Chapter 1 General Pearson's POV

I watched the recorded press conference and subsequent kidnapping footage from the beginning. This was looking like a clusterfuck and I wanted nothing to do with it. Rule number one, if you are going to make someone disappear, no one must know about it.

Dr Sinclair was an arrogant prick who was so pissed that someone else had figured it out before him. According to information from Dr Marsden at the press conference, they could only produce women anyway. What use is a woman on a battlefield? I was getting a lot of heat to make this embarrassment go away, but I needed some kind of positive result to save my arse.

My intelligence officer was in deep shit for not knowing about those cameras, if I can just prove that Dr Sinclair is wrong about their abilities, I can shove the rest of the shit coming from above onto him. Maybe, just maybe that will save my career. Maybe I can rig the tests somehow. If I can do that, then we can release them. They have to be undamaged though.

They could be the key to helping the transgendered, who cared, there was no political will about that. They could be the key to helping people with physical disabilities, no one really cares about that either, or at least no one with any power. It was a potential cure for cancer, now we are in trouble. Everybody knows somebody close to them who has either died, suffered or been damaged by the deadly disease. Hell, even I knew somebody, and I was not going to be responsible for killing off a possible cure.

I paused the recording and phoned Dr Sinclair.

“General.”

“Tell me again, exactly what you have planned.”

“From the MRI...”

“Details, doctor, details.”

“Umm..I am going to perform a surgical procedure to remove an egg from each ovary, then we leave the opening in place and each time she produces a new egg, we can harvest it. We fertilize it with our best male specimens and implant it in a surrogate.”

“You haven't even proved that there is anything special about them.”

“What are you talking about? I sent you their eyesight and hearing test results. I tested them for strength and they were significantly above average.”

“Why don't I have those results?”

“I told you, my computer caught a virus and destroyed my data. We can test them again.”

“I will devise the testing and no surgery. There must be no evidence of damage. Can you do it without surgery?”

“Yes, but it would be trickier and take more time. I can go through the vagina...”

“I don't need that information, thank you. Was this for both girls?”

“No. The MRI only showed the abnormal ovaries on the green eyed specimen.”

“Specimen? Really? How many eggs can you remove, how often?”

“Two eggs at a time. One from each side. I imagine they will take a month to regenerate.”

“I will keep them sedated. Do the removal tomorrow, no surgery or any evidence of tampering. Then we will have to release them. You better manage to succeed with those two eggs or both our careers will be toast.” If he doesn't succeed, I can blame him for the failure. If he gets a surrogate pregnant, it will be nine months before any results and a lot longer before any real results will be available. Enough time for me to be retired. Forget testing them, this is much better.

Tia's POV

I woke up confused. I was in a hospital bed with my wrists handcuffed to the side railings. There was an IV stand with an empty IV bag leading to a tube inserted in my wrist. The last thing I could remember was heading to my suite in Lagbit's world. No, that wasn't quite true. I think I woke up from that and remember being unable to take the headset off because my hands were handcuffed together. Then I was fighting some unknown person. They were straightening my arm and I was trying to prevent that, but I didn't succeed and then I felt a pin prick, like a needle going in.

I had been kidnapped. What about everybody else? “Vee!, Katie!, Roni!” I shouted.

I heard a faint voice. “Tia!” It was Vee. I would recognise that voice anywhere.

I waited to see if our shouting would get any response, but I literally couldn't hear anything else. I had pretty good hearing now and usually if I listened carefully I could hear the sounds of footsteps, talking or some kinds of rattle or bangs as things were moved. There were some faint outside sounds like cars and such, but nothing close.

I decided to stick with Elven, since I didn't know if anyone else could hear us. “Vee are you alright?”

“I think so. I feel a bit sore, but everything is working. I can't hear anybody else. I think they have abandoned us.” She replied in Elven.

“Are you tied down?” I asked.

“Yes, my feet as well. Very undignified.”

“I am going to try and get my hands free.” I told her. My hands had become a lot more slender and there was a flexibility with them that I didn't have before the transformation. It had been very handy in the bedroom on Lagbit's world, I wondered if I could do something similar now. I don't know how long I had been kept unconscious, but my breasts had developed further and right now I was really hungry.

I squeezed my hand into its smallest profile and worked at pulling it through the handcuff on my non IV side. It was a bit tight but I felt with a bit of patience it would work.

“How is it going?” Vee asked.

“I think I am getting somewhere.” Slowly so very slowly, almost a millimetre at a time I worked my hand loose. “Yes! One down, one to go.” I told her. I pulled the IV needle out and then started trying to work my other hand free. Again, slowly it was working until finally it was free. It was a bit easier since I could use one hand to hold the handcuff and wriggle the other out.

“I did it! I'm coming to find you. Start counting and I will follow your voice.” I was in a hospital gown and nothing else, but I trusted my hearing that said we were alone. My door wasn't locked, so I followed Vee's voice and entered an operating theatre. I thought she would be in a bed like me, but she was on an operating table. They hadn't even bothered to put a hospital gown on her. Her hands had been zip tied to the sides of it and her feet tied the same, leaving her spread open in a very undignified way. A hot surge of anger rushed through me, but I tamped it down. That was not what she needed right now, so I rushed up to her and gave her a hug.

“Honey, just hold on. I'm going to get something to cut these things and set you free.”

“Hold on. Very funny. I'll just wait here shall I?”

Beneath her humour I could tell she was freaking out. I struggled to find anything sharp in the room and realized that I was going to have to leave her to look elsewhere. I took off my hospital gown and covered her with it. “I need to look elsewhere, but I don't want to leave you so we are going on a ride.” I unlocked the wheels and went through the door.

“Tia.”

“Yes honey.”

“Apart from maybe a bit of height, I think the rest of you is complete. Your face looks like it does on Lagbit's world.”

“Do you have any idea how long we have been here?”

“No. The last thing I remember we were heading back to our suite on Lagbit's world.”

“I remember waking up and being stabbed with a needle, then nothing.” I walked naked down the corridor and headed for the exit. “I can hear some cars outside. I think I should head outside and get some help.”

“I would say that you are not looking your best, but you look amazing. Enough to stop traffic. Are you going to be alright going outside with no clothes on?”

“I might get a little embarrassed.”

“Just a little.”

I leaned down and kissed her on the lips. It wasn't a long kiss or a passionate one, but it was a caring one and made us both feel better.

The exit, funnily enough was locked, but the bolts and locking mechanism was on the inside so I was able to undo it and wheel us out onto the street. This wasn't our city, hell, it wasn't even our country. We had no idea where we were. Wherever we were it wasn't well travelled and we had to wait a few minutes for a car to come along, but when it did, I waved to grab the drivers attention. Note to self, waving your arms above your head while naked really makes your breasts say hello.

The first car honked loudly and carried on. Fortunately, the second car that drove up stopped. A big African American gentleman got out, he left the car in the middle of the street.

“What the hell?” He asked.

I say gentleman, because that is what he was. He gave me his jacket to cover myself and allowed me to use his phone. I wanted to call Brett, but when you plug numbers into your phone, you don't tend to remember them. Instead, I had to look up VDR entertainment and ring reception. I was then rapidly put through to Roni. She got me to pass the phone back so he could tell them where we were and he promised to stay with us until help arrived. He had a toolbag in his boot, so we were able to free Vee, but I got her to stay on the operating table, unless she wanted to flash the world like I had. He didn't have any more clothes to offer us.

Within five minutes the police and ambulance arrived and we had to tell our story. They wanted to separate us, but we both resisted that and refused to leave each other's side. We found out that it was Friday, three days later. Vee needed to have the rape kit used. We don't know what happened but she was sore where she shouldn't be. There was a lot of hand holding and tears, but we would get through it, together. We were taken by ambulance to another hospital. The media was already waiting and we had to go through a barrage of flashes to get inside. At least I was given a set of scrubs to cover myself up with and Vee was taken through on a stretcher with blankets covering everything.

We were met there by a walking Katie, albeit using a walker, Roni and Brett. I think we all cried, even Brett.

Chapter 2 Tia's POV

We were both going to be checked over. This included MRI scans, particularly of our reproductive organs. This was partially because of where Vee was sore, but also there was a strong suspicion that Dr Sinclair was involved. We all remembered that he had wanted to operate on Vee's ovaries. They had been trying to keep him under surveillance by monitoring his phone and ipad, but when we went missing so did he, unfortunately leaving his electronic equipment behind.

We chatted while we were waiting, trying to catch up with our missing days. Much had happened in a short time whilst we were sleeping. Vee's parents had been contacted and were literally en route. Brett had tried to dissuade them, since there was nothing that they could do to help. They would be arriving in the mid afternoon and he had organised a driver to pick them up. At present Brett had invited them to stay with him. We still had to work out where we were going to stay.

Brett had gone all out trying to find us, deliberately creating a media storm. Sam refused to talk, which was handled by the FBI since the case was declared a kidnapping. That didn't help the government who disclaimed all knowledge of the affair. The cameras that recorded the abduction showed the faces of individuals who, according to the press, were supposed to work for the department of defence, so no one really believed them.

The British press added to the pressure and also lambasted the British government for not making a big enough deal about the abduction of two British citizens.

The public was roused to anger and the politicians were scrambling to agree. When Katie started walking after only two days, the possibilities that had been casually mentioned by Dr Marsden were debated repeatedly on television. VDR entertainment had been flooded with applicants who wanted treatment or who wanted to be part of the research into treatment. The government did not help their standing by issuing a court order that no human testing was allowed until the process was better understood. This was at least partially due to Dr Marsden going into detail about the differences that had been noted on MRI and the unknown consequences of those differences.

The plan to introduce another vector responsible for the changes, such as mushrooms, had been dropped when it was decided that it needed to be public knowledge how important I was to the process. The use of the VDR was put forward as a supporting role. It did put more pressure on me, and made security a nightmare, but I didn't blame anybody. The whole purpose was to get me free and it seemed to have worked.

Brett created a new company called Body Image Shaping that would be run by Katie. All enquires needed to be redirected to that company. Mexico, sensing an opportunity had offered sanctuary and that they would not interfere in any testing of this exciting field. The Mexican government had also offered to help with creating a Mexican identity for any participants.

Mexico was only the first such country to recognise the significance of the treatment and its potential. There were many other offers. Fiji offered a relatively large island, although there was a cost involved, it was not a monetary one. It would need a lot of development, but if you had an island, security arrangements could be very effective. Brett informed us that the company he had created consisted of the first four elves, so all the decisions would be ours.

Of our first two experiments, well, Roni was clearly looking younger every day, any other changes were between her and her doctor. Katie started feeling sensation in her legs after just one nights sleep and after the second was able to use her muscles again. They remained very weak at the moment but none of us thought that would last long. As far as her sexual orientation was concerned, she had switched teams. Both Roni and her had been visiting VDR every day as part of the process. In VDR Katie had tried going on a date with a guy and even kissing him at the end, but all her interest had disappeared. She visited Lagbit on her own, going back to the original starting point, experimented with another elf and found her orientation was clear. She was a lesbian.

We still had a lot of questions to answer, but it was clear that is was not going to be done in the USA. The debates that had been stimulated had put forward some more ideas that we could look into. One that none of us had considered was the amount of strain the process might put on my mind. After Myra had complained of her weariness we took that thought seriously and, at the very least, would go with her suggestion of a maximum of one per day with occasional days off. The other possibility was that my brain would get stronger over time. There were researchers from all over the world who wanted to help us understand.

The immediate question was about our health and the rape kit suggested something had been inserted into Vee. There was damage to her vagina walls and the MRI suggested there was also damage to her ovaries. I was also checked but appeared unharmed. We were unsure if the damage would affect her fertility, but then we didn't know how that worked anyway. I had the thought that if we went back into VDR and did another ceremony using the Kara essence, we should be able to return everything to normal. Myra should be able to do a healing spell that at least would let us know if there was any permanent damage.

Brett had to leave and get back to his company. The four of us were left to plot our course. Roni, the most organized of us, tried to set out our most immediate concerns. Short term goals were finding somewhere safe to live, checking that my VDR headset still worked and then going through the offers to determine our next steps.

We pledged to stick together, but none of us felt safe in the penthouse and provided that the headset still worked, we had a lot of experiments to plan, but not here in the USA. We also needed to be able to document the changes that Roni and Katie were going through to keep their US identity. Our best security at the moment was publicity. To keep that going Roni was going to sort through the interviewing offers. We needed to remain firmly in the public eye until we could arrange better security.

All that we had to do was almost overwhelming. We booked a suite in the Beverly Hills Hotel and Katie arranged for VDR entertainment security to deliver our headsets. If my headset didn't work our entire business was stopped before it had got started. We also booked the hotel restaurant so that we could invite Vee's parents to join us.

I was now in a hospital gown as was Vee. Katie was going to go back to the penthouse to gather our clothes but I thought it best if we tried to stick together as much as possible, so Roni went with her. Vee and I cuddled in her hospital bed. To wake up and find that your body had been violated while you were sleeping must be hard to deal with. I wanted to find Dr Sinclair, turn him into a woman and leave him to the tender mercies of someone just like him. And that was when I was being kind. I am not a violent person and much preferred healing people than harming them, but if I allowed my mind to go back to what had happened to Vee, my blood tended to boil.

Emotionally, Vee was a mess. She tried to put a brave face on but I could tell she was on the verge of breaking down. When we saw her parents this evening I was definitely wearing waterproof mascara. She was going to need to see someone. I think I had been working out my problems by chatting to Myra. Maybe that would help her too.

Katie and Roni returned with our clothes, but none of mine fit. Three days in terms of transformation is a long time. Since they had pretty much just emptied our clothes into our suitcases, I was able to go through some of Vee's clothes to find something to wear. We had to stop to get some snack food. I was practically skin and bones and needed feeding up and Katie needed as much protein as we could get into her to build her muscles. Then finally to the hotel. Our headsets were waiting for us with a security guard who had refused to do anything but hand them over personally.

Vee's parents had arrived and were travelling to Brett's house. Somehow, he had pulled some strings and got the pilot to announce that we had been found safe and well. They would get a bit of rest and meet us at the restaurant. I had to speak for Vee as whenever she tried to talk to her mum she broke down in tears and nothing intelligible came out. I had to hold her for awhile for her to calm down.

We had a couple of hours before we were due to meet them so we faced the headsets together.

“What do you think, Tia?” Roni asked.

“Everything rests on these babies working. The sooner we know the better. Did anyone tell you whether they thought they would work or not?”

“From the video we saw that Katie had her headset pulled off first. In theory that should have caused the others to automatically log off and if that happened correctly, you should be able to continue where you left off. That's what Joshua said, anyway.” Roni said.

“I don't know whether we should. I mean in the storyline a lot is going on at the moment. The next day is the adoption ceremony followed by the bonding celebration. We can't go for the full seven days, it would take too long. The most we could do was three, that would leave us an hour to get ready.” I said.

“But if it doesn't work, my conversation with my parents will be very different.” Vee muttered, but we all heard her.

“Let's do it.” Katie said decisively. I don't think her personality had changed, just her true self was now better able to express itself. She had a confidence that had been sadly lacking.

We settled ourselves all on the king size bed. It was a bit of a squeeze, but comforting at the same time. Still, I felt uneasy. “I'm not sure I can do this.” I said. “I feel vulnerable going under with no one watching over us.”

We were quiet for a moment. Then Roni said. “Katie and I have been in VDR lots of times in the last three days, but this is the first time you two have since we were attacked. I totally understand. If we could get someone from hotel security to stand outside our door, would that make you feel better?”

“It would make me feel better.” Vee said. “Me too.” I added.

Roni got up and called the concierge.

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door and this huge man turned up. He had to squeeze through the door. “Hello ladies. I'm with hotel security.” He showed us some ID. “I'll just wait outside here until you let me know you feel safe.”

He shook our hands, his huge hands dwarfing ours, then squeezed back through the door and stood with his back to us as we closed the door. We gathered ourselves back on the bed and with a lighter heart I put on the headset and hit resume.