Emily's Strange Life

“Good morning everyone; my name is Emily and I'm an amnesiac.”

“Good morning Emily,” the guys and gals of my therapy group chorused.

“I've been coming here for nearly three years now, so those of you who know my story off by heart, please take this opportunity to catch up on your sleep or something. You all know the damned Canoeheads attacked us without warning five years ago. I only know that because I was told. I was found wandering three years ago. One look and they knew I must have escaped from a Canadian slave labour camp. I was so emaciated they weren't sure at first if I was a girl or a boy.” I saw a few smiles at that, which pleased me. Nowadays you really couldn't make that mistake. I like to think of myself as voluptuous. I've heard people who thought I wasn't listening refer to me as 'stacked'. I know they're essentially describing the same phenomenon but 'voluptuous' is ladylike and 'stacked' isn't so I'm sticking with the classy version.

“I was wearing the rags of a black dress. I had this bracelet on – I must have concealed it in the camp somehow or found it after I escaped because it would certainly have been stolen otherwise.” I held up my wrist to show the bracelet, a silver band with further strands of silver twisted around a piece of polished bluejohn to hold it in its setting. “I like to think I had it before the camp, that it's something that was always precious to me, a link to my old life.”

“Because I was dressed all in black with long, straight black hair and couldn't remember anything – my name, my age, who I was – one of the orderlies at the hospital nicknamed me Emily the Strange after the cartoon character, so, not having any better ideas, I took the name Emily .I'm still pleased with the name.” I paused to take a sip of water

“I'm what they call a retrograde amnesiac. I can learn things, I have no problem forming new memories, I know what has happened to me in the three years since I was found. I know how to do all the things I obviously learned how to do before the invasion like reading and writing, but I literally cannot remember a single event that happened to me before the rescuers found me. The doctors are pretty certain I'm repressing traumatic events from my captivity. I know that would be a real gift to some of you to be able to forget the things you've gone through and I'm sorry. I often pray to get my memories back. I know from other people's stories that it may be a blessing that I don't..

“You all know the sufferings we've gone through since the war began. You all know the strains our emergency services have been under. For all that they decided an amnesiac teenager with no identifiable kin or friends couldn't be safely left in a refugee camp. The doctors believed me to be eighteen years old – with thousands of small children orphaned there was no way I could be adopted. The alternative seemed to be leaving me to be institutionalised or turning me loose to sleep on the streets. Then someone came up with a bright idea.

“There was a special forces officer, Michael O' Halloran,” I feel a big, stupid, goofy grin spread across my face just saying his name and lower my head to let my hair fall across my face for a moment, a little embarrassed at the glee I feel “He spent a lot of time on missions, but had a lot of R &R between them. So, he needed someone to make sure he had a warm, clean, dry home with a functioning fridge and in-date food in it. They could have assigned an enlisted man but that's not really an efficient use of resources in the middle of a war. I needed a home where I was safe, and someone to periodically check up on me and make sure nothing terrible had happened to me.

So I became Michael's live-in housekeeper and ward. I got a wage, a home and security. While he's there he takes care of me; when he's away the neighbouring army wives pop in from time to time to make sure I'm still lucid. I'm fairly sure that at the start they were expecting to have to call the nice men with the thorazine and the straightjacket. Now they mostly come for the coffee or to see if I can babysit. I've been Michael's girlfriend now for two and a half years. That's my story. That's my happy ending.”

“Thank you Emily,” said the facilitator “I asked Emily to tell her story just to remind people that hope springs eternal. That whatever sufferings we go through things can and do get better.”

I silently pray that this is the effect my story will have on people instead of making them think 'Why has that bitch got a happy ending when my loved ones are lying dead?'. I listen carefully to the next survivor's story of horror and sadness and try very hard not to be sick.

Five hours later I'm heading home, having spent the rest of the day babysitting Jeanette Rutherford's unruly trio of terrors. There is an unmentionable stain on my dress, my hair hurts where Kelly used it as handlebars riding on my back, Jack has drawn what he fondly thinks are tattoos all over my hands in felt tip, my face is still painted as a tiger and I'm nobly resisting the urge to just stop taking the Pill. It would be utterly wrong to land Michael with an unplanned pregnancy after all he's done for me. I just can't spend any time with the little tykes without getting deeply broody. Jeanette had this worried, pitying look on her face when she came in and found them romping all over me. I think she worries about me. She knows how I feel about Michael. She also know that I'm still just a girlfriend/housekeeper.

Army circles are fairly conservative. If you haven't got that ring on your finger after this amount of time, the wives on base are bound to wonder if I'm just a bit of fun for Michael, a convenient way to get his house kept and bed warmed. At least I think that's why I still get these looks from the other girls.

I wonder that sometimes too, in my darker moments. When I first came on to Michael he looked so surprised. I swear, up until that moment he thought I was like, his little sister or something. Not that he didn't get over that quickly – he did and with great enthusiasm. We've been so happy ever since but I do worry. I mentioned recently that some cultures think the ideal aged woman for a man to marry is half his age plus seven years. I'm now twenty-one. Michael is twenty-eight. The math works. Michael laughed and said we were obviously ideal then, but he didn't say anything else so I dropped it. I don't want to be that girlfriend – the one who's always pouting insecurely and dropping hints, stopping outside the window of jewellers and pointing our rings. On the other hand I would be a lot more secure if he'd only pop the question. As for children, I daren't even think of hinting. I've heard other officers talk about their partners on this topic when they think only men are listening. I don't want Michael to think I'm a 'silly, broody hen'. Even if I am.

As I enter the house I realise that something is wrong. The place is still clean and tidy but I can sense someone has been here. Before I can do or say anything two strong arms grab me from behind.

“What have we here?” growls a deep, male voice

“I'm a tiger. Please don't hurt me, I'm an endangered species.”

“What about ravishing?”

“Oh well, if you really must,” I murmur as Michael picks me up and lays me on the long pine scrubbed kitchen table, flipping up the skirts of my dress to provide a cushion for my back. He's so thoughtful.

*****
I am definitely getting Michael a new razor. It's fabulous the way he's willing to practice his linguistics on me, so to speak, but as far as I know I'm the only girl in town with man rash on her inner thighs. (With the likely exception of Kelly Gunderson, whose husband, Staff Sergeant Gunderson is one giant mass of bristles and probably has to shave just to get down to five o' clock shadow).

Still, I'm standing by the stove in only my slip so a nice cool breeze is playing over the affected area. I'm making something to keep Michael's strength up. We've migrated upstairs to the bedroom in the three hours since he got home (via the living room sofa and the big rug on the first floor landing) but he shows no sign of getting sleepy. He only managed to get twenty four hours leave which is why he chose to surprise me so we need to make the most of it.

It's a fortnight until his next regularly scheduled leave, so it won't be long to wait, but I miss him, even when he's gone for relatively short periods. I keep reminding myself that this is the price you pay for being with a hero in time of war – he spends a lot of time in far off places being heroic. At first I used to get paranoid fears that he might be seeing someone else while he was away but the wounds reassured me. No matter how enthusiastic the cheating sl*t gets a woman is unlikely to leave shrapnel in a man's body by means of an affair. So, keeping Michael healthy in between missions is my job. Healthy food, healthy exercise and no way is he going back with a hangover, which means I have to be a more alluring and effective away of unwinding. Luckily we both have really good imaginations and his physical stamina is amazing!

That night I have the nightmare again.....

It always starts the same way. I'm in agony, so filthy I can smell myself, the vinegar sourness of old sweat overlying the sickly sweetness that says my body has started to break down its own tissues for food. I half-know that I'm dreaming and this must be some distorted memory of the Canadian slave labour camp. I'm wearing those foot and chain manacles they use on prisoners so I can barely shuffle but it doesn't stop the two guards flanking me from pushing me along the rough-cast concrete corridor, sometimes adding encouragement with a jab from a rifle butt. I turn and snarl at them. I feel dangerous, wolfish, not like me at all.

“Cowards,” I hear myself say in a harsh grating voice, quite unlike my own. ”If you were any good you'd be at the front. If these chains were off I'd kill you.”

I glare at the guards and can tell they hate me all the more because they know it's true. The taller guard tries to hit me with his rifle butt again but I manage to tangle it up in my chains and jerk it from him. There is no escape from here I know, but I may still be able to make them kill me. Unfortunately the second guard isn't so impulsive or so stupid. Instead of coming forward to grapple which would give me the chance to take him down he steps back out of reach and pulls a taser on me. I'm wearing nicely conductive metal chains which makes it all the more effective and I hit the floor. Two more guards come racing from the other end of the corridor and together they drag my semi-electrocuted form through the doors and the end of the corridor into a comfortable, furnished office. I hear a voice say 'Operation Disney Princess subject # 239 Sir.”

This is where the nightmare becomes surreal. Sitting behind the desk is the saviour of our nation, the Orange One, President for Life, Commander-in-Chief Trump. I don't understand why, in the dream, he's looking at me like I was an enemy. I'm a red-blooded American girl. My lover and hero is Michael O'Halloran, a decorated Special Forces officer. I've every reason to hate the damned Canoeheads so why is my own President looking at me like that?

“Mr President,” said a voice wearily, as if it had said the same things many times before “Can I remind you that this ..this reorientation programme has a zero per cent success rate so far? With the greatest of respect Mr President is this really a prudent use of medical, scientific and military resources in the middle of a war?”

“What are you talking about? This project is one hundred and ten per cent success!” The President waved his hands excitedly. Even in the dream I knew the stubby fingers must be part of my imagination. No one has hands that small, surely?

“We're building the future here. A literal marriage of the best America and Canada have to offer with us providing the knowhow and Canada providing the raw material.”

“Yes Sir. It just doesn't work.”

“Of course it does. Now take 'em away! Call me when we succeed!”

After that the dream gets weird. I'm in a lot of pain and nauseous most of the time but despite this I seem to be doing normal things, getting dressed, cooking, cleaning, mending, pretty much the routine I have now, minus wild table sex. The dream isn't always coherent, but it always ends the same way, with me wandering the roads, barefoot, hungry and ragged under a dreadful sky.

As usual I wake up crying and Michael has to hold me to comfort me while I soak his bare chest with ugly, unladylike sobs and tears. I love him – he puts up with so much!

End of Part One

A few hours later and I'm seeing my boyfriend off on another potentially fatal trip. Naturally, I concentrate on being perky. However worried I feel the last thing Michael needs is me bringing him down ahead of a mission.

“Be careful while I'm away,” Michael warns me “I worry about you.” He does too. He's off to the wastes of northern Canada where literally everyone will want to kill him and he's busy worrying about me.

“Do you have your pistol handy?” He asks me

“It's at home, safely locked away.”

“Emily, I didn't get you a concealed carry permit so you could lock your pistol away. It's no use to you locked away. There are some bad hombres out there.”

“I know, but I'm no good with guns. You should remember that.” Michael took me to a shooting range a couple of years ago because he wanted me to be able to defend myself while he was away. The first shot I took with his 1911 the recoil nearly broke my wrists besides causing the barrel to buck so high that if it had been an indoor range I would have put a hole in the ceiling. Passing birds were in danger! Michael had to get me a .22 pistol that fires what he calls 'teeny-weeny ladylike bullets' , with a smirk that makes me want to reach for the rolling pin. One of the things about dating very manly men, I've come to realise, is that however encouraging they try to be they find it cute and funny watching women fail in manly pursuits. The odd thing is, I swear he also looked a bit relieved. Still, he probably spends enough time around crack shots without getting it at home.

“Remember,” he says “Stay fit and healthy – I have evil plans for you when I get back!”

“How evil?” I ask, smiling up at him flirtatiously

“Well, I'll start by giving you a good seeing to and after that I'm afraid you're too young to be told, so I'll just have to demonstrate.” He pulls me close and I squeak and slap at his hand as he slips his fingers under the waistband of my skirt to touch me intimately. In a crowded airport! I let loose an outraged giggle

“You are sooo rude!”

“Nonsense! It's not my fault you're an innocent.”

“Of course,” I say, preening, “Far, far, too sweet and innocent to understand what you're talking about.”

“Never mind,” he says “I'll be back soon to give a practical demonstration.” and with that and a kiss that leaves my insides melted he is gone.

The warm glow he leaves me with lasts all the way to the car park where I burst into tears. Honestly, I'm so silly, this is no way to react to a routine separation, Michael is definitely nt sexist, but no wonder I occasionally get the feeling he's exasperated with my outbreaks of silliness when I behave like this, even though I try not to do things like this in front of him. Really I'm lucky it's not worse; some of Michael's friends are sexist I know. They don't mean it in a bad way, I'm sure. They like me, they think I'm good for Michael but because I stay home and care for my boyfriend I can tell they think I'm somehow submissive, or even inferior.

In fact I be have the way I do, caring for Michael, worrying about his needs, waiting on him, because I see this as a complementary partnership; he pays the bills and guards and looks after us. I look after Michael's health and happiness and make sure he has a warm, clean, safe refuge to come back to and love and care for him while he's there. If I was working outside the home I'd expect a different division of labour. Some of Michael's fellow officers or NCO's don't understand that though. They see me so busy and happy, looking after Michael and they see a hausfrau, an amiable bimbo. They don't understand that I'm a strong, capable independent individual and this is a deliberate act of love. I know Michael doesn't think that way though. Even though he sometimes teases me by pretending to be sexist, calling me his pretty little wench and slapping me on the a- on the backside or hiding my clothes so that I have to make breakfast in the nude, he respects me, I know it.

He doesn't think that way. He just doesn't.

I know he doesn't.

Blowing my nose and pulling myself together, I head home in the little economy car he got me for my last birthday. Michael has a Ferrari but he doesn't let me drive it. It's not because I'm a woman, he just doesn't let anyone drive it except himself. Michael explained that to me very carefully and I believe him.

It's a beautiful day, I have twenty-four hours before Michael gets back.and I plan to make the most of it, so I'm wandering the forest with a basket on one arm. As part of my quest to eat organic and stretch the housekeeping I go out and gather forest fruits every year. Michael laughs (in a nice way) and calls me a wood nymph but it doesn't stop him eating the blackberry crumbles or the rowan jelly or drinking the sloe gin (So far he won't touch the rose hip tea even though I assure him it's good for the blood, but hey, one step at a time). I've got stout boots but I indulged myself with my favourite skirt. I know jeans would be more practical but I just don't like them. Right now, I'm regretting that for two reasons. The first is that a trailing bramble has laddered my tights. The second, more important reason, is that I think the man a couple of hundred yards back is deliberately following me and if I'm right and it's for the wrong reasons my Hell Kitten layered miniskirt isn't even going to slow him down.

These woods are riddled with criss crossing paths, so I've changed direction seven or eight times in the last five minutes.. Every time I do, he does the same and speeds up a little. It could be coincidence, or he could be wanting to talk to me for some entirely innocent reason, or it could just be a desire to catch up with me so he can flirt with a pretty girl (I know I sound vain, but honestly, when Michael isn't with me this happens a lot).

That said, since the war, crime has gone up a lot and women are always the most vulnerable. I've never heard of anyone being attacked in these woods but I know quite a few women have been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in the area of the town near the base. Not all of them have survived the experience. No one in their right mind would try anything with Michael around and I rarely go off base after dark without him, and then not on my own, so I've never dwelt on that fact before. I'm definitely dwelling on it now.

The man is speeding up, he's less than a hundred yards away now. I abandon all pretence at calm and turn to run. As I do, he breaks into a sprint. I can see him clearly now and he's twice my size and burly with it, so much so that it seems unfair that he can also sprint that fast. His expression gloats, there's no pretence now that the situation is anything but what it is. Then he is on me and it's too late for anything but a hopeless scream.

Michael was right. There are bad hombres out there and one of them has me trapped now.

I cry out in fear and pull away as the man grabs me, one hand holding my arm and the other squeezing my right breast hard enough to bruise. I manage to pull out of his grip, stepping backwards and opening my mouth to scream again.

My attacker doesn't like that; suddenly a haymaker is swinging at me to shut me up. That's when it happens. My left arm comes up hard and fast, blocking his arm with a bone bruising collision and then using the momentum to chop at the side of his neck. The Jew's stop a part of me knows after the heavyweight champion Mendoza. It slows him down and my fists bang hard against both his ears simultaneously before my forearms come down on his collarbones with a sickening snap. He starts to crumple and the top of my lowered head crunches into his nose. My attacker, if I can still call him that, rears up in pain and my stiff fingers jab into his windpipe, then his solar plexus. Lastly my knee connects with his crotch. He can't even scream, only writhe in agony at my feet. A six foot, two hundred pound man seriously injured by a five foot five woman, most whose hundred and thirty-odd pounds, I have to admit, is curves. The whole thing has taken maybe twenty seconds, tops.

What have I done?

How have I done what I've done?

Who am I?

An hour later I'm sitting in Kelly Gunderson's kitchen wrapped in a blanket and drinking hot, sweet tea. (Staff Sergeant Gunderson did a tour of duty attached as liason to the British, years ago. They swear by this stuff.) The man is under guard in the base hospital and the MPs have just left. A message came through from the city police while they were taking my statement that he matches the photofits and descriptions given by a score of witnesses over the years. He hasn't even got the excuse of being a traumatised veteran, he's just a creep taking advantage of troubled times and the fact that half the men who'd otherwise be police or security are out on the front lines. It looks pretty certain I'm not going to get into trouble. I can clam self-defence and no judge is going to be sympathetic to this guy. If I hadn't done what I did I'd have been raped and beaten, maybe killed.

I don't feel good. I hate violence. It just isn't who I am or who I want to be. One of the reasons I can't forgive the damned Canoeheads is that they attacked first. I mean, whatever the problem was couldn't they have just talked to us, instead of inflicting all this misery?

And now I know I'm a trained killer. My life Before Michael, once a lost Garden of Eden, is starting to look as if it might be a cesspool filled with barbed wire.

So how did I learn to do what I did? I half crippled a man, in a way they don't teach you in evening class karate. To do what I did suggests I was in the armed forces, or at least an elite police unit. But if I was in any such group in the United States then when I was found wandering and lost I could easily have been identified by fingerprints or dental work. The authorities keep track of people who can do what I did, especially during a war. Which means...

Oh my God!

Oh my God!

I'm Canadian!

The door opens. Michael is home.

“Emily?” I hear him call, walking into the darkened hallway. He's uncertain, I can tell by the tone of his voice. Normally when he arrives on a scheduled break the house will be lit and cheery and something will be ready to eat – probably something which will still be edible if I turn it off and reheat it later, just in case his other appetites are going to take priority. Usually I'd be rushing down the hall to greet him by now. At the very worst, even if I was tied up with something that couldn't be left, the place wouldn't be unlit and silent as the grave. Michael is no fool. He has to be wondering if the time bomb he's been keeping in his home for the last three years has finally gone off. I'm wondering that too.

“Emily?” Michael says again, as he steps into the sitting room and flicks on the light. Then he sees the gun I have pointed straight at him.

“I know the secret.” I say sadly

“Emily, Emily my lamb,” he says, in tones of such love and concern that I want to drop the pistol and go rushing into his arms. “There's no need for this. You're my Emily. I'm your Michael. I promise we can sort this out.”

“Emily isn't my real name,” I reply stonily “And you aren't my Michael, are you? You're my jailer. My something anyway. Your job is to make sure I don't remember who or what I am, and to make sure I don't get away if I do.”

Michael starts to say that he doesn't know what I'm talking about but I cut him off, icily

“Don't lie to me, Michael, please. If I mean anything, if I ever meant anything, please tell me the truth.” Michael falls silent for a moment
“You said you knew the secret. So, you already know that you're...” Michael hesitates and his voice trails off.

“Canadian,” I say “I'm a Canadian soldier, or maybe some sort of spy. You've been sleeping with the enemy.” I let out a short, mirthless laugh. Michael lets out a real one.

“Wait, you think that's the secret? That you're Canadian?” He starts laughing so hard it would infuriate me under other circumstances.

“You mean I'm not?” I feel a bit of hope rising. If only I've got it all wrong, Michael can just explain it to me, tease me for being so silly and I can go back to my happy life as Michael's Emily. Or Kelly or Alyssa or whatever my real name is

“You are, but really, that's the least of it.”

“Oh God,” I feel my heart sink again “Am I a war criminal then? Have you been waiting till my memory comes back so you can put me on trial. For whatever I've done?” No wonder he never asked me to marry him; all this time he's just been making my captivity as humane as possible. That's so Michael, kind even to monsters. Monsters like me.

“What's a war criminal? No one's followed any rules of war since the day we nuked Toronto and started our surprise attack. Believe me, if you were a war criminal we'd have shot you without wasting time, but from what I've heard that's been done to plenty of prisoners already.”

“Wait! Wait! We launched a surprise attack?”

Michael laughs at me again. There's a fierceness, a cruelty in his face I've never seen before. This isn't the Michael who comes home to me. This is the Michael who fights a war.

“Don't tell me you believed all that crap about a Canadian attack on the US? Shit, you must be the only person on Earth who doesn't realise that you can tell when the President is lying because his lips are moving. I suppose only having three years of memory must do a lot for naivety, but really this beats all.”

“We, I mean, you started the war?” I say again, stupidly.

“The US outnumbers the Canoeheads by ten to one. Why would you start it?”

I can't say a thing. My worldview has just been turned upside down. I'm a damned Canoehead. And the damned Canoeheads might not be the villains after all.

“Is that the secret?” I finally manage to ask

“Yes; it's so secret everyone in the world knows except you and the President, who can convince himself of his own fantasies, and I figured you were just paying lip service for fear of a treason charge.”

“Then what is the secret?”

“Your real name is Captain Marcus Julius Naso.”

“But that's a boy's name.”

“Yes. You are another of the President's fantasies made real.”

“Huh?”

“Trump was surprised how much resistance Canada put up. Hell, all of us were. We beat you at every kind of conventional warfare but you turned out to know everything about guerilla warfare. What with that and the French and British sending you supplies it still isn't safe for a US soldier anywhere in Canada unless he's in an aeroplane too high for surface to air missiles to reach. So when US scientists developed a way to alter people at the genetic level it gave the mad old bastard an idea.”

I sit numbly, trying to grasp the total overturning of everything I thought was solid, so confused that I still feel offended to hear the man I thought was my President described as a 'mad old bastard'. Even though it now appears he actually is.

“The way he figured it, you give women jewellery, money, flowers and pretty clothes and they're happy.” Michael shrugs “It's worked for him all his life so I suppose it makes a sort of sense from his point of view. He never has listened to anyone else's and I suppose that's worked for him too. After all, no one in their right mind expected him to be President in the first place.”

“Less commentary, more info!” I demand, waggling my little .22 pistol with its ladylike bullets.

“The President figured if the entire population of Canada consisted of pretty girls being showered with treats instead of infuriated guerillas, problem solved. Operation Disney Princess was born.”

“Operation Disney Princess?”

“Yes. This breakthrough could be used to create super soldiers who could end the war in months. It could be used to devise plagues that we could immunise our citizens against and then turn loose to wipe out our enemies. It could eliminate every genetically transmitted disease or weakness. It could even give us a stab at immortality. So what does the President use it for? Creating more women for him to grab by the pussy.”

There's something familiar here. The words 'Operation Disney Princess' have literally haunted my dreams so I must have some connection with it but for the life of me I can't see what. My bewilderment is obviously reflected on my face because Michael gestures impatiently and says “Don't you get it? You were a man.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” I say automatically. The idea just doesn't make sense, so much so that I'm torn between relief that I'm not a war criminal and annoyance that Michael is so obviously misinformed that I may never find out the truth. Men can be wonderful. I wouldn't be without one, but they're stubbly, insensitive creatures, who can't pick up on hints, are inordinately proud of being able to pee standing up and would live in a cave made of dirty laundry and unwashed plates if you didn't pick up after them. The idea that I could have been one is just untenable.

“You were a man,” Michael repeats “A Canadian soldier. A notorious Canadian soldier, cunning as a wolverine and tougher than a wasp and if you hadn't been so badly banged up by your capture that no one recognised you at first you'd never have made it to the prison camp alive But you did and you were selected as one of the subjects for Operation Disney Princess.”

“i don't believe you. No, I believe you're telling me truthfully what you've been told, but this can't be right Michael. You don't know any of this first hand. Somebody's fed you a line. You'd never met me before I was brought to this base as your housekeeper. “

“Yes, I had.”

“Eh?”

“I was the one who finally destroyed your unit. I captured you. Then, because keeping hundreds of prisoners in one place and experimenting on them is never a safe proposition, they pulled me out of the front lines and made me Head of Security for the project.”

I can feel my jaw drop. Either this is some very weird elaborate hoax, or a cover up for something even stranger, or Michael is telling the truth. And everything, everything I've learnt about Michael's face and voice and stance and whole being in three years of intimacy says he's telling the truth. It makes sense of some things too, even as it makes nonsense of others I thought I knew. Unless he can read my mind Michael can't have taken Operation Disney Princess from my thoughts. It explains how I was able to take down a man twice my size, effortlessly and within seconds. It doesn't explain why I find the idea of being male so alien of course and it doesn't explain my emaciation when I came here.

“Wait, so I was never in a Canadian slave labour camp?”

“There are no Canadian slave labour camps. That's just propaganda. They haven't the people to spare to run them and they can't hold territory in the face of overwhelming force. Your side either kills people or lets them the fuck alone.”

“Then why was I so emaciated when I was found?”

For the first time Michael looks ashamed.

“The budget for feeding US prisoners is miniscule to start with and by the time various contractors and cronies who run the programme have taken their cut it's less. Subjects for Operation Disney Princess get special treatment, of course, but you hadn't had much time to put on weight when you escaped. After that you were missing for days, probably with nothing to eat but what you could scavenge, and that's not a lot for anybody nowadays”

“in my dream... in my dream someone said I was subject 239. How many others are there like me?”

“None.”

“What?”

“There were five hundred test subjects before the project was abandoned. You are the only success.”

“I thought you said scientists had worked out how to alter DNA.”

“With test animals, yes. They ran through thirty or forty prisoners before the subjects stopped dying. After that everyone thought it would be plain sailing. It wasn't. It turns out that changing someone's sex without so much as a by-your-leave is one of the most traumatic things you can do. Some of the test subjects lapsed into catatonia when they saw their new selves, some slipped into psychosis. Quite a few killed themselves, more forced us to kill them or died trying to escape. A dozen or so did escape and were never heard of again. And then there's you.”

A realisation hits me hard. “That's why I'm alive isn't it? You wanted to study me, to see why I was different.”

“Not me, I don't get to take that kind of decision. The scientists did though. They were very eager to see if the project could be put back on track. So when you claimed to have lost your memory I was diverted to this base as your -”

“Jailer!” I interrupt bitterly

“I prefer the term handler”

“Does everyone know? Everyone on the base?”

“Yes. Families live here. With us not knowing if you were faking memory loss, or if you'd get it back at any moment, we couldn't do anything else.”

“No wonder I sometimes get funny looks. Everyone I know must be laughing at me behind my back.”

“No, it isn't like that. People were nervous at first but they came to trust you pretty quickly. Heck, not only do the local koffeklatsch girls drop in on you all the time, they let you look after their children. If you think about it that's the biggest compliment anyone could give.”

“What about tricking me into being your fucking bedwarmer? Is that a compliment too?”

I see Michael wince a little. I don't usually swear and my tone is accusing. That's how I want it. I daren't soften now.

“It wasn't like that! You came on to me remember?”

“Yes, I remember. You must have laughed yourself sick.”

“No! Listen to me for God's sake. Emily, I love you.”

“You have a funny way of showing it. Deceiving me so your damned mad scientists could dissect my soul to see how I was different. Did they ever figure it out?”

“Yes. We knew where you came from. Eventually some bright spark had the idea of digging your medical records out of the ruins of your old town. Do you really not know? Can't you guess?” Michael looks at me curiously

“Just tell me.”

“Tell me something first. How do you feel about being a girl?”

I consider the question. “Honestly? Normal. There's nothing about being a woman I don't like, apart from the things which are nothing to do with being a woman and everything to do with men. Like being lied to by my boyfriend!``”

“So you don't want a dick on you? As opposed to in you?”

“Firstly, that's just crude and secondly, euww! No I absolutely don't!”

“Well that's the secret of your success. It seems you were transgender to start with. You'd already been living as a woman full time for months when the war began and were about to start further procedures. You deliberately put off transitioning so it wouldn't interfere with you volunteering for the armed forces.” Michael shrugs “What can I say? You're a patriot.”

I sit in silence for a moment. I don't know a lot about transgender people, but what I've heard is that they're born trapped in the body of the wrong sex. If that is so I can believe I was transgender a lot more easily than I can believe I was ever a regular male. Now that's irony; being given the gift I most wanted by my most deadly enemies. Go figure.

“Emily, “ Michael is saying gently “Your war is over now. Stay here. With me.”

“So you can think up more experiments to try out on me? I don't think so.”

“No!” Michael is starting to sound desperate now “Once they found out why you were different the scientists lost interest. I managed to persuade the powers that be to let you alone, just so long as you were in my custody. But you have to stay in my custody or all deals are off.”

“You mean I have a choice between being your skivvy and whore or going back to a POW camp? I think I prefer the camp.”

“It's not like that. Emily, I fell in love with you. What does it matter how we met? Emily, Emily will you marry me?”

I can feel the tears forming and a lump in my throat. Such a little time ago those were words I longed to hear and now..as Michael steps forward, arms open, reaching for me I jerk the pistol barrel at him

“Get back!”

“Emily, why can't you trust me?”

“Why? Why? I'm either Captain Naso, in which case this is a breach of every law on treatment of prisoners ever written or I'm Emily, in which case you got me to sleep with you by deception. That's rape, Michael, as surely as if you'd jumped out on me from behind a bush!”

“It is not!”

“No? Do you think I would have come on to you if I knew the truth?”

“Wouldn't you?”

“You know the answer, or you would have TOLD me the truth.”

“Emily, please. Think about this. If you go running away you'll be caught, as sure as can be. The government can't afford to let you go telling the things you know now. When they catch you God only knows what they'll do to you next. There are worse places than this to be.”

“No one will catch me. I'll head for the border. You haven't the numbers to search a nation bigger than the whole continental United States. The manpower that might have found me is bleeding away on the frontlines. Everyone on this base talks to the women they sleep with and then we talk to each other over coffee. It's the best intelligence network in the world. Why do you think I worry so much when you go away? You're losing this war.”

Michael glares, I've gotten him angry now. “Emily, whatever your gaggle of hens tell you, you WILL be found.”

“Because of this?” I sniff away tears and hold up my silver and bluejohn bracelet. “You know, in three years it never occurred to me to wonder why I had a bracelet with a semi-precious stone that's found in caverns in exactly one mountainside in all the world. And then I worked it out. It's semi-precious so I wouldn't wonder how I could afford such a big piece of it and it's this particular semi-precious stone because it carves well. So you could have it hollowed out and put a transmitter in it.” I drop the bracelet on the floor and crush it under my foot. “Thank you for the lovely bracelet though; I always wondered where it came from.”

“Emily -” Michael begins but I cut him off.

“That's why I can't stay. You're still lying to me even now.” I keep a straight face but inside it feels like I'm dying. A little voice inside my head is still screaming at me not to ruin things. If I let Michael put his arms around me now I'll crumple like a wet handkerchief.

“Emily, I can't let you go.”

“You can't stop me.”

“Maybe not.” Michael draws himself up to his full height “But you'll have to kill me to get past me. I'm still prepared to die for my country. Are you still prepared to kill for yours?”

That's when I burst into sobs and Michael steps forward to comfort me. I jump up and put a bullet into the floor between us.

“No!”

With a sigh that clearly says “Women!” Michael turns his back and leans on the desk in an exasperated fashion while I stand irresolute.

I can't kill Michael. Whatever he's done, whatever he deserves I can't kill the man I've loved for three years. As he turns back towards me, the automatic he was concealing in his waistband streaking to the firing position so fast it almost blurs, it's obvious he doesn't feel the same way.

I pull the trigger.

Half an hour later speeding south in the Ferrari he never let me drive before, I'm still having to dash tears from my eyes from time to time. He didn't love me, not at all, not ever. He couldn't have tried to shoot me if he did. And I still couldn't kill him. I put a .22 slug into the muscle of his shooting arm, hit him over the head with a lamp and then tied him up with his own zip tie restraints. He regained consciousness while I did, kept muttering about how he'd always known he'd regret showing me how to use those things.

“That's what you get for bringing your work home!” I'd shouted as I left.

The worst thing was that I'd already inflicted my revenge on him – the revenge I'd never wanted and which he would never know. Maybe the worst revenge possible – Michael would never know his own child. It turns out the Pill isn't a hundred per cent reliable Maybe, just maybe, if it had been I would have kept my mouth shut and stayed, pushed down my doubts and worries, given Michael another chance. But no way was my child going to be raised with a liar and murderer for a father.

I'd tricked Michael by saying I would head for the border. Canada is no place to raise a child right now. I was heading south and west, too far south to be in danger from the war with Canada, but stopping too far north to be in range of the battle lines if this band of lunatics started a war with Mexico. I had a cunning plan. I was young, I was pretty, I was healthy, I was hard working. I would find one of those idyllic small towns with no crime, get a job and make a life for us. And maybe, just maybe, one day I'd find someone honest and decent who was good father material and then they were going to get very, very lucky

Emily's Strange Life Chapter 5

I don't know what religion I was baptised into, or if I ever was. I don't know if I'm Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan or Hindu. But I do know that I will never hear a word against nuns as long as I live.

After I escaped from Michael I stopped at a car dealership and exchanged his conspicuous, easily traced Ferrari for something a bit more under the radar. The fact that the Ferrari was obviously stolen meant I had to trade it at well below its value. The fact that the dealer would obviously inform on me at the sight of a dollar bill meant that I traded the car I'd got from him a couple of hours later, in a town diametrically opposite to the direction I was planning to go in. After I'd muddied my trail by repeating this a few times the car I was left driving was what Michael would have called a piece of shit. I thought it was a good, faithful little car that got me the best part of a thousand miles before conking out, but there was no denying that the only thing to do was give it a decent burial.

So there I was in a big, flat state that I shan't name, but they're still very fond of the memory of John Brown, with no transport, hardly any money, no medical insurance and in what used to be delicately called 'an interesting condition'.

This is where the nuns come in. I'd been driving for two days and a night, almost without a break, no proper meals, figuring I could go back to living right once I'd put some distance between myself, an avenging Michael and, probably, a horde of mad scientists eager to carry out more tests. By the time I'd walked fifteen miles from where I broke down to the nearest town.. well, I might as well admit it. I was standing in the high street, debating whether to go to the bar ( for food) or the garage first when I fainted.

When I woke up I was in a nunnery. No, that isn't the fate they reserve for unmarried mothers here, besides, I'm not showing yet and won't be for a while. It turns out the good sisters run a charity hospital, treating the destitute, the homeless, the poor and the uninsured and under insured. In particular, as part of their mission to save children from being aborted they offer an unrivalled ante-natal and maternity service. Sometimes I really can believe there is a God looking out for us. I didn't even know America had nuns!

I think I must, at some point have regained semi-consciousness without remembering it because nuns got into my dreams. I dreamt I was being pursued by Michael dressed as a Nazi. I dreamt Michael was being chased by anti-Nazi nuns. I dreamt I was a Nazi and I'd been captured by nuns who were forcing me to sing numbers from 'The Sound of Music'

Of course, I didn't know about the hospital when I woke up to find myself strapped to a bed, with a nun in full habit leaning over me. I don't think I was tracking too well, because the first thing I said was “I can't sing! Please let me go!”

The nun sort of smiled and frowned at the same time.

“Please don't panic, you're quite safe. I'm Sister Maria. “ She must have seen from my face that I didn't find this reassuring because she hastily added “The only reason you were strapped down is because you've been thrashing about a lot while you were unconscious and we were afraid you might hurt yourself. You're safe now,” she repeated, unbuckling the straps that held me down “You're in the hospital of St Blasius of Ragusa, run by the Sisters of the blessed order of Saint Maximilian Kolbe.”

“Um, good?”

“You'll be pleased to know there's nothing much wrong with you. You were exhausted, a little dehydrated, you've got some painful blisters and you could do with a good meal but otherwise you're in good shape, “ Sister Maria hesitated for the first time “Did you know you were expecting?”

“That's why I had to run awa- oh!” I winced. I may have been a good soldier once, though I still found it hard to believe, but I was a terrible fugitive. I'd just blown my cover to the very first person I met who wasn't a car dealer or gas station attendant.

“Don't be afraid,” Sister Maria smiled reassuringly “A lot of women we see here are fleeing bad relationships or the war, or .” she hesitated for a moment “all sorts of things. No one is going to send you back to whoever you're avoiding.”

“Thank you.” I let out a long breath I hadn't even realised I was holding.

“Get some rest now, if you can. Dinner is in an hour.” I was asleep before she reached the door.

Three days later I'm sitting in the office of Father Flaherty, Head of the Hospital's Welfare, Pastoral Care and Community Outreach Department. Once they discovered I not only had no intention of getting rid of my baby but was determined to raise it myself the nuns couldn't do enough for me. That was why I had this appointment. The trouble was, I was going to have to blow it – I'd told Sister Maria I was running away, I'd given them a name that was easily traceable. I was going to have to find a hospital sooner or later, but I needed to establish a new identity first and how I was going to do that I had no idea. Frustratingly, I suspected Captain Naso would have known exactly what to do, but since I couldn't remember being Captain Naso that didn't help me at all. Sister Maria had told me that they wouldn't send me back, but when Special Forces arrived with a warrant for my arrest that would certainly change.

“Emily?”

I jumped as Father Flaherty came into the room. Despite the name he looked like a South American statue of one of less amiable Aztec gods, hacked out of teak with a blunt chisel. If I'd met him in the street I would have wanted to run away. As it was, I tried to make myself small, and smoothed my skirt nervously.

“That's me.” I squeaked. Darn it, I've got to get a hold of myself.

“Emily O' Halloran? I see we're both from the Old Country, or at least some of our families are.”

Father Flaherty smiled. I winced. I am such an idiot! Fancy using Michael's surname as an alias. I'd just blurted it out. In a fit of genius it meant I'd given a name that was easily traceable and failed to match my ID. My ID said I was Emily Doe. No,really. Social Services are very unoriginal at giving surnames to wandering amnesiacs.

“If you have another name you'd rather use, all you have to do is tell me. I promise I won't remember or repeat it. The good sisters think, they aren't certain, mind you, but they think you may need more help than simple medical treatment can provide. Sister Maria thinks you're fleeing trouble.”

I contemplated my options. I'd brought down a man Father Flaherty's size not long ago, not to mention getting the drop on Michael, but I still didn't know how. Those skills were in me somewhere, buried deep and twice now they'd saved me, but I didn't think I could access them at will. I'd tested myself and I was no stronger , jars were still as hard to open as ever, so without those skills I had no prospects of overwhelming Father Flaherty and escaping, even if there was somewhere to escape to on this expanse of flat prairie.

Besides, it would definitely be a wrong thing to do, after all the kindness I'd been shown, to turn on my benefactors now. On the other hand, didn't I have a duty to my unborn child to keep him or her safe, whatever it cost me? As I sat lost in indecision Father Flaherty said

“In case you were worrying, I am willing to take this whole conversation under the seal of confession.”

“Um. I'm really sorry, I don't know what that means.”

“It means that I may not, under any circumstances reveal to anyone what you tell me.”

“I get that you mean that Father but obviously you would if it involved a legal inquiry. And it might. I can promise I haven't done anything wrong, well not very wrong” As far as you remember my conscience whispered. Stupid conscience. “but that isn't necessarily the story they'll tell you and they aren't people you want to annoy.”

“I promise you, my child,” Hey. I'm twenty-one. Or thereabouts. Probably. “If it is a choice between my death by torture or revealing the secrets of the confessional a priest is duty bound to choose the first. To break that vow is the number one sin – worse than buggering the Pope.”
I choked on a giggle and then pulled myself together.

“All the more reason not to tell you. I don't want to put anyone here in that position.”

Father Flaherty smiled again, a gentle, understanding smile. Somehow he was much uglier smiling, but much, much more attractive. His grotesque features radiated good nature, in a way that was infinitely endearing.

“The nuns here are Sisters of the blessed order of St Maximillian Kolbe. I am their confessor as well as my role as an administrator of the hospital. Do you know who Maximillian Kolbe was?”

“No.”

“He was a priest in Poland during the Second World War. Together with a number of other clerics he was hiding a group of Jews from the occupying Nazis. It was against every law of the secular powers and when he was caught they were not amused. Father Maximillian was sent to the death camp at Auschwitz.. In the camp one day the guards decided they were going to lock ten men in a room to starve to death. I think they had some sort of excuse about camp discipline but the real reason was that they enjoyed doing that sort of thing. One of the men they chose had a family, children.

Maximillian Kolbe voluntarily took his place and died in that underground chamber, faithful to the last, praying and praising God so long as he had strength to kneel and speak. Later he was declared a saint. We here, the good sisters and my unworthy self, seek to model our lives on his, to protect children, to stand between the family and a harsh world, to do that which is right, regardless of the consequences that may come upon us.

“I doubt if you are fleeing a death camp, but nevertheless, if you need help, you would be doing us a favour by allowing us to help you. As for governments, armies, Presidents or kings, we have one ruler and his name is Jesus Christ. That is where our allegiance lies.”

“I'll tell you, but you won't believe me. I hardly believe it myself. To start with I'm Canadian, a Canadian soldier, or I was. My baby's father is an American soldier named Michael O' Halloran, a special forces officer. I have no memory that stretches more than three years back so when I ..got together with him I had no idea who I was. He did. He was really my jailer and I never knew it. When I found out ,I knew I had to flee. “ I pause and blush

“My name isn't really O'Halloran. Michael never married me.”

“Did you want him to?” asks Father Flaherty gently. I stare at the the floor.

“Yes. I'm so stupid, I still miss him. After everything he did I miss him.”

“That doesn't sound stupid to me. A bad plan perhaps. Painful for you, certainly, but not stupid. Love is never stupid, even love for someone not worthy of it . Love is a gift of God.”

“Michael didn't think so,” I whisper. My throat is closing up now and I'm trying to hold back a wail of misery and despair.

“Perhaps. Now tell me. Do you think, knowing what you know now, that this man would have been the right husband for yourself, the right father for your child?”

“No.”

“Then what you have done is right, and brave,”

“I thought,” I hesitate and decide to say it anyway “I thought Catholics were all about not allowing divorce and things.”

“We do tend to frown on it, “ Father Flaherty said dryly “but then we also think people should make the commitment of marriage before having children, and that they should be very certain they are with the right person first, for reasons which I suspect will be obvious to you at this moment. In your case however, given that vital information was concealed from you, you would be a good candidate for an annullment.”

“That's allowed?”

“That's allowed.”

“What am I going to do, Father?”

“You're going to do what you are doing. You're going to have your child and give him or her a decent upbringing. And we're going to help you. I can arrange identification for you that will hold up well enough for you to get a job. There are people in town who will be happy to take in a lodger or a tenant who's not going to rip out the piping to sell for drugs or get blind drunk every Friday. We'll do what we can to help you find a job. I'm afraid it probably won't be anything glamourous, waitressing or shop work.”

I suppressed a laugh, he sounded so worried about this last

“Do I look glamorous?”

“Perhaps glamorous is the wrong word, but certainly refined.”

“Oh. Um. Thank you. Er, how can you arrange false ID?”

A slow smile spread across Father Flaherty's face

“ That would be betraying the secrets of the confessional.”

Moment of truth. I'm in the hospital's cybercafe. It's three am so I have the place to myself and I'm about to do what I've been putting off since Michael told me the secret, or at least, what he claimed was the secret. I google 'Marcus Julius Naso', the name Michael told me was mine. .

Then I look at my search results and shudder. I attempted to usurp the throne of the Roman Empire before being assassinated in 407 AD? Oh, wait, that's the wrong Marcus Julius Naso!

The rest of the results are worse.

Units of the 5th Irregular Infantry under Captain Naso are suspected of being responsible for the ambush and massacre...no survivors....blinded by improvised 'napalm' made from ...under Naso 'poor man's napalm' has become a trademark....Naso is suspected of having killed surrendering US soldiers. ...Naso, pioneered the use of mines designed to cripple and maim not kill....Naso, the Butcher of Mayberry... notorious suspected war criminal Marcus Julius Naso killed in action by US Special Forces on a raid near Ironwood, Minnesota..

It goes on like that and I can feel myself getting queasy. If this is true I'm a monster. I deserve everything that was done to me, even Michael trying to shoot me and much more besides. If a quarter of this is true I deserve it. On the other hand I'm looking at newspaper headlines and government reports in a country that invaded mine, unprovoked and where accusing a government source of lying can land you on a treason charge. I don't know how much of this is true. I don't know if any of it is true. I thought if I could find out something about myself my memories would come flooding back like in a film where amnesia just goes away. After three years of not knowing who or what I am, you'd think I would know better..

Maybe something visual would help? I move my cursor to the top of the search page and click on 'images'. Pictures spread across the screen. A burned town, a battle scene, a wanted poster. There I am. Or there Captain Naso is at any rate. Oh crap, I look like a psycho!

I study the man in front of me for any sign of familiarity. He kind of has my colouring. His face is fierce, even cruel, like the face I saw on Michael that last night, when he dropped the mask and let me see the Michael who can kill and burn and destroy. Michael still looked kind of wholesome though. If Hollywood were casting a film Michael would be the corn fed Iowa boy and Marcus Naso would be the terrifying adversary he overcomes at the last minute by moral fortitude and being the American.

That said I can see that a stranger wouldn't be surprised if they were told this man was a cousin of mine, or even a brother. There is a resemblance On the other hand that stranger wouldn't be saying “Damn, they look alike” either. Does this mean Michael was just playing me? Or does it mean that the scientists altered more than just my sex? I look down at my D cup boobs which for some reason never cause me backache. I I think they did some tinkering. My lips don't look anything like Captain Naso's either, his being a thin, cruel line, but again, that's got to be a prime area to upgrade if you were playing God. Marcus Julius Naso could be me, if Michael was telling the truth.

I could be him. If so, it would explain why I lost my memory. If I am that man then I really don't want to remember what I've done.

First thing in the morning I need to see Father Flaherty.

“Bless me Father, I may have sinned.”

“Emily, is that you?”

I'm sitting in the confession booth, so Father Flaherty can't see my face with the screen between us but it's clear my voice is distinctive enough.

“Yes, it's me Father. I think I need advice. Or possibly punishment.”

“Punishment is for God, my child but I can give you a penance if you need one.”

“Um, I'm not sure what that is Father?”

“A penance is an act of atonement for sin. Now forgive an old man's ignorance, but what do you mean you may have sinned? You can't have seduced Father Rodriguez, he was out taking confession and giving the last rites to a housebound parishioner half the night and was still snoring when I left our dormitory this morning.”

“I haven't seduced anyone Father. I'm not a slut. But I may be a murderess. Murderer even.”

“Go on my child I am ready to hear your confession.”

“I..I think you're not going to believe me. In fact I think you're going to think I've gone mad.”

“Perhaps. But if you are mad I could probably help you better if I knew it. If you aren't, then telling someone else might help. Either way I don't see how you could lose out by talking to me.”

“Father, you know I was a Canadian soldier.”

I pause, but Father Flaherty says nothing

“I only know that because Michael told me. Last night I googled my name, or at least the name Michael told me was my real name and it's the name of a war criminal. The only thing is, I don't know whether I really was that person. In fact, it seems impossible. The- the person in question? They were a man.”

“I see. Did your Michael explain this discrepancy to you?”

“Sort of. He told me I was the subject of a government experiment to alter people at the genetic level. That can't be true can it Father? It must be nonsense?”

I'm practically pleading with him to tell me that Michael was lying to me. I don't want to be a war criminal, a murderer or a freak from a lab. Unfortunately Father Flaherty isn't going to let me off the hook that easily.

“What do you think, daughter?”
“I – I've had this persistent dream for years. It seems to fit with what Michael told me. And the person I was in the dream, they seem like the sort of person who might just be able to do the sort of things this Captain Naso is accused of.”

“Captain Naso? Marcus Julius Naso?”

“Yes Father.”

There is a very long pause before I say

“It can't be true, can it Father? I mean, look at me! There's no way I could ever have been a man.”

“A while ago I would have reassured you but the trouble is, one of our sister orders passed on news a few years back that such experiments had been taking place. And....your story ties with something else I know. Something I can't tell you more about at present.”

“Oh God!”

“I can tell you one thing though. If you are Captain Naso then you definitely are a Catholic.”

Another long pause.

“In the absence of any countervailing evidence and given what I know but cannot tell you I think it is reasonable to assume that you are, or rather were, Captain Naso.”

“Oh God! So I've done all these things they say?”

“Some of what you've read will be lies. As always, truth is an early casualty in war. You may not have breached any of the rules of war. That said, those are human rules. It's hard to see how you could have been a successful guerrilla leader without breaching several commandments. No matter how good your reasons men have died because of you. Given what happens when automatic fire and flame and explosives are used in residential areas it seems very likely you have killed civilians, including women and children, not intentionally, but, at least, recklessly.”

“Oh God, no!” I can feel tears starting to trickle down my cheek now. Stupid, pointless self indulgent tears because no amount of tears can wash away what I've done. Father Flaherty waits for my strangled sobs to subside before saying

“Let us consider the situation. What has been done to you, and others, is a blasphemy. The power to alter humans so fundamentally is a perilous one in the best of circumstances. To do this to someone against their will is to spit in the face of God.”

“I'm an abomination then?” I whisper tearfully

“You, daughter? No, you are an erring child of God who has suffered at the hands of wicked men, But I think, and remember I am only a poor priest struggling to understand His purposes, but I think this is a case where God has turned evil back upon itself and used evil to do good.”

I feel a tiny surge of hope, together with a lot of confusion.
“What do you mean Father?”

“I mean child, that you were, if we are right, a victim and a perpetrator both, twisted by an unjust war. Not only were you a danger to others but your feet were set on the path to Hell. Who knows how far you could have followed it, to what depths you might have fallen? Young, brave, charismatic - who knows how many others you could have dragged with you, what suffering you might have inflicted before you died, still in your rage and sin?

Now look at you. You could not kill the captor who you had every reason to be angry with, to hate. Instead you sought escape, not vengeance. You turned your back on war, made a conscious choice to be a mother, not a warrior. I think God put you where you are to turn your steps on to a better path. This is your second chance.”

“How?”

“Your penance will be in several parts,”

I wince and brace myself. I've heard some weird stories about Catholics, flagellation, fasting, vows of silence. I Still, whatever I can do to atone, I will.

“Firstly, you will say five 'Hail Mary's and five 'Our Father's. Secondly you will strive every day to be a good person, to give others the love, mercy, help and forgiveness you would want Our Lord to give to you. Thirdly and most importantly, you will strive to be a good mother,”

"I -uh- Father, that's pretty much what I was planning to do anyway, apart from the prayers."

“I know, but it doesn't hurt to remind you that this what God wants of you too. Besides, there is one final part, and you may find it as difficult as all the rest put together. I want you to pray day and night for the soul of Michael O'Halloran.”

“I-uh-uh. I mean- what?”

“”God gave you a second chance. I think he also gave your Michael a second chance and you were it. When he turned his back on your love for him he gave up that chance. If I am right then he is in terrible danger.”

“Does he deserve them?” I retort with a flash of bitterness, but I don't mean it, I actually have horrible butterflies dancing a fandango in my tummy at the thought that anything bad might happen to Michael. I'm such a wimp! On the other hand, considering what I used to be, that's a distinct improvement.

“Child, we don't offer prayers for others because they deserve it; we do it because they need it.”

A terrible thought strikes me. “Father, does that mean I've endangered Michael by leaving?”

“Were you in danger from him?”

“Yes. He pulled a gun on me.”

“Then you did the right thing. You have a duty to your unborn child, that outweighs any duty to Michael. Do you accept your penance, my daughter?

“I do.”

“And do you truly repent your sins and promise to sin no more?”

“I do.”

“Then I absolve you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Go and sin no more. Oh, and drop in on Sister Consuela, she has a surprise for you.”

One important thing to be aware of about nuns. When they say they're going to give you a total makeover, they aren't kidding. I figure it's the backed up pressure of not really being able to experiment themselves that means when they do get a chance it's Nuns Go Wild!

Not that I'm complaining. The object was to make me unrecognisable to the casual observer whilst definitely not matching any photofits or previous photographs that could be given to the papers, police or TV for use in a manhunt (Womanhunt? Personhunt?). The good sisters have certainly succeeded. I woke up this morning a pale skinned, goth girl type with blue eyes and straight, raven black hair, called Emily. I'm still pale skinned, but with masses of wavy flame coloured hair, and green eyes (contacts), and a lovely, pale, floaty dress which I think is attractive but still within the bounds of non-slutty respectability.

My name is now Aoife Donnelly and I have the id to prove it. Who would have thought nuns would be natural criminal masterminds? Best of all, I look totally different but still pretty. Yes, I know I'm shallow. Sue me.

On top of this I have a job interview, arranged for me by Sister Consuela. As I step from burning sunshine through the deliberately old-fashioned-Western-style swinging doors into the dim bar it looks like things are looking up. That's when I see the bear.

“Aaah! I shriek, as it rears over me. Then I feel extremely silly as my eyes adjust and I see that the 'bear' is actually a very large, very broad, very heavy man with long greying hair, and a beard you could lose a badger in.

“How do you feel about flirting?” He rumbles

“Um, I'm sorry but I only just got out of a relationship, I don't think I'm ready for anything new.”

“I meant customers. We don't allow harassment and if anyone lays a finger on you me or the boys will break it for them, but there ain't nothing on Earth will stop young men with a drink in them flirting with young women, so I need to be sure you can cope.”

Bearface McBear paused for a minute and his enormous bushy eyebrows knitted together in what I thought was probably a frown if only I could have seen his forehead under the hair falling over it. “You are here about the job aren't you? 'Cause I'm gonna be real embarrassed it turns out you ain't.”

“Oh, I am!” I said hastily “And honestly, I quite like being chatted up, as long as the person doing it understands that a no is a no.”

“Folks that come in here understand that or they go out of here real fast.” He reassured me. “The name's Adams, Grizzly to my friends.”

“Grizzly Adams? Seriously?” I blurt, before clapping a hand over my mouth. What is it with me and verbal incontinence recently? Luckily he's laughing at my consternation.

“Yep. Showing my age, I know.”

“Huh?”

“There was a TV show by that name a good many years ago. Warn't all that good. Let me show you around”

My newly adjusted eyes could see that the building was old style timber framed, divided into several enormous rooms, each served by bars and counters from the same central rectangle. What was surprising was just how different the rooms were.

“This place is the town's best bar, a good restaurant, the comedy club, a music venue and the coffee bar for the town's college students.”

“There's a college here?”

“Nope, it's twenty miles away, but it's cheaper for a lot of students to live here and commute, especially the ones who come from here in the first place. We can be very intellectual here. Why we used to have performance poetry nights in the back room.”

“Used to?”

“Old man McGinty got up and asked why the poems didn't rhyme. Then he started quoting Longfellow, to show them how it was done. Give them credit, those poets took it pretty well and there was a fine debate going right up until someone said Marlowe wrote Shakespeare's plays. A little while after that Mr McGinty slugged someone with a stool.”

“Oh! Does he care a lot about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays?”

He don't know a darn thing about it. That's why he had to slug somebody. He just plain ran outta argyments” Mr Adams paused, lost in thought for a moment “Some of those poets are real mean for their size. I guess Hell hath no fury like a poet scorned.”

“What happened to Mr McGinty?”

“Oh I barred him too, so he converted a barn on his farm into a venue and started a weekly poetry appreciation society. I've never been. Truth to tell I've heard stories and I reckon I ain't man enough.” From somewhere in the mass of hair a bright blue eye winked at me.

“Now this room,” he continued, leading me through another door “is where we hold bluegrass night on Wednesdays and open mike nights on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those nights you can sing anything you like except for white boy rap or Gregorian plainchant. I've had to throw a few of your friends from the nunnery out over that. Not fun, nuns get kind of mean when they're riled.” All this was said so deadpan he almost had me for a moment.

Abruptly he turned around.

“Now, you've seen the place. I need a barmaid from 6.30 to 1ppm Monday to Thursday, through to 1am Fridays and Sundays and a waitress 11am to 3pm Monday to Friday, occasional overtime for special events and I pay three dollars an hour over minimum wage plus overtime after midnight. You want the job?”

“Just like that?”

“Yup. No one Sister Consuela sent ever let me down yet.”

“Yes please!”

I was positively looking forward to this. I wasn't sure if I could believe a word Mr Adam's said but I was pretty certain working for him would never be dull .

I remember that Zoe Haeckelthrope, who had a minor in sociology and clearly thought my feminist consciousness needed raising, used to tell me that the Male Gaze objectifies women. If that's true then after a month of working here I ought to be a statue.

It's nothing dramatic and never gets creepy, with the exception of one guy who honked my boob and was bustled out the door so fast I almost missed it just by blinking, but I am clearly considered a local beauty spot.. Truth to tell, I rather like it. I get to effortlessly bring some pleasure into peoples' lives and those people are consistently nice to me. Zoe was right; my feminist consciousness does need raising.

Right now the Three Amigos, as they are collectively known are doing their best to entertain me by giving a fine demonstration of what would be mansplaining except that they really do know more than I do and they are out to entertain me not talk down to me. Mind you, just looking at them is kind of entertaining. It's like they were put together by a film director.

Magnus is well over six feet tall, slim build, with long dark hair and a beard and moustache with hints of silver in them – basically, think of a younger version of Christopher Lee's Saruman. Stan, aka Stan the Man or Jammy Stan (I know; apparently it means 'lucky') is a few inches shorter, medium build, with very white teeth and thick hair and beard so dark as to be blue-black. Stan is white but something about his colouring makes me think a not very remote ancestor was something more exotic. Lastly Kit Branston is a burly, heavy muscled, ruddy faced, red bearded man who would be the very picture of a latter day Viking warrior bar the fact that he's a shade under five feet tall.

All three had been invalided out of the army with injuries that, if they bothered them at all, they never let it show. All three were now studying at the University on army veteran scholarships, or supposedly anyway. Since the University was twenty miles away and they always seemed to be around I had my doubts.

Of course they had other duties. All three of them were members of the Home Militia, made up of men who were were too old or medically unfit for front line service but could still be formidable on their home ground. The idea was that they would be the last line of defence when the Canadian hordes came pouring across the border, killing, burning and raping. Since I was already here I figured they were falling down on that one. Of course I lacked the inclination and, in one case the equipment for any such catalogue of atrocities.
Still, regular college attendance or not there was no question that they'd learned stuff somewhere. They positively rejoiced in obscure knowledge

“Don't tell me you don't know the tale of Cuchulain,” says Magnus “And you with a name like Aoife Donnelly?”

“Ker-who?”

“Cuchulain, the champion of the men of Ulster?”

“Which wasn't his real name by the way” put in Stan “It means 'The Hound of Cullen' and it was a nickname he got after strangling a dog.”

“What? He was a dog strangler??” I'm a cat person myself, but this was going too far!

“It was a monstrous hound that was trying to tear his throat out at the time. We aren't talking about the family labrador here.” said Magnus

“Um, still not ideal but more understandable.”

“But that isn't the important story about him. No the real tale is what happened when Ulster was invaded by the men of Connacht.” said Stan

“Led by Maeve, the Queen of Connacht” added Magnus

“Have you two rehearsed this?” I asked suspiciously

“No,” Kit reassured me “They just know this story really, really well. It's always like this. You're being complimented though, they only inflict this rigmarole on people they like.”

I manage to restrain my preening. It's nice to be popular. Of course, being young, single and professionally obliged to listen with interest helps. The fact is I'm pretty sure I could net myself a boyfriend without difficulty if I put my mind to it but I just can't bring myself to do it. For a start I'd have to open by explaining that I'm pregnant which is a bit much to spring on someone on a first date, or alternatively conceal it until they'd well and truly fallen for me which just seems manipulative and mean. So I'm going to wait a year or two, so when I do start looking it's too obvious to need explaining that me and my child are a package deal.

There's another reason I don't like to think about. The truth is I just can't get Michael out of my head. I think about him constantly. I want his smile and the smell of him and the warmth of his arms around me and his touch. I ache for him.

I realise with a jolt that I've lost track of the story. Luckily so have Stan and Magnus, who are now engaged in a passionate debate over whether Cuchullain is a demi-god (being the son of the god Lugh) or something else entirely as Stan insists Cuchullain was also part fairy on the other side of the family tree. The two of them are locked in battle over who someone called Cathbad the druid married and I'm trying to make sense of it when I notice that Kit is staring ostentatiously into the middle distance with a strange expression on his face.
That's when I realise that in following the story I'm leaning so far over the bar counter that I'm giving a fine display of the contents of my scoop top to anyone who cares to look, which is why Kit is chivalrously not looking.

“Oh my God.” I can feel myself blushing from my toes to the top of my hairline as I scramble upright. Magnus and Stan look at me in surprise and I realise they were so absorbed they didn't even notice!

“What just happened?” asks Stan

“I'm not telling you!” I reply firmly “Now skip the family trees and get to the story.”

So they do and a real Greek tragedy of a tale it is too chock full of foredoomed heroes, magical prohibitions, tragic last stands and capricious gods. Someone really should make a movie out of it. I reckon all it needs is a love interest and I say so.

“Arghh!” Magnus grimaces at me

“That would take away the simplicity of the story,” Stan argues “Really the whole focus, the point of it, is that dreadful day when Cuchulain and Ferdia, the greatest champions of Ulster and Connacht, each the other's closest friend, are trapped and driven by honour and duty and country and circumstances they can't control or escape, into facing each other in a duel where one must die. That is the drama and the tragedy of the tale, and anything that distracts from that diminishes it.”

What if Cuchullain could persuade his father or one of the other gods who flit through the story to turn Ferdia into a girl, so these two who love each other so much could face off as man and woman, not bull headed warrior and mutton brained hero? I wonder. Would that give them a happy ending, or would it just make things worse?

Emily's Strange Life Chapter 9

There is no reason why I should be cooking dinner for my landlady, but somehow it seems to have turned out that way. I blame the sexist manufacturers of meat sauce jars. Mrs Pilsudski couldn't get the jar she'd bought to go with her evening meal open and neither could I, so now it sits there mocking our female weak wristedness while I glower at it and make a casserole from scratch.

“You are such a good girl, Aoife, to help me out like this,” Mrs Pilsudski sighs

“It's nothing, really, I would have been making dinner anyway, so there isn't really any difficulty just making a bigger portion.”

“You're going to make some lucky fellow a wonderful wife one of these days- oh don't look at me like that. I know you career girls think I'm very old fashioned, but believe me there's nothing wrong with having a family.”

“Err..Mrs Pilsudski, I did tell you about..”

“Oh yes, I know, dear, but believe me, I've raised four children and it's a lot easier with a man to help you.”

“I'm sure you aren't wrong Mrs Pilsudski, but if it's not the right man it's way worse than being alone.”

“So right you are dear, I was lucky with my Hermann, God rest his soul, but all the same, a young lady like yourself, you try to have it all, career and children with no one to help you, believe me, it's no easy path.”

I winced internally. Mrs Pilsudski was a lovely person, but she had that habit, common to a lot of old ladies who'd come triumphantly to harbour after a lifetime of storm and struggle, of letting the rest of us know just how much trouble we were in for.

“I don't really think being a barista and waitress counts as a career. Job yes; career, no.”

“Oh, believe me honey; you have a career for life with Mr Adams, only the other day he was telling me how well liked you are there. He may be a mad old coot who looks like silverback gorilla that's been taught to walk upright and strategically shaved, but he's a good mad old silverback gorilla. You can rely on him.”

“That's true, I'm lucky to have met Mr Adams“

I was pretty lucky to have met Mrs Pilsudski come to that. She was an elderly widow who'd refused to leave her big old rambling house when her children and grandchildren had moved on to other cities and other states. The only trouble was she was nearer eighty than seventy years old now and although she still kept the place in fine shape some things were starting to be just too much physically and expensive to hire someone else to do.

Hermann, ('God rest his soul') who apparently had been a saint with a striking resemblance to James Stewart had left her 'well-provided for' as she liked to put it, but she was saving as much as she could for her grandchildren's inheritance. This being the case it hadn't taken Father Flaherty long to persuade her that what the house really needed was a nice, quiet young lady paying rent for a spare bedroom, who could do things like moving bins (Or undoing jars. Darn it, I'm a failure).

I suspected Father Flaherty had hinted I would also help out generally round the house. I'd never been asked formally but I'm not the kind of person who can sit still while an old lady is working so that was always going to happen anyway. On top of that Mrs Pilsudski was a deep sleeper, so there was no problem coming in from late shifts. In short, it was perfect. My biggest problem was Mrs Pilsudski fretting that I didn't eat right!

“Are you working tonight?”

“No, I've got the evening free.”

“Such a pity my grandson Harold isn't here you know, with you having a free evening, he'd be just right for you. He's young,he's handsome, good provider,”

I had my doubts. I'd seen photos of Harold. He looked kind, he looked cheerful, but either he was one of those people who just don't come out well in photos or Mrs Pilsudski and I had very different ideas of what was handsome. On the other hand, maybe there was a point to matchmaking. Look what a mess I'd made of my life by following my heart. All things considered it was probably a good thing that grandson Harold was electronic engineer on a warship somewhere in the Atlantic desperately trying to stem the flow of arms from Britain, France and goodness knows where else into Canada, so for all practical purposes the problem would never arise.

Aloud, all I said was, “Honestly, I think Harold is busy enough without having random waitresses sprung on him.”

“Don't you call yourself random, young lady,” Mrs Pilsudski looks so fierce as she says this that I actually feel a bit nervous.

“Umm. Yes, Mrs Pilsudski.”

“Besides, I can tell, whatever you may be doing - and never let me hear you be ashamed of honest work – you definitely haven't always been a waitress.”

That, of course, was a remark which required a week's answer or none at all, so I changed the subject and Mrs Pilsudski happily told me all about how her grandchildren were doing again while I diced tomatoes and mushrooms, and continued to chat away amiably all through dinner until I went to bed, hoping that her offer to invite her other grandson Kyle to come from Kentucky to stay for a while hadn't been entirely serious.

I know Michael very well. I think about him constantly. That's how I instantly knew, waking in my moonlit bedroom that Michael had found me. The way the restraints that tied my hands so securely to the brass bedstead combined inescapability with softness told me they could be the work of no one else. Michael likes to dominate but he's always been very careful not to hurt me. Apart from the time he pulled a gun on me.

“Emily!” Michael whispers “Time to come home.”

“You tried to kill me!”

“No! Never! I just wanted to get you to drop the gun before things got out of hand.”

“I think I can comprehensively say you were several years and an invasion too late there.”

“Oh come on, Emily. Since when did you care about politics?”

“All my life for all I can tell, “ I begin and then he cheats by kissing me. I'd slap his face but my hands are tied and besides, I'm too busy melting.

“This won't work, “ I manage to say when he breaks the kiss, but already I'm sounding breathy and uncertain

“It has to, Emily. I've really stuck my neck out over you. I've managed to get you a promise of citizenship and a guarantee of your freedom from any consequences, not just from this little escapade but from anything you did in the war as well.”

Escapade? My desperate bid for freedom is an escapade?? I think, but Michael is still talking, gabbling on in his need to persuade me that being kidnapped and dragged back to be his live-in love slave is a good thing.

“You have to stay with me obviously. There have to be certain guarantees.”

“Guarantees? Like the bracelet with the tracker in it? I still haven't forgiven you for that by the way.”

“Sort of. You'd have to wear this.”

'This' is – I actually snort with inappropriate laughter when he shows it to me – a collar. Slim, circular, etched with swirling flower patters to try to give the impression it's a necklace, but quite definitely a collar.

“Michael! I can tell that has nothing to do with guarantees!”

“On the contrary. This enables the Army to track you wherever you go. It can give you a shock that incapacitates you so you can be picked up. It's made of titanium alloy. If you wore out ten thousand hacksaw blades you'd maybe have made a decent scratch on it. That's the guarantee that keeps you free and safe.”

“Ha! I bet you begged the scientists to come up with this one. I bet they were just going to do an implant. “

Michael smiles at me.

“I'm not going to tell you what they wanted to do. The point is I won't let them. You're my Emily.” Michael pauses “Besides, you know you look pretty in collars.”

I blush in the moonlight. To my great embarrassment I do know that. No, I'm not going into detail but its for the same reason I know how it feels to be tied to the bed by him. Oh God, I'm such a slut.

“Don't get my hair caught in it this time,” I murmur as Michael fastens the collar on my throat. I should terrified. I should be outraged. I should be spitting defiance. But honestly? All I can feel is relief! I've done everything anyone could expect of me. I escaped. I took a false identity. Now I'm caught and I can't hope to escape again. So I can forget about it. I can go back to being Michael's girl and nobody can blame me, not even me. Maybe I can even be a good influence on him; after all, surely he'll settle down a bit once he's a father.

Then Michael is kissing me again and his hands are on me, roaming possessively as my legs gently open of their own accord and I can't think any more.

* * * * *

“Mmm. God I've missed that” says Michael as I snuggle into him.

“Me too. Don't get too used to it though. I'm still cross with you. You may have to sleep on the couch for a while.”

“If I do, you do too. You aren't getting away from me that easily.”

Michael rolls me on to my back to my apparent indignation and actual delight when a thought suddenly occurs to me.

“Wait! You do know about the child don't you?”

Of course he doesn't, you dizzy mare, you didn't tell him

“Whoa! You're pregnant? Is that why you ran off?”

“Well that and the other obvious reasons.”

“Honestly Emily, you really are a ditz sometimes.” Michael gathers me into an enormous bear hug “As if something like that could ever come between us. You can easily have an abortion or if you're scared we can just give it up for adoption.”

“NO!!!”

The force of my anger is so great it wakes me from my dream and I find that I'm sitting bolt upright in bed, alone, panting with fury.

“Aoife, are you all right?”

Now I've done it. I've actually managed to wake my landlady with my nightmares.

“I'm sorry Mrs Pilsudski, I just had a bad dream.”

“Can I get you anything?”

“No, no, I'm OK. Sorry I woke you.”

“Well if you're sure dear. Night, night.” I hear Mrs Pilsudski shuffle down the corridor and as I get my breath under control I feel a tear trickling down my cheek.

My subconscious has obviously decided I need reminding of the most important thing. I very much doubt if Michael would want me to have an abortion or give our child away but if I weakened and went back to him it would become his choice, not mine.

Which meant all I could do was go on trying to make the best of what I had. Go on missing him. Go on aching.

Emily's Strange Life Chapter 10

“Through here,” says Father Flaherty, unnecessarily, since I'm following his lead and can hardly miss him, even in this dimly lit corridor of an abandoned building on the trading estate outside town. Abandoned by everyone except Father Flaherty and the Sisters of the Blessed Order of St Maximillian Kolbe that is. I'm feeling nervous. Ever since Sister Immaculata dropped by earlier to say there was someone it was very important that I meet I've been not far short of a state of suppressed terror. What with one thing and another I think I've really, really had enough surprises.

“Father, what is this about?”

“There's someone we think it's very important for you to meet. It isn't safe for them to stay long but you have until morning, when we need to spirit them away again.”

As I follow Father Flaherty through a metal door I blink at the sudden brightness. Everywhere else in the building that I've seen is lost in shadowed dimness. This windowless room is dank, with bare dirty concrete walls and the only furniture is a camp bed, obviously temporary, but by comparison it is ablaze with light.

“Captain Naso? Sir?” The voice is odd, harsh and dulcet tones at the same time, like a soft voiced soprano attempting a drill sergeant's bark

The figure in front of me drops his salute and comes to rigid attention

“Ma'am! Beg pardon ma'am. Was expecting my former commanding officer Captain Naso ma'am! Sergeant Hathersage ma'am. Pleased to meet you.”

“Sergeant? I am, I was Captain Naso. No, please don't salute.”

The soldier's jaw drops. So does mine. The figure in front of me is dressed in a worn Army uniform, threadbare, thin and faded but kept meticulously clean and pressed. It might as well be in rags because it hangs from - his – from her, I realise - slender figure, like a sack from a pole. The sleeves and trousers have had to be rolled up so as not to hang a foot or so past the end of the girl's stick thin limbs. A tight belt cinched around the waist just manages to hold the combat trousers up. In contrast to the uniform the face is streaked with dirt, as if this Sergeant Hathersage has tried to coarsen the skin with grit or muddy it to hide its fresh bloom. If so she, or he, or, oh, I don't know what the correct term is in these circumstances, has clearly failed. So they've tried scarring. The face before me has been clawed, torn at, with fingernails by the look of it. The sergeant has literally been trying to tear her own, female, face off.

Sergeant Hathersage's expression is disturbing too. Every few seconds a sort of twitch runs through the whole face and the mouth twists. It takes me a few seconds to realise that what I'm seeing is an iron will fighting an almost irresistible urge to break out screaming and crying, a war that strives to tear the person in front of me apart, constantly, a fresh tremor breaking out every few seconds.

The head is shaven, in a way that would look brutal on a man, but on this person only serves to emphasise the diminutive size and delicate bone structure. Even under the looseness of the grotesquely oversized uniform I can see the swell of child bearing hips. Something tells me I've just met one of the dozen or so fellow victims of Operation Disney Princess who went over the wire and were never caught.

“Sergeant...Hathersage?” a quick nod “Sergeant I'm very sorry to say I don't remember you. Do I take it I should?”

“Are you really Captain Naso?”

“I'm an amnesiac so I honestly can't say of my own knowledge but everything seems to point to that conclusion. Did we serve together?”

“Sir, yes Sir. I was sergeant in A company Sir, for a year before, before we were captured Sir.”

“Then I'm glad to see you alive and healthy Sergeant Hathersage,” but the words ring false in my own ears. Physically there may be nothing wrong – no injuries or sickness at any rate, but there is nothing healthy in this agonised, twitching tormented person standing before me.

“How did you escape?” I ask

“They underestimated me Sir. After – after they'd done what they did they stopped watching me so carefully. I managed to kill a guard, take his weapon and escape. Killed two others on the way out Sir. Managed to get to a Catholic church and begged for sanctuary. Didn't think it'd work in this day and age, but I couldn't get any further on my own. It did. “”

I shudder. I may have been a soldier once but the thought of killing is something I find repugnant. I absolutely don't blame Sergeant Hathersage, but I want no part of it any more. Maybe my expression gives it away because Sergeant Hathersage's face twists again and he changes the subject.

“Permission to ask a question Sir?”

“Of course you can. We aren't on parade and I'm not your superior officer any more – if I ever was.”

“Begging your pardon Sir but yes you are. No one gave us our discharge. We're still soldiers Sir. Which makes you still a Captain Sir”

I hesitate. I don't see things that way. On the other hand duty is clearly the only thing that is keeping Sergeant Hathersage within shouting range of sanity.In the end all I say is“Ask your question.”

“How, “ for the first time the clipped, military tones falter “How did you do it Sir? How did you survive? I – I think I'm going mad. I can't look at myself. I can't touch myself. You've obviously managed to blend in brilliantly pretending to be a woman Sir, please don't misunderstand, you were always fantastically good at stealth work, but I – I don't know how Sir. I mean, I escaped, but I can't blend in ”

Now I understand why Father Flaherty brought me here. Sergeant Hathersage desperately needs help. I don't think I can provide it, but at the very least I can explain why. Father Flaherty himself is nowhere to be seen. I suspect I've seen the last of him tonight; after all I know the way back and he has nuns to confess and an underground railroad to run.

“Sergeant – what's your first name, I can't just keep calling you by a rank?

“Ashley”

“Ashley, I'll tell you as much as I can, but like I said before, you need to remember some of this is stuff I've only been told. I don't remember it myself.

“The first thing, the very first thing I remember, is the pain of a badly blistered foot. I was on a road, a tarmaced road and my shoes were literally falling apart, so with every step I was cutting or bruising myself. I was hungry, desperately hungry, the sort where it's gone beyond just hunger and you're feeling sick, shaky, on the verge of keeling over. and the only reason you don't is because there's no food in this place and if you fall over you won't be able to get up and more even than rest or warmth or oblivion you want food.

The cold was biting through me. I was wearing a long black dress, but it was worn to such a state it was barely decent. By the looks of things I'd been scrambling through rough country, brambles, thorn bushes, Heaven only knows what. I don't suppose it was any colder than spring in Minnesota always is but I was so thin, so thin. I diidn't look like I do now, more like a camp survivor. I felt like I was going to die and I would have done it gladly if only I could get something to eat first..

And then, then thank God a car came along and the family in it bundled me into the backseat and took me to a hospital. The people at the hospital fed me and looked after me, and found me a home and I loved them for it. And then three years later I found out it was all a lie. So you see, I didn't have anything to adapt to because I couldn't remember being anyone else. That's part of how I did it. The other part, and again, I only know what a proven liar told me here so it might not be true, is that I was transgender before the war. So if that's true I was where you are now, in a body of a sex I didn't believe I belonged to.”

“So how did you cope with that Sir? How do I cope with it?!” The tone is pleading now, on the verge of tears. “The church people Sir, they saved me from capture but they can't save me! How do I turn back???!”

The beautiful delicate face staring at me is twisted in entreaty, with the need not to be beautiful, not to be delicate, above all not to be female. I want, more than anything at this minute to turn Ashley Hathersage back into the man she was and there is literally nothing I can do.

Well, one thing, and I don't know if it will make matters better or worse, but it's all I can do so I do it. I reach out and embrace Ashley Hathersage, pouring whatever comfort into that human touch that I can, and the face twists again and I feel the storm of tears break on my shoulder soaking into the cloth of my dress with huge, heaving sobs. A few minutes later Ashley sniffs and pulls away.

”I don't know, “ I answer “I don't know how to turn you back. But I know it can be done. This war will end, one way or another, but the capacity to do what was done to us, that isn't going to go away. People will develop it, improve it, learn everything about it. Michael told me the scientists who created this process think it could even lead to immortality. At the very least there is no need for anyone to be sick ever again. This could be the biggest advance in human capabilities since we discovered fire. In five years, or ten or twenty this is going to be available to the general public, one way or another. You need to live through those years, so you'll be here when that chance arrives. I know what you're thinking about doing Ashley Hathersage, it's written all over your face. Don't do it. It's not even a permanent solution to a temporary problem they way they say. It's a permanent way of making sure you never can solve any problems again. “

“You really think we – we could be men again?”

“You can, I'm quite sure of it.”

“But, Captain Naso...”

“I definitely can't. I'm not a man. Unless I've been well and truly led up the garden path I doubt if I ever was, not really. I don't ever want to be Captain Naso again. I'm Emily. Or Aoife. Take your choice.”

“I – I don't disbelieve you, it's just hard to believe, I mean you were such an amazing soldier. And you were a chick inside all along?”

“Hey! Chicks would make great soldiers if they had the upper body strength. You don't have to be macho. “

“I once saw you kill a man by tearing his carotid artery open with your teeth. That's pretty macho Sir”

“Eueww! God I'm glad that's all behind me now.”

“You really, really do look female Sir. Emily. “

“Yes,” I say dryly “I can see you've noticed.” If anything was needed to convince me that Sergeant Hathersage was mentally and had been physically male it was the way s/he (God this is confusing) was checking me out. Ashley coloured a little

“I,m sorry. It's been a very long time and,” that dreadful rictus made a return “It's likely to be the rest of my life. I can't have a woman any more, not with what they did to me.”

“Why can't you?”

“I'm a freak of nature. Look at me. How could any woman ever let me touch her again?”

Now I know what I can do, the one gift I can give the poor tormented war victim in front of me

“Give me your hand.”

Ashley didn't move for a moment, then reached out tentatively. I took his hand between my own and placed it gently on my left breast.

“Do I feel like a woman to you Sergeant?”

“Yes,” the answer came, hoarse and rough.

“Do I look repulsed?”

“No,”

“If you could do anything you wanted to me, what would you do?”

“Everything. Oh God!” His hand clenches unconciously, bruising me a little, but I won't turn back now

“Then do it. You want a woman? I'm all yours.”

As I'm borne down onto the bed I have time to be surprised and a little frightened by just how much strength is in that frail body before I'm given an array of other things to think about.

Making my way back through the morning sunshine a few hours later, tired and a little sore (Why do men always want to spank me? Am I giving off some sort of vibe?) I really feel like I've done a little good in the world. Sergeant Hathersage will hang on now, in hope of a cure, and has discovered that life can go on even in the weirdest of circumstances. I feel good – until I realise that I've been out all night on a dirty stop out. How am I ever going to look Mrs Pilsudski in the eye? She thinks I'm such a nice girl!