way to dangerous to leave running loose, wouldn’t I?”

“That’s why you’re here, hon.” Kristyn answered softly. “Here at the Center we can teach you to control that kind of power so you don’t accidentally hurt someone with it.”

“The Center?”

“Home for now, Evan.” Danielle told me and I felt a surge of peace and comfort fill me. “You’re home, and safe. We’ll help you if you let us.”

“This is going to take some getting used to.” I muttered while struggling with the sports bra that Dani, and another girl she introduced to me as Heather had brought me. The thing had rolled up in the back and was pinching places I’d never had to get pinched before. My hair obligingly snaked a tendril under the offending back part and smoothed it out then adjusted the overall fit so it was actually mostly comfortable.

“Wow.” Heather shook her head and her hair, long and pure white slithered against her shoulders. “That’s so cool! Is that your power?”

“Not exactly.” I answered with a grimace. “The hair thing is still kind of annoying. I never had long hair before, and mine has been doing some — interesting things since I woke up.”

“Evan is a probability manipulator, Heather.” Dani explained before I could say it. “She can change things around her just by thinking about it.”

“Ohh.” Heather nodded as she gave me worried look. “Change things how?”

“As in drastically if she wants,” Dani replied while giving her friend a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “But she’s aware of that and is being really careful not to do it right now, aren’t you Evan?”

“uhh, yeah.” I nodded. “And Dani here can keep me calm enough to not do things to anyone or anything by accident, right?”

“That’s one of the reasons I’m here.” Dani nodded. “Evan disappeared a bunch of guys sent from one of the other agencies to grab her yesterday, Heather.”

“Disappeared?” Heather gave me a wide eyed look that was a mix of all sorts of emotions, wariness being one.

“I just wished they were back where they’d come from and hadn’t found me at all.” I told her. “I guess I could have wished them dead, they were threatening me with guns, but that never occurred to me. I just wanted them away, not hurt.”

“Holy shit!” Heather gave me another look, this one full of respect then turned to Dani. “Is she really that powerful?”

“She is.” Dani nodded while giving me a gentle pat on the back. “Kris and I both watched her do it. We’re just glad that she doesn’t have much of a killer instinct. Kris had to zap her before she used that power on us though.”

Heather nodded with a bit of a dazed expression that was overrun with one full of mischief. “Oh, that is sooo cool! I can’t wait to see what you do the local status quo, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be fun.”

That cemented it for me. Heather was a friend and would be no matter what.

Heather and Dani took me to the place they called ‘the wardrobe’. To me it looked like the biggest clothing department store that ever was. There were racks, and racks, and racks, of carefully packaged clothing that stretched farther than I could see.

“What are we going to do here?” I asked even though I had a good idea of the answer.

“We’re going to get you outfitted so you can wander around in something besides sweats and flip flops.” Heather informed me with a grin.

I stared into the mirror at what my two friend/tormentors had made of me.

I was wearing a bra, not just a sports bra, but one that came with lace and looked like satin. They’d determined that I was 34B, whatever that meant, but the lacy, satiny thing hugged my upper torso and cradled those breasts I was still not used to very comfortably.

Then there were the matching panties. Okay, those weren’t so different from the jocky shorts I’d worn before, if you could ignore the satiny sheen and lace. But they served the same purpose by covering my nether regions and letting me feel as if I was covered in a very important spot.

And they were — pretty. And felt wonderful against my skin.

The mirror showed me a girl, and one who was more than pretty, standing in front of it in her underwear. Pretty underwear, by the way.

I looked, looked really hard to find some sign of the guy I’d been yesterday. There was no sign of him when I looked at the slender feminine form wearing ice blue lingerie that contrasted so dramatically with her honey colored skin.

He wasn’t there.

“Oh, the boys are going to really LIKE you.” Heather told me with a smirk. “You’re gorgeous.”

Staring at what I was seeing in the mirror I had no way to argue. The girl I was seeing was one that I would have worshipped and fantasized about, from afar. That she was me had just started sinking in.

“I look like some anime character.” I complained while looking at myself in the mirror. The school uniform was a short sleeved white blouse that looked like silk, and a short grey, white and black plaid skirt a snug little vest that didn’t even reach my belly button, a silky little tie, knee socks and shoes with a low heel. “I feel like I should be in some Japanese cartoon as some sexy little schoolgirl”

“Oh, you’re sexy as all get out, hon.” Dani told me as she looked me over with approval in her expression. “Better work on getting used to that because I get the feeling you’d look this way in a burlap bag that had holes cut in it for your head and arms.”

“Oh, the boys are going to be all over you.” Heather added to the conflict with a wide grin. “But don’t worry we’ll help you get through the rough spots you run into at first. After that, you’ll rule where guys are concerned. From experience you should know that they think with their dicks not their minds, and you’ll have them at a real disadvantage, little sister.”

Looking at myself in the school girl uniform I couldn’t find one thing to refute that. This girl would have had the old me doing stupid things just to get her attention.

My hair helpfully reached out and turned the mirror away from me at that point.

Heather laughed and told me, “That is sooo cool!”

Another tendril of my hair flicked out to give her a gentle, even affectionate little swat.

Well, after that I at least had my vital statistics. I was five foot seven, weighed 110 pounds, wore a 34B bra and had women’s size six shoes. And was most definitely Asian.

Well, at least I was taller than I had been.

“Let’s go get lunch.” Dani said once I’d almost finished staring at myself in the mirror.

“Lunch?” I got out without squeaking in panic while running my hands down myself and what I was wearing.

“Lunch.” Heather told me as she took one of my unresisting hands. “You look great and had better get used to the idea. Besides, aren’t you hungry?”

“Well, now that you brought it up,” I winced as my stomach gave a little gurgle of impatience, “Yes, I think I am.”

“It’s still pretty early for lunch and really late for breakfast, so you should have a little peace and quiet in the dining area.” Heather grinned as she started pulling me towards the door.

“Whoa!” I had to stop her, walking in those heels was an experience I’d never thought I would have and it was more than a bit tricky. My still tentative balance just made the problem worse. “Slowly, please. I don’t really want to break my neck or flatten my new nose from doing a faceplant on the floor here.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Heather seemed really contrite over that and I reassured her with a little smile and sigh. “Can’t you just, you know, make it better for yourself with the heels?”

“Hadn’t thought of that.” I answered while feeling the blush start at my throat and rise into my cheeks. “Just a sec here.”

Okay, now I’ll just bet some of you are thinking that I wished I was comfortable in those heels and all that girly stuff and could walk around in all of it like I’d been doing so for years. Well — I did.

Then took one confident step and would have fallen flat on my face if Dani hadn’t caught me.

“I guess I can’t use my power on myself.” I let out a sigh. “Yup, this is really going to take some getting used to.”

“Well, we learned something else about your powers, at least.” Heather grinned at me again.

“Right.” I nodded then stuck my tongue out at her which earned me a giggle. “I’ll make a mental note of that for future reference.”

“It could be more than that.” Dani was giving me a thoughtful look.

“What?”

“Never mind for now, someone better qualified than I am will figure that out, or trial and error will.” She shrugged then took my hand with a wide smile. “Now come on, your stomach has gone from little hints to real growls. We need to get you some food.”

My hair positively loved the cafeteria. Before I could even think about it once we got to the buffet tables it had grabbed three trays and was enthusiastically snatching all kinds of good healthy foods.

Dani and Heather just stood back and watched in something that approached awe as yet another tendril of my midnight hair pulled out a chair while the others gently set the trays on the table in front of it. But I think the awed looks were because I not only ate all the stuff on those trays, I went back for more.

Twice. And still wasn’t completely sated.

“If your power doesn’t use up all those calories,” Heather teased, “were going to have to use Blimp for your codename.”

I would have said something snarky in response, but that strawberry shortcake was just sooo good. And another voice intruded on my gustatory pleasures.

“Holy cow! Girl, if you put away food like that very often, Blimp won’t cover what’s going to happen to you.” The owner of the voice, a small way too perky little blonde, real honey blonde not Heather’s white grinned at me. “Neat trick with the hair, too. Is that your power?”

I almost snarled back something nasty but her equally perky little face with such big innocent blue eyes was too adorable to be mean to. “Nope, from what I understand so far the hair is my secondary power.”

“Oh, it’s still really neat watching you do all that stuff with your hair.” She nodded.

“Evan just got here, Elise.” Heather told the girl. “Go easy on her, please she’s probability manipulator and a strong one.”

“Wow.” Elise gave me a careful looking over. “Meaning you change the reality around you, right?”

“That’s what everyone is telling me.” I answered. “I’m Evan Houston, by the way.”

“Elise Carter.” The girl responded with twinkle in her blue eyes. “I’m a projecting empath, but kind of weak. I just make people within about ten feet of me feel good about everything in general. Can’t help it, can’t turn it off, and it gets kind of annoying at times being the perky little gal everyone just loves to death.

“Well, gotta run, Doc Tipps wants me to help with a new one that isn’t making the adjustment so easily.” She gave an airy wave and hurried out of the cafeteria.

“Uhh, wow.” I shook my head. “That was kind of like going through a miniature tornado of warm, happy.”

“That’s what Lise does.” Dani grinned. “And she’s really a lot better with her power than she admits. All the Docs use her to help patients recover from whatever ails them.”

“Welcome to The Center, Evan.” Heather smirked.

I absolute refuse to talk about my first physical as a girl. It was embarrassing as all get out. And the doctor lost three speculums, though I bit my lip and didn’t disappear the fourth one or I’d have been there till I was an old lady. I apologized, but come on. Those cold, nasty things being put up into a place I wasn’t even used to having? I did get them back for him, though. After the physical.

My hair had been unusually quiet through that. I think it was in shock just like I was. Probably just as well.

“These are the individual training areas.” Dani told me as we moved down a hallway that opened into rooms holding some of the strangest things I’d ever seen. The room I was looking into had one copper rod standing in the middle with heavy cables running from it to so many pieces of equipment I couldn’t take them all in with one look. “This one is for the electrokinetics. They can measure just how much they can both take in and throw out in here and it’s so well insulated the complex grid usually doesn’t go down during testing and training.”

“I’m a photokinetic.” Heather told me as we moved along. “I can manipulate light and that’s where I tested at and still train.”

The room was filled with mirrors and an array of lights that was just as bewildering as the copper filled one I’d just seen. But unlike the last one, this room also had a very large, clear skylight.

They showed me regular gyms, areas fitted out as dojos for martial arts, and so many other things I kind of got them blurred together for awhile. This place was huge!

Music interrupted the tour when Dani reached into a holster she wore on her thin belt and pulled out an I-phone. “Yes?”

She listened to whoever was on the other end of the conversation for a few seconds then nodded while answering. “We’ll have her there in five minutes.”

“What?” I asked, very sure that the ‘her’ in the conversation was me.

“Kris wants to see you.” Dani answered simply then moved out of the training areas and led the way down a bewildering tangle of hallways. “Come on.”

The name plaque beside the door was simple. White, black lettering with the name Kristyn Keys on it. Dani opened the door and ushered me in but didn’t follow.

“Evan.” Kristyn gave me a smile as she waved me to a comfortable chair set at an angle to her desk. “Have a seat and I’ll start helping you make sense of everything that’s happened over the past day or so.

Or at least give you the basic information about you, the rest of us, and this place.” She let out a sigh then her mouth quirked into a grin that held as much mischief as anything else. “I hear your physical was more than a little entertaining.”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” I shuddered then added. “But I got those things back for him when he was finished.”

“You don’t know how many of us here wish we could have done that when we had ours.” She chuckled.

“So am I healthy?”

“So far, the test results won’t be in till tomorrow morning, but Dr. Singh says everything else looks good so far, so I wouldn’t worry too much.” She answered before settling back in her chair. “I don’t usually do interviews with newcomers until they’ve had all their aptitude tests, the results from their physicals have come in, and they’ve had a chance to talk to more than just two or three others in here, but I needed to get to you now since I won’t be here over the next few days.”

“Getting more people like me?” I questioned then instantly regretted it as her expression clouded.

“Hopefully.” Kris answered while shaking off the mood my question had brought on. “But for now we need to talk. There are things you have to know, and I’m the one who gets to tell you about them.

I won’t gild the lily here, this complex is run and financed by the government.” She flatly told me. “I and everyone here, including you, work for Homeland Security now.”

I finally noticed her nametag. Kristyn Keys, Warrant Officer. “Why?”

“To protect the normal people from other people like us.” She answered. “There are other agencies, and even some criminal and terrorist organizations who are actively working to pick up kids who are beginning to go through the change and exhibiting powers. None of them are doing it for the welfare of the general populace. Those organizations use those like us as killers, or to coerce people into doing what they want done, or to subvert whole institutions that this country, and others, depend on for continued stability and well being.

We recently stopped one of those organizations from blackmailing a billionaire who just happens to own most of Intellcomp.” She informed me then shrugged. “He was very grateful and has become a big contributor to us here, especially since we rescued his child from the bad guys when we stopped them.”

It’s our job to see that things like that don’t happen or if that fails take the needed actions to correct the problem.” Kris suddenly looked much older than her apparent age, and tired. “and you, Evan, are something that hasn’t shown up until now, and everyone of those other organizations want you, or want you dead so you can’t be used against them.

You’re a real probability manipulator, someone who can literally change the world around them with nothing more than a thought. It may as well be magic.” She told me without one hint of expression on her pretty face. “Even more, you’re a powerful one. When you get out in the world a lot of people are going to be trying to kill you.”

“My family!” I started to get out of the chair and was stopped by her steady, sympathetic regard.

“They’re safe, Evan. As far as the general public knows, you died when an out of control car sideswiped your bike on the way home from school yesterday. We even gave them a body to bury.

It has to be this way, dear.” She gently told me and I felt Dani’s presence even before she lightly touched my shoulder. “The old you is quite literally dead. He doesn’t exist any longer and won’t ever be around again. It sucks, I know, but all of us here have gone through that.

You can go back and see them, once things settle down.” She told me as I felt the calming waves of Dani’s presence soothing me, letting me know I wasn’t alone like I felt just then. “But you’ll never be the son they lost and they wouldn’t believe it if you tried telling them. Some of us have tried that and the results were tragic.” Kristyn kept my attention by gently grasping my chin and holding it so I couldn’t look away. “My father is moving on now, over his grief and getting on with life. We have to let them do that, Evan. Giving them even a hint that we used to be the sons they lost would ruin that, and be very dangerous for them given the way things are these days.

On the plus side.” Giving my shoulder a little squeeze she went on. “The bad guys haven’t got a clue about who you are now. So if you stay away from your family you’ll be protecting them in a way not many have the courage or will to do. These other agencies didn’t know what your power was going to be when you changed, they just wanted you. So when you do show up out in the world as what you are now, they won’t know you were that kid from Topeka they tried to grab. That is what will keep your family safe.”

“But I have to give them up to do that?” There were tears running down my cheeks and I wasn’t ashamed of that at all.

“Yeah, you do.” She said with a brusqueness I knew was hiding her own pain.

“Then that’s what I’ll do.”

“I know.” Kris nodded unhappily.

We all had a good cry for a few minutes there. It’s really kind of neat how crying now that I’m a girl seems to let so many things go that would have ridden me like a monkey that wasn’t letting go for anything when I was a guy.

“Have you thought of a name yet?” Kris asked me once we’d finished and disposed of all the soggy tissues. “It will have to be completely different than your old one.”

“Sort of.” I told her. “I look like I’m Chinese don’t I?”

“That you do.” She nodded.

“Well, I’m not going for Mai Ling, that’s for sure.” I shot back and got a few chuckles for that. “Lucinda, Luce for short, Lucinda Evangeline Xiang.

Last name is pronounced Shang and the Evangeline is in memory of who I was.” I answered then grimaced. “I’ve been thinking about this since I changed.”

“Good for you, Luce.” Kristyn gave me a smile then handed me close to a ton of paperwork. “Fill these out so we can get you an official identity.”

“My power doesn’t protect me from writer’s cramp, you know.” I grumped as I started on the forms.

Two days later I was officially Lucinda Evangeline Xiang, an American Chinese girl from Los Angeles. I had complete school, medical and incidental records to back that up. Nut’s I even had a prom picture with me in a gown and hanging off some guy. Urrkkk. But he was kind of good looking…

“Oh no you don’t!” I told myself while my room shimmered and tried go ultra girly for the third time that day. “I’m kind of getting used to the girl thing, but you aren’t going to ram it down my throat in my room!”

The dolls and stuffed animals obligingly faded back into the nothingness they’d come from and I let out a relieved sigh. My hair gave my shoulders an encouraging squeeze and you know what? I’d gotten used to that.

The past few days had been — interesting. Really interesting.

Girlhood wasn’t all that bad when I thought about it. I mean lookit. I’d been a skinny little geek no one paid attention to other than to stuff into a convenient trashcan when they were bored. The way I looked now if someone back at my old school tried that, half the student body would stuff them into the trashcan.

I was in the uniform, heels and all, but with the addition of makeup while walking to my next class. (Yes even us really weird, powered people still had to go to high school, sucks, doesn’t it?)

“Hey gorgeous.” Sean Hunter grinned at me. “Can I walk you to your next class?”

I wanted to say no. The guy was — well — cute, which was one of the problems I was having. Thinking guys were cute was just something that still didn’t feel right to me even if my body wanted to argue the point.

Then he was weird. Even for this place. He was a medium and sprit possessor.

Sean really could see dead people, and talk with them. Worse, he could take control of someone else for a short period of time and make them do things he wanted them to do. I had been assured by more than one person, including Sean, the possession thing wasn’t all that reliable and the other person had to let him do it. Okay, but just thinking about that was still creepy.

“Sean, did you have anything to do with what I did in the bathroom last night?” I glared at him. God I was going sooo girly and it had only been three days!

He widened his incredible blue eyes and gave me a grin. “So tell me what happened and I might be able to answer that one.”

“Oh never mind, I’d have felt you doing it.” I sighed.

“I would never violate you, Luce.” He assured me. “So what were you doing?”

“Never mind.” I told him and a tendril of my hair reached out to tickle his nose. Tickle! Not slap or dig boogers, but tickle! I was sooo messed up right then.

But I liked him. And not in the way Evan would have liked another guy.

I LIKED him.

Sheesh.

Oh I made friends. Really made friends, lots of them.

More overload here.

The guys? Well they were fun and so what if I knew they all wanted to see what color and kind of panties I was wearing? I used to do that too. But it is kind of weird when you know it’s your panties they want to see, and what’s under them that they really want to get to.

Learning to ignore that was tough.

The girls? Wow. Yes there was competition and general bitchiness at times, but we were a family. Not that I’d trust one of the bitches around Sean…

God, what am I saying?!!

Kristyn called me to her office for another meeting, this time about my training. I got there on time, and was simply waved in as she was speaking to a distinguished looking man wearing casual clothing that still managed to look more expensive than most people’s cars.

“Luce, this is Bertram Longstreet, that billionaire I told you about when you first arrived, remember?”

“I remember.” I answered then greeted the man with a smile and offered hand. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Lucinda Xiang.”

“Mr. Longstreet thinks he’s found a way to get started on your training without risking everything and everyone around you, Luce.”

“Oh really?” I was interested since there had been a LOT of discussions about just how to teach me to control my abilities without destroying the place.

“It isn’t perfect.” The man gave me a grin that was pure geek and proud of what he’d accomplished. “Kind of an incomplete virtual reality thing, like a really fancy computer game. With the equipment you should have some sensations, along with full visual and sound so you can work on things without actually using your powers.”

Then I saw the headset, goggles, earplugs, and metallic looking gloves on Kristyn’s desk and began to see what he was talking about. “Okay, when do I get to try them out?”

“As soon as Heather gets here.” Kris informed me. “We’ll need her abilities to make this work out, at least for awhile.”

“Okay.” I answered then was almost tackled by good feelings and a rush of pure joy as someone else just about stormed into the office.

“Daddy!” Elise almost shouted as she threw herself into the man’s arms.

“Hi, punkin.” He answered while hugging Lise then looked at me. “I know all about things here at the Center, I’m also a defense contractor but the kicker was that I was there when Ms. Keys and her team rescued my kidnapped son, only they didn’t bring a boy out. It was Elise here so I knew what had happened.”

I felt a pang of real jealousy there, because someone could retain contact with her family, but I was also happy and not because of the feelings Lise projected. She’d become my friend and seeing her so happy made me feel a bit better about things overall.

I stood in the middle of my own personal training room and shrugged off everything they threw at me. Crazy guys with nasty automatic weapons? Ever see a radical eating a licorice gun? It’s funny, really.

Nuclear bombs? I just fixed it so the warheads were full of iron instead of all that nasty stuff and made sure they hit somewhere that didn’t hurt anyone.

Other people with powers? Easy. I just kind of redirected those or in the worst case made sure they didn’t have those powers.

I was one fucking kick ass bitch, and knew it.

Until they hit me with someone who had the same powers I did.

“You died, Luce, worse, after that one you never existed.” Kristyn told me after the first time I’d gone through that one.

“I wasn’t ready for someone who could do what I can.” I admitted.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking there isn’t anyone out there like you, or another kind that could kick the shit out of you.” She told me.

“I just found that out, vividly.” I grumbled.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Kris asked in her usual annoying and ‘right most of the time’ mode.

I thought about that for a few seconds then stared right into her eyes. “I’ll make it up as I go along and that won’t happen again.”

“Show me.” She said.

I love Kris like a sister, but she can be sooo evil at times.

* * * *

Crap, this guy was stronger than I was. I’d just watched the whole Chicago waterfront turn into a wheat field.

A frontal attack wasn’t going to work so I had to figure out a way to get him when he wasn’t looking for it.

But he was projecting a really huge image that towered over Chicago and absolutely RULED the area.

So I ignored that, and started looking for chinks in his armor. Carefully and very, very softly, but I was looking and knew I’d find it.

There it was! Something about when he was a child!

But he noticed my probe and my existence ended with a negligent wave of his hand.

“So what did you do wrong?” Kristyn asked once I’d come out of the post sim disorientation.

“I warned him that I was there.” I sighed. “He felt my probes.”

“So how would you do it differently?”

“Hit him before he knew I was there.”

“Then?”

I let out a shuddering sigh. “Kris you pointed out that I don’t have that killer instinct. I’d try to change things so the guy wasn’t a danger to everything.”

“And if that didn’t work?”

“God help me, I’d kill the fucker.”

Kris gave me a long, penetrating look, and nodded.

“Yes you would. It’s a bitch finding out that you’re capable of things like that, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

The next sim ended fast. I just found the PM and wiped him out of existence.

Then went back to my room and puked for an hour or so.

It had been brought home to me that not only could I negate an enemy’s attack but that I had the power to wipe that enemy out of existence. Permanently and like he or she had never been born.

God, being a girl was sooo easy compared to that.

To be continued in the conclusion, tomorrow.