Note: Well, I had this idea kind of lurking in the background for a few months, but it took Elrodw's re-posting of his excellent MAU: Trek stories here to bring it to the front. A few wasted CPU cycles later, a completely differed story idea ( I might still write it ) and then, bam! This idea sprang to life. Sorry. I know, I know, Whisper Book 2 and Jade Skirt, but I couldn't stop thinking about "wouldn't it be cool if...??". So, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/trangessions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi for his almost daily feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

<* Chapter 1 *>

As a 27 year old and an honorably discharged Army veteran with two tours in the sandbox, Hector Vasquez absolutely loved his civilian job! Especially, on days like today because today he was operating the D9, or Caterpillar D9 Heavy Bulldozer. The weather sunny and a pleasant 70 degrees Fahrenheit, perfect for being stuck inside a 49 ton hunk of metal because when the summer heat came, it would not be fun.  The D9’s regular operator had called in sick and Hector was the only other employee licensed to run the monster.  He enjoyed the raw power of the D9 as it easily flattened everything in its path. Trees, boulders, hills, cars, okay, not cars because his boss would kill him if he accidently ran over someone’s car, but a man could dream, right?  Grading a road bed might be a little boring at times, but it beat being shot at by some insurgent while trying to help rebuild their infrastructure.

As third generation Mexican-American, Hector had just enough Mexican blood in his veins from his mother’s side of the family to give him the characteristic jet black hair, brown eyes and slightly tanned complexion. Yet, from his father’s side of the family, he inherited the frame and build of a NFL Linebacker. At six foot three, 230 pounds and none of it fat, Hector was a physically imposing man, but unless you got him angry or struck a woman; he was a teddy bear. His nickname in the Army was “Dozer”. Not because he drove a bulldozer or was so large he flattened everything in his path, but because he was so calm and mellow. For the people who didn’t know him, the MMA, NRA and U.S. Army Engineers Red Castle bumper stickers on his truck probably did not help dispel his tough guy image.

Currently, he was operating the D9 solo, or without any other support crew, to finish the rough grading before the paving crews started their work when the sun reflected off of a large metallic object approximately 20 yards ahead and in the D9’s path. His two tours in Iraq had made him very paranoid when it came to unexplained metallic objects.  It took him over a year of being back in the world and as a civilian before he stopped panicking over boxes or other large debris items common on the side of the road in the U.S.  All those items made excellent hiding spots for IED’s.

“What in the hell?” Hector shaded his eyes in an attempt to get a better look as he backed the throttle off.

It was too large to be a simple soda or beer can and the blade had already worked over that area in his last pass. So, whatever it was, it could not be something that might damage the D9.  Hell, short of a landmine or an IED, nothing could break one of the D9’s tracks, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure. It was probably nothing and he needed to take a break anyway.

Hector climbed down from the cabin and jumped off the massive tracks.  He kicked some dirt out of the drive assembly and checked the track tension. The tracks looked fine, but it never hurt to check your equipment.  Looking ahead, he spotted the metallic object and as he approached, it began to look more like one of those high-end aluminum briefcases people used to transport delicate equipment. If it was and there was something in the case, its contents were sure to be destroyed if the D9 ran over it.  As he got closer to the object, he noticed that there did not appear to be a single scratch on its surface.  That was strange, but maybe it had flipped over and the damage was all on the other side?

He was not a trained EOD specialist, but as a former 12N or Horizontal Construction Engineer, he had some familiarity with IEDs and a good understanding of what they looked like.  He felt fairly confident the item was not a IED, but it did not hurt to check. Hell, maybe some domestic terrorist had planted a bomb to protest the construction.  Before he got too close, he inspected the area for wires or anything that looked like it could be a trigger, but the metal surface was smooth and unblemished.

Very strange, he decided to use the D9’s blade to push the earth around it and free it from the dirt.  He was not about to try digging it out. Of course, if it did turn out to be an IED, his boss would probably be pissed if it exploded and scratched the D9’s paint job.

Chuckling at that thought, he re-mounted the D9 and expertly used the monster blade to dig just under the box, causing it and a few hundred pounds of earth to flip the box out. Using the D9 as a gardening shovel was a bit like trying to drink from a firehouse, but Hector was a pro and he applied just the right amount of force to dig the strange box out.

The box did not explode. So, he decided it was probably safe to use his hands to carefully remove some dirt from the sides of the box. All of the sides were smooth, no wires or anything to indicate what it might be or what might be inside of it, no scratches, dents, seams, handles or hinges, nothing except smooth metal.

“That’s weird, but I don’t see any damage. It’s not a bomb, but what in the hell is it?”  Hector muttered as picked up the box and turned it over with his hands, inspecting all of its sides.

The only thing he could find that might tell him what it was or what might be in the box was  some funny writing that kind of resembled that fake Klingon crap his room-mate, Greg, liked to pretend he could read.  Most of Hector’s buddies thought Greg was a nerd or a dork because he liked Star Trek, Transformers, and comics and was an accountant, but Hector knew better. Greg was a geek because while he did like all those things, he did not go all the way down the nerd path and dress up like his favorite Star Trek character or camp in line when the new movies came out. Yes, Greg was a bit of an introvert, but he was actually pretty cool and funny as hell once you got to know him and Hector knew him better than just about anyone since he had been friends with Greg since the 7th grade.

The two had crossed paths in the 7th grade due to a shared a love for EverQuest, followed by WoW, or World of Warcraft in high school. It was via the MMO gateway drug that they discovered a mutual love of comics, science fiction and fantasy.  They just did not agree with which Marvel super hero was the better in a fight, Wolverine or Spiderman.  Greg argued for Spiderman, while Hector argued for Wolverine. At least they didn’t argue over Batman versus Superman like some fans are prone to do.

The two lost touch after high school. Hector joined the Army, while Greg went to college. After Hector was discharged from the Army, it was pure luck that he bumped Greg while looking for an apartment. The two of them decided to combine their resources and went from looking for a simple apartment, to renting a modest three bedroom house with a garage for working on their toys. Greg’s R/C cars and Hector’s motorcycle.

Despite their different career paths and post high school experiences, their shared love for all things science-fiction, comics and videogames strengthened the bond of friendship they started in school.  That did not mean that they both would not make fun of each other’s chosen profession.  Hector was the ‘ditch digger’ while Greg was the ‘pencil neck’. So, while Hector worked construction, sweating his ass off in the summer, freezing it off in the winter and complaining about it, Greg worked as one of those pencil necked accountants in a nice and cushy air conditioned office surrounded by hot accountant women.  Well, a few of them were hot, but the scenery had to be better than on a construction job. The dude had it easy, but so far, he had yet to score with the one hottie that he has had his eyes on the last couple of months.

Yeah, the pencil necked geek had it bad. He was in the ‘friend zone’ with all the girls at his office.  Secretly, Hector thought the girls at Greg’s office thought his friend was gay, but Hector knew that was most definitely not the case with Greg. While Greg was not ugly and he was even in pretty good shape, for an accountant, he just had a hard time talking to women. Greg was looking for Mrs. Right, his soul mate and intellectual match while Hector was only looking for Ms. Right-Now.

It was almost painful to witness all the times Greg had been shot down when they tried going to a club together.  Women at the clubs were not looking for someone like Greg; they were looking for someone like Hector. The man who would flirt with them, make them laugh and ravish them in bed. Not someone like Greg who respected and wanted to get to know the woman before bedding her.  Oh sure, the women all claimed the wanted someone like Greg, but when it came down to it, they went for Hector instead.  It was almost sad.

Despite his success with the ladies, Hector was currently single. No girlfriend could hold his interest for more than three months and conversely, no girlfriend felt like sticking around due to his wandering eye and general lack of commitment for a relationship. He was not against marriage; he just hadn’t found the one he wanted to marry.

It was fortunate that Hector was such a nice guy because he somehow managed to end the doomed relationships on friendly terms.  He operated on the ‘you don’t piss down your own well’ principle.  Women were pack animals and if the word got out that he was a jerk or lousy in bed, he would start having trouble with the ladies.

Due to Greg’s geek credentials, Hector felt pretty confident that he would know what to do with the case and how to open it.  The dude loved to tinker with crap in his spare time.  Hell, Greg could probably build a robot out of his spare parts bin that could open the thing remotely if it was a bomb.  Why the dude went into accounting instead of engineering was a mystery to him.

With a planned solution to his mystery, he tucked the case under his arm and walked the 100 yards to his truck. He dropped it on the passenger seat so he would remember to give it to Greg when he got home and with that task complete; he ducked over to the stink infested porta-potty to relieve some of the pressure on his kidneys.  The D9 vibrated like a son of a bitch.

That evening, when Hector walked into the house from the garage, he set the mystery case down on a shelf next to the door while he took off his dirty boots and clothes. He did not want to track all the construction dirt into the house.  He grabbed the case, but noticed that Greg’s Corolla, or ‘chick car’ as Hector liked to rib Greg over, was missing.

With a shrug, he set the case back on the shelf, making a mental note to remember it later tonight when he took out the trash. Finally, he grabbed his dirt covered jeans, brown colored white socks and earth stained t-shirt and carried those items directly to the washer while enroute to the shower.

~o~O~o~

Greg Williamson felt pretty damn excited.  The new Star Trek teaser trailer was out and the web was abuzz with trying to figure out who the villain was.  This was his 5th time watching it and he had a few ideas, but nothing concrete.  This teaser trailer was almost as good as the 2007 Michael Bay Transformers movie trailer.  The mars rover getting stomped by a Decepticon was totally awesome!

“Yo, Greg, watcha watching?” Hector, his roommate asked wearing only his boxers after a hard ‘day at the office’.

Greg refused to even consider how manly Hector looked compared to himself. “Dude! I know you think you’re some Latino Don Juan, but come on, a little modesty wouldn’t hurt.”

“Don’t hate tha playa, hate the game.” Hector stuck a mock gangster pose with his fingers making up some gang sign while purposely flexing his muscles to show off his Army tattoos, pecs and six pack abs.

It took all of Greg’s self control not to laugh at Hector.  The dude was a total show off. If he didn’t know better, purely by accident because he was NOT looking, he would think Hector was compensating for some deficiency with his huge truck and super fast gixxer, or whatever he called his crotch rocket death machine motorcycle. “Besar mi culo, honky.”

The expression on Hector’s face was priceless. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Greg’s mashup of Spanish and English slang. “Hmmphh, there is some fine filth over here Denise...” Hector flexed his bicep and pointed off to the living room as if he was professional bodybuilder posing in a competition while he spoke with a mock British accent.

Greg chuckled at his friend and then, paused and sniffed the air. “Dude, that was pretty bad. Go take your shower, you stink.”

Hector started to head out, but turned back just before he walked out of sight. “Oh yeah, last week, I found some weird case at the new road site. I forgot about it, but remind me to show you after I am done with my shower.”

“Sure man...” Greg absently replied as he turned back to restart the Star Trek trailer for the 6th time.  They both completely forgot about the case until Hector decided to head out to the garage and tinker with his bike.

Hector spotted the case sitting on the shelf, in plain sight, right where he left it last week.  “Dunno why I didn’t spot it and remember to bring it in sooner.” Hector muttered as he grabbed the case, but paused when he thought about the possibility of it being a bomb. “Hmm, maybe we should look at it out here...” If it was a bomb, it would suck to have it blow up in the house and destroy their new HDTV.

“Hey, Greg!  Got a sec? I have something to show ya.” Hector yelled from the garage door.

“Umm, sure, be right there, dude!” Greg yelled from his room.

While he waited, Hector decided to set the case down in the middle of the open stall. He also decided to move his bike to the other side of the garage because it would suck if it was a bomb and destroyed his bike.  Of course, if it was a bomb, 10 feet would not make a big difference either way.

“So, whatcha got?” Greg asked from the open doorway.

Hector pointed to the case.  “That thing. I didn’t know what to make of it or how to open it, but I noticed some writing on it that kinda reminded me of that Klingon crap you read.”

Greg stepped back a half step with mock annoyance, hands on his hips. “Oh...really, crap? You dare insult a blooded Klingon warrior?!?”

Hector crossed his arms impatiently across his chest. “Dude, you get queasy at the sight of blood and you eat your steaks well done. So, are ya going to check it out or not?”

“Fine, fine, lemme turn on the work light.” Greg reached over and plugged in the overhead fluorescent work light before he walked over to the case.  Before he touched the case, he walked around it a few times and examined it from all sides.  He returned to the side with the strange writing on it and squatted down to get a closer look.  

“Hmmm, it does kind of look like Klingon, but it’s definitely not Klingon!” Greg touched some of the symbols and traced them with his fingertip. “See here, this one looks like a Klingon “D” symbol, but it isn’t because the next symbol is like nothing I have ever seen in any Klingon dictionary.”   He absently rubbed off some dirt that obscured the start of the symbols.  “Are you sure it’s not some of that Arabic writing?”

Hector shook his head back and forth. “Not even close...”

“Hmm, it could just be something someone made to mess with people.  You know, like those fake Bigfoot footprints.  If this was actually real alien writing, it could say anything from, ‘Sale Ends Saturday’ to ‘Press Here to Destroy the World’!” Greg said as he absently wiped off the rest of the crusted on dirt to expose all of the strange symbols.

Greg had no sooner finished saying that, when the box jumped up, flipped over to its other side and quickly began to grow. The little suitcase sized box went from being tiny and non-threatening to a scientifically impossible, large and scary old fashioned phone booth sized box. They both stood, stunned and rooted in place, too afraid to move. What if it really was a bomb or even worse, an alien invasion portal? With mouths gaping and trying to form words, they both looked at each other and then, back to the box.  That simple action snapped them both out of their paralysis.

“Madre de Dios!” Hector jumped backwards, slamming into and tripping over the hood of Greg’s car while Greg bounced off the workbench and fell flat on his face directly in front of the alien phone booth.

“Holy fucking shit!” Greg scrambled back to his feet.

They both raced to the door with Greg just beating Hector back into the house. With Hector hot on his heels, Greg raced to his room while Hector peeled off at his own room. Greg could hear Hector frantically shoving shells into his 12 gauge pump shotgun while Greg snatched from the wall above his bed’s headboard the only weapon he had that might be useful to stop an alien invasion.  His bat'leth, the huge, crescent shaped, two handed Klingon battle sword.  It was just a replica weapon, but it might cause an invading alien to pause for a second or two before it blasted him.

Greg debated calling the police, but he doubted the 911 operator would take the call seriously. “911 operator, what is the nature of your call?”  “Umm, hello, sorry, but some alien box just exploded in our garage and aliens are pouring out of it right now!”

Yeah, he could see that call ending well.  

“Ahh!” Hector exclaimed when they surprised each other in the hallway.

“Dude!” Greg looked over at Hector’s shotgun with alarm.  What if the thing had gone off when they bumped into each other?

“Placo! Umm, Shhhh!” Hector violently motioned with his hand for Greg to not make any more noise.  With their hearts beating wildly in their chests, they both listened intently, but there were no sounds or signs of movement coming from the garage. Together, they both crept closer to the still open doorway.  

Somehow, Greg found himself in the lead or 'Point' as Hector would call it. “Hey! Why am I in front? You’re the one with the fucking shotgun!” He turned and furiously whispered to Hector.

“I am watching your back hombre. Stay low, comprende?”  Hector whispered back without taking his eyes off the doorway as he nervously held his shotgun against his shoulder, ready to fire at the first sign of trouble. Greg could tell Hector was nervous.  He only spoke in Spanish or with a Spanish accent when he was stressed out or angry.

Still no signs of life from the garage. They both cautiously crept down the hallway, slowly inching their way closer to the doorway. To keep Hector from accidently shooting him, Greg duck walked with his bat’leth swinging from side to side while he tried to not cut himself with the awkward blade.  They both paused a few feet from the doorway and after another anxious minute, Greg nervously peeked around the corner, into the garage.

The booth was still there and except for the fact that it was previously, a small suitcase, it looked harmless. No blinking lights, strange smoke or alien sounds were coming from it at all.  Greg looked back at Hector; he had his shotgun aimed directly at the booth.  

He anxiously nodded with his eyes for Greg to go ahead. “I got ya covered; just keep to the side and out of my line of fire...”

“That’s hardly reassuring...” Greg muttered as he cautiously approached the alien booth.  He was not sure if it really was of alien origin, but it was the only thing that fit the current facts. He felt a little braver when he touched the smooth metal with his bat’leth and nothing happened.

“Maybe the alien invasion portal is on the other side?” Hector helpfully whispered.

Greg turned back to glare at his friend. “Oh, that’s so not helping right now!”

He tapped it a few more times before he slowly begin to circle it, counter-clockwise, but stopped on the side of the booth facing the front of the garage.  On that side, he found what appeared to be the outline of a door with a small purplish crystal set in the center of it.  To the side of that feature, Greg spotted a ruby colored plate that looked like a large bird footprint.  Above the three taloned print, or paw print was what appeared to be a rectangular display of some sort. It did not look like an LCD display, or any other kind of display Greg had ever seen before, but he intuitively felt certain it was a display.

“Greg, ya okay, man?” Hector anxiously called out to him from the ‘safety’ of the doorway.

“Yeah, umm, dude, there’s something that looks like a door and an access panel over on this side...” Greg said as he reached out to touch the paw print.

“Fuck! Whatever you do, don’t touch it!” Hector said as he moved closer and Greg did exactly the thing he warned him not to do.

The display plate started to flicker and some more of that alien writing appeared, floating in mid-air, a perfect holographic display system. Greg recoiled, not because it hurt, but because it was so damn cool.

“What’s it say?” Hector asked, peering curiously around Greg’s body as he cautiously approached the machine, shotgun still held at the ready.

Greg snorted. “Hell if I know, man. It could be anything from a doomsday countdown to the evening news!”

“Oh yeah, does it do anything else?” Hector relaxed and pointed his shotgun up and towards the ceiling, his curiosity overcoming his alien invasion concern.

The text was simply hovering in place, as if it was waiting for something. What if the text said something like, “Press here to begin your Alien invasion!”?  Greg recalled the acid blood alien from the “Aliens” movie and shuddered with horror. Those things would really suck if they did invade Earth.  Greg glanced back to Hector, as if to ask him if he was sure.  

“Just be ready to jump out of the way...” Hector lowered the barrel of his shotgun.

Not feeling all that reassured, Greg placed his hand on the paw print again and just as he imagined his worst case scenario, a near perfect hologram of the Queen Alien flickered into existence a few seconds later, replacing the text or warning message.  Greg jumped back and clutched his bat’leth even harder because if an acid for blood, face sucking Alien jumped out of that box, he was totally going to shit his pants.  

“Santo puta mierda, tá­o!” Hector rattled off something in Spanish too fast for Greg to even hope to understand, but it probably was not nice. Hector was definitely feeling stressed.

They both held their breaths for almost 20 seconds before either of them dared to breathe.

A visibly shaken Greg turned to Hector. “I was just thinking of how much it would suck if one of those things were in that box...” He sucked in a deep breath as he collected his thoughts. “Holy shit dude...I think that thing read my mind!”

“You watch too much sci-fi man.” Hector looked and sounded skeptical, but at least he was speaking English again, even if it was still with an accent.

“I’m going to try it again, except this time, I am going to think of the new Spock.”  Greg said as he, once again cautiously, yet excitedly approached the booth.  He gingerly reached out and touched the paw print. Almost instantly, a perfect image of Zachary Quinto with Vulcan ears, eyebrows, hair and a Starfleet Science Officer uniform replaced the Alien Queen image. The detail astounded Greg, causing him to forget to be afraid of the alien booth.  Spock even had his new model phaser and tricorder clipped to his belt.

Hector tapped Greg on his shoulder, causing him to flinch with surprise and Hector to chuckle. “Dude! Don’t do that! That shit’s not funny!” Greg growled, looking over at Hector.

“Only you would be enough of a geek to find an alien holographic display unit and make it display a picture of Spock instead of some hot alien chica, preferably naked.” Hector expectantly peered over his shoulder at the slowly rotating Spock hologram.

“Fine...” Greg thought of Zoe Saldana as Uhura, but wearing her red communication's officer uniform instead of naked as Hector had requested. With that stray thought, the uniform disappeared and displayed Uhura in the nude.

“Wow, now, that’s what I am talking about!” Hector whistled.

Embarrassed by his Freudian slip, Greg quickly re-imagined Uhura with her uniform and she was instantly clothed.

“Ah man, she’s pretty damn hot, but she looked even better as a blue alien chick.” Hector now stood next to Greg, completely at ease with the alien device.  

Greg knew Hector was a horn-dog, but that statement took even him by surprise.  As he thought about Zoe Saldana as the blue skinned alien girl, Neytiri, her image formed and began to slowly rotate.  She was lacking something, weapons, and as he thought of that missing detail, her bow appeared on the image, once again, in perfect detail, just like he remembered them in the movie. No, better than he remembered them because he did not think he had that good  a memory.

Greg was now almost 100% sure the machine was alien because there was no way a human built machine could produce such perfect hologram images. However; it was the mind reading interface that was the final nail in the alien device origin coffin.  Medical researchers were just now starting to figure out how to create bionic limbs that could read signals from the brain and he knew they were nowhere close to being this good.

“Hey, have you figured out what that purple knob over there does?” Hector glanced over at the offending protrusion.

Greg glanced over at it. “Umm, no, but I am kind of afraid to touch it now. What if it causes the booth to open and we release her or that Queen Alien?”

Hector took a few steps back and pointed his shotgun past Greg and at what they thought might be the door.  He gave Greg his patented, lady’s man smile. “Well, if it’s her...” He glanced over at the floating blue chick and faked cocking a pistol. “Then, oh yeah, The Hector is ready with his secret weapon, but if it is the other alien, all I can say is, it was nice knowing ya Greg.”

“Ha ha...she’s blue, not green. She will be immune to your Captain Kirk charm, but sure, let the dumb gringo red shirt free the alien. Real smart dude.” Greg nervously chuckled at his attempt of humor while inside his guts were churning with fear. He wasn’t wearing a red shirt, but if any situation called for one, this was probably it.  He felt pretty stupid even considering it, but never the less, he slowly reached over, and after one last glance back at Hector; he touched the purple crystal.

[Whoosh!]

An open doorway materialized on the once smooth surface causing the purplish crystal to disappear and reveal the glow of a matching purplish crystal inside the booth’s yellow lit interior. Once again, they both jumped back, but this time, not as far since they were both getting used to this machine’s surprises.

“Is there anything in there?” Hector asked, shotgun pointed at the garage floor, but ready to be brought back up and aimed directly at the open doorway.

Greg shook his head, no. “Nothing, I see another crystal, I’m going in...”  He cautiously stepped into the machine, first with one foot, tippy toes testing the floor, and then, reassured when nothing happened, both feet.  Now fully inside the machine, Greg saw, absolutely nothing. No cool alien weapons or hidden treasures. He turned back to Hector. “Nothing in here man. Should I try touching this crystal thing in here?”

Hector shrugged his shoulders. “Beats the fuck outta me man. What if it transports you to some other planet or the door closes and locks you in?”

With Hector’s ‘helpful’ doomsday scenarios in mind, Greg panicked and accidently fell backwards. His hand brushed against the purple crystal and the light from the garage was cut off when the door closed or more accurately, simply disappeared because the opening was not there anymore. Before he had time to think about what was happening, he was bathed in a bright red light that caused him to blink his eyes.  A blink was all it took.

The red light vanished and the doorway instantly reappeared. Greg never felt more relieved to see something in his entire life as sweet, sweet, heavenly bright fluorescent light once again filled the booth. Even better, he had not been teleported to some alien world because when he looked out and down from the raised interior of the booth, he spotted Hector.  

Hector stood with his fist raised to bang on the door and a stunned expression on his face. Greg never felt so glad to see another human being in his life, but his overriding instinct told him to get out of the crazy machine as fast as humanly possible, if not sooner. With nothing but escape on his mind, Greg screamed for Hector to move as he jumped out of the crazy machine, brushing past and knocking Hector to the side in his rush to get out of the thing before something else could go wrong.

~o~O~o~

Note: Well, this story seems to have fired a few synapses in my head. I have the first 7 chapters in the can, with the later few of those still needing a little editing. I am trying to stay ahead of the story so I can post it without huge delays between chapters. I will try, but I can't make any promises. For those of you who think they know what the title is implying, you are probably right, but I don't like giving spoilers. Heck, I have already made one MAJOR plot revision and a few minor plot revisions. So, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if I end up having to change the title. hehe. --- Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi for his almost daily feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

<* Chapter 2 *>

As Greg entered the booth’s opening, Hector watched anxiously from what he felt would be optimal effective firing range for his shotgun.  Close enough to aim and fire at whatever might try exiting the thing and not hit Greg at the same time, maybe. He didn’t feel entirely comfortable using the shotgun in this situation, but he felt it was the most effective weapon for dealing with a possible alien invasion.  Due to the old Murphy’s Law of Combat rule #23, ‘Friendly fire, isn’t’; Hector didn’t have his shotgun aimed directly at Greg or the machine, but he was ready to bring it to bear on anything that might jump out.

He had to admit, his friend was one crazy gringo because there was no way he would have been brave and/or dumb enough to try it.  He volunteered once to join the Army and that was all the ignorant volunteering a man needed to do in his lifetime.  Yeah, the Drill Sergeants thought it was pretty funny when, on the first day of BASIC, they asked for volunteers for a very important job.  A job that turned out to be cleaning out an old equipment room.  Never volunteer without first understanding what it is you are volunteering for was a good lesson to learn.

Unlike the horror movie situation this resembled, nothing happened to Greg when he stepped fully into the booth. No blades sliced Greg into pieces or laser beams disintegrated him, but Hector thought it was a little strange that Greg had not banged his big ass Klingon sword thing against the booth’s walls. Greg looked slightly disappointed that the booth was empty when he turned back to Hector. “Nothing in here, man. Should I try touching this crystal thing in here?”

Hector noncommittally shrugged his shoulders, but did not think it was a good idea to mess with the strange device any further. “Beats the fuck outta me man. What if it transports you to some other planet or the door closes and locks you in?”

That reality check finally made Greg realize just how crazy stupid what he was doing, might be.  Hector tried to step forward to help his buddy out of the machine, but Greg stumbled and fell backwards, against the other purple crystal.

[Whoosh!]

The doorway instantly vanished, trapping his friend inside.  Shifting his shotgun to his left hand, Hector banged on the door with his right in the hope that the machine would open up and release Greg.

He had no sooner thought that, when the doorway reappeared and inside the booth was an alien chick who was most definitely, not his friend. Instead of Greg, standing inside the machine was the blue skinned, cat eyed and disturbingly hot alien Avatar chick. She looked down at him and her face shifted from blind panic, to relief at seeing him and finally, blind desperation in a blink of an eye. Her face was very expressive and easy to read for an alien.

She followed that up with an eerie, panicked wail as she smoothly jumped out of the booth, her large alien body glancing against his chest, casually brushing his 230 lb body aside and almost knocking him on his ass.

He recovered and spun around, automatically tracking her with his shotgun as she banged her head off the hanging fluorescent lights. The light fixture swung crazily back and forth, but luckily it did not fall and none of the delicate bulbs broke from her impact. It was crazy, the fixture was easily eight or nine feet off the floor, yet she still banged her head off of it.

“Ow!” She said as she clumsily dropped to the floor while still sliding toward the closed garage doors.  Hector felt surprised that she knew English, or maybe ‘Ow’ was some universal way to express pain.

Feet out, she first touched, then used her incredibly long legs against the garage door like a spring to absorb and stop her forward momentum. Once she stopped, she lithely sprung back up to one knee and into a firing position, facing the closed booth. Her massive long bow held in a strange four fingered grip with a giant size arrow nocked and ready to fire at the machine, or with a slight shift, at Hector.

She glanced over to Hector and hissed at him, cat-like, when she noticed that he was pointing his shotgun at her. “Damn it Hector! What the fu-” She halted in mid-sentence and a look of extreme confusion came over her face. She looked down at the bow in her hands and seemingly surprised by its presence, instantly dropped it like it had turned into a snake or had burned her hands.

Her tail lashed back and forth expressing her agitation. She ignored an even more stunned, confused and still armed Hector as she quickly twisted around to look at her own tail, as if surprised to see it attached to her body and moving in response to her emotions. “What the!?”

She looked back at Hector, a thousand questions dancing in her expressive cat eyes before she tentatively looked down at her mostly naked, primitively clad, blue tiger striped body.  Her own hands caught her attention and she incredulously held them both up, in front of her face as she rapidly turned them over, front to back as if she was both missing something and surprised they belonged to her.  With a look of shock and horror, she looked back up at Hector, almost pleading for him to help her before her eyes rolled back into her head and she bonelessly collapsed to the floor.

Hector’s protective instincts overcame his caution and he quickly, yet carefully, set his shotgun on the workbench and rushed to her side. What if she could not breathe our atmosphere?  He vaguely recalled how the humans in the movie could not breathe her planet’s air.

With that in mind, he kneeled down beside her and carefully turned her over and onto her back. Her skin felt warm to the touch and velvety soft and smooth. He was not sure what he expected her skin to feel like, but it was nice that it was not cold and slimy like they portrayed some aliens on TV.

“Wow! She’s heavy...” Hector had to use a lot more of his strength than he expected.

Once she was on her back, he leaned over her face to check her breathing. With his ear to her nose and looking down her face, towards her almost bare chest, he felt and heard her breath as she exhaled normally through her nose. He also witnessed the rise and fall of her chest.  Good, she was breathing and did not appear to be having trouble with that.  Maybe the blue aliens could breathe Earth’s atmosphere?

Okay, so she passed out. Emergency first, admiring her body second.

Maybe she had gone into shock?  Shock, he knew how to treat.  Treating shock was one of the first lessons he learned during BASIC training.  Okay, confirm that her airway is clear, check! Turn her head to the side in case she puked, done!  Elevate her legs; he grabbed an empty beer cooler and propped her legs up on it. Loosen restrictive clothing, umm; there was none because Hector could not imagine some chest beads and a loin cloth as restrictive.  She did have a nice and perky pair of breasts though.

“Focus man! Focus!” Hector berated himself. “Okay, next step, make her comfortable...” He desperately searched the garage shelves for something to rest her head on, something softer than the garage floor. He also needed something to cover her body, both to keep her warm and provide her some extra modesty.  She was probably used to wearing next to nothing, but outside of the beach or bedroom, Hector was not used to seeing a woman wearing so little and especially not an alien woman.

He considered moving her into the house, but as large as she was, he was not sure if he could safely lift and carry her without hurting or dropping her, or injuring his back in the process. She had to be at least eight feet tall, maybe even nine feet, it was hard for him to tell exactly because he could not remember the last time someone had made him feel so small. He did not feel it was important enough to grab his tape measure to definitively answer the question. It was easy enough to just say she was tall, very tall.

Aside from her height, blue skin, muzzle shaped nose, cat ears, cat eyes, tail and four fingered hands, she looked surprisingly human and very much female with a trim and athletic figure. However; based on his difficulty with getting her turned over, he felt pretty certain she weighed at least 250 pounds, if not more.  Not that he would be foolish enough to mention that to her if she asked him why he did not move her when she woke up.

He found a sleeping bag and his riding jacket. He folded the jacket up like a pillow and carefully lifted her head up and onto it.  Finally, he unzipped and placed the opened sleeping bag over her chest like a blanket.  She was so tall, the adult sized sleeping bag looked more like a baby’s blanket on her. It just covered her upper body and her upper thighs, but due to her elevated legs, the sleeping bag pooled against her hips, leaving her long, shapely and exotic blue tiger-striped legs exposed.

Hector sighed with defeat. He knew it would be ungentlemanly of him to sneak a peek at her body, but he couldn’t help it. She was hot and how many times does a man get a chance to see a hot alien chick? He decided that while she was out, it was probably better for him to look and get it out of his system because when she woke up, he wanted to bring his A-game so he could figure out what happened to Greg.  She obviously knew who he was and since she was here, she would know how to get him back to Earth.

Under the guise of checking on her condition, he carefully lifted the sleeping bag from her chest and folded it down and over her stomach.  Her slightly iridescent skin coloration captivated him and once again, his eyes were drawn to her mostly exposed, pert breasts. For an alien, her small breasts looked amazing to him.  Not because he had never seen a woman’s breasts before, but because he had never seen an alien woman’s breasts.

“Okay, if she opens her eyes right now, what is my excuse for staring at her chest?” Hector furiously asked himself. “Oh yeah, checking her heartbeat!”  With that, he leaned over and placed his ear to her chest.

[Thump, thump...thump, thump]

Yep, she had a heartbeat, but Hector could not tell if it was beating normally. She was an alien, but he felt somewhat reassured by the fact she even had a heartbeat to hear.

“Uhhhhnngg...” She softly moaned and Hector quickly folded the sleeping bag back over her chest as he looked anxiously at her face so see if she had caught him peeking at her breasts.

Her eyes fluttered once, twice, and then her beautiful green, amber flaked cat-like eyes opened wide with alarm.  “Hector! The box! What...happ-ened?” She asked, her voice fading at the end as she turned to look up at him with an expression of utter surprise and confusion.

“Oh my god! My voice! Why do I sound like a chick?” What she said did not immediately register with Hector because when she abruptly propped herself up with her elbows, it reminded Hector of how big and physically intimidating she was and two, it caused the blanket to slide off her chest.

The blanket sliding down also caught her attention and caused her to reflexively look down at her own chest, quickly followed by the sight of her raised and exposed legs. Once again, she panicked and Hector quickly realized that if this alien chick was a human woman who woke up in that position and state of undress, she would probably be a little pissed and upset at the man sitting next to her.

Hector watched with alarm as she casually kicked the cooler, causing it to fly into the garage door, making a nice dent in the thin sheet metal.  The alien chick was strong and he did not want her accidently or purposely hitting him.  He jumped away from her and grabbed his shotgun off the workbench as she rose to her feet, once again banging her head against the light fixture.

“Damn it!” She yelled with frustration before she turned to face him.

~o~O~o~

Greg remembered jumping out of the booth and somehow banging his head on the lights.  Everything after that was kind of confusing to him.  Did he really imagine that he was one of those Na’vi from Avatar and even worse, a chick?  He felt the cool concrete floor of the garage on his back with his head resting on something soft, perhaps a pillow. He felt the air on his chest, but the weight of a blanket around his stomach. He also noticed that his legs were propped up, but they were also exposed to the open air. What happened to his pants and why was he lying on the garage floor? Did the alien box try to suffocate him?

“Uhhhhnngg...” Greg moaned with confusion as he slowly tried to open his eyes. He felt the blanket being placed over his chest, but he was forced to blink a few times before his eye adjusted to the incredibly bright light.  He spotted Hector resting on his knees next to him and instantly felt concerned about his friend. Did the box emit some gas or something that could have hurt Hector?

“Hector! The box! What...happ-ened?” Confused by the sound of his own voice, Greg trailed off as he glanced up at Hector.  He looked extremely confused and nervous about something.

“Oh my god! My voice!” Every word from his mouth sounded completely wrong and shocking to his ears. “Why do I sound like a chick?”

It was at that moment Greg started to realize something was very wrong with his body.  He felt extremely exposed with his legs up in the air, but when he levered himself up to see why his legs were propped up, two observations immediately hit him. One, his legs were blue and two, when the blanket Hector had apparently covered him with fell off his chest, he realized that not only were his legs blue, but so was his naked chest and he had boobs. As boobs go, they were not very large boobs, or breasts to be less crude since they appeared to be attached to him, but definitely breasts, female breasts.

He had to get off the floor!  Greg kicked the cooler out from under his legs and was surprised by his own strength when the cooler flew into the garage door with a loud bang.  He had only meant to move it, not kick it hard enough to score a field goal.  His body felt all wrong and curiously stretched out.  Not painfully stretched, he simply felt like everything on his body was further away than it should be. It was like he had suddenly grown three feet taller.

He rolled to his feet and immediately confirmed that thought by banging his head against the light fixture, again. “Damn it!”

Greg turned back to Hector and discovered his friend pointing the shotgun at him like he was an alien invader or something.  He reacted by crouching down to make himself a smaller target and hissing at Hector.  “Damn it Hector! Why in the hell are you pointing that thing at me?!?!”

Hector looked very confused, but he did start to slowly lower the shotgun.

Greg did not know what was going on with himself or why his friend decided to point his shotgun at him, but his own reaction surprised him too.  “Did I just hiss at you like a cat?” Greg asked as he subconsciously tilted his head at an angle, feeling his ears twitch and  turn to capture every sound.

Yes, his voice definitely sounded female and yes, he was definitely much taller than before and yes, his skin was most definitely blue.  Based on those plainly evident and highly disturbing facts, Greg concluded that the machine had somehow turned him into a Na’vi. His tail twitched and he felt it move.  Yes, he was most definitely not human any more, but even worse from his point of view, he was no longer even male.

Greg’s question broke the ice, causing Hector to nervously chuckle at the situation. “Umm, yes, but who are you? What did you do with Greg?”

Greg briefly, very briefly debated telling Hector that he was Neytiri and he or she, had been sent from the future to warn humanity about a war that would cause the extinction of the human race, but Hector was looking a little stressed out right now.  The idea still made him smile and for the first time since he stepped out of that box, feel a little bit more relaxed.  If he managed to change back to himself, maybe, in 20 years, the two of them would look back at this moment and laugh their asses off.  “Dude, I’m Greg.”

Hector looked skeptical and Greg could not blame him because he was having trouble reconciling his voice as belonging to him.  Speaking of that, he wondered how in the hell he was even breathing. He thought the Na’vi and Humans couldn’t breathe the same air.

“Really!” Greg winced. “I know it sounds freaky, because I am kind of freaked out myself right now, but I’m really Greg.”

“No. Fucking. Way. Not possible, lady. Try telling me something else. You know, like the truth...” Hector surprised Greg by actually appearing angry at him, like Hector blamed him for kidnapping his friend and he was worried about him. Greg did not realize Hector cared so much about him.

Feeling his legs beginning to cramp, Greg straightened to his full height, this time he managed to avoid the light fixture, but he was still uncomfortably close to the garage’s exposed rafters. Belatedly, Greg realized that him standing while being so freakishly tall probably did not help Hector feel any more comfortable, but it felt good to stretch his legs.

Hector clutched his shotgun tighter and even began to raise it once again.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop! Sorry, but I had to stand. My legs were starting to cramp, but dude, I’m telling you the truth ya bloody ditch digger, I’m really Greg. I don’t know how it did it, but it somehow changed me into...” Greg glanced meaningfully over at the booth before looking back and gesturing down to his body. “...well, this. Neytiri from Avatar, I think.”

Hector slowly lowered his shotgun and he appeared like he wanted to believe Greg, but still was not sure.

“Fuck dude, you’re the one with the Captain Kirk complex who suggested this chick, remember?” Greg pointedly reminded him; hand on his hip as his tail lashed back and forth with agitation.

Hector finally believed Greg. Looking stunned, he fully lowered his shotgun, carefully placed it on safe and set it on the workbench before he said a single word.  “How in the...”  Hector looked at a now very relieved and smiling Greg and then, back to the machine and then, back to Greg.  “Dude, you’re hot.”

“Ha ha, that is wrong on so many levels.” Greg crouched back down so he could be closer to eye level with Hector.

Hector tentatively reached out like he wanted to touch Greg’s arm to confirm he was real. “Umm, so, how does it feel? Is it a costume or what?”

Greg laughed and held out his arm for Hector to touch, but it sounded more like a giggle with his feminine voice. “Go ahead, you can touch me, but I am guessing you already copped a feel while I was out, right?”

Uncharacteristically, Hector blushed. “Well, I had to flip you over and administer first aid. For a chick, you’re pretty damn heavy.”  Hector glanced away from Greg’s eyes and down to his chest. “Plus, those are kind of hard to miss...if you know what I mean.”

Now it was Greg’s turn to blush, or turn more purple.  He kind of forgot he now had a pair of breasts and was wearing next to nothing because being nine feet tail, having long dreadlock style hair, four fingers on each hand, and a girl’s voice was extremely distracting.  If he now looked and sounded like a female Na’vi princess, what happened to his manhood?

With that thought, Greg hastily reached between his legs and after some frantic searching with not only his hands and his eyes; he found nothing but a loincloth covering some more nothing of the female variety.

“Oh crap...” He glanced back up at a very interested Hector and realized that he was putting on a show for his horndog roommate. “Dude!  You didn’t have to watch me!”

Hector grinned and chuckled. “Yeah I did, besides you looked like you had bigger things, or should I say, nothing to worry about, right?”

Greg straightened up to his full height, careful to not bang his head again, and crossed his arms with annoyance. He tried to ignore the sensation of his arms pushing against his breasts. “Not funny dude. What if I am stuck like this, then what?”

Hector shrugged his shoulders. “Damned if I know, but maybe you could work on the next Avatar movie or something?”

Feeling a little scared by the very real possibility that he might be stuck like this, Greg reached over, grabbed the cooler and gingerly sat down on it, careful to not sit on his tail.  As freakishly tall as he now was and with the tail poking into his spine, he had to lean slightly forward and sit cross legged to get comfortable.  He wasn’t worried about exposing his new parts to Hector. The loincloth did a pretty good job of covering that and even if he did accidentally expose himself, so what?  He had much bigger things to worry about right now.

Hector dragged a folding camp chair over and sat down opposite Greg. “Dude, look, I know this is freaking you out and you’re worried.” He collapsed back into his chair and sighed with frustration.  “Fuck dude, it’s freaking me out too, but whatever happens...” He leaned forward and looked intently into Greg’s eyes. “I got your back. Okay?”

Overcome by emotions and not trusting his voice as his eyes grew uncharacteristically moist, Greg simply nodded once before he glanced down in an effort to keep Hector from seeing him cry. Of course, Hector easily saw his friend was about to start crying, but was obviously conflicted about how to handle the situation. If Greg really was a woman, Hector might have tried giving him a gentle hug to show her that he cared, but ‘she’ was really Greg.

“Well, all this excitement almost scared the piss outta me.” He stood and hesitantly placed his hand on Greg’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back...need anything from the house?”

Greg looked up and over at Hector. He looked so worried about him. He sniffed once and then, thought about the sheer absurdity of the situation and accidently giggled at Hector as he wiped his eyes.  “Yeah, it’s kinda dusty in here. Maybe a roll of paper towels to blow my giant size nose?”

Hector smiled and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Sure, be right back.”

With Hector out of the room, Greg gave his new body a little more attention. It really was incredible to both see and feel. His skin felt so soft and his breasts felt very alien on his chest, both literally and figuratively. He gingerly touched one and lightly pressed down on it. Hmm, that actually felt kind of nice. Not orgasmic like the women in the pornos try to make it look like, but mildly pleasant.  Not at all like it felt touching his own male chest.  There seemed to be a few extra nerve endings on his Na’vi chest.

He did not want to waste too much time on his breasts because it was the noticeable lack of stuff between his legs that demanded his attention. He was ashamed to admit it, but he thought it felt kind of, well, nice to not have his penis and balls feeling almost constantly smashed and constricted. Smashed and constricted was probably putting it too strongly because the sensation was not something he had consciously noticed before. It just was. The only times it really became noticeable were the many times he was randomly made painfully and sometimes embarrassingly aware of his penis from, well, just about anything having to do with an attractive member of the opposite sex.

“Okay, I might as well get it over with. After all, it’s not like I haven’t seen one before...” Greg softly muttered.

With a combination of dread and wonder, he looked down, carefully moved his loin cloth to the side and slid his primitive appearing bikini down so he could get a better look his new equipment. His groin was flat and had a small, well groomed rectangular landing patch of dark fur above his vagina. It looked exactly like how his previous girlfriend groomed herself and he felt amazed at how much his vagina looked like a human woman’s vagina. His mind spun around a few times from that observation, but after the world righted itself, he struggled to understand why he felt a general warming sensation from deep inside his groin area. When he realized he must be feeling aroused, the warm sensation was followed by a quick twitch of a never before felt muscle group.

It felt disturbing, but kind of good at the same time and those conflicting sensations made him even more curious. He was about to try touching it, but he heard Hector purposely making an excessive amount of noise to warn Greg that he was returning. Feeling both ashamed and slightly frustrated, he quickly pulled his bikini thing back into place and dropped his loincloth back down; smoothing it to ensure it provided maximum coverage.

Hector rejoined him, pretending to not know what Greg had probably done in his absence. “Still need these?” He held out a roll of paper towels.

“Ha!  Too funny, no, but thanks...” Greg looked back down at the floor, once again feeling slightly embarrassed by the situation. “Well, umm, I should see if I can change back because this is really starting to get weird...”

Hector snorted and shook his head with wonder. “Starting?”

Greg couldn’t help it, he laughed and they both ended up laughing so hard they both had to stop for air. “Oh man, that’s funny. Well...” Greg glanced around, then back down to his new body with some regret. “...I guess I should try and change back now.”  His own feelings surprised him, but this experience was a once in a lifetime chance. More like, never because how often in your life can you be someone or in his case, something else?

“So, umm, before you do...” Hector glanced down, looking unsure of himself.

Greg had never seen Hector look so hesitant before. “Yeah?”

“What’s it feel like?”  Hector blushed, but refused to back down. “I mean, you know?” He gestured at Greg’s body.

Greg closed his eyes, focused on how he felt and how he might try to describe it, but how do you describe color to a blind man?  “I dunno, it’s weird and scary, but at the same time, it’s not. I feel good, but it’s well, confusing the hell outta me...”

“Oh, umm, you look exactly like I remember her looking, but where is your tentacle thing?” Hector leaned off to the side in an effort to inspect the back of Greg’s head.

Greg felt confused. “My what?”

“You know, that tentacle thing they used to hook themselves up to the bird thing, and, umm, have sex.” Hector pointed to the back of Greg’s head.

Initially confused, Greg hesitantly reached back, but he only felt a thick mane of tiny braided dreadlocks with beads and feather adornments; not the single long thick braid thing he just now started to remember with Hector’s reminder. “Umm, I dunno. I guess I forgot about it when I was trying to remember how she looked.”

“Oh, well, I guess it’s not important. So, should you try changing back now?” Hector glanced over at the booth.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea...” Greg nodded, then carefully ducked down to avoid hitting anything on his way to the machine.  He felt extremely nervous as he placed his, no, her four fingered hand against the red alien hand print.  What if it didn’t work?

Now that he was an alien himself, he kind of felt a kinship with the strange builders of this device, but he was relieved when the display came to life, showing him a holographic image of his male, human self.  He pictured himself wearing exactly what he wore before his change, complete with his bat’leth. Except he imagined his bat’leth as being real and not a replica.  He changed his watch to be a Rolex.

“Dude, what’s taking you so long?” Hector looked over his shoulder.

“Sorry...it’s just, well, harder than I expected to remember myself and I wanted to see if it was possible to make a few upgrades.” Greg sighed as he made the final touches on his old body by giving himself a set of six pack abs and a stronger, less flabby chest.

His image complete, he gingerly touched the purple crystal and felt relief when the door magically appeared again. “Hehe, I guess it’s not broken...”

Greg took one last, appreciative look down at his strange body and stepped into the booth.  Amazingly, he somehow fit without touching either the ceiling or the walls.  “Daaamn, this thing is interdimensional or something.”

“What?” Hector asked, sounded distracted.

He glanced over his shoulder at Hector and noticed he was staring appreciatively at his ass. “Dude! Eyes up here!” Greg pointed to his eyes. “And, I said it’s bigger on the inside than on the outside, geez!”

“Oh, sorry, nice tail.” Hector grinned unrepentantly.

Greg sighed with frustration, but Hector’s remark also felt, well, nice. He had never had anyone, besides his Mom, compliment him on his looks before.  Maybe, if his improvements worked, he might have more luck with the ladies the next time the two of them went clubbing.  Greg touched the inner crystal and this time, when the door disappeared and the red light hit him, he did not panic. Well, not as much.  The nagging thought of, “What if this doesn’t work?” did cross his mind though.

Before he could blink, the door reappeared and Hector hollered. “Greg! You’re back! That was you, right?”

Greg nodded his head. “Yes, I was the blue alien chick whose boobs and ‘tail’ you liked to stare at, thank you very much.”  He laughed when Hector’s face turned beet red with embarrassment when he stepped out of the machine.

The first thing he did after stepping back on terra firma was check his groin, just to make sure he manhood was back and pat his chest to verify that he no longer had breasts. Reassured on both counts, he felt deeply relieved by the solid, muscular feel of his chest, but still had parts to check. He quickly counted his fingers. Yep, five fingers on each hand, everything is normal there.  Skin is not blue, check. Height appears normal. Face feels like it always has and after a quick glance at his butt, no tail.

“Phew! It worked.” Greg felt relieved.

With the important stuff out of the way, he checked his new and improved bat’leth. It looked a lot more real and the balance felt much better.  He was not sure if that was all in his imagination or not, but the heavy Rolex on his wrist and the tight, muscular feeling of his abs and chest told him the truth.  His enhancements worked!  This machine was fucking awesome!

“My turn!” Hector said, rushing over to the control pad.

Greg held his hand up. “Wait! We should do some research first.” Hector stopped, looking disappointed. “I know, I wanna play with it some more too, but what if something happens and you can’t change back? What if I was just lucky?” Greg asked.

Hector paused as he chewed it over. “Yeah, you’re probably right, but if it checks out...I have first dibs on the next change!”

Greg did not see a problem with that. After all, it was only fair. “If anyone else has ever found one of these before, there should be something on the web about them. Let’s go check.”

Hector hesitated before replying. “Umm, you go ahead. I wanna re-read a few of my old comics, you know, just in case. I want my memory to be fresh for the character I want to be.”

“Wolverine, right?” Greg grinned at his friend’s transparency.

“Yeah, well, you know. He is my fav and it would be pretty damn cool to have some of his powers...snikt!” Hector mimed claws coming out of his fist.

While Greg powered up his PC, Hector retreated into his room and dug out his old comic book collection.

Instead of the old standby, Google, Greg decided to start with the new search engine, The Collective.  The Collective was less than a year old, but it was already stealing market share from both Google in the search engine market and Microsoft in the OS market.  No one knew how they did it, but their software was nothing short of revolutionary. He wanted to upgrade his PC to the new Collective OS, but hadn’t had the time to do so. Plus, he was a little worried by the warning about the Collective OS not allowing dual boot or alternate OS loads.  He was not ready to cut the Windows cord just yet, but he did like The Collective’s sense of humor for adopting a Star Trek inspired name for their company. Hell, they even had a Borg cube for a logo. How they got that past the lawyers was anyone’s guess.

“Okay now, let’s see what The Collective has on our little box...” Greg typed in ‘what is a silver metal box with alien writing on the side?’ and surprisingly, The Collective seemed to get stuck. That was strange because the last few times he had tried them, they returned results before he had finished typing his question.

[] Sorry, your search failed to return any matches...did you mean to type, “What is a Morphic Adaptation Unit, Mark 5?”

“Well, that’s strange...” Greg muttered to himself as he moved his mouse to click on the underlined text to execute The Collective’s suggested search.

[] Sorry, your search failed to return any matches...you are requested to immediately email mau5.info@thecollective if you believe this message to be in error or feel you have data that would assist The Collective with our mission to provide the best search tool to humanity.

Greg felt a chill. Something was not right.  Their ‘error message’ was just a little too knowledgeable and forceful to be a simple, “Sorry, no matches found...” message. They knew something, but he was not about to send them an email about it.  He almost decided to turn off his PC, unplug the network cable, call the entire search off and tell Hector it was too dangerous, but he decided to give the old Google a try.

Greg duplicated his original search on Google and was immediately given 5.3 million useless results. He quickly paged through the first ten pages of conspiracy theories regarding UFO’s and alien abductions stories. Not a hint about this Morphic Adaptation Unit.  He decided to try the search The Collective suggested.

>820,000 results...

“Well, that’s better...I think?” Greg noticed the first page had results that initially looked promising, but after ensuring his java  script blocker and AV suite were active, he clicked on a few of the suggested URLs and got nothing but conspiracy theories, urban legends about Men in Black or Agents with dark sunglasses, pleas for help if one is found. “Please, please, please, my husband is stuck as a centaur!” Blah, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, wait, one of the links actually described the box in both its collapsed and expanded state quite well, but it’s information was rather blunt and uninformative. “Warning! If found, do not attempt to use! May result in irreversible harm! Call 1-800-xxx-xxxx immediately!”

Okay, they seemed to know something, but Greg knew the changes were hardly irreversible. He was living proof if that. The owners of the site probably just wanted one for their own use. Greg closed that site and clicked through another 10 or 15 sites, but they all pretty much said the same thing. “If you use it, the Men in Black will come take you away...”

Yeah, right.  He was about to just say, ‘fuck it!’ and give up when he came across something that actually looked informative. The standard conspiracy stuff was there, but the owners of this site let slip that there was a pattern.  The machine was either stolen, lost or quit working after anywhere from two to five days.  Not very useful or trustworthy.

Greg had all the nut job conspiracy theory crap he could take. Besides, all this reading was getting in the way of playing with the device.  Before entering Hector’s room, he politely knocked on his partially open door. He found Hector sitting in his bed with his full collection of Wolverine, X-Men and G.I. Joe comics spread out in front of him. He currently had a Wolverine origins comic open and he set it down when Greg entered.  “Well, find anything?” Hector asked, glancing up.

Greg sighed with frustration. “Yes and no. A lot of UFO conspiracy theory crap out there about Men in Black and all kinds of other crazy shit, but the general trend appeared to hint that ‘if’ and I say, ‘if’ you had a Morphic Adaption Units, as they called it; you wanted to be VERY careful not to lose it.  There were also some hints about a time limit, but none of the sites could agree on that point. Again, big if, but ‘if’ there is a time limit, it could be anywhere from three to five days.”

Hector checked his watch, nodded once and jumped off his bed. “Great! So, my turn, right?!”

~o~O~o~

Note: Working on Ch 7 ATM and the characters seem to be running the show instead of me. :) --- Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi for his almost daily feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

<* Chapter 3 *>

Now that it was his turn, Hector struggled to contain his enthusiasm and fear.  Enthusiasm, because after Greg’s successful change into that alien chick, he wanted to see if it could change him into his favorite superhero, Wolverine. Fear, because what if Greg was lucky and Hector got stuck as Wolverine? Would that be so bad?

While not something he ever had to worry about, Hector knew people who had immigration problems. His family was very close to their Mexican roots and had many friends on both sides to the border who had problems getting into and staying in America, the land of the free and home of the brave. So, yes, it could be bad if he was stuck as Wolverine because who would recognize him if he looked like someone else?  Being Wolverine wouldn’t pay the bills. How would he drive to work or even work without an identity.  His home country would quickly become not so free for him.

Hector still felt amazed at what Greg had done. Admittedly, it was pretty damn stupid of him to step into the machine, but as his Platoon Sergeant once told him when he used a dab of construction C-4 to knock out a dent on his bulldozer’s blade, ‘Corporal Vasquez, if it’s stupid and it works, then it isn’t stupid, but don’t do it again, okay?’

His ‘introduction’ to Greg’s alter ego shocked the shit out of him, but after things calmed down; Hector found himself feeling both fascinated by Greg’s alien female body and confused by how sexually attracted he felt towards him, no her. He found it hard to reconcile the larger than life alien chick with Greg. The two images were just too different.

When he finally realized that Greg was the alien chick, his head got so confused about what to think and feel that he had to get out of the garage to give himself some space.  He was so messed up in the head, that he even considered sneaking back and spying on his friend because he knew what he would be doing in the same situation, but he couldn’t do it. That was the difference with ‘her’. She was his friend and he had never had any women he could consider ‘friends’.  Women were ‘lovers’ first and he never made it to the ‘friends’ part. Friendly, yes, but not the kind of friendship he and Greg shared.

It wouldn’t have been right and it would have felt kinda creepy because he was not ashamed to admit to himself that he thought Greg was pretty damn hot as an Avatar alien chick. Not that he had any intention of ever trying to talk him into being a giant blue alien chick again, but he also would not try to talk him out of it if he did.

He chuckled at the directions his thoughts had been taking him.

Greg glanced askance at Hector. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about how you kept on banging your head on the light. Plus, it was kinda funny when you spotted your tail for the first time. I swear you looked like a dog or a cat chasing their tail.” Hector chuckled as watched Greg’s expression falter.

Greg snorted with derision. “I’d like to see you get turned into some giant blue alien chick and see how well you take it.”

“Oh no, no, no...not going to happen, bud, but...” Hector glanced hopefully over at Greg.

“Don’t even go there! Not happening, no way, no how. Once was enough for me!” Greg pounded his chest to reinforce statement.

Hector spun to face his friend with his hands up with mock surrender. “Okay, if that’s how you really feel about it. Just saying...” He turned back to face the machine, but not before gaining some satisfaction from watching Greg squirm. “Okay, so how does this thing work?”

“Well, you just press on that...” Greg pointed to the red paw print and Hector followed his instructions.  “And think of the hot chick you want to be.”

Before Hector could process what Greg said, an image of Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy wearing her flight uniform from Avatar shimmered into existence.  “Asshole!” Hector glared at his smirking friend.

“Nice, but I thought you would go for Jessica Alba or J-Lo...” Greg helpfully supplied additional crushes for Hector to consider and dutifully, the image shifted with each name, settling with Jennifer Lopez wearing a body hugging, shimmering and barely opaque mini skirt thing that showed off her figure very well.

Hector lifted his hand, freezing the image of Jennifer Lopez in place. “Damnit! Stop that shit!”

“Fine, just messing with ya, but...” Greg smirked suggestively.

“Go...” Hector pointed to the camp chair he used.

Once Greg sat, Hector placed his hand on the paw print and concentrated on his hero, Wolverine.  Adamantium skeleton, retractable and cut through anything claws, healing factor, pain tolerance and boosted strength, but not the berserker, animalistic rage thing. Hector did not like losing control during a fight. Anger was good, but not blind rage. It took a few seconds, but eventually an image of Wolverine materialized, complete with his X-men costume and trademark claws.

“That’s good, but not going to work...” Hector muttered to himself as Greg, now captivated, looked on as the image morphed to look like Hector, but with the claws and instead of a costume, he wore his regular street clothes.

Satisfied with the results, Hector removed his hand from the paw print, freezing his image in place.  “Well, what do you think?” He nervously looked over his shoulder at Greg.

Greg walked over and studied Hector’s image. “Umm, except for the claws, you look like, well, you?”

“Yeah, well, I decided that if it works, but I’m not lucky about changing back; I would want to look like myself since no one would know me if I looked like Wolverine from the comics...” Hector briefly glanced down at the floor with shame because it was the safe thing to do and he was not known for his caution.  He rode an ungodly fast sport bike and had joined the Army. He was a risk taker and adrenalin junky, but for something like this, he was not ready to take the chance.

Greg looked shocked by his admission. “Wow, that’s...actually pretty damn smart, for a ditch digger.”

“Fuck you man!” Hector grinned to take the sting out of his words because he knew Greg was actually impressed with his uncharacteristic display of common sense.

Greg laughed and pointed to the purplish crystal on the door. “You going to do it or are ya just going to stand around all night?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m getting to it...” Hector impatiently waved away Greg as he turned to face the machine again.  Goaded into action, he reached down and touched the crystal.

[Whoosh!]

The door vanished, causing the breath in Hector’s throat to momentarily catch. What if the aliens had lulled them into a false sense of security and they were now waiting to jump out at them?  When that fear was proven false, he spared a quick glance back at Greg and with Greg’s gentle gesture to ‘go ahead’; he let his breath out and stepped into the machine.

“Just touch the other purplish crystal in there...” Greg pointed it out after Hector paused inside the guts of the alien device while he tried to work up his courage to take the final and potentially permanent step.

“I know. I’m just working up to it. I’m not a crazy gringo like you.” Hector muttered just loud enough for Greg to hear as his voice echoed strangely inside the booth.

Unable to delay any longer, Hector reached down and touched the crystal.

[Whoosh!]

The light from the garage was replaced by the yellowish glow as the sole illumination inside the confines of the alien device.  Hector had enough time to get started on regretting his decision when a red light washed over him, causing him to blink from the intensity of the light.

Within the span of a single blink, the red light vanished.

[Whoosh!]

Once again, the light from the garage flooded the interior of the device.  Hector reflexively blinked his eyes once more due to abrupt changes in lighting and felt a sense of relief that he was still alive and also, still in his garage. Unable to restrain his enthusiasm for getting out of the crazy device, he jumped out and into the garage.  His work boots made a solid thunking sound as feet hit the floor.

“Well, did it work?!?” Greg scrambled to stand up from the camp chair.

Hector shrugged his shoulders and he noticed a marked difference in how the muscles in his shoulders and upper body felt.  He felt stronger and more powerful and his shoulders also seemed a bit wider, but he really wanted to see if he actually had claws like Wolverine. He flexed his arm muscles in an attempt to free his claws, but nothing happened.  He thought he felt something in his forearms, but he wasn’t sure. “Umm, I don’t know...”

He concentrated on his right forearm as he tried to work out a way to get his claws to extend. Nothing worked, until he lined up his fist with his forearm and flexed the muscle group in his arm that felt like it was pushing against something deep inside his forearm.

[Snickt!]

His discovery was rewarded with the sound of metal smoothly sliding against metal and locking into place with a searing pain that began with his wrist and ended with a set of three, slightly curved, eight inch long silvery colored metal blades erupting from between the skin of his knuckles.

“Hijo de puta!” Hector dropped to his knees, clutching his wrist.

“Holy shit! Dude...” Greg rushed to his side.

Hector wave off Greg’s aid as he regained his feet. “Holy shit, that stung...” He said as he inspected the blades now extended from his knuckles.  He noticed a few small drops of blood where the blades had cut through his skin, but nothing else. If he hadn’t just felt them rip through his knuckles, he might have been able to convince himself they were just glued to his skin.

He tried to move his wrist, but with the blades extended, his wrist was firmly locked into place.  Hector cautiously swung his right arm around in air to get a feel for how they worked or could be used in a fight. He noticed Greg standing a little too close for comfort. “Stand back a little, I wanna try these out...”

He waited until Greg took a few steps back before he started testing a few punches and swings that might be useful for taking advantage of the claws.  He actually felt somewhat relieved to have his wrist locked because the small bones in the hand and wrist are actually fairly fragile and could shatter from the torque the blades could transfer to his hand from an impact. He wasn’t sure if the adamantium reinforced bones would’ve prevented that from happening, but those, plus the locked wrist couldn’t hurt.

Now he needed something to try them against. He spotted a nice three foot, one inch diameter steel pipe he used as a breaker bar leaning up against the workbench. He pointed to it and looked at Greg. “Could you put that pipe in the vice? I wanna try cutting it with my claws.”

“Umm, sure.” Greg grabbed the pipe and locked it into place in the big steel vice bolted onto the workbench.

Hector tested the pipe with his other hand to make sure it was locked into place, but Greg had done a good job and it didn’t wiggle in the slightest.  His first test was just to see if his claws could scratch the steel because he was not about to try slamming his claws into the pipe full strength as his first test.  As Greg intently watched from the side, Hector lined his claws up on the end of the pipe so only a single claw would touch the pipe. He chose the end because if it worked, he didn’t want to wreck his best breaker bar by cutting it in half. Next, he slowly, but steadily began to press down, his single claw against the steel pipe.  With approximately 20-30 pounds of force, his claw began to part into the pipe as if it was made of butter instead of steel.

The ringing sound of the smoothly sliced, one inch steel donut hitting the floor caused both of their mouths to drop open with shock. “Holy fucking shit dude!”  Greg was the first to put his thoughts into words.

Still speechless, Hector inspected his claw, expecting it to be dulled or scratched where it cut through the steel.  He touched the edge of the blade with finger tip.

“Ouch!” A fine trace of blood welled up as he quickly jerked his finger away from the insanely sharp edge of his claw. The thing was so sharp, it had cut him with only a light touch.  Hector sucked on his finger tip, but when he took it out of his mouth, the cut was simply not there.

Greg noticed how quickly he healed. “Well, you can heal like Wolverine and your claws are definitely sharp like Wolverine’s claws...” He checked the end of the pipe before he reached down to inspect the slice of pipe.  Next, he mated the cut piece of pipe with its parent and it fit with barely a seam to show it had been cut. “Nice,  I bet they have a monomolecular edge!”

Hector simply nodded with agreement because he didn’t understand what monomolecular could mean, but if it meant sharp, then he definitely agreed with that. He debated trying to get his left claws to deploy.  Once again, caution got the better of him and he decided to try and retract his claws first because it would suck to be stuck with them out all the time.

[Snickt!]

Hector winced. “Son of a...” Even retracting the claws hurt as they cut their way back inside his forearm.

“I’m surprised they hurt so much. Maybe that is why Wolverine is so pissed all the time?” Greg chuckled in an attempt to make Hector feel better.

Hector nodded because he wondered what it would feel like if he hadn’t specifically considered the pain Wolverine must feel to have these claws rip through his skin each time., “Yeah, I bet, but lemme try both of them now that I know what to expect. Maybe it won’t be that bad...”

[Snickt!][Snickt!]

“Holy fucking shit!” Hector clenched his jaw as the twin pain of six metal blades lanced through his wrists and knuckles at the same time.  No, it did not feel any better the second time around, but at least this time it wasn’t a surprise pain and it quickly disappeared to become a dull memory.

[Snickt!][Snickt!]

Hector retracted them both again and it also hurt, but not nearly as badly as extending them did.  He inspected the knuckles on both hands and not a trace existed of where the blades had erupted from his skin.  “This healing thing is pretty damn cool, but the claws...well those I think I could do without, or least, not used them that much because  ¡ay!, they hurt.”

“Yeah, I bet...” Greg sympathetically nodded his head with agreement.

Hector turned and pointed back at the machine. “Okay, your turn again.”

~o~O~o~

Greg was still stunned from Hector’s claws and healing demonstration. He wasn’t sure he was ready to go back into the machine and he hadn’t had time to consider all the heroes he could try changing into.  Hell, if the machine could give Hector claws and healing like Wolverine, then what else could it do? Well, besides turn him into a giant blue alien chick.

“Umm, I don’t know...” He anxiously glanced over at the machine.

“Come on, it’s easy.” Hector chuckled.

“Yeah, I know, but why don’t you try changing back first?”

Hector grew still as the mulled over the idea.  He slowly shook his head from side to side. “Ya know what? I think I will stay this way for now. I kinda like it.”

Greg felt surprised, but at the same time, he could see why Hector might wish to keep Wolverine’s powers because Hector was still Hector.  Yeah, he looked maybe a touch stronger and larger in the shoulders, but Greg sort of expected a change due to the muscles needed to use those claws like Wolverine did in the comics.

“You don’t know who you want to be, do you?” Hector asked, refocusing Greg on the machine and how it could change him.

“No, not exactly...” Greg began to consider his options. If Hector could have his favorite heroes powers, maybe the machine could give Greg him his favorite hero’s powers, Spiderman.  Feeling more confident and deciding to follow Hector’s example he placed his hand on the machine’s paw print mind reading sensor.

An image of Spiderman wearing his traditional red and blue spider costume quickly materialized above the display panel. Greg concentrated on remembering everything he could about his favorite superhero’s powers.  Precog or “Spider Sense” to avoid danger, super fast reflexes to go along with the precog, like a spider, able to lift as much as 170 times its own body weight, but not be the size of the hulk. Spiderman’s image shimmered a little at that request before it settled back down.  Greg held his breath as he studied the image, but he didn’t notice any differences.

Relieved, he continued with his requirements. Okay, wall crawling or able to cling to any surface like a gecko, but while wearing thin gloves and shoes, and last but not least, the gadgets. Web shooters with liquid webbing that was super strong, but would dissolve after a few hours and the famous Spider tracker bugs that were keyed to his Spider-sense power.

Finished, he took a page from Hector’s play book and imagined himself as Spiderman instead of his vision of what Peter Parker looked like in the comic book.  Satisfied, he removed his hand and the image froze.  While his Spiderman looked like him, he elected to keep the costume because he could always take it off and use it for Halloween or something.

Greg looked to Hector to see what he thought.  Hector gave him the thumbs up and nodded. “Nice, but you should’ve tried Spider Woman instead. She was hawt!”

Greg laughed at his friend’s determination to see him as a chick again. “You could always turn yourself into her ya know?”

Hector leaned back against the workbench and crossed his arms. “Nah, I know how you are around women. I wouldn’t wanna have to deal with you getting all romantic over me.”

“You wish...” Greg snorted as he reached for the purplish crystal that activated the machine’s entrance. Without hesitating, he stepped in and touched the inner crystal.

[Whoosh!]

The door disappeared, the red light flashed.

[Whoosh!]

The door appeared and there stood Hector, still casually leaning against the workbench.  As Greg stepped out he noticed his legs felt funny.  The way his leg muscles worked didn’t feel right. He stopped after taking only two steps and looked down at his legs with concern. Except for the skin tight Spiderman costume, his legs looked like they always did, but when he tried to flex his thigh muscle; he felt a strange pressure build while his skin remained immobile. He reached down to touch his leg. With that motion, he grew further alarmed as he noticed his arms and even his torso felt the same way. It felt strange but it was as if his muscles were pushing against his skin instead of smoothly moving underneath.

When he touched his thigh, he noticed his leg felt solid and hard, not muscle hard, but armor or shell hard.  He tapped his leg and heard a dull thunk sound. “That’s not good...”

Hector stepped away from the workbench. “Is something wrong?”

Greg lifted his Spiderman shirt and found that he now sported a perfect set of well defined abs. Too well defined because each ab looked like a smoothly interlocking plate of flesh toned armor. He tapped his stomach and it also made a dull thunking sound. With growing alarm, he glanced over at Hector. “I’m not sure, but I think I might have an exoskeleton now...”

“What!?!?” Hector walked over and inspected Greg’s exposed stomach.

Greg quickly removed the web shooter bracers and after a few seconds of trying to figure out how to remove his gloves, he discovered those were actually half gloves that somehow adhered to the top of his hands.  They simply peeled instead of pulled off.  His gloves were designed to cover the top of his hands, but leave the bottom open. Without the gloves, the exoskeleton with its segmented joints was very noticeable on Greg’s hands and fingers, but instead of fingerprints, he noticed the palms and fingers of his hands looked like they were coated with  fine sandpaper.

While he was distracted with his hands, Hector tried to reach over and tap Greg’s chest.  Without looking, Greg quickly dodged to the side, causing Hector to miss him completely. “Dude, hold still, I wanna see what it feels like.”

Surprised by his roommate’s request, Greg glanced over. “What? Oh, wow. I didn’t even realize I had moved.”

As Hector reached over a second time, even though Greg knew Hector only wanted to touch him, he had to force himself to not move away from the expected tap. On a positive note, it appeared he had a spider sense power.  Hector’s knuckle made a solid thunking sound on his chest that Greg could barely feel. He felt the noise more than the impact. “Wow dude, that’s freaky.  Why did it give you an exoskeleton?” Hector asked.

“Umm, I am...not sure.” Greg studied his upper body and hands for a few more seconds. “Well, it could be due to the reason why a spider is so proportionally strong.”

Hector took a step back to study Greg’s strangely human spider upper body. “Oh?”

“Yeah, well, from what I remember reading a few months ago...it’s hydraulic pressure that allows some spiders to jump far higher than they should and lift objects many times their own body weight.”

“Okay, that’s pretty close to pushing you over to the nerd side of the force. Why would you read something like that?”

Greg chuckled and self-consciously ran his hand through his hair. “Well, I don’t remember where I found it, but it was an article about how what a human would need to be strong, like Spiderman. The article mention that due to their exoskeleton, spider muscles have more attachment points compared to a human muscle and it talked about how jumping spiders used hydraulics to extend their legs to jump up to 50 times their own body length.”

Hector laughed and reached out to place a hand on Greg’s shoulder.  He missed as Greg automatically shifted to avoid the touch. “Dude, this...” He again tried to unsuccessfully touch Greg before he gave up and simply crossed his arms over his chest.  “..and that...” He glanced at Greg’s bare, exoskeleton chest. “Is kind of weird, but cool at the same time. Can you climb walls though?”

Greg glanced at his hands again and nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can...” He walked over to the large garage door, placed a hand, followed by  his foot and proceeded to smoothly climb the door until he reached the exposed rafters of the garage’s ceiling.  Those he climbed, upside down, using the sides of the beams instead of holding onto the tops with his fingers like a normal climber would.  His toes and the ball of his foot clung easily to the one inch wide bottom part of the rafter.

Greg chuckled. “Okay, this is pretty damn cool.” He leaned back on his heels until both of his feet were fully attached to the bottom of the rafter. Once satisfied, he let go with his hands and hung upside, appearing to defy gravity.  “Ta da!” He smugly crossed his arms over his chest with his head two to three feet off the floor.

Hector nodded approvingly. “Okay, yeah, that is pretty impressive. You could get a job cleaning high rise windows pretty easy!”

Greg laughed at his room-mate’s cynicism. He contracted his legs, pulling himself up before letting go and easily flipping to land on the floor feet first. “Ha, you’re just jealous.”

Hector shook his head. “Nah, but it is pretty cool, especially the freaky exoskeleton deal. Makes you look kind of badass.”

Greg nodded with agreement as he lifted and inspected the bottom of his foot. “Well, I guess my feet are like my hands because my boots...” He let go of his foot and stepped down on the floor. “..are not really boots.” He bent down and peeled his Spiderman boots off the top of his foot, exposing more flesh toned exoskeleton.

“Okay, that is officially freaky. Is there anything you can do to make yourself more, well, normal?” Hector asked.

Greg walked over and placed his hand back on the red paw print. “I’m not sure...gecko’s and spiders use tiny hair like things to stick to walls. I tried to get it to work through my gloves like it does for Spiderman, but apparently, that’s not possible.”

Greg concentrated and his holographic image appeared again.  “Maybe if I made myself as strong as possible for a human to be while still being human and looking like myself...” His naked torso image morphed to display a smoothly muscled torso with a cut and well defined, everything.

Hector nodded as he thoughtfully studied Greg’s image. “Your body kind of looks like Bruce Lee there because man, that dude was ripped.”

“Okay, and for my climbing power...how about gloves and boots to mimic that power instead of physically altering my hands and feet?”  Greg’s hologram changed to show Spiderman themed gloves and boots. He also considered what might happen if a glove or boot fell off and decided they should bond to his hands and feet until he wanted to take them off. Satisfied with those alterations, Greg gave his body the full Spiderman costume and removed his hand, causing the image to freeze in place.

Without any reservation, he stepped into the machine and after a few seconds, stepped back out, looking every inch, like Spiderman.  “Well, how do I look?”  Greg glanced over at Hector.

Hector chuckled. “Perfect, except for the fact you’re Spiderman instead of someone cool like Wolverine.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah...laugh it up, fuzzball.” Greg deadpanned before he easily and with the grace of an Olympic gymnast, grabbed onto the exposed rafters above him.  He duplicated the feat of hanging from only the bottom of his feet, before he effortlessly flipped back around to land on his feet on the garage floor.

“Well, they work and I feel pretty damn good too because having an exoskeleton was weird.” Greg removed his mask as Hector nodded his head with agreement. “Hey, why do I keep getting all the weird changes?”

Hector chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno dude. Maybe you just have too good  an imagination or something?”   He looked at his watch and yawned. “Well mi amigo, it’s late and I have a full day tomorrow. I’m going to hit the sack.  You?”

“What? You’re not going to play with this some more?” Greg asked, incredulously as he crossed his arms against his chest.  He liked how his muscles felt now.

“Nah.” Hector waved dismissively at the machine before he turned his back on it and retreated to the entrance into the house. “It will still be here tomorrow. I can play with it some more after work, if I want to.”

Greg couldn’t believe Hector could treat this opportunity so cavalierly. Did he really like Wolverine so much that he didn’t want to try being someone else or having any other superhero’s powers? Without Hector there to back him up, Greg felt reluctant to play with the machine, but there were so many cool things he wanted to try.  What about Cyclops with his eye beams or Shadowcat with her phasing power. Well, except for the girl part, but maybe he could have that power without needing to be her.

Superman? Nah, Greg didn’t really like him as much and based on his exoskeleton discovery, he doubted the machine could make him Superman anyway.  What about Thor and his hammer?  If the machine could make it use some sort of anti-gravity gadget with a mini-fusion reactor to generate lightning bolts, the hammer seemed possible.

Greg’s curiosity overcame his reluctance to solo the machine. He quickly built his perfect Thor character and he even made his Thor look nothing like himself. He wanted to really look like Thor of legend.  Satisfied with the results, he removed his hand from the paw print, causing the image to freeze.

He paused before touching the purplish crystal that would cause the door to open. Glancing back over his shoulder at the now closed doorway, he was alone and Hector probably wasn’t going to come back.  Knowing Hector, the dude was probably already asleep.  He had the annoying ability of being able to fall asleep in almost any position and at the drop of a hat. A skill he learned in the Army.

Greg remembered how it felt to be Neytiri, but he didn’t want to be a giant alien woman because that would be too weird. He looked back at his Thor image. “I wonder...”

Chapter Note: I am more than a tad nervous about this chapter due to the sexual content. Light content, I hope, but it is there. So, if that is not your cup of tea, please skim past it.

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

<* Chapter 4 *>

Even as he placed his palm on the red paw print, Greg doubted his decision.  Did he really want to experiment like this? What if Hector was right and he got stuck?  Could he live the rest of his life as a woman?  “Bah, all those conspiracy sites are full of it!” He scoffed.

He placed his hand on the plate and began dreaming up his perfect woman.  He thought of Scarlett Johansson as The Black Widow and her image in the black body suit appeared.  “Wow...” Greg whispered with appreciation while he debated his options.

He considered other female super heroes and movie stars and with each thought, the image of the woman materialized before him.  He rotated through ten other stars before he returned to Scarlett, but she sort of reminded him of his office crush, Michelle.  With that thought, Michelle, the new girl in HR, appeared in the holographic display wearing the tight little dress she wore a few weeks ago that barely conformed to dress code. Not that he, or any male with a heartbeat in the office were about to complain to HR. She worked in HR. She had to know the dress code rules better than they did.

He nodded and muttered as he considered his options. “Yeah, I could be her. She’s normal and yet, still hot. She wouldn’t get chased by paparazzi if I tried to go out as her.”  He laughed at himself for even worrying about something like that because if he did change into Michelle, there was absolutely no way he would even consider leaving the house looking like her.  He decided to play with her image a bit. He made her a few inches taller, maybe 5’ 11” instead of 5’ 8” and then, he switched out her office dress for Black Widow’s costume. Finally, he changed her long black hair to a deep, rich red hair, matched with brilliant green eyes instead of her pretty hazel eyes.

Greg almost drew a blank about what Black Widow’s powers were until he remembered that her origin story stated she had been given the Soviet equivalent of the Captain America super soldier serum. She was strong, agile, fast and tough, but not super at any of those.  Merely at the highest level possible for a human female without looking like a female bodybuilder, which was still plenty good considering her success as a hero or sort-of villain, depending on when she was written.  She was also an expert in martial arts, firearms and gymnastics.

While skin-tight, her costume was bulletproof, had a black widow stylized belt buckle and a thigh pistol holster with some additional spy gadgets, but he drew a blank on what those gadgets might be. Maybe some listening devices and hidden knives or something?  Satisfied with his dream woman, he removed his palm and the hologram froze.  The next step proved to be the hardest. He paced back and forth for a few minutes as a mulled over his crazy idea.

Was it really that crazy of an idea?  How many times could a man know what it was like to be a woman? Not just dress up as a woman and look silly, but be a fully functioning and completely real woman. None.  Well, it was possible, but it took some surgery where they cut off your penis and somehow made a vagina out of it. It sounded pretty damn painful. Oh yeah, and they had you take hormones to make you grow boobs.  Even then, unless you got lucky in the genetic lottery, you would still look like a man pretending to be a woman. Yeah, that did not sound at all like fun and it was not something a man could just go out and try one weekend.

The sex was the other part Greg felt curious about. The whole multiple orgasm thing made him sometimes feel a little jealous. Especially when his last girlfriend made it look and sound so enjoyable.  She once complained he had made her come three times and jokingly asked him if he was trying to kill her because it felt so good to have him inside her.

Greg shuddered a little at that reminder.  The idea of having some dudes dick in his vagina or pussy or whatever women called them gave him the creeps.  Still, Greg heard that cucumbers worked, but they didn’t have any, so that wasn’t an option. Besides, there was also some rumor about fruits and veggies causing infections up there and well, Greg didn’t want to have to worry about something gross like that.

Greg turned and addressed his dream woman Black Widow image. “Okay, so, I’ll just try it and if I don’t like it, I can just change back. Not a problem, right?”

Hector was asleep, so he didn’t have to worry about him making fun of him for purposely changing himself into a chick. Greg had an excuse the last time, but if he went through with this, what excuse would he have if Hector caught him?  “Fuck it, I’ll be The Black Widow, he won’t catch me!”

Before he could change his mind again, Greg slapped the purplish crystal to open the door, entered the machine and activated it.  The woman who confidently exited from the machine wearing the easily identifiable Black Widow costume oozed sex appeal and danger.

Greg wished he had a mirror to check himself out because he felt the difference in his body almost immediately.  The weight and movement of his long hair, his softer and plumper lips, the weight of his breasts held comfortably, yet firmly in place by his costume, the open feeling between his legs and the way his butt shifted from side to side due to his wider hips all told him that he was one sexy woman.  Aside from all the extra stimuli he was receiving from his new parts, his body felt incredibly fit and strong, but not bulky strong like his enhanced male body felt.  He also felt more flexible and as a test, he easily bent at the waist, touching both hands on the floor, palms down without effort.

He felt his breasts pressed against his black clad thighs while he felt and saw his long red hair hanging down, pooling on the garage floor. With his palms flat on the floor, he lifted his legs up to a handstand position and then, with perfect control, slowly lowered his legs into a scissor position. Amazed at his newfound flexibility and control, he slowly bent his back while reaching for the ground with his back leg. When his toes touched the floor, he continued the motion by smoothly walking over and using his other leg’s momentum to bring him back into a standing position, causing his long red hair to fall into place against his back.  “Wow, this is almost too crazy...” He spoke more to hear what his voice sounded like than the need to verbalize his thoughts.

His voice sounded like Michelle’s voice, but somehow different due to a slight Russian accent. “Geez, even my voice sounds, well, sexy.” Greg said as he twisted around in an attempt to look at his ass and from what he could see, he thought his ass looked spectacular.  If he had seen a woman walking down the street looking like he looked right now, he probably would have crashed his car or walked into a light post due to staring at her instead of watching where he was going.

“Okay, I have a mirror in my room. I will have to sneak past Hector’s room so I can check myself out.  Not a problem, he should be asleep by now and I am The Black Widow. Sneaking is my middle name, or something.”  Greg smirked as he thought about what Hector might say if he did catch him because he knew his friend had a weakness for redheads, but whatever he said, it would probably be in Spanish due to shock.

He slipped into his room without making a sound.  His reflexes seemed to be pretty good, maybe even as good as they were as Spiderman.  With his door safely closed and locked behind him, Greg turned on his light and studied his reflection in the large mirror attached to his dresser.

“Wow...” He softly whispered.  If he thought the holographic image looked hot, the live image of her looking back at him with shock and amazement written on her angelically beautiful face looked even better.   He reached up and cupped his breasts with gloved hands, feeling both the soft, yet firm weight in his hands as well as the bulletproof layer of costume protecting his new assets from harm.

A jolt hit Greg deep in his gut. It reminded Greg of the slight falling sensation you get when you go over a small dip in the road. It caused his heart to skip a beat or two and his breath to catch in his throat.  He found himself focused, 100%, on the beautiful woman in the mirror and his thoughts seemed a little disconnected from reality.

Greg stripped off his gloves and unzipped his top until the zipper was blocked by his belt.  That allowed him to peel off his top, exposing his entire upper body to the slightly cool air.  His nipples immediately responded by standing on end and he found that even more sexy and appealing. He felt the blood rush to his face and somehow, even though the cool air was now hitting his upper body, the room felt slightly warmer. With his eyes laser focused on the woman in the mirror, he saw her lips part as she tried to catch her breath.  He realized it was him and he forced himself to take another breath, but it came out shaky instead. So, he worked in simply trying to slow his breathing, but his hands were pretty much on auto-pilot and seemed to have a mind of their own as he felt himself gently rubbing his breasts. His nipples felt so sensitive. Curious, he gently squeezed one of his nipples.

He felt another jolt, a larger jolt hit him in his gut this time. Not the gentle little micro-fall sensation. Oh, no, this was more like topping the crest of a hill going way too fast and getting that ‘oh boy...’ weightless sensation before your car settles.

He felt a deep throbbing pulse from deep inside his body, centered in the delta between his legs. It did not feel at all like the hard, throbbing sensation of an erection. No, it felt softer, warmer and much more subtle.  The feeling caused him to turn away from the mirror and sit down on the foot of his bed so he could press his thighs tightly together in an effort to keep whatever ‘it’ was that he was feeling, inside.

He turned his head back to view the woman who now sat on his bed. The confusion of feelings, sensations and images from the mirror made feel a little overwhelmed and he began to question his idea.  Still feeling incredibly shaky and confused, he reached down and attempted to zip his costume back up before he went too far. He managed to get one arm back into the costume and the zipper up to just below his breasts before he slowed down enough to think rationally, or irrationally depending on how he looked at it.  “It did feel kind of nice and I always wondered what it felt like for a woman to have her nipples touched...”

The pulsing sensation had just started to fade when, against his better judgement, he returned to caressing his own body.  The throbbing sensation quickly returned, but hit him full force this time causing his legs to part as he thrust his chest forward in an effort to push his breasts into his own hands. He felt himself panting now and it felt like his heart was beating much too fast. His groin quickly began to feel like he was wearing too much clothing and his toes curl up inside his boots. “Oh man...”

He briefly considered turning off his lights for a bit of extra privacy, but when he glanced over at the light switch; it seemed so far away. He caught another glimpse of the woman in the mirror. She looked so sexy sitting on his bed with her outfit half off and an euphoric half smile on her face. His crotch felt so warm, so hot, tingly and wet. He had to get the rest of her clothes off, but his boots had to come off first.

He bent down to unbuckle his boots and the sensation of his breasts pressed against his thighs coupled with his long red hair hanging down only increased the heat between his legs. He turned his head sideways to look at the mirror and the sight of the half naked woman with flaming red hair caused him to wince as another jolt lanced through his body.  He practically ripped the boots off his feet.

Once his boots were off, he placed both his hands down the front of her skin tight outfit. Absently licking his lips with anticipation,  he slowly, lowered his hands into the furnace between his legs. He felt so wet.

His pants had to come off, and come off now.  They were just too hot and restrictive. His body needed air to cool down.  Using his hands like levers, he peeled, pushed and jumped around a few times to shimmy his way out of the costume. With the costume off, a sense of relief came over him, but a new urgency asserted itself. He had to turn the lights off.

He slapped the switch off and returned to his perch at the foot of his bed. It felt so good to get the costume off, but he still felt too warm.  He opened his thighs wide to allow the air to help cool him down, but the cool air against his warm groin only made him feel empty, so achingly empty. As one hand returned to caressing his chest, the other cupped the panty covered warmth between his legs. He was completely on autopilot now and every touch, every caress only drove him closer and closer to the edge.

Now his panties were getting in the way and the felt so insanely warm. He looked down and noticed that his panties had a black widow symbol printed on the outside.  He giggled at the implied warning, but they had to come off.  They were simply too warm and wet to leave on.  Without his panties in the way, he began rubbing again, except this time, there was nothing to get in the way.

He hesitated when what felt like a thousand volt electric charge raced up his spine, but it felt so good, he slowly continued. “Oh, my god...” Greg softly moaned as the initial jolt slowly subsided replaced by the feeling of being filled and wanting more. It felt wrong, but it hinted at things to come and he wasn’t about to stop. It took every ounce of self control to not scream at the top of his lungs when only five minutes later, the first toe curling orgasm rocked his body.  He didn’t care by the third, but he thought his pillow did a good job of muffling his cry.

It took almost five minutes of bonelessly lying, naked on the top of his bed with his toes lazily brushing against the carpet of his floor and feeling very pleased with himself before he could dredge up the energy to sit up.  “Wow, that felt...” He didn’t dare complete the thought because to do so would be akin to committing treason.  He was a man and damn proud of it, but still, he was forced to admit, it did feel good and maybe even better than having sex as a man.

He softly giggled at that thought because his body still tingled with a mild euphoric undertone from his last orgasm. So, that is what women mean when they refer to an ‘afterglow’?  He had to change back and change back now, before he decided he didn’t want to because if it felt that good using only his fingers, what would it feel like with something bigger, or a man?

The concept alarmed him so much, he didn’t bother trying to shimmy back into the skin tight costume. It felt like a second skin coming off and he doubted he could get it back on without a lot of swearing, baby powder and gymnastics. So, he simply snuck down the hall, completely naked, peering intently at the door to Hector’s room, as he fervently prayed he didn’t accidently wake Hector with his last orgasm because he wouldn’t hear the end of it if Hector caught him ‘exploring’ the other side of the gender fence.

~o~O~o~

Despite his love of Wolverine, Hector thought Greg’s first Spiderman was pretty good. There was just something about the exoskeleton that made Greg look more badass and cool.  It was also a little creepy to look at and it made him wonder why Greg seemed to get all the strange changes. Well, two thus far, but it was still kind of funny. Especially when Greg turned himself into that Avatar chick. Wow, she was big and she was really hot.  He felt his dick start to get hard with that thought, but was able to stop it before it became embarrassing by reminding himself it was Greg.  That reminder did the trick.

He chuckled at that thought while he performed his nightly bedtime ritual of brushing his teeth and gargling.  The floor in the bathroom creaked a little more than normal and his feet sounded a little heavier, but everything still felt the same.  He knew he had metal infused bones like Wolverine, but he couldn’t recall Wolverine ever complaining about the weight.  He did recall an issue where Wolverine had trouble at the airport though. “Hmm, that could be a problem...”

He decided to weigh himself using the bathroom scale and was shocked when the LED display of his special professional fitness quality scale locked in at 370 lbs. His adamantium skeleton, or whatever metal the machine used had caused him to gain 140 lbs! “Wow! That’s weird because I don’t feel that heavy.”

Hector tried stepping off, then back on the scale to confirm it wasn’t broken. It wasn’t because it continued to read 370, but once 369 he stepped on it three times in a row.  “Okay, I guess I am a little heavier than I used to be...”

He noticed the door to the garage was still closed, but the light shone through underneath it.  “I guess Greg is going to play with it for a little bit. Oh well...” He shrugged and entered his room, closing the door behind him.  It took him a little bit longer to fall asleep than usual due the excitement he still felt and by the fact his mattress felt a little softer and lumpier than he remembered, but that could also be due to his increased weight.

A change in the usual sounds of the house woke Hector. He glanced over at his clock and discovered it was only 1am. At first, he wasn’t sure what woke him, but then, he heard the faint and muffled sound of a woman moaning with pleasure. If it wasn’t for the machine, he would have assumed Greg was watching a porno and accidently had the volume up too high, but he had a better idea about where the sound came from and who made the sound.

He debated trying to sneak a peek at Greg, if only to see what he looked like, but he didn’t want to feel like a Peeping Tom and he was reluctantly forced to admit that Greg might be onto something by changing into a chick.  It would be excellent intel on how to better attract and pleasure a woman if a man could feel what she felt.  Not that he would ever admit that to Greg.  He had a tough guy image to uphold and he felt pretty confident about his skills in the sack.  Except for his first time, he was certain all of his lovers had been pleased by his performance and stamina.

He heard Greg’s door open and someone pad almost silently past his door, heading toward the garage.  His hearing seemed a little sharper than he remembered; otherwise he might not have heard the sound at all. Again, he debated busting Greg, but decided against it.  It would only embarrass his friend. He waited until he heard the door to the garage close before he moved. Rising from his bed, he softly crept over to his door, cringing with each step since his weight cased the floor to shift slightly beneath his feet.

Opening his door, Hector poked his head out and his nose was immediately assaulted with the unmistakable, slightly musky scent of a sexually aroused woman. In addition to his hearing, his nose had to be more sensitive now because he had only smelled that scent from extremely close range before, much to the delight of his partner at the time.  The taste wasn’t too bad either.

He smiled with satisfaction. Yeah, he might have to give Greg some shit tomorrow, but for now, he simply closed his door, returned to his bed, rolled over and drifted back to dreamland within only a few breaths.

Hector’s alarm clock dutifully woke him at 5am and unexpectedly bit the bucket when he accidentally slapped the snooze button too hard, cracking the tough plastic casing. It stopped the alarm from ringing, but he had wanted to snooze for another 10 minutes. Disgusted with himself, Hector rolled out of his bed.

He threw on some sweatpants and inspected the garage. Yep, the alien machine was still there. He absently rubbed the stubble on his jaw as he considered what might happen if someone saw it sitting in the middle of the garage. “Hmm, might have to see if we can make it shrink itself down again...”

On his way to the bathroom, Hector paused outside of Greg’s room as he debated waking Greg up to ask him if he knew how to get the machine to shrink again. He grinned when he remembered what he heard his friend doing last night. “Maybe I will let him sleep...he’s probably a little tuckered out.” With that thought, he shrugged his shoulders and continued with his morning ritual of taking a nice, hot shower, followed with a shave and finally, a shit because it sucked to use a porta-potty on site.  Those things could become rather odiferous after a few days of use.

He followed that up with a healthy breakfast before packing a lunch. Construction pay was good, but not good enough to allow him to eat out every day. Plus, fast food would play hell with his waistline and muscle tone, but with his Wolverine fixes, maybe he wouldn’t have to worry as much about that now.  Wolverine never seemed to worry about it anyway.

Before he left, Hector wrote a note for Greg asking him if he could find a way to store the eggs to prevent them from being broken.  He figured Greg would know what he meant.  He was right because he received a text from Greg at 9am that said, “Got the eggs fixed. Put your dirty pants in the hamper.”

Hector felt kind of like a secret agent with the coded messages, but with all the conspiracy theories out there, it didn’t hurt to be at least a little careful. Not that he actually expected anything to happen, but ya never know.  “TY” He replied.

Except for a small accident that could have ended his day with a broken foot, his day at the ‘office’ went pretty much like any other day. He was working with and supervising a small crew working on laying down some rebar reinforcements when a 200 lb welding tank fell on his foot.  It wasn’t his man’s fault. The strap broke. It still hurt like a son of a bitch and he was sure it would have smashed his foot flat the day before, but the pain stopped after only 10 or 20 seconds and everyone who witnessed the accident assumed it had only been a glancing blow.  Fortunately, he always kept a spare pair of socks in his truck and was able to swap out his bloodstained pair for a fresh pair without anyone noticing.  Since the tank had fallen and could have injured someone, he still had to waste 15 minutes filling out an accident report though.

Hector stopped and visited his Mom on the way home. He was glad he did because she had a fresh batch of chicken mole and homemade corn tortillas for him to take home.  He and Greg were going to eat well tonight!  Even with the short visit, he still beat Greg home by half an hour.  Greg normally got done with work at 5:30pm and with traffic, was home by 6:15, usually.  Hector was actually a little surprised Greg didn’t call in sick and stay home to play with the machine, but he chuckled when he figured Greg got some of his curiosity off his chest last night.

The machine was exactly where Greg said it would be. Hidden in the dirty clothes hamper, but he decided to leave it alone.  He did not have any person or thing he wanted to try transforming into.  He was pretty happy with his current results and didn’t see the need to fix something that wasn’t broken.  Still, he was forced to admit to himself that he was mildly curious if the grass was greener on the other side of the fence, but with only 30 minutes, or less, before Greg was due to arrive home and he did not want to take the chance of being caught by him.

Instead, he put the chicken in the oven to keep warm and took his second shower of the day to wash off all the construction dirt.  He also rinsed the blood out of the inside of his boot and put it next to the heater vent to let it dry overnight.

~o~O~o~

Greg’s mind was a million miles away as he robotically prepared for work. Last night was, incredible, crazy and scary all at the same time. If it wasn’t for the Black Widow costume and black thong panties he picked up off his floor, carefully folded and hid in the back of his closet, he might be able to claim he dreamed it all.  His Spiderman costume, complete with the impossible wall crawling gloves and boots, he also neatly folded and put away. Except, he placed that costume in his dresser. He didn’t feel the need to hide it or feel ashamed by having it.  He debated tossing the Black Widow costume, but if he did that, Hector might see it in the trash and realize what he had done.

While he fixed himself a bowl of Raisin Bran, Greg found the note Hector left for him and at first, it puzzled him. Eggs?  “Oh, the MAU!  Yeah, that makes sense...”  He figured there had to be a way to collapse the device again. After all, it would be very hard for the aliens to move it and hide it if it stayed phone booth sized.  Getting the device to collapse back to its original briefcase size proved easy as a thought. He simply touched the red paw print and thought about it collapsing for storage.

“Amazing...” Greg bent down, picked the device up and carried it into the house.  He needed someplace to hide it, but where?  He needed a place no thief or secret government agent would think to look. The freezer would be good, but it was too large to hide it behind a bag of frozen peas.  He could stick it next to his PC; maybe make it look like a monitor stand or another PC case.

He walked past the laundry room twice before he thought of the dirty clothes hamper.  “Perfect!  No one would ever look for something like this in the laundry basket!”  He dumped out half of Hector’s dirty construction clothes, placed the device inside the basket and buried it, careful to make sure nothing showed to betray its hiding place to a casual observer.

Mission complete, he debated sending Hector a text, but he was running a little late.  He decided to send it once he made it to his office.  His drive into work was uneventful and even the rude drivers who seemed to enjoy going out of the way to be pricks and cut him off could not upset him like they normally would.  First of all, his spider sense power prevented the pricks surprising him and second, his mind refused to forget what he experienced as a woman last night.

Instead of his preferred 10 to 15 minutes early, he made it to his office with a scant two minutes to spare.  His co-workers were starting to get worried about him since he usually got the coffee started for the rest of the office.  “Yeah, sorry I was almost late. I, umm, stayed up late last night watching a movie.”  Greg said to Tom, his co-worker and only other male in their 10 person department as he poured himself a cup of coffee.  His boss, Mr. Holmes, as he preferred to be addressed, was a male, but he didn’t count as a co-worker. The rest were all females and a few of them were actually attractive and single, but both he and his co-workers had an informal no-dating members in the same department rule.

The horror stories regarding the last inter-office romance were legendary, especially when the IT guy shut down the network when his IT co-worker dumped him.  It was a shame they both got fired though, because she was pretty in a geek girl next door kind of way and that made Greg feel like they may have shared some common ground. She was also always willing to help out when he or one of his co-workers needed help with their PC’s.  Greg had also almost worked himself into asking her out before everything went to hell.

“Don’t worry about it dude, but Mr. Holmes was beginning to look a little upset by the fact your cube was empty when he arrived five minutes ago.”  Tom tried to pat Greg on his back, but his spider sense reactions kicked in and he dodged it without thinking or even realizing it.

Greg spotted Michelle, the object of his late night adventure to the Dark or Light side of the Force, depending on how he looked at it.  He couldn’t help smiling because seeing her brought back the memories from last night and instead of feeling deeply embarrassed, he felt uncharacteristically happy.  She was so beautiful and just seeing her laughing at something Kim, Mr. Holmes’ administrative assistant, said brightened his day.  Michelle was real and he still found her deeply attractive.  It was a relief to realize he wasn’t gay for doing what he had done last night.

Tom couldn’t help noticing Greg’s strange lack of response and the sappy smile plastered on Greg’s face.  He looked over and spotted the subject of Greg’s infatuation. At the same time she noticed the two of them and frowned. “Dude, she spotted you. Whoa, look at the time! I have some emails to reply to.”  Tom fled the scene as Michelle approached Greg.

“Oh, yeah, sure. See ya later Tom...” Greg glanced over to Tom without registering Tom’s warning or the fact that Michelle was making a beeline for him.

“Morning Greg, umm, you look unusually cheerful this morning...”

“What? Oh yeah, sorry Michelle.” Greg marveled at how easy he found it to speak to her because normally, he would have been reduced to a stammering fool by now.  “I was a little late, but seeing you laughing with Kim brightened my day. You’re so beaut-i-fullll...”  His brain finally caught up with what his mouth and combined that with the surprised and shocked expression beginning to form on Michelle’s face.  “I’m so sorry! Umm, I’ll just go crawl under my desk. Feel free to stop by and kick me a few times without anyone seeing you...”

“No...” Michelle tried to reach out and grab Greg’s hand, but his spider sense kicked in and he absently dodged. “Wait, Greg...”

Feeling like an idiot and fearing a sexual harassment claim that would end his employment; he reluctantly turned to face the music.  “I’m really sorry. I don’t know what came over me. It was unprofessional of me to say that to you and it won’t happen again.”

Michelle surprised him by laughing at him like he had just told an amusing joke versus the expected victorious and pissed “you’re going down in flames you sexist pig” laugh. “Oh, Greg, I’m sorry I laughed at you, but that is the sweetest thing anyone has said to me at this office. Thanks!”  She brightly smiled up at him while absently tucking a stray strand of her rich, raven black hair behind her ear before turning away with a spring in her step.

Greg was too stunned to do more than stare incomprehensibly at her as she walked away from him, heading back toward the HR department. “No problem...” He softly muttered and shook his head with confusion before he too, turned away and retreated to the safety of his cubicle.  He banged his head on his desk a few times in frustration before he realized something.  She knew his name.

He spent the couple of hours in even more of an autopilot worker daze as he ran some financial reports and cross checked some transactions. Not even Tom’s IM’s asking him how much trouble he was in with HR failed to illicit a more than a terse “None, I think...” response.  The IM reminded him that he needed to let Hector know where he hid the MAU.  He quickly thumbed a message on his cell phone that read,  “Got the eggs fixed. Put your dirty pants in the hamper.”

Greg received a reply almost instantly, “TY” and that made him decide to take his mind off the problem Michelle represented by performing some additional research on the MAU.

He knew that trying to find useful information on the device itself was pointless. He was more interested in finding out more about Wolverine, Spiderman and the Black Widow.  As he studied each superhero's powers and compared them with the results, he began to form a theory about what the MAU might actually be.

First, he tossed out all of the crazy conspiracy theories he read last night. A toy some aliens built to let people or other aliens play super dress-up?!?! Please, that had to be the stupidest theory of the bunch. No, he decided it was used to scout and study other alien civilizations because little green men or space suits were a little hard to hide.  Besides, what better way to do that than to disguise yourself as a member of the alien race you wished to study or invade?

He knew his three super heroes were a small sample size, but it appeared that the more a person using the device knew about the subject they wanted to disguise themselves as, the more accurate the disguise. His research into the Na’vi from Avatar added some weight to his hypothesis when he found out the Na’vi were completely hairless from the face down. Thus, the landing patch he witnessed and the lack of the “queue” mental telepathy tentatacle thing was based on his knowledge of the Na’vi at the time he used the machine.

The machine must have pulled what he knew of the make believe race of aliens and extrapolated that knowledge to create what Greg thought a female Na’vi would look like.  However; there also appeared to be some limitations.

Since it was not able to make him Spiderman strong without also changing his body to match what was possible in nature, the device probably would not be able to make him into Superman.  It could make him a super, man, just not the comic book, impossibly strong, man of steel Superman.  However; it was able to make Hector heal at an insanely fast rate and give him something that might be an adamantium skeleton and claws.

No one knew what adamantium was. It was a made up metal, but it did have defined properties that made the currently unobtanium metal theoretically possible. Just like a steel that wouldn’t rust was impossible before someone discovered how to make stainless steel; we just haven’t discovered it yet, but aliens capable of traveling faster than light must have some pretty incredible materials to use for their spaceships, right?

There were some animals that could quickly heal and even regenerate lost limbs, but nowhere as fast as the comic book Wolverine. So, why did it appear Hector now had that power?  Greg knew it wasn’t magic, but at the same time, any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Just use any MP3 player today as an example.  Take that same simple player back to even just one hundred years ago and people would think it was magic that such a tiny device could hold an entire orchestra inside of it.

Was it because it was theoretically possible to boost the human immune system to such levels of performance? Were there other alien animals or species who could heal that fast or could it be using nanotech to boost his healing?  Nanotech was just not getting started, but science fiction writers and theorists have been dreaming up uses for it for years. Seemingly magic uses when compared to what is possible today.

[ding!]

Greg’s train of thought was derailed by the new IM notification as a chat window sprang to life on his now, seemingly primitive LCD monitor.  It was an IM from Michelle?!?!

>Hey, I wanna try the new sushi place for lunch. Interested?

Greg stood up in his cubicle to look around and see if anyone was looking his way and maybe trying to punk him.  Nope, everything looked normal. No suspicious gatherings of people clustered around one cube trying to act inconspicuous.  Confused, he sat back down and hesitantly typed:

>Sure?

What if it really was Michelle? She must think he is a total dork for answering like that. He immediately added a hasty,

>That would be great...when?

>11:30 good?

>Yes

>Great! Meet ya in the lobby at 11:30. :-)

Wow, she even signed it with a smiley face.  Greg checked his new MAU Rolex and noticed it was already 11.  He glanced at his inbox. “Crap!”  He was way behind, but with a fire lit under his butt, he managed to get caught back up in time to make the 11:30 meeting. He still couldn’t believe it was really Michelle who asked him out to lunch.  Thus, he felt surprised to find her waiting for him in the lobby, alone.  That was another shock to his system because he expected her to be with at least, a few of her female co-workers.  Safety in numbers and all that female versus male friend logic.

The almost shy, yet happy, excited smile she gave him as he approached made his day. “Hey, thanks for the invite. Where is everyone else?”

Michelle’s eyes twinkled with mirth as a small giggle escaped her lips. “Oh, it’s just us. No one else likes sushi or they were too busy.”

Her admission further surprised Greg, but instead of making him nervous, it gave him another boost of confidence. It was just going to be the two of them. Very convenient if she planned on killing him for what he said earlier. He chuckled and grinned mischievously at Michelle. “Oh, I see. So, where do you plan to dump my body? I hear that the sewage canal a few miles away is a good spot.”

He laugh sounded like music to his ears.  Geez, she was even more intoxicatingly beautiful than he had made her to be last night.  Unlike him, she was real. “Oh, that’s too funny Greg! Come on, but do you wanna drive or shall I since I know where it is at, and it is harder for the driver to deal with a body...”

Greg felt a little unsure about who should drive. It was normally the man’s responsibility, but he didn’t feel the pressure to impress her like he normally would have. “Oh, in that case, by all means, you can drive. I’ll just huddle in the passenger seat ready to jump out at a moment’s notice.”

He knew she had a Jeep Wrangler and he had never given it more than a surface glance before, but it had a heavy duty winch in front, a reinforced roll cage, five point safety harnesses and even more surprising for a woman’s car, it was a manual.  The winch he could understand because it could have been a standard option, but the roll cage and safety harnesses were not. “Umm, Michelle?” He asked as he buckled himself into the passenger seat.

She started the motor and after quickly slapping the radio button to turn it off before it could start making noise, she turned to him. “Yeah?”

“I know I was kidding earlier, but should I be worried now?” Greg gestured to the harness and roll cage.

“Only if there was a trail nearby and I had the good wheels on my baby, why?” She replied with a smirk that told him she knew exactly why he was asking.

“Oh, no reason really, but how am I supposed to jump out now?”

“Yer not! Muh ha ha ha!” Instead of backing out of her parking spot and going around, she simply put it in first gear and drove over the curb and onto the main driveway in the office parking lot.

The suspension handled the curb with hardly a jolt.  She had to have a custom off-road suspension for it to do that. Greg laughed with delight. “Okay, even if you do dump my body in a ditch, this is officially the best kidnapping evah!”

“Yer pretty funny Greg, how come you always seemed so shy before?” Michelle asked as she expertly divided her attention between him and the road. “I mean, everyone in the office either treats me like I plan to steal their boyfriend or like I am some conquest to be made, but what you said this morning was so...”

“Dumb?” Greg interjected when she paused while hunting for what to say. There was no way Greg would or could admit the real reason why he suddenly felt so relaxed around her. He felt too ashamed and how could she possibly believe him if he told her the truth because the truth was actually kind of creepy when he thought about it.

“No! Silly, it was, honest and well, nice.” She smiled at him for a second before returning her full attention to the road.

“Oh, well, it was true. You are beautiful and I guess I never really thought about how it must be for you. I mean, I know that some of the other girls don’t like you, well, except for Kim. I know she likes you. She told me how you once complimented her about her eyes even though everyone else is sometimes a little mean to her about her weight.”

“Well, it’s true, Kim does have stunning eyes, don’t you agree?”

“Yeah, they are a rather stunning shade of gre...” Greg suddenly knew whose eyes he had modeled his Black Widow from.

“What?”

“Oh, sorry, I was just surprised because I didn’t realize until just now how beautiful her eyes are. I mean, I guess I knew, but I never really noticed...”

“Yep, well, here we are!  Sushi Dragon. I hear they make it to order, right in front of you and it’s even mostly affordable too!” Michelle giggled excitedly as she pulled into an open spot near the doors. She even set her parking brake instead of just leaving it in gear and letting the transmission do all the work.

While they ate, Greg could tell she was flirting with him and he with her, but he didn’t feel any pressure to get her in the sack. He wasn’t worried about what she thought of him or if he was doing or saying the exact right thing to accomplish that goal; he was just speaking with her as a friend who was genuinely interested in hearing what she had to say and learn more about her.  The more he heard and saw, the more he liked, but when she checked the time, he couldn’t help noticing the wallpaper on her iPhone.

It was a dude wearing the uniform of a NFL football player and he was, Greg was forced to admit, a ruggedly handsome man.  He had to be Michelle’s boyfriend because she was just too perfect a catch to be single.  Not even that discovery could bring him down though. He was enjoying the pleasure of her company and didn’t feel the need to get his nose all bent out of shape over something so obviously macho stupid.

Greg was actually going to ask her who the man was when his spider sense not only tingled, but screamed at him to move. Without thinking or stopping to try and figure out why, he grabbed Michelle and leapt away from their table.  She screamed with shock and surprise at first, but everyone in the restaurant joined her when barely half a second later, a car crashed through the window, smashing the table they had both just been sitting at before coming to a shuddering halt in the middle of the restaurant when the clearly panicked and shocked driver finally brought his car to a stop.

“Oh my god! I thought I was hitting the brakes!”  He screamed, staggering out of his car, clearly horrified at the damage and possible injuries he may have caused.

Fortunately, their table was the only table the man’s car smashed into and no one else was injured, but the two of them were very late returning from lunch.  Michelle’s boss kindly gave her the rest of the day off and she happily ignored office protocol by giving Greg a friendly hug and once again, tearfully thanking him for saving her life. Michelle was clearly upset by their close call and Greg would have loved to follow her home, just to make sure she made it home safely, but his boss did not see fit to let him go home early. As the man and the hero of the Sushi restaurant story, Greg’s boss felt no such compunction to give him the same break. Besides, the unauthorized, extended lunch break had put Greg way behind with his paperwork and his boss fully expected him to be completely caught up before he left for the day, the asshole.

On the plus side, Michelle scribbled her number down on the back of her business card and practically begged Greg to call her when he got home, but since she had a NFL player as a boyfriend; He felt reluctant to follow through with her request. The NFL Stud would probably be with her and providing all the comfort she could need. At least, that is what Greg would be doing in the other man’s shoes and no, he had zero intention of finding out what it would literally be like being in that other man’s shoes.

~o~O~o~

Chapter Note: I don't really have any for this one, except I never planned for Hector to have this large of a role. I blame Beyogi. :)

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

<* Chapter 5 *>

Greg felt mildly surprised to find the second garage stall empty when he arrived home.  He had sort of expected Hector to at least play with the device a little while he was away.  Maybe even try experimenting with the fairer sex, but he knew Hector was way too macho to even consider trying something like that.

The smell of Mama Vasquez’s chicken mole drew him directly into the kitchen, wiping all thoughts of using the MAU out of his mind.  Her chicken mole was to die for and wow, was that her homemade corn tortillas he smelled too?  “Yo! Hector! When are we eating?” Greg yelled down the hall, towards Hector’s room.

“Hey dude! Just finishing up doing my sets, be right there.” Hector grunted from the spare bedroom he used as his workout room.

Greg followed the sound of his voice and casually leaned against the open door frame as a shirtless Hector effortlessly lifted what appeared to be 350 lbs, 10 times in rapid succession. “Wow, that’s impressive. Wasn’t that close to your old max?”

“Yeah,” Hector placed the bar in its holder, sat up and grabbed his towel. He wasn’t even sweating. “I did some testing and my new max is probably close to 700 lbs, but I’m not sure since I didn’t wanna try that without a spotter.  You game?”

“Oh, sure...” Greg said, unsure if he could really help Hector if that much weight got out of control.  He watched with bemusement and alarm as Hector piled on the weights until the bar started to bend. Hector easily had 800 lbs on there and there was absolutely no way he could lift that, could he?

Greg stood at Hector’s head and figured the best he could do if the weights fell would be to try and redirect them away from Hector’s head and body.  He anxiously watched as Hector carefully set his hands on the bar and then, with a light grunt lifted the weights off the stand.  Hector, carefully and with more precision and control than Greg expected, lowered the bar to his chest before smoothly raising it back up as he powerfully exhaled.

“Holy shit dude! Was that really 800 lbs!?!?!” Greg’s eyes almost popped out of his head.

Hector simply looked up at him, set the bar back in its holder and said, “Yep.” as he sat back up.  “Okay, you try it Spiderman.”

“What?!?! No fucking way. There is no way that I can lift that! Seriously dude, let’s just eat.”

“No, try it. I’ll spot you.” Hector patiently gestured for Greg to take his place on the bench.

Greg reluctantly lay down on the bench and carefully positioned his hands on the bar. “This isn’t going to work...”

“Just try it. I could have done more, probably lots more, but this is all the weight I have.” Hector looked down at Greg and grinned.

“Fine, I’ll try it, but don’t laugh at me when it doesn’t budge, okay?”

“No problem, but that will just prove Wolverine is better than Spiderman, right?”  Hector chuckled.

“Fuck you, man!” Greg pushed up against the bar and surprisingly, it lifted off the stand as Hector scrambled to hold it in case Greg dropped it.  “Holy shit, I lifted it?!?”

“Yep, now try pressing it.” Hector carefully studied the bar and Greg’s arms to gauge how much his friend might be straining with the weight.  He didn’t want an accident to happen to Greg.

Greg carefully lowered the weight to his chest.  He definitely felt it, but it wasn’t nearly as heavy as he expected. It was close though, but he might be able to max press another 100. “Are you sure you put 800 lbs on the bar?”

Hector simply nodded with his eyes as he kept himself focused on the bar and Greg’s level of control over the weights. Greg exhaled and pressed the bar off his chest with one smooth motion, followed by a second press and a shaky third before he was forced to return the bar to its holder.  “Wow, that’s impressive...” Greg sat up, shaking his arms to get the blood flowing again.

“Si...” A clearly impressed Hector absently responded as he looked around the room to see if maybe he had some additional weights tucked into a corner somewhere.

Greg looked over at his friend and laughed. “So, how was your day, dear?”

The stunned expression on Hector’s face was priceless as his eyes shot back to Greg’s face before he realized his friend was just messing with him. Greg briefly wondered why Hector reacted like that.  It’s not like they haven’t joked with that line with each other before.

“Oh, it was okay.” Hector grabbed his t-shirt and pulled it over his chest. “Had a welding tank get dropped on my foot. Thank god for my new bones and the healing though.” As he took the lead exiting the room, he glanced over his shoulder at Greg. “What about you?”

Greg pretended to dust his fingertips against his shirt. “Oh, nothing much. I just had a lunch date with that girl from HR that I was telling you about and saved her life. Why?”

“What?!?!” Hector abruptly stopped in the middle of the hallway and twisted back around. “Oh, you’re fucking with me, right?”

“Nope, let’s get some of your mama’s chicken and I will tell you all about it, que?”

As they ate, Greg proceeded to tell Hector all about how he got his lunch date with Michelle. He left out the part where he turned into a Black Widow version of Michelle the previous night and played with herself, himself.

“Yep, she clearly liked you before you said she was beautiful. Good move, but what gave you the confidence to talk to her like that?” Hector asked, pretending he didn’t know about Greg’s late night adventure with the opposite sex.

“I dunno, maybe it was my Spiderman powers or something.” Greg looked away in an attempt to keep Hector from seeing him blush.

“Ahh, si, that explains it. It is pretty nice to have these powers, but you claimed you saved her life?”

“Oh yeah, after we had finished eating, my spider sense kicked in. So, I grabbed Michelle and jumped away from our table just before a crazy dude crashed his car through the window, smashing our table.” Greg looked back with a fond smile on his face as he recounted the heroic part of his story.

“Nice, so, did you get her number and are you going to call her tonight?” Hector grinned mischievously. “You know, strike while the iron’s hot and all that?”

“Yes, I got her number...” Greg sighed. “and she asked me to call her tonight, but she has a boyfriend and he looks like an NFL football player. So, I think I will just see how she is doing tomorrow at work.”

Hector’s expression shifted from amusement to fierce determination in a flash. “Give me your phone and her number, now.” He held out his hand expectantly.

Startled, Greg shied away. “No, dude. I told you she has a boyfriend...”

“Don’t care. If a lady asks you to call her, you call her.” Hector crossed his arms over his chest and stared Greg down.

Greg was shocked by Hector’s insistence and after a few seconds, he couldn’t take it any longer. “Fine, I’ll call her, okay?”

“Now, soldier...” Hector all but ordered Greg as he slipped back into Army Sergeant mode.

Greg pushed his chair back and stood. “Okay, okay.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out both his cell phone and Michelle’s card, displaying the card to Hector before he started to punch her number into his phone. “See, okay, it’s ringing now, but she probably won’t answer, hap-”

Greg’s phone stopped ringing and both men easily heard the excited squeal of a woman on the other end causing Greg to hold the phone a few inches from his ear. “Greg! Oh thank god you called! Are you okay? Did jerkwad let you go home early? Are you going to be at work tomorrow?”

Hector gave Greg the thumbs up before he grabbed his plate and casually sauntered off  into the living room to give Greg some privacy.  Greg found himself laughing at Michelle’s rapid fire questions and was touched that she seemed to care.  “Oh, no. I’m fine, but my boss made me stay and yes, I will be at work tomorrow. How about you?”

The two of them had only been on the phone for half an hour before Greg got the best news of the night. He found out that the NFL player on her phone’s wallpaper was her brother, not her boyfriend! Michelle even invited him to a game when the season started this fall. Greg wasn’t sure of what to make of the invitation, but it was definitely a positive sign if she was thinking that far into the future. He really, really liked Michelle, but it was shortly after the news about her brother that she dropped the biggest bomb of them all.

“So, Greg, what are you doing tomorrow night?” Michelle asked with uncharacteristic hesitation.

“Umm, nothing planned, why?”

“Well, I know you read comics and like sci-fi, but I’m not sure if you will be interested. So, if you’re not, no big deal...”

Greg chuckled at her obvious concern, but he knew it probably wouldn’t matter what she asked, he would do it and in a heartbeat if it meant spending more time with her. “Okay, I’ll go.” He shot out while she hesitated.

“What?! I mean, but, you don’t even know what I was going to ask.” A confused Michelle answered.

“Doesn’t matter. I’m sure that it will be fun if you are going and I am with you, but what is it?”

“You’ll probably think it’s kinda dorky, but, umm, it’s the comic convention and I’m going dressed up as Catwoman...”

Greg almost dropped his phone. He could not believe he just heard her say what thought she just said. It was impossible. No, she was impossible. This entire conversion was impossible because there was no way he could be that lucky, was there? Maybe the machine was really an alien Virtual Reality device and he was actually trapped inside of it right this second. If so, he really wanted to stay there.

“Greg? Umm, Greg, hello? Are you still there?”

[beep][beep][beep]

Greg was reminded of the real world by the sound of his heart going into defibrillation and the doctors were trying to revive him or it was his phone telling him his battery was going to die.

“Yes? I mean, yes! I would love to go to the comic convention. We were thinking of going, I mean, Hector and I were thinking about going, but if you’re going, I kind of have to go. If only to see you, umm, I mean, well...”

Michelle’s pleased laughter raced through the air. “Oh, Greg, you really are so sweet.”

[beep][beep][beep]

“Hey, I need to plug my phone in. I can’t believe we have been talking for over an hour already!” Greg sat up and started to head for his room so he could plug his phone in and continue talking.

“Oh my god, really? I need to go...” Michelle said.

“What’s up? I hope I didn’t make you miss dinner or something?”

Michelle giggled. “Oh no, it’s just Scandal night and I need to head over to my parent’s house to watch it with my mom.”

“Scandal? Haven’t heard of it. Is it any good?”

“Really!!?! It’s only the best show on TV! I have the first season on DVD. We should watch it sometime...” Michelle trailed off sounding hopeful.

“That would be great. I’ll have to find out more about the show now.” Greg made a mental note to check it out the first chance he got. It would give him something else to talk to her about.

“See you at work tomorrow?” Michelle sounded a little shy.

“Hehe, yep.”

“Lunch again, but this time not at a drive through?” Michelle giggled delightfully causing Greg to laugh at her.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world...”

“Awesome, see you tomorrow then, Greg and umm, good night. Sweet dreams...” Michelle accented that with what sounded, to Greg’s ears, like kiss.

“Yeah, sweet dreams for you too.” Greg absently replied with a sense of stunned disbelief as he hung up his phone.  He stared at this phone, then glanced over at his closet with the Black Widow costume hidden inside, and back to his phone before he yelled for joy.

“Hell ya! Best day ever! Thank you alien device from heaven!” Greg fell back into his bed with a contented smile permanently etched into his face.

Greg rejoined Hector in the living room and was surprised to discover all of the chicken mole gone. Not only that, but Hector had a loaf of bread on the coffee table and was in the process of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while he watched some TV.  Greg could have sworn it was a new loaf this morning, but it was more than half gone now.  “Wow, Hector, you hungry a little?”

Hector shrugged his shoulders apologetically. “I guess so; I’m just now starting to feel full.  So, how did your,” Hector glanced over at the wall clock. “Umm, 2 hour talk with your new girlfriend go?”

“Michelle?  She is not my girlfriend dude, but...” Greg plopped down on the couch with a dreamy smile.  “She could be.”

“Okay, spill it.” Hector began his big brother styled interrogation, asking for all the details and began shaking his head with sadness when Greg brought up Michelle asking him about the comic convention. “Dude, you got it bad...”

“Yeah...” Greg smiled contently. “So, do you wanna go now?”

“Yep, but I think I wanna wear a G.I. Joe, Snake Eyes costume, just the costume because I don’t really feel the need to wear a Wolverine costume now that I have his powers. What about you? Spiderman or is Michelle making you think about going as Batman?”

“Maybe?” Greg hesitated as another idea hit him, but he didn’t want to offer it to Michelle without clearing with Hector first. “What do you think about letting Michelle use the machine to make her costume?”

Hector rubbed his chin as he considered Greg’s question. “Hmmm, not sure, didn’t she say she already has a costume?”

“Yeah, but the machine could make it better...” Greg knew Hector had valid reasons to feel cautious over who knew about the machine and he even felt the same way, but it was for Michelle.

“True, but how about if we sleep on it?”

Greg knew he had won because Hector just needed some time to think it over and get used to the idea. So, it was time to move on. “Okay, hey, you wanna play with it tonight?”

Hector dubiously glanced over. “And do what?”

“Well, I was thinking about your skeleton and how hard it would be for you to fly with the TSA going all crazy these days.” Greg paused as he thought of one more thing that could give Hector problems. “And, what about swimming?  With all that weight, you will sink right to the bottom.”

“There is that, but what else could my skeleton and claws be made out of?”

“Well, after I spoke with Renee,” Greg noticed Hector’s unspoken question about who Renee was. “She was a TSA agent for a couple of years, and I did some research about how metal detectors work, yeah Wikipedia!” He happily grinned. “And the Na’vi,” Greg noticed Hector’s lost expression. “You know, the blue chick I was last night.”

Hector nodded. “Yeah, and?”

“Well, their skeletons were made from organic carbon fiber.” Greg leaned back into the couch and looked up to the ceiling as he mulled over the thought.

Hector dubiously raised an eyebrow. “Their make believe skeletons?”

Greg stared at Hector. “And your skeleton is?”

“Point, okay, what are ya thinking?” Hector held up his hands with mock surrender.

“Well, we can’t just make your skeleton non-magnetic. It also has to be non-electrically conductive and probably lighter too, right?” Hector nodded with agreement on the last part, but the rest he decided to trust Greg as he continued with his brainstorming session. “So, maybe we can ask the machine if it can make your skeleton out of a super-strong, non-metallic, non-conductive alien composite material. Maybe something based on carbon nanotubes or something similar?”

“Okaaaay...and what are these carbon nano-things?” Hector hesitantly asked even though he knew that if Greg thought they might be a good idea, then they probably were.

“Oh, they’re cool!  They are just starting to take off, but one of the apps for them is to make a space elevator,” Hector appeared lost. So, Greg decided to explain. “You know, string a super strong cable from the ground and attach it to a giant space station in orbit, then simply run things up and down like a elevator.  It would be way cheaper than using rockets...” Greg noticed Hector’s eyes sort of glazing over. “Umm, TMI?”

Hector smirked and nodded his head. “Yeah, a little, but it sounds like you know what you’re talking about.”

Reassured, Greg turned and walked over to the machine. “Now, for the swimming issue, hmmm...it could make it so you can breathe water in an emergency, add extra buoyancy or both, what do you think?”  He asked, turning back to Hector.

Hector crossed his arms and cocked his head to the side as he thought about it. “I kind of like the ‘both’ option, but how would we add extra buoyancy?”

“Well, I dunno, but let’s get started...” Greg jumped up and headed for the laundry room with Hector reluctantly following in his wake.

~o~O~o~

Hector felt honestly happy for Greg. The poor dude needed a girlfriend in a bad way and from the description of Michelle, she sounded like a winner for him. He thought it was pretty funny how Greg didn’t want to call her, but now that he was talking to her; the dude wouldn’t get off the phone.  Maybe Greg’s experiment with the fairer sex worked out.

Hector frowned as he looked down at his third P&J sandwich. He didn’t understand why he felt so hungry, but maybe he could ask Greg about it later. It might just be his new metabolism and muscles needing more fuel or it could be something bad.  He wasn’t a doctor, but he couldn’t very well go to a doctor right now either.

He almost lost it when heard Greg yell his thanks for the device before he came out of his room with a dreamy, love struck puppy expression on his face. Of course, he had to give him some shit over the length of his call and get all the details.  He didn’t know why he wasn’t surprised when Greg asked him about going to the comic convention in costume and that Michelle was planning on going as Catwoman.  Based on Greg’s earlier description of the lady, he wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she also enjoyed skydiving and Hector actually felt the minor stirring of something that could almost be jealousy.

Oh, he loved Greg like a brother, but either the woman was full of shit and taking Greg for a ride; in which case it was Hector’s duty to protect Greg from himself, or she was the real deal and in that case it was also Hector’s duty to help Greg however possible so that he could win this woman’s heart.  He wanted to tell Greg that letting her use the MAU for her costume would be fine, but he hesitated because he wasn't sure if they could trust her with this big of a secret.

Greg’s thoughts regarding his new skeleton surprised him for some reason.  Not because Greg wouldn’t have come up with the problem his metal bones might give him, but because he didn’t think of trying to figure out a way to solve it himself. He knew he had to be able to fly commercial, but he mentally kicked himself for not giving the problem a higher priority because he usually had to fly two or three times a year for his job and as an Inactive Ready Reservist, he could also get recalled at anytime.  How would he explain a full metal skeleton to his CO when he couldn’t pass through airport security?  Additionally, the extra 140 lbs would also be pretty damn hard to explain if the Army decided to do the usual physical fitness weight check.

Shit, swimming was an issue he never even considered. He loved swimming because it was a good low impact exercise and he loved fishing and playing in the ocean. What would have happened if was fishing and the boat capsized?  He would have gone straight to the bottom and never came back up. Not even Wolverine’s healing factor would help him if he couldn’t breathe and was stuck 1,000 feet underwater.

Hector watched as Greg carefully set the box down on the floor and touched the symbols on the side, causing the box to expand.  With it expanded, Greg pointed to the red paw print. “Okay, put your hand on it and bring yourself up on it.”

The skeleton problem was easy; he let Greg do all the thinking on that issue. He trusted him, but it took the two of them about 30 minutes to come up with a plan that would allow Hector to float in water while not looking weird.  They thought about anti-gravity devices to make him lighter, but those would just make him lighter, not less dense and thus able to float.  In the end, they decided that a thin layer of a neoprene like substance under the skin of his chest and back that he could inflate and deflate would work best.  It was undetectable when deflated and not half bad when inflated.  A swim shirt might hide the effect.

Once Hector stepped out of the machine, not only did he feel lighter, but when he took off his shirt, inflated his built in lifejacket and struck a bodybuilder pose. “I’m Hanz,” He pointed at Greg and motioned for him to join in on the skit. “And you’re Franz...come on Greg, it was your idea.”

Greg reluctantly joined in. “Und, I am Franz...”

Greg’s accent caused Hector to laugh. “And we are here, to pump! You. Uppppp.” The two of them chorused together, finishing their impromptu skit with high fives and chest bumps.

Hector struggled to contain his laughter. “Oh my god, that was funny...so, what are you going to change?”

Greg leaned against the workbench as he considered the question. “You know, don’t know. I think I am pretty happy as I am. Having your new and improved bones might not suck, but how much did weight did we cut?”

Hector, with Greg following, tested his weight on the bathroom scale and discovered they had shaved off 70 lbs. He was still much heavier than he should be, by about 70 pounds, but if he did fail an Army weigh in, he might be able to convince them it was muscle mass using the alternative tape measure method.

“Well, that’s pretty good, but I think I only want my bones to be reinforced, and I guess an increased healing factor wouldn’t suck either.” Greg smirked mischievously. “I just wouldn’t want your monster bones because Spiderman isn’t a lumbering brute like Wolverine...”

“Ha, ha, ha, not funny.” Hector deadpan laughed. “Okay, your turn.”

They both returned to the garage where Hector tested his claws again to make sure they were still nice and sharp. They still hurt like a son of a bitch, but they were just as sharp and even better, the blades were a dull black color versus the dull silver color of the adamantium stuff.  He was going to need to buy a new breaker bar, or get the machine to make him one.

After Greg finished with his own tweaks, Hector felt restless, but was at a loss for what to do. It was only 8:00pm and it was a Thursday night, but that meant it was lady’s night down at their favorite club and they wouldn’t let the guys in until after 9pm.  “Hey, do you wanna go out or something?”

Greg glanced over at Hector. “Okay, where?”

Hector hesitated before making the suggestion because he wasn’t sure about the idea that was starting to form. “We could go to The Hole in the Wall?”

Greg checked his watch. “Oh, at 9 when it opens for guys? I guess I can do that.”

“No...” Hector struggled with himself to complete his thought because it wasn’t something he had ever considered before this second. “I mean, we could go as girls and well...”

Greg blinked with confusion as he tried process what Hector was saying. “Whoa! You’re not really The He-Man Hector Vasquez.” He looked anxiously around Hector and at the machine. “What did you do with my friend, Mr. Alien?”

Hector felt his face flushing from unaccustomed embarrassment. “I know, but I am kinda curious and I’m thinking it might help me understand women better, or something.” He glanced nervously over at the machine before returning his attention back to Greg. “You know? I mean, I’ll do it, if you do it.”

Greg stepped back and shook his head no. “Oh no, not me and why in the hell do you think you need to understand women better? You have zero problems getting girlfriends!”

Hector took a step back and leaned casually against the workbench. “I know man, but keeping them is the problem. I just don’t understand why they keep wanting to ruin good sex with talks about relationship crap.”

“Ahh, well, I don’t know much about that myself, but I think it would take more than walking a few feet in their shoes before you understood that. Probably an entire year and even then, maybe not.” Greg chuckled.

“Maybe. So, will ya go?” Hector smiled

Greg shook his head back and forth.“No thank you because that would just be too...”

“Gay?” Hector defiantly crossed his arms against his chest daring Greg to agree with him because if he did, he was going to bust him for what he did last night.

Greg paused for a second before he turned to give Hector his full attention. “No, I don’t think it’s gay and I don’t think you thinking about it makes you gay either.” He said with complete sincerity before hesitantly grinning at Hector. “It’s just that, well, I want to bring Michelle, or at least call her and see if she is interested in meeting me there tonight.”

“Okay, so if she doesn’t want to go, then will you?”  Hector surprised himself by his determination to try spying on the enemy camp.  Thinking of it that way made it seem not so weird of an idea.

Greg looked very hesitant about going. “If Michelle doesn’t want to go, then, maybe. Okay? I’m just not comfortable with the idea and I am surprised you even suggested it, Mr. He-Man Vasquez.”

Hector had to agree with Greg. “Yeah, I’m kinda surprised myself, but at the same time, I am kind of curious, you know?”

Greg softly chuckled. “Yeah, I know...”

“Great! You call Michelle and I’ll get changed, okay?” Hector motioned for Greg to leave the garage in an attempt to get the ball rolling before he chickened out himself.  Plus, he kind of wanted to surprise Greg.

“Fine, fine, I’m going...” Greg let himself be pushed back into the house.

With Greg gone, Hector felt a fresh round of hesitation and doubt. Was this idea of his really necessary? Unlike Greg, he never had problems with the ladies, but he had to admit that Greg’s experience last night seemed to help him with the girl at his office.  Maybe a temporary defection to the other side would actually help him understand women better?

“Okay, what do I wanna look like?”  Hector muttered to himself as he placed his hand on the red paw print.

A few of his favorite movie stars and singers flashed on the hologram before he settled back to himself.  With himself as the template, he imagined himself as if he had been born a woman and the image morphed to display an attractive woman who took more after his mom then his dad. She looked more Latino than he did with luxuriously long black hair that fell to her shapely ass.  Her complexion was a perfect light tan color with dark smoky eyes a man could fall into and never escape.  Long slender legs, perfectly tapered waist and an adequate bosom. Hector didn’t really care for super large stripper breasts, so he made her a firm and proud C cup.

Satisfied with how her body looked, he decided she needed some clothes, but he didn’t really know a lot about women’s clothing, just what he thought looked hot and was the easiest to remove.  His female image was instantly clad in a sexy black leather mini-skirt with a slit up on side, no nylons, red four inch heels and a slutty looking black stretch top with hoop earrings complemented by a garish shade of red lipstick on her lips.  “Gross, that’s not going to work. She looks like a hooker. Shit, what can I wear?”

Greg stepped back into the garage. “What was that?”

While Hector didn’t want Greg to see, he was at a loss for what to do.  “Oh, I dunno, maybe this is a dumb idea. I don’t think I want to go now.”

Greg smiled knowingly and nodded. “Lemme see?”

Hector moved to allow Greg to view the image. “Yeah, that’s pretty bad and I don’t really know all that much about women’s clothes myself, but,” Greg touched the paw print and the image’s clothes changed to show Hector’s female self wearing a white, midriff baring top with a pair of faded and distressed jeans complemented a pair of black, three inch wedge heeled, open toed sandals. “How’s that?”

Hector was shocked at both what Greg had done simply by changing his image’s clothes and by the fact he seemed to know what would look good, but not be slutty. Even his image’s makeup appeared to be perfectly matched. “It’s good, but how?”

Greg blushed. “Well, while I was on the phone with Michelle, she’s going to meet me there by the way, I was sort of looking at some pics of Jennifer Lopez because I kind of figured you would go more for this kind of girl and well, this was one of the outfits she was wearing.”

“Oh...okay.” Hector’s mouth suddenly felt dry because he realized he was running out of excuses and now he would be going solo, without a wingman, err, girl.

“Oh yeah, I also told her that my room-mate’s cousin, Jennifer was going to be there. Maybe the two of you could meet up while I wait to get let in?”

“You what?!?” Now Hector was really worried because it felt like he no longer had a way to back out without looking like a chicken.

“Sorry man, it was the first name that popped in my head when she asked me what your cousin’s name was...”  Greg pointed back at his female image. “Oh, don’t forget a purse and some ID.”

Hector took over control and gave his image a small black purse with a driver's license to match his image.  He also added a few of the things he remembered seeing in his ex girlfriend’s purses. Things like a small compact, a tube of whatever color lipstick his image was currently wearing, tampons, cringe, and the standard smart phone for texting, but he didn’t want his purse to be too cluttered at the same time, so he left things alone with that. The idea of ‘his purse’ made him laugh.

He also made sure his female self had all of his male Wolverine enhancements, minus the bulging muscles. He thought his original female self looked pretty damn hot, but the final Wolverine tweak brought her to an entirely new level of hotness. With the bare midriff top showing off her sleek, yet well defined abs, he found himself whistling with appreciation. “Wow, glad I remembered that...” He muttered as he slowly shook his head with wonder.

When he stepped out of the machine, Hector felt mildly surprised to discover he felt like he was still over 6 foot tall, even though he knew that his female self was supposed to only be 5’ 11”.  He laughed at himself when he realized it was because of the heels he was wearing.  He gasped with astonishment and grabbed his throat at the sound of his female laugh. “Oh my god!” The sound of his voice only made things worse. “I mean...” Hector tried to lower the octave of his voice back to its normal deep register. “I mean...mmmm, maa-ma-ma-mmmaaaa...” His voice stubbornly refused to go lower than a tenor. So, he gave up. “That’s weird...” His voice was back to a natural feeling, but still not accustomed to his own ears, Mezzo-Soprano.

Greg simply smirked at him. “What’s weird?”

Hector glanced down at his body and the view of his lightly tanned and perfectly shaped cleavage that prevented him from viewing his exposed midriff without bending a little more forward, added to the feeling of tightly fitted, yet soft and comfortable jeans with his elevated footwear almost caused him to panic. Instead, he gulped and self-consciously crossed his arms against his chest, causing his cleavage to swell even further from the pressure of his arms against the unaccustomed flesh.  “Well, umm, everything...” He glanced back up at Greg.  “How did you do it?”

Greg’s smirk was instantly wiped from his face, replaced by mild panic. “Do what?”

Undeterred now that he had literally, jumped over the gender canyon with both feet. “You know...I heard you last night. This is just so weird. How did you handle it?”  Hector glared at his friend, daring him to contradict him.

Realizing that he had been busted, Greg blushed as he looked at his friend in female form. “Well, umm, it was a little hard at first, but I sort of got used to it and well, since you know, the umm, you know was nice.”

Hector found himself nodding with Greg’s admission because he had to admit that the sex part wouldn’t suck to find out the truth. “Mmm, okay...well, what now?” He found himself shyly glancing around and feeling unsure about what to do now that what seemed like the hardest part was over with.

“Well, ‘Jennifer’, you could drive down the club and then, I will meet you and Michelle down there in a few...” Greg meaningfully gestured toward the front of the garage, hinting for Hector to leave.

Hector took the hint, but left via the front door instead of out the garage like he normally would. “Can ya hide the thing? It would suck to have it go missing now, right?” He turned back to Greg as he politely held the door for him, as if he was a real woman.

Greg nodded. “Sure, that’s a good idea. I’ll hide it in the same place, okay?”

“Sounds good, umm, see you there?” Hector glanced back down at himself and wondered just what in the hell he was thinking with this idea.

“Yep, I’ll be there at nine. Don’t forget. You’re Jennifer now and use the women’s rest room if you have to go, okay?” Greg chuckled as he closed the door behind Hector.

Hector stared at the closed door with shock for a few seconds as he processed Greg’s last bit of advice. “Crap, this is so NOT a good idea...” He shook his head and felt the unaccustomed weight and sway of his long hair against his shoulders and bare lower back.

Determined not to chicken out, he firmly clutched both his purse and his truck’s keys in his hands as he cautiously made his way to his truck wearing high heels. At first, he expected to fall over or twist an ankle in the shoes, but he found himself walking easily in them, almost like he had been wearing high heels is entire life.  Once he pulled himself into the cab of his truck, he found himself needing to adjust the seat a little and the mirrors, but not by a lot.

Finally satisfied with his mirrors, he sighed and began to cautiously back out of the driveway.  Walking in heels was one thing, but driving in them for the first time proved to be a little of a challenge.  He had a harder time judging the position of the gas and the brake pedals. So, for the first few miles and stops, he drove like the girl he appeared to be with jerky starts and stops, but by the time he arrived at the club, his driving was back up to his usual standards.

“Okay, that wasn’t so tough, who says women can’t drive? Not me...”  He laughed at himself with that thought, but it came out sounding more like a giggle with his higher female voice.

Entering the club proved to be an eye opening experience for Hector.  First of all, the bouncer checked him out like he was a tasty menu item, but Hector couldn’t really find fault with his assessment because he felt the same way about himself. He knew he was one hot babe and from the waist up, he was mostly naked. Secondly, the bouncer smiled warmly at him as he let him through the front door without the usual pat down or even an ID check. “Ma’am, welcome to The Hole in the Wall, enjoy.”

Damn, the dude even told him to enjoy himself. That was weird because normally, the same guy would glare at him like he was there to cause or get into trouble. Followed by a rude pat down in an attempt to find a hidden weapon so he could refuse him entrance to the club.

The next surprise was the fact that he wasn’t even charged a cover to enter. Normally, it cost him $10 just to get in the door.  Maybe his wacky, half baked idea to go as a woman to a club’s Lady’s Night wasn’t as crazy of an idea as he originally thought because in addition to the zero cover charge, all the drinks were two for one and even better from his point of view, the club was filled with beautiful women in various states of inebriation. Not a single male in sight. Oh yes, this idea of his might not be as bad as he original thought.

Even though he had been to this same club many, many times in the past, he had no idea where to go or what to do.  Without any guys there to compete and guard against, he felt completely out of his element.  He saw tables filled with women, laughing and having a good time, relaxed in each other’s company like he had never seen before.  He watched women, hot women walk up to other women and greet them with a squeal and a hug that made it sound like they hadn’t seen each other in years. He was about to head to the bar to get one of those drink specials when he felt someone plow into him from behind, followed by a cold, wet sensation splash against his back.

~o~O~o~

The outside of the building appeared to be a slightly rundown temporary staffing agency. The inside even helped sell the outside’s appearance with standard cubicles populated by normal looking office workers.  The only thing that may clue a visitor to the office that something was not right with this staffing agency was the elevator.

For a two story building, the elevator was surprisingly large and modern looking with a proximity card badge reader attached to the control panel.  Using the correct badge on the control panel activated the hidden fingerprint scanner built into the basement level button. If the print matched the print stored in the database, the elevator would drop 100 meters down and into a very secret government facility known only as “The Agency”.

Amongst the hustle and bustle of an agency charged with protecting the United States from the very real alien threat that the Morphic Adaptation Units represented, a man known by his teammates only as Agent C waited outside his boss’s office.  He checked his watch, 1729 hours, he was a minute early for the emergency meeting and he felt mildly curious what had happened now.  Did another unlucky civilian get their hands on a MAU or worse, a foreign country with an axe to grind with the U.S.?

At 1731, the door to his boss’s office opened and the woman known as Agent K poked her head out. “I realize that you like to be precisely on time for everything, but you didn’t have to wait out here. Come on...” She motioned for him to enter her office.

Agent C entered and without a word, sat down in the single chair positioned for him in front of his boss’s desk.  Agent K sat and studied the display built into her desk, but Agent C did not attempt to view it. If he needed to see it, Agent K would make it available. Instead, he bided his time and waited patiently for her to start the conversation.  After approximately three minutes of silence, she interrupted it by sighing heavily and leaning back in her executive office chair.  Next, she reached back and pressed a hidden switch on his desk and a display slowly rose from her desk, facing Agent C.

Agent C studied the screen with a growing sense of alarm and hope because based on what he was reading, it appeared like someone in California may have found a MAU. Thank god Google and the Patriot Act made it so easy to get search results.  The FBI loved using Google to find domestic terrorists searching for bomb making instructions. He was a little worried about the future though because the new Collective search engine was beginning to steal some market share from Google and The Collective was not as willing to divulge its users search history.

However; that was a problem for the future because if what he saw here was correct; there may be a working MAU, but it was impossible to say at this stage in what was sure to become an active investigation by the Agency.

“So, what do you think?” She asked.

He glanced away from the screen. “According to the date/timestamp on these search requests, it appears that we may have an active event.”

Agent K nodded with agreement. “Yes, or it could be another of those two bit science fiction writers coming up with a new story to amuse themselves with.”

“Possibly ma’am, but this person was very specific with their search criteria and based on the time spent on each of the resulting URL’s in addition to the URL’s they spent the most time reading for more information, I think we have to follow our active event protocol.”

“I agree, but who should we send? Normally, I would send you and Agent D, but we have a reliable report of an active MAU in China and I will need both of you for that one. I am even concerned that the results of your mission could very well require me to brief the first President in over 40 years about the threat these devices represent to our country and the world.”

Agent C started to sweat with that revelation. The last time that had occurred, the start of World War III almost happened, but the world knew it simply as The Cuban Missile Crisis. The world thought the U.S. called the military blockade a quarantine for legal reasons, but Agent C knew that it really was a quarantine due to the alien device under Castro’s control.

It was very fortunate that the working MAU Castro got his hands on stopped working before his people were able to put it to use because there is no telling what kind of weapons that man would have been able to dream up.  It was also fortunate the Soviets didn’t hear about the MAU either, but he still wondered if the man the world knew as Fidel Castro was really born Fidel Castro.  His girlfriend at the time was said to have committed suicide.

Agent C sighed as he debated making his suggestion. “Agent L and Agent P, ma’am.”

“Interesting choices there, Agent C. What makes you think Agent L can be trusted and Agent P is ready for her first mission?”

“It’s been six months and Agent L has been a reliable investigator.  He knows he is under suspicion and it’s bad for his morale. Agent P is fresh from her training and needs some field experience. Plus, since many of the victims have switched genders, she may be able to gain their trust sooner.”

“I see.” Agent K nodded her head with agreement. “Okay. I will assign Agent L and Agent P to the California case.  Their plane will leave at 2200 hours tonight. Let the two of them know, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

~o~O~o~

Chapter Note: Thanks to the BCTS staff for working so hard to get and keep this site going!

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault.

<* Chapter 6 *>

Greg watched as Hector walked down the sidewalk and hopped into his truck. As Jennifer, Hector had a very nice ass tucked into those jeans and he thought they might actually look better on Hector than they did on J-Lo. How that could be possible, he didn’t want to think about because the fact he made that assessment made him feel a little creeped out. In addition to the jeans, Hector handled the heels as if he had been wearing them all his life.

Maybe the machine helped Hector out with that skill when Greg added the high heels to go with the outfit?  He also couldn’t believe that Hector went through with his plan and even more surprising to Greg was the fact that Hector was willing to go out in public wearing such a sexy and revealing outfit. Oh sure, it was miles better than the hooker outfit Hector had dreamed up, but still, Hector, as a hot woman was a little hard for Greg to wrap his head around.

He felt bad about lying to Hector because he knew there was practically zero chance Michelle would agree to join them. Not when she was visiting her Mom, but in an effort to at least appear honest, he still called her. She sounded sincere when she said she wanted to go and thanked him for asking, but her mom has been looking forward to the two of them getting together all week.  He expected that answer and completely understood her dilemma, but there was no way he could tell Hector that, because Greg was done exploring the opposite sex with the machine.  He had a possible good thing going with Michelle and he didn’t want to risk jinxing it.

Well, there wasn’t much he could do about it now except hide the machine like Hector requested and then, drive down to the club and make up some excuse as to why Michelle couldn’t make it.  Something like, she couldn’t find anything to wear or her Jeep had a flat might work.  Maybe the flat excuse would be the best. Yeah, that would be the best and easiest second lie to sell to Hector. Hell, by the time get got there, ‘Jennifer’ might be too drunk or distracted by his own breasts to even question his excuse.

In the meantime, he had over 45 minutes to kill.  Okay, maybe he could play with the machine for a bit. He had some ideas for his Spiderman costume. He couldn’t think of any additional powers for himself. Oh, sure, there were probably a few, but his sense of comic book powers balance wouldn’t let him even consider trying to be all power man. Plus, he didn’t think it would be possible anyway.  The costume though, he had some ideas based on all the problems Peter Parker always seemed to have.

The Venom costume was the best, but it was a shame it turned out to be an evil  symbiote.  However; Greg thought he could come up with a similar, non-aware, semi-smart costume to wear.  He brought up his image on the MAU and added the base Spiderman costume to start with.  Next, he added a heating and cooling system that would keep him warm in the winter and cool in the summer.  Bulletproof and knife proof with an impact hardening smart cloth throughout the entire suit. Instead of rigid plates in critical areas, the entire surface of the suit would react by hardening and dissipating the force of any impact over the entire surface of the suit.

Greg was in total costume design heaven.  He added Low light and thermographic vision to the goggles, with flare compensation.  Built in Bluetooth headset to connect with his phone. Built in web shooters that automatically refilled their reservoirs using simple water as the base to build carbon nanotube based webs. Programmable self destruct duration for the webs with a default time of 5 minutes to keep his webs from messing up the buildings with unsightly left over webs.  He was trying to think about what else to add to the design when his phone began ringing.

He glanced at the time and realized he would need to leave soon if he was going to meet Hector at the club.  He glanced at the caller ID and it displayed “Jennifer Vasquez”? How in the hell did Hector get his phone to change his name? What if Hector was in trouble?  Well, Hector might be a woman now, but she could probably wipe the floor with anyone who tried to mess with her.  He answered the phone.

“Hey cousin!” A too loud female voice yelled over the sound of dance music blaring in the background.

“Jennifer?!?” Greg asked even though he was pretty sure the woman on the other end addressing him as ‘cousin’ was Hector.

“Yep! Well, I hope you all aren’t on the way yet!”

“What?! Why? Is everything okay?!” Greg wasn’t sure why he was yelling back into the phone. It wasn’t like she would be able to hear him better on her end.

“Oh, everything’s fine! It’s just that this cool girl sorta accidently ran into me and spilled her drink all over her new, umm, dress, I mean, skirt and I need to take her home so she can change her clothes and go to some other cool party!”

“Umm, okay? What time will you be home?”  Greg heard her laugh and speak to someone else.

“He’s asking me when I’ll be home...”

“Oh my gawd! That’s so sweet!” A woman’s voice gushed.

“Umm, late! I think, can you make sure the eggs are good before you go to bed tonight?” Hector paused. “You know, in case I need to stop and buy some more on the way home, or something...”

“Yes, I’ll keep them safe, but please call me if you need a ride. You know the rules about drinking and driving, right?”

“Yeesss, Daaaadd!” Hector sang back. “Thanks! Love ya, bye!” And the line went dead.

Greg stared at the phone, shocked over what just happened. “Did he just say he loved me?” He scratched his head with confusion. Even as a woman, Hector could still pick up a woman in, he checked his watch and calculated how long he had to have been at the club, less than 15 minutes. “Fuck! How in the hell does he do it?!?!”

He slowly set his phone back on the workbench and turned back to the machine. “Well, I guess I can finish my costume now and maybe even run a few tests...”

~o~O~o~

Hector, or Jenna, as Natalie had started calling him was in heaven.  First, Natalie, a stunning, tall and lightly tanned redhead head with hazel eyes accidently ran into him, splashing a little of her strawberry daiquiri on his back, but dumping most of the fruity concoction all over the front of her white mini-skirt. Then, after Natalie introduced herself while simultaneously apologizing for running into him and spilling her drink, she pulled him into the sanctum of inner sanctums, the women’s restroom. First, Natalie hastily used a damp paper towel to wipe off the sticky drink from his back while she continued to apologize for being so clumsy and not watching where she was going.

“No, really, it was my fault for just standing there...” Hector tried to make the poor girl feel better.

“Oh my god! I need to pee!” And she promptly pulled down her mini-skirt in the middle of the bathroom floor and handed it to Hector. “Umm...” Natalie looked a little confused.

“Jennifer?”  Hector hesitantly asked because he was shocked that this stunningly attractive and slightly drunk woman was standing there wearing nothing but her top, heels and white thong panties.  Do women really do this kind of thing often?

“Jennifer?!?! Really! That is such a pretty name. Do you mind if I call you Jenna? Oh, hey, would you mind trying to soak that for me?” Natalie asked as she raced to an open stall. They weren’t alone in the restroom, but none of the other women seem to think Natalie’s behavior was unusual or they were all just too kind to react, if they did. If anything, they appeared to be slightly amused and sympathetic.

Bemused at this turn of events, Hector put Natalie’s skirt in the sink and began running cold water over it. He might be a guy, but he knew cold water was for washing stains out, not warm or hot.

“So, Jenna?” Natalie called out from the stall.

At first, Hector ignored her because he didn’t realize she was speaking to him. Jennifer and Jenna were a little new to him. So, it took him a few seconds to make the connection and he also wasn’t used to anyone trying to talk to him while in the restroom.

“Jenna! Are ya still there?” Natalie yelled.

“What?” Hector jumped. “Oh, sorry, I was just rinsing your skirt and I kinda zoned out. Do you need anything?”

“No, but I was wondering something, well, if you don’t mind me asking...”

Concerned that Natalie somehow saw through his disguise, he looked down and checked his crotch to see if he wasn’t actually the girl he thought he was. Nope, nothing there. “Sure, what is it?”

“Are you a model?” Natalie asked, hesitantly.

Hector giggled with relief as he continued to scrub at the stain. It was mostly out, but there was still a light pink splotch that was resisting every attempt to remove it... “Oh, no. Me? A model!? I’m not that, umm, pretty.”

“What?!? Are you blind, girl?!” The toilet flushed and Natalie walked to the sink and took over. “Thanks Jenna, but I don’t think it’s going to come out. Crap!”

Another woman flushed and came over to the sink. Hector thought she was pretty darn hot too, but not as hot as Natalie.  She looked over at Hector. “Nope, she’s right. You should be a model. I saw J-Lo wearing that same outfit and I hate to say it, but you look tons better in it than she did.”

A few more women entered and still, not a one so much as glanced at a still mostly naked Natalie as she tried to work on the stain. “Damn it! I don’t think this is going to come out and my asshole and now ex-boyfriend has decided to go bowling with his friends instead of meeting me. So, now, I have no way home.”

Hector felt kinda bad for Natalie. Sure, she bumped into him and it wasn’t his fault, but he didn’t have anything else planned and he could always call Greg and let him and Michelle know not to come. Natalie was also pretty damn hot. “I could drive you, if that would help...”

Natalie turned to him with tears in her eyes. “Really!?!? You would do that for me after I spilled my drink all over your back?”

“Well, you seemed to get more on yourself than me and I just got here. So, I haven’t even had a chance to get a drink. So, it would be easier for me to drive you in my,” Hector paused as he considered his excuse for having a pickup. “Umm, cousin’s truck.”

Natalie surprised Hector with a hug and a kiss on his cheek. “Oh my gawd! That’s so nice of you, but I don’t want ruin your night. What will your boyfriend say when he gets here?”

Hector had to think fast. Every girl is supposed to have a boyfriend, right? He certainly did not have, nor want a boyfriend. “My boyfriend isn’t here. I’m just in town visiting my cousin for the week, then I’m flying back to New York. So, no boyfriend to worry about tonight.”

“Seriously!?!? Wow!” Natalie ran back to the sink and after giving her ruined skirt a final inspection, bit her lip pensively. “Fuck, it’s ruined.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh well, I guess I will dry it off and we can bail. What do you think?”

“Umm, sure?” Hector agreed with her because he didn’t actually know what to think right now with the way she was prancing around in her panties without a care in the world.

While Natalie used the hand dryer on her skirt, her purse started to play Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker Face’ song. “Natalie? I think your phone is ringing...” Hector pointed over at her purse.

Natalie tossed her half dried skirt at Hector as she dived for her purse and answered her phone. “Jenna, can you?” She gestured toward the hand dryer as she walked to the opposite side of the bathroom with her phone in her ear.

At a loss for what else to do and still feeling confused about proper bathroom etiquette, Hector dried Natalie’s skirt while out of the corner of his eye, he watched as she jumped rapidly up and down with excitement.  Damn, she had some nice legs.

“Oh. My. God!” Natalie squealed as she hung up her phone. “You would not believe it, but my friend Gina, she’s an actress and she is going to a big premier party at some producer’s house and she asked me if I wanted to join her and get this...are you ready?” She clutched Hector’s arm like she was afraid he was going to run away.

Hector nodded his head. “Sure?”

“She said you can come too! Isn’t that awesome?!?!” Natalie grabbed the mostly dry skirt out of Hector’s unresisting hands and quickly stepped into it, pulling back up and over her hips. She tried to smooth a few of the wrinkles, but gave up. “Fuck it...let’s go. Hey, do you need to go?”

Hector glanced over at the one open stall as he processed both her question and his current bladder condition. He didn’t feel like he had to go pee right now. “Umm, no. I went before I got here.”

“Great! Let’s go!” Natalie dragged him out of the restroom.

Hector was halfway to the exit before he remembered Greg and Michelle. “Crap!” He stopped letting Natalie drag him.

“What’s wrong?” Natalie glanced back with alarm.

“Oh, I just forgot that my cousin’s roommate and his new girlfriend were planning on coming down...” Hector bit his lip with indecision because he didn’t want to ditch Greg and he wanted to meet Michelle, but at the same time, he could always meet Michelle later. He was only going to be girl for a few more hours and he might never have another chance to get to know Natalie. She seemed like a pretty cool woman. Maybe a little high strung, but nice. Plus, she was a redhead. Well, maybe not a real redhead since her eyebrows were  black and he never actually spotted any bush to confirm if the carpet matched the drapes, but it didn’t matter. She was still smoking hot.

“Oh, well, it’s not a problem; I can always call a cab.” Natalie placed her hand on his shoulder to show him that she understood and supported him.

Hector was torn, but this was his one chance. “I’ll just call them and let them know. I don’t think they wanted to come to this place anyway.” He dug into his purse and pulled out his new fuchsia colored smartphone and prayed it would actually work.  The machine was freaking magic, so maybe it would.  He keyed in Greg’s cell number and hit the call icon.  It started to ring and much to Hector’s relief; it was Greg who answered, versus some ET who was waiting for him to use this phone.

Hector needed to make it sound like he was talking to his cousin, Hector.  That thought confused him. “Hey cousin!” He yelled to compensate for the club’s loud music.

The rest of the short conversation went pretty good. It didn’t sound like Greg was too upset with him and he was even nice enough to remind him about their no drunk driving pledge they made to each other.  That was sweet of him and Hector decided to just go with it and mess with Greg by ending the call by jokingly calling him “Dad” for making the offer.

Natalie thought it was hilarious, but once they made it to his truck; she surprised him.  “Wow, this is a nice truck!” Natalie gazed at it as Hector opened the passenger side door for her.

He was going to help her up, but Natalie didn’t wait for him. She simply grabbed the passenger door and pulled herself up. She even managed to do it without flashing her panties at Hector. “Oh yeah, I’m not a dude...” Hector muttered softly to himself as he walked around the rear of the truck to get in via the driver’s side door.

After he started his truck, he pointed to the nav system. “Umm, do you want to direct me or if you gimme your address, I can just plug it into that and it should navigate for us.”

Natalie giggled at him. “Oh, I’ll just punch it in for you. My dad has one of these in his car and I always have to get it to work for him. He’s so clueless when it comes to modern tech.”

Hector was shocked as Natalie expertly navigated through the nav system and got it to plot a route to her house before they had even made it to the street outside the club’s parking lot.  “Oh, thanks. That helped. I’m not used to Hector’s truck and it would have taken me a lot longer to figure that thing out.”  He wasn’t totally lying about that. He hardly ever used the thing since, as a construction worker, he knew the all the roads or helped build and repair all the roads within a 50 mile radius.

While he drove, Natalie started to talk and ask him questions about who he was and what he did for a living. She asked some very deep, intelligent and probing questions, causing Hector to lie, a lot. Well, stretch the truth anyway. Instead of being a ‘simple’ construction worker, Jennifer was a traffic coordinator for the state of New York. As a ‘traffic coordinator’ it was her job to help plan for road construction aimed at relieving congestion. Using that career as his background, he was able to sell the lie with his construction knowledge.

No, he didn’t do any modeling or acting on the side, but the question made him smile at the thought.  Heck, if they went to this big shot producer’s party, maybe he would want Jennifer to star in his next big movie. Wouldn’t that be crazy?

As he drove and the more Natalie talked, Hector began to notice something funny about Natalie.  She had lost her ‘caffeinated squirrel’ demeanor. “Hey, umm, Smatalie, do you mind if I call you that do you?”

“Nope, it’s cool Jenna. My mom and most of my old high school friends call me Smatalie. What’s up?”

“I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but why do you seem like a different person now?” Hector quickly glanced over at her to see if he had pissed her off before returning his eyes to the road. She had a bemused smile on her face, but she appeared to be waiting for him to stick his foot further into his mouth. “I mean, back at the club, you seemed so, umm, hyper, but now, you’re well, smart.”

Natalie laughed as she leaned over and gave Hector a quick hug. “Oh, Jenna. That is probably the nicest way anyone has ever said I was acting like an airhead.” She leaned back and giggled. “The truth is, I’m in pre-med, studying to be a doctor and well, I’ve learned that guys hate smart women. We intimidate them or something. So, I act dumb to make them feel better about themselves. Sometimes, I manage to find a guy worth going out with that way, but I think most men are just spoiled little boys who refuse to grow up, ya know?”

Hector found himself nodding with agreement, even though he had never noticed that before and he didn’t consider himself a ‘little boy’, but now that she said it, he did kind of notice how he never really felt like he had a chance with a smarter woman. Even though he admired them, because there was nothing sexier than a hot librarian, math teacher or female CEO, but those kinds of women intimidated him.  “Oh, well, I guess I never noticed that before. I always wondered why none of the men seemed to like talking to me or if they did, all they seemed to want from me was sex. I thought I was ugly or something.”  He totally pulled all that out of his butt from some of the things his ex-girlfriends complained about other men, not him though.

Natalie’s jaw almost fell to the floor. Hell, Hector surprised himself with that bit of female perspective applied to him, but it was Natalie who gasped with astonishment for a second before she could form words again. “Holy crap, girl! You’re so smoking hot. On a scale of 1 to 10, you’re like a 12! Normally, I’d hate your guts, but do you wanna know why I don’t?”

Hector glanced fearfully back to her while he watched the road out of the corner of his eye. “Umm, sure?”

“Because you’re so freaking nice.” Hector shook his head with denial as Natalie continued. “Oh yeah you are. I was the one who bumped into you and spilled my drink all over you, but you never once screamed at me or called me a clumsy bitch like I would have. Hell, you even went out of your way to help me. No, you’re a one of a kind and I aim to find out all I can about you because you, my new BFF, are going to kick ass and take names tonight at the party and I intend to have front row seats! Hehe.”

“Oh, okay, but I’m really not all that...” Now Hector was getting worried about this. Maybe going out as a girl was a mistake and now, going with Natalie was an even bigger mistake because he had no idea how he was going to continue to pull this charade off. He had no clue what he was doing. How in the hell could he keep people from realizing that he was really a man? Well, not right now. Not physically anyway, but he had no clue how to act, look or talk like a real woman.  He didn't even know how he had managed to walk in his heels without breaking his ankle.

His thoughts of female Armageddon were disrupted when Natalie turned on the radio and began to sing with the music. He thought she had a nice voice, so he hesitantly joined her.  The song was one of his new favorites and guilty pleasure because it wasn’t a song most construction workers would admit to enjoying. In his defense, he thought Rihanna was pretty damn hot and that was a good excuse to use if he was ever busted by one of his co-workers since everyone knows that big and burly, truck driving, construction workers only listen to Country and Western..

It was about halfway through the song when he realized that Natalie had stopped singing and was just sitting there, staring at him with a dumbfounded expression on her face.

“What? Did I my voice suck that bad?” Hector quickly glanced between her and the road.

Natalie crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. “Okay, it’s official now. I. Hate. You.”

Hector started to worry. What if that was her favorite song and he sounded like crap? “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to mess up that song for you...”

Natalie laughed so hard, she started to cry. “Oh my god, girl. No, your voice is freaking amazing! I have a friend who I thought had a good voice, she’s even a music major, but your voice just blows hers right outta the water.”

“Oh, If you say so...” Now Hector was worried because, as a guy, he knew he wasn’t a good singer. He sucked and couldn’t carry a tune with a bucket. Did the machine enhance his voice when Greg put him in J-Lo’s outfit or was it just because he was a woman now?

“No, really. Here, at this light, sing that song again for me.” Natalie dug through her purse and pulled out her cell phone.

“I dunno...”

“Pllleeaase? Pretty, pretty please?” Natalie gave Hector the puppy dog eye treatment.

Hector could never resist a pretty woman, or any woman who resorted to using that trick. “Fine, but I’m really not that good. Hey, you’re not going to video me, are you?”

“Maaaybe?” Natalie giggled. “Go ahead bitch, sing.”

Hector found himself smiling at being called a bitch. He knew he wasn’t and that she was just using the name affectionately, but it was still kind of funny. He started to sing the song. He was a little hesitant at first, but once the light changed and he had to concentrate on driving more than his singing, the song just kind of came out.  He faltered after singing for almost two minutes when he looked over and saw Natalie with tears in her eyes. “Nat, what’s wrong? Oh my god, I didn’t hurt your ears with my singing did I?”

“No,” Natalie sniffed. “That was beautiful.” She glanced down at the frozen video of Hector singing, sighed and put her phone back in her purse.

[“Destination on the right in 100 yards.”] The nav system’s female voice informed the two of them.

“Oh, we’re almost there...okay! Here we are, you can just pull in over there.” Natalie pointed to a modern and expensive looking condo complex with an open spot pretty close to the entrance.

Once Hector expertly parallel parked his truck in the tiny spot, Natalie wasted no time jumping out and dragging him up to her apartment.  This was the officially the fastest time he had even made it into a girl’s apartment and had seen her in her panties. Of course, this was also the first time the girl also thought he was a girl too.

He had to admit, Natalie had a nice apartment. It was well decorated with good furniture and artwork on the walls.  He had no idea how she could afford to live here because he knew med school cost a lot of money, but maybe Natalie’s parents were loaded because it did not look like she even had a roommate to help with the expenses. In addition to the expected ‘women’s magazines’, he spotted a magazine called “New Scientist” sitting on her coffee table. It looked like something Greg would read.

“Jenna, come on, I need your help picking an outfit to wear!” Natalie impatiently growled at him as she waved for him to follow her into her room.

Hector knew he shouldn’t be surprised at the sight of a woman’s closet, but he still was. Her walk-in closet was almost the size of his room and it was full of clothes, shoes and four different colored wigs. He knew women’s clothes were expensive, but Natalie’s clothes looked even more expensive and high quality than he was used to seeing.  What in the hell did Natalie do that she could afford all this?

“Wow, umm, Smatalie, this is nice, but sorry to ask this. But, how do you afford all this again?” He gestured at the rich array of clothing options.

Natalie laughed as she quickly stripped out of her clothes, leaving only her panties on. “Oh, my Dad is a doctor and my mom is a lawyer. Once I started pre-med, they set me up with all this and, I have a nice trust fund.”

It took every ounce of Hector’s self control to not stare at her boobs or any other part of her body. He thought that her body was perfect, but he couldn’t help noticing the freshly healed scar below her belly button and partially hidden by her panties.  He had seen a lot of surgical scars during his tours in Iraq and based on that, he judged Natalie’s scar to be caused by a surgical incision versus some accident with a kitchen knife and it appeared to be about two or three months old.

It took some effort, but he forced himself to keep his eyes focused on her face as much as possible.  It also served as a definitive proof that he was 100% female with his plumbing because if he was still a guy, he knew for sure that he would be having a very hard time hiding a raging erection right now. The fact that he didn’t have an erection caused him to question his sanity.  What was he thinking when he decided to explore the other side of the gender fence?

He sighed with relief when Natalie entered her closet and started looking through her outfits. It was easier to relax with her back to him, but she really did have a nice butt.  He felt his own nipples start to press against the fabric of his bra and he noticed his groin starting to feel a little warm and tingly, causing him to shift his stance in an effort to get some air, or something up there. Ordinarily, he would be squirming around in an effort to adjust his package without dying from the embarrassment of being seen adjusting his package.  Is this what arousal feels like for a woman or is there something else going on with his alien body?

Hector didn’t have much time to analyze those sensations because Natalie picked out a short, black with silver sequins panel mini-skirt thing and held it out in front of her as she slowly approached him with a weighing expression. He did not like the way she was looking at him.

“Okay, Jenna, turn around for me please?” Natalie waved at him with her hand.

Confused at what she was up to, Hector turned away from her. Maybe she had caught him looking at her boobs and was tired of it?

“Yep, just as I thought. You have a small stain from my daiquiri.” Natalie tisked.

“Really?” Hector twisted around as best he could to try and inspect his butt. Yes, there was a small, almost unnoticeable stain the on the top of his jeans.

Natalie handed him the skirt. “Here, try this on. It should go perfectly with your top and I have some shoes for you to try when I finish deciding what to wear.”

Hector stared at the skirt he now held in his hands with confusion.  She expected him to wear this?  It looked like it would barely cover his ass and did she say something about shoes?

“Go on, try it...” Natalie glanced back over her shoulder, encouraging him.

He hesitated for another second because he didn’t think the stain was that noticeable, but under Natalie’s watchful eye, he felt obligated for some reason. He leaned over and pulled off his heels. It felt good to be out of them and now he totally understood why women complained about their shoes all the time.  Still unsure about the skirt, he glanced back over to Natalie and found that she was completely ignoring him as she pulled one dress after another down and compared it to her body and some other obscure criteria before shaking her head before placing it back on the rack.

He unbuckled and stripped out of his jeans and for the first time, he was able to see his undeniably female hips and sexy legs, as well as his smooth crotch. He gasped with astonishment when he spotted the small black widow symbol printed on the front of his panties.  Greg’s sense of humor was, well, actually kind of funny.

He wasn’t sure which way to put the skirt on and he was also very aware of the fact that he was standing in a strange, yet highly attractive, woman’s bedroom while both of them wore practically nothing. Oh yeah, and they also were not even thinking about knocking boots right now either. No, it was worse, the other woman, and the ‘other woman’ part was a mind trip and a half, because ‘other’ in this case implied inclusion. There were two women in the room, he was one of them and the ‘other’ woman expected him to put on a skirt and there was nothing he could think to do or say that would get him out of it. He couldn’t very well point out that he wasn’t a woman, because, thanks to the damn alien machine, he was.

Sighing with resignation, he inspected the skirt a little closer and noticed it had a small zipper that extended down from the top about 3-4 inches, but that didn’t tell him which way to put the skirt on because what little he knew about women’s clothes told him they did not have zippers in the front like men’s clothes did.  They also made things tricky by sometimes having zippers on the side too. He sometimes thought they did that to make it harder for men to figure out how to get a woman out of her clothes. Until he spotted the label, he wasted a few seconds spinning it around a few times trying to identify the front. It appeared that the zipper was on the left side of this strange garment, or varment, depending on how he thought about what he was contemplating doing.

He stepped into the skirt like he had seen countless women do before, pulled it up, over his wider hips, sparkly sequin side facing forward and reached to his side, pulling the zipper up and covering the top of it with the included faux belt panel built into the skirt. That snugged the skirt firmly around the top of his waist, but just below his belly button with the bottom, or hem, falling to just above mid-thigh. He self-consciously pulled it down against his hips, but it was still a mini-skirt and not a pair of jeans. It didn’t get any longer and it left him feeling horribly exposed and vulnerable.

It felt very strange to have his legs showing and unlike wearing shorts, it felt kind of drafty not having any fabric between his legs. Intellectually, he knew why women always crossed their legs, but now he understood why. He didn’t think he was going to have any problem remembering to keep his legs closed while he wore this skirt, but at the same time, it kind of made him feel a way he had never felt before, sexy. The heat in his groin spiked with that thought and that made him even more confused.  How could women wear something like this without going crazy?  Maybe that was why they sometimes seemed to be insane. It wasn’t just that estrogen imbalance thing.

“Oh, that looks great on you, Jenna! Better than it looks on me anyway. Since I ruined your jeans, you can keep it.” Natalie was in the process of pulling a sleeveless, jade green cocktail dress down and over her hips. Once she had it over her hips, she casually reached back up, pulled down her panties and tossed them in a clothes hamper. Panty less, she padded out of her closet and pulled out a pair of green panties and slid them on, briefly exposing herself to Hector as her skirt rose.  She was perfectly clean shaven down there, thus he was unable to confirm if she was a real redhead.

Natalie turned her back to Hector. “Here, can ya zip me up please?” She glanced over her shoulder at Hector.

“Sure, umm, sorry if I’m staring. I’m just not used to all this and you’re being so nice...” Hector felt himself blushing with embarrassment as he pulled up Natalie’s zipper.

She turned, giving him a radiant smile. “Oh, that’s okay Jenna. What are friends for?” With that statement, she reached down and adjusted her breasts in the front of her dress without giving his presence a second thought.

His next reaction surprised him even more than his earlier feelings of arousal. It wasn’t the sight of her brazenly adjusting her breasts that set him over the edge. Natalie called him her friend and it sounded like she meant it. He felt his eyes starting to tear up.  Was he actually going to cry? He couldn’t remember the last time he cried. Maybe it was when he broke his arm in the 7th grade?  Yes, he felt the tears rolling uncontrollable down his face, but the thing that made him really cry was the fact that Natalie was holding him and it felt so good to simply be hugged.

~o~O~o~

Chapter Note: In light of BCTS's problems and because I had some extra time on my hands, I thought I would post chapter 7 a tad early. I figure that I have earned all the comments I am going to get from the previous chapter. So, no sense in leaving my readers hanging. Don't shoot me at the end of this chapter. :) I have noticed a strange, or not so strange, reaction to this story. It appears that folks just don't care for MAU stories. I have been receiving only about 50% of the page views for this series as I received for my other stories. Comments have been far less also. It could just be related to the site problems. However; of the folks who are reading it, the Kudos have been 50% greater. I guess the folks who like MAU stories are more likely to give kudos. Meh, I'm liking my story, but I'm kinda biased. :-P

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

“Finally!” Agent L thought triumphantly to himself. He was going on what could turn out to be a real active event. After months of chasing ghosts and doing what amounted to busy work after that damn Sci-Fi convention that he somehow botched. He saw all the reports. How in the hell could he have not noticed that all the nerd costumes were a little too realistic?  It made him feel like an idiot to have been so close, yet never even realizing it until it was too late. Too late meaning, when his boss, Agent K, read a local newspaper report on the event and saw the pictures of the nerd costumes.  There was a person who looked like Yoda and he never suspected a thing? What kind of an investigator was he?

His partner, Agent P wasn’t hard to look at either. She stood 5’ 8”, her dark brown hair was styled in what he liked to call a short and sassy style that really made her slender neck and delicate jaw stand out.  She was, in Agent L’s expert opinion, a babe.  She was also pretty damn competent in the dojo too. His back still hurt after she tossed him around like a dog’s play toy.  He had an excuse though. She was fresh out of training, while he hadn’t had the time to work out since he got out of the training program one year ago. He was rusty, that was all.

The pair had just pulled from their rented SUV, their single, small carry-on bag along with a laptop bag each when the pilot of their private jet approached them with a grim expression.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news for you two, but our jet was just dead lined due to a cracked fan blade. Next plane won’t be available until 0500 hours tomorrow.” He said with a sigh.

Agent P looked to her superior officer for guidance. “Sir, should we try and find a commercial flight?”

Agent L hated flying commercial.  The extra paperwork was such a hassle due to the TSA, but he hated not having his weapon on him even more.  He hadn’t found a MAU yet, but chasing alien devices was dangerous work and the folks who knew anything about them were a very suspicious group of people.

He sighed with frustration because all the evidence pointed to an active event and he would hate to arrive late and miss it.  “I guess we can check, but I suspect most of the commercial flights have already left.”

They hadn’t.  There was one flight from DC to California. It left at 0120 hours and after an eight hour flight, they would have an additional six hour drive to look forward too. Six hours, if there was no traffic. That was a good joke. California is renowned for its traffic jams.

After talking it over with Agent P, they decided to book it because it would still get them to the target and Agent K couldn’t say they didn’t try hard enough if they missed it. Besides, what if the Agency couldn’t get another jet for them tomorrow morning?

Hector wasn’t sure how long Natalie held him in her arms as she softly stroked his hair, but eventually he felt a degree of control returning, followed by embarrassment. He gasped and gently pushed himself away from Natalie. “Oh my god!” He sniffed and found it almost comical by the fact his nose was on the verge of running. “I’m so, so sorry Natalie! I don’t know what came over me. It was like everything hit me at once. You’re being so nice to me and I feel like I don’t deserve it.”

Natalie giggled at him. “Hey, it’s okay, girlfriend. That’s what friends are for. So,” She took a step back. “How’s my dress look?”

Hector thought it, no, she looked stunning in it. He was able to use the need to wipe his eyes to cover what felt like a blush to him. “You look fabulous, but you could wear a burlap sack and get the same effect.” Hector grinned mischievously as he came up with an idea. “Hey! That could save your parents some money on clothes.”

“Ha! That’s a good one, but, umm, no thanks.” Natalie looked critically at herself in the full length mirror. “Green is not my color. I think black, but for that I need to change my hair color.” She reached up and surprised Hector by pulling off her red hair.

She was wearing a wig and her head was covered with only scattered patches of shortly cut blonde hair. “Natalie! What happened to your hair?” Hector realized he was probably being rude and hurting his friend’s feelings. He held his head with shame. “I’m sorry. Umm, I can go now.” He almost felt like crying again. What in the hell was wrong with him? Could the damn hormones really be to blame for women’s mood swings?

“Don’t ya dare. I’m sorry I surprised you, but I’m not ashamed. I refuse to be, but one day, I will have my hair back. I know I will, and this...” Natalie gestured to her head. “Will only be a memory and a reminder of what  I can and will accomplish.”

“Umm, what’s wrong? It’s not cancer, I hope.” Hector found himself almost pleading with her to tell him she didn’t have cancer.

Natalie sighed as she sat down heavily at the foot of her bed. “Yes, four months ago, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 Ovarian Cancer.” She pointed to the scar on her belly and pulled her panties down so Hector could see the full scar. Her eyes began to tear up as she continued. “I had a total abdominal hysterectomy which included the removal of both of my ovaries and fallopian tubes. They put me on chemo-”

Hector couldn’t take it anymore. He sat down next to Natalie, reached over and pulled her tightly against his body.  He felt her body pressing against his breasts and it was a little uncomfortable at first, but he adjusted his chest until they found a way to conform without pinching.

Now it was Natalie’s turn to cry and Hector found himself softly crying along with her as he gently rocked her back and forth in his arms.  He wondered if the machine could fix her, but it was probably too soon to bring that up right now.  They both barely knew each other and he knew what he would say if some strange woman tried to tell him she had the cure for cancer in her garage.

After about five minutes, Natalie sighed and pushed herself away from Hector.  She looked up at Hector and even with her bald head, Hector still thought she was a beautiful woman. He longed to kiss her and tell her everything would be okay.  He noticed a brief look of confusion flash across her face as she licked her lips as if her mouth was dry.

“Oh, hey, are you thirsty? Want me to get you some water?” Hector hastily stood and attempted to leave Natalie’s room in anticipation of her request.

Natalie stopped him by grabbing his arm. “No, I’m fine now. Umm, thanks.” She stood and looked down at herself before looked back up at Hector. “I think we both need to touch up our makeup now. Your mascara is running and I’m sure mine is a mess too.”

The beginnings of a smile formed on her face before he eyes flared with surprise and dismay. Natalie stood and inspected Hector’s top. “Oh my god, Jenna! I stained your top now too.”

Hector looked down and noticed small black splotches on what little fabric he had to cover his breasts. “Crap...” He muttered as Natalie raced into her closet.

She turned back and motioned for him to enter. “Come here. I’ve got the top that goes with your skirt.”  She pulled down a satiny black v-neck top with racer back straps. The thing looked like it would cover even less of his chest, if that was possible, but it would cover all of his stomach and back while leaving his shoulders bare.

“Okay, pull off your top. Let’s see how this looks.” Natalie excitedly motioned for Hector to hurry up.

Hector now had a problem. He didn’t know how to take off his top. It was sleeved and had a twist or something in the front, but he didn’t know if there were buttons or a zipper in the back or if he was just supposed to lift it over his head like a t-shirt.  Feeling a little embarrassed and self-conscious about feeling embarrassed he turned away from Natalie and began tugging at his top, trying to lift it up without ripping his breasts off in the process.

“Oh, here, lemme help ya with the buttons.” Natalie reached over and began unbuttoning his top, causing it to practically fall off his chest.  He caught it and shyly turned back to face her. Hector discovered he was not wearing a bra. Somehow, the top performed double duty as a bra and now he was worried about the other top. His breasts weren’t huge, but they weren’t small either.  He didn’t know a lot, but after listening to countless girlfriends complain about their breasts flopping around if they didn’t wear a bra; he knew he would need something to keep his under control.

She handed him the top. “Here, this should work. It has some built in support for the girls and I must say, I am a little jealous of ya.”

Hector felt himself blushing from her complement. “What, oh, umm, yours are nice too.” He glanced meaningfully at her chest as he worked to pull the strange contraption down and over his chest.  The strap arrangement was very confusing, but he got it figured out, mostly.  His breasts felt a little too free though. Where was that built in support Natalie mentioned?

Natalie giggled at him as she spun. “Hey, once you’re done pulling that on, can ya unzip me?”

He felt some additional fabric or something pooled under his breasts. It felt like he had some additional adjustments to do to get the top to fit properly.  He held off on that and unzipped Natalie instead. Again, she stepped out of her dress without a care in the world. Hector didn’t see what she had to be jealous about.  He rather liked her pert breasts. As a self professed connoisseur of women’s breasts, he decided they had to be a full B-cup versus his C-cup, but they were still nothing to sneeze at.

While she hunted for another dress, he got his new top figured out and it wasn’t too bad. Not as well fitted as his MAU created top, but as long as he didn’t try running, it should work.

“Here, try these...” Natalie gingerly held out a pair of black stiletto heeled boot things with an open toe.

Hector wasn’t sure if he should accept them. One, the long pointy heel looked huge compared to his shoes and two, Natalie seemed reluctant to part with them.  They were just shoes and he doubted he had any foot fungus to spread to her.  Except for the red sole, they looked normal to him.  “Umm, okay, are you sure?”

Natalie’s eyes misted over as she nodded. “Yes, I’m sure. If they fit, but I will want those back, please.”

“Oh, sure. Wouldn’t dream of keeping these!” Hector giggled at the thought of him actually owning a pair of women’s shoes.  He slipped them on his feet and after a moment’s trepidation, surprised himself by standing without any wobbling.  Yep, these were at least an inch taller than his original heels.  They didn’t feel that bad. Actually, they felt surprisingly comfy.  “Oh, these are nice, Natalie.”

His remark caused Natalie to glance up from fitting herself into her latest dress. She whistled at him, making him blush. “Oh yeah, you are definitely going to knock the guys dead with those legs!”

He glanced self-consciously down at his exceptionally skimpy outfit and shifted his weight from foot to foot in an attempt to somehow cause his skirt to show less skin.  It didn’t work and when he glanced back up at Natalie, he was surprised to discover her frozen, her mouth halfway open like she wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure what to say.

“Natalie? Are you okay?” Hector started walking toward her, worried that she might be getting sick or something from her cancer thing.

His movement snapped her out of whatever it was that caused her to freeze up. “Oh yeah, just peachy!” She grinned and winked at him, causing Hector to stop just outside the entry to Natalie’s giant closet.  She spun around and glanced over her shoulder at him. “Hey, can ya zip me up again?”

Once Hector had the back of Natalie’s dress zipped up, she reached over and grabbed her long brunette wig and carefully snugged it into place on her head.  Finished, she reached down and grabbed a pair of black open toe heels with some ankle straps, slipped them on her feet and finished that off by standing, hands on her hips, a smirk on her lips with one hip cocked to the side in a provocative pose. “Ta da! How do I look?”

Hector thought she looked stunning, but like he told her earlier, he thought she would look stunning in anything. The black and white, fake leather, form fitting, animal print mini dress made him want to kiss Natalie all over her neck. He was at a momentary loss of words.

Natalie frowned. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“No, no, no! It’s awesome, no, you’re awesome!” Hector felt his eyes starting to sting as they filled with tears, damn estrogen poisoning!  Being a woman sucked. He had to turn away and run, as best he could in the heels, into the bathroom to get some tissues for his eyes.  He did not want to take a chance and ruin another outfit with his makeup dripping all over it.

As he was dabbing his eyes with a tissue, Natalie stood by the door and leaned up against it with a pleased grin. “That good, huh?”

Hector had to laugh. “Yeah...so, umm, now what? I mean, after I blow my nose. God, this sucks...” He finished with a mutter as he reached for some more tissues.

“What sucks?” Natalie entered the bathroom and checked her face out in the mirror.

“Oh, just all the crying I have been doing. I’m so sorry. You must think I am a total basket case or something...” Hector paused to blow his nose and even that somehow sounded feminine and thus, not as gross as it should have.

Natalie stood by his side and gave him a quick, supportive hug. “No, you’re great. I haven’t laughed, cried and nearly peed my panties like this in months now.  So, thanks...”  She gave him another hug and at first it looked like she was going to kiss him on his lips, but instead her mouth went past her lips at the last second and she kissed him on the cheek, just like two girlfriends who are friends would do.

Hector wasn’t sure what to say in response to her words.  On one hand, he felt great that he was able to somehow make her feel better and on the other hand, he felt like a total prick for being a fake woman and as a result, a fake friend. “Oh, umm, no problem. Glad I could help...”

Natalie studied his face for a few seconds, just long enough for Hector to begin to feel self-conscious again. “What?”

“Would you mind if I did your makeup for you?” Natalie hesitantly asked as if she expected Hector to refuse when he actually felt extremely relieved by her offer.  He had zero idea how to do or even fix his makeup.  He figured he might be able to touch up his lips on his own, because how hard could it be. It’s like using lip balm, right?

“No, that would be great because I have no idea what to do with this outfit. It’s not normally something I would wear.”

Natalie giggled happily. “Great! Lemme get my kit!” She left the bathroom and returned with a pro-sized fisherman's tackle box and set it on the countertop. And to Hector’s growing astonishment, when she opened it, out came trays and trays of cosmetics.  Brushes, pencils, pots of this and pots of that. Weird clamps that looked like they were designed to rip out a person’s eyelashes. Heck, she even had a pencil sharpener in the thing, but that was the only item in her toolbox that he knew how to identify.

“Nice, huh?” Natalie asked, but Hector could only nod with agreement. “I got all this crap to help hide the effects of my chemo, but it sure comes in handy for a time like this!”

Natalie motioned for him to turn and face her as she started pulling out different brushes and colors.  First, she wiped his face down with some sort of makeup removal pad, then once satisfied with that, she became a precision blur of cosmetics. Brush this stuff on, close your eyes, open your eyes, wider, and close them again. Open your mouth, close your mouth, purse your lips, use this napkin to blot them, etc...

“Aannnd, done!” Natalie spun him around to face the mirror. “So, whatcha think?”

The woman, the other woman, in the mirror and not Natalie looked, in Hector’s opinion, extremely fuckable with her wide eyed, deer caught in the headlights expression. His eyes were drawn to her lips by the deep, rich shade of red that made them pop and beg to be kissed while she had done something to his eyes to make them look like they were actually on fire and smouldering.  “Umm, wow. I, umm, never knew I could look like this. I mean, this good. You’re amazing...”

Natalie grinned happily at him. “Great! Now, I need to do mine. You wanna wait in here so we can talk? It should only take a few minutes.”

Hector could only nod his acceptance because he didn’t know how he could leave the bathroom without making Natalie upset or slightly disappointed with him for some reason he couldn’t quite nail down.  “Umm, sure...” He checked his face out in the mirror again. “This really is incredible Natalie...”  He whispered as he started to feel a light pressure building against his bladder.  “I think I have to pee.” He glanced over at her, hoping she would get the hint and give him a few minutes.

“Oh, go ahead. I’ll be right here. Lemme know if you need me to get you a panty liner or something stronger if you’re having your period. I have a bunch in the drawer here.” Natalie pointedly glanced down to the drawer closest to the toilet.

His mind skipped right over and refused to even register her tampon offer, but Hector wasn’t sure what to do now.  Now, he knew he had to pee, but he didn’t know how long he could hold it either.  If he was still in possession of his usual equipment, it wouldn’t be a problem, but now, he wasn’t so sure. “Okay...” He hesitantly said as he lifted the seat and the lid on the toilet before he remembered he needed to sit down, like a girl.

A soft sigh escaped his lips as he spun around and tried to decide if he needed to drop his skirt or just his panties before he could sit.  He decided to try just dropping his panties because it seemed like it would be faster to just pull his skirt up as he sat down instead of unzipping it and having it fall to the floor, possibly getting it dirty.

Once he was safely sitting down on the seat, he noticed that he had his legs slightly open and just enough to keep his panties trapped around his knees. He glanced over at Natalie, but she was brushing some sort of powder on her face and not paying an ounce of attention to him.

He felt a little flustered and confused when the image of his own sexy panties trapped by his own smooth legs made him recall how turned on he felt by the sight of a woman caught posed with her panties half on and half off in one of his old nudie magazines. The first person perspective of this was very disconcerting.

Damn it! He had bigger things to worry about. He needed to figure out how to pee.  What muscles did he need to use to let it go? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t ever sat and peed in the toilet before, but it was usually only during the other event. You know, the one everyone has to sit for. It was weird not having to hold down his penis and aim it down through the seat or have it touching the unsanitary and usually pee stained lip of the bowl.  Nothing down there swinging in the breeze, getting in the way of things and nothing for him to hold down while he peed to keep from making a mess. As a result, he felt at a loss for what to do with his hands in this situation so he simply leaned slightly forward and rested his elbows on his exposed thighs.

That posture seemed to do the trick for him because it allowed him to find the muscle and release his urine and wow, what a change. The stuff gushed out of his body in half the time it normally took, but in the process, the gush made him feel like a drippy mess down there, so gross.  Instead of his usual three to four squares of TP, he took enough to make an oven-mitt to protect his hands. It was a very enlightening sensation because now he felt exactly why women had to wipe. Until this second, he used to think it was just because they liked wasting toilet paper, but now, oh yeah, he needed to wipe.

He wasn’t sure how to wipe, but he knew he didn’t want to see his own pee on the paper. So, he decided to just push it down, between his thighs, pat a few times and let go. Hopefully, without his fingers ever really touching the female parts between his legs.  That seemed to do the trick. He felt less messy anyway.

Mission complete, he stood, pulled up his panties, resnugging them against; his mind skipped a beat before he could think of the word and apply it to himself, his female genitals and pulled the tiny strip of cloth of his panties up and into the crack of his ass to make sure they wouldn’t go anywhere.  Except for the initial feeling of having a string between his cheeks, the thong actually felt very comfortable. With his panties settled, he quickly pushed his skirt back down. Even though the simple act of peeing was very different as a woman, he still felt the same general feeling of contentment from having a freshly emptied bladder. He flushed the toilet and Natalie automatically moved over enough to allow him access to the sink.

It only took Natalie another five minutes to finish her makeup and wow, she looked absolutely stunning. Hector even tried to tell her that he thought she looked way better than he did, but that only seemed to make her think he was just saying it to make her feel better.  He felt unpleasantly reminded about Natalie’s cancer when she downed a handful of various capsules before leaving her apartment.

“This will give me about 4 hours before I start to feel like total crap, but oh well. I’m glad you’re coming, because I also can’t drink any alcohol and I have to be very careful about taking other drugs. I can’t even take ibuprofen if I have a headache without needing to worry about some possible interaction with my chemo drugs. So, if you wanna drink, feel free!”

Her statement surprised Hector. “What about your drink at the club?”

“Oh, that was a virgin daiquiri and part of my act, ya know, like fur shure and totally, remember?” Natalie giggled.

Once they stepped outside, the cool night air against the exposed skin of his legs and shoulders, coupled with the very open feeling between his legs and the bouncy feeling coming from his chest made him feel somewhat naughty and vulnerable at the same time. The feel of his skirt occasionally brushing lightly against the smooth skin of his legs and nothing else was an eye  opener for him. It made him feel like he wasn’t wearing anything from the waist down. Additionally, the skirt made it a bit of a challenge to climb into his truck without flashing everyone in the neighborhood, but he thought he managed to be successful.  The heels really made him feel tall, but once again, it took him a few minutes before he was able to work the pedals of his truck without embarrassing himself.

Once they arrived at the party, Hector felt very intimidated by the size of the estate of the dude who was hosting the event. After their names were checked off by a tuxedo suited security guard at the front gate, he next had to deal with the surprised smirks of the valets when they spotted his truck. It was very out of place amongst all the Porsches, Audis, Mercedes and even the rare Lamborghini or two.

Hector felt an odd sense of satisfaction when he witnessed the valet’s smirks get replaced with open lust when he opened his door and caught the valet staring at his legs as he carefully spun around to prevent flashing the dude.  Momentarily stunned by the near sight of having a hot woman so nearly flash her panties at him, the valet paused for a second before he sprang forward and slobbered all over himself in his effort to assist ‘poor’ Hector down from the cab of his truck.

“Thanks.” Hector was careful to support most of his weight using the door. The poor valet might throw his back out if he tried to take all of Hector’s weight. Once safely on the ground, Hector smiled at the valet as he handed the man his keys. He started to walk away, but turned back when he remembered that he forgot to give the dude a tip.  He dug in his purse for a $5, but the valet stopped him. “It’s no problem ma’am, but thanks. Mr. Stevens asked us to not accept any tips for doing our job.”

That surprised Hector because he thought valets always worked for minimum wage and earned the bulk of their money with the tips.  Until he looked down and was reminding of the facts prominently displayed on his chest, he didn’t understand why the man would refuse to take it. Oh well, it was his loss.  “Oh, okay, are you sure? I mean, it’s kinda embarrassing with all these...” Hector blushed self-consciously as he gestured to the exotic cars parked in the perfectly landscaped driveway.

The valet chuckled at Hector. “Oh, it is not a problem ma’am. It is actually refreshing to have a normal person car here. Would you mind if I parked it over there, nice and close for you when you have to leave?”

By this time, Natalie had walked around to find out what was taking Hector so long. “Jenna, are you flirting with the handsome valet, because if you are, I approve.” She held onto Hector’s arm and warmly laughed in a way that didn’t feel insulting or rude, but it did cause the valet to turn a bright shade of red as he blushed.

“Umm, sorry ma’am. Umm, I’ll just park it right now...” He muttered as he quickly turned away in an effort to hide the growing bulge in his pants.  Natalie didn’t seem to notice the poor valet’s discomfort, but Hector did and could empathize with the man.  He didn’t know what he could do or say that would make the guy feel better and he never got the chance because Natalie pulled him away.

“Come on ya big flirt!  Party time!” She giggled in his ear.

As Natalie and Hector walked arm in arm into the party, Hector felt slightly upset by all the attention Natalie was getting from all the guys.  Not because they weren’t paying attention to him, but because they only seemed to be using Natalie as an excuse to talk to him.

Natalie seemed eat it up and find the situation incredibly amusing. “This is so awesome Jenna!  You’re a veritable stud magnet and I feel like a little girl in a candy store. Uh, he’s cute; can we go talk to those guys?” Natalie didn’t wait for Hector’s agreement before she dragged him over to her target guys.

Thankfully, the drinks were free and Gina, Natalie’s actress friend showed up and rescued Hector.  Gina wasted no time making Hector feel embarrassed and self conscious by her praise of his beauty. It got even worse when Natalie showed Gina the video of him singing in the truck. “Wow! Jenna, that’s incredible! I have to introduce you to Hector!”

Hector found it highly ironic that Mr. Stevens first name was the same as his. Mr. Stevens, aka “Hector” turned out to be a surprisingly normal looking guy.  Hector expected him to be dressed in some smoking jacket and sporting a bad comb over or an 80’s hairstyle. Instead, Hector, as he insisted on being addressed, was wearing simple, everyday jeans with a casual knit sweater over a t-shirt.  Hector was forced to admit that he was actually kind of handsome, for a dude.

He felt himself blushing a lot as Hector asked him tons of questions in a what appeared to be a genuine effort to get to know him versus get into his panties. It didn’t hurt that Hector, the director, made action movies and Hector, as Jenna, loved action movies. Jenna soon found herself alone with Hector as both Gina and Natalie found excuses to leave the pair who were deeply engrossed in how to attract more female viewers to action movies. Jenna pointed out that Sigourney Weaver was awarded a ‘Mom of the Year Award’ for her role in “Aliens” and she kicked ass.  Women liked women who kicked ass, but in a protector role.

Michael, the well muscled and fourth degree black belt star of Mr. Steven’s newest film, scoffed at that idea. “Come on Jenna, you should know better. You might know some martial arts, but women like those sappy tissue soaking movies like ‘The Notebook’!”

Hector found himself not liking how ‘Michael’ not ‘Mike, was dismissing what he was saying. “Michael, even the most macho of men, like you, know better than to get between a mamma bear and her cubs, right?” Jenna asked, hiding her smirk by taking a sip from whatever sugary concoction the last dude gave her.

“Ha!” Mr. Stevens slapped Michael on his back and winked at Jenna. “She got ya there Mike!”

Hector was about to continue with his idea on how Mr. Stevens might make an action film that would attract more female viewers when he was interrupted.

“Jenna!” Gina ran over and grabbed Hector’s arm. He could see the near panic in her eyes.

“Oh shit! Natalie?” Hector stood and desperately looked around the crowd in a desperate effort spot her.  “Where is she?”

Hector followed Gina until they reached the dance floor and spotted a clearing near one of the tables.  He pushed his way through the crowd, much to the surprise of some of the men who appeared to outweigh him by a 100 lbs or more.

He spotted Natalie lying on the floor looking pale and disorientated. He knew she wasn’t drunk since she couldn’t drink alcohol. He rushed to her side. “Natalie! What’s wrong?!”

“Heeey, girlfriend. Did I ever tell ya that you have the most amazing lips? Whoa, I don’t feel so good.” Natalie’s eyes were heavily dilated and she had trouble focusing on anything specific.

“Smatalie, come on, tell me what’s wrong?” Hector pleaded desperately as he felt his eyes beginning to mist up.  He looked over to the nearest table and spotted a pair of guys looking a little extra nervous about something.  A strawberry daiquiri sat on the table in the place that looked like Natalie could have been sitting at.

“Nuphings wrong, I jus’ feel a little sle-sleepy. Hey, could you tuck me in and give me a bedtime kiss?”

“Hand me that drink!” He growled at the dudes standing next to the table.  The closest dude, reached for the glass, but knocked it off the table instead, causing the glass and its contents to explode on the floor.  The guy didn’t look at all apologetic and in Hector’s opinion, he even looked happy about destroying the drink.  That could only mean one thing.  Natalie had been drugged by the asshole and he just destroyed the evidence.

Hector surprised the guy by springing up, grabbing the dude by his shirt and slamming him on the ground as if he was a little child.  “You motherfucker! What in the fuck did you put in her drink?!?””

The guy was still too stunned to speak, let alone breathe as he struggled to regain his wind. Slamming the asshole on the floor caused his two buddies to spring into action in an attempt to defend him from the crazy chick.  Hector wasted no time; one or more of these fucks drugged Natalie and they were going to pay for it.

While still wearing 4 inch heels, Hector jumped up to meet the closest guy by pumping his knees into the guys chest and immediately following those strikes with a left and a right elbow to the side of the guy’s head.  Hector wanted them down and down fast. He did not have time to mess with these clowns while Natalie was still in trouble.  The lights went out in his opponent’s eyes and as soon as his feet touched the ground, Hector spun and delivered a vicious side kick to the next attacker’s stomach, instantly stopping the man in mid-lunge and causing him to fall to the floor on his knees gasping for air and holding his stomach.

By this time, asshole number one was beginning to catch his breath and Hector wasted no time jumping on him and pinning him to the ground with his body. He didn’t give a fuck if the asshole could see right up his skirt.  “Which pocket are the fucking pills in asshole?!?”

The man seemed surprised by the fact that a woman was easily holding him down. “I, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about you crazy bitch!”

While holding the man down with his hand pressed firmly against the man’s throat, Hector quickly frisked his pockets.  He found the man’s wallet and after flipping it open two condoms and a small plastic bag that contained five tiny unmarked white pills fell out.  “What the fuck are these?!?”

The man struggled to work out an excuse, but Hector was distracted when Gina yelling Natalie’s name. He glanced over at the prone Natalie. She was going into convulsions.  Hector grabbed the baggie, stuffing it into his top with one hand while he took a quick look at the man’s driver’s license before he stood up, leaned over, grabbed the asshole by his collar and lifted him partially off the floor as he bent over and stared directly in the man’s eyes.  “She better not fucking die, Jason Carlson, because if she does, there isn’t a single place on this planet that will be safe for you. I will hunt you down and I will end your fucking miserable excuse for a life!  Do you fucking understand me you fucking little cocksucker?!?” Hector didn’t wait for the asshole to answer him. He saw the fear deep in the man’s eyes.

Hector let go of the man’s collar and stood, contemptuously dismissing the man he just threatened to kill while ignoring everyone’s astonished stares as he returned to Natalie’s side.  He immediately worried about her biting or choking on her own tongue, but without anything to force into her mouth to prevent her from injuring herself, Hector gently, yet forcefully opened her mouth and placed the edge of his hand in her mouth for her to bite down on.  He was rewarded with pain as she started to convulse again and reflexively bit down on his hand, hard.  He grimaced and swallowed the pain because, while it hurt, he knew he would heal and there was no way Natalie could actually bite through his hand.

“I gotta get her to the hospital...” He muttered as he looked around the room and weighed his options.  The closest hospital was 15 minutes away. His house was a little closer. The hospital was the obvious solution. He had the pills, the doctors could do some CSI thing on them and work out a fix for Natalie while the machine, well, he wasn’t sure.  If they called an ambulance, it would take them at least 10 minutes to get here, depending on where the ambulance was staged and how busy they were tonight.  Decision made, he pulled her off the floor and held her his arms as if she was a little child.  He ran for the door and yelled for the valet to get his keys.

The valet jumped to assist Hector and helped him get Natalie into the cab of his truck.  Hector wasted no time racing away from the mansion and towards the hospital as fast as he could safely go. He didn’t want to get into an accident because even if the crash didn’t kill Natalie, the delay would.  He made it about halfway to the hospital when Natalie vomited all over herself and the seat.  Hector slammed on his brakes and used his arm to help prevent Natalie from slamming into the dash as her head lolled around dangerously as he brought his pickup to a halt on the side of the road.

She wasn’t breathing.  Thankful for his smaller sized female body, Hector moved to Natalie’s side and stuck his finger in her mouth to clear her airway.  He was immediately rewarded with a cough from Natalie that expelled a mass of vomit and sprayed it onto Hector’s face and chest, but he didn’t care.  Natalie was breathing again and that was all the mattered.

“Fuck! I don’t know if she is going to make it...” Hector grabbed his purse, pulled out his cell phone screamed, “Call Greg!”  Amazingly, his girl themed cell phone did just what he asked.

Greg was pleased as punch, whatever that meant.  He chuckled as he completed the testing of his Super Spider Suit v2.0, or was it v3.0?  He wasn’t sure, but it was, in his opinion, one kick ass suit.  He wasn’t able to actually test the bullet proof feature because who really likes to shoot themselves? Well, aside from super depressed people.

The knife protection, that seemed to work, but he was unwilling to try stabbing himself with all his strength to confirm.  The environmental controls worked like a charm.  He was able to hold a frozen steak in his hand without feeling a bit of a chill and he could hold his hand over a hot burner for a few seconds before it started to get warm. No, he wasn’t fireproof, but the environment did provide some protection.  The low-light and thermographic in his goggles worked awesome while the auto-wear part was nice. Just nice, not great. The suit could be worn under his clothes in a standby mode disguised as a t-shirt and with a thought, activated to cover his entire body, but he still had to remove his clothes.

Maybe v3.5 will have that feature because it sure would be a handy way to keep his secret identity secret because it has got to be hard to change clothes without someone seeing you these days.  Clark Kent would be screwed now that phone booths don’t exist any longer.

Self-repair features, he couldn’t test because he didn’t want to make some weapon that might blow up the house just to put a hole in the suit. A light saber might be kind of cool though.

The absolute cat’s meow, in his opinion, were the built-in web shooters with their programmable web life duration.  Those, we was able to test and he used them to swing from rafter to rafter in the garage with ease.  No, the rafters weren’t as cool as skyscrapers, but it proved his concept without him needing to worry about going splat.

There was another thing he wanted to add for v3.6. An emergency parachute mode that would activate if he fell.  He was having a grand time climbing upside down on the ceiling, attaching a web line and dropping himself headfirst like a spider when he spotted the clock and discovered it was already 12pm.

“Crap! I have to work tomorrow...” Greg dropped down to the floor and activated his suit’s storage mode causing the fabric to appear to melt as it flowed into his chest, forming what appeared to be a simple, form fitting white t-shirt with a matching tighty-whitey men’s brief.

“Note for v3.7, add a built in clock and alarm to the goggles...” Greg muttered as retrieved his phone from the garage. “and Bluetooth.”  Satisfied with his design plans and yawning furiously, he hid the MAU before heading to bed.

The ringing of his phone roused him from an excellent dream that starred Michelle. “Fuck...this better not be a wrong number...” He muttered as he checked his clock, 2am, as he grabbed his phone off the nightstand.

The caller ID displayed “Jennifer Vasquez”. That woke him up. “Shit! I hope she’s okay...” The idea that Hector was a ‘she’ brought a smile to his face as he stabbed the answer button on the fourth ring.

“Greg! Oh my god! Please!” Greg heard both the near panicked, hysterical tone in her voice and the sound of Hector’s truck engine in the background. He must be speeding, a lot right now and adding that to both the time and the sound of her voice, something must be very, very bad. If Hector was in emergency mode, shit must have really hit the fan. “It’s Natalie, she’s dying. You gotta get the thing ready! Be there in five minutes!”

Damn, that sounded serious. “Shit! Okay, I’m-”  Greg heard his line go dead. “Damn it! She hung up...” He wanted to ask for more details, but he decided now was not the time. She was obviously driving at a high rate of speed and talking on a cell phone while driving normally was dangerous enough.

Instead of wasting time throwing on his pants, he activated his suit while he scrambled to the laundry room to retrieve the MAU. He kept the mask off, but he could get it deployed in less than a second if he needed it. Like, if he had to hold off the police to give Hector some time or something.  MAU in hand, he set it on the garage floor and activated it.  Just after it finished deploying, he heard the sound of Hector’s truck squealing to a stop in the driveway.  Greg raced into the living room and opened the front door, in time to let Hector, as Jennifer, carrying a woman with barf on her clothes, hair and face into the house. Her lips looked a little on the blue side and he hoped that didn’t mean she was dead. Even with all that, he could tell the woman was very pretty and it was obvious that Hector cared about her a great deal.

“She stopped breathing when I got here! Hurry! We got to get her in the damn thing! I am going to fucking kill the asshole that did this to her!” Jennifer yelled with tears streaming down her face.

If she had just stopped breathing, that meant they had less than five minutes to get her revived before possible brain damage occurred. Greg didn’t bother wasting time trying to close their front door. Instead, he jumped past Jennifer and opened the door leading into the garage.

While still holding the stranger in her arms, Jennifer slapped her hand on the paw print. “Come on, Come on you piece of shit. Work!”

Nothing happened. “Maybe you need to be a little calmer? Try taking a deep breath first...”

“Damn it Greg! I don’t have time for this shit!” Jennifer turned to glare at Greg, before turning back to the machine.  “Sorry...” She visible shuddered as she used every ounce of her self-control to bring her emotions under control.  Greg sighed with relief when an image of a beautiful redheaded woman appeared on the display.  The woman’s image shimmered a couple of times as it grew more refined before Jennifer removed her hand. “Good enough...”

Greg touched the purplish outer crystal to get the machine’s doorway to appear. “Thanks.” Jennifer said as she carefully placed the woman into the machine.  “Fuck! How can I get her to activate the machine if she’s unconscious?!?!”

Greg didn’t have an answer for her not one that he thought would work anyway. “Umm, maybe you could hold her arm up and over the activator crystal thing, then let go and jump out before her hand can hit it?”

Jennifer appeared to think about it for all of two nanoseconds. “Fuck it!” She jumped into the machine and desperately hugged the other woman in her in her arms before turning to face Greg. “Thanks, bud. Hope this works...” She said as she held the other woman’s hand, causing them to touch the crystal together.

Chapter Note: Well, I posted it a little early. The previous chapter got a lot of views and comments. Yummy comments...thanks. :)

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

Hector didn’t know what to expect when the door vanished and the red light washed over the two of them.  The crazy machine could combine their bodies, put their heads on one body, do nothing at all or turn them both into a pile of goo, but when the door reappeared and Natalie groaned in his arms; he felt an immense feeling of relief wash over him.  Then the weight of her body surprised him because Natalie felt like a feather in his arms before.  He didn’t have time to worry about that right now though; he had to get them both out of the machine.

He stepped out, his high heels making a clicking sound on the garage floor and his skirt felt tighter, more restrictive around his legs.  Natalie was starting to come around and supporting her own weight more, but he still had to support her body.  Greg noticed him struggling a little with Natalie’s weight and gallantly stepped forward to lend him a hand. Together, well, more Greg, the two of them got Natalie into the house and made her comfortable on their couch.

“What happened? Where am I?” Hector anxiously watched as Natalie began to stretch and sleepily mutter as if she was waking up from a long and pleasant nap versus a near death experience.  Then, her eyes focused on Hector. She blinked with confusion a couple of times, but then, her eyes snapped open and jumped onto the couch, ready to launch herself over the back and out of the house. “Stay back! I don’t know who the hell you two are or what you’re trying to pull here, but I am not going to go down so easily!”

This was getting out of control. Hector took a step forward. “Natalie, calm down...”

“Stay back! However you are. I’ll scream!”

“Please, Natalie, I know it looks weird, but it’s me, Jenna. Please, we’re not going to hurt you.”

“Bitch, You. Are. Not. Jenna...” Natalie’s flared with shock and she gasped with surprise. “Holy shit! You’re me!  Okay, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing here, but it’s over. Where’s the phone? I’m calling the cops!” Natalie looked desperately back and forth between Greg and Hector.

Hector motioned for Greg to step back. “Look, Natalie. I’m really Jenna. I can explain, if you will calm down and let me, please?”

Natalie relaxed a little, but she still looked ready to bolt. “Go ahead...”

“Umm, well, that’s actually going to be a little hard and well, it’s kind of a funny story, but you see, I found this alien device and I kind of sort of changed myself into a woman, but then I met you, well, you bumped into me.” Hector could tell Natalie wasn’t buying it and he couldn’t blame her because even he thought he sounded like an idiot. “Okay, look. We were at the party and that asshole, Jason, slipped something into your drink.  Gina found me, I kicked Jason’s ass, you starting having convulsions, so I started to take you to the hospital. You threw up and stopped breathing on me, but I managed to get you breathing again. I wasn’t sure if you would make it. So, I brought you here and fixed you up.”

Natalie's eyes grew wide and she gasped with shock. “Oh my god. Did Gina put you up to this?” Natalie looked around the room as if trying to spot hidden cameras. “Am I being punked? Who did your makeup because you look exactly like me...”

“Smatalie, please. It’s not that...” Hector did not like where this was going.

Greg stepped forward. “Whoa there, umm, Jenna. She figured it out. No reason to keep trying. I told you that the alien body snatcher gag wouldn’t work. You should go get out of your makeup now because the footage we have, it kinda sucks. Not even worth keeping...”

Natalie reached up and tugged on her hair. “Oh my god! What in the hell did you do to my hair?!? You bitch! You better not have super-glued my wig! They are custom made from real human hair!”  She tugged on her hair a few times more. “Ow, oh my god, you did! That’s it, this shit’s not even remotely funny.  Get me outta this place and I want my fucking Louboutin’s back you stupid, fake little bitch!” Natalie snarled at Hector.

Hector didn’t know what to say or do. He didn’t plan for any of this to happen. Her words hit him hard. Harder than he expected because he realized that he liked her, liked and cared about her a lot.  He was a fake and he had lied to her. Lied to her worse than humanly possible because she still thought he was a woman and there was no possible way he could explain things in any way that would make things any better. It could only make things even worse. He felt the amazing connection they once had disappearing faster than a sandcastle when the tide came in.

His only impossible hope was that eventually, Natalie would realize what happened, that he, well, Jenna had saved her life, and forgive him. Well, forgive Jenna because as soon as Natalie was gone, he was going to turn back to Hector and never look back.

Thank god for Greg’s little improvisation because it gave them both an out, but it was not how he wanted the night to end.  Hell, he didn’t even know how he wanted the night to end because from the moment Natalie bumped into him, nothing went according to plan.  It was supposed to be so simple.  Try being a woman for an hour or two, realize it sucked, come home and change back and then, laugh about it a few days later.

Instead, he found the most amazingly smart, funny, caring and beautiful woman he ever knew, and thanks to the machine; he had lost her as soon as he found her.  As Natalie glared at him, he muttered a quick, “Sorry...” and woodenly marched into the garage to get out of his ‘makeup’.  He made it all the way to the door before the tears started to fall, but he didn’t care.

He felt so dead inside and he briefly considered asking Greg to take Natalie home for him using the excuse that it would take too long for him to get out of his ‘makeup’, but no, he had to change back into Jenna; if only to give Natalie back her shoes.  Why did she care about those things so damn much?  The way she was acting, a person might think those shoes were made out of gold, diamonds or something.

Hector placed his hand on the machine’s paw print and brought up his Jenna image, complete with the skirt and top Natalie let him have and not but not least, the shoes. The Louboutin’s as she called them.  With his Jenna image locked in, he stepped into the machine and activated it. When he stepped out, he felt strong again, but not any better emotionally.

He needed to drive her home, but his truck was a mess with all the puke.  Hector walked back into the house and Greg met him at the door. “She’s gone.  She ran out the front door saying she would just walk and call a cab. Well, she didn’t say it like that, but that was the gist of it. I wasn’t sure if I should try to stop her...”

“Fuck me to tears...” Hector couldn’t let Natalie try to walk. First of all, it wasn’t safe and if that wasn’t enough of a reason to stop her, it was 20 miles to her condo and no way, not with the shoes she was wearing. “Can I borrow your car? My truck has puke all over it.”

Greg nodded and pointed to the hook where his keys were hanging.  He looked a little unsure about what to do next. Almost like he wanted to give Hector a hug. “Umm, sorry man...I’ll see if I can do something about your truck.”

“Thanks...” Hector whispered and turned back toward the garage as his eyes begin to mist over. Greg was such a good friend and with the way he felt right now, he wasn’t sure if he deserved it.

It didn’t take long for Hector to spot Natalie. She had only made it to the end of the block and was sitting on the curb. It looked like she was crying and that made Hector feel even worse. He stopped the car, got out and sat down next to Natalie. She inched herself away.

“I thought I knew you. I trusted you and this is what you do to me. Play some sick prank on me?!”  Her shoulders began heaving as she sobbed.

Hector wanted so badly to take her in his arms and hug her, but he knew she would not allow that. “I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen.”

Natalie turned her head to look at Hector. Her tears poured from her eyes. “Did Gina put you up to this? Was she in on this, this thing?”

“No, Gina had nothing to do with it. It, umm, it was all my idea...” Hector couldn’t continue because his throat closed up as tears began to pour from his eyes.  This crying shit sucks.

“Oh, that’s great!” Natalie suddenly stood. “Well, ha ha, joke’s on you, Jenna! If that is even your real name. I’m not laughing. What did you do? How did you get me to, where ever this place is? Wait until my chemo meds kicked in and then, when I was too tired to care, pretended to take me home?”

“No...It was...” Hector wanted to tell her the truth, but he knew she would never believe him now and maybe not ever.  Natalie was pretty pissed right now and he doubted she would believe truth because even the truth was too crazy to believe.

“You know what? I don’t care. I really don’t. All I want is to go home, get my shoes back and get on with my life.” Natalie opened the passenger door to Greg’s car. “Now, bitch, are you going to drive me or do I have to steal this car?”

Hector sighed. “Yeah...”

The drive back to Natalie’s place was silent and tense. Hector wanted to say something, anything that might bridge the gap between them, but he had nothing. The only good thing about having nothing was that having nothing meant he felt too dead and hurt inside to even cry. Natalie never said a word as she kept to herself, pressed against the passenger door in an effort to keep as much distance between her and Hector as possible.

Once they arrived at Natalie’s condo complex, Hector stopped the car, took off Natalie’s Louboutin’s, and handed them to her. “Call Gina when you get in. I’m sure she’s worried about you and no, she had nothing to do with this.”

“Whatever...” Natalie said as she slammed the door of Greg’s car and stormed away, never once looking back.

Hector waited until she made it safely inside her complex before he drove away. With a heavy sigh, he drove away. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror, hoping Natalie would run out, like in the movies and try to stop him from leaving, but she didn’t. The tears started falling shortly after. He felt them dripping off his cheek and onto chest, eventually, making a cold trail between his breasts.

He had never felt so happy to get home. His truck was no longer in the driveway, but he found it in the garage when he hit Greg’s garage door opener.  As soon as he spotted his truck and the booth, he quickly pressed the button to close the door before anyone could spot the booth and wonder what it might be.  Not that he expected too many eyes at 3:30am, but it didn’t hurt to be careful with that thing, especially now.

With bare feet, he let himself into the house via the front door. Careful to not make a lot of noise, he slowly closed and locked the door behind him. When he turned, Greg was standing in the entryway, waiting for him.

“Ahh!” A surprised squeak escaped Hector’s mouth.

“Sorry, but is everything alright?” Greg asked, concern for his friend plain in his eyes.

Hector sighed with frustration. “Yes, no, maybe...she still thinks it was some kind of prank and hates my guts. So, I guess things could be worse. I mean, she could have believed us, hated my guts and called the police on us.”

“Yeah, that would be bad. So, umm, I cleaned your truck. Smells good as new and no evidence if she does call the police.”

“Oh, thanks, I think.” Hector felt a giggle try to escape because the situation would be downright comical if this was a movie.

Greg ran his hand nervously through his hair. “Yeah, anyway, it wasn’t a problem. I got the MAU to whip up little Decepticon ‘bot. I modified him for cleaning and called him Wheelie. He’s got a bit of a personality on him and funny. So, anyway, I dropped the little bugger inside, closed the door and after a few swear words, he went into action. It was amazing how clean he got your truck!”

It didn’t really register with Hector what Greg had just said because he kind of tuned him out once he heard him say, ‘MAU’. “Okay, well, I guess I should go change back now...” Hector trudged past Greg and entered the garage.

Changing back proved to be harder than he thought and it wasn’t due to the machine acting difficult or not working at all.  Getting the machine to display his image only took a few seconds, but after he removed his hand from the alien paw print, it took him over 15 minutes of staring blankly at the holographic display of himself before he felt like doing anything.

He simply didn’t know what to do about Jenna and Natalie until he walked over to his truck parked in the other stall and studied the ghostly reflection of the girl in the side window.  She looked so sad with her tear streaked face, but she had to go.  She had no place in this world, not without Natalie.

His holographic image shimmered once, but appeared unchanged before it continued with its slow rotation. Satisfied with his image, he removed his hand from the alien paw print, entered the machine and after the blink, he exited the machine with a sad smile on his face.

It felt good to be out of that ridiculous skirt, not have breasts to deal with, not have to sit down to pee and best of freaking all, not feel like he was going to erupt into tears at the sight of a kitten.  Oh yeah, The Hector was back and the ladies better watch out because he was back on the hunt.  With a smile on his face and a cocky spring to his step, Hector turned off the light in the garage, closed the door and sauntered into his room. He felt too drained to bother with brushing his teeth, but he did perform a brief inspection to confirm that “The Hector” truly was back. He was.

He grumbled a bit about his broken alarm clock, but after he set his alarm using his cell phone’s alarm feature, he rolled over and instantly fell asleep.

When Greg rolled out of bed and got started with his day, he was surprised to discover that Hector had already left for work.  He kind of expected Hector to call in sick after his wild night on the other side of the tracks.  After he finished his breakfast, he collapsed the machine and hid it with the dirty clothes before he left for the office.

It was a sunny day and he felt surprisingly full of energy and alert after having such a stressful night with Hector’s friend showing up at the house covered in her own vomit and half dead. Well, she wasn't breathing when Hector brought her into the house. So, maybe she was dead.  Yeah, it was a pretty crazy night, but the IM he received from Michelle certainly helped cheer him up.

>Morning!  How was the club? :)

>Oh, I decided not to go. Hector ran into an old buddy of his and they decided to do something else.  How was your night?

>Good. It was nice to hang w/ my mom...sorry I couldn’t go w/ u :(

>Oh, that’s ok. Lunch?

>Sure! 11:30 work?

>Yep! No sushi, plz :-p

>:)

Greg felt pretty damn happy with himself and it showed in his work. He knocked out a record amount of paperwork and cleared a full day’s worth of transactions before 11am.  For once, his boss even smiled at him when he came by to tell him he was doing a good job.  Greg felt so motivated, sorry, ‘engaged’ after his boss’s little pep talk that he decided to waste a few minutes and call Hector to find out how he was doing.  A text just didn't seem to be personal enough after last night.  In addition to that, he also wanted to ask Hector about Michelle using the MAU for her costume tonight.

Hector answered after only a few rings. “Hey Greg, what’s up? Is everything okay?”

Greg thought Hector sounded a little down when compared to his usual self. “Oh, nothing. Umm, sorry about last night. I should have gone with you. You know, watched your back like you would’ve done for me.”

Hector surprised Greg by chuckling at him. “Yeah, Thanks, but now I totally understand why you didn’t and I don’t blame you at all.” Hector sighed. “It’s just that, well, I have had some time to think about it and I’m actually kinda glad you didn’t because then, Natalie would probably be dead right now.”

“What? How is that possible? She only went because you were there, the old time traveler’s dilemma. I mean, if I had been with you, then you wouldn’t have met her and not gone to the party, right?”

“Yeah, but she would have and she would still have been drugged by those jerks and she probably would have died, but maybe not, hard to say and nothing we can do will change it now.”

Greg thought Hector sounded a little more broken up about the chick than he expected. “I guess, so, I am going to guess that now is probably a bad time to ask, but about Michelle and you know....”

“Fuck man, after how badly I screwed up? How can I say no to you?”  Hector laughed. “If we aren’t arrested and our house isn’t covered in some UFO protective dome like they did in ET, then sure, not a problem!”

“Oh, that’s reassuring, thanks.” Greg replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Hehe, de nada! Anything else?” Hector asked over the beeping sounds of a construction vehicle backing up.

“Yeah, are ya still going to wanna go tonight? I mean, if not, I understand...”

“Hmmm, I dunno, maybe?”

“Okay, well, gotta get back to the grindstone. You know, all this paper is sooo heavy. Hasta la vista, punk!”  Greg cut the connection before Hector could respond, but Hector’s gasp at the very end told him he had achieved his desired goal.

Michelle surprised Greg by coming to his cubicle a few minutes before 11:30 to fetch him for their lunch date. “So, this is where you work?” She studied his cube decorations with a pleased smirk and a curious lift of her eyebrow. She pointed to Greg’s Optimus Prime action figure posed with a sharpened pencil to make it look like Optimus was using it like a sword.

“Oh, nice Transformers doll.” Michelle playfully poked fun at Greg.

Greg held clasped his hands to his chest as if stabbed in the heart. “Ouch, thy fair maiden’s arrow hath struckest a mortal blow upon her foe.”

Michelle’s smile lit up Greg’s little cubicle and caused him to stare at her with wonder, until the both seemed to realize that they were at one of those awkward pauses in the conversation.

“Yes, well...” Michelle was the first to recover when she pointed at Greg’s 2013 Avengers wall calendar. “Oh, I see you’re an Avengers fan...” She leaned over and Greg forced himself to ignore his spider sense warning as Michelle absently rested her hand on his shoulder and pointed to today’s date.

Greg noticed two things almost immediately. One, the general office noise died down a lot as the normal chatter stopped. He expected his nosey cube neighbors were listening to every word they could hear right now. Two, he didn’t care because he caught a whiff of Michelle’s subtle, yet delicate perfume and decided he enjoyed the scent, a lot. It was in no way overpowering like some of the other office ladies. It was so subtle that if she hadn’t leaned over him, he might not have ever noticed it.

“I see you have today’s date highlighted with the convention inked in. It looks a little old. I take it that you were planning on going without me?” Michelle coyly smiled down at him. Her hazel eyes sparkled with amusement.

“Umm, well, you see...” Greg felt twisted and tongue tied as he tried to figure out how to respond.  She was so beautiful and close that he didn’t know what to say.

Michelle giggled pleasantly. “Oh, it’s okay. Sorry, just messing with you. So, ready to go?”

“Yep!” Relieved, Greg stood and grabbed his car keys. “Umm, for the safety and wellbeing of our curbs, how about if I drive?”

“Oh, so it’s your turn to kidnap me this time?” Michelle pretended to be afraid as she purposely pitched her voice just loud enough for Greg’s neighbors to hear.

“So mean.” Greg mouthed to Michelle, much to her amusement.

Lunch turned out to be at a nice sit-down TGI-Apple-Chili clone restaurant with plenty of space between the walls and the parking lot. They both laughed over that important design decision since it would be exceptionally hard for a confused driver to smash their car through the walls at this place and it wasn’t something either of them would have noticed until yesterday.

“So, Catwoman? What’s your costume look like?”  Greg felt a little silly asking her that because he caught her smirk as he asked the question. “Well, besides like ‘Catwoman’, which one did you base your costume off of?”

Michelle drew out the suspense by taking a calculated sip from her drink before replying. “Oh, that’s good, because for a second there I thought you didn’t know what Catwoman looked like.”

“Ha! As if, because...” Greg stopped where he was going with that train of thought because he knew that telling Michelle, a woman he was very interested in getting to know better, that he thought another woman or in the case of the Catwoman character, women, was hot, he could wreck things before they got off the ground.

She grinned at him like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary. “Go on? I’m simply fascinated by where you were going with that...”

“Well, since you have asked, I thought the costume, and strictly judging by artistic merit alone,  Julie Newmar’s Catwoman costume is the gold standard, Michelle Pfeiffer’s costume was twisted and edgy, but I have to admit that I really liked Anne Hathaway’s modern and high tech Catwoman costume.” Greg finished with a triumphant grin.

“Oh, you’re good, very good.” Michelle pouted. “Well, I wanted to do the new Catwoman costume, but it was kinda hard to find the material they used and once I did find it,  super hard to work with. So, I’m not super happy with it...”

“I might be able to help you with that, if you were willing to meet me at my house before heading to the convention.” Greg’s heart pounded in his chest. This was it. The big test of trust.

She smirked and slowly stirred her drink with her straw. “Not that I would suspect you of trying something, but what do you have? A loom or something?”

Greg chuckled. “No, nothing that high tech. It’s just a little gizmo my roommate found. It’s really good at costume design. See?” Greg willed the chest portion of his Spiderman suit to display as he sat up in his seat a little higher while pulling up his shirt for Michelle to inspect the visible portion of his costume.

“Wow, I don’t know which question to ask first. How big  a Spiderman fan does someone have to be before they decide to wear a costume under their work clothes or holy crap, this looks so perfect, how did you do that?” She paused as if trying to decide which way to go. “Yes, I think I will go with the, how did you do that?” Michelle asked as she leaned over the table and then, hesitated before Greg nodded for her to go ahead and try touching his costume.

Michelle ran her hands over Greg’s rock hard abs as she lightly pushed and pinched the fabric in an attempt to get a better feel. “Seriously, the texture and the colors on this are so good and your abs,” She quickly glanced up at Greg, surprised by her slip of the tongue. “I, I mean the fit, it’s incredible. How?”

“Thanks for noticing, I’ve been working out.” Greg smiled at her as she leaned back in her seat and blushed. “But, I told ya, we have a little gizmo and I even had to get special clearance from Hector just to let you in on the secret.” Greg tucked his shirt back into his pants.

“Wow, just wow...” Michelle whispered as she shook her head with wonder.

Greg couldn’t tell if she was wowing over the costume, his abs or maybe both, but her reaction felt pretty good. “So, ya coming over?”

“Hell ya! What’s your address and what time do you want me there?”

The end of the work day and the start of the weekend could not come soon enough for Greg. Time seemed to drag on forever, but he did find his coworker’s sudden interest in where he went to lunch very amusing.

As Agent L worked on jacking up their rental car, he swore up and down, left and right. He even invented a few new words. The cheap ass scissor jack sucked. The way Murphy was fucking with him right now, he knew they were on an active MAU event.  There was no other way to explain the seemingly random chain of bad luck that had seemed to dog them since last night.

First, it was their jet getting deadlined. Followed by having to fly commercial and as usual, their flight was delayed. Next, the fucking rental company lost their reservation and the only car available was a fricken tiny Toy’ Yaris. The damn thing might as well be a Yugo for all the space it had. It drove like a damn go kart and on the highway, it wasn’t only the semi’s that blew it off the road; it was also the full sized SUVs.  At least the damn thing was black.

Shortly after reaching the highway, it didn’t take long for the pair to get stuck in a monster traffic jam that further delayed them by two hours. Finally, with less than 100 miles to reach their suspect area, their fucking tire blew. Oh well, nothing they could do about it now except mount the spare.  Thankfully, it shouldn’t take too long and before they left the rental company’s lot, Agent L confirmed that the spare was inflated. He had a flat before and found the spare deflated and since then, he always checked the spare before embarking on any long road-trip. So, that was one less thing Murphy could mess with on this trip.

The lug nuts proved to be a bitch and a half, but the last one proved to be a total mega-bitch.  It took all his strength and righteous anger to get the bolt to spin, but when he did break it loose; he felt nothing but satisfaction at a job well done.  The bolt kept spinning and spinning and spinning. It spun far too easily.  Agent L pulled the lug wrench off and he was left with a nice and brilliantly shined, but thoroughly stripped bolt as tiny flakes of metal shavings dusted the wheel.

“Son of a @$@##!!!*@ &@^@%1!@^ @^@&&!^@)*& &@^# ^@^!#@**” Agent L screamed and kicked the stuck wheel with frustration.

Chapter Note: I hope this answers a few questions. Don't worry, Natalie will be back...eventually.

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

Physically, Hector felt fine, never better, but it took all his willpower to decide not to call in sick when his alarm began ringing promptly at 0530.  The routine got him through the morning and it was only after he walked outside that he remembered his truck was parked in the garage.

“Damn it!” He trudged back into the house and entered the garage.  The damn machine was still there, taunting him with its presence.  He debated trying to collapse the thing, but he didn’t care enough. If the Men in Black came to haul him off right now or flash their little red laser light things in his eyes, he would only feel relieved that it was over.

The cab of his truck surprised him. One, it didn’t smell like vomit or harsh chemicals. Two, it looked better than new and showroom floor spotless and three, there was a robot sitting in the passenger seat.  “Yo! What’s up, boss?”

Hector jumped back as a small robot that looked like the little toy truck Decepticon from the movie stood up and waved at him from the passenger seat. “Holy crap! What the hell are you?”

“Oh, and a happy good morning to you too meat bag.  I slave away all night to get this box of bolts you call a truck clean and that’s how ya thank me!?!?”  The little robot stood with his vicious looking claw hands on his hips.

“Umm, sorry, thanks? I think...” Hector found himself feeling a little overwhelmed by the scrappy little robot chewing him out.  If there was ever a morning to stop for a cup of espresso, this morning was it.

“Well, that’s a little bit better...” The robot crossed its arms over its chest. “So, yer lucky your meat bag buddy made me.  This truck was a freaking mess, but I got it done.” It, or he, sprayed a mist of some liquid in the air as he held up one of its feet and a monster truck wheel made out of a sponge-like material spun rapidly with a whirring sound. “So, I got the crap out of yer fabric and thanks to my dirt disintegrator,” A small raygun shaped tool folded out from behind his left shoulder and shot a small red spark a few inches out of the barrel. “It’s almost better than new in here. I even did yer windows for ya, because, that’s just the kinda bot I am!”

Hector decided that the thing probably wasn’t going to attack him. So, he climbed into the cab and started the motor. “Umm, you need me to open the door for you, so you can, you know?” He gestured out to the garage.

“Whatta crazy?!? No way am I going to let you take this truck outta the yard here without my supervision. See, ya work construction right?” The robot stood on the seat and expectantly tapped his foot.

Hector hesitantly nodded his head.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought because I identified over 50 distinct soil samples in this here cab and if you think I am gonna let you muck it all up again, ya got another thing coming, capish?” The robot sat back down in the passenger seat and crossed its arms.

“Well, then, okay. So, you gotta name?” Hector hit the garage door opener and put his truck into reverse.

“Wheelie, I guess yer that Hector dude Bossman Greg was talking about, right?” The robot asked.

The garage door was open all the way. So, Hector backed his truck out. “Yeah and I hope you can make yourself look like something else because having someone spot you would be the last thing I need right now.”

Wheelie perked up. “Oh yeah, boss! I totally understand where yer coming from ‘cuz you meat bags can be a touchy bunch...” He noticed Hector glance over at him with a frown. “Oh, but not you boss. I mean, other meat bags, but here, I’ll show ya!”

Wheelie quickly morphed into a mini monster truck, complete with the Transformers’ sound effects. “See what I mean boss? Ain’t no meat bag gonna know, right?” His voice sounded like it came out of the grill of the mini-truck.

“Oh, that’s pretty cool and thanks again for cleaning my truck up.”  Hector’s thanks mollified the little robot and he or it, remained blissfully silent for the rest of the drive to Hector’s job site.

He had a lot on his mind with Natalie and he wondered how she was doing this morning.  He also wondered when the police or men in black would come haul him away. He didn’t know what would be worse to be arrested for. Kidnapping or using some alien technology?  Probably the alien tech because the government would probably just ship him off to Gitmo and call him a terrorist or something.  He wouldn’t be at all surprised to find their house covered in some protective bio-dome with black helicopters circling overhead when he got home this evening.

Maybe fixing Natalie with the machine was a bad idea, but Hector still believed it was the right thing to do. She was alive and probably cured. He smiled at what her reaction and her doctor’s reaction might be when they discovered that she had her ovaries back. He probably shouldn’t have made her a redhead, but she looked good and it beat being bald.  She could always color it. Giving her the healing factor, that could come back to bite him and Greg in the ass, but at the time, he was desperate and he decided it fell under the ‘stupid but it works’ idea category.

Hector made it through the morning without any life threatening accidents and had managed to shake off most of his funk when Greg called him about his new girlfriend using the machine. As badly as he had screwed up the night before, he didn’t see why not and he told Greg that.  He wasn’t sure about going to the convention still, but since it was originally his idea, he would feel like a jerk for backing out on Greg now.

Lunch proved to be entertaining. Eating lunch in the cab of his truck was almost like going home to his parent’s house.

As he opened his door and started to climb into his truck, Wheelie transformed back into robot mode. “Whoa boss! Not so fast there with the muddy boots. Knock those puppies off first because if ya think I am gonna let ya get my clean floor mats all muddy again, ya got another thing coming!”

Hector banged his boots together before he spun around and closed his door. “Ya know, you don’t have to keep my truck so clean.” Wheelie tilted his head to the side as if confused by Hector. “I mean, I do work construction. Keeping it clean is an impossible task with all the dirt and mud...”

Wheelie collapsed to his knees and held his hands together with supplication. “Boss, Whatta ya saying? You don’t want me?”

Hector did not expect the conversation to go the way it was going, but he also didn’t expect to be talking to a robot either. “No, no, no, that’s not it at all. You’re awesome, honest.” Wheelie perked up a bit. “It’s just that having you keep my truck spotless all the time might be a little too hard or maybe even boring. Wouldn’t you like other things to do besides clean my truck?”

“Oh no boss, cleaning is my job, my entire reason for being. Without cleaning, what else would I do? I’d just be scrap metal and obsolete. Please don’t make me obsolete, boss! Please...” Wheelie crawled on his knees to Hector’s side and tugged desperately on his arm.

“Cleaning ya say?” Hector speculatively appraised the little bot.

Wheelie jerked his head up and down with a hopeful expression. How a robot without a face could appear hopeful, Hector had no idea, but he somehow did with a robot version of puppy dog eyes.

“Well, I think I got something for ya then. Something that will never end and if it does, there’s still my truck and Greg’s car. Oh yeah, and the garage, but what would ya think about keeping my house clean?” Hector smiled down at Wheelie.

Wheelie’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets and he gleefully clapped his hands together. “Boss, really? A whole house? You would let me clean it?”

“Yep! You’re just the bot for the job too. No one or no thing is qualified to clean up after two bachelors. At least, that is what my mamma keeps telling me when she visits.” Hector chuckled at the memory of his mom’s last visit to his house. She picked up a few things of his out of habit before she finally gave up with exasperation.

“Oh boss, thank ya, thank ya, thank ya! I won’t let ya down!” Wheelie sat back down in the passenger seat.

With that crisis averted, Hector reached back and pulled his lunch cooler from the back seat. “Whoa there boss! Yer not thinking about eating your lunch in here are ya?”

During his drive home, Greg felt more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  What if the feds or the military had their house surrounded? What if Michelle didn’t come? What if Michelle did come and then freaked out like Hector’s friend? Not that he expect it to happen, but what if the machine didn’t work and he looked like an idiot?

Oh god, he still couldn’t believe that Michelle was going to be coming to his house! What if the mess scared her off?  He had a lot of cleaning to do before she arrived and once he got home, he only had, maybe, an hour to get it done.

“Crap, crap, crap, craaap!” Greg banged on his steering wheel with frustration as he pulled into his neighborhood. He peered up and looked all over for black helicopters, but spotted none. “Phew!”  He felt relieved when he pulled into the driveway and no SWAT team rushed out to arrest him.

Hector’s truck was parked in the usual spot, which reminded him that he should have called and asked Hector to tidy up the house a bit, but it was too late now; he would just have to do what he could. Maybe he could make another cleaning bot?   “Hey there boss! Shoes off!”

Okay, maybe not. “What the...?” Greg looked down at the floor. It was sparkling clean for the first time in probably years. He looked back up, or more up and Wheelie stood there with his hands on his hips.  “Okaaay...sorry.” He kicked his shoes off.

“Thanks boss. I just got this part of the floor clean and lemme tell ya, it was a mess, but I am glad boss man Hector asked me to clean this place. How you meat bags cannot be constantly sick, I have no idea.”  Wheelie shook his head with confusion.

“Oh, umm, my friend, Michelle is on her way over. Would you mind cleaning the bathroom and then, hiding when she gets here?” Greg smiled when Wheelie saluted him.

“Sure thing boss! I’m on it!” Wheelie spun around and skated his way to the bathroom.

Smiling with satisfaction and feeling a little less stressed, Greg made his way into the living room where Hector was propped up in front of the TV watching the news.  “What’s up, bud?” He asked.

Hector glanced over his shoulder at Greg. “Oh, not much. Just checking the news to see if the police are on their way here or if anyone had anything on that party last night.” He turned off the TV. “But, nada.  When’s your girlfriend getting here?”

“Dude, she’s not my girlfriend.” Greg almost laughed when Hector gave him the silent stare of disbelief. “Okay, yet.  Any word from that chick from last night?”

“Natalie?” Hector’s face clouded over with pain and he sighed. “No, nothing, but I don’t expect to hear anything. She doesn’t have my number or even really know my name. She was also pretty pissed and I did lie to her, so I can’t really blame her either.”

“You liked her, didn’t ya?” Greg sat opposite of his friend.

“Yeah, yeah I did, but like I said, she doesn’t know me and I’m not going to be a chick again. So, it’s over.” Hector leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, lost in thought or what might have been.

“Sorry dude and if you don’t wanna come tonight, I understand...” Greg felt bad for Hector. This was the first time he had ever seen him so broken hearted over a girl, but it was kind of an unusual situation to begin with since the girl in question didn’t even know Hector.

“Thanks, but I probably will. It will be a good way to get my mind off of her.” Hector abruptly jumped to his feet. “So, when is she going to get here?”

Greg checked his watch. “Anytime now. She had to run home and get her costume.” Hector raised a curious eyebrow at that. “Well, it would have been a little hard to explain that she didn’t need it, right?”

Hector nodded. “Yeah, probably right. I’ll put the dishes in the dishwasher and I heard ya sic Wheelie on the bathroom, good choice.  You might wanna straighten up your room a bit. Ya, know, just in case.” He winked and grinned at Greg.

“Dude! That’s not going to happen.” Greg crossed his arms over his chest, but deflated under Hector’s steady gaze. “Okay, it might, but not tonight. Happy?”

Hector simply smiled and turned away to get started on the kitchen.  Greg worked on tidying up his room. Mostly that meant picking his dirty clothes off the floor, making his bed and running the vacuum over the carpet.  He also cracked his window open to let some fresh air in so his room wouldn’t smell as stale.  He thought about spraying some air freshener, but that would be too noticeable and lame.

He finished his room in the nick of time.

[Ding...Dong!]

The front doorbell rang. “Oh crap! I think she’s here!” Greg whispered as he ran past Hector in the kitchen on his way to the front door. “Wheelie! Hide!”

“Sure thing, boss!” Wheelie yelled back followed by the distinctive sound of him transforming into his toy truck form.

“If I get the chance, I have got to fix that sound effect...” Greg muttered to himself as he reached the door.  Feeling extremely nervous, he opened the door without taking the time to look through the peep hole.  It was only after he opened the door and saw Michelle anxiously standing there that he considered the alternative scenarios, like the police.  “Michelle!” He felt very relieved.

Michelle gasped with surprise. “Wow, that’s a nice greeting! A girl could get used to that...”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s just been crazy around here the last couple days.” Greg felt his face flushing with embarrassment.  He spotted her costume in her arms. “Is that your costume?”

Michelle nodded and patted the black garment. “Yep. So, where’s this costume machine of yours?”

“Oh! Sorry, it’s put away right now, but we normally set it up in the garage. Come in, come in and sorry, but can ya take your shoes off?  Our cleaning, umm, person hates it when we track dirt into the house.”  Greg held the door open for Michelle and held her costume for her as she removed her shoes.

Greg could tell Michelle looked impressed by what she saw inside their house. He couldn’t help feeling a little smug by Hector’s reaction to seeing Michelle for the first time.  As he introduced Michelle to Hector, he was cool and calm about it, but as soon as she turned her back; Hector shook his head and mimed exhaling as if he was too hot while he led Michelle into the living room. He wanted to try and explain things in as normal of an environment as possible, hopefully, without her freaking out.

“So, umm, Michelle, this is going to probably sound like a strange question...” Greg nervously glanced over to Hector. “But, umm, do you believe in aliens?”

Michelle’s eyes flared with surprise before a giggle escaped. “Oh my god, yes! I mean, who doesn’t?”

Feeling a little more relieved, Greg released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding in. “Oh, good, because, umm, it might be a little hard to believe this, but our machine...” He nervously licked his lips and glanced back over to Hector, who gave him the keep going signal. “Well, we think it’s an alien disguise machine, or something.”

“What?!? Oh my god, that’s a good one Greg!” Michelle laughed until she noticed neither Greg or Hector had joined her.  “Umm, you guys can’t be serious?”

The both nodded their heads with solemn agreement.

“Okaaay, this is getting a little too weird now...” Michelle stood to leave.

“No, wait!” Michelle paused. “We can prove it. Just gimme one minute. Please?” Greg looked over to Hector for help.  Hector shrugged his shoulders as if to say, don’t look at me dude.

Greg looked back to Michelle. “Okay, so, I’ll prove it...” He activated his costume and felt pleased to note both Michelle’s and even Hector’s surprised gasps as his costume flowed over his body and the mask formed over his face.  Going for the full effect, Greg sprang up and clung to the ceiling with his hands and feet.

“Oh my god!” Michelle dropped her costume and stared up at Greg.

“Damn dude, that’s pretty cool...” Hector begrudgingly admitted.

Greg crawled along the ceiling until he reached the far wall.

“Damn boss, that’s pretty impressive, but if ya get footprints on the ceiling, I’m not cleaning it, just saying.” Wheelie transformed into his robot form and looked disapprovingly up at Greg.

“Ahhh!” Michelle jumped back and away from the robot that just transformed beside her, falling over the back of the couch in her haste to put some distance between herself and Wheelie.

Hector attempted to lend Michelle a hand, but she jumped away from him. “What the hell is going on here?!?” She glared at Greg as he jumped down from the ceiling and landed, facing Michelle and Hector. “Greg, this better not be some kind of joke!”

Greg deactivated his costume and it flowed back under his shirt, completely disappearing from sight, restoring his clothes in the process. “Nope, no joke Michelle. I call this costume my Spidersuit verson 3.7 and well, I thought it would be cool if we used our machine to help you out. Umm, sorry if we scared you...”

Michelle took a deep, calming breath before she turned to look over at Wheelie.

Wheelie cocked a finger at her. “Yo.”

“Okay, what in the hell is that? Tell me it’s not real, please.” Michelle glanced hopefully between Greg and Hector. “Okay, it’s a puppet, right? Someone is controlling it with fishing line or something, right?”

“Hey babe, I’m the real deal! Ain’t no strings attached to me!” Wheelie huffed indignantly as he jumped and transformed in mid-air into his truck form.

MIchelle collapsed into the couch. “Oh my god! It is real, this alien thing, it’s real? You’re not both aliens who are going to turn me into a pod person now that I know your secret, are you?” She glanced nervously between the two men.

Greg chuckled which helped put Michelle at ease. “No, like I was trying to tell you. Hector found this machine.  We think it’s called a Morphic Adaptation Unit and it lets you pretend to be almost anyone you want.”  He pointed to Hector. “Like, Hector, he made himself like Wolverine, claws and everything, well, not the hair.”

Michelle nervously laughed as she studied Hector. “Yeah, right...”

[Snickt!]

Hector grimaced as he activated the claws in his right arm and displayed them to Michelle.

[Snickt!]

He retracted them. “Sorry, those hurt a bit...”

Michelle stood and raced over to study Hector’s hand. With wonder in her eyes, she turned back to Greg.  “What can you do and where is this machine?”

Greg sighed with relief. It looked like Michelle believed him now and she only freaked out a little. “It’s in the laundry room and you can make just about any costume you can think of...” Even though Hector had just displayed his claws, he was careful to not mention the part about it also allowing a person to change their body.  He didn’t want to freak her out again.

Hector chuckled. “Yeah, you can also turn yourself into an alien chick if you’re not careful.”

Michelle turned to Hector with shock. “What?! Really?”  Her eyes widened with realization as she noticed Greg blushing and glaring at Hector. “Oh my god! Greg? It can really do that?”

Greg smiled uncomfortably and ran his hand nervously through his hair. “Yeah, umm, I kinda found out about that little ‘feature’ when we tried to figure out what the machine did.”

“Oh my god, that’s too cool!” Michelle’s enthusiasm rapidly cooled. “Are you sure you’re not messing with me?”

Both Greg and Hector chuckled as Greg retrieved the box from the dirty clothes hamper. “Nope, here it is, let’s get it into the garage.”  Greg said, holding the box up for Michelle to see.

She did not look impressed. “That’s it? Come on guys. I mean, I know you have a cute robot-ahhh!”  Michelle screamed when she felt something grab her leg.

“Did ya hear that boss? Bossman Greg’s woman thinks I’m cute!  Can we keep her?” Wheelie glanced hopefully at Hector and Greg.

“Wheelie, let go of Michelle’s leg and no, we can’t keep her.” Greg glared at Wheelie until the little robot reluctantly let go of Michelle’s leg. “Now, say you’re sorry for scaring her.”

Wheelie looked down at the ground and held his arms behind him. “Sorry pretty boss lady Michelle. I didn’t mean to scare you like that.” He looked up and seemed to shiver.

Michelle crouched down in front of Wheelie. “Ahh, you’re soooo cute!” She surprised Wheelie with a quick hug before letting him go.

Wheelie stumbled down the hall like a drunk man. “She hugged me.” He muttered with confusion.  “The pretty boss lady hugged me...”

Greg and Hector laughed at the spectacle. “I think you broke him Michelle.” Hector smirked as he held the door to the garage open for her.

Greg followed with the box and Michelle watched, confused as to why Greg was setting the strange metal box on the open garage stall so carefully.  “How does that little box do...” She trailed off as the box suddenly expanded into its phone booth size. “Holy...Oh. My. God!” Michelle glanced back and forth between Greg and Hector. “That’s not possible! How?”

Greg shrugged his shoulders. “We don’t know, but is this part over here that is the coolest.” He motioned for Michelle to come look at the side facing the garage door. The side with the control panel. As Michelle watched, Greg placed his hand on the paw print and brought up an image of himself.

Michelle ran her hand through the image a couple of times. “Wow, that’s totally like ‘Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope’.” She giggled excitedly.

With that, Greg altered his image to display Princess Leia.

“How did you do that?!” Michelle studied Greg’s hand. “I didn’t see you use a keyboard or select anything.

Greg took his hand off the paw print, causing Princess Leia to freeze. “It uses mental telepathy or something to read your mind.  Right now, if you wanted to, you could be her.” He pointed back to Princess Leia.

“Really!?! Wow...just wow, but what about you?” Michelle glanced coyly at Greg.

“What about me?”

“Her.” Michelle pointed at Princess Leia. “I mean, wasn’t she every boy’s fantasy girl?  You could be her right now.”

“Oh, no thanks. Once was enough for me.” Greg decided to stick with the story Hector forced on him because there was no way he could admit that he had modeled his second girl experience on her. That would be too creepy.

MIchelle giggled and gave Greg a quick hug to show him she was just messing with him. “So, what did you look like when you accidently changed yourself into an ‘alien chick’ as Hector put it?” She supplied mock air quotes.

“Oh, no, you don’t really need to see that, do you?” Greg glanced from Michelle and back to Hector. “Thanks...” He said sourly.

Michelle’s eyes were bright with expectation. “Please?”

“Fine...” Greg put his hand back on the display and the image of Neytiri appeared, except this time it was easy to see her queue braid on the back of her head.

“Oh, wow, she looks just like her. What would she look like if she was me?” Michelle held onto Greg’s arm as she peered around him to get a better look.

Greg turned to look at Michelle’s face and Neytiri’s image subtly morphed to take on more of Michelle’s features until it was easy to see the resemblance in the alien woman’s face.

“Wow, so, I could be her, right now?” Michelle glanced back to Hector before returning her attention to Greg.

“Yep, but you might wanna be a little shorter because she’s almost nine feet tall and that light fixture,” Greg pointed to the light. “Hurts to bang your head into, trust me.” He grinned.

“Oh, yeah, good point. Can you make her shorter?”

“How short?”

“Umm, six foot? I always wondered what it would be like to be that tall.”

“Sure.” Greg made Michelle’s avatar image shrink down to six foot while maintaining the same proportions.

Michelle clapped her hands excitedly. “This is so cool!”

Greg grinned at Michelle’s enthusiasm as he removed his hand from the paw print. “This is even cooler.” He touched the purplish crystal, causing the door to appear.  He motioned for Michelle to enter the opening. “Go on, just walk in and touch the purple crystal inside.”

Michelle started to follow Greg’s direction, but she stopped, clearly torn. “I can’t. Does it hurt?”

“Nope, just a flash of red light, then poof! You’re her.” Greg glanced back over to Michelle’s avatar image.

“Hmmmphh, why don’t you show her?” Hector smirked. “I mean, I wouldn’t trust us either if I was her.”

Greg shot Hector a murderous glare before turning back to Michelle with a smile. “Well, I could, I guess, but not as her.”  He noticed Michelle beginning to look disappointed. “But, I could as an Avatar version of myself, just to show Michelle that it’s safe.”

“Oh! That could work. I wanna see what you would look like as a cute Avatar guy.” Michelle laughed and stepped aside to allow Greg access to the machine again.

Greg quickly brought up his image, but as an Avatar male. He used all he knew about the Na’vi to create his image, but like Michelle, he reduced his height. Not down to six foot like Michelle wanted for herself. Instead, he reduced his male avatar height down to 6’ 5”. He also made sure he would be able to breathe Earth’s atmosphere.

Satisfied with his changes, he entered the machine and activated the machine. After the red light flashed and the doorway appeared, Greg stepped out, looking every inch the Na’vi male warrior. Much to Michelle’s delight.

“OMG, if there was ever a moment to revert to text speech, now is the moment because, Greg, that is amazing!”  Michelle placed her palm on Greg’s bare chest and hesitantly reached for his face to gently touch his cheek, followed by tracing his check up to touch his cat-like ears. “Wow, just wow...” She glanced over at smiling Hector, before glancing back to Greg. “My turn! I wanna be an Avatar chick now too!”

Greg chuckled as he made her Na’vi image display. “There, is that what you wanna look like? No other changes like hair color or something?”

Michelle’s eyes brimmed with excitement as she shook her head no.

“Okay then, just touch that crystal there, step inside and touch the other on in there.” Greg pointed to the purplish crystal on the outside of the machine.

Michelle gasped when the doorway appeared, but after a quick glance back at Greg; she breathed in to calm her nerves and calmly stepped into the machine. Greg glanced over at Hector and noticed he looked very interested in what was about to happen. Greg felt a little nervous too. What if she freaked out or worse, what if the machine didn’t work on real women or what if the machine was really an alien trap designed to steal Earth’s women. Greg chuckled at himself for even having that ridiculous idea.

Thankfully, they only had a second or two to wait before the door reappeared and Michelle, as a half naked Na’vi warrior woman stepped out of the machine.  Without thinking, Greg rushed forward to help her when she wobbled a little.

Michelle glanced up at him appreciatively. “Thanks...” She looked down at her new alien body with wonder before realizing that her breasts were only covered by strategically placed beads and that she was now a couple of cup sizes smaller. She blushed a beautiful shade of purple and covered her chest with her hands before realizing it was a little too late and slowly lowered her hands. “Well, I guess when in Rome...” She muttered as she looked back to Greg and Hector with newfound confidence in her appearance.

Her tail was the next thing that surprised and embarrassed Michelle, but both of the men were waiting for her to notice it. Neither were disappointed with her reaction to discovering it and realizing she could control it, but that it also would sometimes move on its own.  She spun around a couple times trying to catch sight of it before she realized what she was doing. “Oh my god, I didn’t just chase my tail, did I?”

“Yep.” Greg grinned mischievously. “And you looked so cute too. I wanted to get a string and see if you would go after that too.”

“Hummmphh! Meanie!” Michelle crossed her arms protectively over her chest as her tail lashed slowly back and forth on its own. She broke down and giggled when she realized that her tail was moving again. “I have got to see what I look like. Where’s a mirror?”

Greg led Michelle to the bathroom where Wheelie was working on cleaning the tub.

“Yo!” Wheelie turned to look at Greg as he entered the bathroom. He jumped back and peered hesitantly over the edge of the tub. “Holy crap! Is that you Bossman Greg?” Greg nodded as Wheelie peered intently at his Na’vi face before shifting his gaze to Michelle. He straightened up to his full height and gazed appreciatively at Michelle’s Na’vi body. “Whoa! Boss Lady, yer hot, but if ya ever feel like ditching this meat bag,” He gestured toward a rapidly annoyed looking Greg. “I’ll be there for ya babe!”

Michelle giggled and crouched down next to the tub. “Oh, that’s so sweet of you Wheelie.” She furtively glanced over her shoulder at Greg before leaning over and whispering near what she thought could be Wheelie’s ear. “Don’t tell Greg this, but if he tries ditching me, you’ll be the first robot I think of.”  She quickly kissed him on the top of his right eye casing.

Wheelie began shaking uncontrollably before he collapsed backwards and into the bottom of the tub as he made a whirring sound that slowly wound down to nothing. “Huhhhh, whaaa, the warrior goddess...she kissed me...” Wheelie said dreamily.

Greg chuckled at Wheelie’s overly dramatic display, while at the same time he felt a little jealous. “You’re going to break him if you keep doing that.”

Michelle glanced back at him with concern. “Oh, I hope not. He’s pretty cool...”

Wheelie weakly waved at her. “I’m okay...just need a little air...”

Greg cleared his throat and slowly shook his head from side to side. “Geez, Wheelie, knock it off. You’re a robot, you don’t need to breathe.”

Wheelie sat up as if surprised to learn that fact. “Really? Oh, that’s a relief. Hehe. I thought I was a goner for sure there!”  He looked at the mostly clean and shining tub and grabbed a sponge. “Oops, looks like I missed a spot over here...”

Michelle and Greg looked at each other and chuckled. Michelle caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and was drawn toward it. Greg stood back to allow her full access to the mirror and to admire her lithe mostly naked body at the same time.

Michelle studied her face with stunned disbelief as she wiggled her cat ears and blinked her large amber and green eyes.  “This is amazing!”

Greg nodded and grinned. “Yep, it’s pretty damn cool.”

Michelle ran her fingers through her hair and pulled her large central braid around to inspect.  As she held it up in front of her face, the ends opened up and she shot a quick glance back at Greg. “I wanna try this!”

Greg wasn’t sure if that was a good idea. From what he had read on the Na’vi, the queue formed a bond, called tsaheylu which also translated to ‘ultimate intimacy’. The connection caused the couple to share their good memories with each other. If they were a good pair, but if not, the connection was painful or unpleasant for the couple.  According to the movie’s mythology, all that was controlled by the Na’vi’s planet god lady thing, Eywa.  If the couple were meant for each other, the bond was stronger than marriage because the sharing of memories made them life mates. With the Na’vi, there were no divorces.

“Umm, Michelle, I’m not sure if that is a good idea...” Greg sighed when she glanced up at him, still holding her opened queue in her hand. “The Na’vi, well, when they use that between each other, they can become life mates. If the bond is accepted by the Na’vi’s ‘planet god thing’, they are officially married and that marriage is for life.”

Michelle’s large eyes grew even larger and she glanced down at her queue. She bit her lip and as she concentrated on it, the ends of her queue began to glow. She looked back up at Greg and moved closer to him, lightly pressing her body against his. “I wanna try it, with you Greg, please?”

Chapter Note: Finally, the chapter you all have been waiting for, I hope. :)

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

As the mechanic finished putting their new wheel and tire on their car, Agent L checked his watch for the 10th time in the last five minutes as he paced back and forth in the rental agency’s repair shop waiting room.  Agent P sat in one of the cheap lobby chairs, reading a two year old magazine. Her legs were crossed, with her raised foot slowly tapping up and down as if to some tune only she could here. If not for her violent page turns, a person watching her wouldn’t know how frustrated she felt right now. Agent L was glad she was with him.  It was Agent P’s reminder of how much paper work he would have to fill out that kept him from shooting the dude working on their rental car.

First, the tow truck operator had to tow their car 20 miles to their rental agency’s licensed garage, 20 miles in the opposite direction.   Next, the mechanic took a two hour dinner break and when he finally returned, it took him almost 30 minutes to remove the stripped nut without destroying the wheel in the process.  Agent L offered to buy a new one, but the mechanic insisted on doing the job right.

Once the wheel was finally removed, the garage didn’t have any 15 inch tires in stock and mounting the spare emergency tire was a no-go. It was against safety regulations to permit a customer to drive more than 50 miles using the spare. All that meant they had to wait another thirty minutes to get a manager’s approval to borrow a wheel and tire from another Yaris.  They didn’t get back on the road until 2000 hours and if nothing else went wrong, they wouldn’t reach the target area until 2200 hours.

“We should’ve just taken one of their other cars...” Agent L muttered with frustration.

Agent P nodded her head with agreement. “Yeah, I know, but we got the car using a government contract and the government, in its ultimate cost cutting wisdom, elected to not allow for a replacement vehicle if the current vehicle could be easily repaired.”

Agent L rubbed his temples with frustration. “Easily? By what definition? Fuck...well, at least the traffic has died down now.”

Hector was blown away when Greg introduced Michelle to him.  Wow, Greg really did a good job with her and that made him think of Natalie. He sighed as he considered all the ways he had screwed up with her.  He found himself feeling even more jealous of Greg when he managed to calm Michelle down and convince her to at least think about the possibility of an alien device.  It must have helped that Michelle knew Greg for a little bit longer than three or four hours.

Yes, she was a keeper and it was now Hector’s duty to do all he could to help Greg keep and score with his new girlfriend.  Greg might not think of her as his girlfriend, but Hector could tell Michelle was thinking about it by the way she looked at Greg. She had that kind of shy half smile whenever she looked at him and she blushed way too easily around Greg. Of course, Greg was clueless about all those cues, but he was allowed to be since he was clearly smitten with Michelle too.  It was almost sickeningly sweet to watch the non-verbal communication between the two of them.

When Michelle stepped out of the machine as a human sized Avatar alien chick, Hector had to start mentally going over his tax forms to keep from embarrassing himself. She looked hot with her blue alien cat woman features and primitive attire. He fondly recalled how it was okay for him, and his buddies, to read National Geographic magazines when he was a kid.  The National Geographic had some cool pictures and articles, but it was the pictures of primitive cultures that were his favorites.  How else can a 12-14 year old boy get his hands on pictures of half naked chicks?

As soon as Michelle exited the machine, the two of them ran off into the house so she could check herself out in the mirror. He didn’t blame her either.  He sighed as he glanced over at the machine.  At least Greg and Michelle seemed to be happy about the changes it could make.  Hector knew he was just making himself more depressed and for no reason, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Natalie, and Jennifer.

He waited in the garage for five minutes before he started to wonder what was taking them so long. He expected her to check herself out in the mirror, think it’s cool and then, return to work on her Catwoman costume, but maybe she had to actually use the bathroom?  Hector turned off the light and re-entered the house.  The only sound he heard was coming from the living room. He followed the sound and found Wheelie cleaning the carpet, but no Greg and Michelle.  He glanced down the hallway and noticed Greg’s door was closed.

“They couldn’t be, could they?” Hector’s eyes flared with disbelief when his sensitive hearing heard Greg ask Michelle if she was sure. He snorted and slowly shook his head as he sat down on the couch. “Oh well, I guess I can watch some TV while I wait. If they are, it shouldn’t take them too long.” He muttered mostly to himself.

“Too long for what, boss?” Wheelie stopped and looked up at Hector.

“Umm, looking at Greg’s comic collection...” Hector struggled to contain his laughter as he hit the power button on the remote.  The noise of the TV should give the two lovebirds a bit of privacy and allow Hector to ignore them if things started to get a little loud.

The two lovebirds surprised him by taking almost an hour and even a bigger surprise was when the two of them walked out of Greg’s room, smiling, hand in hand, with only their loincloths haphazardly wrapped to conceal their groins. Hector’s sensitive nose caught their scents and he had to smile as the pair sat down on the couch opposite Hector with expressions that could only be described as, befuddled, deeply and hopelessly in love with each other.

Not that he was complaining about seeing Michelle topless, but he had to do something to shock them to their senses. “So, when are you two getting married?”

Even if Greg wanted to tell her no, there was zero chance of it happening. Especially not after she said, please.  “Okay, but we should probably try it in my room and if we see any flying jellyfish; we stop, right?”

Michelle giggled and let him lead her into his room. With Michelle in tow, he felt like he was at his parent’s house and he was trying to sneak a girl into his room. That never happened, but now he knew what it would have felt like. Hector was sure to give him some shit about it later.

He glanced around and was relieved he had done a little cleanup the night before.  Michelle glanced around and smiled when her eyes passed over Greg’s Transformers action figure collection.  It was a fairly impressive collection and he was quite proud of it. Some of his “models” or “action figures”, had come directly from Japan because they weren’t available in the US.

“So, how do these things work?” Michelle sat down on his bed with one leg crossed under as she held up her queue in front of herself.

“Well, I am not 100% sure they will work because all of this,” Greg motioned to the two of them. “Is based on a movie. None of it was real but, from what I read, when two Na’vi joined their queues, they would do it under that big glowing tree thing. If their bonding was good, then Eywa, their god thing, would have them share only good memories. If Eywa decided they weren’t meant for each other, bad memories. If they had the good memory thing, they would return to the clan and were considered married, for life.”  Greg decided to skip over the sex part that followed. While he liked Michelle, a lot, he had no intentions of having sex with her tonight.  They both barely knew each other and he didn’t want to ruin it by trying to move too fast.

Michelle slowly nodded her acceptance of the facts. “I see, but since there’s no god to decide things for us, if it does work, we shouldn’t have to worry about being married to each other and if it doesn’t work, then, well, nothing, right?”

“Probably, but are you sure?” Greg noticed Michelle’s face fall with disappointment. “I mean, I like you. I like you a lot. You’re so cool and beautiful. I just don’t want to take a chance and mess things up.”

Michelle stood and grabbed Greg’s hands. “I like you a lot too Greg. Thank you for showing me this, this wonderful thing you two found, but the one thing that captivated me with Star Trek and the movie was this linking of minds thing.  I always thought, ‘how cool would it be if two people could just link their minds together and understand each other, completely and with no misconceptions?”

Michelle looked so hopeful and once again, Greg was stunned by her. She liked Star Trek? “Well, I guess we can try, but don’t hate me if it doesn’t work, please...”

Michelle answered him with hug and a shy, hesitant kiss on his lips. “I promise.”

Greg gestured for Michelle to take a seat on his bed and he followed by taking a seat, cross legged, and facing her.  She held up her queue, and Greg reached around and grabbed his. It felt kind of strange to hold the thing in his hand.  He had never had a braid before and he imagined having one would feel like just having long hair. Except, when you tugged on a normal braid, you wouldn't feel your hand squeezing your braid and when you pulled on it, you would feel your hair being pulled from your scalp, but this braid felt directly attached to his skull.

The delicate tentacle filaments opened on both of their queues and as they brought the ends together, the filaments sought each other out and intertwined themselves around each other. Neither one was fully prepared for what happened next.  They both felt like they were falling into each other, but the sensation was confusing because they could both feel their bodies and they had not moved.

A bright light overwhelmed their physical sensations of their bodies and memories began to replay themselves to Greg. Michelle’s memories, but it wasn’t like watching a movie; it felt like he was there and experiencing things as Michelle. Not just physically, but also emotionally.  He felt the warmth and love from being hugged and rocked by her momma, his momma. He felt the joy of being tossed in the air by her daddy, his daddy.  The memories started out slowly, but they quickly sped up as Greg experienced more and more of Michelle’s life.  He felt her first kiss and how it made her feel. He felt the pride she felt for winning second place in her school’s science fair. He felt the adrenaline rush and joy she felt after performing in the lead role of her first high school play. He enjoyed the kiss she shared with the lead actor in that play’s kissing scene.

Her high school prom, how the dress felt and how it made her feel.  The pride and embarrassment she felt when her daddy took her date off to the side to quietly discuss his ‘little girl’ with her date.  He felt himself falling deeper and deeper in love with this woman.  Physical sensations began to slowly reassert themselves and he felt the tears flowing down his face, and her face.  They both felt each other’s heart beating in time with each other like a gigantic bass drum, thrum, thrum, thrum, thrum.

They began to gently caress each other’s body, which turned into a kiss, hesitant at first, but as they each felt what the other felt through their link, it started to create a feedback loop that quickly overwhelmed what little resistance they felt about taking their relationship this far.  They both realized how silly it was to feel that way since they both felt like they had known each other for their entire lives.  Greg loved Michelle more than anyone else in the world and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she loved him the same way.

If Greg thought having sex as a woman felt good, experiencing the joined sensations of the two sharing their bodies with each other blew that away.  He even knew Michelle knew about his little adventure and it made her love him even more.  Neither could tell where the other’s body began or ended, but when they climaxed; it was simultaneous and larger than anything either had ever separately experienced.  It caused them both to pass out in each other's embrace.

Greg felt like he was flying.  The wind pulled on his long Na’vi hair and when he looked down, all he saw were stars, up was the same, but at his side, flew Michelle. She was human again and her lush black hair fanned behind her from the force of their passage.  He noticed her braid that hid her queue and when she glanced over at him, her smile drowned out everything else.  He stood in a hospital. Michelle rested on a bed with a baby boy and a baby girl, twins nestled in her arms.  She looked up at him and he felt her love flare brighter than the sun as his love for her combined to a pitch black.

They woke in each other’s arms, still joined by their queues with their bodies joined together as one, with neither knowing exactly where the other began or ended. Reluctantly he pulled away and he felt the dual sensation of him pulling out of her and the empty feeling inside of her.

“That was, no, is incredible...” Michelle whispered as she leaned forward and kissed him.

They both glanced at the clock and realized that an hour had passed, but it felt like days to them.  Their queues detached from each other and they both felt a momentary sense of loss and confusion as their shared senses retreated to their own limited bodies.

“Hector is probably wondering what took us so long.” Greg grinned as he stroked Michelle’s hair and ran the back of his hand across her cheek.

“I doubt that.” She giggled as she grabbed his hand and kissed his fingers.

“Well, should we go give him the news?” Greg stood and reached out to help Michelle up.

“Sure, but let’s grab some clothes first.” She glanced over at their loin cloths lying on floor. “Okay, well, at least our loin cloths.”

Greg pointed to her bare chest. “You’re not worried about?”

Michelle glanced nonchalantly down. “Nah, Hector’s seen boobs before and from your memories, he’s had them, so, meh.”

“Okay then, shall we?” Greg held out his hand and they exited his room.  Greg marveled at the woman at his side. He had never felt happier and more complete in his entire life.

He spotted Hector in the living room watching some TV and pretending to not notice the two of them walking toward him.  Hector waited until they both sat, side by side before he turned to them. “So, when are you two getting married?”

Michelle laughed. “Well, Hector. I think we already are, but when we make it legal. Will you be Greg’s best man?”

Hector’s eyes opened wide and he had to pick his jaw off the floor before he could form a coherent reply. He glanced rapidly back and forth between the deliriously happy couple. “Umm, are you two sure? I mean, you’ve only known each other for a few days and you just had sex for the first time...”

Instead of feeling angry or embarrassed by Hector’s reply, Greg and Michelle simply looked at each other and smiled. Michelle nodded as if Greg had spoken to her and got up from her seat.  Greg watched, amused by Hector’s surprise as Michelle plopped herself down next to Hector and held his hand against her chest, as if she had known him all her life.

“Hector, what Greg and I just did wasn’t just sex. It was more. It was a complete sharing of our lives and I,” Michelle glanced back over at Greg. “No, we can’t imagine being separated ever again.  I know how highly Greg thinks of you. You are like a brother to him and as a result, to me, you feel like my older brother too.  Will you please be our best man?”

Hector looked to be at a loss for words as the half naked Michelle calmly sat next to him. He glanced over to Greg, before returning his attention to Michelle. He smiled and nodded once. “Okay, but I’m not explaining to your parents why you’re both blue aliens.”

Michelle laughed and hugged Hector, giving him a friendly kiss on his check. “Oh, Hector! Thanks, but we will be changing back, well, mostly.” She let go and grabbed her queue. “We are keeping these though.”  She stared at Hector as if daring him to tell her no.

“Okaaay, so, it’s almost eight, do you two lovebirds still wanna go to the convention?” Hector asked.

Greg could tell Michelle was having fun with Hector, but he didn’t feel the slightest bit jealous. She was treating him exactly like Hector was her brother. Well, except for teasing him with her naked chest.  She wasn’t exactly teasing him either. She just looked completely relaxed with both her body and Hector. She trusted Hector like Greg trusted Hector.

They returned to the garage and Greg went first, changing himself back to his human spider man form, except he kept the queue.  For the queue, he did modify it a little. He made it retractable since it would be a little hard for a guy to hide a long ponytail.

Michelle noticed and liked his modification.  She followed suit when she changed back into herself, plus an extra three inches of height.  Once they were both mostly human again, it was Hector’s turn to create his costume.

Hector brought himself up, but imagined himself wearing Snake Eye’s ninja costume, complete with his Katana.  Before he changed himself, he glanced back at Greg.  “Would you mind doing your thing with my costume?”

“Sure, but I’m guess you would want shurikens that can restock themselves, are super sharp, but not too sharp and disappear without a trace after a few minutes?” Greg smirked knowingly.

Hector smiled and nodded. “Of course, and don’t forget the ninja smoke bomb things.”

Greg simply blew on his fingertips before buffing them off on his shirt. “Already there buddy. I even gave you the spider man gloves and boots so you can crawl walls like a ninja. I also,” He pointed to the glove’s knuckle area. “Gave your gloves slots for your claws.”

“Awesome! So, is it ready?” Hector asked.

“Yepper, go for it.” Greg gestured toward the purplish crystal.

Hector stepped out looking every inch Snake Eyes from the movie, minus the sub-machine gun. Greg didn’t think it would be a good idea to walk around with what should be a real weapon. A sword was one thing, but the cops probably would freak over a machine gun.  With a thought, Hector’s costume and sword melted away, replaced with his normal street clothes.  “Wow, that’s pretty damn cool, Greg, thanks!”

Next up was Michelle. She made herself a couple of inches taller, and then brought up her costume.  Greg had to admit, her hologram looked hot and even Hector whistled at it. She removed her hand and glanced back at Greg.  Her look was all it took.

“Sure M, I’ll tweak your costume for ya.” Greg took over and added his tweaks. He added all of his Spiderman v3.7 costume features, but kept out the web shooters. It wouldn’t make sense for Catwoman to have web-shooters. However; he did add his Spiderman wall crawling power to her gloves and boots. He knew Catwoman was a cat, but she sorely lacked in the climbing department. Her claws, he made it so her suit’s fingertips had two preset positions. One was normal, with very little material to get in the way of her feeling for small cracks or vibrations when stealing something with the other preset causing her suit’s fingertips to harden and turn into razor sharp claws.

He looked back at Michelle. “So, besides adding a few inches and hiding your queue, did you make any other changes to yourself?”

Michelle slowly nodded her head back and forth. “No? Why?”

“I have a few ideas...” Greg returned to Michelle’s image.  He added his Black Widow super soldier serum powers along with enhanced healing factor. Not as big  a healing factor as Hector’s, but enough to heal her from the worst injuries. Reinforced bones to help prevent broken bones was the final tweak he made to her body.  The rest went into her costume.  He really loved his costume designer job.  He had already done a lot to her costume with his Spiderman tweaks, but Catwoman was a thief, a cat burglar to be exact.  As such, he added a tail, but not just a lame, hang there and do nothing tail. He added a cybernetic prehensile cat tail that she could consciously control.

Additionally, as a cat burglar, she would need a way to bypass security systems.  Motion detectors were essentially radar guns. He made her suit absorb and reflect radar waves in random directions. He also made her suit absorb sound waves in case some security system used sonar.  Next up was thermographic and for those security systems, he made her suit able to match the ambient air temperature of her environment.

Next up was visual and for that he gave her suit chameleon powers to allow her to blend in with the background. Black is hard to see, but a sexy woman slinking around in a black cat suit would be very noticeable. The only other tweak he made was to her vision system. In addition to the low light and thermographic, he also added a beam detector to allow her to spot and avoid the laser beams used as tripwires.

He removed his hand and his changes were undetectable to the naked eye. “All done.”

Michelle gave him a quick hug before she entered the MAU and when she stepped out of the machine, it looked like she was wearing the same clothes she entered the booth. However; with a pleased grin, her costume quickly formed over her body, leaving no trace of her street clothes.  She looked every inch Catwoman, complete with her signature bull whip on her hip and purrfect feline smile.  “Hello big boy, did ya miss me?” She activated one of her claws and trailed a clawed finger tip lightly across Greg’s chin before kissing him deeply, her tail wrapping itself around his waist.

Hector coughed to get their attention. “Well, I was thinking about taking my bike. It’s easier to get through traffic. Do you two wanna just meet me there?”

Michelle glanced over at Hector’s bike. “Oh, a bike would be nice.” She looked back at Greg. “Do you think that the MAU could make us a bike?”

Hector laughed as he walked over to his bike. “You should just turn yourself into one of your Autobots. They had a couple motorcycles in the movie, right?” He said as he turned back and leaned casually against the seat of his motorcycle, arms crossed as he looked back at Greg and Michelle.

Greg felt both stunned and somehow excited by Hector’s suggestion. Could the MAU really turn him into a sentient robot?  “Yeah, they did, but those where,” He glanced self consciously over at Michelle who simply smirked at Greg. “Female Autobots.”

“Go for it hun. I don't mind if you try it again, just as long as you don’t plan on staying on my side of the gender divide.” Michelle gave Greg a hug to reassure and show her support for him.

Greg licked his lips nervously as he glanced over to Hector, his motorcycle, Michelle and finally, his eyes rested on the machine’s control panel.  He reached for it and began thinking of the Arcee sisters from both the movie version and the comic adaptation of the “Transformers: Rise of the Fallen”.

He, plus thousands of other fans, hated what Bay did to Arcee in the movie. She was one of the more popular and well developed characters in the Autobot comics, but in the movie, Bay killed her off and made her look powerless compared to the Decepticons. In the comics, while smaller than her fellow male Autobots, she made up for her smaller size with speed, cunning, stealth and violent strikes against unwary or over-confident opponents. She used that speed and rapid violence to her advantage in battle. Her own version of the U.S military’s “Shock and Awe” campaign. She struck suddenly and swiftly and then vanished away again as fast as she appeared.

It took a long time before anything displayed on the holographic display.  A long time, being 10-15 seconds, compared to the previous 1-5 seconds for all the other changes he had imagined.  He felt satisfied when the image of Arcee finally materialized.  She looked amazing and every inch a realistic female robot based on a motorcycle versus the softer, more human appearing version based on the animated cartoon version of Arcee.

Her humanoid robot image slowly rotated and after a complete revolution, it automatically transformed into the distinctive red motorcycle from the movie. It even had the Transformer’s symbol on the side fairing.  Greg was able to read “Ducati” stenciled on the tank with “848” on the fairing, above the Transformer’s symbol.  The motorcycle then transformed into the more familiar “scooter” mode, half humanoid, half motorcycle mode before transforming back into her humanoid shape.

Hector glanced over his shoulder at his bike mode. “Nice, very nice. The 848 is a good bike, but you’ll need a helmet for Michelle.”

Greg nodded and a helmet appeared attached to the tail section like he had sometimes seen Hector do to store his helmet when he parked his bike.

“Oh, I like it. A matching helmet and red is a good color for you.” Michelle whispered into Greg’s ear. “Don’t forget your queue thing.”

With her reminder, he thought about an interface cable that would connect with Michelle’s queue. In bike mode, it would be like he was the Banshee and she the rider, able to see, feel and help control him while in vehicle mode, but not make him do what she wanted as if he was the animal and she, his master. It would be more of an equal partnership. He hoped. If it even worked.

Greg was about to go ahead with the ‘transformation’, but he stopped himself. “What if they don’t let a robot into the convention?”

Hector chuckled. “Dude, if you came in looking like that, they would be idiots to not let you in. Plus, they would probably let you in for free since they wouldn’t think you were a person.”

Greg glanced over to Michelle to see what she thought. “Hmmm, you might be right there, but what else could you do?” She asked as she glanced over at the still rotating image of Greg’s robot form.

Greg thought long and hard on the problem. The best solution would be if he could also be a Pretender bot, like the Alice Decepticon, except not evil.  To do that, his robot form would have to be able to compress itself down to human size.  It was a good thing the Arcee from the movie was only about 12 feet tall when in humanoid form to begin with compared to the other car based male Autobots who easily stood 20-30 foot tall. If her armor was made from a honeycomb composite, it would allow both excellent protection, but also be compressible.

Greg remembered how the tiny ball bearing sized spider bots expanded to be 10x their size, and then, combined to form a larger Decepticon.  Using that kind of compression could work, but he would also need to do something about his weight. Floating was out, so the trick they did for Hector wouldn’t work, but some sort of anti-grav would help to reduce his weight and even offer some flight if needed.  There was no way he could defeat an airport’s metal detector, but he shouldn’t have to since he was only going to be a robot for a few hours. He did wonder if there was a way to jam or fool the detectors though.

The other thing he worried about was power. He had no idea what Energon might be, but it would suck to run out of it.  It seemed like fusion would be the best power source. In a pinch, simple H2O could be used as fuel for that, but he had heard Helium-3 was the leading fusion candidate and the moon was thought to have tons of the stuff.  He decided his anti-grav would need to be convertible to allow him to fly to the moon and back. Which meant, that unlike all the other Autobots, Arcee needed to have a flight mode. After all, Arcee was a speed demon. It would make sense for her to have a flight mode that allowed interplanetary travel. Maybe her flyer mode could resemble that mini-jet James Bond used in Octopussy?

It might take some energy to do that and if he was low on power to begin with, flying to the moon might be a bit hard. Maybe he could make a small Helium-3 generator?  Something that he could hide by transforming it to look like something else.  Whatever the power source, he would need to be able to go years at time before needing to be refueled. Did he really need to worry about something like that when he was only going to be a robot for a few hours?  He decided it couldn’t hurt and since Helium-3 was so rare, maybe he could use it to make himself some spare cash on the side by selling Helium-3 to mad scientists.

Greg was in costume designer heaven. This was going to be his ultimate costume. His Sistine Chapel and everything had to be perfect! His Arcee image shimmered a few times as the worked through his changes and a small cube formed to the side of his image.  After that, it took another 10 seconds before his image began to compress itself down from Arcee mode into Pretender mode. That transformation took a little over 20 seconds in the hologram before a compact female robot stood in Arcee’s place.  She did not look at all pleasing to the eye. In fact, she looked downright scary, but so did Alice when not in human form.

“Hmm, I need her to look more human, but I need a human to copy an image from...”  He muttered as he glanced over at Michelle.

“Oh no, not me. I love you, but having you walk around as my twin would be too weird, even after all the weirdness we have already gone through.” Michelle laughed.

Greg glanced over at Hector. “Any suggestions?”

“Scarlett.” Hector answered with barely a pause.

“Seriously? What is it about you and redheads?” Greg grinned as he struggled to recall what she looked like, besides a redhead. “Umm, do you remember what she looked like?”

Hector chuckled as he placed his palm on the paw print.  His Pretender robot form slowly, over the course of a few seconds transformed into G.I. Joe’s Scarlett, wearing her armored tactical suit from the movie, complete with a collapsible crossbow pistol.  “There, that’s what she looked like.”

“Wow...” Greg and Michelle said in stereo as they viewed the image on the holographic display.

“She can transform into a motorcycle?” Michelle appeared a little skeptical.

Greg touched the purplish crystal to activate the door. “I hope so...or we will find out in a few seconds.”   He stepped inside the machine and activated the change.  After the red light went away and the door reappeared. Greg instantly felt the changes.  He stepped out of the machine and his foot made a very solid thunking sound as it hit the floor.

“This..feels...” His voice sounded female, but more digitized than human, but as he devoted a few spare CPU cycles to the problem, his voice smoothed out to sound more normal.  “well, weird. I feel,” He patted his new female form a few times. Except for the armor plates built into his armor, he thought he felt like a real woman. “I feel, for lack of a better word, full. Kind of like I just ate a few plates too many during Thanksgiving.”

As he stepped forward another step, his own internal sensors told him he was putting almost 1,000 pounds of weight on the floor. Not a problem in the garage, but it could be a problem in the house.  He activated his internal anti-grav compensators and his weight sensors dropped down to a more normal 150 lbs for a 5’ 11” human female.

Both his brain, or core, and his heart were in his chest and highly shielded from both detection and damage. Having his brain in his chest made it easier to protect and he didn’t notice a difference. He did notice the difference with his heart. It was now a miniature and highly efficient fusion plant. His ‘heart’ could have been smaller, but it was highly armored against damage and shielded from detection.  He was currently operating at what the military would term, “peace mode” and his sensors calculated he had enough fuel to go five years at his current power consumption of a miserly 1 megawatt.  In full battle mode with all of his defenses and weapons armed his ‘heart’ could pump out a continuous 20 megawatts for 1.5 years.

The additional strange concept or sensation for him to get used to was the fact that he knew the status and condition of every part of his body.  Unlike being a human and not knowing how well his lungs were performing or what his blood pressure was or anything except what his normal five senses told him, being a robotic life form was freaking cool.  All of his servos, actuators, weapons systems, defensive systems, self-repair and construction nanites, and damage control systems were all operating at 100%. An augmented reality system, or heads up display, overlaid his vision and displayed targeting information along with extra data about everything he looked at. It took a few seconds to realize that all the symbols were in the Autobot language and he understood them as if they were all English.

He felt Michelle touch his arm to get his attention and that sensation surprised him because he felt her touch through his clothing.  His disguise had a layer effect separating his clothing from his body. It impressed Greg, but at the same time he recalled that in the movie, Alice’s clothes reappeared when she changed back to her human disguise mode after blowing the crap out of the library.  Were his clothes generated as part of his Pretender bot disguise? If so, that meant he could take them off and change into different clothes, but what would happen to his original outfit?  Too much crap to worry about right now.

He turned to face Michelle and she looked very curious, yet hesitant. “Is that really you?” She chuckled nervously. “I mean, I know it is, but it seems so strange because it seems like I’ve seen your face before.”

“Maybe from the G.I. Joe movie?” Hector asked.

Michelle shook her head, confused by what she was seeing. “No, I’ve never watched the movie. I just don’t know. It seems like I saw her very recently...” She closed her eyes as if trying to bring up where she saw Greg’s new face, but after a few seconds, she shrugged. “Oh well, it will come to me sooner or later, but I do have one question.”

Greg smirked at her. “What’s that?”

“What do your lips feel like?” Michelle hesitantly bit her lower lip as she glanced shyly down.

“Why don't you kiss me and we can both find out?” Greg whispered as he leaned forward to meet Michelle halfway.  Her lips touched his and he was amazed by the fact that he could feel her lips, just as if he was still human and not a robot.  They felt just as soft, warm and inviting as before and he felt his nipples begin to tingle. “Whoa! I felt that and in more than one place...”

Michelle smiled happily at him. “So did I. Your lips feel, well,a little softer than before, but still very nice. They tasted like strawberries. Are you wearing anything?”

Greg touched his lips and didn’t feel anything. “Not that I am aware of...”

Hector snorted impatiently. “As loath as I am to break up such a cute couple, we should probably get a going...” He grabbed his helmet, armored rider jacket and gloves.

“Yeah, lemme hide the MAU.” Greg touched the paw print and willed the MAU to collapse.  He picked it up and walked inside before he remembered that he needed to check the convention’s website to order tickets and get directions. He turned around and poked his head back into the garage. “Hey, I’m going to check for tickets online, or did you do that already Hector?”

“Oh, crap...no, I forgot. Michelle?”  Hector glanced over at Michelle as he wheeled his bike around.

She shook her head. “No, I have my ticket in my purse, but I didn’t get any for you two, sorry, I didn’t know...”

Greg laughed. “It’s okay, but it will take  me a few seconds to print them out. Be right back!” He ran into his room, tossed the MAU on his bed and opened up his browser.  His typing was good before, but as an Autobot or Decepticon or whatever he now was, his typing was amazing. As fast as he thought, the words appeared while his fingers moved impossibly fast on the keyboard.  He had two tickets ordered, paid for and printed out in no time.

He heard Wheelie come into his room. “Oh yeah, this room needs some work. What a freaking- Ahhh! I’m sorry master! I didn’t mean to defect. They made me!”

Greg turned and watched Wheelie debasing himself on the floor. “Wheelie! It’s me, Greg. Get up, I’m not a Decepticon.”

Wheelie hesitantly raised his head up. “Are you sure? This isn’t some kind of trick, is it? ‘Cause, I totally didn’t defect if it is!”

Greg crouched down to help lift Wheelie up. “Nope, not a trick. I’m just in costume for the comic convention. I’ll be back to my normal self in a few hours.”

“Oh yeah, hehe, I totally knew it was you. I was just messing with ya!” Wheelie laughed hysterically. “Oh, hey boss?”

“Yes, Wheelie?” Greg stood up and retrieved the tickets from the printer.

“You make one fine robo-babe, hehe, just saying, ya know?” Wheelie waved his arms to ward of an attack as Greg glared at him. “Oh, hey, ya, don’t hate the playa, hate the game. Ya know what I’m saying boss?”

“Uuhhggg! Wheelie, first chance I get, you’re getting an adjustment. Wall-E was such a nice robot!”  Greg tried to look mad, but that lasted for less than a second before he laughed at the cowering little robot. “Sorry bud, but can you start on the kitchen now?”

“Oh, phew! Sure thing robo-babe boss lady, I mean, umm...” Wheelie gave up and nervously backed out of Greg’s room.

Tickets in hand, Greg closed the door to the garage a little harder than he planned.  “Sorry...” He cringed. “Wheelie thought I was a Decepticon and apologized for defecting. Then, he called me a robo-babe...”

Hector and Michelle looked at each other and laughed.

“Ah, come on, it’s not that funny guys!” Greg whined before even he found the humor in the situation and broke into a grin. “Okay, maybe a little...” He pinched his fingers together.

Michelle gave him a quick hug. “Welcome to the hot babe club, babe.”  

Greg groaned as he handed the tickets to Michelle to hold and he was about to try activating his motorcycle mode when he spotted his new generator sitting in the middle of the garage floor. He picked it up and looked around for a way to hide it.  Hector’s beat up, portable power generator seemed like a good choice.  With that thought, a beam scanned Hector’s generator and Greg’s generator transformed into a perfect copy.

“Good idea...” Hector nodded his approval as Greg set his generator down next to Hector’s.

With the two side by side, they looked like twins and that seemed a little strange to Greg. He considered the problem for a few seconds before decided to make his look even more run down and possible even broken when compared to Hector’s. His generator even leaked a little oil to complete the disguise.

Greg walked back over to the open garage stall and after a deep breath, purely to calm his circuits since he also no longer breathed air; he activated his motorcycle mode.  As he started to de-compress, he heard Michelle’s gasp of surprise.

“Tio mierda santa...” Hector muttered as he shook his head with amazement.

To Greg, it felt like he was stretching his back and every joint in his body cracked with the release of tension. It felt wonderful to be out of Pretender mode, he felt much better and not as ‘full’.  His arms turned into the bike’s front forks. His hands turned into the front wheel and tire. His legs molded together to form the single sided swingarm, with his feet turning into his rear tire. His ass felt like it was up in the air, his chest was pushed out with his face looking up and forward from the headlights. He felt fast, sexy and proud of how he looked.

He started his motor and he heard simulated rumble of a twin engine through race exhaust cans. Yeah, he had some nice cans and that made him feel very amused.  From start to finish, it took him exactly 22 seconds to convert from Pretender mode to his motorcycle mode and he wished that someone had filmed it because it had to look pretty damn cool.

He activated his Sadie rider hologram and turned to Michelle. “Are you ready to ride me?”

Michelle clapped her hands excitedly. “You know it babe!”

Greg released his helmet as Michelle grabbed it.  He watched as she put it on her head and deactivated his Sadie hologram when Michelle moved to sit on him.  As soon as she was comfortable, he activated his rider interface.  A small, segmented cable snaked its way out from his seat and joined with the back of Michelle’s helmet to form an interface with her queue.

He could feel her again, she could feel him and they both felt sheer pleasure to learn that the interface worked.  He felt mildly sexual tingle as Michelle made herself comfortable on his seat. Her soft and supple body pressed against and into his felt very pleasurable. They felt complete again and neither wanted to ever let the other go.  Hector used the garage door opener in his pocket to open the door and as soon as the door opened, Greg activated his front brakes as he applied power to his rear wheel.  They both felt the power and joy as Greg expertly brought them both out of the garage leaving Hector in a cloud of tire smoke.

As he emerged from the smoke, Hector shook his head from side to side as if to say, “Kids, chill”.   He activated the garage door opener and this time, Greg picked up the signal and copied it.

Michelle giggled when Hector pulled up beside them. “Show off... cops love pulling over sport bikes. So, try to keep it down to legal speeds, please. This is not a race. Follow me and try not to get us pulled over, okay?” He asked sounding like he was explaining the rules to a child, a naughty child who should know better.

While their interface with each other was perfect and made them feel invincible, Greg and Michelle both felt mildly chagrined because Hector was right. However; they were not about to let Hector know that.

“Yes dad...” Michelle said pretending to be ashamed of herself before she couldn’t take it any longer. “But, this is sooo damn cool!” She giggled.

Hector shook his head, but Michelle could see the smile in his eyes. “Just try, both of you, okay?”. He glanced down at Greg’s gas tank as if talking to Greg too.

Greg also knew Hector was right, but he couldn’t resist playing the Linkin Park song from the movie over Michelle’s helmet speakers as he trailed at what felt like a sedate pace behind Hector.

Chapter Note: I am almost caught up with the pipeline material. Thus, the publishing of chapters will start to slow down a bit. I have started ch 14, but have not gotten very far with it yet. I also decided to write a bit of the next JS chapter, so depending on how that goes, this story might suffer an additional slow down, sorry. The end is near though. So, the slow down might not even be noticeable. Yeah, right. :) Additionally, I don't speak Klingon, just saying...

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing. Can you believe he has not watched "The Transformers"?!?! :-P

Michelle loved riding Greg. Even the thought sounded naughty to her, but the sensations of riding without the protection of a car, the feel of a powerful machine between her legs, feeling what Greg felt as she rode him, again naughtily, and feeling her life mate’s mechanical body as the air flowed over both of their skins was extremely exhilarating. Michelle always wondered why motorcyclists looked like they were having so much fun, and now she knew, but she doubted they were having even half as much fun as she was right now. It took both of them working together to rein in their enthusiasm and not leave Hector behind when he signaled for them to pass him shortly after they turned off the main highway to take a small shortcut through a twisty canyon section.

The leaning and raw acceleration felt like she was flying through the corners instead of sitting passively in a car.  She rode Greg by what felt good to both of them. It came as a pleasant surprise and an intoxicating rush when she felt her knee touch down and skim the pavement once. It was such a light, fleeting touch. Her costume handled it without complaint. She decided it was time to sell her jeep and buy a motorcycle because riding was so much better, but she worried it wouldn’t be the same without Greg.  Maybe they could both buy motorcycles and ride together.

When they stopped at the intersection to re-enter the highway, Hector pulled up beside them and lifted his visor. “Damn you two!  That was fucking sweet! I almost ran myself off the road watching you two carve the corners.”

Michelle’s visor flipped up on its own. “Sorry Hector, but it’s just so amazing! You wouldn’t believe how it feels to be riding, umm, Arcee.” Michelle corrected herself.

Hector laughed as he blipped his bike’s throttle. “Ha! I bet, well I hope ‘Arcee’ doesn’t mind me telling you this, but you also look pretty damn hot in that outfit.  I mean, dee-amn, there is nothing hotter than watching a hot chick in tight leathers on an equally hot bike!”

Greg chuckled. “No, I don’t mind bud. It would probably blow your simple ‘ditch digger’ mind to see her from my perspective and did you just call me ‘hot’?”

Michelle giggled as Hector halted a reply as his eyes widened and he blushed. “Yeah, well, just another 10 minutes to the convention center. Time to dial it back a bit now.”

Even riding on the boring ‘slab’ of highway section felt fun. The traffic wasn’t bad, but there was one place they were able to save themselves a few minutes by splitting lanes. Eight minutes later, they pulled into the convention center parking garage and Michelle wished the ride had taken longer.  Hector parked his bike right up front with the other motorcycles, but they needed to find a spot for Greg to switch into scooter mode without anyone witnessing the transformation from motorcycle to his part robot, part motorcycle mode.

The two of them found an open parking spot between a van and a SUV and with visibility mostly blocked, Michelle took off her helmet, reattached it to Greg’s tail section and watched as he rapidly flowed between motorcycle mode into a two wheeled upright or scooter mode in just a second or two.

His right arm formed into big multi-barrel cannon with an even bigger single cannon sword thing in place of a hand while his left arm looked more normal and ended with a hand. He looked so amazingly cool in this mode. The “Ducati” decal on his left breast with “848” on his right was a humorous touch and even though he wasn’t human, it was obvious that he was a female robot.

“Well, what do you think? Does my rear tire make my butt look fat?” Greg asked as he looked down at himself.

“Nope!” Michelle giggled. “You’re looking awesome babe!” She gave him the thumbs up as she activated her face mask.

As Michelle got closer to the entrance, she spotted Hector in his Snake Eyes costume waiting for them at the entrance. While she couldn’t see his face, his body language told her he was as surprised as all the other fans were by the sight of a very professional and authentic Catwoman leading a very real looking Arcee.

“Well, what do ya think?” Michelle asked, her tail swished lazily back and forth as she gestured back to Greg.

“Honestly? I’m not sure what to think right this second because, well, I’m speechless...” Hector stammered to a halt.

“Yeah, me too, but right now I’m so overwhelmed with everything that nothing would surprise me. I think.” Michelle sighed. “Well, Snake Eyes, let’s see if we can get Arcee into the convention, shall we?”

Getting all of their very real weapons and Arcee into the convention proved to be easier than she expected.  The convention organizers knew that people dressed in costume and the costumes included fake weapons and sometimes not so fake weapons. It’s hard to fake a sword, but they simply asked Snake Eyes to secure his sword with a security sealed zip tie, while they ignored Catwoman’s bull whip.  For Arcee, they had no idea what to do, but they assumed her weapons were too impossible to be real and thus so obviously fake that no security seals were needed.  They did need to call over a supervisor though.

“How are you controlling it?” The security supervisor glanced back to Michelle before returning his gaze to Arcee with a mixture of wonder and nervousness.

Arcee turned to him with a bit of fake electrical motor whirring sounds added for effect. “Oh, she’s not. I’m controlling her, I mean me, via a wireless interface from inside.”

The supervisor jumped back, reflexively reaching for his taser. “Holy shit!”  After his initial surprise, he began to chuckle. “Damn!  That’s the most realistic Autobot I’ve ever seen and pretty damn cool, maybe even better than that Iron Man costume we had last year.” He waved the trio past security. “Okay, you all can go, just be careful about keeping your bot under control. If you run over someone, we’ll have to ask you to leave, okay?” He looked up at Arcee.

Michelle struggled to contain her laughter when Arcee saluted the security supervisor. “Yes sir! Autobots, roll out!” She motioned for them to move forward.

Once past security and on the main exhibit floor, Arcee had an easier time of navigation, but she was constantly mobbed to have her picture taken with people.  Michelle was actually beginning to feel a little jealous because no one was asking her about her costume.  Well, they would start to, but then their eyes would spot Arcee and who wanted to have their picture taken with Catwoman when there was a freaking Autobot?

She sighed with frustration when she realized she was feeling jealous of Greg. It was kind of her fault he was here as an Autobot to begin with.  They could have just driven over in her jeep and met Hector instead of going through with this crazy idea.  However; she still couldn’t get over how much fun it was to ride Arcee, or Greg. It was kind of hard to think of him as Greg when he looked like he did now.

Someone surprised her by grabbing her arm. Michelle turned and hissed at the person as she reflexively raised a suddenly clawed hand. It was the Joker.

“Whoa! Cat-baby.” The Joker took a half step back with surprise. “Sorry I surprised ya like that. I forgot how jumpy cats can be.”  He grinned unrepentantly with the Joker’s trademark evil clown smile.

Michelle felt herself blushing over her reaction.  She must have put a little too much Cat into her Catwoman, but Greg did some tweaks too, maybe he accidently added the cat-like reactions? It could also be left over from her Na’vi change.  She purred and coquettishly licked the back of her hand to get into the role. “Sorry, Joker honey, but you should know better than to rub a cat’s fur the wrong way.”

The Joker chuckled and pointed back over his shoulder at a man dressed in a Batman costume. Batman had his hands on his hips and appeared to be scowling at the two of them. “So, Cat-baby, what do you say we show that square who’s the boss of this joint?”

Michelle really admired this Joker guy. He made such a good Joker and he seemed so into his character, she couldn’t resist.  She glanced back at Arcee and felt warmed by Arcee’s thumbs up of encouragement.  “Welll, Joker baby.” She purred. “Since I’m your partner in this heist, what’s my take?”  She teased him by running a clawed handed lightly across the front of his suit and letting her tail wrap itself, then drag lightly around his legs as she sauntered past him.

“70, 30 babe...” The Joker chuckled.

Michelle pouted. “Ahh, how sweet, Joker baby. I like how you give me the biggest cut, but are you sure you can afford to live on only a 30 percent cut of the loot?”

The Joker laughed maniacally and bowed to her. “For you my feisty feline, the sky’s the limit!”

She was pleased to note that they now had an audience as she seductively made her way to a now nervous looking Batman. The extra attention helped her get into her role, but she maintained a tiny bit of awareness for both Snake Eyes and Arcee.  She also noticed that Snakes Eyes seemed to be keeping an eye out for both of them.  “So, Batman, are you here to arrest me?” She pouted and held out her arms for him to cuff her as The Joker tiptoed past them while grinning at the crowd and motioning for them to not say anything to alert Batman.

Batman stuttered for a second as he worked to regain his composure. “Have you committed a crime, Catwoman?”

Michelle dropped her arms and snuggled up to Batman’s side. “No, but I could if it would help...” She whispered in his ear as the cameras flashed and video recorders rolled.

Batman gulped as he tried to form a coherent reply.

“What’s the matter Batman, does the cat got your tongue? Ha ha ha!” The Joker joined Michelle at tormenting the now thoroughly confused Batman.  “Come along my frolicking feline fellow. We have more do-gooders to thwart! Ha ha ha ha!”

Michelle glanced back at Arcee. {“Go ahead love.”} Arcee’s voice sounded in her ear. She mouthed a silent “How?”

{“I built  a Bluetooth headset into the suits, I just didn’t think to try pairing with it until now, but go ahead. You did great there and it was fun to watch! I’ll trail along. Love ya babe.”}

Michelle turned back to The Joker, with a confident, predatory smile and grabbed his arm possessively. “Yes, my purrfect partner in crime, let’s go see what other shiny baubles we may acquire while the Bat is away...”

The Joker laughed maniacally as he and Catwoman walked away from the now thoroughly confused Batman impersonator.

Hector almost lost it when Michelle vamped the poor dude dressed up as Batman and he was forced to admit that the guy playing The Joker was kick ass.  When Michelle ran off, arm and arm with The Joker, he was a little surprised that Greg didn’t try to follow her, but the pair truly seemed to be in love and clearly only had eyes for each other.  It was kind of sickening, but at the same time, he couldn’t help feeling a little twinge of jealousy; Greg was so damn lucky.

The arrival of a woman dressed up in a Vulcan costume and flanked by two Klingon warriors drew his full attention. The woman’s costume was top notch. He couldn’t even see the seams for where she had to have glued on her ears, but the guys wearing the Klingon costumes impressed him the most.  They had to be NFL linebackers under their makeup and they looked so damn real that if he didn’t know better, he would think they were really Klingons.  Their makeup must have taken hours to put on and it had to be so hot for them.  It made him glad for Greg’s geekdom because the heating and cooling system built into his costume was keeping him nice and comfortable.

They, like everyone else, had their full attention on Greg. The Klingons looked amused as they spoke in hushed tones to each other and Hector could easily overhear what they were saying to each other, but he couldn’t understand a word. It sounded like they were speaking in Klingon.  The Vulcan lady responded in the same language, but with zero emotion. Holy crap, talk about going crazy over your favorite show.  He would never again give Greg shit for trying to learn some of the Klingon language.

Hector was glad he gave himself some space from Greg. It let him gain some attention for his costume while also allowing him to keep an eye on both Greg and Michelle.  He felt pretty satisfied with the few pictures he had posed with for fans, but he gained nowhere near the same amount of attention that Greg was getting as Arcee. It was kind of hard to compete with a full sized Autobot, even one that only saw a few seconds of screen time.

Greg had people standing on top of chairs and tables to get a look at him.  Near the area where Greg stood, surrounded by fans eager to get their pictures taken with him, there was the second level mezzanine level where people could look down and over the entire floor.  There were even people lined up and looking over the balcony to snap pictures of the Autobot.

A small boy was leaning over the safety rail and he started to fall forward. His parents were standing close by and they started to try and grab the kid, but he overbalanced and fell forward, over the rail.  The mom screamed and drew everyone’s attention. There was an entire row of people between Greg and where the boy was going to possibly slip and fall 20 to 30 feet to the hard floor below.  If the fall didn't kill the boy, it would certainly injure him.

Good or bad, Greg reacted.

Just as the little boy’s fingers slipped and he started to fall, screaming in fear as his parents desperately scrambled to grab their child; Time seemed to slow down for Hector. Greg smoothly and effortlessly performed a backward cartwheel over the row of fans behind him. The pointy end of his massive arm cannon slammed into the concrete floor, creating sparks and giving him some additional momentum as he reached for the falling kid with his left hand. The only thing missing from the action sequence unfolding in front of Hector was the movie’s slow motion sound effects.

Greg caught the kid and pulled the boy protectively toward his body as he continued his rotation, touching down with his wheels. He slid to a stop after 5-10 feet while used his right sword arm to balance himself using what looked like football player’s three point stance with the kid as the football clutched to his chest. In addition to the skid mark from his tires, he left a pretty good gouge on the floor with his cannon, but he managed to not hit anyone.

He set the kid down and was immediately mobbed with people.  Michelle showed up at Hector’s side. “That’s not good...” She calmly noted as her tail lashed back and forth with anxiety.

Hector glanced over at her. “No, no it’s not. What now?”

Michelle shrugged her shoulders. “Beats me, maybe no one noticed?”

Hector glanced back to the Star Trek trio. The were having a very animated discussion amongst themselves, but the Vulcan woman appeared to be in charge because she motioned for them to be quiet as Greg weaved his way to where he and Michelle were standing.

“Oh, hey you two, did you see me catch that kid?!?!” Greg mimed catching the kid as if he had just catch a touchdown pass.

“Yeah, we saw it Arcee, so did a LOT of other people!” Hector crossed his arms as Michelle looked over the crowd with a frown.

“Hey! I couldn’t just let the kid fall. He might have died.” Greg pleaded his case.

The Vulcan lady stepped away from her Klingon escorts and addressed Greg. “An admirable trait, lady robot. To not take action to save a life when it is in your power to do so, would be illogical.” Greg glanced to Hector as if to say, “see?” before the Vulcan continued. “Unless the attempted action would cause undue risk of harming the rescuer or others, but humans rarely make that assessment before they leap into such situations.”

Hector wasn’t sure if the woman was praising or chiding Greg for taking the risk.  She didn’t seem to notice the fact that it was impossible using current technology for Greg’s “robot” to be capable of such a rapid and highly controlled action. Well, unless the military had something in one of the labs they weren’t telling anyone about.  DARPA was known to be working on a robotic pack mule for the Army. So, maybe?

“Umm, yeah, that’s me, no looking before I leap...” Greg tried to nervously run his right hand through his hair before he realized he didn’t have a right hand or any hair. “Doh! Forgot about that. Hehe. I guess I will need to make some adjustments to the code.”

“Code?” The Vulcan woman raised an eyebrow perfectly mimicking Spock and Hector thought the woman was taking her costume way too seriously.

Greg leaned back down and spoke in hushed tones as if trying to keep something secret. “Yeah, don’t tell anyone, but I’m running this thing wirelessly via my laptop using an Open Source robotics program called Y.A.R.P., umm, Yet Another Robot Platform. I had to make a few tweaks to the code and I’m not ready to release my mods back to the community just yet. I don’t wanna get in trouble because C++ programmers and robotics engineering folks can be a surly bunch.”

Hector’s ear started to buzz. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it sounded like the same tones his BlueTooth headset made when he had a call. If it was a built-in headset, he wasn't sure how to answer it.  With that thought, the line opened. “Hector?” A woman’s voice asked. She sounded like Mrs. Hollingsworth from across the street.

“Yes, ma’am.” He held up his hand and stepped away from the current conversation with Vulcan lady. “Is that you Mrs. Hollingsworth?”

“Yes dear. I have a question for you. I saw you leaving on your motorbike this evening-”

Hector interrupted her. “I’m so sorry Mrs. Hollingsworth. I didn’t realize my friend was going to do that! I’ve already chewed, umm, her out and it won’t happen again!”

“No, not that. It’s fine. I understand how you kids are with your motorbikes. My husband used to ride ya know and oh my, the crazy things he used to do on that thing. He had one of those old Indians from, oh, I don’t know when...” Mrs. Hollingsworth paused to take a breath.

Hector knew from past experience that Mrs. Hollingsworth had a tendency to wander a bit before she got to the point. “Yes, I’ve heard of those bikes, very cool. Is there something else?”

Mrs. Hollingsworth coughed lightly a few times. “Oh, oh yes dear. Anyway, I was wondering if you two kids were moving out because there is a white van parked in the driveway. I can’t see much from here, but the young men, there are two of them and they are carrying stuff out of your house.”

“Oh my god! Sorry, but Mrs. Hollingsworth, we aren't moving. Can you call the police? I’m on my way!” Hector turned back to face Greg and Michelle and noticed that the Vulcan lady was walking away from them and Michelle was looking at a business card.

Michelle and Greg turned to him. “What’s going on Hector?” Michelle asked.

“It’s the house, someone is stealing our stuff!” Hector looked up at Greg with a sense of dread filling his heart.  If they stole the machine, Greg could be stuck as a robot.

“Oh crap!” Greg bent down to eye level. “I forgot and left it on my bed when I printed the tickets.” He whispered.

Hector could see the panic in Greg’s mechanical eyes.  For a robot, his face was very expressive. He lifted his Snake Eye goggles and looked Greg in his eyes. He had to keep Greg from panicking and direct eye contact was the best way to get someone to focus. “Greg, look.” He snapped his fingers in front of Greg’s face, causing his eyes to refocus on his face. “Greg! Look at me. I’m parked close. I can get out of here faster than you without making a scene. I’ll meet you at the house. _We_ will work it out, but we can’t afford to panic right now. Okay?”

“O,okay. I’ll try. Shit, this was a bad idea...” Greg straightened up, spun around to face the entrance and carefully began working his way off of the convention center floor.

Hector turned to Michelle. “Help get him out of here. He’ll need you more than ever now. Keep him calm.  We’ll take it one problem at a time, okay?”

Michelle nodded anxiously before Hector turned away from his friends and began weaving his way through the crowds of people and towards the exit.  He glanced back once and saw that Arcee’s movements were being hampered by the crowds of people clamoring to get their picture taken with an Autobot

The Vulcan lady worried him.  There was something about her and her Klingon friends that set off alarm bells inside his core. She knew something. Could she have been changed by a MAU too?  It seemed like of crazy idea, but everything about the device was crazy.  He hoped she bought his YARP robot story.  He felt a little worried about the phone call Hector received. He thought he heard him say it was Mrs. Hollingsworth, the little old lady from across the street. Maybe she was calling to complain about his burnout in the garage?

{“ghaH Qot!”} The Klingon on the right shook his head with disgust.

The Vulcan woman turned back to her friends, or where they her guards? Greg was beginning to get worried because Greg knew just enough Klingon to understand that he had just been called a liar.

{“qIt teH 'ach ghar  'oH ja' vaD naDev.”} She said with measured tones.

Greg only understood about half of what she said, but it was enough to know she agreed with them, but thought a better path might be called for.  ‘true’ and ‘called for here’ where the only words he understood. He pretended to not notice or understand what she said.

“Please pardon the interruption, my name is Darla, but I couldn’t help noticing the advances your robot displays as well as the details of your companions costumes. Much like my own costume and that of my friends. Be that as it may, if you have found and are using a device, I must caution you on its use. It is very dangerous.”

Michelle grabbed his arm with alarm as his interior lubricant levels dropped. Could this woman really be a Vulcan and could the Klingons be real Klingon warriors created by another machine? “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you are talking about. I made this robot in my garage and my friends just know someone who designs costumes for the movies.”

{“qoH soH!”} The second Klingon spat contemptuously and crossed his arms.

“Hey! I am not!” Greg glared at the Klingon who called him a fool.  “This is just a robot I built on top of an old Segway scooter I found for cheap at a garage sale.”

Darla ignored the outburst. “I apologize for my associate.” She dug into her robe and took out a business card. “Your creation is truly impressive. However; if you should need assistance, feel free to contact me.” She began to hand her card to Greg, but after a second glance at Greg’s robot hand, she gave it to Michelle instead.

“Thanks...” Michelle looked at her card before showing it to Greg.

There were only a few lines, written in a font that Greg recognized as Vulcan and below those line were English words. It simply gave her name, a phone number and her email address. Nothing else. Not even a title, but maybe the Vulcan script had extra information.  He would have to  do some translating later.

The encounter with Darla the Vulcan made him feel so stupid. How could he have been so careless? If he hadn’t saved the kid, then he wouldn’t have drawn as much attention to himself, but then, the kid would be dead or seriously injured from the fall.  Tough call, but not one he would change under any circumstance.  He couldn’t ever see himself not helping if he could help. Oh well, the sooner he got home and changed back, the better.

“Oh my god! Sorry, but Mrs. Hollingsworth, we aren't moving. Can you call the police? I’m on my way!” Hector said, causing Greg’s fusion plant to falter. What if someone had taken the MAU?  The news that it looked like their house was being robbed worried him because he remembered he had left the MAU on his bed.

“Oh crap!” Greg leaned down to whisper to Hector and Michelle. “I forgot and left it on my bed when I printed the tickets.”  He couldn’t believe was so stupid and forgot to hide it. Now he was really scared. What if he was stuck like this?

Thank god Hector had been in the Army because he knew how handle an emergency situation.  His calm attitude and assurances that they would figure it out, helped calm his nerves. Or was it circuits now?  When he got back to being himself, he was going to have to give Mrs. Hollingsworth a box of chocolates or something.  The woman deserved it for caring enough to keep an eye out for them.  Besides, the police would probably get there in time to catch the crooks. Yeah, he had to keep thinking positive because that was the only thing keeping him from trying to turn into a jet, blowing a hole in the ceiling and flying home at Mach whatever.

Like Hector said, don’t take make a scene and everything will work out. Hector will get there in time. Phew, yeah, besides, why would a robber even look on someone’s bed for something valuable. There were plenty of computers and other obvious expensive electronics to take.  Who would steal a simple metal box that they couldn’t even open?

“O,okay. I’ll try. Shit, this was a bad idea...” Greg said, feeling a bit more hopeful as he spun around and began the difficult task of exiting the convention center with hordes of soft squishy people in between himself and the exit.

That lasted all of five feet because as soon as he was done talking to Hector, he got stuck dealing with hordes of people wanting to have their picture taken with him.  He wouldn’t have minded it, if he wasn’t in a hurry to leave.  Thank god for Michelle. She appeared at his side and helped clear a path for him without being rude or obnoxious about it.  She was also speeding things up by organizing his photo-ops by telling people Arcee will be available for photos at the next intersection to allow other con goers to make their way down the crowded paths.  He would reach an intersection, people would jump in and have their picture taken and he would be free, mostly, to move to the next intersection. Much faster than being stopped every two feet.

Still, it took them almost 15 minutes to reach the convention center’s exit doors.

Once outside the doors, it took even more self control to not instantly convert into a motorcycle and break a lot of traffic laws, but it wouldn’t be a good idea to get his transforming into a motorcycle on camera. He looked around and shifted his vision into the low light spectrum to try and spot cameras. He didn’t see any. “Do you see any camera’s here? I’ve checked, but it would be good to make sure.”

Michelle glanced around. “Wow, these goggles are cool, but nope, none that I can see either. Well, none pointing in our direction right now anyway.”

“Great!” Greg grabbed Michelle, accelerated and activated his transformation into motorcycle mode while timing everything to deposit Michelle on his seat. “Grab your helmet, honey, and hang on!”

In their wake, they left a few of the more observant convention attendees gasping and cheering at the rapidly disappearing Autobot and her rider.

Chapter Note: The pipeline material for this story is almost used up. We will be switching to a 'just in time' inventory system here soon. Meaning, longer delays between chapters. Sorry, but I will try not to end a chapter on too big of a cliffhanger. Maybe a step-hanger. The next part of Jade Skirt is going through my final proof read/edit and might see the light of day in less than a week.

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

Hector arrived home to the sight of two squad cars parked outside his house. The officers were talking to Mrs. Hollingsworth and his front door was still open.  He parked his bike on the driveway and after showing the officers his license to prove that he lived there, they accompanied him into his house to take stock of the damage.  Their new HDTV, Blu-ray player, Stereo, DVD and CD collection were all gone.  All of Greg’s computers were missing, but worst of all, there was no MAU on his bed. He checked under the bed, but nothing.  Hector’s room was mostly untouched, but his comic book collection was missing, the bastards!

Missing from the garage was his generator, but Greg’s MAU thing was still present. He still wasn’t sure what it did, but it was a good thing Greg made it look so broken down. They had to find the MAU before the cops did. Wheelie was also missing and that also worried him. What if the thieves discovered he was a robot? In the movie, Wheelie had a radio. Maybe Greg could talk to him and find out where he was?

It only took him 15 minutes to file the police report with a list of the things he noticed missing. The officers gave him a number to call if he discovered anything else missing, but they didn’t sound very hopeful. They told him there had been a rash of robberies in the area, but they had all been non-violent and they had no leads to follow. Hector interpreted the “non-violent” to mean, low priority.

As the two officers were leaving, a black Toyota Yaris pulled into the driveway. Except for the car, the man and woman who got out screamed Men in Black. They even wore black suits. The man had the clean-shaven, no-nonsense look that screamed ‘I’m a fed hardass’, but he thought the woman was kind of pretty, although her suit did nothing for her figure. That thought made Hector shiver because he somehow knew that if her suit jacket only had a little more structure; it would really show off her figure.  He had watched one episode of “What Not to Wear” three years ago with an ex-girlfriend and now he remembered that he learned something about women’s fashions?  The machine was evil.

Hector sent a quick text to Greg’s cell phone and he hoped he could get it while in robot form.

>Feds here

The two agents or whatever they were walked up to his front door as he put his phone back into his pocket. “Are you Hector Vasquez?”

“Yes, but who are you?”

They reached into their breast pockets and showed him badges that claimed they worked for the FBI. They looked real to him. Maybe their robbery actually was a federal case now? 

“I’m Agent L and this is Agent P.” The male agent said as he gestured to the female agent with the poorly cut suit jacket.

Hector didn’t like the sound of that. No one identifies themselves using only letters. “That’s it for names? How do I know those badges aren’t fakes?”

The man ignored his question. “We have a few questions to ask regarding a web search you or someone in this residence made regarding a possible alien device.” He handed Hector an official looking letter.

He scanned the legal sounding document and realized it was a National Security Letter. It gave the agents carte blanche to do whatever they wanted and worst of all, he couldn’t tell anyone, not even his mother. Due to the oath he swore to defend the Constitution from enemies, both foreign and domestic, the NSL kind of pissed him off.

Hector handed the letter back to the man. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Agent L glared at Hector. “Sir, we can do this the hard way or the easy way, your choice. The hard way is, I make a call and tell the Department of Homeland Security that we have evidence of a possible terrorist cell making bombs here.  You don’t want that, do you?”

Hector wanted to punch the man in his face for threatening him like that. He didn’t spend four years serving his country, fighting for freedom in some other country and getting his ass shot at by insurgents to come home to this kind of Gestapo shit, but short of killing them both, what could he do?  Killing the pair would only make things worse and in spite of how he felt, he wasn’t a cold blooded killer.

Agent P glanced worriedly at Agent L and touched his arm to interrupt him. “Look, Sergeant Vasquez. We have your service record and we know you were in the Army. We don’t like resorting to threats, but this is bigger than just ‘National Security’ and I think we both know it, right?” She smiled encouragingly.

Reluctantly, Hector nodded as some of the tension began to leave his body.

Agent P continued. “So, why don’t we try the easy way? You invite us inside where we can talk about what you know or don’t know. If nothing, we leave and all is good. If you have the device, hand it over and again, we leave and all is good. We were never here and you never saw this device.”

Hector sighed with defeat as he let the two agents enter his house. “It’s not here.”

“What?” Agent L turned back.

“It’s not here anymore. Our house was broken into. That’s why the police were here when you pulled up. Someone robbed our house.”

“Our house?” Agent P asked.

With the agents here, he doubted Greg would be able to change into his Pretender form and he would probably send Michelle in his place. “Yes, me and my girlfriend, Michelle. She’s on her way here now.”  With that warning, Hector heard Greg and Michelle pull up and the garage door begin to open.  He led the agents into the living room. “She’ll be inside in a few, but can I get you two something to drink while we wait?”

“No thanks, we’re fine.” Agent L said as he surveyed the remains of the living room.

“Well, I hope you don’t mind if I get a beer, then. It’s been a rough night.” Hector grabbed a beer from the fridge and wondered what was taking Michelle so long to come into the house. He was a little worried that Michelle would give it away, but she seemed pretty sharp. Thus, he felt a little surprised when Greg, as Scarlett walked into the house instead of Michelle.

“Umm, Michelle.” He gestured toward the living room. “This is Agent L and the lady is Agent P.”

Greg looked at Hector with confusion. “Say what?”

“I know, strange names, but they know about the MAU, honey.” Hector said as he reached to give Greg a hug.

Instead of allowing himself to be hugged, Greg panicked and ran to his room. “Oh my god! Where is it? I have to get out of my costume!”

Hector stared helplessly after him as the female agent followed Greg into his room.  So much for keeping his change a secret.  10 or so seconds later he heard Greg wail. “It’s gone! What am I going to do? I can’t go to work like this!”

Agent L walked over. “I take it, she isn’t really Michelle, your girlfriend?” He didn’t seem terribly surprised.

“No, _she’s_ Greg, my room-mate.” Hector numbly sat down on the couch and wondered where Michelle was. She must be hiding out in the garage. We understood why Greg would want to protect her from all this, but her jeep was parked out front. How would they explain that and what was taking Greg so long in his room with the female agent?

“Umm, do you mind if I bring my bike in? I wouldn’t want to have it get stolen.” Hector stood and placed his untouched beer on the coffee table.

“Sure, do you need a hand?” Agent L asked.

“I can get it, but thanks.” Hector made his way to the garage with Agent L following him. He couldn’t very well ask the dude to not follow him. It would be suspicious. He hoped Michelle was good at hiding.

Hector didn’t spot her when he entered the garage. He guessed she was hiding in Greg’s car. The agent kept him in sight the entire time and poked around the garage. He didn’t spot Michelle either and Hector really wondered where she was hiding because she was good.  He felt something tap him on his shoulder and turned around. Nothing and the agent was looking out of the garage, toward Michelle’s jeep.  He looked up and there was Michelle. She was crouched down in the rafters. Her imaged wavered and she disappeared right before his eyes.

“Whose Jeep is that?” Agent L asked.

Hector really didn’t like that guy. Was the damn guy telepathic or something? “Oh, that’s Michelle’s. Greg’s girlfriend’s Jeep. She needed a ride to the airport and didn’t want to pay for parking.” Hector prayed Michelle had a way to tell Greg what he just told Agent L because if not, their story would fall apart faster than a trailer park in a tornado. 

Greg felt a little ashamed to admit it, but when Hector called him Michelle and then said the MAU was missing, he panicked. With the female cop or agent on his heels, he entered his room and began a desperate search for the MAU.  It wasn’t on his bed and his room looked pretty ransacked.  At a loss for what to do, he opened up the Bluetooth link with Michelle. {“Michelle! It’s not here!”}

{“Relax honey...we can get through this together, I love you, remember?”} Michelle’s calm and soothing voice came over his internal comm unit.

Greg activated his calming breath subroutine and the familiarity of the human reaction helped him relax. {“Thanks. I would be so lost without you...”}

Agent P, the female agent, leaned casually against the doorframe. “Any luck?”

“No, everything is gone.” He pointed to his now very messed up bed. “It was right here when I left, but not anymore. I checked everywhere.  I’m so screwed.”

Agent P nodded sympathetically. “I wouldn’t say you’re ‘screwed’, but I think that after a few months, you might not feel so bad.”

Greg snorted with disbelief. “Is this the part where you explain to me that the other half of the population is female and they get along just fine? You will just adapt and maybe even come to enjoy being a woman?”

{“Hey! Be nice...”} Michelle hissed.

Agent P was about to reply, but Greg beat her. “Sorry, I know, or maybe I think, you’re trying to help me here, but I’m just not ready for all this.” He gestured to his body. “It’s a little overwhelming, you know?”

“Do you mind if I lend you a hand and help you search?” Agent P asked.

Greg sat down on his bed, careful to keep his weight compensators going. It would not be good to break his bed right now. “Go ahead, but you’ll only find some of my old and dirty socks, or something.”

“What’s this?” She held up his Black Widow costume.

“Umm, well...” Greg’s blush subroutine fired.

Agent P struggled not to smile, but her eyes betrayed her. “Do you mind if I keep this?” Greg shook his head no. “Thanks, it will help our materials researchers.  I would ask for your current costume, but it would leave you without clothes and this one here.” She placed his costume into a black evidence bag. “Should suffice.”

{“Did she find your Black Widow costume? If so, she probably just wants it for herself!”} Michelle giggled softly.

{“Shhh, meanie...”} Greg stopped his smile subroutine before it could start.

After she sealed up the bag, Agent P turned back to Greg. “So, Greg, I know my partner can be a bit, gruff at times, but we’re only trying to help.”

{“Gruff? Ha! The dude sounds like a jerk!”} Michelle laughed.

“Yeah...” Greg nodded and looked away to hide his amusement at Michelle’s assessment of Agent L. He heard the garage door opening.

{“Uh oh, Hector and some other dude are here now. It looks like Hector is getting his bike.”} Michelle calmly noted.

{“You’re hiding, right?”}

{“Duh...”} Michelle giggled. {“Of course silly. I just hope this chameleon thing works as well as it looks like it is.”}

{“Yeah, me too...”} Greg muttered.

{“Oh, Hector told him I parked my jeep here so you could give me a ride to the airport.”}

{“Good, thanks. I hope it works because I don’t want them knowing about you. I don’t trust these guys because there is no such thing as, ‘Hi, we’re from the government and we’re here to help you.’”}

As Greg and Michelle plotted, Agent P took his office chair, opened her briefcase, extracted a laptop and set it on his desk.  Greg noticed it had a cellular network card plugged into it and after she opened it, a login screen with FBI emblazoned in the middle of a blue background appeared.  She typed in a hidden login ID and password, and then placed her badge on the side, next to a small USB dongle and a screen with “Witness Protection” popped up.

Agent P spun around to face him. She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I realize it might be rather sudden and it doesn’t seem real, yet, but, just in case, we should get started on a new identity for you.”

Michelle whistled appreciatively. {“Wow, she works fast...”}

“Umm, okay, but are you sure it’s needed? I mean, what if the police find our stuff?” Greg wanted to say, ‘we find our stuff’, because he hadn’t given up and he knew he couldn’t really count on the police to find it.  Even if they did find it, the government would take it and never let him use it to turn himself back to normal.

Agent P spun back around to face her laptop. “Well, if they find it and we can change you back, then nothing is needed, but this can take a week or two and it’s best to start ASAP.”

Agent P had to be lying about changing him back. “Oh, okay. I guess.” Greg said.

Agent P entered some information on the screen. Stuff like hair color, eye color, height, she paused. “5’ 11”, 150 pounds, honest.” Greg clarified because he knew women habitually lied about their weight and, since his anti-grav was compensating, he knew exactly how much he weighed down to as many decimal places he cared to check.

Agent P smiled at his qualification of his weight. “Now for the next question women hate, age?”

Greg hesitated. “I was 27-”

{“Grandpa.”} Michelle whispered.

Greg managed to force-stop a laugh from escaping, but not before a smirk subroutine managed to execute itself. {“Shush, you young whippersnapper!”}

“Well, I dunno. How old do I look, 24?” Greg glanced down at himself, but he hadn’t really studied his new face. So, he didn’t know what to even guess.

“Hmmm, 24 could work, but you look like you might be a little younger. How old was the actress when she made that movie?” At Greg’s blank expression, Agent P spun back around and fired up her browser.  “Wow, she was 19 in 2009.” She shrugged. “Oh well, 24 will work. It will just make other women jealous of your youthful looks.”

{“Hey! No fair, now you’re going to be a year younger than me!”} Michelle pretended to pout.

Agent P spun back and studied Greg thoughtfully. “The final tough question. So, what do you want for a name? Any ideas?”

{“Scarlett is nice. Oh! How about Amber or even better, Michelle?”} Michelle was not helping, but her positive attitude and knowing she supported him helped make Greg feel better.

“Uuhhgg...” Greg drew a blank.

“What’s your mom’s name?” Agent P gently asked.

“Kim, Kimberly.”

“That’s nice, how about Kimberly for a middle name?” Agent L typed it into the middle name line and followed that with Williamson for the last name. “You do want to keep your last name, right?”

“Yes.” Greg still didn’t know about what to use for his first name, but he knew he didn’t want Scarlett.  He liked the name, but he didn’t want the reminder. Arcee’s holographic rider name sounded good to him.  “Sadie? Will Sadie work?”

“Sure! Nice name and not very common these days either.” She entered it into the first name line, then clicked on an “Information” icon that popped up next to the name. “Sadie Kimberly Williamson,” She pointed to the screen with some of the meanings behind the name. “But you could go with Sarah. Sadie was used as a nickname for Sarah.”

“No thanks, Sadie is good. Sarah would make me feel too much like I was in the Terminator. I’d be worried to answer my door.” Greg smiled at his joke as Agent P shook her head with confusion. 

Thankfully Michelle softly snickered. {“You’re such a geek, but so loveable!”}

“Okay, education?” Agent P glanced back over her shoulder.

“University of San Diego, Bachelor of Accountancy, can you do that too?”

“Yep, but we will need to make you a recent graduate since it will be too hard to fake your prior work experience, okay?”  Agent P keyed everything into the system and had him smile for the camera. His new face appeared and with some graphics magic, a plain background replaced his messy bedroom walls. Finally, she performed a few clicks on additional screens for Drivers License, Social Security, Passport and hit submit. 
 

{“Damn...wish I had that in HR. Would make things sooo much easier.”} Michelle wistfully muttered.

She closed her laptop and spun back around to face him. “That should do it Sadie, but it will take between one and two weeks before your new identification arrives. Any questions?”

Greg tried not to flinch when she used his ‘temporary’ new name, but the subroutine fired before he realized it. He knew she was only trying to help him and she was doing an excellent job, but his only complaint is that Agent P assumed he was stuck.  “No, none that I can think of...umm, thanks.”

“No problem. Let’s go join the boys, shall we?” Agent P smiled warmly as she stood and gestured toward the door.

With his bike parked, Hector closed the garage door and re-entered the house with Agent L on his heels and snooping into everything.  Greg and Agent P were back in the living room and Greg seemed to be under control, but he did look a little anxious and tense until he spotted Hector. The way he looked at him made him want to rush to his side and tell him everything would be okay. Even though he knew Greg was really a robot and not a woman, his female body still triggered all his protective instincts.

With the two of them back in the same room, Agent L sat down and aggressively leaned forward to address Hector and Greg together. “Now, we need to know what kind of changes you two made to yourselves and we will also take care of providing Greg here with a new ID and back-”

Agent P interrupted Agent L. “Already done. She picked Sadie as her name.”

“Well, okay then. Good job.” He shook his head with wonder before he got back on track. “Now, Greg, sorry, Sadie.  It appears you turned yourself into a copy of Scarlett from G.I. Joe. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.” Greg looked up and nodded.

Agent L scratched his head as he pondered over Greg’s reply. “Sorry, it’s been awhile since I was a kid, ‘Go Joe!’” He grinned. “But, did Scarlett have any superhuman powers?”

 “Not that I know of, but she was a crack shot with a crossbow. Why?” Greg pointed to the holstered crossbow pistol resting on his right hip and Hector wondered if it actually worked.

“We just need to know if you’re a possible danger to society, but it appears you might have gotten lucky.” Greg snorted with disbelief at that statement. “Yes, lucky that you only turned yourself into a woman. You would not believe, or maybe you would, what some people have turned themselves into and gotten stuck as. In addition to you and your roommate here, was anyone else involved in this incident?”

“No, sir.” Greg softly answered, his eyes looking close to tears and Hector found himself impressed by how realistic his Decepticon body was at simulating a person.  He knew the emotions Greg had were real, but he didn’t expect his body to be able to produce tears to match.

“Not even your girlfriend? Rachel was her name, right?” Agent L asked, as if he had heard the name wrong when Hector told him it.

Greg looked up. “No, sir, it’s Michelle.”
 

“Oh yeah, sorry.” Agent L impatiently waved away his apology. “She left her Jeep here so you two could fix it for her?”

“No, sir. She had a flight to catch and it’s cheaper to park it here, why?” Greg asked, pretending to not understand why the agent would think that.

Hector kept his poker face in place while inside he breathed a huge sigh of relief.  Either the two of them had been friends long enough to share brains or it looked like Michelle was somehow able to clue Greg in on the alibi.

Agent L appeared to realize he was being obvious with his cross-examination questions. “Okay, just checking because we need to know how much cleanup will be needed. If she has been turned into some fantasy creature, alien or something else, we need to know.”

Greg nodded his head with agreement. “No sir, she hasn’t and I never had the chance to show her the machine. I was going to do that when she flew back in on Sunday.”

Agent L turned his attention to Hector. “Now, did you make any changes to yourself?”

Hector wasn’t sure which way to go here.  Sure, he looked normal and short of putting him into an x-ray machine, nothing unusual would show, but who wouldn’t use the machine to change something about themselves?  If he said, nothing, there was zero chance of the dick believing him. Conversely, if he told him he made himself into Wolverine, what would happen to him? Would he end up in some medical lab being experimented upon by a bunch of mad scientists? “Umm, well, I...”  Hector blushed as he thought about his change into Jennifer.

Agent L and Agent P exchanged knowing glances.

“I sorta tried, umm, you know...” Hector glanced at Greg and felt like a jerk for wussing out. If they didn’t get that machine back, Greg was going to be stuck like that while he had it easy.

“I see...” Agent L smugly grinned at Hector. “Well, you two are very lucky you didn’t have better imaginations or more time to experiment.”

“Yes, sir.” Both Greg and Hector replied together.

“Okay, so for the record, when was, as near to the minute you can recall, the first time you used the device?” Agent L asked.

Greg and Hector looked at each other, but Greg went first. “Umm, I think it was around 7pm, Wednesday night.”

Hector jumped in. “Probably closer to 1910 or so, sir. I remember heading out the garage to work on my bike a few minutes past 7pm and spotting the MAU.”

Agent L raised an eyebrow at Hector’s identification of the machine as wrote the time and date down on a notebook. “Excellent, and other than the first time you tried to use it, did you receive any strange alien text after that?”

Greg shook his head slowly back and forth. “No? Not that I recall, why?”

Agent L sat down and sighed heavily. “What I am about to tell you is considered beyond Top Secret, not even the President knows, but we believe the first string of text is a demo license notice of some sort. Unfortunately, we can’t be sure because our scientists have never been able to decipher or translate what it says.  After approximately 72 hours, the machine will provide a second notice or warning and finally, within 24 hours of receiving that notice, the machine will stop working, permanently.”

Somehow, Greg turned white as a sheet. “No way! I thought it was an alien scouting device. Are you trying to tell me it really is some alien toy?!?”

Agent L and P exchanged glances with Agent P jumping in and attempting to provide Greg some comfort. “Sorry, but we can’t really say one way or the other. An alien scouting device is a good theory, but no one knows for sure. However; what we do know for sure is that every unit found thus far shuts down after approximately 96 hours of use.”

Agent L turned to his partner. “Well, Agent P, is there anything else you need or want to cover with, Sadie,” Greg flinched at that reminder. “While I get Mr. Vasquez to show me around, just to make sure we didn’t overlook something.”

“Yes, I believe we do have a few additional details we can iron out while the boys get all dirty.” Agent P smirked as she reached into her bag for her laptop.

Hector got a little worried when Agent L retrieved a FLIR thermo-imaging camera from his rental car. He spent, or wasted, the next 30 minutes on pins and needles following Agent L around the house as he ran the camera over every square inch in an attempt to spot any hidden compartments. They should be out there trying to find the MAU right now, but Hector learned two things during that time. One, the insulation around their windows sucked and two, Michelle’s suit was incredibly good at keeping her hidden. He also learned that Greg appeared like a normal human under the FLIR too. Yes, Agent L “accidentally” ran his camera over the two of them.

“Well, relatively speaking, I’d have to say the pair of you are lucky.” Agent L extracted a very non-descript card from his wallet. “Here is my card.” He handed it to Hector and as he gave it a quick once over, he was surprised to find it lacked any identity data. It simply had Agent L’s initial, an email address and a phone number, nothing else.

Agent P gave her card to Greg. “Sadie,” He or she flinched a little less this time with the use of her temporary new name. “I should have your ID packet ready for you by Friday. Lemme know what you wanna do about your parents. We can be there if you elect to notify them of your change, or, handle the missing persons case if you elect to go that route.”

Hearing Greg being referred to as Sadie kind of confused Hector, but it was the ‘missing persons’ reference that really put everything into perspective for Hector. He could understand Agent P’s reasoning behind getting Greg a female name right away and using it, but if they failed to find the MAU, Greg could lose everything. His family, his job and maybe even his just found girlfriend slash life mate.  They had to find the MAU. Failure was not an option.

“Thanks, umm, Agent P, but I still have some thinking to do.” Greg nodded his head as he gratefully accepted her card.

As soon as he heard the Agent’s car pull out of their driveway, Greg stood and faced Hector. “Any ideas?”

Hector motioned for him to be quiet, pointed to his ears and mouthed. “Bugs?”

{“Wait a sec, Michelle. Checking for bugs...”} Greg sent.

{“Gotcha, but none out here. Well, none that I can see anyway. Not sure if you included some bug detector or not.”} Michelle chuckled. {“I mean, you included everything else and have I mentioned recently how much I love my tail?”}

Greg was forced to smile by Michelle’s upbeat attitude.  She made his fusion plant spike a few thousand kilowatts.  {“He he, thanks Michelle. I have told you how much I love you?”}

{“Not within the last 10 minutes, but you can make that oversight up to me when you two get done checking for bugs, so hurry up and less chit chat!”} Michelle giggled mischievously.

While Hector checked under the coffee table or anywhere the two agents had sat or stood, Greg ran a frequency scan.  Except for his friend’s own devices and cellphones, he didn’t spot anything. “I got nothing, you?”

Hector checked a few more spots. “Nada, maybe they didn’t leave any pests?”

{“Okay Michelle, all clear!”}

Michelle, still in her full Catwoman suit ran into the living room and jumped on Greg, forcing him to fall back into the couch as she sat on top of him and kissed him deeply and passionately on the lips. Even without their link and with Hector in the room still, he felt his body responding in surprising ways.  Before he could contemplate what it might mean, she broke their kiss and stared wonderfully into his eyes.  “Wow, I never thought I would enjoy kissing another girl so much, but I can’t help it. It’s like that Katy Perry song!” She giggled before staring at Greg with a dreamy expression. “I know you’re inside and it makes me feel all gooey inside just looking at you.  And your lips, they still taste like yummy strawberries!”

Greg felt surprised by everything she just said. “Really?”

“Yep! How did manage that trick? I love strawberries.” Michelle kissed him again. “Yep, definitely strawberries.”

Greg was more worried about the fact he looked like a girl right now. The taste of his lips seemed a little low on the issues list. “I, I dunno, but you don’t mind me?” Greg glanced down at his chest.

“Well, I...” She studied his face for a second before glancing down at the rest of his body. She absently licked her lips as her tail gently wrapped itself around his leg. “I guess not. I feel myself feeling just as attracted to you now as I did before.” She gently kissed and nibbled his lips once again.

Hector cleared his throat. “Okay you two. As much as I like watching a little girl on girl action, now is not the time.”

Michelle laughed and stood, helping Greg back to his feet. “Sorry...” Greg’s blush subroutine fired again “So, what now?” Greg glanced around the messy living room. “Where’s Wheelie? Maybe he could show us some pictures of what they looked like or what they said?”

Hector sighed with frustration. “They took him, too.”

“Oh?” Greg activated his comm suite and scanned for other Decepticons.  He picked up Wheelie right away. Nothing else either, which somehow made him feel relieved.

{“Wheelie, where are you?”} He sent using Autobot code.

{“Boss?!?! Is that you? I thought I was a goner for sure when those jerks came and grabbed me. When are you going to come get me?”}

Greg groaned with frustration. {“As soon as you can tell me where you are...”}

{“Oh, oh yeah! Sure boss, lemme activate my tracking signal.”}

A set of coordinates appeared in Greg’s memory. He wanted to try connecting to the internet and using Google maps to plot the location, but the bastards even stole their wireless routers. So, Greg walked over to the wall and as he touched the co-ax cable their equipment had been plugged into, his fingers twisted and like a squid’s tentacles, wrapped themselves around the cable.  Data began to flow into his systems as he instinctively and effortlessly hacked into their cable company's network to access the internet.

He plugged in the coordinates and turned back to face Hector and Michelle.  His left eye morphed into a robotic lens and a holographic image of the map appeared in the air.  Wheelie was in a large warehouse complex in Long Beach. Exactly 71.3 miles, in a straight line from their current location or 86.5 miles via the most direct route. It would take them over an hour to get there, depending on how many traffic laws they broke in the process.

Reluctantly, he disconnected from the internet. It seemed so bright and shiny from his side. He felt like a kid in a candy store and he wanted to explore it, but he had more important things to worry about. “I could try flying there, but I would only have room for one if it worked...”

Hector frowned. “Yeah, and you would probably have a bunch of F-16’s chasing you in no time.  We should stay together.”

Greg was surprised by Hector’s statement.  He expected him to agree to go with him and it made him feel a little ashamed to realize he was trying to exclude Michelle. “Sorry, Michelle, I didn’t mean...”

Michelle laughed and hugged him. “Oh, it’s okay dear. You’ve only been a girl for a few hours. It will take a few more before you start thinking right.”  She gave Greg another kiss before turning back to face Hector. “So, what’s your plan?”

Hector stared at the pair for a second before he snapped out of it. “Okay, well, this is probably going to hurt you more than me, good buddy, but Michelle and I need to look like you and I are riding my bike.”

It took a few nanoseconds for Greg to figure out what Hector meant. He shook his head slowly from side to side. “Oh no, no way, you’re not going to ride me...”

Once they were back in their vehicle, Agent P turned to Agent L. “So, what do you think?”

“They’re not being entirely honest, but I don’t blame them.” Agent L sighed as he started their car. “The device was stolen, that much is true.  Since they activated it only 72 hours ago, we still have an active event on our hands.  That device is in this state, somewhere and we need to find it.”

Agent P nodded her head and pursed her lips as she thought about Agent L’s assessment. “Yes, so, what now?”

Agent L backed their vehicle out of their suspect’s driveway. “Now, we wait. I expect our two friends to go hunting for the MAU.  Mr. Vasquez’s military service record indicated he was not one to shy away from danger.  We follow the pair and see what they can find while also keeping an eye on the local police to see if they have any leads on this robbery. Find their stuff and we find the MAU.”

Chapter Note: This is it for the pipeline material. We are now on a just in time inventory system and my restocking software is very buggy. It might take a week or so before the next chapter is ready. Sorry...

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

Hector wasn’t sure what to think or feel as he followed Michelle and Greg to the garage. Michelle in her Catwoman costume holding hands with Greg, who was now Sadie, in her Scarlett costume made it hard to know what to think and embarrassingly uncomfortable.  He knew it was his idea for Greg/Arcee/Sadie to do her Autobot disguise trick and pretend to be his motorcycle, but now he was worried about sitting on him. No, Arcee. He must think of Greg as Arcee, simply a robot motorcycle, nothing else.

As soon as the trio entered the garage, a beam of red laser light erupted from both of Arcee’s eyes and scanned his Gixxer.  Shortly after the scan stopped, he began to transform. Hector had to admit, it was damn cool to watch Gr-Arcee transform and he was impressed when a perfect copy of his bike stood in the floor.

“Okay, let’s get this over with and we treat this like Vegas, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, got it?” Arcee’s voice came from somewhere near his, no Arcee’s instrument cluster.  The only way he could tell it wasn’t his bike was by the Autobot symbol on the triple clamp instead of the Suzuki S emblem.

Hector and Michelle laughed. “Yep, got it Arcee.” Hector said; relieved to know Greg probably felt just as weirded out about being ridden by Hector as Hector felt about riding him.

Hector grabbed his helmet, jacket and gloves from his bike and gingerly sat on Arcee.  Michelle grabbed the matching helmet from Arcee’s tail section and sat behind him.  He heard Arcee’s motor start, but unlike his bike, there were no vibrations. It did sound exactly like his bike though.  Arcee activated the garage door and it took Hector by surprise when the bike he was supposed to be riding, started to pull out of the garage on its own.

“I liked you better as a red bike.” Michelle said, wistfully.

Hector sighed. “You mean, a Ducati?”

Michelle playfully punched Hector’s shoulder. “Yeah, one of those!”

“Well, not only is Hector heavy, but being his bike makes me feel fat. I mean, look at my rear tire now. It’s huge!” Arcee chuckled.

Hector didn’t know if he should laugh or scream in horror. While he always thought of a motorcycle as female, a man’s motorcycle is not supposed to complain about their rider’s weight or how fat they feel.  “Geez Arcee, if you ask me if your tail...section looks fat, I’m going to scream.” He chuckled to show he was joking.

“Hey, as long as you still respect me in the morning!” Arcee shot back before both she and Michelle started to laugh.  The fact that she could joke about it, made Hector feel better.  He decided to ignore the fact he thought of Greg as a “she” versus a “he” and just go with the flow. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.

As they slowly drove down their street, Arcee’s gauges flashed to get Hector’s attention. “You should try to partially activate your Snake Eyes costume so we can use the Bluetooth to communicate while we are riding.  Michelle and I are interfaced, but you might need to talk to us.”

“Okay, lemme see what I can do...” Hector concentrated on activating just the head part of his costume and wonder of all wonders, it worked.  Greg’s costume geekdom really was cool.

{“Testing...1...2...3...”} Hector heard in his ear.

“Yep, I hear you, can you hear me now?” Hector chuckled.

Michelle let loose a light cheer. {“Yeah, we can hear you just fine, Hector!”}

{“So, Hector, why did you call me Arcee?”} Arcee asked, hesitantly.

Hector was glad Arcee was doing the driving for him because if had been, he might have missed the turn at the end of their block. “Ummm, sorry bud, but it’s just easier to think of you as Arcee when you’re like this. Aside from ‘my’ bike driving itself and freaking me out, I am having a hard time thinking of you as Greg when you, well, look like this and sound like a woman.” Hector glanced down at Arcee’s gas tank.

{“Ahh, I see.”} Arcee said, softly. {“Sorry if I’m freaking you out. It’s kind of freaking me out too.”}

Michelle soothed Arcee. {“You know you can count on me, no matter what!”} Michelle paused and hugged Hector tightly. {“And thanks Hector, thanks for being Greg’s best friend.”}

Hector felt his throat tighten and his eyes begin to sting a little. “Hey, de nada. It’s what friends are for. We’ll get you back to normal, well normal for you.” He chuckled.

{“Thanks, you better take over for a few minutes while I work to stop my sudden, umm, coolant leak.”} Arcee half sniffed and half laughed as her gauges dimmed.

Hector smoothly took over as Arcee’s controls began to respond to his inputs.  He felt Michelle snuggle up against his back, and then relax.  He wasn’t sure what the two of them were saying or doing via their interface, but it felt nice having Michelle holding on to him and once again, that made him think about Natalie. He liked Michelle. She was pretty damn cool and it was damn spooky how close the pair had become, but it would be nicer if Natalie was riding with him.

As a conscientious rider intent on not gaining the extra attention of a law enforcement officer, Hector used his turn signal and turned onto the main road, heading west and toward Interstate 15 and Long Beach. A few miles later, Arcee’s gauges brightened and she took back the controls. {“Don’t look back, but we have a tail.”} Gone was the strain, Arcee’s voice was all business.

Agent L felt the warm glow of satisfaction when they spotted Mr. Vasquez and the new Miss Williamson ride past their location.  Either the pair had an idea where to find the MAU or they were counting on blind luck to find the white van spotted at their house. Fat chance of that happening, but with the odds of finding MAU in the first place, maybe they would get lucky twice.  Regardless, he would follow the pair and see what they turned up.

“Okay, there they go. Let’s see where they think they’re going...” Agent L eased the Yaris onto the main road, approximately 1/4 of a mile behind their target. They were heading west and toward Interstate 15. Trailing a target on an interstate was even easier because there were so few escape options and he could increase the following distance even further to help avoid detection.

The darkness would also help. While it was easy for the target to spot a vehicle behind them, the headlights made it very hard for the target to notice if same car has been following them; if they were even aware in the first place and their tail lights made it super easy to keep them in sight. Their target turned onto Interstate 15, heading north and towards Corona.

After about 10 miles of keeping the pair in sight and occasionally dropping back to swap places with another vehicle to confuse their target, Agent L glanced over at Agent P.  She was sleeping peacefully and he was forced to admit, she looked very beautiful. He was glad she was with him because she handled her first contact extremely well and was instrumental in helping to gain the target’s trust.

He looked back up and the target’s tail lights were no longer there. “Shit!” He was just passing an exit-ramp. They must have turned off. He rapidly weaved over and took the exit-ramp, but they weren’t there either.  “Fuck!”  His yell woke Agent P.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“We might have lost them. I glanced away for a second and they disappeared on me. I thought they took this ramp, but nope.” He fumed at his panic reaction as he waited for the traffic at the bottom of the exit so he could re-enter the highway.

“So you think they lost you on purpose?” Agent P sat up straighter and peered alertly ahead.

“I dunno, hard to say, but I wouldn’t put it past them.” Agent L floored the little Yaris’s accelerator in an attempt to pick up speed and re-enter the highway. That damn thing was so anemic it made him want to strangle the rental company, again.  “Shit, they are probably a mile or two ahead of us now...”

Agent P spun around and dug into her laptop bag.  She opened it and logged into the FBI site.

“What are you doing?” Agent L asked.

“Mr. Vasquez and Miss Williamson both have cell phones, correct?” Agent P said as she navigated through the system and pulled up the law enforcement interface to the cell phone companies.

“Ahh, good idea. I’m glad Agent K assigned you to this case with me.” Agent L grinned as he thanked his lucky stars that people these days couldn’t even leave their house without the need to call or text one of their friends at any time, day or night.

Once again, Greg thanked James Cameron for making Avatar. His interface and link with Michelle was the only thing keeping him sane right now. While physically, she was sitting on top of him and snuggled up against Hector, virtually, she was hugging him tightly and providing him with her love as tears of gratitude slowly fell down his face. In his core space, he found he could virtually project himself and make his avatar look like his old, male self.

It felt like Michelle was hugging him and whispering directly in his ear. “It’ll be okay, honey, we will get through this together. Thanks to Wheelie, we know where our, I mean your stuff is. We’ll simply ask the bad guys to give us back your stuff and everything will be back to normal in no time.”

Greg felt some of the darkness fading. “Do you think it will be that easy?” He chuckled.

“No, but you have Hector and me. I’m sure the thieves will see the value in being nice to us, right?” Michelle giggled.

Greg hugged Michelle. “Of course, but I’d rather you kept out of the fight.” He felt Michelle stiffen. “Not because I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m ‘more’ than confident in your newfound ability to kick ass, but because I don’t want the Agents to find out about you. I just hope they don’t try to check the airlines to see if you really flew somewhere this week. Since they didn’t even ask what your last name was, I’m hopeful that they won’t.”

Michelle relaxed again. “Yeah, I hope not either and you’re probably right about me staying out of it, but I don’t have to like it. We’re a pair now mister and if you think for one second I’m going to let you get all macho and protect me, you got another thing coming, got it?!”

Greg laughed, hugged her tightly to his chest and kissed the top of her forehead. “Oh yeah, got it, but I am sure Hector will think of something for you to do. You’re essentially a Super Catwoman now and I’m sure that having an expert thief on our side will help.”

Michelle’s presence helped him relax and once again, he turned his awareness back to his body. It felt kind of, no, very strange to have both Hector and Michelle sitting on what was essentially his back, yet have it feel comfortable for the pair to be there. Adding to the strangeness was how nice it felt to be ridden. It was almost like he was a motorcycle serving its intended purpose. The feel of the cool night air rushing over his body and the road beneath his tires served to increase his enjoyment.  He felt a sense of freedom and exhilaration as Hector made him accelerate around a slower moving car. Dang slow clunkers with their four wheels cluttering up the road and wasting all that gas!

He extended his awareness and used his mirrors to look behind himself. He easily spotted Hector and Michelle, but behind them and hiding behind another car; his night vision system spotted the Black Yaris with the cheerful face of Agent L behind the wheel and Agent P yawning in the passenger seat.  {“Don’t look back, but we have a tail.”} He sent to Hector’s Bluetooth link as he displayed a live feed for Hector on his speedometer.  He didn’t need to let Michelle know because, thanks to their link, she knew it as soon as he did.

{“What do you wanna do?”} Hector asked.

{“Well, I am pretty sure we can lose them anytime we want. They’re not a super fast motorcycle like I am, but if we just took off; they might get a little pissed.”} Greg felt uncommonly proud of his ability to go fast and found himself itching to prove it.

{“True...let’s just take the highway as planned. From there we can come up with a plan that makes it look like we ‘accidently’ lost them.”}  Hector chuckled.

They let the Agents follow behind for the first ten miles. Agent P fell asleep in the passenger seat almost as soon as they entered the highway.  As they were approaching an exit ramp, Agent L looked away and at Agent P sleeping next to him.  That is when they acted.

{“Hang on!”} Greg shut off his lights and dropped the motorcycle sound effect as he poured on the acceleration.  They went from a safely legal 70 mph to 150 mph in the blink of an eye.

{“Hollllyyy shiiittt!”} Hector yelled as Michelle pushed against his back to help keep him on the bike.

Greg slowed his acceleration once he passed 150 to allow Hector to regain his grip on the handlebars. They topped out at a steady and silent 200mph as he kept the rapidly shrinking Yaris in his sights.  His last visual of the agent’s car was when it suddenly swerved off the road and took the exit ramp.

{“They took the bait!”} Greg gleefully cried.

{“Fuck me, you’re fast...”} Hector struggled to get his breathing under control as they continued, lights out up the highway at a smooth 200 mph. {“Okay, umm, take the next exit and we will cut across to 5 on 74. It will add a few minutes, but should lose them for sure and it’s a fun road.”} He suddenly stiffened with shock. {“200?!?! Umm, Arcee, can you slow down now?”}

{“Oh, darn, but it was so much fun. I can go faster you know?”} Greg teased Hector.

{“I’m sure you can, now that you’re a Suzuki, but our exit is coming up in like, now.”} Hector calmly noted.

{“Oh shit!}” Greg hit his brakes, rapidly bringing them down from 200 to 100 as he exited the highway. He managed to bring them to a mostly smooth stop at the bottom of the ramp. They turned west onto 74 and after a bit of crawling through the town of Lake Elsinore, they hit the funnest road Greg had ever ridden on.

It took Hector a couple of miles to relax and trust him, but once he did, the ride was a blast as they carved the twisties, as Hector called them, with borderline reckless abandon.  Thankfully, at 11pm, the road was fairly deserted. They only had to pass a few cars and with Greg scanning all the police band frequencies and looking for radar and/or laser detectors, they easily spotted and avoided the one police officer that had a speed trap set up.

{“Ya know, I’m going to miss this part about being an Autobot when I change back...”} Greg hesitantly admitted to Hector and Michelle.

They almost reached Interstate 5 when he detected his and Hector’s phone attempt to respond to a ping request from the nearest cell towers.  He was able to prevent his built in phone from responding, but Hector’s sent their current latitude and longitude coordinates. {“Shit!”}

{“What?”} Hector asked.

Greg sighed with frustration. {“Our ‘friendly secret agents’ just got our location from your cell phone. They tried mine, but I was able to stop it. Now what?”}

{“Can we just shut it off?”} Michelle asked.

{“Yes, but then they would know that we know.”} Hector paused for a few seconds before he continued. {“Arcee, you stopped your cell phone, can you do something with mine to make it look like the batteries ran down after 20 to 30 minutes?”}

{“I don’t know?”} Greg thought about how he was able to connect to the co-ax cable at the house and access the internet, maybe he could do the same with Hector’s phone? However; in this form, he would need to disconnect from Michelle and use their interface cable. Michelle caught his hesitation and gave her assent. {“Okay, I have an idea. Can you hand your cell phone to Michelle and I’ll see what I can do?”}

Hector dug out his phone and placed it in Michelle’s hand. {“Okay, now, take over while I try something.”} 

As soon as Hector had the controls, Greg gave Michelle a mental hug before disconnecting their interface.  He snaked his cable over and mated it with Hector’s cell phone via the USB port.  The phone felt so primitive and simple to him. Its battery was at 50% and every 30 seconds it was sending out a GPS ping along with the towers the phone was connected to and its status, including the battery level. 

After a few minutes, he managed to reprogram Hector’s phone to do what he wanted and he felt amazed at how simple it seemed. He knew it wasn’t simple, but it felt like it was since he could analyze and instinctively read the base machine code behind the phone’s operating systems.

Satisfied with his ‘fixes’, he disconnected his interface cable and reconnected it to the back of Michelle’s helmet.

Michelle virtually assaulted him with hugs and kisses over their link. {“Phew! I missed you honey!”}

Her renewed presence warmed his core and caused his fusion plant to flutter for a fraction of a second. He knew her reaction was a little over the top, but she loved him and was mostly having fun. He felt that way about her too, so he couldn’t really complain.

{“What was that?!?”} Hector nervously asked as Greg’s instruments flickered.

{“Nothing...}” Greg and Michelle chorused as they laughed together.

Greg spoke directly to Michelle. {“That was nice and I could get used to that kind of greeting.”} He basked under the warm glow of her love for a second before he sighed. {“Okay, back to business. Can you hand Hector back his phone?”}

{“Here’s your phone. Since you’re driving, I’m just going to slide it back into your pocket, okay?”} Michelle didn’t wait for permission before she started doing just that.

Hector responded by twisting his hip to allow his phone to slide smoothly into his right front, pants pocket.  {“Thanks. What did you do?”} Hector asked.

{“I hacked it into sending progressively lower battery data and appearing to shut down after 25 minutes. I also added an extra feature to your airplane mode to allow you to select if you want to report your location to the cell towers.  That’s so you can receive calls because right now, you can only start calls.”}

{“Ahh, sounds good. We will be turning north onto 5 in a few minutes. I’m kind of having fun riding you, do you mind if I stay in charge for a while longer?”} Hector asked.

Even though it was still a little strange to hear his friend tell him he was having fun riding him, Greg found that he didn’t mind at all. He knew he was probably the fastest motorcycle on the planet and who wouldn’t want to ride, with him?  Besides, it also meant he could spend some more quality time with Michelle.

Greg displayed the map for Hector and then, he and Michelle simply sat back and enjoyed the ride together. “Yep, I’m going to miss this...” He said, feeling a surprising amount of regret as they both took in the scenery as it passed them by.

“You could stay.” Michelle said, softly as she hugged him.

Her statement surprised Greg and caused him to sit up to look directly at Michelle. “What?  How could we get married? In addition to that, I know for a fact that you’re not a lesbian.”

Michelle grinned. “No, I’m not, but I fell in love with you, who you are, not what you are.  When I look at you, I only see the person I love. Of course, I find it a little annoying that you're a little bit prettier than I am, but I guess sacrifices must be made.” She giggled.

“Don't hate me because I’m beautiful!” Greg and Michelle laughed together before he got back to the biggest reason for him to change back. “You want children, remember?  I can’t give you that if I’m a machine.”

Michelle nodded with agreement. “Yes, but we can adopt. There are lots of children out there who need a forever home.”

“No, I know you want to have a child of your own.” Greg was starting to get a little worried. Why was Michelle bringing this up? Did she not think we would find the machine? “We’ll find the damn machine and I’ll change back. It’s that simple.”

Michelle relaxed into his body and hugged him. “I know, but I just want you to always remember that I love you, no matter what. Okay?”

“Hey, none of that.” Greg gave her a quick squeeze and an affectionate bonk on her head. “You make it sound like you don’t think we will find it.”

“Ow...” Michelle pretended to be hurt and rubbed her head. “Oh, I know we will find it. After all, you two boys have me on your side. I just don’t want you to do something stupid if things don’t work out as planned.”

Greg’s heart melted at her concern. “We’ll find it but, if something goes wrong, I promise; I won’t do anything stupid. Okay?”

She grinned triumphantly and thumped him in his chest. “You better not!”

“Well, more stupid than normal...” Greg smirked mischievously.

“Why you!” Michelle jumped up and glared at him, hands on her hips.

{“Hey, Arcee? It looks like we are almost there.”} Hector’s voice came over the Bluetooth link.

“Ha! Saved by the bell!” Greg stood and gave Michelle a playful kiss on her lips.

Hector pulled Arcee next to a raised loading dock and between two big rig trailers parked at the warehouse on the other side of their target.  He made sure Arcee was blocked from sight so she could transform back into her human form.  “Do you see any cameras Michelle?”

Michelle took off her helmet and her Catwoman suit flowed the rest of the way to cover her face. She looked around. “Nope, looks all clear to me.”

Hector began his costume transformation and felt surprised to discover his helmet didn’t change, but his jacket and riding gloves merged with his Snake Eyes costume.  “Safety first...” He muttered as he pulled off his helmet and hid it under the loading dock.

Arcee began her transformation and twenty-something seconds later, Scarlett stood in her place. She looked the same, except she had light blonde hair with dark blue streaks that matched his Gixxer’s paint scheme.  “Too cool Arcee. Your hair changed to match my bike.”

“What?” She reached around and grabbed her ponytail. “Crap, that’s all I need.” She brushed her hair back with annoyance. “You can stop calling me Arcee now.”

“What should I call you then?” Hector asked, knowing what she would request.

“How about my name? You know, Greg?” She impatiently replied as Michelle reached for her.

Hector nodded, but he couldn’t see himself calling a woman who looked like she did using a guy’s name. “Umm, I dunno. I mean, I know it sucks, but you just don’t look or sound like a ‘Greg’ to me right now.”

She started to roll her eyes with frustration, but Michelle caught her attention and shook her head. “Fine...Sadie then. Arcee might be hard to explain if someone, like the Agents, overheard.”

“Sounds good to me, until we get the MAU back, Sadie it is.” Hector smiled. “Now, our target is on the other side of this warehouse. Thanks to Grreegg’s,” Hector accidentally used his name, but refused to correct himself now. “Kick ass costume designs, I figured we could spider over this one and infiltrate our target, by climbing in via a vent or something versus using the front door.”

Michelle and Sadie nodded with agreement. “Sounds good to me, but we need to keep Michelle from being spotted.” Sadie said with a glance at Michelle.

Hector glanced over to Michelle to make sure she was okay with that idea. She nodded her acceptance. “Yep, I don’t like it, but it makes sense. We don’t want the agents, or anyone else to know about me.  I can stay out of sight pretty easy and give you two a warning of something bad is about to happen.”

“Sounds good! Okay, let’s go.” Hector pointed up to the roof.  He jumped up and used his momentum with his spider gloves to climb on top of the semi-trailer next to him.  Michelle easily followed while Sadie simply jumped straight up and onto the top of the warehouse’s roof; landing gently and slowly, as if she could fly.

“Neat trick.” Hector whispered as he and Michelle joined her.

“Yeah, anti-grav.” Sadie smiled with satisfaction before she gestured down to the thin metal roof. “Watch your step.”

Hector kept low and cautiously crept over the warehouse’s roof, keeping his weight centered over the roof’s support beams as Michelle and Sadie spread out and followed behind him. Hector stopped at the crest of the roof and raised his left hand, forming a fist to signal a stop.  It wasn’t until after he performed that Army signal that he worried if his friends would understand.  He glanced back and felt pleased to see both of them alertly crouched down behind him.

As they watched, a semi-truck with a cargo container pulled out from loading dock 10 and as the large bay door lowered, Hector caught sight of a few men silhouetted by the light inside the warehouse. They were dressed like typical gang members with their baggy jeans around their asses, bandana do-rags on their heads and a mix of sports related team jerseys.  They would almost be comical if they weren’t armed with assault rifles.  “Oh, that’s not good...” Hector whispered

{“What?”} Sadie whispered via their Bluetooth link.

“They have assault rifles. This could get messy and I hope that trailer that just left didn’t have any of our stuff in it.” Hector whispered into his mask.

{“Ahh, well, I took a picture of it and Wheelie is still inside. Should I try to follow it while you and Michelle scout the warehouse? ”} Sadie asked.

Hector considered their options. He was reluctant to split his forces, but if the container had the MAU in it; they might not see it again. Sadie was right. She needed to follow it. He nodded. “Yeah, that would probably be a good idea.”

Sadie quickly dropped back behind the roof line and ran over to the side of the roof closest to the direction the truck was heading towards.  She disappeared over the edge of the roof as the truck pulled onto the main road.  20 seconds later, Arcee with her Sadie rider hologram raced in the direction the truck had disappeared.

Hector glanced back at Michelle. “You ready?”

She nodded once and after a quick scan to make sure they weren’t being watched; they scrambled over the roof and dropped slightly down on the other side.  They had a large gap between the two warehouses to cross, but the pair used a strategically placed parked semi-truck and its trailer to give them some concealment from direct observation.  Next, they climbed onto the target warehouse’s roof and crept silently to a roof vent.  Hector popped a single claw and used it to cut the bolts holding the vent to the roof. 

“Well, here’s hoping I don’t make any noise lifting this off...” Hector whispered as Michelle anxiously nodded.  Hector slowly applied pressure and with a mild metallic squeal of protest, the vent popped loose. “Phew.” He motioned for Michelle to go first.

She quickly flowed through the opening and disappeared from sight.  Now, he wished Sadie was still here to handle communications so he could ask Michelle what she saw. He didn’t hear anyone screaming or shooting their weapons, so with a shrug, he followed Michelle and pulled the vent back over as he entered.

He found himself in the support rafters high above a busy, well lit and mostly full warehouse. Fortunately, he was above the lights and thus in the shadows.  He tried and failed to spot Michelle. 

“Over here.” She whispered from somewhere to his right and just loud enough for him to hear. 

He glanced over his right shoulder and toward the sound of her voice, but failed to spot anything.  A faint ripple of her outline formed for a fraction of a second from the beam across from him before fading away again.  “Nice...can you find the lights and if you hear people start to scream, kill them for me?”  He realized his request sounded a little confusing. “I mean the lights.”

Michelle softly chuckled. “Sure, but I knew what ya meant.”

Hector watched as she began to move away from him and follow the conduits the lights used for power. Except for the slight ripple effect of her suit attempting to match her background as she moved, she was mostly invisible in the shadows cast by the lights below them.  He tried to will his suit to do the same thing, but nothing happened.

“Way to favor your girlfriend...” He shook his head as he softly muttered to himself over Greg’s obvious oversight with his Ninja costume.

Chapter Note: Okay...so this will not be the "final" chapter. I hit 14k words and decided to split it up a little. I guess I really stink at estimating my story length. Who knew? :) Chapter 15 is at 8k words now and I have not decided if it will be split into an additional two chapters or not. Sorry for the delay and all of the excuses I posted on my blog entry still apply. Hehe.

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

It took Greg less than a minute to spot and catch up to the truck towing the shipping container.  Once again, he reveled in the sense of power and freedom he felt as Arcee in motorcycle mode.  It was so damn fun zipping along at breakneck speeds while still feeling in complete control. The speed was addictive and for a nano-second, it almost made him not want to find the MAU and change back.

He laughed at his traitorous thought as he followed the trailer at a discreet distance.  He wasn’t an expert, but he figured the odds of the driver spotting him and coming to the conclusion that he was a tail to be practically nil.  Motorcycles didn’t follow the bad guys; only large full sized cop cars and SUV’s followed the bad guys to their secret lair.

The truck made a beeline for the Long Beach harbor and Greg followed it all the way to the gates of the shipping yard.  Greg kept his distance as he watched the truck enter through the security gates after the driver checked in with the gate guard. From this side of the gate, the place looked huge and it was full of shipping containers stacked between two and five high, waiting to be picked up or shipped off to some other country.  He had to find out where the driver was taking the container , but the only way he could do that would be to follow the truck through the gates.

Greg doubted that the security guard would let him in and blowing through the gates would attract too much attention.  He decided to jump over the fence and try to spot the truck on the other side. For the first time, he shifted into full Arcee bipedal robot mode and lightly hopped over the 10 foot high security fence, using his compensators to help control and mute his jump. Once over, he shifted into his upright scooter mode and used the height advantage to try and spot the truck.  He caught a glimpse of it once and shifted back into motorcycle mode to try and run it down.  By the time he got to where he last spotted it, it was nowhere to be found.

As he roamed the shipping yard, he kept his lights off and stuck to the shadows as much as possible to try and reduce the odds of being spotted while searching for the truck.  The yard was freaking huge and he was just about the give up hope when he spotted a truck heading his way.  His night vision cut through the glare of the truck’s headlights and he quickly identified the truck as his target, but it was no longer carrying the shipping container.

“Son of a...” Greg muttered softly to himself.

He waited until the truck passed before he doubled back and tried to trace where it came from, but he quickly became overwhelmed by the options.  It looked like the container could be in any one of three separate storage yards.  Three, very large, 50+ acre yards filled with shipping containers, potentially thousands of shipping containers.  While he could use pattern recognition to match the container using the images he had, it would still take time to scan all the containers in each yard.

“Shit!”  Greg was not happy.

A flash of blue lights and the toot of a police horn roused him from his predicament. “Hey you! What are you doing here?”

Greg looked over his shoulder and spotted a harbor security car with a mid 30’s, male officer in opening his door to stand and yell at him. A couple of excuses and options ran through his processor. Running seemed the easiest, but maybe he could play the lost girl card.  He heard hot women only had to bat their eyes or cry for a police officer to get out of a speeding ticket; maybe he could work it to his advantage.

Greg made his Sadie hologram take off her helmet, smiled nicely for the grumpy officer and tried to look as embarrassed as possible. It wasn’t too hard considering the fact that he was embarrassed at getting caught. “Umm, I’m sorry officer, but I got separated from my boyfriend back on the interstate, got all turned around and ended up here. Can you show me how to get out of this place?”

“This is a secured area. How did you get in here?” The officer was a little more cynical than Greg expected.

“I’m not sure. I was following this truck because I thought it was going in my direction. I couldn’t see around it when it stopped. So, I kinda just followed it and next thing I knew...” Greg glanced around at all the shipping containers and shrugged helplessly his shoulders. “Here I was.”

The security officer relaxed and after a moment, nodded his head. “Okay ma’am, follow me and be more careful next time.”

“Yes sir...” Greg had his Sadie hologram put her helmet back on and meekly followed behind the nice security officer. The officer stopped his car at the front gates and motioned for Greg to go ahead. Greg had Sadie politely wave back as he accelerated away, heading back to his friends at the warehouse.

Hector quickly lost track of Michelle as she moved away from his position in the rafters. Even with his Snake Eye’s goggles, her suit blended her into the background perfectly. No, wait, he spotted a ripple when she swung down to a storage rack. After a few seconds of trying to spot her again, he gave up and concentrated on the task at hand. 

There were six wannabe tough guys on the floor below. One was in a small office working on a laptop, three were playing a video game using someone else’s big screen TV and the other two were pretending to keep a lookout with their submachine guns slung at their side as they drank a beer and talked smack about the guys playing the game.

Perfect, no one was really paying attention or expecting their little party to be crashed, but Hector wasn’t sure what he needed to do, exactly.  He knew he needed to get rid of them, but he didn’t want to kill them if he didn’t have to. Even though it would have been easier, he wasn’t a murderer, but in a combat situation, he would do whatever he needed to do.

Hector spotted an open cargo container off to the side and wondered if it contained any of their stuff, but he discovered it was empty after his goggles automatically zoomed in to give him a closer look. He decided it would make an excellent jail, if he could get the bad guys into it.  With the start of a plan forming, Hector crawled down the wall and behind a stack of pallets.  He cautiously made his way toward the five targets around the big screen.  He decided to try to even the numbers a bit before fully engaging the bad guys.

Hector knocked a box over causing it to crash loudly to the floor before he hid behind a nearby stack of boxes with the intent to ambush anyone who came to investigate. Like a real ninja, take them out one or two at a time instead of all at once.

“Yo, G-dog, what the fuck was that?” Hector heard one of the ‘guards’ ask.

“Beats the fuck outta me man, probably just a rat again...”

“Should we go check it out, ya know, just in case?”

“In case what?  Na man, you can go check it out ya want, but I’ll stay here and watch these no talent punks try to play.”

“Ahh, fuck you G, you fucking loser!” One of the guys playing the game said.

Hector ducked a little lower and listened as the conscientious guard decided to investigate the noise.  The guard stopped at the start of the aisle instead of walking down it to put the fallen box back on the shelf.

“Yo G! It looks like a box fell.” He yelled over his shoulder.

“Whatever!” G-Dog dismissed his report as he focused his attention on his gamer buddies. “Ahh shiiit man! Ya owned him!”

Hector sighed. It didn’t look like the guard was going to walk past his position. No plan survives contact with the enemy. He managed to catch a glimpse of the guard through the boxes.

The guard paused, as if debating if he should bother. “Ah fuck that shit...” He muttered and began to turn back to his buddies.

Hector eased his way out from behind his concealment and rushed the guy, aiming a punch for the back of the guard’s head.  Ordinarily, he would never try punching someone in the skull because it was a good way to break a hand, but with his new bones; it wasn’t a concern. Dropping the guy as fast as possible was the primary goal.  He also didn’t want to kill the guy. So, he pulled his punch as much as possible in an attempt to use his old normal human strength.

The guard started to turn back as he caught the hint of movement from behind him when Hector’s fist slammed into the back of his head. Hector thought his hit felt solid and it didn’t feel like he had crushed the dude’s skull. Hector grabbed the guy as his legs started to collapse. He didn’t want the guard falling and alerting his friends with the sound of his body and weapon hitting the floor.

The second guard, G-Dog, was the only one who noticed anything wrong and by the time he did; it was too late for him to even try and bring his weapon to bear against the apparition that charged him from the darkness.

“What tha...” G-Dog’s eyes flared with shock as the linebacker sized man in the ninja costume closed the 10 yard gap before he even thought to try and use his weapon.  He scrambled to raise his weapon, but was stopped when Hector’s elbow slammed into the side of his head.

Hector tried to pull the strike, but he wasn’t sure how successful he was in his attempt not to kill anyone.  Like the first guard, the second dropped to the floor, but Hector didn’t have the time to follow up to insure he was down for the count.  He had another three to deal with, plus the dude in the office. Michelle must have noticed him starting his attack because the lights flickered and stopped burning, plunging the warehouse into darkness and causing his built in night vision to automatically activate.

The big screen and their game was still going strong, which meant she probably didn’t cut the power to the building, but with the only light in the area coming from the TV, the gamers were too night blind and confused by the shadows to react effectively to his presence. It really did feel like shooting fish in a barrel as he smoothly vaulted over the couch and slammed his knee into the stomach of the nearest target, followed by a quick backwards elbow strike the back of the target’s head. 

Hector spun clockwise, his left hand set to block his right torso as he performed a spinning back fist into the side of the next closest target’s face.  He heard the crack of the man’s jaw breaking and caught the sight of teeth and blood spraying from his mouth as spin around and fell to the floor from the force of Hector’s strike.

Hector caught movement from his right side and approximately 10 feet away from him, on the other side of the couch.

“You crazy, bitch ass, mo-fo!” The third gamer screamed with a mixture of fear and bravado as he brought his pistol to bear on Hector.

Without conscious thought, Hector drew the katana from his back as he jumped forward and spun to deal with the threat.  His opponent’s pistol fired once, the muzzle flash and booming sound taken care of by his face mask.  Hector felt something slam into his side as he reached out with his right arm, aiming a lazy single handed swipe of his sword at the man’s arm, intending to slash his arm and cause him to drop his weapon.

Hector trained with the katana in class and regularly sparred with a bokken, but he had never used a live edge in a fight. Yes, he knew his new sword was sharp, but he expected to only slash into the man’s arm because hacking  a person’s limb off took a lot more force than the movies portrayed and he was only trying to figuratively disarm his opponent. However, when Greg’s MAU forged blade impacted the target’s forearm, it traveled cleanly through the man’s arm with only the slightest resistance. It felt like he had sliced through a piece of paper. 

He felt a moment of surprise and wondered if he missed, but Hector realized what happened when the man’s hand, still clutching his pistol, begin its descent to the floor. Confusion flashed through his opponent’s eyes as Hector followed his katana’s downward sweeping motion by continuing with his clockwise rotation from right to left, using his left to perform a roundhouse punch to the side of his opponent’s head. Hector pulled his punch at the last second to avoid crushing his skull.  Even then, the force of his blow rocked the man’s head to the side and he collapsed bonelessly to the ground, mercifully KO'd.

He knew there was still one opponent left to take down, the man in the office, but when he turned to look for him; he found Michelle standing over a prone body.  An assault rifle was lying on the floor in front of the man.  “Is he out?”

“Yeah, I think so...” Michelle nodded nervously with her tail low, between her legs, betraying how shocked she was at what she had just done.

“Did he see you?” Hector started toward Michelle’s position, paused to pat his side. He tried to find where he had been shot, but there was nothing there, not even a hole in his costume. He wasn’t sure if the bullet had bounced off or if it had penetrated and the costume repaired itself.  He didn’t feel any pain in his side.

“No, he was about to shoot you. I had to stop him.” Michelle gazed down at her hands with wonder and flexed her knuckles before she glanced back up at Hector.

Wheelie peeked around the corner of the office door. “Yo yo yo, Boss! Did you fracking see that shiznit?!?  Tha crazy cat lady was awesome and you, well, let me be the first to say that the fracking Decepticons ain’t got nothing on yo shit!”

Hector groaned at the even worse language Wheelie had picked up from his stay with the bandits. “Wheelie...did you see where they put our stuff?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure did boss. It’s right over there.” Wheelie pointed over toward one of the stacks near the door.

“Good job you two.” Hector nodded at Michelle, but included Wheelie only to keep him from talking some more. Michelle smiled at his approach of handling the diminutive robot.

“Okay, I’ll toss these clowns into the shipping container over there.” Hector gestured to the container. “Can you two find our stuff?” Hector reached down and easily dragged the unconscious man by the back of his denim jacket. He didn’t want anyone to spot Michelle and he didn’t want her to have to deal with the blood.

After tossing the man into the empty shipping container, he deposited the rest of the wannabe gangsters into it.  He wasn’t without mercy. He created a field expedient tourniquet using a belt to stop the bleeding for the man he had sort of permanently disarmed. One of the men started to come around as Hector was finishing up with the one armed bandit. That thought made him chuckle.

“If you want your buddy to live, make sure you keep his tourniquet tight.” Hector exited the container and then, closed and locked it. “I’ll call the police to come ‘rescue’ you in a few minutes. Behave and don’t make me come in there...” He tapped on the door once to help punctuate his statement.

Hector joined Michelle and Wheelie. They found most of their stuff, but the computers and more importantly, the MAU was missing from the pile.  “Hey Wheelie, did you see what happened to the MAU?”

Wheelie glanced nervously back at Hector. “No Boss, sorry. They took me into the office pretty much right away, but they talked about loading the primitive computer junk into a shipping container. They were in kind of a rush.”

“Fuck...” Hector muttered and shook his head with frustration. If they had simply hijacked the truck, they would have the MAU by now.  He hoped that Gr-Sadie had managed to follow the truck and wondered where she was at now.

{“Hey you guys, need my help in there?”} Greg’s voice came over their Bluetooth links.  How Greg made his voice sound like his old voice over the comm, Hector didn’t understand and it only made him feel more confused about how to deal with his friend.

“Greg!” Michelle smiled happily and glanced around, looking for her boyfriend. “Where are you?”

{“I’m outside the door here. Is it safe to come in?”}

Hector sighed. “Yeah, we found our stuff, but the MAU was in the shipping container. Lemme get the door open for ya.” He started to head toward the large garage door when a pair of robot hands reached under and forced the door open with the squeal of stressed metal giving away.

He stopped. “Okay, maybe you got it.”

Greg in Arcee’s full bipedal mode bent low as she entered under the door. Again, the dichotomy of Greg as a female robot messed with Hector’s head. “Arcee, did you find the shipping container?”

Arcee glanced around the warehouse, her eyes stopping at the shipping container holding their prisoners. “Well, I followed the truck, but lost it at the harbor facility and there are a shit ton of shipping containers there. Are you sure it’s not in that one?”

Hector nodded. “Oh yeah, that one has all our prisoners in it...”

Arcee glanced curiously back to Hector before turning her gaze to Michelle. “Are you okay?”

Standing next to Michelle, Wheelie beat her to the punch. “Oh yeah boss, I’m fine, but you shoulda seen these two. The way they handled those meatbags was mighty impressive!”

Michelle knelt down and patted Wheelie’s eye stalks as she grinned mischievously up at Arcee. “Thanks, Wheelie! You’re so helpful!”  She stood, approached Arcee and hugged her leg. “Yep, I’m fine and it was kinda cool.” She let go and took a step back so she could look at Arcee’s face. “I kicked ass! What did you do to me?”

Arcee blushed and nervously scratched the back of her head. “Well, I kinda gave you the Black Widow package mixed with some Cat Woman.”

Michelle smiled. “Awesome, because me likee!”

Hector walked back to the pair with a laptop and held it up for Arcee. “This is their laptop. It might have something on it, but it’s locked. Can you do anything with it?”

Arcee bent down and gingerly took the laptop from Hector. She sat down on the floor and her interface cable snaked out from the back of her head. It tentatively touched the laptop’s keyboard before separating into small, glowing white tendrils that sought out and entered the open ports.  The laptop’s screen switched from its password protected screensaver mode to display the desktop.  File directories, spreadsheets, pictures of stolen goods and naked women began to rapidly flash across the screen before stopping on a spreadsheet entry from today.  It was highlighted and showed the container number along with a manifest and dollar value.  The total value of the goods in the container was listed at a little over $200k.

“Wowza!” Hector whistled appreciatively.

“Yeah, there’s some nice shit in there. Lots of iPads...” Arcee said before the spreadsheet scrolled to another highlighted entry. “And, here is my stuff. I can’t believe they only valued my rig at $500! The assholes...”

Hector stifled a grin at Arcee’s outrage.

Wheelie jumped in. “Oh, hey boss, there was a safe in the office that those meatbags stuffed some cash into. I know the combo, ya want me to, umm, ‘liberate’ some funds?”

The three friends glanced at each other and smiled. “Sure, Wheelie, that would be awesome, but don’t take it all. We don’t have a lot of storage space here.” Hector said more to distract the little robot than anything else.

“No problemo Boss! I’m on it!” Wheelie rolled himself toward the office.

Hector gave Wheelie a few seconds to enter the office before continuing. “Well, we need to try and find that shipping container at the harbor. We should call the cops and bail now.”

Arcee nodded her agreement. “Yeah, good idea. Should we call the agents too?”

Hector glanced over at Michelle. She shrugged noncommittally. “Beats me...”

Hector turned back to Arcee as he considered the option. “Hmmm, I don’t think so. We know where the MAU is now, but if we got them involved, they would probably take it without giving Greg a chance to change back.”

Arcee sighed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She peered at the laptop in her hands. “Can’t trust the government about these kind of things, but I should leave the laptop unlocked so the police can get the evidence from it.”

Wheelie returned with a three wrapped bundles of $100 bills held in his clawed hands. “Here ya go Boss.” He handed the bundles to Hector. “There was about 150k in their safe. Is 30k enough for you all?”

Hector nodded approvingly and handed each of his friends a $10,000 bundle of cash. Arcee shrugged her shoulders and gestured to her non-existent pockets as Hector held the bundle out her.  Michelle graciously accepted Arcee’s cash bundle on her behalf.

“All right then, let’s roll out!” Arcee gleefully cried as she transformed into her bike mode.

Agent L and Agent P were in Long Beach doing what law enforcement agents are supposed to be doing while on a case, eating donuts.  They had no leads to follow. So, now it was a waiting game and what better way to wait for your suspects to make a mistake than to drink coffee and have a donut? 

“Do you think they’ll find it?” Agent P glanced over before taking a sip of her steaming hot coffee.  She had her laptop plugged into a car power inverter to keep it running and monitoring the cell phone trace they had running on Mr. Vasquez and Ms. Williamson.

Agent L finished chewing the bite of his raspberry filled jelly donut before replying. He did not want to spill on his suit. “Doubt it, but they seemed to have a destination in mind before their phones died.”

“Mr. Vasquez’s phone seemed to die pretty damn fast. If I didn’t know better, I might think they knew we were tracking them...” Agent P sighed and closed her eyes as she took an appreciative sip of her coffee.

Agent L shrugged his shoulders as he reached for his coffee. “Maybe, but the carrier did explain that the active GPS uses more battery, so maybe, and who knows if Ms. Williamson’s phone even exists anymore.”

The laptop chimed, gaining their attention. [“Unidentified caller reports a warehouse break in with armed intruders and possible stolen goods!”]

The two agents read the address off the 911 police report as the screen switched to show a map view.  They were less than 10 minutes away from the location.

“What are the odds?” Agent L asked as he carefully placed his half eaten donut back in the bag it came in before putting their car in gear.

Agent P secured her laptop from the dashboard. “Pretty damn good if ya ask me.”

Agent L glanced over at Agent P as he pulled onto the main road. “Yeah, but now we gotta find the pair.”

The warehouse was swarming with local law enforcement officers and the 911 monitor on Agent P’s laptop told them an ambulance was on the way to deal with an injured suspect. The two agents flashed their badges and were let inside the police cordon. Both agents were a little surprised by how many stolen goods were stored inside the warehouse. The place was stacked floor to ceiling and a twitchy team of officers were yelling at some men to step out of a cargo container with their hands in the air, nice and slow. One of the men had to be helped out because he was missing his right hand just above the wrist and looking very pale. 

Agent L identified themselves as FBI, Special Investigations Branch, a very anonymous and safe generic designation. The officers on the scene didn’t seem to attach any significance to the label and it gave the pair of agents free rein to inspect the crime scene on their own. For the officers, it appeared to be an open and shut case of grand larceny and no honor among thieves.  Of course, the fact that a single ninja was the attacker seemed a little farfetched, but the officers didn’t seem to care. An embarrassingly long string of robberies had finally been stopped.

Agent P felt surprised there weren’t more signs of a firefight. It looked like the guys really were taken down by a ninja.  The man with the cleanly removed hand seemed to support their claim.  Agent P spotted a flattened round lying on the floor near the severed hand. “Is this what I think it is?” She glanced up to one of the nearby crime scene investigators..

The man came over and took a close-up picture of it. “Looks like it. Maybe a round from that hand-ee weapon?” He grinned as he gestured to the handgun still held by the man’s severed hand.

“Body armor?” Agent P ignored the man’s weak crime scene humor.

“Would’ve had to  be hard plates. A Kevlar would probably have caused less flattening of the round.” The man shrugged dismissively as Agent P recalled the last person she had seen wearing hard plated body armor.

Ms. Williamson’s G.I. Joe costume, it had hard plates, but she thought it was simple costume armor and not real. Although, she kicked herself for dismissing the possibility so easily. After all, the alien devices seemed to be able to create any material known to man and then some. Why not real body armor?  The puzzling bit about her theory was the fact the suspects here all agreed it was a large male ninja that attacked them, not a red headed female.

Yes, the pair of them would have much to answer for when they surfaced.

Greg was starting to feel a little concerned.  The three of them, plus Wheelie, had searched the harbor for the last few hours and now that the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, they would have to stop.  With the random security officers driving past and the need to remain undetected, it was slow going. The shipping yard seemed to go on forever and the rows and rows of stacked containers didn’t help make their search any easier. Despite the difficulties, they managed to search one of the three possible storage areas without being spotted, but traffic inside the yard was slowly beginning to increase. The odds of remaining undetected would soon become an impossible task, even for Michelle with her chameleon suit. 

Greg currently looked like a blonde Scarlett and he cursed his light hair color. It made sneaking around a bit trickier.  Hector and Michelle had it easy with their all black suits with built in masks.  The four of them had fanned out to cover more rows and help reduce the odds of the group being spotted by security.  They met at the end of the current row and judging by the expressions on his friends faces, the shipping container had not been found. Greg sighed. “Guys, we should leave now before we are spotted.”

Hector nodded. “Yeah, I hate to say it, but you’re right. On the plus side, we still have about 12 hours; _if_ what the agents told us was true.  I suggest we leave Wheelie here and let him continue the search.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Boss! I’d like to help, but how am I going to keep the meatbags from running over me with their big dumb machines or spotting me?”

Michelle giggled and crouched down to apply her feminine wiles on the diminutive Decepticon. “But Wheelie, you’re the only one who can help us right now. You’re so good at sneaking around and remaining undetected. Even if someone did spot you, no one would even think that a toy truck was a fearsome and brave scout.”

Greg struggled to not laugh as the little robot melted under Michelle’s touch.  He could sympathize with the little robot because she had the same effect on him. “Exactly! Wheelie, you’re the only one who can remain here and not arouse suspicion if you’re spotted.”

Wheelie didn’t disappoint. He stood tall on his little foam rubber monster truck wheels and saluted. “I won’t let you down. You can count on me, Boss!”

Hector jumped in. “Thanks, Wheelie. I know this could be a difficult and dangerous mission for you, but I know we can depend on you and I know you won’t let us down.”

Greg wasn’t sure how he did it, but with Hector’s praise, the little Decepticon appear to grow two inches taller. 

“Sir! Yes sir!” Wheelie saluted Hector before performing a smart about-face and marched a few steps into the yard before he transformed into his mini-monster truck form and disappeared by drifting around the corner a shipping container.

Greg and Michelle glanced at each other and struggled to contain their laughter at Wheelie’s antics as Hector turned back to face the pair. “I dunno if that’s good or bad...” Hector muttered softly as he slowly shook his head with wonder.

The three of took great delight with their ability to easily jump over the security fence and after confirming there weren’t any eyes or cameras on them, Greg initiated his shift back into Hector’s motorcycle. 

{“Well, now what?”} Greg asked his friends via their Bluetooth link as they pulled away from the shipping yard.

Hector sighed. “We wait, I guess. Maybe Wheelie will spot it.”

Michelle nodded. “Okay, then what?”

“I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure that assaulting the shipping yard would be a bad idea.” Hector paused as he merged with traffic to cross a bridge that lead to a park on the other side of the channel. “If Wheelie spots it before lunch, we could try ambushing a worker or two during the lunch break and infiltrating the yard as workers, or something.”

Greg did not want to think about the last ditch, Hail Mary option Hector left out because he didn’t trust the Agents and he doubted they would let him use the MAU if they recovered it. He fully expected the pair to confiscate it and bury it in Super Top Secret red tape.

They stopped briefly at a nice public park on the opposite side of the channel that ran past the shipping yard. The park’s elevation provided the perfect location to survey the harbor area and after spending 10 minutes watching the yard’s increased activity as the sun inexorably rose from the eastern horizon, they decided their decision to call off the search was a good one.

The place was crawling with workers and vehicles moving around the yard, loading containers onto the waiting ships and trucks, and unloading containers from ships and trucks.  They would have been zero chance of any of the three remaining undetected while conducting a search during the daylight hours and now Greg worried about Wheelie’s chances.

Chapter Note: This won't be the final chapter either. Sigh... I'm not even going to try promising that ch 16 will be the final, but it should be. Unless, I decide there needs to be some sort of shoot out finale. :-P

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

Hector marveled at the woman sitting across from him.  Even bone tired, he thought that Michelle looked extremely beautiful as she maintained a cheerfully optimistic attitude over their chances of finding the MAU. He was still a little unsure about how she and Sadie’s relationship might work out or how it could even work if Greg became stuck as a female Decepticon, but perhaps their strange Avatar link would help pull the pair together.  He found the soul mate or life mate concept overly romantic, but he couldn’t help feel a little jealous as he wondered if Natalie might have been the one for him.  He certainly thought he had felt a connection to her that he had never felt to another woman before..

He glanced out the restaurant’s window and studied the other half of the equation, Arcee or Sadie in her Autobot motorcycle form. On one hand, he felt stunned by the fact that “his” motorcycle was really an Autobot who could also turn herself into a perfectly normal looking and beautiful woman, but at the same time, he still had problems figuring out how to think of Greg while in this form.

What if Greg did get stuck? For their sakes, he hoped Michelle was right, they would find the MAU, Greg could change back and it would soon become a story they would all laugh about in the years ahead.  If not, he worried about his friend and perhaps he was projecting his concern because he couldn’t help thinking that Arcee appeared a little depressed. He didn’t see how a motorcycle could “look” anything other than fast or dangerous, but she certainly looked depressed to him.

Maybe her handlebars were drooping a little?  He wasn’t sure, but he wished she had been able to join them inside. He felt like he was abandoning his friend and making her wait outside like a simple vehicle or pet dog, but she couldn’t change back into her Sadie form. There were too many witnesses. If she could have changed, could she have eaten? Probably not, but she would have still been able to join her friends instead of being left out in the cold.

“Any word from Wheelie?” Michelle spoke out loud while also speaking to Arcee via their BlueTooth link before a yawn escaped her. “Sorry...” She grinned sheepishly.

Arcee chuckled nervously. {“Not yet, but I’m still getting a signal from him. So, I suspect he’s still trying.”}

Hector noticed that Greg’s voice had changed to match Sadie’s female voice. It surprised him because up until now, every time Greg spoke over their comm link, he sounded like his old male self.  Was something wrong?

“Good.  The coffee is helping, but the food is making me sleepy...” Michelle stifled another yawn before she turned to smile and covertly wave at Arcee.

Arcee hesitated for a few seconds and Hector thought it looked like she had perked up a little. {“We probably won’t hear anything for a few hours, at least. You two should check into a hotel or something and get some sleep.”}

Hector nodded with agreement even though he really wanted to tear the place apart and find the container, but even he needed some sleep. “Good idea, but what about you?”

{“I don’t need to sleep. I’m a robot now. Ya know, Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!”} Arcee tried to joke about her situation, but Hector had known Greg for far too long to buy into his tough guy act. Greg/Arcee/Sadie was worried.

Hector’s eyes briefly flared with alarm when an exotic looking red and black motorcycle carrying a man wearing a tight, race styled leather jacket with a matching helmet parked his bike next to Arcee, sharing the same parking spot. 

He whistled with appreciation and jealousy as he recognized the make and model of the bike. “Oh, nice. An Aprilia RSV4! Dude, I hope you can copy it...”

“I dunno Hector; I kinda liked Arcee better when she was the pretty red bike.” Michelle giggled as Hector turned to her with a pained expression.

He started to automatically correct her, but Michelle reached over and patted Hector’s hand. “You’re so easy!  I know, I know, a Ducati.”  She mischievously stuck her tongue out at him before turning back to watch the rider of the Aprilia.

Hector turned back to watched the Aprilia rider as he removed his helmet and took a few seconds to study Arcee. The man did a double take as his eyes passed over Arcee’s gauges. Hector wasn’t sure what caught his attention, but if he had to guess; it was probably Arcee’s Autobot symbol on the top of the triple clamp.  The rider glanced up and spotted both Hector and Michelle watching him.  He nodded his head once with acknowledgement and mouthed, “Nice...” before he walked into the restaurant carrying his helmet under his arm. 

With their stomachs full, Hector and Michelle decided it was time to leave.  As they exited the restaurant, he spotted the Aprilia rider standing in order line; The two exchanged polite and respectful nods. Reunited with Arcee, Hector admired the exotic lines of Aprilia for a few seconds before he donned his helmet and mounted Arcee. Once settled on the bike, Michelle joined him.

“You scanned it, right?” Hector glanced enviously back to the RSV4.

{“Yep, but Hector, huunnney, am I not good enough for you anymore?”} Arcee giggled, giving away the fact she wasn’t serious.

Michelle joined Arcee. “Careful Hector, your motorcycle appears to be a tad more ‘high maintenance’ than I think you expected.”

“Ha Ha Ha, very funny you two...” Hector paused and sighed. “But, it was a nice looking bike.”

Hector enjoyed riding Arcee, once he got over the weirdness factor of riding a sentient motorcycle who also happened to be his best friend. Arcee was incredibly fun to ride and it felt like she had limitless power to tap.  He was ashamed to admit it, but he wasn’t sure if he would enjoy riding his real motorcycle anymore. Arcee was just so much better.

As he guided Arcee onto the street, she interrupted his thoughts. {“We should find a hotel for you two while we wait. A few Z’s couldn’t hurt.”}

Hector held back a yawn. “Sure, I am pretty tired, but we need to find a place that you can transform back into Sadie so you and Michelle can share a room.”

{“I’d like that, but that could be a little hard.”}  Arcee sounded dubious.

“I saw a hotel with some first floor rooms back near the harbor. Maybe Ar- I mean, Greg could pull into the room and change there?” Michelle gestured back down the road heading toward the harbor.

Hector nodded with agreement. “Sounds like a plan. It’s a good thing we got some cash from the warehouse. If the Feds are watching, using a credit card would be a dead giveaway of our location.”

It only took a few minutes to reach the hotel and as they approached it, he was a little concerned about how they could sneak Arcee past the front desk because from a distance, it looked like a modern hotel.  Instead, it was a mutant blend of old school box motel with exterior room doors connected to a modern centralized multi-story hotel complex.

Hector parked Arcee on the sidewalk, next to the bicycle rack to the side of the front doors. He and Michelle entered the hotel lobby side-by-side. The front desk clerk’s initial smile and polite greeting briefly turned into a frown as Hector specifically requested a pair of first floor rooms in the older, motel section of the complex.  Perhaps the hour was too early for guests to try and check in, or the woman thought Hector and Michelle were there to knock boots.

“I’m sorry sir, but I...” She faltered as Hector fixed her with a practiced impatient stare honed by his years in the Army dealing with subordinate soldiers and idiot civilian contractors. She nervously licked her lips. “Sorry, I need to get my manager. I’m, umm, not sure if we have any of those rooms available right now.”

It was a bullshit excuse and they both knew it, but Hector decided not to push the poor woman. She was probably acting according to orders since it was somewhat unusual for a man and a woman to arrive at a hotel on a motorcycle with no baggage and request a room.  He did request two rooms, but that didn’t seem to register with the woman.

To the relief of the front desk clerk, her manager quickly arrived with a practiced, fake smile on his lips. “I’m sorry sir and ma’am.” He nodded to Michelle. “But, what seems to be the problem?”

Hector calmly pulled out a few $100’s from his wallet. “It’s been a long night and the two of us would like to get some shut-eye. My sister-in-law and I need a couple of rooms for a day or two, preferably on the first floor so I can park my bike outside the door and keep an eye on it. Do you have any available?” He smiled as the manager’s eyes darted from Hector to Michelle and finally back down to the cash in Hector’s hand.

The manager replaced the beleaguered clerk and punched in a few commands into the computer terminal behind the desk. “Hmmm, yes, it does appear that we have pair of rooms available.” He looked up and smugly smiled. “I assume you will want neighboring rooms for your, umm, sister?”

Hector wanted to reach over and punch the man’s smug little smile off his face, but he held himself back. He felt a measure of satisfaction when the man blanched and glanced back down to his screen instead of meeting Hectors’ eyes. “Yes, that would be perfect, thank you.”

{“What an asshole...”} Arcee noted over their link as the manager handed Hector a pair of room keys.

With Hector watching to make sure the coast was clear, Greg snuck into Michelle’s room and immediately transformed back into his Sadie Pretender form. Except for her blonde hair and blue highlights, he looked exactly like Scarlett in her armored uniform.

Hector shook his head with amazement. “Okay, I’m going to get some rack time. Wake me up if ya need me.”

“Night Hector.” Michelle stood on her tippy toes and gave him a sisterly kiss on his cheek before he left the room and Michelle locked the door behind him. 

Despite feeling grateful to Hector, Greg felt no such compulsion to give his friend a kiss or any sort of hug.

Michelle yawned again. “Oh man, I’m beat. I’m going to grab a shower.” She gave Greg a quick kiss before she sat down on the foot of the single queen sized bed and mechanically removed her clothes without a appearing the least bit concerned by Greg’s presence in the room.

Greg wasn’t sure what to do. Should he cover his eyes or turn around to give her some privacy or did Michelle even care if he saw her? 

Michelle glanced innocently up to Greg as she pulled off the last of her clothes. “Whatcha thinking?”

“Umm, I’m not sure?” Greg blushed and glanced away, towards the bathroom and caught sight of himself in the mirror over the sink.

Michelle smirked at Greg as she calmly stood and lightly kissed him on his lips before she turned away from him. He was at a loss for how to respond as he slowly lifted his hand to touch his lips to confirm to himself what just happened.

He glanced back up as Michelle stopped and coyly glancing back over her shoulder at Greg. “Are you going to join me?”

“Umm, I might rust?” Greg mentally kicked himself for thinking of such a lame sounding excuse because when the woman you love asks you to join her in the shower; you’re not supposed to say no.

Michelle pouted a little before turning back and commandeering the shower. At a loss for what to do, Greg decided to hang outside of the bathroom. Michelle asked for a washcloth and he was happy to oblige. Since he now looked like a woman, he felt a little unsure how to act. If he was still himself, he wouldn’t have thought twice about jumping into the shower with her, but now, he simply didn’t know what to do.

After asking for a towel and drying off, Michelle further flabbergasted Greg when she casually exited the bathroom and proudly sauntered past him, leaving the towel behind. She looked stunning and he enjoyed watching her.

“My god Michelle, you’re so...” He paused, lost for words to describe his confusing mix of feelings. He felt lust and envy for her beauty and pride that she was his, mixed with a little dose of fear on the outer edges. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, he still felt afraid that she might not reciprocate his feelings for her.

She stopped and glanced fetchingly over her shoulder at him. “Yes?”

“Well, stunning is the only word I can think of right now and I don’t deserve you...” Greg glanced away, ashamed by his admission.

Michelle frowned momentarily before she climbed under the covers and calmly patted the bed to signal Greg to join her. 

Since Michelle was naked, Greg deactivated his Scarlett body armor and feeling extremely exposed, stood naked before Michelle. He knew he wasn’t really naked because his skin wasn’t real, but it certainly looked and felt like it. 

Michelle gasped with astonishment. “Meeeow...You’re beautiful!”

Greg glanced down at his body. “I am?”

“Yes!”  Michelle growled possessively. “Aaannnd, you’re mine and don’t you ever think that nasty thought again, got it?”

Greg gulped and nodded.

Michelle grinned with satisfaction and pointed to her side. “Now get in here ya beautiful hunk of metal and hold me.”

After double checking his compensators to keep from breaking the bed with his weight, Greg happily obliged her request. Michelle giggled lightly as he gingerly worked his way into the bed. She held out her hand and pulled herself closer to him. She hesitantly touched the skin on his stomach and pressed lightly. “Warm and soft, but underneath, you’re so hard. I wonder...”

Her hand traveled up and touched one of Greg’s breasts, sending tiny shocks through his body as his power plant momentarily spiked. She smiled at his reaction. “Oh, that’s a good sign. Your breasts feel a little firm, but otherwise, they feel good to me.”

Michelle leaned forward and kissed him gently on his lips. “Very nice, I could get addicted to kissing those lips...”

Greg felt his power plant’s output fluctuate again. His biggest worry was whether or not she would still love and find him attractive if he became stuck in his current form. It seemed like she might as she affectionately kissed him a second time and he returned her kiss. Their shared kiss lingered for a few seconds before Michelle reluctantly pulled away and stared into his face with an expression that seemed to say that she liked what she saw.

“Yes, that was very, very nice, but-” Michelle yawned and hastily brought her hand up to cover her yawn. “Sorry, I would love to explore those lips,” She glanced down at his body. “And the rest of you some more, but I’m crashing here...” She lay down and with a pleased smile, motioned for him to join her. She quickly snuggled herself against him and sighed with satisfaction when he hugged her to his body.

Michelle further surprised him when she started purring like a cat as she slowly relaxed in his arms before drifting off to sleep.  Greg thought she looked so beautiful and he felt his eyes begin to lubricate themselves.  He loved her so much and worried about their future together if he was unable to change back.

It seemed like she was capable of loving him, but would their love survive?  How could Michelle love a machine and if he was a machine, was it possible for him to love her? He thought he loved her, but were his emotions real? Could a machine love a person or was the love he thought he felt just a simulation running as a background process in his central processor? What if it stopped running or he decided to terminate the process?  He was too afraid to check and if things went according to plan, it wouldn’t matter in a few hours.

He clung to that hope as he lightly kissed Michelle on her forehead and relaxed as much as he could without putting too much weight on her body or the bed.  Greg closed his eyes and configured his hibernation mode to wake him up if Michelle woke, someone tried to enter the room, Wheelie contacted him or 12 noon, whichever came first.  Satisfied with his alert settings, Greg activated Arcee’s hibernation mode.

Wheelie felt so proud of his humans and recently elevated Decepticon master.  They all trusted and were counting on him to find the MAU for them.  He couldn’t let them down, but he wasn’t sure what to think of his Autobot/Decepticon boss though. Even though he knew that she was once just a meatbag and Bossman Greg, she kind of scared him because a Decepticon Pretender was seriously dangerous.  She was also a babe and as the only Autobot/Decepticon in existence, he felt he had a chance to win her affection.

He cackled gleefully at the thought of her sharing code with him. With her superior code, he could upgrade himself into a more advanced Decepticon form. Maybe even a full sized vehicle instead of a toy truck. The possibility caused him to pause and stare dreamily ahead as he considered the idea. Oh yeah, she was perfection in any form and he would be willing to do anything to spend a little alone time with her. All he had to do was not fail.

Easier said than done and Decepticon’s were not known for their tolerance of failure, but he felt some hope for his continued existence by the confusing fact that she was also an Autobot. Not that an Autobot wasn’t dangerous. Far from it, but he knew he could count on an Autobot to not punish him too much if he failed. Autobots had too much honor, integrity and love for the meatbags to even consider punishing him, but Sadie was also a Decepticon and Wheelie feared what Sadie might do to him if he failed because a Decepticon wouldn’t hesitate to end his existence if they felt he served no useful purpose.

If all else failed, maybe her meatbag origin would cause her to show him some mercy?

“Best not think about that Wheelie...” He muttered to himself as he rolled around the yard, looking for the container while working to stay out of sight of the meatbags lumbering around the yard in their dumb behemoth lifting machines.  Part of him lamented that he didn’t have a piece of the AllSpark with him. He would love to use it to create a few more Decepticons out of the dumb machines here.  He would then be their master and as such, he could use them to finish his search even faster and even Sadie would be forced to bow to him.

Oh yes, it would be glorious to finally be treated with the respect he deserved! Although, he had to admit, his humans were pretty nice to him. Perhaps, he would spare them. 

“Holy shit! How in the hell did an R/C monster truck get in here?” A male human‘s voice broke Wheelie out of his thoughts.  The large and brutish looking meatbag wearing a hardhat, fluorescent safety vest, stained jeans and much abused, heavy duty work boots stood over him.  The man glanced around the yard. “It sure looks expensive, but I wonder which joker is controlling this thing?”

Wheelie didn’t know what to do. His orders were to remain undetected, but he knew if he transformed and blasted the meatbag; it would only make things worse.  The primitive meatbag thought him to be a simple toy truck.  He decided to remain in vehicle mode and see what happened.

The meatbag picked him up and inspected him. “Nice...this isn’t one of those cheap R/C trucks I’ve seen at the mall. Who ever lost it is going to want it back. Maybe they will even give me a finder’s fee. Hehe.” The meatbag laughed as he carried Wheelie back toward his lifting machine.

Wheelie felt a slight bit of generosity in his core for the primitive human vehicle operator. The man did say he was nice and admired his superior construction. The meatbag climbed up to the cab and after a moment’s hesitation from studying the obviously cramped interior of the vehicle, the human, decided to set Wheelie on the small steel deck that surrounded the vehicle’s cabin.  Next, the meatbag used a silly rubberized cord to secure Wheelie to the deck before he returned to the interior of his cabin and resumed his work by driving around the yard. 

Wheelie quickly cut the cheap rubber cord and he was about to make good on his escape when he noticed that the view from up here made it much easier for him to accomplish his mission. Plus, the meatbag appeared to be heading toward one of the yards he had not been able to search yet. Yes, he would let the meatbag and his dumb machine aid him with his mission.

His plan was going well until the meatbag decided to take an authorized work break to refill his inefficient gullet with simple carbohydrates.  The human was fortunate that his orders were to remain undetected; else he would have forced the human to continue driving him around.  Anticipating the meat bag’s actions, Wheelie hid under the cabin.

“Well, shit. The damn thing must’ve fallen off...” The human picked up the cut cord. “Damn cheap ass bungee cord.  Fuck, oh well. Time for lunch.”

Wheelie debated continuing his search, but due to activity in the yard and the lack of concealment due to the daylight, he doubted he would remain undetected for very long.  His best bet would be to remain with the dumb vehicle and let the human continue to drive him around.  He reluctantly decided to notify Sadie of his status.  He knew she would be unhappy with his results, but she seemed perceptive enough to realize he was working diligently to find the missing container and it wasn’t his fault he had failed to spot the container.  She might not render him nonoperational.

{“Hello, Boss Lady. This is your humble servant, Wheelie reporting.”}  Just in case she was in a foul mood, he decided to lay it on thick.

{“Wheelie, have you found it?”} Her voice instantly replied. She sounded more anxious than mad at him.

Wheelie felt that her response was a good sign. {“Sorry Boss, not yet, but I have commandeered a human vehicle and its unwitting operator to aid me with my search. I have searched the other part of the yard.” He uploaded the search results to her system. “But the human took a lunch break and the conditions make it risky for me to continue the search on my own.”}

Sadie paused for a millisecond as her system performed a scan of the data and electronically acknowledged his results. {“Excellent work Wheelie. I knew we could count on you and as much as I would have liked to hear you tell me you found it, I am glad you are on the job. If anyone can find it, it will be you!”}

Wheelie was beside himself with joy. He now understood how lucky he was to have her as his commander because a normal Decepticon would have been less than understanding with his lack of results. {“Thank you Sadie Prime. I won’t let you down. I WILL find your shipping container!”}

{“What did-”} Sadie gasped before Wheelie closed the communications link on her. His misidentification of her as a Prime had the desired effect and he hoped she would be even less likely to punish him if he failed.

He spotted another dumb lift vehicle and its human operator driving towards the section of the yard he had not been able to search yet. For Sadie Prime, he decided to take the risk.

He jumped down and transformed into vehicle mode in mid-air. As soon as his wheels touched the ground he raced towards the rear of the vehicle.  He jumped and climbed aboard, hiding below the deck and raised cab of the lift vehicle to remain undetected by the meatbag operator inside.

At precisely 12 noon, Greg instantly became aware of his surroundings again. If not for his internal clock, he would’ve never known he had “slept”. Michelle still dreamed peacefully in his arms and he took comfort from that fact. A quick system check confirmed Wheelie was still operational, but the fact that Wheelie had not reported in meant he had not found the container and that worried Greg, a lot.

He wasn’t sure what to do. Should he go back into hibernation mode just to keep himself from worrying or get up and try to do something?  A ping from Wheelie gave him hope.

Unfortunately, Wheelie’s report was less than encouraging, yet at the same time, Greg couldn’t fault him for not finding it, yet.  The little guy had been very resourceful and managed to search the other yard. Thus, narrowing the search down to one remaining shippingcontainer. Well, unless their container had been moved to another yard behind Wheelie’s back.

Greg was unsure how to handle being called a Prime by Wheelie. He was pretty sure Wheelie knew he wasn’t a Prime and was trying to suck up to him, but at the same time; it did feel kind of nice.  Yes, Wheelie’s personality was a little annoying at times and Greg realized he made the scrappy little Decepticon too much like the one in the movie, but at the same time, he kind of liked him and was glad he made him.  Wheelie was certainly helping out more than he ever expected when he made him  clean Hector’s truck.

Now he was awake, not that he was really asleep, and he couldn’t bring himself to entering hibernation mode again.  Greg carefully and regretfully disentangled himself from Michelle. She mumbled and whimpered a little, but smiled and calmed down when Greg gently tucked her in and gave her another light kiss on the cheek.

He felt at a loss for something to do. Normally, he would take a shower or maybe grab a bite to eat, but he didn’t need to do either now. He could eat, but there wasn’t a need and the ability was only built in to help maintain his Pretender-bot disguise.

Greg decided to do something he had yet to do, simply look in the mirror and study his changed reflection. His reflection caused a lot of conflicting emotions at his core. Pride, lust, fear, amazement and curiosity. He wasn’t sure what to think.

On one hand, he thought he looked pretty damn, well, pretty. More than pretty actually because he knew his female Decepticon body was perfect in every way and he felt a little bit of pride. Until Michelle had touched him, he had never felt his ‘skin’, or whatever it was, and he marveled at how real it felt. Hell, just the fact he could feel it amazed him.  He hesitantly reached up and pressed a finger into his right breast.

Yikes! He hissed with surprise and let go.

It felt real to him, except his breast tissue, or whatever it was made from, hit a hard stop about one inch in, but it took more force than a normal human fondling a woman’s breast would use.  He pinched his butt, it felt real, but he hit a hard stop after about only half an inch when pressed hard.

“Hmmph, less padding back there...” He muttered.  The skin covering the rest of this body gave even less before hitting a hard stop. Unless someone squeezed super hard and were paying attention, he guessed they would never know his body wasn’t real.

Greg leaned forward and studied his face in the mirror and he didn’t see any of his male self in his reflection.  He only saw a naked woman objectively studying herself in the mirror and liking what she saw.  He liked how he looked, but felt confused by the realization at the same time. Guys aren’t supposed to feel “beautiful” or “pretty”. Handsome or macho, yes, but pretty, never. 

“I guess it wouldn’t suck that bad...” He softly whispered as he considered what it would be like to be stuck as a girl, correction, a woman and a pretty damn hot one too, a certifiable robo-babe.

He smiled.

Greg knew his skin was fake and he could deactivate it. “I wonder...” With that thought, he deactivated his skin and gasped as it appeared to turn into sand and absorb into his body, revealing the unmistakable shape of a robot woman underneath.  Instead of being stick like and full of sharp edges like the Alice Decepticon, his robot form looked like a woman with a exoskeleton instead of skin, but with sharp muscle definition artfully merged with unmistakably feminine curves, and bright metal skin.

Tiny seams ran between her muscles and Greg realized that was how his body “broke” apart to expand into Arcee mode. Unlike his Arcee form, her eyes glowed Decepticon red instead of Autobot blue.  Greg wasn’t sure why his eyes had to look so evil because she had glowing blue eyes in the movie, but maybe he subconsciously decided that her eyes needed be red. It didn’t matter too much since he didn’t plan on walking around without his skin active and when active, his eyes did not glow. Well, no one had mentioned it to him if they did and he hadn’t noticed.

He reactivated his skin and, once again, the “sand” coalesced around his body. After only a few seconds, he looked human again. He double checked his face in the mirror. Nope, his blue human eyes didn’t have a reddish glow.

Greg stepped back a few feet and viewed more of his female body. Yes, he thought his new body was exceptionally attractive and he decided that things could be worse.  He could be trapped as a Na’vi. He shuddered with fear at that thought because there would be no way he could lead a normal life. There is no amount of makeup that could disguise a nine to ten foot tall blue skinned alien.

He glanced back to the bed and counted his blessings. His earlier doubts seemed kind of silly to him now. Michelle truly loved him and she loved him for who he was, not what he was.  He didn’t know what he would do without her and their link. She was his soul mate and his reason to not do something stupid, like try killing himself. The sappy ‘she was his rock’ sounded so trite, yet had never felt more true to him.

He wanted to talk to Hector and hear what he thought about what he should do because he could always count on him to cut through the bullshit and tell him how it was. Unfortunately, he didn’t have anything to wear.  He grinned at his stereotypical female thought, but walking out nude or wearing Scarlett’s body armor would be very ‘distinctive’.  The only other outfit Sadie had stored was the slinky summer dress and high heels Alice wore in the movie. 

“Well, it’s not like I have a choice...” He softly muttered to himself, closed his eyes and activated the dress pattern. He felt himself grow by three inches as heeled sandals formed on his feet and the sensation of wearing a dress left him feeling both covered, yet somehow more exposed than when he was nude.

Now his reflection in mirror caused Greg all kinds of mixed emotions. There was no getting around the ultra-feminine clothes he was now wearing.  Guys wore body armor and as Scarlett he could kind of rationalize the sexy body armor, but guys never wore a summer dress with high heels and they certainly did not look good while doing it. 

Thank god Hector’s room was next door because he wasn’t sure if he could be seen in public dressed like this.  He knew that every male eye would be drawn to him as each man began to imagine what the hot chick looked like without a dress on. If that wasn’t bad enough, he would also have half of the women pissed at him for flaunting herself in front of their husbands or boyfriends.

His first step in high heels surprised him because he didn’t trip or fall over. Instead, he found walking in them a breeze and by the time he reached the side of the bed, he didn’t notice any difference. Even so, the first chance he got, he was going to scan in some additional outfits.

Greg leaned over and gently shook Michelle. “Michelle, I’m going to check in with Hector. I’ll be right back.”

“Mmmm, okay...” Michelle smiled dreamily as Greg kissed her. She fell back to sleep before he reached to door.

Stepping out of the room was an adventure all by itself.  Greg was so nervous about how short his skirt was and how much of his legs were showing that he ran into and almost knocked down a 40 something man in an expensive business suit.  It was only Greg’s quick reactions that allowed him to grab onto and prevent the man from landing on his butt. 

The man appeared a little stunned by how easily he was almost knocked down by a woman who looked like she weighed 50 to 70 pounds less than he did and by how easily she held him up, preventing him from falling.  Greg thought the man looked like a CEO with a trim, well muscled body and a full head of thick, dark brown hair with only a few signs of grey.

As Greg accidently appraised the businessman, the man also appraised Greg.  He briefly glanced down to Greg’s heel clad feet and smooth, shapely legs before raising his eyes and smiling with appreciation as he focused politely on Greg’s face. “I’m sorry, umm, miss. I wasn’t watching where I was going. Completely my fault.”

Greg thought about chewing the man out for virtually undressing him with his eyes, but he realized a part of him actually liked the attention and the entire situation confused him even more because guys never acted so politely to each other. Another guy was more likely to call the other a bad name or worse. “Oh, no. It was my fault sir. I wasn’t paying attention and I just rushed out of my room instead of stopping and looking both ways before crossing the street.”

The businessman chuckled and smiled warmly at Greg before glancing at his expensive looking wrist watch, over to the main hotel and back to Greg followed by nervously running his fingers through his hair. “Hey, umm, I’m going to grab a quick bite and a coffee before I head off to my afternoon meeting with a customer. I’d be happy to buy you a cup or treat you to some lunch as an apology.”

Now Greg was really shocked and he wasn’t sure know how to handle such a proposal. The cynical side of him knew what the man ultimately wanted, but he seemed to be genuinely nice and Greg didn’t want to be rude to him. “Ahh, thanks sir, but, ummm, I was just going to try waking up my boyfriend.” He gestured over his shoulder to Hector’s door. “And, well, umm, you know?” He stammered to an embarrassed halt.

The businessman chuckled and nodded his head as if he expected Greg’s answer. “Of course and it’s fine. I’m very sorry about putting you on the spot like that. If you change your mind, I’ll be there; no strings attached” He smiled and gestured back toward the main hotel complex before turning to resume his journey.

“Thanks...” Greg found himself timidly waving goodbye. It felt very strange to get hit on by some random stranger, but the guy was nice about it. His biggest surprise was the revelation that he wasn’t pissed at the man. He had never had another man hit on him and he had a few openly gay classmates in college, but they had never hit on him and he never gave the possibility much thought.  He wasn’t sure how he would have reacted back then. Part of him worried that he would have reacted violently or been horribly repulsed by the suggestion because that how “normal” heterosexual men were supposed to react.

At least, that is what he heard, but now he hoped he would have treated an unwanted advance a little more graciously and as a compliment because he realized he felt a little flattered by the man’s attentions. He turned and quickly glanced over his shoulder at the retreating businessman, who just happened to be sneaking a glance back over his shoulder at the same time. They were both busted, causing Greg to smile as he waved at the man before turning back around to hide how embarrassed he felt.

Greg impatiently knocked on Hector’s door. He didn’t want any more surprise encounters, but Hector wasn’t answering his door. After a few, excruciatingly long seconds without a response, he knocked a little harder.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m coming...hold on.” Hector grumpily muttered from the other side of the door.

Greg anxiously glanced back toward the hotel to see if the businessman was still trying to sneak a peek at him. He wasn’t and Greg turned back to face the door as he heard Hector fumbling with the door chain.

Hector cracked open the door and his eyes widened with surprise as he caught sight of Greg. From what he could see, it was obvious Hector wasn’t wearing a shirt and he might not have been wearing pants either.  “Sadie? I mean, umm, Greg. Hold on, lemme get some pants and a shirt.”

Hector closed the door and after a few seconds re-opened it to let Greg into his room.  “You didn’t have to get completely dressed ya know?  I’m still me...” Greg realized that wasn’t actually correct because he wasn’t and he probably would have felt and done the same thing if Michelle had knocked at his door. “Okay, well, sorta...” Greg sighed with frustration.

Hector chuckled as he turned and quickly pulled the covers over his bed in an attempt to make his room look a little neater. Another thing he wouldn’t have done before. “Umm, you didn’t need to do that either, but I guess I understand.  So, umm, Wheelie called.”

Hector turned back and like the businessman, he reflexively looked him up and down before settling on his eyes. “Umm, that’s an interesting outfit you have there, umm, Greg.”

Greg glanced down at himself and blushed self consciously. “Yeah, It was the only thing other than my Scarlett costume and I didn’t think the costume would go over so well with the other guests here.  Hell, I had some dude ask me out to lunch as soon as I stepped out of my room!  It’s crazy.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Hector snorted. “So, what about Wheelie? Did he find it?”

“No...” Greg sighed heavily as he plopped himself down on the corner of Hector’s bed.  He realized he didn’t sit down very ladylike and quickly stood back up to smooth his skirt under his legs as he carefully resuming his seat.  He glanced back over to his slightly bemused friend. “Sorry, this is so weird...”

“Yeah, I know.” Hector chuckled. “So, what now, Greg?” He stumbled a little over his name.

“It’s okay. You can call me Sadie or Arcee. I understand because I hardly look or sound like a Greg right now, do I?” Greg hesitantly smiled at his friend.

Hector nervously swallowed. “No, no you don’t, umm, Sadie.  So, what did the little PITA say?”

“The what? Oh yeah, Wheelie. Well, he hadn’t found it, but he did manage to search all of the second yard.  I’m hoping he will be able to search the third yard and give us some good news here soon...”

“Me too. What do you wanna do when he finds it?” Hector canted his head slightly to the side.

“Well, I dunno.  I guess it depends on where and when he finds it because it might be kinda hard for us to break into the place and then, break into the container without getting the cops called on us, right?”

Hector pulled out the cheap desk chair. It groaned alarmingly as he carefully sat down, facing Greg. “Probably not and we can’t wait until it gets dark for everyone to leave since we might be running out of time.”

Greg nodded with agreement. “So, when he finds it and we have something to report, we call the Agents?”

Hector paused as he mulled over the course of action. “I guess so? I mean, I don’t think we have much of a choice at this point, but you’ll wanna keep Michelle here and out of sight.”

“Yeah, she probably won’t like it, but I’m sure she’ll understand.” Greg nodded his head slowly, his long hair distracting him a little as it moved across his bare shoulders.

“Well, until we hear from Wheelie, there isn’t a lot we can do. I’m awake now. So, I’m going to take a shower and grab a bite to eat.” Hector casually pulled off his shirt as he walked towards the bathroom. Shirt in hand, he turned back to Greg. “You wanna see if Michelle is up for that?”

Greg stood and his eyes inadvertently focused on Hector’s bare chest and wide, strong shoulders. “Geez, he’s ripped...” He thought as started to check out Hector’s abs. “Why haven’t noticed-”

His train of thought derailed and came to a crashing halt and he forced himself to look away before Hector realized that he was doing. Unwilling and unable to look at his friend, Greg found himself self-consciously smoothing the wrinkles out of his skirt.

“Umm, yeah, I’ll go check on her.” With his mind in turmoil, he turned away and woodenly exited the room.

Chapter Note: This is the final official chapter and it's a whopper at 10.8k words. Sorry, but I guess I could have split it in half and posted the first half a few weeks sooner. :( I would mark this complete, but there is the Epilogue to publish. It is done, edited and ready to publish, but I will give this chapter a few days to sink in before I post it.

Thanks Note: Again, thanks goes out to Elrod for his most excellent MAU universe and all MAU mistakes/transgressions are totally my fault. I am trying to keep this story as close to the MAU rules as possible, but I am afraid I may end up bending a few. Thanks also go out Beyogi, Landing and Grover for their sometimes real-time feedback and suggestions. Last but not least, djkauf for his magical editing.

After closing the door, he leaned his back against the brick wall beside the door, hugged his arms against his chest and gently banged his head against the wall a few times in frustration. “What in the hell is wrong with me!?!?  I don’t have any freaking hormones or any other crazy mind altering female chemical running through my body. Why did I notice how the businessman looked and why did the sight of Hector’s chest fluster me so much? Am I gay, now?” 

“Ha! I’ve seen his chest before and I never once thought I might be gay.”  Greg muttered under his breath as he pushed away from the wall and mulled it over as he walked the ten feet to his room. “Nothing’s changed and I didn’t feel the slightest urge to doing anything about it.  Right?”

Greg paused at his door and mentally reviewed some of his favorite actresses followed by some of his favorite actors. Yes, the men looked good, but none of them had that spark of attraction like the actresses provided him.

He started to find his fear ridiculous and he felt slightly ashamed for thinking of being gay as a bad thing.  Feeling appropriately self-chastised, he quietly opened the door to his and Michelle’s room.  Even though he tried not to wake her, she woke anyway. Her sleepy, pleased smile made Greg’s knees feel a little shaky. 

As he softly closed the door behind him, Greg smiled as he considered how ironic his worry might be because if he couldn’t change back, everyone else would think he was a lesbian.

Michelle propped herself up on her elbows, causing the covers to fall and reveal her delightfully perfect breasts. “Hey there, umm, what are you smiling about?”

Greg absently licked his lips as he forced himself to look up and at her eyes. “Oh, nothing serious, just thinking how beautiful you are and how lucky I am to have you in my life.”

“I see...” Michelle dubiously nodded before she sat up with a smirk, causing the bedding to fall to her hips. “Well, I have to admit, you do look rather stunning in that sun dress.”

He grinned, happily enjoying the show Michelle was giving him before he glanced down at his dress.. “Oh, this old thing?” He twirled for her. “It was just something I had laying around.”

“Come over here you saucy little tart and gimme a kiss!” Michelle giggled.

The kiss lasted a little longer than he intended and turned into some heavy petting because before he realized it, Hector knocked on the door.  “Hold on, be right there!” Greg yelled as he disentangled himself from Michelle while she covered herself with the sheets.

Greg refreshed his sundress to remove any wrinkles before he opened the door a crack.

Hector politely kept his eyes on Greg’s face instead of trying to look past him and into the room. “Hey, you two ready to get some lunch?”

“Oh crap, I umm, kinda forgot...” Greg mumbled apologetically as Michelle snickered.

Hector chuckled and took a step back from the door. “I bet. Meet you two there?”

“Sure?” Greg hesitantly replied and glanced back at Michelle.

She nodded. “Five minutes?”

“Sounds good, I’ll get us a table.” Hector smiled as he turned away.

As soon as Greg closed the door, Michelle jumped out of the bed and raced into the bathroom. Once she was done in the bathroom, she returned and frowned at her neatly folded, previous day’s clothes with distaste before sighing and reluctantly dressing herself. Next, she turned her attention to the mirror and fixed her hair as best she could using only her fingers.. “Grrrr, I need to find a rubber band...”

Fortunately the front desk had plenty and the woman manning the desk was happy to give her one.

Greg and Michelle joined Hector just in time for Hector to receive his monster order of food. After figuring out how to slide his way into the booth without flashing everyone, Greg ordered a coffee to sip on and pretend to drink. Michelle ordered her lunch and both Hector and Greg smiled when she ordered the fish entree.

Michelle glanced questioningly both of them. “What can I say? I like fish...”

Greg spotted his businessman and gave him a friendly wave. The man returned it and motioned for his server to bring him his check.  He paid his bill and stood to leave. As he passed by their table, he smiled at Greg. “Have a good day miss, and sorry about bumping into you earlier.”

The man was gone before Greg could form a coherent reply, but Michelle giggled and pretended to be upset with him. “Sadie! You little two-timing hussy! I can’t let you out of my sight for a minute without you trying to seduce some sugar daddy!”

Hector choked on his food and grabbed his glass of water to help get the food down.  Greg decided to play the game instead of getting embarrassed. He made a show of flipping his hair back over his shoulder and glancing down at his chest. “Hey, if ya got it, flaunt it. Right?”

“I’ve created a monster…” Michelle muttered with a grin as she speared another bite of her fish.

The only other surprise the trio received was when it was time to pay the bill. The unknown businessman had paid for Greg’s coffee. The trio went over the plan, but Michelle wasn’t too pleased with her proposed role in it. It took some convincing, but in the end, she reluctantly agreed with the idea she should stay out of sight.

She didn’t go down easily though, and her revenge consisted on dragging them all to the nearest mall so she could get a bikini and hang out at the hotel’s pool while she waited. When the “boys” tried to disagree, Michelle also brought up the fact that her only outfits were either her Catwoman costume or her current, recycled clothes and that wasn’t good enough. 

Greg bowed to the inevitable and offered to give her a ride to the mall, but Michelle insisted they take a cab so ‘Sadie’ could try on a few bikinis and maybe find herself a few additional outfits at the same time. He tried to tell her he didn’t need anything and he didn’t want to waste any money on clothes he wouldn’t be able to wear in a few hours, but Michelle pointed out that the money they had was free and gave him the ‘pretty please’ treatment. Who can resist that kind of pressure?

Greg found the bikinis to be extremely skimpy, revealing, and embarrassing, but he couldn’t exactly complain or back out with Michelle trying on bikinis with him. He thought she looked hot, but he also thought that Hector enjoyed the bikini try outs a tad too much. He tried to tell her he didn’t actually need to buy the bikini because he had scanned it and could reproduce it at will, but she insisted that he buy at least one physical set of real clothes to wear.

Greg didn’t think a bikini counted as “real clothes”, but what did he know? Besides, it made Michelle happy and that was all that mattered to him right now.  She even got him to reluctantly admit that wearing a bikini wasn’t all that bad. It helped that he found himself utterly hot.

After the bikini purchases, Michelle quickly grabbed a few spare outfits that could work with the single pair of shoes she bought while pointing out clothes that she thought might look good on Sadie.  Following her advice, Greg scanned a few mannequins and copied the clothing patterns so he wouldn’t have to wear the summer dress again. 

On the way to the registers, Michelle snagged a travel hair and makeup kit while Hector casually pulled a pair of swim trunks in his size off the rack. Greg felt a little put out that Hector didn’t even need to try them on to see if they fit. Yep, men had it easy and he would be very glad when he could turn back to himself.

They paid for the stuff with cash and Greg was shocked at how much so little fabric cost. “Damn, women’s clothes are expensive,” He muttered on the way out of the store.  He did enjoy the fact that Hector got stuck carrying the bags instead of him.

Of course, Michelle insisted on having Sadie keep her company at the pool and that meant wearing his new bikini. Greg groaned with frustration when Hector graciously volunteered to guard the girls. Right, “guard”, as in admire the girls as they pranced around in their skimpy bikinis.  Not that Greg performed any prancing, but the water did feel kind of nice and he very much enjoyed the sight of Michelle in her bikini.  He couldn’t really swim, but he could pretend to float and sort of swim using his grav compensators to keep from plunging to the bottom of the pool.

Michelle had absolutely zero hang ups about expressing her love of Sadie by holding her hand and kissing her whenever the urge struck.  Greg very much enjoyed it and he also enjoyed the shocked expression and sharp intake of breath from an older and stereotypically conservative woman who witnessed a pleasantly scorching kiss Michelle layed on his lips.

They returned to their rooms around 4pm and after spending the last four hours in-fem, being addressed as and responding to ma’am, miss or Sadie while wearing extremely revealing, feminine clothes; Greg had a hard time thinking of himself as a male. He caught himself referring to men simply as “men”, but women were “other women”. It was a slight distinction, but it was also very telling to him. He wasn’t Greg anymore and despite his optimism about finding the MAU, he was forced to admit he might not ever be Greg again.  Right now he was Sadie and to everyone else, Sadie was a woman. It simply felt easier and less stressful to think of himself as a woman.

With her decision made, Sadie stripped out of her bikini and playfully joined Michelle in the shower. No lame ‘I might rust’ excuse this time. Sadie enjoyed washing Michelle’s hair almost as much as Michelle liked having her hair washed. Once the pair of them had finished ‘helping’ each other get clean, Sadie simply exited the shower and her skin and hair purged all the excess water molecules, her hair styled itself and she activated one of her new and more conservative summer skirt outfits.

“Damn it Sadie! I hate you...” Michelle grumbled as she grabbed a towel and began to dry her body.

Sadie turned back to Michelle with a pleased smirk on her face. “Hey, you could try turning yourself into a robot if you want to.”

Michelle responded by pulling her close in an attempt to get Sadie’s clothes wet while giving her a steamy kiss. Sadie felt her power plant fluctuate and her knees wobble.  She quickly sat on the toilet to keep herself from falling down. “Wow, that was...” She dreamily looked up at a victorious Michelle.

“You’re different...” Michelle sat on the edge of the tub and intently studied Sadie’s face. “In the shower and now, you seem more relaxed.”

Sadie blinked with surprise as Michelle forced her to realize how close, even without being physically linked, the pair of them really were. “Yeah, It might sound kinda silly, but I just decided to be Sadie. Even if it is only for another hour or two. I kinda freaked myself out when I went to talk to Hector earlier because as soon as I stepped out of the door, that business man in the restaurant asked to buy me lunch...”

Michelle started to growl possessively.

Sadie grabbed her hands and pulled Michelle closer. “No, no, no...it wasn’t exactly like that. I was so freaked out about wearing a dress that we ran into each other because I wasn’t paying attention to where i was going. He was just being nice, but I noticed how distinguished and handsome he looked. I didn’t really think much about it until I saw Hector without his shirt and caught myself thinking about how strong he looked. I mean, I always knew he was handsome and felt slightly jealous of him. He’s an attractive man, right?”

Michelle nodded with agreement. “Yeah...”

“Well, it confused me, a lot, because I thought I might be gay, but after our time at the mall and the pool today, I figured out I was only feeling confused and self-conscious because I had never had another guy look at me like they thought I was sexually attractive.”

Michelle gasped and sat back. “Oh my god, the bikini! I’m sorry. I never-”

Sadie laughed and gave Michelle a hug to reassure her. “It’s okay. Yeah, it was very weird, at first, but I discovered something.” She leaned back with a smirk and waited for Michelle to ask the question.

“What?” Michelle impatiently studied Sadie’s eyes.

“I kinda liked the attention.” Sadie looked down at the floor, hunched her shoulders with shame and lightly blushed before looking back to Michelle with renewed confidence. “I’ve never felt more powerful or been dressed more provocatively. It was fun making a slight adjustment to my top and watching all the guys squirm.” Sadie giggled as Michelle gasped with shock.

“Sadie! You little minx! I wondered what you were doing, but I never thought you would do something like that on purpose.” Michelle grinned and briefly hugged Sadie. “I’m so proud of you.” She sniffed and pretended to wipe away a tear. “My little girl, they grow up so fast!”

The both dissolved into giggles. “Michelle...you’re so evil. Anyway,” Michelle straightened back up as Sadie’s voice turned serious again. “Thinking of myself as Greg was only making me feel worse and more desperate to get out of this trap, but being what I am isn’t really a trap and I shouldn’t have thought of it like that.” Sadie stood and gestured toward her body. “This is an opportunity and as long as I have you, I’m sure everything will be okay.  I know you love me and “we” will work it out.”

Michelle gasped and her eyes instantly filled with tears as her emotions overcame her. “Oh, Sadie...”

Sadie felt lubricant leaking from her eyes. She stood and gently pulled Michelle up to her body, hugging her tightly. Due to her three inch heels, plus her extra two inches of height, Michelle ended up resting her cheek on Sadie’s shoulder as she softly cried for a minute before she whispered in Sadie’s ear. “I love you and only you, Sadie slash Gregory Williamson and don’t you ‘ever’ forget it. No matter what. Got it?”

“Yes ma’am.” Sadie fervently whispered in return.

{“Sadie Prime! Sadie Prime! I found it!”} Wheelie’s transmission caught her by surprise, causing her power plant soar with excitement as a window from Wheelie’s camera overlaid her vision.

“Wheelie found it and he’s showing me a live feed right now!” Sadie’s eyes glistened with excitement as she watched the container soar past the camera.

What a second. Soar? {“Wheelie, why is the container in the air?”}

“Can I see?” Michelle asked.

Without skipping a beat, Sadie’s left eye and the skin around it melted away to reveal a red glowing robot eye and metal skin. A holographic image complete with live audio from Wheelie’s camera flickered into existence in the empty air in front of Michelle allowing her to both see and hear what was going on.

{“Well Sadie Prime, it...”} The camera zoomed out and revealed the container being lifted by a large crane. {“It appears that it might be about to be loaded into...”} The camera shifted to focus past the crane and in the direction the container was traveling in. {“That large container ship over there.”}

“Sadie Prime?” Michelle silently mouthed the question.

Sadie shrugged her shoulders and whispered. “Beats me.”

She returned her attention back to Wheelie. {“Crap...Is there any way you can disable the crane before it gets loaded?”}

The view from Wheelie’s camera panned around the yard in an attempt to spot a way to reach the crane and shut it down.  {“I don’t think so boss. Not without being spotted and even then, by the time I reached the crane’s control cabin and took care of its meatbag operator, the container would already be on the ship.”}

{“Shit, okay, thanks Wheelie. You did well. Try to keep an eye on it and if possible, avoid detection. You might end up being our best and only shot to recover the MAU.”}

{“No problemo Sadie Prime! Like flies on a dog, I’m on it!”} Wheelie enthusiastically replied causing Sadie to smile in spite of her concern.

Sadie laughed. {“Thanks Wheelie. You’re the best and it’s fleas.”}

{“Fleas? Oh yeah, okay. What are those and just what in the Allspark is a dog anyway?”}  Wheelie grumbled with confusion.

{“Never mind. I’ll explain it to you later. I’m going to get Hector and we will probably have to bring the Agents in on this.”}

{“Agents? We got to bring the human government in this?  Is that safe, boss?”} Wheelie asked incredulously.

Sadie sighed with impatience, but Wheelie needed to know the facts. {“Agent L and Agent P showed up after you and our MAU was stolen. They didn’t give us much choice and despite the fact that they are Agents from an agency that doesn’t exist, they did seem helpful. I would be happy to blast the crap out of that ship to recover our MAU, but that would expose us to a LOT more people and that would not be good, right?”}

{“Yeah, I guess, boss, but you just say the word and bam! I’m on it. Ain’t no primitive meatbag going to hassle my boss and live to tell about it! Capeesh?”}

{“Thanks Wheelie, but just stay low for now. I gotta get Hector and call the Agents. Lemme know if something changes.”}  Sadie gave Michelle a quick kiss before walking over and knocking on Hector’s door.

“Sadie, what’s up?” Hector opened his door and his eyes flared with surprise. “Holy shit! What happened to your eye?” He quickly motioned her into his room.

Sadie reached up, touched her eye and realized she had forgotten about it. She corrected that mistake. “Wheelie found it, but it’s being loaded onto a ship.”

“Okay...Agents?” Hector’s Snake Eyes costume materialized on his body.

Sadie sighed heavily and sat at the foot of Hector’s bed.  “I guess so, but I’m not looking forward to hearing what they’ll have to say.”

“Me either bud, but if you wanna break into the ship and steal it back, just say the word.” Hector crossed his arms and stood, ready to leap into action.

Sadie slowly shook her head. “No, that’s too risky and I wouldn’t want either of us to have to deal with the shit storm that would cause. I’m not that desperate to change back.”

Hector shrugged his shoulders. “De nada, it’s not a problem for me either way. You’re my friend and you’d do the same for me.”

Sadie felt tears falling down her cheeks as she stood and hugged her friend. Initially, Hector tensed up from surprise, but he quickly relaxed and returned her hug. “Thanks Hector.” She sniffed. “I think I’m going native here, but I really don’t know what I would have done without you and Michelle. No matter what happens, you’ll always be my best friend and if this is permanent, is it okay if I think of you as my bigger brother?” She looked up at his masked face.

His mask melted away and he leaned down and kissed her affectionately on her forehead before giving her a final squeeze and letting her go. “Come on mi hermana, let’s go back to your room so Michelle knows what’s going on and I’ll deal with the Agents.”

The two of them returned to Michelle’s room and Hector called Agent L.  He refused to let the Agent threaten him and reminded him that he didn’t have to call him at all. “If you want to know where it is, you’re going to have to lose the attitude.”

A hushed conversation between the two agents occurred before Agent L returned and in a much calmer voice he asked. “Is the device in your possession?”

Hector grimaced. “No, but we know where it is and we could extract it, but doing so would probably draw more attention than either of us want right now.”

Agent L exhaled with frustration. “Okay, what ‘do you’ want?”

“Nothing too extreme. You all did claim you only wanted to help, right?” Hector knew he had Agent L backed into a corner by his own words.

“Yes...” Agent L reluctantly agreed.

Hector nodded with satisfaction. “Okay then, all we want is access to the device as soon as you have recovered it so we can attempt to return Greg to his own body before the time limit expires.”

Agent L paused for a few seconds. “And, if it doesn’t work?”

Hector turned to Michelle and Sadie. They anxiously held each other and as one, they both nodded their acceptance of whatever happens. “Well, then it doesn’t work and we all go our own way.  You all keep the device and if we or you ever find a working unit, we both agree to attempt to help each other out.”

“I’m not authorized to make that kind of agreement, but I can tell you that there are individuals who are in worse situations than your friend.” Agent L’s voice shook. “Trust me, much worse, but I’ll do what I can, okay?”

“We.” Hector nodded, stressing the fact that Sadie and he were a team. “Understand and will meet you at the Harry Bridges Memorial Park in 15 minutes.”

“Got it.” Agent L hung up his phone.

Hector sighed as he considered the options. “Well, do we call a cab or do we risk it and ride?”

Sadie mulled it over. “I say, we ride. That way, if you need back up, I can break out the big guns a little easier, but if not, I’ll just stay out of sight and out of mind.”  She turned to Michelle. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a good idea...” Michelle paused. “But I still wish I was going with you.”

Sadie almost changed her mind about the plan, but it was too risky and she was their ace in the hole if something went wrong. “I know. Me too, but we already went over this…”

Michelle sighed. “I know, but I’m worried about you…” She glanced to Hector. “Both of you. Stay safe, please?”

“We will.” Sadie and Hector said in stereo.

“Okay now...” Hector cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders to relieve some tension. “First, we will need to show Agent L what the container looks like, maybe give them some evidence they can use to get a warrant to search the ship.”

“No problem, I can upload the pictures and the video to your phone, or I can email both of them the stuff right now.”

“Let’s wait on the email, but go ahead and transfer them to my phone, just in case.” Hector handed Sadie his phone. 

She touched the USB port with her fingertip and it turned a pale, milky white as it transformed and snaked its way into the port.  A few seconds later, her fingertip returned to normal and she handed the phone back to Hector. “All done, you can pull them up in your photo album and mail them from there, if you need to.”  She paused, lost in thought before she sighed with frustration. “You know, I think I’m going to miss being able to do that...”

Hector nodded with agreement as his Snake Eyes costume returned to look like his normal street clothes. “Yeah, this is all kinda cool when you stop to think about it, but we should get  going now.”

Sadie gave Michelle a lingering kiss before she crouched down, centered herself facing the door and activated her transformation into Hector’s motorcycle.  Once complete, Hector opened the door and verified that the coast was clear before Arcee rolled herself out of the room and into the parking lot. 

“Okay, call me a pig because I don’t care what ya think, but watching a hot chick turn into an equally hot motorcycle is pretty damn cool.” Hector affectionately patted Arcee’s gas tank before pulling his helmet on and climbing aboard.

“Oink, Oink and yeah, umm, thanks, I think...” Arcee muttered.

Michelle reached out and gave Hector a hug, followed by a quick kiss on Arcee’s windshield. “You two be careful and remember I love you.”

“Ha! As if and I love you too!” Arcee’s voice emanated from the instrument console as the pair slowly pulled away.

Hector nervously scanned the park as he and Arcee pulled into the parking lot.  It only took the two of them a little over five minutes to reach the park from their hotel and neither had much to say to the other during the ride. Since she let him have full control the entire way, he could tell Arcee was a little worried about the meeting and the possible outcome because as the minutes ticked away on the device’s possible timer, it was hard not to feel the pressure.

“It looks like we beat them here...” Hector glanced around as he removed his helmet and dismounted Arcee.  He spotted a black Yaris approaching. “Well, by a little bit.”

“Great, I guess I will have to remain in motorcycle mode for now.” Arcee muttered with frustration.

Hector patted her tank affectionately. “Hey, don’t worry. I got yer back, or tank or something...” He chuckled as she made raspberry sounds. “Since we have Wheelie inside, I’ll just tell them you’re keeping an eye on the container, okay?”

“Sounds like a plan...” Arcee sighed as her instrument cluster illumination faded to black.

Hector casually leaned against Arcee as the Agent’s vehicle came to a stop and both of the agents exited their tiny compact car.  He struggled to keep the smirk off his face. 

Agent L marched around the front of his vehicle as he pulled out his sidearm and held it aimed at Hector as he approached. “You’ve a lot of fucking nerve Mister Vasquez! I know it was you and your friend at the warehouse. The local authorities are just going to love busting your ass for that stunt. Now, where in the fuck is the device and where is your friend, ‘Miss’ Williamson?” He snidely emphasized Greg’s new gender while Agent P hung back and slowly shook her head, implying that she thought her boss was going overboard.

The classic good cop/bad cop routine and Hector was not impressed. His time in the sand had inoculated him against panicking at the sight of having emotional people aim their weapons at him and his Wolverine enhancements helped reduce the anxiety even further. While getting shot would probably hurt like a son of a bitch, it wouldn’t be fatal. “She’s around and we don’t have it.  So, why don’t ya drop the Keystone cops routine and I’ll tell you where it’s at and why we didn’t just go get it ourselves.”

Agent P glanced over at Agent L and nodded at him before turning back to Hector. “You’ve enhanced yourself, haven’t you?” She asked.

Hector nodded and grinned at her. “Yep, Wolverine...”  He didn’t see much of a reason to hide it anymore and maybe if he owned up to the major change, they would leave him alone and not ask about his built-in ninja costume

[Snickt!]

Hector popped out his right hand claws with a grimace. “Son of a...” He muttered as he held his claws up for the agents to see for a few seconds before retracting them with a hiss of pain.  He shook his hand a few times. “That hurts, but I heal pretty damn fast.”  He looked expectantly back to Agent L and as he slowly lowered weapon.

“You didn’t use those on the perps at the warehouse.” Agent L studied Hector suspiciously as he  cautiously holstered his firearm.

Hector smiled and tightly shook his head from side to side. Agent L might be a dick, but he was smart and Hector needed to refocus their attention on what was important. “Nope, didn’t need to, but we have bigger fish to fry if you wanna get that device back.”  He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone and held it up for the two agents to view.

Curious, both of the agents closed in and studied the picture before Hector moved to the next picture that showed the container being loaded onto the ship.  “Sadie took this 30 minutes ago and is keeping an eye on it now.  This is the container...” He zoomed on to the numbers on the side. “That was loaded at the warehouse and listed on their laptop. We debated breaking into the ship, but we didn’t wanna get into a fight and hurt innocent people.” He shrugged apologetically “Well, probably innocent, unlike the warehouse. So, we decided you all might have better luck by flashing your badges, getting a warrant, or something.”

Agent L glanced over at his partner. “What do you think?”

“Hmmm, a warrant would be the safest, but we...” Agent P glanced meaningfully at Hector. “Might not have the time.  Using the pictures, I can file for a warrant while we try the ‘soft’ approach.” She shrugged her shoulders.  “It might work...”

“Damn it!” Agent L sighed with frustration as he mulled over his options. “You.” He pointed at Hector. “Get in, call your friend and tell her to stay out of trouble.”

Hector started to move towards their tiny car. “Umm, will we all fit in this thing?”

Agent L growled with frustration as he opened the driver’s door. “Just get in...and call her, damn it.”

 “Sure.” Hector smirked as he studied the tiny back seat. Knowing that Sadie was parked right next to him and had heard everything, he pulled out his phone and pretended to call her. “Sadie, yeah, we’re going in. Sit tight, okay?”  He nodded his head as if listening to her reply. “Good. Yeah, I’ll let you know.” He put away his phone and folded himself into the tiny back seat behind Agent P. 

Agent P turned around in her seat to face Hector. “Phone, so I can extract the pictures for the warrant.”

Hector didn’t think he had much choice and he complied with her request, but he felt reluctant to simply hand over his phone. Who knew what else Agent P would extract from his phone in the process? 

Like Hector, the guard at the gate wasn’t sure what to make of the tiny sub-compact car and federal agent dichotomy. The Feds always drive big SUVs or full size sedans. As a result, he spent an extra minute verifying the agent’s badges and pissing Agent L off even more in the process. Hector found it very amusing to watch Agent L visibly restrain his temper with the guard.

“Not one word, Mr. Vasquez...” Agent L muttered after the guard let them through the gate. 

Hector held up his hands in mock surrender while Agent P glanced out of her window to hide her amusement from her partner.

A pair of security vehicles intercepted them a few hundred meters past the gate and after a polite and respectful exchange, Agent L was escorted to the suspect ship.  Shortly before they arrived, Agent P returned Hector’s phone. “Thanks, priority warrant applied for and I expect a reply within 30 minutes, but we will need to involve local law enforcement if we are forced to serve it.”

Hector accompanied the two agents onto the docked cargo ship while the harbor security guards remained behind.  They were met by a middle aged man wearing what appeared to be a well worn Captain’s uniform.

“‘ello gents an’ ladies. I’m Captain Hollingsworth, what can I do for ya?” The man respectfully nodded to Agent L as he spoke in a thick Australian or New Zealand accent.

Agent L displayed his badge. “Hi, Captain Hollingsworth. I’m Agent L of the FBI and my partner here is Agent P.” He glanced to her as she flashed her badge. “We have reason to believe that some stolen goods have been accidentally loaded onto your ship and we would like to take a quick peek to confirm that possibility-”

Cpt Hollingsworth’s face was filled with skepticism as he impatiently interrupted Agent L. “Whoa there Agent, umm L?  I dinno wha’ kin’a thing yer trying to pull on me here, but all these...” He gestured expansively to all the containers loaded on his ship. “Are empties and I won’t allow some foreign law officers getting all stickybeak and poking their noses in places they don’t belong!”

Agent L surprised Hector by not blowing up in the Captain’s face, but it was Agent P who responded. “We completely understand your concerns sir.” She paused and smiled graciously at him. “We have already filed a warrant and expect to receive court approval within the hour, but we would prefer to handle this with as little disruption as possible to you and your crew. Our intel is fairly specific, but if you force us to wait for the warrant, it could take days before all the legal stuff is finalized and your ship would be allowed to depart.”  She applied the pressure as his resistance started to crumble.

“Ah’ damnit!” Captain Hollingsworth took his cap off and pulled back his thinning hair with frustration. “That would cost me a bikkie, but if what yer claiming is a fair dinkum then I reckon it might’en not be too much of a problem if ya took a look around, but we ‘ave more than a few thousand containers here. Do ya have any idea of about what time yer thinking this container might have been loaded?”

Agent P smiled at the Captain’s change in attitude and glanced back to Hector. “It was around 1630 hours, right?”

Sadie didn’t know what to think when Hector rode away with the Agents.  On one hand, it was annoying as hell not being with them, but on the other hand it was better the government didn’t know about her extreme changes.  She felt even more conflicted about what to when they got the MAU back.  She was afraid she wouldn’t want to change back to her old, boring self. It was pretty damn cool being a robot motorcycle.  The female part, she wasn’t all that fond of, but everything else was actually kind of cool.

“No! I’m changing back and that is the end of it!” Sadie berated herself for even considering the possibility.  No matter how much Michelle supported her with whatever happened, she deserved to have Greg and a family, not some robot chick.

{“Sadie Prime! Sadie Prime!”} Wheelie’s panicked transmission broke her train of thought.

Sadie felt her virtual stomach drop with alarm, but she forced herself to remain calm because it might only be Wheelie over reacting to something or a rat scared him. {“Sadie here, what’s up Wheelie?”}

{“We have company...”} Wheelie transmitted a live video feed from inside the ship.  It showed their container, but there were four men wearing all black clothes that resembled a ninja costume, but with solid body armor strategically placed and full faced helmets instead of the famed ninja mask.  Okay, so they weren’t ninjas, but their outfit sort of made her think of ninjas when she first saw them.

Sadie sighed as she considered the feed imagery. “How did the Japanese ninja become synonymous with sneaky?”

Using Wheelie’s eyes, she studied the men a little closer. Their helmets fully enclosed their heads and gave no hints to their identities. Unlike a motorcycle helmet, their face shield looked completely opaque with no way for the men to see out. However; they must be able to see out since they didn’t appear to be running blind. High tech helmets aside, what concerned Sadie the most was the fact that they were using what appeared to be a light saber to cut a hole in the side of their container. 

She also caught the flash of a holstered weapon on each of their hips. {“Wheelie, zoom in on their weapons...”}

Wheelie complied and as the details of their weapons came into focus, Sadie activated her rider hologram and began to pull out of her parking space. The weapons looked more like sci-fi blasters or laser pistols than standard projectile based firearms and if they were really using a light saber to cut into the container, then Hector and the Agents were in trouble, big trouble. She tried to call Hector, but his phone was still set to not accept calls to avoid being traced. 

As she impatiently waited for a car to pass before she pulled out onto the road leading to the shipping yard, she noticed all of the men breaking into the container go into high alert as the sounds of people walking noisily down steel grated stairs echoed in the hold.  It had to be Hector and the Agents.  As the man using the light saber disappeared inside the container, the remaining three drew their pistols and Sadie recognized them instantly as a copy of Han Solo’s blaster from Star Wars.

“Fuck!” Sadie screamed with frustration as her desperately accelerated out of the parking lot. Her rear tire to left a long, smoking black streak behind while her front wheel hovered almost a foot off the ground as she shot toward the shipping yard’s front gate. 

{“Wheelie, I’m not going to make it in time...”} Sadie realized that there might be a way for her to take a more direct route and with that thought, she jumped into the air and initiated the transformation into her untested jet form.

The transformation finished just as she began to fall back down to earth. Sadie instinctively punched her thrusters to full power while pulling her nose up.  She shot straight up in a ballistic trajectory while rapidly spinning in a barrel roll as she struggled to figure out how to use her wings and regain control.

“Hollllly shiiiiit!” Sadie hit 5,000 feet before she realized what was happening.  She immediately stopped max thrust. “Shit! I need to get down...” As she began to slow and stall, she rolled, facing her back toward the ship to orientate herself.  Assured that she was heading in the right direction, she lightly tapped her thrusters to begin what she hoped was a rapid, yet controlled descent to the ship. 

Wheelie wisely kept himself out of sight while maintaining his surveillance on the scene in the cargo hold. She tried not to be distracted as the unknown men began to open fire with their weapons on Hector and the Agents.  {“Holy f’ing shit boss, ya better get down here fast. These clowns are blowing the crap outta shit down here!”}

Their weapons were definitely blasters and not regular handguns. Fortunately, Hector and the Agents weren’t giving the shooters much to aim at, but that didn’t stop the idiots from trying. Instead, all they did was make a lot of noise and punched very large holes in the sides of the flimsy shipping containers that Hector and the Agents were taking cover behind. 

Agent L managed to return fire and hit one of the men, but his shot bounced off the man’s armor without leaving a mark.  A volley of blaster shots forced Agent L back behind cover, barely missing him as Agent P helped pull him back.

As Sadie made her final approach, two of the unknown men began to stride confidently toward Hector and the Agent’s positions as they fired their blasters to keep them pinned down. Hector waited until the last second before he used his enhanced strength and reflexes to jump out from behind his container. Both men jerked and reflexively tried to shoot him, but he moved too fast for them. With his claws extended, he flipped in mid-air, and used his feet to launch himself off the side of container opposite of his previous position.

The attacker closest to Hector started to turn and bring his weapon to bear on Hector, but Hector’s right hand claws punched into and ripped through the man’s right shoulder like it was tissue paper, causing the man to scream and drop his blaster.  Now, Hector was behind the second man and Hector used his right hand claws to punch into the second man’s abdomen. 

Again, Hector’s claws punched through the man’s armor as if it wasn’t there, emerging from his back covered in blood.  The second man’s blaster fired once into the floor before Hector savagely pulled his claws up and out of the man, disemboweling him.

Hector’s target screamed with agony, but before he could finish off his first target, a blaster bolt slammed into the middle of his back, knocking him to his knees and leaving a smoking hole the size of a grapefruit that exposed his metal spine where it impacted. 

Sadie flared out just above the cargo hold, cut her thrusters and initiated her transformation back into robot mode.  As she dropped, feet first into the hold, Hector tried to turn to face the man who shot him in the back.  He was rewarded with another hit in his left shoulder, causing him to fall onto his right side. She felt like she was moving in slow motion as she fell toward the deck below. Once more, Hector tried to stand, but the man fired another blaster bolt into his body. 

Sadie landed between the man and Hector. The man fired at her and hit her square in her chest, the force of the blaster bolt rocked her back a few inches, but her armor held, leaving behind a smoking mark on her chest.  She brought her massive arm cannon to bear on the man and armed it while praying that it would actually work. Unfortunately, it took too long to cycle and the man, plus his partner who had cut through their container to retrieve the MAU, made a run for it.

Sadie was torn between chasing after the men with the MAU and helping her friend.  She prayed his healing was good enough to keep him alive. She turned back to her friend and was relieved to see him struggling to rise while cursing up a storm as  Agent L and Agent P cautiously poked their heads from behind cover. 

Sadie watched, amazed and relieved as his massive wounds closed up and started healing before her eyes. “Hector! Are you okay?”

“Hell no, Arcee, that fucking shit hurt...” Hector rose to his feet, staggered and leaned his back against a shipping container as he contemplated the two men he attacked.

One of the men was still alive, but before they could attempt to render aid and interrogate him, the body of one who was alive stiffened as both men’s suits began to glow, white hot.  They had to turn away and shield their eyes as their attacker’s bodies were entirely consumed in only a few seconds, leaving behind only a body sized scorch mark on the steel deck to betray their existence. Even their blasters were consumed by the flames.

“Son of a bitch!” Hector punched the wall of a container, leaving a large dent in its side.

“Where did the MAU go?” Agent L asked, reminding the pair of their reason for being here. 

Sadie turned back to where she last saw the other two men. “Crap...” She muttered.  {“Wheelie, please tell me you know where the MAU went...”}

{“Sure do Sadie Prime!”} Wheelie’s camera showed the two men jumping onto a boat piloted by another black garbed man.

“Crap, they’re getting away!” Sadie glanced around, looking for the best way to exit the ship’s cavernous hold.  She looked up and figured she could switch back to jet mode and fly out.  With that thought, she initiated her transformation.

“Take me with you!” Agent P knocked on her cockpit canopy, seemingly unphased by what she witnessed.

Sadie sighed as she realized her secret was definitely out now.  She popped open her canopy. “Fine, but don’t complain if you get sick. I only have a few seconds of flight time under my belt.” She warned Agent P as she climbed into her cockpit.

As Agent P buckled herself into the seat, Sadie smoothly lifted them both straight up and out of the ship’s hold using her anti-grav.  As soon as she cleared the top of the hold, she kicked in her thrusters and shot after the fleeing speed boat with their MAU.

“Whoa...sorry.” Sadie wobbled back and forth a few times as she struggled with her new wings and tail. Flying was a lot harder than it looked like on TV, but she had a slight advantage due to her ability to feel her wings, the air flow over them and respond instantly to the feedback.

With her new plane and pilot jitters quickly fading, it wasn’t hard to spot the bad guys boat. For starters, it was the only military styled, twin engine, inflatable boat amidst the usual fiberglass recreational pleasure craft and it was the only one with three black clad dudes wearing solid black helmets on a south west heading exiting the harbor area at max speed.  From their current heading, it appeared like they were aiming for open sea.

“Where in the hell do they think they are going?” Agent P asked.

“Beats me, but they’re heading into deeper water.” Sadie looked ahead and spotted Santa Catalina Island ahead, but with the current course, it looked like they would miss the island or land on the northernmost tip. “Or, maybe they have a secret base on Catalina Island?”

Not that they needed it, but the final confirmation came when the men fired their blasters at the pair as they flew past.  “Shit! I don’t think we can ask them to simply pull over, do you?” Sadie asked.

Agent P chuckled as Sadie performed evasive maneuvers, dodging the blaster bolts from the craft below. “Probably not, but I assume you have some sort of weapon on you. Maybe we can disable their boat by shooting their engines?”

“We?” Sadie asked, amused that Agent P included herself.

“Well, okay, you...but try not to sink their boat, okay?” Agent P grinned as they circled back around to approach the boat from the stern.

“Yeah, that would be bad...” Sadie decided to try her smaller twin cannons, hoping they would fire faster than her main cannon and do enough damage to disable the boat without sinking it in the process.

The men in the boat saw her coming and once again, tried to shoot her down, but she was able to dodge their fire. As soon as her crosshairs lined up on the stern of the boat, she fired.  A stream of rapid fire bolts of energy shot out of her wings.  Not used to firing at a moving target while also moving, she missed the boat completely, but she certainly pissed off the men in the boat since they redoubled their efforts to shoot her down.

Sadie dodged the hail of blaster bolts as she circled back around to make another run. “I’ll try it again. Now that I kinda see how it works, I might be able to hit the boat this time. I hope...”

“Good luck!” Agent P encouraged her.

This time, Sadie came in from a shallower angle and walked her fire toward the stern of the boat, but at the last second, the boat’s pilot skewed the craft and dodged her fire.

“Son of a bitch!” Sadie yelled with frustration as the boat continued on its merry way. “I’m really beginning to dislike these assholes...” She muttered as she considered her options.  “The hell with this, I’m going for the big gun...” She armed her main cannon and waited for it to cycle. It seemed to take forever, but in reality, it only took two seconds and she was very curious to find out what it would do since the relatively slow cycle time prevented her from using it against the bad guys in the hold.  “Main cannon armed and ready to fire, but I have no idea what it will do...” She warned Agent P as she circled back around and began her third attack run from only 10 feet off the water and directly astern of the boat.

With her main cannon centered just below her nose instead of on her wings like her smaller cannons, the main cannon seemed a little easier to aim.  The pilot of the boat swerved back and forth in an attempt to foil her aim, but she remained locked on to his tail and all his swerving spoiled his buddy’s aim, making her job even easier.  “Here goes...” She whispered as she gave the command to fire her cannon.

[Boom!]

The entire boat blew into a million tiny pieces as the energy of her main cannon impacted the stern of the boat, lifting the stern into the air and causing the boat to break in half, practically disintegrating the fragile craft as it exploded into flame before tumbling back into the water.

“Holy shit!” Sadie flew over the burning wreckage with stunned amazement. 

Agent P looked down and twisted back in her seat to view the smoking wreckage as they left it behind. “Oh, that’s not good...”

Sadie turned back and slowed to a crawl as she hovered over the wreckage, praying that the MAU wasn’t destroyed in the blast.  “Umm, I’m going to guess that the device is probably on its way to the bottom of the ocean now...”

“Probably...” Agent P sighed with regret. “I’m sorry Sadie, but this looks like the end of the road.”

“Maybe...” Sadie lowered herself until her belly was only a few feet away from the surface with her nose facing the wreckage. “ Is the device still inside the wreckage floating on the surface?”

Agent P studied the wreckage and slowly shook her head with regret. “Umm, it doesn’t look like there aren’t any pieces big enough still floating with the MAU...”

“Well, I guess we'll just have to try something else then.” Sadie cut her anti-grav, dropping them both into the ocean.

“Sadie!” Agent P banged her hand against the cockpit window in an attempt to escape the now half submerged plane. “What are you doing!?!?”

“Trying something.  You should be okay since I planned on this flight mode having space capability in case I wanted to try flying to the moon or something...”  Sadie attempted to reassure Agent P as she used her thrusters and elevator flaps to force herself under the water as if she was flying through the air.

“I hope you're right!” Agent P reflexively inhaled and held her breath as water rushed over the canopy.

Amazingly, her idea worked as she overcame her slightly positive buoyancy caused by the sealed cockpit and effectively “flew” through the water using the brute force of her thrusters. As she pushed herself deeper, Sadie maintained a high alert on the cabin integrity. The air pressure inside the sealed cockpit remained constant and no water was leaking into the interior of the cabin. Even better, all of her systems were 100% in the green. 

She could feel the cool water against her skin, but it didn’t seem to be bothering her at all. As an added bonus, she discovered that she had an atmospheric system that generated breathable air for her flesh and bone occupant.

Sadie was distracted from her observations when a pair of lights flared into life off her right wingtip and about 20 feet below.  She dipped her wing to get a better view and they both watched as two of the men they had been chasing burst into flame, causing the water near their bodies to boil furiously for a few seconds before the flames were extinguished.

“Well, someone went through a lot of trouble to make sure their people couldn’t talk or be identified...” Agent P muttered softly as she began to relax a little more.

“Yes, yes they did, but where is the third-” Sadie stopped as another light flared into existence approximately 15 feet below the surface, causing them both to look up as they watched the third man’s body consume itself.

Sadie sighed. “Okay, that answers that, but where is the MAU or did I destroy with my shot?” 

Agent P shook her head, no. “While highly effective at blowing up a boat, I doubt you damaged the device. Our scientists have tried everything they can think of and they’ve never been able to even scratch those pesky little boxes of mischief.”

“Oh, well, I guess that’s sort of good news...” Sadie flew a lazy circle around the slowly sinking wreckage in the hopes that the MAU didn’t sink to the bottom already because if it did, she wasn’t sure if they could find it. The ocean was at least a thousand feet deep here and she wasn’t sure if she could ‘fly’ that deep without the water pressure crushing her air tight cockpit like an egg.

She steadily pushed herself deeper and felt the water pressing tighter and tighter against her skin, causing her to slow to a stop when she passed 300 feet and the previously green hull pressure indicator turned yellow. “Crap! I think this is as deep as we can go since I don’t think you would want me to risk having the cockpit spring a leak, right?”

Agent P looked deeper into the gloom and licked her lips nervously as she considered her predicament. “No, not really...”

Not wanting to risk Agent P’s life, Sadie reluctantly cut her thrust and allowed herself toslowly rise back toward the surface as she considered her options.

She could eject Agent P on the surface and try searching the bottom in robot mode like the Decepticons did when they rescued Megatron, but doing so would risk Agent P drowning miles from shore.  She could fly back, drop Agent P off and return. That idea could work, but as the light filtered down from above, she spotted two large boats circling above like hungry sharks looking for food. Well, or two rescue boats looking for survivors.

She halted their ascent at 75 feet and began heading away from the area, out toward open sea where she could hopefully surface without being spotted.

“What’s up? Where are we going?” Agent P asked.

“Look up, and umm, to your two o’clock...” Sadie briefly angled her nose up to give Agent P a better view.

Agent P studied the bottoms of the circling ships for a few seconds. “They look to be about the right size for a Coast Guard cutter, but they could be the Navy too. It’s hard to say since I’ve never actually seen them from this side before.” She giggled briefly before continuing. “I’m going to assume you plan on surfacing someplace where they can’t spot you?”

Sadie sighed. “Yeah, that’s the plan now. I was going to try dropping you off at shore and returning to search the bottom, but with those guys here, I kinda doubt that will work.”

“How deep is it here and could you survive down there?” Agent P asked.

“I dunno on both counts, but I’m a female alien robot now and maybe forever; what do I have to lose?” Sadie sighed with defeat.

“Hey, don’t sound so down because you have to admit that this...” Agent P gestured to her surroundings. “Is pretty damn cool.”

Sadie knew Agent P was right, but she didn’t trust the government to not over react or not get greedy. “Yeah, it is, but I’d rather be myself and not have to worry about how many pieces the government will try to break me into in an attempt to see how I work.”

Agent P nodded with agreement. “True, but it’s not our mission to inform the other branches of the government about your existence.” She paused for a second before taking a stern expression and pointing to Sadie’s instrument panel as if she was pointing her physical body. “Provided, that you are not a national security threat or a danger to society.”

“Come on, you can’t tell me that as soon as you are safely ashore, a squad or two of Section 7 soldiers, or something similar, will try to capture me!”

“Umm, not that I’m aware of. We only go after the ones we believe to be a threat to humanity or to themselves.”  Agent P paused for a few seconds and laughed. “But, there is no Section 7, so you’re safe on that front!”

“Awesome! Why don’t I feel relieved?” Sadie asked, her voice full of disbelief.

Agent P shrugged noncommittally. “Dunno, but are you a danger?”

Sadie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I just blew up a friggen boat and killed three people with an super alien death ray! What do you think?”

“I think your actions were justified and if I didn’t, I would’ve tried to stop you, and that’s what will be my report.” Agent P’s no nonsense reply gave Sadie hope.

Sadie mulled over Agent P’s statement for a few seconds. “Do you really think that I might be able to have a normal life, well, mostly normal and not be chased all over the planet by secret agents?”

Agent P focused her gaze on Sadie’s flight gauges as if she was trying to look her in the eye. “What happens to you heavily depends on what else goes into my final report and whether or not I think we can trust you. We are pretty good at keeping secrets. The rest is up to you, but you haven’t exactly been forthcoming in the changes department, have you?”

“Weelll, maybe not entirely…” Sadie hedged as she considered how much she could tell, yet still keep a few secrets. After a few more seconds of internal debate, she decided that she had nothing to lose now and as a result, she began to spill her guts to the female Secret Agent. Out of concern for Hector, she left out his adventure with Natalie, but she came clean with her about Michelle, mostly. She left out the Na’vi link part, but other than those minor omissions, she told her everything.

Agent P proved to be an attentive and supportive listener, and somehow, Sadie felt her spirits rising as she unburdened her soul. Maybe that confession thing the church had wasn’t such a bad idea.

Thirty minutes and five miles out to sea later, the two of them rose from the ocean well away from the main shipping lanes and with the sun setting behind them, they winged their way back to shore at a more sedate 150 mph and at an altitude between eight and ten thousand feet like a normal private plane. Sadie worried the entire way that they would be intercepted by a bunch of fighter jets with orders to shoot her down, but nothing happened.

The sun had set only 10 minutes ago when Sadie silently set down on the grass in a dark spot next to a conveniently burned out light pole in the same park they had met the Agents before starting their adventure on the cargo ship. She popped her canopy and Agent P quickly unbuckled and scrambled out of the snug cockpit.

Agent P glanced around for a few seconds to make sure no one was watching. “Clear.” She tapped Sadie’s fuselage once.

With her signal, Sadie initiated her Pretender bot mode transformation.  She felt herself compressing and the tension felt almost unbearable after spending so many hours in what now felt like her natural form. She ended up crouched down on her feet with her arms extended as if she was pretending to be an airplane.

“Simply amazing...” Agent P softly whispered, her eyes wide with wonder as she reached down and lent Sadie a hand to help her stand.

Sadie nodded with agreement. “Yeah, I have to admit, it’s pretty cool, but now I feel like I’m trying to shove 10 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag.” She grimaced with discomfort before hugging her arms to her chest as she looked around the park as if expecting to find herself surrounded by hordes of Special Forces soldiers.

She was surprised when Agent P smiled affectionately at her and gave her a brief hug before pointing out two figures walking toward them.  It was Agent L and Hector.  Sadie never felt so happy to see Hector in her life. “Hector!” She gasped with excitement and ran toward him.

He smiled and held out his arms and before she realized what she was doing, Sadie found herself wrapped up in a powerful hug and extremely surprised by their uncharacteristic public displays of affection with each other. She tensed when she realized what they had done, but by then the damage to the “dude code” was already done. Since, she was now stuck; the code probably didn’t apply any longer.  She sighed with confusing mixture of frustration and acceptance.

“Sorry...” Hector let her go with a slight blush clouding his features.

Sadie glanced up at him with a mischievous smirk and playfully punched him in his shoulder. “De nada, mi hermanito.”

“Little brother? Moi?” Hector’s laughter warmed Sadie’s helium fueled heart.

Agent L and Agent P entered Agent K’s office with Agent L chivalrously holding the door for his partner to allow her to precede him. Without a word, he carefully set the custom aluminum equipment case on her desk next to a plain manila folder arranged perfectly in the center of her immaculate desk as if her desk was her own private zen garden.

In spite of his care, the metal case still made a solid thunk sound as he released the handle.  He winced apologetically to his boss before gingerly flipping it down to rest facing Agent K, displaying to her that both of the security keys required to open it were already inserted into the locks.

Agent K leaned back in her executive chair and contemplated the object resting on her desk for a few seconds before speaking. “You confirmed it to be inactive?”

Both of the agents confirmed her statement posed as a question with a quick nod.

“Any problems with the ship’s crew and our cover story?”

Agent L shook his head once and stole a quick glance at his partner standing beside him. “No ma’am. Agent P took over the ROV operation during the recovery portion and our diver packaged the device before any crew member could obtain a visual.”

Agent K’s eyebrows raised with speculation. “I see, and based on your report,” She briefly glanced down at the manila folder. “You both recommend taking no containment actions against Mr. Vasquez or Ms. Williamson?”

Agent L sharply nodded once with acknowledgement. “Yes, ma’am. We both believe Mr. Vasquez’s modification to be stable and easily concealed.  His military service record and actions to date are stellar.”

“I see...and Ms. Williamson?”

Agent P and Agent L briefly hesitated before replying, with Agent P taking the lead. “She is a rather unique case ma’am, but as I stated in my report, I believe we can trust her to not call attention to herself and perhaps even be an asset in the future.”

Agent K stood and carefully picked up the still unopened report folder and the case. “I will take both of these to the vault. Excellent work, you two and I agree with your assessments regarding Mr. Vasquez and his friend, Ms. Williamson. Agent C & D are pursuing a few disturbing rumors in Asia right now and depending on what they uncover, I may have another mission for you both very soon.”

The Agents looked to each other with concern because if it was something big enough to worry Agent K with her two best agents on the case; what could they do to make things better? They nervously smiled at their boss. “Yes ma’am. We’re both looking forward to it.”

Author's Note: This is it, thanks to everyone who read this monster, helped me write it and edited it.

Sadie stood in front of the door to her childhood home and dreaded what might happen next more than anything in the world. She and Michelle were unofficially engaged to each other, but were waiting to tell their parents before making it official. They decided to break the news to Sadie’s parents first, in an attempt to get over the most difficult problem of convincing Sadie’s parents that was their former son.

Michelle believed her parents would be  easier to convince. However; she wasn’t sure how her parents would handle discovering their daughter was sort of a lesbian. Sort of, because she still found men sexually attractive, but Sadie owned her heart and tripped her switches like no other. Sadie felt incredibly lucky to have the love and support of the most beautiful woman in the Universe. Thank god Michelle insisted on them both having a way to interface with each other.

Sadie smiled gratefully at Michelle as she reassured her with a gentle squeeze of her hand. “Thanks for being here.” She glanced over to Hector. He looked almost as nervous as she felt. “You too, Hector. I couldn’t do this without you guys.”  She began to feel lubricant starting to leak from her eyes. She activated her recycling program and her slightly oily tears absorbed back into her body without a trace. She stole a deep, calming breath before giving Hector the go ahead to ring the doorbell.

“Be right there...” Sadie heard her mom yell from somewhere inside the house. 

A few seconds later she opened the door. “Hector!  And, who are these two lovely young ladies? Tell me you’re not dating both of them?” She laughed as Hector squirmed uncomfortably. 

“No, ma’am, but I kind of need to talk to you and Mr. Williamson. Can we come in?” Hector asked.

“Well, perfect timing,young man. We just finished supper and George is in the living room watching the news.” She held the door open for Hector, Michelle and Sadie to enter.

Sadie studied everything in her childhood home very carefully and committed it all to memory because this could be the last time she saw her childhood home.  She had a lot of fond memories of this place and she prayed her parents would accept her.  Michelle held her hand and smiled at her encouragingly as they entered the living room with Sadie’s father. He looked up as Sadie and her friends entered.

“Hi Mr. Williamson.” Hector turned back to the two girls. “This is Sadie and Michelle, umm, she’s Greg’s fiancé-”

“Oh my god!” Mrs. Williamson interrupted Hector and pulled Michelle away from Sadie. “Wow, you’re so beautiful. Did you meet Greg at work? He mentioned he had a girl at his office that he liked, but I never knew. This is all so sudden!” She looked back to Sadie, then to Michelle. “Is Sadie your friend or are you Hector’s new girlfriend?” She asked Sadie.

“No ma’am. I’m not Hector’s girlfriend.” Sadie blushed from embarrassment. Even as a robot, her mom still had a talent for embarrassing her.

“Well, this is certainly a surprise. Right, George?”  Mrs. Williamson glanced over her shoulder at her husband.

“Yes, dear.” Mr. Williamson nodded patiently.

“Where’s Greg?” Mrs. Williamson asked, glancing back and forth between Hector and Michelle.

Hector glanced down. “Oh, he’s nearby, but he kinda needs your help.”

“Is he okay? He didn’t get arrested or something, did he?” Mrs. Williamson nervously laughed.

“No, he didn’t get arrested, but lemme tell you both what happened...” Hector glanced nervously at Sadie.

Mrs. Williamson took a seat on the couch and insisted Michelle sit next to her as Mr. Williamson sat up straighter in his chair to focus his attention on Hector. Sadie squeezed herself in, next to Michelle.

Sadie studied her parent’s faces as Hector started telling the story, beginning with him finding the strange box and how they discovered what it could do. She could tell they weren’t buying it, but wasn’t sure what to do about it.  Hector also noticed their skepticism.  He glanced back to Sadie.

Her dad was into sci-fi. He was also an amateur astronomer. He was 10 years old when the U.S. put a man on the moon and he liked to boast about how everyone in his neighborhood crowded around an old black and white TV to watch the landing. She knew he believed in aliens and was familiar with Star Wars and Star Trek technology. However; he was also very much a realist. All that high tech stuff was nice to dream about, but he knew it wasn’t possible, not yet. “Da-, umm, Mr. Williamson, is it possible for someone’s clothes to turn into a ninja costume, complete with a sword?”

Now both of her parent’s attention was focused on Sadie. Mr. Williamson smile patiently as he slowly shook his head. “No, of course not. To do something like that would be impossible without some sort of nano-tech or an equally impossible Star Trek holodeck.”

“You're absolutely correct Mr. Williamson.” Sadie beamed a triumphant smile at her Dad before turning to Hector. “Show him your costume.”

Her father’s eyes flared with open astonishment as Hector’s Snake Eyes costume, complete with his sword, materialized from nothing until he was completely covered from head to toe.  Sadie still didn’t understand how it did that or what it used for power, but it worked.

Her father stood and hesitantly reached for Hector’s arm. “Can I?” He asked.

Hector nodded his assent. “Yes, sir. Do you want to see the sword, too?”

After touching the material of the suit and inspecting Hector’s sword, Hector willed his costume to retract. His street clothes returned and her father sat down, staring at Hector with an expression that clearly told her that he was amazed and now receptive to the rest of their story. Sadie felt rather pleased by her father’s reaction and knew her mother wasn’t sure what to think, but she could count on her deferring to her father in this situation.

The rest of Hector’s version of the story went much smoother. He told Sadie’s parents how he and Greg experimented with improving their bodies. He showed them his claws and his healing.

Michelle took over the story and told them how she and Greg turned themselves into Na’vi and became ‘bonded’. She didn’t mention the sex, but she showed them her queue. Sadie’s mom didn’t know what it was, but her dad did.  “After that, we decided to get married. We planned on telling you both after a few months; to make it seem more of a normal courtship versus a sudden Vegas fling, but then we needed to go to the Comic Convention in San Diego.” Michelle sighed heavily and glanced back to Sadie with tears in her eyes. 

Sadie’s mom saw her distress and tried to comfort her. “Thanks Mo-, umm, sorry, Mrs. Williamson, but it’s kinda my fault what happened next.”

Michelle explained how she convinced Greg to turn himself into an Autobot. The one who could turn herself into a motorcycle.  They thought everything would be fine. Greg was a hit at the show, but while they were at the convention; someone broke into their house and stole their stuff, including the MAU.  They ended up working together, tracking it down and almost retrieving it, but now, Greg was stuck as an Autobot.

“So, the Agency people were able to help get Greg a new identity and it just came in today, but we wanted to tell you guys because we both love you and don’t want to lose you.” Michelle finished her part of the story as Mrs. Williamson handed her some tissues for her eyes.

“Oh, honey, I don’t know what to believe or not believe, but I can tell you love our son very much and it wouldn’t matter what happened, we would still love him, no matter what. Okay?” Sadie’s mom smiled at Michelle and gave her a quick hug. “Now, where is this Autobot who is our son?”

Sadie stood. “Right here Mom…” She glanced over to her father. “Dad, umm, tada, it’s a girl!” She stood shyly in the middle of the living room floor and prayed that they would believe this one last impossible fact. 

Her mom gasped. “Oh my,” She glanced over at her husband and saw his shock. She stood and reached out for Sadie and held her hand. “You’re a robot?”

Sadie nodded and willed her other hand to momentarily shift to her robotic and sort of scary clawed Pretender hand.  That display got her dad to stand and as he inspected her hand, she willed it back to human mode.  He turned to Michelle. “I thought you said Greg turned himself into a motorcycle Autobot, umm, Arcee, right?”

Michelle nodded, but Sadie recaptured his attention as she began to speak. “Yes, she did, but I wasn’t sure if they would let me into the convention as a 12 foot tall robot, so I added a Pretender mode so I could look human. Well, like Scarlett from G.I. Joe. See?” Sadie switched her clothes out for her G.I. costume. “And, I can do this...” She activated her shift into motorcycle mode knowing there was plenty of space in the living room.

The changes started slowly with her human shell folding away before the rest of her body began to fold out, expanding into her Arcee shape. It felt so good to stretch out again. Since they weren’t sure if or when the Agents would return with her new ID, she had been forced to stay in Pretender mode for the last few days.  She would have liked to say the constantly full feeling was something she was getting used to, but she wasn’t. 30 seconds later, a bright red Ducati 1199 Panigale R rested on its tires in the middle of her parents living room. 

Sadie activated her rider hologram.  “Michelle likes me in red and Hector convinced me to upgrade to a 1199.” She dryly noted as she tossed her long red hair over her holographic shoulder. “So, how’s this for impossible alien tech?”

Her dad stood and inspected her, running his fingertips over her glossy metal skin. “Amazing, simply amazing, Greg. Now, I am wondering how we are going to explain all this to your sister when she comes up for summer break.”  He chuckled as he continued to ogle at the machine sitting in the middle of his living room.

“Sorry Dad, it’s Sadie now, but I do have a question for Mom.” Sadie reluctantly returned to her human Pretender mode. “Umm, I needed to pick a middle name for my new ID. So, I picked your name. Do you mind?”

Her mom looked like she didn’t know what to say.  She looked completely stunned by the sudden revelation, yet delighted to be asked the question; she forgot all about the fact her son was now a robot woman and simply hugged her new daughter.  “Yes, oh my lord, yes! I would be honored, umm, Sadie.” She took a step back and studied her new daughter’s face with wonder filled eyes. “Wow, Sadie...such a pretty name, I love it!”

Sadie felt so relieved that her parents were taking this so well.  “Thanks, Mom and Dad. I’m sorry. I screwed up, but I’m so glad you two believed us because I don’t know what I would have done without the two of you.”  She began to cry and this time there was no stopping her tears of joy.

Her mom rushed forward and hugged her tightly. “Oh Greg, or Sadie. Your Dad and I love you and your sister so much! I’m just glad you’re okay.  It’s going to take some getting used to the idea of having a second daughter instead of a son, but we’re a family, right?”

Sadie felt so good to simply feel the emotions and be hugged by her Mom. She reached over and motioned for Michelle to join her.  “Thanks Mom, but Michelle has a question for you and Dad and then, we have a final question to ask the two of you, together.”

Michelle glanced nervously to Sadie’s father. “Umm, sir. I realize this is a little crazy.” She giggled. “Okay, a lot, and I know it’s kind of sudden and all, but would you mind if I married your daughter?”

He looked totally flummoxed by her question, but he gamely rallied. “Umm, sure?”

Michelle shrieked with excitement and hugged and kissed her new, soon-to-be father in-law. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! You won’t regret it!”

That did it for the poor man. He numbly sat back down in his chair. “I have no idea what to think right now. I think my brain just shut down...”

Sadie chuckled at her Dad’s reaction. “I hope you didn’t break my dad because if you did, you’re fixing him.” Michelle giggled and reached out to hold Sadie’s hand. The two stood side by side and it was clear to both Mr. and Mrs. Williamson that they loved each other.

Sadie simulated taking a deep breath. “Okay, Dad, Mom. Here’s the last surprise question, but I think you two might be happy. Well, Mom will anyway...” Seeing that she had their complete attention, she continued. “So, I’m obviously not human and we can’t have a child together, but when I was in college, I needed some cash for books and I kinda sorta made a donation at a sperm bank.”

Her mom’s eyes begin to leak as she stared at Sadie, giving her all of her attention.

“Umm, Michelle would probably get a kick out of stealing my crown jewels from the bank,” Sadie grinned unrepentantly at Michelle as she pretended be insulted. “But, since you’re my parents and I had to list you two on the donation card; would you be willing to talk to the bank about releasing my sperm so that Michelle and I can eventually have a child together?”

“Oh George, I’m going to be a grandma!” Sadie’s mom cried tears of joy as she hugged her daughters.

It had been a week since Sadie had been introduced to her parents and now that she was sort of, officially a girl, her mom treated her like her sister and called her almost every day. It was kind of crazy, but it felt good to be loved. Wanting to be with Michelle, she had moved into her apartment, but she didn’t really have a lot of stuff to move so it went pretty fast. 

Michelle loved having Sadie living there. One, she liked the fact that Sadie didn’t need to eat or ever use the bathroom and for a woman, the bathroom thing was huge. Two, she loved coming home to Sadie after a hard day at the office because once they interfaced; Sadie gave the best massages on the planet. The sex was great too.  Sadie felt very relieved when she discovered that except for lacking the ability to have a child, she was a fully functional female Pretender bot.  Although, Michelle was the only human she would ever allow to stick anything inside her.

Now, Sadie was back at her old house, Hector’s house, getting the last few things while Michelle was at work. She had just finished loading her generator into the back of Michelle’s jeep when a late model, pearl white BMW coupe pulled next to the curb in front of the house.

She could see a female driver behind the wheel and her systems quickly identified her as Natalie.  It still felt a little strange to think of everything that way, but it was how she thought before; the difference before she turned herself into a Transformer was she wasn’t aware of it. Her human brain kept the details of how it operated hidden from her. 

She connected to her phone and sent a text message to Hector.

>Natalie is here. Action?

While she waited for a response, she turned and waited patiently to see what Natalie was going to do. Her vehicle was still running. It would be easy for her to simply drive away. Sadie could see Natalie’s hesitation and doubt as she looked at the front of the house and her. Natalie wasn’t sure if this was the correct house.  If Hector’s truck or Greg’s car had been parked in the driveway, it may have helped. She decided to seize the initiative by approaching Natalie’s vehicle. The sooner this little problem resolved itself, the better.

“Hello, can I help you?” Sadie smiled at Natalie as she rolled down her window.

“Umm, sorry. I don’t know, but does someone named Jennifer live here, or maybe her cousin, Hector?”

“Hector does, but Jennifer was just visiting.” Sadie debated which path to take. The safest course would be to end it here and let Natalie go away. Natalie was a security risk, but she knew Hector still cared about Natalie. “Are you Natalie?”

Natalie looked surprised. “Yes, how did you know and do I know you?”

“No, you don’t know me, but Jennifer told me about you. She was worried about you and wanted to know if you were okay.”

Natalie’s eyes misted over, causing Sadie’s fusion plant to fluctuate, surprising and reassuring her by her continued ability to have spontaneous emotional responses. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

>OTW! ETA 30

Hector’s reply came back just as Natalie shut off her car, closed her eyes, leaned back in her seat and forced a deep, calming breath. “No, it’s okay, not your fault, but do you know when Jennifer might be coming back?”

Sadie considered the easy answer of, ‘never’, but Hector’s reply and her emotional system immediately dismissed that response.  Natalie was hurting and Hector wouldn’t have wanted that for her. “I don’t think she can come back, but I imagine you have some questions, correct?” She asked, softly.

Natalie’s eyes flared with surprise and hope as she studied Sadie with renewed intensity.  Instead of answering, she slowly nodded her head affirmatively as she worked on a reply.

“Like, how?” Sadie gently probed.

Again, Natalie simply nodded, her eyes wide with a mixture of hope and fear.

Sadie leaned away from Natalie’s car and gestured toward the house. “Hector is on his way home now. He can answer all your questions, but I may be able to answer a few while we wait.”

As Sadie waited, Natalie hesitated for a few seconds before she unbuckled her seatbelt and exited her vehicle.  “Sorry, I’m a little freaked out right now, but umm, I forgot to ask your name.”

Sadie smiled apologetically. “It’s Sadie, and that’s okay. I understand what you’re probably going through right now.” She turned to lead the way into the house.

Natalie quickly caught up and walked at her side. “So, umm, how much do you know about, well, I don’t even know where to start!”  She sobbed with frustration as Sadie showed her into the living room.

Once again, Sadie’s fusion plant fluctuated. She reached out and gave Natalie a quick hug. “I’ll do what I can to help with that.” She pointed to the couch. “Would you like something to drink? Water? Tea?”

“Tea, please...” Natalie wiped the edge of her eye with a fingertip to keep her makeup from running.

Sadie nodded once and entered the kitchen. She filled a cup with water and popped it in the microwave. She watched as Natalie regained her composure and began to study the couch she sat on, followed by the rest of the room. Things had changed a bit since their stuff had been stolen, but Natalie must have found enough key reference points. She nodded to herself a few times as she recognized a feature, confirming to herself that she had been here before.

Sadie set a few different tea options on a platter, along with a cup of sugar and a jar of honey with the hot cup of water.  Natalie intently studied her as she carried it into the living room and set it on the coffee table for her to serve herself.  “There, I hope we, I mean, Hector has a variety you like.”

“You said, we at first. Are you and Hector, dating?” Natalie asked as she reached for her cup.

Sadie smiled at her question. It would be an easy assumption to make now. “No, we were roommates though. I recently got engaged and I’m in the process of moving out.  I was just about to leave when you pulled up.”

Natalie picked the Earl Grey tea and put it in her mug. “Oh, so, what can you tell me about, umm...” Natalie trailed off, at a loss for how to start.

“It’s been, what, two weeks now, right?” Sadie took a seat opposite Natalie, automatically crossed her legs and leaned forward instead of slouching back into the cushions. That was another thing she could thank her Pretender mode for. She was a perfect mimic and could copy a person’s mannerism after only watching them once. She used that ability to learn how to look and act like the woman she appeared to be. It annoyed Michelle a lot once she noticed how Sadie was copying her, but once Sadie had enough samples from other women, she was able to blend them together to make her own.

Natalie nodded. “Yes...” She whispered.

“You’ve been to your doctor. You’ve discovered a few things, scientifically impossible things, right?” Sadie clasped her hands around her knee as she studied Natalie’s face.

Natalie gasped and looked up at Sadie’s face, suddenly looking nervous as she halted pouring a spoon of sugar into her mug.

Sadie pressed on. “You want to know how Jennifer cured  your cancer? How your ovaries regenerated themselves and if I'm not mistaken, how you can heal from wounds after only a few minutes, right?”

Natalie’s spoon slipped out of her fingers and clanged against the cup before falling onto the platter.  Sadie’s sensors picked up her increased heart rate as adrenaline flooded her system. She was frozen in place as her fight or flight instincts kicked in. Sadie stood, causing Natalie to jump back with fright.  Sadie turned her back on Natalie and walked back into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. Not to drink for sustenance, but to appear more human and give Natalie a way to retreat if she choose to leave.

“Are you, umm, an alien?” Natalie’s voice quaked with fear, but to her credit, she didn’t run.

Sadie found her question humorous and giggle escaped her mouth before she fully considered the question. “Ya know, two weeks ago I would have found that question to be very funny and even a little flattering in a geeky kind of way, but two weeks ago, you didn’t almost die.  There isn’t a simple yes or no answer I can give you to that question. Maybe, is probably the best answer I can give because I am willing to tell you that I wasn’t born looking like this!” She glanced down at her body before looking back at Natalie. “Are you an alien now? Do you feel like an alien?”

Sadie watched as Natalie gave her question some thought before she continued. “I think you are more human than I am, but how about if I answer that question about me a little later, maybe after we have gotten to know each other a little better?“

“Umm, okay?” Natalie slowly forced herself to relax and resume her seat as Sadie waited for her water to finish heating up.

“Excellent!” Sadie turned and smiled at Natalie causing Natalie to relax enough to resume her attempt at prepping her cup of tea. “But the ‘how’ question is going to be a little hard to answer. I think the easier and yet most important question is, why?”

Natalie paused mid-stir. “Why? How is that easier? I don’t even know who you are. I don’t know who the person I thought was my friend was. All I know is that my cancer is gone, without a trace and as if it never existed. I thought I knew a lot of stuff about medicine, but now I don’t. I don’t know anything anymore.” She broke down and began to sob.

Sadie cautiously sat down next to Natalie and gently pulled her unresisting body to her chest. Sadie rocked her slowly back and forth as she started her heartbeat subroutine.  With Natalie’s ear on her chest, not having a heartbeat might freak her out again.  “Yes, why is the easiest question to answer.” She whispered softly. “The person you knew as Jennifer cared, and still cares about you very much. She cared enough to risk everything to save your life and would probably do it again in a heartbeat if she had to.”

Natalie pulled away and studied Sadie’s face. “You’re not Jenna, are you?”

“No, I’m not. Sorry, or maybe congrats, hehe.” Sadie stood and retrieved her steaming cup of water from the microwave.  Her sensors told her it was warm and her thermo-graphic even told her the exact temperature of the water.  It would burn a human’s mouth if they took more than a sip. So, she mimicked Natalie and cautiously took small sips from her cup as she sat back down across from her.

“Are you going to put some tea in there?” Natalie asked.

“No, I don’t wanna waste Hector’s tea, but would you like to know the how, or at least, as much as I understand to be the how?”

Natalie nodded her head. “Yes, please.”

Sadie began the tale with telling her about Hector finding the strange metal box and bringing it home to show Greg, his roommate. She explained how the two used it to give themselves superpowers and how placing her in the device saved her life.  She left out the parts with Hector turning himself into Jennifer and Michelle’s role in their adventure. She explained that she used it to turn herself into the person she sees now, but left out who she was before. Finally, she skipped to the end and told her how the machine had been stolen and how they tried to track it down; only to watch it sink to the bottom of the ocean, lost forever.  She was stuck, but Hector was okay. 

“After that, the Agents gave me a new ID and now, I’m moving in with my fiancé.” Sadie finished.

“So, this miracle machine cured me, got stolen, lost forever and you expect me to believe all that?” Natalie stood and tapped her foot with irritation.

“What would you like to believe happened?” Sadie leaned back in her seat, cradling her mug in her hands.

Natalie threw her arms in frustration. “Oh hell, I don’t know. How about you beamed me aboard the Enterprise and that cranky doctor cured me with a magic pill, or hey, something more believable, how about if you’re a witch and you cast a magic spell?”

“So, you would believe in magic or Star Trek, but not an alien booth?” Sadie laughed at the irony. “How about if I show you what happened that night? Would that help?”

Natalie sat back down. “You can show me? How?”

“Watch...” With a whisper of sound, Sadie’s left eye transformed into a glowing mechanical red lens. 

“Ahh!” Natalie jumped back as Sadie’s eye flickered and a holographic movie materialized in the middle of the room.  Natalie stared, transfixed as the scene showing Jennifer carrying her into the house played out. It was obvious from the quality of the display that she wasn’t breathing and both she and Jennifer were covered in vomit. Also obvious was how desperate Jennifer was to save her. She saw Jennifer carry her into the machine, then exit with her, as her twin. The movie ended and Sadie’s mechanical red lens transformed back into a human eye.

“That’s how it happened, but as to ‘how’ the machine was able to do that; no clue.  It might as well been magic.” Sadie stood as she heard the garage door start to open.

Natalie gulped as she stood and studied Sadie’s face. “How? What?”

“You know how, but what am I? Well, I’m not exactly human anymore, but Hector is home now. He can explain who Jennifer is; if that’s something you still wanna know.” Sadie nodded at Natalie as she turned to leave.

Natalie reached out and grabbed her arm. “Wait, umm...” She paused and glanced down, ashamed. “Thanks for telling me, and, well...” She pulled Sadie into a hug. “Just thanks.”

Sadie nodded once and smiled at Natalie. “Go easy on the big guy...He’s really a teddy bear once you get to know him.” She turned back to leave just as Hector entered the house from the garage. She glanced over her shoulder and pointed her behind with her thumb. “She’s in the living room.”

Hector was in the process of going over the calculations for how many tons of cement they were going to need to complete this section of the new bridge when his phone pinged, notifying him of a new message. It was a text from Sadie. He almost dropped his phone when he read the message.

>Natalie is here. Action?

It took him less than a minute to call his boss and tell him he had to rush home. He made up some bullshit story about the cops finding some of their stolen stuff and needing to meet him. Once he cleared it with his boss, he sent a quick reply to let Sadie know he was on his way. He prayed that Natalie didn't leave before he got there, but at the same time, he couldn't help wondering what she wanted. It had been almost two weeks. He kind of expected her to have tried to reach him sooner, but she was pretty upset that night. Maybe it took her a long time to cool down and discover the fixes he made to her.

He made it home in record time by avoiding the worst traffic and by going through all the construction zones. He had is yellow construction worker bubble light on the top of his cab. So, no worries about being pulled over by a cop. Still, he made it a point to slow down, wave and look around like he was inspecting something. Even with taking that extra step, he still shaved over thirty minutes off his drive home.

Michelle’s jeep was still parked in the driveway, along with a nice BMW parked on the curb. It must be Natalie's and it meant she was still there. He pulled into the garage and entered the house. His stomach felt like it had a ball of lead in the middle of it. What if she was still pissed at him, or Jenna? What if she wanted to see Jenna? Was he a fool to even dare hope that Natalie might like him?

As he entered the house, he spotted Sadie. She gestured behind her. “She's in the living room.”

He swallowed his fear and nodded, silently thanking her for staying with Natalie. His phone buzzed and curious, he took a peek.

>I told her about the machine and showed her how Jennifer saved her life. Rest is up to you. Good luck. I like her. :)

“Taking off! Nice meeting you Natalie. Feel free to call me if he gives you a hard time. I'll come kick his butt for ya.” Sadie yelled back into the living room as she made her way out the front door.

Hector entered the living room and there she was, Natalie. She looked absolutely beautiful to him, but he always thought she looked beautiful. More importantly, she was alive.

Natalie anxiously stood and faced him, her face full of doubt, uncertainty and questions. She studied his face intently, paying specific attention to his eyes. “Jenna?”

At a loss for what to do, Hector found himself blushing and filled with embarrassment, he looked away. Instead of answering right away, he headed into the kitchen to get himself a beer. Not that a single beer would do anything for him. It was more of a crutch and a way to break the tension inside him. “Not anymore, sorry...Umm, can I get you something to drink? Water or soda, sorry, I don’t have any diet. OJ?”

“I'm fine, Sadie made me some tea...” Natalie softly replied, almost too low for him to hear her. She followed him into the kitchen area, but stood her ground by keeping herself on the other side of the small breakfast nook.

He knew it probably took a lot of courage for her to come to the house and he felt very grateful that Sadie was here and able to help break the ice. Her continued presence gave him some hope, but what he really longed to do is give her a hug. “So, what’s up?” He asked as he twisted off the top of his beer.

Sensing the tension in the room, Natalie briefly glanced away. “Were you the one who put Jason and his scumbag friends in the hospital last week, and threatened to cut their dicks off and shove them down their throats if you ever heard about them attempting to rape another woman?”

Hector had to smile at that memory. At the time, he thought he would never see Natalie again, but a promise is a promise.  He wore his Snake Eyes costume, snuck into the bastard’s apartment, confirmed his suspicions by finding a baggie of pills labels as “EZ Lay” and took care of him and his scumbag roommate when they returned from a club with a drugged woman in tow. “Sounds like they deserved it...”

Natalie made her way to stand directly in front of him. She looked up to his face and from close range, studied his eyes once again. A hesitant smile graced her face as she stepped into him, causing him to reflexively give her a hug as she nestled herself into his chest.  “Yes, they did and the police have charged them with rape after they were able to connect a few cases together. So, umm, thanks...ya big stupid man.”

“You’re welcome.” Hector kissed her fondly on the top of her head. “Hey!” He took a step back, holding her away from him. “What do ya mean by stupid?  I may not be a smarty pants almost a doctor like you, but I’ll have you know I almost graduated from high school, twice!”

Her laughter rang through the kitchen, scrubbing the depression from his soul. It was so good to hear her laughing again.  “So, what have you been up too and shall we sit on the couch instead of standing in the kitchen?”  Hector gestured toward the living room.

Natalie smiled coyly up at him. “Sure!” 

Hector led the way and after she picked a spot, he sat slightly apart and opposite of her. He didn’t want to crowd her or make her feel uncomfortable.  They both tried to start a conversion, but after a few aborted starts by both of them; Hector decided that the simplest question might be the easiest to start with. “So, how are you doing?”

“I’m doing well, better than well, actually.” She paused, giving Hector an opening.

“Oh?” He asked.

“Yeah, I saw my doctor last week...” Natalie smiled happily as she watched Hector tense with anxiety.

“And, what did she say?” Hector patiently asked.

“He, and he said it was a miracle. Well, at first he did.  Not only am I now cancer free, but he was at a loss to understand how my ovaries and fallopian tubes regenerated and when he couldn’t find my scar, he actually accused me of being someone else. He was pretty pissed and even threatened to call the police on me...”

“Oh, umm, sorry, but what took you so long to hunt me down?”

“Well, you did make me a redhead.” Natalie smirked mischievously. “So, I was pissed and it took me a few days to calm down enough to even talk to Gina without yelling at her.  At first, I thought maybe you had glued on a real good movie quality prosthetic wig or gave me a cheap dye job, but then, I realized it was my hair and it was naturally this shade of red.” She ran her fingers through her hair, holding it up briefly for display.

Natalie briefly giggled when she spotted Hector’s apologetic expression. “Relax, I like it!” She paused pick up her tea cup and took a sip before continuing. “Anyway, that, plus my missing scar convinced me to visit my doctor and you know how that went. After that, I finally talked to Gina and found out what happened at the party. Sorry that it took me so long to dredge up the courage to try and find your house because once I did start, it took some time because I couldn’t even remember the street name. I spent the last two days driving around trying to spot a familiar landmark and I knocked on a lot of doors in the process.”

Hector winced at the idea of what she must have gone through because some of the neighborhoods in this area aren't the safest to be driving through, especially for a white lady in a Beamer. “Sorry. I guess I should’ve tried to call and talk to you.”

“That’s okay. I understand.” Natalie laughed and patted the seat next to her. “Sit by me, please. Hector or Jennifer, I want you to tell me who you are. I want to get to know the real you.”

Hector and Natalie spent the next hour simply talking, laughing and getting to know each other. Hector was amazed at how good it felt to be with her. It was almost like they were reforging the connection they started when he was Jenna. Those feelings grew even stronger when she asked him to tell her what it was like being a woman for a night. She laughed so hard, she almost cried at parts of his story and was forced to make a run to the bathroom when he explained what it felt like to wear a skimpy skirt and deal with all the guys wanting to get into his panties.

He didn’t know exactly when it happened, but she leaned into him and kissed him; it felt so good and her lips tasted so sweet. They both felt the connection and at first, it scared them, but after a few more attempts at a conversation neither one were really interested in having, they kissed again.  The temperature in the room rapidly increased for the two of them.

Hector marveled at the delightful curves of her body as they both helped each other out of their clothes.  As he drank in the sight of her naked body, he felt a confusing mixture of raw animal attraction mixed with a hint of jealousy, but all that was quickly set aside as she ran her hands over his chiseled chest and corded arm muscles.  “My god Hector, you’re so fucking sexy!” Natalie smothered him with more kisses.

“So are you, but you’re more than just sexy, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” Hector easily lifted and carried her into his room

Thanks to both of their healing powers, it took them over an hour before either of them felt like stopping the course nature intended.  Hector felt rather pleased with his performance and even more pleased by the feeling of Natalie’s body nestled comfortably against his. It felt like the missing part of his soul had finally been found.

“You look pretty happy...” Natalie propped herself up with her elbow as she gently smiled down at him.

Hector brushed aside a lock of her hair. “I am, and at the risk of messing up the moment, I can honestly say, I have never felt happier to be with someone in my life.”

Natalie rewarded him by sitting up and straddling him, her perfect breasts partially hidden by her luxurious red hair. “I know you told me what you did, but did you try, you know?” She glanced down toward her groin.

Hector knew exactly what she was asking. “I know, what?” He smirked.

Natalie pushed back against him, sliding her sex against his penis, teasing him. “You know, don’t play the dumb blonde with me, girlfriend! Did you try having sex?”

“Girlfriend?” Hector looked around her, pretending to be looking for another woman in his room. “That’s funny; the only girl I see here is you...”

“Ya big meanie!” Natalie pouted, causing Hector’s resistance to crumble.

Hector chuckled. “Fine, I’ll tell you. No, I didn't. I was kind of curious, but after what happened to you and everything else; I just wanted to be me again.” He sighed heavily. “I don’t know how to explain it, but in some ways, I think I kinda miss being Jenna, your BFF.”

“Ahh, I see. Well, I have to say, I am very glad Jenna turned out to be you.”  Natalie smirked at Hector’s confused expression. “Yes, because Jenna was driving me crazy!”

Now it was Hector's turn to feel totally confused. “What do ya mean? I was driving you crazy?”

“Yes. I kept looking at you and wanting to kiss you. I’m not talking about a little kiss between friends either.  I found myself getting a little wet, and I know you know what I mean, just thinking about you and it was driving me crazy because it made me think I might be a lesbian.”

Hector chuckled and twisted his hip, driving himself a little bit inside of her, teasing her. “So, are you worried about that now?”

Natalie pushed herself back, causing her eyes to roll up in her head. “Oh. my. god. no.”

The next morning, Natalie awoke pressed against Hector’s strong chest.  She felt so safe in his arms and the strong beat of his heart in her ear made her want to stay like this forever, but sadly, she needed to visit the restroom. Feeling fresher, she returned to Hector’s side and propped herself up so she could fondly study her lover’s face.

Her movement jostled him enough to wake him. He smiled warmly as he returned her gaze. “You’re so beautiful…”

She rewarded him with a soft, gentle kiss that ended when she giggled with delight as she considered how lucky she was to bump into Jenna.  “You know, it is almost a shame she’s gone now.”

“Who?” Hector looked momentarily lost. “Oh, Jenna. Why is that?”

“Well, Gina called me yesterday. She wanted to find out if I knew how to get in touch with Jenna because that producer dude at the party wanted her to be in his next movie.”

Hector lifted himself up, propped himself up against his headboard, and pulled Natalie to him so she could snuggle up against his body. “Oh yeah, that's a shame, but what about you?”

“What do you mean, what about me?” She mumbled, resting her cheek on his chest.

“Well, if I was Jenna, what would you do?”

Natalie’s eyes sparkled with mischief as she looked up at him. “Well, I guess I would just have to be a lesbian!”

Hector twisted away from Natalie. “Seriously?”

“Oh yeah...” Natalie smile dreamily. “Jenna was smoking hot.”

“Well, in that case. Let me try something.” Hector reached back, deep into his mind and flipped a switch he never thought he would need or want to use. 

His body began to feel incredibly strange as it literally started to deflate before Natalie’s eyes.  As his body and skeleton shrank, his hair blossomed and grew an inch every second until it stopped to just above his butt. The muscles in his chest shrank, his skin tightened as his hair absorbed into his body, causing his skin to become baby soft and smooth as Jenna’s breasts began to inflate as the rest of his body shrank into itself.  

It didn’t hurt, but it did feel very strange. He thought it must be how an air mattress felt, if it could feel, as it was deflating.  The most peculiar sensation was the feeling of his scrotum pulling up inside of him, followed by his penis pulling in and being replaced with an unmistakable female labia. He felt a mild jolt of pain as his hips cracked and popped as they expanded.

The complete transformation took just under two minutes, but when Hector finally felt the changes stop, he looked up to an astonished and crying Natalie. “So, did ya miss me?” Jenna asked with a grin.

Natalie launched herself at Jenna. “Oh my god, yes! This is the best day ever! You can change back, right?”

Jenna thought about for a second. The switch was there, sitting in the back of her mind waiting to be mentally pressed. “Yeah, I think so...”

“Awesome! Now I can have a boyfriend to do all the heavy and dirty work around the house while having a girlfriend to go shopping and to the beach with!” She giggled uncontrollably as she bounced giddily to her knees and grabbed Jenna’s hands and sang. “It’s the best of both worlds!”

Jenna began to regret her switch. “Hey! What about the sex part?”

“Oh yeah, that is the best part because, hey...” Natalie mischievously grinned as she reached down and cupped Jenna’s sex. “Technically, aren’t you a virgin?”

“I guess so, why?” Jenna hesitantly answered as she felt herself responding to Natalie’s touch.

“Oh, no reason…” Natalie pounced on Jenna and smothered her with kisses as her fingers worked their magic.